A book worth discussing: The Evangelizing Church: A Lutheran Contribution.

The Evangelizing Church: A Lutheran Contribution. Edited by Richard H. Bliese and Craig Van Gelder. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005. xiv and 176 pages. Paper. $18.00.

Hail the evangelizing church! This is the book I've been awaiting for three decades. I was talked into coordinating a course on evangelism my first year of full-time teaching at Wartburg Seminary in 1973. Members of the ALC evangelism staff had agreed to teach this course in our January interim. Well, "something came up" and they didn't show up, so I was stuck with teaching it, trying to fly by the seat of my pants. I have to admit it was poetic justice on several levels: I had dumped the evangelizing of a new trailer park on my parish assistant, Curt Miller, who was helping me in my rural congregation. Now Curt was in my class looking for more help than I had ever given him before. The other level of poetic justice was that I had opted out of courses at Trinity Seminary both on the Formula of Concord and on evangelism--both of which I was now teaching. Maybe it was even divine retribution!

Searching frantically for resources, I was dismayed to find that no major work had been done by Lutheran theologians since T. A. Kantonen's The Theology of Evangelism (Muhlenberg) in 1954. For practical resources, Lutheran churches were turning to--sometimes in modified forms--D. James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion (Tyndale, 1970). The critical question was: If you were to die tonight and God would ask you, 'Why should I let you into my heaven?'--what would you say? One can perhaps defend this question, since it was attempting to discern whether the person trusted anything other than Christ for salvation, which is certainly a Lutheran concern. The form of the question raises all sorts of other concerns, including pastoral care for those who are struggling with "assurance." It also suggests certain brands of Pietism that insist that without a "decision" resulting in a conversion experience, faith is not real or saving. After visiting several congregations where the Kennedy plan was in use, there was a consensus of class and instructor that something different was needed.

My Evangelical Witness was published by Augsburg in 1975 and made into a lay training course for ALC in the early 1980s. Meanwhile members of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary faculty produced for lay training in evangelism an in-depth course with a strong biblical component, Word and Witness (LCA Division for Parish Services, 1980). This was fairly widely used in the 1980s. However, neither these nor other resources affected enough pastors or laity to energize a significant movement within ALC or LCA. In clear frustration, an ALC convention in the late 1980s attempted to mandate a required evangelism course at all ALC seminaries and set aside funds for the task. Seminary faculties resisted being directed what to teach. Wartburg Theological Seminary at least tried to fulfill the spirit of the "law" by means other than a required course. The Wartburg publication Forming an Evangelizing People (2005) is an example of how Wartburg did and does attempt to meet this need and also provides a response to the ELCA Evangelism Strategy.

I salute The Evangelizing Church because it has seminary professors and deans calling the church to this evangelistic dimension of its mission, which, the writers confess, Lutheran churches have not done well, if at all. With respect to Christ's mission commands, Dean J. Paul Rajashekar quotes a Philadelphia colleague (p. 92) who said the command many Lutherans and congregations have never broken is Jesus' word to the cured leper: "Say nothing to anyone!" (Mark 1:44). The cover story in the August 2003 Lutheran asked the question pointedly: "Do Lutherans Hate Evangelism?"

Just in case the answer is "Yes," the writers propose a new designation: "evangelizing." Richard Bliese, then dean and now president of Luther Seminary, notes the caricatures of evangelism that "cancel out the necessity of evangelizing" for many. Others "romanticize" evangelism by reducing it to just listening or loving actions without any verbal proclamation (pp. 1f.). Bliese's challenging "Sevenfold [Babylonian] Captivity of Word and Sacrament" and his seven (thankfully!) theses mirror Luther's early works. The most controversial of the theses (pp. 46f.) is "Release the Evangelizing Power of the Eucharist." The only precedent I can think of is frontier evangelism in the nineteenth century (see Postscript below).

Craig Van Gelder adds to the Augustana's doctrine of justification by grace on account of Christ through faith the phrase "for the sake of the world," meaning everything and everyone everywhere (pp. 51-54). He also documents how Acts is interested in "numbers" (pp. 55-58) since every one is important! Wyvetta Bullock makes the same point: "... we are interested in numbers. After all it is the people represented by numbers that interest God." Focusing on "growing deeper in faith" becomes "a convenient way to avoid dressing growth in numbers" (p. 90).

Surprising insights into Lutheran confessions and liturgy come from Van Gelder's Reformed perspective (pp. 60-65).

Rajashekar has a fascinating discussion of the sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus as Lutheran exclusivism regarding the absoluteness of the Christian claim. He sees this balanced by the inclusivism of the law/gospel dialectic as primarily "analytic tools." He sees the simul as a kind of bridge between Lutheran exclusivism and inclusivism, opening up a "theology of engagement" (pp. 98-101). He presses the concept of simultaneity beyond its usual uses to support his thesis.

More problematic is Rajashekar's interpretation of John 14:6, which he interprets: "The way to the Father is the way of the cross." This is also a "call to his disciples to follow the way of the cross that Jesus has shown them." The text is not about imitating or obeying Jesus but, as one of the many I AM statement in the Fourth Gospel, it is a claim about Jesus' person: God-in-the-flesh as the only saving access to the Father's presence. Rajashekar wrongly asserts that John 14:6 is "not intended as a universal statement denouncing any other way to God the Father" (p. 97). If anyone anywhere comes to God, it is through Jesus the Way. That does not condemn those who have never heard--really heard--the gospel. The text asserts that Jesus is the world's only redeemer, reconciler, and Lord.

Similarly, Rajashekar's interpretation of the "no other name" text (Acts 4:12) is inadequate (pp. 97f.). The text is not simply about physical healing. The evangelistic context in Acts 3 and 4 makes it clear that this amazing and undeniable public "sign of healing" (4:16-22) becomes the occasion for Peter's sermon about faith in Jesus, the holy and righteous author of life, who was rejected and crucified but raised by God. The desired response to Peter's invitation is to repent so "that your sins may be wiped out" (3:12-19; cf. 4:1-10). The similar "sermon" to the Sanhedrin the next day ends with an implicit call to repentance for rejecting the "cornerstone" and to faith in "no other [saving] Name," i.e. person or power (14:7), than the healing and rescuing name of Jesus.

Rajashekar's insights on evangelizing in a postmodern world are enlightening and helpful (pp. 107-12).

The suggestions of Wartburg dean Craig Nessan about the "culture changing" practices (pp. 130f.) needed to become an evangelizing church are wise counsel: modeling, mentoring, small group conversation (a method as old as Lutheran pietists and Wesley's "methodists"), and public testimonies in worship services (learned from modern Evangelicals and Pentecostals) (pp. 120f.).

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Nessan's Epilogue summarizes most of the agreed theses of the book--from linking law and gospel to "simultaneously justified and a sinner." The solus Deus (p. 98) is focused on "God as the chief actor in all our evangelizing efforts" (p. 134), epitomized in the doxology soli Deo gloria! That "Worship is an evangelizing activity" (p. 135) is a word that needs to be heard as "Renewing Worship" is also on ELCA's plate. Since Word and sacrament are means of grace (i.e., media, or, as Augsburg Confession Article V says, "instruments" or tools of the Spirit), how can worship not be an evangelizing event (pp. 134f.)? Because the United States is now the world's fourth largest mission field (p. 86), all laity must be trained and regard themselves as missionaries. Nessan's summary points to the need for a larger and stronger adult membership program (p. 137; cf. chaps. 3 and 5). The Alpha series* could be a start and a part of evangelizing and catechizing. Omitting or clarifying some parts of Alpha would help adult converts understand that their "decision" was rooted in God's decision. As Luther says, we cannot by our own reason or strength, understanding or effort, brain-power or will power believe in Jesus Christ. Only the Spirit can enable faith. Only Jesus can attract all people to faith (John 12:32). As Jesus told his disciples, "You have not chosen me. I have chosen you" (John 15:16).

Of all the "reformations" announced in the last century and the present one, the call for "a new culture of evangelizing" (p. 137) is the most critical.

Postscript

Arthur Cochrane makes an interesting case in Eating and Drinking with Jesus: An Ethical and Biblical Inquiry (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974). He interprets the Lord's Supper in relation to Jesus' other meals, from those with tax collectors and sinners to his feeding miracles. Arguing that the Lord's Supper might best be celebrated as an "act of love" in an agape-like meal (pp. 78-100), he has made several not necessarily consistent points about faith. "God permits and commands men to eat in order that they may come to faith and confess that Jesus is the Bread of eternal life and in order that their eating may be a sign and proclamation of his death" (p. 31). However, Cochrane also expresses agreement with Zwingli that eucharistic eating and drinking neither create nor even strengthen faith, since they are not means of grace. Calvin, on the other hand, affirms the Lord's Supper as a sacrament and a means of grace and calls Zwingli's view "profane."

Cochrane is clear that "faith is man's recognition and acknowledgment that Jesus Christ has offered his flesh for the life of the world and that all men have been guilty for the shedding of his blood" (p. 65). Even though Cochrane calls the Eucharist an act/good work of faith, the case he makes for the sacramental meal--and virtually all of Jesus' meals--suggests that not only Word but also sacraments have evangelistic power. Lutherans de facto acknowledge this in baptismal theology and practice. Is it not possible that unbaptized persons who, in sermonic and/or eucharistic proclamation (1 Cor 11:26), hear and believe the good news (Rom 10:8-13) might be invited in a Lutheran "altar call" to come "worthily" to eat and drink "with Jesus," indeed to receive Jesus "in his body and his blood"? Luther made it clear in the Small Catechism that faith in these words, "given for you" and "shed for you for the forgiveness of sins," is all the preparation one needs for receiving Christ at this Table.

Ralph Quere

Wartburg Theological Seminary

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*See http://www.alphaministries.org/alphaseries.htm.