Chapter 16: A Suitcase Term

Ryan and Anthony got home, showered up and got dressed for the 20-year reunion. Kimberly and Ryan had already made the decision for Kimberly to stay home with the kids since Anthony made the trip out to California. Kimberly felt great about not having to see all of Ryan’s old friends talk about all the football games all over again. When they got to the reunion, old teammates and classmates were shocked that Anthony was out of the cave and in public again. There were hugs and laughs and stories and even some tears over a couple of guys from the championship team who had died of cancer just recently. It was a long night of great memories and not remembering names. As they filtered out of the hotel in the warm summer night, Jermaine Harris, the star running back on the team asked if Ryan and Anthony wanted to get a burger at In-N-Out, probably the only place still open. Jermaine’s dad was a preacher at a local Baptist church, growing up as one of the very few African-American kids at the high school. Jermaine went on to graduate from Grambling, a historic black college in the South where he continued his football career. He got married and settled in Atlanta, where his wife was from. As they settled into eating their double-double hamburgers and greasy fries, Ryan boldly asked whether Jermaine was going to church out in Atlanta.

JH: You know, I started doubting my Christian faith a little bit in college and partied with the football team and listened to professors unveil the hidden hypocrisies of Christianity and I began to really doubt the message of Christianity: everyone needs Jesus to take care of their sin problem so that they can go to heaven when they die and of course to be good people and follow the rules from the Bible and so one and so forth. Then when I met Shandra, it was never really something that was important. Her family wasn’t really religious at all and her dad was really burned by the church in Georgia and doubted that a real God would ever allow the pain and suffering that African-Americans have endured in the South over all these years. I think he’s right, but my biggest issue is that Christianity just isn’t believable. I’m not talking about ‘beliefs’ like Jesus being born from a virgin or his resurrection. No, I’m talking about the Christians that I observe on a daily basis. They are no different from Shandra and I as far as trying to be good people. Sure, Christians work hard and are generally nice people, but they sure are opinionated about things like gay marriage and abortion and the absolute truth of the bible and about heaven and who’s getting there and how. I mean, we live in a complex world with a lot of gray and these Christians are black and white about everything. I apologize for speaking my mind. I’m sure you two are still good Christians who believe all that stuff, right? I mean, Ryan, you’re a pastor, so obviously you believe it.
RW: Well, maybe not after my weekend with Anthony!
AT: Ha! Yeah, Jermaine, I would definitely call myself a Christian but you and I would probably have very similar critiques about how the Christian faith is being lived out. There’s a store in Lawrence that has a shirt they sell, hanging in the window, that reads, ‘Jesus, save us from your followers!’
JH: That’s what I’m talking about. Save us from Ted Haggard and his sex addictions. Save us from George W. Bush and his war machine. Save us from Joel Osteen and his perfect hair and even more perfect bank account. But I guess you guys would agree with that bumper sticker I saw the other day, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’
RW: What would Yoder call that, Anthony, ‘forensic overdrive?’
AT: The ‘forensic overkill.’
JH: Who the hell is Yoder?
AT: Oh, he’s a professor I had at Notre Dame who has really made quite an impact on how I view Christian faith. He would call a lot of the types of Christianity that you are experiencing ‘civil religion’ and he spent a lot of his 30 years at Notre Dame critiquing it. Christians all over the United States justify all sorts of things in the name of Jesus. That’s maddening. Yoder wrote, ‘We call a nonviolent man ‘Lord’ and in his name rekindle the arms race. We call a poor man ‘Lord’ and with his name on our lips deepen the ditch between rich and poor. We call ‘Lord’ a man who told us to love our enemies and we polarize the globe in the name of Christian values…’
JH: So you haven’t abandoned faith. You’ve just kind of reconfigured it.
AT: Kind of. Christianity is a ‘contested concept.’ ‘Christianity’ is what my friend back home in Kansas calls ‘a suitcase term.’ You can put all sorts of things in a suitcase when you are getting ready for a trip, but they certainly aren’t the same types of things, even if they are in the same suitcase.
JH: What?
AT: Basically, it’s like the term ‘sport.’ How in the world could bowling and boxing both be called sport?
JH: Bowling isn’t a sport, it’s recreation. It can’t be a sport if you get better at it after you drink beer.
AT: Right, doesn’t make a lot of sense. With bowling you get better with a 12-pack and boxing is so brutal you might get killed! But they are both aired on ESPN, the ‘Total Sports Network.’ This is a crucial point about Christianity. There are many brands of faith. Let’s face it, God loves variety. But a lot of these brands of Christian faith simply are not compelling. Like you said before, Jermaine, they aren’t ‘believable.’ My reading of Yoder [and a few others] has led me to the promised land of a compelling brand of Christian faith. It’s very believable. But I might add, not provable. And by no means perfect!

The night continued for another hour as they talked more about faith and what life was like in three different cultures: Orange County, a university town in the Midwest and a big city in the South. The next morning Anthony came to the 8am service and then headed to John Wayne Airport to catch a noon flight to Kansas City, wondering when, if ever, he would come back to the region of his youth. He offered a prayer of thanksgiving for his seemingly unlimited time with Ryan and the depth of conversation that was sustained throughout. He thanked God for a friend like Ryan who would forgive his long absence and who offered the hospitality and asked sincerely penetrating questions about his life and theology. He prayed that they would continue their relationship, through email and cell phone, but Anthony refused to even consider a Facebook page despite Ryan’s pleading. And lastly, Anthony prayed what he always prayed back home in Lawrence with his wife, that God would grant the energy and wisdom to faithfully and imaginatively participate in God’s ‘original revolution.’