I agree with Wes (God) - Marketing Christianity

[Liberal]

When someone asks, tell them all about accepting their friend Charles Darwin into their hitherto impoverished life.

[intercom static…]

Calling Labradorian to the service desk please.

[Polycarp]

Okay, examine your data and work with it to see if you can arrive at any logical conclusions.

Who’s a Christian? Well, the logical answer is someone who has in some way or other committed himself or herself to Christ, taken Him as Lord. This can be in an infant-baptism situation with no true personal investment of self, or in a whole-hog Damascus-Road conversion experience, or anything in between.

Okay, what is this Christ whom the Christian has putatively taken as Lord expecting of His followers? Well, a bunch of ethical stuff that gets debated here on other threads regularly, because it seems to be ignored by a lot of self-professed Christians. But one thing, vis-a-vis this notion of evangelism, is worth picking up on:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, the scene being after the Resurrection, just before He leaves

Well, how is the Christian supposed to “make disciples” of others? One obvious example is by sharing the story of how he or she became a disciple. Closely related is the “slaves-to-sin/salvation-through-believing” paradigm that seems to have captured the imagination of most proselytizing evangelists. Generally such methods are ineffective, except for those few who are convinced already of their own sinfulness and looking for an answer.

So what will work in convincing the skeptic that there’s something to “this Jesus stuff”? Jesus has an answer for this one too.

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jesus, in John 13:34-35)

I find it rather odd that your typical drive-by evangelist decides to drop around long enough to tell you that you’re all sinners doomed to Hell, falsely believing in evil-ution and all those other Satanically-inspired false notions that for some odd reason have convinced the experts in the fields that they and not a literal reading of a given Bible verse are the truth, and so on, and ignore the direct instructions of the Guy they claim as Lord.

But that’s just me.

[Esprix]

Originally posted by Guinastasia

I swear, if anyone ever tries to evangelize to me, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?”, I’m going to be like, “Who?” “Jesus who?” “As my WHAT now?”
And then, when they start telling me the Bible and about the resurrection and stuff, I’m gonna act like it’s a joke.
“No way! Get outta here-you don’t believe that, do you? Am I on Candid Camera?” “Whoa…you’re kidding! That’s neat. But I mean, I think if this Jesus guy WERE all you say he is, I’d have heard of him.”

Just to mess with their minds.

OK, now that’s funny.

Esprix

[Liberal]

Labradorian:

Are you tying evolution to atheism?

[DoctorJ]

Who else wants an “I Agree With Cecil” T-shirt? When people ask, we can tell them all about the glorious fight against ignorance.

“I Agree With L. Ron” would be fun, too.

Dr. J