Should Christian faith be contagious?

Should Christian faith be contagious?
On our way through the mountains east of Cape Town I overheard the sermon preached earlier today broadcast by SAFM in the worship service at 11h00.

The preacher ventured to make a comparison as at a particular school there had been chicken pox cases and before long the whole school was affected. There was no way that anybody could escape, all got chicken pox.

I cannot guarantee that I followed the preacher to the exact word and maybe the interpretation was different from what I here make out. Be that as it may, however, if this example is seen as a parable for how we become Christians, then I think it is a very bad parable, actually a useless and misleading one.

What is required is something else and quite different: a conscious choice once I have been called. It is very easy to stay out of the Christian faith of one wants to, no one is forced into it, as it is not contagious in that sense at all. Just think of all the families in this world where the parents are active Christians but this faith just does not stick on the children; the more the parents try the less they are likely to become active Christians.

To be a contagious Christian could be possible in a very general and open way, something like being inspirational. But I suggest that we take out this word ‘contagious’ as it easily could be misleading. Too many churches today, not least here in Cape Town, build on this idea. We will make our worship services so attractive that once you are in them you won’t be able to resist the gospel that we preach. There are many ways of creating this kind of atmosphere luring people into something that they never asked for.

There is yet another dimension that should be mentioned. To become a Christian is above all such a personal thing (but also a public one) that while the way to Christ almost certainly goes partly through the common fellowship of the church it goes just as much through the lone struggle with God in a secret place: “But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and pray to your father who is in that secret place, and your father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you”, (Matthew 6.6).