The Washer Experiment

I have an agnostic friend who was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. Like other nominal Catholics he doesn't go to church etc. Every once in a while he asks me about my beliefs. Of course I try to articulate the gospel as best I can. Unfortunately, like many today, he has the ingrained conviction that he's basically a good person. And I have to confess that in many ways, he's better than I am. In fact I told him so. But that doesn't cut it.

His premise is that a loving God wouldn't cast a person into hell for lack of belief in His Son - especially someone who is otherwise a good person, who performs good deeds. So if there's a God, he thinks he'll go to heaven. This is a difficult mindset to break through. I could only answer via Scripture. We let it go at that.

The last time this came up in conversation, I introduced him to the Paul Washer experiment. In The Gospel's Power & Message, Washer has a section called Are We Really That Bad? In it he asks us to imagine how we would feel if there was device which could project every guarded secret thought and action we ever had, or done. Now imagine that our family and all our friends sit down and watch it all on a movie screen. How would we feel at the prospect of that? 

My friend looked decidedly uncomfortable at the concept. It stopped him in his tracks. It should also be a sober thought-experiment for us all. Are we that bad? Yes we all are!