Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Overcoming one-sided Christianity

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Matt Stone

2008-04-10

Early on in my Christian walk I had the privilege of hearing Ron Sider speak on evangelism and social action at a TEAR conference in Sydney. I was seeking a more holistic approach to Christianity and found myself drawn to this guy who was prophetically calling for exactly that. The worship after was amongst the most powerful I have ever experienced and I have been a TEAR supporter and advocate of holistic Christian mission ever since.

The following excerpt is from a magazine article by Ron Sider entitled, “Overcoming One Sided Christianity: Combining Evangelism and Social Action” and, being based on his book “Evangelism and Social Action” which was later renamed as “Good News and Good Works”, it covers much the same ground. I will let the story speak for itself:

You know, I don’t really understand how Christian people who claim to worship the eternal Word become flesh, the perfect combination of Word and Deed, have pulled apart Word and Deed in the 20th century. But we did. We had some congregations that were only concerned about evangelism and others concerned only about social action.

In 1979 I went to a conference in South Africa and later talked for three hours with a young man. He said he was burning out. I wasn’t surprised: He was a full-time activist against apartheid and a full-time university student. But then he said, “God told me that if I came to this conference I would learn something about his Son.”

I had no time to lose. I said, “Look, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. I believe he rose on the third day.” He said, “I believe all that.” But then he blurted out, “I don’t want to be like these white Christians here. They sing about heaven…and they don’t want to hear about justice until heaven.” He thought that coming to Jesus would weaken his struggle against apartheid. I told him Jesus would strengthen that—He doesn’t want to take it away.

I didn’t want to be pushy (actually, 99.9 percent of the time Mennonites are hesitant), but suggested he might want to pray. He said, “Let’s do that.” He prayed a beautiful prayer. He confessed his sins and accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. I prayed after him to strengthen him. After that I was so excited that for the first 10 minutes all I could do was walk around the room, singing praises to the Lord.

It’s a wonderful moment in my life, but notice what it says about divisions in churches. Those white evangelicals had invited him to accept the Lord, likely ad nauseam, but he couldn’t hear them because they didn’t care about justice.

Just two years later I had the privilege to speak at the thirtieth anniversary of the National Council of Churches in the U.S. There were many seminars on peace and justice, but I looked for seminars on evangelism, church planting and know how many there were? Absolutely zero. Not a single one. Those are two examples of ghastly one-sidedness.

I want that one-sidedness to end. I think it’s unfaithful to Jesus. I don’t think it works. I believe with all of my heart that genuine biblical faith, the true biblical Christ, is exactly what the world needs. Loving the whole person the way the gospels tell us Jesus did would radically transform our world.

I want to talk about six biblical foundations that will help us put together Word and Deed, put together evangelism and social action. I want to talk about sin, the nature of the person, the gospel, salvation, who Jesus is, and eschatology.

If you want to continue reading the article just click here. The question I want to ask though is, does that strike you as true, and if so, why is there still so much of a split evident within the Western church? Why are justice advocates so reticent to proclaim the gospel? Why are evangelicals so reticent to demonstrate justice? How might this change?

This post is part of a Christian synchroblog on social justice. If you’d like to check out some other social justice posts see:

Phil Wyman at Square No More
Mike Bursell at Mike’s Musings
Bryan Riley at at Charis Shalom
Steve Hayes at Notes from the Underground
Reba Baskett at In Reba’s World
Prof Carlos Z. with Ramblings from a Sociologist
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations
Cindy Harvey at Tracking the Edge
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Sonja Andrews at Calacirian
Lainie Petersen at Headspace
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill
KW Leslie: Shine: not let it shine
Stephanie Moulton at Faith and the Environment Collide

Tags Evangelism, Justice

15 responses to “Overcoming one-sided Christianity”

Isaiah

2008-04-10

I think there’s a deep fear in orthodox protestant Christian circles that somehow doing Good is earning your salvation. Crazy as that sounds it’s true. And then in liberal circles there is a deep fear of being exclusivist “Jesus is the ONLY way” type stuff. So thet don’t want to talk about a gospel or sharing a gospel that might put them at odds with others. The irony is faith without deed is dead (The Book of James), but it is only through God’s grace that there is deed anyway.

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Benjamin Sternke

2008-04-10

Isaiah makes some great points, and I think he’s right: it’s fear of being perceived in a certain way that keeps the dichotomy in place, even though evangelicals, for example, have a rich heritage of work on justice issues.
There are a few bright spots, though. I see the work of N.T. Wright doing some bridge-building in these areas.

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ben’s blog

2008-04-10

Why did evangelism and social action get divorced?

I’ve wondered about this before, but saw a blog post today that caught my eye that tells the story of a South African university student and apartheid activist in 1979 who wants to become a Christian, but because of the examples he’s seen, worries that…

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Isaiah

2008-04-10

William Wilburforce and the Salvation Army are two good examples of evangelicals and social justice.

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Matt Stone

2008-04-11

Yes Isaiah, I do sense that’s a big part of it. And I agree there are deep ironies to these fears. On the liberal side the irony is that, taken to an extreme, relativism ultimately undermines the concept of justice. On the conservative side the irony is that, taken to an extreme, the goodness of the good news evaporates if it has no tangible consequences.

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Steve Hayes

2008-04-15

I was asking that question in the 1960s, and then 40 years ago I read For the life of the world by Alexander Schmemann, which answered it for me, and led me to Orthodox Christianity.
One reason for the dichotomy in Western Christianity is the substitutionary theory of the atonement, which began to dominate the West in the 11th century. It stressed the idea that Jesus came and died to appease an angry God rather than that he battled the forces of evil, bound the strong man, and established a liberated zone in the midst of enemy-occupied territory.
That changes the content of the good news, the “evangel” of evangelism.

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Matt Stone

2008-04-16

It should be no surprise to hear then that I am much more of a Christus Victor” guy then.
Not that I reject substitutionary atonement, I do seeing it as having some relevance as legal metaphors are used in the Bible after all. But I just see it ass one metaphor amongst many and, in a postmodern world, not necessarily the best one to lead with.
I am currently reading “Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement” by Mark D. Baker which is a Protestant take on how to pursue a broader approach.

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Stephanie

2008-04-17

I don’t want to get way out of my league here, so I’ll just say that I don’t know the answer to the question, other than to say that the Church doesn’t really teach us to be holistic in our faith.
Maybe we forget that the purpose of the Good News is to set the captives free, and that’s why we separate the two.

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Alan Knox

2008-04-17

I think there was a change from faith as a way of life to faith as a mental exercise. Since “the way of life” of a Christian disciple included social action, when that “way of life” was changed to “learn what I teach”, social action began to disappear.
-Alan

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Matt Stone

2008-04-17

Alan, that may explain the split in terms of conservative de-emphasis of social justice but I’m not so sure it explains the split in terms of liberal de-emphasis of personal evangelism.
I’d agree with Stephanie that holistic understanding of faith are in short supply and to me that suggests we need to critically reflect on both extremes towards an understanding that addresses both.

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Kieran Conroy

2008-04-18

Also Steve, I would love to hear more of your journey to the Orthodox path and Christus Victor. It would be a big help to folks like me who seek to bring it back to the Western Churches in contemporary voices.

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Kieran Conroy

2008-04-18

Weird this 1st post got lost?
Hi Matt; I’m a little new here, a Harvard Divinity seminarian attending Phil’s church for a few months now. If you wouldn’t mind adding me, I’m on his list, but it sorta got registered late.
I’m so excited by your post- I’ve spent this past semester studing HOW central mission is right now, for so many issues, because in many ways its been at the heart of the Christian life since the start.
But what does that mean, coming as I do from one of those more liberal-leaning justice concerned perspectives? I’d add to that a dialoging perspective, because that’s a huge part of what I do too, and which makes mission more difficult. How am I do even talk about evangelizing people when I know firsthand, from most of my friends of how painful evangelism has been to them? And when I, as a Catholic, Methodist and person deepened in my own faith by an encoutner with other don’t see things as black and white. (I don’t, mind you, see them as invsible- ie total relativism. But I do see a complexity and humility- shades of grey, which I must be true to as I try to follow Jesus). That’s made “mission” a scary word to me, for a long time, but one I keep coming back to.
My 2 cents, for what its worth, as that liberal (leaning, I consider myself more of a moderate, and am Catholic AND Methodist, for what its worth :)) voice.
There is the historical divorce, from the late 1800’s as historical criticism and the results of the Enlightenment started casting questions on the Bible, even the Gospels, and some pushed for Jesus to be a practical teacher for making the world a better place, since many found the next world less credible. There were of course Barthian and a range of other conservative counter-reactions to this, which I’d say deepened the other extreme.
In more recent times though, things are different. My generation’s more liberal perspective is, to quote Jesus Scholar Marcus Borg “willing to believe in Heaven again, but still DEEPLY concerned about what happens here on earth.” That’s about where I fall, and agree there are deep dialogs that need to happen.
For me, mission is hard because, even if I believed my religion was meant to replace all, seeing all the DEEP suffering tied to agressive, exclusive views of spreading salvation (the Jewish and Native American Holocausts being just two of the starkest) raises serious problems. (Not to mention the whole range of colonial and feminist critiques in between). It raises not simply practical (how can Christians, esspecially western Christians even expect people to listen after all we’ve done!), but theological questions too.
If so much violence was committed in Christ’s name, is there not also something wrong with our theology? What message are we even meant to share, if the one offered for the past thousand years has allowed so much harm?
This falls, for me on two spectrums:
1) Difficulties with exclusive salvation/how we handle other religions. I do have deep issues here. As one with years of dialog and non-Christian friends, who indeed IS Christian because of God’s wider grace which, in fact the Catholic Church has upheld for decades now, I have issues with an exclusive salvation. Unlike some Christians (ie- “pluralists/all roads lead to heaven/we’re all worshipping the same thing”- for the record I don’t see myself in any “box” of catagory here), I don’t think that means no need to share Jesus’ message. I think Jesus’ message has deep implications for this AND the next world… but as a liberal/moderate “rediscovering mission,” I’m struggling with how to be true to my whole faith journey.
2) Inherant tensions, esspecially in Anselmian violent atonement theories. This is an issue you and Steve Hays raised, recovering Christus Victor. Have your read the works of Denny Weaver? (“Nonviolent atonment”). He brings a profound Mennonite/nonviolence voice to the dialog which is rocking my world right now- and I would love to get your thoughts on it. Also directly addresses Anselm’s issues with bargaining with the Devil that led to his rejection of Christus Victor. For me, Christus Victor does have potential to unite Christians- Jesus died to free all Creation from sin, period. That includes individual/personal sin, but the sins, evils and unjust systems harming societies, ecologies and all Creation. It combines justice, salvation, healing and theodicy, all into one crazy package. It rocks my world and, for a 3rd point, offers me hope of making some sense of the 1st.
3) Could postmodern restorations of Christus Victor be brought into dialog with views of other religions? For me a non-violent, liberative God is less likely to punish people for eternity just because they found the “wrong religion,” and work in broader, more complex ways. That has pretty much been my lifelong experience of God, and running smack into hard-core Evangelicals views in college broke me, and nearly my faith. Keeping Christus Victor, Anselm/substitution (not discarding it, as you advise), theologies of religions, AND social justice in dialog could do crazy good things for the church.
That’s where I am right now… Sorry for the long and rambling post, and hope this helps you see what at least some mainline/progressive Catholi-Emergents are wrestling with. 🙂

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Kieran Conroy

2008-04-18

Another great quote, from Mark Heim at the conference I went to with him and Denny Weaver on “Nonviolent Atonement,” at Andover Newton Theo Seminary.
He was talking about the ironic tensions between those embracing Anselmian substitution and struggling for non-violent approaches true to Jesus’ ethics, but I think it mirrors the conservative/liberal, spiritual salvation/temporal justice divide.
Its basically paraphrased:
“On one side, people embrace substitutionary atonement, but admit some people twist or misuse it to justify violence. On the other side, Christians rejecting it must nevertheless admit it offers saving experiences of grace and transformations to many people.”
I think, on some level my “wider view of sin” speaks to this. Some people (or maybe most of us, at diffrent points in life) need to be deeply convicted of their own sinfulness, of how trapped they are in order to reach for Christ’s liberating grace. On the other hand, there are many, like myself who grew up as part of God’s family, am aware of sin but have a more positive view of my personal, lifelong relationship with God. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had moments of feeling overwelmed or convicted by sin, but for me that grace seemed always there for me too. My teenage “born again” experience, while involving a mature acceptance of Jesus’ salvation was most about wanting to firmly commit my life and trust to him, in a more mature way.
I think this echoes the fact that while we all sin, and are all trapped in that system, we experience it in different ways. Some might have a greater sense of personal sin, or even be trapped in an addiction requiring a VERY powerful conversion experience to free them. But some of us feel more troubled by the terrible sufferings caused by sin in the wider world, sufferings reflected in our own weaknesses, but which we feel more called to free people from. I think God needs both views, both expressions of the Gospel to a hurting world.

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Matt Stone

2008-04-18

Kieran
Cool, I like your questions here.
First things first, in charting a way back to a more holistic Christianity from the liberal side, I would suggest, revisit the Biblical foundations for evangelism and apologetics, particularly the ones that pertain to witnessing and prophesying amongst Gentiles rather than Jews.
For instance, compare Paul’s approach amongst the Pagans in Athens (Acts 17) to Peter’s approach amongst the Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 2). Note that whilst there is a strong emphasis on the resurrection as the climax of God’s agenda in both cases, there is a significant variance in what each apostle takes as the natural starting point for the story. Amongst hard core Pagans Paul starts with the creation, amongst faithful Jews Peter starts with the covenant, if you work through the rest of scripture (e.g. Jonah vs. Isaiah) you will see similar flexibility manifested elsewhere. It suggests that starting where people are at is an important witnessing principle, an important Biblical principle. From this you may develope some criteria for sorting between helpful approaches to evangelism that truly can be good news to people and unhelpful approaches to evangelism that you are rightly suspicious of. In all things I try to let myself be guided by 1 Peter 3:15:
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect”
Now, think about what this might suggest for witnessing amongst contemporary Neo-Pagans who do not acknowledge the authority of scripture, in comparison to witnessing amongst lapsed Christians who do. Do we start with Bible bashing? Of course not. We listen for the movement of the Spirit within their own experience and begin with what they already know before moving into the unknown.
As for you other comments, must come back to that later as I am time pressed just now, but here are a few brief comments in response. Have you read the book Borg and N T Wright co-wrote? Yes, the Mennonites are amongst my many influences, particularly Yoder. Be mindful that the “How should we think about other religions” question is much, much bigger than the soteriological question of who is a Christian and that the popular exclusivist / inclusivist / pluralist debate is grounded in assumptions that are themselves questionable.
Back to this later

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Kieran Conroy

2008-04-21

Matt,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I appreciated your insights into Paul’s “starting points,” I think its important to a wide range of dialog and evangelism, however one might feel called to engage with others. Having just spent a moving weekend getting to know an intertribal community that celebrates indigenous American practices, I’d have to say the shared baseline for each of us was the Creator, and worshiping in the company of all Creation. Native American traditions are, imho unique in their insistence in including all your fellow beings, of all legged/winged/leafed varieties in the circle as you offer praise, thanksgiving and petitions to the Creator. The most crowded “church” imaginable! It was very beautiful, made me think of the meanings of incarnation and sacrament with new eyes.
I don’t feel in any way called to “convert” Native peoples who, as I share on my blog have good reason to be as touchy about this as the Jews following their Holocaust (indeed, I just heard first-hand accounts of how this cultural and religious loss/pain continues to be experienced in people’s lives). I very much see myself as a dialoger who witnesses as a peaceful and loving presence of Christ in the midst of non-Christians, and spends more time listening than talking- but I think that, to be a faithful dialoger I need to talk back, in turn to those of my community who feel called to more formal proclamation. I think its all mission, of a sort, but that perhaps the role of “ambassadorial dialog” can help the church as a whole be more sensitive, and attentive to the realities and concerns of people of other faiths.
I’m actually half-way through the Wright/Borg book, and loving it. Its so accessible and honest about the crucial points of debate/discussion and their impact on both scholarship and practiced faith in the church today.
I would love to hear more of your thoughts on the soteriological question, and what assumptions you are pondering. I’m versed enough in the models to know they’re imperfect too, but would love to get your take on matters.

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