Silent Witness?
Laura at Pursuing Holiness is concerned with the idea of a “silent witness,” as accomplished by wearing cheesy buttons. No, she’s not talking about the need to shout, but rather the need to be clear and Biblical in the way in which one witnesses. Her particular target is the AFA’s program of Easter buttons which look much more like a fundraising gambit than a good witnessing idea.
Christians you encounter might smile and nod approvingly, perhaps wishing they were so bold as to wear a button with an Easter message on it, but non-Christians – unless they are the type of person whos just looking to pick a fight – will avoid you when you wear this button. Look at it from their perspective. They already (wrongly) think theyre going to have to give up all kinds of fun and freedom in order to be a Christian. Now theyre going to have to wear a cheesy button, too. Thats enticing, all right. Theyre afraid that if they become Christians theyll have to wear a Look out! Im a Godbag! button.
Just so.
And in case someone’s out there thinking I just say this because I’m a liberal and don’t believe in witnessing, let me say that I believe very much in witnessing. I believe in good witnessing that reflects well on the Person to whom we bear witness. It seems to me that some people think that witnessing is a convention of Rude and Obnoxious People for Jesus.
When you take on the name “Christian” or “follower of Jesus” or however you want to say it, you don’t merely have the option of witness. You are a witness. I remember vividly the moment this was engraved in my brain. Some years ago I was under substantial pressure over something at work (I was not working as a Bible teacher at the time!). In the break area I started to cuss the person responsible with every word I had heard. After the incident, a coworker walked up to me and said, “I thought you were a Christian.” He might as well have thrown me up against the wall, and it couldn’t have shocked me any more. Such a shock is very good for the system!
You are a witness. What type?
A couple of thoughts on this one.
I would agree that the idea of a button as an effective witness tool is a bit absurd, the original post seems to be more inclined to taking shots at an entire group of christians whom they dislike. This kind of bickering among Christians is as unbecoming as the button.
To be fair to the AFA, their witness isn’t limited to just buttons. And while people may not like their understanding of Christianity, they still seek to follow the same Christ we are following. It takes an arrogance of position to assume that they are wrong in all aspects of their ministry.
Most people would have been uncomfortable with John the Baptist’s in your face approach to the people he met too, yet Jesus leveled no criticism at him, in fact offered a high bit of praise.
Secondly,
Your recounting of your incident where you were called to account for your cursing by the person who asked – I thought you were a Christian – while I don’t know the rest of the story, your response feeds the notion you are trying to avoid about Christianity – that it’s just a bunch of rules to obey to make us “nice” people. Being a Christian doesn’t make us unhuman. Your fit of anger was a part of our humanity. Being Christian means that this fit of anger may still happen, but what comes after that makes the difference.
I think CS Lewis in his writings and letters does the best job of adressing these apparent contradicitions between what we sometimes perceive as unchristian behavior and our following of Christianity.
Well, I think Laura indicated she approves of many of the AFA’s goals, but disapproves of their methods. She is probably actually a bit more complimentary about them than I would be. Yet I do not regard them as other than Christian; I merely think they are misguided in a number of ways. Were I sufficiently famous (or infamous), they would probably think the same way about me! 🙂
I think we may differ here. I don’t think Christianity is a set of rules designed to make us nice; I think Christianity is Christ working in us to transform us. Now my action didn’t make me “not a Christian” or even a horrible person. But my action was inappropriate, and did not reflect well on the gospel message I teach. Thus it was something about which I should be concerned.
In fact, I would hardly regard my behavior in that case as civilized. Now afterward I made things right with all concerned–that was both Christian and civilized.
There’s a balance here between “I gotta be good or I’m not a Christian” and “it doesn’t matter how I behave.”
Henry, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the balance between the all-or-nothing and the laissez faire perspectives on Christianity.
I think many “non-Christians” look at the all-or-nothing view and think that they have to get their lives in order before they can come to Jesus. On the other hand, many people take a legalistic view of John 3:16 and say “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. There I said it and now I’m going back to my regularly scheduled life.”
My personal take on it is that we are called on to have a heart for living a Christ-like life and that “whosoever believes” in John 3:16 means ongoing work in living that life as best we can. We will not be able to do it on our own. We must have the help of God. Even then, it is not immediate and I don’t think it ends in this life.
Speaking back to the original post, witnessing with buttons, I heard a great quote from the pulpit recently: “Your life may be the only Bible that some people ever gt to read.”
Thanks for a great blog,
Bubba
Honestly, the verb “witnessing” gives me the willies. Maybe it’s because I come out of a pietist tradition in which “witnessing” had a sort of heroic quality attached to it. It was a way of proclaiming “I’m different and I’m not afraid to be different!” I still see it in some of the stuff they emphasize in my kid’s youth group — all this over-use of the modifier “radical” or “extreme,” like some kind of spiritual x-games.
I think it should be more along the lines of “look at what God has done!” There’s a subtle difference here: not witnessing to my difference, but instead bearing witness — telling the story — of the difference God makes. Forget about me and my buttons and t-shirts, and take a look at the incarnational triune God.