A tale of two conversations about god
When I was a student at Auckland university, I got involved with a number of student social clubs, as you do.
One was the university role playing club which was called AMERICA, a rather tortured acronym which stood for ‘Association for Middle-Earth Role playing and Individual Character Assimilation’.
Don’t blame me – I didn’t name it. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. I did get elected to be the club President at one point which meant I could make the obvious joke. It wasn’t funny then either.
But that’s not really the topic of this post.
More importantly, I was part of the formation of a completely new student group, the Auckland University Freethinkers, which was a small and loose association of assorted atheists, agnostics, and sceptics.
We formed partly in response to the growing presence of the Evangelical Union on campus. This was a cross-denominational Christian group which seemed to draw mainly from conservative Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.
They were hard to miss and a consistent presence in the Quad, which was a common area that formed one of the twin hubs of the student social sphere, the other being Shadows, the student drinking-hole.
Student life seemed to have these two extremes, the hedonistic binge-drinking culture on one side, and the moralising of the Evangelical Union on the other.
I guess the Freethinkers wanted to show there was a third way.
Some of the more fired-up individuals in the Freethinkers got involved in a series of public debates with the Evangelical Union. I’m not sure whether they challenged us, or we challenged them – not that it really mattered as there were people on both sides who were obviously spoiling for the fight.
I can’t remember all the debate topics, this being close to 20 years ago now. But I do recall one on Creation versus Evolution, a perennial favourite at the time, as well as one on the Historicity of Christ.
The debates proved to be fairly disappointing affairs, at least to me.
The Evangelical Union speakers had the standard prepared talking points, and the Freethinker speakers had the standard retorts.
It was all accompanied by much booing, hissing and jeering from the audience which was usually dominated by Evangelical Union supporters. In hindsight, this wasn’t that surprising given their higher levels of organisation and commitment.
So the debates ended up as largely theatrical performances which did draw a mixture of students eager to see the spectacle but as exercises in communication, they were abject failures.
The Freethinkers were taken under the wing of the NZ Rationalist and Humanist Association whose headquarters were just up the road from the University at Rationalist House.
At the time, it felt strange and a little daunting to be such a young face surrounded by those who seemed so much older and wiser. But they were very welcoming and keen to encourage us and treated us very generously.
That year the Religious Society of Friends, who are more commonly known as Quakers, extended an invitation to attend one of their Summer gatherings to all members of the Rationalist Association.
These were week long residential camps held in different parts of the country each year where Quakers would come together and share in discussions, picnics, walks, fun and relaxation.
I’d never met any Quakers before so I decided to join the Rationalists who were attending, along with a few of the other Freethinkers.
As I recall, this particular gathering was held at a camp ground near Wanganui. The Quakers were also mostly much older than I was but they were just as welcoming, friendly and genuinely curious.
The group discussions between the Rationalists and the Quakers were wonderful to be a part of.
We talked about morality and ethics, faith and reason, life and death, science and spirituality.
No-one booed or hissed or talked over anyone. Indeed, at times we just sat in respectful silence thinking deeply about what the previous speaker had just said, until someone felt moved to respond.
Such is the way of Quakers.
The contrast between our debates with the Evangelical Union could not have been more stark.
I came to have a great deal of admiration and respect for these gentle, loving Christians who strived to live each day as a better person than the day before.
At the end of the gathering, one of the Quakers joked that we were all actually Quakers too, and just didn’t realise it.
If we could just get over this God business.
One of the Rationalists replied with a twinkle in his eye that he was thinking the same thing about the Quakers.
And they were both right.