Is it wrong for Christian to preach at people who don't believe what they do?

[Indeependent]

My granddaughter in early college has unfortunately taken up with some fundamentalist group that is running a camp where they teach these very young college students of about age 18 to run around and bend peoples' ears about Jesus and God and on and on at length.

It seems to me the height of arrogance for young people even to think they HAVE something to teach older people. And of course it's boring and incoherent because they aren't old enough to have any clue what they believe.

The worst part is that she knows I don't want to hear that stuff -- I've told her -- but they push her to "witness" to everyone, me included, apparently. It seems wrong to me: unmannerly and just immoral behavior to push one's own religious beliefs aggressively on someone else. Especially an older relative.

Yeah, I know I have to do an assertiveness thing and tell her to stop and mean it and keep saying it till she does, or whatever happens. My responsibility is not to allow bad behavior. But it's too bad these adults running this smarmy outfit are promoting such bad and unfashionable behavior. She'll get nothing but rejection, IMO. They make money off this: I don't know who funded her for this camp, but it wasn't me.

Any opinions on this "witnessing" business, or advice?

Sometimes I just sit back and wonder, why is faith so bad? God forbid she decides to keep her unborn child instead of murder it. God forbid she lives her life refusing to run around screwing around so that she ether gets an STD or wishes she could have an abortion. Oh, and don't expect her to wind up in a crack house cuz that just not fashionable being a Christian and all. Really, your only concern should be is if some cult like entity who is pretending to represent Christ are actually there to brain wash her in some David Koresh like fashion so that they can abuse her sexually or take all her money. And yes, pretty much all churches I know make money as does everyone else I know in this world, but saying that they are only in it for the money is pretty horrible if not true.

So let's assume worse case scenario. They are in it for the money. How much money does she actually have? Being so young, my guess is next to none. Hopefully, if they are in it for the money she will get enough teaching to realize that the people who started her Christian faith were not in it for the money. In fact, every last one of them gave up their lives for their faith and died dirt poor. Then she will hopefully realize the true message that will continue to stop her from screwing around, doing drugs, or being so consumed with money that she doesn't give a damn about you or anyone else and wishes you would die so she might get an inheritance from you.

Faith is beautiful; just don't feel or express that others who have a different slant on faith are going to burn in some Eternal Lake of Fire for eternity.
Especially when there are billions of people in the last 1,000 years who had no chance in hell of ever getting the warning.

People need to be told that there are dire consequences for their actions, whether it is a Lake of Fire or being locked in prison for life or just an untimely death. etc. So choose your poison. I personally think that God has a little something, something waiting for people like the Nazi regime. (wink, wink)

Without the "fear of God", then you have a sociopath utopia with no fear of evil.

In Judaism, you do indeed create your own eternity, however, there's no blanket eternal sentence for not believing in a particular faith system as long as that system enhances the quality of life.

 

[Cecilie1200]

My granddaughter in early college has unfortunately taken up with some fundamentalist group that is running a camp where they teach these very young college students of about age 18 to run around and bend peoples' ears about Jesus and God and on and on at length.

It seems to me the height of arrogance for young people even to think they HAVE something to teach older people. And of course it's boring and incoherent because they aren't old enough to have any clue what they believe.

The worst part is that she knows I don't want to hear that stuff -- I've told her -- but they push her to "witness" to everyone, me included, apparently. It seems wrong to me: unmannerly and just immoral behavior to push one's own religious beliefs aggressively on someone else. Especially an older relative.

Yeah, I know I have to do an assertiveness thing and tell her to stop and mean it and keep saying it till she does, or whatever happens. My responsibility is not to allow bad behavior. But it's too bad these adults running this smarmy outfit are promoting such bad and unfashionable behavior. She'll get nothing but rejection, IMO. They make money off this: I don't know who funded her for this camp, but it wasn't me.

Any opinions on this "witnessing" business, or advice?

Well, the Bible does direct Christians to witness to others, but as someone from a long line of very devout fundamentalist Protestants, I can tell you that I have objected to the "bulldozer" school of witnessing my entire life.

The most effective witnesses for Christianity I have ever met were my parents. Neither of them ever once, that I'm aware of, explicitly told anyone that they were Christians. They didn't need to.

In my mind, effective witnessing is exactly like what they teach you in creative writing class: SHOW, don't tell.

 

[Cecilie1200]

If you don’t want to hear the message you are free not to. But no one should be silenced

Oh, I agree, I wouldn't silence her generally, nor interfere with any beliefs she holds! She can believe anything she wants, and change-change-change as I have all these years and as she doubtless will also.

No, what I object to is the violation of personal boundaries. I guess this one is a spiritual boundary: I said don't preach at me, but she does it anyway, apparently because this dreadful cult thing is pushing her to do it. What do you think about people doing that? Isn't it a boundary violation?

It seems very sinister to me: they are going in a group to New York and Spain to "witness" to people I very much doubt want to do anything but make prostitutes out of these young girls. I hope they don't "witness" to Muslims and get blown up in Spain --- there's been a lot of that there.

I think perhaps you need to point out that her behavior is doing the exact opposite of what God wants: it's driving people away from Him, rather than bringing them to Him. As such, her attempts to obey God are effectively disobeying Him, because she's making the witnessing about HER, rather than about Him.

Christians like to talk about "winning people to Christ". That is 100% incorrect. WE do not "win" anyone anywhere. HE does it. Our job is not to lecture or argue or debate people into believing; it is to simply provide an example of what having Christ in one's life looks like, and let Him do the rest.

If we go around modeling the "Christianity means being an offensive pain in the posterior who's incredibly unpleasant to be around" picture, we're not exactly helping, are we?

 

[Cecilie1200]

It sounds like your granddaughter is doing what her religion teaches. Is it polite in a society? Of course not. It's like discussing religion or politics at the dinner table. It's considered a no-no. But it sounds like she isn't some half-assed Christian who squelches her beliefs based on social norms. Maybe that's a good thing.

Huh. Do we have no defense, those of us who don't want to hear this nonsense? It's aggressive to talk at people and try to overpersuade them into some alien belief system they have said they don't want to hear anymore. Surely that's immoral.

Are we supposed to just waste our lives listening to a lot of verbiage that seems coersive and aggressive? Do I have to give a hearing to EVERYone who comes along, all the gazillions of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons who have come up to this farm and rang the doorbell over the decades? How about the Fuller Brush Man, or Asphalt Driveway Man who came just last week, went on and on trying to talk me into some home improvement deal till I went in?

Yes. You have the same defense that any person does against any family member who is making an unmitigated burden on any social occasion out of herself: tell her to be considerate of the feelings of others, or stay home. And you should. Treat her religious behavior exactly the way you would treat the behavior of a family member who insisted on trying to start political arguments at Thanksgiving.

 

[Circe]

I've got it! And as I read thru the thread, I realize that two or more participants got it before me.

I worked thru the ethics of this situation. Many of you said that granddaughter was right because Christians are urged to preach to the world. Even my husband said that: his father was a fundamentalist preacher long ago. (His father had good manners, however, and didn't carry on in this cult way.)

BUT --- The Thugees of India are known to be supposed to kill at least three travellers a year and rob them. That was their religion.

Muslims are well known now to be told in the Koran to stay in Jihad against us all their lives; to kill all apostates (like Obama, who was raised Muslim and is certainly up for being murdered as an apostate), to war forever against infidels, meaning you and me.

If their holy books they have to obey such terrible instructions that we don't think valid, then the same is true of the New Testament, which enjoins Christians to make themselves a total nuisance and disliked by all their family and friends, as long as they have any, which is unlikely to be long if they constantly buttonhole people with preaching, after people tell them to stop that.

Mormons' holy book says they have to marry many wives (so they can reproduce enough to take over the world), but did anyone ask the women of the world if they want that? Apparently Mormon churchmen didn't care what women thought. Every man is supposed to marry at least seven women, one for every day of the week. The Federal Government officially stopped all this terrible polygamy in 1892, though it never really stopped, as the horrible abuse trials of the criminal men who continue to do that show.

So that's the problem: Holy Books all over the world give AWFUL commandments to their faithful, to behave frankly badly, often murderously. So these books are wrong, wrong, and immoral, and no one should do the bad things they command: they all just want their religion to take over the world, that's the whole point. That's why the New Testament tries to get everyone to preach to the heathen.

Well, they need to stop that. Right now. It's completely unacceptable behavior and I'm not having another word of it.

 

[Avatar4321]

I've got it! And as I read thru the thread, I realize that two or more participants got it before me.

I worked thru the ethics of this situation. Many of you said that granddaughter was right because Christians are urged to preach to the world. Even my husband said that: his father was a fundamentalist preacher long ago. (His father had good manners, however, and didn't carry on in this cult way.)

BUT --- The Thugees of India are known to be supposed to kill at least three travellers a year and rob them. That was their religion.

Muslims are well known now to be told in the Koran to stay in Jihad against us all their lives; to kill all apostates (like Obama, who was raised Muslim and is certainly up for being murdered as an apostate), to war forever against infidels, meaning you and me.

If their holy books they have to obey such terrible instructions that we don't think valid, then the same is true of the New Testament, which enjoins Christians to make themselves a total nuisance and disliked by all their family and friends, as long as they have any, which is unlikely to be long if they constantly buttonhole people with preaching, after people tell them to stop that.

Mormons' holy book says they have to marry many wives (so they can reproduce enough to take over the world), but did anyone ask the women of the world if they want that? Apparently Mormon churchmen didn't care what women thought. Every man is supposed to marry at least seven women, one for every day of the week. The Federal Government officially stopped all this terrible polygamy in 1892, though it never really stopped, as the horrible abuse trials of the criminal men who continue to do that show.

So that's the problem: Holy Books all over the world give AWFUL commandments to their faithful, to behave frankly badly, often murderously. So these books are wrong, wrong, and immoral, and no one should do the bad things they command: they all just want their religion to take over the world, that's the whole point. That's why the New Testament tries to get everyone to preach to the heathen.

Well, they need to stop that. Right now. It's completely unacceptable behavior and I'm not having another word of it.

That is the most ignorant piece of garbage I’ve ever heard

 

[Circe]

Yeah --- religions command their adherents to do whatever it takes to increase the number of their followers. Having lots of children with lots of wives for Mormons, killing everyone non-Muslim for Islam, "preaching to all the world" for Christianity.

It's all illegitimate, because maybe the rest of the world doesn't want to be taken over and oppressed by the alien religion in question. So it should always be stopped, whenever these types start up. It's immoral: it's unethical.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I've got it! And as I read thru the thread, I realize that two or more participants got it before me.

I worked thru the ethics of this situation. Many of you said that granddaughter was right because Christians are urged to preach to the world. Even my husband said that: his father was a fundamentalist preacher long ago. (His father had good manners, however, and didn't carry on in this cult way.)

BUT --- The Thugees of India are known to be supposed to kill at least three travellers a year and rob them. That was their religion.

Muslims are well known now to be told in the Koran to stay in Jihad against us all their lives; to kill all apostates (like Obama, who was raised Muslim and is certainly up for being murdered as an apostate), to war forever against infidels, meaning you and me.

If their holy books they have to obey such terrible instructions that we don't think valid, then the same is true of the New Testament, which enjoins Christians to make themselves a total nuisance and disliked by all their family and friends, as long as they have any, which is unlikely to be long if they constantly buttonhole people with preaching, after people tell them to stop that.

Mormons' holy book says they have to marry many wives (so they can reproduce enough to take over the world), but did anyone ask the women of the world if they want that? Apparently Mormon churchmen didn't care what women thought. Every man is supposed to marry at least seven women, one for every day of the week. The Federal Government officially stopped all this terrible polygamy in 1892, though it never really stopped, as the horrible abuse trials of the criminal men who continue to do that show.

So that's the problem: Holy Books all over the world give AWFUL commandments to their faithful, to behave frankly badly, often murderously. So these books are wrong, wrong, and immoral, and no one should do the bad things they command: they all just want their religion to take over the world, that's the whole point. That's why the New Testament tries to get everyone to preach to the heathen.

Well, they need to stop that. Right now. It's completely unacceptable behavior and I'm not having another word of it.

Yeah, that's an awfully long, roundabout reasoning to get to "You're not obligated to tolerate rudeness just because it's blamed on religion".

It's almost like you were looking for an opening to attack religion, or something.

Forgive me for thinking you had an actual, honest question you wanted answered. Allow me to demonstrate how to deal with belief-based boorishness:

Goodbye.

 

[Circe]

Thanks, all, you've been a lot of help in clarifying this difficult issue. I hope she gets clear of what some of you have suggested is a cult. I think you may be right. She's a smart kid and may well work it out, I hope so.

In any case, I'll help by being assertive: no preaching at me.

 

[Circe]

Yeah, that's an awfully long, roundabout reasoning to get to "You're not obligated to tolerate rudeness just because it's blamed on religion".

It's almost like you were looking for an opening to attack religion, or something.

Forgive me for thinking you had an actual, honest question you wanted answered. Allow me to demonstrate how to deal with belief-based boorishness:

Goodbye.

I did have a big worry about this issue. I agree yours is a succinct statement of the problem and the answer! Shorter than mine. Congrats.

 

[irosie91]

that's ok----I understand. I am a jew and grew up amongst assholes like you. ---It
was a very WASP town. It was so WASP a town that it was actually restricted until the excess of land got turned into BABY BOOM housing. My poor father had no idea when my mom came up pregnant with twins----(that would be number 4 and 5) and we were no long able to stay in the tiny apartment--------HE TOOK WHAT HE COULD GET-------a little house in a ---functionally restricted town. A little house and the VA house mortgage-----it was a tight squeeze financially----but my parents were children of the depression so they MANAGED. I learned all about Christianity----I even attended sunday school

I've heard that story before. You are just another atheist to me who has an ax to grind with Christianity. You don't have beliefs. You have arguments against others having beliefs.

you have no idea what are my "BELIEFS".
As to ATHIEST----to YOU anyone who does not buy into the idea that "god" wrote the NT is an "atheist" ---here it is-----"god" did not write the NT -----a committee appointed by the Mass murdering pig---CONSTANTINE----wrote it as an apology for GENOCIDE. His admirer----ADOLF appreciated him so much that he modeled his Nuremburg laws
to the filth generated by dog Constantine.
The POPE did not object-----after all----the laws that were generated by Constantine formed the basis of the INQUISITION<<that noble institution

Your beliefs are anti-christian. Everyone knows that. That's all you talk about, Rosie.

Adolf admired the Muslims. He thought Christians were weak. If my memory serves me correctly, Christians defeated him and saved your sorry asses. Gave you a home too. Your selective memory is convenient.

The inquisition stopped the socialist heretics, Rosie. They were some reprehensible mother fuckers. Not to mention the aggressors. Again, your selective memory is convenient.

You have no idea what good the Pope and other Catholics did during WWII. Your memory is selective.

you are not only disgusting----you are also a joke. I do know what good catholics did during world war II-------an active number---Adolf, Mengele, Saint Magda of the Cyanide, Josef Goebbels-------Pius------much too little and much too late----he could not even bring himself to excommunicate his fave son ADOLF----or ever the vile vulgar piece of crap "FATHER CHARLES COUGHLIN" who advocated for Saint Adolf right here in the USA to an audience of enthralled millions

You only know what you look for, Rosie.

You don't dare look for the whole picture. It would shatter your beliefs.

THE WHOLE PICTURE----I just provided a
little window into the mess of 2000 years

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

“Is it wrong for[a]Christian to preach at people who don't believe what they do?”

It’s wrong when asked not to do so and a Christian does so anyway.

The irony is that Christian proselytizing is a manifestation of arrogance, which is supposed to be a sin.

 

[irosie91]

“Is it wrong for[a]Christian to preach at people who don't believe what they do?”

It’s wrong when asked not to do so and a Christian does so anyway.

The irony is that Christian proselytizing is a manifestation of arrogance, which is supposed to be a sin.

you have an interesting perspective. What do you think of Christian proselytizers who
INSIST that those countries that have laws
against ACTIVE PROSELYTIZING----are
"OPPRESSING CHRISTIANS" (hint--India is such a country)

 

[Meriweather]

Yeah --- religions command their adherents to do whatever it takes to increase the number of their followers. Having lots of children with lots of wives for Mormons, killing everyone non-Muslim for Islam, "preaching to all the world" for Christianity.

It's all illegitimate, because maybe the rest of the world doesn't want to be taken over and oppressed by the alien religion in question. So it should always be stopped, whenever these types start up. It's immoral: it's unethical.

Religion: Everyone see it my way, and we will have world peace!
No Religion: Everyone see it my way, and we will have world peace!

"My way or the highway!" is the reason there will never be world peace. It is not about religion, it is about power. Besides, you have it all wrong, at least as it comes to Christianity. There will always be wars, a fact Jesus pointed out. So, given that there will always be war, how can an individual find peace in his/her own world?

Christianity isn't about peace in the Middle East, on the Korean peninsula, or even in the political views of America. Peace is about the war between you and your granddaughter. That is where you want peace in your world. My grandfather was atheist. I am Catholic. We got along so well I married an atheist. It came down to understanding. I understood why he was atheist; he understood why I was Catholic. There was no resentment that one of us was the opposite of the other.

Christianity believes that God not only loves us, but thoroughly loves us and heals our spirits. His love flows through us and hopefully teaches us to love and accept our neighbors and loved ones as He does. This is what brings about His peace into our own individual world. Knowing God's love is a pearl of great value. Let your granddaughter know you are happy she found this pearl. Let her know that not only are you at peace with her, but you are also very much at peace with your own lack of belief.

Teach her, "He who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." That the more we argue, the deeper our own roots cling to our own position, the harder our hearts grow. Therefore the truce between the two of you will be acceptance and no proselytizing because neither of you want stone hearts coming between you.

 

[irosie91]

Christianity is ---by history and teaching---confined to
the relationship between grandma and grandchild---which is the issue which attracted Constantine

 

[rightwinger]

I am an atheist

I have no problem with someone who wants to share their beliefs. But they need to be considerate of others beliefs or no belief. If you offer up your belief and someone is not interested ....you need to back off

Knocking on doors or pushing your religion on coworkers is arrogant and offensive

 

[irosie91]

and don't target children

 

[Circe]

“Is it wrong for[a]Christian to preach at people who don't believe what they do?”

It’s wrong when asked not to do so and a Christian does so anyway.

The irony is that Christian proselytizing is a manifestation of arrogance, which is supposed to be a sin.

you have an interesting perspective. What do you think of Christian proselytizers who
INSIST that those countries that have laws
against ACTIVE PROSELYTIZING----are
"OPPRESSING CHRISTIANS" (hint--India is such a country)

Interesting branch to this issue!! There are a lot of countries that prohibit proselytizing by Christians -- all the Muslim countries do. And of course North Korea, and China curbs it effectively. Though China still has some Christians because of early missionaries, which led to the incredibly violent Boxer Rebellion around the turn of the last century. Sending in missionaries has long been a way to conquer countries culturally and bring them under the rule of colonial powers: The Spanish started right in with that as soon as the Americas were discovered. Same with Africa, when all the colonies there were formed. South Korea was taken over, Japan successfully resisted conversion. Whenever Jews get both numerous and powerful, they are kicked out (or worse) -- Spain 1492, England around 1206. Because they would challenge Christian hegemony.

Huh! I never thought of all this as part of the aggressive preaching. But yeah, cultural takeovers. Would any of us be okay with Muslims proselytizing on the streets, coming to the doors like Mormons? I sure wouldn't. I'd want a law against it, I think.

Though Muslims don't really proselytize: they just say, be Muslim or we'll kill you, as they do in Africa right now, with all the wars and kidnappings. It does have a certain efficiency to it, as a tactic.

 

[Votto]

I've got it! And as I read thru the thread, I realize that two or more participants got it before me.

I worked thru the ethics of this situation. Many of you said that granddaughter was right because Christians are urged to preach to the world. Even my husband said that: his father was a fundamentalist preacher long ago. (His father had good manners, however, and didn't carry on in this cult way.)

BUT --- The Thugees of India are known to be supposed to kill at least three travellers a year and rob them. That was their religion.

Muslims are well known now to be told in the Koran to stay in Jihad against us all their lives; to kill all apostates (like Obama, who was raised Muslim and is certainly up for being murdered as an apostate), to war forever against infidels, meaning you and me.

If their holy books they have to obey such terrible instructions that we don't think valid, then the same is true of the New Testament, which enjoins Christians to make themselves a total nuisance and disliked by all their family and friends, as long as they have any, which is unlikely to be long if they constantly buttonhole people with preaching, after people tell them to stop that.

Mormons' holy book says they have to marry many wives (so they can reproduce enough to take over the world), but did anyone ask the women of the world if they want that? Apparently Mormon churchmen didn't care what women thought. Every man is supposed to marry at least seven women, one for every day of the week. The Federal Government officially stopped all this terrible polygamy in 1892, though it never really stopped, as the horrible abuse trials of the criminal men who continue to do that show.

So that's the problem: Holy Books all over the world give AWFUL commandments to their faithful, to behave frankly badly, often murderously. So these books are wrong, wrong, and immoral, and no one should do the bad things they command: they all just want their religion to take over the world, that's the whole point. That's why the New Testament tries to get everyone to preach to the heathen.

Well, they need to stop that. Right now. It's completely unacceptable behavior and I'm not having another word of it.

Was Jesus just as awful?

It seems to me that they even tried to use the Bible against him as well, but Christ said that they were ignoring the spirit of the Word of God in order to use it as a weapon against him. Case in point was healing on the Sabbath. They accused him of breaking the Sabbath, to which he retorted, which of you would not go save an animal in distress on the Sabbath?

Take a perfect message and give it to corrupt and flawed individuals and they will try to destroy it, just as they hung Christ on a cross.

 

[Votto]

“Is it wrong for[a]Christian to preach at people who don't believe what they do?”

It’s wrong when asked not to do so and a Christian does so anyway.

The irony is that Christian proselytizing is a manifestation of arrogance, which is supposed to be a sin.

you have an interesting perspective. What do you think of Christian proselytizers who
INSIST that those countries that have laws
against ACTIVE PROSELYTIZING----are
"OPPRESSING CHRISTIANS" (hint--India is such a country)

Interesting branch to this issue!! There are a lot of countries that prohibit proselytizing by Christians -- all the Muslim countries do. And of course North Korea, and China curbs it effectively. Though China still has some Christians because of early missionaries, which led to the incredibly violent Boxer Rebellion around the turn of the last century. Sending in missionaries has long been a way to conquer countries culturally and bring them under the rule of colonial powers: The Spanish started right in with that as soon as the Americas were discovered. Same with Africa, when all the colonies there were formed. South Korea was taken over, Japan successfully resisted conversion. Whenever Jews get both numerous and powerful, they are kicked out (or worse) -- Spain 1492, England around 1206. Because they would challenge Christian hegemony.

Huh! I never thought of all this as part of the aggressive preaching. But yeah, cultural takeovers. Would any of us be okay with Muslims proselytizing on the streets, coming to the doors like Mormons? I sure wouldn't. I'd want a law against it, I think.

Though Muslims don't really proselytize: they just say, be Muslim or we'll kill you, as they do in Africa right now, with all the wars and kidnappings. It does have a certain efficiency to it, as a tactic.

I know some missionaries and they do their work to help people and not to take over countries. They actually give a damn, do you?

Hell, the US government does not even want to take over countries. They just bomb the poo out of them till ISIS takes over.