How Should Christians Respond to The Viral Airplane Evangelist Incident?

There are few things more vexing—or inevitable—than flight delays. On July 30th, Alaska Airlines flight 708 traveling from Orlando to San Diego experienced a delay prior to departure. While most passengers viewed the disruption as an inconvenience, Christian influencer and evangelist Whitney Lynn saw it as an opportunity.

While waiting for takeoff, Lynn stood up and began to preach to the other passengers. She declared that God’s timing is perfect and that the flight delay may be an act of divine providence. She then gave a gospel presentation and exhorted people to surrender their life to God.

Eventually, airline representatives intervened and asked her to deplane, explaining that some passengers “did not feel safe.” With her phone camera rolling, Lynn became indignant and claimed that silencing her was an act of “spiritual warfare.”

The incident has sparked debate about how and when Christians should engage with the unbelieving world. What lessons can Christians take from this controversy?

Preaching the Gospel is Good, But…

There is power in the name of Jesus. And as a default posture, Christians should be in favor of evangelism, because we know that only Jesus has the power to free people from their sin. But having a good message doesn’t negate the need for good conduct. Several aspects of this viral incident should inspire self-reflection among Christians.

Influence & Influencers

A major problem with some Christian “influencers” is that they focus less on influencing the culture than on establishing themselves as influencers of culture.

During the viral airplane incident, Lynn is preaching, but she’s also recording herself. She’s engaging not just in evangelism but also in content creation. And in that content, she portrays herself as a hero who is taking a stand against the forces of hell.

It’s notable that as the situation unfolds, she frequently speaks into the camera rather than to the flight attendants or passengers. The action unfolding on the plane seems to be less important to her than what is happening on social media. They say all publicity is good publicity. It seems persecution is good too, so long as it’s public and can be used to gain social media followers.

Gentleness and Respect

Does it matter how and when we share the gospel, or only that we share it?

1 Peter 3:15 states, “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

Peter begins by exhorting Christians to revere God. In all we do, our focus ought to be on him, not ourselves. We should care about setting people free with his truth, not leveraging spiritual encounters for our own advantage. Peter also assumes that people will notice a difference in how Christians live and ask them about their faith. When Christians respond, Peter adds the qualifier that they should do so with “gentleness and respect.”

In other words, the exhortation to share the gospel is sandwiched between teaching that clarifies the conduct and attitude that should accompany that proclamation.

During the viral incident, nobody asked Lynn about her faith. And after seeing her behavior, they likely never will. Rather, she seized an opportunity to elevate herself before a captive audience.

As Christians, we should ask ourselves how we would feel about the situation if it involved a speaker from another faith, an LGBTQ activist, or a political advocate for the opposing party. Just because we agree with Lynn’s message doesn’t mean we should condone her conduct.

She claimed that resistance to her message was an act of “spiritual warfare.” Scripture is clear that spiritual warfare exists. But opposition to Christianity isn’t always the work of demonic forces. Sometimes people simply don’t appreciate rude, pushy, or disingenuous evangelists.

Arguably the worst part of the video is when Lynn asserts that she hopes God has mercy on the flight attendant’s soul, because “hell is real, my friend.” She essentially accuses the airline employee of being destined for the fires of hell without knowing anything about his life or faith. She sees all opposition to her as resistance to the gospel, which is an arrogant and dangerous assumption.

How Christians Should Be Known

Jesus is clear that Christians should be known by their “fruit” (Matthew 7:16) and by their “love” (John 13:35). Our conduct speaks as loudly as our words do.

Recording ourselves preaching in public so we can post the video on social media is a much more glamorous crusade than merely asking the Holy Spirit how we should minister to the person sitting beside us. After all, if we share the gospel but our social media followers don’t see it, did it ever truly happen?

As Christians, we should proclaim the gospel boldly through both our words and deeds. But our primary calling as Christians is to pick up our cross, deny self, and follow Jesus. If proclaiming Jesus publicly leads us to act uncharitably, then it may be time to set down our phone and pick up our cross.