Witnessing

MY FATHER, an attorney, and my mother, a nurse, mercifully withheld religious instruction, and shielded me from any evangelical tendencies of my devout votary grandmothers. Thus I became aware of the term "witness" in context with secular jurisprudence long before I was ever aware that it also embodies any religious meaning. I lost my Christian witness virginity much later, in my late teens, on a tennis court, playing doubles with a fellow pantheist against a team of true believers. We won, naturally. At the end of days and tennis matches, I maintain that enlightened spirituality trumps rigid, barbaric dogma. My Christian tennis buddies fully intended to be, and in my opinion genuinely were, good Christian witnesses, insofar as I understood the concept. I vaguely recall something in the Bible about witnessing for the lord, and vaguely wondering why the architect and builder of the universe would need witnesses, per se. The lord's works are ubiquitously on display. The sun rises and sets with sublimely designed reliability. Are we not all aware of, witnesses to the work of the creator, regardless of our particular religious beliefs or lack thereof? One of my tennis playing witness friends was at the time, the mid nineteen seventies, greatly excited about his forthcoming trip to Texas, to participate in an archeological dig with a group of like minded diggers whose purpose was to unearth proof that the world is a mere six thousand years old, rather than the widely scientifically accepted four point five billion. If they succeeded, they either chose not to share their success, or the news media and the Christian community conspired to conceal it, neither possibility of which seems likely. My other tennis playing witness to Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, God, or whomever, was fixing at the time to visit the still extant Soviet Union with a group of devotees for the stated purpose of smuggling a horde of Bibles into the godless, evil empire, for illicit distribution among the unsaved Russian proletariat. I expressed my concern that my friend and his comrades might not return safely from Russia with love; quite predictably, my fear fell flat. Fortunately for them and soviet-American relations, they made it back, having flouted Russian law, Biblical admonitions to always obey local secular law and authorities, the travelers admonition "do as the Romans do", and common, simple, sane sense. A witness, it turns out, is a person through whose words and actions the Christian faith is typified and exemplified, for the purpose of serving God, serving as an example unto all the world, or both. Even if it means flagrantly abusing one's status as a visitor in a foreign land, or pursuing the seemingly hopeless task of disproving, by digging up ancient artifacts and dinosaur bones, solid, simple, well established science. My entire life Christians have been trying to turn me into a Christian, but I cannot recall a single instance in which I have tried to convert anyone, Christina or otherwise,, to my beliefs. Why? My assumption has always been, and remains, that all people of all faiths are as intelligent as I, and better qualified than I to determine their own religious beliefs. It just seems so obvious. My tennis player Christian friends were once admonished at church that they really shouldn't be fellowshiping with non believers, on a tennis court, or anywhere else. Their response to their sanctimonious colleagues, they told me, was that it is sick people who require a doctor, and it is the unsaved who require the company of Christian witnesses. They evinced not the slightest comprehension that this explanation was a great insult to me. I refrained from telling them; good friends, Christian or otherwise, are hard to find, and, besides, good tennis players are even harder to find.