Isn't there a tendency on our part to try to discredit the experience of others when we are intimidated by their experience? Think about it for a moment. Haven't you ever felt threatened by a close friend, or even a family member, who moved to a new level of Christian commitment, and began to take his or her Christian discipleship more seriously?

Maybe she began to talk more - to witness. You've not heard this sort of language before, not from a person like her, President of the Junior League or the Garden Club. She talks about "being born again" or about prayers being answered in such an explicit manner...and somehow, we feel threatened.

Or, he decides he needs to deepen his involvement with Jesus, and so he goes to serve in the Salvation Army's Soup Kitchen or to help build a home for a poor family. It's so out-of-character with this white-collar executive. He even talks about meeting Jesus in the poor whom he serves! And maybe he even begins to criticize the church for its self-serving attitude and low level of involvement in community issues - like homelessness, hunger, child abuse....

Both of them join a weekly prayer or Bible study group and they love to talk about how they see Jesus changing people's lives, and that's just a bit much! That's taking this "Jesus thing" too far!

You see, our religious neutrality, our middle of the road faith, is threatened "whenever someone we know well takes spiritual commitments seriously and refuses any longer to play hide-and—seek and touch-and-go with the living God." (Carl F. H. Henry, Ibid, p. 149)

So we try to discredit it all. "He's beside himself".