Ted Cruz Turns Table on Reporter

Good for him. 

A Glimmer of Hope: A Leftist Professor's Conversion to Christianity

When you have a moment, read this article, written by a self-professed "leftist, lesbian professor" (apparently a former tenured professor of English at Syracuse University). 

"My Train Wreck Conversion," by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Reading her conversion story gives me hope, not only for people on the left, who generally speaking tend to tune out if not derisively dismiss the views of those they disagree with, especially those of the evangelical Christian ilk, but for people in the church, as well, who tend to mess up but good when it comes to addressing social and moral issues in general, but are particularly ham-fisted when it comes to homosexuality. A good part of Ms. Butterfield's testimony is the story of how Ken Smith, a pastor from the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church, and his wife Floy, reached out to her, befriended her, prayed for her, but didn't judge her, didn't even invite her to church (gasp!). 

Of course, the author does admit to a certain level of derision towards Christians. Which is what makes her story all the more remarkable, in my view. No doubt an inner voice was frantically urging her to turn back once she'd made up her mind to take a second look at what the Bible has to say, especially about homosexualtiy. Most leftists that I know would never open a Bible, let alone allow themselves to become vulnerable to its content, especially if its content threatened the very lifestyle they not only embraced but advocated (Butterfield admits she used her university post to "advance the understandable allegiances of a leftist lesbian professor").

But she did become vulnerable. The last line of her article is powerful and revealing. She made her decision. There was a conversion. Her life has changed. But her story is unfolding: a battle within is still being waged. 

I'm reminded of a well-known saying, attributed, apparently, to Plato: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." I'm guessing Butterfield's internal battle will become public once leftist friends and colleagues turn on her and begin to either demean her for her betrayal (the way they treat black conservatives, for example); scrutinize her to see if the conversion to both Christianity and heterosexuality are for real (there are plenty of stories of gay people supposedly converting but thenreturning to the gay lifestyle); or dismiss her as irrelevant (as they've done to former liberal playwright David Mamet who has embraced conservative ideas). There's no intolerance like that which pervades the left.

 Here's a link to a downloadable audio file where she tells her story.

Professor Butterfield has also written a book. 

Recommended Reading: This is my God: The Jewish Way of Life

Herman Wouk is a devoutly religious Jew. That said, he understands doubt. I love what he writes in the epilogue: 

Though I have lived as an observant Jew, I have never been able to pretend to religious certainties. I have found it impossible to join in cheerleading condemnations of Reform, Conservatism, and irreligious Zionism; and for all my too-frequent public speaking, I have never denounced the assimilators. The words of Tennyson: "There lives more faith in honest doubt believe me, than in half the creeds...."

Later in that same chapter he writes, "I was gambling my whole existence on one hunch: that being a Jew was not a trivial and somewhat inconvenient accident, but the best thing in my life; and that to be a Jew the soundest way was the classic way." 

Later still, he pauses to discuss the tendency among non-religious Jews in America to not train their children in Judaism. They justify this decision, Wouk writes, because they don't want to "warp" their children. "When they grow up," these parents argue, the children "can make their own choice." 

Wouk disagrees with their justification. He responds: 

This view dictates the most total warping [parents] can condemn a child to. They warm him to a lifetime of rationalizing his ignorance. What adult sits down among the school children to learn the Hebrew alphabet, the Torah, and the ways of Jewry? It is the easiest thing in the world to drop one's early religious training, as many of my readers know. It is sheer mountain-climbing to regain ground lost in childhood. It ought to occur to such parents that they may be wrong about the faith; that it makes no sense to cement their children into their own attitude of denial. Judaism was in my possession when I reached the point of wanting it--like arithmetic, like geography, like all the things I learned long before I had the slightest desire or need for them.

I read these words from the perspective of a person who was raised in an irreligious home but who, for some reason, believed in God and truly craved a religious identity. In time, I made my choice. To my parents' chagrin (mostly my dad's), I converted rather dramatically to Christianity at age 22, knowing next to nothing about that faith, and then devoted the rest of my life (to this point, at least) to Christianity. Might I have never become a Christian had I been raised as an observant Jew? 

I also read these words from the perspective of one who tried to instill Christian faith in her children. In retrospect, my attempts were rather feeble, especially when compared against the way observant Jews literally school their children, especially the boys, (za rabatu! to work!, as Herman Wouk's grandfather said to him immediately upon completing his bar mitzvah) in not just the Torah but also the Talmud. Was I afraid to insist on such rigor for fear of turning them off, driving them away? I think so. Maybe it's because I'm a first generation Christian who doesn't know what I was doing. How does this compare against generations of parents, and their parents, and their parents' parents, and so on, raising children the same way, the way it's always been done. I wasn't raised this way, and as a first generation Christian, I was muddling along, trying to figure things out while the clock was ticking.

So now, here I am at age 56, attempting to learn about, discover, understand the Judaism my atheist Jewish father chose not to impose on his kids, and if possible, to try and reclaim a tiny piece of this amazing heritage. 

It isn't easy. I'm so ignorant, on so many levels. Wouk's analogy to mountain climbing is apt. I finished this book and realized I've barely reached the foothills. My ignorance is vast and widespread.

Nevertheless, I loved this book (you should see my marginalia). I will read it again. Maybe even again. I will ask my children to read it. I'm thinking of even sending it to my dad. Perhaps he'll read it and, in reading, be drawn to Herman Wouk's God.