Evangelical Christians may now be charting the last global evangelistic thrust before the glorious return of Christ
As this issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY reaches its many readers, the World Congress on Evangelism is convening in Berlin under the banner, “One Race, One Gospel, One Task.” More than twelve hundred evangelical leaders from over one hundred countries have assembled to grapple with the most pressing need of this and every other age since Jesus Christ commissioned his Church: the evangelization of the world.
Never before has the task of bringing the Gospel of the living Christ to the human race presented such serious obstacles or demanded such urgent action by the Church of Jesus Christ. The number of non-Christians on earth is greater than ever with more than two billion people having not even a nominal connection with the Christian Church. One-third of the world’s population lives under regimes that officially endorse atheistic ideologies. The world intellectual climate is rapidly moving ever further away from the biblical view of God and man. In the West, a new and unprecedented rejection of Christian ideas, attitudes, and conduct is evident in the culture at large. Former bastions of Protestant orthodoxy are succumbing to a deceptive secularism that contradicts the revealed word of Scripture and distorts the meaning of the Gospel.
But most disturbing of all is the undeniable fact that the major segment of Christian people—even many who would label themselves evangelicals—have relinquished their responsibility to take the Gospel to the centers and the ends of the earth. The Church is failing in its evangelistic mission.
Quickened by the Holy Spirit to an awareness of this critical situation, delegates to the World Congress are meeting to pray and to ponder how this trend may be reversed. They have gathered expectantly, seeking wisdom and power from God that the Church may be divinely reawakened, illuminated and energized. They realize that the evangelistic action of the Church in this generation could set the stage for the glorious return of Jesus Christ.
As the World Congress assays the many significant facets of biblical evangelism, it is imperative that every Christian take a hard, honest look at his own life and witness for Christ. Essential as the evangelical leaders now in Berlin are to the work of world evangelism, the mission of the Church ultimately depends on every last person who belongs to the body of Christ. Each Christian must seriously face his personal evangelistic responsibilities. Why are so many of us ineffectual in our Christian witness? Why do our lives lack the dynamic force that attracts men to Christ? Why does our collective influence cause only a ripple in human affairs when is should be the surging wave of the future?
To understand why our persuasive influence on modern man is so woefully weak, we need only to compare ourselves with the magnificent ambassadors for Christ who challenged and changed the first-century pagan world. What qualities characterized their witness so that men were compelled to listen to them? What accounted for their power in confronting all types of men at all levels of their societies with the message of Christ? The Bible clearly indicates the qualities that made them effective Christian witnesses. All great Christian witnesses through the centuries have had these same qualities. So must we if we are to go forward in evangelism.
1. The effective Christian witness is fully persuaded of the truth of the Gospel. The apostles preached Christ boldly because they were convinced that the message was true. The ringing statements of erudite Paul are filled with “I know,” “I am persuaded,” “I am not ashamed,” because he was persuaded that his proclamation rested not in man’s wisdom but in God’s disclosure. The Christian witness of uneducated Peter amazed the Jerusalem elders as he unabashedly asserted, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” His confidence in the truth of Jesus Christ was complete.
Despite the atmosphere of doubt that permeates our day, we need not lack faith in the veracity of the Gospel. If we lack inner conviction, let us allow the Spirit of God to teach us as we earnestly study the Scriptures. The more deeply we probe into God’s Word, the more fully we are persuaded of its absolute truthfulness.
With minds and hearts persuaded that the Gospel is true, those who speak for Christ need not have an intellectual inferiority complex. Let us forever rid ourselves of the notion that the truth of Christ is some kind of second-class religious hypothesis to be avoided in serious discussions. The centuries have seen the rise and fall of numerous man-made philosophies, but the Gospel still stands unscathed. Let us assert it clearly and unashamedly. Because it is true, the Gospel can withstand the most rigorous analysis and attack. Like the first-century apostles, the Christian witness today must be persuaded of the truthfulness of the Gospel. Only then can he declare it with boldness and power.
2. The effective Christian witness is not conformed to the spirit of his age. When Paul told Christians in Rome that they should not be conformed to this world, he was warning them against being caught up in the anti-Christian spirit of the age. John further cautioned believers not to love the world, “for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Men through the centuries who have been effective spokesmen for Christ have resisted the desire to live for sensual gratification, material success, and personal reputation, in order to pledge their full allegiance to Jesus Christ and carry out his work.
Today Christians are being bombarded by appeals to live in conformity with the goals that dominate the lives of unregenerate men. The lures of creature comforts and undisciplined sexual activity are continually thrust before us. The temptation to amass wealth, build great edifices, and possess the latest and best in apparel and appliances strongly entices us. The possibility of achieving eminent position and widespread recognition gnaws away at our proud inner beings. The spirit of our age impinges upon our thought-life, urging us to doubt God’s word, live strictly for the here-and-now, and forget about the consequences.
If we as Christians are to evangelize the world, we must consciously and decisively renounce the temptation to live for these worldly goals. We must single-mindedly set our sights on Jesus Christ and go forth to do his bidding. We must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and devote ourselves unreservedly to the loving task of heralding the Gospel to all men. Only as we are willing to reject the spirit of our age and live in conformity to Christ can we be useful in the Church’s evangelistic mission.
3. The effective Christian witness abides in Christ and submits to his sovereign lordship. Jesus said, “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” The early Church reaped a great harvest for Christ because these dedicated people knew that the secret of Christian life and service was based on constant communion with the living Lord. They recognized that only by total dependence on Jesus Christ could there be life-giving power in their ministry of the word. They found that as they abided in him, the risen and sovereign Lord of the Church provided the love, wisdom, courage, and direction for the mission he had given them.
The secret of successful evangelism is no different in our day. We must submit ourselves to Christ. We must rest in him and move with him as he provides opportunity for Christian witness. We need not be primarily concerned about methods and strategies of evangelism. Christ, the head of the body, will through the Holy Spirit direct his people and supply what is necessary to accomplish his purpose. He will raise up leaders, give Christians access to men in need, and guide believers in communicating his message. Our principal concern must be that we place our lives completely at his disposal. Christ’s desire is that each of us bear fruit that shall remain. If we abide in him, he will use us in his redemptive mission of calling out a people for his name, a people who will live eternally.
The urgent task of bringing the Gospel to the entire human race rests on every Christian believer. It demands of us dedication to God’s truth, renunciation of a life lived in conformity with the spirit of the age, and utter commitment to Christ’s lordship. Are we willing to go into all the terrestrial world and to invade all aspects of man’s life with the truth of the Gospel?
As the World Congress on Evangelism convenes, we must pray that the Holy Spirit will move mightily in the lives of the delegates. But we at home must ask that God in the same way will speak to our own hearts to prepare us for the mission of world evangelization.
In 1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard University, an address Oliver Wendell Holmes later described as “America’s intellectual Declaration of Independence.” Emerson summoned American scholars to independent initiative, for, he said, “we have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.” He exhorted his colleagues never to defer to the popular cry: “Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom.” The Church today must make a spiritual declaration of dependence on God. We must refuse to be influenced by the popular but false appeals that come from humanistic centers of philosophy, theology, and culture. We must not quit our belief that the doom of God’s judgment stands before man, even though our pundits regard it as theological piffle. We must boldly proclaim the truth of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The time has come for Christians, individually and corporately, to get on with the work of evangelizing mankind. We must go forward with conviction and courage to present the claims of Christ to every man on earth, always keeping in mind Jesus’ promise, “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
The Blessing Of Evangelical Reading
The great influence of the press is undeniable. Even those who have suffered under its exposures or criticisms will not quarrel with Henry Ward Beecher’s remark, “Newspapers are the schoolmasters of the common people. That endless book, the newspaper, is our national glory.”
The press is liable to err, for news-gathering is full of uncertainties. Sometimes the unknown facts are more significant than the known ones. Sometimes the facts get twisted. Yet from the jumbled mass of material it collects, the press must sort out the facts as well as it can and present them honestly and accurately, so that readers can form their own opinions. It must also separate news from editorial judgments. A publication has the right, indeed the duty, to express editorially its own judgments on important issues and to strive to win its readers to its viewpoint. It is obligated both to inform and to attempt to shape opinions. But it is also obligated to distinguish fact from opinion.
Because of its Christian commitment, the evangelical press must reflect the highest candor as well as the best journalistic standards as it faces the responsibility of speaking even the harshest truth in love. Only this kind of a press will offset the formidable criticism of Thomas Jefferson, who wielded a mighty pen himself and who exclaimed in exasperation: “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” Let it never be said that the Christian public is faced with the unhappy choice of an empty mind or one filled with misinformation.
When the evangelical press fulfills its task responsibly, the Christian public then has the responsibility of reading what is published. Readers need not agree with the opinions expressed. They can write letters of protest as well as approval, and they do. They are also free to begin their own magazine.
Evangelicals forgo many advantages when they fail to read and support evangelical periodicals. Such periodicals bring religious information not available elsewhere. They broaden the minds of those who read by introducing them to a variety of opinions, and sharpen their awareness of current issues. A magazine of general interest to the evangelical public will consist of more than pietistic homilies; it will print essays, news, poetry, and theological studies, and will editorially render judgments that are based upon constant study of contemporary events and movements.
The evangelical Christian needs to keep abreast of current religious thought. The best way to do this is to read a good evangelical magazine that will bring to him many authors, diverse viewpoints, and new insights. For the price one pays for a single book he can obtain a year’s subscription to a good magazine. Evangelicals must keep informed, for the price of ignorance is always high. As Robert Browning said, “Ignorance is not innocence, but sin.”
Where The Action Is
“Where the action is” is a catchy phrase that rapidly made its way through the schools and homes of our land. Before long it showed up in church. The Church must “get with it,” some are saying. “It must be where the action is.”
This is no new thought. We all know that we must seek men where they are, not where we wish they were. Only as the Church seeks sinners where they are sinning can it fulfill its calling.
But the Church must keep its sights on its main business. It is called to bring men to Christ, not to participate in their sins. Oddly enough, some who go “where the action is” feel the relevance of their ministry is enhanced if they take on the characteristics of those they seek to reach—the use of profanity, for example.
Where is the “action” that redeems men? It is at Calvary’s Cross, where Christ’s blood was poured out. To go to the place where the action is, is natural. To go to Calvary, where the real action is, is supernatural. The hearts of men must be transformed through divine regeneration. Then society will be transformed as a result of the spiritual change. No one should want to make the Church an agency working toward a Christless social order; such an order at best is a mirage that offers no living water to a soul dying for want of it.
Of course the Church must go where the action is. But it must take with it the Gospel. Man’s basic need is regeneration.
A New Role For Shirley Temple
A new crusader against pornography in motion pictures has come upon the cinematic scene, and it is none other than Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm herself. Shirley Temple Black, a socialite member of the San Francisco Film Festival Committee, recently showed her mettle by claiming that a Swedish entry in the festival “merely utilizes pornography for profit.” When Baghdad-by-the-Bay’s connoisseurs of motion-picture artistry presented the film despite her objections, she promptly resigned from the committee in protest. We doff our hats in tribute to the erstwhile moppet of the Good Ship Lollipop for a splendid performance.
Sex is too great a gift of God for us to assume a false libertarian stand and remain mute as mercenary panderers of prurience exploit or pervert sex in printed materials or films. If sex is to be the blessing in the lives of people that God intends it to be, we must join with Shirley Temple Black and others who protest its desecration. The person who follows the biblical teaching of the sanctity of sex within marriage and the rule of modesty in its public manifestations is no prude. He is rather one who most highly values and preserves this great and good gift.
Haven’t we all had enough of the vulgarity practiced by sex merchants who cheapen this gift and make public an intensely private act? No true friend of sex delights in nudie magazines that rub covers with homosexual publications on newsstand counters. Or finds satisfaction in explicit, flaming descriptions of intimate acts in novels. Or desires inclusion of the almost inevitable titillating towel-scene or bed-scene in motion pictures. Or appreciates the contrived use of sex to sell everything from automobiles to after-shave lotion in the daily torrent of advertising. Sex is too precious to be banalized. It is time for all of us to slam the door shut on smut.
This we can do by boycotting businesses that deal in the pornographic. We can call for tighter enforcement of existing laws or work to bring about new ones that draw a clear and just line between liberty and lascivious license. We can devote ourselves to the good, the beautiful, the pure. Psychologist Rollo May suggests that if the revolt against sexual standards continues, an antiseptic asceticism may occur in which people tend to avoid sexual contact. Although we doubt the validity of May’s theory, we recognize the need to oppose pornography throughout society now. If sex assumes its rightful place within the context of love, and love between man and woman grows within the bonds of matrimony, society will be healthier and individuals will have greater opportunity to enjoy one of God’s finest gifts to man.
The Political Spectacle Of 1966
Autumn, harvest, and politics go hand in hand. Amid nature’s color spectacular, candidates for public office are beating the bushes for votes while citizens everywhere watch intently. When the last ballots have been counted (or possibly miscounted or discounted), the American people will be able to sit back and reflect on what the results will mean for them and for future generations.
The Christian citizen must exercise his right to vote if he is to discharge his responsibility before God and his fellow men. But he does so amid grave tensions and swirling streams of contradictory opinions. Many times the thoughtful Christian is faced with a tragic moral choice. Sometimes he must cast his vote for a candidate he thinks to be the lesser of two bad choices. More often than not, he will have to vote for a candidate who entertains some views of which he wholly disapproves.
Yet despite the interplay of good and bad forces, the complexity of the issues, the temptation to avoid the polls, and the desire to wash his hands of a system that shows signs of corruption, egomania, and self-interest, the Christian must still act as salt and light in the world. To do this he must vote.
The contours of the American political scene make this off-year election far from typical for millions of voters. To be sure, voters are witnessing the usual last-weeks increase in the tempo of impassioned appeals, gross oversimplifications, and heated name-calling. But the current political atmosphere is charged with certain other factors that are odious and disturbing.
The outrageous violence of a small minority of Negroes has created an irrational fear among many white voters. This has resulted in the so-called white backlash that aids racist politicians—even those who disgustingly seek to justify bigotry by phony appeals to “my Jesus.” The administration’s timing in instituting certain policies also muddies the political waters. It is hardly a coincidence that the President has recommended increased social security benefits while delaying the almost certain post-election tax hike. Many politicians are finding also that the foot-dragging Eighty-Ninth Congress has given them few accomplishments to boast about or rail against. To win votes, many candidates are finding it expedient in their campaigning to avoid explicit reference to their parties. Coattail-riding is not in vogue in 1966.
National attention will focus on certain key races in November. Brown vs. Reagan in California may shed light on the coming fortunes of the Republican Party in 1968. Douglas vs. Percy in Illinois will show whether a liberal Democratic warhorse of the Senate can be unseated by a personable G.O.P. moderate. Maddox vs. Calloway in Georgia will reveal whether a racial extremist or a moderate segregationist will exert power in the South. Hatfield vs. Duncan in Oregon will test the people’s reaction to American policy in Viet Nam. Rockefeller vs. Johnson in Arkansas offers the interesting possibility of a Republican governor in the traditionally Democratic Ozark state. Brooke vs. Peabody in Massachusetts may result in the election of the first Negro Senator since Reconstruction days. Mahoney vs. Agnew in Maryland will show whether the white backlash will sweep a Democratic open-housing advocate into office over a moderate Republican. These and other tight contests make it an unusual political year.
The responsible voter must carefully consider many issues before he casts his ballot. In a number of contests, American policy in Viet Nam is the foremost issue. In others, the candidates’ stands on racial questions, particularly open housing, are paramount. Many states and communities will call upon voters to make important decisions on lotteries, liquor, and obscene literature. The personal qualifications of office seekers will be decisive in many close elections.
It is simple to pinpoint the issues. But no one can tell Christians how to vote. This is the time of year when those who live in two kingdoms—God’s and Caesar’s—must pay Caesar his due. They must go to the polls. And when they go, they should remember that they must be prepared to give an account of their actions to God and their consciences.
Integrity In Politics
A congressman from Georgia has done what is unimaginable for a politician. Renominated for office and fairly sure of re-election, Charles Weltner has withdrawn from the race for reasons of conscience.
Weltner had taken an oath before a justice of the peace in the Atlanta State House that bound him to support other Democratic candidates for office. When faced with the obligation of helping segregationist candidate Lester Maddox become governor, Weltner had to choose between oath and conscience. Conscience won.
It is a sad commentary on our ethical standards that Weltner’s action should capture the public imagination as it has, since he did only what he should have done. But that kind of decision is a scarce commodity these days.
His fellow Americans might profit from Weltner’s courageous stand. Some clergymen who have betrayed their ordination vows might be stung by his example. And some college and seminary professors who sign doctrinal statements tongue in cheek might begin asking themselves some hard questions.
