So I'm walking around at the local annual Chili Cook Off, just your average normal Florida Keys everybody walking around with a Budweiser draft at 10:30 on a Sunday morning (God, I love this town) kind of place when I notice the Gideons booth on the midway. Inside are 3 eager souls, one in his fifties, one in her sixties and one in his seventies. In the other booths there are people selling homemade salsa and chile mixes and candles and incense and beer and chili (duh) and all the tan, wrinkled, tatooed locals sort of drift around in t-shirts and Hook&Tackle beercan shorts, many with actual beer cans in that pocket and say, "Hey" to the guy they fished with or went to grade school with or fought at the Caribbean Club last weekend or whatever, and they're all making sort of a wide turn around the Gideons.
Anyway, I go by a few times, and the Gideons have got their winningest smiles on, like my Yellow Lab wears when she just wants one taste, honest to Dog just one bite of that steak and I'll never ask again. So I saunter over.
"Hi."
"Hi."
They seem genuinely thrilled that an interested citizen has decided to sidle on up and get to hear the good news.
"Um, you guys are Christians, right?"
Heads bobbing, I get a simultaneous triple response that sounds something like "YesSirForCertainUhHuh."
“So, if I understand it, you follow the words of Christ, and oppose abortion, Gay marriage and support the death penalty, right?"
They seem so happy that I've nailed it, like I got a surprising A on a pop quiz. "That would be us, son." (Actual words. Word.)
"Could you show me in that Bible there where Christ states his opposition to abortion, homosexuality and life imprisonment vs. a death penalty?"
They leap for their Bibles, like we did when we had "Sword drills" when I was a kid in Evangelical churches. Honest to Dog, a roomful of kids sits in an auditorium with Bibles in their laps and the Preacher on stage calls out a Bible verse. The winning child is the first one to find the Book, Chapter and Verse and stand up and read it out loud. Prizes like a paperback New Testament were offered to the winner of the most rounds. Um, isn't that by definition the person who needs it
least?
Anyway, they figure out pretty soon that this stuff is mostly forbidden in Leviticus, rather than by Jesus, and they migrate to the Old Testament. “Wait a minute”, I ask. “Are you Revelationary Leviticans or Christians? Shouldn’t your primary issues and articles of faith get at least a passing mention from the Big Guy?”
They glance at each other and realize that this isn’t going how they expected. “Every word of scripture is sacred and perfect,” they agree.
“Um, how about Leviticus 19:19?”
They are clearly non-plussed. I suppose it’s possible that most evangelizer wannabes never get to talk to the opposition that knows their doctrine.
Passage Leviticus 19:19:
19Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
“So, you think that you can prove that your polo shirt isn’t a cotton poly blend? Hellfire could stand in the balance!”
[snip a few details]
Anyway, eventually, the sixties something woman is stunned into silence when asked “If we are made in God’s image, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?” Honestly, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Then came my favorite moment; the woman says, “We’re not trained in theology. Maybe you’d like to speak with our minister?”
I tell her briefly the amusing tale of how I was thrown out of church the last time I went for quoting the actual Bible. I tell her that I don’t think the minister would appreciate them guiding me to him. She says tentatively, “I don’t think he’d mind.”
She looks to the seventy something who is shaking his head, and says, “Yes he would.”
I had a Bud and a bowl of chili and went home.
