I beg your pardon. Perhaps you missed the post I was responding to. Especially this part:
>If you take the name of Jesus, you have a commission to perform, and that is to preach the Gospel. It is error for a Christian to tell someone to choose anyway they want. Their blood will be on that persons hands. If I tell you about Jesus and you reject Him, then I am gathering treasure in Heaven and you are relying on your own righteousness to save you.
I did not suggest that anyone was trying to convert me, but I did wish to point out that it would behoove anyone interested in doing so—I mean, there’s a lot of treasure to gather—to look elsewhere in their efforts.
Funny thing, when I was young, I rarely, perhaps never, came across this sort of Christian. Most of the people I interacted with actually believed in the idea of keeping one’s spirituality to themselves. Does this mean they were not Christians? That certainly would’ve been news to them. I suspect we’re discussing the large margin for different interpretations of the Christian religion here.
But I have come across plenty of Christians in more recent times who did in fact feel it was their duty to try to convert me and others like myself. Seemed strange, especially since I never had a Rabbi instruct me to do any such thing in the name of Judaism.
I have no wish to make more of this issue concerning Coulter’s comments than needs to be. However, the expressed idea that all ‘good’ folks will in fact be burning in hell adds just a bit of vinegar to the discussion.
I would not worship a deity that would treat ‘good’ folks in this manner, and I would do everything I could to oppose Ann’s view of a society where everyone would be a Christian.
Mind you, anyone is free to attempt to convert me, and I am likewise free to politely but firmly tell them to mind their own business.
Christians differ among themselves not only about how evangelism should be carried out, some would say by, say, mitzvot more than by words, but also on the, ah, destination of those who do not explicitly embrace Christianity in this life.
Also Catholics until a few decades ago considered themselves too much in a precarious minority status to call attentionto themselves. I was brought up Episcopalian and for many (most) of them the more spectacular and obtrusive types of evangelism just were "not done". I'm personally not much of a salesman. So there are cultural and personal differences.
And because I'm a convert to Catholicism, there are plenty of Christians who think, on that account, that you and I will be sharirng the same fire at the infernal marshmallow toasting.
It's hard to figure out this kind of thing in a pluralistic society.
It seems to me that when there is a vision of the teaching going out from Jerusalem ADDED to Paul's idea that much of what the Torah is is written on the hearts even of gentiles, and when one considers how easy it is to give offense when one ambles up to someone who is content and virtuous and says, "Hi, I'm now going to fix you. Just hold still a second ...." my personal approach is to try to be the best me I can, with constant appeals for Divine help, (without which, my best me isn't very good) and to look prayerfully for the divine word in everyone. (Was that sentence long enough for you?)
PLUS, if anyone is fool enough to ask me what I believe and why, and if there's enough Scotch, I'll give 'em an earful and then some.