My Hardest Assignment on the Mission trip
Rietvallei, South Africa, Wednesday August 5th, 2009
Some days prior to leaving Charlotte for South Africa, I was given my finalized speaking schedule and had a discussion about it with the missions director . From what I understood, my hardest assignments would be before professors and students at Potchefstroom University on Monday August 3rd and Tuesday. My other engagements were to be before audiences in Coffee Shops and Churches, and I remember thinking to myself, these couldn’t be as difficult as the engagements at the University. On Monday, I spoke at a colloquium with physics and philosophy professors at 5pm, and later on at 7pm to about 150 students on “God and Science”. On Tuesday, I was the guest lecturer at Prof. Anne Karstens’ Philosophy class on “Quantum Physics and Truth” in the morning, and spoke on the Resurrection of Christ at the Veritas Men’s dormitory in the evening. All these engagements were full of vigorous interaction, but I had no idea then that my hardest assignment, – the most would be the most demanding of me as an apologist, would be on Wednesday at Rietvallei Church.
After the two and a half our drive from Potcheftroom University, I was to meet with about 7 pastors from various churches, and introduce them to the current debate surrounding the question of Origins and the Age of the Earth by comparing the 4 broad views that are held by thinkers on the subject: 3 views holding to an Old Earth/Universe – the Atheistic Evolutionary View, The Theistic Evolutionary View, and the Old Earth Creationist View, and 1 view on the Young Earth side, the Young Earth Creationist View. The purpose of my talk was not to pick one view and promote it over the others, but rather to give an overview to the pastors so that they would have a point of reference when addressing the issue with their congregations. My method consisted of explaining each view, with the critique of that view as offered by proponents of the other 3 views.
When we started the discussion at 10 am, we actually had closer to 13 since several others had joined the pastors. I was asked to give a bit of background about myself, at which time I mentioned that I had spent almost 5 years as a kid in Nigeria (West Africa). I then started the presentation with the Atheistic Evolutionary view and then moved on to the others. I soon found out I could not proceed because of heated emotional reactions from 2 individuals, one of whom was a pastor with some very liberal views. After wrongly assuming that I had come there to attack evolution(which was their view), they became so distraught that they could not let me proceed with the rest of the presentation. I saw very quickly that I had my work cut out for me, and that the most important thing I could do at that point was to keep my emotions in check and make firm but peaceful progress through my powerpoint slides. These two men also happened to be well versed in science, while everyone else were not, leading to the interesting dynamic that the more I spent time on their questions, the less the rest of the group understood what the simplest issues were.
Finally the Senior pastor who had called the meeting intervened and pulled the 2 men back, giving me the signal to continue. For the next 60 minutes, the senior pastor and the apologetics team leader who had brought me there took turns repeatedly intervening to gently dissuade the two men from trying the lead the discussion down rabbit trails, while I focused on maintaining composure and remaining flexible to the questions that everyone put to me. I finally got to the end of the presentation, but this did not mean that the questions and criticisms ended, because one of the individuals decided to occupy the next 30 minutes of my time (which was supposed to be for coffee break and informal discussion) with a monologue in which he vigorously set forth his views with various printouts while I munched on snacks and sipped on coffee and listened respectfully. In fact when it was time to go, he followed me out to the parking lot, and made my team leader wait, while we tried to finish the “conversation”.
That was the first session. I returned to Rietvallei in the evening at 7pm this time to address their congregation on the subject of the Scientific Accuracy of the Bible. This was significantly easier than the morning session, despite the vigorous question/answer session. In fact, we discussed a wide variety of issues pertaining to Intelligent Design, the significance of the doctrine of Creation to Christianity, and the debt of Scientific progress in the West to the success of Christianity. But when it was all over, the senior pastor, an elderly gentleman of fatherly bearing came to speak with me. He apologized saying he really did not anticipate the individual who had tried to monopolize the discussion time, but was particularly touched at the manner in which I had dealt with the situation. He expressed how happy he was that I had spoken that evening as well, and considered the subject matter on which I had spoken to be a difficult one. But I could tell that it was the morning session about which he was particularly happy. He made reference to the fact that I lived in Africa before, and said to me over and over again, in his thick Afrikaaner accent, “Thankyou for coming back to Africa!”. The thing is, I could see that he really meant it from the bottom of his heart, and that made me feel extremely small, realizing how little I deserved that kind of compliment from someone of his bearing and years of service to Christ.
Having had time to reflect on the difficulties of that day, and the comments of that pastor, I have come to a new realization of the importance of the second half of what has become the flagship verse of Christian Apologetics – 1 Peter 3:15 “…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”. At seminary, for the past 5 years, I have had the privilege of training to make that defense. But for the ability to demonstrate any degree of “gentleness and respect” in the face of opposition, I can take no credit – that has always been a matter of grace. God poured grace upon me that day, plain and simple. That day has reminded me that being in the kind of relationship with God that enables one to receive grace for difficult situations will remain for me the hardest part of being an apologist.
