Want the Bad News First?

So much for background.  Now, here are ten questions or points to consider when examining whether the "bad news" should be told before the "good news" of Christ.

1.  Are we necessarily the ones who should deliver the bad news of sin and judgment?  Too often we don't even know where people are coming from.  Perhaps they've been burned by the church or by professing Christians, or they may have a visceral reaction to the very term "Christian."  Though we may disagree with Donald Miller on certain themes, he makes an important point in his Blue Like Jazz:

In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity.  I told him that I couldn't do it, and moreover, that I didn't want to defend the term.  He asked me if I was a Christian and I told him yes.  "Then why don't you want to defend Christianity?" he asked, confused.  I told him I no longer knew what the term meant.  Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity, they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent.  To them, the term Christianitymeant something that no Christian I know would defend.  By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry.  I won't do it.  Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity and they will give you ten different answers.  How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people?  I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me.  The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes.  When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together.  He told me how much he didn't like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God (p.115).

The danger is that we will march in as spiritual storm troopers rather than being "quick to listen and slow to speak."  Consider another approach.  In 1 Peter 3, Peter exhorts wives of unbelieving husbands to focus on the way they live their lives -- quietly, gently, virtuously -- so that their husbands may be won without a word even though they didn't believe the word of God (3:1).  A virtuous life is a deeply attractive thing, and such a life may create a spiritual and moral longing in those previously disinterested in Christ -- and this without a spoken word.

2.  I have met plenty of "the encountered" who report that those who "witness" by telling the bad news first commonly come across as judgmental, legalistic, arrogant, scolding, and morally superior.  Yes, rebels against God love darkness rather than light.  Does this mean we never mention the need to turn away from the lifestyle of the spiritually dead?  Not at all.  (See the comments on idolatry below.)  Our consciously taking on Paul's chief-of-sinners title would go a long way in building bridges.  In the words of the evangelist D. T. Niles, we are like one beggar telling another where to find bread.  We should remember that friendship commonly helps lower defenses and helps create a context for people to connect with the gospel.

3.  Like the prodigal son, most people already know they carry shame or guilt and are looking for the relief, hope, acceptance, and friendship that God provides.  As Romans 2:4 reminds us, it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.  Christian sociologist Rodney Stark comments in What Americans Really Believe: "Hell fire-and-brimstone sermons to the contrary, people respond far more strongly religiously to a carrot than to a stick.  This has long been recognized by missionaries."  Stark ends his comments (p. 78) by quoting John 3:16-17: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved."  Not everyone who insists on mentioning sin, guilt, and the need for repentance is a fire-and-brimstone preacher.  Yet we should beware ignoring other avenues of connecting people with Christ (e.g., felt needs), avenues Jesus and Paul both used.

4.  Certain contemporary evangelistic methods in America would be deemed culturally insensitive in non-American contexts.  Missionaries often take years to learn a particular culture.  Even once they have learned a foreign language, they still need to understand how the gospel connects to the culture and to the felt needs of people.  For example, American culture tends to be guilt-driven, but many Muslim cultures are not. (See Nabeel Jabbour's The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross.) Yet well-meaning American Christians often do not take the time to contextualize the gospel when speaking with non-Christians.  They assume a ready connection exists between the non-Christian and the biblical worldview; this is, after all, "Christian America," right?  Even in 1913, J. Gresham Machen pointed out that caricatures and bad philosophies often prevent people from taking "sin" and the call to "repent" seriously, viewing the Christian faith as just an irrelevant myth.