If I say 'TGIF!' in my classroom, could I be accused of proselytizing?

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV)

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TGIF!

As is the custom in my classroom on Friday, my Russian students watch a film for a more authentic language and culture experience than they can get from a non-native Russian-speaker like me. Today they will be watching the 2010 movie "The Priest" ("Поп"), which is based on the real-life trials and tribulations of Russian Orthodox priest Father Aleksei Ionov, recruited in 1941 to move to the Nazi-occupied Pskov region of Russia to re-establish a church there, a project made possible due to the wartime relaxation of official Soviet anti-religious policy and the Germans’ tolerance (and even promotion) of Orthodox activity. The Reich wanted to show “liberated” Russian people how much better their lives would be under the Nazis in comparison to godless Communism.

Under Stalin, clergy in the USSR were almost completely liquidated. By the summer of 1941 there were no more than 10 churches active in the vast territory of the three dioceses of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Pskov, and Novgorod. Father Aleksei's trials and tribulations with the Russian Orthodox Church, Nazi occupation, and the post-war Soviet government have similar parallels to the struggles that German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced during the same period. Both men were willing to die for their faith (as Bonhoeffer did at the hands of the Nazis in 1945).

My purpose for showing this film to my students is three-fold; it is culturally authentic, it presents an eye-opening slice of Russian history (which my students study during first-year Russian), and Father Aleksei's story provides a wonderful opportunity for passive witness... I love to preface the showing of this film with the question "Is there anything or anyone in your life worth dying for?"

A parent of one of my students a few years ago actually accused me of proselytizing (because I showed "a religious movie" without parental permission). I assured her that I had no intention of converting any one of my students, nor did I attempt to foist my convictions upon an unwitting captive audience. (I failed to mention to her in the course of our conversation that a Russian language Lord's Prayer hangs on a wall in my classroom...)

That verb proselytize to me has the flavor of a four-letter word as it gets bandied about in both secular and church contexts. There's a double-line, no-passing zone that separates a well-intentioned Christian willing to strike up a conversation about God and church from an overzealous prophet of doom. For the former, theology is not unlike like a car's headlights (lighting the way, so to speak); for the latter, theology is more like a trailer hitch. The former seeks an in-road by which to share the Gospel and understands "conversion" as God's work; the latter misunderstands "coercion" as God's work and seeks to extract a confession. The former understands Christian citizenship; the latter should read up on Luther's Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms.

Perhaps you've heard or read about the Indiana trooper fired yesterday for proselytizing (preaching to citizens while on duty) or the Ohio middle school teacher forced to stop assigning religious projects. Perhaps your doorbell has rung at dinnertime and you've been confronted by a pair of starched Mormons, concerned Jehovah's Witnesses, or other mission-minded souls not willing to gamble on your salvation. Perhaps for you, like for many others, the Gospel message is meant to be heard in church, not on your doorstep (Jesus might disagree). The lost share one inimitable trait-- a dislike of being inconvenienced (and so tend to resist pious purveyors of damnation).

Anyway. Today in class I am NOT going to proselytize (I'm really starting to dislike that word).

But I am going to make a point (or two)... Hopefully, no parent will call.

(Check out this somewhat dated Huffington Post blog post on Talking With Strangers About God... Case in point.)

TGIF!