A Deeper Starbucks Conversation

Read the March/April feature, “A Starbucks Conversation,” then listen in to the rest of this fascinating discussion, as Pastor John Burke of Gateway Community Church in Austin, Texas, asks six unchurched adults more questions about God, Jesus and Christianity.

Edited by Andrea Bailey

John: It sounds like all of you have had a faith encounter of some kind. Can you talk about when that first happened—when you thought, is someone trying to get my attention here?

Jennifer: For me, it was actually a frightening day. There was one night when I was praying, and I was in middle school. I got really scared at the idea of eternity, and what it means. Ever since then, the idea of heaven and hell, and questioning whatever it is that makes us good and evil, kept flipping through my mind. I finally started questioning my particular faith. It was through prayer and Christian music actually that I found the strength to look around me, and I think I had always been afraid that if I looked somewhere else I might find out I’m wrong—what I’ve believed all my life is wrong.

John: What did you believe at the time?

Jennifer: Very much what I was raised to believe. There is one God, Father Almighty, he has a Son, born of a virgin, there is a Holy Spirit residing in all of us, bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven. A very classic Christian way of looking at things. I don’t have a problem with that theology. I just realized it wasn’t working for me, and I needed to find the right way to look around me and find what naturally matched what I believe.

Lalit: It wasn’t one faith encounter for me. My father passed away in India—he was in a bad accident—and that was pretty depressing for me. After that, Sree and I were in the U.S., and the change of pace here and the stark contrast of material wealth and religion made me feel like I didn’t know what was going on. In India, there’s no separation between religion and life. But here, you cannot talk about anything. You can’t even say “Merry Christmas.” Moving to a different country and a different culture, I thought, Is this the ultimate goal to which I was aspiring in India? I don’t want that. I’m really grateful for this country, but it just started me thinking, What else? Why do we exist?

James: For me, it was several encounters with different people. There was a couple that I met when I was in the Air Force, stationed in Omaha, Nebraska. I worked at the headquarters facility, and this married couple would come in through my main entrance every day. There was just this aura about them that was very… Christ-like. They always had a smile on their faces and a good word for anyone they encountered. Every day during lunch, they would go into the chapel and pray together.

I thought, Wow, what a great thing to be so dedicated to something and have that much faith in something, and hold onto it no matter what happens in your life. They were just giving and caring people. I looked at them and thought, That’s something I would like to emulate. In the back of my mind, I knew that’s what it meant to be a Christian, not what you see on TV.

Later in life, I encountered an older gentleman who would come into the music store that I managed. We’d have deep philosophical conversations. The last conversation we had, right before he moved away, he said to me, “Nothing that happens to you is a mistake. It may feel like a mistake; it may be terrible to endure, but God has a purpose. You have a purpose. It may be years until you figure out that purpose, but God won’t allow anything to happen to you until you fulfill that purpose.”

There’s been things in my life—getting divorced, my 13-year-old son who’s autistic—I wouldn’t have wished on myself, but now, I look back and say, “I get it.” All of us coming together for this meeting today, there’s a reason for it. I love it when I meet people and can have conversations with no animosity. Right now, we can all sit together and find the commonality. I’ll think about this meeting tonight, next week, years from now. I’ll remember all of you, and think about what you said, and there’s a reason for it.

John: I’m wondering what all of you think about grace. What I’ve understood of karma is that it’s kind of like the doctrine of sin. Whatever you do, there are consequences that come back on you. So in a similar way, Christians would say there’s a way through the universe, and God ordered it that way, but we can go against God’s will, and when we do that, there are consequences. Jesus said, “What you reap, you will sow.”

But there’s also this overarching concept of God’s grace. If God were not merciful but only just, we would all receive justice, consequences for all that we do. But there’s this thing called grace, which He claims to have demonstrated in Christ, and there is forgiveness, a cleansing of our wrongs because He took them on Himself. The point is being willing before God not only to receive his forgiveness, but also his leadership, because we need His power in order to change. From your perspective, where does grace fit into the whole equation?

Sree: To me, it’s everywhere. We’re surrounded by grace. It’s like a radio frequency. It always exists but you have to tune yourself to access that frequency. There’s always grace, but you have to surrender, be humble and receive that grace.

John: And that grace comes from…

Sree: It just exists. It’s just connecting to that grace. Connecting to the source of energy.

Lalit: Creation is the source. The whole creation is an act of grace. You are an act of grace, the animals are an act of grace.

Sree: Everybody finds it for themselves. I think of it as getting rid of the past impressions of your mind. Whatever I do is based on a past impression.

Lalit: There is no one path. Christ showed one path to get there, Buddha showed a different path, and I can talk about differrent Eastern religions that have shown paths to get there.

John: What are some of your key questions about Christianity?

James: I have trouble believing the Bible in its current state is a book divinely inspired by God. I believe there are aspects of the Bible inspired by God, but I think the vast majority of it was written by man to get whatever he wanted to get across at that time. Historically, I think that’s backed up. We know that Christ spoke Aramaic. We know the Jewish faith is based on old Hebrew. The intellectual language of the times was Greek and Latin. So you’re going to tell me that from Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek to Latin there wasn’t someone who said, “That word doesn’t quite correspond to what we have here, so I’m going to change it.”

I’ve studied many different faiths—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism—and for me, they all have an aspect of truth to them. I cannot deny those other truths, nor would I call someone else’s faith into question because they don’t believe what I believe. What a strange twist it would be if all the people who think they’re right in this life, get to the end and find out they’re wrong?

Jennifer: It’s hard to believe any of us aren’t a little wrong!

John: I’m almost positive none of us are completely right!

James: This idea of going back to God when you die is a common theme that runs through all religions, yet we sit around and bicker that our God is the right one. The Greek philosopher Plato says there’s one source, and we all come from it. And our ultimate goal is to rejoin that source. Hinduism—that’s exactly what they say. So do Panentheists. As Christians, we say that when we die, we want to go to God.

Since we all want to get back to our creator, how is it different because we call it different things? Within certain faiths, we say that because others don’t believe what we believe, they’re condemned to this place of darkness and eternal damnation. To me, that doesn’t make sense.

Read the March/April feature article,"A Starbucks Conversation"

-Outreachmagazine.com, "Web Exclusives," March/April 2007

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