My wife Cat and I used to study and practice Zen. One morning she and I were walking to our car after a night spent sitting zazen at a Zen center with a dozen or so other would-be Buddhas. (Zazen is Zen meditation: You sit; you close your eyes; you try to disconnect from your thoughts; you try like crazy not to sneeze, cough or itch; you try not to panic about the fact that after about a half hour your whole lower body is so asleep you wouldn’t know it if someone harpooned your thigh.)
As we were approaching our car, we saw that a guy who had just pinned a flyer underneath our windshield wiper was now leaving a copy of the same flyer on the car parked behind ours.
The guy gave us a friendly wave. “Hi! I hope you don’t mind me leaving one of these on your car.”
I unlocked the passenger door so that Cat could get in. “No problem” I said. But apparently instead of that what he heard was, “Please come over and talk to us.”
“It’s for a nearby church,” he said. He was a youngish, fit-seeming fellow, sporting an orange baseball cap and a truly winning smile. “Calvary Chapel. Ever heard of it?”
“I haven’t,” I said. I opened Cat’s door; she silently took her seat; I closed her inside. Tucked under my arm was my zafu, the round pillow Zenners use to sit upon whilst trying to merge with The Great Nothing/Everything. The guy nodded toward it.
“You folks study Buddhism there in the center?”
“We do,” I said. “We like Zen. Been at it for a pretty long time now.”
“Oh, is that right? Do you find it helps you with your life?”
A little alarm bell went off in my head. But I kept in Friendly Conversation mode. “Actually, yeah. It’s been a really wonderful thing for both of us.”
“But you must know that it can’t give you what the Lord Jesus Christ can,” said Mr. Orange Cap. “The only way you can ever find what you’re really seeking is to open up your heart to the fact that Jesus Christ is your personal lord and savior.”
The thing about sitting zazen—especially if you’ve just done it for ten hours straight—is that it leaves you feeling like Lake Placid itself. So, in a voice filled with nothing but calm warmth, I said, “That’s great. I mean, I know that for a lot of people Christianity is perfect. We’ve chosen Zen. I’ve got a friend who’s a Hindu. My wife’s dad is Catholic. I guess everybody has to find their own way, huh?”
“But there’s only one true way, friend. And that way is through Jesus Christ.”
I walked around the front of our car to the driver’s side. “Christianity’s a really sound option, for sure.”
“It’s more than just an option. It’s the only way. Anyone who doesn’t repent of their sins and declare the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior is lost to the flames of eternal hell.”
I felt gathering in my stomach that tight ball I get whenever I’m wondering just how crazy someone might go on me.
With one hand on my door handle I smiled over the top of the car, and said lightly, “Well, that does sound bad. I hope that doesn’t happen to me!”
“Oh, it will. It happens to everyone who chooses any but the one true way.”
And then I made the mistake of talking too much.
“I understand that Christianity works for you,” I said. “And I think that’s outstanding. Your life must be so rich because of your faith. But must Christianity be the only way? Can’t there be other good ways for people to know and experience what you call God? Does everyone who chooses any other way but Christianity have to be wrong?”
“Hey, I don’t make the rules. You can fight against it all you want. But the fact is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. The cost of not accepting him as your savior is the eternal damnation of your soul.”
Through the windshield I saw Cat, quietly looking straight ahead. She could hear us, of course.
I pulled open my car door. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hope that you’re mistaken.”
“Oh, I’m not, buddy,” said the guy, raising his voice a little. “But you are. Both you and your wife are condemning yourselves in the eyes of the Lord by engaging in sinful idolatry.”
“All right; I’ll bear that in mind. There aren’t actually any idols in Zen, but I see what you’re saying.” I waved. “Thanks for sharing it. Have a good day.”
As I closed my door the guy moved around to the front of our car. He held up his hand.
“Stop what you’re doing! Let the Lord into your heart! You please the devil with your sinful ways!”
“Jesus,” murmured Catherine.
“Or one of his ambassadors, anyway,” I said. I starting the car. “I wonder if I’m gonna have to run this fool over?”
“You’re lost!” called the Christian. He demonstrated that he hadn’t lost all touch with reality, though, by stepping back onto the curb.
“Repent!” he said. “Accept the Lord! Turn your back on the devil! Rid yourself of your sin!”
I eased out of my spot and started down the street.
“Well,” said Cat. “Wasn’t that special?”
“Can you imagine being God, and looking down, and seeing that? I wonder what Jesus thinks when he sees stuff like that?”
“‘Maybe I should become a Buddhist’? Or maybe, ‘I need to get some new salespeople. People who aren’t totally rude and intrusive? People who don’t think the way to attract people to me is to scream insults at them’?”
“Or maybe he’d just go, “‘That’s it. I give up. Time for the Apocalypse.’”
That the Christian in the orange cap meant well isn’t in question. Of course he only wanted what was best for Cat and me. But he only repelled us from Christianity, because his evangelizing effort was grounded in what all such efforts must be, which is a lack of respect. By proving that he had no respect whatsoever for our belief system, he proved that he had no respect for us.
Proving that he had no respect for us proved that the evangelizer did not love us, since the best that love without respect can be is patronizing. And by not loving us, that brother utterly broke the second part of what Jesus himself called the greatest law of all: to love your neighbor as you love yourself. (See Mark 12:28-31.) Another reason he absolutely could not love us is because he drove us away from him. And you can’t love someone with whom you have no relationship at all.
That Christian purposefully, explicitly, and directly disobeyed Jesus. Shame on him. And shame on any Christian who does what he did.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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I am a cross carrier for Christ. Going into different cities in my community walking with this cross has been an experience that is hard to convey in words. It is the only place in the earth that allows me to completely focus on Christ and surrender my will totally to him being dependent on him for everything. The Lord has taught me many valuable lessons on these walks the first and foremost one is to always respect the people who see me and to always prefer the drivers ect..over myself (give them the right of way) praying for both their and my safety and for their hearts to be touched. He has also instructed me to never approach someone, if they approach me I am praying he gives me the right words to speak to them. The fact is Jesus commanded all Christians to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. How he leads someone to do this is his business, however if it is out of line with his will and charcater he will correct them if they are being open. If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us 2 Tim. 2:12
I get a perverse pleasure out of talking people like that in circles. It's usually not very difficult.
poor Orange Cap. Somebody taught him that that was a true Christian act. I'm Catholic and worked at a firm owned by an Evangelist Christian for years. He was an okay guy, but he allowed the dissemination of 'the Way' during business hours. My coworkers decided to convert me. I was told repeatedly that I worship the pope. That I worship Mary. I was given pamphlets that proved that the pope is the anti-Christ and I have been assured, most enthusiastically, that Catholicism is NOT Christianity and that I will burn in the fires of hell.
Needless to say I avoided my fellow Christians as much as possible. How sad is that?
Hi John,
This is my first time here; I came via a link on another blog. I've read a few of your posts.
I'd suggest that the man who accosted you wasn't attempting to convince you as much as he was trying to convince himself. One of the early 20th century British authors said, "The missionary impulse is the outward manifestation of an insecure faith." If he can convince you that he's right, he can stave off for a while longer the ever-present doubt that threatens to overtake him.
Or, he was simply unbalanced!
I'd like to ask a question. You told this fellow, “I understand that Christianity works for you, and I think that’s outstanding. Your life must be so rich because of your faith. But must Christianity be the only way? Can’t there be other good ways for people to know and experience what you call God? Does everyone who chooses any other way but Christianity have to be wrong?”
However, I also read your post, The Happiest Ending EVER". To one of the commenters, who asked, "Why do I need Jesus?" you replied, "You’re born human. That means you’re extremely inclined to be selfish, greedy, snarky, gossipy, lazy, impatient, mean-spirited, ego-driven, etc., etc. You’re just born to … self-promote, shall we say. It’s not all you’re born to be: you’re also born to be virtuous and kind and loving and so on." You then went on to say that there is no way in which we can overcome these tendencies without God, and it seems to me that you were implying that necessarily meant Jesus. Or did I misunderstand you?
I find it interesting that you're practicing Buddhism (although I realize, of course, that Zen is presented in the West as method, largely). Buddhism presents itself as a tool for personal transformation, but it doesn't acknowledge a creator. Do you not feel that Buddhism can help one to overcome one's innate selfish tendencies – or do you believe that it can, but not as completely as Christianity?
I'd also like to offer an observation. What I seem to be hearing from most of the Christians who comment on your blog is that they have no problem with the message – Jesus died for your sins, if you don't believe that you'll go to hell – they're just offended by the aggressive tactics like those of the man in your article. It's all right to believe that people who disagree with you will burn forever in a lake of fire – it just isn't polite to make a lot of noise about it! Given that kind of belief, it makes the behavior of your orange-capped friend much more understandable.
I also read the reviews of your book on Amazon. If conservative evangelicals are accusing you of heresy – you must be doing something right!
Skerrib: I agree with you 100%. It's soooo much easier, and so very much more gratifying to one's ego, to tell people why they're wrong and bound for hell than it is to love them. Telling you why you're wrong–which is to say, telling you why I'M right–is so much more engaging to me than is loving you. The former is about me, which fascinates me. The latter is about you, which is a lot less interesting to me. In what they decided to call The Great Commission (a term which, unlike "The Great Commandment," Christ never used at all), Christians found the ultimate way to disguise a superbly effective means of ego gratification as concern for others.
That said, I know evangelizing Christians mean well. And I certainly think that we all must share knowledge of Christ with people who've never heard about the Gospel or Jesus. But today, in America, when you go up to someone you don't or barely know, and you start "witnessing" to them, you're doing something that has a great deal less to do with "saving" the other person than it does with working out personal issues of your own. What you're doing is about anger, not love. And the proof of that–well, one proof of that–is that that kind of evangelizing NEVER WORKS. So you can't be doing it to glorify God, because … it doesn't work. It's not glorifying God. It's repelling people from God. It's failing God, because it's failing the Great Commandment.
I have an orange cap. It says “Remington” on it. Deer fear it. Actually, not so much. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a .30-06. Deer mostly walk up and taunt me because I’m more of a cartoon than a hunter.
Many very well meaning Christians, and I’ve been one, have turned the Great Commission into a cartoon. And a not very funny one, at that. Evangelism is essential. The way we do it changes with time, culture and circumstances. I’m quite certain I’ve embarrassed Jesus from time to time. But only when I’m awake.
One thing I enjoy about this debate is that there are so many Believers who still want to see multitudes come to Christ even though we rarely agree on methods. Thanks, John, for always making us think. And chuckle. And get really annoyed. And….Oh, gotta go. I see a big buck. “Honey, where’s my cap?”
I think Christians have a way of using God to rationalize saying and doing things that, when said & done in any other situation, would be considered incredibly rude & inconsiderate. It's hard to argue with "I'm just doing what God told me to do."
Our 'concern' for non-believing folks sounds nice, but is misguided…I think a lot of times it's our pride masquerading as concern.
It doesn’t seem that the young man was familiar with the Word or that he was being guided by the Spirit. You were being more Christ-like than he was. And you had many such encounters? Ouch. Praise God for His love and grace, which is so awesome that not even those misguided messengers could obscure it from your view.
I was born to Christian parents. By about age 10 or 11 I believed in God and believed I was going to heaven because of that. I had a vague idea that Jesus’ death on the cross was important. One Sunday, a Sunday school worker, probably about high school age, stopped me as I was about to leave and talked to me. I don’t remember much except the gist of it was, do you believe in God? Okay, well, do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? Do you realize that you’re not going to heaven, that you will go to hell, unless you believe He died for you and you ask God for forgiveness? That was my first real lesson in the spiritual facts of life, it kind of took me aback. I stammered some response and got away. I was the beginning of some real doubts about what I believed, a struggle and a debate within myself. Maybe because I am a very analytical person, when some question like that arises, I have to resolve it. Within the next year or two my mind was made up for Christ. A lot of wonderful Christian people, foremost my parents, plus others in the church, helped in many ways to guide me to that decision. I wonder what would have happened if that somewhat nervous young lady, who could have very easily just let me go on out the door, hadn’t taken it upon herself to tell me the truth in love.
I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t grown up in a Christian family, and all I knew about Christianity was what I got from TV and movies, and some arrogant Christian had gotten in my face like happened to you. I may have decided I wanted nothing to do with Christianity.
We are not here just to hang around until we die and go to heaven. We are here to make a difference for Jesus. It is important that we have a heart for the spiritual and material needs around us. It is important that we do it not any old way we feel like doing it, but that we do it the way God wants it done. The only things we have to do are the things the Word commands. The only things we must not do are the things the Word forbids. Beyond that we should rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Tam: I just meant friends share everything–or at least the important stuff–with their friends. I didn’t say–or mean, anyway–anything about friends converting friends. Of course that’s offensive. Pretty much my whole point.
Jeff: Tough story! REALLY tough on that defending pastor. Ridiculous.
Ya know, the “in-your-face” types are causing a lot of backlash at Christianity in general. While I have no issues with Chrsitianity in public places (as I mentioned earlier, I am fine with my son learning Christian songs in school or public dispalys of Christianity), I know quite a few people who do have issues… and it all seems to stem from experience with the “in-your-face” converting type.
They are afraid that any Christianity in pubic places will lead to more of the converting. They see the lack of respect and tolerance shown by some Christians and fear giving them a foot hold, especially when it comes to our children.
I’ve never felt good about the in-your-face approach, and I’ve always cringed when I saw someone else doing it–or if they wanted ME to do it.
Once I saw a guy outside a restaurant, clutching a Bible and literally pointing his finger in the face of another, very uncomfortable-looking man as he spoke intently to him. I wanted to go up to them and apologize to the uncomfortable-looking guy for the way the first guy was misrepresenting Jesus.
The only thing that grieved me more was when I shared this story a few days later during dinner at someone’s house, and a pastor who was there actually *defended* this man’s actions and berated me for thinking it wasn’t appropriate.
John – I get what you are saying about friends vs. strangers. However, I do know if any of my friends started trying to actively converting me… they would soon be ex-friends. There is a line between discussing your faith and trying to push it.
I don’t mind people discussing their faith (as long as they have other things to also say… someone who can only talk faith tends to bore me), I don’t mind them discussing their experiences, and I love to discuss the history of Christianity… However, I do get annoyed at the conversion attempts… even from friends.
If it was your daughter, the “threat” would have a completely different backgrounding. You can’t believe a complete stranger would become upset in the same way, no matter how much love they had in their hearts, if they saw YOUR daughter run out in the road.
I keep coming back to what Jesus actually did one-on-one with real people. He drank with them, talked to them at local hangouts, healed them in public places, fed them. He met their actual immediate and personal needs. Then he had an opening for going beyond those needs to the deeper spiritual issues. He wasn’t waving a scroll in someone’s face screaming “Turn or burn!” And the people he “irritated” were the people of his OWN religion. Hmmm. Food for thought.
One of my life goals is to not be annoying, so I’d make a terrible evangelist of the kind you’re describing. But I sometimes wonder if I’m just a coward. The disciples annoyed people to the point of being murdered. Or am I oversimplifying? (By the way, I live in a country that’s only about 1% Christian, so would that change things? Would that tip the scales to my being a coward rather than a respecter of differences?)
Shell: That is the exact, perfect point. GOD telling you what you should do with your heart is one thing. Another person–much less someone you don’t know–telling you the same thing is a whooooole other can of Back Off.
I struggle with this issue. Jesus could be pretty in-your-face annoying too–at least he came across that way to many people. Isn’t that why they killed him? Of course, he WAS God, as opposed to, well, me.
800 poung gorilla in the living room. "Get your hands off my throat while you tell me about, what was it again?"
Please see an older post of mine on this very subject here:
http://johnshore.wordpress.com/2007/05/30/adults-…
"But Christs’ disciples HAD to pretty aggressively evangelize AT THAT TIME, because they knew that if they didn’t Christianity just might not survive"
Christianity has never been in a position of failing or not surviving. God is sovereign. His purposes will not fail. This is also the issue that your not-so-friendly evangelical had. Not believing that God is sovereign. Not knowing that God's purposes, including the salvation of His people, will not fail. It is sad. But I also don't think it was necessarily a lack of love he exhibited. If my daughter was going to run into the road and get hit by a truck – I would do everything including being rude, crude, and slightly obscene if it would stop her. I might holler a "threat" like "If you don't turn from the direction your heading you are going to die!" She might think that I am simply mean, don't really love her, and want to thwart her freedom. It might not be the right thing (to her)- or the seemingly loving thing – but if it is all I knew to do I would try it to stop her from dying. Maybe that young evangelical really did love you. Probably not. But maybe.
WOW! You received a large dose. A little humility of the sincerely zealous evangelist would have gone a long way…Bless his heart!
This is a funny and sad story at the same time.
While it certainly hasn't been my experience that all evangelizing Christians behave like this guy, it's certainly not been a rarity in my life. This is pretty typical–or it is, at least, with people who subscribe to that whole Ray Comfort, Way of the Master type of … extremely unpleasant interacting. You know how it is: Start out nice, and then slip right into the condemning judgement. Typical. Sad. Common. Needs to stop. Won't, of course.
I always wondered what evangelists like that think they'll accomplish when what they're saying essentially amounts to a threat.
Fantastic example. It's an interesting progression, from friendly "how are ya" type of talk to "you will burn in hell." My current primary theory is that we're all giant three-year-olds…so this guy didn't get the response he wanted and threw a Christianese temper tantrum. He could've used a time out!
Thank you, Greta. And yes, I do believe that, as you say, Mr. Orange Cap was misled. But he's hardly alone. I have a million other stories basically just like this one. All non-Christians do.
Mr. Orange Cap was sorely misled by those who discipled him.
He is fortunate you were the gentleman you are, John!
But Christs' disciples HAD to pretty aggressively evangelize AT THAT TIME, because they knew that if they didn't Christianity just might not survive. That's hardly true today: Safe to say that today, in America, anyone who WANTS to know about Christ has infinite ways to do so, ASAP. As to your foreign question, my answer is only this: It doesn't do any good to try to talk to a STRANGER about what they should or shouldn't believe in anyway: they're bound to just think you're obnoxious, and walk away from you. What you CAN do–and what you would do naturally, anyway–is share with your FRIENDS whatever you believe. That's natural and wholesome, and zero stress. That's what friends do in the natural course of their relationship anyway. So you've got no worries, anywhere.
CL: Not sure what you mean.
… i guess it all boils down to one finite point …
we all have to start somewhere.
Leif: Thank you. THANK YOU.
You didn't miss a thing.
Oh, and that's not a car it's an elephant in your living room.
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