Shake your head, say "nah."

I eat lunch in a cafeteria area in an adjacent building to my office. Normally, I eat with coworkers, but today it was just me and The King for an hour.

A group of young professionals took up some tables nearby. I'm used to seeing this group at around the same time every day. One of them is mocked behind his back by my coworkers and I on a regular basis, because one day he used the phrase "that's how I roll" about seventeen times in a five-minute span. Really, he brought it on himself.

Today, as I read, I overheard some of their conversation, which moved from upcoming movies to recent vacations. Apparently, this cat and his sig-other had just gotten back from travelling. He described going to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a few other places.

As he described the small towns, the disdain in his voice was palpable. He revelled in recounting the backwardness of the townsfolk. How there was a brochure for "some kind of museum about China" that he thought would be pretty cool, until he found out it was in someone's house. (Granted, that's pretty funny and ridiculuous.) But he kept going on and on about how these people were "so out of touch with the world" that they treated this couple who visited the Far East as "travellers with news of the outside world!" One of his tablemates said that the rest of the town probably would never go anywhere themselves, so that was exciting to them.

At first, I listened to this good-humoredly, even chuckling a little to myself. Then I started thinking, "how would the townspeople think about his descriptions, his tone?" My laughter stopped. He started sounding like an arrogant urban-dweller, dismissing small-town life as provincial and backward. It sounded ugly and obnoxious. (Which, incidentally, means I sound that way sometimes, when I do the same thing.)

Of course, it didn't help his cause when he started talking about visiting his "bible-thumper" sister and brother-in-law. He talked about how they were very "cult-like" because they believe everything the Bible says (gasp!). The others at his table laughed their disbelief. He started saying how most of "those stories" are found in other cultures that predate the Bible anyway, though I think he mentioned Babylonian culture--which does not necessarily predate the Bible, incidentally. He said, "Come on, a man swallowed by a whale? That's impossible! And what, God and Satan push around this guy named Job for kicks, and have a good laugh about it?"

On he went. I had to force myself to focus on my book. Once, he caught my eye before I looked back down at the page I was stuck on for ten minutes. I wonder what my face looked like to him. I wonder what he thought. He seemed to be surprised that anyone else was listening. For a split-second, he had the look of someone who was afraid to offend.

Was I offended? No, I wouldn't call it that. Mildly piqued. Bemused by his typical assertions and garden-variety skepticism. (Do I sound a little disdainful myself? Hmm.) Was I going to jump up and "defend the faith" or go all Josh-McDowell on him? No. I was not.

Why? Maybe because I don't have all the facts and the counter-references at my mental fingertips, and I wouldn't have anything stronger than an "I believe" and a vague historical reference to back me up. Maybe because I work in a medical facility, a field long abandoned by the mass of Christians and left to the hands of rationalists who are overwhelmingly materialist. Houston may be in the South, but it's not necessarily in the "Bible Belt," which I suppose is as you would expect of big cities. Maybe it's one of the little holes you latch the Belt through. Eyelets. Whatever they're called.

Or maybe I didn't step up and let out my theological battlecry is because I'm indifferent. Maybe I was treating it like I treat most political arguments these days: walking away, head shaking, thinking, "rage on, friend, do your thing. at the end, we'll see what we'll see."

I think I'm pretty satisfied with my non-engagement in political discourse these days, but is that approach appropriate in spiritual matters, where the stakes are so much higher? Probably not. In fact, it's probably dead-wrong.

There's a right way to engage those situations as a believer. There's certainly a wrong way, too, a way that many well-intentioned Christians fall into. But there is a right way that is both confrontational and loving. There's a way to have friendly and respectful discussions about faith, without turning into a wind-up rhetoric-box. It can be done. I've actually been occasionally successful doing it before. But today... well, today, I don't know. I just didn't bother.

Should I have "defended the faith"? Yeah. But I didn't. I threw away my lunch trash, tucked my book under my arm, and walked away, idly swinging my lunch bag, shaking my head.