Born Again Frank

I spent the better part of Thanksgiving weekend under the weather. Since it has become church custom to shake hands with other congregation members at some point during worship services, I thought it a public health service to refrain from attending. Plus, my body needed the rest. 

In lieu of leaving my bed to seek out the word of the Lord, I thought I'd try something a little different. A few years ago, my Sunday late nights/early Monday mornings were taken up not with sleep, but by listening to a radio programs on KLOS called The Impact Program. Hosted for over two decades by Frank Sontag, the show was an open forum wherein listeners could call in and speak on a wide variety of topics. It was unconventional radio, especially considering a lot of callers wanted to discuss issues of faith and spirituality. 

At the time, Sontag would probably have considered himself spiritual but not locked into any specific faith, opting to pull from an eclectic grab bag of ideologies and merge them into something that seemed to work for him... until it didn't. Sontag became one of the ever growing movement of born again Christians a few years ago. A few months ago, I attended one of his talks at the Philosophical Research Society where he gave his oral "testimonial," something he also did in an installment of the Frank Pastore radio show around the same time. 

The concept of being born again is something I struggle with. I've stated before and I'll state again that in my reviews I have no interest in questioning the faith of another, and that includes how or when a person ultimately chooses to identify as a Christian. A story in the news just today features the child star of the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men" lashing out at his own series because, as a born again Christian, he cannot endorse it. There have always been differences between denominations as to when baptisms, the sacrament usually associated with becoming a part of God's family, take place. But the idea that such a moment actually makes a person renewed and/or transformed is a relatively new one, at least as I understand the terminology. To be in a position to reject your entire past and adopt the mindset of becoming an entirely new person stretches a metaphor to its absolute limit. Maybe it is just an issue of semantics, but my brain has trouble with the notion a person who decides to be baptized is a different person than the one who ends up getting baptized. 

This struggle on my part is rooted in the idea that I do not believe any action we take makes us children of God. We are children of God by default, regardless of whether someone sprinkles water on your forehead, immerses you in water, or when you loudly proclaim you accept Him. 

Obviously, I do not consider myself born again, but that doesn't mean I believe those who do are somehow less than I am. It means we have different interpretations of certain details, but -- generally speaking -- those sorts of differences generate far more headlines than are probably called for.

Back to Frank, or -- rather -- the two Franks. The Monday before Thanksgiving, radio host Frank Pastore was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. Frank Sontag, whose Impact Program was dropped by KLOS a few years ago (one of many bad moves by KLOS management, but I digress), was asked to fill in for a few days. So this Sunday, instead of getting out of bed to hear someone talk about God, I opted to download the podcast installments of Frank S. hosting Frank P.'s radio show. 

Sontag has always had a very casual, conversational tone, which makes listeners at ease. It is less frenetic than Pastore's more traditional radio persona. As he speaks of anything, from holiday blues to feelings expressed over an injured friend, Sontag lacks any pretense. He means what he says, and he says what he believes. Sontag believes Jesus Christ spoke to him in Frank's car outside a burger joint in Fullerton. I listened to Frank Sontag on the radio for nearly two decades, and not once did I ever feel he was being disingenuous. Yet here he was, stating something that flies in the face of my own beliefs of how God chooses to communicate to man. 

I heard Frank testify in person at the PRS. I heard him on a YouTube video. I heard him again on the radio. I want to believe him. Let me put it a different way: I believe that he believes what he is saying; I'm just not ready to accept it is the proverbial gospel truth. But again, I don't think I need to in order to embrace Frank as a Christian. 

In a time when some religions try to dictate hair length, clothing choice, and the role of men and women in society, I tend to discount all of that. I never presume to speak for God, nor would I dare suggest what He would want, but I find it impossible to believe that if Jesus came back tomorrow, He would separate people according to who shaved their beard or who immersed themselves as part of their baptism. These things seem too inconsequential. 

I encourage you to listen to Frank Sontag's radio shows, which I'm linking to below. Included are the shows where he filled in as host, as well as times he appeared as a guest with Pastore. Sontag and I would not agree on all aspects of what it means to be a Christian, but that does not make one of us better or worse than the other. We all approach faith differently, but Jesus told us to love one another, and to treat them the way we want to be treated. In that common ground, I'd like to believe Frank and I would get along.

Amen.

Frank with Frank Pastore giving his testimonial

Frank with Frank Pastore, joined by his wife

Frank filling in as host on Thanksgiving, Hour 1

Frank filling in as host on Thanksgiving, Hour 2 

Frank filling in as host on Thanksgiving, Hour 3

Frank filling in as host on Black Friday, Hour 1

Frank filling in as host on Black Friday, Hour 2

Frank filling in as host on Black Friday, Hour 3