Social networking and how not to evangelise from an either/or camp

I have only been social networking/blogging seriously for the last couple of months having set-up a couple of Google + circles, joined a few communities, posted on my blog and other platforms, tweeted and so on. So, being rather naive in all this, I am staggered at the amount of conversations and sharing going on, plus the large audiences which can be attracted. Certainly, a lot of what is being shared and discussed is edifying and inspiring, evoking serious thought about the Christian faith; but, I have also been rather shocked at the defensive prickliness and closed character of many comments made between people (and most notably, within Christian circles).

For example, I have been struck how, very roughly, there seems to be two camps within Christian circles concerning how we should evangelise and relate to non-believers. I have found that these camps often oppose each other, and, in the process, accuse the other camp of undermining God’s Kingdom, betraying Christ’s love and salvation for us, and so on. One camp is largely conciliatory, evangelising by finding common ground, emphasising the centrality of love and an action-based faith, and looking to include others of different faiths (or even no-faith) in meaningful debate. The assumption here is that Christ’s living presence is found in the many nooks and crannies of human experience and belief, and so, our job as Christians, is to identify where Christ is, highlighting how and where he is variously found for ours’ and others’ salvation. The other camp is largely separatist, evangelising through highlighting the differences between Christian faith and other belief systems, and stressing the uniqueness of Christian doctrine and what we believe about Christ and the route to salvation. The assumption here is that Christ’s living presence is found in the church (or certain parts of it), and so, our job as Christians, is to draw people toward the church to ensure people are saved via adopting particular Christian beliefs and doctrine.

With the terrible possibility of alienating everyone (!), my thought is that we should reject this opposition and instead dig deep in both camps; and that we should not worry about the possible contradictory pulls of this strategy as God and the Holy Spirit often works through and via tensions of this kind (and many others beside). Now, for all sorts of reasons concerning our personal temperaments, each of us will probably tend toward either/or camp, but our either/or allegiances (wherever we are inclined) I believe should be fiercely resisted. This resistance is justified for two main reasons. First, given both camps can find numerous scriptures legitimating their respective positions it is pointlessly destructive getting into slanging matches over what position best reflects the Bible’s teaching, as they both do! Second, although each position has its considerable strengths, when they are promoted without the other, they too readily collapse into dogmas which  lead to various distortions and deceptions.

Regarding the latter, left to its own devices, the conciliatory camp in spreading the pool of commonality risks watering-down the power and radicalism of what Christian doctrine proclaims about the character and nature of Christ, what he did for us all on the cross and in the resurrection. Correspondingly, the separatist camp, if left to its own devices, risks retreating into an increasingly narrow view of the world and God’s power, where the justification of a person is determined solely by what a person believes, separate from a person’s character and what s/he does. Either way, these either/or divisions I believe leave us vulnerable to pride and haughtiness, and as Christians end-up scrapping amongst themselves and tainting Christ’s message in the process. In short, we need to heed the warning of Christ in Mathew 12:25, that: “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

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