Why is Christianity so zealously evangelistic?

What is the point with having so many methods to convert large groups of people to Christianity?

@Anonymous Because we believe in a literal Hell, and we desperately want to help others avoid en eternity of suffering. The thought of people being doomed to such a fate horrifies us, and we'd do anything to try to get them to choose another fate. I'd think that one would be obvious.

Just passing through, however, can't stay to chat.

@DavidStratton Do you think that Jesus would have believed in Hell and Heaven?

@DavidStratton If Hell did not exist, then would that mean that everyone would already be saved from his or her sins rather than being saved from Hell?

@DavidStratton Why would having explicit faith in Jesus be enough to save people from Hell, when in reality a person who professes faith in Jesus Christ may have the same faults as everyone else but with different ways to deal with them?

@Anonymous You are assuming that what you see as present day "Christianity" is the same as the NT church, but it is not the same animal.

SE trivia: As of a moment ago, Chritianity had caught up with Skeptics in question count (4,003 questions). Even with post 19522 likely to be deleted, it seems that Christianity will surpass Skeptics in question count soon. (Theoretical Computer Science is currently at 4,789 questions and might be surpassed in A.D. 2014.)

@PaulA.Clayton Clarify your post.

@PaulA.Clayton nice. we're growing pretty nicely. I usually use RPG.SE as a comp and it seems we've passed them up a bit

Why do we get so many pastoral advice questions with really sad sob stories?

It seems as if people fail to read the Help page or look at the other questions.

By the way, should "heaven" and "hell" be capitalized?

I think so, because those are place names, which are proper nouns.

So, it's really supposed to be Heaven and Hell.

How many people in the world really believe in Heaven and Hell?

Never mind. Different people may have different beliefs about Heaven and Hell.

Heaven is a heavenly place at which you spend the rest of your spiritual life after death.

Hell is a pit full of fire that is intended to burn bad souls after death.

I think I am going to Hell.

I deserve it.

@Anonymous You are correct.

So, @TheodoreA.Jones - I've been waiting for your return. Now that you're back, when we last chatted you were about to explain where I was mistaken on what "Law" Jesus was referring to that we need to be obedient to. Your last statement was that we are to obey the "Law of Faith" and not the Old Testament Law, and I wanted to ask what that means, exactly, but never got the chance. Can you tell me what the law of Faith is and what it means to obey it?

@DavidStratton Suggest you contact me by email. I left my address for you at sites you have posted. This site has limited space and you seemed to get annoyed at one point in our last attempt.

I'll be out for a while this morn. with business concerns.

:/

Law of Faith

>:/

@TRiG I know a friend of mine from high school had picked up various stereotypical "gay" traits when I met him a bit later (and after he had openly said he was gay). So I think there are certain behaviors that gay individuals tend to decide to express as a means of identification. It's not really all that different from any other subculture. Sure it isn't 100% accurate, but groups of people tend to develop behaviors common to the group

@TRiG and apparently you agree with me on that

I really should learn to read the whole conversation before responding

@Anonymous You are missing the point unless you think that everyone else does too! (including those who aren't going there).

@fredsbend I'd still classify his picture as hard to tell. It's really hard to tell between artsy and gay from a photo, though in many cultures, you don't get a lot of openly artsy guys either.

though there is also an admittedly higher prevalence of gay men in the artsy community

at least in my experience

@Anonymous that gets in to the basics of Christian theology. Basically, the whole idea with Christianity is that we aren't better than others, we just accept that we are flawed and believe in Christ as the path to salvation. We repent of our brokeness and sin and ask for forgiveness. Yes Jesus believed in heaven and hell and directly mentions both. Fundamentally, hell is a place (possibly any place) separate from God's continual sustaining.

@Anonymous as far as the converting large numbers, I'm not sure there is much point. Honestly, without support and direct relationships to disciple, many people driven to emotional highs by "bulk conversion" means end up falling through the cracks and don't really ever end up understanding the belief system they felt pulled in to

in my experience, personal conversions aren't something that really happen well in "bulk" settings

many televangelists don't have that good of reputation even in many parts of the Christian community. In some parts, they are even more disliked than outside the Christian community

though millage also varies depending on who in particular it is

@TheodoreA.Jones observe that your primary concern is pointing out that someone deserves to go to hell as opposed to offering a solution to the problem, just something to think about

@TheodoreA.Jones I was looking at the number of questions as listed at the Data Explorer. It looks like these figures are a bit old; the Chrisitianity questions page currently lists 4,029 questions, Skeptics is at 4,003, CS Theory is at 4,823, Travel Answers is at 5,092, and RPG is at 5,754. Post 19522 has been deleted--it was a strange complaint/spam/non-question-posted-as-a-question.)

@waxeagle Christianity.SE is still behind in question count compared to RPG.SE. I do not know whether Christianity.SE is growing fast in this metric.

@PaulA.Clayton yeah, I'm basing my numbers more off of traffic. C.SE is about a year younger than RPG.SE

@TheodoreA.Jones I think you might not have understood that I was referring to the Christianity and Skeptics Stack Exchange sites. I guess this would not have been clear to a newer user (and perhaps not even to a user who has been around a while).

@waxeagle That is a bit surprising. I would have guessed that RPGs would get more people from StackOverflow than Christianity.

@PaulA.Clayton SE traffic is largely search engine driven.

participation at least at the onset for most sites is driven by cross site traffic, but by the time a site has been around for 3-6months the majority of it's traffic is search engine. By the time it gets to a year that number is closer to 70%

@waxeagle Given that Christianity avoids Truth questions, it is still a bit surprising that search engines would draw that much traffic. I can understand that more people are interested in Christianity than RPGs, but many of the questions of interest would not be quite fitting for C.SE (though I guess perspective identification effectively allows many Truth questions to be acceptable--"if X group is right, what is the Truth about Y?").

@PaulA.Clayton here's the thing though, you can't tell those things from a search engine blurb. When you go to look something up re: Christianity, you'll start finding us more and more. Whether that's good or bad, it really depends on what you're looking for. But you're still going to click us

@waxeagle I admit to having a greater interest in Truth, but learning about different groups of Christians is interesting and sometimes mind-expanding in a positive sense. Before C.SE exposure, I was not aware of Christian Atheists or of some of the other less common groups much less did I have much if any knowledge of others' teachings.

Interesting: What the Church can learn about Millennials from small batch distilleries - "authenticity, discovery, sharing and belonging"

craft spirits are following on the coat tails of the craft brewing industry which has seen a dramatic rise the past few years. Driven by much the same things. It's a great time to be a drinker and there is a lot to learn from how these folks have built their brands and how major players in the markets have adapted

@JamesT how convenient that my church meets in the night club attached to a successful microbrewery

@AJHenderson please tell me you have verticals and verses events :)

because that's a bible study you'd get some serious attendence to :)

#onlymostlykidding

pints and prayers

casks and canons

malts and matins

for baptism: dunkels and dunkings

@waxeagle theology at the taproom

Ok, totally starting the first brewery PCA church

and yes, that is an actual theology study

might have to add on a winery to both make the wife happy and to serve locally grown locally produced wine for communion

@AJHenderson fantastic

agreed!

I mean it works for belgian monks

needless to say, my church does NOT have a problem with reasonable and controlled consumption of alcohol

some of the trappist brews are among the most sought after beers in the world

our pastor actually went and visited a trappist monastery during his furlow this summer

terranovachurch.org/connect/theology-at-the-taproom

I command you!!!!!!!

@JamesT doctrine and drink

pitchers and parables

For the Jews for Jesus: Shots and the Shema

Spirits and The Spirit

SO many options! what could possibly go wrong

The Bible and Booze

@TRiG Currently, Google has 23,900 pages indexed for C.SE.

And I have been to every one on the first page.

@fredsbend no he's saying we aren't mentioned on that site specifically yet

@waxeagle Ooohhhh. I didn't realize that. I'm also afraid to visit that site because the domain name is a menacing acronym. Not sure what I will find.

Wait a minute. 23,900! Where are all these pages? Oh, it includes meta.

@PaulA.Clayton Thanks.

@Xino And your concern is?

@fredsbend eh, it's just a collection of religious manifold nutjobery

@waxeagle Eh? Nutjobery isn't a word.

@JamesT That may not be very useful, if some people do not drink alcohol for personal, medical or even religious reasons.

@Anonymous of course it's not. Nice thing about english (and most other languages) you can make words out of notwords and people know what you mean

@Anonymous that article isn't about consuming alcohol, that one is about learning from the way small distileries operate and applying the principals to church

@PaulA.Clayton I think that question would still be unacceptable, because you have to define "Truth" first. Truth is a word with many meanings.

@waxeagle The alternative is to be a critical reader and observe the actions of Jesus.

No doubt, Jesus has said countless things about humility and weakness.

@PaulA.Clayton Why would it be surprising? Religion is normally a part of a person's lifestyle, and a Christian may think about Christian topics on a daily basis. RPG is only a pastime that can come and go, but a lifestyle may last a lifetime.