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The Great Commission

TimCallahan

Philosopher
T
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
6,293
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the resurrected Jesus tells the eleven remaining disciples (Mt. 18, 19):

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in te name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . . ."

In evangelical Protestant circles this has come to be known as the Great Commission" i.e. that Christians are commanded to, quite agressively, spread the word. This leads to the "in your face" sort of proselytizing, everything from flyer with John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not peris but have eternal life.") witten on them to strangers who, apropos of nothing, accost you in a public place asking if youv'e been save or ifyou know Jesus. It is also, of course, one of the great spurs to missionary activity across the globe.

Recently, my wife has encountered an aggressive strain of these followers of the Great Commission on a website dedicated to humor, usually visual LOLs, sometimes with captions. In some cases, the perpetrators have put up a cute, funny animal LOL with some rather punitve "convert or go to hell" message as a caption.

This seems to be the sort of behavior limited to evangelical Protestants. I don't know ifthere is an analog to it in Islam (at least one that is sans sword).

Does anyone hae any thoughts on how to deal with this?
 
TimCallahan said:
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the resurrected Jesus tells the eleven remaining disciples (Mt. 18, 19):

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in te name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . . ."

In evangelical Protestant circles this has come to be known as the Great Commission" i.e. that Christians are commanded to, quite agressively, spread the word. This leads to the "in your face" sort of proselytizing, everything from flyer with John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not peris but have eternal life.") witten on them to strangers who, apropos of nothing, accost you in a public place asking if youv'e been save or ifyou know Jesus. It is also, of course, one of the great spurs to missionary activity across the globe.

Recently, my wife has encountered an aggressive strain of these followers of the Great Commission on a website dedicated to humor, usually visual LOLs, sometimes with captions. In some cases, the perpetrators have put up a cute, funny animal LOL with some rather punitve "convert or go to hell" message as a caption.

This seems to be the sort of behavior limited to evangelical Protestants. I don't know ifthere is an analog to it in Islam (at least one that is sans sword).

Does anyone hae any thoughts on how to deal with this?
Click to expand...


Muslims don't usually go out and do any proselytizing, at least not in the US that I have ever seen. Well except for maybe at a flea market with a table set up with literature about Islam on it but they don't normally say anything to anyone walking by and only answer questions when asked. As far as how to deal with it by best advise is try to ignore it best you can. We have quite a few Christians that will come and knock on our door early in the morning this is very annoying considering I work nights. I usually answer the door and politely tell them I am not interested and let them know I work nights and to please not knock on my door so early. This has seemed to work because they don't come as often as they use to and when they do it is late in the afternoon.
 
withallyourmind said:
I'm a Christian and I hear what you say.

However, the passage says to make disciples, not converts.

I don't know anyone that became a Christian from a debate or argument.
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What do you thik of those folks who stick John 3:16 flyers under people's windshield wipers?
 
TimCallahan said:
What do you thik of those folks who stick John 3:16 flyers under people's windshield wipers?
Click to expand...

To me, that is like a marketing exercise. I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve when they put that flyer under your wiper...

.. actually, it may be more helpful for me to ask you what you think.
 
withallyourmind said:
I'm a Christian and I hear what you say.

However, the passage says to make disciples, not converts.

I don't know anyone that became a Christian from a debate or argument.
Click to expand...

How about 'Born Agains' and those who go to Alcoholics Anonymous? Are they not convinced(or pressurised as some would claim)?
 
Actually in retrospect I find those that are more "aggressive" to be a little more consistent in their beliefs, or have the courage of their convictions anyway. If one truly believed that an eternity of torture lay and the end of a person's life, and one held the one thing that could prevent that eternal torture, then one is obligated to share that thing which would prevent the torture.

Friend tries to climb into his car after clearly drinking too much. I say "it's their choice", they drive home and kill a couple and their kids and themselves in an accident. My not offering a ride home, heck by not forcibly taking their keys away from them, I'm partially responsible because I had the opportunity and the ability to intervene and did not.

Those that put fliers on cars and stand on street corners with megaphones are annoying and (I think) misdirected, but at least they follow through on what they believe.
 
TimCallahan said:
What do you thik of those folks who stick John 3:16 flyers under people's windshield wipers?
Click to expand...

withallyourmind said:
To me, that is like a marketing exercise. I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve when they put that flyer under your wiper...
Click to expand...

I'm thinking about going to a church parking lot on Sunday and placing "Yuma 3:10" flyers under their windshield wipers.
 
Hux said:
How about 'Born Agains' and those who go to Alcoholics Anonymous? Are they not convinced(or pressurised as some would claim)?
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, so forgive me if my answer misses the mark, but I have some experience with this through my alcoholic ex-husaband.

As with anything similar, what happens depends on the specific group. But in my experience, if you don't believe in the Christian god, or if you are agnostic or atheist, you are counseled to try to acknowledge some sort of "higher power," if possible, or at the very least to realize that your alcoholism is "bigger" than you, and that you are going to need some sort of help outside yourself.

The group itself can function as your "higher power," in that case, but the group is not held responsible for your sobriety, if that makes any sense? You are responsible, but you're supposed to acknowledge that the disease, as they call it, is a monster and you're going to need help to battle it.

In my experience, you are not required to believe in gods in order to receive AA's help.
 
temporalillusion said:
Actually in retrospect I find those that are more "aggressive" to be a little more consistent in their beliefs, or have the courage of their convictions anyway. If one truly believed that an eternity of torture lay and the end of a person's life, and one held the one thing that could prevent that eternal torture, then one is obligated to share that thing which would prevent the torture.

Friend tries to climb into his car after clearly drinking too much. I say "it's their choice", they drive home and kill a couple and their kids and themselves in an accident. My not offering a ride home, heck by not forcibly taking their keys away from them, I'm partially responsible because I had the opportunity and the ability to intervene and did not.

Those that put fliers on cars and stand on street corners with megaphones are annoying and (I think) misdirected, but at least they follow through on what they believe.
Click to expand...

So, what you seem to be saying is that, if Christians really believe that anyone who's not a Christian will burn forever in Hellfire (courtesy of a loving God) then they are indeed obligated by their belief sys toem to aggressively push the Great Commission.

How about if doing that is so off-putting that they actually antagonize people and drive them away?
 
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Good point. Some would say that it's the job of the Holy Spirit to draw the people to God and soften their hearts, so getting the message out is the only concern. It's not a decision with your mind to convert, it's a decision of the heart. So annoying people isn't a big deal to them.

Of course others say the opposite for the same reason lol.. that the Holy Spirit draws people so no overt aggressive proselytizing is required, just live a Christian life and the Spirit will draw those who will ask questions and then you can witness to them.

I remember some pastors I knew really had a problem with the new churches and movements in Christianity (I can't remember what it was called), basically where churches made a point of not offending people.

For example some churches would have two services, one without an offering, no church administrivia during the service, short but upbeat worship with modern songs and nothing scary and a short sermon relevant to someone not saved but not heavy on scripture.. avoiding topics that were deep in doctrine that might baffle or even drive away the uninitiated.

Then they'd have another service more for the church members themselves, where they could have the church announcements, and preach the difficult messages, and have the worship with the raising of hands and running around and screaming and the alter call where people fell down and ran around screaming :D

The pastors I knew thought those churches weren't really Christian because they were compromising God to make it more palatable.
 
A real Christian genuinely thinks he is doing you a favour in saving you from yourself.
 
I have found that keeping a collecting can for almost any charity by the door is as effective a religiorepellant as garlic to vampires or a personal attack alarm to cold telephone callers.
 
Actually, I think that before we go off debating the limits of the great commission, it's worth asking if it's indeed that and not, say, an illustration of Hanlon's Razor. E.g.,

1. Was it a genuine attempt at converting people, or was it just trolling? Some people thrive off shocking or otherwise getting the wrong kind of attention. I remember for example the flood of goatse links on Slashdot in ye olde days, and I don't think those were actually trying to convert anyone to anything. So could a kitten with the text "YOU'LL BURN IN HELL!" be just another way of trying to shock or annoy? It's not impossible.

2. Was it a genuine attempt at converting people, or was it someone's honest if retarded attempt at humour? The Dunning-Kruger effect applies to humour just as much as to anything else, and some of the unfunniest people in history think that their defacement of Wikipedia to say that iron is extracted from monekys is comedy gold. Plus, some people's sense of humour is... a very unique and personal thing. I've actually seen people completely miss the joke in a comic strip, but spend half a day laughing at a typo in it. So, yes, I wouldn't rule it out that someone genuinely thought it's funny.

3. Was it an attempt to convert people out of nowhere, or was it (retardedly) supposed to be an _answer_ to something that offended the author? The realization that some such LOL's are answers struck me when I saw a couple which had the image they were answering to _inside_ another frame with their answer to it. But anyway, some people mis-use such sites as a sort of a forum, apparently completely oblivious that in a search by topic or by newest they'll be shown without any context or threading... or that the site doesn't offer any kind of context or threading at all.

So here's a possible scenario: one guy publishes a (maybe funny, maybe not funny) "ceiling cat" captioned image or such. Another guy posts a similar image right back (the fact that the site only accepts images won't deter him from posting an answer; he'll caption another cat pic if he must) that says "OMG, you're going to hell for worshipping a cat."

Or from memory a scenario I've actually seen: one guy publishes an image taking a jab at some religious holiday. E.g., I kid you not, a christmas image with a text like "because it's fun to celebrate someone's torture and death." Which might even be funny in its offensive way, if you don't mind its getting it wrong. So of course one or two others feel compelled to post an "answer" image with a text like "because atheists are too stupid to know when Christ was born and when he died."

But anyway, all I'm saying is that what taken out of context may look like an attept to proselitise out of nowhere, might be just some butthurt Jesus-fanboy's attempt to post an answer to something that offended him. Without realizing that it doesn't work that way.

Retarded, but nevertheless a real possibility.
 
TimCallahan said:
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the resurrected Jesus tells the eleven remaining disciples (Mt. 18, 19):

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in te name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . . ."

In evangelical Protestant circles this has come to be known as the Great Commission" i.e. that Christians are commanded to, quite agressively, spread the word.
Click to expand...

In all seriousness though - where does it say "aggressively" in that bible quote?

Recently, my wife has encountered an aggressive strain of these followers of the Great Commission on a website dedicated to humor, usually visual LOLs, sometimes with captions. In some cases, the perpetrators have put up a cute, funny animal LOL with some rather punitve "convert or go to hell" message as a caption.

This seems to be the sort of behavior limited to evangelical Protestants. I don't know ifthere is an analog to it in Islam (at least one that is sans sword).

Does anyone hae any thoughts on how to deal with this?
Click to expand...

Here are some ideas:
- Stop visiting the website
- If they are posting images in violation of the websites terms report them
- Ignore them like you would people wanting you to sign political initiatives, or who are handing out concert fliers or who are trying to sell you girl scout cookies or how you ignore marketing efforts in general.
- Don't leave home.
- Tell them to stop.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
In all seriousness though - where does it say "aggressively" in that bible quote?



Here are some ideas:
- Stop visiting the website
- If they are posting images in violation of the websites terms report them
- Ignore them like you would people wanting you to sign political initiatives, or who are handing out concert fliers or who are trying to sell you girl scout cookies or how you ignore marketing efforts in general.
- Don't leave home.
- Tell them to stop.
Click to expand...

I would say he command to make disciples of all nations is pretty aggressive.

As to the website, it turned out that the chrstian who had posted the sort of in-your-face messages had intended them fro fellow Christians on the site and apparently hit the wrong key, sort of like itting "reply all" for an intimate message meant for one person.

As to the other stuff, i do ignore meny of them - although I'm a sucker for Girl Scout cookies - especially thin mints. Teling people who are obnoxious usually doesn't work. However, I'm more interested in the mentality behind plastering windshieds with John 3:16 fliers (this has gone down somewhat from when I had a car with Darwin fish on the bumper).

One weird incident that happened to me several decades ago was that I was stopped at a stop sign in the middle lane of a three-lane road. My windows were rolled up. Thus, I didn't quite understand what the guy was shouting when he pulled up onn my left. I rolled the window down, and he again yelled, "Praise God!" Suddenly, another car pulled up on my right and that driver also bellowed "Praise God!" Somewhat befuddled, I looked back and forth from one driver to the other. At that point, they both hit the gas and peeled out, leaving me still at the stop sign, somewhat dazed. I suppose this bit of evangelical performance art was very effective at blowing minds for Jesus, though I doubt its value at making converts.
 
Hux said:
How about 'Born Agains' and those who go to Alcoholics Anonymous? Are they not convinced(or pressurised as some would claim)?
Click to expand...

I don't really know exactly what happens at Alcoholics Anonymous.

A guy I know who used to be an alcoholic, cocaine addict and generally very violent man went to Alcoholics Anonymous. Through that he came to church and then decided he was going to 'follow Jesus'.

From that point onward he tells me that the only way he has been able to stay clean every day is through prayer and relationship with Jesus.

Now, I know that you guys will have a million theories why that's happened that have nothing to do with Jesus. But my point is that when he came to our church we did not try and convince him. He just read the Bible and believed.
 
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