WHAT IS "EVANGELISM"?
                         (A further response)
                           By Calvin Culver  

.    I've heard it said that Christ took care of physical needs first
before moving on to spiritual matters.  To that, I have no argument,
if we are speaking in a strictly chronological sense.  However, do you
believe that Christ considered physical needs somewhere below
spiritual in priority, as a matter of secondary importance which
mainly concerned him as an item to be taken care of before the
important stuff of spiritual instruction could be properly begun?
Alternatively, may I inquire as to what you believe "evangelism" to
be?  Are social-action groups such as World Vision, Compassion
International, and the like doing evangelism when they dig a well, or
feed a starving family, or work toward a peaceful solution of a race-
war?  Or is evangelism only being done when we teach people the Word
of God, and "lead them to Christ"?
.    Let me try to explain by way of analogy.  I look at evangelism -
or salvation, or redemption - as akin to a marriage.  A good, solid
marriage has many facets to it; it involves love (as understood in
phrases such as "falling in love" or "I love you"), commitment,
faithfulness, honesty and of course (for the Christian) a relationship
with God, along with many other factors (those of you who are married
certainly know more about this than I).  It also involves a lot of
old-fashioned hard work.  Each facet of a marriage works in harmony
with every other, and the proper practicing of marriage involves every
aspect of our beings.
.    When we discuss marriage we can certainly isolate various facets
of the phenomenon for academic purposes, discussing love, or
faithfulness or honesty in isolation from all the others, but when it
comes to practicing marriage no such separation can take place.  We
cannot say "Today I'm going to love my wife.  Tomorrow I'll practice
commitment.  Next week I'll spend the entire week being honest with
her."  A marriage run like that certainly wouldn't last very long.
.    Again, every facet must be present to have a proper marriage. 
Certainly, a wife can love her husband, but if she's simultaneously
loving another man on the side then her marriage lacks faithfulness
and it is defective.  Similarly, a marriage which possesses all
characteristics in the proper balance, but lacks a foundation in
Christ is also deficient.  A husband who is committed, faithful and
honest but neglects to love his wife is not practicing proper
marriage.  And the spouse who reads all the books there are to read on
marriage, knows all that can be known about all facets of the
enterprise, how they interact, what the proper balance should be,
where things go wrong and how to fix them, yet doesn't put into
practice any of it cannot really be said to be engaged in marriage at
all.  Marriage, then, is a very holistic enterprise, probably the most
holistic undertaking two human beings can ever attempt together.
.    Redemption is the same way.  Redemption involves many facets - a
proper relationship with the Creator, a love of justice, a practicing
of compassion, and many other things besides.  Salvation is the
holistic phenomenon par excellence, involving, surrounding, permeating
and expressing itself through every facet of our lives and beings, as
they relate not only to God, but equally to our neighbors and the
world as well.  To properly practice redemption one must practice it in
all it facets.
.    To be sure, we can certainly isolate that part of our redemption
which involves our relationship with God for academic purposes, but a
redemption which practices only that is defective.  The working out of
a proper redemption in our lives involves such things as regular,
substantive devotional times and going to church/sunday school,
reading the Bible, driving the little old lady next door down to pick
up her social security (and even supplementing it out of our own
pockets if need be), helping the drunk lying in the gutter, opposing
injustices around us, being concerned with environmental issues (as
good stewards), and much, much more.  A redemption which lacks any of
these facets is a defective redemption, improperly practiced and
deficient.
.    Thus, for example, James can say "True religion ... is this: to
visit orphans and widows in their distress"; Micah can say "What does
the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk
humbly with your God?"; and God himself says of king Josiah, "Did not
[he] do justice and righteousness? ....He plead the cause of the
afflicted and needy; ....Is not that what it means to know Me?"  This,
then, is what Scripture means when it talks of the coming of the
kingdom of God, or the bringing of something under the Lordship of
Christ.  The kingdom of God is simply the rule of God, not only in the
hearts and minds of His subjects, but also within interpersonal
relationships, and even over social and economic structures, as well.
.    Ok, all fine and good.  Up to this point most everyone probably
agrees with me.  It is this last point, however, that gets a bit
sticky, and here is where I expect the most criticism.  What then is
evangelism?  Evangelism is the establishing of the Lordship of Christ,
it is what we do to participate in the onward march of the kingdom of
God, IN ALL ITS ASPECTS.  Thus, anything we as Christians do to help
further God's kingdom is part of evangelism (or, the mission of the
Church), and therefore, digging a fresh-water well in Ethiopia,
housing an Asian refugee, or providing a job for a south-side black
man to support his family, are all just as much a part of evangelism
as the activities of a church-planter in Paris or the mass crusades of
an American evangelist, because they, too, are promoting the
establishment of godly justice, mercy and compassion in the earth.
.    In anticipation of one criticism here, let me reiterate: these
things are PART of evangelism; they are NOT "evangelism" (that is, not
in its entirety).  Evangelism, in its entirety, involves and
transforms every aspect of the human experience, redeeming it (that
is, buying it back again) and placing it under the Lordship of Jesus,
in all its multifaceted complexity.  This, then, is the true nature of
evangelism, and this is the true mission of the Church.

Computers for Christ - Chicago