More Than I Can Bear

A few years ago a close friend (whom I’ll call Tom) convinced me, against my better judgment, to visit the Sunday school class that he and his wife were attending. It was in a fundamentalist Baptist church. He was so pleased with his experience there that my wife and I finally gave in. We attended for several years, primarily because of our friendship with Tom. Tom and his wife did many things to get us deeply involved in the church. As time went by I noticed that I was the only one in the class that raised questions about their religion’s basic assumptions, like the infallibility of the Bible, for instance. I’ve noticed that this lack of questioning is typical, at least in the churches I’ve attended.

After a while, I suspected that Tom was becoming increasingly displeased with my slow Christian growth, as he saw it. This was undoubtedly confirmed when he invited me for lunch one day and used that occasion as a springboard to pressure me to “wake up and smell the coffee.” He said, “Don’t you know you’re going to die?” Well, excuse me, but the reality of death was made very real to me when both my mother and my father died. Moreover, Tom and I had by that time had many discussions about my doubts about Christianity, including the very foundation of the religion. Apparently, those discussions had merely caused Tom to view me as a problem for him to set straight. He didn’t take my doubts seriously and never answered any of my questions.

Later I joined a weekly men’s “share group” that sprang from the Sunday school class. One of the regulars was a young man I’ll call Earl. It was common knowledge that Earl had emotional and maturity problems. Earl had had a very difficult childhood. On one occasion, when no one but Earl and I attended the group meeting, he told me all about his troubled history. His father had been a terror and had even tried to kill him. Earl had never experienced parental love or, I suspected, any other kind of love. He had never been a success at anything. No wonder; he was depressed. I suggested that he seek psychiatric treatment and explained to him that, with the right medication and counseling, he could experience substantial improvement. But it was not to be.

When it was time for Earl to become the leader of the men’s group (the leadership rotated among the members), he was excited about it. Even though he didn’t have a steady job, he insisted on taking each of the regular group members to dinner at his expense. He wanted to go over his ideas for the group. I thought that this leadership position might work out well for him and give him some much-needed self confidence. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

At a meeting a couple of months after Earl had been selected as leader, he used a disgusting word out loud in a meeting. He said “shit.” A man whom I’ll call Pope Innocent was there that night and didn’t mince words in telling Earl that he did not appreciate his language, particularly when spoken on holy grounds. I thought, “Well, shit!” (A few months later Pope Innocent left his wife of 20 years and ran off with a sweet young thing whom he had met doing the Lord’s work. No kidding.)

Earl was removed as leader of the men’s group because “his behavior was not appropriate for a Christian leader.” I told my friend Tom that I thought the decision was a bad mistake, but my opinion made no difference.

As you may have guessed, Earl committed suicide, a few months after he was ditched as leader of the men’s group. The first Sunday after his death, the leader of the Sunday school class, who a few years previously had been a part of Tom’s class, stood before the two classes joined for the purpose of honoring Earl.  Earl’s widow was also present. The class leader said something like the following:

“Today is a time to honor and remember Earl. His wife is here with us. It is not the time to ask why this happened. We can discuss that at a later date. Now is that time for love and compassion.”

The thinking as I saw it was, “We never can be too careful to protect Earl’s poor widow from that infidel (me), who might say just about anything. What if he were to ask how this could happen, in view of the fact that the Bible says that God will never make us Christians bear more than we can handle?”

Tom was clearly behind this announcement, which I felt was directed at me. I was the only person who from time to time raised any questions about the “right” beliefs that a Christian should have.

This is just one example of how blind true believers can be. I think Tom really believed that since I (his catch) wouldn’t be the star true believer that he had envisioned, and that I had clearly demonstrated how insensitive I could be by asking all those diabolical questions, I couldn’t possibly be concerned about the feelings of Earl’s grieving widow. He thought I was unable to discern things that he, as a Christian, knew.

Needless to say, the question of how the suicide of a true Christian could be reconciled with the belief that God will never make a Christian bear more than he or she can handle (which must be true) was never discussed in any later class. Nor, to my memory, was Earl.

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