In his Oct. 20 column, "To see or not to see," Philip Kurian assumes that evangelism is based on a platform of superiority and condescension. While this is sometimes true--after all, Christians, too, "fall short of the glory of God," as Kurian reminds us--overwhelmingly, the motivation to evangelize comes from how much we ought to care.
Tolerance--the notion that "all beliefs are equally valid"--could better be translated, "I don't care enough to argue about it." But if the truth really does matter, and if we really do have true answers that changed our lives and which we know can change the lives of others, then we have an obligation to care enough to explain those answers, and to hope that people believe them. "Tolerance" tells us that it shouldn't matter to us whether or not anybody else finds the Truth; love and morality tell us that it should. It is no more compassionate to claim that all beliefs are valid than it would be to tell a drowning man that all directions lead to the same shore.
Salvation by grace and grace alone, the essence of Christianity, is a Truth that we feel, not just one that we can argue rationally about, although we can, indeed, argue rationally for it. Our unworthiness to earn anything is reality, but so is redemption through God's love.
To whoever wrote "Effortless Perfection," and to anybody who feels that way, Christians do care, and we do have the answer to finding meaning and hope in this world. The God who made you cared enough to die for you, so that you didn't have to be perfect by your own efforts. E-mail me, please, and let me buy you dinner and explain where God is coming from.
Mike Lee
Trinity'06
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