Christopher J.H. Wright, director of international ministries for the Langham Partnership International (John Stott Ministries), and author of The Mission of God, recently responded to a question about evangelicals and mission, whether he saw any weaknesses in the theology of evangelism among evangelicals.
He was asked: “In what way have we as evangelical Christians failed to grasp or live out the fullness of God’s missional intent? How (if at all) has our theology of evangelism been weak?”
In his response, he noted five dichotomies that tend to exist in evangelical understandings of mission and evangelism:
1. Evangelicals tend to separate the individual from the cosmic and corporate impact of the Gospel.
2. Evangelicals tend to separate believing the Gospel from living the Gospel.
3. Evangelicals tend to separate evangelism and discipleship.
4. Evangelicals tend to separate word/proclamation and deed/demonstration.
5. Evangelicals tend to separate evangelism from ecclesiology.
Wright’s complete responses can be found in Part I and Part II of his “False Dichotomies in Mission” post.
