Yesterday I was interviewed by a student from St Scholastica who had an assignment to interview a spiritual leader from a different faith than your own. She identified herself as pagan. SHe was pleasant and gracious and had some questions that ran deeper than outward expressions of my faith.
To my surprise we spent two and a half hours talking together. She was raised catholic and I would say her view of following Jesus was based on individualism, religion, and morality. As we talked and I shared my journey of faith from conservative evangelical to mennonite values, I think she was surprised to see christianity centered around love, Jesus, community, and reconciliation.
I wondered after this conversation if this was the first time I had ever practiced evangelism. Evangelism is after all sharing the good news of what Jesus' life, teachings, example, death and resurrection mean for the world. It was an invigorating conversation that was not about threats of hell, or arguing smaller points of theology. It was about the story that I believe to be true, the way we are living out that story now, and how my view of how the story ends. I realized that over the past 5 years, each of these has shifted in almost a directly opposite way.
I am hoping that I can develop the kinds of friendships with folks of other faiths, or no faith, that cen lead to more of these conversations!!
