Leaning Both Ways at Once. Jeffrey A. Conklin-Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ Norwich, the effort was part of the “Seeing it Differently” campaign, offering participants “opportunities for reflective, God-shaped conversations.”2 Such conversations also served an evangelistic purpose, as one of the cathedral clergy explained. To install a Helter Skelter in the cathedral is

playful in its intent but also profoundly missional. It is the Cathedral doing what it has always done—encouraging conversations about God. By its sheer size and grandeur it speaks of the things of God; it points beyond itself. Its sheer presence helps to keep the rumour of God alive and plays its part in passing on the story of Salvation.3

      Needless to say, not all perceived such a missional purpose. Quoted in a local newspaper, a former chaplain to the Queen panned the Norwich slide, saying,

My real objection is that it is professional incompetence. People who are running the cathedral should understand how people are converted [to Christianity]. There is no evidence that people are converted by treating cathedrals as a cultural artefact. You want people who will come to visit because they are interested in Christianity. . . . The idea of luring people into the cathedral to have fun is stupid. . . . It is the McDonaldisation of the church.4

Similar divides can be heard almost annually in North American contexts as the Church nears the beginning of the Lenten season. On Ash Wednesday, several congregations see their clergy stepping outside the Church building in liturgical vestments to offer the imposition of ashes to those who have not (or will not) attend services on that day. Giving “Ashes to Go” to commuters walking by or drawing sooty crosses on the foreheads coming through the Church parking lot Ash Wednesday “drive thru,” these clergy see the Church witnessing to the faith in public spaces, extending the Church’s outreach and, perhaps, encouraging the congregation’s numerical membership growth.5 Others see a failure to sustain liturgical tradition and confused logic equating ashes and evangelism.6

Behind arguments over the propriety of miniature golf inside and the imposition of ashes outside the church building, we should acknowledge that, in one frame, what we are overhearing is an argument about the meaning and faithful practice of evangelism. As one priest commented when considering the cathedral initiatives, “We are faced with a missionary situation of trying to connect people with the transcendent when we know from British social attitudes, people have given up on it.”7 Similar dynamics exist in the United States, where the Pew Research Center suggests that 61 percent of Americans report as either somewhat or non-religious.8 This latter category, the non-religious or “religious ‘nones’” has been steadily growing, particularly in younger generations.9 Paired with research that suggests a general decline in the membership and involvement in American congregations, ecclesial interest in empowering outreach and recruitment seems understandable, if not mandatory.10 In turn, disagreements over the proper shape of that outreach seem inevitable.

What is striking about such reflection is the stark differentiation of judgment at work: one person’s faithful and hopeful evangelistic mission is another’s dismal and sinful ecclesial failure.11 It might come as little surprise that there is a spectrum of different judgments on this question among the various theological traditions in contemporary Christianity. But there is also divergence within individual traditions. Most specifically, within the Wesleyan tradition—which will be at the center of this study—Jack Jackson has drawn attention to three major distinct frameworks adopted in Wesleyan academic understandings of evangelism: proclamation, initiation, and embodiment.12 While complementary, these frameworks differ from one another regarding the scope and the focus of evangelism’s concern, as well as the identity and the agency of the Church in the practice. This constitutes, in Jackson’s words, an “imprecise mosaic of understandings of evangelism.”13 That said, it could be imagined that different positions on the definition of evangelism might lead to different positions regarding the faithful shape of the Church’s outreach: for some, this is constituted in ministry focused on the proclamation of the gospel, for others, on ecclesial practices of formation and initiation, and still for others, on the ethical embodiment of the gospel in diverse expressions and contexts. Still, in spite of shared commitments, there would be enough difference at work to render debate over amusement rides in the sanctuary or ashes in congregational parking lots.

For example, Scott Jones considers similar questions and challenges briefly in his book, The Evangelistic Love of God and Neighbor. Quoting Dana Robert, Jones observes that “fixing upon a balance between contextualization and remaining faithful to the core of the gospel is an ongoing issue in missiology.”14 His own approach to engage this issue displays a distinctively Wesleyan character, grounded in a commitment to the universal love of God for all creation, focused in the gift of the Incarnation. Jones writes, “Since Christ is God put into human flesh, the gospel can be put into other languages and cultural forms.”15 Christians, then, are called to love not only people, but also the cultures within which they live, and so moved by this love, the Church’s practice of evangelism becomes crucially important.

Jones does consider the critique of market-driven evangelism as well as those who champion such techniques for the sake of Church growth.16 While one side calls for the distinctiveness of the Church’s witness and the other for the Church’s adaptation seeking its relevance in every context, Jones asks whether perhaps “both are partially right?”17 To chart a path between their divergent concerns, Jones emphasizes the importance of discipleship, rightly recognizing that the Church is called to faithfulness within a context that is always local. Given this particularity, the practice of discernment inside an account of discipleship becomes even more important, inasmuch as “the determination of context is a complex matter of judgment.”18

Despite this complexity, Jones displays confidence in the possibility of faithful evangelism engaging context when he suggests that the congregation must identify a “particular target population” and then must “love the members of that group as well.”19 The shape of that love certainly informs practices of hospitality and welcome as well as concern for the “physical needs and justice issues in the community.”20 But Jones argues that evangelistic outreach also requires the Church’s willingness to change in the process of becoming more visible to the community. “Christians today must adapt to the dominant modes of communication in a digital age,” Jones suggests.21 Further programming is necessary in congregations to ensure the presence of “indigenous worship,” an “appropriate communications system to invite persons to know Christ,” and a “system of discipleship” to form new Christians.22 Other strategies and tactics Jones names complete a helpful list for congregations seeking to strengthen their evangelistic outreach.23

      On this basis, perhaps Jones would not rule out the possibility of a Helter Skelter in the Cathedral’s nave, just to the extent such an initiative reflects the fruit of discernment of the needs and desires in that particular context. But it is just at this point that I want to draw attention and name a problem for further consideration.

      Beyond these questions relating to the tactical propriety of various innovations and differentiated understandings of evangelism’s ends, I think there is more going on here. These examples of (and debates over the shape of) missional evangelism reveal other questions that lie closer to the heart of the identity and the agency of the Church and of the world where it is located. In other words, what appears to be a question about evangelism is, at a deeper level, a more fundamental question: how shall we understand the differentiation and relationship between the Church and the world?

      While Jones’s suggestions for congregational development are constructive, and while he is right to point to the importance of discipleship as crucial to an account of evangelism, I fear he may understate the tensions inherent in the Church’s navigation of the world in evangelistic mission. How, for example, does discipleship ensure the Church’s balance between faithfulness and relevance? When the Church leans into the world, how far is too far? A miniature golf course or an amusement park ride in the cathedral crosses the line for some, while for others, it represents missional faithfulness. Presumably, discipleship shaping evangelistic mission requires a discerning judgment that determines the Church’s “Yes” and “No,” responding in each context to what СКАЧАТЬ