Science in Christian Perspective
Structural Obstacles to Evangelism
RALPH D.WINTER
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, California 91101
From: JASA 24 (September 1972): 101-105.
Need to Restructure
We live in a day when much is being said about the necessity to
restructure. The
pessimist doesn't stop at this point; he insists that we eliminate
the institutional
church completely, for example. One thing that the youth have taught us is that
some things have to be changed. But how?
When an engineer builds a bridge, he has to know all the pertinent data about
the environment in order to make correct mathematical computations
for beam strength,
length, and even type of material. So must the mission strategist or
the sociologist
for that matter. To restructure it is necessary to know beforehand what exactly
are the present structures. What functional role do they play? Do
they still fit
their purpose for existence?, etc.
Approaches to Structure
In speaking of the structural obstacles to evangelism, therefore, I feel it is
necessary to discuss three main approaches to structure-the
functional, the dimensional
and the entity approach. Each approach involves structures which have
become obstacles
to evangelism. I am not referring to visible structuresthe fact that they are
visible lessens the difficulty of dealing with them when they present problems.
But I want to concentrate on those invisible structures which are nevertheless
just as rigid and as much of an obstacle as if you could see them.
These are all
the more difficult and problematic because you can't see
them. Marxists and missionaries, anthropologists and systems
engineers all agree
that structure-structure of the human community-is really central to
their concern.
Marxists, for example, complain that the institutional church is like
an invading
parasite that sucks life from the society. They point out that the church took
over more than half of all the land in Mexico prior to the Revolution, and that
given half a chance, would take over everything.
Christians, on the other band, claim that the communists, while
experts at taking
over governments, don't know how to run them. Anthropologists study
the fascinating
and visible structures of social behavior and publicly doubt if
anyone is sophisticated
enough to dare to meddle with those structures.
Obstacles need not he spiritual. They may be structural.
The City
Systems engineers seem to have a more elaborate approach to
structure. Lindeman,
in speaking of a large metropolitan area such as San Francisco and its
rounding cities, compared it to the human body and its five systems.
In speaking
of the metabolic system of a city, for example, lie made the observation that
over a period of fifty years almost everything that comes in goes out
again. People
come in; the people go out. Goods come in and go out again-perhaps in
some other
form, or ground up and smashed up like junked
automobiles, and shipped out. They go out in tubes, or they' evaporate into the
air.
Then there is the arterial system that consists of the channels
within which those
things flow. The freeways, the railways, the thousands of pipes that run into
a city-these are arteries. You can only speed up the flow at best but
you cannot
change the basic system.
The nervous system consists of the telecommunication system of the city which
enables that vast complex as an organism to coordinate itself and its efforts.
Sometimes that system breaks down, but in any case, ,such a system
still exists.
There is also the enclosure system, the mere physical structure of
the metropolitan
area. Now you may not figure that the physical aspect of a city' is
very systematic,
but from the standpoint of systems engineers there is a good deal of system in
it, and there may he more system its the future, It may be possible to build a
city enclosed in a single building accommodating 250,000 people.
Somewhat embarrassedly systems engineers may also refer to the soul
of the city-the
needs and aspirations that ripple across and which control a great deal of the
behavior. We might put fads into that category.
You notice that they don't speak of the brain of a city'. It would seem that a
city is one of the lower forms of life. It is an organism that
functions somewhat
like an amoeba without a lot of cerebral control. (I think we would object to
that kind of centralized control were someone to propose it.) The
city' government
controls only a tiny pint of what goes on. The part not under its control also
fits into the structure. However, many people cannot see this structure. They
rebel at the thought of trying to get into something they' can't
understand. The
hippie movement for example, paints in vivid colors, for anyone able to get the
message, the fact that there is a sizeable percentage of our people who refuse
to be involved, to become a cog in a machine that they don't understand. They
flee from the structures of society, which seem very artificial to
them, and attempt
to construct their own world. Tens of thousands of Americans now live in 2,000
or so communes. No one knows how many' such communities exist because only the
very highly structured ones survive. It seems ironic that the hippie
would escape
one social structure only to build another. But you have to admit
that the hippies
can at least ace a structure. They have produced it. At least it's
optional, whereas
the structure of the rest of society' either cannot be seen or it is
not optional.
The complete copout of the hippie is not an alternative to most people.
The hippie communes in some ways are parallel to other communitarian
developments
in history, like, say', the many different kinds of Mennonite
communities. Examples
are the Hutterian communities which in the last 25 years have really boomed in
Montana and in Southern Canada. Yet it is a little ironic that these
communities
of Hutterians, for example, which began as completely isolated,
independent communes
are very highly respected nowadays by their neighbors and in fact
could not easily
exist apart from the larger world today. It is somewhat notorious in
Montana that
the Hutterites have the biggest single complex of farm machinery' in
the entire
area. They practically have a monopoly. Other small farmers who are not capable
of buying the multi-million dollar kind of machinery that
farmers use today will sometimes lease equipment from the Hutterite
communities.
The Hutterites don't send their vow ig people off to college, but
they know how
to master their machinery and to maintain it. And vet that machinery comes from
outside their community, The point is that these communities that are
manageable-that
you can see the size of-really' aren't complete. They aren't really
independent.
They cannot he independent. It is the lack of independence that
brings a greater
complexity' into the picture.
Marxists and missionaries, anthropologists and systems engineers all agree
that structure-structure of the human community-is really central to
their concern.
Only relatively' recently has there been any widespread reflection on structure
by churchmen and theologians. There have been, of course, for many
years spectacular
examples of people who talked about the structure of society'. One of
the earliest
is St. Augustine in his City of God. And what about that little known
archbishop
who spoke of progress in the 14th century? Thomas Moore's Utopia was not even
mentioned in tlse recent movie about his life, Man of A!! Seasons.
Americans seem
to be very edgy about Utopian thinking or any' tinkering with the
social machinery,
even though the ideas are centuries old. There have always been rare
individuals
who thought about restructuring society. But widespread tinkering, widespread
thinking has been fairly recent.
Dimensional Analysis
I have spoken up to now of what you might call functional analyses of society,
especially when I refer to the systems engineers' approach. There is
another approach
to society which may he considered a dimensional analysis. For
example, fundamentalists,
evangelicals, and others have often thought in terms of what you
might call psychocentric
salvation. That is to say', the salvation of individuals. The idea is, you save
individuals and they will somehow save society. You don't have to worry about
anything but the salvation of individuals. Now, there is a good deal
of high-powered
Biblical truth in this kind of thinking. I would not discredit
thinking that centers
on the salvation and the redemption of individuals. I couldn't get away with it
even if I wanted to, and I don't want to. However, to suppose that the winning
of souls one by one is all there is to the Great Commission would be
a great mistake,
since most significant Christian movements have not been a phenomenon
of individual
conversions. But there is not time in this paper to discuss this
particular matter
further.
The second kind of thinking would be one notch above the psycocentric. Go from
the individual to the group, to the fellowship of believers. There
are, of course,
many groups besides church communities, but let's focus on the
churches. Anybody
who thinks in terms of the community as the redemptive focus could he said to
he involved in ecclesiocentric thinking. Ecclesiocentric thinking is now also
passé. A new' dirty
word in the theological vocabulary is the word "triumphalism," which
means that the church is the one instrument of God, and all mankind is merely
a feeder to the church. If we can get everybody into the church, then all the
problems are solved. If not, we still have to keep working. This view sees the
church as central; society is then a vast, confused, unstructured multitude of
individuals who are to he rescued, brought into the institutional
church and structured
in the church-this is salvation. Such thinking is ecclesiocentric Again, there
is a great deal of very vital truth in the ecclesiocentric view, and
I think the
corrective of the redemptive community as balanced against psyclioceentric thinking
is a most helpful thing. However, if you hog down here, it is quite
possible for
ecclesiocentric thinking to have a blindspot at the very point of the
non-ecclesiastical
structures of the Christian movement, to say nothing of those
corresponding structures
in society.
For example, Fuller Seminary is not all ecclesiastical institution. Many people
involved in Christian work are employed by non -ecclesiastical organizations.
There are many ecclesiastical types who think that Overseas Crusades,
for example,
shouldn't exist, or who wish it didn't exist. They feel such organizations are
in competition with the denominational agencies and that the agencies
of the denominations,
being centralized in ecclesiastical structure, are the only
legitimate way mission
can be performed.
This type of thinking is prevalent in the World Council of Churches. The, real
Christian church consists, many ecumenicists believe, in a set of what I think
of as vertical ecclesiastical structures of fellowship. Of course,
the Christian
movement is, and always has been, more than this-very essentially
more than this.
Anybody who supposes that all of God's redemptive action down through history
can he followed through the ecclesiastical structures alone just doesn't know
his history. Such structures as the Mount Hermon Conference Center near Santa
Cruz, California, would simply not exist in that mentality.
Theocentric thinking embraces all of the other types of thinking in their right proportions: psychocentric, ecclesiocentric, sociocentric and hiocentric thinking.
There is another level above that of ecclesiocentric thinking. Again there is
a good deal of truth in this viewpoint also, but it might he easiest to define
it by caricaturizing it with some of those who are involved in it.
These are they
who wonder out loud and stridently if it wouldn't be possible just to focus on
society itself and forget the church. Society is the real structure.
These people
quote that somewhat obscure Biblical verse, "God so loved the world, and
they say, "Let the Church die. We don't need the Church."
These people
feel that the institutional church is an obstacle to conversion.
There is an element
of truth in this. For many people, the institutional church, as it
is, is an obstacle
to conversion. This type of thinking I have called sociocentric thinking. It is
centered in society. Society is the thing about which God is con
cerned. The church is only a scaffolding at best, a momentary' redemptive tool.
The sooner we can get rid of it, the better, in order to get on with our job of
saving the society. But even these social activists who have espoused
such a position
have been surprised by another level of thinking which has emerged
even more recently'.
This is the fourth level.
The psychoeentric, the ecclesiocentric, the sociocentric-each level of thinking
embraces something larger. All of these thinkers have been upset by the recent
outcry in terms of ecology. Don't look now, but there are other living things
in this world beside human beings, thinkers on this fourth level
assert. Not only
are there many things that can he conquered, that can be used, but there is a
system to them. We do well to be respectful about that system. We must take it
into account. We cannot survive without it. The fact that we are dependent upon
it to an alarming degree has recently been brought to our attention.
I was reading
a hook by Professor Paul Erlich of Stanford University on the
subject of population
and ecology. He had sonic most deplorable and depressing statistics about the
whale. By 1940 the blue whale had been endangered as a species; by 1964 the fin
whale, and by 1970 the sperm whale is well on its way to the same state. We are
well on the road to eliminating these monstrous beasts that have been
in the ocean
since the beginning of time! I don't know what this does to your theology. We
don't have a lot of ecological theology, but we're going to have to develop it.
No doubt in a few years we'll have a Professor of the Theology of
Ecology on our
Fuller staff. This is a larger sphere of thinking. Christians especially should
be willing to recognize it as essential. Call this biocentric thinking, if you
wish, where man is only part of the life that it is essential to maintain.
There is yet another more comprehensive level to which we must refer,
especially
when speaking to theologically' oriented people, and that is the level of
theocentric thinking. Theoecentric thinking in effect em-braces'all of the other
types of thinking in their right proportions. It does not run off on a tangent
on any' one, neither on psychioeentnic, ecchesioeentrie, sociocentric
or bioeentrie
thinking.
I remember hearing a man (not a Christian theologian) say years ago, "It
may he, just may he, mail is not the most important form of
life." His champions
were the bacteria. They are hardier. They can survive in all kinds of
circumstances
fatal to human beings. They are more numerous. Today lie could add
that they may
outlast the human beings. This thinking is biocentric. Various other names may
be given it, but in any ease, it is another approach to the structure
of humanity
-a dimensional approach to society or to the structures with which we have to
deal.
Modalities and Sodalities
A type of analysis other than the functional and the dimensional may
be the entity
analysis, though this is not a good title for the concept. As I look at society
and mankind-I must admit I am sub-bio at this point. I am just looking at man. I
see in the ordered hierarchies of mankind two different major kinds
of structures
'which 1 have called in a recent article' modalities and sodalities. Actually
these are names for rather common things. It is somehow true that the word for
church, for example, is used in so many different ways
you might as well dump it, if you want to be precise. I have used the
word modality
to refer to the churches. The word modality in my vocabulary refers
to any group
of human beings within which there is no distinction as to age and sex. It is
a reproducible community that can survive and propagate. It is like a
small town
or like a geographic complex of human beings. The town or area is 'a mode; its
structure is a modality. Modes in the study of statistics are humps, you see.
When you run across on the demographic axis of the United States you
find a hump
when you come to a city. This hump is called a mode, arid its
structure is a modality.
Now a church is a sub-modality; it is a complete community of human beings. If
it isn't complete as to all ages and both sexes, it may have a
modality structure,
but it isn't a modality. Inter-Varsity and Young Life are not
modalities because
they have age distinction in their membership. I am not complaining about this;
their structure is not inferior because of this. In fact I have chosen another
word for that structure in which there is some distinction as to age
or sex-sodality.
You will find both of these words very vaguely defined in the dictionary.
Obstacles in Japan
In order to illustrate problems related to structure which might arise, I want
to speak from various geographical bases. Japan is a group of people,
l00,000,000
strong, within which there is a Christian constituency of 0.5%. Somehow there
is an obstacle to our evangelism in Japan; we haven't really
succeeded; we haven't
gotten in there. Let's face it! The average missionary there does not even have
a good command of the Japanese language because the Christian community is so
limited. There me is lot of curious things about Japan. Something is wrong, and
1 am not even supposing or suggesting that I know the answer. Moreover, I don't
want to he criticized for omitting references to spiritual factors,
such as that
the problem is spiritual, and that somehow the missionaries haven't
prayed enough.
I don't mean that they shouldn't pray or that they don't need to
pray, but I don't
think that's the crucial problem. In Japan, as i matter of fact, about as mans'
people are being led into churches its in any other country of the world. But
the church doesn't grow. The missionaries gripe about this. For a
period of months
I have been working with a missionary from Japan who wrote his thesis about the
problem of conserving the converts, and the many obstacles to evangelism that
are confronted there. I learned a good deal about Japan in this
period after which
I asked him to describe to me the traditional Japanese social structure-what it
was like, what it did for people, the services performed. Then I
asked him, "Now,
when someone has a birthday, what do you do on Sunday morning in the
Sunday School?
Suppose it is a ten-year old or an eleven-year old. What do you do?"
"We call them up in front, and they put ten pennies in or they put eleven
peonies in, depending upon their age." he said.
"Aha! That is just what they did back in Texas." (This is a Southern
Baptist Church I am talking about). So I asked him, "Do you mean
to say that
an eleven-year old puts in eleven pennies and' the tell-year old puts
in ten pennies?"
He looked at me somewhat mystified. "Yes."
Talk about structure being invisible! It just so happens that the eleventh year
is a very major birth
day in Japan. At that very time the eleven-year old ill a Southern
Baptist Sunday
School feels somewhat shortchanged. There is an invisible wound in his heart.
The Sunday School teacher doesn't notice it. The missionary doesn't notice it.
Nobody notices it!
Why make a big point out of that? With a hundred million people in Japan, why
make a big-todo about the eleventh birthday? There are a hundred other ways in
which the Occidental Church, as it protrudes itself into Japanese
society, unconsciously
invisibly offends the Japanese way of life. Why don't the churches grow to more
than 40 members in Japan? Perhaps I shouldn't criticize the
missionaries to Japan,
having not even been to Japan myself, yet I wonder why some of them
and many pastors
spend all their energies trying to snake their churches bigger because in the
United States a "good" church is bigger than forty members? It would
he just as easy to plant more forty-member churches-much easier-than
to make forty-member
churches bigger. Why? Because there is something about the
traditional priesthood
in the Japanese society that requires a priest to visit ill the homes far more
than any American pastor is expected to. There are services and all
kinds of other
church activities which take place ill the homes, and the people in
Japan apparently
instinctively feel that if they get more than forty member per church, they
won't be properly treated in the way they expect. Therefore they
don't want more
members. Now what are you going to do? Fight the system? Or start
more forty-member
churches?
In a recent Japanese government census, in response to the
question, "Who
do you consider to be the greatest religious leader ill history?" 72% of
the people said Jesus Christ. We have touched the hem of the
garment in Japan, but there are obstacles to our evangelism.
Obstacles in India
Let's move to India. In India there are twelve million Christians.
That's really
great! Those Christians are all over India. In many cases they are
highly educated
people. They come to this country. They are sophisticated. They are university
presidents. They are heads of corporations, they have gone all over India. But
98% of them come from the untouchable class. You say that the castes have been
abolished in India. It is illegal even to use the word I used. These people are
called Harijans today. It is a touchy point. But there is a middle
caste group
in India, numbering 350,000,000 people, among 'whom less than 0.01%
are Christian.
As is matter of fact, the few that have become Christians have gone down into
the depressed class of society and have joined the Harijan churches there. Not
very many ill the last 150 years have done this. There are invisible obstacles
to middle caste people becoming members of these Harijan churches. Almost all
of the churches ill India, except for the Syrian tradition in the
State of Kerala,
are composed primarily of former untouchables. Now, it is easier to get
a member from the middle caste,, 350,000,000 group, into one of the existing
churches ill India than it would be for three black pastors to go knocking on
white doors in Louisiana asking those people to join the black church.
It might seem that I'm using an exaggerated ease. It is an exaggeration only in the sense that it is much tougher ill India for a man to make that kind of
step than for a white man ill Louisiana to join a black church. These are very
real obstacles to evangelism. On the other
hand, however, we have reports that 100,000,000 people in the middle caste in
India are very favorable to Christianity'. They would walk into the door of a
church tomorrow that represented their kind of people. We are up
against a typically
American anti-caste attitude that in effect demands that these people join the
Harijan
churches.
China, Africa-many other similar examples exist- but these are
sufficient to point
out that obstacles need not he spiritual. They may he structural.
1Churches Need Missions Because Modalities Need Sodalities," 193-209, Summer 1971, Evangelical Missions Quarterly.