the Gathering: Sleeping Around with Gods (yes, that's plural)

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Yesterday my wife and I hooked up with a couple of friends from out of town to go hear Donald Miller speak at the People's Church in Franklin. In addition to listening to my wife read some portions aloud to me, I've only skimmed a few portions of Blue Like Jazz. I was glad to see that the conversational tone that he projects in his writings is constant in person as well.

He spoke on the Lord's Prayer and shared some very interesting stories that illustrated a couple of points he made. I'll share one with you.

When speaking at a University not to long ago he was asked a question that he had not heard before. The young girl addresses him during the question and answer portion and says something like, "Don, it seems to me that as you explored spirituality you settled very early on Christianity without giving objective consideration to other religions such as Islam and Buddhism. So without fair consideration of all religions, how can you Christianity is the truth?" Don said he stopped to think for a second and realized that this girl was right. He had indeed settled on Christianity without in depth consideration of other religions.

After processing this question, he responded to the girl with something like, "I guess you're right. But you come to the table with a presupposition that I do not share. You come with the presupposition that Christianity is a religion, I come to the table with the belief that is a relationship. You see, I am married to Christ spiritually. Just like a husband and wife are viewed as one, so am I and Christ. With that being the case, your question sounds to me as this, 'Don, how can you know that your wife is the woman you intend to love for all time and to grow old with if first you don't sleep with all the other women on the face of the planet to make an objective decision on what is truth?'."

Wow. I can't say I've ever viewed the reality of our marriage relationship to Christ from that point of view before--but it was a good viewpoint. It made me think, and as those of you who know me or have read here for a while, you know I love to think.