Breaking News by J John

Good:  Treats evangelism as being about 'good news';

Bad:    Treats evangelism as a sales pitch.

The first five pages of this book contain a list of endorsements by various 'names' in the 'moderate evangelical' world, then there is a Foreword by John Sentamu, the ('moderate evangelical') Archbishop of York; I think these give a good idea of who the publishers believe their target audience to be.

Session 1, 'The Why of Evangelism', looks at why evangelism is considered difficult, what evangelism is ("to pass on GOOD NEWS"), and why Christians should evangelise. This section introduces a major style theme of the book: alliterative bullet points - worship, well-being, witness. Then there is a final section about "Seeing the Big Picture", with no less than seven 'C' points. The chapter as a whole has lots of stops for discussion, but in the end is all about it telling you what to do - another style theme for the book.

Session 2, "What Is the Good News of Christianity?", should be where we start cooking. Instead, it's where we start selling. First we're told we have to get the message out, then there's a dig at stereotypes of people who think they're Christians but aren't, and even more stereotypes of the sorts of things that non-Christians believe. Then we hit the supposed Good News, inevitably in four alliterative bullets. This is told in purely religious terms, nothing about good news for living in the real world, and is basically packaged as the sort of simple formula you are taught on sales training courses. Interestingly, the chapter finishes with the Nicene Creed, which I wasn't expecting.

Session 3, "What Is Friendship Evangelism?", was actually less unpleasant than this term usually implies. The trouble with 'Friendship Evangelism' as a phrase is that too often it means manipulation: you are being friendly because of an agenda - making a convert. J John mostly avoids this and focuses on the idea that the best place to begin sharing things that matter to you is with those who already know you. Session 4, "This is My Story", builds on this by providing a formula for a personal testimony: sharing your own story. I can kind of see his point in all these bullets and formulae: they provide a framework and give confidence for talking about such things; nevertheless, they also encourage cliché and a false, unnatural approach to talking about things that are supposed to be important to us.

Interestingly, session 5, "Demonstrating the Good News", moves into social justice and evangelism as being two sides of the same coin: you can't separate love from action. Given that this was where Jesus started (see Luke 4:18), five chapters in seems a bit late, but at least it is in there. Then the final session looks at God's Spirit as being the power behind our words, and as the power behind changed lives. There is a good quote about evangelism very near the end of the book, from Leighton Ford:

Jesus was born in a borrowed manger. He preached from a borrowed boat. He entered Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. He ate the Last Supper in a borrowed upper room and he was buried in a borrowed tomb. Now he asks to borrow the lives of his followers to reach the rest of the world. If we do not speak, then he is dumb and silent.

When I first got this book and saw the chapter titles, I was quite hopeful. As I read the early chapters it became discouragingly clear that this was the 'evangelism as power-selling' model. The later chapters are a bit more useful, but this is still not a book/course I would recommend for 21st-Century evangelism. Not for talking to real people, rather than stereotypes. There is too strong a model of 'us', the ones in the know, telling 'them', the ones who don't know, how they can become saved, just like us. It's paternalist (technically, I think it's probably gnostic) and it devalues people. It would be better, I think, to have a model of evangelism that is more two-way, learning from each other, as well as being more focussed on the real world - if the 'good news' is that good, then what real difference does it make?

tags: book  review  religion  christianity  evangelism  good news  caversham baptist church  

links: technorati