Agreed 100%. https://twitter.com/aefeldman/status/1199360819374567425

Of course, I don't actually think Christians should evangelize anyone.

(I am an EX evangelical after all)

But I wanted to elaborate --

In the thread, he screencaps very typical evangelical concern trolling, which boils down to "but isn't it our DUTY AS CHRISTIANS TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT CHRIST SO THEY CAN BE SAAAAAAVVVVEEEED?"

And, in fact, I grew up being taught explicitly that this kind of evangelizing was my duty -- that it was my FAULT if people went to hell if I failed to tell them about Christ.

Like, if you want to make a shy and introverted little kid miserable, just tell them it's their duty to save people from eternal torment by trying to sell stuff to strangers, boy howdy.

I felt guilty for not doing it, of course, but as I got older, I felt less and less sure that kind of evangelism even WORKED.
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Like, it's premised on the idea that the world is full of people who have literally never heard of Jesus before.

It also rests on the idea that hell is objectively real and only evangelicals know about it and only evangelicals know how to escape it.

We were always being told things like "if you saw your friend hurtling toward a cliff, wouldn't you try to save them?" which is the basis of that dude's argument for evangelizing to Jews -- that if you care about the "unsaved" people in your life, you will evangelize to them.

It positions evangelizing as a heroic act of kindness.

You know, you've escaped from Dracula's castle and now you have to go back home and warn everybody!

But now imagine that YOU didn't escape from Dracula's castle at all -- you've just heard stories about vampires, right? Your whole life? So naturally you assume everybody will accept they're real, when you tell them how to be saved from vampires.

So even before I left the church, I realized that I didn't think ranting about vampires was actually the most effective way to "bring people to Christ" -- but I still believed that the people doing it were largely sincere.

I no longer believe that.
While I do believe there are sincere people who get guilted into doing it, I think the "ranting about vampires" style of evangelizing is mostly a form of profound narcissism, a display entirely for the benefit of the ego of the evangelizer.

I believe that even if you are a sincere follower of Jesus who wants to spread the Good News, that the only meaningful form of evangelism is living your life in such a way that other people WANT to do whatever it is you're doing.

You think you need to tell Jewish people about Christians?

THEY ALREADY KNOW, DUDE.

You think you need to tell your atheist co-worker about Jesus?

HE HAS HEARD IT ALL BEFORE, TRUST ME.

You want to march down the street carrying a banner about hell and shouting incoherently about Jesus through a megaphone?

Well, you do you, I guess, but what you're doing is performance art for your own sake, it's bringing the Gospel to nobody.

I need to wrap this up & get to work, so, bottom line: telling your non-Christian co-workers about Jesus is for your benefit, not theirs, so don't be surprised when they think you're a jerk.