Triage
Some concerns can be "let go" so others can be salvaged.
August, 2017
I recently received a blizzard of questions from a seeking non-believer. He was frustrated and unsure about how to approach issues of faith. His concerns included everything from evolution and the age of the earth, to dinosaurs, to why bad things happen to good people, to life on other planets, to near-death experiences, to whether or not there was proof of God, and even what specifically happens after a person dies.
With that in mind, how many specific, doctrinal, direct answers did I provide?
Almost none.
An important skill in evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship is knowing whether or not a particular subject needs to be discussed—at all—regardless of the correct doctrinal answer. This is the spiritual equivalent to the medical practice of triage: ranking symptoms according to severity, and deciding in what order to address them. More serious problems need to be handled more quickly, or with greater care. Lesser issues can be stabilized until after life-threatening conditions are under control. Some problems might be so severe, or so trivial, that it's unwise to pursue them at the expense of more productive cases.
Christians often fail to perform triage when witnessing to non-believers. As a result, we burn up their good will, time, and attention over matters which are ultimately irrelevant. That leaves the most important issue(s) unresolved. Or, we exhaust time and energy on those who are essentially unreachable, at the cost of those who we might actually be able to help.
This particular seeker had questions covering a massive range of topics. From his perspective, these various questions were equally pressing. Every single one needed a complete answer, else faith and belief were impossible to justify. Keep in mind, this was not a hardened skeptic piling on excuses—this was a person honestly trying to make sense of his spiritual life, and overwhelmed in the process. The sheer volume of questions he was dealing with made him reluctant to pursue faith. In his mind, the mere existence of so many unanswered questions, and debates within Christianity, made the whole thing seem suspect.
With triage in mind, the only queries I gave detailed answers to were those about evidence, God speaking to us, and so forth. I didn't ignore his other questions—I gave biblically valid responses. But those answers were brief and built on a common theme: don't worry about it. How old is the earth? Doesn't matter. Is there life on Mars? Not important. Are near-death-experiences legitimate? Don't put stock in those. How did some particular miracle happen? Makes no difference. The common point was that those concerns were irrelevant to him as a non-believer!
My intent was aimed directly at his need: turning what he saw as roadblocks into irrelevant pebbles. I sought to reassure him that he didn't need iron-clad answers to every possible mystery. What he needed were reasons to pursue God in things he could understand, and trust God to provide answers on things he did not understand, later. Most critically, I tried to explain how a lack of understanding, on our part, doesn't mean there is no answer. It just means we're flawed.
Thankfully, resulted in a "light bulb" moment. He realized that most of his questions simply did not matter, at least not yet. They could wait. What used to be a pile of suffocating boulders, from his perspective, shrank into a handful of stones he could carry in his back pocket for later on. Still there, still real, but nothing that would stop his progress. Best of all, he recognized that the real issue—the only important question—was whether or not he was going to pursue God, in submissive faith. Everything else, he seemed to realize, could come later. And the most important point he needed to focus on was the life and ministry of Christ. He came to understand this, not the secondary issues, to be the real foundation of sincere seeking.
He decided to go to church the next Sunday. Whether that had much to do with our conversation or not, I don't know. But I do know he was convinced that faith was at least worth exploring, and side issues worth waiting on.
The point is not that such doctrinal issues have no "right" position. There are correct and incorrect answers to all of those questions. Some of those doctrinal discussions are, in fact, extremely important. But the vast majority mean nothing until after a person has come to faith in Christ. Our best strategy as evangelists is not attempting to convince non-Christians to see everything in a Christian way. It's to lovingly guide them around all of the nonsense blocking their path to Christ.
That does not require proving our pet views on those topics. It certainly doesn't include planting doctrinal checkpoints between them and the cross. As Christians, our goal is not to convert the lost to a particular view of young-earth creationism, or theism, or eschatology, or predestination, or anything else. Instead, we should help seekers set aside non-salvation issues in favor of their real need. Which is Christ, not some doctrinal hobby horse or controversial issue.
That's spiritual triage. And it's a tool we desperately need to encourage in our fellow believers.
-- Editor
