Pendulum Swings

A few years ago, Ajith Fernando came to our church and spent the weekend teaching and preaching and sharing the Scriptures with us. I was blessed and encouraged to meet him and to learn from him. Shortly after that, I had the joy of going through his book, Jesus Driven Ministry, with three of the interns from our church. What a wonderful book for those in ministry! I would highly recommend it.

More recently, Ajith has just written a wonderfully balanced and insightful article on some of the "pendulum swings" we find in evangelicalism. Most notably, the recent trend toward social justice--often at the expense of proclaiming the gospel with words.

Ajith writes:

But lately some disconcerting trends—more course corrections, if you will—have left me feeling uneasy. I hear evangelicals talking a lot about justice and kingdom values but not proclaiming the gospel to those of other faiths and winning them for Christ. Of course, if someone asks them about Christianity, they will explain the gospel. Thus, some people will be converted to Christ through their witness.

But that is a woefully inadequate strategy. Most of the billions of people in the world who do not know Christ will not come and ask us. We need to take the initiative to go to them.

I'll admit that about 8 years ago, as I was just finishing up seminary, I was really excited about the renewal of interest in matters of social justice, AIDS advocacy, etc. It's still a good thing for the church to be involved in caring for the outcasts, the fatherless, and bringing the mercy and love of God to people in physical, tangible ways. But more and more it seems like the church is following the culture on all this--and culturally it's hip and cool to get involved and make a difference...even American Idol does it!

Ajith makes a great point about all of this:

However, we must remember that today our society has accepted AIDS ministry and social development as attractive avenues of service. Evangelism will never have that attraction. Those wanting to follow Christ in seeking and saving the lost will always be despised for their supposed arrogance.

While it may be cool in our culture to end poverty and wear clothes to help fight AIDS or buy a CD to plant a tree--it's not cool to tell people that they need Jesus and he is their only hope of escaping the wrath of God.

People don't usually like to hear that they are sinners and that their greatest need in life is not food, clothing, or shelter, but forgiveness and mercy.

Evangelism isn't popular. And it probably never will be.

Again, Ajith makes a great point about the priority of evangelism, while retaining a holistic approach:

Yes, we are called to be holistic. But part of holistic Christianity surely is the statement of Christ that all earthly gain is worthless if a person loses his life to eternal destruction. The stark fact of lostness places before us the urgency of evangelism. No, such thinking is not common in some evangelical circles today. A theological faculty member of a university in Europe held a seminar a few years ago to discuss one of my books. One of the presenters, an evangelical scholar, faulted me for using the supposedly confusing term "lostness" when referring to those who do not believe in Christ.

As for me, I will do all I can to encourage people to live the Christian life in society. But I will also follow Christ's example in placing before Christians the fact of eternal damnation and the glory of eternal salvation.

Amen, brother! There really is a priority here. Why? Because this life is really just a prelude to the real deal--eternity. In the words of Christ: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?" (Matt. 16:26).

We can give people everything the world has to offer, but who can give them eternal life?