A gentler Christianity much more attractive

JACK Lamb (Write Back, June 2) speaks a message of fear and warning to sinners, referencing the Old Testament before dropping down a rescue ladder: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

The Greeks spoke of an “apologia” (or defence) of a truth statement. Our modern word for defence of Christian faith derived from this is “apologetics”.

Academic theologians speak of presuppositional apologetics and evidential apologetics. The former, perhaps, frames the Gospel with “you’d better believe it — or else”.

Some victims of 1970s and 1980s hellfire preaching may have lapsed into atheism or agnosticism.

Modern Jesuit writer Gerrard Hughes noted how falsely negative images of the divine character can damage the Church.

Mass attendance can become a reliving of an unpleasant childhood experience, resembling coercion into visiting a cantankerous and ill-tempered old bachelor uncle.

Taking some hard statements from Paul, from the Old Testament or from the Gospels may not be the best way to broadcast Christian truth. Words of the Prophet Isaiah — “Come let us reason together” — capture the essence of the “evidential” approach, where reason, logic and evidence are utilised to inform spirituality and evangelism.

In the Book of Acts, St Paul defines the calling of an evangelist: “... and that work is to tell the Good News of God’s great kindness”. The final lines of the Book of Acts read: “He (Paul) proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, with all boldness and without hindrance.”

The Kingdom of God and Jesus, once properly recognised and valued, possess a magnetism which never fails to draw sinners.

CHRISTIAN

(Name and address with Editor)