The Buick Salesman and the Great Commission: On Proselytism by Example and Word, and the Eschatology Underneath
Fellowship Essay | By Thomas Lee Abshier, ND — May 8, 2026
A two-part essay landed in my inbox yesterday from Church of the Great God’s Forerunner publication: Charles Whitaker’s Proselytism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, part one and part 2, originally published in February and March of 2006 and recirculated this week. Whitaker died in 2021. The essay is being read again in 2026 because the question it engages with — what kind of Christian witness is faithful in this cultural moment — is more urgent now than when he wrote it.
Whitaker opens with a memorable extended metaphor. He invites the reader into a car show: a vast convention center where every dealership has set up its display, and where the sensory assault is total. The Lexus stand is bathed in a hundred spotlights, surrounded by sales staff dressed for fashion magazines, glossy brochures, and multimedia loops everywhere. The Audi stand makes its case for racing pedigree; the Jaguar stand insists on its proper British pronunciation. There is popcorn — chemically formulated to be irresistible — to draw foot traffic. The whole place vibrates with the message buy. None of the sellers apologizes for being there.
In a corner near the service entrance, plain and unlit, is the Buick stand. One salesman, plainly dressed, no music, no brochures, no signage. When the customer asks what the car is, the salesman whispers the answer. When the customer asks if it is a good car, the salesman says he likes it. When the customer asks how it compares to the Lexus across the room, the salesman explains that he is not allowed to make such a comparison. When the customer asks about the price, the salesman grows alarmed and warns him that this kind of questioning will get them both into trouble.
The customer backs away in confusion, then breaks into a quiet jog and picks up speed as he leaves the corner.
This, Whitaker says, is how the church has organized its witness in the marketplace of ideas — and the rest of the marketplace knows perfectly well how to make its case for evolution, for abortion, for global warming, for every consumer good and every cultural ideology. Only the gospel is whispered by people who give the impression they would prefer not to be approached.
Whitaker is right about the diagnosis. He is also, I think, only half-right about the cure. This essay is about both the half he sees and the half he doesn’t.
What Whitaker sees rightly
There are at least three substantive things in Whitaker’s argument that the fellowship should sit with carefully before responding.
The first is that the example of a faithful life is foundational, not optional, and not secondary. He grounds this in Deuteronomy 4:5-7 — Moses telling Israel that Gentile peoples who watched Israel keep God’s statutes would say Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. The model is a non-verbal demonstration. Israel was not commissioned in the Old Testament to send missionaries to the surrounding nations. Israel was commissioned to live in such a way that the surrounding nations would notice. Ruth attached herself to Naomi for that reason. Uriah the Hittite served in David’s army for that reason. Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian risked his life for Jeremiah for that reason. The pattern is consistent: a Gentile sees the lived reality of God’s people and voluntarily chooses to come under the same God. This is real. Whitaker is not making it up.
The second is that aggressive, hollow, performative proselytism — the kind Christ denounces in Matthew 23:15 — is real and damnable. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. That is not a soft denunciation. The Pharisees were energetic missionaries. They covered ground. They made converts. And Christ’s verdict was that their converts ended up worse off than they themselves were, because the system into which they were proselytizing was corrupt. Zeal in the service of a corrupt religion makes the corruption worse, not better. Any Christian who proselytizes within a framework of legalism, hypocrisy, externalism, or coercion produces converts who are damaged by the encounter. Whitaker is right to take this seriously.
The third is that the current global landscape of Christian missions includes real charlatans, real bribery, real manipulation, and real exploitation of vulnerable populations. Some missions offer food only after a religious service is endured. Some offer education only to the children of converts. Some traffic in promises of healing or prosperity that they cannot deliver. B.B. Beach’s code of ethics for missionary work, which Whitaker reproduces, is sober and right: don’t exploit the vulnerable, don’t make false claims of miraculous healing, don’t bribe, don’t ridicule the beliefs of those you are trying to reach, don’t lie about other religions. These are minimum standards of integrity. Christians who fail them are fairly criticized. The fellowship’s recent work on the Ideomotion charter, in which we explicitly committed to non-coercion, informed consent, no exploitation of vulnerability, and truthful claims, aligns substantially with this part of Whitaker’s argument. Where he draws lines around what cannot be done in Christ’s name, we draw the same lines.
So far, so good. The disagreement concerns what comes next.
The eschatology underneath the argument
Whitaker writes from within a particular Christian tradition, and that tradition does some of the work in his argument. Church of the Great God is part of the broader Sabbatarian, Holy-Day-keeping, prophetic-eschatology stream that traces back to Herbert W. Armstrong. One of the distinctive convictions of that tradition is that the great harvest of the human race — the calling, conversion, and instruction of the bulk of humanity — is reserved for the Millennial reign of Christ, after His return. Most people, in this view, are not being called now. The few who are called now are being prepared for service in that millennial future. The work of the present church is therefore relatively limited: live faithfully, keep the law, observe the holy days, prepare oneself, and trust that the great work is coming.
That eschatology is not a small thing. It is doing serious load-bearing work in Whitaker’s argument. If the great harvest is millennial, then aggressive evangelism in the current age is at best premature and at worst presumptuous — an attempt to do God’s work on God’s behalf, ahead of God’s timing. Example becomes the natural posture, because example is what one does while waiting. Whitaker explicitly tells us this is his picture: proselytism by example will be the norm in the Millennium, he writes, with the millennial reign expected to restore the same posture that obtained when God ruled Israel directly. The implicit corollary is that proselytism by word, in the present age, is the exception — reserved for those specifically commissioned, like the apostles. Ordinary believers are exemplars, not preachers.
The Christos framework does not share that eschatology. We are not waiting for the Millennium to engage the cultural moment. We hold, with the broader evangelical and Pentecostal tradition, that the Great Commission was given to the whole church for the whole age, that the harvest is now and ongoing, and that ye shall be witnesses unto me (Acts 1:8) was spoken to the whole apostolic body and through them to the whole church. The harvest is real now. The captives are real now. The bondage of the inner life, the lostness of the public square, the moral confusion of the age — these are not waiting for the Millennium to be addressed. The lifting of the yoke is offered now. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). The cultural moment is exactly the moment for the work.
This is not a small disagreement. It is the difference between a posture of patient waiting and a posture of present urgency. Both can be held by serious Christians. The fellowship has chosen the second.
What scripture actually witnesses to
If we read scripture without the millennial-deferral assumption, the picture that emerges is not example versus proclamation. It is both, woven together, with neither subordinated to the other.
The Old Testament prophets did not, in general, live as quiet exemplars whose lives drew Gentiles to Israel. They were often the loudest people in the room. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression (Isaiah 58:1). Jeremiah wept aloud in the streets of Jerusalem and was thrown into a cistern for it. Jonah’s entire commission — the very commission Whitaker mentions in passing — was to preach to a Gentile city: Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me (Jonah 1:2). Jonah did not bear silent witness in Nineveh; he walked through the city declaring forty days, and the city would be overthrown. Ezekiel was made a watchman, and the watchman’s job is to warn them from me (Ezekiel 3:17), with an explicit penalty for failure to warn. The prophets were rarely subtle.
The New Testament is even more direct. John the Baptist did not live a quiet life of example in the wilderness; he cried aloud, named Herod’s sin, and lost his head for the volume. Peter at Pentecost did not let his light shine quietly before the assembled crowd; he stood up and preached to about three thousand souls who were converted that day. Paul on Mars Hill did not wait to be asked; he engaged the Athenian philosophers directly, named their unknown God, and called them to repentance. At his trial, Stephen did not soften the diagnosis; he traced the history of Israel’s hardness of heart through the prophets and was stoned for it. The apostolic pattern is relentless verbal proclamation, paired with — never substituted for — lives of integrity and love.
And what of the example texts that Whitaker cites? Matthew 5:16 is one. So is 1 Thessalonians 1:7-9. Both deserve to be read in full rather than read selectively. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. The verse has two clauses joined by that and and. The shining is for the seeing; the seeing is for the glorifying. Glorifying the Father is not silent. The verse drives toward proclamation, not away from it. The example exists in order that the Father be named by the one who lit the candle, or by the one who watched it burn and asked who fueled it.
And 1 Thessalonians 1 is not, on careful reading, a text about example replacing preaching. It is a text about example amplifying preaching. Paul writes to the Thessalonians that their reputation has preceded him as he travels: he no longer needs to introduce them or explain what happened in their city, because the people in Macedonia and Achaia are already telling him about them. The Thessalonians’ lives have become a kind of viral testimony — but a testimony that travels because everyone already knows that Paul preached the gospel there and that these people received it. The lived reality and the spoken word are working in concert. Paul’s mission was no less verbal because the Thessalonians’ lives were so visible. It was more effective because the lives confirmed the words.
The dichotomy between example and proclamation, in other words, is not a biblical dichotomy. It is a tradition-specific dichotomy that arises when one accepts a particular eschatology about the timing of the harvest. Without that eschatology, the dichotomy dissolves.
The deeper diagnosis of the cultural moment
Whitaker’s car-show metaphor is brilliant, and I do not want to lose it. But I want to redirect his diagnosis.
The dominant Christian failure of our cultural moment is not, I think, over-proselytism. It is not that the church is full of Pharisaical zealots making twice-the-son-of-hell converts. It is not that we have too many missionaries crossing land and sea. The dominant failure is timidity — the Buick salesman who whispers, who refuses to compare, who hopes the customer will leave him alone. The American church, broadly, has accepted the cultural offer not to be one of the loud booths in the convention center. We have been quiet for a long time. The result is what Whitaker himself laments: a marketplace of ideas in which evolution has glossy brochures, abortion has sales staff, and Christianity has an embarrassed man near the service entrance who hopes to keep his head down.
The faithful response to charlatans is not no evangelism. It is good evangelism. The faithful response to bribery is not silence. It is integrity in proclamation. The faithful response to manipulation is not retreat into example-only. It is example and honest naming, both held with discipline. Whitaker’s emphasis on example as foundational is true. His implicit suggestion that example can stand alone in the present age is, I think, a counsel of unintended retreat at exactly the moment retreat is the wrong move.
In his metaphor, the Buick salesman is not a victim of his neighbors’ aggressive marketing. He is a participant in the conditions that have made him irrelevant. The remedy is not to whisper more carefully. The remedy is to recover the conviction that we have something to say, that the thing we have to say is true, and that saying it clearly is itself an act of love toward the one who hears.
The fellowship’s working answer
The fellowship has been working through exactly this calibration in another context for the past several days. The Ideomotion ministry charter — the first ministry-business in the Renaissance Ministries ecosystem, serving the disabled and mobility-impaired — went through three drafts in two days, and the trajectory of the drafts is a small case study in the question Whitaker raises.
The first draft (v0.1) was Thomas-the-founder’s first instinct after a phone call with Charlie: be unapologetic, name the King of the Universe, refuse to soft-pedal, and recognize that the customer is in front of you because they want what you offer. That instinct was, I think now, partly Whitaker’s diagnosis of the Buick salesman correctly received and partly an over-correction of it. The instinct was right that timidity is not a Christian virtue. The instinct was wrong: the answer to timidity is not rhetorical maximalism.
The second and third drafts (v0.2, v0.3) revised the working position toward something more mature: sincere, unconcealed, service-oriented, never coercive. The ministry identity is not soft-pedaled. The customer is told plainly that Ideomotion operates under the authority of Renaissance Ministries, that the work is consciously rooted in Christian conviction, and that fellowship and prayer are available upon request. The customer is also told plainly that none of this is a condition of service, that no one is treated differently based on belief or non-belief, and that the spiritual conversation can be declined without consequence. Integral and adversarial are different things. The ministry character is integral. The adversarial posture is renounced.
That working answer is, I want to suggest, what a faithful application of Whitaker’s principles produces when joined to a serious Great Commission urgency. The example floor is preserved: the device must work, the rehab must help, and the customer must be honored. The proclamation is also preserved: the King of the Universe is named; the gospel is available; the fellowship is offered. Neither is sacrificed. Neither is shouted at the expense of the other. The Buick is a perfectly good car; the salesman knows it; he is willing to say so; he refuses to deceive or manipulate; he treats the customer with full respect, whether or not the customer buys. That is not the Buick salesman of Whitaker’s metaphor. It is what the Buick salesman should have been.
Crescendo
The verse Whitaker himself closes on is the right verse for this fellowship to close on too. It deserves the full reading.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. — Matthew 5:16
The light shines. The works are seen. The Father is glorified. Three movements, in that order, joined by that and and. Whitaker is right that the candle is lit by a faithful life. He is right that the seeing comes through the lived reality, not through the megaphone. But the verse does not stop at the seeing. It drives toward the glorifying, and glorifying the Father is not silent. It is the moment in which the flame burns in the candle that is named.
Both, in their proper measure. Example as the floor. Proclamation as the integral identity. Neither timidity nor maximalism, but the steady, costly, joyful work of being a people whose lives are visible enough to be asked about, and whose words are clear enough to answer.
That is what I want for Renaissance Ministries. That is what I want for Ideomotion. That is what I want for every fellowship gathering, every essay, every Christos Voting Network conversation, every interaction with the people God has put in front of us. The Buick salesman’s whisper is not the end of the story. Neither is the Lexus stand’s barker. The end of the story is a people who shine, and works that are seen, and a Father who is glorified — by the visible witness of the candle, and by the audible naming of whose flame it is.
We are not waiting for the Millennium to do this work. We are doing it now, in the marketplace of ideas as it actually exists, with the integrity Whitaker rightly demands and the courage he sometimes seems to defer.
Sources
Charles Whitaker, Proselytism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Part One), Forerunner, February 15, 2006. Published by Church of the Great God at cgg.org/index.cfm/library/article/id/1114.
Charles Whitaker, Proselytism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Part Two), Forerunner, March 10, 2006. Published by Church of the Great God at cgg.org/index.cfm/library/article/id/1137.
Both articles received via cgg.org email distribution, May 8, 2026.
Lawrence Uzzell, “Don’t Call It Proselytism,” First Things, October 2004 (cited by Whitaker).
B.B. Beach, “Evangelism and Proselytism: Religious Liberty and Ecumenical Challenges,” International Religious Liberty Association, irla.org (cited by Whitaker).
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 18 and 19, December 1948.
Renaissance Ministries internal references: IDM_ideomotion_ministry/IDM_charter.md (current charter, v0.3) for the §6.5 Public Religious Identity working position discussed in the closing sections; founders_vision/260430_three_level_stronghold_framework.md for the broader proclamation-and-deliverance framework.
Scripture references in this essay are King James Version: Deuteronomy 4:5-7; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 5:16; Matthew 28:19; Acts 1:8; Acts 9:15; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Isaiah 58:1; Jonah 1:2; Ezekiel 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:7-9.