If you’ve never before set foot on the UC Berkley campus, your education is not yet complete. This was the early 70’s (those first few years akin to the counter-culture 60’s). My brother and I were walking through the main out door mall. Dressed in a silver space suit (helmet and all) a man was selling real estate on the moon. People were buying the deeds and I saw no evidence whatsoever that this was intended as a joke.
But we weren’t at Berkley to purchase real estate on the moon or any other place. We were there to visit the Shabbat House, an Orthodox Jewish center, located on campus. In fact, this house was run by the Hasidic Jews, the Orthodox of the Orthodox, as some would argue. Needless to say, the Shabbot House fit in around Berkley like a Cracker Jack ring belongs at Tiffany’s.
My brother and I were going to be there all weekend for a kind of Jewish retreat. Why would a converted Jew such as myself go to a Hasidic retreat? Forgive me for sounding so corny: It was to please my mother.
Although my dad disowned me and stopped talking to me altogether, my mother and brother issued multiple attempts to talk me out of my new madness. In Mom’s eyes, if I’d only had a good Jewish education, this catastrophe would never have occurred. Now she wanted to make up for it by dragging me to every rabbi in town. I didn’t mind. It gave me an audience with the rabbis I would not have had otherwise. They never convinced me of anything. As matter of fact, I often left them with a thing or two to think about. My favorite question for rabbis is the following: “Is Judaism a religion or is it a race?”
Sometimes they answer, “A religion.”
Then I ask, “If it’s a religion, how come my Dad, an outspoken atheist, is still considered Jewish?”
Other times they say, “It’s a race.”
“Well, if we’re a race,” I reply, “Then how can you tell me I’m not Jewish anymore just because I believe in Jesus?”
The rabbi would then proceed to tell my mother how hopeless I am and how she should abandon her vain attempts to bring me back. Later on, my mother would find a new rabbi, “a much better qualified rabbi ” and the process would repeat itself.
I had done this often but never before had I committed myself to going away for an entire weekend. Much as I enjoyed a good debate, arguing with rabbis all weekend was not my idea of a fun vaction. It didn’t exactly remind me of Disneyland.
So why did I do it? Actually, it’s an interesting story. It began, believe it or not, with a false teaching in the name of Christianity. Don’t get me wrong. I will defend the truth of the New Testament until my last dying day, but let’s face it; many of the things taught in church are not found in the New Testament.
I have a great respect for the men (and there were several of them) who first led me to Christ and discipled me. I will be indebted to them for the rest of my life. I not only appreciate their knowledge and their kindness, but their wisdom as well. Nevertheless, they are only human beings and human beings make mistakes. Their mistake was that they became far too enamored with a very popular series of seminars entitled Basic Youth Conflicts, taught and developed by Bill Gothard. Oh sure, some of these seminars were accurate and Biblical. Other times, Mr. Gothard was imposing his own opinion upon Scripture without admitting it and too many “Gothard Gurus” were accepting everything the man said, even when the Scriptural verification was a weak stretch.
Gothard was big on authority. To him, all human authority was instituted by God. This includes the government, the authority a husband has over his wife and the authority parents have over their children. The latter got a little sticky when Gothard taught that prior to marriage, children were still under the authority of their parents, even as young adults.
Are you starting to smell my dilemma? The only thing I could do in college to please my parents was to give up Christianity. Did God want me to turn my back on Him so that I could obey Him? That made no sense whatsoever. Yes, I saw the command in Exodus 20 to honor my father and mother. But I was convinced this was meant for young children, not young adults. Besides, there were examples in scripture of people disobeying their parents, such as when Jonathan turned against his father Saul who was unfairly attempting to kill David (1 Sam 20). There was also a verse in which Jesus predicted that allegience to Him would divide famlies (Matt 10:34). But as a young Christian, one has many doubts. No, I did not doubt that Jesus had made Himself known to me, but I doubted my own heart and motives. I doubted my sin. After all, Jesus came to deliver me from sin and I was learning about new sins all the time. No matter how convinced I was in my own mind, it was difficult to buck and resist the very men who were teaching me. They had been Christians for years. What could I possibly know that they didn’t know?
Obviously, no Christian would ever tell me to deny Christ. But they did tell me to stop going to church and to cut off all Bible Studies. Such attendence, they insisted, was only going to aggravate the situation. On the other hand, if Mom and Dad saw me obey them by discontinuing certain Christian practices, perhaps it would be a better testimony. Indeed, this might be the very thing to turn them toward Christianity!
I tried if for several weeks. But it didn’t last because I loved going to church. That, along with the fact that I really saw no scripture to back up the authority teachings of Bill Gothard, caused me to dismiss this idea as nonsense.
So I started going back to church but I did so with the disapproval of my Christian mentors. This caused tremendous guilt. Yes, I, as a Christian, actually felt guilty for going to church! I felt disobedient for attending Bible Studies! How’s that for irony?
Close to a year went by. I was living with a roommate, splitting the rent on a house. In all this time, the guilt had not subsided. I decided to “repent of my sin.” Let me be clear: Looking back, I do not believe I was sinning. I’m convinced that my first hunch about Bill Gothard was correct. His teaching was nonsense. But God looks at our hearts, not our heads. And I needed to be sure. Maybe I was about to do something foolish, but I figured there had to be worse offenses in life than having the humility to doubt, before God, if my own position was a correct one. I believe the Apostle Paul would have agreed. When asked if it was OK to eat meat that had been offered to an idol first, then sold in the open market place later, Paul said, “As long as you know you aren’t worshipping this idol, if to you, it is only meat, go ahead and eat it. But if you have a brother whose faith is weaker, who thinks he would be worshipping another deity if he ate the meat, don’t try to talk him into eating. Even though it is not a sin in reality, on judgment day, God will ask that person why he went ahead and did what he thought was a sin.” (1 Cor 8-10)
I visited my mother in the middle of the day. My dad was away on a business trip. I came clean and disclosed everything going on in my mind. “I will never stop following Jesus, but I believe God wants me to obey you. If you want me to stop going to church, I’ll stop going to church. I’ll stop going to any Christian meeting.”
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how taken back Mom was. “This comes as quite a surprise,” she spoke with amazement. “ I don’t know what to say. I was about to do some shopping. Let me go by myself and think about your offer. I’ll give you my answer when I return.”
As her car pulled out of our driveway, I dropped to my knees. “God, Help! I may have just made the stupidest offer of my life. But I just can’t take the guilt any more. I’m trusting you. If you could soften Pharaoh’s heart, you can soften my mom’s heart too.
Share this on
