Richard, I think your thesis about Evangelism being motivated by sin rather than by fear of hell works for certain kinds of non-Christians, but not so well for others. For example, it works for people struggling with sinful desires that have consumed and vitiated their lives, but not so well for the kinds of non-Christians I'm quite familiar with. I'm thinking of the many good people who are loving and kind to others, raise their children with good values, and have no particularly troublesome sins in their lives. They are often the children and grandchildren of church-going families, who have turned away from church not so much because they are against it, but because they have lost belief on the supernatural aspects of Christianity, or simply get along just fine without it. Among folks like this, the miseries of sin has few handles for evangelism.
For these folks, I think, the focus needs to be the sheer power and magnetism of Christ himself, and the ability of the Christian story to give meaning to out existence.
Thanks, Leonard. I see your point, but a couple of thoughts.
First, your observation makes my point. If we are surrounded by loving, happy, and well-adjusted people then we're not going to feel any sort of urgency about sharing Christ with them. They're already doing great! Why bother them? Let them keep on keeping on. This makes the point of the post, that its our hamartiological assessments which affect evangelistic urgency.
Second, but if, as you say at the end of your comment, there is a location of existential suffering, then this is also making my point, that when we perceive some locus of suffering and pain we'd act, with some energy, to intervene.
Basically, and simply put, do the people you are describing "need" Christ? This is a hamartiological question. If they do not, evangelism becomes unnecessary. But if they do, even if just existentially, then evangelism emerges as our compassionate response to this need. This psychological correlation is the only point of the post.
As Kierkegaard pointed out, the mass man is the greatest blasphemy. Evangelism is the individual Coram Deo. Christ, the only God-man, to be imitated, not mass produced.
This isn’t directly your point but it is related to it— if someone commits a felony we might send them to prison for ten years. The fact that we don’t put them in prison for life or execute them doesn’t mean we don’t take the crime seriously. Taking the analogy further, ideally a prison would not just be punitive but restorative— the person would come out as a better person.
I have heard people say we don’t take sin seriously unless we believe there is an eternal penalty for unrepentant sinners but in this world, most people don’t think every crime deserves a life sentence without parole.
If the urgency is connected to "living your best life" (not simply being moral, but being the person God created you to be), even if that is a very real outcome of aligning oneself with Christ, it is mainly psycho-spiritual (which is good! - a very important point about the whole slavery to death issue) but can leave the body behind. Actual union with Christ (and through him to the whole Trinitarian Godhead) which includes all aspects of a human being including the physical, I find at its fullest in a sacramental Church. I see that wholeness of the human being included in Christ's redemption, and that in our ongoing lives on this side of the curtain, being supported best in EO, with its sacramental physicality, and its understanding of grace as the action of the Holy Spirit within us, not something somehow "sprinkled" on us from on high, or a psychological feeling from within.
Difficult to try to be comprehensive about this without sounding like I'm repeating myself. And perhaps I'm missing your point, Richard, but I hope not. The urgency would come from the ability to start walking a different path, for some out of the morass of sin, but for others out of the deviousness that hides in our hearts that enables secret sin - including the sin of thinking I'm ultimately okay the way I am. I hope you get my drift. I agree that this is a hamartologic issue - and askesis addresses that. I don't find much askesis and the understanding of the need for it in Evangelicalism.
Richard, I think your thesis about Evangelism being motivated by sin rather than by fear of hell works for certain kinds of non-Christians, but not so well for others. For example, it works for people struggling with sinful desires that have consumed and vitiated their lives, but not so well for the kinds of non-Christians I'm quite familiar with. I'm thinking of the many good people who are loving and kind to others, raise their children with good values, and have no particularly troublesome sins in their lives. They are often the children and grandchildren of church-going families, who have turned away from church not so much because they are against it, but because they have lost belief on the supernatural aspects of Christianity, or simply get along just fine without it. Among folks like this, the miseries of sin has few handles for evangelism.
For these folks, I think, the focus needs to be the sheer power and magnetism of Christ himself, and the ability of the Christian story to give meaning to out existence.
Thanks, Leonard. I see your point, but a couple of thoughts.
First, your observation makes my point. If we are surrounded by loving, happy, and well-adjusted people then we're not going to feel any sort of urgency about sharing Christ with them. They're already doing great! Why bother them? Let them keep on keeping on. This makes the point of the post, that its our hamartiological assessments which affect evangelistic urgency.
Second, but if, as you say at the end of your comment, there is a location of existential suffering, then this is also making my point, that when we perceive some locus of suffering and pain we'd act, with some energy, to intervene.
Basically, and simply put, do the people you are describing "need" Christ? This is a hamartiological question. If they do not, evangelism becomes unnecessary. But if they do, even if just existentially, then evangelism emerges as our compassionate response to this need. This psychological correlation is the only point of the post.
As Kierkegaard pointed out, the mass man is the greatest blasphemy. Evangelism is the individual Coram Deo. Christ, the only God-man, to be imitated, not mass produced.
This isn’t directly your point but it is related to it— if someone commits a felony we might send them to prison for ten years. The fact that we don’t put them in prison for life or execute them doesn’t mean we don’t take the crime seriously. Taking the analogy further, ideally a prison would not just be punitive but restorative— the person would come out as a better person.
I have heard people say we don’t take sin seriously unless we believe there is an eternal penalty for unrepentant sinners but in this world, most people don’t think every crime deserves a life sentence without parole.
If the urgency is connected to "living your best life" (not simply being moral, but being the person God created you to be), even if that is a very real outcome of aligning oneself with Christ, it is mainly psycho-spiritual (which is good! - a very important point about the whole slavery to death issue) but can leave the body behind. Actual union with Christ (and through him to the whole Trinitarian Godhead) which includes all aspects of a human being including the physical, I find at its fullest in a sacramental Church. I see that wholeness of the human being included in Christ's redemption, and that in our ongoing lives on this side of the curtain, being supported best in EO, with its sacramental physicality, and its understanding of grace as the action of the Holy Spirit within us, not something somehow "sprinkled" on us from on high, or a psychological feeling from within.
Difficult to try to be comprehensive about this without sounding like I'm repeating myself. And perhaps I'm missing your point, Richard, but I hope not. The urgency would come from the ability to start walking a different path, for some out of the morass of sin, but for others out of the deviousness that hides in our hearts that enables secret sin - including the sin of thinking I'm ultimately okay the way I am. I hope you get my drift. I agree that this is a hamartologic issue - and askesis addresses that. I don't find much askesis and the understanding of the need for it in Evangelicalism.
Dana
From a hamartiologicsl point of view, liberal Christians should be evangelizing Christian nationalists.
Agreed. I get to that in the next post.