A spotlight illuminates part of the church stage as the hymn slowly fades out. A man comes out and places a piece of paper on a music stand. They test the microphone.
“A few years ago…” they begin.
What follows is “personal witness,” a staple of the Christian faith, especially evangelicalism.
There is a rhythm to these testimonies, a specific rhythm and a plot that mimics a social drama. Breakthrough, crisis – the individual is tested. Through this test, God’s love and truth are revealed and Christ enters a person’s life.
A beginning, middle and end – a story that resolves itself with acceptance and salvation.
Church meetings and youth groups felt incomplete without offering a personal testimony. I remember countless stories told on Sunday mornings. They celebrated, they mourned, but they always ended with the recognition of Jesus and the unequivocal acceptance of Christianity.
For many, the act of finding and reciting personal testimony was empowering, liberating. For me, it brought a strong and painful sense of guilt.
I didn’t have one.
Questions pierced my head in an endless loop, turning my mental sanctuary into an apologetic themed pinball machine. Growing up in the church meant I never knew what my life looked like without the rhetoric of Christianity. How would I know that God is important or what sustains my life if I had never experienced the supposed opposite? (A very burgeoning dialectical scholar on my part.)
Personal testimony after personal testimony speaks of “lost” and then “found.” As a child, I wondered why I should experience “loss” if I already had the answer: their conclusion. Why should they go through the pain of loneliness that they went through? Was the acceptance of Jesus to occur with an “aha” revelation born through the premise of tribulation?
I remember a conversation with my parents about predestination, the concept that followers of God are pre-chosen. Basically you can do nothing for your salvation; whether you accept or not God is decided before you are born.
“What if I’m not one of those chosen ones?” I asked. “What if I don’t have that ‘born again’ experience for some reason?”
Others would question my intentions.
“Are you sure your heart is open to the voice of God?”
The youth leaders would tell me their own narrative so I could try to make sense of my own. It never worked.
Alienation followed my lack of personal testimony.
When I had to give a personal testimony in high school, I lied. I knew what I had to say; the cadence was second nature. Afterwards, people would come up to me and say it was beautiful. Only I seemed to know—or care—about its true nature.
So I was left in a liminal space, speaking the language of evangelicalism but struggling to find content of my own.
***
Over time, I identified my discomfort with personal witness: it assumes a static version of faith, is sometimes created for the wrong reasons, and brings shame to those who may not fit the linear model.
Rather than a painting that you work on a little bit each day, a personal testimony to me is like painting a picture and carrying it with you as a supreme state of being for the rest of your life.
Without an “aha” moment, I felt like I was never allowed to start painting. And even if I had one, I feel that a personal testimony fails to capture the lifelong learning and growth process that I believe faith requires.
Many Christians who talk to me today want my personal testimony. I feel uncomfortable, forced to turn pain into plot points, and the story I end up telling is so far from what I know to be true. But according to many Christians, “all Christians have a personal testimony.” You can “exit” yourself if you don’t have one. And so – shame, guilt and lies.
But my biggest concern about personal witness is how part of the Christian culture understands it. Many of the how-to guides provided by major Christian organizations encourage consolidating a marketable narrative for evangelism. Statements like “Sharing how you came to know God personally is one of the most powerful ways you can help your friends understand how much God loves us” demonstrate this theme of designing “shared” testimonies.
Guides that encourage you to “Keep it short…Three minutes is a good goal,” “Have before, how, and after,” and “Practice, practice, practice!” then demonstrate how storytelling can be skewed from tight, flattened, entrepreneurial culture. This norm can create inauthentic narratives as depth is sacrificed for brevity. Christians trying to find their testimony may feel ashamed if they question the form or seem unable to conform to it.
It is one thing for personal testimonies to be encouraged in Christian culture. It’s another for them to be built for the sole purpose of being shared, not for catharsis or healing or personal reflection.
What I realize now, and what I would encourage evangelicals everywhere—especially organizations and churches that serve young people—to realize is that a story doesn’t have to be complete and tied with a bow to be told. It is not necessary to reach a conclusion about the acceptance of Jesus to be a worthy account of faith. Just because a story doesn’t align with what you’d like it to say doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be hidden until it’s “done.”
Your testimonial is not a cover letter. It does not need to be created for sharing purposes.
Faith and religion are complex, delicate, personal and powerful subjects; stories, with their power to compel, play a central role. But all forms of storytelling, regardless of the ending, should be respected. Those who sketch their paintings as they go are just as authentic as those who did theirs all at once. We must resist the instinct to trade in “message” for quick, under-three-minute speeches that make for more persuasive proselytizing.
The leveling effect of the pressure on personal testimony is something I encountered while writing this column.
When I do interviews, I ask people to tell me their stories. I ask people to reflect on how faith has interacted and shaped their lives. I essentially assume the existence of their own personal testimonies and rely on them to write and base my column.
I apologize to those I have interviewed, those whose stories may have been glossed over or provided under pressure to have a neatly packaged narrative of faith.
I encourage national evangelical Christian ministries, especially those like Reformed University Fellowship, Christian Union, and Cru (all of which have a presence on Harvard’s campus), to question the assumption that personal testimonies must come to concrete conclusions in order to be shared on a platform , and questions the imperative that narratives be created to be shared. Ask yourself why you encourage people to create testimonies. Encourage “confused” narratives, and not just in private.
Ironically, many will probably read this piece as a personal testimony. I urge you not to. I paint the picture as I go.
Eli H. Ashby ’24, editor of Crimson Editorial, is social studies concentrator at Adams House. Her column, “A Leap Into Faith,” appears every three weeks on Fridays.