Jesus Talk on Free Speech Alley

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

Free Speech Alley Fundamentalists

"Well, I'm going to hell anyway," she sighed affably, "what's a few more sins?"

I had been joking today with a student of mine about a recent bout of illness she'd been having trouble kicking. After informing me of the name of her latest med (which seemed to be working), I shook my head. "You mean, you're murdering all those poor bacteria with that third-gen antibiotic?"

I didn't expect that bit of irony to prompt a comment about eternal damnation. I must have looked confused, for she followed up with an explanation. "Well, that's what they told me." She gestured in the direction of our student union. "I'm bound for hell."

Sadly, I knew exactly what she was talking about. The front of our student union boasts a "free speech alley"--a common fixture on university campuses--on which just about any group may (after securing a permit) discourse on whatever topic they please. Typically, our free speech alley blossoms with informational tables about student group activities or corporate-sponsored givaways of some soft drink or another.

About once a week, though, the Christians descend. These would be a small group of evangelists of the kerygma variety I discussed in my last post. They generally feature a few women (dressed in full-length, home-made dresses that signal "very conservative") handing out some tracts or fliers, a few other people with sandwich-board signs reading "REPENT" and the like, and a middle-aged man yelling hoarsely at passersby about how sinful they are. In my experience he's particularly fond of labeling sins based on his lightning-quick assessment of individual students and faculty on their way to lunch. I believe I got dinged once for my long hair ("Immodesty!").

Occasionally (even inevitably) someone will engage him in a shouting match, gathering a crowd of amused (or angry) gawkers. The yelling contest unfolds predictably (i.e., the heckler gets fed up and stomps off) as the women make their way through the crowd, seeding it with tracts informing everyone of their impending doom.

Most people who have been at my university for a while roll their eyes and move along, accepting the weekly visitations as an annoying if colorful distraction. I often use the group as an example in classes when I talk about activist performance.

But, looking at my student today--this young woman whom I know to be full of energy, intelligence, and talent; this woman whom I know endures a difficult home life few people could guess at; this young woman who is getting over a bad illness--hearing her submit, even humorously, to some stranger's telling her she deserves hell, I just got mad.

What a jerk thing to do--to yell at some random person about how bad they are. I get the evangelists' context. I get that they're following a theology that insists that salvation occurs only after conviction, which requires condemnation. I even get that they see their acts as necessary, even loving ("it's like yelling at someone that they're about to walk off of a cliff," I often hear). After all--better to realize one's total depravity now than to wake up surprised in hell.

I get all of that. And I still think that yelling guy is doing a chump deed, a low-down, mean thing.

How depressing is it that this is her experience of Christianity? That encounter--a random kick when she's already down--is the witness of Christ she got that day. I appreciate the evangelists' theology, but I can't for the life of me see how they expect anyone to receive that message and think that Christianity is anything but a mass of caustic dysfunction. "You're worthless! You're evil! Come to Christ!" Who thinks this is an effective message? Who cares about your intentions if your audience never understands them?

Jonah, of course, springs to mind as a counter-example. Did he not go through Nineveh doing basically the same thing? "You're all doomed. You're all evil. God will destroy you. Better repent." And it worked then, didn't it? Through his telling the rough, unadorned truth, a city was saved, no?

Maybe, but it strikes me that the point of the Jonah story isn't Nineveh but Jonah--Jonah who, after (finally) preaching his truth, high-tailed it out of the city to secure a comfy seat to watch the Nineveh Gets Destroyed By God show. Well, Nineveh repented, God relented, and Jonah sulked. And God says (I paraphrase--may God forgive me): "What the heck are you so angry about? So I spared a city of thousands! That's what I do--I'm God. I care. If you don't--tough!"

That's the danger of "truth-telling" evangelism of the turn-or-burn variety: it leads to smugness, to a lack of care about the people you're supposed to be helping to save.

Did the evangelists care about my student? I have no idea, but the message they sent to her was certainly clear enough: drop dead, sinner.

I stammered out a "Well, I don't believe that," but the damage had been done. Another unChristian, successfully taught to avoid those Christians whose only outreach seems to be insults.

Lord, help you-know-who.

JF

The Kerygma of Reality TV

Up late watching trashy Bravo TV. I've written before on here how I'm oddly, shamefully caught by those reality TV series like Tabitha's Salon Makeover, Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, or even Millionaire Matchmaker. Beyond showcasing a particular skill set (hairstyling/salon magement, cooking/restauranteering, dating/marriage), each of these programs tends to run on moments of Professional Truth-Telling, where Expert X (i.e., the star of the show) tells Wannabe Y what's what about their salon, entree, or romance skills.

To be sure, the experts Bravo and other such networks choose to focus on aren't merely experts; they're personalities--typically flamboyant, eccentric-bordering-on-unpleasant personalities. They are the harsh, drill sergeants of their particular profession, grinding their subjects down into nothing so that (ideally) they may be rebuilt, rehabilitated, made stronger and better. And episodes do end with the Wannabe eventually submitting to the Expert, overcoming bad habits, and improving. The shows' punch, however, comes from those "come to Jesus" scenes of prideful singles, salon owners, or chefs being told these Harsh Truths in no uncertain terms.

Inevitably, show producers/editors (even writers in some cases) follow these scenes with breakaway reaction interviews with those who have just been taken down a few notches. Reactions range from rage ("I can't believe that #&%@ said that! What does he/she know?") to chastened acceptance ("It was really hard to hear what so-and-so said, but I know it's true"). Sometimes--rarely--the reaction is so extreme that the person simply stalks off, never to be seen again. But the Expert is fine with that! "He/She couldn't take the truth," sighs the Expert, "and now s/he'll be a failure."

I wrote originally that my attraction to such scenes of putting-people-in-their-place stemmed from my own lack of self-assertiveness. These personalities seem simultaneously off-putting and admirable to me, I reasoned, largely because they are unafraid of presenting their opinions and experience as the textbook truth of their particular profession, and they brook no suggestion to the contrary. They know the truth, they know their skills, and--this is a biggie--they all prioritize presenting that truth bluntly over maintaining a relationship with the Wannabe to whom they present it. They establish truth as a standard to which the Wannabe must rise--or else--and they do so with unapologetic forcefulness.

To a degree, I recognize that I myself do something similar from time to time as a teacher. Indeed, I wonder if my fascination with these scenes has to do with how they play out a kind of pedagogical power-trip fantasy. Many's the time when I've felt the need to have a "come-to-Jesus" meeting with my students. "Here is standard X," I'd say, "and you are failing to meet it." Sometimes I want to--I have to--shock my students into a realization of their own ignorance or inexperience, forcing them to see the gap between where they are and where they need to be.

But in practice, I've rarely found that such moments play out like the truth-telling sessions on TV. Harsh truth-telling, in my experience, doesn't work as well as patience and persistence, meeting students half-way and helping them gradually gain more knowledge/expertise. Beyond a few specific instances, those times where I've attempted harsh conversations, tended to generate more problems than they solved.

Why? The difference is this: I am obliged as a teacher to be in relationship with my students in a way that TV Experts aren't with their Wannabes. My investment in my students transcends the space of a single episode. I can't afford do subsume maintaining the student-teacher relationship to the presentation of X or Y Truth about the subject I'm teaching. I have to balance the need for students to learn the skills/knowledge I teach with the fact that they will learn at different paces and in different ways than I did.

It strikes me that the distinction between TV Truth-Tellers and real-world pedagogues provides a way of thinking about a divergence of evangelicalism over the philosophy of Christian witness to the world. Evangelism, after all, involves a degree of truth-telling to an audience of people in need of that truth; it isn't coincidental that hard truth-telling sessions are known as "come to Jesus" meetings.

For some evangelists, the imperative of evangelism is simple proclamation--kerygma (Greek for "proclamation, teaching"). In this view, the evangelist is charged with proclaiming the truth of the Gospel without accommodation or compromise. Anything beyond that (e.g., winning converts) is God's work, not humans'. If the hearers receive and (through God's grace) submit themselves to the saving Gospel--great! If they don't, then all the evangelist can do is pray for them, shake the dust off their sandals (so to speak), and move on. Truth trumps relationships, for (within this understanding) no healthy relationship can obtain between those who know the Truth and those who will not accept the truth.

Other evangelists, while not discounting kerygma, focus more specifically on proselytism--making converts. Proclaiming the word, in this view, is necessary but not sufficient. One must speak the truth, yes, but speak it in ways that listeners hear and may be inspired by or attracted to it. For some within this view, kerygma can only occur effectively within the context of an established relationship of trust between believer and non-believer, a kind of prevangelism that prepares the soil of non-believer's heart to receive the seed of the Gospel. Here a relationship must precede and provide the support for Truth-telling.

While the TV fan in me finds the smackdown kerygma of "nothing but the truth" fascinating, the pedagogue in me causes me to prefer the relationship-first form of truth-telling. It's less dramatic, to be sure, and it often lacks the spectacle of ultimatum. But it seems, in the long run, more effective, more loving.

More later,

JF