I have has enough frustrating annoying encounters with
modern evangelicals to write a whole book about them. One of them in particular
is a ministry staff worker. He says to me that he “admires” my zeal for
evangelism, but yet castigates me for using the Law of the God, mocking and
denigrating my efforts in evangelism, and also seeking to impose a burden on
me. He imposes his rules of gentleness on me: to not go through the Law of God,
but do away with it, to use “nuance” in my language, meaning to not speak in
such as ‘direct’ manner - a claim so
ludicrous that no reasonable person would understand it. As if speaking in a less direct manner to a
sinner makes a difference to his convictions. Any convictions he has about his
sin come from God, not the way one preaches. This evangelical, would then
accuse me of hypocrisy in saying this all while being hypocritical himself – I have
never ever even spoken about the manner of evangelism, let alone lecture
someone or impose my direct and blunt characteristics on others.
He thinks that it is a sin to speak in a direct and blunt
manner. That was the core of what he was once saying to me in his angry email
exchange. He just had to argue, giving 10 statements and pages of garbage to
each short reply I gave to him. Speaking in a direct and blunt manner about sin
and Hell is a ‘modern sin’ in the modern church of today – one that fears man
instead of God as many pastors and discerning believers have rightly pointed
out. So, the claim that the modern church fears man instead of God is not my claim.
Rather, it is a very common and
well-articulated fact as observed by many pastors such as Ray Comfort and Tony
Miano.
Ray Comfort once alluded to the legalism of modern
evangelism. He implied that modern evangelism seeks not to be ‘legalistic’, but
imposes it own rules about not offending dying sinners. He is a pastor who
emphasises that the Law of God must be used to bring knowledge of sin. He also once
said on The Comfort Zone that God forbid them from ever failing to use the Law in
any episode of the show.
He also loves to accuse me of hypocrisy for being annoyed at
him for reading this blog. I was annoyed at him not because of fear of public
criticism from him (as if ‘opinion’ matters), but rather because of his attitude
and spirit that motivated him to read it. He has a spirit of hate and hostility
against me in doing so. He vehemently said he does not want to be associated
with the posts I write, but yet seeks to read it. Is this not hostility towards
my ideas and me? I do not check his facebook page or ministry page to read what
he teaches. So, I was not in any way being hypocritical. He, however, makes the
false accusation against me that I tell him not to read my posts because I am “offended”.
There is no such thing. He uses the accusation just to trap me like a Pharisee.
He has indeed sought to trap me up several times, such as when he was asking me
about how do I get to the Gospel using the Way of the Master, so that he can
just make me feel not only discouraged about using Way of the Master, but
frustrated and annoyed.
He treats the discouragement he has heaped on me as somewhat
trivial, brushing it off with a casual apology when he has really done much
more than that. He has confused me theologically, frustrated me, denigrated my
efforts in evangelism, castigated me for my zeal in fighting sin, not directly,
but with a false sense of ‘gentleness’ and false graciousness, and accused me
of being a neo-nazi indirectly simply because I posted an article with nothing
to do with Nazism, from a website which happens to have some pro-nazi material,
assuming that I read the whole website. He has also shifted the blame on me for
refusing to speak to him. Speaking to him I know will cause more confusion for
me and frustration. That is why I refuse to have anything to do with him.
His theology is representative of many modern evangelicals.
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