(On Twitter last night I asked for peoples’ reactions to the word “evangelism” and these are the responses I got.)
Progressives and Liberals are terrified of the word “Evangelism”. Nothing can bring an idea to a halt faster then the suggestion that it might be trying to “evangelize” someone. We generally strike that word from our vocabularies and go on our merry way.
If I go with my gut reaction to the word it brings up painful memories. It stings of forced conversions and shallow prayers. It puts images of tally mark charts with “souls saved”. It brings up fear that I haven’t done enough, haven’t witnessed enough, haven’t been bold enough with my faith.
In the summer after my senior year of high school I went on a mission trip that was designed for extroverts. I am not an extrovert. The summer was hell for me. Not only was there a lot of tension around my appearance (that’s a WHOLE other post), but there was always the feeling that I wasn’t a good enough Christian. It took me years to figure out why: I wasn’t an extrovert. On the teams we were supposed to be friends with everyone and close friends with no one. I don’t work that way. I prefer to have two or three very close friends and be acquaintances with others. I cannot function if I am spread too thin. We were supposed to be continually starting up conversations with strangers, another thing that is incredibly difficult for me as an introvert. We were supposed to have quiet time each day, but that often got cut when we got behind schedule. I had no alone time (often even the showers were communal) and no time to recharge. I was miserable. And in the midst of it all I was starting to have serious questions about all of the “evangelism” we were doing. At one point I watched as one of my teammates led his small group of 4-6 year olds in the “sinner’s prayer”. He didn’t ask them if they wanted to, just told them to repeat after him. And they did because they were 4-6 years old and he was this cool high schooler. And then he claimed he had led 5 kids to Christ.
So when I left the evangelical church I was happy to leave evangelism behind. I found it to be harmful and not well suited to my personality. And as someone who believes deeply in God and Jesus but who doesn’t necessarily believe that Jesus is the only way to God (and who definitely doesn’t believe that God will send everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus to burn in Hell for all eternity) what do I have to evangelize about?
Here’s the thing: We’ve abandoned the narrative. If you ask people what a Christian looks like these days (even when I ask youth who have grown up in the liberal tradition) they name people like Fred Phelps, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman; they name people who are hateful and angry. That is what a Christian is. And what do Christians do? They pray in public, hate gay people, try to outlaw abortion, run for office, etc. We’ve given up the public space so that only a certain kind of Christian has gotten airtime. This is why there are so many posts and articles that talk about how Christians feel about gay people or about how Christians should apologize to gay people. These articles completely deny the reality that there are Christians who support and affirm queer people and not only that but there are queer Christians! Queer Christians who have never left the church, who have remained in the pews, who have never left their faith. But we’re left out of the narrative.
Often progressive churches do little to equip their people to be able to talk about their faith. Instead we try to do good things and shut up about it. But by shutting up about it we hav ceded the word “Christian” to the evangelical fundamentalists.
Evangelism has gone hand in hand with a terrible history of forced conversions, colonialism, stolen land and traditions. I don’t want to gloss over that. And I’m not saying we should reclaim the word Evangelism, in fact, I really think that it’s past reclamation. But I do think that we need to figure out how to share our faith with people.
What is the good news to us as progressive people? What has Jesus done in our lives? Can we talk about the ways in which our service to the world is motivated by our love for God? Can we talk about God’s preferential concern for the poor? Can we be (in the words of my friend Mark Van Steenwyk) cheesy about Jesus again?
Often I hear progressive and liberal folks define their faith solely in the negative: We’re not hateful, we’re not gay bashers, we’re not like “those” Christians, we’re not anti-intellectual, we’re not this, we’re not that. Fine. But what are we? What do we care about? What do we stand for? What do we believe (and can we articulate it)?
Can we not only live our faith authentically but speak about it as well, not in an attempt to be coercive or violent, but in an attempt to share something we love and that brings meaning to our lives?
I’m not ready to cede Christianity to the fundamentalists. But I am ready to start sharing my faith with people. Sharing my love of God and Jesus. I am ready to tell people what God means to me and what being in community has meant to my life. I want to be sharing my small part of experience so that maybe by pooling truth together we can see more of the whole.
I believe that there is good news in the story of Jesus. I believe that there is something sacred about the Bible. I believe that there is beauty in ideas of Jubilee and community. Why wouldn’t we want to share that?
