PATTERNS OF EVANGELIZATION

Van Engen’s chapter on the Impact of Modern Ecclesiology on the Local Church (Scherer 1994:1) provided a pattern for the process of evangelism for a particular group of people that has been previously unreached. The pattern demonstrated a possible pattern of the Mano and Gio.

1. Evangelism leads to conversions of local people.

2. Initial gatherings led by outside leadership.

3. Leadership training involves indigenous leadership.

4. Regional and national structures begin to be formed.

5. Specialized ministries grow inside and outside the church.

6. Indigenous missionaries are sent local, nationally and internationally.

In every context, there are patterns towards evangelization, but also barriers to Christianity and the evangelization process. Those barriers might include social structure, established religious belief system, cultural forms of Christianity, or the absence of contextual expressions.

A major barrier of evangelization has been the barriers between groups of people.

This barrier was evident in the New Testament between Jews and Gentiles. Jesus, in his death, abolished the dividing barrier in the process of making peace. The Jews did not cease to be Jews, nor Gentiles to be Gentiles, but their ethnic differences were no longer a barrier to fellowship. Even though Jesus removed barriers, culturally those barriers were still functional. Paul publicly rebuked Peter because of his action of withdrawing from the table with Gentile believers. Functional homogeneity has persisted as a barrier of the church (Scherer 1992:261).

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Cultural Christianity in Liberia was akin to the establishment of an Americo-Liberian homogenous unit church. The result of that establishment was an alien church that was a barrier to faith to those of a different context. There are many historical examples of ethnic conflict between people groups, racial segregations, and caste systems that perpetuate inequality and systems that relativize injustice. These types of divisions have been natural human barriers to evangelization (Scherer 1992:261).

In current examples of cultural Christianity, author and apologist David Platt stated that "We're living in a day when it means almost nothing to be a Christian." Recent statistics revealed many self-professed believers were "…marginally committed to Jesus." Many "…culturally identify themselves as Christians and biblically are not followers of Christ."⁵⁴ Note that the author considers the idea that “we” represents inclusion, but in reality, it relates to an exclusive audience.

In the Lausanne Papers, a forum discussion resulted in papers related to Christian Witness to Nominal Christians. Nominal Christian was used as a term for a person who had culturally been exposed to and accepted the name of Christian, but who had not responded in repentance to faith in Jesus Christ. A broader definition might state that they were in fact, professing Christians, but living in a culturally adhesive relationship. A person may be religious, church member, and give intellectual assent, but does not embrace Christ in the manner described in the definition of evangelism.⁵⁵ Cultural Christianity is when Christianity identifies itself with a particular culture. To be a specific culture is to be Christian. This leads to ideologies such as manifest destiny and to political forms of theocracies and these adhesions become barriers.

Christianity in Liberia demonstrates that until 1980, there was a cultural Christianity that identified itself with the Americo-Liberian. To be Americo-Liberian was to be Christian, which alienated indigenous Liberians from being recipients of the Gospel.

54Discussion of American cultural Christianity referenced from an article by David Platt. Casual, Cultural Christianity Is Leading People to Hell. Christian Post. March 2013.

55Lausanne Occasional Papers. 1980. [Online]. Christian Witness to Nominal Christians. June.

http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/lops/66-lop-23.html (August 2013).

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A Christian wedding or funeral was the cultural practice of Americo-Liberians. This mind set was a significant barrier to the spread of the Gospel.

2.5.1 Social Structures and Evangelization

A key element of research was interacting with the social structure of the Mano and Gio. A part of the evangelization necessitates an encounter with social structure and affects the transmission of the Gospel. Churches must be dynamically conditioned to the socio-cultural environments of the receptors. Apeh (1989:5) advanced his assertion of social structure in the missionary and church starting setting by recognizing the role of social structure exemplified in the New Testament.

Contextualization and social structure are foundational to being able to contextualize both the message and the messenger. Failure to recognize the importance of social structure often results in a barrier of evangelization, as was the case in Liberia.

Social structure governs the way that people interact and relate. “People are social beings, born, raised, married, and usually buried in the company of their fellow humans. They form groups, institutions and societies.” Societies can be studied on three levels: interpersonal relations, the relations of groups, and of the society as a whole. Social structure is the way that relationships are organized with one another in order for the building of societies (Glasser 1976:61).

Within the Mano and Gio, this organization was true of both the general society and of the establishment of the Poro Society to govern a way of life. The social structure proved to be a resilient barrier to both the political agenda of the Americo-Liberians and the theological pursuits of missionaries. Part of the barrier was a failure to understand and engage the social structure in a way that allowed for dialogue and transmission. By not recognizing cultural parameters, an opportunity for witness was lost. Chapter five reviews this issue in regards to the social structure of the Mano.

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2.5.2 Missionary Approaches to Evangelization

There has not been a perfect missionary method or contextual expression of the church. In the New Testament, the Church had to be corrected some 150 times.⁵⁶ One must be cautious to avoid idealizing an expression that fails to recognize contextual tensions and challenges. The church must be attentive to mistakes of the past, but cannot succumb to the theoretical perfect contextualization (Root 2011:3).

A consistent criticism of missions has been the frequently exported Gospel accompanied by an alien culture that has created a conflict for the new church. Within that cultural baggage has been hyper-emphasis of theology, denominational structures, and practices of polity and worship. Each oaffected missionary efforts.

A common theological criticism has been the reduction of evangelization to the question of saving of individuals’ souls from perdition. This emphasis was thought to have dominated Protestant and Missionary practice. Clearly, eternal consequences cannot be left out, but Newbigin stated that she did not find that this perspective occupied the center of biblical proclamation (Sherer 1994:23). This researcher feels this criticism to be overstated and that Newbigin’s view would constitute greater missionary representation than has been historically represented.

Another common conflict of missionary evangelization has been the isolationism rooted in theology. Uka discussed the dangers of confining the Gospel within the limitation of bureaucratic organizations and pointed out how denominationalism negatively affected African missions. Using Nierbuhr’s work on Social Sources of Denominationalism, he argued that the institution was static, but the Gospel was dynamic. Denominational institutions reflected peculiar interests and prejudices, thus contributing to divisions that were not indigenous to the people. Imported

56This thought was according to theologian Walter Elwell as cited in Evangelism and the Early Church by Jerry Root. Lausanne World Pulse. December 2011.

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institutionalization was the net result of denomination. The shift from authentic evangelization to bureaucratic institutions created compromises and contradictions.⁵⁷ Evangelization is often viewed as a missionary discussion. Evangelical Christians understood the mandate to go into the world and make disciples. The missionary followed his or her calling to another place to propagate the Gospel. In responding to God’s call, the missionary encountered cultural barriers that raised questions: Was the missionary prepared for a contextual understanding? How was the missionary affected by the political manifestations of the sending nation? Was the missionary able to effectively communicate and did the recipients receive the intended good news? The discussions of these questions revolved around the missiological perspectives of the missionary. Early patterns of evangelization reflected missiological perspectives of missionary praxis, but ultimately, that role becomes encapsulated in the role of the local agent.

2.5.3 Local Agents and Evangelization

Garrison (2004:187) has written extensively on church planting movements in the context of evangelization. Garrison identified the active presence of local leadership as a key characteristic in every movement. Missionary strategists often use this axiom to remind missionaries to develop local leaders. The aim must be to transfer the driving force of the evangelism vision into the hearts of those being reached. Though most early documentation is done by and about foreign agents, the presence and activity of local agents has always been catalytic to effective evangelization.

In Mission and Empire, Peggy Brock described the spread of Christianity through the British Empire and how it depended only at first on foreign missionaries. Brock stated that the local agents, who were recent converts to Christianity, soon outnumbered the foreign-born missionaries. According to statistical data, the 10 000

57Adamo and Enuwosa. 2004. [Online]. Missionaries go home: The integrity of mission in Africa.

http://www.missionstudies.org/archive/conference/1papers/fp/Adamo_&_Enuwosa_Full_paper.pdf

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official missionaries employed by British societies at the turn of the twentieth century represented a high-water mark of European missionary mobilization, but that figure was dwarfed by the legions of local agents (Etherington 2005:132).

Any discussion of missions in Africa that ignores the sheer number of regional evangelists misrepresents the grassroots dynamics of evangelization. The foot soldiers of the advance of the Gospel have always been local agents. Mission statistics affirmed their existence, even though their voices were rarely heard. These local men and women not only proclaimed Christ among their own communities, but also volunteered to take the message to peoples of neighboring cultures and languages (Etherington 2005:132). This concept was demonstrated, not only among the Mano and Gio of Liberia, but also in regards to going to the Mano of Guinea.

At the heart of this debate is the discussion of contextualization. Bosch (2011:231) states that the indigenization model of contextualization presents itself as either translation or inculturation. The arriving missionaries’ struggled with the task of being able to translate the Word of God into a culture and to adapt to new forms rather than importing foreign forms. The recipients receive the message as presented, but receive the Gospel into cultural form rather than adopting the imported forms.

Translation and inculturation must happen for evangelization to flourish.