“All right lads. I know there is not a faint heart among you. I know you are as anxious as I am to get into close action. Now we must bring him right up beside us before we spring this trap. That will test our nerve and discipline will count just as much as courage. The Acheron is a hard nut to crack; more than twice our guns and more than twice our numbers. And they will sell their lives dearly. They mean to take us as a prize and we’re worth more to them undamaged. Their greed will be their downfall. England is under threat of invasion and though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home. This ship is England” (Captain Jack Aubrey, HMS Surprise, in the film, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).
When I am researching a subject, whether it be for a grant, a paper on workforce development, or some biblical study or exegesis of a text, I pay attention to everything—even commercials, billboards, side comments by people at a nearby table at a restaurant, the news, even things my kids say and do. I couldn’t help but be listening when I was watching one of my favorite movies, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I am in the midst of studying and researching and thinking about Mark 4, parables, evangelism, and social action, so I am keen on everything around me to inform me and give me insight. I try not to be too allegorical on these matters, but I did find a rather poignant speech by Captain Jack Aubrey in the film rather insightful, relevant, and stimulating in regard to my thinking on evangelism and the kingdom of God. He was giving his crew a courage-motivating speech, not unlike George Washington’s “give me one more month” speech at the end of the revolutionary war. I quote the scene above. (The link will let you in on the scene.) I found it, well, rather relevant to my research, actually.
Probably now that I have given the context of my juxtaposing of research on evangelism and the Captain’s words (above), the relevance and parallel is obvious. But really, it is very obvious. Like the men on board the Surprise, serving His Majesty the King of England, so, too, are we, Christians, aboard the Lord’s ship, the HMS The Church. (Okay…that’s a little much, but you get the idea.) We, too, are on the far side of the world, far away from God’s heavenly throne. But it is our home, the church; this ship, it is heaven. I was struck far beyond the obvious however.
Our evangelism as it presently stands as mere proclamation keeps us from truly engaging the community around us—and from a comfortable distance as well for many, I might add. However, we need to get into “close action” with the world around us, and this certainly will “test our nerve” and, Captain Jack couldn’t have been more dead on when he said to his men, “discipline will count just as much as courage.” We can protest the world, stand bold as spiritual heroes all we want, be separatists, but it will take discipline, focus, intention to allow God’s reign to work its mystery through us in the world around us. This is one reason I find proclamation-evangelism as only one component (and way too safe a component) of evangelism, and not ultimately sufficient in accomplishing the task of the church. On the far side of the world here, we must be involved with social action, which engages the community (gets us into close action). Evangelism as proclamation allows for two potential outcomes, one private and one public. Proclamation-evangelism seeks to win a person to Christ (which is a good thing), but since we make no demands on the grace of salvation, the potential public outcome is only a secondary “nicety.” This is how many think society is to change—by individual conversions resulting in better, more moral, living. But it is not required as a condition for salvation, so the public outcome is only secondary, a potential by-product.
However, opening ourselves up to the idea that social action can be evangelism allows us to fulfill the actual outcome of the presence of God’s reign—namely, seeking to apply God’s righteousness “on the far side of the world” (as it were). Social action that seeks to make real God’s righteousness and dominion in the very structures and systems of relationships around us (that is within the socio-economic public realm) is evangelism—spreading the goodness of the kingdom of God. It is truly asking and meaning the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is “close action.” This is bringing ourselves “right up beside” those in the world. But social action “will test our nerve and discipline will count as much as courage.” May there be not one faint heart among us.
Posted by Chip Anderson at 10:27 AM. Filed under: In the Margins • Church Growth, Evangelism • Wasted Evangelism • Social Action •
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