Evangelism, why ?

monosharp

Ok, I know in the Bible it says;

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
– Matthew 28:19,20 NIV

and

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"
– Mark 16:15 KJV

But why does this mean I can't even walk to the nearest subway station without been verbally assaulted* on the way in the name of your religion ?

* By assaulted I don't mean cursed at etc or even impolite (most of the time) but it does feel like been constantly bombarded hence my choice of that word.

I have stated this here before but a recent incident has really annoyed me. So let me tell you the olde sceal.

I was on the way to my local subway station Saturday morning at 8:30am to go Snowboarding. I was meeting some other people at a subway station 2 stops away and getting a bus there togeather.

Anyways outside the station this old woman is just standing at the front door, no one else is around at the time. Anyways as I'm coming closer she shouts at me (politely) that theres something urgent and puts an arm out in front of me. (I'm not great at the local lingo but the way I took it up something was wrong/she needed help). Its unusual at the best of times for the locals to start talking to foreigners (unless they are selling something/evangelising/collecting for something) and she didn't have any leaflets etc so I didn't think she was one of them. So I made the unfortunate decision to stop and tried to practice my cupla focal.

So "Whats wrong" Says I. (I assumed she lost something/wanted help with carrying something/needed directions etc).
She starts talking about "we're in danger", Anyways I'm listening to a 2 minute rant and suddenly I hear the word 'Church'.
Ah says I, so generally the easiest and quickest way out of these situations is to A) feign lack of knowledge of the local lingo or tell them your Buddhist/Muslim. Since I had already talked to her, A was not an option so I went to B.
I'm Buddhist, says I and tried to walk on.
So she grabs hold of my arm and gives me a big smile proceeding with a story I've heard a hundred times. I used to be Buddhist too says she, but ...etc etc.
I'm busy and I'm late and I need to catch the train says I. (not untrue).
Did she let go of my arm ? No. She kept ranting on and on about her conversion, seriously they must get a leaflet from their churches with 2 or 3 stories about how they converted because its basically the same 2 or 3 stories every single time. I could probably recite them all off by heart at this stage.

So long story short I missed the subway, was late to my meeting, had to get a later bus on my own and arrived 2 hours later then my friends at the ski resort.

Right so I have a few points and a few questions.

1. Why must I put up with this ?
- Does this kind of evangelising actually work ? Because I can tell you right now most of my friends even the Christian ones can't stand people doing this. It just annoys people. It makes people MORE hostile to Christianity and to Christians.
- Would it be acceptable for me to stand outside these peoples church and ranting about Atheism/Scientology/etc ?
- Do you agree with this ? Is it acceptable to you ?

2. Why is it only Christianity that does this ?
- I have heard that Muslims do some sort of evangelism too but I have never seen it. Why are Christians so aggressive ?
- Buddhists don't do this anywhere (to my knowledge), Muslims don't do this here (to my knowledge). Of the main religions it is only Christians that do this, why ?

3. Various Christian-type religions and nut-jobs.
- Apart from the Christians here there are several christian-type or christian based or christian-something-or-other religions. PDN you probably know what I'm talking about, Mr Moon and co for one example. These are the others that do this so rightly or wrongly this is the kind of crazy that Christianity is been associated with. What makes Christian evangelism right but these others wrong ?

4. The aggressiveness of Evangelists here.
- Two years ago I wouldn't have a bad word to say about any religion. I was not a believer but I was not certainly not anti-believers. Evangelism here has completely changed my opinion on this. Its absolutely ridiculous some of the carry on of these people.

Heres one simple example, so I have a part-time job teaching English and in my class we were talking about famous people in history. So the usual Mozart, Beethoven etc all come up and we have a good olde discussion about them. Next thing Jesus comes up, fair enough says I, so what did Jesus do ?

I was expecting 'love thy neighbour' etc stuff which I would quite happily nod to. But what came out was really unexpected.

Student: Jesus is why we celebrate Christmas. Its his birthday and its a very important time of year.
Me: Oh yes Christmas is a very important holiday but it's not Jesus' birthday, it was actually just assigned to that date by the Catholic Church.

Now I had previously corrected things like Mozarts/Picasso's nationality etc and I assumed that it was common knowledge that Christmas was not actually Jesus' birthday.

Low and behold 4 of the students let out these loud gasps before proceeding to argue with me, very emotionally I might add, that I was in fact incorrect.

So I just sat there and listened and then simply said 'I'm sorry but you need to look it up and then tried to move on.

So the day after this class my manager told me I had a complaint from these same students and the complain was just priceless. I don't have the exact words on me but basically one of these students had complained that I told her something she didn't want to know and that she was happier when she didn't know the truth.

So basically after I told them, they went home, got on the internet or whatever and searched, found out I was correct and then were unhappy because they had always thought Christmas was Jesus' birthday and apparently knowing its not isn't a good thing.

What kind of sense does this make ?

I could go on and on about the aggressive nature here but I won't. Basically they are militant in their beliefs and anything or anyone that disagrees with their pastor or their own churches beliefs are wrong. And I don't mean anything that disagrees with the Bible, I mean literally what they 'THINK' is Christianity.

Oh and heres the best one you have or will ever hear. I had a different class and we were talking about history again and I was talking about Homers Illiad and the real history of the movie 300.

Next thing a student made some comment about the Bible and the old and new testaments and the age of the documents, he was some type of Christian himself, he basically just made some comment about the OT being the Jewish bible. To which another student turned around and said "but Christianity is older then that". Que 5 minutes of explaining that the Christian bible is composed of the OT + NT and that Jesus was actually a Jew etc blah blah. Which was completely unknown to this girl who apparently spends Sunday, and I do mean Sunday, as in ALL day Sunday, in Church. Which again was met with amazement and subsequent annoyance.

Again, I could go on and on. I could tell you about the evangelist churches who pray to god to destroy Buddhist temples, I could tell you about the company's who refuse to hire non-christians (note: Catholics and other forms of Christians do not, apparently, count as christians).

Anyways thats far too much written, sorry for the rant and I hope people can actually see the points I am trying to make. i.e > I'm not anti-Christians, I'm anti-crazy Christians.

Zombrex

Stop hanging around with Christians seems to be the obvious answer :P

Fanny Cradock

We have been over a variant of this before. Unless you convince me that this isn't one of you usual moans against Christianity then the thread stays locked. I really have no idea why you persist with the same topics.