“Christian” Nations and Evangelism
March 2, 2009 6 Comments
Is this logo for real? Yes, and believe it or not you can buy the t-shirt here.
Been listening to Mark Dever talk about evangelism in a 3-part series. So far it has been uncomfortably convicting. The talks are from the Desiring God 2009 Conference for Pastors at John Piper’s church in Minneapolis.
In the second part, “The Pastor and Evangelism” Dever shares an exchange he had with a Muslim friend, Bilam (sp?), while they were both at Cambridge.
Bilam commented on how corrupt this “Christian country” was of Great Britain, and I just quickly, sort of on the side, said “Britain is not a Christian country. I mean, you can’t really have Christian countries.”
Well Bilam, a very sharp friend, said very quickly, “Well, thats the problem with Christianity, you don’t have a full social, political vision of the world. We as Muslims know how to pattern society.”
And so I wasn’t prepared for that kind of argument right then. I just responded:
“Look honestly Bilam that’s because I think Christianity has a more realistic portrayal of human nature. We understand that force and coercion cannot finally bring about the change that needs to happen in people.”
Islam has an understanding of people that we’re basically good. Islam has an understanding of people that they can put a sword to our throats and make us a sufficiently good Muslim.
Well we don’t understand that with Christianity. You can’t really expand Christianity with the sword. That’s the problem with considering Europe “‘Christian”.
Friends, Europe has largely never been evangelized. It’s an unevangelized place. There have been places where the Protestant gospel broke forth and maybe some of the early monks had the Gospel right, but basically you have Charlemagne with the sword sticking it to the necks of a German tribe saying “in the river or you die.”
And that’s how Europe was “evangelized.”
But friends that’s not Christianity and that’s not what we do even on a mental sense, when we share the Gospel.
Good stuff.