Evangelism in the Christian South

Michael Wolff in his article “The Party Line” in the New Yorker talks about the schism in America, between a quicker-growing, economically vibrant, morally relativist, urban-oriented, culturally adventuresome, sexually polymorphous, ethnically diverse nation, and a small-town, nuclear-family, religiously-oriented, white-centric other nation. When we lived in Boston, which was the former, we shared the gospel by engaging it intellectually, examining alternate-faith assertions, applying doctrinal truths, living out social engagement in the context of urban community. We were living out gospel relevance in a culture that despised the exclusive claims of the Christian faith.

But here in southern, suburban Virginia, sharing the gospel feels completely different. Church here is culture: it’s a social meet-and-greet, a see-and-be-seen. You hear “have a blessed day” and people dropping the fact that they’re “a Christian” at work as a way of connecting with people, whether or not they actually act like one.

It makes me think of how Tim Keller describes a cultural being inoculated to Christianity. An inoculation is when you introduce a mild form of the disease to render a person immune to the real, full-blown version of it. Being steeped in either a mild, nominal Christianity, or a separatist, legalistic Christianity, is a bit like producing spiritual antibodies: it makes people resistant to the real thing. It gives just enough of an illusion of religiosity that true life-change, true heart-knowledge doesn’t happen.

So this makes how we share the gospel different. It’s less about daring to bring God up, then trying to wade through lingo and lethargy to get at heart-change. I’m grateful we go to a church that emphasizes vulnerable community and practical application. We’ve been challenged to abandon consumeristic mindsets towards church services and ask where God wants us to be to live out our faith in a real way with real community. We admittedly look a little different than the average, two-physician family ensconced in the suburbs: we both commute out to underserved rural and urban areas to work; have made unique work-life balance decisions that abdicate both career glory and full-out home-schooling stay-at-home-mom culture; we commute out to a church plant where the folks are all racially, stage-of-life wise, and socioeconomically diverse.

In the end, we try to be transparent in living out how the gospel has changed our lives. People here aren’t interested in apologetics debates or shocked at faith claims: they want to see what difference any of it makes, in how you act towards your family, handle suffering, relate in friendships. In the city, it was easier to look radically different right from the outset; around here, not so much, but over time people do start to notice.