Vacation Apologetics
I am sitting in the bedroom of my 326 sq. ft. camper in the middle of the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. There is a chill in the air -- literally and figuratively (which I'll explain in a minute) -- and I can hear the creek bubbling a foot behind me and I'm snuggled under my electric blanket. My kind of camping: a blend of God's Creation and my creature comforts!
My girls and I were at the clubhouse this afternoon when a super bus/rig rolled into the campground. Dad and two sons came in to check in. Dad was very friendly to the campground Managers and introduced his sons and said he had three more children in the camper (I blatently eavesdropped while they were adding up his expected charges, $2 extra per kid).
I thought, "Hmmm. Homeschoolers. A Tuesday afternoon, school-aged kids in a bus? Cool!" As soon as they walked away, my girls both said, "You think they're homeschoolers, Mom?" Hey -- they could be Catholic, with all those kids!
Within a couple of hours, they had settled in and two of the boys went fishing in the pond on the campground, which is in view of my camper's permanent site. I saw my youngest hobble down the hill from the clubhouse on her crutches (hurt ankle, an undiagnosed "abnormality", please pray, seeing the Orthopedic Surgeon on Thursday) and veer over to the pond to check out the new kids on the block (she's great at keeping up with the campground gossip).
About a half an hour later, both my girls come banging into the camper, faces flushed, bursting with excitement! "Mom!" said the youngest, "He said Catholics don't use the Bible!" Huh? She was so excited she could hardly stand it! "And he said we added books to the Bible, too!" (all this within the first half hour of meeting my girls.
"They're Baptist's, Mom" advised my oldest. "How can you tell?" I wanted to know. "They told us!" she said. As it turns out, I suspect they're Independent, Fundamentalist Baptists (yes, I'm stereotyping). The Mom wore the Homeschool Denim Jumper and the two daughters, 19 and 17, also wore dresses below their knees. Turns out their Dad is a Preacher, too.
They made several remarks about the Catholic Church during a domino game at the clubhouse later in the afternoon. Talking under his breath, the 16-year-old boy said something about how he could never be Catholic. And the younger, 12-year-old boy made a Catholic joke, '"Hey, do you want to see a Priest hiccup?" And he "crossed" himself but hit his chest (and the Son) twice, to indicate the hiccup. My girls didn't really think that was particularly funny but were not offended. They also asked if my girls were in a homeschool group (yes, they homeschool, too) and they told them no, that we weren't allowed to participate in any homeschool groups because of the Statement of Faith, and briefly why -- that we don't believe the Bible is our sole rule of faith. They told me other things that make me think that these boys will be back tomorrow and will attempt to plant their own seeds of doubt.
So my girls and I got the Bible out and I told them the two verses I thought they might get hit with: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 -- that proves that the Bible alone is our sole rule of faith. I reminded them to look at the verse beforehand, verse 15, which shows that these scriptures that Saint Paul refers to are the ones Timothy "has known from childhood", which means the Old Testament. Did they think they would want to admit that the Old Testament was all that we were to use? Here are the verses:
"15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
I suspect the boys might bring up something about "works" -- it's one of the Top Ten, isn't it? So we looked up Ephesians 2:8-9 and read it.
"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast."
The girls were appalled, and worried that this supported the Protestant point of view. I had them read it again WITH verse 10, and told them that Saint Paul, who wrote verses 8-9, surely meant for us to read verse 10!
"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
They might get hit with something about worshipping Mary, too, but they'll just laugh outright at that, it's so ludicrious to them!
Tomorrow will no doubt take care of itself. We leave early afternoon, anyway, so our opportunities to interact with these children is limited. I post this, primarily for you to know that this is a constant thing -- these subtle snide remarks and misinformation that we encounter where we live.
We are aliens in a foreign land. We even have to brush up on our apologetics while on vacation.
My girls and I were at the clubhouse this afternoon when a super bus/rig rolled into the campground. Dad and two sons came in to check in. Dad was very friendly to the campground Managers and introduced his sons and said he had three more children in the camper (I blatently eavesdropped while they were adding up his expected charges, $2 extra per kid).
I thought, "Hmmm. Homeschoolers. A Tuesday afternoon, school-aged kids in a bus? Cool!" As soon as they walked away, my girls both said, "You think they're homeschoolers, Mom?" Hey -- they could be Catholic, with all those kids!
Within a couple of hours, they had settled in and two of the boys went fishing in the pond on the campground, which is in view of my camper's permanent site. I saw my youngest hobble down the hill from the clubhouse on her crutches (hurt ankle, an undiagnosed "abnormality", please pray, seeing the Orthopedic Surgeon on Thursday) and veer over to the pond to check out the new kids on the block (she's great at keeping up with the campground gossip).
About a half an hour later, both my girls come banging into the camper, faces flushed, bursting with excitement! "Mom!" said the youngest, "He said Catholics don't use the Bible!" Huh? She was so excited she could hardly stand it! "And he said we added books to the Bible, too!" (all this within the first half hour of meeting my girls.
"They're Baptist's, Mom" advised my oldest. "How can you tell?" I wanted to know. "They told us!" she said. As it turns out, I suspect they're Independent, Fundamentalist Baptists (yes, I'm stereotyping). The Mom wore the Homeschool Denim Jumper and the two daughters, 19 and 17, also wore dresses below their knees. Turns out their Dad is a Preacher, too.
They made several remarks about the Catholic Church during a domino game at the clubhouse later in the afternoon. Talking under his breath, the 16-year-old boy said something about how he could never be Catholic. And the younger, 12-year-old boy made a Catholic joke, '"Hey, do you want to see a Priest hiccup?" And he "crossed" himself but hit his chest (and the Son) twice, to indicate the hiccup. My girls didn't really think that was particularly funny but were not offended. They also asked if my girls were in a homeschool group (yes, they homeschool, too) and they told them no, that we weren't allowed to participate in any homeschool groups because of the Statement of Faith, and briefly why -- that we don't believe the Bible is our sole rule of faith. They told me other things that make me think that these boys will be back tomorrow and will attempt to plant their own seeds of doubt.
So my girls and I got the Bible out and I told them the two verses I thought they might get hit with: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 -- that proves that the Bible alone is our sole rule of faith. I reminded them to look at the verse beforehand, verse 15, which shows that these scriptures that Saint Paul refers to are the ones Timothy "has known from childhood", which means the Old Testament. Did they think they would want to admit that the Old Testament was all that we were to use? Here are the verses:
"15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
I suspect the boys might bring up something about "works" -- it's one of the Top Ten, isn't it? So we looked up Ephesians 2:8-9 and read it.
"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast."
The girls were appalled, and worried that this supported the Protestant point of view. I had them read it again WITH verse 10, and told them that Saint Paul, who wrote verses 8-9, surely meant for us to read verse 10!
"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
They might get hit with something about worshipping Mary, too, but they'll just laugh outright at that, it's so ludicrious to them!
Tomorrow will no doubt take care of itself. We leave early afternoon, anyway, so our opportunities to interact with these children is limited. I post this, primarily for you to know that this is a constant thing -- these subtle snide remarks and misinformation that we encounter where we live.
We are aliens in a foreign land. We even have to brush up on our apologetics while on vacation.
posted by Dixie @ 6:40 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:37 AM,
Dixie said…
Update: Well, talk about a total letdown -- We didn't see one trace of the Baptist boys the next morning! My girls were all prepared, ready and anxious to face them the next morning, but they didn't darken their camper door. Hello? They're homeschoolers! Which probably means that THEY were studiously working on their academics, while we were still enjoying a vacation day!
This was a great opportunity to remind my girls that all we can do is plant seeds, and that we need to always be prepared to give a reason for our hope, WHEN ASKED. (1 Peter 3:15) And that they could rest assured that these Baptist boys had never met Catholics like them. That's a pretty radical seed, if you think about it.
Dixie
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