Denounced in public as not a Christian

Christ Enthroned - Tympanum

Church on Spilled Blood, St Petersburg, Russia

While in the checkout line at the supermarket yesterday evening I witnessed a man in front of me haranguing the young woman who was bagging his groceries. She had on a very mild costume for Hallowe’en and he was carrying on about witches and killing babies. The young woman was studiously trying to avoid him and the checker was protesting that the bagger was just wearing a costume for Hallowe’en, she wasn’t a witch or a baby killer. The man muttered about Wiccans.

I chimed in that Wiccans did not kill babies. He said, yes, they did. And since he deemed me to be his age he asked if I didn’t remember back when they were sacrificing babies. I said no, that was an urban legend. He swore it was true and asked if I listened to some AM radio station. I simply said no, because I did not feel like going into a rant about 99.4% of religious broadcasting and its tendency to indulge in fearmongering, disinformation, propagation of stupidity and hatred, and bilking the masses for money. We just didn’t need to go there.

Since I countered his ignorance he suggested I might be one of them. I said no, I wasn’t. He said I wasn’t a Christian and I said, in a somewhat louder voice, “Oh yes, I am.”

As I was leaving the store and passed by him he said I couldn’t be a Christian and say what I said.

Well, I’ve been called a few things in my day and I consider the whole episode sad. Somewhat infuriating, but not for my sake; I think of the level of ignorance, fear, and hatred that breeds enmity and keeps us living in terror. That angers me.

But what a sad, frightened man.

If I were not eager to get home before it got dark and the trick or treaters came around, I would have liked to take a few minutes for old-fashioned witnessing.

I wanted to tell him that at age three I invited Jesus into my heart and I have never rescinded that invitation. I wanted to tell him that I was baptized at age ten because I wanted to follow Jesus. I wanted to tell him that God blessed me with a vision at age fifteen and since then I have never for a moment lacked assurance of salvation. I wanted to tell him that though I have doubted almost everything at one time or another I have not doubted that Jesus is my Lord and I am his, not even when I questioned whether I or anything even exists.

I wanted to remind him of the following passage:

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:28-30)

I wanted to tell him that though he and I may disagree about almost anything and everything, we shared one Lord and Savior and nobody takes Jesus away from me.

And that’s the bottom line.

As I typed recently: this is a pagan-friendly site.
--the BB