In Defense of Evangelism

When did "evangelism" become a bad word?

To be clear, I'm not questioning how "evangelism" might have become a bad word among many who do not claim Christian faith. I have vivid memories of my own of a particular preacher I heard in my teenage years who gave a pulpit-pounding message about hell that left a particularly bad taste in my mouth that I can still remember to this day. I'm sorry, if that's been your experience. Really, truly sorry.

Instead, I'm talking about how "evangelism" has become such a bad word among those who are committed to Christian faith.

I'm wondering how it was that one of the few times that I can remember biting my tongue and choosing not to speak up for my viewpoint in one of my undergraduate Christian spirituality classes was the day that I chose not to speak up and discuss how it came to be that I identified as an evangelical Christian. I remember the professor looking directly at me when not one person in that forty-some student class would admit to identifying with the evangelical stream of Christianity, and then saying to the class that he understood why it would be a difficult position to publicly identify with at our Mennonite institution.

And now, as I journey away from the evangelical tradition within which so much of my faith was formed, I notice how well the Canadian church does with engaging issues of social justice, and how little we talk about evangelism.

And as much as I have wrestled with my evangelical tradition over the way it sometimes tends to see people as 'inside' or 'outside' in a very black-and-white way, or how it can tend to instrumentalize relationships as a tool for evangelism, still a little voice inside of me whispers that there has to be a better way, that surely the gospel is still 'good news.'

You see, my faith is one of the things that is most precious to me, and it was thanks to friends who cared enough to answer my questions and to invite me to explore what it meant to me to be a Christian that I have this faith today in the first place. It was thanks to the friend who welcomed my questions and doubts, who stayed up with me well past midnight to explain the 'four spiritual laws,' who invited me to try actually reading the Bible to see if it might hold answers to some of my questions, who patiently taught me how to pray at (very) early Friday morning prayer meetings, who invited me to attend chapel services with them, that I am who I am today.

I am a product of evangelism.

And none of it was gross, or forced, or pressured in any way.

It was rooted in pointing me toward God, in gently and respectfully answering my questions, in inviting me to consider new perspectives, and in insistently suggesting that a Christian faith could be a living source of strength and direction.

Walter Brueggemann wrote a book called Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living in a Three-Storied Universe, in which he calls evangelism the act of inviting people to experience the biblical narrative for themselves, and to choose this story as the definitional story of their lives. He suggests that evangelism isn't only about inviting outsiders to become insiders within the community of faith, but also about inviting insiders who have grown complacent to be reincorporated into the vitality of faith, and inviting the children of believers to become "belief-ful" adults. I love his well-rounded perspective on evangelism, and why it's important on so many levels. I love how he does so without talking about techniques, numbers, or growth models.

I think I'll always carry with me the deep belief that I was given by my evangelical tradition that there is good news in the Christian faith that's worth sharing, wherever the journey may lead from here, and I worry that there will be pressure as I move into new traditions to hide those beliefs. I worry that if I express that evangelism has value, people will label me with all kinds of images that just aren't
consistent with what I believe evangelism is all about.

But just because we haven't always gotten it right--have often gotten it wrong, in fact--doesn't mean that we should throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Does it?