An encounter at BJ's Wholesale Club

So, let me first tell you that until today I had a bumper sticker on my car that read "If Religious Groups Want To Get Into Politics, They Should Pay Taxes". Ironically, I decided today, while in BJ's, that I no longer wanted to express myself through bumper stickers since they seldom initiate any real dialogue.

As I returned to my car, put my groceries in, and began to remove my two bumper stickers, an angry pastor and his wife approached me. He angrily asked me why I displayed that bumper sticker and I told him it was because I don't like religious organizations getting into politics and trying to legislate their own brand of morality and that it was illegal for churches to endorse politicians and keep their tax exempt status. His wife chimed in with something like "If you were down on your luck, the church would be the first one to give you water." They both then proceeded to tell me how churches were the first to respond to Katrina and all the good churches do. I agreed that churches did a lot of good. They just couldn't understand that I didn't have a problem with churches. It's like they thought my bumper sticker said "Tax churches" because the next thing they talked about was how if churches were taxed then they couldn't do all the good they do now. My response was "But if churches were taxed and didn't have as much money, God would provide right?" They said yes he would.

They said something about how I would feel differently if I knew the Bible, at which point I explained that I had been a Christian for 20 years. He asked why I wasn't now and I briefly explained that in seeking a fuller relationship with God he gradually became less real to me. His wife asked me if I had a Bible and a Strong's concordance and I said yes. She then asked me to look up the word "love" in the concordance and read all the verses about love, and then she said something about having and older edition Webster's dictionary to look stuff up in. I was tempted to explain to her that I knew the new testament was written in Greek and that the Greeks had four words for love, etc. etc., but decided not to as I really wasn't interested.

We ended with him asking what my first name was so he could pray for me; I've always wondered why we needed names to pray for people. I thanked him, told them it was nice to meet them, and was on my way.

Why do some believers seem to be so challenged and almost intimidated by those who used to share their faith?