Push Factors and Soul-Winning
This piece is intended to the effect that we ought to always share the gospel and not lose heart.
I’m not sure what constitutes a trending topic online, but this past week there has been at least one “Walk Away” story making its rounds on Twitter. I can’t speak to the origin or scope of “walk away” testimonies in general, but there appears to be, according to at least one slice of the internet, a growing swell of Americans who are “walking away” from the Democratic Party. Disillusioned by the party’s embrace of destructive ideology and legislation, former progressives are sharing stories of why they have forsaken the political home they used to adore.
While the whole thing is interesting, what’s most fascinating is that the viral “walk away” story from this week included a conversion to Bible-believing Christianity. It had an important I-repented-of-my-sins-and-surrendered-my-life-to-Jesus detail.
Not only that, but on Tuesday this week Collin Hansen’s podcast Gospelbound released the episode “What Happened to Historian Molly Worthen?” The entire interview is worth a listen, but in short, Molly Worthen, a scholar in American religion, was doing research on a Baptist megachurch in Raleigh-Durham and she unexpectantly became a Christian.
Through several conversations with the church’s pastor, as well as her own study, she became convinced of the historical reliability of Jesus’s resurrection. That’s ultimately where it landed, but Molly also says,
Part of why I was open to, and already walking in the direction of Christianity before [my conversion], is because I had become increasingly dissatisfied and alienated with the aspect of the world that I’m in, secular academia. … I wanted from it things that it cannot deliver. Coming to that realization was the push factor that complemented these [evangelistic] pull factors.
The Push Factors
The Bible is clear that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). People come to believe in Jesus because they hear the gospel. It happens no other way — which is why we must speak the gospel to our unbelieving friends and neighbors. But I realize that’s not so easy.
Our country, especially in our big metros, is more opposed to Christianity than at any other time in our history. For the most part, I agree with the historical assessment that says the present state of American society has a negative view of Christianity. In other words, “To be a traditional Christian is detrimental, not beneficial, to your status. Christian morality is seen as harmful, repressive, and threatening to the public good.”
This reality might make us more trepidatious to share the gospel than in generations past. Speaking about Jesus carries more of a cost, and we might assume that nobody is interested. Won’t we just annoy people? Does it do any good? There’s a whole smorgasbord of bad self-talk that we could come up with to lead us away from speaking about Jesus.
But wait a minute . . .
if every path outside of Jesus ultimately leads to ruin, and if apart from Jesus nobody can ultimately find what their hearts are looking for, and if the secularist alternatives to Christianity are becoming increasingly manifestly insane, shouldn’t we expect that more than a few unbelievers are feeling a push?
What if God is at work with “push factors” all around us, tilling the soil of hearts desperate to hear the good news?
Unseen Pre-Evangelism
As an undergraduate student in the early 2000s, I remember hearing a lot about “pre-evangelism.” The basic idea was that because people were adopting such drastically different worldviews to Christianity — because their deep-seated epistemological assumptions were so opposed to the gospel — it was necessary to confront them on those terms before they could hear the word of the cross. Before someone can process the claims of Jesus, they first have to see the cracks in postmodernism [insert whatever].
I think this is right in terms of reason. I get it. But, that doesn’t mean that we should delay speaking the gospel because we’re worried that the “pre-evangelism” work hasn’t been done. Remember that the gospel — the gospel alone — is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16), and only he knows fully what’s been going on in people’s hearts and minds.
It may very well be that God is turning the madness of our society into push factors and that countless “walk away” sentiments are simply conversations away from spiritual awakening. Wouldn’t it be just like our sovereign God to do this? Wouldn’t Jesus also say of these Twin Cities, “for I have many in th[ese cities] who are my people” (Acts 18:10)
Let us give them Jesus.
