Interesting This American Life Podcast this week (download will be free this week, $0.95 thereafter), on “Things I Used to Believe.”
Actually, the stories aren’t so much about people changing their minds so much as unsuccessful efforts to make them do so.
I found the second story most interesting. It tells the story of Trisha Sebastian, a lapsed Catholic who was so moved by a Christian football coach Kris Hogan’s efforts to give a prison football team a cheering section in their game against him, that she started a correspondence with him about her growing agnosticism. Her story stuck in his heart, and they had a couple conversations in which he was unsuccessful in bringing her back to Christian faith.
First, it is apparent that Boyle Hogan (thanks) has done a tremendous amount of good, both locally for the boys of the prison, and in the world. His witness of faith in action brought Ms. Sebastian back to wanting to re-establish a relationship with God, which is a lot more than I have done today. Score one for the perhaps apocryphal St. Francis of Assisi.
But in listening to the conversation, you kind of wish Hogan could have passed Ms. Sebastian on to his closer.
Some of what seems to be the missteps:
- Darwin talk is a definite turn-off. People don’t want to think they’re checking out of intellectual life by accepting Christ, and rejecting evolution sounds a lot like that.
- Even though I think Hogan’s use of Hitler was somewhat valid, I think modern people have read Godwin’s law enough that we tend to reject any arguments citing Hitler as an example.
Christianity is a Cross. I don’t think people can be intellectually persuaded to take up a cross — it’s an emotional commitment, a statement of faith. I don’t think anybody ever stormed a beach because they had seen a rigorous demonstration that democracy is a superior form of government or that capitalism is the best way to organize an economy. I think Hogan would have been better served by talking about the difference Christianity had made in his life, and how that enabled him to do things like what happened on the football field that night.
So, Alec Baldwin won’t be offering Hogan any coffee. So what? Again, he’s done a lot more than almost all of us have. And maybe Ms. Sebastian’s return to the faith will be longer journey than can be contained in a couple phone calls. I think Hogan’s done his job getting her to approach the door. The rest of us need to demonstrate that life is better on the other side of it. Not by our superior intellectual arguments, but by how we love. When people think of “Christians,” the image that pops into their head is not of a football coach giving a prison football team a night they’ll never forget. That’s our job to change.
For an example of someone who gets everything wrong, keep listening for the efforts a pro-choice mother takes to indocrinate her daughter into that orthodoxy.
