Evangelism, Outreach and Oppression

In the last year and a half, I have witnessed several beautiful moments at interfaith events in Abbotsford. I have seen people meet others from different religions for the very first time and share a meal together. I have watched people learn about the similarities and differences in their beliefs and carry on respectful conversation. I have watched this community strive to create an atmosphere of religious peace and am inspired to continue working in this community.

While these bridges of faith and understanding are being built, there have also Christian groups meeting to devise targeted outreach strategies to convert people of other religions. I would like to think that all Christian missions strategies are created with the noble intentions of spreading love and compassion. Yet when these plans use militaristic language, and reflect strategies of colonization I wonder if love and compassion is being spread or if oppression is perpetuated.

It is important to consider the thoughts and feelings of the “target” group when considering how to share faith. How might the target of Donna Mayhem’s comic react to this material? 

There is great value in sharing faith with one another but to do this respectfully can be challenging. It takes great conscientiousness to suspend one’s judgments long enough to begin to create understanding. 

I want to live in place where my beliefs are respected, where I am not targeted for change but am embraced and included as I am. I also want to be part of creating a community where religious diversity is valued.

Before we start planning an interfaith dialogue in Abbotsford, I ask the planning committee to reflect on times when they have felt the most welcomed and included. We use our answers as a springboard to create an inclusive event where all people feel welcomed.

I am curious to know what ideas you have to respectfully confront oppressive faith-sharing tactics and to create a climate of religious peace?  

Is English Destroying the World?

Sometimes I get depressed about job opportunities... One of the old standby things to remember is that I can always go and teach English in China or Korea, which, while not being something I actually want to do, is something that combines teaching and adventure... and pays actual money. However, recently I have been considering if this activity that occurs across the globe and is often used as a platform for Christian mission is actually contributing to the destruction of humanity. I know I am stating this extremely strongly but I want you to consider if a universal language is as good a thing as we generally consider it. I have grown up knowing that I can travel almost anywhere in the world and someone will be able to understand me... As a native English speaker I do not need to learn any other language to go anywhere or do anything, the whole world is devoted to catering for me.

However, is it a good thing that this is the case? Is this something that is bringing the world together? Something that allows for better communication amidst global diversity? Or is it yet another example of western imperial cultural domination that occurs at the literal destruction of other language and culture? Is the ubiquity of English contributing to the homogenization of global culture and the destruction of diversity?

Wikipedia:

Estimates of future language loss range from half of more than 6000 currently spoken languages being lost in the next 200 years,^[10] to 90% by the year 2050.^[4] Wade Davis states that languages - as not simply bodies of vocabulary or sets of grammatical rules, but "old growth forests of the mind" - for the many and unique cultures of the world reflect different ways of being, thinking, and knowing.^[9] 

As Davis puts it, language extinction effectively reduces the "entire range of the human imagination... to a more narrow modality of thought",^[9] and thus privileges the ways of knowing in dominant (and overwhelmingly European) languages such as English. Foucauldian ideas of power and knowledge, as both inseparable and symbiotic, are implicated in the universalizing of European knowledge as truth, and the rendering of other forms as less valid or false: mere superstition, folklore, or mythology.^[11] In the case of language extinction, those "voices" which are deemed to be inferior or secondary by colonizing, globalizing, or developing forces are literally silenced. 

Davis also illustrates that languages are lost not because cultures are destined to fade away (as proponents of environmental or cultural determinism or Social Darwinism may contend), but rather that they are "driven out of existence by identifiable forces that are beyond their capacity to adapt to"; he further remonstrates that "genocide, the physical extinction of a people is universally condemned, but ethnocide, the destruction of peoples' way of life is not only not condemned, it's universally - in many quarters - celebrated as part of a development strategy."^[9]

I think this is specifically interesting in relation to Christian mission which has been co-opted to spread the Gospel of English along with the Gospel of Christ... How should these statistics and realities impact the way Western Christianity positions itself in global markets? Is "English Camp" or "English Corner" a responsible platform for building relationships? Should we as Christians be concerned with preserving culture just like the environment? Should our missions celebrate honour and preserve diversity of language?

Many Christians are aware and regret the First Nations residential schools, which did not allow children to speak their native language and enforced English. This systematic, deliberate, and enforced destruction of culture no longer occurs with such explicit violence but rather is commercially marketed seducing the whole world back to Babel... I say Babel because that is the location where God creates/confuses the previous mono language of humanity. I say Babel because it is first example of human pride and empire building in rebellion against God. I say Babel because the Biblical redemption of Babel in Acts at Pentecost is not the destruction of language but miraculous understanding. At Pentecost, unity is found in the midst of diversity...not the destruction of diversity.

To my regret, I dropped out of French after Grade 9...To my regret, I have not maintained what I learned of Greek and Hebrew...To my regret, I never really learned any Dutch from my Dad or Grandparents... I have hated the pain and difficulty of learning language most of my life and therefore avoided it. It seems less and less likely I will every become even conversational... But I want to. I want to learn another language as an act of subversion of the hegemonic monocultural empire that is on the rise. I invite you to reconsider your monolinguistic love and learn another language not for practicality but for the greater Glory of God and the preservation and stewardship of his good creation both natural and cultural.

Woody Allen and Billy Graham

A wonderful example of respectful good humoured dialogue...

Stories Collide. Pt. 1

What is reality, what shapes it, and how do I understand my experiences? These questions have been prodding me towards story. Story has been a journey of a thousand miles, begun a long time ago. I grew up a scientific modernist giving lip-service to the possibility of the supernatural, then passing through fundamentalist, and into “biblical”, now I find myself somewhere in a matrix of post-modern/modern/undecided/conglomerate. What I have learned through this development is that the story one lives into shapes all arguments, experience, actions, and epistemology.

I was blessed with a lot of dissonance in my life. I grew up in a “Christian North American” story. It was a story that held to a scientific modernist understanding of the world, but refused to take it to the extreme of excluding the supernatural. This, however, was brutally interrupted by a jaunt to a post-religious/secular/European worldview and story when I lived in England; I was twelve and thirteen years old. The stories clashed, I was too young to understand the significance of such an experience. It is hard to describe the clash of story, they do not battle openly with argumentation that is easy to follow, but a feeling is evident. A feeling of being unsettled. A story is supposed to follow a plot, but when the first story is interrupted and a second story enters in the middle, there is a sense of loss. The flow is incomplete, there is no past and the present seems to have no grounding.

Upon returning to North America, I attempted to pick up my old story, but it was now disjointed. One attempts to reconcile the themes, motifs, and symbols of a different story. It was with this muddled story I entered Bible College. Little did I know I was about to disturb my story in unimaginable ways. Coming from the Christian Reformed Story, I entered the Anabaptist Story. I attempted to “argue” the stories, but I ran into the same problem as before, stories do not respond well to argument. They are different with different pasts. Instead, stories syncretise, usually to the detriment of both. Stories have a funny way of picking the worst of both, rather than the best. It is not that the best parts cannot come together to make a better story, but that takes active participation by the character (you and me). I saw an example of bad syncretism in East Africa where Christianity comes with consumerism, modernity, and hyper-spirituality, but does not get rid of the tribalism, thus blending the negatives (tribalism, consumerism, and modernity) and the positive seem negligible (loyalty, direction, hope). Similar awful syncretism led me to a brief period as a fundamentalist. I syncretised the scientific absolutism of modernism with the Bible. It resulted with a “data quest” into the Bible. I attempted to pull out the absolutes. (This is my critique of Systematic Theology, even when not “fundamentalist”, it is a syncretism of a scientific method with a story. It does not ask the questions of the story, rather it imposes the questions of another story – Greek influenced scientific thought – onto the biblical story).

In reaction to fundamentalism, I attempted to become a purist. For a few years, I attempted to understand the biblical story, attempting to read it on its own terms. This was going well, but then I went to East Africa. This cross-cultural experience rattled my “bible only” conception of truth and reality. The “same” Christian stories clashed, this shook my naïve understanding that one’s private experience is able to arrive at a purist Biblical understanding. Rather one’s private experience and story will completely subvert the entire story. Our private experiences ultimately determine our stories, what flows in and that which is discarded. I came to this conclusion as I sat across from another reading the same text, we both claimed it as authoritative, and we would come to completely different understandings, each significantly shaped by our cultures. The common ground seemed negligible compared to the differences. Everything is relative. Thus ended my purist pursuit.

Where does one go from complete relativity? N.T. Wright goes to critical realism, a noble option, but a method still rooted in a Greek history. Others walk forward into post-modernity with their arm open come what may. Yet others revert, either back into modernity, fundamentalism and its syncretism, or even to a pre-modern-esque type of understanding. This is the crossroads many of us encounter; it is a crossroad I continue to navigate. It is here Story becomes significant. Newbigin’s book “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society” argues for the church as the agent telling the Gospel story and thus persuading the world. Here Duncan’s articulation of Gospel becomes incredibly important; for if Gospel is a part of the story it can be persuasive and syncretised into our stories becoming a story changer. However, if it is a coercive, totalizing, story it co-opts our stories and leads to bad syncretism.

I am attempting to create some hermeneutics for myself as I wallow through this nebulous crossroad. First, honesty. It does me no good to neglect my past or the biases I know I hold. I must be as honest as possible, lay my cards out and attempt to proceed with all the guidance there. Second, virtue. What do I want to become? What do I want my story to look like? Here I lay down my card of compassion. If it is not compassionate, I ought to consider alternatives. Third, story. I must continually remind myself not to argue myself into the “correct” option, because by doing so I have already been co-opted by one story, that of rational argumentation arising out of the modernist era I grew up in (thus following the first hermeneutic). I must continually open myself to persuasion. What story persuades me to follow hermeneutic two? Fourth, keep the biblical text as authoritative. Thus, as the stories blend together I want the narrative of scripture to have significant weight, specifically life, death, and resurrection, as living, dying, and rising throughout my life, even daily, and hopefully in the cosmos, lead me towards greater compassion (hermeneutic two). Fifth, choose wisely. The ability to choose, to choose what is authoritative, choosing the story one lives into, choosing to ones hermeneutics, I must choose contemplatively.

With that, I find myself at the point of syncretising stories. None of them can be “taken out” as they have all entered into my story, but I can mix and mould. I can choose the back-story of the Bible. Therefore, I can incorporate the Gospel (as Duncan articulated) into my story. I can affirm the story of modernism, its conclusion, and collapse into post-modernism. I can look relativism in the face and walk forward with the most persuasive story I can compile, given my experience, which includes the Gospel and compassion. Further, when I am confronted with other stories, such as in East-Africa, I can affirm the parts that blend, while persuading the parts that clash. This has significant influence on my thoughts on pluralism, because if I truly believe that the story I tell and the parts I have chosen to incorporate, it is honestly the best possible story and the most persuasive, there is reduced fear of bad syncretism if I choose to tackle it head-on.

Some of those reading this might be more than a little bit uncomfortable with my choice of words, specifically syncretism. But you see, I have no choice but to syncretise if I wanted out of (or to change) my original story. Since I cannot erase my past and my mode of though, remembering my first story was that of a scientific modernist in North America and NOT a first century Jew in Palestine, I must syncretise the stories I encounter. If I want to change story it involves delicate syncretism. Or to use more “Christian” words I might choose “conversion”, understanding conversion to be the continued gradual change of my story into one I desire.

What is the Gospel?

This post follows up some previous posts on evangelism and discussion with Greg Harris and significantly influenced by a series of lectures at Regent College by Scott Mcknight on his new book The King Jesus Gospel.

When talking about Christianity it is common to hear the word "gospel" thrown around: gospel music, the full gospel, gospel centred, gospel coalition, sharing the gospel, preaching the gospel, living the gospel, the power of the gospel... ok so we generally seem pretty clear that its really important but what exactly is it?

What makes me nervous when this word gets thrown around, especially in the context of equipping or encouraging evangelism, is that basically what is being implicitly encouraged, most often is stuffing the four spiritual laws down people's throats... or spoon feeding it to them with sugar... Even if this is not meant or said I would worry that the expectation is the proclamation of the penal substitution theory of atonement in as compelling terms as possible... It is only through the brilliant lectures by Mcknight that I am able to articulate more fully what the problem is with the promotion and perpetuation of these models and what a more Biblical view would be.

What is the Gospel? Mcknight commented that there are two distinct tendencies currently one is the social gospel: the good news of liberation and almost exclusively enacted in real tangible terms... this is of course reacted against by the second who emphasize "justification" as the gospel, this group usually argues that social justice naturally flows out of a response to the good news of justification...(regardless of if this has ever happened in history)... there are also others, like Tim Keller, who brilliantly and even more effectively synthesize these two camps showing their connection and relationship.

However, Mcknight, argues that all of this misses what the gospel is regardless of their validity, goodness or truth...

So what is the Gospel? To answer Mcknight turns to 1 Corinthians 15:

1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

So what? Well, Paul presents here the story of Jesus. Note in particular the use of the word Christ, Greek for Messiah, as well as repeated mention of "the Scriptures." Further, this a lengthy and detailed narrative that includes burial, Peter, the twelve, James and Paul himself. Mcknight argues that this is the earliest oral Gospel tradition that we have and emphasizes its narrative quality, which is very similar to the sermons in Acts and dissimilar to the propositional nature of the 4 spiritual laws...

Mcknight very compellingly argues that we have misappropriated the Gospel which is the STORY of Jesus, which is the fulfilment of Israel's STORY. It is a story about Israel's need for a king and the answer found in the life of Jesus and his present ongoing universal reign... We have, however, in the last 50 years, in the course of the revivalist tradition and culminating in Billy Graham and Campus crusade, made the gospel about salvation and in particular, personal salvation. For 50 years we have preached Jesus as saviour, to the point that many if not most would be hard pressed to explain what Jesus as Messiah means... This development rises explicitly in North America due to our obsession and reduction of life to technique, which in turn is born out of our uncontemplative pragmatic primal experience of claiming the continent. Our society is born out of the need for immediate practical measurable results as it forged a new life in the "new world." Because of this technical pragmatism North America has become the most productive and technologically advanced society in the world (George Grant, "In Defense of North America." 1969). This focus on results has led to the reduction of the Gospel to salvation. This has resulted in the reduction of Jesus to saviour. This has resulted in the reduction of disciples to "converts". As we have been enamoured with the result of salvation we have lost hold of the story of Jesus as the fulfilment of Israel and bringer of shalom to the world. This is the Gospel: the story of Jesus, a story we are invited to enter into and live in and participate in. Many modern evangelism techniques, such as the four spiritual laws, or the dimming of the lights for the altar call, are brilliantly moulded to generate a crisis, a crisis which is required for "conversion" (any conversion, to anything, requires a crisis). This is why this form of evangelism feels dirty: it is explicitly psychologically manipulative. In Mcknight's most spectacular rhetorical flourish he compared these manipulated conversions to abortion, that is pre mature birth. Rather than sharing the story of Jesus, rather than sharing ourselves, rather than trusting God, we have created a transactional, crisis inducing, conversion creating Gospel, which has failed to make the disciples we were commissioned for... The "Salvation" Gospel creates converts; the Story Gospel demands followers, because Jesus is King.

Why are the gospels called gospels? because they tell us the story of Jesus. May we, by the grace of God have opportunity to share that story and the story of Israel and restoration it is the culmination of. May we trust God to work in people's lives, growing faith in them, drawing them to himself and prompting the response to the Gospel: "What shall we do?" (Acts 2) May we we trust God, and not in our propositions, or theories... May our theology be generous, filled with both faith and humility, that God's glory be manifest in our love...

Evangelizing Worldview

Playing off Duncan’s word usage and re-definition, witnessing begins to articulate my understanding of evangelism. Actions, words, life, story, intellectual ascent to dogma, a person, a religion, an understanding of history, a mode of thought, a disposition toward life, what is evangelism and then what is the purpose of evangelism? To what/ from what/ to whom/ from where are we evangelizing? I think often the conversation is too narrow in scope. By narrow I mean evangelism, as commonly understood, is an us vs. them disposition towards life. It is altogether too simple, too binary, to bland, for me to actually believe that it is “true” in the sense it reflects my reality. My reality is almost never binary, and hopefully growing in a direction that is less “us and them”.

Yet, I am leaning more to conversion now than ever before, but not probably in the sense you hear me say it. I think overall our conversions, our speech acts (preaching), even our witnessing is far too limited. We default to “is it actions or is it words”? This becomes the “go to” argument within Christian circles. I am becoming more and more convinced that a true conversion to Christianity is a radical redefining of worldview; it is not a “conversion” of intellectual assents (eg. I am an atheist -> now I believe in a God). Often when we speak of preaching, the resultant action on the part of the other is to change “belief” statements in their head. This, however, leads to a dangerously shallow faith. The problems are evident when this faith is too narrowly defined; life becomes what would commonly be called “spiritual” segments of ones worldview. The danger I perceive is that this can lead to a compartmentalization of the individual. This can obviously happen in the orthopraxis of the individual, which is easy to see: e.g. no vulgarity in church, but openly vulgar at the job site. This, however, is a mere symptom of a much larger problem. The church all too often becomes a behaviour cult, as it attempts to crush outward inconsistencies through behaviour modification.

Behaviour modification can and does occur, but if only dealt with at the action level one risks splitting his or her person. This split arises from the problem, a compartmentalized worldview. The answer then is consistency, and a decompartmentalization. If God truly desires all of us, the entire world, our spirits, body, mind, soul (one and the same thing), then we cannot only change the mental assent components of our “spiritual” portion of our worldview (even if this looks good in numbers of those “converted”). Conversion is a life ripping, story shattering, destructive process and restructuring; it is hardly something to be done flippantly through a quick prayer and “poof” you are saved. Think about it, you just asked someone who was raised and indoctrinated with an enlightenment worldview, for over 12 years of education, to accept that some man was raised from the dead. Further, that somehow that event changes the rules of the cosmos and he/she is directly affected. That goes against every hypothesis on which our current system and technological worldview rests. (This is why the soapbox scares me. Not that the Spirit cannot use it, but the potential harm and the absolute lack of compassion evident in such an action nears the unforgivable).

Duncan is absolutely right, evangelism and discipleship must go hand in hand. For me it took four years (or more) of careful delicate (sometimes blatantly destructive) deconstruction to near an understanding of the worldview shift that is required of me. So we in turn must not presume speedy evangelism or conversion, especially in a time of growingly complex worldviews. To respond to a question posed by Duncan a number of posts ago, “Is it better to be right or rational?” I must conclude it is better to be right (and that may be the nearest to anti-intellectualism I have ever stated before). Rationality is not bad, but I would also argue it is not the entirety of the Christian worldview. Therefore, it might need to be left behind at points, as specific actions of leaving an enlightenment worldview behind.

We live in a difficult time, but an exciting time none the less. We are experiencing the end of the modern age, the rise of postmodern thought, and the collapse of empires that have thrived on a modernist worldview. The worldviews that were compartmentalized are collapsing and we see the destruction in personality disorders, increased struggles with mental health, and pervasive fracturing of relationships throughout society. The church has struggled, and continues to struggle, with how to negotiate topics and discussions. These are often no longer about the topic, but the conflict is within the underlying worldview. Thus, evangelism at a time such as this will necessitate striving to consistency and virtue, something Paul argues endlessly for in his letters. Lists of vices to be abandoned and virtues to pursue are blasphemed if they are read as “to do” and “not to do” lists, as such a reading neuters the underlying consistency. The lists are direction pointers in the way of consistency. If, it is this consistency that we seek, with a God who acts, into a story that surrounds the climax that is Christ, then, we are evangelising every moment of every day, awake or asleep. Neither action nor inaction will define one’s evangelism, and when the Spirit empowers, such as is recorded in the Acts segment of the narrative, then the “preaching” or speaking portions will occur.

I believe it is this same underlying worldview that Duncan speaks to when he states evangelism/discipleship is “The process of learning and also living in God's story”. It is complicated, and simple, a story as ageless as time itself, and as adaptable as culture is diverse, and as powerful as the God who backs it.

But…How then is worldview change accomplished? My answer is simply, and at a great cost. Simply, in that it is relational, whether a long-term friendship, or the relationship between myself and an animal, or even myself and my garbage. We relate with everything, and everything relates back. Therefore, worldview is constantly being shifted and shaped. At great cost, means that the changing of a worldview can be emotionally, physically, and spiritually painful. We may run into a barrier of compartmentalization that is reluctant to be assimilated, or altered. This process of deconstruction into deeper levels of relationship preys on our own vulnerabilities.

You may still think I have not answered the question: How do we evangelize/disciple others who are not part of our Christian group? I will respond again that this us vs. them mentality is more detrimental than beneficial. It leads to argument, debate, and the entrenching of positions. Thus, we must relate, converse, dialogue, listen to other stories, this I believe is what Danielle’s job does so effectively by banning proselytizing. I was talking last night with my roommate who is reading Peter Rollins, and Peter’s position is that to most effectively evangelize others we must open ourselves to be evangelized by them. If we are unable to hear, we do more harm than good, we entrench in positions, we may even be entrenching in the wrong positions, those of modernity or even postmodernity. Without allowing ourselves to be evangelized, we refuse to let the stories interact, and how is one story supposed to show that it is more righteous, noble, true, powerful, and just, if we never let the stories intersect?

RE: My Musings: Evangelism

My Musings: Evangelism: What is evangelism? Quite simply, to evangelize is to verbally communicate, proclaim or preach the Gospel message. We preach the Gospel but...

A nuancing of terms in response to Greg's post:

"Are we all called to proclaim the Gospel? Greg Harris answers affirmatively in reference to three verses, suggesting they are "commands" to "preach" the gospel.

Matthew 28:19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Mark 16:15
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.


Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Notice that though all three passages describe the same event, only one passage uses the word "preach." A "witness" is a person who gives testimony. "Making disciples" is clearly larger task than just preaching. And in Mark we are told to preach to "all creation" - a directive St. Francis took literally, giving sermons to both people and animals. Furthermore, let's be realistic in acknowledging that "preaching," especially in Christian circles, is most closely associated with the one way communication that occurs in church on a Sunday morning after the singing and before the bread cubes... Outside of the church, "preaching" effectively refers to verbal abuse... So, given all of the loud, soapbox cliches, is it helpful to exhort people to "preach" the gospel? (I welcome someone addressing the underlying Greek, I was too lazy)

I would suggest that the term "witness" is much more helpful as it explicitly indicates the personal and experiential nature of our call. This is not a call to recite the 4 spiritual laws but to share your testimony, your very life and experienceas well as the larger Christian story- in which your specific story is rooted.  A witness is only expected to share truth and is not responsible for persuasion. Furthermore, the church has for a number of years emphasized evangelism and failed at discipleship... this is actually the same process! The process of learning and also living in God's story, which of course includes not only the Bible but all of church history. Too often, both our story and our lives are far too small.

I think that sometimes, our concern or emphasis on "preaching" may inhibit taking opportunities for mutual sharing such as at Danielle's Inter Faith Dialogue. Too often we insist on "evangelizing" from a position of power. However, I create atheists, as recounted here, so you probably shouldn't listen to me...

What is evangelism? Is it limited to verbal presentation?