"...the substantiation of things not seen"

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, religion, roadside attractions

I suppose we all know the parody, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," that ends with the lines:

Some folks say they don't believe in Santa.
But me and Grandpa, we believe.

Why did they believe? They saw something. "Seeing is believing," we are told; Missouri is the "Show Me" state. So what are we to make of it when Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen, but have believed." And a decade or so later, Paul writes, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the word of God."

Yet the God of the Bible is also a God of signs. The most stirring passages of the Bible are those that describe a strong image: the four winged creatures with four faces each, accompanied by four sets of "wheels within wheels" in the opening verses of Ezekiel; the "one like the Son of Man" standing among lampstands, with blazing white skin and hair, fiery eyes, and a sword coming from his mouth from Revelation; or the "Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven" with her gemstone foundations, gates of pearl, golden street (only one street), centered on God as her Light.

Somebody once told me, "A Christian is someone who has seen Jesus." So we see also in the Bible, criticisms of those who "see but do not perceive." It is one thing to have a certain view pass before your eyes. It is another to take in what you see, to be altered by it.

My Christian walk began with something I saw. This was five years before I ever prayed to "receive Jesus," so I was barely a teen. At a church camp, there was a "child evangelist." I remember only one thing from his message. Before he spoke, we had a communion service: bits of bread and little paper cups with grape juice. We were told to hold onto the cups. At some point in the man's message, he asked us to unfold the cups. The juice had stained them with a cross. I was really touched. Somehow, the "blood of the cross" was made real to me. Afterward, I wandered alone in the forest nearby, and began to try to talk with God. Though the feeling soon faded, I think without it I never would have received the Gospel five years later.

There is another experience I had, more years later. I was a member of a conservative Congregational church, and got discouraged. They really don't know how to nurture young believers. I'd become over-taxed, and seen some very sad things. I couldn't believe they were God's church, any more. I removed myself from Christian fellowship for several years, but would sometimes talk to God. When I felt a particular need, I'd "send up a flare," as I liked to call it. At a time that I was ready, I came into contact with some believers, with whom I remain in contact and fellowship, now 33 years later.

Timothy K. Beal, a professor of religion in Cleveland, has written Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith. He chronicles in some detail ten places that one finds along America's highways, places created by believers who were driven from within—by God, they all believe(d)—to evangelize people who might come by. These ten have become tourist attractions, but one hopes that, among the tourists, some gain something real of God.

My latter experience is pertinent to my understanding of Professor Beal. He reveals much of himself as he writes. Indeed, in this conclusion, he has written, "This is not the book I thought I was writing...it is the book I needed to write." He and his wife grew up in conservative evangelical groups. His wife in a charismatic congregation, himself probably among the Brethren or a similar group.

Speaking for himself, he related how, on several occasions, he could really empathize with the people who were most affected by the display, yet felt himself at a remove. He is the perfect picture of someone who was once in a spiritual atmosphere, then at college picked up a very intellectualized belief, and finds himself longing to restore the spiritual contact he'd lost. His closing words, of how he prays, indicate he's begun the journey. For this I rejoice.

An aside, then a bit more about the book. Today's shrinks say we are a "mind-body," that there's nothing but meat up there, and a sort of conscious computer program that runs on our "meat computer." A couple of generations ago, dualism was the standard, body and mind. The Bible shows, and any mystic can relate by experience, that a person is a trinity, not a duality or a monism. We have a spirit, a soul, and a body. The soul consists of the mind, the emotion, and the will. These are our psychological organs.

The human spirit is not our soul. It is a spiritual organ, designed to contact God and the spirits of fellow believers. When we receive Jesus, our human spirit is enlivened with the Holy Spirit. This is once-for-all and permanent. When we speak of the "salvation of the soul," this is the lifelong process of spiritual growth, "being renewed in the spirit of the mind," leading to a spiritual adult, whose soul is subject to the spirit within. This gradual, daily salvation is conditional on our cooperation with God.

The final "hope of eternal salvation" is to gain a glorified body. This is God's doing, and will transpire in an instant, when we are ushered into glory.

Now, why do we seem to so need material reminders of spiritual things? We are hard of hearing, spiritually speaking. God will use any means to gain us. Some may scoff at a replica of Noah's Ark being build in Maryland with steel girders, or a mini-golf course with biblical themes (there are many), or a collection of rosaries, or any of the various Passion Plays conducted around the nation (my favorite is in Spearfish, SD).

Some may be horrified at a ten-acre expanse of crosses and old appliances with messages like "HELL HOT" and "SINNER HELL WAITS FOR YOU," and very few with "JESUS LOVES YOU." But that might be what it takes to open a few lost hearts. Only God knows.

Professor Beals visited these places, was variously touched, repelled, and finally drawn by the sincerity of the people who conduct such works. A theme finally comes out. They are all like Noah, whose Ark was his sermon to a lost world. Beals uses the term "outsider religion," for these kinds of expression. To me, at least some of them are the real insiders.