Yesterday I was in the north of England to appear as a witness at an appeal against the UK Home Office’s rejection of an extension to the visa of a Zimbwean family. We await the tribunal’s decision.

The outward journey was 2-1/2 hours from London. I had with me my copy of ‘Re:Mission’, and I completed about 100 pages. The return journey was 4-1/2 hours, and I read more of the book whilst waiting for a train at a station bistro in Manchester.

On the train home, I finished the book fairly quickly, but not before two scruffy individuals sat down opposite me and began talking. One, a younger man, had just been released from prison, where he had served four weeks for handling and receiving stolen goods. More serious charges had been dropped. The other slightly older man (who had sidled up to the younger one on the train) was already under the influence of drink, and had a couple of cans before him. Great! I thought, with my nose firmly buried in the book.

The young man had a blue plastic rosary around his neck, with a crucifix on one end, and a blue plastic ‘Mary’ about five beads up from the crucifix. He asked if he could borrow my pen, and after I had finished making notes about ‘Re:Mission’, I handed it over. He wrote a fairly quick letter to his girlfriend. He was on his way to stay with his mother that night.

When he handed the pen back, I asked him if the cross reflected his beliefs. He immediately denied having any beliefs, saying that he had been given the rosary (and another identical, brown plastic rosary in a paper bag, which he showed me). I think he had been give them by a Roman Cathoic prison chaplain). So I asked him if he knew what the crucifix meant. He said he didn’t.

I was now in a quandary - of sorts. I had just finished reading Andrew’s book, which asserts, in line with Andrew’s consistent position, that the death of Jesus on the cross, and all the biblical material, especially the N.T., has to do with the ‘salvation’ of Israel from physical destruction in the 1st century, and has no application to us today. (We live in a ‘post-biblical’ era). The story is like a balloon, which we can sit back and look at, but is not a balloon which is meant to inflate so much that eventually it fills the entire room, ourselves included. It is a piece of history.

On the other hand, there is the story I am more familiar with, that the death of Jesus on the cross is directly applicable to every person today, as a means of providing ‘remission’ of sins, and bringing God’s Spirit into the life of every person who believes. The greater the sense of need, the more relevant the story seems to those who hear it. So here was the dilemma. To have a go with Andrew’s version of the story, which is to outline a narrative which reached its climax in the 1st century, demonstrating God’s provision of rescue from disaster in war for a near-eastern people, which is the means of securing continuity of promises made 2000 years earlier to a near-eastern nomadic tribal chief, but which is not directly applicable to most people on the earth today (including the person I was talking to).

Actually, I’m afraid I had no intention of telling this extensive version of the story - so I wasn’t able to see if it would work! But I did tell the young man that Jesus had died for his sins, so that God’s life could enter his life. And although he at first resisted this idea, a moment or two later he asked me what the prayers were that the first five beads on the rosary represented. I said that the first prayer was the most important, to give his life entirely and completely to the Jesus who had died on the cross. When he did this, God’s Spirit would come to live inside him.

At this point, his new-found colleague interrupted him, and took him off for a whisky or two from the buffet car. (I didn’t know they sold whisky on trains!). They didn’t come back - but their place was taken by a young lady who placed a card on the table, with a name on it and ‘regeneration director’ as the title. So I asked her what kind of ‘regeneration’ activities she was involved in - - - -

So here is the profound question. Was I right or wrong to talk to the young man as I did? Would Andrew’s approach have been more successful? I think I left the youth with a much more comprehensible story, which at some point he might be able to apply to his needs and situation personally. Is this just another example of modern individualistic evangelicalism, untrue to the biblical material? Obviously I didn’t think so.

But then maybe Andrew’s approach and mine would have come to the same conclusion: I encouraged the young man to use his rosary as a way, first of all, of giving his life entirely and completely to the Jesus who was represented on the crucifix. I think Andrew’s approach would have led to the same point - except that the crucifix would not have had a direct bearing on the young man. But by not giving a history lesson summing up the narrative of Israel from the time of Abraham through to the destruction of Jerusalem, and judgement on Rome beyond that, have I missed the opportunity to witness a genuine divine encounter?