Why witnessing to non-Christians rarely works

[AtroposHeart]

From my blog

Having been witnessed several times over the last month about the evils of my Pagan ways, I have written a list of why witnessing rarely works.

1. They act or go in eith the with mentality that you are a bad person, and treat you as such.

Having been often raised to believe that people only reject the word of God due to the lack of desire to give up bad life style, they is often the automatic assumption. I have been accused by strangers who do not know my name of being a drug addict, alcoholic, or promiscuous.

The truth is I have never taken any type of drugs, hate the taste of alcohol, and am a virgin. People will not cconvert someone to another worldview if you treat them like they believe differently than you because they are morally inferior to you.

It does not make Christians look good, it only makes them all look like judgement jerks and do you want to convert to a religion filled with people like that.

2. Too much reliance on the threat of hell.

Threatening a non-Christian with hell is like threatening an adult with no presents for Christmas.People cannot be tthreaten someone with something they do not believe in. No graphic descriptions of it or what ifs can change that. Also, the fact they on hell so much makes their argument look weak.

It makes it seem that Christianity is a religion dependant on fear and who want to convert to a religion out of fear?

3. Ignorance of religion or spirituality of the person being witnessed too.

Half the time I am forced to explain to the person trying to convert me that I do not do ‘dark’ magic or use aborted fetuses in my ritual. Looking stupid never makes anything looks good. There seems to be a sire to be purposefully ignorant of the other person’s belief systems to avoid being ‘tempted’. This only causes frustration tot he person being witnessed too, by having what they believe so misrepresented.

This only causes frustrations. If someone is going to spend time witnessing to someone, they should take tome to understand what the other person believes, or else it is a time waster to both of them

4. Ignorance of their own religion

Possibly one of the most frustrating things is being witnesses to someone who does not understand their own faith or book. I can easily point out immoral parts of the Bible like directions for slavery and such, and I am often accused of lying even when I give out the chapter or pointing out how many things Christianity stole from Paganism.

http://thepoetryoftheearth.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/why-witnessing-to-non-christians-rarely-works/

[Minerva]

I think a lot of times they don't realize that the person they're trying to witness to is going on different base assumptions than them. The type of proselytizing I've seen will only plausibly work on people who believe there has to be a God of some kind. Their logic will be lost on anyone who has doubts or flat-out doesn't believe. Their evangelism is designed to rope in people who were somehow indoctrinated as children and are looking for the key to heaven, who are questioning the specific dogma of their religion, as opposed to wondering what is true.

[CanadianHippie]

There is a great deal of disrespect towards other's beliefs too. I'm not pagan, but I've been witnessed to a few times and what I've found is that I am apparently incapable of being as sure of my own beliefs as the one doing the witnessing is to theirs. "I am happy with what I believe, and I've already figured into it whatever you are going to say and still believe what I do." means nothing to them except maybe "well you just don't understand! Let me explain it to you."

[pixydust]

There is a great deal of disrespect towards other's beliefs too. I'm not pagan, but I've been witnessed to a few times and what I've found is that I am apparently incapable of being as sure of my own beliefs as the one doing the witnessing is to theirs. "I am happy with what I believe, and I've already figured into it whatever you are going to say and still believe what I do." means nothing to them except maybe "well you just don't understand! Let me explain it to you."

This! When I tell people that I'm Jewish it becomes "Awesome! Jesus was a Jew!" followed by laughter or "Well, you are almost there, then! Let me tell you about Jesus!" It's like they feel that they are going to educate me about Jesus and I will just jump at the chance. More often then not I end up knowing more about the Bible than they do.

[Swamptribe]

"well you just don't understand! Let me explain it to you."

I think this really is the problem that proselytizers refuse to admit. Most of us live in countries where the predominant religion is Christianity. We've heard this stuff before, plenty of times. It is nothing new.

We understand it, we have rejected it as a belief system already. Proselytizers always assume that they will be able to present some new convincing argument to their victim. An argument that is so compelling, the person listening will desire to convert. If you don't desire to convert, well, then, you just don't 'get it' yet.

Or, worse, you have already accepted a version of Christianity that varies a bit from their version; example, Catholic vs Protestant. They then try to convince you that their version of Christianity is the 'true' version.

Evangelizing others really is a rude and self-centered thing. It presupposes that the one evangelizing is right, and everyone who does not share their beliefs is wrong. That the one preaching knows what is best for everyone else. Unfortunately, any rejection of attempts at conversion usually just result in reinforcing these self-centered attitudes in the evangelical.

[Coconut Flan]

I hope people remember that it's a subset of Christians who do the aggressive evangelism and witnessing. They get on my nerves because they won't shut up even when they hear that some one is already Christian. They want to pass judgement on whether some Christians meet their definition or are saved enough. You have my sympathy.

[Renting with Raggles]

Maybe it's just Aussie evangelicals, but I've had people be as rude as fuck. They have no qualms about throwing out little passive-agressive or explicitly insulting responses ("Wow! You sound like a really needy,sad person!" / "You have a very hateful personality.") to a simple "No, thanks" and "Excuse me, I'm too busy to stop at the moment". Seriously, I have a hateful personality because I'm too busy helping my mother out of a car to get to her doctor's appointment to listen to you wank on about Jeebus?

I do get what they're trying to do - most of the witnessing scripts seem to rely on finding a person with extremely low self-esteem and further undermining their confidence (Ray Comfort's "Have you ever told a lie?" is a classic example). However, if you are confident in your beliefs, the sequence is extremely transparent and insulting. Asking someone in a majority Christian nation whether they've ever heard of Jesus just makes me think that either the proselytiser is a moron or they believe the person they're witnessing to is.

[DistantStar]

Assumption A: there is a God, specifically as understood by Christian conservatives/fundamentalists. Many people believe, many people don't. Some people believe in lots of gods. Some in none at all. There's too many variations on this to count.

Assumption B: there is only one way to follow said God.

Assumption C: there is a Hell. (ETA: not that Universalists believe in Hell, I forgot to delete that as the post went in a different direction than I'd expected.)

Assumption D: if you do not believe in B, you will go there.

If you lack one or more of these assumptions, any "witnessing" isn't going to have any effect on you besides pissing you off. At least the street-preacher or door-knocking kind.

[Jezebel]

1. They act or go in eith the with mentality that you are a bad person, and treat you as such.

I don't get this one as often as I get the patronizing assumption that I just haven't heard the "Good News," don't really know anything about Christianity or the Bible, and that I'm a nonbeliever simply out of ignorance. The attitude that comes across is "You don't know about Jesus, because if you did, you'd be a Christian--like me! So I'll tell you about him, and of course you'll choose Christ, because once you know about him, how could you not?"

When I head them off by explaining that plenty of other Christians have already tried to sell me on the Bible and failed, the attitude is often, "Well, they must not have been spirit-filled enough to convince you! But since my faith is so much stronger, you should listen to me."

They just can't seem to grasp that I've heard the message before, from many different messengers, and yes, I'm still rejecting it. And since they can't grasp that, good luck trying to get them to understand my reasons why.

2. Too much reliance on the threat of hell.

Threatening a non-Christian with hell is like threatening an adult with no presents for Christmas.

I've used that exact analogy when trying to explain my unbelief to Christians. The threat of Hell scares me about as much as Santa coming down my chimney to leave me a lump of coal in my stocking. They're both about as likely.

And I agree: why would I want to be scared into accepting a religion? What kind of commitment is that? I used to let fear run my life, and I was miserable. I've been doing my best, for over a decade now, to overcome my fears, embrace ambiguity, and accept that I don't have to have all the answers. Converting to a religion out of fear would be like taking a thousand steps backwards.

And what kind of God would set things up so we had to at least accept him out of fear if we couldn't do it out of awe? What kind of God would even make eternal torment for non-belief an option? Only tiny human minds could think that sort of bloodthirsty monster up, much less consider it worth worshiping.

3. Ignorance of religion or spirituality of the person being witnessed too.

And it's not only that; they hold other religions and spiritual paths as being intrinsically so full of error that it's not even worth knowing about them in any depth. If they do learn anything about other religions, it's from sources that are already hostile to them--"How To Share the Gospel with Buddhists," and that sort of thing. They don't learn about it to understand it, or why its adherents have chosen it; they learn about it so they know which canned questions to ask and which Bible verses to cherry-pick. And it's so obvious they hold other beliefs--and thus the process by which the believer arrived at them--in contempt, yet they don't see how insulting that is. Or if they do, they think, "Well, it's error--so it deserves to be insulted."

4. Ignorance of their own religion

I actually have the most fun with this one. I can't quote chapter and verse, but how much I do know about the Bible's contents shocks a lot of proselytizers. I've read it. The whole thing. More than once. I've read other books about it, I've thought about what's in it, and considered its historical context. So that I know as much as I do and can keep up with the discussion and still don't believe? And when I, the unbeliever, ask uncomfortable questions about their own holy book they can't answer? Fun times!

[GeoBQn]

They lack any sense of boundaries, physical or otherwise. When my friend and her husband moved into a new neighborhood, they had a neighbor who seemed nice at first. He invited them to church and they declined the offer (she's a secular Jew, he's an atheist). He then started asking them to church every time they ran into each other outside. Then he started going into the house, or up to the husband while he was working inside their garage. It didn't stop, even though they said no every time and told him to stop asking. It got to the point where the husband threatened to call the police if he set foot on their property again. Luckily, they've since moved.

[Phyllis Stein]

I haven't been witnessed to for many years. This is for two reasons:

1. I live in a liberal area

2. I shut those who would witness down before they even start.

Why allow anyone to steal time from your life if it can be avoided? I'm not interested in what they may think of my beliefs. I don't need to be validated.

[bananacat]

I was raised mainline Protestant but a bunch of Evangelicals infiltrated my church when I was a teenager and I very nearly became an Evangelical myself. One of the big problems is that we were told that the word of Jesus is just so amazingly perfect that it's impossible for anyone to hear it an not be converted. And no matter how many times you show it to people who remain unconverted, you can never allow yourself to think "Hey, maybe this isn't as convincing as we think it is" because that means you're not faithful enough and that's why you are failing at converting people. I would guess that about half of evangelists are sincere and the other half are doing it because of the deep, intense shaming they will get if they don't pretend to be enthusiastic about it. I remember once challenging an evanglist at my door about masturbation and evolution and the poor boy was just so completely overwhelmed and confused. They send these people out there telling them that all they need are a few Bible verses and lots of faith, and if they ever ask for anything more (like knowledge of their own religion or that of others), then they are accused of not having enough faith. The whole thing is built on lying, especially lying to yourself. It's horrible for the people being badgered, but I also feel tons of sympathy for some of the evanglists (especially the teenagers) who have been manipulated into doing it and are powerless to escape.

[pixydust]

I haven't been witnessed to for many years. This is for two reasons:

1. I live in a liberal area

2. I shut those who would witness down before they even start.

Why allow anyone to steal time from your life if it can be avoided? I'm not interested in what they may think of my beliefs. I don't need to be validated.

Living in Pat Robertson's backyard sucks! I have been witnessed to by customers when I worked retail and I have seen people who worked retail witnessing to customers. When someone walks up to me in a parking lot and asks me if I know Jesus I tell them that i'm not interested, that i have my own beliefs....but to be honest, sometimes it is funny to play with them!

[Deleted03]

Atropos I just want to say sorry for all those people trying to convert you! It happens rarely to me, but then I'm still a mostly closet Pagan (ehehe)

blessed be!

[Kitty]

Living in Pat Robertson's backyard sucks! I have been witnessed to by customers when I worked retail and I have seen people who worked retail witnessing to customers. When someone walks up to me in a parking lot and asks me if I know Jesus I tell them that i'm not interested, that i have my own beliefs....but to be honest, sometimes it is funny to play with them!

Don't forget the people who like to go door-to-door. Oh, and it wasn't unusual to see ads for youth groups at my high school, or posters for Bible study groups. The youth group ads were pretty hard to see, normally, but the posters for Bible study groups were pretty conspicuous.

In the youth groups I was in, we are always encouraged to take Bibles to school and start reading them at lunch, or to actually bow our heads and pray. Nothing's wrong with that, nor is it illegal, but basically they were telling us to show off how Christian we were so that when someone asked, we could witness to them. WTF.

[Minerva]

Don't forget the people who like to go door-to-door. Oh, and it wasn't unusual to see ads for youth groups at my high school, or posters for Bible study groups. The youth group ads were pretty hard to see, normally, but the posters for Bible study groups were pretty conspicuous.

In the youth groups I was in, we are always encouraged to take Bibles to school and start reading them at lunch, or to actually bow our heads and pray. Nothing's wrong with that, nor is it illegal, but basically they were telling us to show off how Christian we were so that when someone asked, we could witness to them. WTF.

Did that ever work? If I saw someone conspicuously reading their Bible or praying, I'd stay the hell away not only because that seems like something you don't interrupt, but also because I don't want to have someone tell me about their religion because I'm not interested. If anything, wouldn't they only attract other evangelicals?

[Kitty]

Did that ever work? If I saw someone conspicuously reading their Bible or praying, I'd stay the hell away not only because that seems like something you don't interrupt, but also because I don't want to have someone tell me about their religion because I'm not interested. If anything, wouldn't they only attract other evangelicals?

I have no idea if it did. I never did know anyone who did it. Even the kids for whom the youth group BS didn't go in one ear and out the other (like me) everyone just wanted to hang out with their friends at lunch.

Of course a lot of SBC churches period encourage kids to bring friends to "fun nights" or youth groups and whatnot, especially those who do AWANA. So yes, there is a lot of pressure on kids and teens to witness to their friends. I was really shy (and would still be too shy now) to do that kind of shit.

[bananacat]

In my high school, I was part of a Christian Club. We did pray conspicuously in the hallways each morning in the hope that others would want to be part of our group and they would be easier to convert. It never worked because the vast majority of students in my high school were already Christian, just not the evangelical type. But we were never allowed to admit out loud that most of our school and most of our country were already Christians, because then we couldn't pretend to be some poor persecuted minority. And we got scolded weekly be the club adviser for not converting enough (or any) students.

[Phyllis Stein]

Don't forget the people who like to go door-to-door. Oh, and it wasn't unusual to see ads for youth groups at my high school, or posters for Bible study groups. The youth group ads were pretty hard to see, normally, but the posters for Bible study groups were pretty conspicuous.

In the youth groups I was in, we are always encouraged to take Bibles to school and start reading them at lunch, or to actually bow our heads and pray. Nothing's wrong with that, nor is it illegal, but basically they were telling us to show off how Christian we were so that when someone asked, we could witness to them. WTF.

You just reminded me that I do have people coming to my door regularly. I never answer my door unless I am expecting someone, for my own safety and peace of mind. Everyone I know has a cell phone and can call if they are in the neighborhood and want to stop by.

I sometimes peek out just to make sure it's not a neighbor who needs something. When I see that it is not anyone I know, I can also tell right away that they are ready to proselytize. The JWs like to send out vulnerable looking yet very respectable looking elderly black women in hats and dresses -- guess they assume if we are going to open the door for anyone, it would be for this harmless-looking type of person. I haven't seen the Mormons around lately, but they're also easy to pick out.

[linnea27]

I really hate the ciruclar logic that so many evangelists don't even seem to recognize. "What do you mean, you don't know if the Bible is truly the word of God? Jesus said it is. In the Bible." And then they give you this blank stare like you are being willfully stubborn or something.

Speaking of willfully stubborn, I also hate the "all you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart" line, like all of us athiests/agnostics/people of other faiths secretly hear Jesus tapping at our door but tell him to go to hell just to be stubborn. I honestly don't think I could believe in their God even if I really, really wanted to because it all just seems so implausible, but they treat that as if I am willfully and purposely ignoring the obvious out of spite or something. When i've said that in the past I've been told to "let down [my] barriers" but I don't know what barriers I have up. I just don't feel it, but that doesn't seem like an appropriate answer to them.

[Deleted07]

Exactly, you wouldn't use these tactics for any other topic. Say Broccoli!

OMG I LOVE Broccoli its my life, I eat it 3 times a day. You need to try Broccoli, seriously you don't like Broccoli? Well you just haven't tried *my* version of Broccoli, I promise its different and you will like it!!! Then it will become your life just as it is mine. It will even make you a better person! Then you can go on to crisper-land (aka Heaven).

If you don't try my Broccoli then you will go to dumpster-land (aka Hell). Do you know how they treat people who don't love Broccoli there? There are consequences to not eating the Broccoli!

OMG You don't believe in what my Broccoli can do for you? You're so close-minded! I want everyone to eat Broccoli, and I want to make it law! What!? you don't think that eating Broccoli should be law? You are now persecuting my rights to Broccoli!

:mrgreen: You get the drift.

[thoughtful]

Exactly, you wouldn't use these tactics for any other topic. Say Broccoli!

OMG I LOVE Broccoli its my life, I eat it 3 times a day. You need to try Broccoli, seriously you don't like Broccoli? Well you just haven't tried *my* version of Broccoli, I promise its different and you will like it!!! Then it will become your life just as it is mine. It will even make you a better person! Then you can go on to crisper-land (aka Heaven).

If you don't try my Broccoli then you will go to dumpster-land (aka Hell). Do you know how they treat people who don't love Broccoli there? There are consequences to not eating the Broccoli!

OMG You don't believe in what my Broccoli can do for you? You're so close-minded! I want everyone to eat Broccoli, and I want to make it law! What!? you don't think that eating Broccoli should be law? You are now persecuting my rights to Broccoli!

:mrgreen: You get the drift.

Yes, but it's not a good analogy for me, because I am actually craving broccoli now! :lol:

Wait -- that's because I'm already a broccolitarian -- I love the stuff.

[crassy]

Maybe it's just Aussie evangelicals, but I've had people be as rude as fuck. They have no qualms about throwing out little passive-agressive or explicitly insulting responses ("Wow! You sound like a really needy,sad person!" / "You have a very hateful personality.") to a simple "No, thanks" and "Excuse me, I'm too busy to stop at the moment". Seriously, I have a hateful personality because I'm too busy helping my mother out of a car to get to her doctor's appointment to listen to you wank on about Jeebus?

I do get what they're trying to do - most of the witnessing scripts seem to rely on finding a person with extremely low self-esteem and further undermining their confidence (Ray Comfort's "Have you ever told a lie?" is a classic example). However, if you are confident in your beliefs, the sequence is extremely transparent and insulting. Asking someone in a majority Christian nation whether they've ever heard of Jesus just makes me think that either the proselytiser is a moron or they believe the person they're witnessing to is.

I have found Aussie evangelicals to be extremely rude. I had some JWs show up at my door and after politely telling them that I wasn't interested, he started going on about how I was a horrible mother to keep 'the word of god' away from my daughter.

The Fuck?

I politely told him to shove his god up his arse and that if he ever set foot on my property again I would not hesitate to call the cops on him and maybe punch him in the throat.

Who does that?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I haven't been witnessed to for many years. This is for two reasons:

1. I live in a liberal area

2. I shut those who would witness down before they even start.

Why allow anyone to steal time from your life if it can be avoided? I'm not interested in what they may think of my beliefs. I don't need to be validated.

Because you were raised in a culture with different non-verbal cues and politeness markers and so your "obvious" "I'm not interested" vibes aren't working? (Not that that's intentional of course, I see your argument...)

When I first started university, freshly moved to the US, completely naive and clueless and with no friends, some girls at my school asked me to go to bowling. I liked bowling and was happy that someone talked to me, so I said sure.

Little did I know until AFTER the bowling, it was a Jehovah Witness event! So we had to (they were my ride! another bad move on my part) sit and listen to some sermon about how only 140K people are going to heaven, all the while I'm wondering why they want me to join, then. But logic is apparently not their strong suit.

Anyway, I thought I will never talk to them again, so just did the complete cold shoulder thing. Of course it's not enough, these are missionaries! They kept calling, and calling... no amount of "I don't think so" would work. Finally I did have to find my metaphorical balls and tell them off. For that I guess I'm thankful! :D

But yeah people want to be "nice" and so end up getting annoyed for longer than they probably ought to. I've been there.

Meanwhile on the topic of missionaries generally, my main beef with them when I met them as a kid (regular evangelical Christian missionaries) was that they will happily say that everyone in your town is bound for hell because they don't know Jesus or whatever it is. Never MIND that they're talking badly about upstanding respected people who have done FAR more for people and charity than those outsiders have ever done. Add to that, often there's more than one group and they're both screaming that they and they alone have the TRVTH, but the two groups contradict each other. Why bother taking either one seriously? (And they'll say "well, why don't you believe there is some ultimate truth?" well maybe I do think there might be but I sure as hell don't think YOU know what it is!!! :D)

(I'm still a wimp, but these days if I sense missionaries at the door I just plain don't answer it.)

Then there was the time I was on vacation in Seattle (also still fairly new - still a freshman in college) and was asked if I wanted to take some "personality test." Yep, it was a Scientology hive. I of course flunked the "test" but by then knew what was up and just left.

[Deleted07]

I haven't experienced any rude evangelicals here in Oz, yet!

Admittedly when we see them in our house street I usually just shut my door and don't answer it, or they might leave a pamphlet I just throw away. I'm only in a small town so its not like we ever see them out and about commonly, certainly not in public areas.

The only time I was taken off-guard was a random guy came to my door, and I was like yes? realizing he had the white shirt, red tie and backpack, some kind of mormon/latter day? anyway he had clearly been put up to going door to door, just stood there not knowing what to say. He finally said I'm from the church of yadda-yadda and stood there silent again... I just said "Oh thats nice, but I'm busy now and have my own beliefs on religion if that's where you're going." Remained pleasant because clearly he was nervous and had been put upto it, to which he seemed relieved and scurried off! lol!

One thing I thought was very rude from a non-Christian guy over the road, to a group of older Jehovah's going throughout the street at Easter, he yelled from his balcony "fuck off and don't come back". I do think those kind of things are unnecessary. Unless they get bitchy or mean first, but to deliberately go in abrasive first and swearing etc is just inept. IMO.