by Trevor Griffey
Bumbling down the narrow aisle in the airplane with my two carry-ons, I looked for my seat, 19-c, and passively wondered what my neighbor with the window seat would be like. It was fall break, I was tired, and I hoped to sleep some before landing in St Louis. When I looked up to find my seat, I saw my neighbor.
God, he was huge. A menacing fat man, he must have been at least 6'2", possibly 300 pounds or more. He had a white beard, and was probably about fifty. He was not happy to be sitting in the window seat. I switched seats with him for his comfort, and we put up the arm rest between us so he could sit on part of my seat. Wedged into a corner with little chance for comfortable escape, the airplane boarding music in full effect as well as the stuffy heat which no ceiling air-jet can lessen, my neighbor introduced himself to me with potent breath.
The conversation was quite typical at first- he, discerning I was a student, asked me where I go to school, what year I am, what my major is, and, of course, what I'm going to do with my major. I responded in an equally typical manner, telling him I had tentative direction, but that I'm basically clueless about anything important pertaining to my life. Whereupon he told me that one of his sons has direction and is planning on going to a non- denominational seminary school where the Bible is treated the way it was meant to be: literally. This would be the beginning of a three hour conversation about Jesus, politics, homosexuals, PCness, and who is going to Hell.
The Bible, he continued, should be treated literally, for Jesus is our Lord, and he came to earth once to redeem us and told us that he would not do so again. Only those that follow his word, who admit Jesus into their lives, can be saved. The rest, he told me, are going to Hell.
"So most of the world's population is going to Hell?" I asked.
"Yes," he told me. "It's sad, but that's what Jesus tells us."
"What if someone who doesn't proclaim Jesus to be God acts completely in accordance with Jesus' teachings?"
"That person will go to Hell."
"What about those who accept Jesus as one of the many prophets of God and believe his teachings to be the messages of God?"
"They'll all go to Hell" he told me. "You see, Jesus has told us that we shall have no other Gods but him, and to accept anyone else but him is to have another God than the one he describes. Jesus tells us that the first question they ask you when you get to heaven is 'what did you do with your knowledge of Christ?' If you didn't act on it, if you didn't follow Christ's teachings, you can't go to heaven. Those that aren't following Christ are influenced by the devil."
Sitting in a small place, cornered for hours by a huge man that thinks I'm influenced by the devil and will live a life of eternal damnation unless I accept his values is somewhat intimidating. But his voice was soft, he wasn't aggressive, and, frankly, this was my chance to ask all the questions I had ever wanted to ask a person who could be classified as part of the "religious right." The challenge, I discovered, was to phrase my questions tactfully.
He went on to tell me that he doesn't believe in forcing people to convert. That can't be done. One must accept Jesus in one's heart, so all he could do is spread the word in as friendly a way as possible.
He told me that it was possible, despite my doubts, to interpret the Bible literally, and he drew the analogy of translating texts: a word in one language may not be translated with exact meaning into another language, but no concept denies translation. One ought to read the Bible, he continued, only through direct translation. Interpretation is the wrong word completely. Those that have differing views of God's word simply aren't reading closely enough.
Too nervous to ask him if he believed in the parts of the Bible which say that witches should be killed, that we shouldn't eat shellfish, or ask why he thought God gave us laws regarding what we do if an ox falls in one's open pit, I told him that my knowledge of the Bible is poor (which it is), and that I had the general impression that there may be some instances in which the Bible contradicts itself. But he dispelled my example of the vengeful God of the Old Testament and the "turn the other cheek" God of the New Testament by agreeing with my qualifying statement: I was ignorant of the Bible, and no such contradiction exists, nor is there any serious difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. He was neither offended nor phased, and seemed eager to have me continue talking. I think that he was benevolently trying to prevent me from going to Hell.
For I told him that I am exploring the idea of a universal religion- one based on finding one's self through non-violence, tolerance, and self-sacrifice in a way similar to Jesus' teaching but that I was currently unwilling to accept Christ's way as the only way to enlightenment. He told me that he could sense my questioning attitude from the beginning, that he had been where I am spiritually when he was my age, and recommended a book to me that is in most good Christian book stores- one that would answer my questions if I approach it with an open mind.
Talking for most of the flight, he told me that there is no such thing as sexual orientation- that we are all, as Jesus tells us, heterosexual. All others are sinners. But we shouldn't ignore homosexuals like other sinners, he told me. First, they make every aspect of their lives into some big attempt to force others to accept them. He told me that his two gay friends told him so. This is why they shouldn't teach our children, he told me. Second, homosexuals constantly try to recruit young boys into their ranks, sometimes using money and power to lure them from God's path. He told me that this had happened to both of his sons, and that the older man who tried to convert them admitted to his tactics as part of the mission of homosexuals.
He told me that he supports capital punishment, and so did Jesus. He told me that those given life imprisonment are usually released sometime, and I told him that the death penalty is equally ineffective, at which point he complained about the meddling ACLU. He justified capital punishment with the same analogy given to Dukakis in the '88 debate: what would you do if your lover was raped? The expected response is that in such a heinous case, one could never forgive, and must kill one's enemy, as if life imprisonment is a respectful way to treat a human.
He told me that he believed in the separation of church and state, but that does not mean the state should force atheism or be hostile towards Christian, not Jewish or pagan, holidays. He was pro-life, and felt that he could be so since capital punishment is only for sinners, and the unborn child is innocent. And finally, he told me that he appreciated our conversation and felt that, because of the increasing influence of PCness, people would not be allowed to have such conversations in the future. PCness, he told me, is reverse discrimination, a backlash against all white males, against thoughtful discourse, against America's proud history, against religion, and hence against Jesus: it is a tyranny of a new kind, he told me, though not in those exact words.
His lack of hostility, his eagerness to answer my questions and hear me out, and his want to hear all sides of an issue (he had repeatedly told me that he reads books of every viewpoint so as to be a more objective, thoughtful person) made me unusually comfortable with presenting him with why I disagreed with him in almost every case.
I told him that the way he looks at homosexuals easily corresponds with how some homosexuals may feel themselves: a feeling that people are trying to force them into being something they're not; a feeling that being in public, powerful, or well-paying positions requires living a heterosexual lifestyle; a feeling that people focus way too much on sexuality as a means of judging others; and that in many cases asserting their sexual orientation may become a means of self- respect in a society that tells them they're unnatural or even being influenced by the devil.
I told him that I think that treating others violently, as with capital punishment, is perpetuating violent attitudes towards life, that in my limited knowledge of the Bible, it seemed to deny the forgiveness that Christ advocated, and that I didn't trust any jury or judge with the vindictive, grave power that requires absolute certainty and objectivity in its execution.
And finally, I told him that I thought he misunderstood political correctness. PCness, ideally, is not a means of reverse discrimination, a means of destroying discourse, or even a way of hating America. It is a way of including all others in our thoughts and actions, a type of discourse which demands that one not be hostile towards others though allowing and even anticipating disagreement, and a way of recognizing our faults as well as our strengths.
At one point in our discussion, I felt a great sense of despair. We had no personal animosity towards each other. We were quite tolerant of one another, and we actually agreed on a lot of issues in general terms. We both seemed to want to be left alone in our beliefs- to be free to live a peaceful, tolerant lifestyle with the world without fear of encroaching groups trying to force us into unwanted lifestyles. Yet to live such a life demands political action as a means of securing our freedom. And when different world views come together in the political arena, we may either fuse our views into one or force our views onto others. The latter has obviously been the case with almost every society. Two or more groups, seeking peace (or prosperity, or utopia, or whatever you want to call the end of political action), end up warring over definitions of peace. Politics does not become a place to assert one's self, but a place to defend one's self from some evil force in our society, as if one group can assert its place in a society over another. Politicians begin to appeal not to our goodness, or our similarities, but to our problems and willingness to blame other groups for those problems. This demands an exaggerated, stereotypical view of the opposition as a group not seeking peace at all, but seeking war, and eventually, our death. Extreme members of each group become the most interesting, the most news worthy, the most true to their cause, and are always the most threatening- the most hostile. Those who perceive themselves as minorities, be they Christians or blacks or what have you, become even more scared, more hostile, more politically active, and more stereotyped. And from these extremes, we misunderstand one another, our fights move out of the political arena and become personal: we lose our ability to talk to one another, and end up screaming out of self-defense. The man sitting next to me, my new friend whose name I wish I could remember, agreed with me.
I had walked onto that plane with all sorts of preconceptions about what someone from the religious right is like, thinking that the kind of conversation I ended up having with my neighbor would be hostile, and possibly very threatening. I thought that the kind of views he espoused would require a complete hatred of those not like him. And my neighbor had thought the same of me. We were both shocked at the civility with which we treated one another, the willingness we had to disagree and still live on- not making agreement the end of of all our discourse (as it must be in politics). And this astonishment drove us to talk for almost three hours, rarely tiring of the first real contact we had had with the enemy for quite a while.
Maybe he treated me with respect because I'm a white male heterosexual who he thinks can still be converted. Then again, maybe I treated him with respect because he wasn't a raving, hateful white trash lunatic trying to force me into accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Either way, the stereotypes which we brought on the plane with us didn't apply. Whether it would have been the case had our mutual stereotypes been in effect seems irrelevant. The point is that we got along, and that this actually surprised us.
Reflecting on this with him, I felt as if our conversation had given us both a certain amount of hope- hope that people with conflicting goals can stop looking at fanatics and politicians as representatives of the people with whom we share their space.
But our hopes were tainted: I went away wishing that maybe he'd convert to my thinking and drop this silly notion that his is the only way to find God. And he went away seeing potential in me- hoping that maybe I could find Jesus before it's too late. If only we didn't have to fight about who should conform to the other's beliefs in the meantime...