I TRIED to clip down this gagavision 41 video to focus on a perfect example of how not to create encounters with pop stars. But I couldn’t. (I’m not the techie I hoped I could be.)
There are parts that could offend some of you, my readers. If Lady Gaga offends you, you are certainly not alone and I respect your perspective. In that case, I urge you to not watch this video–at all. The parts I refer to happen at minute 2:20 – 4:00, and are suitable for audiences over age 10. My advice is to skip the other parts, primarily because they do not refer to this post.
The scoop: It appears a Christian Fundementalist gave Lady Gaga a card/tract that said, “Get Out of Hell Free.”
In a far friendlier tone than I can image approaching hostile protesters, she said, “Hi, I’m Lady Gaga.” and they said, “What do I care?”
What I find so interesting is that she bothered to talk to them, and tell them she did believed in God, and that she had Christian influences in her formative years. It was like she was trying to find common ground. A novel concept for approaching those you disagree with, huh?
They were more concerned with showing their opposition, and contempt for her. From her comments, it seems to me, that their actions, got to her, at least for a little bit. They bothered her. She said that she didn’t want her fans to have to see that, but it seemed to bother her on a personal level, as well. (But, sadly, NOT in a way that would likely bring her to a closer fellowship with followers of Jesus.) I would really like to hope that Gaga would not lump these loonies with authentic followers of Jesus. I hope it wouldn’t sour her on the whole bit.
Maybe these people just couldn’t find a Koran to burn that night, or something.
At best, the whole encounter would be confusing, or hurtful to her, or anyone. Hurtful? To a super star, really? Yeah, that’s my guess. Because, I think she’s mostly a regular 25 year old young woman. Like almost all of us, she wants to be liked and not be disparaged and maligned.
It’s easy to hear the condescending tone from the protester speaking, and his smug uses of the word “darling”. In snide fashion he tells her that the book “with the black cover, and the gold pages, and the ribbon down the middle” will show her she has “pervert ways”. It seems he’s piecing it all together for her, in case she’s not aware of the visual image of a Bible. Really, a sweetheart…um. NOT!
Ya know, these are not endearing traits of Christians. They are shameful ways to act. (I should put that word Christians in quotes, because I think they had their own agenda, and their “Good News” …sucked.)
Perhaps Get out of Hell Free signs, tracts, and cards, helped these protesters turn from sin and come to God. But, in most cases, relationships (read: legit friendships) are far more helpful. Their demonstration and literature was probably are more of a confusing message.
So, now we know how to not show God’s love and redeeming grace, right?
IT BEGS THE QUESTION:
What if there had been loving dialogue? What if the people who think they are doing God’s work, acted like Jesus, and started interacting with Stefani Germanotta on common ground, instead of peacocking self-righteousness on what they deem to be enemy lines.
Maybe you’re a Gaga monster, paws up, and everything. Or maybe you don’t care for Lady Gaga’s music or showmanship techniques, but will you share your take on Christianity / evangelism, and music stars?
I’ve found myself feeling much like a pharisee and not allowing a hint of grace to people I’ve “witnessed” too. Afterward I felt hollow and hypocritical. Aweful feeling to have.
But Christian evangelism needs to be less scholastic and much more from the heart. It’s God’s kindness that leads anyone to repentance. Not His judgement. I’ve found this true in my own life.
And as far as music stars go, they do indeed have a large impact on people. But, I would guess it will most likely be the people closest to them that can speak truth into their lives, not strangers.
that was painful. I found it ironic how the guy denounced Catholicism for being a bad religion and he did it in such a way that would never make anyone want to be apart of his. Lady Gaga got it right – that’s why there is no one in line for him.
I really enjoyed your post. As a pastor these are the types of “Christians” that make me want to quit this thing called discipleship. Thank you for your new perspective that is really an old perspective that has been traded in for anger and contempt.
It’s not the christian’s duty to decide what or how a person should change. That’s god’s job. The christian’s only duty is share god’s love and peace to inspire someone to investigate furthere. Once a person begins to grow in the spirit and build a personal relationship with Jesus, god will gently inspire whatever change in the person he deems necessary as the person becomes ready and willing for change. Christians jumping all over someone, threatening them with hell and offending them with hisses of “Sin! Sin!” will have the exact opposite effect and turn any possible converts off. I mean, who wants to be part of a nasty, judgmental, angry mob?
As hateful and disgusting as those “Christians” were, it’s a caricature that shows the faults in trying to force your beliefs on others. As an atheist, I find it incomprehensible how people believe so diligently that they’ve found the correct theological path that they need to “share” it with others. Usually their beliefs dictate that people who haven’t been shown the truth will face some sort of terrible consequence, thus their pestering and complete disregard for their fellow humans’ lives and emotions are justified.
I’m a college student and I love studying world religions because they reflect the culture and ideals of the geographical location and time period in which they began. I have no, however, found any sort of truth to the mythological side of religion which promises salvation (like Christianity). Some of the most profound philosophical ideas, in my eyes, actually came from Hinduism.
Live and let live, ‘cos we’re all going to be dead when we die. =]
i’m thinkin ” the good the bad and the ‘holy’ ”
My evangelism ideas start at people being people, not potential converts. They’re people created in the image of God so I need to respect their personhood. And in my experience they don’t really care about my God if they think I don’t care about them. I start with caring about people and as I get to know them I invite them to church. I tend to think of it as inviting them to come to church with me though a mentor has suggested that I think of it as inviting them to be church with me. “See how these Christians love one another.” And I’ll be honest: I look for a hook. Come as cultural experience. Come to the Easter Vigil for the show. Be a part of my life. But I don’t start at “I’m saved, they aren’t, I need to fix that.”
Paws up.
I read this post a few days ago, and it has had me pretty upset. It just sickens me how often I hear and see stories of people calling themselves Christians and then acting so foolishly and shamefully. Ugh.
Thanks for stopping by Forest in a Bottle, btw. Glad to hear your thoughts.
The young boy walked across the church parking lot, tossing a ball in the air and catching it as it fell, casually wandering toward a busy highway. One man noticed this, and, being a religious man, he began to wring his hands, pray, and ask the boy politely to stop, to change directions, or at least to pay attention to where he was going. The boy remained oblivious and kept moving toward the highway. Another man observed the boy, and, being a caring man, he ran in a flat-out sprint toward the boy, dove through the air, and crashed into the boy with a flying shoulder tackle. Both he and the boy landed, just short of the path of a speeding truck, in a ditch filled with mud, weeds, and broken glass. The boy was shaken up, crying, cut, and bruised, but still alive.
The two men had taken drastically different approaches. One man appeared loving and polite, but his passivity was evidence of a callow cruelty toward the boy. One man appeared hateful and rash, but his willingness to act was evidence of a true love for the boy.
“Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” (Proverbs 27:5-6) Christians are not supposed to just “have” friends. They are supposed to love their friends. Christian love is more than just a “feeling.” It always involves action. If I have a friend who is walking toward destruction, my “secret love” for this friend will be of little help. However, a loud verbal warning during a face-to-face confrontation, even though it may cause hard feelings, could do a world of good. I need to have a loving willingness to batter and bruise (and then bandage) my friends, instead of a weak-willed sentimental desire to give them little kisses good-bye as they head for damnation.
I thank you for your contribution, but I disagree.
See, if the ignorant boy knows the man, and has an ongoing trusting relationship, it’s more likely that he will heed the warning without much incident. What I think you have argued is the fallacy of incongruent analogy.
And, Would not God be the one doing the chasing, or “tackling”, anyway? If the Spirit is not working in the heart of that person, it matters not what variety of message we use. It will be to no avail. So, why not build a bridge?
Excellent points. Thanks for letting me add my perspective, and I think I now see more clearly why folks would disagree with it.
The boy in the analogy (I would argue) wasn’t just ignorant – he was dangerously ignorant. And being completely oblivious to the danger and running out of space before he met an ugly end, there wasn’t time to build a bridge of relationship. We could argue, I suppose, that the man should have built a relationship with the boy a long time ago, but the (made-up-for analogy) “fact” that he didn’t build one before doesn’t (in my opinion) make the analogy incongruent.
I agree that God’s Spirit does the chasing and the tackling in one sense, but I also believe He uses loving Christians as His instruments many times. God is powerful enough to supernaturally implant the Gospel message into a person’s brain, and He is powerful enough drop a blockade from the sky that would keep everyone from racing into traffic, but the fact is, for some reason, it pleases Him to use redeemed sinners to declare His Gospel, and to form relationships, and even to once in while roughly shake someone we love into his senses before he hurts himself.
If I am the “one reader” in the twitter comment who supposedly said “yes” to the idea that being “hateful and rash” builds God’s Kingdom, I just want to go on record as saying that’s not what I said. I said the man who tackled the boy “appeared” hateful and rash, but that he actually acted out of true active love. And I am truly sorry if the inference is that I believe the Bible condones rash hatred. I certainly do not believe that, and did not mean to imply it.
Thank you for clarifying.
Ministry Addict,
The primary flaw with your analogy is that anyone can by FORCE save the boy from his path of destruction – in fact against his own will. Your analogy seems very similar to the comedian-magician Penn Gillette’s words, that “If you see someone about to get hit by a truck, there comes a point when you tackle them.” But what we are dealing with here is a soul’s choice to accept or reject the gospel. It would be more accurate to say that one man prayed and pleaded and begged the boy to turn aside, and that the second, more forceful man, shouted and harangued and yelled at the boy to turn aside. But neither of them could do anything other than speak to the boy. The path of his own life or destruction – of any soul’s – is ultimately their own decision.
You are crazy. Someone needs to tackle you mate.
I hope you mean “tickle”, Paul. haha ;)
Paul: I’m sorry you think I’m “crazy.” Hopefully you are just joking and not being mean-spirited. Name calling is purportedly not helpful to building a bridge of relationship.
If you truly do think I’m crazy though, I guess I’ll have to live with the label. They said the same thing about Jesus (Mark 3:21) and the Apostle Paul (Acts 26:24), and you yourself have admitted that Jesus and Paul are two “of the most important people” in what you called “[my] religion.” Anyway, “crazy” can be pretty subjective. My grandfather, who lived well into his nineties, said that when he was a boy, it was pretty common for people to tell people right to their face that they God loved them, and that they could be saved from the consequences of their sin by trusting Jesus. He said that these people weren’t considered “crazy” at all. However, I admit that the standard has changed. These days, forcefully confronting someone with the Gospel when they don’t want to hear it is often described as “crazy,” while it is considered not only sane, but worthy of adoration to wear a “meat dress” or to dance around in underwear on a stage while people scream out that they would die for you. “Crazy” can be sort of a relative term.
As far as someone tackling me, you’re a little too late – it’s already happened both in the literal (when I tried to stop a bigger person from beating up a smaller person, and his friends didn’t like it!) and in the figurative sense – many years ago when a stranger who loved me enough to tell me the truth told me that, according to the Bible, I had sinned against God and needed His loving Son to save me. The Holy Spirit also “tackled” me at that point, opened my willfully blind and oblivious eyes, and showed me it was true. That Truth is something wonderful that I want everyone to know – even the ones who think they don’t want to hear it. That might APPEAR hateful and rash, but it is not BEING hateful or rash.
Mark: You might believe that the analogy makes a point that you do not happen to like, believe, or agree with, but I respectfully submit that, in the scenario of the analogy itself, the point was not that anyone COULD stop the boy by force – the point was that only one person was WILLING to stop the boy by force. Someone had already tried more polite methods and they didn’t appear to be working.
I don’t know much about Penn Gillette, and I can’t really tell if you are agreeing with his statement or not, but on the surface (without knowing the context and without agreeing with him on other things) it appears to make sense. If I’m about to get hit by a truck, I would like someone (even someone who doesn’t particularly like me, such as Paul who would probably volunteer for the job, see above) to tackle me. As stated above, someone did that to me, spiritually speaking, several years ago, and I love him for it. Even more, I love the God who I believe authorized and empowered him to do it. I have done it to others, and they have testified that they are grateful for it, too. I would argue that there is evidence in the Bible of evangelistic “tackling in love” and that it is portrayed in Scripture as the the God-ordained thing to do in certain circumstances.
You state, “It would be more accurate to say that one man prayed and pleaded and begged the boy to turn aside, and that the second, more forceful man, shouted and harangued and yelled at the boy to turn aside. But neither of them could do anything other than speak to the boy.” Well, you are free to make up your own analogy I suppose, but to say that mine is less “accurate” kind of misses the point. The boy and his tackler landed just shy of the path of a speeding truck! Are you suggesting that the haranguing and yelling would have been worth the risk considering the magnitude of the harm averted? Everyone is free to dislike the analogy, but I would hope it wouldn’t be judged internally inconsistent, just like I would hope the tackler’s motives wouldn’t be mischaracterized as hateful and rash, when they are clearly stated to be otherwise.
You state: “The path of his own life or destruction – of any soul’s – is ultimately their own decision.” I want to give you credit (and I’m not being sarcastic) for the boldness of your convictions on this point. I would agree that each soul’s decision plays a part, but I would also argue (I think I can support it from Scripture) that other people who encounter a person also play a part in determining that person’s path, and that certainly God Himself plays a part in determining our path. To say that the person himself is the “ultimate” determiner, instead of God, to me is very bold, even though I don’t agree with it.
Ministry Addict, thank you for your thoughtful and respectful reply. I understand more of what you are saying now that you’ve explained yourself. I am not disagreeing with your major premise, that Christians have a responsibility to evangelize and exhort one another – sometimes with passion. I am glad that you had a “tackling” experience by a friend that helped set you on the right course. I am certainly not saying that Christians should be passive or indirect in warning others of their peril.
My main point is simply to show what I think is an internal flaw in the “truck tackling” scenario – a flaw that I don’t want translated into belief or action. Let me explain myself further. What I mean by the course of life “ultimately being their own decision” is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can directly impose our wills on the lives of other people. Say you have a friend who is a heroine addict, by his own choice. You can’t “tackle” him out of his free will decision. Maybe you can take away his drugs, put him in a rehab program, force him to go dry, and in that sense you are “tackling” the problem, but you can’t force him to choose to give it up, no matter how you beg and plead he still has a choice. And maybe even after all those measures are through, he chooses to go back to his drugs. A boy getting forcefully removed from the path of a truck has no choice in the matter. A better analogy might be to say that you are tossing a life ring to a drowning man (cliche, I know) it is up to him to grab it or not, you can’t force him to make the choice. Does that make sense?
You are right in saying that other people play a part, sometimes a *massive* part, but it seems to me that God still holds people accountable for their own choices – regardless of the influence of others. Note, here I am primarily referring to a person’s choice to love God or not. Yes God can override human free will if he chooses, whether he does, or how often, I don’t know. And yes Scripture does indicate that God can and does determine our lives, yet it appears that part of that “determining” is determining to let us choose. Perhaps I misspoke in saying we are the “ultimate” determiners. Yet it may be that God, as the penultimate determiner, allows us to choose.
In case I sound(ed) dogmatic, I am by no means set in stone on these issues, and think they still require a great deal of thought and consideration. Thanks for providing me with yours.
Min. Add. and Mark.
I don’t police too much here, b/c I trust in our God to help us see better and communicate through our differences. I know his spirit is with you. And when in the felt absence of that, I trust deeply in our grace for each other, which does not source in our own abilities and power, but in our Savior’s. None of us actually “get it right,” and as we grow spiritually, this concept settles into our hearts much more deeply. Thanks be to God who gives us all we need in his character and nature to get the biggest stuff fairly close to the point of it all. Jesus and his redemption of us–through more abounding grace than we can fathom.
I also will take the time to say thank you for clarifying yourself, and aiming for Christ-likeness in your repartee. We certainly can learn from each other, and firm up our own convictions through discourse.
Continue to contribute. We are all better for it.
blessings, Lisa
I think that the issue here is that there is a whole school of Christian thought that only operates in the “tackle them before they reach the truck” setting.
Person A states a point of view we disagree with? Tackle them.
Person B is associating with people we think are wrong? Tackle them.
Etc. I have had people tell me that they love me and think greatly of me…but they only ever rebuke me and tell me how I’m wrong and how they disagree with me.
It’s not love if it’s only ever a rebuke or a tackle.
If you choose to prop up your tackling lifestyle with “yes, but they’re going to hell!” then A. you are judging who will and who won’t, and B. you are not actually practicing anything of what Jesus said to do, and you’re living only in terms of Paul. Which Paul, quite frankly, would be disgusted by.
If everything comes down to “yes, but at any minute!” then you’re not living, you’re busy dying and trying to get everybody else to die with you. Christ came to bring life. So live. And live so others will see the life in you, and be drawn to Christ thereby.
I can’t really agree or disagree as to whether there is a whole school of Christian thought that operates “only” in a tackle-them-before-they-reach-the-truck setting. I’ve never encountered that school myself (although admittedly I don’t get around in Christian schools of thought all that much) and, just to be clear, the analogy about the boy getting tackled near the highway would not fit into such a school of thought, anyway. There is no indication in the scenario that I described that the man who did the tackling is always hanging around parking lots just hoping for a kid to wander into traffic. He’s not a weirdo who loves tackling kids for kicks. In my scenario he just happened to be in the right (or I guess some could argue “wrong”) spot at the opportune (or sovereignly appointed) time.
Person A’s “point of view” is about to bring about his destruction.
Person B is around some folks who are afraid of either (a) overstepping their bounds, (b) getting too involved, (c) giving a bad name to people who are opposed to kids wandering into busy highways, (d) just believe that God will intervene if He wants to, so it would be arrogant to take action which might offend, or (e) believe that their own lifestyle is so exemplary that everyone they encounter will be persuaded not too get too close to the highway in order to have the kind of wonderful life they have. So Person B takes the risk of looking like a big meanie and does the loving thing: He tries his best to save a life.
“It’s not love if it’s only ever a rebuke or a tackle.”
It’s also not love if it’s an omission of Truth.
Based on the Bible (which I know that not everyone believes or understands in the same way that I do) there are times when both Jesus and Paul warned people about hell. Like I said, I haven’t encountered as many schools of thought as some folks, but I would be surprised to learn that some people think Jesus did NOTHING but warn people of hell, or that some people think that is the ONLY thing that the Holy Spirit did through Paul.
“Christ came to bring life. So live.”
I believe that He came to bring ETERNAL life. The manna that fell from Heaven in Exodus brought “life” (sustenance, temporary life). But the Bread of Life – Jesus the True Manna – brought a whole new kind of Life. (See John 6.) So, yes, live, but live in Truth and speak the Truth to others in love so that they might enjoy this kind of Life. Sometimes that means tackling someone who is very near destruction and is showing no signs of slowing down.
To quote Mark Zellner above, “A better analogy might be to say that you are tossing a life ring to a drowning man… it is up to him to grab it or not, you can’t force him to make the choice.” Maybe I’m in the wrong school of thought (I hope not) but if someone I love is drowning and they refuse to grab the life ring, I’m going to jump in and try to pull them forceably to safety. Not because I enjoy the violence involved or even because I’m particularly brave. (I’m not.) It’s because I love them and don’t want to see them drown and God blessed me with the ability to swim really well. I’ll go out on a limb and say that a person who is drowning – and is refusing to acknowledge the life ring floating right next to him – will not be impressed with my anyone’s mute lifestyle enough (or in time) to change his mind and want to live.
Oops, my mistake. Upon re-reading I see that I might have mistaken a reference to Paul the professing atheist commenter for a reference to the Apostle Paul (thinking that Todd was making a comparison between the Apostle Paul and Jesus). If so, feel free to disregard the paragraph where I tried to respond to that. I think it’s pretty clear that Paul the professing atheist, as Todd said, might indeed be disgusted to hear that a Christian thinks he’s going to hell, whereas the Apostle Paul almost wished he could go to hell himself if that was the only way he could reach his Jewish kinsmen with the Gospel. (Also, that smiling winking face thing was an accident of coincidental punctuation, where I was trying to close a parenthesis.)
My supposition here is that we can look at people like Lady Gaga and say “she’s obviously wandering toward the highway, and we need to be tackling her, until she obviously appears to not be wandering toward the highway anymore, according to our standards”.
And all of the island natives need to only be having missionary sex. Etc.
What I find curious is that, when we read, say, The Sermon on the Mount, we see that the character of those who follow Christ and who are living in the Kingdom (which is here/at hand), they are gracious, humble, unjudging, forgiving, non-scornful, non-dismissive, giving, sacrificing, subversive people who change the world around them by not being like the world.
Whereas, the people who bring TRUTH and tackling may have a different message, but I don’t see much in the way of the above qualities to them. And they tend to want to back up what they’re doing mostly with Paul, and a few select verses from Jesus, rather than, say, TSotM.
Just saying. You see yourself as convicted and doing the only possible thing, but you’re only dealing in terms of “how I will be rewarded in heaven” rather than “how I am representing Christ here and now.”
“My supposition here is that we can look at people like Lady Gaga and say “she’s obviously wandering toward the highway, and we need to be tackling her, until she obviously appears to not be wandering toward the highway anymore, according to our standards”.”
Agreed. We “can” do that, but I wouldn’t want to tackle someone who wants to stop and discuss the highway with me first – at least not until he or she made it clear that they didn’t believe there was a highway and then start racing right for it. I think I would owe it to them (if I loved them) to attempt a loving tackle at that point. The purpose of the tackle wouldn’t be to get them to adhere to “my” standards. The purpose of the tackle would be to confront them with the Truth that there is a highway and the highway is dangerous and deadly. “Please don’t run into it without giving me a chance to explain how it can be avoided,” I would say. They might get disgusted and angry and think I’m a pest, but people had those feelings about Jesus sometimes, too, even when He was preaching AND living out the Sermon on the Mount.
“What I find curious is that, when we read, say, The Sermon on the Mount, we see that the character of those who follow Christ and who are living in the Kingdom (which is here/at hand), they are gracious, humble, unjudging, forgiving, non-scornful, non-dismissive, giving, sacrificing, subversive people who change the world around them by not being like the world.”
No offense, but it’s not that curious. Those people had been changed by the Truth so they were able to do that. I don’t think Jesus or His true disciples first built long “accept-you-for-what-you-are” relationships with every person they met prior to declaring the Truth to them. In fact, some of them appear to have turned into pretty good loving tacklers later on in the Gospels and the Epistles. My take on it is that they did this in the power of the Spirit of the same Christ who had walked with them before His death. I guess people who emulate them today would be guilty of backing up what they do from Bible Verses that are non-exclusively Sermon on the Mount Verses – but that’s sort of why we have the whole counsel of God (in my opinion). Those commandments to “preach” and “share” and “proclaim” are arguably pretty pervasive if you you’re looking for Scriptural evangelism techniques.
“Just saying. You see yourself as convicted and doing the only possible thing, but you’re only dealing in terms of “how I will be rewarded in heaven” rather than “how I am representing Christ here and now.””
I wouldn’t presume to assign that motive to everyone who tackles in love. Some of us think we’re dealing in terms of “how can I best love the ones who don’t want to hear the truth” or “how can I best obey the One Who shed His Own blood for my soul, regardless of whether I will be rewarded or not.”
All of the people I know of who I would consider professional tacklers will tell me that they love me, but the only time that they talk to me is when they choose to correct me. I suppose we all have reasons for why we establish our stereotypes. They would never hang out with me, they don’t care about anything I care about, and unless I come do their crud, I really don’t exist. But if I say something on the ‘net that they disagree with, they pull out a list of verses to let me and mine know the rebuke they have for me.
I suppose perhaps it’s a sign of lack of faith that I don’t see the Spirit saving people who have been witnessed to by assholes (I am not accusing you of being an asshole, btw). But I run into all of these people who say “it doesn’t matter how I say it, or when I say it, or anything about how I behave, all that matters is that I say the Truth and then the Spirit will take care of the rest of it”.
And I just…it’s the guy outside the car telling Lady Gaga that who she is, why she’s there, doesn’t matter, she’s just going to hell. It’s like, well, looking at you, why would she want to go to heaven? If heaven is full of scornful, dismissive asshole, how it that NOT going to be hell?
Telling the Truth to someone who is in danger is not inherently scornful or dismissive. If your point is that there are some people out there who are jerks when they are attempting to evangelize, then I’m sure there are. But (I believe according to the Bible) that the best motivation for wanting to go to Heaven is not that there are going to be tons of loving, kind, understanding folks there. I happen to believe there WILL be, but I want to go to Heaven primarily to be with Jesus. I have friends who have mowed my lawn, served me meals, accepted my dumb decisions, put up with my pride, prayed and cried with me when I was hurting. But I have only one Friend Who suffered and bled and died so that I could be at peace with my Creator and live with Him forever.
If you are constantly running into “professional tacklers” who are being a jerk to you, I’m sorry. I can’t think of any requirement that you continue to hang around with them. At the risk of being redundant, though, there ARE loving Christians out there who attempt to “tackle” unbelievers in love. The correct motives for this (according to my reading of the Bible) are numerous, but two of the big ones (and not necessarily in this order) are: 1. They love these people and they believe the Truth will set them free. 2. (To borrow a quote from commenter Joseph Matthews above): “[Unbelievers are] people, not potential converts. They’re people created in the image of God so I need to respect their personhood.” As part of respecting their personhood, I don’t want to see them failing to acknowledge, worship, and give thanks to their Creator. It doesn’t make me angry at them that they are not doing these things, but it does grieve me that God demonstrated such great love to save them, yet they are not honoring His Son. I believe His Son deserves and is worthy of being honored by everyone, and I believe God should be acknowledged, worshiped, thanked, and adored by all His creation – especially His image-bearers! If these motives are what drive me to be passionate, zealous, excited, and (lovingly) aggressive about tackling unbelievers with the Truth, then I should do so by proclaiming the Gospel, not by trying to get them to perform a superficial change of lifestyle.