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New Perspectives on Evangelism: |
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In many current milieux (I would
describe mine as 21st century North American post/modern,
post/industrial, and post/imperial), views of evangelism must overcome at
least three obstacles in order for the church's witness to the gospel to
flourish. One is the equation of evangelism with salesmanship—a construal
that grates on many, both Christians who desire to witness to their faith,
and on others who hear. The second is the tendency to bifurcate word and
action as differently valued modes of proclaiming or enacting the gospel. The
third obstacle is the baggage evangelism carries—its history of coercive or
manipulative attitudes and methods. This paper argues that the current
practice and theory of evangelism could be well served by adopting insights
from some recent biblical scholarship, especially from the “new perspective
on Paul.” These insights help us through the obstacles evangelism faces and
bring coherence to discussions and practices of ordinary Christians as well
as theologies of evangelism. They will spring from re-imagining the link
between evangelism and evangelion—its
etymological and theological basis, extending our theological understanding
of “gospel” through its New Testament-era secular usage, and reconstructing
as far as possible its significance in Israel's faith history and its
definition in Pauline theology. Sunday School Chaos
I recently asked a Sunday School
class of Christian young adults to reflect on their experiences or
impressions of evangelism. One person said she had no experience with active,
verbal promotion of the faith, because her church emphasized service and
social justice—witness through one's way of life rather than through words.
Another reported glowingly how he had turned to Christ after seeing a
dramatic evangelistic presentation. In “Heaven's Gates/Hell's Flames,” a
series of acts depicts people given an opportunity to accept Christ. The
people all then die in various ways, and are either welcomed into heaven or
sent to hell with the devil. An awkward silence followed these descriptions,
as we all pondered how to respond to the diversity of experiences and
viewpoints. This Sunday School scene could be
replicated in thousands of places around the country or the world.
Evangelism, even more than many other aspects of Christian teaching and
theology, is the locus of extreme diversity and even conflict in Christian
experience and teaching. For contemporary Christians and others, evangelism
is a loaded word, an emotional topic. Some Christians are passionate about
proclaiming their faith to others by a variety of means, others are ambiguous
about the process or at least the means, and still others are overtly hostile
to evangelism as they understand it. Turning to Biblical Theology
A
definition of evangelion is elucidated by the surge of emphasis in the past
40 years on the socio-historical context of canon. While etymology is never a
substitute for exegesis, in this case it can help us bypass quite a hill of
historical theology. We know that “evangelism” comes from a transliteration
of the Greek root evangelizesthai, “to proclaim good news.” In first-century
Greek usage, “evangelizing” was heralding tidings of imperial change or
information: an emperor has come to power, has had a son, has appropriated
new territory.1 An evangelion is a political message, a message about who is
king and what that means for the inhabitants of the region. That
the term evangelion was adopted for
a Christian message about Jesus indicates a similar trajectory of meaning.
But first we must return to relevant Old Testament vocabulary. Walter Brueggemann explores Old Testament
paradigms of evangelism and argues that evangelism is the proclamation of the
victory of Yahweh.2 One example is the return of Israel from exile.3 In
Isaiah 52:7 we hear the Old Testament gospel: “How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good
news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'” The good news is that God has
triumphed—salvation is accomplished, the empire is defeated, exiled people
will return. The gospel is the news of God's victory. It is not at all surprising, then, that the
LXX, and Paul in Romans 10:15, both call this proclamation evangelion. Themes from As an example, 2 Timothy 2:8 is an
amazingly compact shorthand of “the gospel” in the early church,6 where the
Hebrew faith tradition practiced Greek idiom: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised
from the dead, descended from David: this is my gospel.” Jesus stands as the
Christ, in David's royal line. These promises were lost through In contrast, the common conception
of the gospel, as a message about how to be saved or have eternal life, flies
wide of the trajectory we have been tracing, focusing instead on assuaging
the guilt of “the introspective conscience of the west.”8 As N.T. Wright puts
it: “'The gospel' is supposed to be a description of how people get saved . .
. . I am perfectly comfortable with what most people mean when they say
'gospel,' I just don't think it is what Paul means.”9 According to Wright,
the gospel is a message about who is king: Jesus. Kingship, in reference to
the Christ, the anointed one of God, cannot be construed as a private,
individual affair. Nor is it a baldly regional political event. Rather, in
Christian perspective, the gospel carries the full force of From Evangelion
back to Evangelism
If
this is the gospel, then evangelism must lead to the acknowledgement and
actualization of God's reign. True evangelism, then, will result in holistic
transformation of those who preach and those who hear. In a similar vein as
Pauline scholars such as Wright, Walter Brueggeman argues that evangelism is
best understood as a message about a cosmic victory by God. He presents several
examples from both Old and New Testaments where this message of victory is
presented in a way that captures and transforms the imagination. Through this
message, outsiders to the faith become insiders, the imagination and
theological memory of forgetful insiders is renewed, and children are
nurtured into believing adults.10 The
gospel is glimpsed, expressed, and appropriated in ways that are always
changing and ever new. When heard, the gospel requires personal appropriation
which cannot avoid transforming the consciousnesses, the lives, and the
societies of those who hear. Evangelism is no safe church
activity that will sustain a conventional church, nor a routine enterprise
that will support a status quo . . . . The news that God has triumphed means
that a transformed life, i.e., one changed by the hearing of the news, works
to bring more and more of life, personal and public under the rule of this
world-transforming, slave-liberating, covenant-making, promise-keeping,
justice-commanding God.11 If the gospel concerns changed
governance; that changed governance concerns all of life. The victory of God
over death is not a victory in some selected zones, but over all of creation
and against every threat of chaos.12 If, as I have argued, evangelism is about the gospel, and the gospel is the narrative of God's victory and Jesus' Kingship, then what does evangelism look like? I asked this question to my Sunday School class, and was amazed by the range of insight that was opened up, for my Heaven's Gates/Hell's flames buddy as well as the service-oriented church people. One class member suggested that,
as a narrative description of reality, evangelism does not imply
salesmanship. Evangelism is not per se an
attempt to persuade (though this is often included), but the proclamation of
a reality—the story of how Jesus has come to be Lord of all. Story-telling is
much less stressful then marketing—both for Christian preacher and
non-Christian hearer—and allows for a bolder but less defensive approach. Another student noted that if the
gospel is a message about Jesus being Lord, then Christians need to be paying
attention to every area of the church's life as a part of our witness to the
gospel. First, because the meaning of Jesus’ lordship is not self-evident, it
needs to be explained and lived out in the lives of communities and
individuals. Christians must learn to live in a way that explains and
confirms the gospel, the reality of Jesus' lordship. Second, credibility is
crucial if the message is to be received. The whole life of Christians and of
the church matters to credibility—witness the effect of the widespread charge
of hypocrisy leveled against Christians.13 Evangelism conceived as the
proclamation of King Jesus also circumvents many unproductive and ultimately
illusory divisions between word and
deed, “evangelism” and “discipleship,” proclamation and social action,
preaching and serving, etc. The whole life of the church, that institution
continually confronted and transformed by the gospel, both constitutes,
enables, and requires evangelism, the proclamation of the gospel. This holistic view of evangelism
is affirmed by Joe Jones, who defines evangelism as “all those ways in which
the church conveys to the world the good new of Jesus Christ and invites the
world to respond to this news with renewal of life and new hope. Evangelism
is practiced when the church intends its witness to the reality of God in
Christ to be received in faith and the adoption of a new way of life.”14
Evangelism can be conceived as a set of practices. These include, but are not
limited to, verbal acts of communication, all having as their intention an
invitational witness. The proclamation of the gospel should be an intention
behind many, many practices of the church which seek to enact, demonstrate
and convey to others the lordship of Christ and the Reign of God. In less than an hour of teaching
and discussion, these Sunday School students were able to logically overcome
two of the greatest problems facing evangelism—its connotation as a selling
event, and the bifurcation between word and action. The solution to the third
follows close behind. For many people, the idea of a reign or of lordship
(especially in conversations about evangelism) is both abhorrent and deeply
connected to coercion. The long history of the unity of Christian faith with
political power has trained many to cringe at the mention of evangelism. The paradox of the gospel is that
it is for all the world,15 yet it must be freely appropriated or be no gospel
at all. It is the message of a preacher who eschewed political positioning as
a means of furthering his message. The lordship of Christ—and the
proclamation of this lordship—is only understood in connection with Jesus,
who washed his disciples' feet and told them that his authority was
antithetical to that practiced by the rulers of “the nations.” The allying of
Christianity with violent or coercive power is both inimical to the gospel
and damaging to its credibility. Jones states aptly that “'Coerced faith' or
'coerced church membership' are grammatical oxymorons.”16 John Howard Yoder
argues for the essential vulnerability of the gospel as a genre of
communication. In a biblical view of evangelion,
evangelism is not an advertisement for a product to be sold, nor a license
for forceful proselytization, but the proclamation of the victory of the
vulnerable, suffering Servant of God. Evangelism is the message of the Reign
of the Servant.17 The sense of evangelism as
coercion can ultimately be combated by the fruitful lives of Christians who
make peace and who live lives of bold but vulnerable witness. On the other
hand, in a liberal society,18 where proselytization is discouraged for any
point of view except tolerance, part of the unacceptability of evangelism is
unavoidable. We should not be surprised, the cross is a scandal from the
beginning, and the I recognize
that none of the foregoing arguments will put an end to conversations about
what kind of culture we live in, what kind of evangelistic practices are most
important within that culture, and so on. It is not the purpose of this
article to pursue that stream more specifically for a particular context, for
any of the various contexts in which I find myself. Others have done this
work well.19 But I argue that the insights above can help us to re-envision
evangelism in a helpful way, recovering better meanings for the words and
practices we are engaged in, clarifying and energizing their witness to the evangelion. Perhaps appropriately, my
argument about how to understand evangelism is most aptly expressed in a
song.20 Shout! The Lord is risen Shout! He has ascended Shout! With fire from heaven Shout! Proclaim the Kingdom! Shout! A new generation Go! Tell every nation Come! O come Lord Jesus This, the biblical message of
God's victory, is the gospel; evangelism is singing this song with our
voices, our storytelling to strangers, our vocational choices, our marital
commitments, our economic practices, and even our suffering. From this
perspective, I have hope that members of my Sunday School class can indeed
learn to wholeheartedly embrace evangelism, to proclaim the gospel in
powerful ways. One will study theology, and through his reflection and
teaching lead the church to heed the call of Christ. Another will give years
of her life to social justice in the name of Christ, blessing the single
mother (our contemporary orphan and widow) with peace, nurture, physical
resources, and the message of Christ. My Hell's Flames buddy will play soccer
with children, give them Bibles, and tell them about Jesus as best he can. If they all do this faithfully,
enacting and proclaiming the gospel, then their neighbors will believe us
when told that God has broken into history. They have perhaps not thought
that these lifeways are evangelism, nor about how they might strengthen those
lifeways as deliberate proclamation of King Jesus. My lesson to them, and my
argument in this article, intends that they and others will begin to think
and act in this way. In my Sunday School class, and throughout the world, the
reign of God has been inaugurated in Christ. We stand in and tell of this
reality. This is evangelism. Endnotes 1.
N.T. Wright, What 2.
Walter Brueggemann, Biblical
Perspectives on Evangelism (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993). 3.
The place of the return from exile in the narrative of Jesus is
further developed by Wright, 42. 4.
While “the new perspective on Paul” is a broad category representing
many points of view, the perspective of major writers such as E.P. Sanders or
James D.G. Dunn would fit with my argument in this paper. N.T. Wright
specifically discusses the Pauline concept of “the gospel” in a way that is
helpful for the current project. 5.
Wright, Chapter 4, “Herald of the King,” 39-62. 6.
This narrative is also encapsulated in Romans 1:1-5, which Wright
explores on 45f. 7.
Wright, 45. 8.
Krister Stendahl, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective
Conscience of the West" in Paul
Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 78-96.
First published in English in Harvard
Theological Review, 56 (1963), pp. 199-215. This extremely influential
article took on the classic reformation view of Paul and paved the way for
new views (or recovery of older views) on the law and Paul's gospel. For some
reason, there has not been a concomitant movement within theologies of
evangelism. 9.
Wright, 41. 10.
Walter Brueggemann, Biblical
Perspectives. 11.
Brueggemann, 129. 12.
Brueggemann, 44. 13.
A survey reports that fully one-third of teenagers in the 14.
Joe Jones, A Grammar of
Christian Faith, 15.
Leslie Newbigin speaks of holding particular beliefs “with universal
intent.” They are not available to all; that is why revelation is necessary.
But the test of our faith is that we seek to share it with all people
everywhere. See especially Chapter 8, “The Bible as Universal History, in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989). 16.
Jones, 630. 17.
John Howard Yoder, “On Not Being Ashamed of the Gospel: Particularity,
Pluralism, and Validation,” Faith and
Philosophy, July 1992. 18.
I use the word “liberal” here only to denote democratic liberalism as
a socio-philosophical system that exalts the freedom of the individual. 19.
Leslie Newbigin's Gospel in a
Pluralist Society takes up the philosophical issues related to evangelism
in pluralistic context. In Live to
Tell, Brad Kallenberg discusses a postmodern environment and paths to a
faithful, gracious, appropriate witness in that environment ( 20.
Graham Kendrick, “Shout,” www.grahamkendrick.co.uk. Accessed The
Author Aram L. DiGennaro. M.Div., Eastern
Mennonite Seminary (Harrisonburg, VA, U.S.), previously missionary with
Rosedale Mennonite Missions (Irwin, OH, U.S.); part-time adjunct faculty,
Rosedale Bible College (Irwin, OH, U.S.). Address: Bibliography
The Barna Group, “Teenagers' Beliefs
Moving Farther From Biblical Perspective,” http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=74.
Accessed Bosch, David. “ Brueggemann, Walter. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism. Jones, Joe R. A Grammar of Christian Faith. Kallenberg, Brad. Live to Tell. Kendrick, Graham. “Shout,” www.grahamkendrick.co.uk . Accessed Newbigin, Leslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press,
2002. Wright, N.T. What Saint Paul Really Said. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997. |
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