“The Library Does Not Allow Literature Distribution.” (part 1)

Each week my family enjoys an outing to the Richland County Public Library or one of its regional branches. Recently we visited the St. Andrews Branch wherein I was able to enjoy some very good conversation with a few patrons.

I had a very good conversation with a 19 year-old patron who was patiently waiting for an open computer for internet access using the “Character Survey.” Shortly afterwards I engaged a young African-American father waiting for an open computer. He was a rather large fellow, wearing black jeans, a red tee-shirt and his head was covered with a black stocking. I approached and asked, “Excuse me, sir. I am taking a survey and was wondering if you would be willing to help me with some information through a brief interview.”

“Sure,” he said, “No problem.” And he graciously invited me to sit. I pulled up a chair.

Thanking him, I gave him a brief run-down of what will transpire the next few minutes. “I am working on a project involved in the study of personal character. All the questions I will ask you will touch on the subject.”

“That’s fine,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you,” I began. “My first question is ‘Who is one person you find yourself looking up to, perhaps even imitating?’”

He gave a small laugh, looked away, and thought for a moment. “Huey Newton.” He answered matter-of-factly.

“Who is Huey Newton? Why do you look up to him or be like him,” I asked.

He gave another small laugh and looked at me sideways. For some reason, I did not like that look. He hemmed and hawed for a minute and said, “I dunno. I just like him.”

“Well,” I prodded, “what did Huey do that drew your attention to him? What do you like about Huey Newton?”

“He’s . . . a . . .” he searched for an answer. “Huey’s a leader in the black empowerment movement.” The truth of the matter is that Huey Newton is the founder of the Black Panther Movement. Here is a short video of Huey P. Newton being interviewed from jail in the mid-1960’s:

I moved on. “What qualities of character do you see in Huey Newton that draw you to him that you would look up to him.”

He shifted in his chair and looked around, smiling as he thought. Stroking his chin, my interviewee said, “I really can’t think of anything . . .”

“Alright, that’s ok,” I said. “Over the years, our Presidents seem to be implicated with scandal, yet maintain high approval ratings. Why do you think that is?”

“You know, that’s a very good question I would like to have an answer to as well!” We both laughed at the absurdity of the realization.

“Why do you think President Clinton kept such a high approval rating?” I wanted to know.

“He was likeable,” came the reply.

“Is that true of President Bush,” I inquired?

“No. Not at all,” he said.

“So,” I clarified, “’likeability’ dictates whether a person is approved or not, regardless of what he did wrong?”

“Yep,” he said. “If somebody is likable, it does not matter what they did. If you don’t like a person, then it does matter.”

“Do you think that Americans value moral character?” I asked.

“That’s another good question!” he replied, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. No.” Then he said, changing his answer, “It depends. It depends on the situation.”

“So situational ethics determine the value of moral character?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, satisfied with the answer.

“With the elections coming up,” I moved on, “what character qualities do you look for in a candidate? In other words, what in your opinion, makes a person of good character? What do you look for?”

He sat and he thought. He thought and looked around, smiling. “I never thought of that before.” He thought some more.

“What do you think of people who lie? Would you vote for a liar?”

“Well, everyone lies,” he said.

“That’s true, but if he is known to lie would that matter?”

“Not really,” he said.

“What about a thief, would you have a thief in office?” He laughed, shaking his head, “no, no, no, no!” We laughed together.

“What character qualities would you look for in a leader,” I pressed.

“Charisma, strength . . .” he thought some more.

“Likeability?” I volunteered . . . he laughed.

“What is your opinion about our schools today? Are there are courses, activities or rules that contribute to the development of good character in students?” I asked.

“Oh, No!” he emphasized the “No.” He repeated himself, “Oh, no, no, no, no! Definitely not.” I asked if he was in school, and discovered he was a Computer Science major at a local college. I asked the question again, applying it to his school to discover if there were any steps to character development of their college students. He repeated his answer just as before to the negative.

“Where do you feel you learned the most about character,” I asked.

After thinking for a moment, he answered, “My father. Yes, definitely my father. And the home.”

“On the scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the highest), how would you rate your character?”

“7 . . . 7 ½.”

“How did you come to that number? What standard did you use to compare yourself?”

He looked away again, thinking. “I’m not sure,” he admitting, laughing lightly. “I just know I’m better than average, but not perfect. I suppose it depends on the situation. Situational ethics drive the moral standard.” He finalized.

“Let me ask the question again from a slightly different angle, ok? Would you consider yourself to be a good person. It’s a simple ‘yes’/’no’ answer.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” he replied.

“Do you think you’ve kept the Ten Commandments?” I inquired.

“Definitely not,” he admitted quickly, laughing again at the confession.

“Which ones did you break? You answered fairly quickly. Do you know what they are?”

“Just a few,” and he tried to list them but only got out “Thou shalt not lie” and “Thou shalt not . . . do something with thy neighbor’s something-or-other.”

“Ok, let’s start there, with #9. Have you ever told a lie?”

He looked at me sideways again, “yeah. We all have.”

“I won’t argue with you there. But have you ever thought of what that makes you, when you tell a lie?”

“What,” he asked, defenses rising.

“Well, what would you call me if I told a lie?”

“You’re a liar, man.” He said.

I agreed. “Yes, people who tell lies are liars. Let’s move on to the next point you made. I believe you were talking about coveting what belonged to your neighbor. Have you ever done that?” I couldn’t help but notice that as I asked that question a car drove by outside with a boom-box thumping so loud it could be heard from where we were sitting. His head turned the direction the music came from and he smirked, “yeah. I guess.”

I asked if he’d ever stolen anything. He had.
I asked if he’d ever committed adultery. He had—and I did not have to clarify that Jesus said if one looks with lust adultery has been committed.

“Now we’ve only looked at four of the 10 Commandments.” At this point his wife joined us, smiling. ”You admitted to being a liar, a coveter, a thief and adulterer. When God judges you by the 10 Commandments, would you be innocent or guilty?” The smile disappeared from her face . . . and his.

“Guilty . . .” he said, looking up at her. She glared at me. I reminded myself of the danger of walking in on the tail end of conversation, but said nothing. She was getting mad, I could tell. I thought I was going to lose them both.

“Would you go to heaven or hell?” I asked.

He fought me. He tried to tell me that the Bible could not be trusted because it was written by men. I asked why this was a problem as everyone else doesn’t have problem reading books written by men (I motioned to the shelves). He tried to justify his guilt by saying that someone capitalized on the fears of men by writing a book and making people believe out of fear.
I pointed out that though the Bible had been written by a variety of authors from different places in different times in different situations, why do they all agree with the same message? Besides, God’s judgment is still the same from start to finish—liars, thieves, adulterers, etc. will be judged and punished for sin. Sin brings death and the final destruction is hell.

The wife spoke up. “What about repentance and forgiveness? We are forgiven of our sin.” She scowled. He looked at her and looked at me.

I smiled. “What about it? What is repentance?” I asked. She explained that repentance is being sorry for sin.

“What is forgiveness?” I asked. All she could say was, “being forgiven.” She knew she could not explain it.

I forced the matter nicely. “How do you put repentance and forgiveness together? What do they have to do with each other?” They could not explain. They looked at each other, and looked at me. It sure got warm in there.

I helped them out by explaining how Jesus paid the penalty for sin by His death, burial and resurrection. I showed them from scripture how the cross satisfies payment and God desires that none should perish but all come to repentance. I explained forgiveness and cleansing from sin. They both remained rigid.

I gave them both a Gospel of John and encouraged them to read it, and think about what I said. I showed them the “One Verse” diagram in the front and encouraged them once more to think about how the cross satisfies payment and the need to repent. They thanked me for the Gospels and I graciously shook hands and thanked the father for the interview. We smiled, and parted.

15 minutes later, I was talking with a Muslim woman when a librarian approached me. “Excuse me,” she said interrupting our conversation. “Did you give something to some people? Something to read?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“You cannot pass out things in the library. The library does not allow literature distribution.” I got the message. No literature in the library.

What’s American coming to?