Here in New York City there are lots of religious people who will stand in subway stations or board subway cars and preach the bible to the people around them in what one assumes to be an attempt to reach out and convert those people around them who have different beliefs. Sometimes they get really organized about it and set up booths in the terminals and preach with bull horns and hand out flyers and stuff (I’m looking at you, 42nd St!)
Coincidentally, there are also a lot of beggars who ask for money this way too. These people I understand. They do this because they have found it to be an effective way of finding large numbers of people who will give them a quarter or whatever and as long as people continue to give to them in this situation they will continue to follow people around on public transit to beg. This makes perfect sense to me.
The religious people make less sense to me though. Unlike the homeless who, at the end of the day, can count up the money they were given and see exactly how profitable their day has been, the people trying to pass on the word of god have no tangible way of knowing just how many people they have reached. As far as they know, unless someone tells them what a difference they have made in their life, not one single person was moved by their message to find god. My question is why, when they have no proof that this method is the least bit effective, do they continue to preach this way? Wouldn’t they want to know that they were using their time well and reaching as many people who might be open to their message as possible instead of just blindly attempting to pass their message on to everyone with a pulse? Or is this not even about conversion or helping people find god at all and instead about making them feel rightous because they have “done all they can” to pass on the message?
Well some of them will go home and everything that happens to them, that they classify as good, they will consider it a blessing from God, for the work they do. Some do it the other way and think “God has blessed me, I’ll go do stuff for him”.
And sometimes, there are people on the train who join in with various “Amens” and “un-hunh” and other signs of approval. Not all New Yorkers are atheists.
Right, but those people agreeing with them are not their core audience. Or at least they shouldn’t be if their goal is to introduce people to the lord. They have no way of knowing that anyone who didn’t agree with them when they woke up this morning has now reconsidered their position because someone yelled a bible verse at them on their way to work.
Though your point about feeling like the good things that happen to them are proof that god thinks they are doing the right thing is a good one too. I’m sure there are many who think everything is a sign from god.
A long time ago, when I still considered myself Christian, I was a part of a college churchy-type group who sometimes liked to go around campus and try to “cold convert” students by going up to them uninvited and telling them all about Jesus. I even went on one of these trips, even through I rather would have had my teeth pulled.
Afterwards I asked the some of the others if they themselves had been converted in this way. None of them had. Most even agreed that it wasn’t the best of ideas, but as Christians they were supposed to be going out and converting people and so that’s how they were going to do it. On the other hand, though, they really did think it was going to work, all evidence to the contrary.
My father and his pastor do what is described in the OP. In my father’s case, I am quite sure it has nothing to do with making him feel righteous and everything to do with doing what he feels is right. Though I disagree with his worldview, I will not fault his sincerity; he’s doing what he believes God would have him do, and wants it to be entirely for the benefit of others. I’m sure he’s not the only such person.
I remember being really annoyed when rushing to catch the train, someone would try to stop me to “share” the “good word”.
I think blocking token booth entrances during rush hour is a greater sin than waking me up on a random Saturday morning which is, in itself, pretty bad. Since Jehovah’s Witnesses are guilty of both methods of conversion, I am allergic to anything they have to say.
I find this fascinating, Skald. As much as they annoy me I understand why people feel like they need to share their religion with others. Though I am no longer christian I remember being trained on how to spread the word and defend god to those who didn’t believe when I was going to church. This is a method I never would have chosen though, both because I wouldn’t have been comfortable “cold converting” people and because I really didn’t think it would do any good. I was more of the kind of person who would volunteer to do good works with christian organizations or things like that. Have you ever asked your dad why this is the method he chooses of trying to share his message with others?
We have the “And God so loved the world” dude at 125th street.
We have the musclebound “If I could be a good crackhead, then I can be a good Christian” dude who occasionally remembers to hand out sandwiches.
In all my years of observing these two guys at work, I have never seen them get any traction, other than an occasional amen from another crackpot subway malefactor.
Are you kidding? My entire adult life is based on not having mature conversations with my father.
But I can understand where he’s coming from. If you honestly believe that there is a physical hell to which persons will be sentenced for eternity unless they get saved, and that your actions may make the difference between a given person’s hearing the word of God or not, then it behooves you to spread the word as much as you can, even if you only score one time out of a thousand.
I have always thought that perhaps some of their intended audience is people who have “fallen away” from their religious organization. When I see people from Whatever Church of Stuff, I don’t have much of a response to them. But I think it’s more feasible that if I was a person who had been raised in the Whatever Church of Stuff, but I haven’t attended recently … maybe I will feel guilty enough to go to a service.
Maeg, is your "“And God so loved the world” dude the one who stands with the cardboard sign over his head? He has been showing up on the 6 recently as well. They really do get around.
No cardboard sign, sadly. He just waits for trains to pull in, stands in the doorway, and yells. He has an open bible, but he seems to know the verse by heart. I suppose it is kind of a compelling verse, so there are lots of fakers out there pretending to be the 125h street guy.
He really has impeccable timing. He can usually get the whole verse in whenever the doors open by varying his tempo to the size and speed of the crowd. Impressiveness in small things.
I am putting in my phd application to NYU now, so wish me luck!
There are various religious types in public places who use techniques of questionable effectiveness to convert others.
The guy (almost always a male) who drives around some truck upon which he has written by hand hundreds of quotations from the New Testament. The truck usually has a lot of junk in it.
The person who writes out and photocopies leaflets which expound upon the perdition of modern society, arguing at length the “logical reason” why someone should repent and believe in the Lord Christ, using copious quotations from the New Testament, but not really making much sense.
The Jehova’s Witnesses, who just stand on a corner and hold a copy of their publication, and whom everyone ignores.
Effectiveness isn’t really the question. These people are doing it for themselves.
I think it’s part of the general problem of doing what feels good/right, not what actually is good/effective for the other person (“Meaning good is the opposite of doing good”). If you don’t have enough information, people end up doing things to help that are harmful, but they don’t want to acknowledge that information, either. They want to feel good.
There was a preacher I used to see on US 1 in St. Lucie County, but even on foot, I could not hear anything he had to say due very well to traffic noise. He has a 6-7 foot cross with him, but I don’t know where he preaches now.
I have to admit, if I had the finances & didn’t have to work for a living, I’d love to be one of those traveling campus preachers, but of course, a civil friendly one that discussed my faith instead of yelling at people.
In the mid-80s, the few times I saw Brother Max and Jed Smock in action, I milled around the crowd chatting with people & doing “damage control” for the Christian faith, and found a lot of students who were turned off by them quite willing to discuss things with me.
I guess I keep coming back to the thought that they aren’t doing it to do good works, they are doing it to feel good. I wish I could just sit down with one of them and ask them about what they do and why without hearing about how I’m going to hell and being given religious literature every 18 seconds because I really am fascinated by this behavior.
It’s gotta work, sometime, right? I mean, weren’t many religions started that way…by spreading the ‘gospel’?
My favorite place in the world (haven’t been to Africa or Tokyo yet, though) is 125th street in Harlem. They will stop and ‘build’ with you on any religion you can think of. Black Jews, Nation of Gods and Earths, Christians, Atheists.
Last time I was there, I met a man with his little table set up and he was an atheist selling his own self published called “Truth”. He pitched it with so much passion that I bought one for me, and a couple for some folks at home. It was a pretty good book.
There used to be (I’m out of NYC now, so I don’t know if he’s still around) a guy in midtown—West Indian, I think—who would stand up with a packet of flyers to hand out, screaming, “JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus JE-sus HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah HalleLUjah …” without a breath between the words. It was sort of surreal.
I’m sure there are some who are perfectly content with that - reasoning that God knows the rest of the story, or that not seeking the ‘reward’ of knowing about their successful converts is generally in keeping with the ‘what you do in secret will be rewarded in heaven’ thing.