Christian Evangelism As An Influence For Good

When my wife and I first moved to the valley in which we live, we thought to help integrate ourselves into the local community by uniting with a local Christian congregation. The denomination wasn't important and so we commenced a series of Sunday visits to churches in our area.

At the first church we attended, the Pastor included the above sentence as part of the opening of his sermon. His words reflect for me part of the historical proposition of Christian Evangelism: bringing souls to Christ.

Such has also been the substance of modern evangelism going back to old-time revivals in the early 1800's. "Saved" or "having accepted Jesus as your personal savior" has been the most commonly avowed objective of most who have preached the Christian gospel - and remains so today.

The premise elicits a question: Saved from what?

There is an almost unavoidable sense of condescension in the premise itself. It's part of what Bishop Spong calls "institutional power claims by which Christianity has sought to present itself as an exclusive pathway to God."

There is an sense of ennobling that comes with the idea of having "seen the light" and now being included among those charged with making "disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:"

There is also, unfortunately, a hard-to-avoid and especially hard-to-disguise sense of condescension that is communicated by many when an attempt is made to bring a soul whom we consider more lost than we to Christ or to help someone we assume is in darkness to see the same light we have already seen.

There are many successful evangelists who are sensitive to and work hard to avoid a self-portrayal as someone who believes themselves in possession of an exclusive pathway to God. There are, however, many others who cannot disguise a sense of smugness, superiority and condescension and who in fact may not even be aware of their being perceived in that manner.

Is "bringing a soul to Christ" something which Jesus actually taught and expected? It has been said in more ways than one that the teachings of Christ taken literally would mean that Jesus would himself had to have "accepted Jesus as his personal savior." Those who insist that such logic is frivolous open then a larger can of worms by insisting that such a concept doesn't apply to Jesus because Jesus was/is God.

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