Atheist Tuesday: Please Stop Trying to Convert Me!

This is a very thoughtful, thorough and clear-headed article from CRN:

An interesting article at the Huffington Post blog entitled, “Please Stop Trying to Convert Me,” written by Penn State University student Remy M. Maisel, offered insight into what may be coursing through the minds of those who are stopped on the street by well-meaning Christians seeking to fulfill the Great Commission. Unfortunately, what may strike the reader as intriguing is not only the hypocrisy of those lost souls who find themselves a target for street evangelism, but also the apparent misdirected endeavors of some of these eager believers.

Maisel describes herself as “culturally Jewish and spiritually agnostic.” She elaborates,

That is to say, I don’t really believe in God — though I won’t really speak in absolutes on that issue — but I identify with the cultural aspects of the Jewish religion and continue to partake in many of the traditions.

She spends the majority of her post lamenting how, where she currently resides in State College, Pennsylvania, it appears to her as though there is a “constant campaign to convert” her. Here is a point which many unsaved individuals fail to note, and that is that the true Christian presenting the true Gospel knows that he can in no way convert any person. All he can do is present the stark reality of man’s lost condition and sin, and then share the amazing news of forgiveness of those sins and salvation through Christ Jesus. It is up to the Holy Spirit to do the convicting and the converting.

The writer goes on to explain her many methods of dodging the various street evangelists as they stand with open Bibles, and as they attempt to hand one to her. Read the rest by clicking here.

Comments (19)

  1. Reply

    Just my two cents worth opinion – we shouldn’t thrust the gospel of Jesus Christ into people’s throats in the street or anywhere else for the matter. Jesus Himself came with a sole purpose when He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matthew 9:12).

    • Mark Hunter

      Reply

      Seems to imply that there are good (healthy) people that don’t need Jesus (the doctor).

      Sort of demolishes the idea of a “good person test”.

      • Mark, Read a commentary or two on the passage so you may understand the passage a little more fully. Hope you had a great holiday!

      • Mark Hunter

        A commentary by people with a vested interested in making you think you are sick? No thanks.

    • Schmader

      Reply

      Not believing in Jesus Christ should be considered a mental disease. You have to be crazy to neglect the gift of salvation.

      Atheists take your medicine and read the bible, today, before it is too late.

      • Nohm

        Hi Schmader,

        You wrote:

        Not believing in Jesus Christ should be considered a mental disease.

        Please explain why.

        You have to be crazy to neglect the gift of salvation.

        If we thought that gift actually existed, then you might have a point. We don’t believe that the gift exists, so we’re not neglecting it, just as you not putting out cookies and milk for Santa wouldn’t be considered as “neglecting Santa”.

        Makes sense?

        Atheists take your medicine and read the bible, today,

        I have, quite a few times. Was there something specific you wanted me to look at?

        before it is too late.

        A Muslim would say the same to you about the Qur’an. Have you recited some surahs today?

  2. Reply

    Here is a point which many unsaved individuals fail to note, and that is that the true Christian presenting the true Gospel knows that he can in no way convert any person.

    This implies (eg) that Ray Comfort isn’t a true Christian. After all, you can’t find his Good Person Test in scripture. What else would it be but an attempt to convince people of the “logic” of the gospel?

      • The point is
        Let me translate:

        “I’m going to revise my original comment while pretending to ignore what you wrote”

        We do the explaining,/b>
        The Bible doesn’t ask you to explain anything, Steve.

      • Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…
        1 Peter 3:15

        Whateverman, you may need to brush up on your bible a little this Thanksgiving holiday. 🙂

        Have a great one!

      • theB1ackSwan

        Except when he doesn’t do his, then it gets blamed on us. We take the blame ’cause we have hardened hearts/truth with unrighteousness/whatever, but it is actually the fact that the explanation doesn’t mesh with reality at all.

      • Whateverman, you may need to brush up on your bible a little this Thanksgiving holiday.
        If all True Christians know then have no power to convert or convince people, as you said, then explaining the gospel to people is a sign that the person isn’t a true Christian.

        According to you, Steven Sanchez.

        Would that be your pride causing you to blame others for your own failed exegesis?

      • Not understanding your point here, my friend.
        Many many many evangelicals do more than the great commission asks. Most try to convince people of the truth of the gospel. Ray’s good person test is a perfect example of trying to REASON with his audience.

        Yet you, Steve, have just said a True Christian knows it’s useless to reason with people.

      • Mark Hunter

        Steve, would you agree with Luther and others that reason is the enemy of faith?

        “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.” – Martin Luther

        “Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.”
        Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148

        Or St. Bernard:

        “Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. It falls upon things which are beyond it…desecrates sacred things more than clarifies them. It does not unlock mysteries and symbols, but tears them asunder; it makes nought of everything to which it cannot gain access and disdains to believe all such things.”

      • Schmader

        Whateverman,

        It is only unreasonable to try to reason with the unreasonable (e.g. atheists)

        Creation is reasonable. To believe that there is a Creator, is reasonable.

        To believe that we, humans, are decended from what Charlton Heston so poetically termed “damn dirty apes” is not only an affront to the rational mind but is the epitome, nay the zenith, of unreasonable thought.

      • Nohm

        Hi Schmader,

        You wrote:

        Creation is reasonable.

        Please explain why (i.e., please support this assertion).

        To believe that there is a Creator, is reasonable.

        Please explain why (i.e., please support this assertion).

        To believe that we, humans, are decended from what Charlton Heston so poetically termed “damn dirty apes” is not only an affront to the rational mind but is the epitome, nay the zenith, of unreasonable thought.

        Please explain why (i.e., please support this assertion).

        Also, we’re not exactly descended from apes, although that depends on what you mean by “apes”. Is it possible that you might misunderstand the scientific claims of descent?

        Thank you!

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