It snowed today here in my southern town--a rarity in any event made even rarer by the fact that it was the second or third time this winter that we've gotten such precipitation. All over campus this morning, students trudged to class holding their camera phones out in front of them to capture the scene of big, wet gobs of snow raining down.
I passed by my campus's free speech alley, where tables set up for the day's speakers and activities sat unattended, gathering slush as the snow-drops melted almost instantly. No evangelists today, I thought.
I wrote last time about the "free speech alley fundamentalists"--a group of highly conservative, turn-or-burn evangelists whose outreach techniques seems mainly to consist of telling passersby how wicked and wretched they are. I assume they follow some slightly less polished version of truth-proclamation (kerygma) practiced by evangelists such as Ray Comfort. That is: start with the hard truth of the law (i.e., for all have sinned...the wages of sin is death/hell) and let the spirit convict so that repentance and salvation may follow.
That may be their rationale. The impression they convey, however, has less to do with the awesomeness of God's righteousness and grace and more to do with the irritation and insults Christians cause to others. If the goal is to win disciples for Christ, I can't imagine the free-speech-alley fundamentalists get anywhere close.
But I'm writing in circles. I've ruminated before--many times in this blog--about how evangelism of the "law-then-conviction-then-repentance" variety typically doesn't bother to justify itself in terms of how effective it is. Rather, people like Comfort insist that leading with sinner's guilt is the best evangelical technique because it's what the Bible commands.
The Way of the Master (Comfort's technique) features as its emblem the letters WDJD--What Did Jesus Do? In Comfort's reading, Jesus consistently produced converts by leading sinners to a realization of their own guilt and need for repentance. In the story of Jesus's conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, for example (John 4: 1-26), Jesus turns a conversation about material thirst into a discussion of spiritual thirst. He confronts the woman with the fact that she's had many different husbands and is now with a man not her husband. She tells her neighbors, many of whom then meet Jesus and become believers.
Comfort strongly believes that without authentic conviction, the honest and deeply-felt realization of one's total depravity and helplessness in the fact of God's righteousness, true repentance and salvation cannot occur. His whole technique nets people into formulaic question-and-answer sessions about the ten commandments that terminate in the conclusion that the person is sinful and worthy of hell. Without the keenly felt threat of hell, argues Comfort, unbelievers have no reason to receive Christ as lord.
I've written at length about my disagreements with this theology. But let me say here that, compared to the evangelists who visit my campus with their "REPENT OR PERISH" signs and "You're headed for hell!" accusations, Comfort is positively charming. At least he recommends engaging a person in a Socratic (if narrow and teleological) exploration and discovery of their own guilt. The Alley Fundamentalists simply bray forth blanket accusations and tsk tsk when "pride" closes the ears of their audience.
We have a saying in performance analysis that "the medium is the message"-that how a message gets delivered conveys as much meaning as the literal content of the message itself. If this notion is even half true, the alley fundamentalists communicate a kind of contempt for those they claim to want to reach. Noisy accusations at strangers, shouting matches with hecklers, and garish shock-show REPENT! signs--no matter what the words used--tend to say, "I couldn't care less what you think of what I'm saying. This whole performance is about my saying things at you. My responsibility as a communicator stops when I stop speaking."
I've been meaning to spend some time watching them on free speech alley, cataloguing what constitutes a day's work for them, perhaps even speaking to one or more of them about their techniques. I doubt, alas, that such a conversation would get very far. They, like most turn-or-burn street evangelists, are likely well-insulated against having long conversations about why they choose to evangelize as they do. They're on the clock, doing work, not looking to chat with some long-haired hippie professor.
I suspect I'd have better luck with a wholly different kind of evangelist who regularly patronizes our free speech alley. This older gentleman simply sits in the shade on a folding chair. Across from him sits another chair just like it. The only sign he displays is a white long-sleeved shirt he wears reading "Jesus Talk." He sits quietly, not accosting anyone, not selling or yelling, but his invitation sounds loud and clear: sit and chat for a bit. Sometimes when I pass I see someone in his chair, usually in earnest conversation as he listens.
I have no idea what kind of theology he professes or what kind of gospel (if any) he preaches. But his evangelical performance stands in sharp contrast to that of the turn-or-burn crowd further up the sidewalk. It may be he believes in the law/conviction/repentance model just as strongly as they do. But if so, he's clearly made the decision that blaring it out with voice or signs just isn't the way to go. Instead, the message he's stating, the truth he's telling, has more to do--again--with the medium in which he says it. That is, just the semiotics of his setup--an open-ended, non-coercive invitation to talk about whatever--suggests a powerful impression about what faith is and how it ought to act in the world. "Come talk," he implies, "Talk about anything Jesus-related. I'll listen. I'm here."
I like that so much. It resonates so much more strongly with my reading of what Jesus actually did. A reading of the woman at the well, for instance, misses the point if it stops at Jesus's pointing out the woman's lifestyle. She fires back with conversation about the well itself and about history. Jesus responds not by returning to the topic of her sin or by lecturing her about her hellish fate but by listening to what she says and building off of that. I see him doing this again and again in scripture: listening, asking, responding. Never does he warp the conversation into a formula of guilt. Sometimes he doesn't talk about sin at all.
But he's there. He's listening.
Surely there's a kerygma--a truth-proclamation--that consists of open presence and attentive conversation. Surely that's closer to the way of the master than street signs and yelling.
More later,
JF
Showing posts with label Ray Comfort. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ray Comfort. Show all posts
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Ray Comfort's Atheism Site
Back to posting after some time off.
What's there to post about, evangelical-culture-wise? Whenever I feel stymied about something to blog about for this site, I visit one of several handy-dandy conservative-evangelical blogs. One of my favorite, as I've mentioned, is Ray Comfort's "Atheist Central" blog, where the "Way of the Master" evangelist posts a daily bit of atheist-bait for his flock (herd? gaggle?) of commentators to squabble over.
I've written about Comfort's evangelical technique at some length. His atheist site, however, seems at first more of a side-project, a distraction from his main work of educating neophyte evangelists to spread the faith as Jesus did (i.e., via open-air preaching).
Unlike the random pedestrians Comfort generally focuses on, those who read and comment every day on "Atheist Central" generally have their minds made up about Comfort's views. He has ardent defenders and persistent (almost to the point of fixation) critics. Comfort's postings range from simple scriptural exegesis to announcements about his ministry's actions (e.g., the Origin of the Species giveaway) to occasional commentary on a culture war issue or to. Hardly a post goes by, however, without Comfort's inserting some jab at the foolishness and pride associated with willful unbelief.
Such jabs in turn prompt each day's comments, which feature an almost ritual re-enactment of the same jeers-and-cheers discussion between those who find Comfort mendacious or vapid and those who find him praiseworthy. "There you go again, Ray," write the critics. "There you go again, atheists," write his defenders. And so on. Comfort occasionally responds to this or that poster and will delete any comment that uses offensive language or in which the words God or Jesus are not capitalized.
I have to admit, I've been puzzled in the past about Comfort's attention to this site. His usual ministry, which he patterns after his take on Christ's ministerial example, focuses on street preaching and improvisational Q&A encounters with passersby. His atheist page, however, boasts a "congregation" of regulars seemingly addicted to the flame wars about the provocation du jour. In a sense, he's preaching to the converted, which isn't all that unusual for a pastor. The converted to whom he preaches on that site, though, are those converted utterly against him. His is a site dedicated (ostensibly) to ministry to atheists and atheism. It's preaching to the heretics.
Now, I have a longstanding interest in how activists--which I'll define as people ardently dedicated to changing attitudes and/or material conditions of or for others--interact with those who oppose them. Confronted with someone dead-set against your values, what do you do? (I imagine one of those Windows pop-up choice boxes: "Political Opponent Detected: Ignore, Delete, Retry?") Most political and ideological oppositions play out indirectly, as activists teach insider/outsider distinctions to their own political communities. You learn how to be a Tea Party activist, for example, as much by recognizing common foes as by identifying fellow travelers. It's rare for activists actually to address each other to try to persuade or reconcile. One of the fascinating features of evangelicalism for me is the fact that evangelists regularly reach out honestly and hopefully to those most opposed to them.
Is Comfort's atheism site an example, then, of just such a trans-ideological outreach?
I don't think so--at least not primarily. Moreover, I think that, at least in Comfort's mind (which of course I don't claim to know--this is educated guess sort of stuff), the atheism site does embody an online version of his street ministry. In his evangelism training curricula, Comfort and his proteges discuss the complexities of open-air street preaching. One particular obstacle they mention is the heckler--someone who "answers back" combatively, arguing with the street evangelist's points. Handling such a heckler is a tricky situation, cautions Comfort, especially if they become violent or too disruptive. But often, he says, hecklers are good because they attract a crowd.
As a response tactic, then, Comfort suggests dealing with the heckler directly, addressing him or her respectfully and repeating your key points--but without the expectation that you'll suddenly convince the dedicated atheist (or critic) to accept the message. You aren't there to win an intellectual argument; you just want to get your message across clearly. The real audience, of course, isn't the heckler but the crowd that gathers to hear the squabble. It's at that point, argues Comfort, that a Christian witness can play out effectively, as the audience (ideally) sees how loving, calm, and well-reasoned your arguments are in comparison to the hateful (i.e., intolerant) performance of the heckler.
Atheist Central functions much like the on-the-street encounter between Comfort and an angry heckler. Comfort engages (and enrages) atheists, in other words, not to convince them--his arguments (like theirs) tend toward the repetitive--but to attract net traffic, gawkers who might will get a dose of law/gospel from Comfort's postings no matter when they come.
It works. I encountered the site from a news report, which seemed amused that a dedicated evangelist like him would so spit into the atheist wind by seemingly inviting reams of vitriol from his atheist detractors. I would imagine that similar net passersby drop in, see the debate, and move on. Comfort's self-deprecating style, which his regular critics cite as infuriatingly twee, works well to a first-timer. Comfort seems sincere and calm, just posting his thoughts about topic X or scripture Z. His critics, by comparison, resemble the bitter atheist stereotypes he so often recycles in his posts.
Now, one can argue whether such drive-by (click-by?) evangelism works in terms of creating converts (particularly the "true" converts Comfort seeks), but Comfort's tactic, I find, remains at least consistent.
More later,
JF
What's there to post about, evangelical-culture-wise? Whenever I feel stymied about something to blog about for this site, I visit one of several handy-dandy conservative-evangelical blogs. One of my favorite, as I've mentioned, is Ray Comfort's "Atheist Central" blog, where the "Way of the Master" evangelist posts a daily bit of atheist-bait for his flock (herd? gaggle?) of commentators to squabble over.
I've written about Comfort's evangelical technique at some length. His atheist site, however, seems at first more of a side-project, a distraction from his main work of educating neophyte evangelists to spread the faith as Jesus did (i.e., via open-air preaching).
Unlike the random pedestrians Comfort generally focuses on, those who read and comment every day on "Atheist Central" generally have their minds made up about Comfort's views. He has ardent defenders and persistent (almost to the point of fixation) critics. Comfort's postings range from simple scriptural exegesis to announcements about his ministry's actions (e.g., the Origin of the Species giveaway) to occasional commentary on a culture war issue or to. Hardly a post goes by, however, without Comfort's inserting some jab at the foolishness and pride associated with willful unbelief.
Such jabs in turn prompt each day's comments, which feature an almost ritual re-enactment of the same jeers-and-cheers discussion between those who find Comfort mendacious or vapid and those who find him praiseworthy. "There you go again, Ray," write the critics. "There you go again, atheists," write his defenders. And so on. Comfort occasionally responds to this or that poster and will delete any comment that uses offensive language or in which the words God or Jesus are not capitalized.
I have to admit, I've been puzzled in the past about Comfort's attention to this site. His usual ministry, which he patterns after his take on Christ's ministerial example, focuses on street preaching and improvisational Q&A encounters with passersby. His atheist page, however, boasts a "congregation" of regulars seemingly addicted to the flame wars about the provocation du jour. In a sense, he's preaching to the converted, which isn't all that unusual for a pastor. The converted to whom he preaches on that site, though, are those converted utterly against him. His is a site dedicated (ostensibly) to ministry to atheists and atheism. It's preaching to the heretics.
Now, I have a longstanding interest in how activists--which I'll define as people ardently dedicated to changing attitudes and/or material conditions of or for others--interact with those who oppose them. Confronted with someone dead-set against your values, what do you do? (I imagine one of those Windows pop-up choice boxes: "Political Opponent Detected: Ignore, Delete, Retry?") Most political and ideological oppositions play out indirectly, as activists teach insider/outsider distinctions to their own political communities. You learn how to be a Tea Party activist, for example, as much by recognizing common foes as by identifying fellow travelers. It's rare for activists actually to address each other to try to persuade or reconcile. One of the fascinating features of evangelicalism for me is the fact that evangelists regularly reach out honestly and hopefully to those most opposed to them.
Is Comfort's atheism site an example, then, of just such a trans-ideological outreach?
I don't think so--at least not primarily. Moreover, I think that, at least in Comfort's mind (which of course I don't claim to know--this is educated guess sort of stuff), the atheism site does embody an online version of his street ministry. In his evangelism training curricula, Comfort and his proteges discuss the complexities of open-air street preaching. One particular obstacle they mention is the heckler--someone who "answers back" combatively, arguing with the street evangelist's points. Handling such a heckler is a tricky situation, cautions Comfort, especially if they become violent or too disruptive. But often, he says, hecklers are good because they attract a crowd.
As a response tactic, then, Comfort suggests dealing with the heckler directly, addressing him or her respectfully and repeating your key points--but without the expectation that you'll suddenly convince the dedicated atheist (or critic) to accept the message. You aren't there to win an intellectual argument; you just want to get your message across clearly. The real audience, of course, isn't the heckler but the crowd that gathers to hear the squabble. It's at that point, argues Comfort, that a Christian witness can play out effectively, as the audience (ideally) sees how loving, calm, and well-reasoned your arguments are in comparison to the hateful (i.e., intolerant) performance of the heckler.
Atheist Central functions much like the on-the-street encounter between Comfort and an angry heckler. Comfort engages (and enrages) atheists, in other words, not to convince them--his arguments (like theirs) tend toward the repetitive--but to attract net traffic, gawkers who might will get a dose of law/gospel from Comfort's postings no matter when they come.
It works. I encountered the site from a news report, which seemed amused that a dedicated evangelist like him would so spit into the atheist wind by seemingly inviting reams of vitriol from his atheist detractors. I would imagine that similar net passersby drop in, see the debate, and move on. Comfort's self-deprecating style, which his regular critics cite as infuriatingly twee, works well to a first-timer. Comfort seems sincere and calm, just posting his thoughts about topic X or scripture Z. His critics, by comparison, resemble the bitter atheist stereotypes he so often recycles in his posts.
Now, one can argue whether such drive-by (click-by?) evangelism works in terms of creating converts (particularly the "true" converts Comfort seeks), but Comfort's tactic, I find, remains at least consistent.
More later,
JF
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Comfort and the Origins Giveaway
And today in non-prison-related musings, we have the unveiling (well, an unveiling, as in yet another unveiling) of Ray Comfort's free edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in faux-honor of Darwin's 200th anniversary.
Comfort, as you may recall, is the powerhouse street evangelist behind the Way of the Master, a set of techniques for sharing the gospel that are essentially built around a conversational demonstration of a person's sin and imminent damnation. Together with actor Kirk Cameron, Comfort has started or inspired one of the more prominent trends in twenty-first century evangelicalism--oriented away from denominationally affiliated churches, focused on person-to-person outreach, and grounded in a conservative quasi-Calvinist message.
Of late, however, Comfort has devoted a great deal of energy to combating atheism and agnosticism, particularly as they manifest in the form of proponents of evolutionary theory. His blog, "Atheist Central," has, I admit, become a regular stop in my daily walks through various internet sites. He'll post a cartoon, a link, or (more often) a brief Bible lesson or anecdote, generally wrapping up with some version of "and this shows how foolish atheists are when they deny God."
These posts attract comments like a fresh kill attracts scavengers. Ray's bait apparently offers too enticing a temptation for some professed atheists to resist. Even the briefest post quickly garners, 70, 80, even more than 100 posts, most of which seem to be from "regulars," staunch atheists oddly obsessed with repeatedly, day after day (and often several times a day) pointing out how, once again, Ray's shown how ignorant he is. Of course, the comments also feature regular defenders who pipe up to cheer Ray on or to set out intricate rebuttals to some other atheist's argument.
Comfort encourages such regulars, at times responding briefly to comments himself. Occasionally, a comment or two will itself inspire a posting. Or (like here) Comfort will post some of the more extreme, "I hope you die, Ray," comments. Apparently the only comments he blocks as moderator are those that include cursing, "blasphemy" (i.e., taking the Lord's name in vain), URLs, and/or those that do not capitalize "God" or "Jesus."
Frankly, the comments are half the fun (odd fascination?) of the site for me, staging as they do shrill, repetitive debates between super-polarized sides. The site--and Comfort himself--seem to attract mainly vehement opponents or ardent supporters, anti-Christian (in the Hitches/Dawkins sense) secularists or fundamentalist-leaning evangelicals. Comfort has never really had much truck with mainstream evangelicals or moderate/liberal Christians (the latter of which he would likely not consider Christian at all). If it isn't polarizing, he's not interested (on this site, at least).
Consider, for instance, the Origins giveaway. Lately, Comfort's posts and the comments have revolved around his latest--what to call it?--stunt? Comfort has published and is giving away free copies of Darwin's Origin book with an essay by him that relates bits of Darwin's life and seeks to refute Darwin's theory. Ostensibly, he gives away the book to demonstrate the rationality of Christianity (which for Comfort is utterly opposed to any Darwinian theory). Readers can read Darwin's argument and Ray's (much briefer) rebuttal and decide for themselves who has the right of things.
Early on, Comfort got quite a bit of flack when early readers discovered that he had excised several chapters; Comfort explained that publishing costs had initially prevented him from printing the entire volume and that the expurgated chapters were available for download from his site. The current giveaway apparently solves this problem and includes the unabridged text.
The intro (the link to which appears broken currently) largely recycles standard anti-Darwin arguments, arguments that the more advanced creationist organizations (yes, there are advanced creationist organizations) have left behind.
And that's one of the fascinating things to me about Comfort. As an evangelist, he's distinctive and (from a research standpoint) exciting. As an apologist, and as a creation apologist specifically, he borders on the embarrassing, particularly when compared to some of the slicker creation apologetics outfits out there.
More tomorrow,
JF
Comfort, as you may recall, is the powerhouse street evangelist behind the Way of the Master, a set of techniques for sharing the gospel that are essentially built around a conversational demonstration of a person's sin and imminent damnation. Together with actor Kirk Cameron, Comfort has started or inspired one of the more prominent trends in twenty-first century evangelicalism--oriented away from denominationally affiliated churches, focused on person-to-person outreach, and grounded in a conservative quasi-Calvinist message.
Of late, however, Comfort has devoted a great deal of energy to combating atheism and agnosticism, particularly as they manifest in the form of proponents of evolutionary theory. His blog, "Atheist Central," has, I admit, become a regular stop in my daily walks through various internet sites. He'll post a cartoon, a link, or (more often) a brief Bible lesson or anecdote, generally wrapping up with some version of "and this shows how foolish atheists are when they deny God."
These posts attract comments like a fresh kill attracts scavengers. Ray's bait apparently offers too enticing a temptation for some professed atheists to resist. Even the briefest post quickly garners, 70, 80, even more than 100 posts, most of which seem to be from "regulars," staunch atheists oddly obsessed with repeatedly, day after day (and often several times a day) pointing out how, once again, Ray's shown how ignorant he is. Of course, the comments also feature regular defenders who pipe up to cheer Ray on or to set out intricate rebuttals to some other atheist's argument.
Comfort encourages such regulars, at times responding briefly to comments himself. Occasionally, a comment or two will itself inspire a posting. Or (like here) Comfort will post some of the more extreme, "I hope you die, Ray," comments. Apparently the only comments he blocks as moderator are those that include cursing, "blasphemy" (i.e., taking the Lord's name in vain), URLs, and/or those that do not capitalize "God" or "Jesus."
Frankly, the comments are half the fun (odd fascination?) of the site for me, staging as they do shrill, repetitive debates between super-polarized sides. The site--and Comfort himself--seem to attract mainly vehement opponents or ardent supporters, anti-Christian (in the Hitches/Dawkins sense) secularists or fundamentalist-leaning evangelicals. Comfort has never really had much truck with mainstream evangelicals or moderate/liberal Christians (the latter of which he would likely not consider Christian at all). If it isn't polarizing, he's not interested (on this site, at least).
Consider, for instance, the Origins giveaway. Lately, Comfort's posts and the comments have revolved around his latest--what to call it?--stunt? Comfort has published and is giving away free copies of Darwin's Origin book with an essay by him that relates bits of Darwin's life and seeks to refute Darwin's theory. Ostensibly, he gives away the book to demonstrate the rationality of Christianity (which for Comfort is utterly opposed to any Darwinian theory). Readers can read Darwin's argument and Ray's (much briefer) rebuttal and decide for themselves who has the right of things.
Early on, Comfort got quite a bit of flack when early readers discovered that he had excised several chapters; Comfort explained that publishing costs had initially prevented him from printing the entire volume and that the expurgated chapters were available for download from his site. The current giveaway apparently solves this problem and includes the unabridged text.
The intro (the link to which appears broken currently) largely recycles standard anti-Darwin arguments, arguments that the more advanced creationist organizations (yes, there are advanced creationist organizations) have left behind.
And that's one of the fascinating things to me about Comfort. As an evangelist, he's distinctive and (from a research standpoint) exciting. As an apologist, and as a creation apologist specifically, he borders on the embarrassing, particularly when compared to some of the slicker creation apologetics outfits out there.
More tomorrow,
JF
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Comfort and the Creation Museum
The two sites I linked to yesterday, Ray Comfort's "Atheist Central" blog and the home page of the Creation Museum, each represent two different but related strands of the current worldview-evangelism critique of evolution.
Comfort's postings, which are often nowadays about the foolishness of evolution, partake of what might be called a low-road approach. He will, for example, cherry-pick some random bit of evolutionary data, quote it out of context, and then basically state, "Now, who in their right mind would believe this? It just goes to show how idiotic/delusional atheists [i.e., anyone who believes in evolution] are." Call it aragumentum ad incredulitatum: because Mr. Comfort finds it personally unlikely that, say, the "Ardi" fossils represent an ancestral homonid species, it must therefore be foolhardy for anyone to think so.
I call this the "low road" because it's basically the same tack taken by generations of anti-evolutionists: erect and knock down a straw man figure of what scientists actually assert. Such a tactic invites (and receives) derision from people who affirm evolution (or, at least, from people who dislike shoddy rhetorical tricks); Comfort's "comments" section sizzles with the acid of his detractors.
The Creation Museum, by contrast, largely eschews such low road tactics. Established and maintained by Answers in Genesis, the Museum taps into the same repertoire of display conventions that people use to identify and invest trust in mainstream natural history museums. Indeed, the Museum, which features work by a former Universal Pictures Theme Park designer, combines the glitziest features of a discovery center and a theme park. It's edutainment with a Biblical twist.
And--to be frank--it's impressive as all get-out. Evangelical culture features an array of alternate-universe versions of mainstream (secular) cultural products. There's evangelical rap, evangelical historical romance novels, and evangelical superhero shows on TV (you haven't lived until you've seen Bibleman). Most of these are, well, faintly embarrassing, akin to watching the nerdy kid in school (and I speak as a nerd myself) trying to act like the cool guy and not quite getting it right.
The Creation Museum shatters this stereotype. In terms of the slickness of its design, marketing, and execution, the Museum rivals any secular edutainment I've yet encountered. A ton of talent and effort (and money) went into the place, and it shows. From the exquisitely detailed life-size tableaux of scenes, to the multiple films shown in big-screen auditoriums, to the planetarium show, to scenes of animatronic dinosaurs, to the well-stocked fossil displays--the Museum delivers on its promise of just-like-secular culture family fun.
Well, "just like secular culture"--with the glaring difference of the overtly creationist worldview. The dinosaurs cavort with Adam and Eve's young children (not Cain and Abel but other ones). The tableaux features scenes drawn from Genesis. The films explain how, for example, dragon legends from around the globe substantiate the recent history of dinosaurs living alongside humans. The planetarium hints at elaborate explanations of how light from galaxies billions of light-years away can possibly reach earth. The fossils are accompanied with captions that explain the rock layer (not the age) from which they came, specifying some time in the last few thousand years (rather than millions of years) as the date of fossilization. The Museum is not shy about its anti-evolutionist stance.
Yet the Museum displays, its main walk-through, and its multimedia features all steer clear of the dismissive attack that characterizes Comfort's blog postings. Instead, the first part of the Museum devotes itself to a relatively even-handed examination of why people might believe in evolution versus creationism.
More tomorrow,
JF
Comfort's postings, which are often nowadays about the foolishness of evolution, partake of what might be called a low-road approach. He will, for example, cherry-pick some random bit of evolutionary data, quote it out of context, and then basically state, "Now, who in their right mind would believe this? It just goes to show how idiotic/delusional atheists [i.e., anyone who believes in evolution] are." Call it aragumentum ad incredulitatum: because Mr. Comfort finds it personally unlikely that, say, the "Ardi" fossils represent an ancestral homonid species, it must therefore be foolhardy for anyone to think so.
I call this the "low road" because it's basically the same tack taken by generations of anti-evolutionists: erect and knock down a straw man figure of what scientists actually assert. Such a tactic invites (and receives) derision from people who affirm evolution (or, at least, from people who dislike shoddy rhetorical tricks); Comfort's "comments" section sizzles with the acid of his detractors.
The Creation Museum, by contrast, largely eschews such low road tactics. Established and maintained by Answers in Genesis, the Museum taps into the same repertoire of display conventions that people use to identify and invest trust in mainstream natural history museums. Indeed, the Museum, which features work by a former Universal Pictures Theme Park designer, combines the glitziest features of a discovery center and a theme park. It's edutainment with a Biblical twist.
And--to be frank--it's impressive as all get-out. Evangelical culture features an array of alternate-universe versions of mainstream (secular) cultural products. There's evangelical rap, evangelical historical romance novels, and evangelical superhero shows on TV (you haven't lived until you've seen Bibleman). Most of these are, well, faintly embarrassing, akin to watching the nerdy kid in school (and I speak as a nerd myself) trying to act like the cool guy and not quite getting it right.
The Creation Museum shatters this stereotype. In terms of the slickness of its design, marketing, and execution, the Museum rivals any secular edutainment I've yet encountered. A ton of talent and effort (and money) went into the place, and it shows. From the exquisitely detailed life-size tableaux of scenes, to the multiple films shown in big-screen auditoriums, to the planetarium show, to scenes of animatronic dinosaurs, to the well-stocked fossil displays--the Museum delivers on its promise of just-like-secular culture family fun.
Well, "just like secular culture"--with the glaring difference of the overtly creationist worldview. The dinosaurs cavort with Adam and Eve's young children (not Cain and Abel but other ones). The tableaux features scenes drawn from Genesis. The films explain how, for example, dragon legends from around the globe substantiate the recent history of dinosaurs living alongside humans. The planetarium hints at elaborate explanations of how light from galaxies billions of light-years away can possibly reach earth. The fossils are accompanied with captions that explain the rock layer (not the age) from which they came, specifying some time in the last few thousand years (rather than millions of years) as the date of fossilization. The Museum is not shy about its anti-evolutionist stance.
Yet the Museum displays, its main walk-through, and its multimedia features all steer clear of the dismissive attack that characterizes Comfort's blog postings. Instead, the first part of the Museum devotes itself to a relatively even-handed examination of why people might believe in evolution versus creationism.
More tomorrow,
JF
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Good Goats and the Way of the Master
One of my father's favorite books--and now one of mine--is Good Goats: Healing our Image of God by Dennis Linn (co-authored with his family). It's a thin, large paperback that resembles a children's book, complete with simple illustrations. But the theology behind it really captures some of my own thoughts and feelings about God.
Linn's basic thesis is that we come to resemble the God we worship. If we imagine God as a stern, distant judge who is forever ready and willing to find our faults (but who, lucky for us, is juuuust merciful enough to let the sacrifice of his son make up for it), then in all likelihood we too will become stern, distant, and judgmental in our relationships to others. That kind of God, Linn suggests, makes our faith unpalatable both to ourselves and to others.
As a counter-example (which I'm paraphrasing--get the book to read the original account), he describes an experience where he (in his professional role as a counselor) was talking to a mother who had lost her adult son. The mother was worried that the son, who had lived a life of unhealthy addictions and rebellion, was burning in hell.
Linn asked the mother to close her eyes and imagine that her son was there in the room before her. She did so. "Now," said Linn, "what do you most want to do right now with your son before you? What do you want to say?" The mother replied that, more than anything, she'd like to wrap her arms around her son and tell him how much she loved him--this despite all the hurt she'd gone through because of his choices. Gently, Linn suggested that surely God's love for her son exceeded even hers, and that she could--with full confidence in that divine love--imagine Jesus wrapping his arms around her son and saying "I love you."
His point: if we believe in a loving God, then surely we must imagine that God as loving us at least as much as the person in the world who loves us the most. This is not to say that love implies easy acceptance; it's not a doormat love. Just as love between people here on earth must occasionally involve creating hard boundaries, so to do I think that God allows people to choose separation. But a family cutting off ties with an addict relative who would otherwise manipulate or rob them is by no means comparable to a God who would condemn a person to eternal hell for their sins.
I get impatient with Christian proselytics that uphold "God is love" alongside "You're destined for hell." As an example--one among a host--take the "Way of the Master" techniques developed by evangelist Ron Comfort. I expect to spend a lot of time here and in my research analyzing Comfort's distinctive outreach techniques, but for now let me sketch out his basic approach. Comfort believes that most conversions in churches to day are false in that they do not involve true repentance. True repentance comes, Comfort argues, when an unsaved person becomes convinced and convicted that they are in fact wretched in the eyes of the Lord, destined to be judged guilty when held up to God's standard.
Comfort's evangelistic technique (the eponymous "way of the master") is to engage a person in a conversation that leads to some variation of the question, "Do you think you're a good person?" If the person says yes (or anything but "absolutely not"), Comfort invites them to test their goodness by comparison with the ten commandments. The conversation goes something like this:
"Have you ever told a lie? Even once, at any point in your life?"
Yes.
"What do you call a person who tells a lie?"
A liar.
"OK. Have you ever stolen anything?"
Yes, when I was a child.
"OK, so what do you call someone who steals?"
[Typically the person will say "A stealer," and Comfort will gently suggest "thief" as a better term].
"Have you ever used the name of the Lord in vain, like 'OMG' or something?"
Yes.
"You know, that's blasphemy, using God's holy name as a curse word, and God takes that sin very seriously. One more question: have you ever looked at someone with lust in your heart?"
Yes.
"You know, Jesus said that if you look at someone you aren't married to with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart. So--by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, blaspheming adulterer. If you were to die right now and stand before God in his heavenly court of law, would you be judged innocent or guilty?"
Guilty, I guess.
And from there (provided they haven't started to argue with him or walk away), Comfort takes them through his understanding of the Gospel--repent of sins, believe in Christ, etc.
This is fight-or-flight evangelism at its finest. Convince the person that they are in immediate danger of the fires of hell and then give them the get-out-of-hell free card that is Christianity (Ray Comfort's brand of Christianity, mind you. There's another strand of evangelicalism that vehemently believes that preaching repentance as a component of salvation is heretical. See here, for example).
Again, from Comfort's perspective, life really is an emergency situation. Death could come at any moment. Or Jesus could return in the twinkling of an eye. Either way, judgment is upon us. A fight-or-flight response is therefore appropriate.
I have grave doubts, though, about how well the courtroom-judgment analogy in this context works in fostering a long-term relationship with the living, loving God. Rather than "the beginning of a beautiful friendship," the way of the master seems more like a shotgun marriage between the neophyte believer and the very-easily-pissed-off deity.
More tomorrow,
JF
Linn's basic thesis is that we come to resemble the God we worship. If we imagine God as a stern, distant judge who is forever ready and willing to find our faults (but who, lucky for us, is juuuust merciful enough to let the sacrifice of his son make up for it), then in all likelihood we too will become stern, distant, and judgmental in our relationships to others. That kind of God, Linn suggests, makes our faith unpalatable both to ourselves and to others.
As a counter-example (which I'm paraphrasing--get the book to read the original account), he describes an experience where he (in his professional role as a counselor) was talking to a mother who had lost her adult son. The mother was worried that the son, who had lived a life of unhealthy addictions and rebellion, was burning in hell.
Linn asked the mother to close her eyes and imagine that her son was there in the room before her. She did so. "Now," said Linn, "what do you most want to do right now with your son before you? What do you want to say?" The mother replied that, more than anything, she'd like to wrap her arms around her son and tell him how much she loved him--this despite all the hurt she'd gone through because of his choices. Gently, Linn suggested that surely God's love for her son exceeded even hers, and that she could--with full confidence in that divine love--imagine Jesus wrapping his arms around her son and saying "I love you."
His point: if we believe in a loving God, then surely we must imagine that God as loving us at least as much as the person in the world who loves us the most. This is not to say that love implies easy acceptance; it's not a doormat love. Just as love between people here on earth must occasionally involve creating hard boundaries, so to do I think that God allows people to choose separation. But a family cutting off ties with an addict relative who would otherwise manipulate or rob them is by no means comparable to a God who would condemn a person to eternal hell for their sins.
I get impatient with Christian proselytics that uphold "God is love" alongside "You're destined for hell." As an example--one among a host--take the "Way of the Master" techniques developed by evangelist Ron Comfort. I expect to spend a lot of time here and in my research analyzing Comfort's distinctive outreach techniques, but for now let me sketch out his basic approach. Comfort believes that most conversions in churches to day are false in that they do not involve true repentance. True repentance comes, Comfort argues, when an unsaved person becomes convinced and convicted that they are in fact wretched in the eyes of the Lord, destined to be judged guilty when held up to God's standard.
Comfort's evangelistic technique (the eponymous "way of the master") is to engage a person in a conversation that leads to some variation of the question, "Do you think you're a good person?" If the person says yes (or anything but "absolutely not"), Comfort invites them to test their goodness by comparison with the ten commandments. The conversation goes something like this:
"Have you ever told a lie? Even once, at any point in your life?"
Yes.
"What do you call a person who tells a lie?"
A liar.
"OK. Have you ever stolen anything?"
Yes, when I was a child.
"OK, so what do you call someone who steals?"
[Typically the person will say "A stealer," and Comfort will gently suggest "thief" as a better term].
"Have you ever used the name of the Lord in vain, like 'OMG' or something?"
Yes.
"You know, that's blasphemy, using God's holy name as a curse word, and God takes that sin very seriously. One more question: have you ever looked at someone with lust in your heart?"
Yes.
"You know, Jesus said that if you look at someone you aren't married to with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart. So--by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, blaspheming adulterer. If you were to die right now and stand before God in his heavenly court of law, would you be judged innocent or guilty?"
Guilty, I guess.
And from there (provided they haven't started to argue with him or walk away), Comfort takes them through his understanding of the Gospel--repent of sins, believe in Christ, etc.
This is fight-or-flight evangelism at its finest. Convince the person that they are in immediate danger of the fires of hell and then give them the get-out-of-hell free card that is Christianity (Ray Comfort's brand of Christianity, mind you. There's another strand of evangelicalism that vehemently believes that preaching repentance as a component of salvation is heretical. See here, for example).
Again, from Comfort's perspective, life really is an emergency situation. Death could come at any moment. Or Jesus could return in the twinkling of an eye. Either way, judgment is upon us. A fight-or-flight response is therefore appropriate.
I have grave doubts, though, about how well the courtroom-judgment analogy in this context works in fostering a long-term relationship with the living, loving God. Rather than "the beginning of a beautiful friendship," the way of the master seems more like a shotgun marriage between the neophyte believer and the very-easily-pissed-off deity.
More tomorrow,
JF
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)