Adapted from Tim Chester, Good News to the Poor, IVP, 2004.

EVANGELISM AND SOCIAL INVOLVEMENT: INTRODUCTION

[Editors Note: This is the first instalment of a 5-part series from collective member Tim Chester on the relationship of Evangelism and Social Involvement.  This has been adapted from his book Good News to the Poor, IVP, 2004.  Available in the UK here and in the US here.]

Let me introduce Albert. Albert calls himself a post-evangelical. He says there are many good things about the evangelical church in which he grew up, but he himself has grown out of evangelicalism’s narrowness. Like his postmodern friends, he is wary of truth claims and instead he wants to emphasise symbols and images. This makes him much more comfortable with social involvement than evangelism. Evangelism makes him uneasy because, as he puts it, we are all on a faith journey and he thinks that evangelism among the poor is simply manipulation. His catchphrase is ‘don’t force your truth on others’. Instead we should walk with the poor, care for them and help them on their faith journey while expecting them to enrich our own faith journeys.

Then there is Brian. Brian happily calls himself a conservative evangelical. As far as he is concerned the main task of the church is preaching the gospel. He is regularly involvement in open air preaching and door-to-door visitation. He sees any form of social involvement as a return to the social gospel – a movement at the beginning of the twentieth century which believed the kingdom of God could come in history through Christian social action. He complains about trendy new Christian organisations doing social work and diverting money from traditional missionary agencies. As far as he is concerned, and he is not slow to tell you this, ‘social action is heresy’. In fact, however, he has taken action on abortion and Sunday trading because he sees these as undermining the Christian foundations of the nation.

Meet Catherine. Catherine is unashamedly an evangelical. She believes strongly in the authority of the Bible and is enthusiastic about evangelism – she runs the seekers course in her church. But when people say that the church should focus on preaching her hackles rise. She points out that the Bible has a lot to say about the poor and the need to care for both physical and spiritual needs. She thinks it is unhelpful to say that one thing is more important than another. ‘Physical and spiritual together’ is her motto. She has spent many hours arguing it out with people like Brian in her church. Every time the church discusses reaching its community or spending its missionary funds the argument starts up again.

Finally, let me introduce Douglas. Douglas is the minister of an evangelical church which is popular with students from the nearby university. He is committed to an expository ministry because he believes the word is central to Christian mission and Christian experience. Douglas sees students affected by the relativism of their peers and the postmodernism of their lecturers. He sees them lacking the confidence to share the gospel with their friends and opting for social involvement as a socially acceptable alternative. He fears that people like Albert are leading evangelicals back into liberalism. He acknowledges the validity of Christian social involvement and he is happy for his church to have Tearfund Sunday each year. But he wants to reassert the centrality of the word and the priority of word-centred ministry.

All these examples are based on real people. But, as they say, their names have been changed to protect their identities.

I have introduced you to the four characters above not only to present the issues, but to make an important preliminary observation. Catherine has always discussed these issues with people like Brian. She has spent her life trying to persuade the Brians of this world that social involvement is legitimate. Douglas on the other hand has people like Albert in mind when he thinks about these issues. He has real concerns about the affect that Albert’s ideas are having on young Christians. When Catherine and Douglas come together they appear poles apart. When they talk to each other Catherine thinks she is still arguing with Brian and Douglas thinks he is still arguing with Albert. The debate gets heated and there appears to be no agreement. But I want to suggest that Catherine and Douglas may be much closer to each other than they realise.