Evangelism = Normalizing Christianity?

Imagine, fine reader, that you and I have been tasked with conducting a survey; the Holy Church of [insert any location] has asked us to garner a definition of ‘evangelism’ from one hundred people. They will cover all our travel costs out of central church funds; and so, naturally, to TripAdvisor we go to compare four-star hotels and steakhouse menus in Soho…

Flights booked, we survey half a dozen people in the duty-free, then jet off to spend a week on the jolly. We report our findings (and our plentiful expenses) to the Holy Church of [insert any location]. The consensus of our survey participants – the ones, anyway, who responded with more than blank stares or threats to call airport security – holds that evangelism is ‘to spread the Gospel’. His Holiness the Grand Prelate of [insert any location] congratulates us on a job well done and admits us both to the sainthood for our sterling efforts.

Of course, this is just a fanfic about myself, a made-up church, and one of you; but I reckon if you really did survey one hundred people – or half a dozen duty-free shoppers, for that matter – then ‘to spread the Gospel’ is the definition of Christian evangelism they would most likely give.

To spread something effectively, however, takes a bit of groundwork. Allow me to regale you with a culinary metaphor: unless one is uncommonly strange, one does not equip oneself with a butter knife and smear peanut butter on the kitchen countertop. You get out a chopping board, like a civilised person, and station a piece of toast or other bread-adjacent item of sustenance thereupon; only then you can spread – if you’ll pardon the phrase! – to your heart’s content.

What sort of groundwork does evangelism require? Well, it helps if the two parties – the ‘evangeliser’ and the ‘evangelised’ – share a common language of Christian signs and symbols. It seems, though, that sections of our Churches are keen to demolish all the visible trappings of our Faith, wherever they may be found. Clergy turn up to preach dressed not in robes but in boardroom attire, as if they were there to flog alien abduction insurance or to help you remortgage your granny.

To serve everyone in the community was, I had assumed, the vocation of a minister; but how can anyone tell that you’re a priest, and thus avail themselves of your ministry, when you run about in your civvies? (Better than your skivvies, I suppose; not much more informative, though, to the general public as to your profession. Then again, that’s probably the whole point!)

February provided us with at least one good opportunity to be public about our Faith: Ash Wednesday. To walk around for a day with penitential ashes on my forehead is, as I like to call it, my annual act of evangelism. You receive, of course, all manner of reactions when you turn up to work with a cross painted in soot above your eyes; that’s the magic of Ash Wednesday!

This is what made me think about evangelism as, fundamentally, the practice of normalizing Christianity to the Twenty-First Century world. St Paul wrote, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth’ (Romans 1.16, KJV). What better way to show that you’re not ashamed – indeed, are proud of – your beliefs than to wear the Cross on your forehead, that most prominent of places, for the day that’s in it?

When faith is normalized, occasions for deeper conversation arise more frequently. St Philip the Deacon found this out in Acts 8. He comes across, in his travels, an Ethiopian eunuch in charge of his Queen’s treasury (the Varys to her Cersei; the Grey Worm to her Daenerys), whom he finds absorbed in the Book of Isaiah, reading the prophet aloud as he sits in his chariot.

Philip overhears him and asks, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ (v. 30, RSV), to which the man replies, ‘How can I, unless some one guides me?’ (v. 31a). Thus begins a theology seminar, in which Philip sets the Prophet Isaiah’s words in relation to the Gospel of Christ; and this, ultimately, results in his baptism by Philip’s hand. Had the man from Ethiopia been less open about his quest for salvation, then this encounter never would have happened.

‘And he [the eunuch] invited Philip to come up and sit with him’ (v. 31b), is more than just empty narration. It suggests that Philip respected the man’s boundaries, both physical and spiritual; the Deacon did not aim to poke religion down anybody’s throat. Only when offered a hand up into the eunuch’s chariot – when given permission, that is – did Philip impart his message.

I’m highly sceptical, for this reason, about street-preaching and gospel tracts as means of evangelism. These methods grate on people, it seems to me; they don’t win very many to the Church. People can engage with something like an Ash Wednesday cross, to return to that example, or not – ask you questions about it, or ignore it altogether – as they see fit; and that’s perfectly fine.

Bible-thumpers, on the other hand, are obnoxious; either you never go to town again, which loses business for the high-street, or you don your thickest earmuffs to drown those megaphone-jockeys out. (Even then, Heaven preserve you; those earmuffs better be made of mammoth wool, or something.) It’s an issue that flares up here in Belfast with extreme regularity, to nobody’s particular amusement. Belfast Pride is a flashpoint for obvious reasons.

If not with loudhailer in hand, then, how should we ‘spread the Gospel’? We should aim to normalize Christianity, which means we keep the signs and symbols of our Faith close about us. In a world where church attendance has gone down the tubes, we should aim to make it as normal as it once was.

This is a heck of a lot of work in itself but if we can achieve it, people will feel more comfortable in discussions about religion. They will bring us more questions about our creed; and they might even come to faith as a result, if we’re lucky. Philip the Deacon – the man who baptised the eunuch, and about whom we read in Acts 8 – should serve as a role model in this respect.

And so, fine reader, other matters beckon; as I type this conclusion, I glance over at my phone. I’ve had more calls in the past hour than a Chinese takeaway gets in a whole weekend. Oh my days! His Holiness the Grand Prelate, it would seem, has been in contact: something about a steakhouse in Soho…