Debunking a Belief

This is an email I wrote the night of an extraordinary evangelism conversation on the Wildwood Boardwalk in 2013. I wrote it to my best friends back home, who had recently helped at the Chapel for a week with others from our church.

July 27th, 2013

Tonight (which is really last night as I write at 1:30am), I had the coolest conversation with a complete stranger. My evangelism team consisted of two shy youth groupers and myself. We set off for the Dark Side at 11pm on the dot with only 43 minutes to have a conversation which lasted 62 minutes. I was on point and I approached the first convenient couple I saw: a man and woman who looked to be about mid to late twenties. I politely asked permission to talk with them about faith and God and they both readily agreed to "a few minutes". 

The man was instantly interested. They both introduced themselves as "Christians" though they did not agree with the truthfulness of the Bible. After just a few minutes, I learned that all the man wanted to do was discuss science, and the woman needed to work through specifics about her faith. God directed my youth groupers to talk to her while I talked with the man.

He was friendly, casual, and considered me an equal even though he was a high school chemistry teacher who left the faith when he turned 15. He respected my beliefs, even saying, "I have my beliefs, you have yours. You're trying to change mine, and that might happen, though I know I won't change yours." We established early on that this conversation was a fun discussion for the sake of the furthering of knowledge.

The cool part is, that's not what happened. I started off the conversation with creation, which he countered with the theory of evolution, agreeing completely that both are theories. (70% of the time, he was defining his beliefs, 30% I was either countering them with my own or countering them with his own.) I was able to convince him that evolution (from one species to a new one) has never been observed. 

We moved to fossils: I gave evidence for instant fossilization while he hypothesized about 10 billion year old fossilization. Gradual evolution within a species: countered with the example of the giraffe (which he actually brought up and I actually knew about. Thank you Grandma Bloom for elementary school chapel stories). Overpopulation countered with increased forestation. Individual standard of the right and wrong countered with Hitler. Beneficial chaos with the 2nd law of thermodynamics. God gave me words and I spoke them. The crazy thing was, every time I proved him wrong, he admitted I was right. I deconstructed his worldview and showed him the internal consistency of my own. It was amazing.

Ok, I have to expound on the whole giraffe thing. We were talking about evolution within species and he says "think about giraffes with those crazy nerves. What kind of a God makes up that stuff?" I said "Let's talk about that nerve. Evolution could not have known that the giraffe needed that." I explained the purpose of the special nerve in its neck and how it supplies oxygen to the giraffe's brain while it drinks, and how one mistake with the first giraffe ever from "old man evolution" would kill out the whole giraffe race. He says "so then magically you get another giraffe." and I said "from where? magically? You're a man of science. You can't bring magic into this." And that's how that went. Evolution within species means the total elimination of whole races with just one mistake.

Another line I love is when he said "total human homicide is ok because the universe doesn't care if humans are eliminated." I replied calmly with "God cares." "Why?" "He loves us."

Also something you'll appreciate, he said "No one can know anything for certain. All truths are relative." I replied with "that statement is universal." Stumped him. We smiled. Such a cool moment.

19 minutes past curfew, this guy and I were still at the top of our game when Sarah and Pastor Z came to collect us. It was then that I gave the couple Trusting Christ tracts and got their names. I still wish I could go back and talk to him, this time about why he can trust my worldview and how to "adopt" it for himself.

Please pray that that man looks to Christ for his answers, not himself. Also pray that the lady trusts Jesus with her life, not just her chart of morals.

Oh there is so much more...we talked about the flood, dioxyribonucleic acids, lab experiments, deserts expanding, the earth getting magically catapulted into the sun, desire for knowledge and religion, afterlife as carbon, Plato, entropy (which he actually denied), crazy crazy stuff!

That's about it. I thought you guys ought to know what I've been up to. I'm so excited I can't sleep. Oh well. Have a great weekend and keep praying!

Your friend on the front line:

Susanna