Clinging to Western rationalism in religious matters is tantamount to wallowing in the Fall. You can read English translations of the Bible through Western lenses and find frantic assertions that you absolutely must organize resources and invade other countries with the rational gospel message. You can justify from that frame of reference manipulating people into psychological conversion to the Western religious orientation as the only hope for peace with God.
Or you can go back and let Scripture teach you from God’s point of view, most closely associated with Hebrew mysticism. If you do not reject Western epistemology, you cannot follow Christ.
Evangelism here at Kiln of the Soul virtual parish: The proper psychology of evangelism does not pretend to know the objective truth of things. At our very best we understand only our mission, our part in something miraculous. It’s a collection of paradoxes. On the one hand, we operate under the assumption of accountability, that every human at some time or other is granted at least one moment of mercy, when the gateway to spiritual life is open for them. Whatever the cause, God judges souls on the grounds of rejecting His truth.
We also know that we cannot operate on such a standard of justice, because we are not God. We have been shown mercy and grace, so we are no better than anyone else in need of mercy and grace. God’s judgment is just by definition; the Creator holds the ultimate prerogative in all things. We cannot even begin to understand such things. But we can strive to understand what He demands of us.
We hold the door of redemption open, insofar as we have anything to do with it. We give people room to fail while we absorb all the damage they offer us until God drives us to move away. Any attempt we make to regulate and standardize the options will fail, creating yet one more abomination of sin. It’s one more fallen structure that seeks to limit God. No two servants of His can operate on precisely the same standard.
Paradoxically, we know we must condemn what we see that fails to meet the moral standard of God’s character. We have zero authority to make our condemnation stick, but we have zero permission to remain silent. There should obviously be some overlap, so that at least a few others will recognize that the standard we raise does come from the Lord. There are no Lone Rangers in the Kingdom of Heaven. But while common consent does strengthen our faith, it is not the foundation. The foundation is the ineffable Divine Presence and the resulting compulsion to speak and act.
By no means should we ever imagine that our response is itself the means of conversion in any other soul. God said bluntly that He was the One doing the work and changing hearts. He allows us to come along for the ride. It is the paradox that accountability does not mean we can apply leverage to the process in any way. The result of conversion does not in any way depend on our input. The importance of our input is for our own blessings. We are the ones standing in need of projecting a true witness.
This is where virtually the entire range of Western Christendom gets lost. This is why, on some level, we have to reject mainstream Christian religion. Of all the failures of organized Christian faith, this is easily the most serious evil: assuming that their evangelism is necessary for others to believe. Associated with that is the arrogant assumption that because they have organized in some fashion, God is of necessity bound in what they do and is most clearly found there. Jeremiah had some strong words to say about the notion of having God over a barrel, as if He could not possibly allow bad things to happen to His religion, its practitioners and its earthly trappings.
Taking your church too seriously as sacred is just a false front for taking yourself too seriously, as if God cannot possibly act without you and your pitiful contributions to His revelation and redemption. When I left my church, it was because being involved actively hindered my calling. Rather than force the church to adapt to my needs, I got out of their way and followed the Spirit of God. Nothing I said or did accused the church of being wrong, only of being unsuitable as a venue of service. I did not pontificate, but pointed out how things didn’t match. I did so privately unless I was attacked or castigated in front of others. I stood up for my God and His calling on my life.
Perhaps in some future age, we might find churches more tolerant of variations. Maybe they’ll be more focused on moral discernment versus precision and orthodoxy as humans measure such things. I’m trying to model that here in our virtual parish. We don’t attempt to evangelize folks into joining our little group and our expression of faith. We offer our best response to God’s calling in our own lives, and let Him make of it what He will. His Word tells us we should naturally expect Him to use our lives as the means to drawing other people, but by no means can we comprehend the mechanism.
