Evangelism with finesse

What might evangelism be like if we intentionally asked ourselves questions about God's requirements of love and justice in our actions? There would be a constant consciousness of what we ought to do under God's law, juxtaposed with what the person we are speaking to needs. What a tension.

Love and justice each reside within us and continually inform us in every decision, each advocating for their side. Remember that God acts in perfect love and justice always, and if that sounds complex - well, God is complex, and he calls his people to imitate him in that emotional complexity. We are well advised to "listen to both ambassadors [love and justice] and then arrive at a decision that will be most pleasing to their Master." So, okay. Our first object is not to please ourselves or even our audience; it's to please God. At the same time, part of pleasing God is being kind and sensitive to unbelievers.

I don't know if it's like this for anybody else, but to me it is incredibly daunting to realize, yet perfectly, maddeningly clear, that this sort of evangelism requires the utmost care, prayer, reliance on the Spirit, intelligence, and nuance. It's evangelism with finesse. And... I think that's exactly the example we are called to follow. I think that's true sensitivity - to God's requirements even more than man's preferences.

"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings."
_I Corinthians 9.19-23

Cultural infiltration

(Adapted from an essay I wrote; I didn't feel like going through and making it more conversational, so it's kind of formal. Also, the ideas written here are inspired by this book.)

When considering how to reach those not merely hostile but indifferent to the Christian gospel, one of the best long-term tactics we can use may be indirect communication through the use of art and metaphor. One of the problems that I have personally seen in evangelism is that when a person shows himself or herself not to immediately reject the gospel, Christians take that as an explicit invitation to immediately invade and renovate the person's belief system.

But a person being potentially open to Christianity does not mean that she may not also be open to a thousand other belief systems, or that she does not hold dearly to the belief system she currently holds. There is more work yet to be done before the soil is ready. Indifference to God is a far cry from acceptance and especially love. It is, however, closely related to ignorance, and this is why creative, indirect communication - in a macro perspective, a systematic infiltration of Christianity into the culture - would be a huge asset to Christians in communicating their faith to otherwise indifferent persons in our current society. It would be a re-education of our society.

Many intellectuals today lament the lack of passion and growth of ignorance in present-day America; it is widely agreed upon that we are a culture constantly seeking entertainment. What better way for the Christian message to somehow capture our attention than to succinctly, creatively package it?

Now some churches, instead of trying to infiltrate the culture, have merely bowed to the world's changing values, and instead of making converts have simply converted Christianity into a useless message. Even agnostic Carl Stecher makes notice of this, and others are sure to make the same observations: "In effect, if not literally, the Bible is expugated, bowdlerized, but the God who emerges from this process is not the God of our fathers." Thus the 'creative' strategy has drawn criticism from conservative believers because it 'makes church into a commercial.' I completely agree. However, what I propose is not for the entire gospel to be made into a thirty-second television spot. I do not even advocate such methods to be used in churches. When I refer to spreading the "Christian message" in our culture, I mean a general propagation of Christian values and concepts into the national consciousness. This is not an end in itself, but rather a way of preparing the soil - sowing - to give people a context for the gospel.

So I am not suggesting we make the gospel into a commercial and expect people to be saved through such means. Rather, perhaps a thirty-second television spot, or twenty-minute show, or two-hour movie, can be used to convey a subtle yet attractive Christian message - not the entire gospel, but a small piece of it. The idea of sacrifice. Of redemption. Of moderation. Of obedience to authority. Of truth. Of miracles. All these are becoming more and more foreign to unbelievers; who will remind them, if not us? And if we do not, the gospel will become increasingly unintelligible, until we finally become... well, Western Europe.

If many Christians were to redirect their efforts to such endeavors, and there were suddenly a proliferation of Christian-reminscent popular media, what might the effect be on people's overall worldview? The plan might take years, but it would be worth it - especially since as Tim Downs notes in his book Finding Common Ground, the secular world has been executing this exact plan for years to a great harvest; and "while we measure the bounty of this generation, they prepare to gather the next."