Philosophy
Lovers!
Click Here

Is Telling it Like it is Favourable to Evangelization?

Many people, including believers, find Christianity—not to put too fine a point on it—a pain in the proverbial. (An internet definition for “a pain in the proverbial—or ass”: an annoying, difficult or tedious person or thing.) I think the reasons can be more or less summed up in one word: INTERFERENCE. Gospel teachings cause a huge amount of interference with the natural man or woman. For a start, we must not only refrain from exploiting our fellow man—many people, by the way, don’t feel like they’re exploiting anyone, but, in fact, everyone is caught up in systems of exploitation and almost nobody loses any sleep over it—we must not only refrain from exploiting our fellow man, but the Gospels say, both explicitly and in pointed parables (like the rich man and Lazarus the beggar), that we are our brother’s keeper, and threaten us with dire punishment if we refuse to recognize that responsibility.

Secondly, Christianity seriously interferes with almost everyone’s sexual predilections, and that alone is a deal breaker for many people. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that he who casts his eyes on a woman so as to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” There must have been more than a few young men who, on hearing those words, have said to themselves, ‘Well, if that’s his attitude, there’s nothing more he can say to me.’

Thirdly—and perhaps this is the hardest teaching of all, so hard that even Jesus makes it optional, as in the case of the rich young man who asked him, “What must I do to achieve eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “You know the commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall do no murder, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not wrong any man, Honour your father and your mother.” “Master,” he answered, “I have kept all these ever since I grew up.” Then Jesus fastened his eyes on him, and conceived a love for him; “In one thing,” He said, “you are still wanting. Go home and sell all that belongs to you; give it to the poor, and so the treasure you have shall be in heaven, then come back and follow me.” Jesus’s invitation to seek perfection was optional, and the rich young man opted to decline it. Nevertheless, we’re supposed to try to discern God’s plan for our lives instead of obeying one of our strongest impulses, namely choosing our own path and being able to say like Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” Yet what could be more repugnant to human nature than being asked to live our lives following a path that someone else has determined! John Henry Newman put the matter very well in these lines from his famous poem and hymn, Lead, Kindly Light:

Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene: one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose, and see my path; but now
Lead thou me on. . .

Given our instinctive desire for autonomy and our associated sense of self respect, Gospel commands and the accompanying threats strike many (consciously or unconsciously) as unreasonable, unbearably intrusive, even uncharitable.

There’s a fourth reason, probably felt unconsciously rather than consciously: fear of boredom. Not only are church rituals, readings, sermons, prayers and hymns inherently repetitive, but anyone critical by temperament or cultivated by upbringing is bound to find something in the average church service that displeases them, either intellectually or aesthetically. In general, it might be true to say that religion is fascinating in theory but boring in practice; and that the prospect of being bored is not sufficiently recognized as a factor in turning people against religion.

All this being the case, it’s perfectly understandable that religion, especially Christianity, will inspire aversion as much as attraction in the average person. And it’s always been this way. Pascal, who died in 1662, said that human beings despise religion; they hate it, and fear that it’s true. But our natural aversion towards a creed which cuts so strongly across the grain of our nature has to be balanced against what, if true, is offered by way of compensation. (It may also help to remember that, as in other departments of life, you get what you pay for.)

If God exists He can give us everything that Nature can give us, and a great deal more of course. Nature can give us youth and health, beauty, brains and talent, things so strongly desired by mankind that billionaires would part with their entire fortunes for some of the items on that list. But those things are chicken feed compared with what Jesus of Nazareth claimed he would give His faithful disciples, namely: superhuman energy, superhuman power, and, above all, a superhuman capacity for enjoyment; in other words, the attributes appropriate to a god.

It’s true that for the most part Jesus used different terminology, such as “life,” “everlasting life,” “eternal life,” “new life,” and “life. . .more abundantly.” Indeed, He emphatically promised His followers immortality, though only gods are immortal: “Believe me when I tell you this; if a man is true to my word, to all eternity he will never see death.” And when He sent out his disciples to preach the Kingdom He gave them superhuman powers, telling them to “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: give as you have received the gift, without payment.” Finally, on one dramatic occasion, recorded only in John, Jesus made it unambiguously clear that those who accepted God’s message would themselves become like gods:

Then the people again picked up stones to throw at him. Jesus said to them, “I have done many good deeds in your presence which the Father gave me to do; for which one of these do you want to stone me? They answered, “We do not want to stone you because of any good deeds, but because of your blasphemy! You are only a man, but you are trying to make yourself God!” Jesus answered, “It is written in your own Law that God said, ‘You are gods.’ We know that what the scripture says is true forever; and God called those people gods, the people to whom his message was given.”

All of which is to say that trying to live up to the teachings of the Gospels—and it’s the trying that counts since day after day harsh experience proves to us that falling short is inevitable—that trying to live up to the Gospel may be turn out to be the most sensible way to lead our lives, even if it does means having to forgo the satisfaction of choosing our own path at times. Besides, the hard path of the Gospel is not always as hard as it looks; and there are those who insist that it has its own rewards, rewards that can only be discovered by taking it.

Click HERE to reach the associated topic for this webpage.
For more topics click HERE.