Today is St. Patrick's Day. That's pretty much apparent to everyone, what with all of the green attire, faux Irish people, and expensiver colored beer going on. What is perhaps less certain is my motivation for writing on this day as opposed to other, different days that I did not write on.
Simply put, I was struck by inspiration this morning. Actually, I was struck by hot water in the shower, but some of that water obviously morphed into liquid inspiration, infiltrated my ear canals, wove its way into my brain and somehow penetrated the Great Matrix and became one with my soul. I became like the Avatar Of Whatever I Am Going To Now Start Writing. Even now, I can feel the pulsing of your anticipation and hear the heavy breathing of curiosity in lieu of my awesome intro- so I shall ease your suffering and immediately "get in the zone".
So I had a random thought the other day about God, and I'll be the first to admit that it isn't the most well-thought out and researched thought, but I had it and I'm running on liquid inspiration, so anyways the thought was, why does faith have such a huge focus on proselytization? Why is getting the word out such a big deal? I know, I know, it's a commandment- but why? Shouldn't it just be that God is, like, so big and huge that everybody already knows and rebellion is then a blatantly stupid choice that some people make?
(Just so you know, I'm not going to be answering this question, or any other questions, about God in this post. So if you came here searching for wisdom, you might just want to hit the 'next blog' button there at the top, although I think it's algorithmically engineered to give you a random blog, so you should probably just stay here anyways in case you go do an even dumber blog)
Please don't misunderstand- it's not that I'm opposed to the idea of evangelism. The essence of evangelism is telling someone something they don't know that you think they should know. Nothing wrong with that- in moderation.
Think of everything you've ever learned, ever. You were, at one time, ignorant of your non-learningness and needed to be shown the light by someone with greater wisdom and knowledge than you. It's how we learn to speak, and write, and use the bathroom. All throughout our lives, we're learning and growing and much of that information has to come from outside sources who had some sort of passion or urge to help us improve the quality of our lives (although with toilet training, the motives are much less altruistic and more rooted in the mindset of JUST USE THE FREAKING TOILET ALREADY!!!!!).
While faith evangelism is different in that it's higher up on the hierarchy of needs, the principle is still sound. Faith works for many people- it gives them hope, helps them through stressful times, and can provide a built-in sense of community. In that sense, it's not preposterous to believe that others would want their friends and family to be a part of that. It's not that simple though.
The problem is that often evangelism comes from a pre-supposed position of superiority that makes it difficult to relate to other people on a "human" level. When you meet someone on the uneven playing field of "I already know that what I have to say is true, and it is true because I believe it is true, and therefore nothing you can say will shake my knowledge of the truth of what I say", your victory is assured because either they will see it your way or else they will fall further into their "delusion". Either way, you've done your "job".
A few years ago, I was studying for an upcoming test in one of the lounge areas on campus when a girl I'd never met came up to me and struck up a conversation. I instantly pegged her as trying to convert me and sure enough- after a rousing round of small talk, she asked me if I went to church anywhere (a Jesus and Bible believing church, to be sure). I assured her I did, and after a few minutes of this (and also making sure that my sister's mission trip to Thailand was under the auspices of the Bible-believing Jesus banner), she left, and I resumed my studying. She probably felt further emboldened in her faith by approaching such an intimidating stranger ('sup)- and I felt a sort of sadness at the death of what could have been a real human moment.
See what bothers me about that whole interaction is that I pegged it from the beginning. Sure, I could go off on a separate post about the human distance in our society, and how we are becoming increasingly absorbed into our own little worlds and more detached from the lives of others- but the liquid inspiration is almost gone. Some of you might even say it never quite 'took'. Po-TAY-toes, po-TAH-toes. But after the whole ordeal was done I felt like I was a statistic. I felt like, to this girl, I was not a fellow person to interact with; rather, that I was some sort of spiritual trophy to be taken and adorned on a belt full of other "lost" souls that she had won.
So as we celebrate the life of a man who brought Christianity to a nation of people who may or may not have been receptive to it, let's remember to respect the life story that each of us has embarked on. I'm not saying that experience=truth, I'm saying that they have just as much right to believe what they believe as you, that they probably have as many sufficient reasons for those beliefs as you do yours, and if you engage people in relationships that are built upon converting them onto the trophy case...then you might have missed the main message of whatever faith you converted them to in the first place.
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