(no subject)

[titusnowl]

Evangelical Christian literature (I see a lot of it at work) is full of stories in which strangers walk up to the Christian and say "I've heard you're Christian, so I was hoping you could help me - a group of us have been reading the Bible together, and none of us are Christians. Could you help us find someone to lead us in a Bible study?" It's often on a college campus.

I can't imagine this ever actually happening in real life. Who goes out of their way to find a bunch of other non-Christians to read the Bible, and then has so much trouble finding a Christian that they have to go around begging complete strangers for Bible study help? It just seems odd. Do people really believe this? Does this actually happen regularly?

Comments

[welfy.livejournal.com]

I know a couple people at Geneva who have said that has happened to them. I don't know about it being regular though.

Re:

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

Wow... that's interesting. I guess it's just so far out of my realm of experience that I couldn't imagine it. Then again, almost everyone that I know personally holds his or her religion because (s)he was raised in it, and those who are not Christian are either Muslim/Jewish/otherwise very strongly not going to suddenly decide they want to convert en masse, or atheist after a very conscious decision that was made with a great deal of thought. The only Bible study groups I've had contact with were either arranged by a church, or were arranged by a group of people who were already Christian but were seeking a deeper or different understanding of it.

Re:

[chikkiboo.livejournal.com]

I should add that I do know of cases - more than a few, in fact - where someone who was atheist, agnostic, or merely nonpracticing has individually come to what we could call a "crisis of non-faith," and become more interested in religion, thus seeking out a Christian friend or acquiantance in order to better learn what it is to be a Christian. I just don't know of any cases where a large group of people all had crises at the same time and came to that conclusion. Nor of a group of people all deciding at once to read a book of a religion they do not follow.

Unless you count the Kama Sutra - is that a religious text or purely secular?

Re: Kama Sutra

[vespered.livejournal.com]

It's meant to be religious, although it can be taken secularly.