Rethinking Evangelism: “No more yellow pencil religion” – Brad Jersak

This article is about how I moved on
from “Attack & Extract” evangelism.

Definitions:

Proselytism – to induce someone to convert to one’s faith.

Evangelize – to preach the gospel to someone.

The Great Commission – “Then Jesus came to [the eleven apostles] and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

A Child Evangelical

I have much good to say about my upbringing in an Evangelical home. In those days, the movement had not yet been politicized, so for me, it was about learning to love Jesus Christ, pray to a living and present God, and search the Scriptures that testified to the gospel. Much of that was a good experience in a faith community that loved me. So far, so good.

There were certainly some blemishes—most notably the moralist preaching of fear-mongering revivalists whose threats of hellfire, Armageddon, and the Antichrist contributed to the rise of religious PTSD among so many of my peers. Gratefully, I was able to move on.

But the central feature of our movement was evangelism—or at least our version of it. The zeal to ‘save others’ was real because we genuinely believed that it was our duty to convert the world with our turn-or-burn gospel. Specifically, we understood Jesus’ call to repentance and belief in him as Lord and Savior as the only way to avoid eternity in hell and the only door into everlasting life in heaven. With death as the final deadline, there was an urgency to pressure others to ‘make a decision’ by praying the sinner’s prayer asap. We saw this as obedience to the “Great Commission” of Jesus in Matthew 28. “Make disciples of all nations” meant converting all people everywhere to Christianity so that, like us, they could be ‘saved.’

Good News Evangelism

I eventually began to have second thoughts about my understanding of evangelism. One reason was Simone Weil’s definition of the gospel as sharing the Good News with everyone rather than uprooting someone from their native faith and converting them to your own. She could imagine the story of Jesus being a beautiful fulfillment of the Old Testament for Jews, of the Bhagavad Gita for Hindus, the Upanishads for Buddhists, and the Indigenous spirituality of First Nations people. In her mind, Christ’s life of compassion, empathy, and selflessness would confirm the best of other faiths rather than critiquing and converting them. She believed that true spiritual transformation begins at home, through our encounters with suffering in ourselves and in others.

Another shift happened for me when I began meeting people who could not identify with Christianity but were obviously experiencing the living God and demonstrating it through personal transformation and lives of beauty, truth, and love. Indeed, they were obviously peacemakers in their communities and their world—a designation that Jesus associated with being called ‘children of God.’ This was most remarkable for me to see when, at one time, I would have imagined them as ‘lost’ and ‘unsaved,’ when, in fact, they were and are showing me how to better follow Jesus.

At one time, we would have chalked up their good lives to dead works and ‘filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6), but there’s another way to see it. Jesus said, “By their fruit, you will know them” (Matthew 7:16-23) and described them as “sheep from another fold” (John 10:16). Could it be that the Good Shepherd doesn’t recognize our faith by our claims and creeds, but by our real-life response to him in every exchange of grace in our daily lives? As Peter said to Cornelius in Acts 10:34-35, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” What about grace? That is grace par excellence, isn’t it?

And it’s not that Jesus or Peter dispensed with the Jesus Gospel. They just saw it as good news for everyone, wherever they live and however they worship. Jesus’ desire was that everyone would know that God’s love is expansive and inclusive, and the freedom and forgiveness of his Father extends to everyone. To hear this, to know this, to receive this is to experience it… regardless of your religion, creed, or dogma.

Attack and Extract No More

My friends Jamie and Donna Winship (who lead a ministry called Identity Exchange) worked with Muslims (and I do mean with) in Indonesia and the Middle East for many decades. Through the duration of their mission there, they were witness to a lot of Western missionaries whose idea of evangelism was ‘attack and extract’ (I might call it ‘smash and grab’). Those missions imagined Muslims and Christians occupying spiritual territory on each side of a fence. Our side of the fence was right. The Muslim side of the fence was wrong. People on our side believed in the right things and were going to heaven. People on the Muslim side believe the wrong things and are going to hell.

From that vantage point, evangelism to the Muslims was about meeting at the fence, attacking their faith, then extracting individuals from Islam and converting them to Christianity—now they were with us, now they were saved.

When I fact-checked this illustration with Jamie, he said,

When we share that illustration, we also talk about the Muslim parent. We were going inside the house and we “grab the young Muslims, yank them over the fence, change their clothes and names and call them our kids.” When the parents discover this, they are horrified and shamed. We then asked the kids to evangelize the parents… Result: conflict and honor killings. Crusader strategy!

The Good News—Jesus’ Way

Jamie and Donna believe in sharing the Good News of Jesus. But they don’t recognize ‘smash and grab’ proselytizing as having anything to do with the Great Commission. Instead, as I understand it, IF there is a fence that distinguishes Christian and Muslim faith, their ministry was about meeting their Muslim friends at the fence, both offering and receiving the kindness and compassion of God the All-Merciful, revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus/Isa, and encouraging one another to share the good news of divine transformation, freedom, and forgiveness each on our own side of the fence. Ultimately, Jesus is making disciples of all nations, cultures, and faiths. And those who want to join him in that mission might be baptized as Jesus-followers on their side of the fence, in their own territory, just as they are… because it’s all his anyway and so are they.

To get a broader sense of what Jamie is describing, I commend this beautiful visual and talk: The Kingdom of God.

Did you not see me?

In our city, well over one-third of the population are of Sikh background, immigrants to Canada a full generation before most of the European population. The oldest structure in Abbotsford is a Sikh gurdwara (temple). They are a fascinating sample of multiculturalism, integrating into our schools, politics, and infrastructure while also maintaining their culture, language, and faith (whether currently practicing or not).

To me, their foods, fashions, feasts, and gold domes are a welcome contribution to Canadian cultural identity. I particularly enjoy rubbing shoulders with their turban-crowned elders. I love to greet them with hands folding respectfully and saying, “Sat sri akaal, ji” – Punjabi for “God/the Eternal is truth, sir.” When greeting with folded hands and the traditional salutation, we are honoring each other in the name of God. Like me, Sikhs believe that God lives in everyone, to our greeting is also to God’s Spirit in each other.

Recently, my wife Eden walked past a group of senior Sikh men who were enjoying a beautiful, blue-sky day around a park picnic table. She felt no compulsion or guilt to evangelize them—now or ever—certainly no ‘attack and extract’ (and neither do they, by the way). As she said hello, one of the men—white beard flowing, draped in beautiful robes and a colorful matching turban—folded his hands, bowed, and gave her a respectful nod. Eden responded with a smile and continued down the path. Behind her, she heard someone comment in Punjabi, followed by a few snickering laughs.

She initially imagined something disrespectful but right away, the Spirit of God spoke to her, reminding her of the first man. She heard in her heart, “Did you not see me?” And this has been her story—recognize as a Christian that without abandoning her unique faith, she need not recruit those who are at home in theirs. But what she can do is share the presence of Christ’s Spirit in her and recognize it in others, advancing the kingdom of peace a smile at a time into conversations in which each party can witness to the hope we share (or express a need we can help each other meet). And that’s an evangelism I can be at peace with.

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