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.

Of God and Men

Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for these people anymore. When they fast, I will pay no attention. When they present their burnt offerings and grain offerings to Me, I will not accept them. Instead, I will devour them with war, famine, and disease.”

Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, their prophets are telling them, ‘All is well—no war or famine will come. The Lord will surely send you peace.’”

Then the Lord said, “These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts. Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I will punish these lying prophets, for they have spoken in my name even though I never sent them. They say that no war or famine will come, but they themselves will die by war and famine! As for the people to whom they prophesy—their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war. There will be no one left to bury them. Husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—all will be gone. For I will pour out their own wickedness on them. Now, Jeremiah, say this to them:

“Night and day my eyes overflow with tears.
I cannot stop weeping,
for my virgin daughter—my precious people—
has been struck down
and lies mortally wounded.
If I go out into the fields,
I see the bodies of people slaughtered by the enemy.
If I walk the city streets,
I see people who have died of starvation.
The prophets and priests continue with their work,
but they don’t know what they’re doing.” -- Jer. 14:11-18

As with so much else in the ministry of Jeremiah, this oracle presents a number of stark challenges to the vision of God and ministry prevalent in the minds of many Christians. To be frank, I do not know how to square all of this with the example of Jesus...but I know that it MUST be squared. We cannot act as if the God Jeremiah served is somehow different from the One we serve. That would be Marcionism. We cannot claim that God Himself somehow changed His fundamental character between Testaments (i.e., that God "became a Christian" and consequently changed all the rules of His interactions with Creation.)

With so many questions, then, what word(s) for our upcoming week can we gain from this passage? It seems to me there are at least three or four points worthy of our quiet moment ponderings:

1. God CAN change. This stands in sharp contrast to the vision most of us carry of a God who is eternally "immutable" (just a big word meaning that He never changes). The doctrine of God's immutability comes out of Greek philosophy and early on was wedded to Christian doctrine. Additionally, there are passages of Scripture which, when taken by themselves, seem to explicitly teach the doctrine of immutability. Unfortunately, too much of the rest of Scripture informs us that God can...and frequently does...change. When God became flesh in Jesus...was that not a change? When God died in Jesus...was that not a change, too? And if God cannot change, then why do we ever pray and ask Him to do (or refrain from doing) anything at all?

2. God loves us unconditionally...but there are purposes in the universe of more weight than satisfying our human cravings. Just because we are the most-loved part of Creation, that does not mean that humanity is center or the purpose of Creation. All that is exists with the purpose of glorifying and serving God...not the other way around. Jeremiah's message, again, suggests that we may so rebel against God that we forfeit our right to be called His people.

3. People have always found prophets who tell them they've nothing to repent of, and that God is quite pleased with their lives just as they are. Worse yet, we have a dangerous tendency to seek out the voices that preach "all is well--no war or famine will come. The LORD will surely send you peace." This is an inherent danger of having ministers who are financially beholden to the congregations they minister to. It is the rare church that can hear...that is willing to hear...a less-than-adulatory message from its preacher. Yet, if we learn anything from Jeremiah it is that greater disaster might very well have been averted had the people been willing to listen to the hard truths he spoke.

No doubt, many could find fault with the three points I have outlined. And I will be the first to admit that there are problems with each of these points. As I said at the beginning, I make no claim to have all the answers on these topics. Indeed, the older I get, the more convinced I am that the most profound truths of God and our relationship to Him simply CANNOT be put into words...they can only be lived...experienced. I ask, then, that you consider my three points not as doctrinal propositions to be either refuted in debate, or committed to rote like a catechism. Rather, take them as lenses with which to understand your experience of life and your walk with God. Try them on. See if they make the picture clearer and your steps surer. Don't staple them to your head, as it may be they are not the lenses you need right now...but don't throw them away either. If Jeremiah and Judah needed these lenses in their lives, it's a fair bet that you will--someday--need them in your own.