Evangelism and conversion in Kiwi Culture

Introduction
Aotearoa-New Zealand is an intriguing series of islands in the South Pacific known for its scenic beauty, sheep, rugby players and globe-trotting residents! The first peoples to inhabit this land were from the Pacific and became known as the Maori. In the nineteenth century the British, looking for lands to settle and so relieve the chronic overcrowding of their own land, established a treaty with the indigenous Maori.[1] However, within years significant numbers of settlers, eager for land, threatened to overwhelm Maori.[2] By 1860 serious disputes arose and the resulting wars left Maori tribes vulnerable to disinheritance of large tracts of their land – an injustice that still carries substantial ramifications well over a century later.[3]

Central to this struggle was a clash of very different cultures. The power struggles that resulted left the indigenous people little choice than to be assimilated into the dominant culture.[4] Deprived of much of their land, punished for speaking their own language, and forced to learn the ‘rules’ of the European powerbrokers, Maori understandably struggled for decades to succeed in such a Western dominated society.

In the midst of this was the gospel. Even before the treaty, missionaries had come to Aotearoa and preached the good news to a substantially receptive audience.[5] Some missionaries were instrumental in convincing Maori chiefs to sign the treaty, and many attempted to defend indigenous rights against the onslaught of colonisation. However, a combination of factors from the Land Wars onwards, resulted in many Maori becoming alienated from the European forms of Christianity.[6]

In the wider New Zealand society, churches were quickly established by the traditional denominations such as Anglican (Church of England), Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist. A number of other smaller denominations had also taken root by the late part of the nineteenth – in particular Baptist, Brethren, Salvation Army and Churches of Christ. In the twentieth century a number of Pentecostal groups also established themselves in the church landscape.

However it is a myth that New Zealand was ever a substantially Christian society – whatever that might mean! Unlike other English speaking nations (Great Britain, USA, Canada and even Australia) there have never been at any stage of our history a majority of residents attending church.[7] It is likely that no more than 30% of people have ever attended church at any one time in our short history.[8] In spite of this the church (and Judeo-Christian ethics) has always wielded a fair degree of influence in New Zealand, though this has diminished substantially since the 1960’s.[9]

Modern New Zealand Culture
This very brief and incomplete summary of our history serves as a backdrop to the issues I will seek to explore in this paper. Initially I intend to consider some of the roots of current New Zealand culture, and then, in the light of this, what it might mean for us to communicate the good news of Jesus in this context. Specifically, I will consider the nature of conversion, and how this should impact our mission to New Zealanders in the early part of the twenty-first century.

What is culture?
A starting point is to define what culture is. Paul Hiebert states that it is “…the more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings and values encoded in learned patterns of behaviour, signs and products created and shared by a community of people.” [10] As the attempt at a comprehensive definition suggests, culture is an immensely complex concept, with many dimensions. Getting a good handle on it is fraught with difficulty.

A culture operates at a number of levels, some of which are more explicit and obvious than others. The more surface levels of culture involve the patterns of lifestyle and behaviour, and with this, the symbols, myths and rites the culture employs.

However underpinning these levels are the deeper, more implicit aspects of belief systems and worldview. This is the core of a culture – “…the deep, usually subconscious assumptions which people have about the purpose of life and what is real/true.” [11] Worldview controls the very way we live and behave – both individually and collectively.

In simplified form, culture can be pictured as a tree, with the lifestyle and behaviour (and associated symbols, myths and rites) what we can see above the surface, and the belief systems and worldview acting as the deep and hidden root system of the tree.

Another way of understanding worldview, is to use the analogy of a computer programme. We don’t begin life with any software. Instead, it grows and develops as we grow, interpreting the data we take in from around us and making sense of it. Our worldview is not learned consciously nor taught intellectually. As we are immersed in our culture we intuitively pick up the perception of reality from those around us. We automatically ‘buy into’ this and give implicit allegiance to it.

Understanding culture is made even more complex by the reality that it is rarely static. Cultures are frequently in a state of flux and change – both at the deep root and surface levels. Individuals are rarely aware of this change, though it can be identified over a period of time.

‘Kiwi Culture’
New Zealand is in a period of profound cultural change. Much of this is linked with the wider western phenomenon of post-modernity and the related globalisation (or McDonaldisation) of the world. However, some of the changes are more connected to particular issues of localisation, such as our struggle to find our own national identity, the re-emergence of indigenous Maori culture, and the rapid immigration of Asian and Polynesian people in the past few decades.

Given the considerable change occurring in New Zealand and the large diversity of ethnic groups, is it possible to in any way talk about a specifically ‘Kiwi’ culture? The answer is yes – and no!

On the surface level New Zealanders have a relatively distinctive culture. Traditionally we are a very egalitarian society, carry somewhat of an inferiority complex (particularly in relation to our big neighbours Australia), are highly mobile, love sport, and have a jack-of-all-trades approach to many tasks. We also have a unique humour, and speak with lots of colloquialisms – some of which are from our Maori heritage.[12]

However, the increasing diversity of our population makes it impossible to talk of New Zealand culture as one homogenous unit.

Furthermore, on a deeper level – our culture is built mainly on a variant of the modern Western worldview that has dominated the West for the past few centuries. As noted above, post-modernity is also impacting our view of the world significantly.

Nevertheless, in spite of the changes occurring at the core of our culture, and the fact that there are many different cultural and sub-cultural groups in New Zealand, there is a prevailing worldview in New Zealand, even though it’s not particularly indigenous.[13] It impacts upon almost all Kiwis to at least some degree – including the majority of Maori.[14]

So what are some of the features of this worldview? One way of considering this is by seeking to answer three key life questions – who am I?; how do I discover what is real and true?; and what is the purpose of life?. [15]

Who am I?
How do I define my identity? Primarily Kiwis view their existence as independent individuals who are

“…discrete entities with no essential relationship to other individuals…each individual is his/her own main point of reference. An individual experiences full humanity by protecting and exercising personal independence, and controlling his/her own life.” [16]

This is at the core of much of the way our society operates. Consequently, our education system is child-centred, and people are free to decide what is best for themselves regarding who they marry, what job they do and how they spend their money. These issues (and others) are considered personal decisions.

How do we discover what is real and true?
Science dictates that we can determine what is real through an objective process of observation, testing and demonstration. If it can’t be ‘proven’ then it is not real or true. Not only this, but the physical universe is all there is. It’s a closed system – both self-generated and self-contained. Peter Berger calls this “a world without windows”.

David Bosch notes that,

“Enlightenment scientism has taught people that the acceptance of unproven beliefs was the broad road to darkness. Only universal doubt would purge the human mind of all opinions held merely on trust and open it to knowledge firmly grounded in reason.” [17]

He concludes that this teaching has been extraordinary successful because we are always asking, ‘Where is your proof?’ Yet the goal of total objectivity is a myth, as we know. [18]

A direct result of this is the deep division between what Newbigin calls the realms of the public and private.[19] ‘Facts’ control the public spheres of life – the workplace, education, business and politics. ‘Values’ and beliefs are acceptable to have so long as they are kept safely inside the private world. Values cannot be proven true in the scientific sense and so therefore must be restricted to a privatized religion. Reason rules in the public sphere while pluralism rules in the private.

What is the purpose of life?
According to the prevailing worldview, the purpose of life is to be happy as an individual. Happiness generally comes by material things. In other words, money brings happiness. This root is really a natural consequence of the other ones. It’s my happiness that is most important, and given that this physical life is all there really is, my happiness will ultimately be found in material security and pleasure.

Expressions of these worldview roots in Kiwi lifestyle and behaviour
This prevailing worldview expresses itself in a whole variety of visible ways of relating, behaving and living. Some of these are distinctively Kiwi, but most are variants of the kind of lifestyle and behaviour common in other Western cultures. For example:

• A large proportion of Kiwis’ discretionary income is spent on items for personal ease and enjoyment (like clothes, restaurants/cafes, entertainment and holidays).
• Most Kiwis aspire to ‘stand on their own feet’.
• Large shopping malls are a central focus of most cities.
• Abortion is considered largely an issue of a woman’s right to choose for herself.
• Most cars travelling into Kiwi cities each day only have one person in them.
• God (however conceived) has nothing to do with economics.[20]

The influence of post-modernity
Most Kiwis are still controlled by the modern worldview. However, in recent years post-modernism has begun to challenge some of the deep assumptions held. This is likely to be more the case for generations under forty.

The closed system of the universe implicit in the modern worldview has begun to be broken into so that now many Kiwis are more accepting of a spiritual dimension to life – though what and who this might involve spans the full range of possibilities.

Issues of mystery and spirituality are no longer passé. Nevertheless, these matters are still largely restricted to the private world. In this sphere, relativism rules (no fixed truth). One person’s truth is as good as someone else’s – even though they might be diametrically opposed! Because of this, post-moderns greatly resist any attempt to provide an over-riding explanation for life and the universe – such as the Christian or scientific (mechanical) meta-narratives.

In most arenas of life, a practical secularism still reigns, with a focus on the ‘here and now’. This continues to be given expression through the materialist and egocentric roots noted in the modern worldview.

Examining further the idols of our culture
Our worldview determines what we worship as a culture. Worship is fundamentally about the question, “who do I/we serve?” Any alternative worship to that of God is idolatry – the serving of other allegiances, whatever they might be. Idols reconfigure our priorities, attitudes, values, motives and actions in ways that are destructive to our personhood and relationships, and our capacity to worship and serve God wholeheartedly.

So what are some of the key idols of the Kiwi worldview?

Consumerism – “I buy, therefore I am”
Consumerism is an unhealthy concern (perhaps addiction?) with “…the acquisition, consumption and/or possession of material goods and services.” [21] This approach to life treats everything and everyone as a marketable product, capable of being bought for a price. It compels people to possess more and more and fails to distinguish when enough is enough. One’s rationale for living exists in spending and acquiring. In fact, much of our energy is consumed in consuming.

Central to this is the shopping mall, which has become one of the primary religious temples for this idolatry. John Carroll suggests that people actually go there for a quasi-religious experience. [22] There the community of consumers find a sense of meaning in the purchase.

Craig Bartholemew goes so far as to suggest that the ‘free-market economy’ is the meta-narrative of the Western worldview. “Most of us have made this so thoroughly ‘our story’ that we are hardly aware of its influence.” [23]

In reality, “Pleasure seeking and self-gratification, the avoidance of risk and discomfort, are all central to the life of the modern consumer.” [24]

The key role of advertising in such a culture has been well documented. Most of it, as Jim Wallis observes, actually appeals to one or more of the seven deadly sins! [25] However, a less understood aspect of consumerism is the language of need which has been developed to assist people in justifying more and more goods. [26] “I need…” is one of the first lines budding young consumers in our culture learn. The blurring of a distinction between need and want is completed so early in a child’s assimilation into our culture, that most Kiwis don’t even register there is a difference.

Individualism – “Looking out for number One”
Perhaps because of our frontier history, where many Europeans were able to come and carve out a piece of land from themselves out of the bush, New Zealand has always had a strong individualist streak to its culture. The self-sufficient male has particularly been somewhat of a hero – men like Barry Crump and Bob Jones, to say nothing of the myriad of adventurers such as Hillary and Blakc. [27]

The reality for most Kiwis is a long way from the stories and myths associated with these men and others like them. Nevertheless, individualism is deeply rooted in the psyche of our culture.

(It) is a view of self that divorces us from others except where involvement with them is instrumental to our own advancement or growth…a self-centred, at times narcissistic, form of individual preoccupation… [28]

In Kiwi culture the idol of individualism expresses itself in an unfettered emphasis on rights (as against responsibilities) and privacy – now encapsulated in laws; personal decision-making that rarely involves others; travelling habits that view public transportation or walking as a last resort; and the ideal home as one that’s private, fenced, and containing all the facilities to ensure no interaction with the neighbours is necessary! [29]

Entertainment – “What’s on the box tonight?”
The need to be entertained and amused is also a central idol in Kiwi culture. Much energy and a great deal of money is consumed in an ego-centric drive for enjoyment. For a number of decades television has been at the forefront of this, but while still pivotal, this idolatry goes well beyond the box in the corner of the lounge. The drive to be entertained has permeated many other areas of New Zealand society so that now the classroom, politics, and church life are all grided through this criteria.

In such an entertainment-driven culture, the law of diminishing returns is bound to have a say in our lives. The more we are stimulated by entertainment options, the more easily we become bored and so the drive for even greater levels of stimulation are required. The rise of ‘reality TV shows’ that continue to stretch the boundaries of invasiveness, outlandishness and sexual deviancy are one expression of this vicious cycle. So too, the invention of more and more ‘on the edge’ forms of leisure such as bungy-jumping, para-sailing and black-cave rafting. The adrenalin rush becomes the goal. The greater the risk, the bigger the thrill. We are hooked on entertainment and it becomes a key to deciding what we do with our time and money. The ultimate irony in our addiction to entertainment is that we are a society with exponentially more stimulation than any previous age, yet one where many are perpetually bored! [30]

A critical subset of entertainment in Kiwi culture is sport. There is much that is of course positive about the role of sport in our society. However, it becomes idolatrous when we begin to attach more meaning and devotion to it than it should have. Many New Zealanders live vicariously through the success of their sportsmen and women – particularly through our national rugby team. Some pastors have even commented that the tone of the worship on Sunday morning will be determined by whether the All Blacks won or lost the day before! In fact, there is little doubt that a major rugby game is for many a quasi-religious experience. If in the words of Jim Wallis, “That which commands our time, energy and thoughts is what we worship…” then sport is certainly idolatrous for many Kiwis.

Consumerism, individualism and entertainment – these are some of our culture’s chief idols – the direct result of our prevailing worldview. In reality, they are all deeply intertwined with each other. As John Crawshaw comments,

Our saviours are economics and technology; a higher GDP and standard of living, more efficient and environmentally friendly means of production. Our goal is security and pleasure – good superannuation, safe streets, comfortable homes and enjoyable holidays. [31]

This is not to suggest that any of these things are intrinsically wrong. However, New Zealanders have given their allegiance to them, so that they control the way Kiwi’s live and relate, what their ambitions, hopes and dreams are, and how they order their priorities.

All cultures are idolatrous to some degree. Kiwi culture is no exception. My purpose in highlighting the aspects I have is not intended to suggest that all of Kiwi culture is bad. Far from it. There are some facets of our culture that are consistent with a biblical view of life. However, in order to follow Jesus (and share the Good News) we need to identify the roots of our home culture that are in direct opposition to a biblical worldview. For in order for true conversion to take place, these idolatrous roots must be dug out and replaced. Otherwise we risk the kind of surface and dead-end conversions Delbert Rice alerts us to.[32] Such conversions are like picking the tops of weeds in the garden. It may look good for a day or two but because there has been no transformation at the deep root level, the weeds will soon grow back!

The Church in New Zealand – A Counter-cultural community?

To what degree is the church in New Zealand offering a counter-cultural alternative to the prevailing Kiwi culture?

To rephrase the question, is there less consumerism, individualism and entertainment-drivenness in the church? I would suggest, probably not.

Consumerism is deeply entrenched in the church. Our lifestyles and ambitions, with regard to material possessions are often little different to those outside the church. Even the way we ‘do’ church reflects how seduced we have become.

For example, supermarket Christianity is a major feature of church life in New Zealand. Christians ‘shop’ for a good church to belong to, largely on the basis of how it will provide for their needs. With many new local churches and denominations starting up in the past two decades, people have no shortage of options. While I am not aware of any recent statistics for how long people attend churches, my general observations are that many New Zealand Christians change churches as frequently as they change houses. [33]

Furthermore, in many churches entertainment is an important consideration for services. Even the times of singing (somewhat presumptuously called ‘worship’) are places where the latest marketed song is aired and ‘the experience’ gives us a good feeling. In the wider Christian sub-culture we see an almost mirror image of the surrounding culture, with a whole variety of marketed conferences, trinkets, CD’s and videos. [34]

Another evidence of the way consumerism has gripped the church is the degree to which the Gospel itself is marketed to the unchurched. I will explore this more fully further on in the article.

Individualism is also deeply ingrained in our churches. For example, as Mike Riddell comments,

Somebody will happily announce to the congregation a promotion which involves a shift to another city, and this is accepted as normal. There is no consultation, no corporate attempt to discover whether such a move is the will of God. It is regarded as the private realm of the individual, and any move to question would be regarded as interference. [35]

In reality this is only the tip of the iceberg. Too much of our church life is mere tokenism regarding community and interdependence. It is community on our terms; more similar in type to clubs than to the dynamic Pauline imagery of the Body of Christ.

One of the challenges we face as the church is that it is “…immensely difficult to distance oneself from it (dominating worldview) in order to evaluate it critically.” [36] We are so immersed in our culture that we find it difficult to identify the idolatry. As the old Chinese proverb goes, “If you want to understand water, don’t ask a fish”!

Brian Hathaway tells the story of his friendship with a senior Zairean missionary friend.

We had been discussing some of the difficulties associated with that land and my friend had been explaining how so many of the Christians in Zaire were still locked into spiritism and witchcraft. He told me how elders of churches would visit the witchdoctor when they were sick. He spoke of pressure being placed on Christian families to seek help from such sources when members of their family were ill. He recounted an instance where at a communion service the presiding elder had prayer for the communion and then placed some special needles in the cup. These had literally jumped straight out again. This at the communion table! I was shocked.

In our congregation, involvement with the occult was always something we sought to deal with as soon as a person came to faith in Christ. I expressed my concern and wondered how people could be so ‘blind’ to these areas. He looked at me for a moment, and then, with great sadness, said something which I will never forget. “Brian”, he said, “spiritism in Zaire equals materialism in this country. They are both demonic. The majority of Christians here are just as blind to the effects of materialism on their Christian lives as Zairean Christians are to the effects of spiritism”. [37]

The degree to which we the church have embraced the idolatry of the wider culture was immediately apparent to Harold Turner on his return to New Zealand after decades abroad. He commented that:

The basic reason why the Gospel has so little impact in our Western societies is that it has lost its distinctives by assimilation to the prevailing culture within which we all live. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’. We are all ‘them’. [38]

This chilling reality is confirmed by the NZ Study of Values. In their summary book The Religious Factor in NZ Society, Alan Webster and Paul Perry, two Massey University sociologists, conclude, “…in respect to issues of justice, equality, race, gender, power and peace, there is little evidence of any general impact of such views upon those who are religious.” [39] Neither was there any noticeable difference in attitudes to money and ambitions. The one obvious exception was issues of sexual morality.

Perhaps we have to honest with ourselves and echo Lesslie Newbigin’s assessment that,  “It was only slowly that I began to see that my own Christianity had this syncretistic character, that I to some degree co-opted Jesus into the worldview of my culture.” [40]

We are ourselves needy of ongoing conversion from the idols of our surrounding culture.

How this impacts our evangelism
Our own captivity to the cultural idols of our society has huge implications for our preaching of the gospel. The faith we are living cannot be separated from the faith we are sharing. For we only have as much to share with others as we ourselves are experiencing (both individually and corporately). If as the church we continue to hold deep allegiances to such idols as consumerism and individualism, this is the type of faith we will be inviting others to join.

David Bosch notes, “Evangelism is only possible when the community that evangelizes – the church – is a radiant manifestation of the Christian faith and exhibits an attractive lifestyle.” [41] Or in the well-known words of Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message”.[42]

Jim Wallis, in his classic challenge The Call to Conversion puts it this way –  “The evangelism of the church has no power when the essence of the gospel is not lived out in the world.” [43]

Only a conversion that reaches to the very roots of our idolatrous worldview will ultimately cause us to communicate the transforming power of the gospel. While we desperately try to hold onto the cultural idols at the same time as saying ‘Yes’ to Jesus, our witness will lack the ring of authenticity. To be genuinely counter-cultural we ourselves have to be in the process of change – turning from our consumerism, individualism and other idols and seeking to embrace the radical claims of Jesus.[44]

Communicating the gospel
So in what ways does has the prevailing worldview affected the way the church has communicated the Good News in New Zealand?

As my colleagues Paul Vink and John Crawshaw state:

Modern culture tends to be instant, sensate, pragmatic and superficial. We could sum this up with the phrase ‘consumer culture’. A product, a method, a solution to a problem, is good if it maximises benefit (particularly happiness) for the user and is simple, low cost and as immediate as possible. [45]

Much of our evangelistic enterprise has unfortunately communicated the gospel in exactly these terms.  Perhaps it’s no wonder that we have reverted to such tactics. Jim Wallis writes, “Without the visible witness of a distinct style of life, evangelists must become aggressive and gimmicky, their methods reduced to salesmanship and showmanship.” [46]

The roots of this predominant approach to evangelism stem from the revivalist preachers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [47] While Charles Finney has had more to do with the popular understanding of conversion than any other person, it was Dwight Moody who developed and refined methods suitable for a consumer culture such as ours. He brought a new level of sophistication and organisation to revivalism, which enabled him to run large, city-wide crusades as big business. In the raising of money, advertising, organisation and programme dynamics, Moody knew no equal.

His heart was to ‘save souls’ (a somewhat spiritualised, individualistic and truncated view of conversion). In his preaching, Moody majored on the great benefits of accepting Christ. He was an exceptional storyteller and he used this gift to show people that becoming a Christian was the best possible thing they could do – bordering sometimes on selling salvation as a kind of spiritual insurance policy.

Moody’s business approach to the task of evangelism also displayed itself in the importance he placed on numbers. At the end of each night in a crusade, Moody would announce to the press the carefully compiled figures of the number of people who had made ‘decisions for Christ’, the size of the crowd, and the size of the offering!

Like many other national churches, the evangelical church in New Zealand has been deeply influenced by North American revivalism. [48] One of the most troubling features of this evangelism has been the huge number of people who have made ‘decisions for Christ’ who have exited out the ‘backdoor’ of the church (or in many cases not even got to the front door!). [49]

Whatever ‘gospel’ these people have been sold, they have as David Hesselgrave once noted, “…no intention of being taken for another ride”. Most end up feeling ripped off or at the very least, convinced that Christianity doesn’t ‘work’. When Jesus doesn’t fill their needs, or help them to get what they want out of life, they give up. And who can blame them –if this kind of ‘cheap grace’ gospel is what they have understood becoming Christian to be all about. If conversion has been reduced to little more than a superficial consumer decision, as Vink and Crawshaw suggest, built on criteria such as “Is it good for me?”, “Will it make me happier?” and “Does it work?”, then when the results aren’t cheap, simple and instant, it is perfectly logical for people to opt out and look for some other bargain in the supermarket of life.

Indeed, the size of the backdoor syndrome suggests that something is deeply flawed with our communication of the gospel and our understanding of conversion.

A WAY FORWARD
Is there an alternative? Can we find a way of communicating the Good News which is both more biblically centred and culturally appropriate? A starting point may be to answer the questions, “What are we calling people to?” and “What is conversion really about?”

Developing a more thoroughly biblical theology of conversion
At its core, conversion is a radical change of allegiance or loyalty. Conversion requires repentance. This is more than just the confessing of sins or changing behaviour. To truly repent we must also experience a change of worldview. John Stott has noted, “We must not trivialise conversion. It is an exchange of slaveries.”[50] This needs to be part of the terms of reference in calling people to faith.

For at its core, conversion starts people on a journey of transformation. Discipleship is costly because following Jesus will expose us to change of significant proportions. We will never be the same again. Fortunately, it is God’s grace which does the transforming, though we are very definitely active in the process.

Set theory
Part of our problem is the categories we use for defining ‘Christian’. Paul Hiebert, uses the mathematical terms of set theory to help decipher who can be called ‘Christian’. He suggests that most Christians have a very static and fixed view of definition, most akin to that of a bounded set. “We in the West are most familiar with bounded sets. They are the basis of our culture…we want uniform categories.” [51] A bounded set has a clear boundary, with elements either ‘in’ or ‘out’. As Hiebert notes, the need for nice, tidy boundaries is something we have inherited from the Greeks and very much a part of our scientific worldview.

This is certainly true of evangelical Christians in NZ. Clear, tidy boundaries are important. In fact, any perceived threat to them is often considered bordering on heretical. In the early 1990’s we discovered this in our Signpost seminars. We were attempting to discover what the ‘bottom-line’ was for most Christians, regarding who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’? [52]

The conclusion was that when push came to shove, the large majority of evangelical Christians felt that anyone who prayed a ‘sinner’s prayer’ (or variant of it) and who was giving ongoing mental assent to a list of propositional truths, was a ‘Christian’ (part of the set).[53] Interestingly, despite a rigorous defence of ‘grace not works’ theology, most Christians added a series of underlying assumptions of behaviour to the test of whether someone was a Christian or not. Most involved a narrow band of ‘personal moral’ issues such as no sexual relations outside of marriage, no drugs etc.[54]

Our surveying of Christians did not lead us to conclude that they didn’t believe ongoing transformation (sanctification) was important and desirable. It was. Rather, it was more a case of justification being separate from sanctification. In other words, the bottom line in viewing whether someone was a part of the Christian ‘set’ was whether the person had said the prayer and given mental assent to the creeds, not whether ongoing growth was taking place. This later issue was seen as a highly desirable extra, not intrinsic to following Jesus.

Hiebert argues that defining who is Christian is more akin to that of a centred set than a bounded set. For, “…a centred set is created by defining a center or reference point and the relationship of things to that center.” [55] Not by proximity to the centre.

This paradigm of followership involves a dynamic, interactive view of conversion, rather than the static and passive one of the bounded set. It is characterised by movement and growth. For to be a member of the set involves an active, ongoing journey toward the character of Jesus, one where transformation is implicitly part of the deal.

In fact, as Gordon Smith writes, “We cannot think effectively and biblically about conversion until we take seriously both the possibility of and the call to transformation.” [56] For this is the very purpose of conversion. [57]

Implications for our evangelism
If this is the case, that the call to follow Jesus is a call to a life of transformation to become like Jesus, then we need to consider what some of the implications might be for the way we share the gospel appropriately in our culture. The following thoughts are not intended to be comprehensive, but nevertheless will act as a starting point for rethinking the evangelistic mandate in Kiwi culture.

1. Offering people a relationship – not a product
Paul Hiebert notes that, “…to reach urban people who think largely in terms of buying and selling, we may need to present the gospel in market terms…but we dare not stop here or we will end up handling the church as we would a business. In a profound sense we cannot ‘buy into’ the gospel. It is not a commodity we choose because it meets some of our needs better than do other products on the market.”[58]

I agree. Jesus is not another brand to be marketed alongside all the other products in our consumer culture. To effectively communicate the Good News we must avoid trying to ‘sell’ it.

Introducing seekers to the Jesus of the gospels is one antidote to this tendency.[59] Jesus is a very attractive person to know, but he also has some very hard things to say to those who would consider following him. [60] In fact, his responses to the crowd in John 6 who want to make him king, and to the rich young ruler, are quite mystifying to the average consumer-soaked Kiwi. Rather than take advantage of the market opportunities to build a great following, he instead seems to turn them off following him! A salesman he clearly is not.

So a balanced examination of the gospels will assist greatly in helping seekers to see that the Christian faith is at it’s core a committed followership of Jesus and not either buying into a set of beliefs nor into an alternative ‘product on the market’. [61]

2. Viewing evangelism as a process
Much of our evangelism seems to assume that a person can hear the gospel message for the first time and experience conversion. While we can never discount God’s supernatural intervention in a person’s life, the reality is that coming to faith is almost always a process. For some people in our culture this may take years.

We need to understand where people are on the journey, because this will affect the way we relate to them. James Engel’s spiritual decision-making process, helps to appreciate something of the nature of this journey.[62] However, Engel’s scale tends to suggest that the process is almost entirely cognitive – focusing on a change in a person’s belief system, without taking into account the affective or evaluative dimensions. This can easily reinforce the tendency to think of conversion as being primarily a mental assent to a series of belief statements.

With Dr Engel’s permission we (Signpost) adapted his scale to incorporate the worldview dimension of transformation occurring in the process. Somewhat clumsily called “The Worldview Transformation Scale for New Zealanders”, it seeks to help Christians understand that the journey to faith, while not a logical or consistent progression, is nevertheless a process of change at the worldview level of people’s lives. [63]

If conversion is indeed a process, then this should substantially affect the way we communicate the gospel to New Zealanders. Rather than assume where most Kiwis are at and give them a packaged (and likely imported) gospel, we need to do the hard work of understanding their assumptions (worldview). Because Kiwi culture is in a period of rapid change, the methods and message utilised for the past few decades are unlikely to touch people where they are at.[64]

Given that many Kiwis are a long way from even being interested in considering the exclusive claims of Christ, and are somewhat wary of Christians, the starting point may have more to do with building relationships with them and beginning to model the gospel, than with challenging them to make a decision.

3. Developing a more culturally attuned apologetic
The re-emerging emphasis in the 1970’s and 1980’s of apologetics had a deep impact on much evangelistic effort in New Zealand. Most was very rational and saw ‘satisfying the mind’ as an essential part of many moderns being able to come to faith.[65]

However, the increasing cultural movement away from modernism presents an opportunity to grow an apologetic for the gospel that doesn’t seek to tie everything together in nice, neat reasoned bundles and doesn’t see reason as the be all and end all.

The reality is that, as Newbigin states:

The gospel cannot be ‘proved’…because that would presuppose a truth more fundamental than the gospel, by which the gospel can be proved. To him, the gospel story is the central and most fundamental of all truths.[66]

This is not to suggest that there is not much of the gospel that can be reasonably believed. There is. However, to subject the gospel to the empiricism of the world of science in order to ‘pass the test’ is to deny the essence of the gospel. Much about God and his dealings with us is mystery – a possibility that the post-modern is more likely to accept than the modern. Faith is required in order to believe. The mind can only be satisfied to a degree.

We also require an apologetic that is more conversational and dialectic rather confrontational and packaged. [67] We need to listen more carefully to the questions people are asking, or in many cases, be patient enough to wait for the questions to be asked, rather than employ the planned evangelistic strategy of trying to ask the question for people and then give them an answer to a question they weren’t even asking themselves! [68] The essential skills for this different apologetic have more to do with listening and asking questions, than talking. [69]

We also need to acknowledge the multitude of preconceptions that many Kiwis have about Christians and the Church. According to these stereotypes Christians are hypocrites (saying one thing but doing another), bigots, narrow-minded, self-righteous and intolerant of others. We are also boring, irrational and only interested in converting people. Christianity is primarily a set of ‘not allowed to’s’ and has caused more harm than good through history.

Where have these preconceptions come from? Unfortunately many of them have elements of truth and need to be acknowledged and owned. Sometimes they are the result of ‘Christian bashing’ and misinformation. Whatever their source, they are barriers to the true message of the gospel and need to be dismantled. This will only happen however, if we earn the right to be heard, laying a foundation of love, care, genuine respect for their perspectives, gentleness and trust. [70]

4. Seeing evangelism as a communal task
The gospel calls us into interdependent relationship with God and with His people. As Athol Gill has observed, “There is no such thing as a solitary Christian, an isolated disciple in the gospels.” [71] We cannot commit ourselves to following Jesus without at the same time committing ourselves to other followers. Belonging is as much a part of the faith as believing.

It should therefore follow that the task of evangelism is intended to be a communal, not an individual task. Revivalism tends to emphasise evangelism as a job for specialists. However, while there is clearly a role for those with particular gifts, evangelism is a task for the whole people of God. For a start, people will gain a much clearer picture of the Christian life by observing a community rather than just an isolated individual. Furthermore, God has infused us with a whole range of personalities, life-experiences and abilities which can all play a role in our ‘good-newsing’. [72]

However, we are not just partners with each other in the sharing of the good news. The Holy Spirit is the senior partner for all of us. That makes us junior partners! For it is God’s work in people’s lives – not ours. Too often we have convinced ourselves that it is our responsibility to convert when in fact it is God’s.  Our role is to discover where the Spirit is already working and make ourselves available for Him to use.

5. Emphasising an appropriate ritual to mark the change of allegiance
One could easily be forgiven for thinking that the emphasis I have placed in the process of conversion suggests that there is no place for an event or moment of commitment. This would be misleading. The need for a ceremony that marks this change of allegiance is both anthropologically important as well as biblically warranted.

From the cultural perspective it is now widely accepted that all human societies need ritual and ceremony to mark important changes in the lives of individuals, groups or whole communities. Paul Hiebert, in his book Cultural Anthropology, comments, “To the individual participant, rituals offer an opportunity to participate in the religious life of his community and thereby discover his identity in the group.” while “To the society as a whole, rituals offer an occasion for reaffirming its unity and expressing a sense of identity.” [73]

The critical question becomes, what would be an appropriate event to mark the giving of a person’s life to Jesus Christ? Biblically it is clear that water baptism fufils that role in the early church. It is a rite of transformation marking a change of deep and lasting proportions. We might even describe it as the ‘rubicon of faith’ – the decisive step in the faith journey where there is no turning back.[74]

The giving of one’s allegiance to Jesus is not only a binding commitment. It is also exclusive. Saying yes to Christ means saying no to every other god. In the early church the ultimate test was for the person being baptized to say with conviction, “Jesus is Lord” in front of witnesses. Gordon Fee notes that

The use of ‘Lord’ in such a context meant absolute allegiance to Jesus as one’s deity and set believers apart from both Jews, for whom such a confession was blasphemy and pagans, especially those in the cults, whose deities were called ‘lords’. [75]

Implicit in this confession is the public dimension. Witnesses are an important part of the baptism experience because they give teeth to our confession. Ideally, these ‘witnesses’ should include both the significant others in a person’s life, and the group of people they are committing themself to. For in the early church baptism was viewed as the entry into the community of God’s people. [76] Saying ‘yes’ to Jesus involved saying ‘yes’ to his followers in the same breath. [77]

The New Testament does not present a comprehensive unpacking of the significance of baptism. However, what it does teach helps us to see that there is deep symbolism involved in the metaphor of going through the waters. Sadly, much of the way baptism is practised in New Zealand churches fails to maximise the wonderful potential it has as a ritual. Frequently it’s treated as little more than an add-on to a Sunday service or trivialised in some other way. [78]

However, the ceremony deserves to reflect the significance of the change. Culturally, the closest parallel of another rite of transformation is the wedding ceremony. Huge effort is put into planning carefully for the day, inviting all the significant others in the couple’s lives, employing a great deal of symbolism (white dress, rings etc) to communicate the nature of the change, and holding a big party at the end of the ceremony. For weddings in New Zealand, the magnitude of the change is matched by the extensiveness of the ritual.[79] So why should we not do the same with water baptism?[80]

Biblically, baptism can serve as a powerful ritual – not only for the person going through the waters, but also for the Christian community they are becoming part of, and for the wider circle of family and friends. For this latter group, the symbolism implicit in baptism can serve as a powerful testimony – presenting a life-change that demands fidelity (at the exclusion of all other allegiances) and offers belonging in the company of other committed followers.

CONCLUSION
My purpose in this article has been to engage in some basic critical contextualisation. For in order to present Christ more faithfully we need to first exegete our culture and find ways in which the gospel can be earthed so that it can be understood by Kiwi’s and lived out in our own specific context.

However, this is only part of the challenge of critical contextualisation. We cannot just find ways in which the gospel can make a home in Kiwi culture.[81] If authentic Christian faith is to genuinely take root, we must also discern those aspects of our culture that are in opposition to the gospel. They must be identified and challenged both in our own lives and in the communication of the good news.

Ultimately, our faithful communication of the gospel depends on our preparedness to be converted ourselves, and thereby live counter to the surrounding culture. God grant us the courage and discernment to do so.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bartholomew, Craig and Moritz, Thorsten (eds.) Christ and Consumerism: A Critical Analysis of the Spirit of the Age (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000)

Bosch, David J. Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1995)

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Crawshaw, John and Kirkland, Wayne (editors) New Zealand Made: Perspectives on Mission in Aotearoa (Wellington: Signpost Communications, 1994)

Blomberg, Craig L. Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1999).

Bonk, Jonathan J. Missions and Money: Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991).

Clapp, Rodney. (editor) The Consuming Passion: Christianity and the Consumer Culture (Downers Grove: IVP, 1998)

Davidson, Allan K. Aotearoa New Zealand: Defining Moments in the Gospel-Culture Encounter (Geneva: WCC, 1996)

De Graaf, John; Wann, David; Naylor, Thomas H. Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2001)

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Hiebert, Paul G. Cultural Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983) 2^nd Edition

_____________. Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994)

Kirkland, Wayne. Light from a Dark Star: Where’s God when my world falls apart? (Bletchley: Scripture Union UK, 2001)

______________. The Man Who Split History (Wellington: Signpost, 1995)

Patrick, Bruce (editor). New Vision New Zealand (Auckland: Vision New Zealand, 1993)

Pratt, Douglas (editor). Rescue the Perishing: Comparative Perspectives on Evangelism and Revivalism (Auckland: College Publications, 1989)

Signpost Communications. Probing Further: Explorations in Evangelism (Wellington: Signpost, 1994)

_____________________. Discovering Jesus (Wellington: Signpost, 1990)

_____________________. Signpost Evangelism Seminar Workbook (Wellington: Signpost, 1990)

Simon, Arthur. How Much is Enough?: Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003)

Smith, Gordon T. Beginning Well: Christian Conversion & Authentic Transformation (Downers Grove: IVP, 2001)

Stafford, Tim, “God’s Missionary To Us” Christianity Today, 40 (14), December 9, 1996, 24.

Wallis, Jim. The Call to Conversion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981).

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