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Quick to Listen

Does Evangelism Belong at Chicago’s Top Tourist Attraction?

Quick to Listen

Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3622 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Most Friday nights during the school year, a group of Wheaton College students takes the train into downtown Chicago together. Their purpose? To share the gospel with the people they meet that night in the city. Last year, Wheaton’s Chicago Evangelism Team traveled to Millenium Park, home to one of the city’s most popular attractions: the Bean. When students began to approach people with pamphlets, a park employee told students they were forbidden from doing so. Similarly, when one student began preaching, they were told that they were breaking a Chicago ordinance. Read The Chicago Tribune’s report. This account comes from the lawsuit four students filed against the city of Chicago last week, alleging that the city’s park rules improperly restricted their freedom of speech. The rules divided up the park into 11 sections and banned the public from “the making of speeches and passing out of written communications” in all but one of the sections. That section was not the Bean, which was where the students specifically wanted to evangelize.  The public’s strong reaction against evangelism comes as more and more companies are aggressively trying to sell you on their brands and products, says R. York Moore, the national evangelist for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA.  “Now, as we see, people tend to associate proselytization with big tech companies or someone trying to sell you a credit card,” he said. “...It’s no longer unique.” Moore joined digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss why evangelism can make us feel uncomfortable, what bad evangelism looks like, and what makes public proclamation of one’s faith beautiful and unique.  This episode of Quick to Listen is brought to you in part by Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God's Image, a newly updated and combined book by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey, from InterVarsity Press. For 40% off and free US shipping on this book and any other IVP title, visit ivpress.com and use promo code POD19. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity.

0:11.1

Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion.

0:14.5

Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail del Rosario at Ap apologetics guy.com.

0:37.8

Today is Wednesday, September 25th, and this is quick to listen, where we go beyond hashtags and hot takes discuss a major cultural event.

0:51.6

I'm Morgan Lee, digital media producer here at Christianity today.

0:55.3

I'm with my co-host, our editor-in-chief, Mark Galley. Good morning.

1:00.0

It is a good morning. We drove together to get here a little bit early, and it was a beautiful fall morning. Yeah, we got to see the sun come up, so I'm not complaining.

1:08.5

All right, who's our guest today?

1:09.8

Our guest today is R. York Moore, who serves as National Evangelist for Interversity Christian

1:15.5

Fellowship USA. He's the author of Do Something Beautiful, the story of everything, and a guide

1:20.5

to your place in it, growing your faith by giving it away, and making all things new God's

1:25.5

dream for global justice. Welcome York. Thanks for having me.

1:29.9

York, I have to say, you know, we were talking before we started recording that you live in Michigan,

1:33.9

and I've always been very jealous, but also curious that Michigan gets to consider itself Eastern time.

1:39.4

Yeah, I know. We get a lot of questions on that. I think they're worthy, okay? Like, you guys just get way more sunshine in the evenings than all the rest of us do,

1:47.6

especially like being in Chicago as being like on the worst side of it since they're so close together.

1:51.9

Yeah, exactly.

1:53.2

You know, so I hope you're living it up.

1:55.3

Especially this time of year when it's still nice and sunny and warm.

1:58.6

In February, we pay our price.

2:00.7

Okay. I'll take some small comfort in that.

2:03.5

Well, let's get into what we're going to talk about today and why we have you on the show.

...

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