Dear Ellen, I'm remembering that summer evening in 2001 when we met at a Christian writer's conference. I had just delivered the keynote speech. You introduced yourself.

"thanks for speaking to me, as a writer, tonight ... most christian speakers don't, because i'm jewish."

i remember, very well. in the 18 years i've been there, almost every person who has spoken to our conference has assumed we're all christians, and that just about lets me out! mostly i use that hour to doze ... i was settling back comfortably when you started talking. you grabbed me! in your own gentle way you said, "hey, you! pay attention; this is for you, too — whoever you are! you talked as if you recognized that i was here to sharpen my writing skills — not to change my religion! i decided i wanted to know you a lot better ...

The next afternoon we began a conversation that continued through dinner, and on into the evening. We talked about history, Judaism, who Jesus Christ is. Later, at home we turned on the e-mail, and haven't stopped talking since. In your third letter, you wrote, i look forward to discussing any million topics you choose. I shook my head with wonder and envisioned all the ground we might cover. But one topic I never would have put on the list — evangelism.

a month later, my husband and i came west for a wedding. we stopped to see you and you took us on a picnic among the redwoods. i remember only total pleasure ... i was having the chance to talk with someone who could mutually share and challenge. it was a very exciting day for me — those impossibly tall redwoods, the best chicken sandwich i've ever had, and later, the chinese dinner. all in all the day was about as perfect as any i might ever have ... but neither i — nor we — could have had any idea what was coming.

at that point, i guess i assumed that you had it in mind to make a christian out of me ... not that it bothered me — then. but a bit later, it dawned on me that i was not looking for a pen pal just to have an intellectual adventure with; i wanted a real friend. i was making myself vulnerable to you, and if you were just trying to gain a convert, i was going to get seriously hurt! i wasn't at all sure i could protect myself.

So, that was when I found these startling questions in my e-mail from you:
do you want me to understand? or do you want me to believe?

Boy, did I sweat over that one! How could I tell you that probably God had dropped you into my life to bring you to Jesus? [oh, yeah?!] How could I not tell you? I had never had to think and pray so hard. But in those memorable hours between our letters, I found God's answer, and with it a new level of confidence in Him.

Carefully, I wrote: I will not deny that I'd be very happy if someday you could come to believe all I'm saying. However, that's not a choice for me to make, nor an assumption for me to foist on our relationship. I believe I've come to the point where I can leave that between you and God. I'm not trying to pressure you to change what you believe.

Truth is, I'm thoroughly enjoying this journey of ours. I wouldn't want you to accept anything I say just because I say it. I hope to help you understand where I'm coming from, given my line of logic, but I don't expect you to agree with me automatically.

i'm not so sure i'd know how to believe what you believe, ethel. i don't come with the same faith equipment you have, so my questioning and skepticism run roughshod over any attempt i make at straying from my concept of logic. but i don't need to be ready to believe in order to understand, and to appreciate your ... what? unbounded joy? love of god? i want you to be who you are; and it's ok to say to me anything you want to say. just maybe i understand a little more than you think. one thing for sure i understand about you, my friend — you are an evangelical christian ... and evangelicals evangelize, like dogs bark, like cats meow ... it's part of what makes you christian. jewish people do not believe in evangelizing. if i thought it was right, i'd go after you to show you the error of your ways. but i couldn't do it, because i think it's wrong!

Maybe we need to define evangelism so we know what we're talking about.

well, look — evangelism, I think, is the outward manifestation of a need to share something that the evangelist has that she/he believes everybody else ought to have, too ... and it's often not terribly appealing to those outside the evangelist's circle of believers. evangelism to me, by any definition, would be coercive ...

let me tell you a little story. i once went with a bunch of high school buddies to a christian youth rally, a live stage show. I was 13 or 14 and had rarely seen such a spectacle. most of these friends were fundamentalists, and this was an overnight birthday party in one of their homes. this was the only way i could do it, because my parents had told me i couldn't go to the rally. they knew i had this problem that i believed whatever the last person had told me, and they didn't want me to run off and get a surprise baptism. but i went anyway.

in the middle of the show, we were invited to stand and shake hands with everyone around us ... and to invite each other to go up front to accept jesus! I shook hands with the guy behind me, and his fervor got the best of him. he wouldn't let go of my hand and kept asking me to go with him! It was a little tempting, because if you went, you got a little white book, free ... i really wanted to know what was in that book! I kept smiling, and telling him, "thanks, but not this time." but he wouldn't let up for many seconds and my friends just stood there giggling! i guess you know i didn't go down, but it was a close one ... so, if you decide to convert me, be sure there's a little white book involved ... well, negotiable on the color.

So, then you've had some experience with evangelical coercion ...

oh, yeah!

That's sad. Because it means a lot of people have missed the real Ellen. They've only seen you through the grid of the Christian they expect you to become. That, my friend, is proselytizing — hardly my idea of evangelism. Leighton Ford says, "Proselytizing is the sawed-off shotgun approach to evangelism: You load up with scattershot ammunition, aim at anything that moves, and blast away! 'Hey, you filthy sinners! You're going to hell if you don't repent!'…
Proselytizers don't care about affecting human hearts, about listening to human needs, about healing human hurts. [They] just shoot their message at people in hopes of somehow hitting a vital spot and making a convert" (The Power of Story, 1994).

i've been in the gun sights of proselytizers. believe me, it's a crummy place to be ... but i've also been fortunate enough to know a few of the authentics, like you. so tell me, how do you define evangelism?

I was brought up on the youth rally model, though I never felt comfortable with it. Over the years, I've been rediscovering what evangelism is. Here's the way I see it today. God has called me to witness to my faith in many ways, but mostly I do it by being everything He makes me to be. I don't have to consciously try to witness. The goal of my life is not to win souls, but to enjoy and worship God and attempt to be a body, mind and heart that God can shine His glory through into His world. That may make people hungry or thirsty for God, but He will be the winner of their souls.

and you do that well ... if god wants to shine his light through you, he will never have reason to be disappointed. i don't take that as evangelism, though, ethel ... i take it as the most basic expression of the person you are ... if it's your way of evangelizing, so be it. even though i've said if you need to evangelize, go ahead and do it, you have intuited that the way to get through to me is by the simple act of being you! it's not your words, but your gentle and loving nature and your character and integrity that pop out all over you! ralph waldo emerson said, "What you are speaks so loud, I can't hear a word you say." i think ralph was right.

Well said, Friend. But in our dialogue we spend enormous amounts of time talking about theology and its implications in our lives.

yes, of course, and that's because i know god is about the most important thing in your life, and part of coming to know you is looking through your eyes at the relationship you have with god. what i didn't expect was that in the process, i would come to connect with my own roots! — religiously, as well as culturally. we're even studying the bible — together, each of us connecting with both sets of beliefs — and learning so much.

The hardest part, Ellen, is learning each other's language. How many times have you accused me of floating off in some ethereal space far above your head, because my concepts — or the Christian words I cloak them with — don't make sense to you? I never before realized how much I depend on "Christianese" to communicate what I know about God. You are helping me here, by teaching me to think in "Ellenese."

just trying to throw you an anchor, y' know! sometimes when you fly off into that "vague christianese," your choice of words creates a wall between us — i have no idea what you're saying. i want very much to grasp it, but i also, badly, want you to see what your words sound like to somebody who isn't christian ... come out, and see it through my eyes for a moment ... things may look a little different! anyway, it's a worthwhile exercise, because it makes you reexamine your positions and your declarations.

You have stretched me far more in that direction than I ever thought I could be stretched.
well, i believe that lesson #1 of evangelizing in the new millennium should be: know your audience.

Absolutely! And we hear this advice all the time. But we often fall far short because, even as you and I are experiencing in our journey, unless we're willing to take the time to listen with our whole hearts and to risk becoming friends, we'll never reach one another. We Christians have whole libraries filled with books telling us about what non-Christians think ... somehow it feels safer and quicker to read those books than to get out and take a chance on live communication!

you're drawing a picture of a christian woman i know who once decided to turn me into either a christian or mincemeat, whichever came easier! she would ask a leading question, but then instead of listening to my answer, she'd be off formulating the next question. i might as well have been reciting the dictionary! this woman actually asked me whether jewish people have a set of rules they live by, like you christians … i asked her where she thought the ten commandments came from, but i don't think she was listening then, either!

She's probably far less likely to care about what happens inside you than how she can squeeze you into her mold.

you've met this woman?!

Likely she grew up, religiously, where I grew up. I've been there. We've been given answers and told how to administer them with authority to a world that doesn't have them — that's you. [ahhh, yes; that is me!] She probably believes she's a good evangelistic witness and sees no need to learn to listen the way you and I listen to one another.

When people believe that their ideas are more important than those of the people around them, we call them bigots — because that's just what they are! Their lopsided view of life skews everything and everyone ... they lose a sense of balance and see others as pawns. [yes!!!] Many Christians fall into this trap because they focus on the principles of Christianity and lose sight of God.

Further, we are quick to forget that God is sovereign. Whatever He wants done, He will do. He uses us as His instruments. But we are never more than that. We don't make converts; that's God's work.

you're speaking of an ideal ... if life were like that, evangelism might stand a chance of reaching people who are studiously uninterested in listening ... if the messenger improved his understanding and delivery, he might get a hearing. the way things are, we ignore him as carefully as possible!

with you and me, i'm accepting who you are and what you are, because i now know, beyond any other consideration, it's "me" who matters to you; not "my soul, for jesus." i know you'll quietly pray for my soul, which is fine with me. in the meantime, you are free to be exactly who you are, and i will be equally free to interpret your words in the way they make the most sense to me.

I'm discovering through all we've been doing in our relationship that love is what God gives us, what He asks of us. And it can put our whole lives in order and bring us peace.
it can also turn our world upside down ... especially if we thought we had it all figured out. i know you're seeing some things a little differently these days ... both of us are. i may be opening some doors for you to glance through, but equally, you're doing that for me. i'm not sure what the effect is yet, but i can feel that i'm different…

Oh, Ellen, this is the wonder of what goes on between us. We are sharing ourselves at the soul level and learning so much from one another. We're also sending each other back to our roots to determine what's real and what's not. The wonder and the joy of it is that God has allowed us to precipitate such profound changes in ourselves.

Brian McLaren, a writer I've been reading recently, describes evangelism this way:
"I think of it like a dance. You know, [where] nobody wins and nobody loses. Both parties listen to the music and try to move with it. In this case, I hear the music of the gospel, and my friend doesn't, so I try to help him hear it and move with it.: [on the other hand, if the other person doesn't want to dance, and I try to force him to, that's called] ASSAULT. But if you pull someone in who wants to learn, and you're good with the music yourself, it can be a lot of fun!" (A New Kind of Christian, 2001).

well, then, friend, i guess we're dancing!