An Addendum Before the Third Round

After posting my blog yesterday, I went to the gym. Well, in truth, I went to the gym several hours after posting, having finally convinced myself that, tired or not, my lazy butt needed some exercise. Luckily I go to 24-hour gym, so around midnight-thirty last night I was doing my pathetically light weight-lifting and listening on my iPod to that Way-of-the-Master protege show, Last Words Radio.

As I've written previously, the Last Words folk spend about fifty minutes discussing various on-the-street evangelism techniques, and their favorite is Ray Comfort's Way of the Master (WotM), which basically consists of A) convincing people that they've sinned; B) leading people to realize that they're therefore headed to Hell; and C) explaining the saving gospel (which for them is belief plus repentance). On every show, the hosts try to have a conversation on the phone with a "fish," someone off the street who agrees to talk to them on the air. Often this person is more or less an unbeliever. Sometimes, however, the person is (or at least considers himself or herself) a Christian.

Such was the case on the show I listened to. The "fish" (I'm not a fan of that term) was a practicing Southern Baptist. Now, when the hosts encounter a case like this, the practice is to quiz them on the basics of sin, hell, and salvation--to interrogate their orthodoxy. Generally this rattles the Christian, as they aren't usually quizzed so exactly on their faith. Plus, the hosts have a very specific idea of orthodoxy in this area; denominational variations sometimes meet with a lecture about what the Bible actually says (interpreted, of course, by the hosts).

This woman, for the most part, did fine. But then the hosts, playing devil's advocate, posed the question: "That Hell thing seems pretty harsh, doesn't it? I mean, you make mistakes as a person, but it's kind of extreme for God to send basically good people to Hell, isn't it?" The woman allowed that yes, it was. She knew like any good Southern Baptist that salvation depends upon genuine belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (Baptists tend to endorse "faith plus nothing" rather than "faith plus repentance," though in practice what they mean by faith encompasses a turning-away from sin). She knew, furthermore, that anyone not believing in Christ--whether they're good or bad--is doomed for Hell. Still, she seemed distressed. "Yes," she admitted, "it does seem hard that good people can go to Hell."

Ah, I thought, that's the wrong answer for these guys. As indeed it was. In the WotM system (or, in the hosts' words, "according to the Bible") conviction consists not merely of the realization that you've committed sin but also of the acknowledgment that, as a result of your sin, you are filthy--wretched in the eyes of God. The question, "Isn't it harsh of God to condemn good people to Hell?" is a trick. No one is good. Humans aren't just sinful; they are cosmic trash. God is right--perfectly justified--in being angry at humans and wanting them to burn. We really are quite awful.

Indeed, to see yourself as anything other than belly lint is itself a sign of sin. It's you, in your sinful pride, denying the offensiveness of your sins. This is why the WotM's favored technique--the "good person test"--relies not just on getting people to admit that they've lied but also to conclude that, because they have lied, they are therefore liars. Because they've stolen, or hated (i.e., murder), or said "OMG" (blasphemy), or lusted (i.e., adultery), they're liars, thieves, murderers, blasphemers, and adulterers (and that's just scratching the surface!). Sin necessarily translates into status. God justly condemns liars, thieves, murderers, etc., as any judge would.

Only when such conviction has truly taken place (and WotM evangelists are trained to look for shifts in personal affect--solemnity, downcast eyes, silence, tears--as proof of conviction) can the evangelist present the gospel.

I'm guessing here--Comfort and crew don't often foreground their place in a particular theological tradition--but this sounds Reformed/Calvinist, with a heavy emphasis on Total Depravity. (Certain other indicators in Comfort's and other WotM materials reinforce this suspicion.) For Calvin, the entire Christian story depends upon God's miraculous--as in nonsensical, as in why-would-God-do-this--decision to resuscitate humans who are utterly dead and powerless to save themselves.

In the WotM, the case that humans are Totally Depraved must be made, so it tends to take center stage.

I mention all of this because it presents a counter-argument to my core criticism of the WotM and similar evangelical approaches. Namely, I've suggested that WotM makes God seem pretty darn awful--punishing people for any infraction with an eternity in horrible agony. The fact that God graciously offers humans an escape route--from God's own wrath, and on top of that that the escape route involves lifelong love and devotion--that narrative just rubs me the wrong way.

In an attempt to get outside my own preconceptions (to the extent anyone can really do that), I've presented three different counter-arguments that try to pick apart my core criticism. I realized, after listening to the show at the gym, that I've left out the WotM's own counter-argument: the idea that no one is good in God's eyes, and that God's eyes are the only ones who count in this case.

I shall therefore respond to this added counter-argument before proceeding to the counter-argument about transcendent standards (which is a biggie).

More tomorrow!

JF