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Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness

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'What the gospel needs most is... disciples who follow Jesus with or without the support of their culture. It does, however, require a people that has been made into the temple of God in which the Spirit dwells, built upon the church's only secure foundation, Jesus Christ.' p 12

Bryan Stone is good at what he does. He has the intellectual capacity to pursue the biblical instruction of the Great Commission. His theology is mission-centric which typifies the structures incorporated and identifiable with missions. The introduction is short of staggering - it is breathtaking. It convinces and succeeds in its emotional plea for a return to making evangelism a priority again. Stone accurately and scholarly brings the 'North American' mega-churches to their knees, but also knows that it is their hearts that are at fault.

'On this view, any evangelism for which the church is irrelevant, an afterthought, or instrumental cannot be Christian evangelism. It is within such a social imagination that salvation is able finally to be construed as 'a personal relationship with Jesus' and thus something that takes place outside, alongside, or as a substitute for the church.' p 17

One point that I differ on, would be why Stone chose to use a secular reference in MacIntyre, to lay the biblical foundation of our faithfulness to the Great Commission. It serves no paradigm in the ecclesiology of the church - past, present or future. A preference toward sound biblical greats that support his thesis would have much more informed our theology. Was Wesley such a poor example?

As with most Reformed evangelicals, I struggle to find the balance when focusing on the lost, and our obedience to the biblical text. The question of election is one I completely hold, yet the practice of Christian witness is surely intended for the lost primarily, though not exclusively?

The author knows how to challenge these views, and he succeeds only to the degree that we allow him to inter-act with our own, because he never dogmatically lays it on the line. Instead, he prefers to be instructive and informative towards the ecclesia. The challenge of our mercy toward the lost being divine or human, is superseded by how he brings the topic to be a matter of the heart's response to and guidance by the Holy Spirit. Such is His penetrative ability!

'The church is inevitably a counterpolitics insofar as it is shaped by the politics of God's reign rather than the politics of the city or nation in which it finds itself.' p 179

So I heartily enjoyed this book, even though it fell beyond the praxis of my own doctrinal beliefs. It was informative to the point that it made me realize that at no time does one person have exclusive rights to the whole truth of God and His plan of redemption.

'To assign the church this sort of centrality is not, however, to reduce God's reign to the church, or to make it identical with the church. It is rather to construe the church as a people whose confession of God as sovereign is embodied in its politics.' p 189

In this brilliant book, Bryan Stone advocates a direction for the church that is both exhilarating and terrifying. It is terrifying because the church needs to recognize that Christendom is in ruins, and that we must turn away from the only way we know to do church: being concerned with status and power and statistical "success." But Stone delves into Scripture and the scholarly literature of the past couple of decades to present an exciting alternative that outweighs any fear. We can stop devoting energy to the despair-inducing work of trying to shore up what is in ruins. We can be open to what God is doing that is new!

According to Stone, evangelism is an invitation to live in the church, according to God's reign in the world. This life is marked by such practices and virtues as worship, forgiveness, hospitality to the stranger, economic sharing, faith, hope, charity, joy, presence, patience, courage, humility. The church is called to those practices and virtues, as a corporate body. As Stone writes: "Jesus talked about the reign of God as a radically new order that comes to put an end to the age-old patterns of wealth and poverty, domination and subordination, insider and outsider that are deeply ingrained in the way we relate to one another on this planet. But in order for that new order to become a serious option for the world, it must be visibly and imaginatively embodied in the world. And if Scripture is a faithful witness, the purpose of God throughout history is the creation and formation of a new people whose mission is to do just that." Stone asserts that evangelism cannot happen without this witness of the church.

Is it easy to live according to these practices and virtues, as citizens of God's reign? No! Life in the church entails constant confession of failure, continual forgiveness, a process of life-long conversion. In this community, we are learning from each others' modeling. We are modeling for each other. We are receiving the ability to do this from the Holy Spirit.

Here's how enthusiastic I am about this book: I think it outlines the direction for my work, as the pastor of a congregation, for the last decade of my active ministry.

For half a century and more there has been a great divide between the churches that call themselves "evangelical" and the churches that flee in terror from that word. Stone is employed by one of the last bastions of peace-and-social-justice Christianity, Boston University. There's a statue honoring an alum, Martin Luther King, Jr., outside of the chapel. He was recruited to be their first and only professor of evangelism because the church he started, "Liberation Community" in Dallas/Fort Worth, was evangelical, interracial, and in solidarity with the poor (he built membership by first getting grants to do effective social service work in a run-down neighborhood).

This book is the fruit of over a decade standing at the divide between those churches that hear God's call for peace and justice, and those that hear God's call to proclaim the Good News, baptize, and make disciples in God's name. Stone is one of the very few that understands it's one and the same God calling two essential and interrelated things. Read the book.

Evangelism after Christendom is a comprehensive treatment of the definitions, histories, contexts, subversions, environments, and virtues that shape, nurture, and challenge evangelistic practice. The book is significant, because of its thorough review of appropriate literature, movement from theology to practice, and emphasis on the "evangelizing community" and the virtues that originate within this community. Throughout this review, through the purview of reflective critique and agreement, I will summarize the basic arguments of the book and apply these arguments to my context of North American church planting.

Initially, Evangelism after Christendom serves as a prophetic call to the church to reclaim its true and intended evangelistic identity. In the book's introduction, author Bryan Stone states, "The thesis of this book is that the most evangelistic thing the church can do today is to be the church--" (15) Moreover, he provides a specific framework for how this might take shape. Stone continues, "...to be formed imaginatively by the Holy Spirit through core practices such as worship, forgiveness, hospitality, and economic sharing into a distinctive people in the world, a new social option, the body of Christ." (15) For Stone, this is the nature of evangelism.

Furthermore, these descriptions serve to construct the framework of what Stone, later in the book, frequently refers to as the ecclesia. However, Stone's attention toward ecclesia begins with a theological foundation of evangelism as practice. Stone uses the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to purport, "A practice is especially important in MacIntyre's overall argument, for it provides the context in which the identity of a tradition is constituted, the narrative meaning of human life is enacted, and the character, virtues, and skills for journeying toward that meaning are displayed and refined." (30) However, as he builds the argument, Stone succinctly asks, "Is evangelism a practice? To the extent that it may be so understood, it likewise employs a number of varying skills, arts, techniques, and activities. But if evangelism is a practice, it is never reducible to any of these..." (31) Next, Stone clarifies his reference to MacIntyre by involving James McClendon's description of a "game." I found this metaphor to be quite helpful in describing evangelism as practice. Stone unpacks evangelistic practice through the lens of McClendon's "four necessary elements to a game: (a) an end or goal, (b) the means to that end, (c) the rules by which the game is played, and (d) the proper attitude in playing." (32) Finally, throughout the rest of the book, Stone structures his assertion of evangelism as practice upon the pillars of narrative, social context, and virtue.

In Evangelism after Christendom, Bryan Stone assembles a case for evangelism taking place in a narrative context. In other words, as Stone articulates, "This story [the story of the people of God], with its various characters, subplots, twists, turns, and surprises, literally `makes sense' out of the Christian life by depicting its beginning, way, and end and thereby orienting us on a journey." (55) At this point, however, I would take slight exception with Stone's description. Perhaps, it is not the story of the people of God, but instead, the story of the God of the people. As Gary Holloway and Earl Lavender state in their book, Living God's Love: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality, "...the main character in my autobiography is not me, but God." Nevertheless, during this portion of the book, with outstanding thoroughness and meaning, Stone walks the reader through the stories of Israel, Jesus, and the early church. As an underlying form of foreshadowing, through his articulation of "the story of the people of God," Stone lays the foundations for his later call to ecclesia.

Before Stone arrives at his call to ecclesia, his pilgrimage winds through potential rival narratives of "the story of the people of God." For the purposes of his book, he tells the story of two main rivals: "The Constantinian Story" and "The Story of Modernity." For me, this was a meaningful portion of the book, because of the immediate application to my context of North American church planting. I find myself as a resident in a church culture that still bears many marks of Christendom, and a suburban culture that reflects the categories of secularization, religious pluralism, and consumerism as described by Stone. In response to these cultural frameworks, Stone asserts, "Only insofar as the church is itself a visible communion, a material culture, a form of life, an embodied social imagination, a public, a politics and economics in its own right, will it pose a threat to the individualization and subsequent massification of persons inherent in the modern invention of sociality and its institutional offspring." (170) With experience to reflect upon, I concur with Stone's assessment. Furthermore, for Stone, the church embodies this description by communally subversive means choosing not to opt into a dominate culture of individualism, marketing, and choice. In rebuttal to the dominate culture, Stone writes, "The question we must ask is whether the church is the eschatological sign and living demonstration that the end of time has come or whether it is to be viewed in strictly functional terms..." (168) Throughout this section of the book, Stone remains true to his prophetic calling toward the church to be the church.

Next, as a specific element within Stone's calling toward the church to be the church, he launches a section of the book in which he unpacks the ecclesia as witness and invitation. First of all, the ecclesia serves as a witness to the reign of God. In support of this point, Stone says, "The new creation to which evangelism witnesses is God's peaceable reign--a work of prophetic imagination that both demands and makes possible a distinctive reordering of loyalties, priorities, and relationships and of the way power and resources are shared and distributed." (177) For me, this prophetic call, or maybe better stated, a prophetic community living out this way of life ("God's peaceable reign"), is much needed in my suburban context. Ironically, for Stone, the second service of ecclesia involves invitation. As Stone reveals, "The practice of evangelism announces and embodies this imaginary even as it seeks to invite and initiate persons into it through a fully material formation into a people, a Spirit-created social option in space and time." (177) Stone continues to describe witness and invitation in terms of cruciform politics and economics. In other words, his suggestions for evangelism after Christendom find root in the practices of ecclesia instead of the propositional truth and scientific methods of modernity. As a result, conversion must be viewed in terms of process or being continually converted. In a conversation about the measurability of evangelism, Stone concludes, "If evangelism can be `measured' at all, perhaps it can best be measured by how well a community prepares a place at its table for those who are not there yet, for those who have not even heard, much less heeded, its invitation." (274) In Evangelism after Christendom, the ecclesia embodies and invites people into "God's peaceable reign."

Finally, in what, in my opinion, is actually a discussion about spiritual formation, the author digs into the character of the evangelist who would proclaim (or live out) such a life ("God's peaceable reign") in ecclesia. Basically, Stone summarizes the "martyrdom and virtue" of the evangelist in the following four characteristics: presence, patience, courage, and humility. I found the "churchwomen," Oscar Romero, and the Common Cathedral to be prophetic exemplars of Stone's description of the evangelist, and consequently, stories saturated with conviction. This portion of the book left me introspective as to how I, through the power of the Holy Spirit, might exhibit such virtues in my church planting context. These pages of Evangelism after Christendom and my Tuesday night covenant group's study through Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden simultaneously ushered me into Jesus' words in Luke 9.23-24: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." As evangelists who are also participants in ecclesia may we "come after" Jesus with such Spirit-fueled intensity that our evangelistic practice spreads through the virtues of presence, patience, courage, and humility.

Evangelism after Christendom provides an extensive theological framework for discussion concerning evangelism in a post-Christendom context. I would recommend it as a worthy, cost-effective investment for any church leader discerning God's prophetic call toward the engagement of such a post-Christendom culture with the story of God or desiring a full description of evangelistic practice. Bryan Stone's treatment of practice, narrative, history, ecclesia, and virtue contribute thorough scholarship, thoughtful critiques, and meaningful applications in the context of any discussion concerning evangelism. Stone set a course to prophetically challenge the church to be the church, and in Evangelism after Christendom, he remains true to this end.

As a pastor in what is generally considered an evangelical tradition, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

I'm not sure I've read a book that's been more affirming and challenging and resonating and all sorts of other things more than this one. I'd say it was 90% affirming and 10% challenging for me. It was incredible and wonderful to find an ecclesiology that "matches" much of who/how/what I feel like the Church is supposed to be. More than once I put the book down and said to myself something along the lines of, "There, there, now...you're not an idiot." Well...maybe I am an idiot. But at least I know I'm not alone.

I read the book along with a group of three other evangelical pastors, making for an interesting experience. More than once in the later weeks of our discussions, the question was asked: "What on earth are we going to do with this?" So I put the book down in frustration sometimes, but not because I disagreed with it. My response was more along the lines of: "Yeah...great, Dr. Stone...where the heck are churches like these?" In fairness, he finally answers this question in part almost right at the very end of the book, albeit very briefly. I understand that Dr. Stone's world is generally in academia, so his goal was not to satisfy the pastor in me who tends to look for the practical. However, practicality was not the goal of the book and perhaps would be antithetical to the point of the matter: evangelism transcends molds and rather, is shaped by the movement of the Holy Spirit through Christ's Church.

The book is saturated with Wesleyan Holiness. While not surprising since Bryan's training is both Nazarene & Methodist (and he teaches at a "Methodist" School of Theology), many who consider themselves either Holiness people would be aghast, confused, or both at the claims of the book. I wasn't so much. The inherent relationship between evangelism and holiness that Stone puts forth would make the St. Francis, John Wesley, or Phineas Bresee that I know of rather proud.

Some of the things that jumped out at me throughout the book:
Really, the book is a major repetition, over and over again, of the same thing (the thesis): "...the most evangelistic thing the church can do today is be the church." (p.15)

Right away in the intro, with the way that he talks about "re-claiming the E-word," I was challenged. I'm *sure* that this was explained fully to me in my seminary evangelism class: that "to evangelize" means to give good news. Simple as that. Nothing more and certainly nothing less.

"...the power of the gospel is demonstrated not through winning, but through obedience." How on earth do we read anything else through the eyes of scripture, particularly Jesus' ministry? (p.12)

"The church is the evangelistic strategy." (p.15)

"To believe that the 'real world' is something other (or larger) than the world of the gospel is to deform Christian evangelism from the beginning." (p.234):

"All Christian evangelism, therefore, whether directed to the rich or to the poor, is ultimately eschatological from beginning to end. It is not an exercise in getting persons ready for 'the end' but rather the practice of inviting persons to be transformed by the end that has already made itself present, and on that basis to see differently and live differently." (p.85)

"The Constantinian story is the story of the church's forgetting its journey and making itself at home in the world." (p.116)

"...the point is that the logic of evangelism is not, in the first place, a matter of what 'works' but rather a matter of faithfulness and obedience." (p.162)

I've read Yoder's Politics of Jesus a couple of times. But for some reason, this statement from Stone made clear "politics" to me better than ever before (p.178): "Politics refers to the processes, rules, and skills that help us as a people to understand, order, and form our involvements and relations." Yet another word that needs "re-claiming."

"Holiness is never a way out of the world but ever and always a way into the world. It is for the world that the church is called to be both in the world and visibly different from the world." (p.195) Good grief how did we ever get away from this?

"The politics of evangelism, then, is the church's 'otherness' in worship, fellowship, baptism, discipline, morality, and martyrdom." (p.196) Why did I leave seminary feeling in great part like evangelism was best "done" when modeled after the ways of the world? Like...we have to be "cool" or something to evangelize people...

"eucharistic fellowship and sharing" (p.199) Nothing more I need to quote. These three words together shape ecclesiology, and thus, they shape my life.

"Sanctification does not happen first behind the closed doors of the church and prior to its bodily social engagement with the world. Rather, the church's eucharistic engagement with the world is its sanctification as a visible and public body that glorifies God." (p.211)

A general notion of the chapter on the Holy Spirit is that evangelism is for the whole church community, not just those who aren't yet a part. So when I cease to reek of good news, _I_ need to be evangelized.

"...evangelism is characterized by witness rather than by effectiveness." (p.229)

"Evangelism cannot be measured by the conversions it 'produces.' Its only measurement is faithfulness to the gospel of Christ of which it is a witness and to which it is an invitation." Again, this resonates with a Bresee quote I recently discovered: "Don't count them. Weigh them. Not quantity, but quality." I know that a lot of people don't like this thinking. I do. And I daresay it's quite biblical. (p.257)

"The problem is this: when the practice of evangelism becomes so preoccupied with entry that it loses sight of the journey itself, it is capable of being taken over by a logic foreign to the journey and even antagonistic to it." (p.260)

"Evangelism takes time. But for a people of hope, it is precisely time that we have been given." (p.294)

"To evangelize is not to convince or convert; it is to share a promise that has been made by God, narrated in the story of God's people and embodied in the person of Jesus." (p.294)

In one sense, I hate giving proof-text quotes as above. You need to read the book. The postliberal nature of stuff like this is increasingly how the Church must move forward: know the story of God in such a way...that our lives are the story of God...acting as an invitation to the world to become a part of the same story.

Stone's work is a challenging read, but well worth the investment for anyone who wants to get beyond the mere techniques of Christian evangelism. He offers an historical perspective on God reaching out to humanity, and offers a deeper way of understanding what it means to be a Christian witness.

Whoever reads this book might need to check on certain academic terms used by the author. It reads like a graduate text. But this in no way diminishes the value of this book.

I recommend it for every pastor, church leader, and missionary.

Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness This is the best book that I've ever read on evangelism! I highly recommend it.