I have no respect for the kind of preaching that confuses selling with persuasion, sales pitches with preaching the Gospel.
—Ben Patterson
Ahair salon in Minneapolis ran an advertisement recently that pictured Albert Einstein with the caption: “A bad haircut can make anybody look dumb!”
The now-deceased genius has appeared in a number of ads this year. Usually, however, he is seen promoting such high-tech products as computers and software. Apparently some ad agencies consider Einstein a universally accepted symbol of intellectual brilliance and technical mastery, the kinds of things we consumers hope to get a piece of in the purchase. Their rationale is simple, almost self-evident: If they can connect in our minds what he stands for with what they want to sell us, we can be persuaded to buy their products.
Gospel Pitchmen?
Persuade. Isn’t that what we Christian preachers hope to do to people in regard to the Gospel? It may sound crass, but in the final analysis aren’t we all in the business of selling the greatest product—Jesus Christ? Several people have suggested this is indeed the case, with one of them boldly calling Jesus himself the “greatest salesman who ever lived!”
Well, is selling the same as persuasion? Let’s come at this from another angle. When we prepare a sermon or an evangelistic address, what do we want to see happen? Do we want hearers to change their beliefs or their behavior? “A false dichotomy!” you protest. True, but nevertheless an important distinction. Of course we want—God wants—those who hear his Word to change both what they believe and what they do. We shouldn’t prefer one to the other.
But they are different. In selling, you change a person’s behavior without changing his beliefs. In persuasion, you change a person’s beliefs and, therefore, behavior.
Note how a good salesperson operates. If she can convince me that what I already believe about the value of intellectual prowess and technical mastery can be furthered by buying a certain word processor, she will have succeeded. She has no interest in a dialogue with me about the validity of those convictions; she wants only to connect those convictions with her product. If she can do that, everyone is happy. She is happy with her sales commission, and I am happy because my beliefs have remained intact; I think I have just bought something to further those beliefs.
That is selling.
Friendly Persuaders
Persuasion is quite another matter. Preachers with integrity face the difficult challenge of persuading us to change our beliefs and, therefore, our behavior. That forces them to grapple with us over things we hold on to for dear life. They must seek entrance into those most sacred precincts of our lives where we have enthroned false gods. They have to violate our preconceived notions about what is good and evil, right and wrong, true and false.
They may do this gently or brutally; they may appeal to our intellect or emotions; they may hold before us our fear of death or brace us with our love for life; they may use logic, they may use poetry; they may list propositions, they may tell stories. They may use any and all of the tools of rhetoric and debate. But, however they do it, they must present us with the radical, clear-cut decision between all we are without Christ and all we will be in him. Otherwise, the Gospel will not be preached; only a product will be pitched for our consumption.
In short, Christian persuaders must preach more than the gospel of the forgiveness of sins; as Jesus told his disciples, they must preach the gospel of repentance and the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47). Repentance, by definition, calls us to change our beliefs, our minds, our ways of thinking.
Mixed Messages
I want no one reading this to think I have a low opinion of salespeople per se. Provided the product is worthy and the needs and beliefs appealed to are legitimate, it is a worthy task to persuade the public your product will meet their needs—and, I might add, a task requiring extraordinary intelligence and resourcefulness.
But I have no respect for the kind of preaching that confuses selling with persuasion, sales pitches with preaching the Gospel. This kind of preaching uncritically appropriates current social myths and values and links them with the Gospel, making it the means by which those myths and values are attained or confirmed. This is deadly! So-called believers who have been sold on Jesus continue to believe the things they did before. The only change is that Jesus has now become an embodiment, an exemplar, a symbol of those enduring beliefs.
Do we in the contemporary church have a problem here? We certainly do in what styles itself as Christian media. Why the prominence of entertainers, athletes, millionaires, and politicians as gospel spokespersons?
There may be legitimate reasons, but I can also think of a crass one: they play there because they also play in the world. To the worldly, these kinds of people symbolize legitimacy and success. As long as they can be linked with the gospel in some way, the gospel connects with legitimacy and success—as defined by the world.
The message, whether implicit or explicit, is that nothing really must change if you are to follow Jesus. Oh yes, sexual morality must be cleaned up, but beyond that you needn’t worry. You can continue as committed to money, power, security, and recognition A.D. as you were B.C. The inferred difference is that you will now be more successful in the world than you were before.
How about Christian preaching?
I am not in a good position to judge since I am the preacher I hear most of the time. But if preachers’ books give any indication, I have reason to worry that the gospel has been combined with our culture’s preoccupation with psychological well-being. It’s Jesus and your depression, Jesus and your marriage, Jesus and your obesity, Jesus and your anorexia, Jesus and your mid-life crisis.
Forgive me if my eye is jaundiced. People’s needs are real, and the Gospel is a whole Gospel for the whole person. But God help us if these current concerns have written the agenda for our preaching and, worse, made us salespersons instead of Christian persuaders.
Beyond Persuasion
It is hard to persuade people about anything, much less the most radical thing of all: repentance and faith in Christ alone as the hope for salvation. It is more than hard; it is impossible! Who can change the way a person thinks and believes? Who is equal to the task? In the flesh, no one. Only God holds such power.
That is my point. When we substitute salesmanship for persuasion, we belie our faith in the supernatural power of God to use mere preaching to change people.
Each Halloween the kids in my neighborhood come to my door outlandishly dressed as robots and dragons, ghouls and superheroes. I always find it a delight to look into the eye holes of a Frankenstein mask and discover the cherubic little boy at the end of the street or hear the voice of the five-year-old girl next door coming through the witch’s mouth. The costumes are fun to look at, but what makes them delightful are the children you find behind them.
To use Luther’s very pregnant image, we preachers are God’s masks. He hides behind us to do his work, not because he wants to be hidden, but because otherwise his unfiltered glory would annihilate those who see it. God really doesn’t ask much of us; he calls for no heroic efforts in the pulpit. He needs nothing to commend him, no elaborate philosophical or cultural apologia to be believed. Above all, God doesn’t need to be sold. All he wants is a little crack to shine through.
People will often be amused, even shocked, at the masks he chooses to wear. But they will be thrilled finally to have met him.
Copyright © 1997
