One of my favorite movies is The Court Jester, a 1955 Danny Kaye classic. Danny played Hubert Hawkins, a circus performer who dreamed of being "The Fox", a Robin Hood-type character. Unfortunately, beyond being entertaining, Hawkins lacked all the skills and courage required to be a swashbuckling hero. And so it goes. At one point, Hawkins was hypnotized so that, when he heard the snap of fingers, he believed and acted as if he was actually a brave knight and would revert when he heard it again. One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when the bad guy, Sir Ravenhurst, decides Hawkins is the Fox and engages him in a sword fight. Amidst random finger snaps ("I could finish you like that!") and such, Hawkins switches between hero and coward, swordsman and circus performer. As a cowardly circus performer, Hawkins swordplay is perhaps best described as "a sword fight". He isn't fighting Sir Ravenhurst; he's fighting Sir Ravenhurst's sword. He would normally have no chance of winning this engagement, you see, because he wasn't making any attempt to stop the swordsman who faced him. He was too busy fending off the sword.
Too often that's exactly what I feel like I'm doing in conversations with people. Someone will raise an objection to my beliefs or lob a "question" (intended to show the problem with my beliefs) and I'll be forced to deal with the objection or the question. The truth in many cases is not that these are serious questions or objections. In fact, if you listen long enough, you'll hear the same ones regurgitated over and over. It's like there's a script out there, a list of objections and questions for skeptics. "Here, pick one and throw it at a Christian and see if it sticks." It doesn't matter if it has been answered (repeatedly). You still need to fight the sword.
Why do I call it "fighting the sword"? What makes me think these are something other than genuine questions or objections? Well, for one, I know people. I've done it myself. People often (I'd suggest more often than not) use these things as smokescreens. "Lay down a cover while I retreat." They don't actually intend to engage. Your answer is actually irrelevant. It's simply intended to keep you off balance. You will likely never hear, "Good answer!" They aren't looking for one. For another, most of these objections have good answers. Question asked and answered. But that doesn't seem to matter. And a third reason is that I've seen it too many times. Perhaps it's a rebellious young person eager to slip the leash of his or her parents. "I'm a free thinker! I don't need their religion!" Of course, what he is actually rejecting is something different, but that's not the point. As long as he can keep you answering questions or objections, you'll never address the real point -- his rebellion.
Frankly, at the bottom of the pile, that is most often the "swordsman" in this fight: "I do not want to submit." Oh, of course it's typically God to which they don't want to submit, but it's rebellion nonetheless. So they thrust and they parry and they try to dazzle you with their swordplay and you're forced to fend off the sword instead of dealing with the swordsman.
There ought to be a solution to that. I'll have to think about it.
1 comment:
Good distinctions and approach. Much of the time those are smokescreens. I get sucked into time wasting conversations sometimes but have found that with a couple diagnostic questions you can blow the smoke away.
A friend used to always rail against hypocrites in the church. I finally asked if he had been wounded by any. Nope. I realized that was his convenient excuse to ignore God. After all, he was superior to all the hypocrites in church, right?
Another example is the classic question of why God permits evil. Some people have an authentic theological question, to which there are many good answers. Others my be struggling with their own pain and need comfort and the good news that Jesus is not indifferent to suffering. Yet others are using it as a smokescreen.
With a little diagnosis ("What bothers you most about the problem of evil?") you can figure out which category they are in.
If they are just using it as a convenient sound bite, then plant some seeds and walk away. The exception is that if there is an audience (e.g., a blog) then it might be useful to engage them to educate others.
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