Francois Ntone
I was born in the country of Cameroon, in Africa. I came to the United States as a student, and attended City College of New York where I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I later completed my graduate studies at Clemson University in South Carolina, and earned a Master of Science degree and a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering. I was employed by Cummins, Inc. for 33 years in Columbus, Indiana, primarily applying my skills in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics to internal combustion engine development.
In Cameroon, I was raised by religious parents who belonged to a native Baptist church. I was baptized when I was twelve years old and attended church regularly until I left the country to continue my education in the United States. While I was an undergraduate student in New York City, I did not go to church much. But I often met people in the streets who approached me with the question: “Are you saved?” I must say this question left me puzzled, as I was not familiar with the idea of instantaneous salvation. While I was growing up in Africa, I was under the impression that converts to Christianity made, by being baptized, a commitment to live the rest of their lives according to the principles laid out by Jesus, and went to heaven after they died. Those Christians who approached me in the streets of New York seemed to imply that salvation occurs immediately after one makes a declaration of faith and goes through an acceptance rite such as baptism. Furthermore, I had come from a background where Christianity and Islam were the two major religions in the country. In my father’s household, it was assumed that both Christians and Muslims believed in God, even though we believed Christianity was superior. In particular, the idea that all non-Christians were bound for hell was new and strange to me.
While I was working on my PhD degree in Clemson, my mother came to the United States and stayed with me for a year and a half. She was a very devout woman with a long history of illness in an environment where proper health care was unavailable. In the United States, she was diagnosed with an advanced form of liver cancer and had to stay longer than planned in order to undergo treatment. While she was with me, she insisted on attending church and, not being prejudiced against any denomination, we settled for a nearby Wesleyan congregation where I took her every Sunday morning until her health substantially deteriorated. Her treatment, which included both radiation and chemotherapy, had been extremely hard on her. One evening, I called an ambulance and had her taken to the emergency room: diarrhea and vomiting had left her body so dehydrated and weakened that she could no longer move or even speak. At the hospital, she was revived through intravenous feeding. Later she described to me a near-death experience in terms consistent with stories I had heard before: she was in a beautiful, extremely peaceful place and all the pain was gone. She did not want to come back.
I believe my mother no longer feared death after the above experience. Her treatment had helped shrink her liver tumor to less than one third of its original size. But when she decided to go back to Africa, it was not because she thought she was healed, but because she had been away for a long time and had matters to settle while she was still alive. In Africa, she continued her treatment but passed away 8 months after leaving the United States.
It goes without saying that the experience I went through with my mother had a tremendous impact on my own behavior. When I was a teenager, I had developed an interest in reading the Bible simply because I was fascinated by the stories in it. In those days, I was already intrigued by the fact that God, as described in the Old Testament, seemed different from God as revealed by Jesus. After my mother passed away, my interest in the Bible was primarily renewed by a need to answer questions about the meaning of life and about what happens after death. At that time I became acquainted with members of a church that called itself Church of Christ. While I admired their commitment and their excitement about their faith, I soon discovered that they were fundamentalists who claimed to be the only true Christians, and advocated what they saw as a return to First Century Christianity. In particular, they baptized by immersion, and did not consider Christian the Catholics, the Lutherans, or any other denomination that baptized differently. When I declined to be re-baptized, my answer was judged acceptable because I had gone through the correct ritual as a Baptist, but I evidently needed to be retrained on proper beliefs. Bible study was very important to the church, and I became an active participant in biblical discussions with the leadership. This is where our differences became clear: I had a limited, but fairly adequate biblical knowledge of my own which, combined with an ability to think for myself, enabled me to question certain notions promoted by the leadership. Given that fundamentalist churches are not known for encouraging free thinking, my association with this church could only be short lived.
I later began to attend church services offered by a congregation which was part of the Lutheran Church of America (later known as Evangelical Lutheran Church of America). The worldview promoted by the leadership was a lot more compatible with my own, and when I moved to Columbus, Indiana where I was offered employment after I completed my graduate studies, I joined an LCA congregation which happened to be within walking distance from where I lived.
While I was a Lutheran, I also attended the very popular interdenominational Bible study called Bible Study Fellowship, which is tailored for laity. I was part of the study for 2 years, and I was quite surprised when, after the last session of the first year, a man who was a Catholic and had been in my study group approached me. He thanked me and said he had struggled throughout the study, and that I was the only reason why he did not drop out. Apparently the consensus that often seemed to emerge from the available written material and the group discussions was problematic to him, but perhaps he did not have enough biblical knowledge to express his disagreement. Therefore the fact that, occasionally, I firmly questioned the consensus and offered a more satisfying alternative was helpful to him. During our conversation, I remember explaining to him, in a few words, my belief that the conservative understanding of Jesus’ atonement sacrifice, which assumes that only those who have been formally accepted into Christianity through an established ritual can be saved, is a narrow interpretation that limits the true scope of Christ’s incarnational story. He seemed quite encouraged by my explanation.
The above story is an illustration of a frequent occurrence in Bible studies. Since conservatives often spend more time studying the Bible, they tend to assume leadership in Bible studies, and tend to be more forceful in asserting their views. Quite often, there are other participants who may have reservations about the ideas that are being promoted, but do not have enough biblical knowledge and are too intimidated to offer a different view. Quite often, such people have come to me afterwards and have thanked me for stating with confidence something they secretly thought but were not prepared to discuss.
After being, for 9 years, one of two black families in our county who were members of the ELCA, my wife and I joined a local Baptist church, not because of any issue with the ELCA, but because we wanted to be more active in the black community. In both churches, I have been a reluctant leader who does not particularly seek the spotlight, but is called upon to perform certain tasks. As a Lutheran, I had started building a track record as an adult Sunday school teacher. As a Baptist, I became known in my church as a Sunday school advisor, a title that, I think, meant I was a resource that was relied upon to propose clarifications on biblical matters that may not be well understood. On a personal level, I have found myself evolving in time. Looking back, I have to admit that there was a time when I rather enjoyed asking unsettling questions. Such questions often aimed at creating doubt among those who, in my view, tended to dominate religious conversations and felt that their conservative approaches to the Bible were the only valid ones. Later, I suppose I learned to be somewhat more constructive in the sense that I would propose my own answers to such questions without necessarily seeking to embarrass anybody. Lately I have just been focused on building up my own understanding of the notion of the kingdom of God as taught by Christ, and I merely share what I think I know with those who are interested.
As a Lutheran and as a Baptist, I have had the misfortune of being intimately involved in conflict resolution, either as chairman of a Mutual Ministry committee, or as a deacon. Supposedly the reason why I have found myself so involved in church conflicts is the perception that I have the ability to deal with facts in a non-emotional manner. However, I have found these experiences very uncomfortable and psychologically draining. And when I consider the mixed record of Christianity in local communities and in the world, particularly on matters related to violence, warfare and social inequalities, it no longer seems evident to me that Christians are intrinsically better than other people. For that reason I have asked myself what it truly means to be a Christian. The only answer that makes sense to me is that a Christian must pursue the kingdom of God as Jesus taught it. Therefore I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to understand the concept of the kingdom of God which, as far as I can tell, pervades the entire Bible. As I am now retired from my engineering career, I am focusing on writing and sharing my thoughts with others.
My first published book is called Grace and Truth: How the Biblical Narrative Affirms that Christ Is Supreme and Parts of the Bible Are Obsolete. In this book, I follow the narrative in the Bible from Adam to Jesus and his apostles, extracting from it God’s expectations of mankind as perceived by the biblical people of God. These perceptions evolve in time, and I conclude that the evolution is a non-reversible process leading to an improved understanding of God’s character and his expectations of his creation, and culminating in the concept of the kingdom of God presented by Jesus. Therefore it is erroneous to assume, as some do, that the Old Testament and the New Testament are equally relevant. Such an assumption creates the dangerous notion that one can navigate back and forth between the two, thereby circumventing the truly radical standard Jesus has set for mankind to follow. It is my hope that the book will be helpful to those who wish to have a comprehensive understanding of the Bible and the flow of ideas in it. The book is based on a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible, in the sense that the biblical stories are accepted at face value, with a focus on drawing conclusions regarding God’s character and his expectations of mankind. Such an approach is consistent with the way Bible studies are often conducted in Christian churches. However, the biblical material is analyzed critically, with the understanding that it was written by humans rather than God himself. From that perspective, it becomes easier to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the Father presented by Christ, and the blame for the cruelty and tyranny attributed to the God of the Old Testament is placed on the evolving theological insights of the prophets. This is not a trivial conclusion given that throughout the history of Christendom, preachers have used Scripture to justify hatred and even violence against people they exclude from their fellowship. It is not possible to use the Bible in such a misguided manner if one understands that the Old Testament merely points to Christ, God’s true self-revelation to mankind.
In this website, my goal is to make a contribution, no matter how small, to promoting a better understanding of the concept of the kingdom of God as taught by Jesus. Considering that today, humans and nations continue to destroy each other, I believe it is more important than ever to refocus human energy on Jesus’ message and the movement he initiated.
