Ann wrote:
So the thing is, Terry, my relatives really scared me. For all their warmth and smiles and easy laughter, for all their generosity and hospitality, for all their jokes and all their songs, they scared me. Because when you didn't behave the way they wanted you to behave - even if it was about small things like sewing a button on a blouse on a Sunday or seeing a movie in a movie theater instead of on TV, they could condemn you to hell. Because, bottom line, they knew that they were good and other people weren't. They knew that they had God on their side, and if they didn't like you and things turned sour for you, it was God who punished you like they knew he would.
All that I have said right now describes a small circle of Swedish Pentecostalists in the sixties and seventies on an island with a population of about 3,000.
I have no direct knowledge of the people to whom Ann is referring. I don't know any of them personally, nor have I ever spoken to them about their beliefs and practices. Were I to do so, I suspect that I would find areas of both agreement and disagreement.
And I defend Ann's right to be bothered by their actions towards her. If she is relating these incidents accurately - and I have absolutely no doubt that this is her intention - then she has a right to have hard feelings towards them.
My problem is not that she feels the way she does, it is because Ann paints all Christians with the same brush with which she paints her relatives and those in that community. Her very valid negative feelings towards that group of people color her feelings towards people she's never met, like the folks in Branson and Wasilla. This isn't fair to either the folks in those towns or to Ann herself.
I applaud Ann's cousin for remaining married for more than forty years. That's not an easy thing to do in any culture, and both he and his wife are to be highly commended for staying together through all the tough times every married couple goes through, with the added social pressure from that community of Pentecostalists.
But here's the kicker, Ann. All of these bad experiences do not mean that every Believer in the world is like those folks. It does not mean that the church-going population in Brandon and Wasilla is like them. It doesn't even mean that every believer signed onto these boards is like them. You are doing the very same thing you rightly condemn in their actions, Ann - you are condemning others for believing and acting differently from you.
Maybe you would be uncomfortable in either of those towns. Maybe you wouldn't. Neither of us will ever know unless you have the opportunity to visit them and get to know the people there. I ask only that you not pre-judge people and allow them to unfold themselves before you without any preconceptions on your part.
Actually, that's pretty good advice for all of us. I think I'll try to take it myself.
