In a comment from heffe on my last post, he quoted John M. Perkins, who said “we have overevangelized the world too lightly.” I think that this idea is really important in thinking about whether or not proselytizing is spam. Perkins emphasis on overevangelizing too lightly is helpful, because it helps us realize that we can turn the Christian message into spam. Many of our contexts are at least vaguely aware that the church is about this story of Jesus dying on a cross, and resurrecting, and that because of it we can be born again. What I find helpful about Godin’s stance in the quote from my previous post is that it helps us to realize that if we take a spam sort of approach to the Christian message, we risk trivializing our message.
Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase “the medium is the message,” and it serves in this case to help us understand something about the way we convey our message. There is another phrase which is very different than McLuhan’s, which is “the methods change, but the message remains the same.” If McLuhan is right, this second phrase is incorrect because the methods reshape how the message is understood. So, the impersonal, no context with a person approach to evangelism actually sends a different message(whether or not it is intended) than a relational, contextual approach would. The stance that we take when talking of faith shapes our message, if we are aggressive or being peaceful or even just allowing the other to dog our beliefs.
Now this is true not just of religious proselytizing. Advertising is proselytizing as well, and maybe a good reflection for Christians is to look at advertising and products and ask which sort of approaches to that seem most faithful to the way of Christ. Although somewhat tangentially related, blog friend, Jason Coker, has a great post on thinking about the church’s use of media and some critiques to keep in mind.
To sum up the question of whether or not proselytization is spam, my response is that it depends. I am unwilling to say that it is, but I think a non-personal, non-relational approach very well can be.
Popularity: 4% [?]
