Extra: Is Evangelism a Panacea?

Normally I wouldn't break away from my weekly devotional series from Jeremiah, but an interesting thing occurred to me this evening. I was meditating on a frequent refrain I've heard in church almost my entire life. One hears it under various slogans:

We need to be more evangelistic!
We need to get out in the community!
Evangelism is the number one mission of the church!
We've got to get involved in personal work!

And so the sayings go. A number of years ago, however, I began first to seriously question--and ultimately reject--these arguments. Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that evangelism is bad, or that it ought not be pursued by the Church. Rather, I'm taking issue with this popular idea that it is the supreme work of the Church. I am rejecting the idea that the first and foremost duty of a Church is evangelism.

Why would I make such a heretical claim? For three reasons. First, in my experience I found that more and more often evangelism was being used as a slogan to distract the church from the call to be holy. It's similar to what happens when someone engages in systemic sin in their private personal life and then volunteers for every committee at church to "make up for it." It bothered me greatly when folks who didn't seem to bothered by racism, back-stabbing, et al. were greatly concerned that we get out and "evangelize" more.

Second, I began to learn a little more Christian history. Specifically, I delved more deeply into the story of the International Churches of Christ (sometimes known as the Boston Movement Churches of Christ). The ICOC was all the rage in the 1980s. They posted tremendous numeric expansion via their single-minded focus upon evangelism. Ultimately, however, the ICOC shattered under repeated allegations of a cult-like environment and abusive hierarchical relationships. The evangelistic success of the ICOC is unquestioned. The results of it, however, have proven to be quite mixed.

Third, as I was driving home this evening it occurred to me that Jesus never criticized the Pharisees for a lack of evangelistic zeal--quite the opposite in fact!

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of Hell you yourselves are!-- Matthew 23:15

Apparently, Jesus' problem was not that the Pharisees weren't preaching the word...it was just exactly whose word they were preaching!

In conclusion, I want to make a radical suggestion: What the Church most needs is NOT more evangelism but more holiness,which is the only thing that makes our evangelism credible. In other words, we need to do the right thing simply because it is right. If we seek [to be] the Kingdom first, all this other stuff will take care of itself.

Caught with Our Hands in the Cookie Jar

We all know what it means to be "caught with our hand in the cookie jar." It means that we were doing something we knew was forbidden...we just thought we could get away with it. That's the situation God addresses in Jeremiah 3. The sister kingdoms of Israel and Judah have both been guilty of putting their hands into the "cookie jar" of idolatry.

As I read this chapter, it strikes me that God's wrath was NOT primarily stirred up because of the idolatry...but because of the DENIAL of the idolatry. Consider the following pronouncements from God:

You say..."I haven't worshiped the images of Baal!" But how can you say that? Go and look in any valley in the land! Face the awful sins you have done. (2:23)

Israel is like a thief who feels shame only when he gets caught. They, their kings, officials, priests, and prophets--all are alike in this. (2:26)

Your clothing is stained with the blood of the innocent and the poor, though you didn't catch them breaking into your houses! And yet you say, "I have done nothing wrong. Surely God isn't angry with me!" But now I will punish you severely because you claim you have not sinned. (2:34-35)

Then the LORD said to me, "Even faithless Israel is less guilty than treacherous Judah! Therefore, go and give this message to Israel. This is what the LORD says: 'O Israel My faithless people, come home to Me again, for I am merciful. I will not be angry with you forever. Only acknowledge your guilt. Admit that you have rebelled against the LORD your God...Confess that you have refused to listen to My voice. I, the LORD, have spoken.'" (3:11-13)

Reading from the vantage point of hundreds of thousands of years after Jeremiah, I must ask myself: Has anything really changed? Don't we, as the modern day people of God, all too often deny our own Sin? Aren't our pulpits all too often filled with bold and prophetic denouncements of the sins of non-believers (and other believers) while a deafening silence regarding our own communal sins continues to hinder our prayers and our witness to a dying world?

Currently, American society is still the most religious of the industrialized nations. However, recent surveys have shown that non-belief in modern America is on the rise. The saddest part of this, in my opinion, is that I don't believe this is an inevitable trend. While materialism surely plays a part in this trend, no less does fickle and shallow Christianity. I would suggest to you that the numbers of unbelievers are growing not because our claims are so fantastic...but because our lives are, all too often, so un-credible.

It is my prayer that God is refining His people during this time...that the chaff is being burned away, and that He is forcing both individual Christians and churches to face who we truly are. I know that there are those who are (and always have been) true to the LORD. (Even in Jeremiah's day, at least there was Jeremiah.) But I also know that far too many of us have sold out our ethics and our faith for...what? popularity? money? corporate and/or political advancement? Even as this has happened, we have continued (just as people of Jeremiah's day) to surround ourselves with the external trappings of faith, in the vain attempt to keep up the delusion of our own sanctity. We build buildings. We start programs. We pack venues with thousands of people. We turn up the music. We turn down the lights. We market our faith. We insist upon only hearing "positive messages" and we will brook no prophet in our midst who might challenge our self-absorption. Despite our most strenuous efforts, however, deep in our spirits we know things are not as well as we would like to claim. When will we return to our LORD? When will we "acknowledge our guilt and return to our LORD"? He remains merciful to this day. His greatest desire is that we will come home to Him again.

I ask all of you who read this to pray for me, that I will return home to my Father; And if you too find yourself in the midst of pigs, what say you return with me?

-- justin

Undo by Rush of Fools