BY STEVEN RAY BOWEN
Body
Part 2
Welcome to the “Front-Porch.”
“What about Jesus?” Stroebel asks gently, after a long silence. “What do you think about Jesus?” The answer is surprising.
That’s how we concluded our previous “front-porch” visit.
In his book “The Case for Faith,” journalist Lee Stroebel finally comes to that question in his affable interview with the 83-year-old Charles Stapleton, one of the rare men to turn from evangelism to atheism.
We entitled the first segment, “The Atheist’s Surprising Admission,” but we changed the title for this second segment. Admission doesn’t seem to fit the case best, for what he says isn’t forced out of him at all. He offers his view of Jesus Christ freely, his answer flowing from his heart as effortlessly as it had when he was preaching Jesus years before. It was natural, it was honest.
Templeton’s answer is greater than surprising, too. Yes, it is surprising, but more, it is gentle.
The better title, I think, is the one you now see, “The Atheist’s Gentle Sentiment,” for Mr. Templeton’s answer is truly a gentle, heartfelt response that clearly erupts from a tired and confused heart.
Perhaps there’s a lesson in all of this regarding our own Christianity. We cannot stand in agreement with someone, even an atheist, and still show the proper respect and have true Christian affection for the one sitting across from us. Sometimes we forget that requirement of being a Christian. Jesus looked at the rich young ruler who would walk away from Him unconverted, and “loved him.”
Back to Stroebel’s question: I’ve always thought it is one of the greatest questions to roll off of the human tongue, “What about Jesus?”
It is one we all have to answer, not so much with our lips but with our lives.
Mr. Templeton answers without hesitation. He speaks for a while as favorably about the man Jesus as you or I would about one of our best friends.
In the midst of his careful, measured answers, his demeanor changes.
“His body softened,” Stroebel writes, and the elderly gentleman lets down his guard and opens up about the Jesus he once served. He says that Jesus was a moral genius, that he was the wisest of all men, and, as if it were an honor for him to say it, he calls Him “the greatest human being who has ever lived.”
“I was taken aback,” Stroebel says, and he engages Stapleton further:
“You sound as if you really care about him,” he suggests.
That’s when Templeton utters words that still ring in Stroebel’s mind.
“Well, yes,” Templeton replies, “He’s the most important thing in my life.”
Then – almost as if those dark storm clouds that had long gathered deep within the atheist’s soul begin to part, and the sun that shines through once more – he adds:
“I adore him.”
That was the first shot heard around the world. It takes Stroebel back, but he waits quietly as Templeton gathers his thoughts.
Slowing down with emotions building up, his voice cracks.
Time crawls for both the journalist and his new friend. They had come to a defining moment, and they both knew it. Stroebel wonders what could come next, what more could come beyond that honest assessment of, “I adore him.”
But there was more, and it was as shocking a thing as Stroebel may have ever heard.
Humbly, and quietly, his face softer than perhaps it had been for years, Templeton, almost in a whisper, says, “I miss him.”
Tears begin to flood down the face of the sad atheist, and he turns his head away, his shoulders bobbing as he wept.
Time stands still.
Perhaps he had just made the greatest confession that could be made to attest to the glory of Jesus, and that by an espoused atheist. But Mr. Templeton can go no further. How could he? He had said it all, though still a step away from faith.
I wonder how many times those tender words echoed through Stroebel’s head as he left that Toronto high-rise and made his flight back home to Chicago. The words have echoed through my own ever since I read them on that flight home that day from Atlanta:
“I miss him.”
Surely, I thought, looking down at the soft, gentle clouds below, it is the greatest confession an atheist has ever made.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.
