Why we shouldn't use the King James (part 3)

This is the last of three blogs on why I think using the King James, especially for Evangelistic purposes, is not wise.


This one is a week overdue and I apologise you aren't getting it sooner. What actually prompted me to write these blogs critical of the KJV/AV/NKJV was a poster (or two of the same poster really) in the vicinity of IBI and Footprints (so like Talbot Street and Foley Street, Dublin).
These posters had a scripture verse on them "And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?" (Mark 8:29)
This was followed by "Who saith thou that Jesus is" or something to that effect. Now...

I am sorry but even I, a Christian, looked at this and threw up in my mouth a little (slight over-exaggeration but only slight).
How on earth is using outdated, archaic language meant to reach people.

It's as if someone (and I am looking at you Gideon's refusing to give out NIVs in favour of KJVs to 1st years in Ireland [12 year olds]) sat around a table and said:

"Christianity's a little too easy to get into, what can we do to make it more difficult so it seems more, you know, religious?"

"Well, we could only use the King James, no one can relate to it, or even understand it so if we use that we'll only get intelligent people or English majors. It will work two-fold here; as well as making Christianity more difficult to get into it will help us shake the perception of Christians as idiots."
And so, henceforth Evangelical Christian organisations printed only the King James on their Evangelistic material and only gave out King James Bibles for free.

And instead of many being saved only very few were because the rest looked at the posters and thought 'wa?' or something to that effect.

So the third reason I don't like the King James, as ridiculously illustrated above, is because non-Christians cannot connect to it.
Now I get that some Christians find that using the King James adds a sense of reverence to your Scripture readings and ponderings and that is wonderful. However, what is wrong here is that you expect the same will be true for the average Joe Bloggs on the street who hasn't been to Church in years. Or Unchurched James who has never been to church in his life, he might see the poster and think "cool, there was a King James once" but that's it.

These posters are not cheap to put up. This means that, in essence, some poor Christian somewhere is paying for these posters in the good faith that they will be contemporary, eye-catching, understandable, brief and challenging. A Christian may look at them and think they are all these things but to the non-Christian they just make us look like out of touch idiots.

So for evangelistic free Bibles and posters can we take Fee and Stuart's advice with regard to studying the Bible here as well, "This is why for Evangelism you should use almost any modern translation rather than the KJV or the NKJV." (for Evangelism added by me).