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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is evangelism nosy?
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Provoked by several posts about people talking about their religion, I felt this was worthy of discussion. Personally, I find people 'on fire' with their faith, often are a little too zealous to ask personal questions and give personal information. Questions like "are you saved" or "do you know Jesus?", often followed by some explanation of some of their life events that they consider to represent divine intervention.
I find these intrusive and off putting. I would tend not to discuss such things with any but those with whom I am well acquainted (and contradictly apparently mostly anonymously, like on these forums). Particularly because I find excessively personal approaches to faith disturbing and the ideas that anyone can be so certain very troubling.
So, do you consider trying to tell someone about your beliefs and faith personal, and to ask them about their's nosy, like I do?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
That's just the terrible twos i think. New converts too excited (or nervous) to realize how they're coming off. It's a common stage of development, and as long as they don't get stuck there too long, we can just roll our eyes at them.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
It's a difficult thing... I keep trying to think of ways to introduce the ideas without stating the obvious. Everyone in my country 'knows' about Jesus, but they don't know my Jesus. And I can't even adequately explain him to my own kids, so what point is there. I should be writing this on the other thread.
[ 27. December 2013, 03:26: Message edited by: Taliesin ]
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Two good analyses in a row. Terrible twos and knowing my Jesus. I like them. I will be quoting both. -- but is it more than this?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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MrsBeaky
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# 17663
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Posted
Is it perhaps a matter of style as well as substance?
There used to be a fabulous greetings card of a man sitting on the toilet with another man sitting on the edge of the bath apparently talking very earnestly to the poor chap.
The caption read:
"Name, found the new window cleaner somewhat over familiar..."
So over-familiar rather than nosy would be my take on what you describe no prophet.
But quite why people behave like that, I'm not sure. It could be a mixture of personality, their church culture and other things.
I can think of people I know who are the same about other causes they have enthusiastically embraced, outside of the faith arena and they can be a bit wearing too!
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Hospitality, friendship, kindness, charity, patience with no agenda whatsoever timelessly evangelize far more effectively than some modern desperate damnationist agenda that NEVER works.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Why don't the Schism churches do it? More sense? I remember a few years ago how some tried here to pity us poor Prods for rejecting their Marian narratives and missing out and when in my pursed lipped, downturned mouthed puritanism I stated that one couldn't find it in the Bible or rhetorically asked where one might, it caused a flinched Parthian retreat.
Don't blame you!
Evangelicals and other proselytizing cultists seem to think that their weird, culturally irrelevant baggage is easier to put on someone.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
What Schism Churches are those?
If you're RC or Orthodox then everyone else is in schism from you ...
The RCs and the Orthodox do evangelise, but it looks quite different, by and large, to the way Protestants of the evangelical persuasion do it.
There are some similarities though, and both Churches do engage in proselytism too whilst insisting that they don't ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The GREAT capital ESS one. Vey star'id it. I know the RCC does in Africa obviously. Where does the Orthodox? In the former Soviet empire I presume. How does the RCC evangelize in its former domain? Italy, Spain, France, Ireland, Poland? England? Scotland?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
The Orthodox have a 'diaspora' ... in the Americas, in Australia etc ... There have been some significant Orthodox missions - to Alaska in the 18th century, to Japan in the 19th/early 20th.
There are even Orthodox churches in African countries like Ghana and Kenya where they appealed to some people because they weren't associated with the colonial authorities.
And the Orthodox evangelise here in the UK too ... from an admittedly small convert base.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
Most converts to anything go through a cage stage. So any movement in which converts are a significant number will also exhibit cage stage like characteristics.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Questions like "are you saved" or "do you know Jesus?"
Best answered with a vigorous shaking of the head and a big HELL YEAH!. (Tends to put them off stride).
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
So, do you consider trying to tell someone about your beliefs and faith personal, and to ask them about their's nosy, like I do?
If they ask, then I see no problem.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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HCH
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# 14313
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Posted
Yes, I consider such questions nosy. If this is someone's notion of evangelism, then (a) he needs to do some market analysis to decide where to put his efforts, and (b) he needs a drastically better, subtler approach.
Has anyone actually converted to Christianity after such an approach?
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Orthodox mission to Alaska will have been under Russian colonialism as it will have been in Siberia before it. The one to Japan (why?!) is intriguing. Disappeared without trace I take it. I admire the Japanese resistance to US Baptists. Non-{Greek, Ukrainian, Russian, Syriac, Coptic} Americans and Australians and Canadians converting to Orthodoxy won't be in significant numbers, less than those converting to Catholicism.
Evangelicalism is well past its sell-by date now too.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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LutheranChik
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# 9826
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Posted
What's worse, to me, is responding in the affirmative to "Yes, I'm a Christian" with a battery of questions intended to ascertain if I am in fact a Real Christian[tm]. I find this rude and insulting, and so far I haven't gotten a coherent response from any of the questioners as to why they can't simply take me at my word.
PS My favorite response to "Are you saved?" Is "Yes; I was saved on a hill outside Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago." Drives some Evangelicals crazy. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
That's why LutheranChik, I started responding 'it's unlikely I believe precisely as you do', which is of course true, because I don't believe in such questions.
chris stiles - what do you mean by cage stage? This sounds like something is trapped to me.
-- Are these evangelical questions and statements part of a discussion or more sermon like? i.e., someone is the teacher or minister and some other(s) are the audience? Do some of us shipmates ask some of these questions? and what do you do if the person listens and then, say, tells you about Krishna or, here, the Creator (from First Nations native perspective)?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
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Posted
Some years ago I was introduced by a friend to someone they knew, in a Christian bookshop. The first question from the new acquaintance was; 'Have you been baptised in the Spirit?'
I smiled and declined to answer. I found it far too intrusive for an introductory comment.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
That's just the terrible twos i think. New converts too excited (or nervous) to realize how they're coming off. It's a common stage of development, and as long as they don't get stuck there too long, we can just roll our eyes at them.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
As so often LC, your words are wise.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard
... The Orthodox mission to Alaska will have been under Russian colonialism as it will have been in Siberia before it. The one to Japan (why?!) is intriguing. Disappeared without trace I take it. ...
Not so Martin. Follow this link.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
I suppose it's a bit awkward to be addressed by an enthusiastic evangelist who's in a different spiritual place from yourself, but those encounters can be interesting. I'd rather have them than not, if only because it's rare that we're invited to talk about our faith outside the context of our own churches. (And it can be rare inside some of our churches too!!)
I've never experienced someone getting nasty with me because they couldn't convert me in five minutes. That would be unpleasant. But I don't necessarily put any reference to hellfire and damnation in that category. If there's such a thing as a hell, I might end up there; but so could anyone. We live on faith. Our Christian hope is in God's mercy. A non-Christian would probably be more offended by the subject matter, though.
As for the personal questions, does anyone really want to hear all about the spiritual journey of someone they've only just met? I doubt it.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Reading through the posts, I am reminded of Aesop's fable of Wind and Sun taking off a traveler's coat.
When people ask me if I am born again, they come across like Wind.
I return the question saying: "Why yes, every day." Often times the questioner will then ask what do I mean. This gives me the opportunity to share what Luther said about praying the morning prayer.
I hope this comes across like the sun.
I drive a cab. Often times I get Chinese or Arab students using my services. I do not ask such questions--if I did, I would likely be fired; but if they ask questions about Christianity, I will share what I believe. I will even invite them to experience my church.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
1:4000 Japanese, certainly a trace.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
chris stiles - what do you mean by cage stage? This sounds like something is trapped to me.
When someone converts to a new belief system, they are often so bowled over by their new found worldview that they become downright obnoxious and intolerant in the way they deal with others. Notionally they'd almost be better off being kept in a cage until they learn the maturity to be able to relate to people again.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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