Covenanter Witness Vol. 86 - Rparchives.org

It isn't that the men with the AACS at Toronto areall wrong in their desire to evangelize social structures.Christ is indeed King of social structures. The problem isthat they are teaching an unscripturally imbalancedconcept. Scripture instructs us to begin with theevangelization of the individual. This must always be first.And to abandon that scriptural balance leads us intoerror. The antics of the zealots from Toronto at Urbana(cf. "Sabotage at Urbana" by Eugene Rubingh, in a recentissue of the Reformed Journal) are a vivid and depressingillustration of how far into error an unscriptural imbalancecan take well meaning people.It would be interesting to see what constructivethinking could come from the zeal of the menassociated with the AACS if they could recognize thescriptural priorities of individual evangelization first,and societal "evangelism" second. But at present theirunscriptural imbalance is serious. And it is not helped bythe methods used to propagate it. Consider terminology.The use of vulgar, gross, and obscene words by some oftheir spokesmen is NOT consistent with the Gospel ofJesus Christ applied at ANY level, societal or individual,regardless of their supposed shock value.The suggested methodology may be worse than theterminology used to advocate it. Suggesting by words orexample (at Urbana) that existing structures should beoverthrown by violence and force, if necessary, regardlessof any well meaning intent to replace them with somethingbetter, is completely void of any scriptural precedent. Hasanyone at the AACS found that Paul advocated theoverthrow of the Roman empire, one of history's flagrantexamples of a slave-holding system? Would Paul haveadvocated that the convention at Urbana be stopped,because it was encouraging students to become involvedin personal evangelism?I fervently hope and pray that we can maintain ascriptural balance in our approach to evangelism.And yet Christianity has resulted in the elimination ofmuch of the world's slavery by lawful means. NoteEngland's experience, and even in the U.S. it's interestingto note that the agony of the Civil War occurred in orderto preserve the Union, not to destroy it and replace it witha slaveless society. The slaves were actually set free bylawful means, not anarchic. I an not suggesting that thereis not further advance to be realized for the black peopleof the U.S. and the world, but I am suggestingthat any needed revisions which are in keeping withChrist's Kingship be accomplished by lawful means, andthat no one...including the AACS...should advocateotherwise.• • •Sabotage At UrbanaEugeneDuring the last week of 1970, there occuired on thecampus of the University of Illinois an event of extraordinarysignificance. From every corner of thiscontinent and from every part of the world, twelvethousand students and missionary delegates joinedtogether at Urbana for five days of encounter with theneed and challenge of world missions. Inter-VarsityChristian Fellowship, sponsors of the conclave and of Hismagazine, had assumed the gigantic task of bringing theseyoung people to commitment and involvement inmissions. Many of us stood in the auditorium awestruck,like Israelites finding themselves suddenly on holy ground.Into this electric atmosphere, however, some rainwas to fall. On the second day of the conference a sheetnot unknown in Reformed circles began to appeareverywhere. The magazine was Vanguard, a periodicalvoicing the views of the Association for the Advancementof Christian Studies (AACS). Each day special editions ofthe periodical were published, and to my dismay, thecontours of sabotage became strikingly clear as each daypassed. Vanguard, clearly and incredibly had come todeclare the priority of evangelism at Urbana to be nonsense.The almost unbelievable reasoning of Vanguard'seditions at Urbana goes like this: the concentration on thegeographical outreach of the faith to the ends of the earth's an erroneous notion. The attempt to convert in-APRIL 21, 1971Rubinghdividuals to salvation in Jesus Christ is a truncated effortuntil we have fashioned the necessary societal structuresin a particular way which we will be told about by and by.Or in the by now familiar language of AACS, "We muststructurally evangelize the various structurations of asociety." So the imperative for Urbana was to ditch"evangelism first," and hold off on the conversion ofindividuals to Christ until society can first be restructured.One persistent question, however, will not down:how long is this going to take? How long before we get thego-ahead to engage in explicitly calling individuals toChrist? Certainly one must wonder whether Paul wouldever have left Antioch if such were the perspectiveforming his world view. His holy impatience to preachChrist crucified everywhere, in season and out of season,to meet shipwreck and flogging head on with a singledriving passion was all apparently premature.Surely Inter-Varsity in general and my own church,the Christian Reformed, in particular, have notdowngraded witness to the whole man. The conviction isstrong today that man must be addressed in his totality,and they have done just that. The witness is comprehensiveand radical, speaking to man's mind, caring forhis body, laying claim to the riches of his culture. This isreformational Christianity, and it is heady stuff to take tothe peoples of the world. To suggest that missions todayseek only "soul-winning" and then abandon the convertssee page 3