Mountainview International Church

I don't know if I answered Dave's question. I may have recommended A Case for Christ (which I've never even read!) because what I do remember is connecting the word "apologetics" in my head with the task of convincing someone, like a lawyer convinces a jury, that God makes sense--He's water-tight.

I had no recommendations on apologetics because I realized that I haven't done much court room work for God since I've been in Spain.

In fact, let me share with you one of the rare times that I did try to do some lawyer talk. I was in a Polynesian bar with some friends and this girl named Eileen from Germany who's a friend of a friend asked me if I believed in God. I told her I did. So, she told me what she thought about God. Her thesis for the next hour or so was one I've heard a hundred times. Either there is no God or He's doing a horrible job because my life and this world are hopeless, both full of painful experiences and selfish people. She asked me what I thought about September 11th, but didn't wait for me to answer before she said, "What has God ever done for me?" "Where is this God of love?"

I was stunned into silence, and at the same time afraid I had no answer for her, until I remembered an analogy--the most biblical of all, the parent and the child. I began telling Eileen that Christians call God their Father because He's a lot like a parent. A parent teaching a child to walk will allow the child to fall at times with the hope that eventually the child will learn to stand on her own. In the same way, God allows bad things to happen with the hope that we will learn to love Him and each other. I told Eileen that sometimes we decide to go against our parents' wishes, and in the same way God's wishes, and we end up with disasters like September 11th. I told her God grieved alongside us on September 11th.

The analogy seemed water-tight to me. It was simple and to-the-point. I waited for Eileen to respond, she was eating a potato chip out of the bowl in the middle of the table. She started in again, telling me the story of how she had spent two years of her life caring for her 78 year-old grandmother with Alzheimer's. She thought God would see her caring for her grandmother and spare her grandmother's life. But she died in the end.

Eileen never brought up the analogy of the parent, of God the Father. It was like I hadn't even said anything. She just kept telling me more stories, once again about her grandmother, and about her car accident, which (I had noticed earlier on the street) left her limping. All I could do was listen.

I realized then that Jesus may have just listened to Eileen too if he had been there in the Polynesian bar. Eileen didn't want answers, she just wanted someone to listen to her, and to love her.

Not answers, just love.

Or at least maybe the answers, the lawyer talk, comes later. I attend a writing group just up the street from my apartment. I go to the writing group because I like to write. In fact, I was hoping the group would be a break from all the church stuff I do. Of course, everyone in the group knew right away that I was a Christian. All they had to do was ask why I was in Madrid or what I did for a living, and I'd tell them I work for the church.

For the most part the writing group left me alone for the first three months, at least in terms of my faith. I made some great friends in those three months, and once that happened, it was like I passed some hidden love test. The questions started coming. Not court room questions--"Where was God on the night of March 2nd?" But questions about normal life stuff--what it means to live with God in the house.

I guess these people at my writing group are okay with the fact that I'm learning too--that I don't have God all figured out. They definitely don't want me to get a big head and act like I know more about faith than they do. Instead, they leave an empty chair for me at the table where they sit in the back of the cafe, and they give me space to love them. They list every Christian stereotype in the book, and they allow me to fix these for them. They tell me there's all this hype about Christianity and homosexuality in the papers, and they let me help them understand what it really means that God loves us all.

I wish I had time, over a café con leche of course, to tell you all the stories I have from my writing group. I could probably write a book (wouldn't my writing group love to edit that one!).

So maybe that's my recommendation, Dave. You told me at the end of our conversation at church that the final apologetic for you is the story of a changed life. And you know what, I may not do lawyer talk too well, but I have plenty of stories about how my life is changed because of God. I don't know. Maybe you should write the book. How has God changed your life?