Testimony Evangelicalism [John Hawthorne]

Last updated on: August 16, 2018 at 2:21 pm by John Hawthorne

Testimony Evangelicalism [John Hawthorne] 2018-08-16T14:21:49-05:00 John Hawthorne

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Having recently come through Holy Week, I notice how important personal contact was in the Gospel Story. A woman early in the morning who meets one she thought was a gardener and then goes to tell others, “I have seen the Lord!” Two disciples walking the Road to Emmaus who have an encounter with Another and then go tell others how their hearts were strangely warmed.

This is actually present throughout the scriptures. The shepherds go and tell others what they saw. So does the Woman at the Well. The Blind Man. Peter recounting his interaction with Cornelius. Isaiah or Ezekiel or John explaining their visions.

This is where what I’m calling Testimonial Evangelicalism begins. At its heart we find basic communication between two human beings. The one sharing puts a priority on being understood by the one listening. That’s all. As Parker Palmer put it, “No fixing, no saving, no setting each other straight”. It is simply about the sharing of one’s experience with another.

Back to Palmer’s quote: the interaction between individuals in testimonial evangelicalism is not utilitarian. In other words, it’s not designed to bring about a designated end-product. Too much of evangelistic crusades involved orchestration to bring the end goal of coming forward. Too much of apologetics is designed to bring about the end goal of the listener acquiescing to the speaker’s argument.

The point here is to tell of the experience is such a way as to best connect with the experience of the hearer. One cannot afford to presume to know their meaning system and seek ways to combat it.

Let me push a bit deeper. Proof-texting plays no role in the kind of evangelicalism I’m imagining because there is no way to know a) if the hearer is biblically literate b) if their interpretation of the quoted passage matches the speaker’s, or c) if they prefer an altogether different passage that doesn’t align with the speaker’s view.

What then is the speaker to do? Perhaps it’s enough to explain why that particular passage is meaningful. Not that it’s right or the answer to all questions, but that it’s been borne out in the life of the speaker in authentic ways that the hearer can relate to, at least in part.

The millennial generation likes to focus on authenticity, even in the honest sharing of doubt. The conversation becomes about how each person makes sense of things. More correctly, this is an honest conversation that doesn’t always make sense. Things get left undone. All the pieces don’t come together all at once and maybe not at all.

The most powerful pieces we read on the internet are not systematic explications of how this and such worked together. They are painful moments of real life: the miscarriage experienced by a young couple, the struggle another couple had with infertility, the sometimes crippling nature of depression, the happy couple in their first apartment, the birth of a grandchild, the completion of a doctorate.

And in the midst of all that is faith. Not a blind faith that says “God has a plan” but one that says that God is present in the struggle and the joy and the accomplishment. Testimony of that sort can change the world.

Testimonial Evangelicalism is trying to Bear Witness.

It denies power because it’s not trying to prove anything. It doesn’t need celebrity because celebrity calls forth emotional distance in place of authenticity. And it can deal with the complexities and vagaries of life because it can leave closure to the work of the Holy Spirit, just like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

At least that’s my story as I’ve found it on my own road of faith.

Perhaps I can learn from yours as well.

—

[Image by AlagichKatya, CC via Flickr]

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