By Vonnie Mostat

“I ASKED for something about your life, not something with religious connotations.”

With a smirk, the instructor looked around the classroom, as if for confirmation. “Personally, I feel that all Christians need a crutch.”

I was shocked. The journalism instructor had just broken into the middle of my oral presentation. What kind of person interrupts someone’s presentation just to belittle her? It is one thing to critique the presentation once the person is finished; it’s quite another to interrupt and make fun of the person.

Finishing, red-faced, I sat down. I was taking a journalism course to hone my skills. I was here for training, not to have someone debase my subject matter or attack my faith.

He really is arrogant, I thought.

To talk about my life story, as I had been asked to do, must obviously include my Saviour – even though I had not deliberately made it an occasion to evangelize.

I pondered. Should I just leave it and suffer his insults, or should I look upon this as an opportunity?

“Anyone who has to hang on to an invisible figurehead to get them through this life,” the instructor continued, “might as well choose the tooth fairy or Santa. At least they give you money or toys.” This was accompanied by a big chuckle from him, and from some of the other students, too.

That was it!

I stood up again. I held out my trembling left hand and pointed to my wedding rings.

“See these?” I said softly. “I am married to a wonderful man. Do you take on faith what I just said?”

“Well, you are either married, or you are divorced or widowed and have forgotten to take off your rings,” he responded.

I ignored him. “If you believe what I say, that is faith. I know my husband is alive and real, and nothing you can say will make any difference.

“You have faith, when you go to bed at night, that you are going to wake up in the morning. When you reach out in the dark to turn on the light, you trust that it is actually going to turn on. When you put the key in the ignition, you have faith that your car will turn on. Though not as reliable as my faith in the word of God, you use faith every day in your life.”

He obviously wanted me to sit down and get off the subject. “How do you know there is a heaven?” he said.

“How can you be sure there isn’t?” I responded.

“I look upon Christians as weak cripples, unable to stand on their own, clinging to an unsubstantiated hope that they are going to live forever,” he went on.

He was loud and officious. It was his course, and that meant he was right and I was wrong. That should have been the end of the matter.

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But I wasn’t ready to finish, and remained standing.

“Have you ever read the Bible?” I asked.

He flapped his right hand and shook his head no.

“You obviously have an enquiring mind, or you wouldn’t be a journalist,” I said. “The Bible tells us that if we seek, we will find, and that we will find God if we search for him with all our heart.”

I sat down. I was shaking and out of breath.

The instructor endeavoured to get back onto his belittling track but it was too late. He admitted he had never read the Bible, never researched the subject.

Had I shouted? Been rude? No. In fact, I had spoken softly and far more respectfully than he had spoken to me.

“Can we put this down to a difference of opinion, then?” he said. He chuckled – but did not draw any laughter from the other students this time.

After class, as we made our way out, the instructor pulled me aside.

“I wasn’t attempting to make fun of your life,” he said, “merely to point out that fact stands on past history. Faith is like keeping your fingers crossed. Thus, only the weak need a crutch.”

I shook, but amazingly my voice did not. I am seldom at a loss for words, but finding the right ones is often a different matter.

“God is as real to me as my husband is,” I said. “I know my husband is alive. I can feel him. That is the way God is for me, real and vital. The only wooden thing I cling to is not a crutch, but the cross of Jesus Christ.

“Your words may have caused some of the other students in this room to question, but they have not made a difference to my faith. My beliefs are solid.

“I know where I am going. Obviously you don’t. I challenge you to find out before you call someone’s beliefs a crutch or before death stares you in the face. Until you can prove there is no Christ or heaven, how can you say differently?

“I challenge you to not make blanket statements like you have just made without seriously searching for the real Christ.

“Read the Book of John, read the entire New Testament. While you are at it, read the book of Isaiah, which was written thousands of years before the birth of Christ yet tells about his birth and crucifixion.”

I had to stop. I was not only out of breath, but I was also on the borderline of being discourteous, and likely failing the course. That he had belittled me was no excuse to bring myself down to his level.

I had not started the debate, but I felt that if I did not stand up for my beliefs, this man would try this tactic again with another Christian – perhaps one far younger in the faith than I am.

I still pray for him, that the enquiring mind of this intelligent journalist will cause him to pick up a Bible – and find an unshakable faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that he will discover the real God, who will change his life forever.

Vonnie Mostat attends South Langley Church.

August 2010