All Bait, No Switch

Every scholar in academia has a secret fear that just as she is about to start or complete a new research project, someone else will publish a similar project, thus destroying any hope for originality.

Just such a fear struck my heart today as I drove to my coffee shop to do work for today. My radio, tuned as always to NPR, had the peerless radio program This American Life on it. For those who may not know, TAL chooses a weekly theme and produces three to five short segments about that theme. The segments are typically stories about some small-scale, personal situation--a feud between neighbors, a local band's struggle to become famous, a girl's attempt to work out her feelings for her ex--but the interviews, straightforward narration, a light production notes combine so deftly as to make for a riveting hour of programming. It's dangerous to turn on the radio when TAM is on and you have something else to do; it'll suck you in.

Today, wouldn't you know it, the topic of the story I tuned into was new techniques for personal evangelism--the very thing I'm writing about. Dagnabbit! I think, Beaten to the punch!

In fairness, I should admit that I've stolen--ah, been inspired by that radio show on a number of occasions. Much of my research (Hell Houses, flash mobs) I started or sharpened after hearing a show about that topic. So I have no real ground to complain that a show like this got to some fascinating topic before I did.

Besides, as I listened to the segment, it became clear that the show's theme wasn't evangelicalism per se but "bait and switch." Specifically, the host (Ira Glass) was interviewing one Jim Henderson, an evangelical author who champions what he calls "Doable Evangelism." His thesis is that most personal evangelism takes the form of a "bait-and-switch"--you start to strike up a conversation and then--inevitably--turn the talk toward Christ. Most non-church-going people, he argues, don't care much for that bait-and-switch. It feel manipulative.

"So," asks Glass, "what do you offer instead?"

Henderson then outlines his approach, which involves watching, praying (he speaks of "unauthorized praying"--praying for people without their knowing), and listening. "You ask them how they're doing," he explains, "and you just listen without interrupting."

"That's it?" asks Glass, "When do you give them the pitch?"

Henderson explains that the focus for his ministry isn't creating converts. "Christ said to go forth and make disciples, not converts," he argues. He says the first step is to get Christians out into culture, to detoxify (not his word) them in the eyes of the world.

Glass at this point seems incredulous. He shares how he and his wife have a number of deeply religious friends, but nothing about his friendship with them does anything to pull him towards church away from his "staunch atheism." "What does it matter?" he challenges Henderson, "It doesn't sound like your approach does anything. It's all bait and no switch."

Henderson accepts the criticism amiably, noting that that's just what his "ideological opponents in evangelicalism" would say. "But consider the alternative," he says. If you as a Christian turn every friendship with non-Christians into a sales pitch for church, you'll likely lose the friendship. Which is better: to preserve a friendly relationship with people or to alienate people in the name of Christ?

The segment ended soon after (and I breathed a sigh of relief to learn that the show had left my research area relatively unexplored). But I'm caught by the idea of Christianity as all bait and no switch.

Now, from my work I recognize that Henderson isn't doing something all that novel. "Friendship evangelism" of various sorts has been around for quite a while, emphasizing the need to create authentic and lasting relationships with people prior to broaching the subject of heaven, hell, and Things Eternal.

The obvious competitor strategy is what Michael Spencer calls the "wretched/urgency evangelism" of people like Ray Comfort or Todd Friel and their Way of the Master (about which I've written extensively here). Comfort would dispute the idea that the task of making disciples can begin with any other step than conviction and conversion through a presentation of the Law and Grace. People could die and spend eternity in Hell at any moment, and it's the Christian's job to do anything and everything to make people aware of that grim fact. It's not a lifetime of discipleship that saves, they would argue, but repentance and receiving the grace of God.

Not surprisingly, then, their tactics resemble the "bait and switch" that Henderson resists. They start with a normal conversation, shift to the "are you going to heaven?", go through the Ten Commandments, and end with the "here's how to get out of Hell" pitch. For their part, Friel and Comfort are as disparaging of friendship evangelism as Henderson is of urgency evangelism. Pointing to their "bait" parts--the hook that draws the "fish" in--Comfort says he can establish a rapport--a friendship--with someone in about a minute. But it does no good to be someone's friend, he argues, if you don't share with them the one truth that saves them from the Eternal Fire.

This would be the main argument against Henderson's style (at least as presented on the brief segment): if you believe in Hell and in salvation through Christ as literal realities, then isn't it an act of the most cynical animosity to withhold that information from your friends for fear of rejection? Comfort's favorite illustrations frame the situation in concrete images: if I have a spare parachute and know the plane we're on is about to crash--and I withhold that parachute from you for fear you'll find my offer pushy--how can I possibly call myself your friend?

Now--to tip my hand, I'm more on Henderson's side (I think--I'll need to do some research) than Comfort's. But for the friendship approach to score rhetorical points, it needs to overcome the strong argument against it from the urgency evangelism side.

More tomorrow,

JF