Evangelism and the Character of Christian Theology
Stephen K. Pickard
Introduction
Evangelism and theology have not proved to be very compatible partners, at least in the modern period of the Christian tradition. The relationship perhaps has more the character of a stormy courtship ending in separation rather than a well-established marriage. The nature of their partnership was nicely symbolized in the August 1960 meeting between Billy Graham and Karl Barth — arguably the two greatest figures to evangelism and theology respectively in the twentieth century. The Barthian interpretation of the meeting is recorded by Barth’s biographer, Eberhard Busch:
[Barth’s] son Markus brought them together in the Valais. However, this meeting was also a friendly one. “He’s a ‘jolly good fellow,’ with whom one can talk easily and openly, one has the impression that he is even capable of listening, which is not always the case with such trumpeters of the gospel.” Two weeks later Barth had the same good impression after a second meeting with Graham, this time at home in Basel. But, “it was very different when — we went to hear him let loose in the St. Jacob stadium that same evening and witnessed his influence on the masses. I was quite horrified. He acted like a madman and what he presented was certainly not the gospel.… It was the gospel at gunpoint.… He preached the law, not a message to make one happy. He wanted to terrify people. Threats — they always make an impression. People would much rather be terrified than be pleased. The more one heats up hell for them, the more they come running.” But even this success did not justify such preaching. It was illegitimate to make the gospel law or to “push” it like an article for sale.… We must leave the good God freedom to do his own work.1
It would, of course, be interesting to hear Graham’s side of the meetings and his version of what happened at the St. Jacob stadium. At any rate the story symbolizes something of the growing rift between theology and evangelism in the modern period.2 Lamenting the steady decline in the theological competence of evangelists over the generations and the problems associated with much modern mass evangelism, William Abraham concludes that “it is not surprising if theologians prefer to pass by on the other side and leave the whole mess to whatever Samaritan may have mercy upon it.”3 Of course, given the fortunes of theology in the wake of critical Enlightenment thought, evangelists may well have felt justified in adopting a similar strategy in regard to modern theology.
Clearly there is a need for a fresh approach in which is developed “a fresh universe of discourse that will open up a critical conversation on the complex issues that relate to evangelism.”4 However, what this fresh approach might entail remains as yet undetermined. At one level there does not seem to be any shortage of published material on evangelism as such, particularly from the late 1960s. Generally speaking much of this material is preoccupied with questions of biblical foundations and principles, discussions concerned
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with apologetics and the developing of effective programs for evangelism.5 In more recent material greater attention to questions of culture and context can be discerned.6
Two dominant strands run through the material. One strand is associated with a strong focus on verbal proclamation and is characteristic of Protestant evangelicalism.7 The other strand has a strong emphasis on communicating the gospel through social action. This perspective has traditionally been an important plank in the World Council of Churches’ understanding of evangelism.8 However, these two strands are increasingly difficult to disentangle, if recent statements from the Lausanne Congress and the WCC are to be taken with the seriousness they deserve.9 It seems that with the approach of the end of the second millennium the evangelism spectrum is becoming increasingly complex and controversial. The rise of Pentecostalism in the twentieth century has played no small part in this emerging diversity.10 Important statements from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches have enriched and stimulated discussion of evangelism.11 Consequently the old boundaries are not so easy to maintain. Evangelism is moving in new directions. What is required is a fresh willingness to listen and learn from each other, particularly those who see things differently from us but with whom is shared a common bond in communicating the mystery of the gospel. But to what extent do evangelists and theologians listen and learn from each other?
Evangelism and Theology: A Tale of Two Ships
One thing absent from the wealth of material on evangelism is any well-developed contemporary theology of evangelism that might inform the church’s practice of it.12
In this respect, at least, the old boundaries between evangelism and theology are still firmly in place. It might be said that the good ship Evangelism has a lot of crew members, all of course busy at important tasks. But the ship is short of theological fuel. This fact remains hidden, at least to the upper-deck crew members. They do not know there is a shortage of fuel; they are not even aware that fuel of that kind is necessary. When they are not asleep, you can see them on deck painting, polishing, rearranging, and reorganizing.
Meanwhile, down in the engine room are to be found the engineers. They meet regularly — i.e., have conferences — to discuss the machinery of the ship. The question of fuel is an important topic on the agenda below deck. The problem is that the fuel supplied in the past no longer provides the energy the ship requires. What of course is desperately needed is new fuel, but where is it to come from?
So the good ship Evangelism is afloat and its crew are highly active, though if you look closely some appear a little worn. The really pressing issues about where the ship is headed, or rather how it is managing to head in a number of different directions, remain high on the agenda. But alas, these matters do not seem to be any clearer for the many rounds of discussions held among engineers with occasional input from the above-deck crew. In fact, some crew members and a couple of engineers became so frustrated that they lowered a life-
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raft and quietly paddled off to a desert island where they could learn again about building ships, ocean currents, and how to tread water over 70,000 fathoms.
One day the crew on deck of the good ship Evangelism noticed a very large ship passing by, the Charismatic Queen. The top decks seemed filled with people throwing streamers, waving and beckoning the Evangelism crew to join them. It looked so inviting, even if, on closer inspection, the ship appeared to be going around in ever decreasing circles.
It is as well to note that there are other ships sailing upon this ecclesial ocean. The most impressive of these are the bulk oil tankers; in particular the 500,000-ton bulk carrier Theological Tradition. Oddly enough, when you inspect the various containers on such carriers you cannot find any that would seem, on first inspection at least, to provide the right kind of high-octane fuel required for the good ship Evangelism. This, at least, was the opinion of some of the crew of the Evangelism who, upon sighting the bulk carrier Theological Tradition (a rare occurrence), rowed over to seek help with their fuel problem. Perhaps not surprisingly, the crew were not well received.
Captain Dogmatic was clearly embarrassed at the prospect of having to welcome the Evangelism crew. Following a clumsy and rather condescending greeting, the crew were allowed to sniff around. But not being at all sure of what they were looking for, they soon became discouraged and left. The captain and crew of the tanker had tried to tell them that such carriers no longer serviced evangelism-class ships. In fact, it soon became apparent in the short exchange between the two crews that the tanker crew were no longer certain whom they supplied with fuel. But they were deeply committed to steaming around the ecclesial ocean, if only to meet up with other such tankers for cordial exchanges and perhaps the trade of a container or two.
To be truthful, the tanker fleet were not in good shape. More ominously, there were moves afloat to remove the enormous tanker fleet to a safe harbor just off Cape Irrelevant. This would solve the immediate problem of oil spills, which did nobody any good. In the last few decades a number of dangerous ones had occurred, which had caused a great deal of damage to the evangelism-class ships. As a result the tanker Bultmann had already been towed away to join the Patristic Fleet. The tanker Continental Calvin and alas, the giant tanker Judicious Hooker, much beloved of the tribe Anglicanus Classicus, had met a similar fate. Needless to say, the H.M.S. Higher Criticism had long since rusted.
Exploring the Connections: The Priority of Communication
Evangelism and theology often seem poles apart, unable and unwilling to come close, let alone join forces. The fear is loss of purity, of being contaminated by the other. Theology is frightened that in the interchange it will forfeit its academic and scholarly reputation. Evangelism might find itself being led up a dead end. But evangelism and theology need each other and — more important — their life-source is a shared one. The church’s practice of evangelism and theology arises out of its life in Christ. The one-in-Christ bond is the
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presupposition for all ecclesial communication. The argument that follows presupposes an interwovenness between evangelism and
theology. What of course is critical is to clarify how the interdependence of evangelism and theology, which arises out their common life in Christ, actually works. This points to the importance of clarifying some of the interconnections between evangelism and theology in the church, for it is in the process of exploring the interconnections that a more adequate understanding of evangelism and theology can emerge. For this reason tight definitions are inappropriate at this stage. However, what is important is that evangelism and theology are understood to belong to the more general theme of communication. In particular it is the dynamics of communication as it relates to evangelism and theology that emerges as critical. The essay is thus about the character of communication that is “worded.” From another point of view what is offered here is a rather extended comment on Ephesians 6:19 — “And in particular pray for me that utterance may be given to me as I open my mouth that I may boldly and freely make known the mystery of the gospel.”
The Communicative Life
Communications is a massive area in modern life and thought. There is good reason for this: “every act, every pause, every movement in living and social systems is also a message; silence is communication; short of death it is impossible for an organism or a person not to communicate.”13
It would seem that communication is both a condition of and essential to our humanity. Communication has been referred to as “the transmission of energy in a form.”14 This is a highly compressed definition that needs more time than can be given here. It is clear from this definition, however, that communication cannot be restricted to language. All language is communication but very little communication is language.15
Touch is a rich medium for communication. Visual communication is perhaps the richest of all. A traditional Chinese proverb states: “One hundred tellings are not as good as one seeing.”16 It is true that we often fail to recognize the importance and influence of other modes of communication, especially those associated with popular culture. It is also true that
since the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, language has been commonly identified with “thought” or “reason” and assumed to be more important or more significant than other modes of communication, such as the environment of non-verbal communication that makes thought and language possible.17
However, it is also the case that “there is no communication system between animals, insects, or computers that remotely approaches the complexity, flexibility, and capacities of language.”18
We are more intimately involved in communication through language than in any other activity besides love and work — and both of these are modes of communication that usually
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require language. Communication is thus a general category within which language appears as a special case. An important conclusion from these brief and unsurprising comments is that language is not simply a means to another end, an instrument for other purposes. Rather, language is a medium through which the communicative life occurs. In this sense it is constitutive of human life. Human social life is formed and shaped through language. As such, language is a part of human reality rather than a copy or misrepresentation of it.19
Communication and Language: Some Ecclesiological Perspectives
These general remarks about communication and language are important in considering evangelism and theology in the church. Both these themes can be treated as tasks of the church. However, as a particular task of the church, communication can be done well or poorly. What then becomes important is the improvement of communication. This involves strengthening techniques and devising more appropriate strategies. In this context those interested in evangelism might allude to the character of God’s communication and spend a good deal of energy analyzing the strategies and principles that informed Jesus’ evangelism.20 This is all well and good but it does not push the discussion very far. The main problem is that in this context communication is quickly reduced to a question of method, strategy, and style. Communication is here what the church does to and for others who are unchurched. It is what the church does to achieve another end. Language is reduced to an “instrumentalist” function. A lot of modern evangelism operates within this instrumentalist framework. Evangelism in this context can too easily operate in a “tool-like” way, and become excessively manipulative.
Not surprisingly, some people find this pragmatic approach reductive and distortive of the gospel. There is, it is claimed, more to the task of communication than simply “wording truths,” as if the gospel could be reduced to the delivery of certain information in a neat and pure form. Accordingly, advocates of the alternative view argue that good communication involves a self-giving which is more than merely information requiring a response. Rather, communication has the character of an open exchange in which the distance between hearer and speaker is bridged in a fulsome way which includes but goes beyond mere words. This approach has its ecclesiastical form in the history of the World Council of Churches, with its stress on social action as a necessary part of spreading the good news.
What is easily overlooked is that both the above approaches see communication as a task to be performed by the church. In other words both end up operating with an instrumentalist view of communication whether it is in evangelism through word and/or deed. This does not have to be the case but it often is.
Communication moves to a different level when it is no longer considered as simply one task among many but rather becomes a way of understanding the whole life of the church. Communication is here no longer one church practice but concerns its very existence. The focus is the church as a communicative system. What is important in this view is the quality
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of the interactions occurring between texts, traditions, persons, and institutions. This approach can illuminate how communicative life is disturbed or disrupted by ideological elements. This perspective on communications can offer important insights into the structuring and activities of ecclesial life. It can provide the basis for an understanding of the church as a “sacrament of non-dominative communication.”21
These comments link up with the earlier discussion of language and communication as constitutive of human community. Communication is not something the church does, but something it is. The critical factor is the quality of the church’s communicative life. It is of high quality to the extent that it mirrors the character of God. This means it is called to be a sacrament of non-dominative communication. This essential note of the church ought ideally to be present in all its communicative tasks. Thus the wording of truth in evangelism and theological discourse ought to occur in a non-dominative way. Of course, to speak about non-dominative communication is to speak about power relations. To communicate through language is to be implicitly involved in certain power relations. The apostle Paul was acutely aware of this: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:2-5). If then, we are to be communicators of the gospel, the content and form of our language ought to be informed by the non-dominative ideal, through which we, as well as others, are continually surprised that through weakness God’s power is manifest.
A question arises as to how this ideal feature of the church’s communicative life might be reflected in the evangelistic and theological tasks of the church. Quite clearly at this level the concern is primarily with communication through language, with “wording” the truth of God. This is the domain of logos communication. There is a long tradition in Christianity of “wording” truth. It has to do with the character of God whose word is creative of light and life, whose word takes the form of Torah for the people of Israel, whose word is spoken by the prophets. Logos reality comes to its most concentrated form in Jesus Christ: “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God … and the word became flesh and dwelt among us,” as it is written in the prologue of St. John’s Gospel. It is the word of God that is preached in the early church and that expands (Acts 6:7; 12:24). The subsequent Christian theological tradition is a tradition of “wording” the truth. So in one sense it is not surprising that the Western theological tradition has been so dominated by logos theology.
The Crisis in Word Communication
There is, however, a crisis in logos communication. It has been around for some time and it will remain. People generally are suspicious of mere words. And perhaps with good reason. Lies are told by words. In many walks of life it seems that the more uncertain and insecure
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people become the more words are used to cover up inadequacies. Within theology the crisis of logos communication is well established. It may be
symptomatic of a deeper loss of confidence that God is really present in the community of faith.22 Furthermore, there is at present a strong reaction against the long dominance of the word tradition in Christianity. This is evident when language is given a secondary significance, a medium for expressing something more primal.23 Language on this account operates as means to another end. This instrumentalist view of language and thus theology is a natural reaction to a type of word communication that presupposes a tight or rigid one-to- one correspondence between human word and Divine Word. This is exemplified in modern theology by a form of doctrinalism that codifies truth in particular and fixed language forms. This form of propositional objectivity ends up codifying God, a point well appreciated by Karl Barth.24 Human words are, on this view, no longer fed or capacitated by God’s Word but effectively block the full and free-flowing Divine Word. Of course, the more unstable and fragmented life seems to become the tighter become the institutional controls upon the language of faith. The result is “orthodox reductionism.” Full and free speech is thwarted in the interests of a false notion of purity which requires a tight one-to-one correspondence between the reality which faith witnesses to and its form in language. Naturally, logos communication of this kind will set up a counter-reaction which seeks a freer communicative life. Unfortunately this option, already mentioned above, can easily get caught in the trap of human subjectivity. It becomes unclear how human words mirror or refer to the truth of God. Evangelism might end up being merely the good news of my life rather than the good news of the life of God in which I live. Theological discourse might end up being just what I think. Ironically, anxiety over the wording of truth has contributed to a massive reductionism in evangelism and theology. This reductionism is evident both in a tight formalized “orthodox reductionism” and in an undisciplined subjectivizing of faith. What has been sacrificed in both developments is joyful praise of God through language. What has been forgotten is that the logos of God authorizes and legitimates free-flowing, abundant discourse directed by praise of the God of Jesus Christ.
What is being suggested here is that God is logos — language. Language is not merely instrumental, a means to another end. Language is a medium of God’s presence and power energizing and directing all things to their truth in God. Human response to the presence and activity of God is to praise God. This praising occurs in language as it is informed by the truth of God. Such language, if it is to be the language of true praise, can be neither overformalized nor undisciplined but within the community of Jesus Christ it is constrained by the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14).
Dynamics of Full and Free Speech in the Church
But the critical issue now concerns the nature of that inner constraint by which the language of faith is not held back but released in order to praise God. What is thus urgently required in
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the church is an improved understanding of the dynamics of full and free communication. In other words, what is happening in good communication of the truth?
There are perhaps at least three dimensions to full and free speech in evangelism and theology that ideally inform and direct the church’s praise of Jesus Christ. First, full and free speech involves an implicit appeal to simplicity. Secondly, such communication operates with a bias toward repetition. Thirdly, it witnesses to the presence of wisdom.
It is not just any kind of simplicity, repetition, and wisdom that is needed but simplicity, repetition, and wisdom understood in quite particular ways. Our task now is to develop an understanding of how good communication occurs under or with the guidance of the above three parameters. The suggestion is that speech in the church which is constrained by the love of Christ will be speech that involves an appeal to simplicity, a bias toward repetition, and a witness to the presence of wisdom. Within each of these three dimensions of communication, evangelism and theology operate in different but complementary ways.
The Appeal to Simplicity
The first mark of full and free communication is simplicity. Jürgen Moltmann has said:
What cannot be said simply does not need to be written at all. Simplicity is the highest challenge to Christian theology, Theology stands under the demand to speak simply because, as Christian theology, it stands or falls with the church.25
In the context Moltmann clearly has in mind the issue of communication in the church. His sentiments would, no doubt, find joyful approval among those involved in evangelism — though before we go any further it is also well to note that for every difficult and complex problem there is always a perfectly reasonable and simple answer that is wrong.
Nevertheless, the good news is never confusing or complicated. Neither is it simplistic. There is, it seems, a way of wording the faith — seeding the word — which communicates the mystery of the gospel with a profound simplicity. Such simplicity is not that which “boils” truth down to the bare essentials. That is a popular strategy but it is no more than that; just a useful strategy of questionable worth. It can easily lead to a “checklist” gospel, in which certain propositions are offered for assent. But there is a way of communicating with simplicity that has more of the character of a concentration of profundity. This might take the form of a “word in season” — that word for which Paul prays when he opens his mouth: “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19, NIV). His prayer is not for “the bare essentials” but a compelling snapshot of the faith of Jesus Christ, a rich compression of the truth. It is precisely because the gospel is not simple but profound that he prays for the wisdom to put the mystery with simplicity. On this account evangelism might be understood as communicating the gospel in microcosmic form.
There are no blueprints for achieving this simple profundity in the truth. It is Spirit-led, and informed by the love of Christ. Sharpness, clarity, and depth of insight are not merely
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well-honed skills but capacities bestowed by God for his praise. Furthermore, in the body of Christ it should not be presumed that all these qualities will be present in the same person to the same degree. What is critical is an openness to God in order that, like Paul, utterance may be given evangelists as they open their mouths, that they may be freely released to open up the secrets of the good news of God. There is no appeal here to a ready-made plan. Rather what we find is a reliance upon God as one speaks freely and flowingly of the love of God in Christ Jesus.
I have suggested that simplicity properly understood has more of the character of concentrated abundance. It has to be like this to be the truth of God. However, precisely because the evangel is this kind of simplicity it is capable of significant expansion. In fact the compression of truth is not only capable of being “strung-out,” so to speak, it has an inbuilt drive for extension. This movement to concentration points and extension in a very free- flowing and fulsome way belongs to the dynamic of truth itself.
In this compression/extension dynamic inherent in the communication of the gospel, evangelism represents a recurring moment. It belongs to a process of communication. Evangelism is not a full stop, but a comma. Theological discourse participates in this communications process as it moves beyond the comma. Theology unravels the truth further, bringing fresh illumination and sharpness to it. In this sense theological discourse is called playfully and joyfully to “string-out” the truth. The snapshot offered in evangelism now becomes the video of theology, though the analogy ought not to be pressed too far.
A good example of this dynamic between compression and systematic extension of faith is provided by the work of Paul Tillich. Tillich recognized the concentrated abundance of the gospel in relation to his own highly developed systematic enterprise: “The statement that Jesus is the Christ contains in some way the whole theological system, as the telling of a parable of Jesus contains all artistic potentialities of Christianity.”26
Given the above formulation of simplicity as concentrated abundance in the truth it is clear that evangelism and theology are, properly speaking, complementary forms of gospel communication. Evangelism represents a concentration point — the comma in the sentence — theology represents the extended form of communication. Good communication requires both compression and extension of the truth. Evangelism and theology act as catalysts for each other in the process of communication. Precisely because such communication is dynamic, we find a multiplicity of concentration points en route to fuller communication. Free-flowing communication actually requires continual refocusing or re-concentration. Compression of the truth in a concentrated form — as in evangelism — is in fact a recurring moment in communication of the truth. This is important. It suggests a second feature of gospel communication which might be termed the bias toward repetition.
The Bias toward Repetition
Repetition is not usually treated as a theme in modern theology, though it is important in
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everyday life and thought, and certainly warrants serious theological consideration. Good evangelism evidences certain recurring patterns or references to God’s ways with this world and human life. The history of the Christian tradition is informed by a recurring focus on the creative, redemptive, and life-giving character of the Triune God. This is the God who is praised in Jesus Christ. On this account evangelism might be understood as “the horizontal dimension of praise repeated and explained to others so they can join the community of praise.”27
From this perspective it is not the fact of repetition per se but its quality that is of critical importance. Repetition in evangelism and in everyday life has both healthy energizing forms as well as more disturbed, barren, and ultimately destructive forms. Modern society is highly repetitive in its structure and routine. Negative forms of repetition abound. For many workers heavy industry is a world of repetitive and unfulfilling work practices where human beings often function in a machine-like manner. In the area of mental health the compulsion to endlessly repeat certain behavior patterns is well known. In Alzheimer’s disease there is a loss of the power of recall; this loss of the capacity to remember means that those who love and care for such people are locked into repetitive communication patterns. There is the constant representing of one’s identity and love as well as more routine tasks.
More generally, repetition is viewed in a negative light in our society. Repetition is often associated with inauthenticity.28 What society seems to demand is constant change, which involves discarding the past and present in the search for the totally new. Advertising is a good example of this search to overcome repetition. It is, of course, a self-defeating exercise. What becomes paramount is maximum exposure of the consumer public to the new product. Such exposure requires repetition and so the cycle is perpetuated.
The negative aspects of repetition ought not to blind us to the fact that repetition is an important and necessary feature of our everyday life. If the toothbrush and soap as well as regular and balanced food intake are to count, it is obvious that the repetition of the daily rituals associated with these things gives vitality and freshness to human life. The dream of every golfer is to develop a swing that repeats itself. Definite recurring patterns of behavior, communication, and exchange (e.g., greetings, farewells) seem to be a necessary part of the healthy ordering of human society. Not surprisingly the positive and negative aspects of repetition can be discerned in religious life, for example, in worship.29
Accordingly, there is an expectation in evangelism that what is proclaimed today is the same good news that brought redemption yesterday and will do so tomorrow. Minimally, we are right to expect a recurring pattern in the proclamation of the evangel. Furthermore, earlier it was suggested that this recurring pattern will have a trinitarian form if it is to do justice to God’s relation with creation. In this sense certain components or dimensions in the evangel will recur: creation, redemption, fulfillment. The challenge is to repeat the evangel in its fullness — its rich simplicity — rather than in some mutilated form. There is, at this level, good and bad evangelism.
Theological discourse participates in the dynamic of creative repetition. Here the aim is
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comprehensive communication of the truth of Christianity. So what ought to emerge in good theology is a fulsome opening of the gospel as it is woven into myriad themes and life situations. Furthermore, what we ought to observe and in fact can discern in the Christian tradition is a recurring engagement with a trinitarian understanding of God. Why trinitarian? Because this is the form of the God who has generated Christian worship, mission, and service in history. A recurring trinitarian pattern in theology can, of course, be linked to the very nature of the being of God. This was articulated most powerfully in the twentieth century by Karl Barth, who referred to God’s threefold repetition of himself. Some notion of repetition belongs: it seems, to the structure of the being of God.30
However, it is precisely at this point that the problem of repetition becomes acute. Good repetition requires freshness through sameness.31 What is required in good evangelism and theology is creative repetition. What this amounts to is that there can be no such thing as simple or pure repetition. It is impossible.
Creative repetition is required by the very character of God, whose threefold repetition — Father, Son, and Spirit — is the ideal of “freshness through sameness.” Creative repetition is required by the in-time-ness of human experience. Life goes on, and demands new responses. The world is becoming increasingly complex; it is not the same as it was two thousand years ago. Good repetition is not achieved by simply imprinting what was said yesterday upon a new context; that is the way of domination. Good repetition emerges through attentiveness and discernment in the contingencies of life, i.e., the context. Context is, after all, the weaving together of different textures. There are no shortcuts.
One such shortcut is implicit in the notion that the gospel is “substance-like.” In this case the substance is equated with propositions of truth that are to be worded in precisely the same manner. Pure repetition is, on this view, a sign of faithfulness. Such repetition offers the illusion of security but the price is high; the truth of God is reduced to a form of doctrinal legalism. However, the real problems are transferred elsewhere, i.e., into the practical sphere concerned with the application of truth. This gives the illusion of secure foundations but such theology has forfeited freshness for a kind of sameness. Or perhaps the element of freshness is transferred to the question of application and practice of the truth. Is it any wonder that the theology soon loses its vigor and appeal? It no longer witnesses to the fresh activity of God.
Another equally dangerous shortcut is to discard the past altogether. Creativity and freshness are sought, but this is thought to require severing links with the tradition. Often this amounts to newness for newness’ sake. This approach strikes a deep chord in Protestantism and produces an “occasionalism” of the Spirit. God comes and goes; continuity is hard to discern. It seems here that the idol of pure repetition has been firmly rejected. No sameness, only freshness. However, there quickly emerges another kind of repetition, via the back door, so to speak. What is repeated is often nothing more than the profundities of human subjectivity. This is characterized by a fairly directionless, free-floating Christianity which becomes curved-in on the human subject and simply repeats a range of human thoughts uninformed by God’s presence. To end up communicating “just what I think,” is to end up
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with sameness without freshness. To conclude, what is repeated in evangelism and theology is the content of praise,
repeated in such a way that others will want to join the community of Jesus Christ. We ought not to be frightened of repetition but welcome it, seek to understand what we are doing, and allow our repeating of the good news to be informed by our praise of God.
With simplicity we have identified the basic complementarity between evangelism and theology, the former representing a concentrated expression of the latter’s more extended discourse. This gave rise to repetition as a feature of both modes of communication. It should not go unnoticed that the challenge of repetition — of freshness through sameness — provides a useful theological heuristic through which to reconsider context as constitutive of good communication in evangelism and theology.
However, it might fairly be asked: simplicity of what, repetition of what? Has not the discussion skirted around the main issue of the “content” of evangelism and theology? The issue of content has been implicit in what has already been said and has occasionally surfaced. It is time to treat this explicitly as an issue in communication.
The Presence of Wisdom
The question of content might be more fruitfully and adequately understood as a question of the presence and nature of wisdom. This requires some further teasing out. Earlier it was suggested that in evangelism and theology the content of praise is repeated in such a way that others join the community of Jesus Christ. What is repeated here is “the content of praise.” Now “content of praise” is a fundamentally dynamic understanding of content. It can’t be reduced to a static substance-like thing. What is praised in Christian worship and discipleship is not a set of propositions or certain truths. Of course, no one would actually want to say this. It is the living God. However, there is a form of doctrinalism in the church that quickly codifies the truth of the living God in such a way that the language of faith is set in certain fixed and tight forms. This is not to suggest that any language will do. But, unfortunately, the inevitable tendency to doctrinalize the truth in the above way eventually has the effect of solidifying the truth of God’s dynamic presence. Belief becomes law-like; God is legalized as the lawgiver. A good test of this tendency is the prevalence of the language of “substance” in relation to the gospel. The language suggests physicality, concreteness, and fixity. More generally, this approach to content often gives the impression that the good news is “information-like” — a unique assemblage of facts. Christianity as an obediential religion fits well within this framework. The purpose of evangelism is thus reduced to the communication of certain information that will generate obedience to God.
It is true that we live in an information culture where power is vested in the holders and disseminators of information. But the “content of praise” cannot be too readily reduced to certain information now available to the world.32 If, however, the “content of praise” is to be information, then it will have to be information of a particular kind, i.e., it will have to be
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such that it is capable of forming and reforming humankind in the way of godliness. What is critical here is attention to the dynamics of the presence of God forming and transforming created life. This suggests a patterning of God’s life in human life. This is not merely a case of delivering information and then invoking some added-on doctrine of the Holy Spirit to do something with the information.
What we are dealing with in “the content of praise” may be information-like or knowledge-like but it is never just knowledge or information. Rather it is knowledge which is properly directed. It is goal seeking. Now in the Christian tradition such “content of praise” used to be referred to as wisdom. Theology was originally wisdom that bestowed illumination and salvation.33 Such wisdom was not substance-like nor codified propositions. Rather it concerned the “enwisening” of human life with the life of God. This wisdom came to its concentration in Jesus Christ.34 Furthermore, it was the wisdom of God in Christ crucified and risen that has been witnessed to in the evangel (1 Cor. 1:18–2:8).
It is this wisdom that is praised in the Christian community, repeated in evangelism, and meditated upon in theology. The theme of wisdom seems to be enjoying a renaissance in these last few years. But there is always a danger that overuse will lead to shallowness. It can easily become a synonym for well-honed common sense. In Christianity, however, wisdom is that which God bestows and it is that to which all things are to be assimilated, i.e., brought into relation with and changed accordingly. Wisdom as such is the dynamic activity of God’s presence lifting or raising created life to the fullness of truth. I have referred to this process as the enwisening of life. It is God’s Christlike work in the world. This is what is praised in the Christian community. This is what is repeated in its simplicity in evangelism. This is what is unraveled in its infinite richness in theological discourse.
Transformation: The Purpose of Communication
The second half of this essay has offered a brief consideration of some of the dimensions of full and free speech relevant to evangelism and theology in the church. The essential structure of the relationship between evangelism and theology was developed through the theme of simplicity. The basic dynamic calling forth and calling for continued communication — what is normally treated as a question of context — was developed under the theme of repetition. The question of content was briefly redeveloped as the presence of wisdom. Simplicity as concentrated abundance of truth, repetition as freshness through sameness, and wisdom as properly directed knowledge are the three key parameters that guide good communication in evangelism and theology. These three parameters, understood in particular ways, are present and operating as speech in the church “constrained by the love of Christ.”
What happens within this communicative framework? In the Christian tradition the answer has been transformation through conversion. This points to the fact that communication involves exchange, in this case an exchange of lives. The communicative life is always a life of bestowing and receiving, i.e., a life of exchange. When this is done well,
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human life is built up: life is raised to its full truth in God. This points, however, to the fundamentally expansive nature of human life. It is capable
of being added to quantitatively and qualitatively. Human life is raised to its full truth. This perfecting occurs in and through communication. Good communication is the condition for fresh, expanded life possibilities. This is a process in which the past is transcended without being wasted. The old is taken up into something new (2 Cor. 5:17). In the resurrection, Jesus Christ did not leave his wounds behind (John 20:19-23). They belonged to his new life but in a new way. When we think of Christian conversion it might be helpful to consider it from the point of view of the potential of godly human communication to expand and build up human life. This happens through the bestowal of fresh understanding, energy, and direction. This is what happens when our life is assimilated to the wisdom of God who himself is the energy, order, knowledge, and purpose of all things.
Conclusion
It has been suggested that evangelism and theology are complementary forms of human response to God’s communication. The further suggestion is that these forms are informed and directed according to the criteria of simplicity, repetition, and wisdom, understood in quite particular ways. These three criteria provide the conditions for faithful “wording” of the gospel. Why these three criteria? Ultimately, to be good criteria they have to be developed in relation to the truth of God. Who is God? In the Christian tradition God is praised as a being of communicative love. There is a simplicity to such a God — an abundance of richness in a highly concentrated form. This simplicity of God’s being is repeated in self-differentiation — as creator, redeemer, and fulfiller. In this repetition of God’s simplicity, wisdom is bestowed and created life is transformed. The communicative structure of the being of God is concentrated in Jesus Christ and overflows in the presence of the Spirit of the father’s Son. This is the God who evokes human praise. When this is repeated in evangelism and theology, the outflow of God’s communicative love expands and manifests itself through more open, free, and wise communicative life in human society.
Full and free communication in human life is thus a response to God’s own self- communication. Evangelism and theology occur under the constraint of God’s own simplicity, repeated in Jesus Christ that wisdom might be realized in human life. As evangelism and theology realize God’s wisdom in human language, they praise the truth of God. So ultimately, to engage in such activities is itself a praise of God. In this context it is appropriate to refer to evangelism and theology which is praise-centered. Praise which honors the truth of God in communication is the way through which God’s presence is realized and human life is built up and expanded by the truth. This is God’s converting work. As such, it is salvific.
This essay has invited readers to leave their ecclesial boats, don scuba-diving gear, and explore the life of the ocean upon which so much ecclesiastical sailing takes place. Without
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the ocean there would be no ships. And without God’s overflowing love in Jesus Christ there would be dead silence. As it is we are compelled to echo St. Paul: “And pray for us that we may be given utterance when we open our mouths that we might freely and fully communicate the mystery of the gospel.”
1. E. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (London: SCM, 1976), p. 446. 2. Thus, W. Abraham, in his recent book The Logic of Evangelism (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), pp. 8–9, notes
the decline in the theological competence of the better-known evangelists over the generations. John Wesley was steeped in the classical Anglican theological tradition. Jonathan Edwards was not only a pastor and preacher involved in the “Great Awakening” of his time — he was also one of the great theologians of the modern Christian tradition. Charles Finney, though able intellectually, was less patient with the academy and the theological tradition and more pragmatic in outlook. In later evangelists, such as D. L. Moody and Billy Sunday, there is little theological substance left. Billy Graham, while sympathetic to the task of theology in the work of evangelism, has contributed little. The new generation of television- evangelists have shown, in Abraham’s view, little “serious attempt to reflect deeply about the work in which they are engaged” (p. 10).
3. Abraham, Logic of Evangelism, p. 10. 4. Abraham, Logic of Evangelism, p. 10. 5. The bibliographies of most books on evangelism will quickly bear this out. See, e.g., bibliographies in T. S. Rainer, ed.,
Evangelism in the Twenty-First Century (Wheaton, Ill.: Harold Shaw, 1989); D. J. Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion (London: Coverdale House, 1972): M. Green, Evangelism in the Local Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990).
6. See, e.g., O. Costas, Liberating News: A Theology of Contextual Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989); L. Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (London: SPCK, 1989).
7. See. e.g., Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion. 8. For a useful discussion see, e.g., Paulos Mar Gregorios, “The Witness of the Churches: Ecumenical Statements on
Mission and Evangelism,” The Ecumenical Review, 40, nos. 3-4 (July-October 1984): 359-66. 9. The relevant documents are: The Manila Manifesto: An Elaboration of the Lausanne Covenant Fifteen Years Later
(Pasadena, Calif.: Castle Press, 1989) and Mission and Evangelism — An Ecumenical Affirmation (Geneva: WCC, 1982). Both documents evidence important attempts to develop an understanding of evangelism that includes both words and deeds. The traditional emphases remain but clearly reflect the influence of each other’s ecclesial orientations.
10. Any discussion of the recent history of evangelism is incomplete to the extent that it ignores the growth and impact of Pentecostalism in the twentieth century. This is well documented in the well-known authoritative work by W. J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (London: SCM, 1972). The point was well made some years ago by F. D. Bruner: “Pentecostalism and Mission are almost synonymous,” in A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 32.
11. See Evangelii Nuntiandi: Apostolic Exhortation of Paul VI on Evangelization in the Modern World (Sydney, Australia: St. Paul Publications, 1989); Redemptoris Missio: Encyclical Letter of John Paul II On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate (Sydney, Australia: St. Paul, 1991); I. Bria, ed., Go Forth in Peace: Orthodox Perspectives on Mission (Geneva: WCC, 1986).
12. Abraham’s The Logic of Evangelism is an important recent effort to articulate a contemporary theology of evangelism with a strong ecclesiological orientation. Costas’s Liberating News is rigorous in its approach to “contextual evangelization.” The strength of both books is that they identify important issues and provide a useful frame of reference for future thinking. Abraham is well aware of the difficulties of overcoming the divide between evangelism and theological concerns. B. Johnson in Re-thinking Evangelism: A Theological Approach (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987) writes out of a concern that evangelism in the mainline churches be done “with integrity” and “for the right reasons”: “The starting place for this important task is theology.” Accordingly his book, born of the fruit of his own experience in evangelism and teaching of theology, is an attempt to “examine the central theological categories from an evangelistic perspective.” However, he seems somewhat apologetic for this approach, stressing that his real concern is that the book will enable the development of “fresh models and strategies” and the setting forth of plans to get on with the task! The pragmatic thrust is understandable but begs many questions about the relationship between theology and the evangelistic task. A more traditional reformed theological approach to evangelism is offered by R. Kolb, Speaking The Gospel Today: A Theology for Evangelism (St. Louis: Concordia,
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1984). Again, the burden of the book is to allow evangelists and theologians to listen to each other (preface, p. 8). Green’s magnum opus, Evangelism Through the Local Church, has a strong apologetical and practical bias. What is missing is a more theologically informed discussion of evangelism. He is more concerned with getting on with the job. But the task he envisages looks quite different from those proposed by Abraham and Costas.
13. A. Wilder, The Rules Are No Game: The Strategy of Communication (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 124. 14. D. Hardy and D. Ford, Jubilate: Theology in Praise (London: DLT, 1984), p. 157. 15. Wilder notes in The Rules Are No Game that the “non-linguistic modes of communication in society include music,
the visual arts, the visual aspects of film and television; kinship. status, money, sex and power, accent, height, shape and beauty; much mathematics, dreams, and fantasy; images, ideals, emotions, and desires; the production and exchange or commodities; and clan, date, race, and sex” (p. 137).
16. Wilder, The Rules, p. 122. 17. Wilder, The Rules, p. 138. 18. Wilder, The Rules, p. 136. 19. Wilder, The Rules, p. 130. 20. A popular and important book in this regard is R. E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism. This book was
originally published in 1963 and is now in its 45th printing. 21. See G. Baum and A. Greely, eds., “Communication in The Church,” Concilium 111 (1978): 92 and 98ff. 22. See the discussion in E. Farley, Ecclesial Man: A Social Phenomenology of Faith and Reality (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1975), chap. 1. 23. This view of religious language is implicit in what has been referred to in recent theology as the experiential-
expressive dimension of religion. In this view attention is focused on feelings, attitudes, existential orientations and practices rather than what happens at the level of “symbolic investigations,” e.g. at the level of language which expresses experience. This powerful trend in religious understanding stands in the tradition of Schleiermacher. For further discussion, see G. A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Post-Liberal Age (London: SPCK, 1984), chap. 1.
24. A good example of the rigid doctrinalism against which Barth so vigorously contended can be found in Barth’s critique of the tradition of fundamental articles of faith. Barth linked the emergence of this notion of articulating the faith with seventeenth-century Protestant Scholasticism. Barth argued that the codification of faith into certain articles of faith which were then raised to the status of a “classic text” involved “a definition, limitation and restriction of the Word of God” (p. 865). When the expression in doctrine of the church’s encounter with “God in His Word” became the pretext for “the establishment of specific, irrevocable, fundamental articles” (p. 864), then the way was blocked, in Barth’s view, for the free operation of the Word of God and the Church. For page references, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956-78), pp. 863–66.
25. Jürgen Moltmann, The Open Church (London: SCM, 1978), p. 9. 26. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (London: James Nisbet, 1964), pp. 215–77. 27. Hardy and Ford, Jubilate, p. 19 (my italics). 28. In this respect S. Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984), p. 325, quotes and comments upon Lionel
Trilling’s remark, “in an increasingly urban and technological society, the natural processes of human existence have acquired a moral status in the degree that they are thwarted.” Anything resembling a mechanical process, and that would include the order and repetition of a liturgy, is felt to be “inimical to the authenticity of experience and being.” See Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (London, 1974), p. 128.
29. In my own tradition of Anglicanism worship was patterned liturgically around The Book of Common Prayer. As the title indicates it was prayer that was common to the congregation and repeated Sunday by Sunday and daily for those who said the Daily Offices. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Pentecostalism. This church life is self-consciously nonliturgical, seeking freedom and spontaneity. In between are a whole range of differing ecclesial traditions. How is repetition relevant here? It is relatively commonplace to view Anglican liturgy as unhelpfully repetitive over against more free-flowing charismatic worship. However, highly structured liturgical worship does have the capacity to generate freedom. One is mercifully relieved from what has been termed “the introspective conscience of the West.” Freshness from without becomes a real possibility. But of course, it is also true that such worship can prove sleep-inducing. At the other end of the spectrum, Pentecostal worship can assume a highly predictable and structured form in which the weekly repetition of certain activities is eagerly sought for among the gathered worshipers. Music in worship is undergoing a renaissance right now. One feature of the newer forms of music is repetition. This has the capacity to completely kill the spirit or alternatively take it to new heights. It is not repetition per se that is the problem but it is quality, i.e., whether or not it mediates freshness.
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30. Barth’s treatment of the threefold “repetition in God” (p. 366) is highly sophisticated and programmatic for his theological enterprise. What is revealed and witnessed to in Scripture is a threefold differentiation in God in his unimpaired unity (p. 299). God repeats himself three times, in three quite “inexhangeable” modes of being: “God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself through Himself. He reveals Himself … this subject, God, the Revealer is identical with his act in revelation and also identical with its effect” (p. 296). For this reason the doctrine of revelation begins with the doctrine of the triune God. For page references, see Church Dogmatics, I/2, pp. 295–383. In Barth’s theory of the repetition of God priority tends to be given to the unity rather than the threefoldness within God. This incipient modalism is succinctly put by a recent commentator. “God’s triple restoration of himself is much more prominent than his relation to himself,” A. C. Heron, The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1983), p. 167.
31. This, of course, was the burden of Barth’s development of the threefold repetition in God: “Although, in keeping with God’s riches, revelation is never the same but always new, nevertheless, as such it is always in all circumstances the promulgation of the logos, of the Lordship of God” (Church Dogmatics, I/1, p. 306).
32. Interestingly, Karl Barth’s massive resurrection of the Christian Tradition did not entirely escape the problem. There is a lingering sense in this great theologian’s work that all that is really required — given the triumph of grace in the world in Jesus Christ — is for humankind to be informed of this event. Passing on the knowledge is what it is all about, or so it might be construed.
33. See, e.g., E. Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), chap. 2.
34. For a discussion of Jesus Christ as the concentration of the wisdom of God, see D. Hardy, “Rationality, the Sciences and Theology,” in G. Wainwright, ed., Keeping the Faith: Essays to Mark the Centenary of Lux Mundi (London: SPCK, 1989), pp. 294ff.
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