{"id":624,"date":"2010-10-27T06:27:29","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T06:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html"},"modified":"2010-10-27T06:27:29","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T06:27:29","slug":"how-to-evangelize-an-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Evangelize an Atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Yesterday<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/how-to-convert-an-atheist-its-so-easy\/\">Matthew Paul Turner pointed to this video<\/a> by Christian author and radio personality <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hopefortheheart.org\/\">June Hunt<\/a>, about how to get an atheist thinking so much that he or she might be willing to transition from their hard-core atheism to, at least, a form of agnosticism &#8212; and therefore leaving them open to considering the Christian God.<\/p>\n<p> <object width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/WuG5Aj3BhMM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/WuG5Aj3BhMM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><\/object><br \/>Ms. Hunt sure makes it seem simple. The &#8220;circles of knowledge&#8221; approach for those who admit to being seekers of truth, she says, &#8220;has been very successful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><b>But it occurs to me that,<\/b> using the same logic, the same <i>isn&#8217;t-your-knowledge-pretty-limited?<\/i> circle-drawing approach would be just as effective in forcing a Christian to consider that Allah could be the true god and Islam the one true religion. Because couldn&#8217;t some form of truth exist outside that which think we know? <\/p>\n<p>It could also force us to admit that Norse mythology could an accurate worldview. Or that Joseph Smith and his Mormon faith were true. Or that Mictlantecuhtli, the skeletal Aztec god of death who wears a necklace of human eyeballs, could possible exist in a horrible afterlife somewhere outside our limited range of knowledge.<\/p>\n<p><b>Know any Christians<\/b> who are just a few quick questions away from making those leaps? Me neither. Then why do we expect atheists to be ready to do the same?<\/p>\n<p>I think humility is good, and admitting the limits of our knowledge is healthy. That&#8217;s why we doubt: because we don&#8217;t know everything. And that&#8217;s also why we seek truth. <\/p>\n<p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean conversion is quite this easy, even with powerful illustrations of empty circles.<\/p>\n<p>[<b>Original H\/T:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/christiannightmares.tumblr.com\/\">Christian Nightmares<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday Matthew Paul Turner pointed to this video by Christian author and radio personality June Hunt, about how to get an atheist thinking so much that he or she might be willing to transition from their hard-core atheism to, at least, a form of agnosticism &#8212; and therefore leaving them open to considering the Christian&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Evangelize an Atheist - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Evangelize an Atheist - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday Matthew Paul Turner pointed to this video by Christian author and radio personality June Hunt, about how to get an atheist thinking so much that he or she might be willing to transition from their hard-core atheism to, at least, a form of agnosticism &#8212; and therefore leaving them open to considering the Christian&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-27T06:27:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Evangelize an Atheist - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Evangelize an Atheist - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Yesterday Matthew Paul Turner pointed to this video by Christian author and radio personality June Hunt, about how to get an atheist thinking so much that he or she might be willing to transition from their hard-core atheism to, at least, a form of agnosticism &#8212; and therefore leaving them open to considering the Christian&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-10-27T06:27:29+00:00","author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html","name":"How to Evangelize an Atheist - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-27T06:27:29+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-27T06:27:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/10\/how-to-evangelize-an-atheist.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Evangelize an Atheist"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture &amp; Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}