HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 29, 2025 – Faithforcing is not in the lexicon, but it should be. We can loosely define “faithforcing” as pushing beliefs on someone who is reluctant or outright adverse to receiving them. Sadly, faithforcing has become the norm in the worldly church. Catholics and evangelicals are the worst offenders, but no denomination is guiltless. When Jesus told us to go out into the world and preach the Good News, he didn’t stipulate faithforcing: he didn’t model Bible-thumping; he didn’t model randomly shouting “God loves you!” in a public square; and he didn’t mandate professing your belief on pain of exile, torture, excommunication, or death.

I remember, as an atheist, recoiling when I witnessed faithforcing, and it still makes me uncomfortable now as a believer. It reminds me of people with certain conditions who blurt out inappropriate words when least expected. The blurting and the inappropriateness of the words make people uncomfortable because it’s all so jarringly out of place. The same can be said of faithforcing. No-one ever genuinely comes to God or genuinely accepts Jesus as their Messiah under pressure of faithforcing.

As scripture attests, Jesus’ family didn’t believe in him until after his resurrection, and yet Jesus never once subjected them to faithforcing. In one instance, faced with his brother James’s mockery and goading, Jesus calmly stated who he was and why he did what he did, but he didn’t try to coerce James into believing in him. He didn’t force James’s back to the wall and say: “Believe in me or die!” (even though those are, in fact, the only two options: belief in Jesus or death). He simply stated the truth in response to James’s provocations but otherwise let his brother be.

If Jesus didn’t resort to faithforcing even his own flesh and blood, why should we do it to ours or to anyone? Forcing, goading, or coercing people into reluctantly or even falsely stating they believe—and rewarding them for their alleged belief—is contrary to Jesus’ example of how to preach the Word. Faithforcing is a lot like people who impose their help on others who haven’t asked for help. This happens to me a lot as a woman, with most of the unrequested help coming from male strangers. I’ve lost count of the number of times men have grabbed my luggage out of my hands or rushed up behind me to “unburden” me of my grocery bags when I haven’t asked or signalled or indicated in any way that I wanted their help. It’s jarring when it happens, and my first thought is never “How kind of this stranger to help me when I haven’t asked him!” but rather: “Oh, sh#@! – I’m being mugged!”

If you’re genuinely born-again, your relationship with God and Jesus is the best part of your life. It’s the central core of who and what you are, and without it, you would be lost in every conceivable way. And because your relationship with God and Jesus is so central to who you are and therefore so precious to you, you naturally want to share it with others so that maybe they’ll want to have what you have. But it’s not as simple as simply wanting to share the Good News, any more than it’s as simple as rushing up behind someone to force what you think is a good deed on them.

When we share our faith with others, we should—like everything we do—be guided by God. In the Gospels, we see how Jesus taught only those who came to him to learn and preached only to those who wanted to hear. He never once engaged in faithforcing. When people are ready to receive what God has to offer, they will on their own accord turn to him and be open to hearing what he has to say. Until that shift happens in a soul, you preach to that soul in vain.

As I mentioned at the outset, faithforcing doesn’t exist in the lexicon, but it should be there, if only as a caution of what not to do. Fueled by pride and motivated by money, faithforcing has not won even one soul for God, though it has filled seats and coffers in churches. Our model of how to share God’s Word is Jesus, and there is no mention anywhere in scripture of Jesus faithforcing anyone or teaching his followers to faithforce.

I came to God not because someone preached to me or faithforced me, but because I finally realized I needed help, and when I cried out for it, God heard me. He didn’t ambush me and force his help on me; he waited respectfully and patiently—and expectantly—until I asked for help.

We’re to do the same for others.