So I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the traditional (or at least 20th century) idea of evangelism. For the most part, I can’t really put my finger on it. My theology still allows for the benefit of (necessity of) “conversion.” But I find myself incredibly uncomfortable with both the method of evangelism and often the message.

It’s no secret, if you have read anything of mine at all, that I think the message often taught during mission trips, church services, youth camps, school prayer meetings, etc., are often very disconnected from what Jesus actually said and did. The message we’ve been proclaiming about Jesus has in many ways betrayed exactly who Jesus was, and we should be repenting for that if anything.

But in addition to this, the reasons given to try and convert people and the methods used have often fluctuated between lame and downright despicable. Whether it was the inquisitions and witch hunts, the taking of land and forcibly converting indigenous people, the “purchasing” of religious obedience by offering needed items (take a look at some of the Christian groups operating in Sri Lanka and Indonesia after the Tsunami) or the simply arrogant and disrespectful stance that people are only worth a conversation where we try to convert them…all of these have been, and are still very present in our Christian religion.

Does the evangecube give the reality of the gospel? Do the four spiritual laws exemplify the notions Jesus taught us to live by? Do 2 week mission trips produce any long term change in anyone, whether it be the traveler or the recipient of our “grace?” Certainly there are times it does, but for the most part, I find it hard to see these tools as worthwhile when it comes to taking someone who is not interested in the Kingdom and producing someone whose life looks a lot like Jesus. At best, and most often, we have simply replicated the incredibly shallow spirituality we see here in the U.S. Since we believe that “accepting Jesus” is all you have to do, then that’s all we try to do in our missionary work.

I have been trying for some time to put words to my feelings about all this. Then yesterday I was weeding out the religion section at work and picked up a book called “Common Era.” It is simply a collection of essays, and this one happened to be from a while ago. But I looked in the table of contents and the first essay was by Paul Knitter, my prof from Xavier who is now in New York at Union Theological Seminary. Here is what he wrote in an essay on Interreligious Dialogue:

In Interreligious dialogue we confront otherness as something we want not only to embrace but also to address. Ideally, we come to the conversation from a position of richness, not impoverishment – that is, we speak to each other out of our own religious experience. We speak because we have discovered something of value – the pearl of great price. As Raimundo Panikkar has continuously insisted, in order to have religious encounters, we must speak from religious experience – or at least from religious quest. Such “subjective” contents and perspectives are not to be cut out and packed in some kind of deep-freeze “epoche” but, rather, are to be poured, warm and bubbling, into the conversation. The “object” of dialogue is approached through a meeting of “subjects.”

And because we speak out of our different religious experiences and convictions, we will seek not only to explain but to persuade. If genuinely experienced, religious truth, like all truth, can never be only “for me.” If it is, it is somehow diluted or not yet fully grown. A quality of “universal relevance” is ingredient to every encounter with or revelation of the Ultimate; what one has seen, felt, been transformed by – can also so affect others. All interreligious dialogue, therefore, is animated by a certain missionary elan. We want our partners to see what we have seen; we want their lives to be touched and transformed as ours have been. Yes, let me use the offensive word: we want to convert our partners.

But the conversation that is sought is not one of “winning over” but of sharing. This is a big difference – between saving from damnation and sharing the light. This disctinction is based on the difference between religious truth experienced as “universally relevant” and as “one and only.” Authentic religious experience naturally includes, I suggest, the former quality, not the latter. When experienced, truth is always felt to be universal; it is not necessarily felt to be singular or final. Therefore, what animates me in the dialogue is not the conviction that you are lost without my understanding of truth, but that there is something missing in your life until you have seen what I have seen. You can be different, richer, if I can pass on to you what has been passed on to me.

Several months ago, I was speaking with a friend and we got on to the topic of evangelism and he asked me whether I thought we should be converting people of other religions. Or maybe he simply asked whether we should be actively trying to convert people to Christianity at all. And to be honest, my answer surprised me because I hadn’t formulated it in my mind until it came out of my mouth.

“No, I don’t think we should be converting people to Christianity. I think we should be asking people to live out the Kingdom of God.”

I think this is still what I feel, particularly when it comes to other religions. I believe there are people out there living lives that harm themselves, harm others, and harm God. And those people need to discover what the Kingdom message is. They need someone to tell them, someone to model it for them, and a community to discover it with. And in regards to other religions, I have begun to believe that Jesus is more interested in people living out that Kingdom than He is in making sure they do it in his name. In the same way there are people out there – without a knowledge of Jesus or his message – living poorly, I also know there are people out there – without claiming the name of Jesus – who more fully live out His Kingdom than most people I know personally. This is a terrible contradiction and somewhat disconcerting to a former “almost-fundamentalist.”

Now, all my conservative friends take a breath. I’m not saying at this point that I’ve decided all religions are the same. Even if I thought they were equally viable ways to experience God, I would not call them the same. However, I think it is clear from the words of Jesus that He simply wants us to live out that pattern of being, rather than being concerned with verbally assenting to the idea that He’s the only way.

So what is our missionary role? What should evangelism look like? What should our relationship with non-believers and people of other religions look like?

I need some time to think on that.