Evangelism
Evangelism (from the Greek ευαγγελος, "evangelos", "good message") involves the act of proselytizing a position - usually, but not always, a religion - on some "truth value". The term is also used for the promotion of various philosophies in politics and in technical fields, particularly in computing, and has become marketing jargon. The concept springs from the spreading of the Christian gospel (ευαγγελιον, "evangelion").
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Preach to the choir Religion |
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Crux of the matter |
Speak of the devil |
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An act of faith |
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Evangelism, as a form of public relations, tends to focus on the positives of the message it aims to spread, sometimes even misrepresenting the message to make it more palatable to newcomers.[1] Not all religions actively engage in proselytization; while most Christian and Islamic denominations, for example, by-and-large insist on trying to bring in new members (sometimes even with the threat of violence), Judaism often actually discourages conversions and Shinto - which is based more around geography than dogma - generally lacks the concept of "conversion" altogether.
References
- In particular, Scientology refers to this technique as "gradient", while the Mormon Church uses the somewhat less technical "milk before meat". Both concepts implicitly recognize the difficulties that outsiders often have accepting weird doctrines.
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