I had no choice with the smiling tract guys. And this time, I had no chance to talk with the yelling preacher. However, with these two in the tent, it was my choice. They had pitched their tent on the outskirts of the festival. I went and initiated a conversation. 

It was a Pride Festival in Holland, Michigan, held in a local park. Our church had sponsored a table. Alicia and I were on the team. The park is two-tiered. On the upper plateau, festival tents had been arranged in a quarter-mile long ellipsis. Three thousand souls had gathered. 

On the lower plateau, the couple had staked their tent, a hundred yards away. They were set apart.

I guessed them to be in their early 70s. Affixed to their tent was a big banner reading PRAYER. A cardboard placard stuck in the ground said, 

God is Love
Truth is Truth
Boys are Boys
Girls are Girls

I greeted them. At that point I did not tell them my name. I asked what church they were from. For most of their lives they had been Christian Reformed. Now they attend “Galilee Way” (a fictional name). The man said, “The parking lot is full every Sunday, because that church has the truth.”

“Yes,” I said, “And your sign talks about truth, too. But I think I disagree with your view of that” They responded with John 14:6. The man said, “You don’t believe in Absolute Truth?”

This brought to mind the yelling preacher up on the hill. He was, I suspected, the same one I had met at the “No Kings” protest in our town the month prior. That day he had been shouting from the sidewalk about hell. I crossed the street to meet him. 

A woman was telling him of her struggles with faith and church. Yelling preacher kept responding, “I’m just here to tell you the truth.” He was saying, “I have the truth.” I spoke with him how the truth of Jesus had been poisoned by MAGA and Trump. The woman turned, eyebrows raised, and thanked me. 

The yelling preacher raised the palms of his hands. “I’m not here to get into politics. I’m just here to speak the truth.” I wish I had asked him if he yells at people this way at Trump rallies. 

But now here in the prayer tent I said, “Yes, I do believe in Absolute Truth. I just don’t trust any human to apprehend it. I meet all kinds of Christians, each of whom fervently claim their own theological precision and to know exactly what God expects of other people. They all insist they possess God’s truth. You know where I have found some truth? When I meet with people in a heartfelt way, especially in their sufferings.” 

On the upper level of the park, gay and queer people were holding hands. People were wearing clothes you cannot buy in Holland’s shopping district. Many had wild hair colors too. There were families– little children and parents and teenagers. I saw the booths of local businesses. Booths for suicide prevention. Booths for health care. And nine booths sponsored by local churches. 

Back down here in the prayer tent, the couple challenged me to define love. 

“The unconditional peace and enthusiastic acceptance of God for all people,” I said.

The man said, “That sounds like universalism.”

I nodded. “Yep. That’s exactly what that is.”

They smiled with tight faces and said that God expects people to change. 

I agreed. “First, it seems to me, God wants us to change, down deep, in our attitudes about other people, and secondly to change in our attitudes about power and wealth.” 

The woman was not smiling quite as big as before. “I think you will be surprised when Jesus comes again.” 

“Yes, I fear that sometimes. I have lived my life so wrongly. Maybe you’re right. Maybe a great many people will be surprised. Maybe even people from Galilee Way.” She readily agreed, but still gave off an air that she would not be among the surprised.

They asked if I had seen the TV series Chosen and gushed over its depiction of Jesus. I said I had not and would not. Great as it might be, for me it would be yet another airbrushed fantasy of Jesus. I don’t need another one.

You can see that by now I was getting testy. I could feel myself becoming angry. I was angry because they kept wearing these pasted-on smiles. Because they were so sure of themselves. 

As were the guys with the tracts. Earlier, up on the hill, one of them had come up to me with that same condescending smile. He said, “Would you like to know about Jesus?” He held out a booklet. 

“I already know Jesus,” I told him. I can’t remember if I only thought, or actually said it out loud, “And I don’t want your version of him.” Yes, I was angry then, too.

The tract guys, the yelling preacher, and the prayer tent couple all seemed sure that no one else on that hilltop had any experience with Jesus. They are certain that none of the people at the Pride festival had ever thought about, prayed, sweated, or sought out God as they navigated their lives. They alone understand God’s true path and know God’s special code.  

The woman in the prayer tent asked my name. I gave her only, “Keith.” Then she figured it out. I’m not famous, but this is my hometown, and some people know my story. I apologized to her for not being more forthright. 

I had wanted to be just some anonymous person. But now she had identified me and could pigeon-hole me. Now, she could pity me. Each of her sentences ended in a downward lilt. She was sorry, so very sorry. She would pray for me. I said there was nothing to be sorry about. I am only thankful. 

What I meant is that I am thankful to have left her religion. I now believe that the message of Jesus has been twisted, enslaved, and nearly erased by centuries of human agendas. Whatever sins the prayer tent couple might imagine among the people on the upper plateau, they cannot be worse than the mishmash of idolatries, cruelties, and power games cooked up by American-made Christianity. 

Yelling preacher, the tract guys, and the prayer tent couple – I’d like to tell them that this is not how Jesus spread his message. He seems to have said various things to the wide array of people he met, with a message either soothing or stinging, but tailor-made for each person, situation, or gathering. If Jesus had a hell-focused, paint-by-numbers plan to gain earthly reward and entrance to heaven, he would have stood on street corners relentlessly pounding people with that boiler plate plan. But Jesus didn’t. And if you want to imagine Jesus smiling (it’s okay, I do too), then please, let’s imagine it as authentic, heartfelt, and warm.

I imagine Jesus smiling because I need to. What the couple in the tent, and the yelling preacher didn’t know – and I would never trust to tell them – is how miserable I am sometimes within myself. An unrelenting beast of lifelong depression is in me. That beast pummels me black and blue. Partly this is genetic. And partly, this is from a religion that branded the face of a furious, unpleasable, picky, choosy God onto my soul. 

I’ve been to conferences and stadium revivals. I have studied and prayed. I have “taken Jesus into my heart” hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. I have sought peace and preached peace, and have tried so very hard. If you want truth, here it is–conformity and conditional, fear-based love hasn’t worked for me. I, too, am seeking peace in my own skin. Wherever that is to be found, it’s not in this tent.

The tract guys, the couple in the tent  will not save me. They think I’m just one more hell-bound person on a hilltop. So be it. I’ve counted it all loss. 

I got up and left their little set-apart tent. With a twinge of hope, some eager expectation, and more than a bit of joyful freedom, I headed back up the hilltop.