For the people who used to be Christian

Brian Dean bridean@hotmail.com
Tue, 03 Feb 1998 18:07:53 PST (00886579673, 19980204020753.26172.qmail@hotmail.com) 

BRIAN DEAN
If you had all of the information available to you BEFORE you became
Christian that you do now, would you still become Christian?

JOHN
In my case, "Christian" meant Mormon.  The answer is "probably not".  If 
I had had one reasonably close associate to point out a few simple facts 
and ideas to me contrary to the standard gospel line in my little 
community, I would have bailed out faster than you could say "ripcord".  
However, had I just had the info without any personal support behind it, 
maybe I would have gone ahead with it.  Peer pressure was the key in my 
case.  I never believed it wholeheartedly anyway.  My "fall" was 
probably inevitable.

Isn't it great that missionaries, evangelizers, and proseletyzers are 
always eager, in the interests of truth and fairness, to present the 
opposing viewpoint to impressionable teenagers:

BRIDEAN
This is the primary reason I asked this question.  It seems to me that
many share your feeling that if they had the information in front of
them to begin with, they wouldn't have become Christian.  

What I am suggesting is this.  Perhaps what we need to do is to get
the message out so that people can decide BEFORE they become Christian.  
I would however stress in this information that the person
listening to it decide for him/herself.  If the Christians want to 
rebut this information, they can.  However, I would also stress in
this information (and this is probably true) that Christians do not
want you to hear this side of the story.  Stress that we have no
problem with the Christians presenting their side of the story in
response to ours.  In other words, make the Christians seem unfair
and look more like THEY are trying to hide something.

Anyway, what do you think?



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