"If you love Jesus..."

[Hoosier]

I was forwarded the following e-mail from a well-meaning friend. There were a lot of “what-ifs,” ending with:

What if, God answered our prayers the way we answer His call to service?
What if, God met our needs the way we give Him our lives???
What if, we failed to send this message on??
THIS IS A SIMPLE TEST…If you love Jesus, send this to ten people and the one who sent it to you.

I find this kind of letter more sad and manipulative than evangelical. The same goes for the “friendship” and “make a wish” chain e-mails. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

 

[Della]

I find this annoying and troublesome, too. I don’t mind the message but the idea that I have to send it on to ten other people “or else”, implied or stated, really bothers me. It’s outright superstition. I usually ignore such messages, unless it’s egregiously bad, then I’ll send an email to the sender to warn him that it’s in error, or whatever.

Example, just last night a fellow Knight of Columbus we know forwarded holy pictures to several people, thinking it was just fine. Well, when the receiver went back up to the top a pornographic picture appeared. He didn’t send it to us, but to some others, one of whom called my dh to ask him what to do about it (my dh is a computer tech).

So, it’s best not to pass such messages along even if the sender had the best intentions.

 

[jmcrae]

I was forwarded the following e-mail from a well-meaning friend. There were a lot of “what-ifs,” ending with:

What if, God answered our prayers the way we answer His call to service?
What if, God met our needs the way we give Him our lives???
What if, we failed to send this message on??
THIS IS A SIMPLE TEST…If you love Jesus, send this to ten people and the one who sent it to you.

I find this kind of letter more sad and manipulative than evangelical. The same goes for the “friendship” and “make a wish” chain e-mails. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

I’m with you. Those messages go straight into the trash, along with those great big huge sappy powerpoint presentations that tend to crash my computer, which I have learned by hard experience to toss out unopened - if I didn’t ask for it, and it’s not cute pictures of people who are actually related to me, then please assume that I don’t want your lovely powerpoint presentation, especially if the person who put it together didn’t provide a method to exit from it.

 

[Hoosier]

I don’t send them on or back to the senders. I hope they get the hint eventually.

That’s a big oops re the porno picture!

 

[CB_Catholic]

I was forwarded the following e-mail from a well-meaning friend. There were a lot of “what-ifs,” ending with:

What if, God answered our prayers the way we answer His call to service?
What if, God met our needs the way we give Him our lives???
What if, we failed to send this message on??
THIS IS A SIMPLE TEST…If you love Jesus, send this to ten people and the one who sent it to you.

I find this kind of letter more sad and manipulative than evangelical. The same goes for the “friendship” and “make a wish” chain e-mails. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

I have broken countless of chains and nothing bad ever happened to me because of it I refuse to forward anything like this, even from friends and family. It all goes into the trash as soon as I realize what it is. In fact, the example you posted seems to me close to a sin against the Second Commandment, using God’s name foolishly.

 

[Linda_Marie]

I really don’t like emails like that. Firstly, they try to make a person feel guilty or imply that they don’t love Jesus or have no faith if they don’t send it on. Then they promote superstition by implying something bad will happen to you if you don’t and thirdly, because they are vehicles to spread viruses and/or harvest email addresses for further spam bombardment.

 

[mfj]

I usually like the message of the mailers. And If I like it, I want to share it. The folk I send to know there is no real consequence for not sending it out. If they like it they will. I have to say though, I didn’t know it could be a scam to collect addresses.