Only 32% of Catholic priests say that it's important to try and convince others to accept their religion. Evangelical pastors are at 82%.
It’s literally in the name, to harass “evangelize.”
Catholics already did the institutional takeovers and the crusades.
Still violent, still oppressive but not in the same, individual, in-your-face way that American Evangelicals are. May be partly bias but the latter freak me out way more than the former, especially where they take over politics so aggressively.
It's what he wanted :p
Let me in so I can love you, or you'll be sorry of what I'll do to you if you don't let me in!
*I love you, let me in so I can learn you to love all
most salesman want more customers
"Tell me Father, should I convert?"
"Meh... I wouldn't."
They are kinda like that. If you aren’t born in the Catholic Church, it’s kind of a pain to get in. You have to do classes for at least a year and have someone sponsor you. It makes sense - they take their belief seriously and want to make sure that people joining know what they’re getting into
In which country is that? "Our" Catholics are pretty darn easy and happy about everyone they can get, as a lot of people leave because of child abuse and corruption scandals keeping to emerge.
Also "they" for the most part take their belief as serious maybe going to church once a year. The ones that go every Sunday are already the "hardcore" ones.
Sponsor? You just need a priest willing to give you sacraments, starting with baptism.
Fun fact, because of the political power evangelicals keep gaining in Brazil, we say they are transforming our country into "Evangelistan"
Honestly, a former evangelical, now a full on atheist, but I have to say, in a logical standpoint.. belief in hell, and belief that you should mind your own business, seem at odds in a general stance. If you literally believe your god, views non belief as such a crime, that anyone following it deserves to be tortured for all of eternity, it logically follows that you should do everything in your power to convince them otherwise.
The concept of a you do you and not my problem is on par with say... being a die hard trump supporter, going out every week with "mass deportations now" signs. Then going out and grabbing a beer with your undocumented immigrant friends and saying to them "You're a cool guy, lets hang out until ice finds you and gives you what you deserve".
There's a not uncommon belief that people that have not been exposed to Christianity are exempt from the whole hell thing.
The logical conclusion of that belief is, of course, that evangelising is just about the most evil thing you can do as you are condemning people by removing their exemption. Funnily enough, I never met someone who held that belief that reached that conclusion.
Exposed yes, but also noted almost all of them consider "exposed" as a fairly low bar as well. IE it's safe to say 99.999% of american's are exposed and chosing to reject.
But yeah the general idea of making sure small niche tribes in affrica never hear it, seems like a good way to protect them.
Same logic also could be applied to the idea that babies and kids under a certain age that die get a free trip to heaven. At which point the only logical conclusion is... a baby murderer is actually the most self sacrificing good human possible... such would be dooming himself to hell, while saving every baby he kills, self sacrifice is the greatest possible moral action. Why let babies grow up with the possibility they might reject god when they are old enough.
In both situations, it's oppression. There is no other way to look at it. It's no wonder why evangelicals are, by and large, conservatives that support Trump.
I just want everyone to shut up in every way about their fantasy story of choice they want to treat as if real.
To me people who talk about their religion as if it were a real thing are the same as people with mental issues who have imaginary friends up until high age or who cannot tell reality from fantasy.
I don't bring this view up by myself but absolutely drive it at max speed if some idiots on the road ask me "may I talk with you about how god can save you?"
Yo mansky(a) have you ever connected?
I'm angostic but coming from a polytheistic culture it's very weird to me when such people approach me, at least the other religious people mostly mind their own business around me, not once in my life I've been approached by anyone of them asking me if I've heard the good news, it's like they don't even see me, there's no light behind their eyes, just a desperate need to recruit. Even worse are the shit heads who try to be sneaky about it, they'll spark up a conversation about some topic of interest, ask for your number and then hound you to come to their creepy cult meetings, this lot infested my campus in Texas. If there is a god I'm sure he saw what we became and threw our universe in the cosmic trashcan and went on to make a better universe
This is from 2020; It seems like we might have more recent data and there's been some shifts?
This is the 2025 report from the same group: https://www.nationalsurveyreligiousleaders.org/s/NSRL-report-2025-clergy-in-america.pdf
They say (page 28):
Evangelical clergy, by contrast, stand out as especially conversionist, with 82% agreeing that it is important to try to persuade people to join them. Only 35% of mainline clergy agreed that such conversion attempts are important, compared to 41% of Black ministers and 52% of Catholic priests saying that. Consistent with their more ecumenical views, mainline clergy are less likely than clergy in any other group to agree that it is important for them to try to persuade people in other religions to accept their religion instead of the person’s current one, though the differences between the mainline percentage and the Catholic and Black Protestant percentages are not statistically significant at the conventional level.
Same question in the new report is here; seems like it's from the same data round though? So that's a bit confusing:
There is an additional question, on how this varies for 'primary' ministers vs others on page 77; feels like it should be broken down by religion first, but I haven't looked closely.
Consistent with their more ecumenical views
I.... Can't help myself....
"don't be involved with any of these cults" is the resulting message.
And this is why my friends and I play a silly game every time missionaries go stomping about the neighborhood, the goal, get them to talk as long as possible (my record is 45 min.)
This does two things, the first is that they arnt going to bother anyone else (Im very not interested and am trying to not have them waste anyone else's time). The second is a lot harder, it is an opportunity to try and get in some deprogramming. Direct all your conversation at the younger person, JW and mormons do this most often but we have a few cults in the area and this is important for them too. Be nice, offer them tea, engage in the philisophy they are peddling, play the role of Socrates and ask annoying questions but dont come off as condesending. A lot of cults need to scare their younger members into staying in the fold, prove that having a nice conversation with the friendly atheist down the street wont cause them to burst into flames.
They have to keep the money flowing somehow. These fucks actually don't care about doing good. Just enrichment of their net worth. It's easy to see.
Evangelical totals to 99%??
rounding errors presumably.
This makes sense if you know what the word evangelize means
Whoda thunk that evangelicals be the most evangelical? Wild.
It’s almost like words… mean… something?
It means they fight with big robots, right?