Not long ago, I ran into an article about Dean Inserra, a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) pastor, and his thoughts about evangelism. Specifically, Inserra identified one group of people who were virtually impossible to convert to his brand of tribalistic white evangelicalism: “Good people.” In his opinion, “good people” resisted white evangelicals’ bag of tricks, but needed salvation the most. But as we discovered last time, those “good people” actually turned out to be evangelicals—just evangelicals who are less pious and observant than King Dean Inserra thinks TRUE CHRISTIANS™ should be.
That got me thinking about how evangelicals would even go about evangelizing other evangelicals, especially those who already believe what the evangelists believe but simply aren’t as fervent as their judges want. How would that even work? And considering how poorly their strategies work in reality, what do they reveal about the beating heart of evangelicalism itself?
Today, let’s look into Dean Inserra in more depth—and perhaps get some answers to those questions.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 11/22/2024. Its audio ‘cast lives there too and is available now! From introduction: The Warner Brothers Games earning call info.)
SITREP: Dean Inserra’s 2022 evangelism speech
In 2022, SBC pastor Dean Inserra gave a speech during chapel at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS). You can find the original audio file here (and a local archive of the transcription). As one might expect for a denomination still struggling with decline, that speech involved evangelism. More specifically, it involved a group of people that white evangelicals have always struggled to persuade. Here’s how it went:
Directing the attention of the assembly to the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18: 9-14 [link], Inserra contrasted the humble, repentant prayer of the tax collector against the prideful, self-righteousness prayer of the Pharisee at the temple.
The parable, Inserra explained, applies to today’s society where “everyday people in the community” compare themselves with those around them and believe they are going to heaven because they are “good people.”
“It’s really hard to reach people who think they’re fine.”
Inserra asserted that people like that “are figuratively holding up a big, flashing neon sign that says, ‘Jesus died for nothing.'” Consequently, many evangelists think their first task is to convince them that they actually need Jesus’ help—and the protection from Hell that they think Jesus offers only to his favorite followers.
When we compared Inserra’s description of “good people,” however, they turned out to very closely resemble the very naughty evangelicals that one Calvinist/Reformed group, Ligonier, wrings its hands over every time they do a survey about “The State of Theology.” survey. (By now, they should be calling it “The Absolute State of Theology.”)
Evangelism is already tough these days for evangelicals, but it’s got to be just about impossible to evangelize someone who already officially believes almost everything the evangelist does.
But Dean Inserra isn’t just any random Southern Baptist pastor. He’s a member of a faction that has chosen evangelism as its primary focus. More than that, his faction needs to make any other focus look as un-Jesusy as possible.
Everyone, meet Dean Inserra
Over last time and this time, you might have noticed I haven’t yet properly introduced Dean Inserra. That was deliberate. Now that you know what a gatekeeping, condescending, judgmental person he is, it’s time to introduce him.
Dean Inserra is a pastor from Florida. In the seminary post, the school’s president says Inserra wants “to love Tallahassee to Christ.” (Evangelicals never notice how coercive and even predatory their evangelism tactics sound. It’s a rule.) Inserra is also a member of the Old Guard faction, which we expect from anyone associated with a Southern Baptist seminary—for decades now, they’ve been Old Guard strongholds. That faction wants to drag the denomination even further rightward. They think its Conservative Resurgence schism didn’t go nearly far enough, so they are itching to spark another.
Additionally, Inserra serves as a trustee on the SBC’s top-ranked Executive Committee (EC). He’s been there for at least the past few years. The EC is the last real bastion of Old Guard power. But because it handles all the day-to-day, administrative, and budgetary tasks of the SBC, it is a uniquely powerful one. In a very real sense, l’état, c’est eux.
On the SBC’s official page for its Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Inserra has contributed videos that reveal a disturbing obsession with other people’s sexual choices.
To summarize, Dean Inserra is a caricature of the low-information, bigoted fundagelical culture warrior.
At least, he is now.
Segue: Faction Infighting, Dean Inserra Edition
In March 2022, anti-abuse activist Hannah-Kate Williams tweeted:
“Someone needs to love Dean enough to have him pull the reins. I have never interacted with a more un-teachable, arrogant pastor in my entire life … which says a lot. Your words matter and the bubble you live in is not realistic to the rest of the world.”
That link also includes information about a leaked conversation involving Inserra and Williams. It reveals her frustrations with his privately-expressed sympathy alongside solid refusal to do anything tangible in public about abuse. It’s a tough listen, too. In the recording, Williams spends most of it literally trying (and in the end failing) not to sob over his two-faced behavior—while he and other men in the conversation talk a talk they are not walking.
I think her anguish is both real and justified. Just one year earlier in 2021, Inserra emphatically sided with abuse reformists. He even spoke against about Paige Patterson! That’s a big deal, because by 2021 the Old Guard had crystallized into a solid do-nothing strategy for that crisis. As it is, I strongly suspect that Inserra’s 2021 betrayal got him in trouble. By 2022, he only dared to sympathize in private. He could do nothing supportive in public. And he didn’t.
As a potentially-chastened Old Guard lackey, Inserra can’t do more than he already has.
Of course, his about-face didn’t stop his punishment. In response to the 2022 story, an Old Guard site quoted another Old Guard site to attack Inserra for his earlier vocal support of SBC ministers’ sex abuse victims. They called him “toxic” and an “elite,” which are two snarl words they usually reserve for their enemies’ faction (which I’ve named the Pretend Progressives). If nothing else, their attacks showed other lackeys the high price they’d pay for even pretending to want to help sex abuse reformists.
After all, the outgroup isn’t the one that’s the least similar to the ingroup.
It’s the one that is almost identical.
Since then, Inserra’s walked a very careful line. As the Old Guard dictates, he focuses on evangelism—and in particular, the evangelism of a group that fundagelicals sneer at as “cultural Christians.” In June 2024, Inserra also tried to convince his faction’s enemies that “denominational infighting can hinder their gospel work.” That’s another big talking point for the Old Guard, so I’m sure it went over well with them.
Filling SBC-affiliated churches with tithes-paying pew-warmers matters more to Inserra and his faction than ensuring the safety of those recruits—or doing anything about the SBC’s culture that has led inexorably to their lack of safety. Likewise, ensuring men’s subjugation of women matters more than helping women identify and escape men’s abuse.
As priorities and emphases go, the evangelism of “good people” is much safer for lackeys who want to continue to receive the benefits of membership in the Old Guard. Sure, it won’t work and won’t reverse evangelicals’ decline, but they make a great distraction while maintaining firm, razor-wire party lines.
First step for evangelism: Judge and condemn other Christians
Back to Dean Inserra’s 2022 seminary speech (relink), it doesn’t surprise me that he’s landed on the exact evangelism targets that he has.
As a rule, evangelicals tend to be deeply judgmental and control-hungry people. They have fully contorted and mangled the Bible’s various verses to support this behavior. As a result, nobody can convince them that Jesus didn’t appoint them his official Judgment Day helpers—not even the apparent words of Jesus himself.
One rocket surgeon even called criticism of his judgementalism “stupid.” He’s a Gen X, maybe even a Boomer. He’s worked in ministry for decades, but still hasn’t learned how to be a decent human being. No, our dude just really, really likes judging other Christians, is all. Naturally, then, he gets belligerent and defensive when others push back against his favorite hobby.
Evangelicals like this rocket surgeon are exactly why there’s such a wealth of evangelical advice about how to judge other Christians and properly threaten them with Hell for not joining the judge’s own quirky li’l flavor of TRUE CHRISTIANITY™. Truly, Jesus is lucky to have them.
This step requires evangelicals to forget that every single flavor of Christianity can justify its beliefs the same way evangelicals themselves justify their own. But if the target already holds those same beliefs, the evangelist must rely upon outward signs of fervor and obedience.
Bear in mind that literally every judgmental Christian has their own idea of what the signs must be. One Christian’s orthodoxy and orthopraxy is another’s deepest heresy.
Evangelism, Step 2: Make even more assumptions than usual about the target’s beliefs and devotion
Since their fusion, evangelicals take for granted that they can completely and accurately tell just how safe other Christians are from Hell. (They used to yell at Biff for doing that in college.) Besides the rocket surgeon, here’s someone writing to an evangelical advice column years earlier in 2014:
I have some really good friends who claim that they are Christians but I know for a fact that they aren’t saved and I’m not exactly sure how to talk to them about Christ and getting saved. I also hear some of them who claim to be Christians say that they are glad that their parents don’t go to church because then they wouldn’t be able to sleep in on Sundays. I have brought a couple of them to my church but they acted like they didn’t like it. How should I convince them that they should believe in Christ?
My second question is this: I have a friend who always talks about Christ and how he has changed her life. But I know that she hasn’t been saved. Do you have to be saved go to heaven?
To his credit, the guy answering the letter gently suggests the questioner maybe stop second-guessing other Christians’ faith and devotion—unless, of course, the questioner finds “incontrovertible” evidence to prove someone’s “been living a lie.” Then, it’s not judgementalism. It’s refusing to condone sin! It may look identical to naughty bad judgementalism, but it’s totes Jesus-approved!
However, he offers zero assistance in helping the letter-writer concoct a convincing evangelistic strategy for these friends.
Part of me really wonders—if that letter-writer is real, of course—if they’ve figured out yet that they can’t “convince” anyone that their take on Jesusing is the only correct one. And if they have noticed that, if they’ve figured out why they can’t.
If you’re wondering if evangelicals notice such accusations and get squiffy about their beliefs and devotion being called into question, then I can assure you that yes, they absolutely do. That’s the point of doing it.
Evangelism, Step 2b: Start up the threat machine against ‘nominal Christians’
Evangelicals love confrontation—but only if they feel like they’ve won it. They’re rather less keen on confrontations that end in a decided loss for Team Jesus. In that light, attacking fakey-fake fake “good people” is a sound strategy.
As an example of what I mean, we need only check out a 2021 sermon by Travis Allen, the pastor of the egregiously-misnamed “Grace Church” of Greeley, Colorado. In that sermon, he laments “the terrible tragedy of a nominal Christian.” He then advises any fakey-fake fakers who hear him to let him control their lives before it’s too late:
I realize that in a group of this size or really a group of any size, I realize that there are those who are nominal, there are those who are going through the motions, there are those who have yet to really reckon with these demands. And so for the true Christians among us, I hope that this steels your resolve, what we hear today. Some hard words from Christ, and I hope it steels your resolve. [. . .]
But for those who do not yet know or understand, those who have yet to reckon with these demands. I hope that what Jesus says here troubles you. If it doesn’t trouble you and it glances off of your head and darts into another direction because your head is hard, and your spine is stiff, and you have no ears to hear, that would be a judgment.
[Also, don’t miss his chemical analysis of salt a few paragraphs down. It seriously goes right up there with that “33 vertebrates” thing we laughed about on the Discord not long ago. JFC, this guy likes to hear himself talk!]
I honestly don’t know what evangelicals would do if anyone ever successfully forced them to stop using threats of any kind. They would probably explode within 24 hours from a buildup of internal pressure.
But notice that this pastor clearly refers to fakey-fake fakers in his own congregation. I’m not sure how many “nominal Christians” he thinks might be present. Whatever their number, though, it’s high enough for him to focus entirely on them rather than on “nominal Christians” in other flavors of Christianity.
Toward the end of that sermon, Allen gets into his worst insults and threats for the “nominal Christians” who dare to warm his pews.
And finally, seventh, the tragedy of really utter uselessness, utter uselessness. Because the nominal Christian comes to realize he’s like the useless salt that Jesus is described here. [. . .]
Life of the nominal Christian is like that, it’s good for nothing, not even good for the manure pile. Since he was a Christian in name only, he lacks the substance of what it means to be a Christian. He’s been faking it. [. . .]
And to realize this at the end of your life is a terrible tragedy. But it is one that is avoidable through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. [. . .] Without the ears to hear the truth did him no good. All it did was accrue to his judgment and his just condemnation, such a person cast away, remanded to eternal judgment. He’s forgotten forever in the dustbin of history.
Gosh, who wouldn’t want to join such a loving group as this? Only a god could make people this compassionate and goodhearted!
In terms of persuasive power, this kind of nonsensical chatter isn’t very effective. Even if evangelicals like this pastor were objectively correct in their opinions, insulting their own churchmates does the dead opposite of persuading them. It might even make them leave the group.
But evangelicals don’t talk like this only because they can’t understand what normies think of their constant condescension and insults. They also want to send a message to any sheep in the pews who are even vaguely thinking of dissenting, much less leaving. Those sheep need to know exactly how the tribe will treat them if they do.
Evangelism, Step 3 (sort of): Actual evangelism, maybe…?
Their actual advice about the evangelism of other evangelicals is even weirder, though.
Well, it’s not so much weird as almost nonexistent.
Once evangelicals get past the fun part of judging their churchmates, they’re pretty lost. All they’ve got are insults and threats, which will only arouse their targets’ defensiveness—which in turn raises their antiprocess filters. Once those defenses are in place, their targets won’t be able to absorb any challenging information.
I conducted a search for any information evangelicals had to offer online about the evangelism of people who were already evangelical.
No joke, no exaggeration: I got one result from Google. It was from a progressive Christian who hoped to help her evangelical friends leave that sickening, control-hungry tribe. But I found none from DuckDuckGo. Brave offered one link about why evangelicals should evangelize Catholics.
So it doesn’t seem like evangelicals make much of a distinction between generic evangelism targets and lesser, fakey-fake fake evangelicals. We can find plenty of specific resources for the evangelism of atheists, Muslims, and even pagans. But there exist almost none specifically targeting other evangelicals.
Eventually, though, I found the power word I needed: lukewarm. By using that power word, evangelicals can more than rationalize evangelizing people who already buy into all the same nonsense they do.
How evangelicals go about the evangelism of the lukewarm
In Christianese, a lukewarm Christian isn’t as fervent and devoted as the judge deems proper. Its opposite, if you’re wondering, is legalistic. Obviously, Christian judges always use themselves as the correct midpoint between those extremes. Travis Allen’s sermon, like Dean Inserra’s, urges evangelicals to stand on that same midpoint.
A lot’s at stake here: If they don’t find just the right midpoint, Yahweh will set their ghosts on fire forever after they die!
So I found a larger number of resources aimed at evangelicals looking to rescue “good people” from Hell. But most of them assume that the recipient of that advice is the lukewarm reader/watcher/listener in question! Here’s one example of what I mean:
Revelation 3:17 tells us that the Laodiceans trusted in themselves for every good thing. They claimed to be rich, self-sufficient and having no need, but in reality, this is their own false, man-made Religion. This is the reason why God threatens to spit them out. And this is truly what it means to be “lukewarm.” To be lukewarm is to take refuge in your own works apart from the works of God. It’s not that you aren’t working enough, but instead that you’re focused on working too much! [. . .]
In our blind, dead, and sinful ways, Christ comes to us, tells us the truth of our situation, and provides the solution which rests in His own self-giving love.
Evangelicals love to write those sorts of open letters to directly address those they think might be lukewarm. Jon Bloom at Desiring God even managed to compare overcoming one’s own lukewarmness to an actual battle—complete with an old military helicopter sitting among spent shell casings as his banner picture.
Most resources I found online weren’t evangelism advice at all. They were just direct preaching, full stop. But eventually, I cobbled together some actual evangelism advice.
The evangelism of the lukewarm, for real this time
Much of the advice online came in answer to questions from judgmental Christians seeking to fire up their less-pious friends or family members.
As you might expect, much of their advice involves threats. Here’s Ray Comfort trying to manipulate college kids half his age with threats and fear-based marketing:
Within thirty seconds of the video’s beginning, Comfort is already threatening this guy. He compares this guy’s current state to being disgustingly-spoiled lukewarm milk:
God would have us be hot and stimulating or cold and refreshing. That’s how you want, say, a glass of milk. You want to be nice and cold or hot milk to help you sleep at night. If it’s lukewarm with little yellow things floating at the top, that’s gonna make you sick. And that’s what lukewarm professed Christians are to Jesus. He said, you’re gonna make me throw up!
No, Ray Comfort has no idea in the world what happens to milk as it sits out. He knows about as much about milk as he does about bananas. It’d blow his mind to know how farm families used to churn milk after it had separated and “clabbered,” or solidified enough to pull away a bit from the edges of the pan.
Also, evangelicals never, ever consider what their metaphors actually say. Ray Comfort has described cosmic horror on the grand scale here, but he is so blitheringly terrified of Hell that he can’t perceive that truth. Instead of dealing with his own fears of death and oblivion, Comfort focuses on strong-arming someone else into obedience. After all, if they fall for his used-car-salesman patter, that must make his claims true!
It doesn’t look like he succeeded, though. His target clearly cooperated only far enough to get this frantic, twitchy, preachy little squirrel out of his face.
How to use “mind tricks” in the evangelism of lukewarm evangelicals
But sometimes we find better advice. In 2022, a Redditor asked how to rescue a lukewarm friend from Hell. The advice centered on not preaching at the friend or scolding her. That was refreshing to see! Instead, OP (the original post writer) needed to pray that Jesus magically fixed her friend. Until that happened, OP needed to maintain a carefully non-judgmental stance.
One commenter, though, suggested “mind tricks” as a way to push unwanted evangelism onto a lukewarm fix-it project without permission:
I’m not real fond of mind tricks, but sometimes righteous people dealt cleverly in scripture in ways that would be considered mind games. But it was for a goodly and innocent purpose. In that way, and only toward goodness, you could kind of playfully let your friend know when you are participating in Christian events, and invite her. Let her know how excited you are to go, and let her know how fun it was when you come back. Turn common events into God socials, if you will. Say your going for a run, you could call it a scripture meditation run, and invite her to go. Of if you like to go camping, you could call it a bible study retreat. Just try to make as much as you can, be glorifying and studying on God… and invite her. In time, perhaps she will see that these “innocent” and fun things, are far better than the mischievous things she has been participating in.
This was such an obvious, hamfisted deception that I checked their post history. And yes. That person is exactly as condescending, judgmental, combative, and dishonest as you imagine. The account’s inactive now, but wow. Who wouldn’t want to join whatever religious group this person thinks is ideal?
We also find trickery in a Catholic evangelism radio show that first aired in 2018. In this show, a woman says that on Thanksgiving, she’s visiting her sister, a lukewarm Catholic who has clearly expressed her desire not to be preached at. But the caller still wants to goose her sister back to fervor. Here’s what the radio show host advised her:
Father Simon replied: “Do this: when you take leave of her [the lukewarm Catholic sister] this time, say, ‘Would you mind if I said a prayer for you?’ Take her hand and close your eyes … and say, ‘Lord, I ask you to bless my sister and give her the peace and happiness that she needs.’ That simply, not a big long thing. And if she says, ‘Well I don’t want you to pray with me.’ Say, ‘Just real simple, nothing big. It would make me feel better.’ Put the weight on yourself: ‘This isn’t for you, this is for me. It would make me feel better if I could just say a little prayer with you because I love you so much.’ How does that sound, do you think you could do that?”
Hilariously, the host and his sidekick both insist that totally won’t offend the lukewarm sister. Hooboy. Yeah, I bet that was a great holiday dinner!
Along with threats and dishonesty, let me introduce another strategy: lifestyle evangelism.
Lifestyle evangelism, but it’s okay this time
Often, evangelicals suggest a form of lifestyle evangelism to bring errant sheep back into the fold. In this form of evangelism, the evangelist doesn’t preach or distribute tracts or argue about the Bible or anything like that. Instead, they just act super-pious around their targets.
The idea in lifestyle evangelism is that the targets will somehow notice that the evangelist isn’t like other people. As a character in the movie God’s Club famously put it, the evangelist is just so, I dunno, different somehow. Eventually, the evangelist’s overwhelming Jesus-osity will inspire the target to ask for a recruitment pitch.
In reality, that almost never happens. If the target actually does ask why the evangelist is just so, I dunno, different somehow, they’re not thinking it’s because of religion. Years ago, an evangelical I knew found that out. He Jesused at his neighbor for a long time before the guy asked if he was vegetarian.
As you might guess, most evangelical leaders vocally criticize lifestyle evangelism as far too indirect and lengthy to be a viable recruitment strategy. They vastly prefer a faster and more confrontational style of evangelism. But it pops up as a great way to evangelize the lukewarm over on Quora—and from a Calvinist, at that:
I really think that the best way to be heard is to live what we believe. Telling people the truth won’t work. Living your works by faith is what works.
In that Reddit thread, one self-described “former lukewarm Christian” concurs:
As a former lukewarm Christian, I think this is right on the money. Sometimes evangelizing is simply being the best Christian we can be, and praying that the Holy Spirit illuminate the minds/hearts of others, in His own time.
Catholics tend to go this route as well when they offer advice for the evangelism of the lukewarm:
[Zachary] Burns said to simply “spend time with others,” saying that doing an activity one has always shared with his or her friends “opens the door a little.” [. . .] In being familiar and present and in sharing a familiar message, Burns said that one becomes an image of God to others. Though this is a “hard line to walk,” he said, this type of evangelization eventually becomes natural.
If you’re wondering how many actual sales he’s made with this three-pronged approach, you probably should.
Amazingly, that’s about it for the advice. To sum it up:
- Threaten the lukewarm person with Hell.
- Trick them into an evangelism session.
- Be as Jesusy as possible around the target in the hopes they’ll see how I dunno, different somehow the evangelist is.
As well, I found exactly one blog post offering advice for pastors who want to get a lukewarm congregation fervent. In addition to lifestyle modeling and threats, its writer suggests the pastor start up tons of evangelism and outreach programs.
Dean Inserra’s evangelism advice, seen in new light
Now that we’ve talked about all this stuff, let’s look again at Dean Inserra’s 2022 seminary speech (relink). You can find the full audio file here at the seminary’s site. There, we learn that his speech is called “America’s Religion.”
Oh boy! It’s an example in the wild of the Law of Conservation of Worship too!
For some reason, control-hungry evangelicals love to imagine that nonbelief is some kind of religion all on its own. It’s not, but this is what tribalism will do to a guy. Inserra even admits he has no evidence at all for his assertion here:
And in suburban America, most of our context, I believe is what I call the largest religion in America. Now I have zero data to back this up. It’s more of a field test and just experience in pastoral ministry in a suburban setting. But I believe the number one religion in America is “good people go to heaven.”
He actually sneers down his nose at people who take comfort in imagining their dead relatives in Heaven:
The mom in line at Chick-fil-A, she just does not have hardly any faith questions. But she believes that she’s fine, and her kids are fine, and her husband’s fine, and her deceased relatives are all fine because they were good people. Every funeral I’ve ever been to, we are told that Uncle Jimmy right now is playing that big 18 holes in the sky. We just know that Bill is fishing in that bass lake in heaven right now. We’re just so thankful that Grandma and Grandpa reunited. She missed him so much. [. . .]
But if you ask most people, and they’ll tell you, they believe themselves to be good people. They’re good folks, and here’s what makes it really complicated in an evangelistic conversation. They’re right. They are great people by the standards of this world.
Seriously, I heartily suggest listening to the file. The way he spits out that last phrase, “by the standards of this WURRR-ulllld,” is something to behold. He wants his audience to know that he thinks “the standards of this WURRR-ulllld” are disgusting and nasty and ickie and far inferior to his preferred flavor of Christianity.
PS: “The world” is Christianese for anything the judging Christian thinks doesn’t focus sufficiently on Jesus and Jesusing. Usually, this means secular stuff, but it can be used in a pejorative sense to describe ostensibly religious stuff too. In fact, if you really want to offend the tar out of an annoying evangelical, call them “worldly.”)
Ain’t he just a big damn hero
After slamming “good people” a while, he tells a story about trying to kiss up to a fellow seminary student as they were packing up after graduation. The other student was heading to California to start yet more churches there, while Inserra was heading back to his hometown of Tallahassee to start his own church. His friend stopped him, saying that he thought Inserra was heading into the far more difficult career:
Where I’m going in Northern California, there’s no confusion over who’s a Christian and who’s not. [. . .] Either you follow Jesus or you don’t. Where you’re going, everybody thinks they’re fine. It’s like you have to get them lost in order to get them saved.
I’d like to stop Inserra there, because I spent several happy years in Northern California as a kid in the early 1980s. Coast Guard people were stationed there along with another branch of the military, so you know there was a strong Christian military presence. And I threw myself into religion there. I literally walked miles to church every Sunday morning.
So I bet that seminary friend got quite a surprise when he got to his new stomping grounds.
If King Dean Inserra found that out, though, he’d just insist that they’re the same as Georgia people: They think they’re going to Heaven when he knows for 100% sure they’re not.
Also don’t miss his glowing self-report around 15 minutes in about preaching hellfire and damnation at the grieving friends and family at the funeral of a dead 19-year-old. It’s just sickening to hear the pride in his voice as he rehashes the sermon he gave that young man’s loved ones. He’s so certain that he’s right about the damnation of pretty much everyone around himself. By 24 minutes, he’s smirking while he calls them “unsaved Christians.”
After having spent a half hour of my life listening to this guy insult other Christians nonstop, I’m really surprised that that abuse reformist, Hannah-Kate Williams, ever thought he’d be a reliable ally to her.
What evangelism is actually all about to these tin-pot dictators
Evangelism in the context we’re discussing today is less about actually increasing another Christian’s fervor than it is about maintaining a dominance hierarchy between the ingroup and the outgroup that drives them craziest:
- Christians who are almost but not quite the same as themselves
- Who occupy the same space they do, like they live in a weird Jesus-flavored multiverse
- Who smile and nod and then ignore all the dominant group’s attempts to strong-arm their obedience.
When performed upon someone who already believes the same thing as the evangelist, evangelism becomes a dominance move. Just imagine the poor sorry bastard who tries to evangelize Dean Inserra as a lukewarm Christian! It’d go over about as well as Inserra calling out an Old Guard leader for not supporting sex abuse reform!
In theory, intra-evangelical evangelism inspires those lesser evangelicals to up their Jesusing game. In reality, though, it does almost nothing—as we saw in that Ray Comfort video.
If a judgmental Christian tries to evangelize a fellow pew-warmer and gets rebuffed, it pushes the evangelists further away from the outgroup—and closer to their tribe’s ingroup core. On the rare occasions when the attempt works, the ingroup has a new super-judgmental member who can be trusted to go out and mistreat others in the same ways.
It’s like the evangelical circle of life, except it’s all about judging and controlling others. Indeed, that’s exactly why Christianity continues to decline with no end in sight, and why it deserves to decline: It adds nothing to people’s lives that they can’t get elsewhere for way less drama, but takes everything it can from not only believers but anyone those believers can hurt.
NEXT UP: The dumbest evangelism dialogue that I have ever seen. See you soon! <3
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