Who Will Evangelize Britain?

BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN BRITAIN

THE lifeblood of Britain’s churches is ebbing away at the rate of nearly 1,500 members a week, reports The UK Christian Handbook. The young are abandoning the church, proclaims The Times, “because they find it boring and lonely.”

While Anglican churches close at the rate of one a week, there are “thousands of people in search of meaning and purpose to their lives,” admits the Church of England’s Church Times.

Faced with this crisis, Britain’s churches united in 1990 behind a “Decade of Evangelism.” The Scotsman said the ’90’s “may well be the decade in which evangelism is claimed back by the traditional, established Churches in an attempt to swell sadly-​depleted memberships and to turn the tide on secularism.”

A fond hope​—but can it be realized? What has happened in the past few years?

An Unsure Foundation

Church of England clergymen generated little enthusiasm for the “Decade of Evangelism” at their 1989 General Synod. The chairman of the Church Union’s Mission and Renewal Committee, for example, stressed: “Preparation is all-​important,” but he cautiously added: “It may, in some cases, take all the decade.”

Bishop Gavin Reid predicted: “It will be a campaign of embarrassment after five years.”

Undeterred, Anglicans soon formed a united front with the Roman Catholics, who had established their own “Decade of Evangelisation” in 1988. Most other denominations had some misgivings. “I must confess to feeling uneasy about the Decade of Evangelism. It is a high-​sounding title, but what does it mean?” asked Paul Hulme, minister of the prestigious Wesley’s Chapel on City Road, London. “What are we supposed to be doing that we are not doing already?”

Defining Objectives

To evangelize is to preach the gospel, or good news, to convert hearers to Christianity​—a far cry from what many church leaders wish to see. “It is not our business to convert people to Christianity,” proclaimed Dr. Newbigin of the United Reformed Church. “That is God’s business.” What lies behind such an extraordinary statement? The growing tension of Britain’s multiracial society with its non-​Christian, ethnic religions. Consider the following:

“The Decade of Evangelism may fizzle out like other decades,” said Anglican rector Neil Richardson, “but while it lumbers on it is a distraction from a pressing issue facing the churches and everyone else: the potentially explosive interface of religions in all our cities.” Pinpointing the problem, he continued: “Relationships between sections of the religious community need to be based on the firm confidence that nobody is seeking to convert or proselytise.”

Well aware of this “potentially explosive” situation, George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, declared “Decade of Evangelism” to be a “clumsy title” because Muslim and Jewish leaders felt they were being targeted by “hard-​line evangelicals.” “It is a mistake,” he said later, “to say as some do that the first task of the church is to evangelise.”

Bishop Michael Marshall, on the other hand, maintains that the basic need is for the Church of England to be “converted into the Church of God in England,” with Muslims and others being brought into the Christian fold. “The call to win Islam for Christ is on the agenda,” he proclaimed, warning that such an approach “will necessarily involve a decade of confrontation.”

What of the Jews? “True Evangelism Must Include the Jews,” headlined the Church Times. But David Sheppard, bishop of Liverpool, strongly disagreed. “The prime target of the Decade of Evangelism must be those who have lapsed from faith or never known what it is to believe in God,” he said. Is this possible? Neil Richardson, writing under The Guardian’s headline “Evangelism’s Diminishing Returns,” maintains: “Every person [in Britain] has had a fair chance to assess the claims of Christianity. It is clear that the majority have decided it is not for them.”

Are Britain’s churches equipped to evangelize such a secular community with its multiplicity of faiths and ethnic cultures?

The Challenge

Former archbishop Dr. Runcie declared: “Our officers in evangelism are the bishops and clergy, our missionaries are the laity.” Veteran evangelist Gilbert W. Kirby said: “Every christian should be in a position to explain to another the fundamentals of the faith. Every christian should be taught how to lead another to Christ. . . . An instructed church-​membership should be our aim. . . . It is useless to tell people to evangelise without showing them how.” In other words, the bishops and clergy must set the lead in showing their flocks how to evangelize.

Speaking frankly in the inaugural BBC “Priestland Memorial Lecture,” radio broadcaster Brian Redhead said: “Heads snug beneath mitres should face up to the fact that they have lost the power to entertain the non-​committed . . . They must place greater emphasis on the art of preaching.” And where should this be done?

At the turn of this century, William Wand, later to become Bishop of London, received his early training in Lancaster, England, when pastoral visiting was the norm. “I think that forty was the record number of doors at which I knocked in the course of any one afternoon,” he wrote later. “The Vicar was also very alive to the needs of the minority of people who never seemed to come to church. He was anxious to make what is now called a ‘break-​through’ against this apathy and indifference.”

For any clergyman to make such personal contact in Britain today would indeed be a rare exception! Too late Britain’s churches are realizing there is no substitute for evangelizing people in their homes, in the way Jesus and his disciples did.

“Only a truly dedicated man can win others to God,” observes Evangelism and the Laity. “‘Do the work of an evangelist’ [2 Timothy 4:5] . . . is a command which must be obeyed in some way by every Christian if the Church is to fulfil its purpose in our generation.”

“Good News”​—Its Source

John Taylor, general secretary of the Division of Ministries of the Methodist Church, wrote to The Times of London about “our duty to share the good news.” He said: “The church must therefore find new and more effective ways of nurturing and teaching its own members. Even in the church there is an appalling ignorance of the Christian scriptures.” To what has this ignorance led its members?

“A number of leading younger Evangelicals . . . insist that Christian discipleship demands specific kinds of social and political action,” explains Rachel Tingle in Another Gospel?​—An Account of the Growing Involvement of the Anglican Church in Secular Politics. This “Kingdom Theology,” as it is termed, asserts that the Kingdom of God is extended to earth when peace, justice, and “social righteousness” are established by political means. This is, of course, “Liberation Theology,” or the old “Christian Socialism” in a modern guise.

How does such thinking square with Jesus’ own statement: “My kingdom is no part of this world. . . . My kingdom is not from this source”? (John 18:36) Or with the words of an earlier prophet: “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite”?​—Daniel 2:44.

Note that this Kingdom is established by God’s hands​—not man’s. Liberation from war, from injustice, and even from death itself will come from Jehovah through his appointed King, Jesus Christ​—not from man. That really is good news that needs to be proclaimed!​—Revelation 21:3, 4.

Today, Jehovah’s Witnesses, numbering nearly 130,000 in Britain alone, share that same conviction. Drawn out of all national groups and religious faiths, they stand united as Christians. They are well-​trained evangelizers eager to share the good news with all who will hear. To this end they use every means available, and many are benefiting from their effective ministry.

[Box on page 23]

Britain’s Evangelists

The following extract is taken from a British Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, the Catholic Herald, October 22, 1993, page 8.

“Whatever happened to the decade of evangelisation? What indeed! Two years ago it was the flavour of the month and hardly a week without mention in the press. Today? A deafening silence. . . .

“Where is the urgency conveyed by Jesus as He despatched His disciples to evangelise the surrounding villages? Or by St Paul: ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! (1 Co 9:16).’

“There is also the problem that many Catholics do not appreciate that evangelisation is not an option but a mandate ordained by Christ Himself: ‘Go, make disciples of all nations’ [Matthew 28:19]. . . .

“How many Catholics are sufficiently conversant with their faith to confront the sceptical? . . . How extraordinary it is that, God’s Son having come to earth, so few of us bother to study what He said. . . .

“Now I hold no brief for [Jehovah’s] Witnesses. . . . But spare a thought for the other side of the coin. Their moral stance, based on a belief in God’s absolute standards, is unimpeachable. More to the present point, each Witness devoted the equivalent of something like three evenings a week to doctrine, systematic Bible study, and practical day to day Christian living, often in one another’s homes.

“Not only that, but each Witness is also taught that, by his very calling, he is necessarily a missionary. He is taught the marketing tools needed to project his message. Door knocking, going out in twos, is a central feature of his life. Witnesses are also zealous in caring for the poor and needy.

“In short, . . . it is hard not to be reminded of the early Church as depicted in the acts of the Apostles. And the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. Their growth has been explosive. Explicit proclamation can deliver!”