Trinity and Coercion

In Performing the Faith, Stanley Hauerwas said something interesting about the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity.  He noted that since there is no coercive behavior between Father, Son, and Spirit, they cannot be revealed through coercive actions.  Then it struck me that most contemporary evangelistic efforts are, in fact, deceptively coercive.  Whether it is apologetics, a message of doom on the highway, a scripture we post to FaceBook, or any other  method we use to make people change their minds about God.  The method is coercive because located within it is a subtle desire to make someone comply to our beliefs.  So the best most of our evangelism can do, and does do, when coercion is present, is create doubt.  The best Christian apologist can only make an atheist or pagan doubt their position, but she cannot coerce them into a relationship with God, because God doesn't reign by coercion.  It appears, then, that our evangelistic efforts need to be examined to see if the sole reason for our action is because we love God and, like Jesus, desire to obey his word.  This is why you never see Jesus trying to chase after a rich young ruler, or disciple that wants to bury his dad.  He just does the will of God and trusts God to do the drawing of people into salvation.  This does not mean we should eliminate creativity in evangelism, it just means that the reason for our evangelism cannot be to "convert souls" but to obey God and spread God's non-coercive gospel.

Still running it over in my head, so be gracious,

God's Court Jester