Читать книгу The Needletoe Letters - Robert M. Price - Страница 7

My dear Wiltwing,

Now where was I? Ah yes: witnessing, personal evangelism. I have said it has a double benefit in that it does sometimes work, giving us new converts and thus new menu items as their piety grows, and the very act of witnessing alienates our protégés from their friends and acquaintances who suddenly feel they are being used (which they are) or invited to leave the world of conventional sanity (which they are). Once a Christian believer “puts it on the line,” takes a public stand in this fashion, he will feel he must stick by it. Otherwise, if he suddenly reneged and admitted, “Look, I, er, guess I got sucked into some kind of cult, some sort of trip,” it will be a disgrace others will always hold against him. He will always be the butt of jokes, cringing whenever the whole business comes up, which it will, again and again. Anyone can easily anticipate this. And so it will seem less embarrassing to just stick with it with a straight face: “I meant to do that!”

I mentioned the galvanizing effect of witnessing, how it makes them feel they are actors in the twenty-ninth chapter of Acts. They are playing a game we cannot lose. Our clients simply cannot get discouraged. On the one hand, suppose the contact does accept the evangelistic offer and converts. The believer rejoices and puts a notch in his gun belt. On the other, suppose the target declines, whether with indifference or, even better, hostility: our man congratulates himself on having taken a stand for Christ, even on having experienced a modicum of “persecution” for his faith—or as close as he is likely to come to it.

Either way, our hold on the believer, the witness, is reinforced. The “soul-winner” has renewed self-confidence, more to be proud of, more to show for his faith. Here is a satisfied customer. And the unrequited witness can congratulate himself on his courage, and his skin is thickening. He will be less reluctant to witness again. But his successful evangelistic encounters also strengthen him by adding another vote that his beliefs are true. The continued plausibility of the whole thing depends on his remaining within a circle of fellow-believers who affirm his beliefs, making it as hard to doubt them as it is to doubt one’s value while amid everyone’s compliments. If the witness gets another to switch sides and agree with him, the “world” has decreased by one, while the Church has increased by one. The Democratic Party seems all the more true and noble when one learns that a formerly staunch Republican has switched parties—or vice versa! It is all quite far from logic. But the only reasoning faith is interested in, after all, is rationalization.

Evangelism is always based on emotion, on people feeling that “something is missing” from their lives, namely, a sense of purpose, happiness, a group of friends. A sect promises these rewards to any new recruit. Naturally they welcome a newcomer, and they have plenty for him to do, from prayer meetings and Bible study, to evangelism and bringing potato chips to the church picnic. His time is filled; he has assignments, and this is all he needs to think he has “purpose in life.” Look closely into the matter and you will find that actual reasons, appropriate warrants for believing the extravagant things he is taught to believe, are entirely lacking. He doesn’t even care about them. And this situation is hardly to be regretted. Certainly not by us. If reason began to rear its ugly head, our cause would be quite quickly lost. But if one becomes committed to a cause through an emotional experience, reason, which had nothing to do with getting him into it, will have even less to do with getting him out of it. On the other hand, imagine someone converting to religion because the arguments of its advocates seemed to make sense to him. In short, he will have been persuaded by a weighing of arguments and evidence. That is not faith, none that does us much good anyway. It does not run deep. It is inherently tentative, provisional, because the habit of mind does not change, and the same individual will remain receptive to new ideas. If some other argument sounds better to him one day, he jumps ship, and that does a lot of damage. Believers watch him leaving and inevitably ask, “What did he see that I’m missing?” Obviously, that is why we suggest that any such apostate must have had shameful reasons. He must have preferred sinning and given up his faith so he wouldn’t have to feel guilty fornicating or taking drugs, or what have you. Believers are very happy to surmise the worst about former coreligionists in order to lapse back into a happy complacency.

But most are stuck more firmly by their emotional bond. Even so, sooner or later, some villain is sure to use reason to challenge our man’s faith. Here is where that blessed bull-headedness comes in. That religious narrow-mindedness which our clients regard as a virtue despite the fact that they decry its counterpart in every other area of life. But they feel they must try to offer a rational, that is, some kind of theoretical, answer, and the most popular is that of the leap (or, if they pretend sophistication, a step) of faith. The believer claims to be in touch with Ultimate Reality, something admittedly not reachable by the study of mere concrete facts. He “knows” a Truth inaccessible to reason. Oh, reason is fine as far as it goes, but in this case it fails simply because the ladder one climbs is not long enough. To go the rest of the way, one must make that leap. That is not a bad line to feed your man, should the occasion arise, Wiltwing. Just do not let him notice that the “argument” is entirely circular. Its reasonableness depends completely upon the prior assumption that there is something that is reachable in this way. And this is just the claim that is at issue. How does he know this? The nonbeliever has no reason to believe God is up there, hand extended, waiting for him. Why should the scenario seem reasonable to him, much less convincing?

Above all, try not to let him notice that every brand label of sectarian and cultist makes exactly the same appeal. It is astonishing that we were able to keep someone as smart as Pascal from noticing this one devastating fact: one may place one’s bet on any of several horses in the race. It is not a simple “either-or” proposition. It is wholly arbitrary to jump by faith into the arms of Jesus. People have made the same leap and wound up in the arms of Jim Jones and Charles Manson. And once they had, they were completely sure they had made the right decision. How? By faith, of course!

Here is another tactic. Suggest to your man (if a minister or fellow believer has not already suggested it to him) that he simply swat away an objector’s question: “Say, that’s a good question! Tell you what: I’ll look into it. But in the meantime, why not accept Jesus anyway?” Now there is an admirably incurious Christian soldier! He is signaling loud and clear that rational objections are mere buzzing gnats to him. He has absolutely no interest in them. He just wants to close the sale—as indeed we want him to!

There is always more to be said in these matters, but we may pick up the thread next time.

Your affable uncle,

Needletoe.