How Much Do You Have To Hate?

I stumbled on this video on YouTube recently...its a segment from some show or channel called "Penn Says", Penn being of Penn and Teller. Penn is a very open atheist, and the video talks about his encounter with a Christian. Have a look...





The thing that struck me about the video was when he talks about how, although he's an atheist, he has issues when people who consider themselves Christian don't evangelize or witness to people. Not because he believes in what they believe but he makes a valid point: How much do you have to hate someone to believe that there's eternal life and also eternal damnation and not tell someone because its "socially awkward". The analogy of saving someone from an oncoming truck is a good one.

It made me think about that...if we *truly* believe, as Christians, that people have the opportunity to go to heaven for eternity and equally to go to hell then why is evangelism such a struggle for the church? Why does it seem like services and care groups are focused so much more on self and our own personal relationship with God with such a weak emphasis on getting the message out to others?

Christians hide behind the 'grace' defense so often. I remember one Christian friend, in a discussion about war casualties being less important than aborted fetuses (her view, not mine), who stated the Sunday School answer that "I will be held accountable before God for all the things that I should have done and people I should have talked to that I didn't...that's on me." The catch, of course, is that we're saved by grace and covered with the blood of Jesus, so all our sins are forgiven.

Unfortunately (and not that any would openly devulge this) this leads to Christians who live their lives knowing they already have a get out of jail free card in their pocket. That while they say they have a "burden for the lost", they really don't...because they're safe and if someone else doesn't get to heaven because they didn't want to be put in a socially awkward position.

It brings to question motives of faith and what exactly believing in that faith means...what LIVING the faith means. Jesus preached wherever he went because he understood how important his message was. As followers of Jesus, I think we've missed that aspect of "living Christ-like".

Or maybe we're not really interested in living Christ-like at all.