Many Evangelical Christians take seriously Jesus’s command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Every creature includes atheists.
Here is what Christians need to understand:
- Many atheists were Christians before they became atheists. In my case, I was a Christian for 50 years and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years. Granted, most atheists are not like me but many of them were raised in the Christian church and know what the Christian gospel is and what the Bible teaches.
- Many atheists have read the Bible many, many times. In fact, many atheists have likely read the Bible more than the average American Christian.
- Many atheists attended church before they became an atheist. They know a good bit about Catholic and Protestant Christianity. They know what it is to worship God, pray, and live their lives according to the precepts of the Bible. They are not ignorant of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
- People become atheists for a variety of reasons. Often there are emotional and cultural reasons why a person becomes an atheist but, at the end of the day, most people become an atheist for intellectual reasons.
- Most atheists are not atheists because they are angry with God, mad at the church, or hurt.
Here are some Evangelistic methods that will likely not work:
- Preaching at the person
- Quoting Bible verses (the atheist has likely heard the verses before)
- Giving a testimony of how Jesus saved you and changed your life (atheists place little value on subjective stories like testimonies)
- Giving the atheist a book, tract, sermon tape/cd/dvd
- The Romans Road, John Road, Four Spiritual Laws, The Way of the Master or any other Evangelistic program you have been taught
- Inviting them to church
- Friending them on Facebook
- Trying to become friends with them using your Friendship Evangelism methods
Personally, I would suggest you not witness to an atheist. You are likely going to be disappointed with the result. There are a lot of “other” prospects for heaven that will be much easier to evangelize.
However, if you are certain God is directing you and the Hoy Spirit is leading you to witness to an atheist I would encourage you to be all prayed up and ready to have an intellectual discussion about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Be prepared to talk about theology, philosophy, history, science, and archeology. Be prepared to give evidence (proof) of the assertions you make. Saying the Bible says will not work since the atheist will likely not accept the authority of the Bible.
You might as well face it, if the atheist refuses to accept the Bible as a God inspired authoritative text there is no hope of you successfully witnessing to him. It is better for you to kick the dust off your shoes and go witness to those who accept your presuppositions about God and the Bible.
Atheists are the swine in the don’t cast your pearls before swine Bible verse. Atheists are reprobates whom God has turned over to their evil desires. Atheists are followers of Satan, deaf and blind to your God and the Bible.
With so many billions of other people to witness to why bother witnessing to people who have no interest in your message, are likely to make great intellectual demands of you, and are likely not God’s elect? Be a smart fisher-of-men, go where the fish are.
“Many Evangelical Christians take seriously Jesus’s command to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Every creature includes atheists.”
Considering it says “every” creature, I wish they’d prioritize a different one. Bees, maybe. Or voles.
I try so hard to be kind if they’re stupid enough to ignore my no soliciting signs, although on the occasions I’ve pointed out the signs, they say they’re not selling anything, they’re giving away GOOD NEWS!!
I know they’re ignorant and think they’re doing a good thing. And I can respect the idea of that, if not the message.
But my husband? Not so friendly.
I show God’s love through my actions. There are two extremes to every argument, you good folks are one ultra orthodox christians are the other.
And of course you got it right, right?
If it’s any comfort to you, Bruce, even as a very young person being taught to do home visits, I thought it was rude to drop in on people with no advance notice. It is likely to catch people not looking their best, with their home not ready for company, or doing something they do not wish to interrupt. It almost seems like the goal is to catch a person off guard where he doesn’t feel in control of the situation.
I was never much of a big fan of the high pressure door to door stuff. I did it for a few years but my heart wasn’t in it. I was more a invite them to church so they can hear the gospel preached kind of pastor.
Bruce May I ask what made you turn away from Christ?
I’m not trying to preach at you or “Convert” you in anyway. but I would be interested in hearing your story if you are wiling to tell it.
“People become atheists for a variety of reasons. Often there are emotional and cultural reasons why a person becomes an atheist but”
Bruce, Do you mean “a Christian” instead of “an atheist?”
I mean an atheist but Christians do follow a similar path. I am not certain that many Christians do the intellectual work necessary to really understand the faith they are embracing. However most atheists I know did a lot of study and reading before embracing atheism.
Many of us became Christia
The Mormons now have me marked off on their map and will call at all the houses around mine but not mine. It is my goal to get the Baptists to stop calling on me too. I think next time they stop by I’ll stop them in mid-witness and tell them they need to listen to me talk about Lord Satan first.
No one has stopped at out house in years and for that I am indeed grateful.
That happened to me with the JWs. They go to all the other houses but not mine any more. I used to invite them in for coffee and practice my debating skills. When that involved teenagers, the parents would get worried after a while and they were forced to come and talk to me as well.
Being as I am at a place in my life that I am questioning every aspect of my ‘faith’, I will entertain any of the folks who come to my door to share their good news. While I am sure that I no longer believe the Christian belief system, I have no idea what I do believe. Just as Bruce pointed out that many atheists know their bible better than the average christian, I have noticed the Mormons and the Jehovah Witness have studied the other sects of Christianity and the other popular world wide relgions. They know they are not likely to convert an atheist, but maybe another christian or perhpas a budhist. The Mormons are a very persistent group. I talked with them for over a year. They knew exactly where i was in my beliefs but yet the continued to ‘visit’, honestly I did not mind as their answers to my questions pretty much validated what I was begining to suspect anyways ~ there is a lot of bunk in the belief systems and in the bible AND that women are not valued. They would actually tell me that my question was so deep in theology that that kind of thinking is best done by a man who possess the priesthood. Finally, i think they were getting very frustrated that I was not being easily converted to their way of thinking so they brought in another “elder” who was a very high pressure young man. He asked me if i would pray to God and ask him if the Mormon way of life is for me or not and gave me a deadline of 3 weeks! My response was that the only time i felt God answered me, it took him almost 10 years to do so and this young man was very arrogant in telling me that he just KNEW god would answer. My wonderful hubby recognized I was growing weary of the Mormons so next time they dropped by, he told them that as the MAN of the household he forbade them to have any contact with his little lady….That response tends to work well with any of the fundamentalist sects…Sorry for the lenght of my reply.
When I saw the title of this post in the sidebar, my first reaction was that this would be the entirety of the post:
“Don’t.”
Heh.
I can suggest a few other methods that will never work on the vast majority of atheists/agnostics/skeptics I know:
* Telling me I’m going to hell if I don’t believe
* Telling me that the odds favor a happy eternity if I do believe (aka Pascal’s Wager)
* Telling me I cannot possibly be a moral person without God
* Telling me that this is a Christian nation and I’ll never fit in without belonging to a church (preferably yours)
* Showing me that your friendship is conditional and dependent on my agreeing with your religious viewpoint, or at least showing it tolerance that you would never in a trillion years show mine in return
* Showing me and my opinions any disrespect whatsoever without a damned good reason (hint: neither the Bible nor anything contained therein qualify as such)
* Expecting me to listen to you without expecting to have to listen to me in return
And yes, all of the above and more have been tried on me at some point in the past. Obviously, none of them worked…
I just tell them to Fuck off. That seems to work.
As an atheist who was raised agnostic/freethinker, with a great deal of exposure to (but never pressure to believe) other religions and beliefs, I have never gone through the ordeal of having to disprove/let go of a religion. I know enough about organized religion to know it’s antiquated, ridiculous, and sometimes dangerous, but haven’t delved deeply enough to be able to quote scripture back at evangelicals. I wish I could, and am slowly studying when I can.
My atheist husband, though, was raised JW and saw through the bullshit early on (and was subsequently disfellowshipped). Part of their culture was to study all other religions so they could ”disprove” them (which they did through non-scientific means like interpreting scripture to match their beliefs and arbitrary number references). He has actually succeeded in getting young JWs to doubt by asking then the questions he’d asked as a young person! At one point, the local JW elders came to see him, then quickly took us off of their route. WIN!!
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I have found it very difficult to communicate with Atheists in the last 10-15 years and this has worn me out and made me a bit jaded.I have answered their questions in love and have tried to understand their point of view but they hold fast to the latest evolution or liberal thinking. Obviously I have a lot to learn.
I’ve found that the best way to get rid of door knockers is to just agree with everything they say. Yup, grew up in the First Baptist Church. Been a member all my life. Yup, been saved and baptized. Goin’ to heaven, hallelujah. Got somethin’ in the oven. Gotta go. Praise the Lord and pass the biscuits! Careful my pit bull don’t slip out the door after you!