Evangelism, Part I
Salvation is a cube away!
Get out your Evangecubes. This is part one of a two part series I am going to do on one of the most important — and most controversial — aspects of Christian living.
After the resurrection, after forty days of uncertainty, after revealing himself to the apostles and Doubting Thomas, and right before he ascended to Heaven, the last command Jesus gave his disciples was to go make more disciples.
At first, this process involved pairs of missionaries traveling to various Greco-Roman cities, sharing the gospel in synagogues and on the street, planting small churches, and then moving on. One such church planter, Paul, wrote a ton of letters to his church plants. His letters were so good they ended up making up most of the New Testament in the Bible.
For the most part, the early church existed underground like many other mystery religions during the Roman empire. They would have been more public if it didn’t always result in public execution and lion feeding. But then the Roman Emperor Constantine blamed Jesus for his victory in a battle, and now everyone was Christian … at least if you wanted to eat your lunch in Rome.
Truth be told, that’s how it was for a long time after that in the Western World … arguably right up to the century we just left. As western culture spread, so did Christianity. “Witnessing” and “sharing your faith” consisted of going into a new culture or civilization, building nice shelter and providing food, medicine, and education, and oh, by the way, if you want any of this stuff, you have to be a Christian. Sign up.
I’ll admit that my assessment of modern Christian history is incomplete and vastly overgeneralized. But I don’t think that it is inaccurate to say that up to this past century, Christian philosophy and morality has dominated western culture. However, I don’t believe this is the case anymore.
In my opinion, by and large, last century was dominated by humanist philosophy. It had indeed been building in the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century we saw the explosion of the Industrial Revolution (not that the revolution hadn’t begun before that, but the twentieth century saw it perfected), the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Sexual Revolution, just to name a few.
Now, I do not believe that any such revolutions pose a threat to the Christian religion. Even if you outlaw Christian practice, it will not kill Christianity. The early church survived underground for hundreds of years, and there are places in this world today where the church lives underground.
What the rise of humanism in western society means to Christianity is that Christianity is no longer the default religion. A recent survey suggests that while those who claim to be Christian in the U.S. has rapidly declined - a drop of 11% in a generation - the amount of people who claim no religion has doubled since 1990. According to polling by the Barna Group, only 7% of the U.S. could be considered to be “evangelical”.
And there’s the word. Evangelical. It is a useful term in that it seperates the “cultural Christians”, i.e. those Christians who are mainly Christian “by birth”, from the Christians who have an active, relational faith. I think the latest survey shows that many cultural Christians whose only connection to the church was through family are now becoming bold enough to check the “none” box. As the next generation grows up with even less of a sentimental connection to the faith of their parents, it can be expected that the “none” field is going to get even bigger.
For American evangelicals, who have used the fact that the U.S., like most western nations, was rooted in Christian philosophy to fuel political movements, this shift represents a gradual but increasing loss of influence. Christianity is no longer the default, and that scares a lot of Christians. I think James Dobson’s scare-tactic “Letter from 2012″ released just prior to the past presidential election is evidence of this fear.
But the shift did not begin last year. In fact, the rise of the Religions Right and groups like the Christian Coalition in the 80s and 90s were really just a continuation of the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s, which was a response to the increasingly humanistic worldview being embraced by the western world. The Jesus Movement, which arose very genuinely out of the hippie movement, fueled the evolution of a very distinct Christian culture, which is evidenced by the mammoth Christian Recording Industry. It is this Christian culture, which identifies itself with the term “evangelical”, which is most concerned with evangelism.
For the record, I want to state that I believe it is possible to be an evangelical Christian without identifying with the American evangelical culture. An evangelical Christian is one who believes in the resurrection, believes the Bible, and pursues an active, relational faith. I strongly believe there are such Christians who are hesitant to call themselves evangelical because of the word’s relationship with the often politically charged and separatist American evangelical culture.
And what does that have to do with Art, you say? Plenty, because it is the evangelistic approach of the modern, American Evangelical movement that has dictated Christianity’s relationship with the arts since the latter half of the twentieth century. And truth be told, it’s gotten ugly.
Just how ugly is it? I’ll save that for next time. I’ll be talking about evangelism and its relationship to art, borrowing some from the book Addicted to Mediocrity by Franky Shaeffer (son of Francis Schaeffer)
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March 21st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
[...] « Evangelism, Part I [...]
March 31st, 2009 at 2:31 am
Yes, i agree with you. Actually the bible says so that we must spread the gospel to others so that Christ’s love may be known.. It’s the great commission..