I cringe at most of the Christian rhetoric that I hear on social media. So much of what Christians are saying publicly is about what we don’t like or who we don’t like, rather than focusing on who Jesus is and why people ought to love him.
Christians need to consider their audience when they make public pronouncements. American culture wars debates may have interest in private conversations. Yet, when they become campaign slogans or media posts, they may have a very negative effect on a non-Christian audience.
I believe some of our pronouncements erect hurdles that people have to climb over to get acquainted with Jesus.
What if pharmaceutical advertisements on TV spent most of their time discussing the negative side effects of their drugs? What if the images, instead of happy, healthy, thriving patients, depicted sad and sorrowful individuals? Who would want to buy those drugs?
This is what we’re doing as Christians today. We are focusing on the negative and seldom on the positive in our public discourse. We are creating obstacles to be overcome for prospective followers of Jesus.
When reading Jesus’ words to the scribes and Pharisees, it seems they depict what is happening with much of the American Christian public image.
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23.13-15).
I served with Emory Wallace, my mentor and father in the ministry, in Louisiana during the 1970s.
While talking in a staff meeting about a particular branch of Baptists that were independent of the Southern Baptist Convention, he said: “They have nothing to say unless they are against something.”
Take a look at the current political discourse that has invaded the church. How much of this is like that branch of Baptists? How much of our rhetoric has nothing to say unless it is against something or someone?
Jesus called the religious leaders “hypocrites,” because they were actors. They were playing a part, but not living a genuine life of devotion to God.
When we make a convert to a cause that is corrupt at its core, we lead them to destruction, not life.
Our goal is to lead people to a life with Jesus where they are inspired to live a Jesus-kind-of-life. To do that we need another method than one that erects hurdles.
Building Bridges
I attend a meeting on Wednesday nights where a large number of recovering drug and alcohol addicts participate. Last Wednesday night, several of them had excellent things to say about their recovery and about the role that Jesus played in it.
At the end of the meeting, I told two of them, “You know, I’m like the salesman, but you’re the satisfied customer.”
What if the church took the approach that these people did? They shared some of their failures and problems. And yet, they also talked about the victories and encouraged other people that they could have the same victory.
They were not negative about anything other than their own problems and highlighted what Jesus had done for them.
There was no condemnation in the speech of these people. They spoke words that served as a bridge to a relationship with Jesus.
Their speech was similar to the pharmaceutical commercials we see on TV. It was a positive, inviting, and appealing presentation designed to draw people in.
They didn’t have the usual pharmaceutical disclaimers at the end of their words, but they did talk about how Jesus and the program of AA had made their lives better.
My prayer for the church is that we will be more like my friends in recovery who have met Jesus, than the religious presentations on media that erect hurdles rather than build bridges to friendship with Jesus.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross and I discussed this passage on YouTube today. It is on the Bob Spradling channel.
Real Voices 