God's Not Dead 2 (21 page)

The passage is a psalm. I don’t keep reading but rather read it again.

A God of compassion and mercy.

Slow to get angry.

Filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

My eyes reach the wall where my law degree is hanging. There’s a framed painting of the Pacific on one wall. Then I see the picture of myself with Mom and my sister on the other wall.

I don’t want to believe in someone like this. I just can’t. Not after all this time.

All I’ve ever known is no mercy, quick anger, and absent love.

God the Father?

Now there’s an absolutely terrifying thought.

I latch my briefcase and head out of the office with the Bible still open on my desk. I turn off the light and leave it in darkness.

The Dry, Unsteady Ground

A POST FOR
WAITING FOR GODOT

by Amy Ryan

Standing in between the two groups, I felt like one of the Israelites following Moses, suddenly finding myself stuck in the middle of the Red Sea. Any second I knew I could be swept away and drowned. And all along I had this thought:

How’d I end up here?

God is dead or God is alive. Black or white. Heads or tails.

I feel like I’m suffocating because I’m in the middle, and the middle is no place to be.

A part of me says God knows me and loves me and pulled me out for some reason.

You are meant for more, Amy.

I can sometimes feel this voice nudging up against my cheek and whispering in my ear.

You are made to matter, Amy.

Yet I wake up alone and I feel anxious and I get angry and I look out at the world with this raw and ragged sense of despair. I don’t feel like I matter to anybody. I don’t feel like I’m meant for anything. And the voices
 
—are they just the voices of some crazy writer who’s kidding herself?

But the voice of a reverend gets reviewed in my mind.

“The thing God loves is us, Amy. He loves us.”

So I’m no longer swimming in the deep. I’m on dry ground. I no longer have to cry out for help.

But I still need it.

It’s not a life-or-death sort of thing. And maybe that’s why
 
—why the doubts have come; why I’m wondering and struggling.

Does God hear prayers that aren’t so major?

When he allows you to live after cancer, will he expect more of you?

Will he move on when you stop on the road and take a break and then decide to maybe put up your tent and stay awhile?

There’s nothing comforting about this tent. It feels like one pitched at camp four on Mount Everest, at the edge of the death zone.

Do you keep climbing up or do you head down?

Or do I just simply need a better metaphor?

I feel like I’m
 
—like all of us are
 
—insulated by the words we create to comfort and protect and keep out anything that God might be trying to say to us. We stand on one side or the other and yell into a loudspeaker and remain bullheaded and shortsighted.

I wonder how I can show love to others I don’t agree with.
But first, I need to show God I have faith in him. And I haven’t managed that yet on those courthouse steps.

Things like holding a sign and shouting for rights and taking a stand still don’t always signify rightness in one’s heart. Nobody can see what’s in the heart. Nobody except God himself.

Search me and know me; then tell me what you see, Lord. Show me the ripples over the water when all I feel is the drained lake deep inside.

THE DAY STARTS
off with a nice splash.

I’m attempting to be generous and buy Grace coffee even without her asking. I know what she likes from the last two times I’ve been with her at the courthouse when she ordered coffee. What I didn’t realize is that carrying two cups would be so difficult. Law school, no problem. Not spilling coffee, impossible.

I manage to get about 60 percent of the stain off my pants. But in the world war of coffee versus khaki, we know who wins.

When I arrive to pick Grace up, she can’t help but see the massive spot right away. “Did you save any for yourself?” she jokes.

“Actually, it was your cup I spilled.”

Grace, being her natural tell-it-like-it-is self, can’t help but make a statement on my appearance as if she’s a judge on
Project
Runway
. “Is this whole messy-look thing you have going on part of the strategy?”

I try not to take offense at her comment. “Do I look that bad?”

“It’s not that
 
—I’m not trying to be rude
 
—it’s just . . .” She laughs.

“What?”

“Did you get ready last night and sleep in your clothes?”

I glance down and realize that I don’t think I even looked at myself once in the mirror.

Did I brush my teeth?

“Yes, it’s part of my attempt to be a working-class lawyer. Not slick. I’m just part of the gang. I’m one of the people.”

Grace chuckles at my exaggeration. “Well, you certainly aren’t
slick
.”

“Slick does not win court cases,” I say.
At least not around here. Hopefully.

I’m not a fan of the phrase
game changer
because it’s overused. It makes me cringe just like when I hear someone use
ergo
or type
LOL
. But an hour after picking up Grace to head to court, we discover we have a true game changer happening in our trial.

There’s a new jury member taking Pastor Dave’s spot. Ms. Green is really a lot like the pastor, except she’s younger, wears lots of makeup and black eyeliner, sports an Evanescence shirt, and seems to
 
—oh, okay, she’s absolutely nothing like Pastor Dave, and the sorta-trouble I thought we might be in has blossomed into an absolute mess.

“Ms. Green, are you prepared to fulfill your duties as an alternate?” Judge Stennis asks.

“Yes, Your Honor, sir.”

I just look down at my paper.

I remember when Kane and his team got her as an alternate. I couldn’t object. She didn’t look so goth the first time we saw her.

I glance over and see Grace’s worried face. I jot down a note on my legal pad.

Don’t worry. It’s all good.

Of course, I’m worried, and nothing is good. I haven’t attempted to write fiction since college, so this is new for me.

“Mr. Endler, your next witness?” the judge asks.

I stand. “We’d like to call James Warner Wallace.”

Wallace walks through the courtroom and toward the stand with full confidence, as if he’s very comfortable in front of people. He’s wearing jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a blazer and still looks better-dressed than I am. Wallace is slim for a fiftysomething man. In shape and well groomed with close-cropped gray hair and stylish glasses, he’s as polished as they come.

And right away, Kane goes for the jugular.

“Your Honor, plaintiff moves for the court to exclude this witness.”

“On what basis?” Judge Stennis asks.

“Prejudicial testimony, Your Honor. Not probative. We consider the value of anything he might say to be outweighed by the likelihood of confusing the issues or misleading the jury.”

They’ve done their homework like I knew they would.

Thank you, Pastor Dave, for giving the defense more time and for trading places with an extra from the set of
Twilight
.

“Your Honor, my first witness testified as to the existence of
Jesus,” I say without waiting. “The purpose of this witness is to establish that the disputed statements made by Ms. Wesley represent an accurate account of what, according to eyewitness testimony, Jesus actually said.”

The judge doesn’t look sold. “I still fail to see the relevance,” he says.

I nod. “If we can prove that Ms. Wesley limited her discussion to actual statements made by an actual historic figure, then the issue of ‘preaching’ disappears . . . and the plaintiff’s argument collapses.”

I turn and face Kane and his team, looking like a nice set of expensive window dressing again today.

“Unless, of course, Mr. Kane is willing to concede the text of the Gospels as valid eyewitness testimony?”

I hear the low chuckle from him. “We most certainly do not make such a concession.”

“And hence the need for my witness.”

“Mr. Kane, your motion is denied. The witness may take the stand.”

After Wallace is sworn in, I begin the questions. “Would you state your name and experience for the record?”

“James W. Wallace, former homicide detective for the county of Los Angeles. I was on the force for over twenty-five years. I now consult with the district attorney’s office.”

I grab a book off my table and hold it up. “Are you the author of this book,
Cold-Case Christianity
?”

He nods. “I am.”

I hand it to him. “Could you also read the book’s subtitle for the court?”

He doesn’t have to look at the cover. “
A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels
.”

I walk over to the jury box, and as I do I look at Ms. Green. She displays no reaction to what’s happening. I turn back and face the stand.

“Mr. Wallace, would I be correct in saying that your duties as a homicide detective consisted of investigating cold-case homicides?”

A definitive nod once again. “You would. That was my area of expertise.”

He’s even better than I imagined he’d be up there.

“Don’t most of those cases get solved by DNA evidence?”

“Objection: leading. Counsel is testifying.”

I don’t even wait for the judge to respond. “I’ll rephrase. How many of your cold-case homicides were solved through the use of DNA evidence?”

“None. Not one.”

I feign a complete and utter bafflement at this.

“That happens a lot on TV. But my department never had the good fortune of solving a cold case with DNA.”

“Then what
was
the most common way those cases got solved?”

“Often by carefully examining witness testimony from years earlier, at the time of the crime. Even though by the time of our reinvestigation the witnesses and often the officers who first took their statements were dead.”

Clear and concise answers. That’s good. That’s understandable. That’s what we need.

“Forgive my ignorance, Mr. Wallace . . . but how is that possible?” I ask.

“Well, there are a number of techniques available to us when testing the reliability of eyewitness statements,” Wallace says. “One approach, for example, is to employ a technique known as Forensic Statement Analysis. That’s the discipline of scrutinizing
a witness’s statements: what they choose to stress . . . or minimize . . . or omit completely. Their choices of pronouns, verb tenses, descriptions of what they saw and heard, how they compress or expand time
 
—it’s all more revealing than people realize. By going back and closely inspecting the testimony of various witnesses
 
—noting the correlations, separating
seeming
inconsistencies from
actual
inconsistencies
 
—we can often figure out who’s telling the truth, who’s lying, and who the guilty party is.”

I stand in front of him and casually ask, “Did you apply this skill set at any time outside of your official capacity?”

“Yes. I decided to approach the death of Jesus at the hands of the Romans using my experience as a cold-case detective. And I approached the Gospels as I would any other forensic statement in a cold case. Every word was important to me. Every idiosyncrasy stood out.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“Within a month of beginning my detailed study of Mark’s Gospel, I concluded the text reliably represented Peter’s testimony about Jesus. Eyewitness testimony, when properly tested, is powerful evidence in a court of law. Within a matter of months, as I tested the Gospels from a cold-case perspective, I concluded that all four Gospel accounts were written from different perspectives, containing unique details that are specific to eyewitnesses.”

I start to walk back to my table. It’s always a nice feeling to be right here in this central point. It’s like looking through the scope on a rifle just before pulling the trigger. There’s this sense of clarity and calculation.

“Mr. Wallace, did you consider the idea that the four accounts might be part of a conspiracy designed to promote belief in a fledgling faith?”

“Of course,” he states in a believable tone. “It’s one of the first things you consider with any set of witness statements, and I’ve investigated many conspiracy cases. There are several common characteristics of successful conspiracies, however, and I don’t find any of these attributes were present in the first century for those who claimed to be witnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection.”

“Can you explain some of these attributes for us?”

“Certainly. Successful conspiracies typically involve the smallest possible number of coconspirators. It’s a lot easier for two people to tell the same lie and keep a secret than it is for fifty. Conspiracies are also more likely to succeed when they only have to be maintained for a short period of time. It’s easier to keep a secret for a day than it is for a year.”

A quick scan of the jurors reveals that they’re all listening and paying attention.

“Successful conspiracies are also typically untested and unpressured,” Wallace continues. “If no one is pressuring you to tell the truth, you can keep a secret for a long time. But there’s something even more important: coconspirators need to be able to communicate quickly with one another. If one conspirator gets questioned, he’ll need to match his statements to his or her accomplices. And that’s the problem with conspiracy theories related to the first Christians. There were simply too many of them, having to tell and keep the lie for too long, separated by thousands of miles without any modern ability to communicate with each other quickly. Worse yet, they were pressured beyond words. They suffered and died for their testimony. Not a single one ever recanted their claims, even in this impossibly difficult environment. So conspiracy theories related to the apostles are simply unreasonable, and they aren’t
reflected in the nature of the Gospels. What I see instead are attributes of reliable eyewitness accounts, including numerous examples of what I refer to as unintended eyewitness support statements.”

He’s good. And like an Energizer Bunny, he’ll keep going, and going, and . . .

“What is an unintended eyewitness support statement?”

Jim adjusts his gaze and then answers by talking to the jurors. “There are times when one witness’s statement raises more questions than it seems to answer. But when we eventually talk to the next witness, the second witness will unintentionally provide us with some detail that helps make sense of the first witness’s statement. True eyewitness statements often include this kind of unintentional eyewitness support.”

“Okay,” I say. “Can you give us an example of this in the Gospels?”

“Sure,” he says as he grabs the Bible from the judge’s bench. “In describing Jesus’ examination before the former high priest Caiaphas on the night before his crucifixion, Matthew’s Gospel relates the following: ‘Then they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists; and others slapped Him, and said, “Prophesy to us, You Christ; who is the one who hit You?”’”

Jim looks up and stares at me with thoughtful eyes framed in those specs. He keeps going with his explanation. “This question seems odd since Jesus’ attackers were standing right in front of him. Why would they ask him, ‘Who is the one who hit You?’ It doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. That is, until we read what Luke tells us: ‘Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him, and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, “Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?”’”

I look over at the jurors and hope they’re still with us despite the Bible readings. I know I grew up with an aversion to hearing them. Of course, that was because of the guy reading them to his son.

“Luke tells us Jesus was blindfolded,” Jim says. “Now Matthew’s testimony makes sense. And so one gospel eyewitness unintentionally supports the other. That’s an example of interconnectedness on a surface level. But there are others that go much deeper.”

How about you explain every one and exhaust the jurors with so much historical information that they relent and tell Grace she’s innocent.

“So how would you best summarize the overall results of your research?” I ask.

My witness adjusts his frames for a moment. “After years of intense scrutiny and applying a template I use to determine if eyewitnesses are reliable, I conclude that the four Gospels in this book contain a series of eyewitness accounts of the actual words of Jesus.” Wallace holds up the Bible as if to clarify what he’s specifically talking about.

“And that includes the statements quoted by Ms. Wesley in her classroom?” I ask.

“Yes. Absolutely.”

I nod and smile. “Thank you, Detective.” Then, to Kane, “Your witness.”

Kane stands up looking extra stiff and pompous. He buttons his suit coat, probably without even realizing he’s doing it. I imagine he does this as often as I look down and see the stains on my shirt or pants, like the huge one I’m sporting today. Kane walks over to the stand with Napoleon-like strides.

“Detective, I’m not going to try to match Bible knowledge with
you. But isn’t it true the Gospel accounts vary widely in what they say? Aren’t there numerous discrepancies between the accounts?”

“Absolutely,” Wallace answers. “Which is exactly what we’d expect.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”