Evangelism by Fear

Roadside sign:

Heaven and Hell are real and Jesus is the only way into Heaven

Driving along the other day I happened to pass this sign and took an instant dislike to it!  When I analysed what it was that I objected to I discovered that it was the use of fear as a tool of evangelism.  What is it that we are trying to persuade people to believe in?  Is it a god who is angry and threatening, who will burn us forever if we don't do what he wants?  Or is it a God who loves us, who wants the best for us, who, when we turn away, will not reject us - again and again and again?

And which God (for evangelism is God's work) is more likely to persuade people to follow Him?

EDIT:  Found this:

Benedict is saying that the function of spiritual leadership is not to intimidate people into submission by fear or guilt. The function of spiritual leadership is to show in our own lives the beauty that oozes out of those who live the spiritual life to its fullness. The function of spiritual leadership is to enshrine what a good life can be.

On this site - won't be there tomorrow!

What kind of people work for themselves?

What are the skills that you need to be self employed?  I recently read about a priest (on a retreat site) who had left the church to become self employed.  Over the years I have often wondered about becoming self employed and never done it.  I think that there are two things that I lack: unbounded confidence that everything will turn out OK (in fact I have rather the opposite - see here) and an ability not to worry (see here).  Neither of these are great attributes for a man of faith - see here and here.

This reminded me of the theory we discussed many years ago at work.  Have you noticed, like we did, that most of the big entrepreneurs don't have much in the way of formal education?  We came to the conclusion that this was not chance.  To make it as an entrepreneur you have to take risks with your life.  If you have a degree you can (at least you could then) be reasonably assured of a good life with little risk by entering one of the professions, the civil service, or management.  Why would you risk that to take up an insecure self employed role?  It could also be that to be a successful entrepreneur you need to have a clear vision of what you want to do - and that further education will rarely help take you towards it.

There are of course those who are exceptions to the rule.  Some like Stelios Haji-Ioannou have family wealth changing the risk/reward ratio somewhat.  Others like Michael Lynch turn their academic research into a product, again changing the risk/reward ratio.

And yet the irony is that technically I am now an office holder and not an employee!

Do you pick up hitch-hikers?

I passed a hitch-hiker the other day and didn't stop.  And here I am much later still thinking about it.  It reminds me of a story from Joan Chittister's commentary on the rule of Benedict:

A Zen story tells of two monks walking down a muddy, rain-logged road on the way back to their monastery after a morning of begging who saw a beautiful young girl standing beside a large deep puddle unable to get across without ruining her clothes. The first monk, seeing the situation, offered to carry the girl to the other side, though monks had nothing whatsoever to do with women. The second monk was astonished by the act but said nothing about it for hours. Finally, at the end of the day, he said to his companion, "I want to talk to you about that girl." And the first monk said, "Dear brother, are you still carrying that girl. I put her down hours ago."

So why didn't I pick them up?  I think the main reason was that I dithered - I saw them, thought to myself "should I pick them up?" wondered about the safety, wondered about whether I would feel that I needed to go out of my way, and then I was past them with a car behind me.  Perhaps if I had thought about it ahead of time I would have been able to think it through.

I don't know about you, but it is years since I have seen a hitch-hiker, and for years before that I wasn't allowed to pick them up as I drove a company car and it was a company rule (see here for my attitude to rules), so it isn't something that I have had reason to think about.

When I was younger I hitched a little - and discovered a well worn route from Uxbridge to Cambridge (long gone thanks to the M25) - although people who didn't use it didn't realise it was there - several times when hitching people would indicate to me that I was heading the wrong way - and yet I usually managed to get a single lift all the way.  Perhaps it is time that I reciprocated.

Later Addition: For the avoidance of doubt, following a discussion about this post with a friend, I was reflecting on the rules focus that I thought was shown - whereas they thought there was something more sexual going on!  Just goes to show how you can mean one thing and people hear another!

Fear and protection

All of us have developed a front stage- a version of ourselves that we present to the world. ... Now, of course, in order to do this, we have to hide lots of things about ourselves away. ... All these things that I cannot risk bringing out onto my front stage I have to put somewhere- so I put them in my back stage. My back stage is the place I learn to put things that I do not want people to see. http://simonpwalker.blogspot.com/2010/03/let-us-go-back-to-old-story-one-of.html

I may be preempting what Simon Walker is going to say, but I think the problem comes when we put things back stage (which he writes more about in the Undefended Leader) because of irrational fear.  And of course if we never bring them out then the fear of bringing them out grows and we are even less inclined to do so.  How do we crack this problem?  Of course one option is to "Feel the fear and do it anyway" (I haven't got round to reading the book, but it is a great title!), but what if we do that and it goes wrong?  Is there a gentle toe in the water approach to this or do we have to dive in, because there has to be a certain degree of fear to overcome to be of value?

I was talking with a friend who said that whenever they saw a rule they broke it to see what happened, whereas my approach is to keep it unless I have a reason not to.  Acclimatisation to dealing with things like this mean that we have different attitudes towards fear - I do not know what it is to break the small rules - so the big ones carry greater fear.  Perhaps I need to dip my toe in the water more and walk on the not to be walked upon grass!