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Religious Affections
Posted by Rastis in Church & Missions, News & Culture
For many years, I had always assumed that what kept people from receiving the gospel, humanly speaking, was some kind of logical or factual error or deficiency. After all, I was a philosophy major in my undergrad. The more people I have talked to over the years the more convinced I become that the real issues are rarely factual and logical. The real issues, I now believer, are affective. I first noticed this when I dealt a lot with high school atheists. I came to the conclusion that the majority of them were not pure atheists in that they had previously practiced some kind of religion. I have only met a few who were raised from birth receiving the presupposition that there is no God. Most were reacting to some religious group or another. The majority of these were previously Roman Catholic. The minority usually were from some kind of baptistic separatist group. Even though I understood that these guys were simply hurt and offended by their group and were responding in kind, I continued to answer them with logical information rich answers. Surely if they just knew that the New Testament was reliable, so I thought, they would overcome their barriers and repent. This was rarely the case. Piling on the facts and proofs to someone who is emotionally and psychologically incapable of accepting something they have known from childhood to be true, is a kind of insanity.
There are a rash of videos and links around the web touching on this very topic. Many of these examples are in response to Islam. Acts 17 has been posting many videos of them being arrested. Their leader recently released a “taunt” video in which he ask Muslims who might wonder if they are wrong to contact him. Most people tend to believe what they believe because they assume it is true and not false. While the Acts 17 group desires to do evangelism, they are equally concerned with freedom of speech. By their approach, they have earned a reputation and are no longer welcome at the festival. Allilhaj.com affirms that other groups, such as Josh McDowell are allowed to have booths at the festival. While the issue of free speech is important, we must not confuse the bill of rights with the gospel. Our sympathies for the former must not confuse our strategies for the latter.
Dove World Outreach Center affirms Acts 17′s ministry and has fired a few of their own shots across the bow. They have opposed the building of mosques in their city and are even participating in a “burn the Quran day.”
What is problematic in these approaches is evident in the recent set of youtube videos attacking attacking Ergun Caner’s claims and credibility. For the sake of the argument, let us assume that everything Dr. Caner has said is completely true and that the videos are completely false. This takes the teeth out of the critique videos but still demonstrates an important fact: even when we are correct in our information, we are presenting the truth in such a way that it cannot be received.
These examples address those who are near geographically but distant culturally. Let us move a little closer to our neighbors. Recently certain atheist groups have resorted to “de-baptisms.” The newly de-converted are blown off with hair dryers symbolically washing off the waters of baptism. This example puts the shoe on the other foot for us. We are well aware with most claims atheists make and their disputes with us. How convincing and compelling is the publicity stunt of de-baptisms? We probably understand through this what a burn the Quran day must look like to our Muslim neighbors. In addition to viewing things through their eyes, the de-baptisms are indicative of a certain amount of malice and animosity which betrays a deep seated pain most of these people feel.
Given time and resources, we could complete an endless list of “us/them” dichotomies in our culture: men/women, white/black, haves/have nots, republicans/democrats, northerners/southerners, etc. When we, particularly corporately, respond rashly we simply reaffirm the divide and build the wall higher. Rather than giving the other side something to think about we simply cause them to think “see, this is why we organize against them.” In all of our myopic us/them thinking, we over look the greatest dichotomy of all time, the dichotomy between God and man. God did not send a political solution or a solution based on race or any other aspect of demographics. His answer is universal and is revealed in a person. The incarnation stands in opposition to our failed attempts to stand for truth without living out the gospel in front of people. Jesus called people into a relationship and then he revealed himself to them. Imagine how the disciples would have reacted if Jesus started his introduction to them with a summary of the four christological passages rather than with the vague innuendo about becoming fishers of men.
Gina Welch released a “tell all” book describing her infiltration of Thomas Road Baptist Church. She was a secular atheist who made a fake profession in order to be received as a member. She had friends coach her on vocabulary and practices so that she would look the part. She developed many friendships with the people there and began to understand them in a new light. As she got to know them she began to understand why they said and did the things in culture that they did. While many with whom I talked viewed this story as evidence that the cultural gap cannot be bridged (she did not “convert”), I view this experiment optimistically. Before coming to TRBC, Welch had only seen the actions of politicized Christians from a distance. Their actions reinforced every negative stereotype because she did not know them and did not understand the why behind what they did. When I see this story, I see that when she entered into a relationship with these people she began to understand them to the point that she now misses them and was even sad when Fallwell passed. She might not be in the kingdom, but she traversed a lot of negative ground simply due to the fact that she was actually connected to these people. She demonstrated a lot of initiative to make this connection, albeit deceptively. But what about those in our own culture who would be willing to listen if they were simply understood the seemingly secret lives of Christians?
I see the application of these stories as two-fold. First, when we “share truth” without relationship we will often be rejected without a real hearing. Second, we can overcome these social, political, and religious barriers through relationships. In the context of relationship, we can share truth so that it is received or rejected on its merits rather than on our faults. The change I hope to see in our convention is that we take the initiative in infiltrating the secular culture rather than waiting for someone to infiltrate us.
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Build relationships? Novel concept.
Hope things are going well for you.
Thanks for writing this. It’s like one of those thoughts that keeps nagging at me but never seems to get completely expressed.
Here I was all giddy about Jonathan Edwards…
Rastis,
Great post! I’m trying to remember the name of the book, but someone wrote a book distinguishing between the “words” and the “music” of the gospel. When we get the “words” right, but the “music” all wrong, we create a cognitive dissonance in the ears of the hearers that blocks them from truly hearing and understanding the “words.”
While we all need to master the “words” of the gospel, and surely there is room, in the American church, for improvement, I think the great cause for the decreasing receptivity to the gospel among many in Western culture today (and other cultures also) is not so much a failure to communicate the “words” of the gospel, but rather to communicate correctly the accompanying “music.”
I like that, David. Words and music. That might make it into a sermon sometime – perhaps Sunday. Be assured I will NOT give you credit!!
Dave,
If you want to give credit to whom credit is due, I finally remembered the original source:
Lifestyle Evangelism, by Joe Aldrich
Rastis, you missed some essentials that are not part of a relational approach to personal evangelism.
First of all, it is much easier to establish intellectual superiority than it is to develop relational competency. Pretty much anyone, with a smidgin of effort, can become both intellectually and morally superior to any person they want to argue with, giving them the ability to win arguments. Relationships don’t work that way at all. One must work constantly at forming, building, and maintaining relationships. Often things go sour or fare not so well. It is difficult at times to see when one is making progress. Not so with intellectual ability. It is easy to measure progress by the amount of stuff one knows and the number of arguments one can successfully counter.
Second, and closely related to the first, no one “wins” a relationship. I was watching my girls playing with a neighbor one time when they were little and asked them what they were playing. “House.” So I asked them what was the score. They said, “Daddy, you don’t keep score.” So I asked them how they knew who was winning. They said, as only little girls can, “Daddy, you just don’t get it.” Actually, I did. Evangelism is not about winning or getting the highest score. It’s about bringing someone into a relationship with someone we love.
Following hard on this, since one cannot “win” at relationships, there is no room for bragging on accomplishments. In intellectual pursuits, one can win, as Acts 17 Apologetics is attempting to do, in the courts or on the streets and boast of victory and then post a triumphant video, as they have done.
Another advantage to to the intellectual superiority approach is that you gain the admiration of others like you. Relationships don’t lend themselves to the same kind of hero-worship and superstar promotion.
Finally, the Culture Warriors and Apologetics Agents receive not just the adulation of their admirers, but their service as well. People seeking to build relationships aren’t in it for what others can do for them. Or if they are, we see them as “users” and not givers. Real relationships are about what you can do for others.
So, lacking adulation, praise, admiration, and service from others, relationship-building will never be at the forefront of our “bag of tricks” for winning the lost. And probably for good reason. It’s not a trick.
Well said Rick!
John
Rastis,
Your insights are confirmed by an encounter that I had with a local Muslim who is on the board of his mosque. I had contacted him because the mosque is very near our church and I wanted to get to know some folks there. As we began our conversation, he wanted to know what *kind* of Baptist church I pastored. When I asked him what he meant, he said, “Are you just Baptist [by which he meant moderate or liberal based on some of the churches he named], or are you Southern Baptist?” I explained that we are Southern Baptist and asked him why he asked. He said he was “surprised that a Southern Baptist pastor would want to meet with me because one of your leaders has referred to the prophet as a ‘demon-possessed pedophile.’” Yeah, I had some ‘splainin’ to do.
What may serve as red meat on a convention floor, what may even be true, may still be a hindrance to the cause of Christ because it is presented in “a way that it cannot be received.”
Lord grant that our only offense be the gospel itself.
Grace and peace,
MJD
BTW, that conversation took place just this year!
I think Wade Burleson had a similar Kairos Moment like the woman who inflitrated Thomas Road, when he attended the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Oklahoma last year.
The Baptist World Alliance comes to mind as a group that incarnates a sentiment you espouse here, Rastis.
As he meets folks in the larger network of the CBF and establishes relationship with them he is given to ask the question was the Conservative Resurgence a good thing at all; was it necessary?