by Anonymous Logician, Copyright December 13, 2006, all rights reserved. 1012 views
My friend James Eglinton is at it again, adding to his post on secular fundamentalism by musing about the role of the church in a post-Christian society. James makes a great point:
We cannot afford to go on using the dialect of old Christendom now that we no longer live in Christendom. . . . If a post-Christian Brit enters a church and finds language characterised by: Christian idioms and expressions which to him (having no previous connection to Christianity) are utterly incomprehensible, or a sermon which assumes he (as a non-Christian) isn't present, or which isolates him through 'we-them' language, or archaic forms of English to which he cannot relate and would never use or hear outside of church; the consequences will be that he won't understand Christianity and will go on in his unbelief. Our corporate worship must be clear and comprehensible to unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:24-25) so that in seeing Christians worship, they might be converted. Bearing in mind that God normally works through secondary causes (normal social and psychological processes) to convert people (Westminster Confession of Faith), isn't it to our shame if we make those secondary causes (i.e. our choice of language) ordinarily incomprehensible to the non-Christian nation around us?
While James isn't looking, I'm going to hijack this quote and use it as a springboard for one of my pet peeves: trendy evangelical disdain of the unconverted. This attitude is often unintentional and surfaces in outreach programs that treat non-Christians as numbers, stats, or even targets. At our worst, it becomes a sort of spiritual snootiness and teeters dangerously close to denying the doctrine of imago Dei. We're so concerned with keeping ourselves unspotted from the world (as we're quick to quote) that we neglect what Jesus said about being in it. After all, we should avoid the very appearance of evil, right? I keep expecting some enterprising ministry to come out with an "Evangelism Sniper Rifle" that lets us convert these sinners without getting too close.
Yet this is precisely what Jesus avoided. He dined with cheating tax men, hookers, and the unrespected–not because they had no sin, but because their sin required a remedy that couldn't be delivered via satellite. Christ created man, and man retains His image despite the Fall. A more biblical approach to evangelism, it seems, would begin by conceiving of non-Christian people as just that: people. Shock of all shocks; horror of all horrors. And maybe then these people might be considered acquaintances and friends with needs beyond the recitation of a four-step formula prayer.
All this isn't to minimize the importance of salvation itself. Christ is essential, and no one can come to the Father but through Him (John 14:6). No emphasis on love and compassion can replace the Gospel.
But after all, why should it? It's part of the Gospel.