Tom Cruise - The Perfect Christian
So I was watching Oprah a few weeks ago. (Yeah. Yeah. My wife tivos it.) She had Tom Cruise on celebrating 25 years since he starred in Risky Business. She showed several videos of different celebrities telling Tom how great he is. They went on and on about how he is nice and charming and gracious and giving and etc. Which from what I’ve heard is true. Not just to other stars, but to everyone he works with. PA’s, gaffers, best boys, extras… doesn’t matter. Tom Cruise treats them all with the utmost respect and kindness. Same goes for John Travolta and many of the other Scientologists. They’re just nice people.
This got me thinking about Scientology and how so many people could buy into such a crazy “religion” with it’s talk of thetans and Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy and something about volcanoes and hydrogen bombs. Then it hit me. These people aren’t buying into a religion. They’re buying into a person. They’re buying into Tom or Travolta or whichever scientologist was kind enough to stop and ask them about their day or visit them at the hospital. No one has ever heard about Xenu and thetans and said, “sign me up for that!” It’s all about the relationships.
Which brings me to the church. The Bible has some things in it that, to an outsider, are pretty crazy in their own right. Jesus raising the dead and raising from the dead. The parting of the Red Sea. Jonah surviving in a fishes belly for three days. There’s even a talking donkey in Numbers 22. A talking donkey!
Often times, the church gets caught up in defending or downplaying some of the crazier aspects of Christianity. We’ll spend all of our time trying to convince you that the Earth was created in 7 days or that dinosaurs walked with man, but the truth is that most people who come to experience a personal relationship with Jesus Christ do so because of the believers in their life that took the time to express the love of Christ and care about them. It’s all about the relationships. That’s the essence of relational evangelism. Now go out there and be a Tom Cruise Christian.
What do you think? Are you trying to convince unbelievers or investing in them?
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Comments
Well, I realised some time ago I was rubbish at sharing the gospel. In fact I only clearly knew what the gospel was (not the four books, but the message) with some degree of understanding in 2004 which was exactly thirty years after I first asked Christ into my heart (at a Billy Graham crusade in India - I was 11).
Okay, a long meander that ended up in a state of apostasy in the 80s while doing my doctorate in the (you’ll like this) Georgia Tech of the North (how do I flatter you, let me count the ways 
possibly was partly to blame.
But given that God used my mental illness to inexorably knock me over the sense till I came back and got some small understanding of Proverbs 1:7 at least, I can share my faith through testimony of how He has upheld and healed me bit by bit. Mile by mile, over 17 years or so.
Relationship is at the heart of the Christian faith. Get your relationship with God right and the rest will follow is the simple line I’ve been taught and which I feel helps tremendously. Take your sense of self-worth from the knowledge of His love for you/me just as we are; and then take your sense of significance from the fact He wants us to be involved in His service.
But it is not always wise to simplify things to the point where Christian contact is what attracts people. No, it is God who calls and God alone. None of us is a remotely good witness for Him and many, many unbelievers are “better people” than I am at this point in time. More to the point, I came back to faith in a relatively atheistic environment at Edinburgh University here; though of course the seeds of faith were laid many years earlier in church in India and at school there and by my Mum.
I like your point about arguing about little things. The problem I find with 7(6) day creationist debates with evolution theory proponents is that most times the argumentation on both sides is unsound. Good points are made, but the full picture is not tied up. At this point in my life, I am a 7th day creationist (not that this statement will change the world’s view on the subject). But I take comfort in Isaiah 55:8 which lets me know that some things are just unknowable and I don’t have to bend my tiny brain round them as my Sovereign God has it sussed as they say here in Britain.
Every blessing, and good to come across your Blog. Having got to know four politicians (three claiming to be Christians and one not) from two parties (Conservative and Liberal Democrat) I have decided that it is impossible for a Christian to be a politician (or maybe the other way round). The entire value system on which politics is based is so corrupt it is based upon patting one set of people on the back while retaliating against others - Philip Yancey touched on it in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace - though I guess it was a bit of a generalisation.
One of the best Christian books I’ve read is Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart; in that book one of my favourite lines that convicts me over and over is “It’s more important to be Christlike than to be right” (though of course Jesus, being God, would be Christlike as well as right
Take care and you’ve convinced me that the D90 is the way I should go - thereby ending two years of my agonising what to upgrade to from my 300D :-}
All this from one carved pumpkin.
Thanks, Rama! Great comment. I couldn’t agree more. The idealist in me wants to believe that a strong committed Christian could hold a high elected office, but I used to work in state politics, so I have my doubts too.
You’ll love the D90. It’s an amazing camera.
Hallelujah, a-freaking-men, let it ring out for all the southern, christian-bred, people to hear - it’s not a sin to love the tattooed freak, the alcoholic, the homo, prostitute, transexual, gambler, child abuser…