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?
