Go into all the world...

Jesus came and told the disciples, " I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

Clearly we've been given an assignment here. We are to go into the world and make disciples. In the book Church History in Plain Language, Bruce Shelley brought up some questions that came up for the Church in the 16th and 17th centuries. "Should the Christian ambassador seek the good in heathen religions and use this as a foundation for building a Christian community (adaptation)? Or should he suppress--destroy if necessary--all forms of heathen religion in order to plant the true faith (conquest)?" (p.281)

 There are pros and cons to both. God told the Israelites all throughout the old testament to completely destroy all forms of the heathen religions, and not even to mention the names of the gods of the people surrounding them. "Do not make treaties of any kind with the people living in the land. They are spiritual prostitutes, committing adultery against me by sacrificing to their gods. If you make peace with them, they will invite you to go with them to worship their gods, and you are likely to do it.(Exodus 34:16)  Today there are certainly some religious groups that I wouldn't want to associate with, even groups that call themselves Christians but don't preach the gospel. The Westboro Baptist Church, who protest at military funerals because they think every dead soldier is a punishment from God for the sin of homosexuality is one group I would never associate with because they don't preach God's mercy to everyone who repents and looks to Jesus for their salvation. On the other hand, the Unitarian Universalist "church" pretty much believes that anyway to God is good enough, and that God won't send people to hell. The Bible teaches otherwise, and mentions that "the wages of sin is death." Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So on one hand we have one church preaching a gospel of hatred and on the other hand another church preaching a gospel of permissiveness. Both are lies from the pits of hell. I do not want to have anything to do with these, so I would hope to conquer those ideas.

On the other hand, I feel (I may be wrong) that God these days would not ask us to wipe out an entire population, because Christ has come and will return. I would think that He would want to teach as many people about Him as possible. Paul mentions in his letters that he does what he can to try to fit in as much as he can with the people he is trying to reach. With the Jews he shaved his head so that they could see that he still adhered to the dietary laws. With the Gentiles, he reassured them that they didn't need to be circumcised. In Athens, he reached out to the philosophers there by telling them about Christ in terms they would understand. Today we can reach out to those in need of Christ on their terms. First those we reach out need to know that we genuinely care. (I think that's where they went wrong in the 16th and 17th centuries...they tried to forcibly convert people without concern for their welfare.) While we reach out to them, we tell them what they need to hear. We use styles of music that they like, allow them to dress casually, etc. If it will lead them to Christ, it shouldn't matter how they are dressed or what kind of music we use.