Talking Jesus

You may remember a bit of research reported on a few days ago which was commissioned by the Church of England (among others) and came up with the statistic that 40% of people don't know that Jesus was a real person (although I know atheists who argue very adamantly that he wasn't). That was all very well, but the research also looked into the results of encounters between Christians and non-Christians, and found that the two groups remembered such encounters rather differently, and not just that. Now, bear in mind that for years the Church has been rather wringing its hands about the inarticulacy of its members in talking to their friends, neighbours, colleagues and relatives about their faith. 'Talk to people', says the Church, 'Spread the word. Gossip the Gospel. It's the only way of converting souls.' The research suggests it is, in the sense that people who did convert to Christianity put conversations with a Christian as one of the reasons for doing so, but the figures also point out that most of the time such encounters do more harm than good: non-Christians who had conversations with believers about faith were four times more likely to feel negatively about Christianity than to want to find out more. The findings were reported to the General Synod a few days ago and apparently had Synod members gasping in disbelief. 

Quantitative research of this sort, important though it is, can't get at the quality and nature of the encounter which I expect is crucial to what happens as a result of it. Only yesterday our curate Marion, going to pick the family car up from a repair job at the local garage, had a conversation with one of the staff who related how he'd begun going to church at Christmas and Easter as a result of chats with a neighbour, a Baptist, who he knew and liked. This was clearly one of those encounters which, in evangelistic terms, had 'worked', probably because it took place within a context of trust and friendship and without the evangelisee feeling they were being evangelised: nobody likes feeling that someone else regards them as a means to an end rather than a person in their own right. 

Strangely enough I very rarely have deep conversations about faith, despite or, who knows, perhaps because of the collar; much of the time they happen when I come to the church and find someone in desperate circumstances who needs to talk, very often after their tongues have been loosened by a little alcohol. It's a bit of a shame because those aren't the best circumstances for such conversations to happen. I suspect many people assume that if they really open up to the vicar he will be judgemental and critical; perhaps this characterises the encounters they have with other sorts of Christians too, which is why they turn out so negatively. 

'We know that some people are good at this, and some aren't', they concluded at the Synod meeting, which seems, for the moment, to be as far as we can get.