the dirty word of evangelism

Posted by pggv on March 24, 2009 · 6 Comments 

Evangelism might as well be labeled a four letter word. It has become, in many circles, synonymous with televangelist marketing that seems to care more for the pocketbook than the heart. It had gotten to a point with me that I had begun trying to develop a new vocabulary to talk about the work of evangelism without having to use the word itself. Then, I read Elaine Heath’s The Mystic Way of Evangelism, and it has refocused my thinking about evangelism because it has offered me a way to think about evangelism as primarily God’s work. The thing that needs to change is my perspective or the way I interpret God’s work – or in theology terms – I need a new hermeneutic. I now champion Heath’s understanding of the hermeneutic of love.

Here’s what this means for you and me (all block quoted text is from Heath’s book):

1) We need to understand love as a verb – actively giving and receiving modeled in the Trinity:

Love is God’s meaning, so that every attribute of God must be understood in terms of kenosis – the divine, self-giving love of Father , Son and Holy Spirit . Humans can be whole and fully alove only as we join in with the triune God’s kenotic, salvific mission in this world.”

2) Love then, becomes the defining moment for how we are to see and interact with ALL people:

The hermeneutic of love is grounded in the belief that Jesus really does live in the people around us, that Jesus thirsts in our actual neighbors. Jesus is bound with eternal love to every person I encounter.

3) This means that ministry to people isn’t about (to borrow Rob Bell’s phrase) notches in some spiritual belt, rather it’s about real people and real relationships.

This is the starting point. When I see people that way, everything changes. How I evangelize changes. My ecclesiology changes. Now I see people already being called by the Holy Spirit, already being loved and known by Jesus before I ever meet them. Now I understand that prayer and friendship are the foundation for my relationship with others, in the name of Jesus. With a hermeneutic of love I give myself in prayer and friendship to the people around me not so that I can get something from them, not even a commitment to join my church, but so that I can minister to Jesus in them, Jesus who thirsts.

and 4) It means that the sin and faults that I see in others is nothing compared to the love and transformational power in Christ:

To do this I have to think about what it means for myself and other people to be sinners. I have to re-think sin, what Luther called the soul curved in upon itself, and its relationship to wounds. A hermeneutic of love means that God looks at human sin “with pity and not with blame,” because God sees the complexity of sin and wounds. A hermeneutic of love includes a doctrine of atonement that is non-punitive, meaning Jesus chooses solidarity with us sinners so that he can set us free from sin. When Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed. With the hermeneutic of love I see others’ sin the way Jesus does, not as insurmountable obstacles or permanent stains, but as the consequences of life in a broken world. I see the full power of resurrection for them, before it ever happens. This means I believe in the potential for their healing as well as their forgiveness. No one is beyond the possibility of being made new in Christ. A hermeneutic of love is fully aware of the devastation of sin and evil, yet refuses to give them the last word.

With Elaine Heath’s wisdom, I want to welcome evangelism back to my vocabulary.

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