Where Does Evangelicalism Need to Go? John Stott Points the Way

John Stott said in a recent Christianity Today article:

Where do we evangelicals need to go? We’ve been through quite a trip in the last 50 years.
My immediate answer is that we need to go beyond evangelism. Evangelism is supposed to be evangelicals’ specialty. Now, I am totally committed to world evangelization. But we must look beyond evangelism to the transforming power of the gospel, both in individuals and in society.

With regard to individuals, I’m noting in different expressions of the evangelical faith an absence of that quest for holiness that marked our forebears, who founded the Keswick movement, for example, and the quest for what they sometimes called scriptural holiness or practical holiness. Somehow holiness has a rather sanctimonious feel to it. People don’t like to be described as holy. But the holiness of the New Testament is Christlikeness. I wish that the whole evangelical movement could consciously set before us the desire to grow in Christlikeness such as is described in Galatians 5:22-23.

Regarding social transformation, I’ve reflected a great deal on the salt and light metaphors, the models that Jesus himself chose in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. “You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.” It seems to me that those models must be said to contain at least three things.

First, that Christians are radically different from non-Christians, or if they are not, they ought to be. Jesus sets over against each other two communities. On the one hand there is the world, and on the other hand there is you, who are the dark world’s light. Jesus implied that we are as different as light from darkness and salt from decay.

Second, Christians must permeate non-Christian society. Salt does no good if it stays in the saltshaker. Light does no good if you hide it under a bed or bucket. It has to permeate the darkness. So both metaphors call us not just to be different, but to permeate society.

The third, the more controversial implication, is that the salt and light metaphors indicate that Christians can change non-Christian society. The models must mean that, because both salt and light are effective commodities. They change the environments in which they are placed. Salt hinders bacterial decay. Light dispels darkness. This is not to resurrect the social gospel. We cannot perfect society. But we can improve it.

My hope is that in the future, evangelical leaders will ensure that their social agenda includes such vital but controversial topics as halting climate change, eradicating poverty, abolishing armories of mass destruction, responding adequately to the AIDS pandemic, and asserting the human rights of women and children in all cultures. I hope our agenda does not remain too narrow.

I agree with John Stott.  We need to move beyond evangelism, extending our evangelical work and not leaving the evangelism behind or drop it’s priority for other Christian causes.  Through my exposure to the Emerging Church movement and one of my friends, I see now a greater need to go after what Stott proposes here.  I still think the gospel is the priority and the Emerging Church is too doctrinally indifferent, but the point that Stott makes here is important and the Emerging Church has helped me, by God’s grace, see that.  So what does God want me to do at CFBC?  I’m not sure yet, but I’ll keep praying and asking for guidance to know and obey the Spirit’s leading.  For more, see my post and my responses (exchange 1 and exchange 2)on my friend’s post for more details on what I think the priority should be.