“So you’re here studying Arabic. Are you a Muslim?” I heard this kind of question all the time in the Middle East last semester. Often it led to a spirited discussion about our faiths. Some people recommend avoiding the topic of religion when you meet a Muslim for the first time. I say, “Good luck – it’s impossible.” Even though I grew up in a church that taught personal evangelism, I wasn’t quite ready to take the plunge. I figured that before I could broach the subject of religion with someone, I would have to build a deep relationship with them and show them Christ’s love in tangible ways. However, being pushed to talk about my faith all the time made me reconsider the role of proclamation in missions.
I think most of us would agree that the Church’s ultimate mandate is to spread the objective truth of the gospel, which we believe will ultimately transform lives in practical ways. But to be honest, when I look at my own life and at the way many people approach missions, I’m not convinced that we really believe this. When I identify far more chapel services and conferences on issues of poverty and justice than on bridge-building and evangelism, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve lost the essence of the Church’s mandate. I wonder if our passion to prove our message through our actions has swung so far that we have lost some of what it means to be Christ’s ambassadors.
You don’t have to look any further than the Old Testament to find out that God’s story of redemption is inseparable from social justice. The people of Israel were to be an attraction to the nations around them as they exemplified God’s attributes by their equitable treatment of the marginalized. But when Christ appears on the scene we find that His life of service was only a framework for His message. When He sent out the seventy-two disciples, He told them, “Heal the sick … and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10:9). The primary occupation of Jesus and His disciples was proclamation. Their miracles were always accompanied by words of life. It was Peter’s bold preaching, Paul’s careful apologetics, and Philip’s faithful obedience that allowed the gospel to spread and the Church to grow. So, fundamentally, the real distinction between the way God’s mission was carried out in the Old and New Testament was the absence or presence of proclamation.
We have all seen evangelism done wrong. If you’ve seen the gospel turned into a campaign, a decision-rally, or a popularity boost I can’t blame you for being slow to talk about your faith. But perhaps we have over-reacted, thereby reducing our mission to neutral, meaningless philanthropy. Some of us seem to be in danger of relegating proclamation to a secondary position, thereby losing the distinction of New Testament mission.
Dr. Benjamin Hegeman, professor of Islamic Studies, has noticed a drift in the mission organization he serves with. As missionaries became more specialized in their work and social action began to take a bigger role, he saw his colleagues spending more and more of their time in compounds doing translation, accounting, fundraising, and medical work, until they had all but forgotten how to proclaim the gospel. He saw committed missionaries doing what the apostles firmly refused to do in Acts 6 – leaving the preaching of the Word to serve tables. Of course, these practical activities are all necessary components of spreading the gospel. But it was as if missionaries were making the work of mission into a dualistic mandate, where their job was purely doing the practical things that they were so good at.
I have the deepest respect for experts in the fields of social action and physical need. We need more of them. Christopher Wright reminds us that mission is, by definition, holistic, and proclamation alone isn’t the whole gospel. But it seems that St. Francis’ idea that we are to “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words” has become a refuge where timid souls can quietly live out Christ’s love, hoping that unbelievers will get the point. For some, it has become a mantra that gives them an excuse for being lax in memorizing scripture, studying other religions, and learning apologetics – a far cry from the boldness St. Francis displayed when he travelled to Egypt to preach to a powerful Muslim sultan during the Crusades. David Hyams was right when he wrote, “The answer lies not in being nicer, but in communicating the substance of Christianity.”
The irony of proclamation is that if it’s artificially manufactured, it’s useless. It must flow out of an authentic relationship with God and with others, which will make it look different in every context. But we must be intentional about it. The gospel will be hindered from making its full impact on communities unless we seriously prepare to engage the world – on the basis of actions – with proclamation.