From the incomparable James O’Brien… fairly short, interesting take from an author who went “undercover” into an evangelical church. I wonder what it says about the church that we seem to be such a foreign curiosity more and more.
http://www.crosswalk.com/11629244/page0/
haha…I think that’s a good thing? anyhow…the quote I found interesting was “In the evangelism class I took at Thomas Road, we learned that the precondition for talking to someone about the Gospel was the question, “Do you believe in God and the Bible?” The script assumed the answer would be yes. If the answer was no, you simply walked away. We were armed with arguments for Christianity, but not for God.”
Obviously, without knowing the full details of what the material was in the class, it’s hard to know if her perspective is completely accurate to what they covered, BUT it is what she walked away with none the less and that’s kinda sad.
I wonder how much she was pursued, in ways like God pursues us, from the people there? Though at the same time…she did go there purposefully deceptive which doesn’t help in building relationships when people find out.
another thing this article made me think of though, is in our era of wanting to be ultra relevant to our culture, do we sometimes do the same thing in reverse and almost come across as pretending to be unsaved so as to infiltrate sinner’s worlds? just a thought is all….
Here is what seems to be a fair-minded review of Gina Welch’s book: http://trevinwax.com/2010/04/12/the-story-of-an-atheist-infiltrating-thomas-road-baptist-church/
If we’re a curiosity because we’re different in ways that we should be different – great. My experience is that we are a curiosity more because we convey a sense of antagonism, and what comes across as a petty, hypocritical antagonism. As far as that goes, I think it’s telling where she went – to Jerry Falwell’s church. Jerry Falwell became, whether rightly or wrongly, a symbol of hypocritical judgmentalism for many. I don’t think he by any account represents a true “sample” of evangelicalism.
I think you’re right about trying to be “ultra relevant” in certain respects. It’s a difficult balance to keep. We all compromise things we shouldn’t, and we all die on hills that really are not important. It’s part of the risk that we are all called to take.
yeah…the review of her book, which I think I’m going to get, also gave the question wondering what it would’ve been like had she gone to a different church.
I think that there are actually quite a few evangelical churches that are decent…unfortunately many times those that complain about things tend to drown out the majority that are satisfied.
On the latter, where are we called to take risks of compromising things we shouldn’t?
I don’t think we’re called to retreat for fear of making mistakes. I think learning what it means to be in the world but not of the world comes from experience – which means both successes and failures. We are sinners. We’ll make mistakes with the best of intentions. We’ll compromise without realizing it at the time. The question is- will we learn from it? By trying to avoid those risks, we often take ourselves out of the world to our own and the world’s detriment. That’s all I meant by the comment. I’m thinking of actions like those of the Christian hermits who climbed on top of poles to avoid the risk of being in the world. We often think like they did.
I like your point about taking risks. I’m often reminded that so much of my life playing not to lose. I have heard it said that it’s for fear of becoming “crazy” that we’re driving ourselves insane.
Thanks again for inspiring and challenging.
Btw James, give me a call, love to get together, C