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I had never heard of this Southern Baptist Conference called "Bless Every Home." Apparently it uses VERY thorough marketing research, such as compiling demographic information and personal information on every home BEFORE actually meeting the targets and actually inviting them into relationship with Christ.

An ex-Christian wrote this article, which shreds the program mercilessly: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2021/12/05/bless-every-home-personal-evangelism-done-super-creepy/

Obviously we believers are supposed to bring Christ to a suffering world that desperately needs him. But I wouldn't feel invited if approached this way ... more like "hunted."

I always thought the church is supposed to be "one beggar telling another where he found bread."

( From the other end, here's an ultra-liberal Baptist with his rebuttal: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/04/15/left-behind-classic-fridays-no-77-hospitality-vs-sales/ )

Keeping in mind that the "Bless Every Home" critique was written by someone who left the church, have you heard of this tactic? What do you think?

Hello! I'm quite new to the forum and this will be my first post in any edition of this thread. On top of that, I'm also young and inexperienced, not to mention unfamiliar with many religions outside my own. So please forgive me if I say anything wrong or offensive while participating in this discussion (whether now or in the future), and please let me know so I can learn and fix it.

@the-old-maid

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about the "Bless Every Home" program. I haven't read the articles you linked or done research of my own, so this is based only on the information you provided. But what is the purpose of collecting all that information on every home? How does knowing those things help them invite others to come to know Christ? Wouldn't it be simpler and maybe better just to actually get to know the people by meeting them? I don't know, those are just my thoughts.

Welcome @rainyweather  to NarniaWeb, and welcome to the thread nicknamed "the Deep Magic" (the term being borrowed from C.S. Lewis).

Your observations are spot-on. So far, I have noticed "Sales model evangelism" seems to answer them inside-out.

The Lord is not a product to sell, and fellow souls created in God's image are not God's customers. It's true that many people do not know enough about the Lord to "taste and see that He is good." But I doubt that treating people like you're trying to sell them a car will make them hungry for God.

The BEH approach reminds me of an older tactic leveraged against those who already are members in such churches. Specifically, "we have calculated how much you should be tithing or donating to our building fund." (Occasionally there are employers who let the office organizer do that for parties.)

So apparently, this movement is using the "better them than me" hint to "encourage" people to do more door-to-door work.

And I agree that getting to know people is the better approach. I'm having a hard time remembering any of the disciples or apostles who did Marketing Research on the people they preached to.

The closest thing I can think of is when Paul said, "Hello, people of Mars Hill. [LIVING BIBLE TRANSLATION]: I noticed that you are very religious. You even have an altar to "The Unknown God." You have been worshiping Him without knowing who He is, so I came here to tell you about Him."

I certainly don't recall him finding out how much money they made, who lived there, how long they lived there, and how much they could donate if they can be converted.

It's like this BEH figures that Market Research is easier than friendship. Turned inside out, maybe they mean that they think making friends is hard.

Posted by: @the-old-maid

Keeping in mind that the "Bless Every Home" critique was written by someone who left the church, have you heard of this tactic? What do you think?

I hadn't heard of it before, but oh gosh... no, no, no, no and more NO. I would NEVER have become a Christian if someone had tried to proselytise me into it, whether literally door-to-door or in any other way. There are few things that put so many people OFF religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as those who go around trying to talk (or outright browbeat) others into believing. That kind of thing does far more harm to Christianity than good, honestly.

I should add I'm talking as an Australian and naturalised Briton — two cultures where religion simply is not something you talk about publicly, let alone try to get others into, unless you're clearly invited to do so. And frankly (yes, even as a firm adherent myself), I prefer it that way. If I can be blunt here, we tend to look on the evangelical religious culture of the US — what we see of it from the outside, at least — as creepy at best and utterly shocking at worst. That honestly is not how most Christians in most of the rest of the world think and behave. It wouldn't work anywhere else, if indeed it even works in America.

The silly thing about "selling" religion is that few thinking, caring people are going to "buy" it — again, far more are likely to be put off religion altogether by such aggressive tactics. Nobody genuinely becomes a Christian because someone argued them into it, possibly with threats of hellfire for those who don't join the club. It's God who speaks directly to each individual's heart and mind; we can hopefully perhaps help open the way for that to happen to someone, but we can't make it happen, let alone do the speaking for Him. And the people who've taught me the most about what it is to be a follower of Christ have been the ones who simply live "the Way" day to day in every way they can, rather than talking about it. That is what naturally draws others to wonder "What's he/she got?" — and then, God willing, to ask about it.

I can't think of any quote that sums it up better than this one from Madeleine L'Engle:

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

We've been discussing different aspects of Magician's Nephew, when there has been news it will indeed be filmed.

In a thread called "Who is the "Eve" of Magician's Nephew?" , I asked: 

in answer to icarus' post, where he says:

Then you have films whereby the hero is tempted by ultimate knowledge and power, but has to demonstrate their humility by rejecting it. This is a common trope of comic book stories, in which the villain, often a mad scientist, is driven too far in his pursuit of knowledge. Usually the villain is presented as the mirror image of the hero, and has similar goals, but the villain didn't know their limits and went too far. Often the villain will actually get what they want (ultimate knowledge and power) but they are then punished for their hubris, whereas the hero is rewarded for their humility in rejecting it. I'm thinking of things like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, or even Aladdin.

And that trope that you mention is also in Jesus Christ's Temptation by the Devil in three of the four gospels, (Matthew, Mark & Luke) and is also mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews. That is the one where Jesus Christ, having been baptised by John the Baptist, fasted for 40 days & nights in the desert, where Satan offered him the whole world. But Jesus Christ rejected that offer, the very one so many megalomaniac rulers have taken up, I suspect. Wikipedia also says: The temptation of Christ is not explicitly mentioned in the Gospel of John but in this gospel Jesus does refer to the Devil, "the prince of this world", having no power over him. 

I was meaning to show how Jadis hops right in, wanting to gain her whole world by using the Deplorable Word, but in doing so was really left with nothing, as well as losing her soul, if she ever had one, in the process. It isn't just comic book stories & fiction, but also in historic situations where this "trope" applies. 

It is currently Lent now, and in the lead up to Easter, in discussions about whether or not Jesus was the promised Messiah, I'd like to know who Barabbas really was. I thought that in St John's gospel, Barabbas might well have been one of the Zealot insurgents, which might explain his popularity with the activist mobs which led to his life being saved, when Jesus Christ was crucified, instead of Barabbas. When in 132 AD, the Emperor Hadrian's armies defeated the futile Bar Kochba rebellion in Judea, I've read that he, too, had been considered as a Messiah, when the Hebrew Zealots were looking for a military leader. But that was never Jesus Christ's leadership role as the Messiah. Instead, that battle led to disaster for Judea, colonised by the Romans, with Jerusalem renamed Aelia Capitolina when Bar Kochba, himself, died on the battlefield. 

The Emperor Hadrian proceeded to build a temple to Jupiter, his God, on Temple Mount, on the assumption that because he prevailed over Bar Kochba, Jupiter, his god had defeated the God of the Jews. That is to say, the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. This sort of thinking was how different countries operated in the Middle East. Rome also had form when the Emperor Claudius' armies put down Boudicca's uprising as Queen of the Iceni, and once again, the better armed & victorious Roman troops colonised Britannia, now England, slaughtering the Celtic Druids in Anglesey, where they lived. However, Jupiter was never a real God, just another statue, just like the headless & 'armless' statue of Nike in the Louvre Museum. 

The Roman Empire endured until 475 AD in its western half. In the East, it became in 393 AD the Byzantine Empire, which endured until 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire, becoming Istanbul, instead. The first Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar was deified by the Roman Senate when he died. People were expected to show respect for his statue in passing, and that is one reason why Jewish & Christian people alike were persecuted back in those days, when Christians & Jews alike considered such respect as idolatry. But he, too, lost battles, nonetheless, to German tribespeople, & it is said he was poisoned by his wife, Livia. Constantine the Great, who legalised Christianity, & became Christian, himself, on his deathbed, thus put a stop to this idea of deifying deceased Emperors, at any rate. 

In all the turmoil of the millennia, one group of people of Jesus' time did survive - the Samaritans. I learned, quite recently, to my astonishment, that the descendants of today's Samaritans still live in what is called the Palestinian Authority - in the North of the West Bank, or Samaria. Apparently, they survived by keeping their heads down, staying strictly out of politics, and by having two passports, one Israeli & the other Palestinian. The God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, and also the God of Jesus Christ, won in the end. 

Happy Easter, fellow Narnia Webbers! How was your day spent? I went to church where we were treated to a sermon, talking about grieving apostles on the road to Emmaus, equated to enthusiastic runners in the Sydney2Surf annual run, daunted at "Heartbreak Hill", needing encouragement to finish the race. But because I was helping with morning tea, I didn't really get a chance to let our very busy minister know about a new 2025 publication by a bloke called Nathanael Andrade, who wrote Killing the Messiah: The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, which has been also released in Australia. I wondered if the author would mention Barabbas, whom I mentioned in my last post on this thread. I keep seeing Barabbas as an insurgent, someone valued by his community, when there was considerable resentment against not only the Roman garrisons but also against Herod the Great's descendants, when Herod the Great, himself, was one of Caesar Augustus' best friends. But I really would like to know, has anyone else seen this book, and what is their opinion of it? 

This is an unusual Easter, when, for once, the various Greek, Armenian, Assyrian etc Orthodox Christian churches are celebrating Easter at the same time as Protestant & Catholic Christians. The Western Church set Easter long ago, at the Synod of Whitby, a Christian administrative gathering, held in Northumbria in 664 AD, wherein King Oswiu ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practised by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite institutions. The synod was summoned at Hilda's double monastery of Streonshalh (Streanæshalch), later called Whitby Abbey. Whilst the Orthodox date was based on the Julian calendar, the Western/Roman date has been based on the Gregorian calendar, instead. Because of the date differences on the Julian calendar, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter always occurs after the Jewish celebration of Passover. In 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea, which agreed upon the basic principles of Christianity, established a formula for the date of Easter as the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox. In practice, that means that Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after March 21. Easter can occur as early as March 22 and as late as April 25, depending on when the paschal full moon occurs.   

One contributor to these matters at the now ruined Whitby Abbey, was the Venerable Bede, (Latin: Beda Venerabilis), who was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". He served at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. He was responsible for the AD (Anno Domini) usage, which we are supposed to ditch in favour of CE (Common Era).  

Next Friday will be ANZAC Day, on 25/4/2025, commemorated not only in Australia but also New Zealand, where in both nations it is a public holiday. Elsewhere, in UK, Türkiye and in Northern France, ANZAC Day is noted in local commemorations, when the brave soldiers of the combined Australian and New Zealand Army Corps did their bit in WW1 to carry out their mission to help blockade Istanbul, already blockading Tsarist Russia, defeated by the end of 1918, and replaced by the nascent USSR. A decade ago, on 25/4/2015, we attended the Centenary ANZAC Day ceremony at Lone Pine, and at ANZAC cove, in two Dawn ceremonies. The readings for both were performed with contributions in front of dignitaries from UK, NZ, Oz and Türkiye. The readings were done by the now King Charles III and his younger son, Prince Harry. We got to observe these two commemorations in the comfort of the ship's auditorium, plus attend the onboard ceremony for the passengers, on the recreation deck, before returning to Istanbul, en route to Paris & Northern France where mostly Victorian troops were feted in a small Villers Bretonneux Museum in their local school, but not far from places like Bullecourt and Fromelles where my two grand uncles were also located during WW1. 

We had a lovely trip all round in 2015. We went to Istanbul, where Aslan was the first name of our waiter, in the little rooftop dining room in our boutique Istanbul accommodation, where there were Turkish Delight shops everywhere in the Grand Bazaar. Or the silver jewellery displayed in the Grand Bazaar's Aslan's Jewellery Shop, and the way the Topkapi Palace was laid out in pavilions rather than actual rooms.  We went to Pergamon where parchment and vellum were first prepared for early books as we know them, and codicils. Whilst at Ephesus, with its ruined library and steep main road could not have been far away from the ruins of St John the Apostle's church at Ephesus, where a fragrant breeze smelling of perhaps tamarisk or some gorgeous unidentified perfume caressed my face as I admired the view, down in the valley, towards Izmir (Smyrna). 

  And we went to Hagia Sophia, where high in the basilica, above the whitewash line, put there by the invading Ottoman Empire, after 29th May, 1453, remains this depiction of Jesus Christ. Do enjoy a Happy Easter. 

Happy Easter! I'll be heading to my Apostolic Pentecostal church service here in a bit. We only do communion once a year, and that's today. I'm really looking forward to it. This week has been long and rough, and I have allowed myself to be distracted. Today, I want to focus on Him and His sacrifice. I pray every heart draws nearer to the heart of God today and feels His love. I always think of David, the man after God's own heart. When his son betrayed him, drove him away and attacked him, he mourned, "would god I had died for thee." That is exactly what Christ did for us who have wronged His righteous heart. 

I did a quick search (in the Bible Gateway) for Barabbas, and all four evangelists tell that he was given free instead of Jesus. Three of the four also mention insurrection and uprising as part of what he was known for.

Matthew 27:16
At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas.

Mark 15:7
A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising.

Luke 23:19
(Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder.)

John 18:40
They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.

So it's indeed possible as you suggest, that he could have been a Zealot, opposing the Roman authorities, and not just a mere criminal.

I also find it interesting that one of his names (apparently not what he used the most) was Jesus. It was a common enough name at the time.

As I understand it, we don't have any historical information about Barabbas outside of what's written in the bible itself.  So we know what's written in Matthew 27:16-26, Mark 15:7-15, Luke 23:18 and John 18:40.  Given that he was imprisoned for insurrection, he could very easily have been a Zealot, but we can only speculate.

I find it funny that his name is 'Jesus Barabbas'. Obviously he had the same name as Jesus, but the name Bar-abba which is transliterated as 'Barabbas' in the Greek means 'son of the father'.  So at the trial, Pilate was (probably unknowingly) asking whether the crowd wanted him to release Jesus, the-son-of the-father or Jesus the only begotten Son of The Father.

Yes, I can see the striking name might give us pause. But it seems that Abbas is a common family name in those regions, even today. The Aramaic or Hebrew for Jesus is Yeshua, it seems. Clearly related to Joshua, the sixth book of the Old Testament. Before the Romans took charge as overlords in Syria/Judea, the Greek/Syrian world of the Seleucids still had plenty of influence in Judea, despite the Maccabean rebellions after 167 BCE. Aram is another name for Syria. 

@DavidD 

Given that he was imprisoned for insurrection, he could very easily have been a Zealot, but we can only speculate.

Or is it really only speculation? As a zealot, it isn't unreasonable that he would have killed a Roman soldier, rather than another Judean. If it had been the latter, the High Priests would have been able to settle the matter according to their own internal laws, so the Romans needn't get involved at all. But if it had been a Roman, surely the Romans, themselves, would want justice. And as one of the insurrectionists, surely he'd be popular with the mob who wanted his release. 

Apparently, a charge of being a social subversive, levelled against Christ, & believed by Pontius Pilate was enough to get him crucified. But why was Christ considered as being seditious, either to Rome or to the Sanhedrin, when he advocated giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's & Giving to God what is God? Reminding that the Sabbath was made for man, (& woman?) not man for the Sabbath? Teaching to "turn the other cheek"? "Love thy neighbour as thyself"? Basically, try to get along with each other (and by the way, the Romans as well)? I was reading a review of Nathaniel J Andrade's 2025 book, Killing the Messiah: the trial & crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

According to the reconstruction in Killing the Messiah, Pilate believed Jesus guilty of sedition and had him killed. But why did the Gospel writers invent a reluctant Pilate? Andrade provides no real answer, leaving a gaping hole in his theory.

So far, I've seen no mention of Barabbas, who in all four gospels as @Varnafinde has shown, was well-known, who at least was in prison with other insurrectionists, taken in for murder, & who had taken part in an uprising. Presumably, the uprising, itself, would be far more seditious than anything Jesus would have said. 

At church we have been studying Acts 24: 24-26, where we learn that the fourth Roman Procurator for Judea, Felix, kept St Paul prisoner, because he was hoping St Paul might pay him a bribe. Felix was also highly placed as the younger brother, of the Emperor Claudius' secretary, Pallas. And yes, these were real, verifiable people & known in the wider world, outside Judea. In other words, Roman Justice in Biblical times, was often corrupted by bribery, and Pontius Pilate, reluctantly or not, let Barabbas go, giving into pressure from vested interests, such as those who might want to rise up against Romans, anyway. I'd really like to read Andrade's book to see what other little nuggets of wisdom I can find.  

And speaking of Church, it is now news all over the world, that Pope Francis 1 has passed away. That is sad, when he seemed to be getting over the double pneumonia, that had laid him low. It was only yesterday, Easter Monday, that he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, (stroke) which killed him. My condolences to his flock, when a central leader is so necessary internationally, to hold together the Roman Catholic faithful. 

Newsflash! We have a new Pope in Rome. Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected as Pope Leo XIV, and he comes from USA, though from what I've heard, he spent much time in Peru. Congratulations, as I'm sure that Catholicism is heavily represented right through the two American continents, from Alaska to Chile, not only in Europe.  

Or am I getting confused by the various reports? Is the new Pope from Peru or is he from the United States? Not sure which.

The new Pope is from Chicago (and supports White Sox), but he's been a missionary in Peru for 14 years. I think he even became the Archbishop there, and he got a Peruvian citizenship (has got double citizenship).

For several years now he's stayed in the Vatican, assisting Pope Francis with preparing for election of bishops. Pope Francis made him a Cardinal in 2023. So he's well known in the centre of the Catholic church administration, although he hasn't been much of a world wide public figure.

Some have said that he's the first American Pope, while others correct that to be the first North American Pope - as Pope Francis was the first South American Pope.