Like me, Sam asked questions for a living, only she was much better at it.
We worked together in the newsroom, sharing leads, discussing politics, cheering each other through tight deadlines, and complaining about how they paid us peanuts for slave labor. With her extra twenty years of experience, Sam helped me navigate through the insider’s world of local politics and taught me how to gently, but persistently, work the story out of a reluctant source. She smoked during her lunch break, smarted off to the editor now and then, and used her nickname in bylines because she said readers took her more seriously when they thought she was a man. While I liked to bury the lead, Sam always got right to the point.
I’d cut my journalistic teeth at a city newspaper in Chattanooga, where I noticed that as soon as word got out that I’d graduated from a conservative Christian college, my coworkers stopped swearing around me. They also stopped inviting me to lunch. But I met Sam at the Dayton paper, where, as a self-described “washed-up Commie,” she was the odd one out among her conservative colleagues. Despite our political differences at the time, we shared a dry sense of humor and an aversion to male-dominated power structures and soon became good friends and allies in the newsroom.
Sam worked the county beat, so she was one of the first to report on the Rhea County Commission’s controversial resolution to charge gays and lesbians with crimes against nature.
“I just don’t see how a smart girl like you can be one of them,” she said one day, looking at her computer monitor.
“One of what?” I asked.
“One of those evangelicals,” she said.
“Well, not all evangelicals think homosexuality should be illegal,” I said. “In fact, I’d say that most evangelicals in this town weren’t too happy about that commission decision.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, looking over her glasses at me and studying me with her quick, brown eyes. “But it’s just that attitude — you know, that blind certainty that they can’t be wrong about anything.”
“Maybe if you got to know more Christians you wouldn’t think that,” I said. “Maybe if you came to church with me sometime — ”
Sam released a deep, breathy laugh.
“Let’s see,” she said. “I’m a Democrat, I’m a feminist, and I have gay friends. Something tells me I wouldn’t fit in with the church crowd.”
I realized that she was probably right but tried again anyway.
“You might be surprised,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like you have to be a conservative to be a Christian.”
Sam laughed so hard that she started to cough. “Well, maybe someone ought to tell the Christians that,” she finally said, “or Karl Rove, for that matter.”
Sensing my disappointment, she added, “Listen, I respect you and your commitment to your faith. Really, you’re one of the nicest Christians I know. It’s just that I’ve had some pretty nasty run-ins with your conservative evangelical cohorts and I don’t think I’m cut out for that lifestyle. I’m not into all the hellfire and damnation stuff, and I’m definitely not into this submit-to-your-husband stuff. I can’t imagine telling my gay friends that they’ve got to force themselves to be straight, and I can’t imagine voting for a guy like Bush just because he’s pro-life. Now, I’ve got no problem with Jesus. But it seems to me that if evangelical Christians were the only ones to have God all figured out, then they would be the kindest, most generous people around. No offense to you, but in my twenty-plus years in this business, I haven’t found that to be true. Most Christians I know are only interested in winning arguments, converts, and elections.”
I should have been ready with an answer, but I wasn’t. The truth was, I thought Sam was right. Somewhere along the way, the gospel had gotten buried under a massive pile of extras: political positions, lifestyle requirements, and unspoken rules that for whatever reason came with the Christian territory. Sometimes Jesus himself seemed buried beneath the rubble.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I’m sorry that the church doesn’t look more like Jesus.”
“Oh, honey, it’s not your fault,” Sam said. “It’s probably just because it’s run by men.”
This time we both laughed.