What a month. Between work, the fall election cycle, and this paper on Evangelism and Social Action, I…well I have not posted anything. This is the longest stretch of time without posting to my website. But I am ready to be back. Over the next week or so I will be posting some of the material from the paper (which must be ready to present by 9:20 am on November 19th—next week!). I have learned a lot, struggled some on how to make it work in an actual paper, and in writing…this to date is the hardest project I have ever undertaken.
At the risk of repeating…I will reopen with the final version of my introduction to my paper, “Wasted Evangelism” (Mark 4): The Task of evaneglism and Social Action Outcomes.”
Introduction
A number of years ago my pastor had a great idea to get people to come to church. One Sunday morning he asked us to list on the 3 x 5 card in our bulletin topics that our friends would like to hear. He was planning a “relevant and practical” sermon series during the evening services. The pastor hoped the topics would interest our non-churched friends if there were some “practical” value to them. This was a no-brainer for me, so without hesitation, I wrote down “workforce development” and “poverty,” topics that would interests my friends. Some weeks later, I asked the pastor if he had seen my 3 x 5 card. He acknowledged he saw my topics and then made this comment, “That’s your area.” For sure, these areas are mine in the sense that I work within the social service world, and in particular, a Community Action Agency, whose mission is to alleviate the causes of poverty and move families toward self-sufficiency. At that moment, I realized I needed to develop my own “theory of evangelism” as it relates to the Christian faith and issues like “workforce development” and “poverty.”
The pastor’s comment was in line with a history of dissonance over the Church’s social responsibilities and how the Bible speaks to issues of poverty. For the last century and a half there has been a rather impassioned debate and divide among evangelicals on these subjects. This dispute plays a major part in George Mardsen’s renowned Fundamentalism and American Culture, originally published in 1980. Perhaps as an outcome of the 1960’s Jesus movement, the 70’s and early 80’s reflected a renewed interest in the subject of Christianity and social responsibility. Through intellectual associations and convening bodies, evangelicals wrestled with the relationship of salvation and evangelism to social responsibilities and the poor.
Christians, today, cannot avoid the renewed attention—in and outside the institutional church—given to issues of poverty and the church’s relationship to socio-economic structures. This interest is everywhere—in the political arena (both among conservatives and liberals), for younger college graduates who ask, “How does your company serve the needs of the community?” when considering job opportunities, and, of course, within the emergent Church community. It is time, again, for the Christian community to wrestle with the relationship between evangelism and social action as it seeks to be both biblical and socially relevant.
Lacking, however, is a theory of evangelism that addresses the Church and its social responsibilities. Although a biblical theology for evangelism deserves to be more fully developed, the scope of this paper will concentrate on the narrative role of Mark’s parable of the Sower who sows the word of the Gospel (Mk 4:3-8; cf. 4:14, 33), which offers a relevant text for defining evangelism that includes the plausibility of social action outcomes. [1]
[1] I will refer to the Mark 4 sower/seed/soil parable (Mk 4:3-8, 14-20) as either the parable of the Sower who sows (ἐξῆλθεν ὁ σπείρων σπεῖραι, 4:3) or the parable of the Sower, acknowledging that whatever parts the soil and seeds play, or their significance, the Sower is the central character. The parable does not begin, “There are seeds a sower sows,” or “There is soil that is sown with seed.” Furthermore, entitling the parable in this way acknowledges my conclusion that the parable is about the ministry of Jesus, reflecting His purpose and the seed which is His Kingdom-teaching (cf. Mk 4:14, 33). This will be further explained in a later post.
The Wasted Evangelism thread 1, I1, II1, II2, II3, III1…
Posted by Chip Anderson at 08:37 AM. Filed under: Wasted Evangelism • "Wasted Evangelism" (Mark 4) paper •
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