Penn Jillette, the verbal half of the magician duo Penn and Teller, and an outspoken atheist, has posted a YouTube video exhorting Christians to share their faith.<\/p>\n
Penn and Teller are headliners in Las Vegas, and their shows generally are marked by foul language and shock appeal. Penn Jillette, though, used no coarse language in telling about an audience member who gave him a New Testament.<\/p>\n
Jillette was signing autographs after a show last fall when he noticed the man standing over to the side of the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he had been the guy who picks the joke during our psychic comedian section of the show. He had the props from that in his hand because we give those away. He had the joke book and the envelope and paper and stuff,\u201d Jillette said in the Dec. 8 YouTube video.<\/p>\n
The man walked over to Jillette, complimented him on the show and handed him a Gideons New Testament.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he said, \u2018I wrote in the front of it, and I wanted you to have this. I\u2019m kind of proselytizing,\u2019\u201d Jillette said. \u201cAnd then he said, \u2018I\u2019m a businessman. I\u2019m sane. I\u2019m not crazy.\u2019 And he looked me right in the eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really wonderful. I believe he knew that I was an atheist. But he was not defensive, and he looked me right in the eyes,\u201d Jillette said. \u201cAnd he was truly complimentary. It didn\u2019t seem like empty flattery. He was really kind and nice and sane and looked me in the eyes and talked to me and then gave me this Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jillette then stated he doesn\u2019t respect people who don\u2019t proselytize.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t respect that at all. If you believe that there\u2019s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it\u2019s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward, and atheists who think that people shouldn\u2019t proselytize …<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?\u201d Jillette asked. \u201cHow much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn\u2019t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you, there\u2019s a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jillette reiterated his impression of the man\u2019s demeanor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy was a really good guy. He was polite and honest and sane, and he cared enough about me to proselytize and give me a Bible, which had written in it a little note to me — not very personal, but just \u2018Liked your show,\u2019 and then listed five phone numbers for him and an e-mail address if I wanted to get in touch,\u201d Jillette said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I know there\u2019s no God, and one polite person living his life right doesn\u2019t change that. But I\u2019ll tell you, he was a very, very, very good man, and that\u2019s really important. And with that kind of goodness, it\u2019s OK to have that deep of a disagreement. I still think that religion does a lot of bad stuff, but that was a good man who gave me that book. That\u2019s all I wanted to say,\u201d Jillette said at the end of the short video.<\/p>\n
John Mark Simmons, pastor of the Las Vegas-area Highland Hills Baptist Church in Henderson and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, told Baptist Press that Jillette\u2019s video should inspire believers to share their faith even when they think people won\u2019t be responsive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat episode is a wonderful encouragement for all of us to be salt and light,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cIf you know anything at all about Penn or his shows, you know he pretty much represents the decayed and dark world we live in, yet someone\u2019s obedience got his attention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Penn Jillette, the verbal half of the magician duo Penn and Teller, and an outspoken atheist, has posted a YouTube video exhorting Christians to share their faith. Penn and Teller are headliners in Las Vegas, and their shows generally are marked by foul language and shock appeal. Penn Jillette, though, used no coarse language in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,221,4574,2436,4575,1075],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}