Why do we hesitate to share the Gospel with non-believers? I think it’s because we treat the gospel as a cookie rather than a cure.
I asked the Christian students if they would be willing to follow me into the streets of Huntsville to try to convince people that chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies in the world. The school cafeteria at SHU makes excellent chocolate chip cookies, so we could have taken some with us to convince the local populace. Unsurprisingly, none of the students were excited about going. When asked, they quickly admitted that it seemed pointless to try to convince people of something as subjective as a personal opinion about cookies. They recognized that cookie preference is a matter of subjective opinion, rather than objective truth, and none of them were willing to go out of their way to argue for an opinion. I then asked them if they would be willing to follow me into a region of Huntsville that was suffering from a Tuberculosis outbreak to convince those infected with TB to take the one known cure, Isoniazid. All of them found this to be a worthy effort and said they would be willing to help for a cause such as this. They recognized the difference between the cookie and the cure. Cookies are a matter of subjective opinion, but cures are a matter of objective truth. If the people suffering with TB didn’t know about the cure, they would die. Personal opinions about Isoniazid are irrelevant. Some TB sufferers might, for example, prefer to take Ibuprofen. But the objective truth about TB and Isoniazid overshadows any opinion someone might hold about their favorite treatment. Cures are like that. When we are objectively convinced that a particular treatment is the exclusive cure for what is ailing us, we ignore our preferences and act quickly to save ourselves and share the truth with others.
There is a relationship between our categorization of Christian claims and our desire to share them with the world around us. Some of us hesitate to share the Gospel because (whether we care to admit it or not) we’ve come to see religious truth as a matter of subjective opinion rather than objective truth. We treat the Gospel more as a cookie than a cure.
I don’t think I could convince someone who liked oatmeal and raisin cookies that chocolate chip cookies were better. They would just say that they had their preference and I had my preference and there was no reason for them to switch. But I’ll bet that I could convince a person to save for their retirement instead of wasting their money on partying. And I’ll bet that I could convince a person to study computer science in college instead of studying art history. Know why? Because I know about these things, and I could appeal to objective facts to make a case for them. Those facts pack a punch whether or not the person has a preference for what I am recommending or not. And we need to treat Christianity the same way. Move the whole question beyond personal preferences to evidence. That’s how you can be persuasive – on any topic.
The Inability Of Many Poor Men To Support A Family
A “Marrying Up” Gap
No Fault Divorce
Increased Economic Options For Women
Marriage has become a much less attractive option for men
Children have become more of an economic hindrance than a help
And here is one in detail:
6. Marriage has become a much less attractive option for men: There was a time when the man was expected to provide for his wife and kids and in return, he was treated as the king of the castle. Now, men are often treated more like partners than kings. Moreover, if there’s a divorce, men know they may not be treated fairly by the court system. Almost every man knows a guy who has had access to his child used as a bargaining chip, who has to pay Draconian child support payments or who has otherwise been generally treated unfairly because of his gender, not the merits. No man wants to end up as the guy paying a huge chunk of his income to a woman who broke his heart while he wonders if he’ll be allowed to have access to his own child.
As far as I can tell, the response to men’s lack of incentives to get married has been to legislate and spend even more to help women. In fact, I’m not even sure if most people understand what Mr. Hawkins outlined about male needs. Do women realize that one of the major reasons why men might like to get married is because then they would have a little team to protect, provide for and lead? Men don’t like it when government steps in and steals half their earnings, teaches their children bad ideas, and prevents them from protecting their family by disarming them. Maybe women can get men to be more interested in marriage if they think about why men would want to get married, and then make marriage more like what men want. That might involve rolling back feminism and socialism, and it might involve women changing who they are. There are two people in a relationship, and both of them have needs.
From the libertarian Reason magazine (with links to news media stories).
Excerpt:
Richard Ahlstrand, of Auburn, Massachusetts, faces criminal charges after encountering a bear in his back yard and shooting the damned thing to avoid being mauled or eaten. Specifically, as noted at Reason 24/7, he’s charged with “illegally killing a bear, illegally baiting a bear, illegal possession of a firearm and failure to secure a firearm.” All of these charges, once translated from Massachusetts to American, seem to stack up to outrage that Ahlstrand didn’t make his yard completely inhospitable to animals that are rarely seen in the area, and then investigated a suspicious noise with a weapon in hand rather than cower under the bed. Worst of all, he actually defended himself when he encountered danger.
[…]In both the Telegram and CBS articles, “authorities” are quoted as saying they don’t think the bear was a threat to people. I suppose it’s possible that the black bears in Massachusetts are a kinder, gentler breed than the one that mauled a man near Payson, Arizona, last June. Or the one that tore up a woman in the same area in May. And then there was the bear that did a job on a woman near Pinetop …
When I see stories like this, the first thing that I think is that my role as a protector has been criminalized by the state. Suppose that I owned property and had a family and a bear wandered onto my property and threatened my family. The environmentally-friendly authorities think that I should let the bear eat my family, or at least sit still and hope that he doesn’t. Is it reasonable to have a family if you can’t protect them? What kind of incentive are these tree-hugging leftists offering men to get married when men know perfectly well that the state prefers them to watch their family be mauled by a bear rather allow that man to shoot that bear?
WINTERY KNIGHT 