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This brilliant little viral really rattled some ‘believers’ and many others simply retorted, ‘Yeah, that’s why we have the Alpha course to answer these questions’ having had a complete irony by-pass and altogether missing the point. I saw it on Twitter where a Christian admitted to feeling guilty for enjoying it.
The one that really annoyed me, though, was the patronising, ‘I’d like to know why he’s so angry. Maybe if he came on the Alpha course…’
I would like to say, that this guy isn’t angry. He is intelligent, enquiring, clever and really quite amusing. In fact, he looks that relaxed (check out that body language) he could run classes at most churches to help those coiled as tight as a spring and having a hissy fit about the rota. He asks honest questions, raises real doubts, pinpointing paradox. It’s the stuff of real conversations with real people, living real lives in the real world.
To patronise, project negative or ‘damaged’ emotions, infantilise and otherwise poo-poo the person who makes valid apologetic statements about our faith actually places us into the very category we claim not to be in (I like to call it La-La-Land. GPS users type in ‘somewhere over the rainbow.)
If we really are serious about our apologetics, and about mission and evangelism, then we need to stop patronising happy, healthy, bright, witty individuals who are living interesting, productive lives. We need to get into relationship and only then do we stand a chance of real dialogue. We need to stop banging on about God until people get a Pavlovian recoil every time they hear Jesus’ name or the word ‘Christian’, and give them the space to ask their own questions, in their own way in their own time. You never know, we might learn something.
Fanatical about the gospel? You bet.
Fanatic? Not on your life.
chaplainmediacityuk
Brilliant response, great article. I think I will be showing that in church in the next couple of weeks.
There are a lot of double standards when it comes to the “dialogue” between some athiests and some christians. Two groups of angry people who are not prepared to listen to each other or empathise with each other in any way shape or form. He’s provocative and actually quite rude in his comments as I scroll down the page. However, I don’t see a lot of cheek turning going on in the oposite direction. He clearly set out to cause a big flame war underneath the video and succeeded. You’ve got to love the internet.
I am always intrigued by people whose idea of Christian Apologetics is attack. It doesn’t strike me as the default position Jesus used. When he did use it as a method of instruction it was usually the religious who were being….. erm…. instructed.
Youtube is great because it gives links to people’s motivation. I’m intrigued by his need to post it as a response to this.
Anyway, that is enough mental wandering for me for one evening…. What was my point? Did I have one? Oh well.
Thanks for that. Be interesting to hear how you go on with it. I can see why he made it in resonse to the Alpha viral. Enuff said.
Well then, showe it this morning in our main Sunday Eucharist. No one died. The ground didn’t swallow me up whole. The elephant in the room was discussed and debated an people breathed a sigh of relief as I said “this is something that worries us all but when we come to church each week we pretend it doesn’t exist”.
And we looked at the gospel reading from the sermon on the mount in the light of the society we live in and ‘perhaps like the people Jesus was addressing we have missed the point’.
I’d say more if I had time. Perhaps I will later. If there is one thing to be said about the people here, they do know how to deal with reality.
That’s great to hear – I often find once the elephant is discussed, it turns out to be a lot smaller and much less scarier than first imagined, and then you can deal with it.
Brilliant to hear such authenticity. A band of holy sojourners, it seems.