The other day I left for work out the front door of my house because our driveway had just been resealed.  As I opened the door, a multiple-page publication fluttered to the ground.  In a hurry, I flung it inside and rushed out the door.  Today I came across it again, laying on the ground.  I picked it up and saw that the title of the publication was “Awake!”  It was full of random articles about spirituality, and the inside cover revealed that it was a Watchtower publication.  I concluded that the purpose behind this pamphlet being stuffed inside my front door was evangelism.

You know what?  I am the last person who needs to be evangelized.  Even though I’m probably not the intended target for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this type of evangelism infuriates me.  Here’s an idea: let’s go knock on a total strangers’ door.  We won’t waste any time getting to know them, we’ll just tell them how how they should join our religion.  If they’re not home?  We’ll leave a brochure.

Does this type of evangelism ever work?  I would even venture to say it is probably harmful to the cause.  It reinforces stereotypes and is a great way to get people to put up walls without trying to hear what you have to say.  When I was studying abroad in Chile, there was a guy who would go to the Plaza de Armas and read scripture in a loud and accusatory voice every Sunday.  Some people (including me) got angry.  Most just ignored him.  I never saw anyone who actually approached him to learn more about God, or even listened with an interest that did not involve knocking the Bible out of his hands.

Street evangelism?  Door-to-door witnessing?  There’s not a lot that can get me really riled up, but that’ll do the trick.

“Preach the gospel everywhere you go, and, if necessary, use words.” -Saint Francis of Assisi

One of my big pet peeves is when people call a movie “important.” This is usually code for “abstract and unsupported preaching.” There is one movie, however, for which I would be willing to concede such normally annoying descriptors as “important,” “beautiful,” and “haunting.” That movie is Machuca. It is a Chilean movie, set in the year 1973 when military general Agosto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende. It centers around the friendship of two young boys, each from opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. I know I’m probably biased because of the time I spent in Chile, but seriously you guys, this is a fabulous movie that you should make every effort to see and understand. The movie is pretty clearly anti-Pinochet, but it also doesn’t try to gloss over the problems of the socialist government. Incidentally, that’s exactly where I settled after struggling with the problems of both the military and socialist regimes. Anyway, Machuca has many merits, political angle aside. Even if you never see it, at least let me describe one scene to you that absolutely chilled me to my core.

Much of the movie centers around a posh, private, all-boys Catholic school that the boys attend. Gonzalo Infante (the rich boy) is sent to the school by his parents. Pedro Machuca (the poor boy) is at the school on a scholarship, a concept Father McEnroe, the priest/headmaster, believes strongly in. After the military overthrow, Father McEnroe is removed from his position and replaced with Pinochet pawns. As the new military-sympathetic priest gives mass, Father McEnroe walks into the chapel. He opens the cupboard that holds the Communion elements, takes out the chalice, and starts to eat the Communion wafers, choking and sobbing all the while. When he is finished, he says “This place is not sacred anymore.” He snuffs out the candle with his fingers, then states “God is here no longer.” The image of Father McEnroe eating the Communion wafers is one that will haunt me for a long time. It is extremely jarring. The Lord’s Supper is an incredibly sacred act, and it made me sick to my stomach to watch someone eat all of the wafers, especially a priest of such strong faith. I don’t even know how to explain it- you have to see the scene, and you probably need to have had some experience with Communion in order to understand the gravity of it.

I’ve done such a bad job of explaining this movie. All I can say is please go look up the Chilean military overthrow on Wikipedia, then go see Machuca. You will be better for it.

Last night in church my pastor read a C.S. Lewis quote during her sermon on the Israeli wilderness grumblings and wanderings. As with everything C.S. Lewis has to say, it really resonated with me. Sometimes I think we are the same person, only he is much better able to express what I am thinking and feeling with respect to God and religion. Anyway, here’s the quote from The Screwtape Letters (fantastic book, BTW):

“Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off…The only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy… Murder is no better than cards if cards do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

I won’t expand on this too much- I think Lewis pretty much covers it. Suffice it to say this is probably one of my biggest struggles in my faith. I’ve been trying to be more proactive lately, but boy can it be hard sometimes.