Seven lies Christians tell…
March 3, 2014 
2 Comments
“How do we Christians lie … How do we lie when evangelizing?” These are questions that Tony Kriz has put to over twenty groups of churchgoers. Interestingly, the response is never bafflement or defensiveness. No one ever says, “I don’t think we lie.”
You want to know what is most enlightening about this phenomenon for me? I have witnessed this exact same scene more than twenty times before. Every time I ask this question to a mixed room of informed churchgoers, the room does not stay silent for more than a pregnant moment. … Instead, at least after that first momentary pause, it is not if we lie, it is instead, how many different ways we lie. And, as each person shares around the room, most all the other heads nod along in agreement.
Here’s Tony Kriz’s list of seven ways Christians lie when evangelizing.
1. We lie when we claim we are more confident than we really are. The culture of pretending within Christianity seems almost at an epidemic level. Many of us feel the need to hide our doubts and questions. …
2. We lie when we claim that unexplainable things are in fact explainable. God is transcendent and beyond even the shadowy wisps of imagination in our finite minds. The Trinity, for instance, is not as simple as a metaphor of water (ice, water, steam) or an egg (shell, white, yoke). …
3. We lie when we don’t acknowledge our doubts within the drama of faith. This is similar to number one above but just on a more detailed level. When another person challenges us with a difficult theological/philosophical issue, sometimes it is best to just admit that those questions are very challenging and even emotionally taxing on the soul (I think people like to know that our faith is so important to us that it does impact our soul-state in both encouraging and difficult ways.) …
4. We lie when we pretend like the Bible doesn’t say some really nasty things when in fact it does. For instance, God commands genocide. He just does … at least from a clear and honest reading of the Bible. …
5. We lie when we claim we understand other beliefs, faiths and world views. We need to stop saying things like, “I understand Islam,” or, “I know what a Muslim thinks/believes.” Do you want someone saying that they understand your faith experience because they once lived in a Greek Orthodox neighborhood? …
6. We lie when we claim that all of our beliefs are a “10”. This one is probably going to frustrate some people, but we are disingenuous when we claim all of our dogmas with equal veracity. To put it another way, on a scale of one to ten, not all Christian beliefs are a “10.” …
7. Finally, and most importantly, we lie (insidious and barbaric lying) when we pretend like we really, really, really love the other person when in fact we don’t. We do not love people when we dismiss their story (including their hopes, values, beliefs and convictions). We do not love people when we do not empathically listen to them …
There’s a good bit to ponder here. Many of us, perhaps all, can see a bit of ourselves at some point on this list, if we’re honest. Is it fear? Or a lack of training? The lack of a mentor to guide our preparation? The lack of confidence in our own faith? Or any of a host of other reasons? In any case, Tony’s list raises issues that can serve as a great starting point for planning a class on apologetics and evangelism.
Tony Kriz’s “Seven Lies Christians Tell” was published in Leadership Journal.
“Lie” is a pretty strong word. Google defines “lie” this way: an intentionally false statement. Intentionally asserting the statements in the article as being true when we know the statements are false may be an assertion that is a bridge too far. I would agree that we need to search our hearts with regard to all the statements cited in the article.
Eddie, thanks for your comment. Yes, ‘lie’ is a strong word. But it seems to me that ‘intentionality’ is part of each item on Mr. Kriz’s list: 1) We intend to come across as more confident than we are. 2) We intend to present the unexplainable as explainable. And so on.
On 20+ occasions when he’s asked about lying in evangelism, his audiences have not objected to the word ‘lie’: “[It] is not if we lie, it is instead, how many different ways we lie. And, as each person shares around the room, most all the other heads nod along in agreement.”
What I didn’t include in my summary of the article is that there’s a sort of release that comes from being able to admit that this sort of deception occurs in evangelism: “ … it is like we have always known such things to be true deep down inside, but we have never been given permission to just say the thoughts aloud.” There’s relief in having “an honest and thoughtful exchange about such matters … ”