A couple of weeks ago, while I was attending a Saturday evening worship service, I received a text message from an old friend. Chan Hearron, a fellow apologist and Bible teacher at a local Christian school, reported to me that the World Religion Day event in Shreveport would be held as a live event. I was enthusiastic about returning to the Highland Center for that occasion.
The stated goal of the event, as stated on their website, is: “World Religion Day in Shreveport and Bossier City provides the public an opportunity to learn about the many world religions in our community.” This is a worthy goal and the organizers worked to achieve it. As I have stated before, each group that had a table believed that their religious tradition is true, either exclusively or more so than the rest. One participant stated that their deity has “an exclusive contract with humans.” This has always been an understated foundational issue when each group participates in World Religion Day.
The first participant forum centered on the question, “What is the biggest misconception people have about your faith tradition?” On that panel, Chan Hearron spoke about Christianity being perceived as ice cream or medicine. Ice cream, as we all know, is a choice as to one’s favorite flavor. However, as Chan explained, Christianity is really like medicine. Jesus Christ is the cure for our sin problem and only can bring us into a right relationship with God.
I was impressed with the caliber of students who came to the event with Chan. Two of them, Mason and Jacob, respectfully engaged with other representatives and had good discussions which exposed flaws in those traditions’ views.
Those who came to our table were told about the distinctive nature of Christianity and the foundation of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I had several faith conversations with other contributors and distributed gospel-based literature.
Although we are not able to directly proselytize, my goal at World Religion Day has always been to plant seeds for Jesus Christ that others may be able to can be able to water and, possibly, take in a harvest at a later time (I Cor. 3:6). My prayer is that we can continue to do that as we participate in World Religion Day events to come.
Mark Riser - Apologist 