How Reductionism Impacts Evangelism

  • John Armstrong
  • May 27, 2008

    John H. Armstrong is founder and president of Act 3, a ministry for the advancement of the Christian Tradition in the third millennium. He is former pastor and church-planter, of more than twenty years, the author/editor of eight books, and the author of hundreds of magazine, journal, and Web based articles. John has served as the editor-in-chief of Act 3 Review: A Journal for Faith, Church and Culture since its origin in1992. Besides his writing ministry Dr. Armstrong is an adjunct professor of evangelism at Wheaton College Graduate School, teaches in various seminaries and colleges as a guest lecturer, and is a seminar and conference speaker throughout the United States and abroad. John and Anita, his wife of thirty-five years, have two adult married children. Anita assists John as an editorial associate and uses her gifts widely to help the ministry. Their son Matthew is engaged in a ministry of evangelism and discipleship, and is completing his graduate degree at Wheaton College, while their daughter Stacy is an administrative assistant for Act 3. John and Anita have two grandchildren, Gracie (8) and Abbie (4).

     

    Last week I wrote about the problem of reductionism. I argued that reduction itself is a necessary part of our being human, thus it does not necessarily need to be a problem for faithfulness to the message and work of Christ. But it can easily become a problem precisely because of our sinful human desire to control the message and all things associated with it. This leads to what Nietzsche called "the will to power." We may reject much of what the radical anti-Christian philosopher had to write, but in this case he is more often right than wrong. We have a deep desire to control and to make sure the outcomes are what we want them to be.

    This desire for control often leads us to reduce the gospel to our own way of expressing it, to our desire to take the measure of its place in our lives and in culture, and to our particular system of thinking about it. There are a number of ways this happens with regard to evangelism, but there is one that I want to address with a very sharp point. This problem impacts every group I know that is committed to aggressive and active evangelization.

    The way I expressed it last week is found in a simple equation, one which helps to make clear what I am attempting to argue in this week's article.

    REDUCTION + CONCTROL = REDUCTIONISM

    The gospel requires us to translate and thus to reduce it some ways just to communicate it. This is human and necessary. What invites the problems is our desire to "control" the outcome. When we do this we turn the process into reductionism.

    As in last week's article I drew heavily from Darrell L. Guder's work in his great book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). Guder also edited a classic book, which includes similar scholars providing insightful chapters touching upon the same issues. This book is: Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). It should be kept in mind that most of the major thoughts expressed in these two articles are taken directly from Guder, and thus I seek to attribute this to him at every point along the way.

    THE EVANGELICAL PROBLEM

    Darrell L. Guder states the problem that I've seen for a lifetime when he writes:

    Those groups that practice aggressive evangelism are, upon closer examination, also proclaiming a very reductionistic gospel. While they claim to be opposing the secularizing tendencies of modern humanistic skepticism, they too often define the gospel in terms of happiness and evangelize for success, counting upon their mastery of method to produce results (The Continuing Conversion of the Church, Darrell L. Guder. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, page 118).

    Reformed writer, Merwyn Johnson, has stated the basis for this problem clearly: "Modern Protestants typically set the agenda for evangelism in terms of Paul and the Philippian jailer" (cited by Guder on page 118).

    The aim of this approach is very simple. Get everyone you possibly can to face the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Then help the unbeliever calculate the benefits of answering that question in the right way and responding to the answer with a positive, prayerful commitment to Christ.

    You say, "What's wrong with this approach?" I answer, "A great deal actually."

    First, the evangelist does not need to talk much about the cross-bearing part of the gospel message in this approach. This is an extra, or an add-on, presented later and then as a part of the neat little package we have made of sanctification. Justification is accepting the good news with a positive response, period.

    Second, the evangelist presents the benefits of the message and stresses the risks of not believing it. Thus there is a blatant appeal to human sensibility, which in the American context we call "common sense." Smart people will accept this reduction and people who are foolish will reject it. This means the evangelist can convince people if he/she is really good at mastering the technique. This creates a huge amount of guilt for those who undertake any missional work at all. It also creates what some have called "Christianity lite."

    Third, with this particular approach the believer, or the new convert, must do it all. Jesus has done what he can do so now it is up to you to do the rest. Repent, believe and then go out and live for Christ! It is all rather simple. We even call this the "simple gospel plan." Merwyn Johnson gets it about right when he says, "Naturally he/she is going to take credit (blame) for whatever is done" (cited by Guder, page 188).

    There is perhaps no better example of the way the American Church has reduced the gospel in this manner than the way most churches treat evangelization itself. It is "a program assigned to one of several committees" (Guder, page 136). We do not need to take responsibility for mission in most of our churches since a committee, and particularly those who are gifted and inclined, do this work. Evangelism is one of many programs in most churches and this is the clear result of reductionism.

    THE EMERGENCE OF EVANGELISTIC ORGANIZATIONS

    Some who read what I am now going to say will not be happy with me. They will very likely miss the point unless they follow the argument very closely.

    In the twentieth century there has been a boom in organizations whose sole activity is evangelism. This has had some positive effects for sure, in keeping alive the mandate to make new disciples, but the negative effects have increasingly outweighed the positive in the last several decades. Let me explain.

    American Christianity has produced hundreds, likely thousands when you count all the small ministries, of organizations whose sole purpose is to win people to Christ. These are often called "para-church" ministries because they exist alongside the church. Guder argues that this definition is still accurate but there is also a

    . . . . prophetically accurate reduction in the prefix, since it implies that the evangelistic mission of the church can be separated out from the rest of the institutional church and function as its own distinctive ministry (Guder, page 138).

    This works well if the gospel is reduced to a message solely for individuals, a message about the personal and the private choices that consumers make about their salvation. The gospel is about you, in this scenario, not about God's good news and the glory of his Son.

    Many para-church groups stress the need for the local church for sure, but this rings quite hollow in the end since the big thing is "getting people saved." In this context saving souls is a separate, vitally important, "reductionistic" enterprise. What has been happening more recently is that such ministries have begun to start their own churches so that their converts have a church home, thus further dividing the church into more and more consumer groups vying for the Christians in a particular region. (This in no way denies the fact that many such start-up churches do a far better job in reaching lost people than many traditional older churches.)

    SALVATION AS GIFT IS LINKED WITH OUR VOCATION TO WITNESS

    The famous Karl Barth argued that the gift of salvation was necessarily linked with the vocation, or our call, to witness. If this is true, and I think it is nothing but good biblical theology, then it is impossible to separate evangelistic ministry from the life and work of the total Church, even in its presently divided and polarized state. We have, simply put, no right to divide the Church further, even if the call is to something as noble as evangelism. Guder summarizes my point well when he concludes:

    The call to Christ must be a call to his mission. The reason Christians are formed into communities is because God's work is to make a people to serve him as Christ's witnesses. The congregation is either a missional community-as Newbigin defines it, "the hermeneutic of the gospel"-or it is ultimately a caricature of the people of God that it is called to be (Guder, page 136).

    Guder further argues that gospel reductionism "is a constant drive among sinful Christians to bring the gospel of God's sovereign love under human control" (page 136-37). That says it in a clear way.

    In the Middle Ages the Church became an institution that dispensed salvation through its system and it rites. In late-modern America it has become an agency that supports evangelism through missions and mission programs that work alongside, and outside, the Church. Both are evidences of forms that represent what I am calling reductionism.

    The community that Jesus intended the Church to be was one in which every aspect of the life of the community had a direct bearing on its witness to the world. "Its message was never understood as simply a verbal communication about which one might argue, and for which mere mental consent was sought" (Guder, page 137). This community is meant to be "in but not of the world," a text we have reduced to individuals alone. When we miss the point of such a text we attempt to bring the Church under control and make it work like a good business or organization. We promote management and leadership as a business would, as the means to the end of growing the Church. But in the process we lose the distinctiveness of the Church and what emerges is the fruit of full-blown gospel reductionism.

    SALVATION IS COMMUNAL

    The New Testament makes it abundantly clear (Ephesians, Romans and Colossians come to mind here) that God saves individuals, but only in a community. The reason the letters of Paul are filled with exhortations to work out our human problems in relationships within the Church community is precisely because the world will only see and hear the witness of the Church when we are "one" (John 17).

    The way reductionism works here is very obvious once you grasp my point. We allow divisions and strife. We believe that these problems can be managed by counsel and strong leadership so long as we continue to do evangelism and conduct worship services. The two are often about staging attractional events than about mission and corporate worship. The goal is to grow the Church numerically. People problems are tolerated, or even pushed aside, so we stress getting on with reaching new people with the gospel. This approach grows out of reductionism, the human connection between translation (necessary) and sinful power (not necessary).

    CONCLUSION

    The danger I face in the above comments is that I, too, can reduce the Church's real problems to simple solutions just like the next person. The real problem is a spiritual and theological one, not a management or programmatic one. This calls for spiritual and theological solutions, not pat answers. This frustrates busy, pragmatic Americans who want programs that will solve their problems. Thus the reductionistic problem just keeps getting recycled over and over again.

    The place we must begin to counteract this reductionism is in seeing that our mission is not merely an activity of the Church, but rather that the Church exists for mission. Mission is the result of God's activity within the world and that mission is to restore and heal creation. The Church is a community of the redeemed and exists to serve that mission. This is the meaning of John 20:21. God is a missionary God and we, as his people, are a sent people. The Church is not the purpose of the gospel, or even the goal of the gospel. The Church is the instrument and witness of the gospel. Only when we get this right will be begin to be the community that God intended for us to be.

    This might sound easy. It is not. A major spiritual effort is needed to oppose the reductionism of our age and to call the Church back to this right understanding of its place and purpose. This is the reformation I live for. This is what fires my soul with passion every single day. How can I help people and churches, one-by-one, reclaim the gospel in its power and deep spirituality? How can I be an instrument of renewal in giving back to the Church in America its place and purpose under God?

    © 2007 John Armstrong by permission used from ACT 3