Indecision Theology

Just before Christmas, one of my parishioners told me that he had accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Let me explain why this troubles me.

This gentleman is about sixty years old, a kind if somewhat socially bumbling guy. He has hair like a televangelist or an anchorman, the kind that wouldn't move in hurricane force winds. He's a salesman, in every sense of the term. He and his wife have been married about fifteen years - a second marriage for both of them, with children from their previous marriages but not this one. His wife struggles with bouts of severe depression. Her adult son recently completed thirty days in alcohol rehab; while he's sober for now, it was a hard time for all of them.

So this guy has a lot going on. I get that.

But. It's Sunday, December 23rd. Worship is about three minutes from starting, and the usual rush of hand-shaking, family-introducing, 'oh-no-you're-leaving-when-is-your-last-Sunday'-conversing, so-and-so-is-in-the-hospital-informing is going on. Said gentleman comes up to me with a beaming look on his face, his wife walking behind him. "Pastor," he says, "I just wanted you to know that at a conference this weekend I finally accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior!"

Said pastor is a little confused, seeing as how this gentleman has been active in the church for a long time and, one would dearly hope, had heard of Jesus' love for him a time or two over the last, you know, twenty years.

He handed me his testimony - two typed pages - and asked if I would like to read it. Naturally I said yes. Two days later, at Christmas Day worship, he asked if I had read it yet. I gave him my honest answer: that there had been simply no time, and that I knew this story was important enough to warrant taking real time to read it. He seemed very touched by that.

Today I finally read the story. It's very simple and fairly chicken-soup-for-the-soul, but I know it means a lot to him. My trouble is figuring out how to talk with him about it.

I know a lot of this is pastoral care stuff, and that I have no problem with. Here is someone whose life has been turned upside down lately, and whose primary relationship can be difficult at any given time. His step-son's rehab was terribly draining for his wife, who spent a fair amount of time beating herself up about her son's struggles. He's getting near retirement, and this is a guy who defines himself largely by his job. Throwing yourself at the foot of the cross makes perfect sense in all of that.

I suppose the problem isn't really with him, but more within myself. Of course it's entirely possible that someone could come to worship for years and years, could be involved in leadership, could say all the right things, and still not feel a personal relationship with Jesus. I'm sure that's true more often than I would care to know.

I'm also sure that when life falls apart around you, re-claiming your faith is not only attractive but necessary, and making a commitment to that faith feels hopeful and energizing.

But, even considering all of that, I'm pretty damn opposed to decision theology. And I'm not sure if there's any way to talk about that in this circumstance. Part of me worries that, in my eight years here, I wasn't able (apparently) to convey Jesus' great love for him enough; that all this time, he sat in the pew empty, until this random occurrence at a sales conference. Part of me worries about how many other people in the pews feel the same way.

And yet another part of me suspects that this whole decision thing is a crock of shit. I'm curious to know why he felt the need to do this - and to tell me about it - and to write it down as a story. Where's the appeal? Why now, and like this? Is he telling me that he had never understood Jesus as his savior until now - or just that he recommitted to that? Is there any way for me to ask him some of these questions without sounding as if I am attacking his very personal spiritual experience?

I suppose part of my struggle is the role of the pastor in all of this. My first instinct, in being 'pastoral,' is to do the listening, supportive thing: "tell me about this experience," "it sounds like this was really important for you," etc. I do think it would be a bad idea to pull out the theological guns and give a lecture about decision theology and original sin and simul iustus et peccatur (you know you're getting a little too heavy when the Latin comes out).

But what about the prophet? I can just imagine David bringing his "I decided to accept Yahweh as my personal Lord and Savior" testimony to Nathan, and Nathan reading it and tearing it up and telling him he had completely forgotten the real scandal of God's grace and gotten full of himself and that the extraordinary thing is God's faithfulness, not ours. Not to mention that most of our decisions last about fifteen minutes anyway, so it's probably nothing to get too excited about.

Don't worry: I'm not going to pull a Nathan. But it's all made me think again about who the pastor ought to be in a community. Listener? Counselor? Cheerleader? Even for dumb ideas?

Or can there be times for you to be a prophet? Or a truth teller? Or a theologian? If not, what's the purpose of theology if it never intersects with actual daily life? How can you consider yourself a theologian if someone hands you a story whose theology galls you to the core but you can't figure out any way to talk about it?