What I got from a Christian

The other day I was having a conversation with a Christian friend of mine about religion. Now James believes strongly in god because of an experience he had during battle in the Vietnam War. Against all odds he lived though this battle and thinks god spared his life. As I listened to him tell the story it saddened me to hear him attribute his unquestionable luck to an invisible deity. He wasn't happy with being in the right place at the right time. He needed to put meaning into a meaningless chance occurrence which just so happened to have saved his life. It was during this conversation that I revealed that I am an atheist. He was neither appalled nor disgusted by me. He was intrigued.

James is actually more of an acquaintance, an occasional friend. I see him once every month or so for a service that I subscribe to. Our time to chat is short and we've shared much but not a lot of personal information, like what denomination of church he goes to or how many kids he has. He did tell me this last time we talked that he heads a bible study group.

Anyway. This last time we talked he asked me if my relationship with my family had changed. I told him about my Facebook experiment and that it seemed to be going well. He was glad to hear it. Then he made a comment that surprised me. He said that although the bible says to share the word of god it doesn't say that you have to force it onto anyone. When I commented that one of my relatives still blocks me and chooses to erase me from her life he got a little angry. He said that the bible doesn't condone that kind of behavior and that if she was as much a follower of Christ as I'd lead him to believe (she's righteous for Jesus, I think that makes her a fundamentalist, maybe a reader of the bible) she should be kind and sweet and engaging with me.

I just laughed. Maybe, I said. But like with any other group of people Christians can be assholes too. His face softened up a bit and he smiled. He agreed.

His point was not lost on me. James wanted to let me know that he accepted me as his friend and it didn't matter that I didn't share his faith. Our connection went deeper than that. We both love cars and dogs. We both want our families to be healthy and happy. He believes that religion is for comfort and community and shouldn't be forced on anyone, a sentiment that I share with him. We have a lot in common and one of those things was respect for each other.