Letter #162: The Opposite of Evangelism

Things to Put a Sock In

Spensario

Just before I read your latest letter, I was reflecting — with somewhat splenetic wit, I confess – on a certain sort of response I get whenever I discuss any specific tenet of Christian faith. The response does not come often, but when it does come, I have to admit, I sometimes allow it to irk me.

It comes from Catholics and Protestants alike. It is structured something like this: “As you go deeper in your Christian faith, you will come to see that everything that my church believes is perfect truth and everything you say that deviates from that truth is shallow misunderstanding and damnable. I look forward to joyfully welcoming you when you at last arrive at the far side of Error, where even now, I stand clothed in perfect understanding.”

Is there a word that means “the opposite of Evangelism?” A word that means, “Things you can say that will ensure that the person you are speaking to will never join your church or share your faith or even come to faith at all?” If there is such a word, it describes this response.

It's not only that such comments are unattractively smug and small-minded, it is that they are Pharisaical, the opposite of a religion that began with Christ particlizing the Law with the laser light of love.

For instance. Whenever I point out the absolutely revolutionary fact that Jesus refused to condemn the adulteress, someone always pipes up with, “Yes, but he said, ‘Sin no more!’” Well, he did. And do you know when he said it? He said it after all the merely human beings were gone. After they had put aside their judgments and dropped their stones and slunk away — not because of some Levitican loophole Jesus had written on the ground. But in shame at who they knew themselves to be — the older, wiser ones first, and then finally the young. It was not for them — for us — to tell her, “Sin no more!” That was for Christ alone.

“All theory is gray,” said the great genius Goethe. “But ever-green is the tree of life.”

What is true of theory is true of theology as well. Does anyone really believe in a God who will turn his back on a loving and charitable soul because she got her theology wrong? I believe that only Christ can save, but that loving soul will know the face of Christ when she sees it and many who called him “Lord, Lord,” will not.

Orthodoxy can be a thing of beauty, but it is not warm and unique and alive like a soul is. Not every individual reading of the Bible is defensible, of course. But every journey to God is, in fact, a journey to God. And if, along the way, someone else’s journey passes through what appears to me like sin, there is only one reason for it: I was not looking where I was going.

Love,

Your Old Man