Christianity Is Not a Pyramid Scheme

I have always had an analytical bent. As far back as I can remember, I would dwell on subjects that were confusing, trying to work out however much understanding I could from my limited vantage point. This only got more pronounced during my teenage years. I came to enjoy reading theoretical books about time travel, physics, and anything which might help me think about weird things systematically.

Since I grew up in a Christian family and went to a Christian school, the Bible and theology received the same treatment. For example, one day in Bible class my teacher explained to us that faith is a gift. While we must believe in Christ to be saved, he said, God is the one who gives us the faith that we need. As an analogy, he suggested a kindly grandpa who offers to sell you something for a dollar but then provides you with that very dollar. Of course, I immediately began thinking about those who do not believe. This led to a long theological wrestling match with questions of grace, election, and unbelief.

During those years, one question in particular preoccupied me: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? What are we for? The question was not a source of existential angst; I knew that any sound answer was about God. Whatever the details, my obligations were to love him and to love my neighbor as myself. So nothing about the matter weighed on my soul, except for a raw rational conundrum. You see, as far as I had been able to gather from my Southern Baptist upbringing and Evangelical education, the meaning of life was to get people saved. A parody of the catechism sums up this teaching:

1. Q: What is the chief end of each individual Christian?
   A: Each individual Christian’s chief end is to get saved. This is the first and great commandment.
2. Q: And what is the second great commandment?
   A: The second, which is like unto it, is to get as many others saved as he can.

My questions about this began when someone at church or school said the point of everything was to share the gospel. Evangelism was, it seemed, the chief end of man. Here my analytic side kicked in. What would happen if everyone became a Christian? Or what if a group of Christians were permanently stranded on a desert island? Would there be no purpose left for existence?

Though I did not know the name for the thing at the time, what I was trying to understand was the difference between Christianity and a pyramid scheme. They seemed rather similar. You get recruited. Your job is to recruit others. The new recruits have the same mission: recruit more. A more cynical mind might have viewed the whole thing as a tithe-collection scheme. I knew this was not what went on in the hearts and minds of the faithful Christians I knew. The underpaid pastors of small churches and the tireless families ever engaged in service were certainly not in it for the money, but out of love for their neighbors’ souls. But this left the problem where it was.

Photograph by Sergey Nivens / Adobe Stock.

I found no direct solution, and eventually stopped thinking about it. By the time I reached adulthood, I had been introduced to other possible answers. My growing interest in theology led me to the Reformed tradition, with its fairly robust resources, its passionate rhetoric about living a radical life, and its rejection of the “moralistic therapeutic deism” it saw in other forms of Christianity. Domestic life began to look suspiciously easy and too closely linked to the nonchalant middle-class hypocrisy I saw so much of throughout my teenage years. If I were to give God his rightful place in my life, to make him my Lord and not just my Savior, as the saying went, the focus would have to be on the very hard and uncomfortable work of … making converts, whether by ministry in a local church or by foreign missions. I was back where I had been, just a little more Presbyterian about it.

I married right after high school, started a family, and got a degree in ministry studies. Missions or pastoral ministry still seemed the only viable options, the only things hard enough and valuable enough to justify my time – which was in reality taken up by jobs to support my little family and by family life. I became a part-time youth pastor. I saw little fruit, though, and gradually realized that difficulty was not enough to prove a path to be the right one.

The Reformed tradition, it turns out, does have an answer to my old question, and it finally began to sink in. The introduction to the Westminster Shorter Catechism finally clicked:

1. Q: What is the chief end of man?
   A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Reading Michael Horton taught me about the Reformation’s rediscovery and assertion of the value and dignity before God of the ordinary life, Christian faithfulness among the usual business of family and work and trimming hedges. In all spheres of life and in all vocations, whether the job is winning souls or not, we can glorify God and enjoy him.

That set me free.

Indeed, freedom was near the heart of the matter. As Paul puts it, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). A view of the Christian life as solely for evangelism misses this freedom to use our lives, whatever our circumstances and callings, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. All good gifts come from him. What Paul said of food and marriage is true of the other stuff of life: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4–5).

This realization not only set me free, but my family and my neighbors too. No longer were my children (there are seven now), my wife, or my hypothetical future converts subject to the burden of giving meaning to a man in a vocation for which he was rather unsuited. If I needed to work for a mail-forwarding service or as a programmer to earn a living, I was free to do it, so long as I did it “heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23). I can glorify him by making effective use of his gifts, by cultivating virtues such as diligence and fortitude, by participating in his love for my neighbors, and by raising my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

A fear dogged this transition, though: “What then of evangelism? Is this a convenient escape from the difficulty of the Great Commission?” This question was fair, not least because I dreaded having to evangelize. Was this just an excuse to throw that weight off my back?

By no means! For one, faithfulness in ordinary, secular vocations is difficult in its own right. For another, the very logic of Christian freedom is expansive. Paul was not content to be free; he was jealous that the Galatians be equally free. Similarly, Martin Luther rightly observed, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”

If we have been set free, we find our liberty incomplete without freeing others. Even if we do not become missionaries or street preachers, saving souls remains a real and worthy task. If the meaning of life is to glorify God, when we imitate his love, that will free others to glorify him alongside us. Thus we escape the specter of a pyramid scheme. Christianity has a place for evangelism, but it is not an end in itself. Life is not for evangelism, but evangelism for life. Eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ, that we might all share “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).