Bigotry & Inconsistency

Christopher Hitchens has accused Rick Warren of "bigotry" because he believes Jews are going to Hell.  Well, if Hitchens mistakenly thinks that Christians believe Jews are going to Hell in virtue of them being Jews, I guess bigotry might be a legitimate charge.  But it still would be pretty hard to sustain that since Christians believe everyone is going to Hell (including themselves apart from Jesus), not just Jews.  And the charge of "bigotry" is even sillier.  Christians don't believe Jews (or anyone else) is going to Hell in virtue of their ethnic group or any other kind of group, but in virtue of the convictions an individual holds about Jesus.  The Christian belief about salvation is about individuals, not groups.  Christians are interested in engaging individuals about their religious beliefs, not judging whole groups because membership in that group tells us nothing about the individual's personal beliefs.  Hitchens would do better to debate the truth claims about Jesus and salvation rather than call silly, baseless names.

Heather MacDonald, who cited the Hitchens quote, concludes that Christians don't really believe non-Christians are going to Hell since we don't live in constant, excruciating mourning for the lost souls or incessantly proselytize.  There is some truth that Christians don't fulfill our duty and conviction to be witnesses as we should.  It should bother us more that unsaved people are going to suffer an eternity in Hell.  We fail in this probably every day.

But MacDonald is wrong that her observation doesn't undermine the sincerity of a belief, though it might.  It really is more of an observation about human nature.  It's more likely that Christians, being the fallen creatures that is the first conviction in the process of salvation, don't keep foremost in our minds the eternal fate of unbelievers.  Fervor fades.  Most Christians have experienced that from the early days of their conversion.  That doesn't mean a Christian's beliefs or commitment is any less.  Humans are failed, fickle creatures.  And there's also something about human nature that usually cannot hold current a hard, painful fact.  We call it denial.  And humans are excellent at it.  Christians, too.  So MacDonald's comment is really a good observation about human nature, not the sincerity of Christians' beliefs.

All human beings live inconsistently.  Does MacDonald believe there are starving children living in this world?  (I'm crediting her with caring about starving children, as any decent person does.)  She doesn't appear to live in constant anxiety over their condition and work incessantly to relieve their condition - she maintains a blog at least.  So MacDonald must not really believe there are starving children in the world.  But that doesn't follow.  I'm sure she believes there are starving children and that she cares about them, but lives as inconsistently as Christians do.  (She might answer that the consequences of starving children are temporal, but the consequences of Christians beliefs are eternal.  But if she doesn't believe in life after death, which I'm assuming, then this is the only life these children have and those are pretty high stakes for the quality of their lives.   So the temporal consequences matter very much.)

The so-called inconsistency she cites might also be the function of different values and beliefs that don't conflict at all.  One of those is that Jesus Himself directed His disciples to be aware of the interest a non-Christian shows in the message being witnessed to.  If someone shows interest, we follow up; if someone doesn't show interest or even disdain, we're to move on.  That's actually the practice of respect and tolerance MacDonald refers to.  We actually engage people at their interest level, and if they don't show interest, we don't continue to proselytize.

And there's something she says that I think indicates a fundamental misunderstanding many non-Christians have about Christians.  She writes, "Christians surely see that most of their wrong-believing personal acquaintances are just as moral and deserving as themselves."  Christians don't believe they're deserving; we're miserable sinners.  We can't be moral enough to deserve anything from God.  We are saved only because of grace, mercy, and God's intervention.  We cannot boast, as Paul writes, because we have absolutely nothing to boast about.  Christians are somewhat to blame for this misunderstanding since Jesus is often offered as life enhancement without the conviction of sin first.  Our "wrong-believing personal acquaintances" are creatures in God's image with intrinsic dignity and value, so that's why we treat them with respect by not incessantly harping on a message they don't want to hear and why we recognize that even as fallen creatures, they are capable of good and moral deeds.  They just don't earn us credit enough to cancel out our sins, which we know we're all guilty of.

Comments

[Ha-Ha]

Atheist: "How dare you suggest I will go to somewhere I don't believe exists! Outrage!"

[Grace]

Christian: Whether you believe Hell exist or not is irrelevant. The question is not your belief, but the REALITY of Hell existing in the first place. Don't let your "outrage" blind you.

[Etoile Rose]

Your arbsoultely right*

Its curious that she would write that christians must not believe it to some degree if they arent spending every waking moment trying to 'save' people. (If I understand her correctly), yet, how many times have you seen a non christian go crazy when they hear a christian say "your going to hell!". Wether either of them believe it or not, thiers alot of love in that statement. Not that its the best evangelistic tool, though.

[Chris DeForge]

I think that charges of bigotry are a fairly natural response to "frontal assults" by us Christians. I am learning more and more to use the tool of "finding common ground" to help set a better overall environment for a challenging discussion.

For example my niece, who lives quite a distance from me so our interactions are quite limited, recently informed me that she is a practicing Buddhist. To help establish common ground with her I began a FaceBook" exchange with her by complimenting her on "deep thinking", "compassionate heart", a "desire to connect spiritually", as well as a "quest for truth".

By doing that, I layed a foundation of respect with her that is now allowing me to ask her some questions that challenge her logic/worldview. For example, "You told me that to achieve enlightenment you had to do 'good works'. Who sets the standard for what is 'good'? How many 'good works' does it take? Does one 'bad work' off-set one 'good work'?" and so on. Because she acknowledged she is a deep thinker, I now have the right to challenge her to think.

In time, I will be able to introduce her to the Jesus she has known about, but never knew.

[Etoile Rose]

Just addressing the first part of your statement Chris;

I guess you could call it a 'natural response', but more knee-jerkish than a well-thought out, intelligent reaction. Thiers certianly an unkind way to evangelize, but we should examine the nature of in which someone was conveying that message. Even still, calling a Christian a biggot for expressing what he may believe is an actual consequence is like calling a skydiving instructor a biggot for telling his students they may slam into the ground if they jump out of an airplane.

Thats not to say some christians arent simply being malicious and mean spirited when they say such things. Perhaps they may needs to exersize a bit of humility.

[Gabriel]

I think sometimes we get too caught up in wondering how to evangelize nicely. Although I do believe tact and nicety are good, I also remember the prophets were very rarely what we would have considered tactful. Their message often consisted of something like, "you are all sinners who are going to hell unless you repent." Elijah even made fun of the other side. Again I am not saying we shouldn't be tactful, but that I think Christians might be too worried about it.

[Chris DeForge]

Etoile - do think we agree. However, I'm just extending the discussion by pointing out that how we engage the lost has an impact.

I would not be wrong to tell my niece that by forsaking Jesus and buying into Buddhism she is sealing her eternity in hell. I’m pretty sure her response would not be… “Oh, I’m so glad you told me. I’m going to change my thinking right this instant.” No, she would most like call me a bigot - or something worse. I would be right, she would be wrong… but have I made a positive impact for God’s Kingdom? No.

Jesus told his disciples that he was sending them out “as sheep in the midst of wolves” so they should be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves”. I think that applies here. You know, I spent a lot of time and energy learning scripture with a desire to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost. With that knowledge, I was very effective at teaching and witnessing to like-minded Christians. But I simply was not effective at engaging the lost until I learned conversational tactics and began to deploy them consistently.

Let's take you analogy of the sky diving instructor a bit further. If he is running a school/business, I suspect that the first thing out of his mouth to a group of new students is not – “We're going to take you up in a perfectly good airplane. You will jump out, and unless you do everything just right, that sudden stop at the end is going to kill you.” - that would be silly. Instead, he may start off by asking each person to share why they are there. Then he might share his own exhilarating experiences after which he might say, “You know, no matter your reason for being here, there are some laws that we can’t ignore – specifically the law of gravity. We are going to spend a lot of time teaching you how to sky dive safely so that you can live to share your stories of exhilaration with your friends and family.” I with that kind of approach, I’m pretty sure his student retention rate will be pretty good and he will have a successful business.

[Chris DeForge]

Gabriel - weren't the prophets messengers to “believers”? One lesson I take from scripture is that we deal with issues involving believers differently than we do for those who are not. Jesus himself reserved his harshest words for the religious elite (Pharisaic woes) while his gentlest words were for the lost (i.e. the Samaritan woman at the well). Another example is Paul’s approach on Mars Hill in Acts vs. his various instructions on excommunication.

[deborah]

I am so hoping to read a comment by Dr. Beckwith. I imagine he could have a field day with this.

[Etoile Rose]

For the record Chris (and i should have elaborated), I was in complete agreement with your method of ministering to your niece, as well as your post to me. Infact I just watched a sermon on paul at mars hill!

Sometimes, evangelism takes a very long time, very, very long time. I suppose God reaches different people in different ways, and ultimately christians should be as prayrerfully prepaired as they can be.

[Randall]

I just went over to Heather MacDonald's website. The comments section seems like a homework exercise for Stand to Reason fans. I put in one comment for a person particularly sure that his thinking processes were 100% correct, just to get the ball rolling, but on the other hand, seeing over 300 comments makes me feel my efforts are going to be just another futile exercise.

[Francis Beckwith]

Hitchens is an embarrassment to the life of the mind, IMHO.

His book is sophomoric, with my apologies to sophomores.

If I am understanding Hitchens correctly--being the beacon of enlightenment that he is--then he believes that Christians believe that Jesus was condemned to hell:

1. Christians believe that Jews are going to hell (according to Hitchens)
2. Jesus was a Jew
Therefore, Jesus is in hell.

Hitchens is not great.

[Etoile Rose]

LoL
very sound logic.

[Jesse]

From Merriam-Webster,

"bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices"

Does that make Hitchens a bigot then?