Having been witnessed several times over the last month about the evils of my Pagan ways, I have written a list of why witnessing rarely works.
1. They act or go in eith the with mentality that you are a bad person, and treat you as such.
Having been often raised to believe that people only reject the word of God due to the lack of desire to give up bad life style, they is often the automatic assumption. I have been accused by strangers who do not know my name of being a drug addict, alcoholic, or promiscuous.
The truth is I have never taken any type of drugs, hate the taste of alcohol, and am a virgin. People will not cconvert someone to another worldview if you treat them like they believe differently than you because they are morally inferior to you.
It does not make Christians look good, it only makes them all look like judgement jerks and do you want to convert to a religion filled with people like that.
2. Too much reliance on the threat of hell.
Threatening a non-Christian with hell is like threatening an adult with no presents for Christmas.People cannot be tthreaten someone with something they do not believe in. No graphic descriptions of it or what ifs can change that. Also, the fact they on hell so much makes their argument look weak.
It makes it seem that Christianity is a religion dependant on fear and who want to convert to a religion out of fear?
3. Ignorance of religion or spirituality of the person being witnessed too.
Half the time I am forced to explain to the person trying to convert me that I do not do ‘dark’ magic or use aborted fetuses in my ritual. Looking stupid never makes anything looks good. There seems to be a sire to be purposefully ignorant of the other person’s belief systems to avoid being ‘tempted’. This only causes frustration tot he person being witnessed too, by having what they believe so misrepresented.
This only causes frustrations. If someone is going to spend time witnessing to someone, they should take tome to understand what the other person believes, or else it is a time waster to both of them
4. Ignorance of their own religion
Possibly one of the most frustrating things is being witnesses to someone who does not understand their own faith or book. I can easily point out immoral parts of the Bible like directions for slavery and such, and I am often accused of lying even when I give out the chapter or pointing out how many things Christianity stole from Paganism.
The Poetry of the Earth 
Hello there! I stumbled across your entry through tags etc and just wanted to take a moment to respond. I am a Christian and am sort of new to wordpress but I am enjoying it quite a lot! Anyways, to your first point, I wanted to say that if you felt judged by the people witnessing to you then I am very sorry! The truth is that Christian’s believe that everyone is born with a sin nature, meaning we are all sinful no matter what kind of good life we try to live. It would be so haughty of someone else to judge you for their assumptions about your lifestyle when (even if they are a Christian) they are equally as sinful. This is why we believe that everyone needs forgiveness which we find through Christ.
For your second point, hell is real and scary but I think that living a life or eternity without God to be more so. I really disagree with people who preach fire and brimstone on street corners etc in order to get people to convert. Perhaps it works for some, perhaps some people actually need to hear it, but for the majority of non-believers I bet its a major turn off as you said. In fact, even I would be turned off to the faith by that! It is more important to focus on the relationship between God and man than to be threatened with hell.
Point 3: I think you are right that some Christians may try to avoid truly understanding other world religions and view points for fear of being tempted. They may cite things like 1 John 2:15-17 about not taking part in “worldly,” things etc. I feel like this is a cop out for being asked hard questions. I believe that you are right. You should be able to defend the faith you believe in. I am currently learning more and more about doing just that, although I am nowhere near perfect or completely knowledgeable. You had mentioned in your about section that you are young, perhaps your Christian friends are young as well and haven’t fully formed their worldview yet? Or maybe they had never thought to study other world religions in their free time? Maybe give them the benefit of the doubt? I would hope that Christians have enough confidence in their faith and God to not be afraid of what others have to say about their beliefs. Again, we may not always have the answers right away to a skeptic’s questions, or the questions of someone from a different belief system but it is important to search for the truth and respond as best we can.
Point 4: There are plenty of wicked people, immoral acts, and other pagan religions written about in the Bible. This does not mean that God endorses said actions. I would be interested to hear which passages in particular bother you…you had mentioned slavery. Would you mind citing which passages about slavery bother you and why? Also, do you have any sources/articles about how Christianity stole things from paganism?
The Bible and Paganism: I have read a little bit about this and do not believe that the Bible has taken things from pagan religions and incorporated those practices into theirs. The article below I think is a good source for maintaining the Biblical authenticity in regards to pagan religion. The article cites several opposing view points and historical texts that scholars use to argue against the Bible. While citing examples of historic archeological finds against Biblical authority it makes several interesting points:
1) There are some similarities between the Hebrew Bible and Ugaric texts (pagan texts of that time). However the Bible is not dependent upon these, meaning that the Bible does not use these texts to create its theology (beliefs about God).
2) There may be similarities in language, context, and culture between the pagan texts and the Bible but no pagan text exactly replicates/parallels the Biblical texts. Aka sort of like the people writing the Bible didn’t copy and paste pagan text into their writing of the Bible while changing the names of the gods of paganism.
3) The similarity of language and culture validates that the Bible is actually from that time period. If the Bible sounded completely different from the types of writing, poetic forms, and cultural practices of that time then we would indeed need to question whether the Bible is actually an authentic document from that culture.
4) The Bible is often accused of adapting pagan myth into its own writing but often times throughout the old testament the Bible rejects pagan practices and theology. Meaning that the God of Israel rejects the types of worship offered to other pagan gods of the same time period. An example given is the practices of worshipers of Ba’al.
5) Last, there are plenty of examples where the Old Testament people of Israel are swayed by other pagan cultures and give over to worshiping other gods rather than Yaweh, the one true God, the God of Christianity today. In this case, God rejects this behavior and punishes his people in order to correct them and bring them back to Himself….much like a parent would a child, a correction out of love for them.
Here is the link to the article which cites many scholarly texts and archeological finds.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=13&article=462&topic=100
I hope you find this to helpful as I believe it makes a convincing argument that the Biblical texts are not taken from Pagan ones even if there are similarities in expressions, poetic forms, and terminology. I would also be happy to address your other concerns regarding slavery and the Bible as Christians do not believe in slavery but instead the equality of every man/woman.
Thank you, for your well thought out repsonse and I will reponse by the slavery passages that bothered me
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.’ If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)
Also so does this
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
Thank you for sharing this. It is important for Christians, like myself, to know how they are perceived. I am sorry you have felt judged by Christians rather than loved by them. May I reblog this on my site?
Yes,you man
Reblogged this on Keri Williams and commented:
This is an interesting post written by someone who has been witnessed to by Christians and has had bad experiences. She’s given me permission to reblog this and I’d like to take the opportunity to use this as a learning tool. What can we as Christians do better based on this feedback?
Thank you for sharing this – it highlights a lot of my own thoughts on this. Many years ago God told me that most people need to know that he loves them, and this guides my writing and conversations with others.
I identify with what you are saying. “Witnessing” is salesmanship of religion. I hate any attempt to sell to me, especially the hardsell types that add threat, insult and ignorance to their technique. Often those that walk outside of mainstream religion are intelligent informed people, who came to their choice of spiritual path after study and reflection, which the religious salespeople appear to be unable to appreciate.
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I’m sorry that you’ve had such bad experiences with Christians. I make every effort to share my faith, be an influence where it is welcomed, answer questions, but also agree to disagree. For me, witnessing is just a natural part of a friendship. If someone knows me, they get to see how my faith has changed me and how it has given me strength to endure suffering. I rarely engage someone in a conversation for the purpose of converting them. Talking about what I believe just comes up naturally. Maybe I’m hoping to help and I certainly want to share my faith, but it’s nothing like what you described. Your post also got me to thinking about how the apostles spread the gospel. I don’t recall that they used the threat of hell that you mention. Peter talks about being prepared to explain the source of our hope. He doesn’t say, “Make sure you tell them they’re gonna burn!”
I’m glad you shared this. It is something that Christians should be aware of.