Real Evangelism for the 21st Century

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 8:08 pm by Robert Hunt

Real Evangelism for the 21st Century 2015-03-13T20:08:05-06:00 Robert Hunt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When the world changes, all commitments must be renewed. Our churches are filled primarily with members driven by inertia, social acceptance, entertainment, and available member services rather than a commitment to God put into practice through worship and service.

John Lennon’s great song, Imagine, is often played at Christmas time (apparently without irony) to remember his murder. The song invites us to imagine a world without God and without religion. Can you imagine such a thing?

The answer is almost certainly yes. That is why the song works. Look at a television series like the new Dallas, that ostensibly takes place in one of the most religious cities in the US. Yet it can also imagine socially prominent families that are not in the least religiously engaged even though their real world counterparts almost certainly are.

Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, shows how contemporary Western society has reached a point where not only the type of religion we hold, but whether or not we even want to be religious, has become optional. We can at least imagine living without God and without religion. We know we have the option, even if we don’t exercise it. And of course as surveys show, an increasing number of young people don’t just imagine living without God and religion. They do it, and they don’t feel in the least unfulfilled. Indeed this is Taylor’s key thesis: contemporary people living in the US and Europe can find fulfillment without God or religion.

But for a moment let’s not think about the lack of religion to the “nones.” Let’s think about what it means to share a commitment to the Christian gospel to those who are religious. But for whom not being religious is an option.

These are people who know that they could slip into disbelief or a different religion without having the world crumble or life lose its meaning. People for whom not being religious is truly an option, just one that they haven’t exercised. People for whom coaching a kids soccer team brings a real sense of fulfillment and a spa weekend offers genuine peace of mind but who, at least for the present, opt into going to church most of the time.

We have to ask this question because it seems very likely that our churches are filled primarily with members driven by inertia, social acceptance, entertainment, and available member services rather than faith in God put into practice through worship. They are people who have opted into attending church and believing in God without actually making a real commitment to faith in God.

In our contemporary secular society we need a new kind of evangelism, because the choice for Jesus Christ comes to us in a form that it has never come in before. It isn’t a commitment to true doctrine, or true worship, or true Christian experience – things that obsessed the founders of our denominations and let them to demand choices within a society where Christianity itself was a given.

Nor does our choice for Jesus Christ come to us in the form of a choice between sin and salvation, for even that choice is possible only in a world that contains both options in clear relationship to God as conceived in Christianity.

No – the evangelistic choice a contemporary person is asked to make is of a completely different order than that of previous generations, for it is not a choice within a given framework for conceptualizing the world. It is a choice between apparently equally satisfying frameworks for conceptualizing the world.

And this kind of choice takes a far different, and far deeper and more constant commitment than that of simply choosing to put one’s faith in Christ for salvation. It requires a commitment that most of our churches are poorly equipped to help a person realize, and which most don’t even understand.

Evangelism in a secular age isn’t about making a choice, or even making a commitment to church community. It is about drawing people, through worship, life in community, and service, into a framework for understanding reality whose value and comprehensiveness isn’t immediately obvious. Evangelism in a secular age is an invitation into commitment to an arduous course of learning, and a long term relationship with a community that has no obvious and immediate payoff and does have immediate and obvious hardship.

Evangelism in a secular age is about faith, but the recognition that the human capacity for faith is not merely a capacity for making choices within a given world. Faith is knowing that our self is a shadow cast by a greater light, and that we can never know which road leads certainly to that light. Yet faith knows that one must choose some road, or remain ever in the dark.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

March 6, 2013

The Curse of the (Social) Creed

Next Post

June 9, 2013 Dialogue, Politics, and the Muslim World

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Christian Identity Christian Muslim Relations Home Page Inter-Religious Dialogue Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 July 2010 May 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz