I must start by admitting that the show and website at least look good. The TV show is fairly decent by reality TV standards.
But it’s a reality show about evangelizing. Seriously. Produced by TBN and everything.
The premise is some instruction on how to do 1970s-style confrontational evangelism with total strangers (or friends or family that are still speaking to you, for now), combined with actual footage of Kirk and his partner in evangelism, Ray Comfort. Good-hearted guys, I’m sure. Nothing personal here. But evangelism tracts and personal questions to total strangers? Come on.
Start here (warning: noisy Flash - turn speakers down first). Kirk Cameron welcomes you to the site and asks whether you’re a Christian. If you are, you get to access the site’s numerous you-are-evil-so-pray-this-prayer-with-me evangelism training resources.
If you click no, you get the world’s slowest “Are you saved?” quiz, read aloud by Kirk while you read the text onscreen (there’s no fast-forward button if you, like 99% of people, read faster than Kirk talks). If you answer all the sin questions in the negative, you’re hit with “The bible says ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Yeah, so there. Take that, Mr. Perfect Non-Christian.
When you’re tired of that, check out this video (.asx - opens in Windows Media Player on my computer), and skip ahead to 8:00 or so, and watch as long as you can stand (but make sure you see some of the interviews). The whole thing is about half an hour, so I will admit to not watching it in its entirety.
I again want to commend the people involved with this for their mostly well-implemented work (though the Flash website is way too slow and noisy - over the top, but still pretty). It’s cheesy and sometimes badly written, but at least it’s filmed well.
But this is the most horrible kind of evangelism I can imagine. I’ll paraphrase, but I’m not exaggerating.
Kirk: You’re evil, right?Victim: Well, not really.
Kirk: Have you ever committed adultery? That’s a sin.
Victim: No, that’s like, sleeping with someone else’s spouse, right?
Kirk: Bwahaha. Foolish pagan. Jesus said even looking at a person of the opposite sex is as bad as having sex with them.
Victim: But I’m not doing anything.
Kirk: Shut up! Jesus said it, in one context or another. Maybe. Anyway, this obviously proves you’re going to hell. Wanna get saved?
(cuts to next victim)
I admire Kirk and Ray’s sense of urgency and commitment to doing what they perceive to be right. But I think they are sorely mistaken if they think non-Christians are benefiting.
Ray’s rationale is “the gospel is taken to those with a humble heart,” so the logical thing to do is humiliate people by asking them entrapping questions. Hmm. Methinks these guys would unleash less harm on the world if they dedicated themselves to writing computer viruses.
Via LiquidThinking.
kirk cameron is officially a psycho.
Ray and Kirk get half of it right. They get that God saves sinners, people aware of their spiritual condition, who are humbled by His law/spirit. Yet, their formulaic pitch comes off pretty cheesy and superficial. Even the people answering their questions don’t seem to be taking any of this seriously. The camera makes the whole thing a joke.
Their basic outline for helping people see that they too have broken God’s law is okay, but it boils down to a hard-sell that typically leads people to a decisionistic prayer to “receive Jesus” (even though Ray explains that is not necessary).
Law/Gospel is good. Christian-Reality-Evangelism-TV is bad.
That brand of evangelism is all about getting people “saved” (i.e. showing them how to pick up their ticket to heaven). Whether it is about getting someone to the point of saying “the prayer” of getting into the water, justification is the end goal. I have tried that approach before and guess what, those people are no more of a disciple of Jesus than they were before they picked up their ticket to heaven. Paul was interested in presenting to God a people that were sanctified (Rom. 15.15-16), which means justification was a means to the end (sanctification).
Also if were going to learn evangelism tips from Jesus, then we should take notice that Jesus did not start of badgering people about how evil they were rather he developed a dialougue relationship with them.
we’ve been talking about this series over the last week on email, seems i even know people who have done it…
i found this line rather amusing…
“I was in Australia recently ministering; Australia is a small island off the coast of New Zealand.”
I bet Australians wouldn’t like this show too much.
Small island? It’s a continent!
I got to the huge “ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN (YES) or (NO)” buttons. I clicked “no” just for kicks and could only stand about 3 seconds of the presentation before closing my window. Maybe when I’m in the mood to be depressed and bothered by pop-christianity I’ll check out the site again.
Kirk is a self-righteous freak.
Trying to find the positive…I actually have watched a few of these programs and I can appreciate them for some of their methodology. For instance, I found the use of the ten commandments an interesting way to illustrate to others why we need Christ. Personally, I might’ve have done things in a more subtle way, but I think there are people who respond to the method they illustrate, while others are just horrified with it. The truth is, some people never think about their state of sin. It’s not something that any of us want to think about and I have even had Christians tell me that they don’t believe in a sin nature at all.
That’s our culture. A world full of people who just don’t think much about whether what they are doing is right or wrong. As disturbing as Kirk’s method might seem, and let me just say it isn’t for me, it might be that there are people out there who might actually need that type of discussion. It might get them thinking a little about where they stand with God.
April-
I agree that some people will respond well to this kind of thing. But that doesn’t mean that Christians should go around using these techniques, because they will be revolting to the vast majority of people, and the harm done outweighs the good, if the techniques are used indiscriminately and with strangers.
If you know someone well enough to know that they would respond to this approach, that’s great. Go ahead. But Kirk and Ray seem to be encouraging people to walk up to strangers and start accusing them of being evil, which is, in my book, a bad, bad idea.
I know what you’re saying, and for the most part I agree with you. I already said that I personally wouldn’t do it that way, but I was just wondering if their method was wrong or if it was just different.
I guess what I’m asking is is there really a wrong or right way to evangelize or are there just different ways?
I had a friend from my office send me a copy of an email that he sent to a gentleman. The man had questioned a comment that friend had made, and my friend sent him the entire story of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and the meaning of it to the man. Then, my friend said something interesting. He said, “Now this man can never say that he hadn’t heard about Christ.”
I would never have done what my friend did, but I think that sometimes God uses attempts like this at evangelism to wake people up. Remember that God can turn any wrong that we do into good, and I just really hope and pray that all of the things that I have done wrong in the past will be made right by God.
On the other hand, time is not short…people live an average of 65+ years in the developed world, and they have plenty of opportunity to hear about the Gospel in depth. There’s no reason to distort it by reducing it to “You suck. You are guilty. Go to hell…or become a Christian and be saved.”
I suppose you could say there are techniques that work on different people different ways. However, I don’t like the idea of evangelism as something that is done to a (non-Christian) person, but rather done by a (Christian) person for the good of the world. In that process, we need to do at least as well as doctors pledge to do in the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm.
Guilting people does a great deal of harm. It does not give them any real information about Jesus, and it reinforces the stereotype that Christians are obnoxious jerks who only see people as the sum of their perceived sins.
Natalie, that is a very pragmatic approach, so it only makes sense if it actually works (though that still doesn’t fully justify it).
However, the overwhelming evidence is that confrontational evangelism does not work. If no harm is done to the people who don’t respond, then maybe the small number of people who respond make it worthwhile. But a great deal of harm is done to every person who does not respond. The likelihood that they will ever be interested in Christianity again is strongly diminished by the crass and rude presentation of it that they were exposed to by Kirk’s methods.
Confrontational evangelism is the spiritual equivalent of going to the bars downtown on Friday night with a baseball bat. Undoubtedly, many people will be driving home a little tipsy, which can cause horrific tragedies. So, why not chase down everyone who looks drunk and bludgeon them unconscious with a bat so they can’t drive home? The ambulance will come and pick them up, and no one will be killed. Good solution, right?
It’s true that drunk driving is a serious problem. But beating inebriated people unconscious is not the proper solution to the problem, even if the problem is:
a. Urgent
b. Serious
c. A matter of life and death
d. Likely to not be taken seriously by the person
e. Very much a matter of concern for you
Evangelism, like preventing drunk driving, is a good thing, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it.
Natalie-
Have you seen Kirk’s show? It’s very much the baseball bat type. I don’t know what you had in mind, but the show is spiritually violent.
Justin, after looking around at Natalie’s blog, I that she has definitely seen Kirk’s show.
Sorry Natalie, I was just going through my spam filter and just found your latest comment. Not intentional by any means.
Actually, I don’t know what happened to your comments. They were here earlier. I’ll do some checking.
Until I get it sorted out, Natalie, you can register so your comments don’t get moderated.
Sad situation.
Funny paraphrase!