Hermant Mehta, an atheist, put the chance to save his soul up for auction on Ebay. He sold for 504$ and then visited between 10-15 churches. Read the article.
He wrote down his thoughts about the church services he visited.
Mehta's put up this funny and thought-provoking post(20 Things That Christians Do In Church That Annoy Me) on his blog, The Friendly Athiest.
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This whole situation is fascinating. I admire Jim Henderson for paying $500 to meet this "friendly atheist," but honestly, it gives me a sadness. At the end of the article there is a quote by Henderson: "We're getting to a place where we're talking and not converting." —I think this attitude is catching on in American Evangelicalism; I think Rob Bell fits this persona... and I fear that the pendulum is swinging in American Christians from Raging Evangelicalism to Passive Humanism.
I'm by no means a "raging evangelical." But doesn't this American-Evangelical attitude seam a little disturbing? I absolutely have many non-believing friends (actually, since moving to Dallas, probably more non-believing friends than believing!), but no possible conversation I could have with them could bring comparable joy as the (hopeful) day they bow low in prayer and realize the Lordship of Christ.
I agree that this is very interesting and I hope that it will have an impact on Hermant. The further into the article I got, the more the whole process seemed to convert into a game…voting for the sermons to determine how boring they are? I think maybe this was necessary but I fear that Henderson may have lost sight of his opportunity to minister to someone through a huge ordeal. I think that “talking and not converting” is a great place to start but that more long term goals need to be put in place and a conversion should be included in that.
Christ calls on us to believe in Him, not to think about believing in Him. I think that the most hopeful thing I read was when the article paraphrased Hermant, stating that “he was missing out on something…perhaps being around a group of people who will ‘show me the way’ could do what no one else has done before…this is probably the best chance anyone has of saving me.” It seems like Hermant is begging for someone to give him a reason to believe, he just can not see through his own cynicism.
I was bothered by Hermant’s blog. I was bothered because it kind of made me realize even the small actions that Christians do can belittle God to someone in question. Hermant noticed a lot of little things that we often don’t see as a big deal (walking in late, looking at watches during the sermon). To me, it seems like Hermant may have just been seeking as much to criticize as possible in light of his cynicism, but then I thought that maybe those little things do make the church look unattractive. It makes me think that we need to be even more aware of our actions than we already are.
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