A Theology of Guilt (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Lord)

I am a missionary in recovery.

Now, before you read some kind of condemnation into that, I loved being a missionary. I love and respect all of my friends who are in missions.

Three years ago, I wrapped up my ministry in one part of Japan, got married, and moved to another part of Japan. I had a kid. I got a job as an English teacher. And for the first time in my entire life, I was not doing any kind of ministry. No big volunteer commitments. No striking up conversations about Jesus with perfect strangers. My hands were full juggling husband, baby, home and job.

And I felt like I was dead.

Having grown up in the church I've been drilled with the message that Christians must serve and evangelize, that we have a burden, a responsibility to spread the name of Jesus to everyone around us. A well-meaning friend once told me a story about a guy (an acquaintance of hers? A friend? A mere anecdote? I can't remember) who saw a young woman on the street and suddenly felt the urge to go tell her about Jesus. But he didn't want to bother her, he felt too shy or something, whatever. He decided not to do it. And then the next moment he saw her get hit by a bus. The moral of the story is that WE CANNOT MISS A SINGLE OPPORTUNITY TO EVANGELIZE AND SPREAD THE GOSPEL BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE DYING ALL AROUND US AND DID YOU CATCH THE URGENCY BECAUSE THIS IS IN ALL CAPS WITH BOLD LETTERING AND YOU ARE A TERRIBLE CHRISTIAN IF YOU DO NOT SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO TALK TO.

I don't mean to make light of a serious issue, I really don't. But the guilt I felt after being told that story, the crushing and horrifying weight of responsibility for the eternal souls of the people around me, became at times almost debilitating. A person's eternity is their decision, but how can they believe if they have not heard? So every time I sat on a train and chose to listen to music instead of forcing a conversation with the person sitting next to me, I felt guilty. This is while I was serving as a missionary in a foreign country. I felt so guilty for time I spent alone in my room on my days off. I was a missionary but I was not doing enough. I was never doing enough and people were going to go to hell because of it.

Let me stop and switch gears for a second. You know the Great Commission? Matthew 28:18-20? Mark 16:15? I'm going to assume you go to church, so yes, yes you have. You may have heard it more than any other verse besides John 3:16. We evangelicals, we love the Great Commission.

Let me ask another question. Indulge me. Who, specifically, is Jesus talking to when he gives the Great Commission? The previous verses in both Matthew and Mark tell us who was present when Jesus gave this command. The Eleven.

Isn't it weird that even though Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that Jesus appeared to over five hundred brothers (not just people, but believers, remember that), that Jesus would give this evangelistic command, a command which is given almost supreme importance in our church today, not to all those five hundred brothers, but rather to the eleven people who had been his core group?

I looked through the other verses on evangelism that get quoted. "Do the work of an evangelist." Addressed specifically to Timothy. Or how about Ezekiel 3:17-20? "Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. "When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. "Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself. Again, when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I will require at your hand."

Oooh, that one... that hits me right in the guilts. It always has. Except... is this God talking to me? To his followers in general? Contextually, no. God is talking specifically to Ezekiel. Poor Ezekiel. That is a ton of responsibility. Responsibility that, I will put to you, is not yours, fellow believer.

Even as I type this I feel like I'm expounding some sort of blasphemy, and if you feel that way about it, well... I get it, I really do. But I've been looking carefully at the commands given specifically to believers, in general. For example, 1 Peter 3:15, which says, "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."

Note how the impetus for this evangelistic conversation is not actually on the believer. He doesn't say, "Make sure you talk to everyone you know about the reason for the hope that you have." He says, "be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you." And also note the "gentleness and respect" part, because I could go on a huge tangent about how aggressive and nasty American Christians can be toward nonbelievers. We kind of have a reputation for it. But I digress.

I also noticed that every time Paul talks about evangelism, he uses "I" or "we," as in he and his missionary companions. I mean, read 1 Corinthians 5, which has a lot of verses about evangelism. Paul uses "we," and at first I thought maybe the "we" could refer to us all as Christians, but then occasionally he will address his audience, the church in Corinth, as "you." So I went back and read more of 2 Corinthians, and I realized that when Paul says "we," he is usually referring to himself and Timothy, his partner in ministry. Now, there are lots of good verses here where Paul uses the "we" that we, as Christians, can use as encouragement. But that is not the same thing as taking it as a Biblical command that we should feel guilty for failing to uphold.

So could it be that we have over-emphasized a small part of our calling, and in so doing, have distorted what it means to be a Christian? I looked at commands to Christians in general. There's a whole lot of "stand firm and hold on to the teachings we passed on to you," "live quiet and peaceable lives," "work with your hands and mind your own business," "never tire of doing what is right," "live a holy life," "forgive," "love," "pray," "do good to all people,""make the most of every opportunity," and in general lead respectable, peaceful lives so that no one can accuse you of wrongdoing. Be prepared to answer. But I couldn't find this urgent mandate to go force conversations about Jesus with people. Even the "let your light shine" passage (Matthew 5:13-16) which tells us to be salt and light... Think about it. A city on a hill does not push itself over to the city next door; people know about it just because it is there. A lamp on a lamp stand does not personally go to everyone in the house to make sure they know it is shining. It shines, and they know. Salt does not invade all the rest of the food to turn it into salt. Salt simply exists, and by virtue of its presence, the food is made better.

So this pushy evangelism thing that I have been hearing about my entire life... is it truly a Biblical picture of evangelism? Or could it be that the people who are comfortable with just striking up a conversation about Jesus with the cashier at Wal-mart or standing up in a pulpit to preach the Word of God, can do so because they have a spiritual gift, a calling to it? Could it be that the reason I have felt so uncomfortable with forcing conversations about Jesus is because it is not how I was meant to be "salt and light"? Could it be that when 1 Corinthians 12 talks about spiritual gifts and the different parts of the body of Christ, that perhaps that means some people are meant to be the mouth and others are meant to be something else (like, I don't know, the liver? Livers don't talk to anybody but they're pretty important, filtering out toxins and stuff)?

Could it be that this crushing guilt I've felt over evangelism, and the listlessness and emptiness I felt when I started going about my daily life without doing any real "ministry," is not what God wants for me? When I finished being a missionary I was overwhelmed by a sense of loss and lost-ness. I had NO IDEA how to be a Christian, what it meant to be a Christian, if I wasn't serving a church in some tangible capacity, aside from giving offering, because that's just money and you're just using it to buy peace of mind, to ease you from the guilt you feel for not serving on top of giving! (Okay, I have no idea if anybody ever said that but it was the underlying message I had taken away from a lifetime in church.)

But recently, after a closer examination of the epistles, I have realized that God can be pleased if you just lead a quiet, peaceful life, avoiding evil and working hard. My whole view of how to be a Christian was recently revolutionized when, for the first time, I really noticed 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may gain the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." Seriously, go read the whole book of 1 Thessalonians. It tells you all about how to be a Christian and not once does that involve going door to door passing out tracts or forcing a conversation with a complete stranger. Or Titus 3:14, "Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives."

There are so many more, but do you know the conclusion I've come to?

God is glorified through the simple act of living a respectable life.

You have no idea how freeing that realization has been for me. God does not blame us or put responsibility on us for the eternal destiny of every single person we encounter.

Our responsibility begins and ends with our own lives. That's all.

That's all.

I cried when I came to that realization. I'm on the brink of tears right now, because for my whole life I have felt so guilty for all the people I wasn't talking to, all the evangelism I wasn't doing, without realizing that part of it was because I had been taught a theology of guilt, a theology which tried to turn my deeply introverted self into something it was not. God created me as an introvert. He gave me a personality which is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of striking up a conversation cold with a complete stranger, and that is okay, because that is not what God has commanded me to do. I don't have to feel guilty about it.

You know what you should feel guilty for? Sin. And nowhere in the Bible does it say that sitting on an airplane next to a stranger and not striking up a conversation about Jesus is a sin. So maybe if you are being a preached a theology that makes you feel guilty for that, you are being preached a distorted scripture. It is not giving you freedom, and the Spirit of the Lord is not there, because "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." (2 Cor. 3:17) If it is making you feel afraid that you are not doing enough, not saying enough, not being enough, it is not part of God's message of love, because as 1 John 4:17-18 says, "Love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." If it is making you feel burdened and weighed down, it is not from God, because "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome." (1 John 5:3)

God's command for you, as a Christian, is to follow Him. That's all.

And that is enough.


Here are a couple of great, thoughtful essays on this topic: The Silence of Paul on Evangelism
Wretched Urgency: The Grace of God or Hamsters on a Wheel?