Growing Religious Threat

[Jedi Guy]

29. The call to make "disciples of the nations" is frequently wildly misinterpreted, in my view.

The guy who was the pastor at my church when I was a kid had a thought-provoking way of putting it. He pointed out that Jesus commanded his disciplines to be "fishers of men." Okay, so how does one fish? Does one wade into the water with a club and beat the fish into submission? Of course not, because that's not going to be very effective. You might catch the odd, very slow fish that way, but most of them will be scared away.

One fishes by baiting the hook and waiting for the fish to get curious and take a nibble. In this metaphor, the "bait" is being a good, kind, decent person, or being Christlike. His advice was to make one's faith known and let that be that. If someone is curious, they'll ask. If they're not, they won't. But it should be their choice to approach and ask rather than being beaten over the head with a Bible.

He was kind of controversial for that, and for other stances. I hung out with some kids that many in the church felt were "inappropriate company" for the son of a church elder. Our pastor pointed out that Jesus hung out with whores, tax collectors, and other "dregs of society" at the time, so that caused kind of a stir, even though he was absolutely right.

And to be clear, I'm not saying that only Christians or people of faith can be good, kind, and decent. I've met many Christians who were anything but, and many atheists and agnostics who were incredibly good, kind, and decent. Moral goodness is not contingent upon religious belief.