«
»

iPhone blog- the courageous cowards

I’m not going into a whole prophetic duality thing here, unlike the title suggests. I’m probably going to tick off some people with some pretty sincere beliefs, but what else is new?

I work at a fast food restaurant, or more precisely, I am a manager of a fast food restaurant (not bragging here, saying you manage a fast food restaurant is like saying you have a GED, not your first choice, but it will do). We get all sorts of customers, but we dwell in the “bible belt” and in the shadow of a massive southern baptist church, so we get those kind of people, you know… evangelicals.
I should stop here and reiterate that I was once a member of the “real true Christian club” of evangelicals, during this time I was an angry kid headed down a path that would ultimately destroy my life, but that was ok, because I believed the “right things”.
Back on topic, we seem to get all sorts of these evangelical characters, quite convinced that it is there duty to convert the unregenerate masses around them. This, of course, means the poor, who obviously are the ones that work at fast food restaurants.
I’m willing to bet that these same people who pass out tracts to fast food worker would never do such a thing to, say a business man. The issue here is one of perceived social status. Since I work at a fast food restaurant I appear to be of a lower social class than the “evangelist” thus making the act of attempted evangelizing easier for the “evangelist.”
The evangelist has but to only step a bit out of there comfort zone and they can then think that they have both fulfilled the great commission and acted courageously for Jesus. In actuality the opposite is true, the supposed courage carried out in the act is negated by the cowardice shown in both the perceived social stratification and by the fact that the act is done in passing without the evangelist actually doing any real work.

We could also go into the idea that the evangelist exhibits when evangelizing to the perceived poor they are really saying “all you need is Jesus” and while Jesus is by no means bad, louder are the actions taken in helping poverty than are the words spoken that having Jesus solves all your problems.

One other thing I’d like to point out. Evangelicals are fond of saying that saving one soul is worth any cost. Judging by the reactions exhibited any time someone receives a tract, the question begs to be asked: “is the chance at “saving one soul,” via giving a tract, worth the price of “losing all the other souls” that are turned off by your methods?”

email2friend

This entry was posted Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 3:54 am and is filed under Bible, church, religion. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Derek F.
    In validation of your point, yesterday Jeanie was chauffering the youth group of her SBC to a youth conference, along with the church's youth pastor. The youth pastor decided that the youth group would spend part of the day going door-to-door asking people for food donations on behalf of the poor, and also "witnessing" to those whom they talked with (Jeanie just drove, she didn't actually take part in it).

    Oddly enough, the youth pastor decided--you would think contrary to their stated purpose of "collecting food for the poor"-- only to go door-to-door in the lower-class neighborhoods. I asked Jeanie why this was, since I figured rich people probably have more food to give to the poor than the poor have to give to themselves. She said she had asked him this herlsef. He replied ,"Because out of the two groups who are going to hear the Gospel, I'd rather have it be the poor people, because rich people have probably already heard the Gospel. The lower-class people are the ones who have probably never heard it."

    Ironic that this would happen the day after you posted :) Maybe there's more credibility to what you're saying than I'm granting.
  • I certainly will agree that Jesus ministry was primarily focused on the poor. It appears that when he would shine a light into places that wanted to remain hidden, it would be to show the injustice of the actions of the rich (Lazarus and the Rich Man for instance). I think the message being transmitted via tracts (and I really do read all the ones I come across) is not the same message that Jesus brought to the poor of his time. Instead, the message that I read is often one of condemnation, or some other form of attack on the reader, trying to convince the reader how... evil they are.

    I didn't give a complete background before going into my post, as typing on an iPhone is a challenge unto itself, but there is a bit more to the story behind the end point of my argument. I remember back when I attended an SBC assembly, and the pastor was a huge fan of tracts. I remember his instruction to those gathered, which was to give out tracts to those who appeared to need Jesus most. That sounds ok, but he continued, the Waiters and waitresses, the taxi drivers when in the city, the workers.
  • Derek F.
    I agree with your last paragraph: let's drop the tracks. I have never met--never even heard--anyone who, even in the process of their conversion, was ever effected by a track. Not one person, anywhere, ever. That doesn't mean that we can't find a small handful of people who will testify to the effectiveness of a tract in their lives, but these people are far and few between.

    However, I don't agree that the lower classes are targeted for tracts PRIMARILY because they're perceived as unregenerate because they're poor. They're targeted because they're generally more receptive to the Gospel than are rich people. They often have less pride than the rich, and they are continually confronted with an emptiness that they are unable to fill with extravagant placebos. Rich people in virtually every period in history have tended to feel more self-reliant, and more resistant to help.

    And in all fairness, the vast majority of Jesus' content in the Gospels took the form of a call to the poor, not to the rich--except by implication, in that it was part of a larger call to the entire nation of Israel. But it was the poor that attracted the vast majority of Jesus' attention. You can see how, if someone were to live by the principle of following Jesus' example (however erroneously that principle translated into an individual's thoughts and beliefs), you can see how that person might give precedence to preaching the Gospel--whatever they mean by that word--to the poor rather than the rich; and I think that is what's happening.

    There's definitely some merit to your observation. But you can't paint with too broad a brush either. I firmly believe that most of the harm that is done by Evangelicals and Fundamentalists is out of sheer ignorance, not malice. Their hearts really are set on the right things, they've just been given a bad action plan and can't disassociate this regime from the Gospel.
blog comments powered by Disqus
ramblings-theology-my thoughts