Nothing is a quicker turnoff to the secular skeptic—or the “spiritual but not religious” seeker—than pride and arrogance dripping from the lips of someone claiming to share the gospel. You can smell it on certain Christians. When bluster, overconfidence, and superiority show up, it’s no wonder people are repelled rather than drawn in.
The problem isn’t that pride is always off-putting—history is filled with charismatic leaders marked by pride and arrogance who still amassed followers. The problem is that it makes no sense for a messenger of the gospel to come across that way. The gospel is humbling news. So when it sounds from the lips of someone who looks down on everyone else, it becomes an oxymoron. The manner undercuts the message.
That said, the answer to this kind of pride isn’t to wallow in uncertainty or to become mealymouthed and milquetoast—always hedging, wringing our hands, and apologizing for Christianity instead of offering an apologetic for it. And even if, in some circles, pride and arrogance still reign supreme, I worry that in many others—perhaps in most churches today—it’s the loss of confidence in the life-changing news of the gospel that marks us most.
We’re hesitant to share the gospel because we suffer not from a superiority complex but from a lingering feeling of inferiority. We may still believe the gospel is true, but we quietly wonder if it’s better than what the world offers.
World Desperate for Good News
What’s wild is how clearly the world’s imperfections and flaws are on display in our generation. Everywhere we look, sin’s effects appear: injustice and insecurity, wars and rumors of wars, scandal and impropriety in politics, the collapse of standards and the absence of character in public office, the “strange persistence of guilt,” the spread of the culture of death, polarization and isolation fueling a loneliness epidemic, and an underlying unhappiness and loss of meaning.
A world without God is a world that no longer knows itself. It’s a world without purpose, where meaning must be manufactured rather than received, where our confusion about human nature leads to hopelessness, anxiety, and despair.
If the gospel itself isn’t reason enough for cheerful confidence in evangelism, the darkness of the world should be. We have forgotten who we are. In this environment, Christians are called to be the great reminders.
Christians who share the gospel today shouldn’t imagine themselves trapped in a pit of defeater beliefs, scrambling to dig their way up to level ground just to make a case. No. It’s the world that’s in the pit. The believer stands on solid ground, secure on the rock, and calls out with confidence, “Come up higher. There is light, there is air, there is life up here.”
“But,” some might say, “if you think you have the answer, you must think yourself superior!” No. Because we point away from ourselves. Like John the Baptist, we point to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Like Moses in the wilderness, we point to the bronze serpent on the pole. Like the women at the cross, we look at the hands, the feet, the side of the Messiah—where “sorrow and love flow mingled down.”
Exuberance of Evangelism
Cheerful confidence has no patience for the idea that the best expression of authenticity is for pastors and evangelists to constantly parade their discomfort with controversial doctrines of the faith, as if credibility comes by wishing Christian teaching were different. That strategy backfires. Where’s the attraction in saying, “Join me, and you can be just as unsettled and uncomfortable with Christianity as I am”?
No, the evangelism we need today is daring, subversive, robust, and joy-filled. Think of C. S. Lewis, with cheerful confidence showing how Christianity illuminates every corner of life. Or G. K. Chesterton, throwing people off balance with wit and paradox, delighting them into wonder.
We’ve inherited a faith overflowing with wisdom. We have at our fingertips the inspired Scriptures, we’ve been given treasures of theology and spirituality, we can marvel at the beauty of art and architecture shaped by Christian thought, and we can glean wisdom from our forefathers and mothers. To step into Christianity is to enter a vibrant world of meaning, shimmering with light and joy. Unless we bask in that beauty—until we delight in the fullness of our faith—we’ll be left stumbling when asked to explain the gospel to those who sincerely want to understand why the news is so good.
Contagious Confidence
What the world needs now is energetic, cheerful, confident Christians—men and women who know what they believe and why, who are enthusiastic about the faith because they’re convinced it’s the only cure for the disease of sin and death, who believe Jesus is real, the Spirit is active, and the church is unstoppable.
That’s why, whenever I encounter someone engaged in apologetics or making a case for Christianity, I pay attention not only to their method or their arguments but to what lies beneath. Is this person happy? Is there a volcano of joy rumbling under the mountain of argumentation? Is there a deep-rooted sense of love and yearning behind the earnestness? Do I sense faith, hope, and love at the core?
Too often, we assume the world will always reject the Christian story, that “defeater beliefs” will always prevail, that persuasion is impossible in our time. That assumption either drives us upward into pride, arrogance, and dismissiveness or drags us downward into fear, timidity, and defeat.
What I pray for is a new generation of believers marked by neither pride nor fear but by cheerful confidence. Young believers convinced that Christianity isn’t only true but good and beautiful. Young believers persuaded that the world needs the gospel, and that the gospel remains the power of God for the salvation of the world. Believers who, no matter their personality or proclivities, radiate the joy of faith, hope, and love in such a way that their confidence becomes contagious.
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