Sinner!! And Proud of It!!

In the land of Jesus, the liberal Jew is in big trouble!! I ask about religion a lot. I am struck by all the Biblical Christian names-Innocent, Immaculate, Emanuel etc. (Although I met one boy named Kramer...) I thought there would be more native religion than Christianity. Turns out, according to 24-year old Protestant Eddie, America has brought in all kinds of churches (Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, Seventh-Day Adventist...no talk of Unitarian Universalism which is not a surprise since I think for Africa UU's do not take Bible literally enough.) and many of the village kids attend. This is clearly God's country and God's word through Jesus has made an incredible impression on it.

The village is a-religious, (but the kids think everyone who is white is rich, American, Jewish and Hebrew speaking since that is all they see there) yet, on a recent Sunday morning outing to a nearby lake, the event had to begin with a prayer since so many of the kids wanted it and practiced such a thing. The 10 Muslim students pray (in their rooms alone, and not all together...) 5 times a day. Challah baking happens on Friday afternoons.

I don't know what all that means...

One evening, I was speaking with Innocent. He asked, how come Jews don't believe in Jesus as the son of God. Because that is not what I was taught. But the Bible says he is. Your Bible does but mine does not. But how come you do not believe it? How come you do? Because the Bible says so and the Bible is the word of God.

This is sound logic for Innocent. In the van on the way home from the village to Kigali as I was lost and getting found, the driver and I engaged in a discussion around Ohio now allowing same sex marriage. First I had to clarify that this was not just a ruling for men, but for women as well. Once that was straightened out the driver said, this is not good. Why not? The bible says it is wrong! Don't you believe in God? Oh yes, I believe in God-but I do not believe God wrote the Bible. What??? How can that be??? The Bible says God wrote it so it must be so. I said that felt that man wrote the Bible. Why do you think that? Because the bible tells us to do things which lead to hatred and cruelty and I do not believe God would ever tell us to do that. But it is the word of God!!

So I asked him, what do you do if the bible tells you to do something that you know is mean to someone else. Do you do it anyway? Yes, he said, I do. I do it knowing I am following God's word and I think sometimes God is wrong. So God can be wrong, I asked? yes he said.

And that seemed just fine to him.

And since he was driving me around in a van in the dark in a far off village in a far off land where I had no phone or friends...I decided it was best to leave well-enough alone.