Imagine you are strolling down the sidewalk and a man excitedly calls you over to his front porch to share some \u201cgreat news,\u201d<\/strong> Protestant minister-turned atheist author Dan Barker asked his audience on Wednesday.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe man\u2019s got a gruesome torture chamber in his basement, Barker said, but you don\u2019t have to go down there. Instead, you can come over, hug the man\u2019s son, say you love him and you can all move in together in the attic and tell them how great they are forever.<\/strong><\/em> <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\u201cIsn\u2019t that great news?\u201d a sarcastic Barker asked the crowd\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nThe gospel message is only actually \u201cgood news\u201d to those who have been convinced that eternal damnation awaits them and that they deserve it because they\u2019re sinners. The thing is, even the idea of \u201csin\u201d is an invention. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nThe Romans had no concept of sin, for example. The Romans believed that Gods were capricious things who only cared that you properly honored them (with sacrifices, for instance), but didn\u2019t actually care how you lived your life or what you did. The concept of sin did not exist. Christianity creates that concept. (This is not to say that Christianity is the only religion to have such a concept, but rather simply that the concept itself is invented rather than universal.) <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nChristianity solves a problem it itself creates, and the gospel message is only good news if someone has been convinced that he or she is a sinner and doomed to hell. Personally, I don\u2019t think there is any such thing as sin \u2013 I think people are just people, not perfect but not evil either \u2013 so trying to tell me that I am a sinner would make no sense. Similarly, I don\u2019t believe there is a God, so trying to convince me that some doom awaits me after death wouldn\u2019t do any good either. And finally, I don\u2019t see the Bible as in any sense authoritative, so quoting from it wouldn\u2019t make any difference. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nI wonder sometimes if the reason that this line of evangelizing can bear fruit is because so many Americans, whether they attend church or not, have a sort of Christian background and way of viewing the world. Ideas like sin and judgement make sense to them, and they see the Bible as somehow vaguely authoritative. With this background, the one two three evangelism style (you\u2019re a sinner, you\u2019re going to hell, but Jesus can save you) can be very effective. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nIt would be easy to analogize this self created problem to parenting as well. I could tell Sally the following, for instance: <\/span><\/div>\nSally, you are a selfish rotten little girl. You are always asking for things you want and getting in the way when I\u2019m trying to work. Because you\u2019re such a naughty, despicable girl, starting tomorrow I\u2019m going to have to punish you by taking away all of your toys, only feeding you bread and water, and having you sit in the timeout chair every minute you\u2019re awake. But even though this is the punishment you deserve, Sally, I love you and I\u2019ve found a way to forgive you of your naughtiness by hurting <\/em>myself. Now, if you tell me you love me, I won\u2019t have to punish you at all. Isn\u2019t that loving of me? <\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nActually, that\u2019s not loving, that\u2019s really bad parenting. I was taught growing up that God is our father, but it seems to me that a good father would try to earn his children\u2019s love rather than threatening his children with horrible punishments if they won\u2019t love him. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nWeirdly, I was also told that God is loving, and I was taught to have a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus, and to make him my best friend. I think sometimes that when you\u2019ve been raised within a belief system you cannot truly see its oddities or problems without first stepping outside of it. Now, looking back, I can see that Christianity of my youth merely solves a problem it itself creates. At the time, though, I couldn\u2019t see that. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/span><\/div>\nNote: Fundamentalists and Evangelicals do all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to make this self-created problem make sense. They set up God\u2019s nature in such a way that he couldn\u2019t help but send people to hell for disobeying him, for example. Then, when God finds a way to forgive humankind without sacrificing his holiness by having his son serve as a human sacrifice, he is to be praised. The problem with this, though, is that it means God cannot be all powerful. After all, if God IS all powerful, he creates the rules and sets up the systems. There are lots more rationalization attempts, but they only prove that if someone REALLY wants to believe something, they\u2019ll find a way to do so. <\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/em><\/span><\/div>\nNote 2: I am aware that many liberal Christians no longer believe in sin or damnation. The fact remains that the vast, vast majority of Christians today do, as have the vast, vast majority of Christians across the two thousand years of Christian history. <\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a long time, I couldn\u2019t understand how anyone would turn down God\u2019s gift of salvation. Who wouldn\u2019t want to be saved? But really, the answer to that question was right in front of me, and I should have seen it. I was taught that the first step of evangelism involves convincing a person that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,108],"tags":[103,167,60],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-parenting","tag-guilt-2","tag-shame","tag-sin"],"yoast_head":"\n
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