Words'nTone

For those who have browsed, googled, or intentionally clicked on to my site, you have noticed that over the past six months I have been making marginal notes (as it were) on the subject of the Gospel of Mark, the definition of evangelism, and the topic of social action. I have read and researched and discussed and thought and rethought and I am finally at the place I can write it all down…in a paper…and hopefully with some clarity. Although I had originally posited a working title for this paper months ago, I have settled—after all the study—on the title, “Wasted Evangelism” (Mark 4): The Task of Evangelism and Social Action Outcomes.

Now, amid the bill-paying I have to do this weekend, doing errands and playing taxi-driver for my teens, even cleaning my room and making sure I spend a little time paying attention to my wife, I will start writing. It is all in my head. Now I have to shake it out—in some thoughtful, albeit in a scholarly style; but, my goal is to make it understandable and somewhat clear, all with the indent on taking stab at developing the beginning of a new theory of evangelism that is based on a narrative definition of evangelism with biblical outcomes.

After reading and rereading the Gospels, especially Mark’s, I have concluded that our understanding and definition of evangelism is based on a mythic interpretation of the Gospel story. By mythic I mean, a story that reinforces our existence, helps us to explain ourselves and then protects against “outsiders” changing us; a story that helps us to be secure in our modern world. We need that kind of story--that kind of gospel story. Myth helps to define us so we feel protected, secure, meaningful despite what happens around us and to us. However, that does not seem to be the case as one reads the Gospel story (according to Mark in this case) with a view of what was in Mark’s mind, world, and culture—religiously and socially, as well as politically and economically. (For those afraid of such interpretive methods—get over it! We apply them ourselves naturally, using our own current socio-economic, constitutionally protected views of religion, politics, and citizenship. I just prefer to use Mark’s for the meaning of the text and ours in applying that meaning.

The Gospel of Mark was not written to help make secure, protect, or sustain an institutional church (and no, I am not emergent or even remotely emerging!). Reflecting the redemptive history of biblical revelation and a framework of God’s action and promises in history, Mark’s Gospel is about God’s kingdom invading public space, i.e., the world arena, and subverting the elemental powers of the world—whether those powers be spiritual/demonic, personal status and place, self-righteousness and guilt, or just plain ungodly personal actions and social structures. Although reflective of each other, the Gospel story in the Gospels is not Pauline or a Letter/Epistle-approach to revelation for the Church; it is story-revelation, a narrative and as such, evangelism should have a narrative-based definition from the text. I will try to offer that.

Equally, I believe our understanding of evangelism should also be outcome-based: we know evangelism is happening by the outcomes we believe should be the result of our proclamation and actions. In other words I believe we need an outcome-driven basis and definition of biblical evangelism.  I don’t find in the Gospel story that just changed lives (“personal conversions”) are the only outcomes relevant to the activity of gospel-narrative evangelism. The reading of Mark suggests that social, political, and economic outcomes related to peoples, systems, structures, and attitudes are fair game as potential outcomes that reflect the presence of the Kingdom and God’s righteousness.

I have reflected on these ideas in many posts and threads over the past few months. I suggest the miracles stories teach us about this subversive evangelism and how it is relevant to defining evangelism. Earlier, I suggested that there might not be a proof-texts for my view of evangelism and social action, but there is a sub-context to hear it in Mark’s narrative of the Gospel. And finally, I suggested that we need to rehear the Beelzubul controversy in Mark 3, for it sets up the reason for the Sower/seed/soil parable and explanation of parables in Mark 4. Understanding “the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit” is prelude to understanding the imagery of the sowing of the word/seed and why Jesus infers that parables are judgment (Mark 4:11-12), not necessarily blessing.

My hope to is to start a better conversation on the topic of evangelism and social action. I will attempt, as my last post said, to show you from the text. If I don’t post much, its because I am choosing to write the paper—because I have to have it done in time to present in November. But I am sure, tidbits of thoughts and quotes will find their way to this site. Thanks for your continued reading.

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