When I was an atheist, there were people who would stare at me earnestly, touch my arm gently and ask, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” Others would gaze at me with big mooning eyes and chirp, “Jesus loves you!”
They all made me feel a little queasy.
You see, when you are solidly enmeshed in a worldview that insists there is no God, and Jesus is simply a figment of someone’s imagination, the last thing you want to encounter is some earnest, smiling evangelist intent on changing your mind.
You cringe at the sight of a Bible, and you hide in the house if someone carrying pamphlets rings the doorbell. You don’t want to be invited to services, and you don’t want someone assuring you of their prayers.
Although many Christians quite successfully convey the good news about Jesus in such ways, their evangelizing efforts may backfire big time with certain personalities.
Atheists and agnostics especially may be keen on fleeing as fast as they can when they glimpse an evangelist heading their way.
Problem is, they have heard it all before. They have been told since childhood how much Jesus loves them, how he died for them and how they need to accept him as their personal lord and savior.
But this all falls on deaf ears when you are dealing with wounded people who want nothing to do with God. And even if many atheists may protest this description — insisting they have come to a conclusion about God’s nonexistence based entirely on cold logic — many refuse to believe because of some deep hurt in their past.
Maybe a parent suffered for a long time before dying. Maybe a child was killed in a car wreck.
Maybe they grew up in a house where hellfire and damnation were all they heard about.
Some people give up on God because they see too many supposedly godly people running around the world committing crimes. Or maybe they encountered a pernicious preacher whose real interest was hoodwinking the congregation out of their hard-earned cash.
I was so jaded that I regularly made fun of Jesus, and certainly had nothing but bitter words for the well-meaning evangelists who assured me that he loved me. I was furious with God, you see, for allowing my parents to die — and I wasn’t about to offer him an olive branch just because a believer encouraged me to return to the fold.
My picture of God was skewed, since I saw him as someone who should have answered my fervent pleas — and I blamed him for all the world’s suffering.
Then I met a priest who didn’t insist that I change overnight. He didn’t demand that I sign on the dotted line, declaring my eternal devotion to the Lord and my commitment to Christian teachings.
Instead, he accepted me right where I was — cynical, world-weary and worn — and showed me mercy and compassion. He became Christ for me. And that really is the best evangelizing of all.
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