There’s not just one list of the Spirit’s fruit!

When we Christians wanna list the Spirit’s fruit, most of the time we go off the Paul’s list in Galatians.

Galatians 5.22-24 KWL

22 The Spirit’s fruit is: Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness.

Goodness. Faith. 23 Gentleness. Self-governance.

The Law isn’t contrary to any such thing.

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus, crucify our flesh with its impulses and desires.

We might go with alternate translations of some of these words, like longsuffering and temperance and faithfulness (which is a really inaccurate interpretation of πίστις/pístis, “faith”). But generally yeah, that’s the proof text we memorize, wear T-shirts of, tattoo on our wrists… and don’t follow ’cause we think fruit grows spontaneously.

But I gotta keep reminding people it’s not a comprehensive list. The Spirit produces more fruit in us than that. And elsewhere in the bible, you’re gonna find other lists of his fruit.

Colossians 3.12-15 KWL

12 So like God’s chosen and beloved children, put on:

Compassionate mercy. Kindness. Humility. Gentleness. Patience.

13 Supporting one another and forgiving our own,

when one of us might have a disagreement with another:

Like the Master forgives us, you forgive too.

14 Over all these things, love, which joins the whole together.

15 Have Christ’s peace, into which you were called as one body, govern your minds. Be thankful!

Because Paul and Timothy didn’t bluntly say this was a list of the Spirit’s fruit, Christians quibble about whether it really is. And of course the reason we wanna dismiss it… is because we don’t care to do it. Bad enough we struggle to show any evidence of the list from Galatians; now there are four more behaviors—mercy, humility, forgiveness, and thankfulness—we gotta fake!

And of course there’s the command the apostles used at the top of the list: Ἐνδύσασθε/endýsasthe, “put on.” The NIV renders it “clothe yourselves,” ’cause yeah, the ancient Greeks used this word to describe putting on clothing. So these traits don’t automatically come from within, as Jesus pointed out. Not unless we, with the Spirit’s help, first put ’em there.

But we’d rather imagine humans are inherently good, or that the Holy Spirit within us has fixed all our selfish impulses—and therefore we need do nothing but sit back and let the goodness flow out of us. And of course it’s rubbish, but it’s popular rubbish, and why so many Christians produce no fruit, and instead highlight any substitutes for fruitfulness we can imagine.

References to individual fruits.

The Spirit’s fruit is God’s character. It describes his personality. It describes Jesus’s motives: This is what he thinks of us, and how he behaves towards us. And if we’re following Jesus, and are letting the Spirit guide us, this is how we’re gonna come to think and behave. We’re gonna adopt God’s attitudes. Our character is gonna become his.

So that’s how we define fruit—and how we immediately recognize when the scriptures refer to the Spirit’s fruit. We don’t need the Colossians list to state, “This is the Spirit’s fruit”—we know it’s the Spirit’s fruit, because we know these traits are part of who he is. We recognize him. We realize, “I gotta be this way too”—not “Aw crap, more stuff to do.”

And we can easily identify when other bible verses refer to fruit. Like this one.

1 John 3.17 KWL

Whoever might have worldly wealth, and might see their fellow Christian in need,

and closes off their sympathy for them: How is God’s love abiding in them?

God’s gonna be sympathetic to his needy kids; therefore we need to be sympathetic towards his needy kids. That’s his fruit. Lacking it suggests we lack other fruit, if not the Holy Spirit himself.

God’s gonna be gracious. Fair. Forgiving to a level we’re just not gonna see in many humans. Generous to a level we’re especially not gonna see in many humans. Honest and truthful; he may not tell us everything, but he’s never gonna lie. Jesus demonstrated how much he hates hypocrisy, so integrity’s a fruit too.

Face it: The list of fruit is pretty darned near unlimited. God has all sorts of great character traits, and there’s no reason his kids can’t share them! Our list of his fruit certainly isn’t limited to Paul’s list in Galatians. Anyone who claims so, is obviously trying to evade their own character development.

And yeah, there are lots of those people in the world. I’ve seen ’em be mighty proud of it on social media. “This is me; this is who I am; I’m not gonna change; take it or leave it.” You notice it’s never the kind people who post such things; it’s always the a--holes. Those memes are their fruit.

God calls us to far, far better. We gotta be like Jesus. 1Jn 2.6 We might start working on that with our actions, but what’s really gonna bring about permanent, transformative change is our character. So we gotta get cracking on that, and get fruity.

How often ought we pray?

Ask any Christian, and we’ll likely admit we don’t pray as often as we ought.

Well, nuns, monks, and the people who staff prayer rooms, might be exceptions. Yet even some of them will admit they oughta pray more. Why is this? Well, some of it is because it’s true: We could pray more than we do.

For a lot of folks, other than saying grace, they don’t pray daily. Or they pray maybe two or three minutes a day… then beat themselves up for not praying 10 minutes a day. Or 30. Or an hour. Or even longer.

Okay. For a moment, let’s stop doing that and seriously think: How long does God reasonably expect us to talk with him?

Why should every Christian prayer become as long as the longest phone conversations you could possibly have with your friends? (And considering how much of these conversations consist of really dumb, frivolous, irrelevant stuff, should our prayers ever become that dumb?)

Much of the reason a lot of Christians have this idea of prayer as a marathon race, comes from this simple little two-word verse—

1 Thessalonians 5.17 THGNT

ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθε·

—and if you don’t know ancient Greek, that’s adialeíptos proséfhesthe, “unstoppingly pray.” Or as the KJV puts it, “Pray without ceasing.” Or the NLT, “Never stop praying.”

Never stop? Never ever stop? Is that even possible?

How do we physically do that? Don’t we need to take the odd break for, say, sleep? Should we band together in some prayer organization, like a “prayer watch” or monastery, which makes certain every day, 24 hours a day, someone is talking with God?

See, this is the traditional way “pray without ceasing” has been interpreted: Constant, unrelenting, unending prayer. We got the idea no matter how much we do pray, God isn’t satisfied. He’s like a helicopter mom who won’t be satisfied till we get a phone surgically implanted in our head so she can talk at us 24/7. Because God loves us so much, he wants us to talk to him all day long. Hence all the prayer centers and monasteries.

Is this what God meant by “Pray without ceasing”? Of course not.

You might recall the Genesis story of Eden, where the LORD used to personally hang out with the first humans. Was he with them all day long? Clearly not, ’cause the humans apparently had enough free time to go talk to serpents, and get talked into sinning. If chatting with us all day long was God’s original plan for humanity, we should see some of that in the Eden story, wouldn’t you think? Same as when Jesus more fully explained God to his students: Did he instruct them to have nonstop prayer gatherings?

Certainly there are times for nonstop prayer meetings. Like when the first Christians met to pray for the Holy Spirit to come to them. Ac 1.13-14 Sometimes we expect the Spirit to do something big, so we pray for that. The rest of the time, we pray as usual. And that’s what the apostles were instructing the Thessalonians to do in 1 Thessalonians: Pray as usual. And don’t quit praying as usual.

Dialíptos means “[one who] falls down, takes a break, drops the ball, skips, slacks.” It doesn’t mean “[one who] stops.” It’s an instruction to keep up our prayer life. Don’t take a break from it. Don’t skip it. Don’t slack on it. Don’t quit your regular practice. Keep it up.

When the apostles wrote to Thessaloniki, their readers were Christians who were overly concerned about the End Times. (Sound like anyone you know?) The Thessalonians were so fixated on End Times paranoia, they dropped the ball on various things we Christians oughta do. Like care for the needy. Like obey God’s commands. ’Cause why follow commands when the End is near? Start digging out that End Times bunker!

Likewise they slacked on their prayers. And that’s never gonna help. If you don’t stay in regular contact with God, you’re gonna go heretic on him.

So no, it doesn’t mean to constantly, never-endingly pray. Talk to God as long as you talk to God. If you need to speak with him more, do. If you don’t… well, pray the Lord’s Prayer at least. Check in with him. Keep an ear open in case God has anything to tell you. You’re not the only one who talks during prayer, y’know.

Don’t feel so guilty about not praying as much as other Christians. Honestly, you’re probably praying more. No, I’m not kidding. A lot of the people who talk a lot about their strong, devout prayer lives are giant hypocrites. And a lot aren’t—but it’s not your duty to play “Spot the Hypocrtite.” Just concentrate on yourself, and pray without slacking.

Those who do pray without ceasing.

However, some Christians are called to pray a ton. No, not everybody. Ignore those folks who insist it’s everybody.

Certain women and men dedicate their lives to prayer and good deeds, and function as professional prayer teams. In older churches they’re called monastics, or individually, nuns and monks. And prayer is their job. Yeah, they do other things, but those other things are side duties: Prayer is their job. Several times a day (and once in the middle of the night, ’cause they believe prayer is more important than sleep) they drop what they’re currently doing, and go pray together. They frequently live together in a prayer community, called an abbey, cloister, convent, friary, nunnery, priory, or monastery. But that’s not all of them; many groups live in their own homes, and only get together for prayer.

No, these monastics aren’t just not found in older, liturgical churches. Newer charismatic churches have rediscovered the idea, but don’t call themselves monastics, and put their own spin on what their prayer teams look like. Many of them have day jobs. Their prayer sites are either at churches, or special prayer centers, houses, rooms, or towers. They pray the very same things monastics do, but in a more contemporary style. More recent worship music, fr’instance.

All these groups pray several times, even 24 hours, a day. They pray formal prayers or off the top of their head; they pray the psalms and other scriptures; they pray for all the requests they have, or the requests others make of them. Anything and everything.

It’s a lot of prayer. And that’s not counting all the other prayer functions we Christians get involved in: Prayer-based small groups, the church’s prayer teams and prayer chains, vigils, and watches. Sometimes five times a day, sometimes more. Some of us Christians pray a lot.

And God might want you to pray just as often, and devote your life to prayer. That’s fine. But it’s not a ministry for everyone. Like I said, ignore those folks who insist everybody must pray that often. Pray as you can, when you can.

If you don’t pray five times a day, relax. God doesn’t require you to. It’s a nice habit to aim for, but first we need to start by praying once a day. Don’t run marathons when you’re winded after jogging round the block once. Start with once a day. Don’t push yourself beyond that till you feel ready.

Bad theology: When it’s not based on revelation.

The starting point of theology is revelation, the stuff God reveals to us.

Problem is, not everybody agrees. They think the starting point is us: We have questions about God, the universe, whether we can have a relationship with God (or at least get stuff out of him), death and the afterlife, good and evil and karma, and salvation. And people figure theology is when we seek answers to these questions, and get wise-sounding answers from the smartest gurus. Or even become a guru ourselves, ’cause guruing doesn’t look all that hard.

Yep, even Christians do it. Years ago, at another church, my pastors began to invite a lot of clever guest speakers to come preach to us. These guys would regularly tell us what they think they’ve figured out about God. Some ideas were based on actual personal experiences with God—which I’m not knocking, but I wanna remind you our God-experiences need to be confirmed long before we start developing ’em into theology. These guys were not so scrupulous. They felt these God-experiences were so profound, so emotional, they didn’t bother to ask the usual questions we oughta pose when such things happen. “God showed me,” they figured; they believed it, and that settles it.

Me, I know enough bible to seriously doubt God showed them a thing.

Problem is, most Christians don’t. And when they have their own God-experiences, they do the same thing as these preachers: They never have ’em properly confirmed. They’re so sure their personal insights are revelations; they certainly feel like revelations! And when someone else stands up, claims to have an insight, and present ’em with something which feels right to them… well, they had religion questions, here’s someone who purports to have answers, and the answers sound like stuff they oughta believe. Stuff they wanna believe. So they do.

But is this because the Holy Spirit tells ’em, “Yep, that came from me,” or because their flesh tells ’em, “Oh that sounds so much easier than holiness”? And should we really trust our inner impulses, urges, and desires when it comes to theological ideas? Most of us are pretty darned selfish, and that’s the deciding factor in our lives, not the Spirit. That’s what makes us feel these ideas are correct, not a lifestyle of actively following Jesus. We might imagine it’s the Spirit, but we still don’t know the difference between him, and the way the surprise ending of a clever mystery novel makes us feel.

So that’s how we practice bad theology: We’re not getting it from revelation, and therefore not getting it from God.

Not just bad ideas. Nor heresy.

Now yeah, some folks define bad theology as bad ideas: When we come to selfish and evil conclusions. Like sexists, who claim the bible is the entire basis for turning women into second-class Christians, not to mention second-class citizens. Like racists who do the same thing, or Mammonists. True, these are terrible ideas, evil practices, and bad theology. But they’re not bad theology because they produce bad fruit; we might have totally valid beliefs, properly deduced from bible, but in the hands of a fruitless person all their goodness can be nullified, 1Co 13.2 or even twisted into evil.

Nope, they’re bad theology ’cause the process by which we come to these conclusions was wrong from the get-go. Sexists didn’t begin with bible; they began as sexists already. They wanted to justify their sexism with bible verses, so they found some passages where ancient Hebrews were being sexist, and claim, “This proves it’s a biblical principle.” Or they found passages which mean one thing, distort ’em to mean what they wish, and teach that. Their starting point isn’t revelation. It’s their own evil, disguised as revelation.

And a lot of us start theology with our own biases. I confess: I do it too. “I think [harebrained idea] is so. Isn’t it taught in the bible?” So I’ll go a-looking. But I know better than to trust myself: I’m wrong. Jesus is right. So I’ll look for what Jesus, his prophets, or his apostles actually teach on the subject, and not just presume Jesus agrees with me. Often he doesn’t! But I follow him, not the other way round. So when I find we disagree, I gotta change my opinion to his. Not bend his opinion till it sounds like mine, then claim we think alike. Not project my beliefs upon him. That’s bad theology.

Loads of Christians also figure bad theology and heresy are the same thing. Nope. Bad theology can certainly result in heresy, but doesn’t always. Most of the time bad theology only produces bad ideas and false teachings, like the claims God doesn’t wanna save everybody, or everything happens for a reason. These aren’t harmless ideas; they can seriously mess with our understanding of God, and the ways we treat our fellow humans and Christians. But they’re not heresy.

Yeah, there are Christians who insist every wrong idea is heresy. That’s because they think they get to define what heresy is. They don’t. Properly heresy is an idea contrary to historically orthodox Christian beliefs, as defined by ancient Christians in our creeds. They deal with core Christian beliefs about God and salvation, and the grave errors which cropped up almost immediately after Jesus was raptured. You get these beliefs wrong, and you’re clearly not listening to the Spirit’s corrections. In fact there’s a better than average chance you’re not following God at all, and your salvation’s in serious doubt. Heresy’s a big deal.

And heresy’s definitely the product of bad theology. Ancient heretics imagined Jesus isn’t properly God, and obviously this idea didn’t come from bible; it came from people who felt trinity sounds too much like polytheism for their comfort. Today’s heretics think the very same thing, and make the very same error. But trinity is how the scriptures describe God. It’s how he legitimately revealed himself to be. It’s valid, orthodox theology. If you don’t like it, or wanna redefine it, because it’s too weird or mysterious and you think you’ve come up with a better way to describe him, that’s your hangup, your bad theology, and eventually your heresy.

More often, bad theology simply produces bad ideas. Like looking for other proofs of Christianity than good fruit. Like legalism, sexism, racism, various forms of dark Christianity, and various cults which lost sight of the Spirit’s fruit long ago.

And those who practice bad theology, love coming up with bad ideas. Because they’re not so much looking for truth, for a better understanding of who God is, nor a closer relationship with Jesus. They’re looking to become gurus. They wanna be the wise dispenser of brilliant proverbs, and for people to listen to these sayings and say, “Amen, pastor.” They want followers. They covet worship.

The appeal of bad theology.

Humans tend to be a little paranoid: We think we have a right to truth and power, but other people are greedily hiding it or keeping it from us. And yeah, in many cases that’s true; politics is an obvious example. In Christianity it’s also true, ’cause our churches are run by humans, and some of us haven’t entirely got rid of our dysfunctional behavior when we were put in charge. (Hopefully we’re working on it!) But the all-too-common assumption is our churches are keeping the real truths of the bible from us. So, certain Christians go on a search for the “real truths”—and because they’ve not learned how to properly do theology, of course they dive right into the bad stuff.

Humans also like new things. Not old. (It’s why we regularly misinterpret Jesus’s teaching on new wine in old skins.) True, a number of people love antiques, but that’s only because these antiques are new to them—and while they might have a house full of antiques, they’re still mighty jazzed when they acquire a new find. Humans like novelty. So sometimes it’s simply not enough for Christians to describe ancient ideas in new ways: Some of us covet entirely new ideas, same as the rest of the world. (Even though many of these “new ideas” are likewise very, very old.)

Hence you’ll find bad theology everywhere in Christendom. Out of context scriptures, obviously. Connect-the-dots reasoning, instead of logic. Meditation on the people of the bible, including Jesus, which turns ’em into sock puppets. Tons of projection, as we imagine God shares our biases, and Jesus thinks exactly like we do. None of it comes from revelation. But it sounds good, so Christians spread it widely, like rats do plague.

How do we resist it? Good theology, obviously. Make sure our ideas originate with God. Confirm ’em. Be skeptical of anything new we hear: Does that really come from God?—can we think of scriptures which confirm it, or scriptures which counter it? Is it consistent with God’s character, or does it more resemble or justify our own fruitless behavior? What fruit is it likely to produce?

It’s become my habitual response to anything I hear. And yeah, self-anointed gurus get really annoyed with me about this: Why do I have to be so contrary? Why can’t I just swallow their eggs of wisdom whole, like all their other followers do? Well, because I wanna know whether their eggs are actually rotten, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on the metaphorical toilet. I’m trying to follow Jesus, not them. I would hope they want the same thing. Some of ’em actually do! But too many really, honestly, don’t.

Candlemas: Remembering when Jesus got presented in temple.

In Leviticus the LORD told Moses the following.

Leviticus 12.1-8 KWL

1 The LORD told Moses, 2 “When you speak to Israel’s children, say,

This is about a woman who conceives and bears a male.

She’s ritually unclean seven days, just like she’s unclean during the days of her period.

3 On the eighth day, circumcise the flesh of the baby’s foreskin.

4 Have the mother sit 33 days, for purification from blood.

She mustn’t touch anything holy, can’t come to sanctuary, till her purification days are full.

5 If she bears a female, she’s unclean two weeks, like her period;

have her sit 66 days, for purification from blood.

6 When the mother’s purification days are full, for a son or daughter,

she must bring a lamb, born that year, for a burnt offering,

and a pigeon chick, or dove, for a sin offering.

Bring them to the meeting tent’s door, to the priest.

7 The priest offers it to the LORD’s face, to cover the mother.

She’s now ritually clean from her bloodflow.

This law is for any woman who begets male or female.

8 If the mother can’t find enough at hand for a lamb, bring two doves or pigeon chicks;

one for burnt offering, and one for sin offering.

The priest covers her, and she’s ritually clean.”

2 February marks 39 days after Christmas—representing the week after Jesus’s birth, then the 33rd day after that. This’d be the day Mary finished her ritual purification after giving birth, so off she and Joseph went to temple.

Luke 2.22-24 KWL

22 Once the days were fulfilled for Mary’s purification, according to Moses’s Law,

they took Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,

23 just as it’s written in the Lord’s Law:

“Every male who opens a womb will be called holy to the Lord.” Ex 13.2, 12

24 And giving a sacrifice, according to the saying in the Lord’s Law:

“A pair of doves, or two young pigeons.” Lv 12.8

So that’d make today Candlemas, the Christian holiday which remembers Jesus’s presentation in temple. It’s called Candlemas because traditionally, Christians bring certain candles to church to have ’em blessed, then use these sacred candles the rest of the year for various customs, rituals, and religious practices. The candles are a reminder Jesus is the world’s light—and when we follow him, so are we.

In some countries, Christmas decorations don’t come down till Candlemas. (I know; plenty of western Christians put ’em away before New Year’s Day.) Because now the Christmas and Epiphany season is over. Tomorrow we go back to regular time—the period between Christmas and Easter, or Easter and Christmas. (Which, in 2020, ain’t long. Ash Wednesday is on 26 February.)

Churching new mothers.

Childbirth is a dangerous time. Our survival rate nowadays is really good… but in prescientific days, this wasn’t the case. Any complication would turn fatal, for either the mother, or child, or both.

So a lot of cultures developed the custom of celebrating new mothers. Believe it or not, this includes the 39 to 72 days the LORD set aside for ritual purification. During the time women were ritually unclean, they were expected to stay home—to not interact with anyone else, lest they make others ritually unclean. But most importantly, they didn’t have to perform any tasks outside the house, didn’t have to go back to work, and weren’t obligated to go to temple or synagogue: They could stay with their newborn baby, and concentrate on their little one. Or, if childbirth didn’t go so well, they could otherwise recover. Or mourn.

Since Christians don’t really bother with ritual cleanliness anymore (the Holy Spirit indwells us, so when are we ever ritually unclean for worship?) it often meant the end of this rest time for Christian women after childbirth. But various Christian leaders recognized the need for some form of maternity leave, and this evolved into the custom of churching new mothers: Forty days after giving birth, the mother was expected to come to church and be publicly blessed.

But till then, she wasn’t expected to come to church. She could stay home and recuperate. (And Irish folk tradition added if she didn’t stay home, the fairies might get her. Disney movies have really sanitized how people imagine fairies; in folklore they’re evil spirits, so… not good.)

Some churches mixed together some of their churching traditions with their Candlemas traditions, so new mothers might bring candles and get ’em blessed. Other churches might have the new mothers take 40 days off, but not hold a blessing for them till Candlemas itself, and then bless all the new mothers at once. And if churches believed in baptizing babies, sometimes they’d do that too.

Of course, churches which aren’t liturgical don’t always hold special times of blessing for new mothers. Which is a shame. New babies are a big deal! Motherhood should be recognized. So if it’s not a formal part of your church, see if you can get something started.

Proselytism: Don’t force Jesus upon people!

PROSELYTIZE 'prɑs(.ə).lət.aɪz verb. (Try to) convert someone from one belief to another.

[Proselyte 'prɑs.ə.laɪt noun, proselytism 'prɑs(.ə).lət.ɪz.əm noun.]

From time to time, when we Christians share the good news of Christ Jesus with other people, we get accused of “proselytizing.”

It’s one of those words which, to quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride…

Giphy

Properly, to proselytize means as we see in the definition above: You’re trying to convert someone. And you’ve not made it an option: They must become Christian. They will become Christian. You’re gonna try every tactic you can to make it so. You’ll promise outrageous things, you’ll fudge a few details, you’ll threaten ’em with hell. Whatever it takes.

Forced conversions, hard sales pitches, and death threats (and hell threats) are all definitely forms of proselytism. Is that really what we’re doing?

Well… sometimes it is. And it should never be. God’s kingdom runs on grace, and if our presentation of the gospel ever turns into proselytism, it means we took the grace out of it. And a gospel without grace arguably isn’t even the gospel.

I know, I know: Certain dark Christians love to bring up hell. Largely because it terrifies them, so they’re pretty sure everybody needs to be warned about it, and warned away from it: You don’t want to go there! I get that. And it was probably a huge motivator for them, when they first turned to Jesus. But the result is they put it front and center when they preach the gospel, and now their gospel is about hell-avoidance instead of love, joy, grace, forgiveness, and other fruit of the Spirit that we’re gonna find in the kingdom in abundance. Worse, they don’t care about these things: “Get off that lovey-dovey crap and warn people away from hell!” Which just goes to reveal their own fruitlessness—a serious character defect which makes them the very worst people to share the gospel.

Still, when pagans encounter that kind of hostile, negative, fearmongering gospel presentation, in which the good news is very, very bad, they think it’s proselytism: It made ’em feel bad. They define proselytism based on whether it made ’em feel bad. On whether they didn’t like it.

Nope; proselytism is determined by pressure. Was the gospel forced upon you? Then it’s proselytism.

Doesn’t matter whether it was forced upon you in a hostile way or a kind way. I got the kind version: Mom was determined to raise her kids Christian, so church wasn’t optional. I was going, period, whether I wanted to or not. This was never an issue because unless I was sick or exhausted (i.e. valid excuses), I wanted to. In other families it was a huge issue: I had high school friends who absolutely didn’t wanna be there, and left church as soon as they were no longer under their parents’ rules. But parents have every right to raise their kids under their religion; really, they suck at religion if they don’t.

It’s just proselytism has a serious danger built into it: Because it’s not optional, it’s deficient in grace. Which means there’s a very real chance it’ll turn into legalism, or hypocrisy and dead religion. Or, once the kids grow up and leave the dead religion, they may presume all religion is like that… and we wind up with apostasy and nontheism.

So pour on the grace! And when you evangelize, for the love of God don’t proselytize.

Proselytizing Christians.

As I said, it’s okay to proselytize your kids. But if you were proselytized as a kid, or proselytized by an evangelist when you got older, you’re gonna wrongly think it’s okay to proselytize everybody else.

Seriously, everybody else. Certain political conservatives like to imagine the United States is a Christian nation, and as such everybody in it oughta be Christian. So they push Christianity upon everyone. We made “One nation under God” our official national motto (regardless of whether we get under him any), and put it on our money and our pledge of allegiance: If people balk at the motto, we don’t just accuse ’em of being godless, but unpatriotic.

Such people also insist we should be allowed to put up Ten Commandments monuments, crosses, and other religious iconography, in public parks, public schools, or public buildings. Texas even changed the science textbooks so they state God created the universe about 6,000 years ago, and who cares if actual science suggests otherwise.

So when we share Jesus, we don’t ask people whether they’d like to hear about him. Don’t have time for that. We just corner ’em so they can’t go anywhere, and tell ’em—whether they have the time, the curiosity, the interest, the receptivity. Because they need to hear it: They’re going to hell otherwise. Now is their hour of salvation. Now is not the time for kindness, patience, self-control, or grace. Fruit of the Spirit? Only gets in our way.

And instead of fruit, one of our substitutes becomes “evangelism.” You’ve seen these Christians at work: They leave tracts instead of tips for their waiters. They correct us in the workplace break room whenever we do or say something which isn’t Christian enough for them. They who won’t leave our front porches when we insist, “No thank you.” They’re the reason people believe evangelism and proselytism are the same thing.

Jesus doesn’t teach proselytism.

When Jesus first sent his Twelve to practice evangelism on their fellow Jews, he taught ’em to share. Not push. Bless, not condemn. Give, not collect offerings. Do for people, not demand they only receive the gospel from you, ’cause you worry if you give ’em free stuff, they’ll only turn to Jesus for the handouts. (As if the kingdom runs on stinginess, not grace.) You know, like proselytizers don’t do. Like so.

Matthew 10.7-15 KWL

7 “Preach as you go, saying this: ‘Heaven’s kingdom has come near!’

8 Serve the weak. Raise the dead. Cleanse the leprous. Throw out demons.

You received it free. Give it free.

9 Don’t accept gold, silver, or bronze into your moneybelts.

10 No bag on the road. Nor two tunics. Nor sandals. Nor cane.

For the respectable worker merits their provisions.

11 Inspect whatever city or village you enter: Who’s the most respected in it?

Stay with them till you leave, 12 and when you enter the house, bless it.

13 When the house is respectable, your blessing has to go into it.

When it’s not respectable, your blessing has to go back to you.

14 Whoever doesn’t accept you, nor listen to your words:

As you go out of their house or town, shake their dirt off your feet.

15 Amen, I promise you: It’ll be more bearable on Judgment Day

for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than that town.”

Evangelism is about effectively communicating the good news: The kingdom’s near. Jesus is its good and benevolent Lord. He wants us to join his kingdom and be our Lord. Because ultimately he will be Lord, whether we embrace him or not. It’ll be way better if we embrace his rule willingly, than live outside it in misery when he finally takes his throne. Plus there are the many benefits of living under our King early.

True, we want people to come to Jesus. But after we’ve shared him, we’re done. We did our duty. They accept him, or they don’t. And we need to stop thinking it’s our responsibility to keep pushing them to accept him. It’s not. We need to shake that off. It’s why Jesus told his apostles to do so literally: Shake the dirt off your feet when you leave. Leave ’em behind. Not because we don’t care about them anymore, but because we’re done. Hopefully God will give them another chance, as he tends to. But we’re done.

We simply share. Inform. Convey information. That’s all. There’s a place and time for going directly up to people and asking them point-blank, “Do you know Christ Jesus personally?” When our goal is to share good news, to make sure people are informed, and can make rational decisions to follow Jesus, there’s everything right about it. That’s all our job consists of.

Everything beyond that is the Holy Spirit’s job.

• Quelling nervousness or hesitation: His job.
• Dealing with objections and concerns: His job.
• Getting obstacles out of their way: His job.
• Making sure people come forward at an altar call: His job.
• Numbers of converts: His job.
• Making sure the commitment is serious: His job.
• Finalizing decisions for Christ: His job.

It’s not like we have no job. But as you can see, our job isn’t as big and stressful as your average proselytizer makes it sound.

“But we have to preach the gospel!”

I’ve heard Christians say, “Well, there’s a fine line between proselytism and evangelism.” There is not. Evangelism shares information. Proselytism demands, ignores the Holy Spirit’s timing, and insists the time is now. It takes salvation into our own hands instead of leaving it in God’s. It’s loveless. It’s faithless. It’s wrong.

If a person says no thank you, proselytizers aren’t done. They don’t trust the Holy Spirit enough to leave them in his capable hands. They’re not gonna be patient. They’ll insist on “closing the deal”—on badgering them to say some form of sinner’s prayer, some sort of half-hearted commitment (which usually doesn’t pan out) just so they can put another notch on their belt. Or get another jewel in their crown. Whatever way they keep score.

’Cause that’s what it’s really about: Keeping score. Numbers. Getting converts. Growing their cults. Success rates. Which, because they’re willing to fudge the numbers a bit, tend to be reported as way higher than they really are. But few of their “success stories” are real. Those folks have no plans to follow Jesus in the day-to-day, and were often coerced into making a purely contractual relationship with him: “I said the sinner’s prayer, so I did my part; you just get me into heaven. Okay? Amen.” Don’t have to be religious ’cause they’re under God’s grace. Which means they’re fruitless… which implies they’re not under grace.

Now, had the Holy Spirit actually been involved at all—where he convicts ’em, gets ’em to repent, points ’em to Jesus—you’d see a whole lot more enthusiasm on their part. Without having to manipulate their emotions, play on their fears, promise them things Jesus never would (“Turn to him and all your problems will go away!”) and other sales pitches which spread Christianism instead of God’s kingdom.

Quite often the Spirit will actually lead someone to Jesus despite the sales-pitch tactics. But the fact the Holy Spirit cleans up our messes, is no defense for fruitless, unkind behavior and thinking.

And quite often, the reason a lot of Christians balk at practicing or learning about evangelism, is because of these yutzes and their morally questionable behavior. I don’t blame ’em for being disturbed. They should be. Any form of trickery, misdirection, wordplay, hidden flaws, false arguments, false promises, confusion, anger, hypocrisy, misquoted scriptures, false urgency, bribery, emotional blackmail, threats, temptation, or coercion, has no God in it. Justifying any of this evil, because they might “win souls,” is calling good evil, and evil good. Is 5.20 When people turn to Jesus, when the Spirit has been successful and enters their lives to fix and regenerate them, it’s a miracle. The very last thing Christians should be involved in, is faking miracles.

Some pagans have never met a proper evangelist. Or they have, but they’ve been burned by dark evangelists, and assume all Christians are like that. And to be fair, some pagans are just plain hostile towards Christianity altogether. So they accuse everyone who shares Jesus of proselytism, just to make us go away. All the more reason we need to avoid proselytism. Give them no ammunition.