A Baptist preacher calling a sinner to repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation is hardly news. Except, perhaps, when it's done via Twitter.
USA Today religion blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman yesterday took seminary president and Twitter user Albert Mohler to task for this tweet sent on Saturday:
Dear Congressman Weiner: There is no effective "treatment" for sin. Only atonement, found only in Jesus Christ.
Tweeted in response to news that Weiner was taking a "leave of absence" and seeking "treatment," Grossman read into Mohler's tweet an "evangelistic dig at Jews like Weiner and other non-Christians," although there's nothing specific in the tweet directed at any particular religious persuasion. Yes, Weiner happens to be Jewish, but he also happens to be a man whose private sexual indiscretions are now, to his shame, openly on display to the whole world.
If anything, a more charitable inference may be that Mohler's evangelistic plea is aimed broadly at millions of men who, like Anthony Weiner, are slaves to their unchecked sexual appetites and facing disastrous consequences in their lives because of them.
In closing her piece, Grossman again took a swipe at Mohler's tweet, dismissively tagging it as "turn-or-burn evangelism" as she prompted readers of her blog for their reactions in the comment field:
Let's set aside the sex scandals of avowedly Christian public figures who presumably already believed in the Christian concept of salvation but weren't living up to their religious morals. And plenty of rabbis have already chimed in with Jewish counseling on how Weiner might find the path back to righteousness.
This reads as an evangelism tactic, riding in on the Weiner headlines but aimed at people like Jews such as Weiner, Buddhists like Woods, and many others, such as Weiner's Muslim wife, who hold different ideas about salvation, different approaches to atonement.
DO YOU THINK ... the Weiner scandal is an opportune moment for turn-or-burn evangelism?
