The wrong kind of sharing
Ever been tempted to crush, destroy, or obliterate the person you are arguing with?
What about when it comes to engaging in discussion about Christianity with non-Christians? How can we win someone over without coming across as belligerent? Perhaps even more importantly, how do we navigate the thorny issue of being a friend, but also introducing a friend to Christian belief?
If part of your cravings for political entertainment get satiated by watching one sided controversial Youtube debates, you may have noticed something sinister: folks on both the left and the right are increasingly employing catchy, but less than generous, labels for their videos. You might recognize the following pattern of clickbait:
Watch [insert ideology] get OBLITERATED by [insert opposing ideology]
[Blank person] totally DEMOLISHES [popularly held belief]
Whether this is Michael Moore “demolishing” a gun rights activist, or Ben Shapiro "destroying" a liberal, you get the idea: one ideology has the assumed high ground, while the other is assumed to be in the wrong.
While these videos are often entertaining, do these folks think that such inflammatory labels are going to “make friends and influence people” as the still-famous book title claims?
Does spouting off make friends?
Here is the question that I have pondered. What if someone of the opposing persuasion watches this kind of video? Are they likely to be convinced? Highly improbable.
In fact, it may be quite the opposite. And worse, even though it may be a better argument than what they hold on to currently, they will feel slighted, and disagree out of protest.
In his book, Humble Apologetics, John Stackhouse begins with such a story. He overhears a couple of non-Christian people talking after a debate between a Christian and an atheist. While the two attendants he overheard actually believed that the Christian presenter won the argument, they were turned off by his aggressive and bullying tactics. They didn’t want any part of whatever THAT guy was offering.
Tragic, right?
This guy won the debate but lost any friends he might have made if he weren’t being such an overbearing curmudgeon.
With the above in mind, I have to ask myself, is there ever any reason to bully someone into a position?
There is a cute old saying a wise teacher once offered me: “One convinced against their will is of the same opinion still.” This seems fairly accurate. People need to come to conclusions of their own will. Thus I am convinced that refuting someone else’s belief with self-righteous antagonism will do much more harm than good.
Indeed sometimes sharing our beliefs may lead to arguments and hostile backlash. This begs the question, how are we to deal with this in a way that is both respectful to our friendship and also our faith?
What are my motives?
I think the first thing to consider is our own motives when it comes to sharing our beliefs. At first this seems fairly straightforward. It’s not. Motives are tricky things. And as I have mentioned elsewhere, people can smell an ulterior motive like a fart in a car.
At first, we might think that we are just sharing our ideas with our friend. However, we might ask ourselves, are we really just sharing or trying to convince?
If we are sharing, we have little to no agenda of our friend changing allegiances to our side. They might, or they might not; we were only sharing something. Of course we want them to be followers of Jesus—the Christian faith is a wonderful thing!—but they should be embraced into it, not shoved.
In Colossians 4:5, Paul instructs us, “Do not spoil your chances to touch others with the word through a lack of wisdom.” It seems to me, then, that our fostering of relationship is paramount. I heard somewhere this bit of brilliance: “If we get relationship wrong, little else matters.”
One of the best ways to share a vibrant Christianity is to do it in the context of genuine friendship—a spirit of listening and sharing—not debate.
Why Christianity is different
Sharing Christianity with someone is different than arguing a political ideology. Any particular political ideology concerns itself with how to successfully live in society. But Christianity is about more than that. It’s not just about economics or freedoms or rights. Christianity is a framework which helps us interpret the ultimate purpose and meaning for how to live in the world and WHY.
When we are sharing our Christianity, we are not sharing just a mere morality system (those things are a dime a dozen). We are sharing a way of being. And since that way of being purports to have love at its very centre, where would integrity be if it was thrust at someone in an offensive way?
It wouldn’t be, well, Christian. The motive of love does not force or shove someone into belie. Love involves an extended invitation. Not an in-your-face, “I am right and you are stupid” debate. We do not share the Christian argument.
We don’t argue someone into believing—and especially when our motive is to show how smart and better our way of thinking is. That’s not sharing, it’s pushing.
Being true to our temperament
Depending on our personality and temperament, we will share in various ways. We might be reserved and detest over-imposing on someone else for fear that we will turn them off. This is my proclivity, and I will not apologize for it.
Now, this is great if there is ample time and I am willing to invest in a long-term relationship. The downside is that I might come across as blasé and unconvinced myself —especially if the person I am talking to is of the more upfront and overt type of temperament. Furthermore, sometimes there simply isn’t time! I don’t have four months to develop a friendship with this person I am sitting on the bus with. If they seem interested, I have to be willing to strategically cast some seed into them.
On the other hand, there are evangelists who are more assertive—aggressive, even—and will have no compunction with sharing right away. These people don’t want to lose out on an opportunity to share their faith RIGHT NOW. This approach is great when time is an issue. However, the risk is that they can come across as pushy.
Flexible and tactful sharing
I believe that both approaches are necessary depending on the circumstance. And each temperament has to be willing to be stretched.
This means two things: first, we must know that other temperaments exist outside our own, and respect them. And second that we need to be flexible in our approach to sharing.
As the introvert, I must be willing to be more extroverted. But it also means that the extrovert must stretch too and—gasp—realize that theirs isn’t the only way to evangelize either. Proper evangelism requires both.
Whoever we are, there are glorious opportunities to be real with those whom God has placed in our lives. If we do it correctly and with the right motive, it is more likely that our lives will have a meaningful impact on those around us. Part of this requires meaningful engagement with others.
The cool thing? We have something to share with the world that is astoundingly meaningful.
