Effective Evangelism: Striking at the Modern Dilemma

Living as we do under the shadow of the mushroom cloud, mankind is having an experience of insecurity comparable to that of primitive man. At one time men were driven by the hazards of life to seek divine aid in their struggle for daily survival. Twentieth century man, instead of being better equipped mentally and morally by the progress of the ages, is becoming under the stress of modern insecurity less and less a man and more and more the pawn of organized state and business enterprise.

If there is to be a presentation of the Gospel to this generation, the nature of our predicament must be studied in order to find the factors necessary for making the presentation meaningful and effective. Like the prophets of old we must find a “touch” that will reach society. Amos found a “touch” by emphasizing the judgment of God; Hosea found his in the love of God. What relevant factors must we consider in our society if we are to cultivate a “touch” that will make for a contemporary presentation?

THE DECLINE OF REASON

The first factor is that people are using their minds less and less to determine the course of their lives.

Apart from the more obvious ways in which independent thought is being controlled or hindered—such as, brainwashing, advertising by suggestion, and conditioning—there are more subtle ways which, because of their indirect influence on the mind, are more universal and effective. More people than ever are living together in big cities where genuine individuality of thought and action is difficult. The daily work of many no longer demands the concentration of the skilled craftsman. Rather, life’s complexities exhaust the mind with the trivialities of red tape, and then leave it too fatigued to meditate on important things.

Knowledge has become specialized. A hundred years ago the average person could have a fair idea of why and how things happened in the world around him. Today only the expert can profess to know this. The average person is content with the bits of knowledge he picks up from magazines, radio, and television, and can leave to the experts, computers, adding machines, and electronic brains the responsibility of doing his thinking for him in areas he cannot understand.

The strongest deterrents to the use of the mind are modern views which do not regard man’s reason as having any objective validity. If man’s behavior is determined by his glands, his subconscious mind, or economic factors, any reasoning that he may claim to do is but the response of inner or outer environmental factors and is therefore purely subjective. And if he is no longer responsible for his actions, then condemnation of his behavior when unacceptable becomes unfair. But if objective truth and standards do exist, modern views notwithstanding, then the application of them to daily life demands considerable thought on our part.

THE GOSPEL THRUST

Now we must ask, how is the Gospel to be presented in the face of the situation? The content of the message will be determined by its aim, and the aim of true evangelism is to bring glory to God. The disciples witnessed to what they had seen and heard of Christ, who was the objective source of their experience. As Christians we experience the gift of grace from the risen Christ. So we also are able, like the disciples, to witness to our experience of Christ if, in realizing the wonder of the gift of grace, we point away from our own experience to the Giver. God can only receive the glory when he has the initiative and men are asked to believe his words and his acts.

The importance of an actual declaration of God’s message, as opposed to the witness of an example of a good Christian life, whether lived in a community or in a factory, is emphasized by the nature of Christianity as basically a series of happenings caused by God. Things that happen have to be explained, otherwise God will not receive the glory. Christ was said to have cast out devils by the prince of devils, the empty tomb was “explained” as the result of the disciples stealing the body, and Pentecost was put down as the result of new wine. The significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ has to be explained to disbelieving people if we consider, for example, that a man dying has little significance in itself. So the example of good Christian living, though helpful, like the happenings of Christian history, will have little meaning unless there is someone to declare that God was in Jesus of Nazareth reconciling the world unto himself.

Often today we are in danger of giving too broad an interpretation to our Lord’s statement, “Ye shall be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). The men of the early Church fulfilled the Commission by regarding themselves primarily as heralds proclaiming the Good News of their King, not as mannequins with a good life to display. The various attempts at “identification,” like the worker-priest movement and experimental Christian communities, seem to assume that people will see a Christian life lived in a factory or will say “see how these Christians love one another” and so will be inspired to follow Christ. The emphasis on example is good, but when it supplants preaching it fails to do justice to the New Testament stress on proclamation of the Gospel. Likewise the Liturgical Movement also seems in danger, in some quarters, of regarding the Eucharist as a substitute evangelistic instrument.

The New Testament emphasis on proclamation is relevant to the contemporary situation. If people’s minds are somewhat atrophied, then the direct trump blast of the herald rather than the indirect appeal of the good life will be the most effective approach.

USING MODERN METHODS

The preaching method of Christ and his disciples was characterized by the word parrhesia. When used of Christ it denotes openness or plainness of speech. When used of the disciples it means courage or boldness. The word is also used of the preacher’s relationship with God, a relationship characterized by confidence or boldness in God. Hence the Christians at Iconium spoke boldly or confidently, not in themselves but in the Lord (Acts 14:3). And Paul tells the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:2) how after persecution at Philippi he was bold or confident in God to speak to them the Gospel. Our confidence or trust is not to be in any gimmicks, methods, or techniques, but in Christ who alone can give the wisdom to speak clearly, the strength, the courage to speak boldly, and the love that will attract people. Equipped by God, Christians should be the best propagandists today as they evidently were in the early days.

The early Christians did, however, use the means of communication modern in their day. They believed that Christ was born in the fullness of time and that their age was peculiarly suited spiritually and materially for this great event. The settled conditions of the time made possible a flow of commerce and interchange of ideas never known before. Naturally the Christians used the Roman roads and the new way of writing letters cheaply on papyrus. It was natural, too, for the leaders of the Reformation to use the new invention of the printing press. Later Wesley and Whitefield used the novelty of preaching in the open air. Should we hesitate to exploit our contemporary situation with all its modern means of communication in order to confront people with Christ? Surely history shows that whenever the Gospel is put into the main stream of a nation’s life, the result is an awakening to God.

There are many ways of coming to Christ, but only one way to God. Somewhere and somehow, as with Peter of old, a person moved by the Holy Spirit will be able to say, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Many different methods, circumstances, and motives may have helped to bring him to his decision, but ultimately it is the Holy Spirit, not flesh and blood, who reveals Christ. The fact that by the deliberate use of certain techniques it is possible to produce conversions of some kind, as Dr. William Sargant has shown in his book Battle for the Mind, should be a warning to us that methods and motives must be constantly examined lest the results be of human effort and not of the Holy Spirit.

THE ESSENTIAL CONTENT

In view of the modern predicament, what should be the content of a contemporary presentation?

The past 150 years have registered more discovery and advance than the whole history of civilization. Men have felt that Utopia was around the corner. All we had to do was to improve people’s environment and educate them. But since 1914 the world has run a race only to find that no prizes are to be won. Instead of Utopia, the possibility of annihilation confronts us. Blood, sweat, and tears have produced nothing; hence, the dry taste of futility lingers in the mouths of all. Man’s scientific advancement seems now to worsen the lot of mankind. People have been educated but have been given no desire to follow true knowledge nor ability to face the pressures of twentieth century living. There seems to be nothing new for the individual, no sense of purpose or meaning to life. People flee from reality by trying not to think, crowding out fear at football stadiums, going to hear the latest crooner, seeing the latest films, or spending their evenings looking at television. Reason seems to have failed because it has not provided a solution to our problems. Nothing on the international scene promises to alter the inevitable course of events.

The wonderful fact is, however, that Christianity believes in a God who has broken the inevitable course of events. He intervened in history to save the Hebrews from slavery to the Egyptians, and finally entered history in the person of Christ and broke the inevitable sequence of life and death by the Resurrection from the dead. For the individual this means that he can experience the changing power of the Holy Spirit in his own life and find meaning and purpose for it as he makes God’s will his. For the nations it means that God is ultimately in control and that Christ will again break into history, not in weakness as the Son of man but in power as the King of kings.

Possibly the recent emphasis on incarnational theology, despite its validity, has tended to minimize the fact that God not only uses circumstances to his glory but does change and alter the human situation. True, people need to be told that God demonstrated in the Incarnation how he can use human frailty and suffering and death to his glory; but in Christ we know also that our humanity has overcome death and that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; all things are become new.” It is precisely something new that people are looking for today, a new start to life, new moral strength, and new purpose and meaning to life.

So long as the Church is content to speak only of the good moral life of Christ and never of the power that raised him from the dead, our answer will be far too small for the problems of today. A young writer in England recently said that our civilization faces the choice of producing a higher type of man, or smash. We know that only God can produce that type of man. He is the one whom we must proclaim with the trumpet blasts of heralds and with whatever means we may have to thrust the Gospel into the life of our nation.

The secret of the Christian Church is that she has the power not merely of survival but of resurrection. Our Master knows the way out of the tomb. However black things may be, the Church must see that the world never forgets Him.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

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