my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

I see these guys downtown at Thursday at the Square and at other big downtown events, and I think their approach is all wrong. The yellow sign on the left says “ASK ME WHY YOU DESERVE TO GO TO HELL”. The sign on the right says something about how Jesus died for various sins.

You never see anyone go up to the “ask me” guy and actually ask him why they deserve to go to hell. Usually people just go up to him and shout him down. I can’t imagine some lost soul coming up to him and actually talking about faith and religion. Apparently the street preachers’ goal is to make people feel bad. Maybe deep down the preachers are hoping that they can make the sinners on the street feel bad enough that they’ll go to some church somewhere and … learn … something about Jesus? Maybe?

As a person who has faith and counts himself as a Christian, I think I have to say publicly that these street preachers don’t represent all Christians. Many of us are actully trying to be … kind. Trying to show grace toward others. We don’t all sit in a judgemental position, condemning others and making ourselves feel more righteous.

God bless those street preachers. May God smack them in the head and the heart with some grace and love.

(The caption I typed on the picture is a reference to the interwebs phenomenon “lol cats” and is meant not to mock the preachers, but to use humor to make a point. Click here to see a bunch of funny lolcats pictures.)

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