I like the term evangelical because, in essence, it means I believe the love of Christ can and should change people in real and long-lasting ways. Faith is not something we put in our shopping cart to enhance our experience of life. We can't just add Jesus to our collection the way a museum curator acquires a new Monet. An evangelical understands faith as taking an abandoned warehouse and turning it into a museum. For a Christian, this transformational element is the gospel, the good news of Christ - which, in short, is simply that God loves the world, each and every one of us and every part of creation, enough to die for us; and that this kind of love really and actually can and does change the world. It overcomes violence and hatred, even death (that's why Easter is kind of a big deal).
I'm glad to be an evangelical, especially when I confuse other people who've so narrowly defined in along political, legalistic, and irrational lines. I wouldn't know what else to be, quite honestly. In the same vein, evangelism is the means by which evangelicals share this gospel (good news) with other people. It's the method by which we communicate the love of God to others so they too can understand and be changed by this radical idea.
Now, I chose the word 'idea' very specifically... because it's the wrong word.
For a long time, we evangelicals have taken the notion of evangelism to be mostly an act of the mind. From the very roots of the Reformation, 500 years ago, we've been afraid of looking too "Catholic," which really just means we want to have a very strict division between what we believe and what we do. We're scared of people thinking they can find salvation through good works. Life is not a game of karma - that idea tends to make God's love less radical and more contingent (you know, upon us actually being good people).
So we got all caught up in "believing," in people giving intellectual assent to the idea that God loves them unconditionally and then teaching them a series of (mostly) well-thought-out rational propositions about God and life. We essentially commodified faith and put it through the modern ringer of mass production. The most efficient means of evangelism was then entirely a game of the mind (although we've never been beneath using emotions to open that door to the mind).
None of this was malicious, of course, but it was very influenced by the world in which it emerged - a modern construct heavily centered on truth. It's all about truth. In fact, if you really press people for the simplest definition of evangelism, in a moment where they're not concerned about political correctness or proper marketing, most evangelicals will probably tell you evangelism is all about teaching people the truth.
This is where my thoughts have been for a while - since I guess I'm thoroughly postmodern enough to be uncomfortable with that idea. I'm comfortable enough saying God is truth (absolute truth, if you must) and that Jesus Christ is the embodiment and image of God. I'm less comfortable with the notion that I can or do understand Jesus well enough to properly communicate truth to someone else - at least in the reductionist, definitive way it seems so often presented by evangelicals.
I'm uncomfortable also, that our efforts at evangelism are really attempts to convert someone to our religion, not produce an actual gospel transformation in their lives. All of this is very much intertwined with the way we've combined Christ and Christianity into one entity in recent years - something I've written on before and will certainly write on again (because it's important), but moving beyond that notion here, I want to focus specifically on what conversion means and why we might need a new way of approaching it through evangelism.
I titled this "a new missiology" partly because I hate click-bait titles and I felt like "What's Wrong With Evangelism" might mislead people or create unnecessary controversy. Missiology is, after all, simply the study of evangelism and how the gospel is translated from one people to another (usually across cultures, but not necessarily). Missiology is essentially the study and theory of evangelism. It's our approach to sharing our faith with the world.
I used to be very much in the camp (a very popular one these days) that maintains our evangelism should be that of example. We should live out the love of Christ in our lives and communities and allow this visual, relational embodiment of gospel to influence and transform. I still think this is right - at least far more right that trying to argue or convince someone to assent to a specific set of beliefs. I also think its a beautiful description of the Church - the definition of how Christians should live in the world. God called us to be examples, not converters.
At the same time, I've come to appreciate the purpose of evangelism and the notion of missiology. I just think we need a new way of doing it.
Now, my missiologist friends will probably read this and say, "there's nothing new here;" I'm guessing much of this post could've been reproduced from missiology work done decades ago. It's like old hat in the realm of theory; I doubt it's so well known and accepted in general practice and certainly not by the majority of my fellow evangelicals in the world today. We're still caught up in this notion of being right, finding truth, and communicating such to other people.
I'd like to propose, as we bring the gospel into the world, by all means making it a relational, immersive, and felt experience. Live the gospel; it is THE most effective way to be faithful to Christ and the calling of every Christian. At the same time, this shouldn't make us afraid of or embarrassed by a good conversation. We just need to do it differently.
I'd argue our missiology should be rooted around inviting others to evangelize us. The best spiritual conversations I've ever had are with people who will never be convinced they're wrong - at least not by me. The conversations that prove mutually beneficial to deepen both partis' understanding of truth are those where we focus on disagreements. I want to hear why someone comes to a different conclusion than I do, then dig down into the assumptions and decisions that led to those conclusions to see where we've diverged.
Ultimately, every capable, thinking person makes their own decisions about truth and faith and life. Some people may be persuaded, but it's not because we convince them we're right or properly countered an argument, but because they've seen a different perspective that makes sense. That's what I want - not only for other people, but for myself as well. I want more truth, deeper understanding, better introspection. I want as many perspectives on love and life and truth as possible to best follow the leading of God - to be further evangelized.
This is why I hate apologetics. I don't use the word 'hate' lightly. I think it does nothing by harm and sets back the gospel in the world. Apologetics is essentially the rational argument for faith - it's a tool meant to refute the reasons people have for not believing and to convert them to a specific way of understanding God. It worked well in the modern age of reason and rationality, but I think it's far more beneficial to growing a religion than it is to spreading the gospel.
People just don't work that way.
Listen, I am the most rational, least emotional person you are likely to find (I won't say "in the world" because that's not rational, but I think I'm far enough to the end of the spectrum you're unlikely to find someone farther) - all of that apologetics stuff makes rational sense if you're trying to win some head-counting contest or if you're convinced you've got a handle on absolute truth.
I've just come to realize, in all my rationalization, that you can't reason your way to truth. It's a journey that must, first and foremost, be felt - but also one that doesn't end. I like how Peter Rollins says (quoting from John Caputo, who might've gotten it from someone else) "truth doesn't exist, it insists." If truth existed, we could grasp it, find it, control it, master it. But truth insists - it is constantly pushing us to more and deeper understanding in a spiral that will never end. This is why eternity makes sense to me. There's a lot of rational reasons for not believing in eternity (especially eternal life), but this notion of truth being a destination that never fully arrives is certainly a persuasive argument for it.
I know Christians like to claim "All truth is God's truth" - which is our safe, orthodox, non-idolatrous way of saying the more mystical "God is Truth; Truth is God" - but we're not very good at living it out. Our need for certainty keeps us from engaging in the kind of missiology that, I think, is more honest to the gospel we're trying to communicate.
Ultimately the evangelism we need is not "us" telling "them" what to believe,* not "us" challenging "them" to something new and different - the evangelism we need is challenging ourselves to believe more deeply and thoroughly. By that I mean not us looking for arguments we can tear down to assuage our doubts, but us genuinely exploring those doubts and uncertainties in hopes of finding better and more compelling truth. We can and must do this communally, together. But because we're searching for genuine truth and not interested in winning debates or defending dogma, we can do it with genuinely diverse people. We can use our own search to spur others on to the same kind of introspection and development. In essence, our attempt to be better Christians (or more like Christ) will push Muslims to be better Muslims and Buddhists to be better Buddhists and atheists to be better atheists and in the end, any push toward further development and internal challenge will lead us toward truth - and truth transcends whatever religious system we build around ourselves.
Now, I know, this is going to sound to people like I'm saying all religions lead to God. If you read the blog at all, you know I don't believe that. I do, though, believe that Christ is the embodiment of truth and that all religions, if pursued honestly and with an eye toward truth, will lead to Christ (even if they don't necessarily lead to Christianity). I believe God is calling all people at all times by all means to a greater, deeper, and stronger understanding of this radical love we call gospel - and that we can never get gospel mixed up with doctrine or dogma.
If we can get over that scary notion, perhaps we'll be free to evangelize and be evangelized and maybe, just maybe we'll all become a little more evangelical in the process. And, contrary to the way it looks in the world today, that's a very good thing.
*This is one of, although by far not the only, reason why it incenses me when people call a sermon "teaching" or, even worse, make a sermon "teaching," but that is definitely something for another day.
It seems even more silly to me when it feels like (and granted discerning the tone of a meme is somewhat difficult) everyone is really just talking about one thing: killing.
Now there are of course some gun advocates who genuinely want to preserve the right to hunt and are worried that new gun laws would make that more difficult. However, I don't see much virulent rhetoric from these people, in fact, most of them are pretty confident we're not headed that direction. The real ire comes from those people who are afraid gun restrictions will prevent them from defending themselves in ways they deem fit - while there aren't too many non-crank-wackos who talk about this in the language of killing, it is ultimately the extension that must be discussed when talking self defense - people want the right to kill in defense of their life or the life of a loved one.
And, there are, of course, some abortion activists enamored with the notion of family planning by abortion, contraception after-the-fact, if you will, who make the debate pretty callous and unfeeling - but these, too, are very few and far between. Most people recognize the physical and emotional toll an abortion plays on a woman (and those who love her, if they know) as well as the moral complications of such a decision - and would rather have as few abortions as necessary. Many people would rather not outlaw abortion simply because they're not comfortable making that decision for another person - likewise, you don't see a lot of rhetorical engagement from these people. Again, the rhetoric rarely gets formed in the language of killing, but it is the extension of the debate - even if one doesn't recognize a fetus as a person, it is certainly living tissue that might potentially be forced to stop living.
Ultimately, these are both discussions about in what circumstances killing is appropriate. In the end, such positions are just value judgments - either this "bad" person has done enough to deserve a self-defensive death (self defense, being itself, a value judgement) or the life into which this child might be born will not provide the kind of love and attention each human being deserves (which is, again, a value judgement in itself) and preventing that birth is the best choice.
There is an argument about someone who's alive and made choices vs someone not yet born who didn't - and that's certainly a valid argument to have - but it skirts the subject. In both cases, the counter argument is simply speculative: you never know how this "bad" person might respond to being treated with love and care as opposed to violence and death; you never know how this child or this mother or the larger community would respond to the love and life of a new baby. These counter arguments are, of course, equally powerful and valid.
Then there are also the arguments of how these decisions affect the larger society. Do we want to be a part of a society where human life is so devalued that virtually anyone can make unilateral decisions about ending it - whether at the end of a gun or of medical instrumentation? Likewise, do we want to be part of a society that stands idly by while people are threatened or killed or while children are raised unloved or under-resourced?
There are consequences to any action.
That is ultimately my response to discussions of this kind. We need to think more. We need to recognize both the value of life and the necessary interconnectedness of all life. There is no individual life on this planet. We all impact each other in ways seen and unseen. We are all in this together. Life is important and the decision to take a life is equally important. It is not a flippant decision. Too often our debates about such things make it an easy answer, "of course I can shoot someone who break into my home," "of course I can choose whether to have a child or not." And there's strong historical precedent for both.
At the same time, there's also a strong historical precedent that people wrestle not only with the decisions themselves, but with the morality of the decision itself. What does it mean to choose life? What does it mean to choose killing? This plays out in a number of other ways as well - military service, police work, capital punishment, euthanasia - even health care and nutrition debates. Life is a pretty big deal. Ending it, even more so. This shouldn't be something we settle easily... especially when it interacts with reality.
As a Christian, it's pretty easy to take a theoretical stance. Killing is wrong. Jesus makes the case pretty clear - "do not resist an evil person," "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek." The Christian stance is always one of self-sacrifice over killing. But those theoretical answers prove far more difficult when we put them up against real life scenarios - usually scenarios that spring upon us unexpectedly. We just can't say what we would do or even what we should do, because living in the midst of that chaos is part of the process. We can follow the words of Jesus, but in the real world, it is rarely without some reservation (not to mention our various competing interpretations of what exactly Jesus meant).
We can use our beliefs to engage in practices that help form us into the kind of people who will respond as we so choose - but in the end, actually experiencing such a decision makes the difference. Listen, I pray for a world where no one will feel the need to get an abortion and no one will feel the need to own a gun, but until that world comes, I live in this one.
There are sensible gun laws out there to be had. There really are. There are sensible abortion regulations that could exist. We constantly get push back on these issues around the notion of freedom. I believe in freedom. I do think, as much as possible, people should be able to make their own decisions. What I don't believe, though, is that this notion of freedom should supersede the consideration of life. Guns may not be the only way to kill a person, but they make that killing much easier - that needs to be part of the discussion. Abortion may be the choice of a woman (because even when abortion is illegal, it still happens a lot), but it is the ending of, at the very least, potential life. The decisions we make around these topics are not and should not be easy.
I've never heard anyone talk more openly and honestly about the realities and potential of guns than police officers, who face those decisions every day. I've never heard anyone talk more openly and honestly and about the realities and potential of abortion than doctors who perform them. You don't often hear casual definitive statements from these people, because they live lives in the midst of the mess. They see the realities of life on both sides of these decisions. They take killing seriously. They understand these issues are about life and have no easy answers. In other words: they're not meme-worthy - and it's our making them so that is the real tragedy.
As a general rule, a Christian life should be open - open to inspection and question, suggestion and caution, open to correction, discussion, and outside influence. Privacy is not a luxury Christian enjoy. That's difficult for us, living in a society that prizes privacy as much as anything. We like the notion of independence, self-determination, and the ability to say, "that's none of your business." Building that wall around ourselves, one whose access is controlled by us, is comforting. No doubt.
I'm not sure it's helpful, though.
Recently, a large purchase by one of my denomination's leaders made waves because it got picked up by a big city newspaper. It was sort of unfortunate all around, especially because a lot of the discussion it spawned turned pretty personal, judgmental, and vindictive. That was sad. Obviously, one needs some sort of relationship with the guy to be able to truly ask questions about this specific purchase. At the same time, I was excited to see people willing to talk about something US society tends to avoid - money, spending, income, investments, giving, lifestyle, etc. I think these are important things, worthy of real examination.
Obviously there was a personal example floating around, so it wasn't like we could totally speak in hypotheticals - but I have some real internal conflicts between the way we're taught to behave with money (both culturally and within the Church) and the words Jesus used about money and the future and how we're best to respond to those things.
What became frustrating was how simply and easily such questions were shot down, even in the generic. I'd love to sit down and have a conversation with someone about my own finances, asking and evaluating exactly the same kind of questions we were asking about the leader in question. I think that kind of loving scrutiny can only help expand my perspective and energize my imagination for more and better attempts to be faithful.
One of the go to responses when people get uncomfortable with such conversation about someone else is, "why don't you lay out your checkbook for us and let us go over how you spend your money." In one Facebook thread I started to do just that - laying out some basic spending habits and decisions we've made for our family, with a promise of more detail if the discussion continued - I mean it when I say my life is an open book. The response was one of awkward negation, "I was only being rhetorical." I've had the same interaction with people many times, to the same result. It just seems like this kind of openness and examination should not only be normal, accepted behavior for Christians, but welcomed and encouraged.
There are problems inherent in this, especially when we're not culturally used to these discussions. They'll be awkward and floundering at times, but they're important. Yes, some people are too quick to speak and do so with unhelpful motives. But lots of other people are too reluctant to speak with equally unhelpful motives.
As Christians, the way we act, including what we make and how we spend it, is someone else's business. It's all our business, because we're accountable to each other and responsible for each other. I'm not saying it's easy, but we have to work hard to have personal discussions about things our culture generally names off limits. It's only going to do us good in the long run.
One thing for sure, though, as we move quickly to quiet those voices looking to challenge for selfish or unloving motives, we must be careful to just as quickly challenge those looking to maintain silence or exclusion in the interest of privacy. Questions are good. Discussion is good. New perspectives are important, valuable, and helpful. Yes we need relationship and context and all of those other things, but mostly we need to simply trust each other. If we really believe we're doing this journey called life together, we're going to get where we want to be quickest and easiest if we do it together.
It's not my business or your business; it's OUR business - and we can't forget that.
Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of this book for the purpose of review. My integrity is not for sale. Those who know me well are aware I would relish the chance to give a bad review in exchange for a free book. If I've failed to do so, it has nothing to do with the source of the material and only with the material itself.
I think I read this book wrong. Marks of the Missional Church was written by three friends of mine for a publishing company with whom I've previously worked. Therefore, it's pretty difficult to say less than exemplary things about it. I wasn't super excited with the book. I didn't think the writing was particularly crisp and the chapters seemed to blend into one another pretty heavily.
About four fifths of the way through (how long it took my dense mind to process all of this), I realized I was reading the book wrong. It's not particularly (or generally) geared towards me reading it by myself on the couch in two or three sittings. It's not that kind of book. Marks of the Missional Church is meant to be read slowly and in community. The entire purpose is for people to come together, read the relatively short chapters together and then live with the material for a while, before coming back to repeat the process.
Organized around the characteristic marks of the Church from the Nicene Creed (one, holy, catholic, apostolic), the book explores each in depth as it relates to the life of a faith community. This is a book for the Church, but perhaps not for the churches we most commonly see. There is an understanding of the need to recapture the kind of Church which Nicea defined (1700 years ago) as a means of reclaiming purpose, place, and value within our society at large.
Many of the chapters use stories - both imaginative narratives and real life examples of faith communities - to illustrate the direction to which the authors intend to push the audience. It is a great book to work through in a congregation struggling to understand exactly what "missional" means in real life. The book is rooted in worship, with prayers provided to bookend each chapter and guiding questions for reflection and study. It's not going to go over the head of most parishioners (although the reading level seems a bit higher than most similar books - and that's a good thing), but it should also be a difficult read, in that it challenges us to think beyond the typical church answers that so often allow us to forget the real necessity of uncomfortable growth.
I wish there were more stories. It was impossible for those chapters to run together, even when reading the book incorrectly. I wish some of the language was a little less formal and a little more conversational; sometimes it sounds academic, even if the content isn't so much. It's not as good as perhaps I'd hoped for, and I'm not sure I can give it as ringing an endorsement as I'd liek, but it's a great format for Storian Press to embark upon and I hope to see other, similar titles in the future. Marks of the Missional Church is a unique work that should at least be considered by pastors and those responsible for leadership and guidance in faith communities seeking to make and be a real difference in the world.
Just remember, make sure to read it right.
