It's between me and Him

So a couple from our church here in Chambéry recently invited us over for lunch at their house. It was a delicious sausage dish prepared in the old tradition of Besançon (where Victor Hugo was born). During our meal we were discussing how church differs in France and the US. Somehow I ended up sharing what I think the biggest difficulty is for people to grasp the truth about Jesus. We have lots of opportunities at the French school we attend to tell people about him - often people that have never heard, even if they are from a traditionally 'Christian' country. So many people from around the world have accepted that it is wrong to believe that another person's religious belief is wrong.

To me, truth concerning the afterlife and God is the most important kind of truth. So it is really important to be able to talk about truth about him in a meaningful way. We lose all sense of reason and objectivity in a religious discussion if we accept that bolded statement above. If you've read Night by Elie Weisel, maybe you remember Moshe the Beadle. His character had seen atrocities of the Holocaust, and then escaped. He returned to his Jewish community to warn them of the coming danger. No one believed him. They thought he was mad, but what if they were saying "Moshe, you can believe that those things are real and that's fine. As for me, I don't believe that the Holocaust is happening. But that's our beautiful freedom to believe as we want." Moshe surely would have been furious at this attitude! If someone claims that X is true, the opposite cannot also be true. To deny a truth like that is convenient in some ways, but in the end is slippery, and destructive.

This way of thinking is so embedded in a lot of people that I meet that they don't even recognize the inconsistency. So difficult, then, to have a meaningful talk about God!