We encounter people throughout our days and, instead of being people with hopes and dreams, despair and failures, they become items on the list…
– Craig Gross
I want to tell the stories this week of six of my friends. Four became Christians. Two have not. So many of your comments this past week speak to their stories, and I will try to weave some of these comments into my friends stories.
On Wednesday our frequent commentator, Headless Unicorn Guy, had this to say:
And more recently in various fandoms, once someone is outed as a Christian(TM), their invitations are only accepted ONCE. After accepting once (and getting high-pressure proselytized at whatever Christian(TM) event they got invited to), they usually run far far away once the identified Christian(TM) tries to invite them to any subsequent event. The usual reaction is to NOT mention the “event” is a Crusade or P&W “concert” or Christian event, which only adds to the bait-and-switch distrust.
Andy and I have been friends for 36 years. We still get together once a year when I take my yearly canoe trip into his part of the province. I met Andy in grade 10, just after I had arrived in Canada, and he invited me over to his house for a game of table tennis. It became a second home for me. His basement was a hangout for a motley crew of misfits, myself included. We listened to the latest music, sharpened our ping pong skills, and had great debates and discussions about everything under the sun. A mutual friend invited Andy to a production of “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s flames” and Andy agreed to go. He was caught up in the emotion of the play and went forward to give his life to Christ. That is until he realized the next day that they had been playing on his emotions, and that he wouldn’t have done that if he had been thinking rationally. We have had many conversations in the ensuing years, he even contributed to a piece I wrote at Internet Monk, but I have to wonder how much that first experience turned him away from Christianity.
A few years later Bill and I met in the Computer Science Labs at the University of Western Ontario. We became friends, had some great conversations, and he started joining me for lunch in the University Centre where I was hanging out with a bunch of other friends from the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Bill was studying philosophy (among other thing) when one day he was reading one of the ancient Greek philosophers and was thinking about the concept of “truth”. It suddenly hit him, “Jesus is the embodiment of truth!” he exclaimed to me. “If I want to know what is true I need to look at what Jesus said and did.” I recall talking to him about John 1, and how Jesus is the “logos”, and that his eureka moment did fit with what scripture teaches. Our friendship continued for several years beyond that. He joined my cell group at Inter Varsity, and we even dated the same girl (albeit at different times.)
Lynn made the following comment about “closing the deal”:
my husband and I were being assessed as church planters and during the Evangelism section I found myself debating this very thing with one of the leaders/assessors. He actually said that eventually you have to “close the deal.” I was stunned and here my disillusionment grew. Human beings are not business deals. How we live our lives in this world and how we love will speak volumes more than the feeble, faulty words that fall from our tongues.
With Bill I never had to close the deal. It seemed like the Holy Spirit was working in his heart in a way that never would have crossed my mind. I have never been a fan of “closing the deal”, my experience has been that it tends to alienate rather than attract people to Christ.
The year after I met Bill I was sitting having lunch with another friend John. A Campus Crusade staff worker who I knew walked up and asked if he could join us. He then whipped out his “four spiritual laws” and proceeded to take John through the booklet. I could tell that John wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. He asked John if he would pray the sinners prayer with him, and John agreed, I believe just to get rid of him. John never talked to me again.
Who knows where that friendship would have gone and what might have happened with John had the Crusader not stepped in. It seemed to me at the time though that John had become a notch on a belt to be mentioned as a praise item in the next weekly meeting, and was probably further from God than he was before that encounter.
Now I must admit I have been guilty of wanting to close the deal. Kelly had been talking to a co-worker at the furniture store that she worked at, and he had been quite open about his Christianity and what Jesus meant to him. He encouraged her to check out a church. His church however was at the opposite end of town from where she lived, so he encouraged her to check out the one I was going to. “It’s a good church, and it’s right across the road from you.” So one Sunday she showed up unannounced. A bunch of us saw her there by herself and we invited her out to lunch. She started attending our college and career group. She said that she was going to be around for a year and was then heading off to Australia. That year quickly passed, she was going to be leaving soon, and I wasn’t sure where she stood with God. I invited her to go for a skate on the historical Rideau Canal where I carefully broached the topic. I don’t remember my words at all but I vividly remember her response. “Last month when we had communion the Pastor invited all those who are believers in Jesus Christ to take part. It was at that moment that I said to myself that yes, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I took communion for the first time. That was the moment at which I became a Christian.” I do remember pressing her on what it meant to be a believer and her response surprised me. “Imagine a tight rope walker walking back and forth on a tight rope. He says to a person in the audience, ‘Do you believe a could cross this tight rope carrying a person on my back?’ ‘Yes’ the person responded. ‘Okay then’, said the tight rope walker. ‘Get on!'” “Believing in Jesus”, said Kelley, “is not just believing a set of facts about him, but being willing to climb on his back and trusting him to take you where ever he wants to go.” I was glad we had that conversation, but the Holy Spirit had certainly been talking to her before I could mess things up with my words. One month later she was gone, and I never saw her again.
Several years later I was approached by a co-worker named Rav. He said that he knew that I was a Christian and he had a few questions for me about Christianity. His family was Hindu, his girlfriend was Christian, and he knew that he either had to convert to Christianity or break it off with her. He also knew that he couldn’t become “just a nominal Christian. If I become a Christian it is going to hurt my family,” he said. “And I am not going to hurt them over something that is meaningless to me.” He had 1001 questions about Christianity, and we spent hours discussing it. One of the most significant areas that he wanted to discuss was the deity of Christ. “It seems to me that the truth of Christianity revolves around whether or not Jesus is God. I don’t think I can become a Christian unless I believe that that is true.” We spent a long time on that topic. Rav did become a Christian. He got baptized and he got married. My interaction with Rav was the same as with everyone else. Be friendly, be open, and be available to talk.
So what am I trying to communicate here? My experiences with “closing the deal” have generally been negative. It my case it has been in letting friendships and conversations develop, some times over several years, that has resulted in people coming to Christ. And I will throw a bone to my Calvinist friends on this blog. In each of these cases it seems like I have had a bit role to play. The Holy Spirit was working in their hearts long before they had their conversations with me.
Finally let me make this clear. If you ask me to invite my friend to a “special event” I am going to be pretty reticent, because you know what? They have a pretty good idea when they are becoming “an item on the list.”
The Internet Monk Archives 
It’s called “Wretched Urgency”.
And the airline-seat captive audience is a classic. RHE even had a posting specifically on that subject:
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/why-i-dont-witness-to-people-on-airplanes
And many of the comments apply not only to this, but touch on both last and next week’s IMonk themes.
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I’ve found that Campus Crusade can vary a lot from campus to campus. At Cal Poly, CCC staff was where the game “Killer” first came to the campus (around the time I graduated). While CCC Cal State Fullerton (at the other end of Brea Canyon, where I played D&D) was full-honk into The Satanic Panic and Spiritual Warfare — think Fred Phelpses with a different target. Us “SAY-TANN-IC” gamers were in a near-constant war with them; fortunately, us gamer geeks were on VERY good terms with the campus cops after helping finger a petty arsonist who was torching trash cans in the building. (When CCC announced they were going to infiltrate “Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing” to exorcize/convert us, we started steering all noobs past this one very weird gamer who could really fake being the Spiritual Warrior’s worst nightmare.)
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My own experience has been mixed. Mind you both of my experiences have been 30 years ago.
I got kicked out of the first university a talked about in the post. Nne years after I started my B.A. I graduated from another University (Carleton) in Ottawa. The Crusade group there was made up of a bunch of really wonderful students, and the staff seemed to have learned enough about Canadian Culture that they were not as overbearing as in my previous experience.
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I don’t question your experience with CRU and I’m sorry it was so negative. On the other side, though, I have a very positive view of the ministry. I have several friends who are with CRU, most of them at the Orlando headquarters. They are all different from each other, are active in local churches (United Methodist and Episcopal), and do not fit any stereotype.
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I enjoyed hearing the brass at least.
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We at Church, inc. believe that our business model of Totally Continuous Growth (TM) is sound. Corporate leadership is totally behind the Totally Continuous Growth (TM) model, however there have been some inefficiencies in how staff has implemented this model. To address these inefficiencies, management is proud to introduce a training program – Total Dedication Towards Totally Continuous Growth. At the end of this training, each employee will be asked to sign a Totally Dedicated pledge. The further enhance morale and productivity, each employee will have his or her own Totally Continuous Growth (TM) quota to fulfill. As part of our improved quota implementation system, all managers will be required to take training in Tracking Total Continuous Growth…
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I know this is late to the discussion, but I just ran across this article from the SBC…
Why Southern Baptists Declined and What to Do
The question the article asks is, why is the SBC in decline? The answer?
“Any theology that either purposefully or unintentionally makes you less aggressive as a personal witness needs to be jettisoned… The battle for the Bible was joined because anyone could see that liberalism would never lead churches to evangelize. What we obviously have seen less clearly is that a conservative view of the Bible is insufficient to transform twice-born men into avid evangelists… The issue is quite simple. Can you and will you say to any individual you meet, “Christ died for your sins, and if you will repent of your sin and trust Christ alone, you can be saved.” This is not a matter of election or of the sovereignty of God. No orthodox Christian can deny either doctrine. Where we differ is on the question of what exactly is meant by election. Be that as it may, an upturn in baptisms depends on an undergirding evangelistic theology and a focus on witnessing in the local churches.”
IOW, double-down on the sales pitch. What’s the definition of “insanity” again?
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> but their message is insane
Yes, “insane” is a good word for it. It is also “scattered” and “inconsistent” and “negative”. They suggested way more in terms of protest and opposition and threat then they did things to do or support.
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Yep, that kind of preaching is a ‘guilt machine’ that leads to burnout quickly.
The comment about the airplane reminds me of a statement from Anthony Campolo. He said when he’s on an airplane, if he thinks the person sitting next to him is interesting and wants to have a conversation he says ‘I’m a sociologist’. If not, he says ‘I’m a Baptist evangelist’.
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Nice analogy! And I love that David Mamet line.
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The solution is for Evangelicalism to take more seriously the admonition to “know what you believe and why you believe it.” Hey there just one minute, isn’t there a radio show that uses that for its’ slogan? Oh yeah, it’s run by Calvinists and Lutherans.
Attempts to make Evangelicalism more catechetical never seem to get very far, because it sort of runs against its cultural DNA. I believe that confessional Protestantism has the answer to these problems for Evangelicals. But believe me, try introducing serious indoctrination to your local Evangelical congregation. BTDT, got the T shirt. I still flinch when I think about it. It went over like a turd in a punch bowl. …and I wasn’t even going to use the entire catechism. Just the questions and proof texts to get a conversation started!
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I have my own college experience, during which I wasn’t a Christian. There were a couple of Christians on my floor in the dorm who at times would clearly try to evangelize to folks. Me and my friends used to call them The Antichrists.
Looking back on that now, I feel bad for calling them that, and I also feel bad for them for what I’m guessing was an unhealthy view of needing to convert everyone they ran across. Not sure they had any friends in the dorm.
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This is actually true for me, too. Interesting, isn’t it?
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The Catholic church still gots one up on him with RCIA. Get with the program, Protestantism!
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Operation SALVATION.
D-Day: Hit the Beach for Jesus.
The Holy Spirit EXPLOSION.
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It’s really hard not to. That stuff will move your feet!
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Excellent article, Mike. Well put, and very insightful. I couldn’t agree more. I suppose we’ll have to save our arguments for the comments section. 😛
And BTW, Calvinists aren’t the only ones insisting that we let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting. Us Lutherans call the preached Gospel and the written scriptures means of grace, ’cause they actually do something: They connect us to Jesus.
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Well put. But good luck getting any of them to see this. Especially if they’re comfortable and the system is working quite well for them. Which will include fewer and fewer as time goes by and folks begin to realize that they didn’t get that promotion Osteen promised them and volunteering for 17 church programs doesn’t make their life full of purpose.
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Seen FIF and took the youth group to AtF. It’s just really loud rock and roll. It’s what the kids are into these days: it’s not enough to be loud. When the drummer hits the kick drum, it’s SUPPOSED to feel like a punch to the chest. Otherwise, it’s not loud enough. The volume is literally pummeling you with its kinetic force. And FWIW, Five Iron Frenzy is far and away the best Christian ska group. Their lyrics and melodies were far more reflective. …except for the songs about their pants. Would that more contemporary Christian music would feature lyrics this thoughtful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCbtS8hHFA0
ATF can pull in some decent to great musicians (Skillet and Gungor when I went), but their message is insane. Ron Luce got up there and told everybody they needed to protest outside Victoria’s Secret until they took down their advertising objectifying women. I would bet heavy money that not one single youth group present took his advice. How seriously do you think they took anything he said about Jesus? Judging from how long the “fire” they acquired lasted, ’bout the same.
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…’cause if you don’t say that to any individual you meet, you’re not a real Christian, are you?
Funny you should mention airplane. Similar Evangelical leaders have actually included that specific scenario multiple times in their lectures on why/how to share your faith with random strangers. I could have sworn they were hell bent on making you feel guilty for not proselytizing the person on your right and left on every flight you took, though I really doubt they did it either. It actually took me a few years to shake that kind of guilt. Just one more indication that their version of Christianity is perhaps a tad bit cultish. Imagine, sitting there feeling like “these two people are probably going to hell, and it’s all my fault because I’m too cowardly to throw them a life line!” Imagine the relief I would feel to find out that one of them was Christian already.
But that’s the other side of the problem with “decision theology”: Not only do we resort to any drastic method possible to influence people to choose righteousness, but the salesmen have an extremely unreal level of pressure forced upon them to get results. Those who are most responsible for caring for their souls wind up pushing them deeper into guilt and despair. The kind of psychological damage this can create takes years to recover from.
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[comment removed for broken recordness]
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That is a great one, Ted.
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I’m sure glad someone cared enough about me to share the love of Christ, and the free gift of salvation He offers. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Just saying…
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There’s a famous Web essay on that subject:
http://www.abpnews.com/opinion/commentaries/item/6899-mormons-southern-baptist-zombies#.UWY1FWfhb2k
Mormons = Southern Baptist Zombies?
“By contrast, Mormons out-Southern Baptist the Southern Baptists by almost any measure. Their children all serve as missionaries and their numbers are growing. Mormons generally have a reputation of being socially conservative, nice people with good family values. What’s more, many Mormon converts were previously Southern Baptist.”
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The really wonderful thing about that verse, is that you can keep on repeating it. In fact, you are meant to do so.
I’d say that same thing for Mark 9:24. At least, it is one I am obliged to rely on.
The Baptist/evangelical “sinner’s prayer” is meant to be prayed once, and then you’ve “done it.” Now you’re supposed to go onto … something else.
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“We have Jesus, and Jesus is a better product than what everyone else is selling.”
-Sermon quote from an honest man, who had just read church growth literature, and didn’t realize you are supposed to dress up the marketing logic a little bit, so that it is a mite less obvious
In the same sermon, I also learned that the economic value of a new member is approximately 1/8 of an AC system. [Pro tip: Don’t put that in the sermon, either.]
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I immediately thought of my Dad’s radiologist even before I read what you wrote about them. I hope they’re not all like that, but Dad’s was all scientist, zapping the prostate with no clue that there was a person attached to it. Results were not happy either, and the doctor’s detachment from the problem didn’t help.
Urologists can be all science too, but my current one will sit down a minute and talk about tuna fishing.
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My pastor still has the letter that Clapton sent to him (years ago) explaining why he was chucking the whole thing overboard.
Hopefully (as others have said) he is now back (?) in the fold.
BTW…my pastor chucked that form of Evangelicalism shortly thereafter…and became a Lutheran pastor.
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I’m under the impression that Clapton is a Christian. He apparently converted in the 80s during drug rehab after having several brushes with the faith in days past (“In the Presence of the Lord” was written about an earlier conversion experience).
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Just look at some of the names of these movements/groups:
Campus CRUSADE.
Teen MANIA.
ACQUIRE the FIRE.
We can brainstorm cooler names:
Sinner Stalkers.
The Jesus Bear Trap
The Shaming Solution
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I can imagine a used car salesman, or sex-crazed lothario hitting on women at a club just before last call, reading Page’s statement and going, “Dude, you might want to tone down the sales pitch a little; you’re coming across a little too harsh.”
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I took a youth group to an ACQUIRE THE FIRE, the one immediately following the Columbine shooting… yes, ATF is a hell simulation.
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Now you are into a subject of great interest to me. Have you ever noticed that the further away you get from your “primary physician” the less this happens? Specialists seldom take the time to get to know a person, or that person’s story. And doctors who are radiologists sometimes know next to nothing about us.
I’m a lucky man, because I have doctor who happens to be a Mennonite. She takes her time, listens, and is gradually learning my story. Her father is also a doctor who subs for her a times, and he reminds me of a doctor from the 1950’s. when I was a kid.
My apologies to any specialists who might be looking in here, and happen to be the exception to what I believe to be the rule.
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That might explain it. Thanks, Trevis. And it goes back to the question of “what do you mean by…? (the gospel, or “God” for that matter).
Old-fashioned Maine humor is a lot like British humor too, a bit understated. But we’re losing that talent.
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Christiane, Michael Spencer used to say that one of the most important prayers in the bible is from Mark 9:24, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”
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Can anybody say “Anne Rice”? Only she was an adult revert.
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HUG, years ago my wife and I took our kids and a few others to a Luis Palau rally, which opened with a Christian rock band called “Five Iron Frenzy” (fits right in with “mania”). LOUD. I took my littlest one out for a potty break and saw a couple from church in the lobby, and had to shout, “IS THIS WHAT HELL IS LIKE?” The wife shouted back, “THIS IS NOTHING! YOU SHOULD GO TO ACQUIRE THE FIRE!”
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I’ve read that one difference between the British and us Americans is that the word “aggressive” in the US is more or less a synonym for “ambitious,” whereas in the UK it simply means “hostile.”
Maine is as close to the UK as you can get in the US, now that I think about it.
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“It has to do with listening, caring, being a neighbor, and loving people, and not simply trying to “win” them over because we see them as sinners.”
David, what you said reminds me of something a physician assistant friend of mine once said. He told me that his medicine took a quantum leap when he realized that he should be treating the person and not the disease.
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” …its pragmatic approach worked when people already believed much of what you were saying (right or wrong).”
This fact explains much about evangelicalism in general.
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“Considering the full year of study and time commitment before one can join our ancient Churches, the emotional, fever-pitched “sign-right-here-right-now” approach is decidedly absent from the conversion/reversion experience… I think it would be fair to say that the CathoDox crowd would rather have 100 members who know what they believe and why than 100 Million cultural and lukewarm members.”
And yet, I grew up in the RCC, and I was surrounded by family and CCD classmates, who were at best lukewarm Catholics, who understood very little of the catechism they were taught, believed in little of what they did understand, and clung to Catholicism as a cultural and ethnic identifying marker rather than a serious religious faith. This was my experience.
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“Any theology that either purposefully or unintentionally makes you less aggressive as a personal witness needs to be jettisoned…”
The word “aggressive” disturbs me too in reference to evangelism. And I picked up on the backdoor slam against the new Calvinism, but I don’t get the sense that the new Calvinists are less aggressive. I find some of them obnoxious.
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Sounds like the pastor had a hard-line interpretation of Matthew 10:14, “shake the dust off your feet” and leave if someone will not welcome you or listen.
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“One other pet-peeve I have, and that is what I term Christian speak. ”
Radagast, have you seen this? I probably got it here at iMonk.
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Can’t disagree there.
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Which is not at all helped by the ridiculous “gospel branding” that has been risen to death recently. I mean, you can’t even have a relationship without it being a “gospel” relationship; I’m waiting for gospelly coffee and craft brew, myself…
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“Can you and will you say to any individual you meet, ‘Christ died for your sins, and if you will repent of your sin and trust Christ alone, you can be saved.'”
And then when you tell that individual that, are you then prepared to explain the soteriology of how this salvation works? Are you prepared to tell them the preferred ecclesiology in which this should work? Are you prepared to tell them why they should listen to your message of salvation but not the message of the Hare Krishnas?
Is there a person in the US that SBC members are likely to meet, that has not heard the in a nutshell message of salvation that Mr.Patterson wants his members to tell?
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Excellent, Christiane! And the underlying theology of “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18.13) is “repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1.15).
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I love Black Gospel music, too. It’s really odd because I’m not black and I’m not Christian, but I do like the music.
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I think this rings a bell of an old post of Michael Spencer’s about selling Jesus like a vacuum cleaner.
Given that this vacuum picks up better than any vacuum ever has, is there any reason you wouldn’t want to own one?
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“So what am I trying to communicate here? My experiences with “closing the deal” have generally been negative. It my case it has been in letting friendships and conversations develop, some times over several years, that has resulted in people coming to Christ. And I will throw a bone to my Calvinist friends on this blog. In each of these cases it seems like I have had a bit role to play. The Holy Spirit was working in their hearts long before they had their conversations with me.”
As a former “Free Grace” or “Cafeteria Christian” (as I affectionately like to refer to most Evangelicals in the bulging middle of the “doctrines of grace” bell curve) I did my share of “seal the deal” deals. And although I do not blame myself for damaging anyone’s relationship–or lack of–with God (a benefit of being a Calvinist, I would add), I would say that I wasted a lot of time and gave some folks a false sense of eternal assurance.
And since you threw me a bone I’ll fetch it back to you…
I won’t throw out a ossuary of Calvinism-friendly verses except for this one: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6.44) It really is as simple as that. Even my Arminian friends would agree and would say that prevenient grace is necessary to raise the spiritually dead that s/he may be raised physically on the last day. We may disagree on predestination as an outcome of sovereign grace but not on the need for grace to be saved.
So Mike, thank you for acknowledging that “The Holy Spirit was working in their hearts long before they had their conversations with me.” It relieves the pressure of “wretched urgency” and the accompanying guilt that some will end up in hell because I did not “seal the deal” (which, by the way, is God’s prerogative, not mine).
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Oh, yea. This is the perfect description of my experience with Crusaders.
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And yet one of the real oddities I’ve noticed is that people will go through the whole Catechumenate program and then go through the rituals and then fall away again within the next 5 years. It seems odd to me that having sunk so much time, one would do so.
I was received in 1983 and then officially converted to Judaism in 2008. A little longer than 5 years, at least!
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I remember telling some evangelicals that I knew the sinner’s prayer from the sacred Scriptures. I repeated it for them, this:
” ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (from the Gospel of St. Luke)
I remember then, they said ‘but that’s not the sinner’s prayer’ and they proceeded to tell me what they thought it was.
some things you remember, and this was something I couldn’t forget . . . I wondered if these kind people who gloried in being biblical realized the impact they made on me that day
. . . I felt sad that they couldn’t see the simplicity of the publican’s prayer, which St. Luke tells us was pleasing to God
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I get what you mean about “closing the deal.” One of the traps of evangelizing is that we can turn people into objects.
In college, I remember sitting in the campus mall between classes. A couple of fellows came up to me and asked if they could join me. I said ok. After conversing awhile, I realized that they were with Campus Crusade and were trying to evangelize me. I told them I was already a believer (in fact, I was active in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the time), and our conversation continued from there. After that encounter, I ran across them on campus and greeted them by name. They had a slightly embarrassed look on their faces – I think it was because they had forgotten my name. I ran across them a few more times and each time I would call out their names. I took a perverse delight at seeing their embarrassed faces.
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A seminary educated friend told me in no uncertain terms that Finney was a heretic and not even a Christian. I find little evidence to argue against that.
I want a tee shirt that says “Finney would be proud” that I can wear to church…
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I’ve spent time with Cru, but I was referring to another group. Never really had much interaction with the Navs, was always told they were “compromised” and just a place for boys and girls to intermingle and get laid.
No, I spent time with the remains of Maranatha. Google them sometime (and hello to the bots constantly searching for that term!).
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This sounds like a story several Minneapolis pastors I’ve known would share…
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For most of the Church’s history, you were born Christian – no tampering necessary. You were baptized into the Corpus Christianorum and salvation was analog, not digital. I run into this all the time with my wife. She came out of a traditional Spanish-American Catholic experience into a Pentecostal one. I can trace every strand of her religious DNA back to American Evangelicalism circa 1953, classical Pentecostal variety. She had a thunderous conversion, and everyone in her family converted at the same time.
This causes her to question me when I bring up pre-Wesleyan movement religious figures. She always asks me “Were they Christians?”, meaning ‘did he do what I did? did she consciously surrender her life to Christ at a discrete, dateable time?’ This is even more difficult when you deal with pre-Reformation and pre-Schism Christians. “They were all Catholic back then, honey.” or “They were all Orthodox back then. There weren’t any Evangelicals.”
I don’t think we can give Charles Finney all the credit for the democratization of the Christian project. It was well underway prior to his time. I don’t think people had much of a concept of themselves as individuals apart from their family, clan, or tribe. After all, Charles the Great marched all of Luther’s forbears to the font by the sword, but a hundred or so years later, they were doing the same thing to the Slavs. In European lands, the Lithuanians were the last great pagan nation to come into the Church in such a way, although I guess you could make a point for the Spanish conquests in the New World.
I’ve read some bold stuff in Evangelical church histories – “By the time of Patrick, the Church no longer had a handle on the Gospel” – is one phrase that stuck in my craw. It is hard for us [North] American evangelicals to realize that most of our religion is baptized Enlightenment egalitarianism and will-worship wrapped around a rapidly decaying core of Classical Christianity. Our successful, evilly-grinning cousin Mormonism even more so, and without the core. Most of Evangelicalism’s success in South America appears to me to be simple cultural colonialism. They prefer the tall, powerful blond Yanqui gets-things-done God to the slow, lazy, brown Diosito of their grandparents. European Evangelicals – they are vanishingly few but I have met more than a few – appear to have healthier DNA. Sometimes they try American techniques, but the Europeans just yawn. I don’t know what the future holds for European evangelicals. Literally nobody gives a rat’s ass about religion from Lisbon to the Elbe.
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As Chaplain Mike likes to remind us, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians to live a quiet life, work with your hands, and mind your own business. Sounds like “making people less aggressive” to me.
Yes, Paul and the rest of the NT say other things about the nature of the Christian life and our relationship to the world too. But it is one voice to consider.
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My comment about Baptist membership was based on a news item I read earlier in the week…here in Falwellville, stuff like that makes the front page….
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Just a couple of years ago I voluntarily walked into a local church for what had been billed in the paper as a gospel music concert. I like some gospel music, especially of the older variety, and thought I would give it a listen. The event turned out to be a worship service. The music was vapid, but that wasn’t the point. The advance notice was deceptive, almost certainly intentionally so. I got the feeling it was leading up to an altar call, but I walked out before it reached that point. This is the one and only time I have walked out of a church service. I have sat through some pretty dreadful ones, but I figure it is rude to walk out, just like I wouldn’t walk out of a dinner party just because the food wasn’t very good. But when I was lied to in order to get me in the door, that is a different matter. I naively didn’t expect this, because it was a Church of the Brethren. I didn’t know a lot about them, but that they are some version of Anabaptist. I would never have fallen for this had it been a Baptist church (except perhaps for the black Baptist church: I am a complete sucker for traditional Black Gospel music).
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My personal geekiness has in the past run more toward the medieval/SCA crowd, with side trips to the RenFaire and the SF litcon sides of things. In none of them have I ever experienced any institutional hostility to Christianity, and only rarely any from individuals. Those who respond to meeting a Wiccan by running in circles like their hair in on fire might say differently, but I would submit that any hostility they meet is merely in response to the hostility they offer.
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This article is a backdoor slam against the rising popularity of neo-Calvinism in the SBC (the ‘theology that . . . makes you less aggressive’). It is getting the blame (some of it rightly so) for the declining numbers in the SBC. The real problem is much more complex, and probably boils down to the fact that the world has changed since 1954 and Southern Baptists (at least in their overall thinking and methodologies) haven’t (and won’t – and as Patterson believes, shouldn’t). This really accentuates the weaknesses in SBC theology – its pragmatic approach worked when people already believed much of what you were saying (right or wrong).
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Even if the collapse doesn’t come, the signs are pretty clear that there will be a gradual (at least) decline, and with it a decline in influence.
American Christianity is roughly equally divided three ways: Roman Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, and a combination of mainline white and traditionally black Protestant. If we want to split out that last group, the divide is something line two thirds mainline white and one third traditionally black Protestant.
It might be that the Evangelicals collapse, resulting in a dramatically smaller slice of that pie, or the entire pie might gradually shrink, with the slices keeping the same proportions. Either way, the Evangelical influence in American politics and culture is going to shrink. I also look forward to the salutary effect that the equating of “Christianity” with “American White Evangelical Protestantism” will disappear from our language. It has never been supported by the absolute numbers, but rather by the growth of American White Evangelical Protestantism and the shrinking of the mainlines. Once that stabilizes, perhaps five or ten years later mainstream journalists will notice.
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You can trace most of the problems to Charles Finney. Not only the revivalist part where it is mostly human action – making a sales pitch for Christ and pressuring people for a “decision” – here human agency seems central while the work of the Holy Spirit has at best a secondary role. But related to that is also Finney’s ideal of moral perfectionism, which persists today in a muted form (and sometimes a not so muted form). Here we are seen as fully capable of, through a strength of will power, cooperating with God. At its worst we are walking down our chosen moral and religious path and we invite God to cooperate with us.
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Coming alongside them instead of seeing them as only another potential notch on your Bible.
During my junior college days, this was made worse by a common trope of the time: That God would not only Hold YOU Accountable for any that slip through your hands, but that your position in Heaven would be determined solely by “How Many Souls Did You Save? How Many Did YOU Lead to Christ?”
Those who have not been there cannot imagine the high pressure to rack up sales by any means possible.
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For all his and their faults, props to Driscoll and Mars Hill for having a Doctrine book and several months of “here is what we believe” classes for every new member.
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And Campus Crusade (or Cru, or whatever they call themselves these days) was far from the worst.
At Cal Poly, The Navigators had a rep for (1) the most On-Fire, (2) the most High-Pressure, and (3) the absolute highest burnout and flunkout rate. JMJ/Christian Monist was a Nav missionary, and he has some horror stories about that pressure cooker.
There was also a strictly-local group called “Studies in the Word of God” who out-Naved the Navigators on a regular basis. They seem to have been confined to the local area, unaffiliated with anyone else, and probably burned themselves out a year or two after I graduated in ’78. They’re still THE most X-Treme I remember from that period.
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Just look at some of the names of these movements/groups:
Campus CRUSADE.
Teen MANIA.
ACQUIRE the FIRE.
“And stop screaming. Nobody likes a religion with people screaming.”
— the original IMonk
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More like “Jeesus is My Edward Cullen”, Shekinah Sparkles and all.
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“Can you and will you say to any individual you meet, “Christ died for your sins, and if you will repent of your sin and trust Christ alone, you can be saved.”
I pray to God I’ll never have to sit by Page Patterson on an airplane. He is a description of the problem, not a solution.
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I spent five years with a campus ministry. I’ve got many similar stories I can tell, seeing people come to Christ, seeing broken friendships, seeing lives destroyed. Today I count the success stories as those who’ve managed to walk away from that ministry, whether or not their faith survived intact.
Also, nominal is normal. I’d rather be a nominal Christian than burn with some strange fire.
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To me this is one of the most significant posts to appear on this blog. It speaks to a condition, just as a doctor would diagnose a syndrome. For what you are describing is in so many ways at the heart of a evangelical malaise that has been around for as long as I can remember. It has to do with letting the Holy Spirit have sway, and staying out of the way. It speaks to the obsession with numbers, growth, and statistical reporting. It explains our inability to keep our mouths shut most of the time.
It has to do with listening, caring, being a neighbor, and loving people, and not simply trying to “win” them over because we see them as sinners.
Mike Bell, this is such good writing! And why I keep looking in at this place.
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I’m afraid so.
I don’t mind this, when it’s put into context. But when the term is used, the problem is not knowing how it is meant by the user . . .
but why the anger from some when asked to clarify ? and the ‘you should know’ remarks?
You would think that evangelicals would be very happy to clarify, but not always. Not always.
It’s complicated.
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Here is a timely post about a an article by Page Patterson, President of SBTS, writing to his fellow Southern Baptists:
“The one statistic that does concern me is the diminution of baptisms. This stat is unnecessary and unacceptable for people of the Book. Having read all the sophisticated analyses,..One can have church planting movements to exponential proportions (and I advocate such), but baptisms will still falter if the church does not return to being a witnessing church. Our precious people must be taught to love and to seek the lost. They must learn to be good conversationalists and great listeners, waiting patiently until the friend with whom they are communicating, in the process of the exchange, opens the door for witness. Buttressed by the power available only in the Holy Spirit, the members of Christ’s body must be endued with power (and from that, courage) to share the saving claims of Christ with the lost. The pastor must lead. What he preaches and teaches about witnessing will be worthwhile only if his people see him witnessing and bringing men to Christ. Another factor in failing baptisms is theology. Any theology that either purposefully or unintentionally makes you less aggressive as a personal witness needs to be jettisoned…The issue is quite simple. Can you and will you say to any individual you meet, “Christ died for your sins, and if you will repent of your sin and trust Christ alone, you can be saved.” This is not a matter of election or of the sovereignty of God. No orthodox Christian can deny either doctrine. Where we differ is on the question of what exactly is meant by election. Be that as it may, an upturn in baptisms depends on an undergirding evangelistic theology and a focus on witnessing in the local churches. With that mindset and heart purpose, baptisms will see a significant increase. I conclude—the loss of baptisms is about the failure to develop witnessing churches.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2014/06/05/why-southern-baptists-declined-and-what-to-do/
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I have no great love for Campus Crusade…
I watched them get into many a Catholic Kid’s head, turn them slowly against their faith all along touting “that’s not what we do here”. A very dangerous and deceptive group from my limited perception. Usually led by a very charismatic leader, many times young enough so that the girls have this Jesus is my boyfriend crush on them after a while….
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Pomona. 1976-78.
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I was NOT surprised when I heard Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright started out as a Salesman.
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…wrong on so many levels … we could really dissect that one.
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Like the Mass by Fr Kamau the last year AnthroCon was in Philly. Presided over by a priest who’s also a fursuiter & historical re-enactor who looked like an English Civil War Cavalier in a Monika Livingston T-shirt. Congregation of three — me, the highest-ranking fursuiter in the US Navy, and a Lutheran with Aspergers. (You get a bit more turnout at SF litcons than Furry cons.)
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Which Poly? (wonders if we went to the same college…)
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One of the things I noticed in my Faith Tradition (Catholic) is that many of us warm into the faith. Some stay on the shallow end, others, like me, wade into deeper waters. Although there probably are conversion experiences, or “that moment” when one gives his or her life to Jesus, it is far less prevalent.
In my past, if someone were to come out of the blue and ask me if I was a believer, or about my walk with God or whatever, especially if I did not know them, they would get a negative response. First, I don’t know you and I considered it pretty rude. Second, you just identified yourself as a bible thumper and we go back to – your pretty rude.
These days I welcome the conversation, for it gives me a chance to talk about faith. But I am under no illusions, because as soon s that person asks me my faith tradition, it becomes, for that person, especially a non-denom, an activity in showing how my faith tradition is wrong. Being I am a bit twisted I enjoy the banter, in a non-apologetic sort of way and gently try to guide the person back to our commonality, if that doesn’t work I become more blunt.
I am not so concerned where friends are in their faith walk. We share a common bond, and I hope, through my actions I plant a seed. I have watched too many friendships break apart because one becomes over-zealous, or wants to control the other’s outcomes.
One other pet-peeve I have, and that is what I term Christian speak. If you are on familiar terms with me and you break in to speech that is similar to market speak for Christians, don’t be surprised if I bust out laughing and call you on it. To me its just another mask to “impress” others and keep one’s authentic self hidden, and its quite silly too.
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This is a corollary of Say-the-Magic-Words Salvation and “New Creature in Christ”. Say the words and ZANG! You’re Saved(TM), you’re a New Creature in Christ(TM), who needs classes? (And two days after Saying the Words you’re Head Pastor of a New Church Plant…)
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Do you mean something like “Three Baptists, Four Definitions of Gospel”?
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Oh yeah, “close the deal” mentality. I have a friend who noticed that a friend of his who he was witnessing to did not show interest in becoming a Christian. My friend went to his pastor at the time for advice and was advised to abandon the friendship. It was if friendship wasn’t a good thing in itself, just a means to “close the deal”.
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The comment of mine excerpted in the main body came from a couple stories floating around Furry Fandom. The specific one was related to me first-person: Christian furry invites other furry to “a concert”. Turned out to be a CCM/P&W concert. CF was in ecstasy the entire time, standing arms over head and eyes closed, slowly swaying. (I’m sure you’ve seen this behavior in action.) OF with her was bored out of his skull and looking for an escape route the whole time. (Like going through “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland nineteen times; the girl is all dewy-eyed while the two guys with her are puking over the side.)
Especially if you took my oral history of Cal Poly Campus Crusade and the Billy Graham Crusade where the CCC leaders actually told the Crusaders to “Make sure you invite your Unsaved friends and Get Them Saved.” And the resulting panic as they realized they only had two weeks to MAKE Heathen Friends TO Get Saved. (Almost 40 years later and that’s still one of my all-time WTF moments.)
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There’s an old David Mamet quote something to the effect of “If you’re in a con game and you’re looking around wondering who the mark is, YOU’RE the mark.”
Well, if your Christian friend invites you to a special concert/speaker/etc. and you’re looking around wondering who the target for conversion is……
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when I went to Southern Baptist blogs to learn about the faith of my grandmother of blessed memory, I tried to probe for answers and connections. There were times I was helped greatly, and expressed my thanks. But there were other times I was called ‘ingenious’ and responses were more in the nature of attacks on my own faith than explanations of core beliefs. In some cases, I came to understand that the problem was in my asking at all. Ever try to get a solid definition of what is meant by ‘the gospel’ from a group of Southern Baptists? The term is used, and used frequently, and in many contexts, but when I asked for some to define it, they were offended that I asked this of them. Apparently, the term ‘the gospel’ is used extensively but is not clarified consistently among the users.
Has the term ‘the gospel’ become a kind of ‘Christianese’ for insiders in those cases where people are made uncomfortable when they are asked to share precisely what is meant by it ?
A lot of terms are used as insider language. But if someone asks, perhaps it is better to think about the question being an honest one, and to make an effort to explain the use of the term clearly. I have to think that the Christianese has replaced something basic in conservative evangelical circles, when certain terms cannot be clearly explained with consistency.
some thoughts
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“The predicted demise of Evangelicalism appears to have been either premature or incorrect.”
Michael Spencer was predicting a collapse, not a demise. He was also saying it would be within a generation.
I still believe that he is correct. Many evangelical churces a facing a generational horizon and you will see the decline in denominations like the Southern Baptists accelerate over the next 10 years.
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I remember reading about Clapton’s conversion in a hotel room back during “the Jesus Revolution” and often wondered what happened. Now we know… the rest of the story.
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“my husband and I were being assessed as church planters and during the Evangelism section I found myself debating this very thing with one of the leaders/assessors. He actually said that eventually you have to “close the deal.” I was stunned and here my disillusionment grew. Human beings are not business deals. How we live our lives in this world and how we love will speak volumes more than the feeble, faulty words that fall from our tongues.”
I went to a small SBC college in the midwest back in the 80s (you know, before we even had those ‘brick phones’). As a ‘church vocations’ student I was required to take Evangelism 101. It prepared us with a canned pitch to put the ‘gospel’ (a rather truncated version which was really just a ‘plan of salvation’) into a 12-minute presentation that ended with something like ‘is there any reason you would not want to receive Jesus today?’.
I never felt comfortable with that, and suffered a great deal of (some would have said appropriate) guilt for not practicing that sort of thing. On those occasions when I did (and was ‘successful’) there never seemed to be any lasting effect – most people never came to, or stayed in church, and one man ended up in prison a year or two later for molesting his daughter!
It really hit home how inappropriate that whole approach is a few years later. Again, back in the 80s, I dropped a card into a box at the mall to get a price on a set of encyclopedias (I was REAL young man back then, and they still printed them on paper!). A man came to our apartment and showed them to my wife and me, explaining all the benefits of owning a set, then gave us the payment options (he knew we couldn’t afford to pay the full price at once). After explaining all that, he said ‘if we could make it affordable, is there any reason you wouldn’t buy this set of encyclopedias today?’ My VERY first thought was ‘you took Evangelism 101 at my college!’
The irony with those who talk about how biblical this kind of ‘sharing your faith’ is is that there isn’t any incident in the Bible where this sort of thing happens! People point to the ‘woman at the well’ (John 4) or the ‘Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8) or the ‘Philippian jailer’ (Acts 16), but in each of those incidents the Holy Spirit had prepared the situation so there was no ‘sales pitch’ involved at all – in each case the ‘prospect’ raised the subject and the ‘preacher’ simply answered questions (or in some cases asked them). And there is never any ‘closing the deal’. And even in these incidents, one could question whether they were really ‘evangelistic’ (did the woman in John 4 ‘get saved’?). And in the only record of any of Paul’s sermons we have (which are in Acts) he doesn’t do this sort of thing either – he proclaims the fulfillment of the promises (the coming of the ‘kingdom’) when speaking to Jews and when speaking to Gentiles he proclaims the news that God has acted to bring salvation to the nations through Jesus whom he raised from the dead. No ‘closing the deal’, no altar calls – just good news!
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While I was not expecting the comments to take the path, it is totally relevant, and in hindsight I am not surprised that this aspect of the post stood out to you.
I have to totally agree. I am 51 years old, having gone to church my entire life,and through a series of moves have attended 13 different churches on a regular basis. Not once in that 13 years have I been given a systematic introduction to the faith, i.e., “This is what we believe.” A few churches have had new believers classes but for the most part there has been nothing. This is a serious shortcoming of evangelical churches.
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Your spellcheck must have shorted out, Mule! 🙂
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My pastor has a similar story when he was (briefly) involved with Campus Crusade.
He (the new guy) and the experienced CCC guy wrangled their way backstage and met Eric Clapton. Made an appointment for the next morning to speak about Christ. Were in his hotel room in Minneapolis for an hour and prayed the sinners prayer with him (Clapton). The experienced guy then pressured Clapton on many fronts for a few years until Clapton tossed the whole thing overboard (my pastor received a letter from Clapton stating such).
Don’t know now where Clapton stands on Christianity. That was many years ago.
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I think it would be fair to say that the CathoDox crowd would rather have 100 members who know what they believe and why than 100 Million cultural and lukewarm members.
Hey! We have both! My guess is that we wouldn’t have the former if we didn’t also have the latter.
Honestly, though, there is a whole unmined series of posts here about evangelism and mission in the historic ethnic/Constantinian churches as opposed to the various varieties of bornagainery which presupposes the unregeneratedness of the Blodgettry.
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> the LACK of this sort of “recruitment” is a big plus for the CathoDox believers
+1 I very much appreciate that aspect; especially after years of the other branch, and watching it consistently crater-fail yet somehow self-perceive itself as successful. It is just true that nobody I know who `stuck around` in the faith came into it through those channels. There is an actual real “seeker sensitivity” to CathoDox; they welcome seekers – those who walk in the door of their own volition, and are seeking [seeking being an active participatory activity of the seeker]. You don’t need to market to seekers, they’ll seek you out, that’s what they do.
> the Baptists are wondering WHY their enrollment is dropping like a rock???
I don’t know if the numbers bear that out. Overall church attendance is on a steady gradual fall – pretty much across the board – seeing any clear winner in the mix of numbers is difficult [especially if you take into account that certain demographics – that correlate to particular sects – are growing or shrinking; as well as shifts in regional populations – also correlated to particular sects]. The predicted demise of Evangelicalism appears to have been either premature or incorrect. It seems more likely that Evangelicalism is just going to retool and fork itself; one branch becoming even more apocalyptic [they seem to own the local radio station where I live – Yikes!] and another branch becoming a vanilla but fervent quasi-universalist something or other [see Rob Bell]. We’ll see; like bad prophesies many predicted tipping points have come and gone for various groups – and they are still here.
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I neglected to comment on Wednesday’s thread to HUG that I too have been involved with various sorts of fandom pretty much my entire life. Being “outed” as a Christian was never an issue. I outed myself. But I was never of the
Wretched Urgency variety of Christianity. It turns out that we were actually pretty widespread. I have attended liturgies at events, presided over by clergy who were fen. I also have had conversations with non-believers along the lines of their asking about why I wasn’t obnoxious about my Christianity. (Not to say that I wasn’t obnoxious about other things, especially in my younger years…) So it’s not that fandom is peculiarly opposed to Christianity. Fans are opposed to being the target of sales pitches, but no more so than anyone else.
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Ok, maybe Mule will chime in here with me….but the LACK of this sort of “recruitment” is a big plus for the CathoDox believers out there. Considering the full year of study and time commitment before one can join our ancient Churches, the emotional, fever-pitched “sign-right-here-right-now” approach is decidedly absent from the conversion/reversion experience. Frankly, we WANT people to think, pray, argue, examine, refute and THINK some more before coming into the fold.
Honestly, this is why I see so many evangelical churches as cheap grace, playing on emotions instead of faith. And then the Baptists are wondering WHY their enrollment is dropping like a rock??? I think it would be fair to say that the CathoDox crowd would rather have 100 members who know what they believe and why than 100 Million cultural and lukewarm members.
Being a Christian is like being a spouse….easy to “join up” in a fever pitch, much more difficult to live out in daily truth and commitment. BOTH should require a period of introspective inquiry to ensure that thought and faith and intent are really present, not just feelings.
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