letter of the week: Unexpected sermon
Geoff Harrison
I'm usually a pretty passive person, but something happened the night of Friday, October 7 that I have to address. A friend of mine mentioned to me that there was going to be a magic show, or rather an illusion show, on campus that night. I mentioned this to my brother, who is very into magic right now.
He, his girlfriend, and I all came up to SFU and bought our tickets for Lou Leventhal's Illusions and Reality. The tickets were $10, a little much for a starving student as myself, but I figured a little magic might be worth it.
Now here was the problem: on the tickets was a reference to a partnership with The Point, Campus Crusade for Christ, and the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists. I hadn't remembered seeing anything obvious about religion on the poster for the show.
As a non-religious person this made me think twice, but I figured that it was probably fundraising for the on-campus religious groups. I was a bit put off, but still okay with the fact that I had paid 10 bucks for the ticket.
After the first illusion, alarm bells should have been going off in my head. The illusionist, Lou, mentioned how he would talk at the end of the performance about how he found God. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but figured I would be able to leave after the show and let the believers chat. I was wrong.
Near the end of the show Mr. Leventhal took a break from his tricks to start to tell the audience about his faith in God and how we could all know Jesus. Now I was very uncomfortable, but things would get worse for this non-believer.
The sermon went on for more than 15 minutes. My friends and I were now quite angry and ready to leave. We figured we could get up between the sermon and the next trick without offending anyone.
Unfortunately Lou quickly asked everyone to bow their heads in prayer with him, and we were effectively fenced in between the narrow rows of chairs. At the end of the sermon/show, cards were passed around for a "door prize draw." These cards were in fact asking for your personal info so that the Christian groups involved could get a hold of you. The draw ended up being some bargain bin DVDs and a DVD player (no doubt also dirt cheap).
My friends and I left feeling angry, cheated, and misled. We had just paid $10 of our hard-earned dollars to sit through a sermon.
I often hear Christians complain about how they are looked down upon by non-religious people. This is a prime example of why I distance myself from the religious community.
I have no problem with other people's beliefs, except when they try to push them on me. I have never felt more anti-Christian than I did after this performance. If the Christian community wants to make it up to me, my brother, and his girlfriend, they can start by giving us back the $30 dollars they took, as well as the two hours they wasted.