The problem of proselytism; the urgency of evangelism

I want to reflect on three scenarios I have experienced this week:

Scenario 1: Last Sunday I gave the talk at my church on the passage in John’s gospel when Jesus is tried by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. I focused on Pilate’s question ‘What is truth?’ (Watch the sermon here).

After the service, I spoke to someone who rarely comes to church and has been through many issues relating to addiction, homelessness and tragedy in his family. As we talked and prayed, he said how important it was that had come this morning and heard this message. He repeatedly said ‘It’s all about the truth’.

Scenario 2: Later that week, we had our drop-in community meal The Vine where we always run a quiz before we eat. This week, the quiz had an Easter theme with questions like ‘What was the sign Judas gave to show the guards who Jesus was?’ and ‘What ripped in two at the moment Jesus died?’

Very few of our guests come to church but I was struck by how the drama of the Easter story got the room animated and prompted further questions. Afterwards, two guests said to me, ‘People got really into that, we should do more of that kind of stuff.’  Then this morning, two of our guests came to our church for the first time.

Scenario 3: Yesterday, I was in North London waiting to meet with friends when a man approached me and was keen to talk. He was drunk and poured out a whole host of his problems to me.

After we spoke for a few minutes, I asked him if I could pray for him. He was very keen for me to do this and gripped both my hands very intensively as we prayed. He was incredibly grateful.

Raw needs

Walking around city centres this week, I have been so struck by the raw needs of poverty, the isolation of poor mental health and the chaos of addiction.  These needs are material and relational but also deeply spiritual. As well as practical help, people need a deeper message which can generate hope in their lives.

The vast majority of Christians who want to help others are keen to avoid acting coercively or putting any inappropriate pressure on vulnerable people. But I am concerned by the increasing reports I hear about volunteers in church-based social action being told they cannot offer to pray for people. We need to have more confidence in the relevance of the Christian message.

Proselytism

Often the word ‘proselytism’ is used in such discussions to sum up negative or inappropriate ways of sharing faith. But often the term is used quite vaguely.

Vincent Donovan’s book Christianity Rediscovered is about his efforts to evangelise to the Masai tribespeople in Tanzania and to empower them to establish their own forms of church.  He defines the difference between evangelizing and proselytism as being about the direction of the message:

‘Proselytism is centripetal. It is a movement inward. People are invited to come to the centre where salvation is localized. In order to become a participant of salvation they will have to join the group that mediates redemption.’

In other words, proselytism happens when churches or religious groups are primarily focused on pulling more people into their institution or their particular expression of faith.

Evangelism

In contrast, evangelising is the sharing of a message rather than proscribing its institutional expression. Its primary movement is outward:

‘Evangelisation is centrifugal. It leaves Jerusalem and is on its way to the ends of the earth and the end of time…to join the journey away from the centre – a light to the Gentiles which goes out toward the people, seeking them out and taking them by surprise in the darkness.’

This ‘outward movement’ is exactly what the Christian church needs to be urgently doing: to leave our buildings, connect to our communities and engage with people in the darkness of real life. To be engaged in mission which generously sows the seeds of hope through our words and actions. 

It is not our job to try to control or dictate what will happen to these seeds, or what growth and fruit they may lead to.

Churchianity

This is how an authentic emphasis on mission challenges both inward-looking churchianity and the secular drift of social action. The message of faith, hope and love must be shared, and this should not be muted by either the inward-looking tendencies of religion or the external pressure of secular funding.

We always need reminding that the church’s primary role is a missionary one. As William Temple said, the church is the only institution which exists for the benefit its non-members. And as Chris Wright said, God does not have a mission for His church, he has a church for His mission.

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Listen to some great examples of how local churches have helped people in their steps of recovery from homelessness and addiction in this seminar with a panel of Hope into Action tenants at our recent conference: Empowering Recovery: a panel of Hope into Action tenants