Evangelism and Penn Jillete
Recently performance artist/comedian and outspoken atheist, Penn Jillete was given a Gideon bible after one of his shows. Here are his You Tube comments which are worth spending the time viewing. At one point he says "How much do you have to hate a person NOT TO TELL THEM?"
He is saying that if you believe that eternal life is true and you know of a way to escape hell, how much do you have to hate someone to not share the life saving information with them?
Some of us in the blogosphere have been accused of proselytizing-- But, if I found what I believe to be a treasure in the Catholic Church, am I loving others by not sharing it? If God shows you a new and joyous method of getting into closer communion with Him, the charitable thing to do is to not keep it to yourself. BTW, sounds like Penn Jillette is onto something, pray for him.
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 4:35 PM
4 Comments:
Well said. I suppose the catch (or maybe the excuse) is to consider whether telling someone X is the most effective way to communicate or convince them that X is true. You know, much drum beating may not be the most persuasive. But then that really smacks of an excuse, I think.
Christ is born!,
Tom
Thanks Thom for visiting. Hope law school is going well and quickly!
Regarding evangelism:
Well you can only lead a horse to h20...
That being said, I feel my job is to at least put the signposts out there and say "hey lookey this way, you may like what you find.."
Though I am sure my blog gets to be "drum beating" at times but the beauty of the blog is no one is forced to read it, and I hope that over the years I will write something that makes someone think a bit more about the ancient Church, more than what they read in a Chick tract or whatever.
I wish that in 30 years of evangelicalism, I had a found more Catholics who were willing to say "Say brother have you ever read the writings of the early church fathers? etc etc.
But ultimately conversion is the work of the Spirit and not man, Yet He does ask us to carry this precious treasure in mere earthen vessels .
God bless your Holy days
Russ
That was interesting. I have never heard an atheist speak in such a manner. It should be a wake-up call for all believers.
yes jp it sure should be.
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