Well, just to start off, I want to reassure my longtime followers that I am okay. Things in my life were extremely rocky for a while there but I am happy to report that I am alive and figuring things out. Aside from the fact that apparently my heart is going to shut off in 30 years, there have been no medical emergencies. I’ve been depressed, but been using “Type 2” coping skills. Which, if Type 1 is CopingSkills™️(ie, deep breathing and those guided imagery YouTube videos that always involve the listener transforming into some sort of object in nature, and then being greeted by a light of a specific color representing calm, serene peace)… “Type 2” is stuff that actually works. Like playing The Sims 4 and sleeping a lot.
Anyway, in light of how the last conversation with my siblings went (tl;dr, it went badly), I thought I would do my own post on what not to say to a non-Christian. I got the idea from this video by the Genetically Modified Skeptic:
So now I’m going to do something similar. I’m going to start out with beliefs that a lot of Christians hold, most of which I used to fully subscribe to myself as a Christian. I’ll explain briefly where the ideas come from biblically. Then I’m going to explain why these arguments don’t just fail to convince people outside of Christianity; but they actually make it much harder for the intended convert to see Christianity as potentially true. I conclude with an “experiment” to test the veracity of the Bible’s claims.
Note that I grew up Calvinist, and my family is still Calvinist. However, I was a big believer in a unified body of Christ, so I hung out with Christians of all stripes, including people who really, really did not like Calvinism. So, while I’m familiar with quite a few variants of Christianity, I have the most personal experience with Calvinism.
Assumption One: “If a person is not currently a Christian, then that person was never really a Christian.”
The first assumption that evangelizers go in with, is the idea that apostates were “never really saved.” The idea is that something was qualitatively different between my faith when I was a Christian, vs the faith of the person before me. This is a common idea among Calvinists, because it’s really hard to explain people falling away any other way. If a person was genuinely a member of the elect, then how could they now be not elect anymore? I found this video articulating that point of view:
The premise makes sense theoretically, and a case could certainly be made biblically. One passage in support of it would be 1 John 2:19.
Assumption Two: “If I repeatedly articulate the gospel messasge as though my intended convert has never heard it before, then maybe one day I’ll share the same gospel and my intended convert will have a eureka moment”
This was definitely an idea that was popular in the Christian circle that I grew up in. It makes sense logically. If the person is spiritually blind, then even if they have a phd level of understanding of the Bible, they don’t really understand. So, a common strategy is to just repeatedly share the gospel message. In Calvinism, the rationale was this: If a person is a member of the elect, then they will be saved. Eventually, something will get through to them. Most likely, this will happen while they’re having the gospel message shared with them by a Christian. So, if you’re a Christian and you’re sharing the gospel, there is a possibility that you will be blessed by God to get to be his instrument in accomplishing your loved one’s salvation. You don’t know who is and is not elect, so if you just go around sharing the gospel over and over, then it’s entirely likely that one day you will happen to be the person who God uses to save somebody. It’s like non-Christians are just walking slot machines, and to play is free: all you have to do is share the gospel message as though the other person had no idea what it was.
This assumption is probably the hardest one on this list to support biblically. I definitely remember reading a lot of passages when I was reading the Old Testament that emphasized repeating the messages from God over and over constantly. An example of that would be Deuteronomy 6:4-9. In the New Testament, there are a few places that imply the same thing, like 2 Peter 1:12–15, Romans 15:15, or Philippians 3:1. However, I will be totally honest that I don’t remember studying these New Testament passages as a Christian and coming away with the repetition concept. Honestly, for me, the idea came more from this hymn which was in our hymnal, but which I think enjoys popularity in the broader Christian world as well:
Now, before you ask: yes, Yo Girl was the one who personally photographed the inside of the Trinity Hymnal. I have a copy in my inventory. I’m not known for my photography skills, so sorry about the uneven color hues. For those who are either reading on a phone screen or just generally prefer to read each line in order, the Orthodox Presbyterians were so kind as to re-type the lyrics.
I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else could do.I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.I love to tell the story; ’tis pleasant to repeat
What seems, each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God’s own holy Word.I love to tell the story; for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it, like the rest,
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
‘Twill be the old, old story, that I have loved so long.
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (n.d.). I Love to Tell the Story. The Trinity Hymnal (1961 version). https://opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=319
(Emphasis is mine, obviously.)
Assumption Three: “If I have dedicated my entire life to Jesus, then my intended convert must spend an equivalent amount of time and energy attacking Jesus”
There is a famous quote from Jesus that is usually used to support this, but it appears several times so I’m sharing the three passages that relay the quote most directly. Now, some bloggers might make you guys look these up yourselves, but they’re significant enough that, this time, Yo Girl actually is going to include them here. All the quotes are from the ESV, because, although it came around a bit later in my life, it took the Reformed world by storm when I was an adolescent.
Assumption Four: “My intended convert secretly knows that Christianity is true”
This is the famous argument that “There are no atheists.” When I was a Christian, I would have applied this passage not just to atheists, but to, like, everyone else in the world who is neither Christian nor atheist.
Assumption Five: “My intended convert is emotionally damaged.”
I get this a lot. The idea is that if someone talks about Jesus around me, I will become “triggered” because I have such deep and abiding hatred for God that I don’t want anyone to know about. Another way this can play out is if the other person thinks that, on a core level, I know I’m at enmity with God and need to be forgiven, but I think I’m too damaged or have run too far from God for him to forgive me.
Biblically, this would be supported by the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. The son left home/The Faith and fell on all the hard times because he was too angry and stubborn to embrace the love of his father. Then, when he came back, everything was okay again. He just had to overcome his pride and, arguably, some sort of mental illness preventing him from going back to his idylic home that had been waiting for him the whole time.
Another biblical argument for this point of view would be the myriad of stories of people possessed by demons who are angry and lashing out and deeply hate God. The common themes in the passages are that the demons totally know what’s up, which is why the second somebody mentions God, they freak out. Example: Matthew 8 when the demons are like, “Have you come to torment us before the time?”
The Scientific Method
When I was a Christian, the Bible was my ultimate source of truth. If something could be proven biblically, I believed it. Most people outside of Christianity do not subscribe to that epistemology. For many of us, especially atheists in the Western world, the scientific method would outweigh ancient wisdom literature.
We all know how this method works. Say I have an idea of something that might be true. For example, gravity. So, that is my hypothesis. Then I devise an experiment to see if my hypothesis predicts the result. So I drop an apple, the apple falls, my prediction was correct, and this lends credibility to my idea that gravity is a thing. It does not prove my hypothesis. However, if I drop the apple and it does not do what I expected it to do (say it just hangs around suspended in space), that would be strong evidence against my hypothesis.
What the Scientific Method has to Do with the Bible
So, the scientific method is great, but it’s really hard to apply it to Christianity. However, there is at least one exception. Because the thing that the five assumptions above have in common, is that they all predict what should be going on within the subjective experience of the non-Christian. When I’m interacting with Christians, especially people who have been Christians since their earliest memories, they really think that they know what’s actually going on inside my brain. I can tell them what’s going on, but they’re sure that I just can’t bring myself to be honest. Especially with people who are well-intentioned (which is most Christians), they often think that they’re helping me out. Like, they know what’s going on, and it’s okay. I can drop the façade. They know what’s going on, and they want to help.
The other thing that’s true about all five assumptions is that they are most emphatically not accurate in predicting what’s going on inside my head at all, and I’ve heard quite a few ex-Christians saying the same thing as me. So we have our hypothesis that the Bible is the inspired word of God and the best possible source of information about the world. If the Bible is true, it should predict what’s going on in my head. However, the predictions absolutely, completely fail to predict what’s actually going on in my head. So when Christians share with me what they think I should be thinking, it immediately discredits their argument that the Bible is infallible.
Which, my subjective experience is knowable only to me. So when Christians approach me with these ideas, they aren’t “in” on the experiment, because they aren’t inside my head. They don’t/can’t even believe me when I’m articulating my experience. However, I am inside my head, and I know that the subjective experience that the Bible predicted is not the subjective experience that marks my reality. The hypothesis was that the Bible is infallible. The prediction was that I would have the subjective experiences noted above. I do not have the experiences noted above. The Christian’s attempt to save my soul’s eternal destiny has failed.
Technically, it’s possible that I’m the only one who’s ever experienced life the way I do, and maybe all other non-Christians out there actually do experience what the Bible predicted and are lying about it. However, most people’s described experience also is not what Christians expect. Among the many perspectives that float around, they all seem to be not that. Although, among ex-Christians, most of us do have one sentiment in common: we feel completely invalidated. I’m trying to explain my life to people who I genuinely and deeply care about, and they can’t accept my perspective on my own reality because they think they know better. This constant frustration would be enough to turn anyone off from the Bible. But even more problematic is that Christians are not wrong in their interpretation of the Bible. I didn’t just look up all those Bible verses for no reason. It matters that the Bible actually does teach that my experience should be what most Christians think that it is. So I’m not just frustrated with the person; I’m also faced with the fact that their source of information (the Bible) is just not true.
Conclusion
So here’s the thing. If you are a Christian and you are going to go out and share the gospel, you may well believe the assumptions above. However, from “our” perspective (“our” being myself and other non-Christians who I interact with), the assumptions above are not true. So I promise you will have massively more success if you just don’t let on what you think you know about what’s going on in our heads. Much like the Genetically Modified Skeptic in the video I linked, I definitely do think that if Christians took this into account, they would have a lot more success with conversion attempts. And, just as the Genetically Modified Skeptic included, it would also just make inter-faith relationships work a lot better.
So, can the Bible be disproved with one experiment? I don’t know. But it definitely feels like it can, so if your goal is to spread the gospel, please, please take heed. Don’t discredit the Bible in your attempts to advance it. It won’t serve your purposes, and it will damage relationships with non-Christians who probably genuinely care about you.
