MetaCatholic

I have noted before that I expect my next computer to be a Mac. I think that’s probably the most rational decision for me. But one of the things that has slightly held me back from making the decision earlier has been some of the swivel-eyed enthusiasm evinced by some diehard fanbois. Despite this, most Mac users have been (or at least seemed) quite normal people.

Yet it has been impossible to speak to even a normal Mac user without them trying to persuade you of the benefits that will accrue if you, too, get a Mac. As far as I can see this is nearly universally true. Mac owners can’t seem to stop themselves evangelising for their technology, both its style and substance. In a technological world where fashion and style are also prized, this may sometimes come over as a bit overbearing, or even over-boring, but it hardly ever (fanboi zealots partially excluded) comes over as unnatural.

Compare this to efforts Christians make for evangelism properly so called. By comparison there seems to be something studied about it. The language is often borrowed and artificial, the ideas seem to be someone else’s, the phrases are often hackneyed and inexplicable. Moreover, people quickly learn to avoid the enthusiast for God. Now, no doubt, some of this is due to the fact that God is more demanding than a Mac. But it seems to me also to point to a certain way in which God-talk has become unnatural and often uncomfortable in our society. Evangelism for God needs programmes, encouragement, mission plans and college training.

Intriguingly, it seems to me that I can detect that same dichotomy in clergy and layperson alike. If they are Mac owners their enthusing about their computers is always more spontaneous and natural than their enthusing for God. And it nearly always begins with “Did you know you can do …?” or “Have you seen this?”

I suspect that sort of practical, results-oriented amazement was part and parcel of natural Christian evangelism in the first few centuries, aided (as Mac owners are today) by the sense of being something of a beleaguered minority. It was then, as it is today in many cultures, as appropriate and natural as Mac evangelism is in ours, even if most people remained pagans (or Windows users today).

None of this is intended to point a finger at any particular theological or technological stance. But it does leave me wondering whether the difficulties most Western Christians have with evangelism owes far more to the cultural waters we swim in, than to any theological weakness, or enthusiasm bypass in today’s churches.