I ended up meeting with the preacher on Tuesday; we went to a coffee shop, had some good coffee, and talked. It went well enough: he was respectful of me being doubtful (to put it mildly) about the Christian faith, and had no problems with me being honest about my thoughts on the matter.
I did pose some questions which he wasn’t able to answer adequately, at least in my opinion, but I sort of expected that. For example:
1. What happens to good people who live their lives in a “good way”, but do not accept Christ, etc.? (Say, the Dalai Lama, for example.) His response was that the scriptures say that Christ is the only real way to God, but furthermore, God would judge each person by their own unique features, etc. That seemed a bit of a cop out to me, but he at least made an attempt. What that would mean for all of the great Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. in the world, I’m not sure.
2. I brought up that Jesus fit the “hero mold” exceptionally well, which made me doubt the historicity of the figure. He said the scriptures state that Jesus was indeed a historical figure and everything in the Bible really happened.
The second question highlighted what I see as a major problem with trying to talk about such things with Christians: they take the Bible as fact, as a perfect historical source, if you will - which just isn’t the case.
He did not, as some of you expected, try to convert me. (Truth be told, I expected it, too, at least slightly.) I stated a few times that I was not, in any sense of the word, Christian, and he said that was fine, that he understood, etc. While I did get the sense that he hoped he was answering the questions in a way that might help “sway me”, he didn’t, in any fashion, come out right and say, “You should become Christian!”, or any such thing. All in all, while I don’t agree with his beliefs, the discussion was enjoyable. He was respectful, I was respectful, and the coffee was excellent.
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