How I Got Religion, And Then Lost It
Meeting My Match - Jim
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Ken Finlayson was the principal of a rural elementary school where he also taught a boys' shop class. Though a bachelor, he had become the guardian of a boy named Jim, who was a year behind me at Merced High. I had shared no classes with Jim, but met him through an acquaintance named Bill, with whom I did share a class.
I had witnessed to both Bill and Jim, but they were Methodists and apparently intent on remaining so. I enjoyed their company enough to stay friendly with them. I have no idea to this day why they stayed friendly with me.
In due course I visited Jim at his home and thus met Ken, as well as Ken's other wards, who were sort of foster brothers to Jim. Their names were Cliff and Larry.
Ken and the three boys all attended the same church that Bill did, First Methodist, although Ken himself claimed no denominational affiliation. He thought denominationalism of any sort was a very un-Christian thing. He also thought several members of the church were being very un-Christian in expressing a desire that Cliff and Larry find somewhere else to worship God.
The membership at First Methodist was almost entirely white. Cliff and Larry were black.
One weekend evening Jim had had enough of certain evasions I had been offering when he asked me how important I thought our disagreements were.
"Just answer this," he demanded. "Do you believe I'm going to hell?" 1
"Well, um, uh . . . yes, I do."
"Why?"
I thought to myself: That's what I've been trying to tell you.
I presented the church's position again: Scripture records certain instructions from God, along with information about what happens to those who disregard the instructions. Jim listened politely, taking no obvious offense, and responded with his understanding of what Jesus had to say on the subject of how to please God.
I had heard it all before, just as he had already heard everything I had to say. But somehow I was listening differently now. What he was saying began to sound more reasonable than what I had been saying. When our talk ended my self-confidence was shaken.
I was not yet, however, doubting the basic soundness of my arguments. If the Bible was right - and I still felt certain that it was - then Jim was wrong, somehow. And yet, I had already admitted to myself the weakest point of my argument. Scriptural inerrancy was an assumption, not a proven fact.
Many fundamentalists had tried to prove inerrancy. Few were Pentecostals, because few Pentecostals thought proof was needed. I thought proof would be good to have, and I had looked for it. Those who tried to provide it had not convinced me that they had succeeded. I did not yet doubt what they were trying to prove, but I saw no proof that I was satisfied with.
One thing Jim had emphasized was the Great Commandment, that we should love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. I agreed with him about its primacy, and I saw that my brother and sister Apostolics tended to ignore it, and that they were wrong. I saw that my church had committed the sin of the Pharisees, elevating complex teachings of men above a plain principle, stated by Moses, repeated by the prophets, elaborated on by Jesus, and enshrined in poetry by Paul in I Corinthians 13.
But even so . . . if I believed all that because it was so recorded in the Bible, then I could not just ignore all the other commandments. If the others were subsidiary, that did not make them null and void. My church was wrong in overlooking the most important parts of the Bible. It was not, for that reason, wrong in teaching that the whole book had to be believed and obeyed.
Next: Meeting My Match - Ken
Note:
1: Just in case anyone should suspiciously wonder: No, I'm not claiming to quote verbatim. I'm taking some narrative liberties. But this is approximately what I recall of the gist of that part of our conversation.
