A couple of times in the last month I’ve been accosted by Evangelicals wanting to “witness” to me about their faith. I think this is more likely to happen to you if you live in the South, if you’re young, if you’re female, and if you like walking for exercise so that you’re often on foot in places where you might be accosted. Also my husband says that something about me must attract people who like to talk. He’s amazed how often random strangers (on planes, in line at the DMV, over the counter at the deli, etc.) will open up and start telling me all about themselves. Maybe I look friendly?

Anyway, unless I’m in a hurry to be somewhere, I usually let them tell me about Jesus. The conversation usually starts by either 1) offering me a Bible (which of course I don’t need) or 2) inviting me to some local church. In the latter case I promptly explain that I am Roman Catholic. This does not usually lead to the end of the conversation. They obviously think Catholics very much in need of conversion.

Obviously the game, if I decide to play, is turning the tables on them and using the opportunity to teach them something about Catholicism. Most of the time this is pretty easy to accomplish. Though they usually have a lot of Scripture memorized, most of these folks aren’t terribly theologically sophisticated, and the subjects they choose give me lots of good lead-ins. I like it when they ask me about whether I’ve “truly acknowledged my sins,” because that allows me to explain about the confessional and how great it is for helping us to deal with sin in a concrete way. I like it when they talk about all the evil non-Biblical “accretions” of the Catholic church, because then (in addition to pointing out that the “Sola Scriptura” principle fails its own test) I can give a rudimentary explanation of what liturgy is, and why it is not, as so many seem to think, a form of Pelagianism. I love it when they ask whether I think “the spirit really dwells” in my church, since it enables me to get into an explanation of what a Church really is, which as Protestants they naturally don’t understand.

There’s just one for which I can’t find a satisfactory answer. What should I say when they ask whether I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Personal Lord and Savior?

To Evangelicals, this is often at the heart of the faith. This is what it really comes down to: accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. To answer, “well, let me qualify that a bit…” causes a shadow to pass over their faces. I’m equivocating. Just what they would have expected from a Catholic.

But I can’t answer ‘yes’ either, because that question is loaded with so many misunderstandings that it wouldn’t be right to endorse it. The errors mostly break down, I suppose, into two. First, that “accepting” Christ is a kind of discrete event, clearly recognizable to the believer himself. Many Evangelicals think it’s something that can be done once and for all, and that once they’ve been “saved” they’ll be henceforth assured of salvation. It would be impious to kill themselves at once to attain the goal, and yet, presumably it would work. But even those who don’t endorse the once-saved-always-saved doctrine do tend to think of the “accepting” as a fairly definite and recognizable event, apparently marked by particular warm emotions that certify its authenticity.

The second mistake is to think of the “personal” relationship as the most fundamental. This individualistic approach ties into all the Protestant confusions concerning authority, the nature of a Church, and all the rest of it. To a Protestant mind, an unmediated Jesus-and-Clara relationship should be the most basic one for my religious life. Churches are just organizations for people who have something in common (namely, a personal relationship with Christ), and their main function is to help strengthen the “personal” relationship. When it comes down to it, a Protestant church is really a kind of religious club, and fellow members are more or less just fellow Christianity enthusiasts.

Of course, these are both serious confusions. Accepting grace is not just a matter of a snap decision, and I’m not necessarily in a position to know when I’ve done it. And while it isn’t always bad to contemplate Our Lord loving me personally, it’s really most helpful to think of him as the Head of the Body of Christ of which I’m a member. It’s in and through the Church that we come to know her founder. If we think of Christian life as first and foremost a private sojourn, there are no guarantees as to what we’ll really find.

For all these reasons, a simple ‘yes’ doesn’t seem an appropriate answer to The Evangelical Question. That would be scandalous. But deconstructing the question as I did here would be difficult. It’s so close to their hearts that a cool academic treatment like that would probably look gravely impious to them. I worry about causing scandal of a different kind.

If there others out there with experience talking to Evangelicals, have you found any satisfactory answers to this one?