Tuesday, 1 March 2016

Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity's Sacred Obligation,
Ed. Mary C. Boys, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002
Chapter 13, "Covenant and Conversion" (pp. 151-162), page 160-161

Philip Cunningham has now reached the point where he can say that the purpose of evangelisation is not to baptise the world. He suggests instead that its purpose is to prepare for the kingdom and that that includes inter-religious dialogue and respect.

Evangelisation is the entire life of the church: praying, teaching, promoting human dignity, living the good news, proclaiming our hope in Jesus Christa and engaging in inter-religious dialogue. All these activities prepare for G-d's kingdom.

It is worth noticing that he uses the word 'evangelisation' rather than 'evangelism', a process rather than an activity. He then summarises the obligation:

Christians must always witness through word and deed to our covenanting with G-d through Christ. That is our covenantal obligation. And wo do so for the sake of the kingdom.

Put it this way, if you discover that there is a bomb in a football stadium, set to go off part-way through the second half, do you spoil everyone's enjoyment of the game so that people can be saved by evacuating the stadium, or do you console yourself with the thought that they will really be enjoying the game and those closest to the exits will probably make it out?