The Evangelical Pyramid Scheme

by Katharine Strange

A large percentage of my Facebook friends have apparently been lured into one Multi-Level Marketing scheme or another. I’m constantly getting invitations to virtual “parties” where I can have the exciting opportunity to buy leggings, lipstick, or smelly candles. And while I love leggings, lipstick, and smelly candles, I will not be buying any from my friends or acquaintances. To my mind, there is an inverse relationship between the quality of a product and the effort required to sell it. Which is certainly true of Evangelical Christianity.

The word “Evangelism” means something akin to “good news,” or so I was often told. But any time this word was brought up in church, it felt like very bad news to me. “Evangelism” meant knocking on strangers’ doors to ask them intrusive questions, shoving tracts into people’s hands on street corners, or making awkward pitches to my classmates. It meant asserting MY church had the answer to a question that no one was asking. Being an Evangelist was tantamount to being a salesman for Jesus.

Although “evangelism” is designated as a spiritual gift that perhaps not all Christians possess (Ephesians 4:11–12), if you believe in the concept of Hell, then evangelizing is not optional. If you truly believe that people in your acquaintance are bound for an eternity of conscious torment, it is a moral imperative that you do your best to save them. A good Evangelical, like a good salesman, must ABC: Always Be Closing. Unsurprisingly, a plethora of Christian…