From Escaping Self Idolatry: How Churches of Christ are finding their way into the future, by Tony Branch.
This has been a positive,
feel-good chapter, and I don't think what I'm going to say next
changes this. Some will, though. I'm going to talk about evangelism,
which becomes a different concept when we think of salvation this
way. What if evangelism doesn't just involve getting people into
Heaven, but also involves spreading the Good News in a way that
affects the life of everyone around?
After all, the root of the word
evangelism means 'good news'. Perhaps we should make sure that we
aren't trying to scare people into Heaven. Perhaps we should avoid
spreading a Holy Guilt that shames people into turning to God. Scare
tactic conversions often put down shallow roots. We wonder why we
don't hold on to our converts; perhaps we should think harder about
what we're converting them to.
Salvation isn't about a single
moment that draws a line between Heaven and Hell; it is about the
beginning of a life-long transformation. Salvation is joining in the
Kingdom of God and changing your life in a way that makes you a
full-fledged citizen of the only nation that will last. Salvation is
about living, not only what happens after you die.
Perhaps looking at salvation this
way helps us answer a question that is often asked when the idea that
we should accept people in other churches is introduced. In the
Churches of Christ we have been taught to view everyone that is not
of us as a target, as a mission field. Being part of our group was
thought to be the only way to avoid Hell. So if the idea that the
masses around us are likely going to Heaven takes hold, do we quit
evangelizing?
I would suggest that we should
quit evangelizing the way we've been doing it anyway. We should quit
knocking on doors and asking people if they're sure they're
heaven-bound.
But laying aside the misperception
that we live in an area where everyone claims to be a Christian, this
view of the spreading Kingdom of God gives evangelism a whole new
context, one that highlights the 'good news' roots of the word. Let
the Kingdom of God spread like mustard seed (not the harmless plant
we know, but something like a middle-eastern Kudzu, in the words of
Shane Claiborne (90)) that infuses everything around us and changes
the very nature of what life is. Let us be salt and light, both of
which cannot be present without changing everything they touch.
Let's make the lives of the people
we touch better, more peaceful. Let's stop using guilt as a hammer to
get people to conform to the image we have created. We've spent too
long creating neurotics and depressives (I know from experience.) If
we don't change, we will die. Maybe we should. Maybe what we're doing
in the name of God is actually counter to the truth of who he is.
Perhaps what we should do is die
to ourselves. There's a little something about that in the Bible, I
think.
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