“I think the real question Christians need to ask is whether they’re called to be salespeople or witnesses. A salesperson knows the features and benefits matrix, and can show you the chart where the “Heaven” column is checked in Christianity but not Judaism, or where “Eternal Individual Existence” shows up for Baptists but not Buddhists. A salesperson enters every interaction looking by definition, to sell something. They stand for something outside of themselves, some product they want other people to want. But the problem is that the salesperson selling Christianity can’t ever sell the faith on the chart alone. Like the car salesperson, Christian salespeople rely on the new car smell, or on how a new convert will look driving Jesus (complete with a little silver fish on his butt). The sale only comes when the salesperson can answer one question more than the consumer is willing to ask, or when the consumer gives in to a desire to buy for some reason beyond pure empiricism.
The other option is to be a witness. Witnesses don’t have to explain what they’ve experienced, at least not beyond the best of their understanding. They only have to be able to talk about what they have experienced. Where a salesperson represents something beyond the salesperson, a witness will speak of something beyond the witness, but represents only the witness. The Bible is full of talk about witnesses. Seminaries are full of salespeople in training.” Pg. 48-49
No comments:
Post a Comment