Hindrances to Evangelism in the Church

This theme, that of objections and hindrances to the Gospel in the Church, is a call to self-examination. It is certainly no matter for indifference whether or not we are ready for such self-evaluation, whether we are willing to recognize the problems and requirements of Christian identification in the world, whether we are willing to investigate seriously the actual condition of the Church.

What does it mean when we say that the Church—which by its nature and commission is to be the bearer of the Good News—may itself hinder the influence of the Gospel, that Christians themselves may be guilty if limitations and barriers prevent the spread of God’s Word? Certainly such critical charges cannot be put aside lightly. They deserve a full investigation.

An intensive approach of this kind is possible, of course, only after we have clearly established the basic meaning of the concepts “Gospel” and “Church” and have determined what relation Gospel and Church actually bear to each other.

This much is certain: Gospel and Church are not two giant entities that stand side by side in isolation and that can be judged independently. Actually they stand in an indissoluble relationship. The Gospel points to the Church, and the Church derives from the Gospel. This statement will be properly understood only if we turn aside from what history has come to designate as “Church.” We do well to guard against the many forms and differences, the misconceptions and contradictory statements, given in various religious presentations. Likewise, when we use the word “Gospel” we must remember that its meaning is not determined by some current concept or by subjective interpretation of this or that person’s theology.

Moreover, in considering the determinative relation between the Gospel and the Church, we must go back to the original setting of the New Testament record. We will gain the correct answer to our problem only if we ascertain the origin of the Gospel and the beginnings of the “Christian Church.” This source available to us is thoroughly enlightening. The judgments gained from it are of basic significance for our study.

We must keep three facts clearly in mind. First, we must understand that basic to every statement about the Gospel and the Church is a presupposition that, like a great railroad switch, turns everything in a specific direction. This presupposition is a fact, a reality that men neither have brought about nor are able to produce. This fact is the invasion of God’s revelation into history. The fact that Almighty God descended into the earthly realm of his creatures—that the living God locked himself into the history of humanity, spoke and dealt in a unique way through a specific nation, and then poured out the fullness of his deity and grace in Jesus Christ—manifests a reality that is totally new and beyond comparison. Therefore this reality of the God revealed in Jesus Christ cannot be measured in human terms. Human reason, the world’s reasonableness, must shatter upon it.

The definition of the Gospel now becomes signally clear. It is the “joyous news” that no man could ever have devised, the news that in Jesus Christ God took pity on the world—that the Incarnate One, God’s Son become flesh, Jesus of Nazareth; that the Crucified One, the One who was crucified and died; that the Resurrected One, he whom God raised from the dead, is the Redeemer of the world. This is the “joyous news”: Jesus Christ died as a sacrifice for the world, lives for us as the Risen One, and leads mankind toward its eternal goal.

This brings us to a second consideration: It was this Gospel that gathered together the Body of Christ, that inspired the Christian Church. We fail to understand the meaning of the Church unless we marvel that, as the Easter message spread throughout the world, the Spirit of the living Lord opened the pathway of faith to humble hearts and enabled them to witness for Christ. The Church issued from this Gospel and not from some system of ethics. For this reason the Gospel and the Church stand in the closest of essential relationships. The Gospel is the means, the tool, the instrument through which Jesus Christ reveals himself as active and alive in the Church. Everything, accordingly, depends on whether or not this Gospel is preserved and carried forward unclouded and unabridged. This Gospel not only brings the Church into being but also impresses upon it its nature and substance; the Gospel is the Church’s lifestream that unites it with Christ as its head and heart, as the very core of its being.

In the third place, it becomes evident, from this origin of Christ’s Church in the revelational event, that the Church has a task to do in the world and that it is empowered to go throughout the world. If, as the Body of the living Christ, the Church has become the beginning of a “new creation,” then it is directed to proclaim its joyous news to the world. The overwhelming apostolic confession that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature”—this the Church does not wish to keep only for itself but desires to proclaim as a promise to a weary, death-ridden world. As a Church of the Gospel, therefore, the Church is not called to flee and despise the world, not forced into a narrowminded isolation, not condemned to a ghetto existence. Just the reverse is true: The Church is called to be on display before the world. The Church stands under its Lord’s command: “Go ye into all the world,” “ye shall be my witnesses,” for “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” The Gospel that the Church proclaims to the world is the very invitation extended by Christ himself: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

This relation between the Gospel and the Church represents an extraordinary situation, an unusual authorization, a unique responsibility. What happens, however, when opposition is leveled at the Gospel in the Church itself, when hindrances stand in the way of the Gospel? This is a depressing thought. It deserves our complete attention.

Everything about this matter centers around the basic question of what facts, what circumstances, harm the Gospel in the Church, and do so from within. The first determinative principle can be summarized thus: Anything, everything, that bedims the message of the Gospel, that prevents the heart of the Gospel from shining through clear and true, must be considered an obstacle and hindrance.

We must remind ourselves of what confronts us a thousand times over in the life of the Church. We think of Christians who are consciously identified with their churches, who attend and participate in the worship services according to custom, who are willing to give themselves to charitable works—all these things are worthy of note and of recognition. But a certain lack should not be overlooked. There are many who abide completely by and within the limits of the traditional patterns of the Church, who are satisfied with the “iron rations” of the confession of faith learned in childhood, whose Christianity is a matter of sentiment, and who now and then succumb to a pious mood. Certainly we ought not to minimize this; but there are those whose faith has stopped growing, whose progress in the life of faith has been interrupted. They accordingly have stopped meditating on the Gospel in order to gain clarity about the meaning of their faith. For them Christian phrases and biblical terms are like old worn coins whose value is no longer discernible. Therefore their faith does not radiate, has no convicting power; and the Gospel appears lame and weak.

If someone calls himself a Christian and does not himself understand the illuminating power of the Gospel, he is neither qualified nor in a position to bring the Gospel to those outside the Church and to make it plain. The New Testament was keenly aware of this dangerous possibility in the churches and thus laid down the principle: “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you.” If Christians hesitate to give an accounting to themselves and to others of the what and wherefore of their faith, if they step aside from essential exposition of questions of the faith, then the Gospel will become muddied and unclear.

Much more serious, certainly, is the hindrance to the Gospel that comes from the weak faith, the doubting faith, yes, even the unbelief of those who call themselves Christians. Among these, their church membership notwithstanding, an internal falling away from the Gospel has set in; among these, through the deception of non-Christian spiritual powers, deterioration has begun. In such a situation the influence of all kinds of ideologies and world views, of religious speculation such as that spread by the sects, of nihilistic skepticism even to the point of atheistic disputing of God, can spread stealthily through the Church. Suddenly the Christian who through baptism and confirmation was planted into fellowship with Christ succumbs to the whisperings of false spirits, yields to superstitions, and charts his life by horoscopes. The age-old doubt, “Hath God said?,” only too often becomes linked with egoistic lovelessness that cares nothing for neighbors and says, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

This failure to prove the faith and this denial of neighbor-love become a constant offense to the world round about. Because Christians appear so “unredeemed,” and act as if they had no faith, the death sentence is passed upon the Church and thus upon the Gospel itself. The disfigured image that these false representatives give to the life of the Church makes the proclamation of the Gospel untrustworthy and counter-acts the unfolding and outworking of the Gospel that would arouse men and women to faith.

With an eye to hindrances to the Gospel, we must be aware also of another fact: that in the course of history, the difference between the form or structure of the Christian Church and its content or message is inescapably obvious. Of course, to think that the Church of the Gospel could do away with all outward forms and still fulfill its tasks would be a fanatical delusion. The reality of revelation, that “the Logos, the Word of God, became flesh,” already shows the necessity for the historical, bodily, earthly-human aspect of the Church. The first gatherings of the early Church show certain definite patterns, such as fellowship in the apostles’ teaching and faith, celebration of the Lord’s supper, and prayer. The Christian Church in the midst of the world always needs some external form. A glance at church history shows us an abundance of church institutions, large and small organizations of impressive and historically important church groups, as well as powerless church endeavors unnoticed by the world. Their names may be diverse, as may be also their structure and organization.

On the one hand is the hierarchical range of offices that stem from the Church; on the other, the multiplicity of functions.

For our discussion an especially pertinent question is what importance form has had for the success of the Gospel. To what extent does the external structure and order of a church body, however indispensable and justified, hinder or obscure the Gospel?

A church that bears a thankful sense of responsibility to its Reformation fathers will be concerned for maintaining the purity of the Gospel and its furtherance. It will therefore consider church forms, ceremonies, rites, and traditions of only relative value, and in no way necessary for salvation. The structure of the church is never “sacred” but, determined only by suitability, is oriented toward a purposeful proclamation of the Gospel.

This interpretation of church form immediately makes clear what dangers for the Gospel may lurk in this historical institutional structure. It is possible to retain obsolete religious forms, encrusted traditions that hinder a new vital development of the church. A language revered by the Church may as time passes no longer clearly communicate the meaning of the Gospel. There may be a jungle of religious bureaucracy that supersedes the principle of stated order, that assaults and controls the course of daily life and embitters people.

The need for church reform has been stated repeatedly in numerous ways in our time, at the Kirchentage (church conventions), for example. One ought not to be deceived into thinking, however, that much will be accomplished simply by changing external forms. On the contrary, accommodations to current tastes, or the adoption of cheap gimmicks in the Church, can pose hindrances to the Gospel, as interest is shifted to secondary things and the centrality of proclamation is pushed aside.

The only valid consideration for the Church to realize at all times must be what serves the Gospel, its credibility, its deepening, its propagation. What forms, customs, and ordinances must be removed, changed, or avoided, lest the church itself be a burden to faith in the Gospel? When it is under the control of the Gospel, the Church operates vitally, experiences constant proper reformation, and is self-critical in order that the Gospel entrusted to it can function in the world as “light” and “salt.”

In still another area of the Church we find situations that obstruct the Gospel, and in quite another way. Hindrances that we have considered thus far have stemmed from man’s wrong relationships, from the human weakness of church members, or from erroneous evaluation and inadequate ways of presentation; now we confront hindrances that come from altering the Gospel itself. We have seen that correct doctrine and proper proclamation do not guarantee the penetrating power of the Gospel, since various personal and very real circumstances can hover over the Gospel like a dismal smokescreen and thus obscure its clarity. But what can be done when the very content of the Gospel is abused and changed, when its essence is misunderstood and misinterpreted?

This question brings us to open wounds that particularly characterize the Christian Church today. The dire case would seem to be that man no longer subjects himself as a listener and receiver to the testimony of the Gospel but instead puts himself under the norm of his own personal discoveries and experiences. Then, according to his comprehension and rational promptings, he adjusts the gospel message to suit his own needs, corrects it and manipulates it for his own purposes. In this matter he at one stroke exalts himself above the authority of the Gospel and makes himself lord over the Word, over God’s revelation.

Obviously this change in the content of the Gospel has far-reaching implications, since the birth, maintenance, or destruction of faith are at stake. Church history has shown the many ways in which such diminution of content has expressed itself. Already in apostolic days threats to the pure Gospel were acute. The early Church obviously was not sheltered and protected like some island in a sea of nations and peoples; rather, it stood in the very midst of countless religious ideas, mythological concepts, and philosophical world views. In other words, the early Church was exposed to foreign influences of many kinds. The Apostle John accordingly found it necessary to warn against the spiritualism of the Gnostics, who denied the revelation of Christ come in the flesh. And at any and all ideas that would adulterate the Gospel he proclaimed into some new legalism, Paul hurls a severe, harsh “No!” He pronounces a passionate “Beware!” upon every perversion of the Gospel, upon the preaching of “another gospel.”

Like dark shadows, such death-dealing threats to the Gospel pursue the Church of Jesus Christ here on earth. Again and again voices are heard that offer their own ideas, their own piety, their own ethics in place of the Gospel’s. On the one hand, one hears claims that only by some particular way, and according to one particular method, only on the basis of some one specific experience, may one become a true Christian; and on the other hand, one sees the silencing and pushing aside of all those statements of the Gospel that do not harmonize with the particular convictions being propagated. Even today one finds a narrowminded, rigid kind of Christianity that lays burdensome demands and duties on the Gospel, a Christian legalism that is neither winsome nor gladdening but repellent and that makes being a Christian seem joyless and depressing.

Quite different, however, is the face of a distorted Gospel, a Gospel that under the influence of some current philosophy and absolutely defined scientific arguments and hypotheses has undergone a content-changing revision. Many have discerned that today we are dealing with just such a profound threat.

The tendency is to refrain from burdening “modern” man with a heavy package of what he must believe; whatever he does not want, and whatever he does not consider rationally comprehensible or actually possible, is avoided. The point of departure is total adaptation to a philosophical system in which the only valid reality is the here and now. This purely immanentistic thought system discards every suggestion or thought of a metaphysical other world, any thought of transcendent reality.

Into these clichés that bear the imprint of certain presuppositions of present-day existentialism, the Gospel must then be fitted. The result, obviously, can be only a thoroughgoing transformation of the Gospel. One can then no longer speak of God as someone above and beyond the world who in sovereign majesty and power can step into the world as Creator and Redeemer. In the realm of causal relationships, no room then remains for miracles whose reality is indissolubly linked with the Gospel. Jesus Christ can be honored only as a man, not as the world’s Redeemer who died on the cross for mankind, not as the risen Lord in whose life rests the basis of eternal hope. In the last analysis the Gospel itself becomes a mere symbol, a code to some new human understanding of the self, a thrust to help gain some anthropological meaning for existence.

The much vaunted goal of modernistic theology to make possible and to simplify Christian faith for today’s man is purchased by changing the essential nature of the Gospel. Continued use of Christian-biblical concepts like Word and faith, Christ and redemption, pardon and eschatology, must not keep us from seeing that these terms have a new, entirely different meaning. Perplexity of spirit, fogging in of the battle lines, uncertainty of individual Christians in knowing what to believe—these are the fruits of this falling away from the Gospel. A Gospel that has become cheap is a defeated, emasculated Gospel that can no longer sound a clear trumpet call.

Obstacles and hindrances to the Gospel inside the Church? To be keenly aware of them and not to consider them harmless is the Church’s responsibility, the task of her theology. This involves honest insight into the deepest needs of the Church and knowledge of how error develops. Such self-awareness is a form of true repentance.

What is needed? A return to the substance of the whole Gospel. Only if the Church stays with its task is fruitful encounter possible with a surrounding world that thinks differently. The very plurality of values and viewpoints today demands singleness of belief by the Church. Only the message of Christ, however unpopular and offensive it may be, can steady a tottering world. In the last analysis, man is unable to break down the barriers and overcome the hindrances. This only the Gospel itself can do, the Gospel that displays the presence and the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

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