Evangelism and Manipulation

I want to post a short one (you be the judge!) on how different views of God’s sovereignty in salvation can lead to vastly different methods of evangelism. I have spent some energy to show that divine sovereignty forms the basis for evangelism. Again, that’s not to say that folks who deny the absolute and extensive sovereignty of God cannot or do not evangelize. They can and do, but their thinking about it gets messed up. Messed up thinking can and has led to some very unfortunate methods of “saving souls.”

George Whitefield

First, let’s think about how a Reformed evangelist thinks about his task. He knows that his job is to be faithful. He is a herald. He has faithfully to proclaim what’s been given him to proclaim. It’s his job to make clear what God’s given him to proclaim. He knows that God’s chosen this foolish means (preaching the gospel) to redeem sinners. He trusts in God and in him alone to convert sinners from death to life, and he trusts God to do that through the faithful preaching of his gospel. One sows, another waters, but God gives the increase. Thus, the evangelists is called to sow and trust God with the results. This does not mean that he approaches his task with stoic dispassion. Anyone who knows anything about this history of Reformed evangelism knows that the Reformed have been some of the greatest and most passionate evangelists. The names of John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles Spurgeon ought to be enough to demonstrate this. John Blanchard seems also to qualify.

Charles Finney

Next, let’s think about how a non-Reformed evangelist might think about his task. I say “might” think because I want to be fair. I don’t want to present caricatures or straw men. There is, naturally, a great breadth of thought when it comes to evangelism. For example, historic Arminians think quite differently than do Semi-Pelagians. I do want, however, to draw my readers’ attention to some significant historical developments in evangelistic thought, which are by no means caricatures. In the Second Great Awakening (2GA) we see a significant shift from a Reformed basis for evangelism to a non-Reformed one. The 2GA started in the hands of Calvinists like James McGready, but was rapidly taken over by Methodists, Baptists, and Disciples that, more and more, spurned Calvinism and looked to men like John Wesley and other Arminians (or, better, Semi-Pelagians) for their theology. The camp meetings, the protracted meetings, and the other “New Measures” of evangelism all came to change how Americans thought of evangelism. In the case of Charles Finney’s New Measures, the methodology was drawn from his anti-Calvinistic theology. The word for the 2GA was pragmatic. It it worked, the evangelists did it. The goal was not to be faithful as heralds, but to produce converts. If the evangelist’s job is to produce converts, then J.I. Packer’s observation is dead on: “If we regard our job, not simply to present Christ, but actually to produce converts — to evangelize, not only faithfully, but also successfully — our approach to evangelism would become pragmatic and calculating.”

If one leaves the absolute and extensive sovereignty of God behind, one’s evangelism will likely turn (at least partially) into manipulation. Instead of relying on God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence that which does not exist, we’ll rely on music, lighting, altar calls, anxious benches, or whatever other tactic seems to “work.”