Reaching out as far as we can
Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight discusses how we can reach out to all types of personality in Part Eight of the Spreading the Good News series.
 The world is full of many different Christian and non-Christian personalities; some confident, some shy or diffident, some extroverted, some introverted, some clever, some not so clever, and many other contrasting characteristics. Therefore a lot of spreading the good news involves a coming together of very different types of people with very different strengths and weaknesses - in fact never has St Paul’s insistence that we should become ‘All things to all men’ (1 Corinthians 9:22) been more germane than when we are trying to be influential in spreading the good news. When it comes to being influential in propagating the good news of Christ’s love, there are, I would say, three things that we must remember at all times.
1) Everybody is worth saving.
2) Christians should not be afraid to tell anyone the good news.
3) All Christians should be equipped to help all non-Christians understand the message.
And we must also remember that if we are to help enlighten our non-believing neighbours, we must understand that much of their logic has been formed by their experiences in secular cultures - particularly people in this country. We would also do well to remember that nowadays, for many, culture can seem like a very negative word, particularly to those who live their lives moment by moment without any thoughts about the bigger picture; thus a break from familiarity can be a positive thing if it helps people escape bad habits and allays some of their fears about ‘not belonging’ in a cultural life (I think ‘education’ and ‘confidence’ play a part in this too).
The mind of the unbeliever
I’m going to being this section by talking about those in this country that probably need us more urgently than any others – those that we might aptly characterise as being ‘stuck in a rut’. In my experiences, the difficulty of impacting on the man in a rut is that he thinks he is trapped in one type of existence and that no other dimensions can exist - he sees the world in a ‘matter of fact’ way with narrow parameters, into which every facet of life fits nicely for him. Such confinement or circumscription, often coupled with a lack of education, very often pushes people in a state of cognitive stagnancy from which it is hard to escape, and to which words like ‘progression’ and ‘advancement’ and ‘enlightenment’ are an alien concept - for he probably already thinks that if such things are true they would be real to him. To the man stuck in a rut there are no tangible mysteries to life, just cold days and warm days, or good days and bad days - life seems very monochromatic - the whole of life consists of predictable patterns, and all these predictable routines have to offer him is the daily struggle to get by as best he can by his own efforts.
How could we expect such a man to believe that beauty could only be a glimpse of what might lie outside of the universe - that the world in which we live is full of rumours of supernatural occurrences and strange goings on, about which if he had more information he might find out some of the secrets? He might be stuck in a rut, but my experiences tell me that if you offer him an alternative outlook, one that adds a bit of magic, or at the very least, a bit of mystery and unpredictability to his life, you will rouse his attention.
In actual fact, for many in this country, it is quite a novelty for them to meet someone who is prepared to take an interest in them - the ‘person on the inside’, and very often the best thing we as Christians can do to get someone’s attention is to show them a bit of love or a bit of patience or a bit of interest or understanding; for very often such people have never really felt loved or understood or cared for or that their opinion matters.
In my experiences these good folk might not have as much as many, but they are the ‘poor in spirit’ that Christ is ready to bless. It may seem like they have very little, and when it comes to wealth and material things this is certainly true - but spiritually they are not, however, as stuck as many of the more educated men who take a Bertrand Russell-esque ‘Why is there no evidence?’ approach, clinging on to beliefs that are tainted by an initial false premise.
Although it should be remembered that what you see on the surface conditions how you interact with a person, it is what we see beneath their exterior that gives us the best ideas about how to connect with a person - after all, if one hasn’t made a good connection the message will very rarely come across quite so powerfully. In truth, although the conversations might be a little different, our approach to the man in the rut should not really be very much different to that of the opposite man, and the same is true with the poor and the rich - love and grace and a keen interest to understand your companion are always the best methods of reaching out and are more effective than intellectual battles, which are so often underlain with pride and competitiveness (for those interested in winning the intellectual battles, check out my Crisis Within Atheism series on my columns page - in particular, the messages ‘Tackling the Critics of the Christian Faith’ parts one and two).
Spotting the potential in people.
 In this world there are some people who never see anything other than the obvious and others who see everything but the obvious. I suppose what we are asking here is how do we alter our approach to telling them the good news so that it accords with their personality?
Suppose there are two non-believers A and B. Suppose that A is a man that exhibits a very virtuous and humble character, one who you think would be a remarkably genuine and honest Christian if he were ever to be converted. And suppose that B is a self-centred and egotistical charlatan - doubtless most Christians would feel much more comfortable trying to influence A than B. But perhaps in B we had a rough diamond, a man that, should he see the light, could use some of his outward God-given gifts to have a greater impact - a warrior who has yet to see his talents reach fruition (the world is full of people of this kind). This emphasises the importance in spotting the potential in ALL types of people, not just going for the easy and ‘less-challenging’ options.
Might it not be true to say of man A that his ostensible niceness could hold him back when he is attempting to spread the word to people who are hostile and resistant to it? And just as A’s diffidence might hold him back from being a true warrior, it might also be true that B, while he is a wretch now, might be, in the end, brilliant at getting through to the harsher and more intimidating type of person. I believe that everyone has something to offer; a unique and especial way of making a difference in the world - it is up to us to help people see their potential. How many great tales of redemption that struck a great chord in the hearts of many have been lost by a reticence in coming forward? How many precious moments of honesty have been lost in those moments of trepidation? How often has apprehension held us back? How often have those languorous moments created a dormancy in our own hearts - the times when it was so much easier to do nothing? I know that I have missed opportunities or done the wrong thing sometimes. But it is those ‘missed opportunities’ and those ’wrong things’ that can galvanise a Christian into not repeating these mistakes, for even in errors and misjudgements we can learn better ways to think and act, and more refined ways of utilising our talents.
The summarising point here is that we need to reach out to all types of personality, because everyone, irrespective of personality and character traits, has been called towards the greatest of blessings; for to love Christ is to realise that one is loved by Christ - and to realise that one is loved by Christ is to command over, and demand of, oneself the highest rewards and the greatest wisdom that life has to offer.
Supernatural reminders
We would be wise to remember that preaching to the modern man is very different to preaching to people around the time of Christ, and the reason is this; most people of that time believed in the supernatural; many people who we are trying to reach nowadays do not. It is not just the case that the removing of the Bible from the mind of men has isolated the mind in its own age; it has strayed towards the periphery of truth for deeper reasons - it has strayed because supernaturalism itself is not believed in. Therefore we must be wise when spreading the good news and realise that ‘supernaturalism’ itself is going to be a shock to the system for many - thus we will find that to begin with we have to dig our own channels to allow the supernatural flow to enter into our discussions - we must not presume it is already there.
And of course the principal reason why many modern men do not believe in the supernatural is because they think that science (in particular, Darwinism) has explained everything about the key principles of reality - that Darwinism has explained life itself and naturalism has sorted out everything else. Even the limitations in our potential for an all-conquering knowledge are used in favour of naturalism. For the ‘thinking’ man, naturalism has answered all the ontological questions, for the dunce, the thinking man has explained all that needs to be explained. But the non-thinkers are far too self-satisfied for their own good and this, to me, is only a lazy thinking enterprise - for naturalism cannot provide its own explanation (as I explain on my Theory of Everything page).
Judged by God or judging God?
You may have noticed that when people think ‘existence’ contains its own explanation, another set of problems arise. Many people think that whatever is wrong with the world - it can’t be them, it must be something else. In fact, modern politics, combined with media thrall has contributed to the growth of people who think it is the world that is wrong rather than individuals - the emphasis is always being transferred elsewhere rather than folk taking responsibility for their own actions. They have got Christianity the wrong way round - they act as God’s judges (we touched on this a bit last week). They speak of God’s duties to the earth, and if at any point it seems like God should have, in their view, made a better job of creation or made His presence more obvious, they claim He cannot possibly exist. In their view, God’s duties are not conceived in terms of self-surrender or salvation, but in ways that relate to the secular world - social justice, standard of living, prevention of natural disasters and suffering. Religion is judged in a meritorious fashion, and this method gives people an easy escape route.
It is easy to see when looking in the Bible that the writers had a closer association with the concept of ‘sin’ and ‘sinning’ than people do now. The news that we are sick and in need of a doctor (Matthew 9:12) would have been seen by many as good news, whereas I do not think the same is true of many people today. To the modern man the diagnosis and the remedy are often thought of with equal derision. Our advance in knowledge has in many cases seen us fall back from wisdom; many have made God stand trial; thus they ask, if Christianity is true why are there natural disasters, or why are there diseases, or why is there evil in the world? If the case for God seems to them implausible, they decree a guilty verdict - ‘guilty of fallacy’ - and Christianity is thus locked away for a long stretch.
The importance of ‘truth’
Another problem is that many sceptics think Christians are not really interested in the question of truth and falsehood. They think people are Christians not because it is true but because people prefer church to, say, art classes or bingo halls - they see it as an interest rather than the central part of life itself. They only want to know if it will be a comfort blanket, or if it will benefit them socially, or if they will find inspiration in everyday life. And the result of this is that a very unhelpful secular methodology has been created, into which percolates various methods of making subjective many tenets of reasoning, including in the end reason itself. I have seen it happen many times - once they have it ingrained in their heads that thought is unsubstantive, and that reasoning proves nothing in the long run, the trouble really begins.
This feeling, I’m afraid, is based on a very irrational process; for this process denies chiefly the validity of reasoning - in which case, if that were true, the thoughts from both sides of the argument should be consigned to the bin of fallacy. Now of course, this must be nonsense, because unless we admit that there are such things as ‘true thoughts’ our path involves the belief system that all thoughts are invalid. If all thoughts are invalid, it must include the thought that ‘all thoughts are invalid’, therefore invalidating the contention immediately.
I ought to point out here that the supposed science/Christianity dichotomy is, in reality, a myth - in fact, I would say that scientists and theologians are more in agreement now than ever before, despite the everyday man still thinking that the two are largely conflicting. Having said that, I do not think that science is the most important issue; the everyday man might know a bit about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit; he might know something about the Bible, but he does not usually think that any of these things are important when compared to everyday life - therefore it is this ‘everyday’ mindset from which he needs awakening - for it is this mindset that leads a man to compartmentalisation - putting Christianity in a box and treating it like any other everyday hobby or interest. Perhaps in the back of his mind he thinks that all beliefs, that is, all confessions of faith, can be spiritualised in some way, thus achieving comfort for the individuals - but we need to show him that supernaturalism does not belong in a box - for if supernaturalism is true then the whole story has been about the supernatural.
Moreover, there is a certain distinction between what we know and what we think we know and how imagination can lead people astray in the teeth of false information. Many a man thinks that most of the things he has read about Christianity are not true; some think that Christ didn’t really exist; some think that Christ was merely a fake and a charlatan; or that the Bible has been mistranslated so many times that it cannot possibly be accurate - there are many objections of this kind and of a similar vain - objections based on misinformation leading to the sceptic’s imagination running wild as he builds his case against Christianity. The ‘truth’ factor has never been as important as when contemplating Christianity, otherwise one might let feelings and emotions and proprietary fancies shape his or her thinking, and that almost always leads a person astray.
What we know and what we think we know
In my neighbourhood when I was growing up, I once heard a man tell his young daughter that the dog across the road was a vicious dog and that she should not approach it. ‘Why not?’ asked his daughter. ‘Our dog isn’t vicious so why is that one?’. The girl’s obvious error was thinking that all dogs were as timid as her own. But this thought does not invalidate her thinking about her own dog - just dogs in general. And with this fresh knowledge about dogs, she would have now been even wiser about her own dog. Perhaps she had never seen her dog in a situation where it could become aggressive, but she would be foolish to think her dog may never become aggressive just because it hadn’t thus far - for most of us know that all dogs have a point where they can become aggressive out of character. And notice that when the little girl had learned about the differences between dogs, the knowledge would not, without experience, have changed her perception of what an aggressive dog was like.
The same is true of our analysis of Christianity. There is a distinction between what is known and what is thought to be known, but there is even a distinction between a person’s own thoughts and what he or she actually believes to be true. We can never know for sure that someone does or does not love us, but we can infer from their behaviour towards us whether it seems likely or unlikely that that person does love us. And equally we can think we might love someone judging by what we see - we can imagine how wonderful it would be to be in a relationship with that person, but find that when we did become involved with them it was nothing like as good as we thought.
But finding out retrospectively that it was not very pleasant being with them does not invalidate our desire to be with them in the first place. It is only the knowing that corrects our previous desire. And we find, on close inspection, that Christianity works in the same way. To the outsider, who feels he hasn’t got any need for Christianity, his wish might cause him to live his life dismissing Christianity at every turn. But he has no idea of what true knowledge of God can bring him; thus we will be a great help to him if we can convince him of the misleading nature of outside perceptions; for in doing so we can help him correct his mistakes and help him harmonise his perceptions of Christianity with the actualities of Christianity - then things will start to become clearer - and we all know that once a man sees that someone has help him find clarity his relationship with that person will very likely improve so that more help can be given. This is one of the cardinal points for us to remember as we help others - the more we can help people see things clearly and focus on the bigger picture the better our relationship with them will be and we will simultaneously help them grow both as friends and as disciples of Christ.
Next week we will look at how we can penetrate the minds that are resistant to Christianity.
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here. You can also contact the author direct at james.knight@norfolk.gov.uk
James is a Norwich local government officer, author and Proclaimers church member in Norwich. You can access his current collections of columns here
Meanwhile, if you want to find out more about Christianity, visit: www.rejesus.co.uk |
