Resurrecting the "E" word; evangelism and the CBF

[William Thornton]

I have come to like a lot of things I read from the Center for Healthy Churches (chchurches.org). Most of what I run across is either in the Nuturing Faith magazine or on https://baptiststoday.org/ or are carried by Baptist News Global.

The article "Resurrecting the "E" word" is unavailable online at the moment but will be later. Robert U. Ferguson, Jr. wrote the piece which is, presumably, aimed at the universe of Baptist moderate churches. Here are a few of his provocative statements:

Many moderates are uncomfortable with practices associated with evangelism, especially confrontational models.

We like the idea of building relationships with others in order to enable them to come to Christ. However, the underlying reality is that we have often opted for no model other than baptizing the children who grow up in our churches.

Our baptismal rates...are often abysmal.

Our operative model of church growth depends on other churches to be evangelistic. [e.g., we grow by accepting by transfer the results of other's evangelistic efforts].

Once [a person who has come to faith elsewhere] is sufficiently mature in the faith, then they will come to us...[because of our superior practice of faith].

He concludes that transfer growth is insufficient; hence, our church are slowly dying.

If we do not make sharing of the good news in an intellectually challenging and spiritually uplifting pattern the central focus of our mission, then American Protestant Christianity will...surely die.

Dan Vestal, first president of the CBF, was an evangelist. Does the CBF have any evangelists now?
________________

Sure, the SBC is declining but you can find all manner of evangelists and evangelism practices in SBC churches. What does one fine in CBF churches? I'm asking, not judging.

[Dave Roberts]

William, one of the best examples in a CBF context would be First Baptist in Richmond. Dr. Jim Sommerville is doing what I consider a great job both in evangelistic preaching (though not confrontational) and in structuring the church under a rubric, KOH2RVA--the idea being to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Richmond VA. Dr. Betty Pugh Mills at Hampton Baptist in Hampton, VA is also doing a good bit of baptizing by promoting their ministry among the homeless which has brought people who just want to help feed our house homeless folks and who then become believers through being partnered with committed church members. Andy Hale, a church planter south of Raleigh is also pioneering the approach of using TV discussion groups as an opening to those who are not yet Christians. One of their more successful events has been Sunday night watch parties among millennials with a discussion afterward of "The Walking Dead" discussing the meanings of life and immortality. Another interesting reality beyond Dan Vestal is that Cecil Sherman used to make presentations of evangelistic models for CBF churches.

One of the interesting societal trends that has affected both CBF and SBC Baptists is the shrinking of the middle class which has always been the Baptist target for evangelism. With that economic change, our prospect lists have shrunk considerably. By the way, that often seems the elephant in the room because we don't reach well into the lower classes or into those who cannot match our social expectations.

[Dave Roberts]

William, I hope this is the article to which you referred.

[William Thornton]

No. The article was in the current Nurturing Faith print edition.

I lifted the most interesting quotes.

[Chris]

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Interesting article. I think the same could be said about much of the mainline churches as well.

[Dave Roberts]

One of the realities I see in the evangelism picture is that we of the church are no longer "in the world." Church is our life focus in that our friends are from church, we sit with church people whenever we go to a community event, we have very little contact with the world outside the "Christian bubble." We don't go fishing, play tennis, or go to many things where we actually mix and mingle with the world. My largest contact with the outside world is working in emergency communications through amateur radio. We have spent so much time teaching folks about the evil out there that they are afraid to even sit down with someone who may have a beer or glass of wine in their hands for fear of getting contaminated. Isn't it strange how the early church went into the marketplace? Now we expect the lost to come to us since "they know where the church is."

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

Ed, do you not like that the ABC/USA is a mainline denomination as the historically oldest Baptist body in the US?

[Tim Bonney]

Back to the topic.

Two factors I think influence "mainline, mainstream, old line" (whatever you want to call it) churches is that the mainline is known for a strong emphasis on the social aspects of the gospel along with personal faith.

Aisand Wright-Riggins, formerly Director of the ABC Home MIssion Societies. talked about the three fold nature of the gospel as - "The Great Commission", "The Great Commandment" and the "Great Criteria." Evangelicals are often focuses almost totally on the Great Commission. But Dr. Wright-Riggins pointed out that Jesus also commanded that we love one another (great commandment) and that we minister to the "least of these and that if you didn't you were a goat and not one of the sheep.

So mainliners hope to balance the three but have tendency to emphasis later two more. It is an imbalance in the mainline to mostly emphasize social faith that is a counter point to the imbalance among evangelicals of only emphasizing personal faith.

The other factor is that many mainliners view soteriology differently from evangelicals. Most evangelicals are "exclusionary" in their soteriology, meaning that only Christians are going to heaven and everyone else is going to hell.

Many mainlers are either "inclusionists" and others are what I think of as "functional universalists."

Inclusionism, championed by Methodists as well known as Adam Hamilton, is the understanding that God may also choose to save those who are seeking to follow God in other religions. John Wesley himself believed that God might indeed save Jews and Muslims because they believe they are serving God rightly even if mistakenly so.

"Functional Universalism" (a term of my own) is that many people in the pews of mainline churches can't imagine anyone they actually know going to hell or to eternal punishment. Only people they don't know or don't like seem likely to be in hell. Add that to the fact that many if not most mainliners don't believe in an eternal hell and you'll see that all the factors together can lead to a de-emphasis on the "E" word.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Tim, the paople in the pews need to read the Bible if they can not imagine any one they know going to hell. But of course if the do not believe in hell they are simply following same liberal pap . Good works alone will not get them where they want to be. Of course there are many who do not believe in any life here after.

As for the Social gospel I have spent most of my working life in program to cloth the the Naked, feed the Hungry and house the poor and better yet training the "Hard Core Chronically Unemployed" how to become employable. AKA, teaching a men and women to fish.

I was in the initial Class of the School of Social Work at SBTS at the time it was the only such school in an American Seminary of any denomination. After getting past some rocky shoals at the start it worked well until the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC..

I am rather sure that some friends and relatives of mine who have died did not or will not make it beyond the pearly gates. While that makes me sad on one hand. I accept no responsibility for their choices. That is not to say that there are not others who's poor choices I have not aided and abetted by poor choices of my own.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

You might consider reading "The Fire That Consumes." It is by an evangelical author, Edward William Fudge, who rights a good book about the doctrine of final punishment. He comes down as an anihilationist.

You don't have to be a card carrying bleeding heart liberal to question the medieval teaches about hell that have crept into modern Christian doctrine.

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Mrs Haruo]

OOh I was gone all weekend and didn't get to put my 2 cents worth into this thread. I think there was a Sunday school teacher in the little church I went to as a small child who loved to scare children. I have a cousin who's mother was nurse. Aunt Vera had a deep and abiding faith, but she still had to work for a living because her husband was in poor health and was often out of work. She usually worked on Sundays because people are sick 7 days a week. Cousin Peg and my brother went to Sunday school together. One day the teacher told all the class that people who don't go to church on Sunday will go to hell. 5 year old Peggy had heard a lot about Hell from her Sunday school teacher and knew it must be a horrible place. She was crying hysterically when Aunt Vera came home from work that day. When Vera heard what her little girl had been told, she was not happy, but explained that the work she did was very important because she took care of people who were very sick and needed her no matter what day of the week it was. She said Jesus didn't care what day of the week it was when someone needed healing, and what would the sick people do if there was no one to help them eat, or wash their sore backs or change bandages or just be with them when they were scared and alone? She told Peggy that Mrs. Krabbypants just didn't understand or know any better and not to worry, her Mommy was not going to hell. Aunt Vera had a quiet talk with the senior pastor about what was going on in the kindergarten Sunday School room and that she didn't appreciated being talked about like that when she tithed regularly to the church that she was rarely able to attend, and that they needed a different teacher for her little girls class. I don't remember being told much about a loving God there myself when I was that age. Mostly I remember learning that God was all powerful and could see every bad thing I did. I remember hearing my father yell at my brother for bringing bad grades home from school or not doing his chores after I had gone to bed and imagine God yelling at me if he saw me chewing my nails, so when I saw the moon shining at me through the window at the foot of my bed, I hid under the covers to chew my nails. I knew Mom and Dad didnt like me chewing my nails so God must really be mad at me. After several weeks of going on the Sunday School bus with the neighbor girls and my big brother, Mom must have noticed I was getting unhappier every Sunday so she asked if I wanted to quit going to Sunday school. I was glad to! So much for child evangelism. As for my cousin? Her wounds eventually healed. 60 years later she is playing in the bell choir and often plays piano for the choir or weddings or funerals at the same church.

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

[quote="Sandy"]
Dante's view of hell came from the Bible. quote]

Be careful, Sandy, to attribute too much Bible to Dante. "Inferno" was only volume 1. He did volume 2--"Purgatorio", and volume 3--"Paradisio." Actually, he is much more reflective, especially in volume 2 and 3, or medieval pre-Reformation Catholic theology. His three-volume work was a depiction much more of Catholic teaching than of biblical theology.

I have been too busy this week to engage this thread, though I have been reading it. Have been preaching a "revival meeting" for a church in Southampton County, VA.

[Sandy]

Well, I don't really think Dante is considered that much of an authority on hell by evangelicals, but his perspective provided a good example of how that imagery is communicated and spread. Divine Comedy is still widely read and studied in school, and I imagine it does contribute to the view people have of hell, if not literally, at least in the way it is imagined to be.

I think this is really an area where people struggle with faith. It's hard to come to grips with the idea that a soul is tormented and punished for eternity for having not made an acknowledgement of Jesus as savior, and that humans are, by default, automatically on the depraved side until they are summoned by the Holy Spirit to experience conviction, repent, and receive sanctification and justification through the sacrifice that Jesus endured. Is that the kind of justice that is represented by God? It takes time to understand this, and I don't really think we ever have an absolutely clear picture of what our redemption actually looks like. But in our rush to get kids into the baptistry, which frankly, represents the vast majority of what passes for evangelistic ministry, at least in our culture, evangelical or mainline, we press for a decision before people are ready, and we use the threat of a looming, burning hell, to hasten it along. And yet, we claim to believe in a God who knows the thoughts and intentions of our heart (a.k.a. soul, inner being, personhood). If salvation is really dependent on grace, and if God is perfectly just, then the connection between a person and God is faith, and it happens in the twinkling of an eye, and it can neither be earned nor maintained by works.

That also puts the scriptures into a context that is probably different than most of us use when interpreting them. Otherwise, it would be very easy to make a legalistic system out of either Old Testament law separate from grace, or New Testament illustrations separate from grace, and create a faith from the Bible that would rival Sharia law for its lack of justice and its cruelty.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]