the good news

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a Christian in a non-Christian world.

I remember the huge insecurities I used to have in junior high and high school that I wasn't witnessing enough to my friends.  I would pray at night for opportunities to share Christ with my unbelieving friends, and I would beat myself up mercilessly when I failed to witness to them.

I was a summer camp counselor, where evangelism was frightfully straight forward.  We even had "interviews" with our campers the first night of the week where we shared the Gospel with them.

This followed me to college to some extent.  My best friend from high school had fallen away from Christianity, and I remember sending her more than one a little more than angsty email late at night in which I told her I was praying for her and tried to show her the road back to God.  Not too many opportunities for evangelism at college itself presented themselves, though - all my friends were Christians.  Perhaps the closest I came was my state park job, where I worked with a guy I called "Bill the atheist."

But by then I was changing.  I did have a conversation with Bill about faith, one day shortly before we were done working together.  It was a life changing conversation, though, because I realized at that moment what witnessing meant.  This wasn't a give-him-a-tract-and-talk-through-the-four-spiritual-laws type of conversation.  This was just a real conversation about why we each believed what we did.  No coercion, no tracts, no "Romans Road."  But he knew what I believed, and he knew why.  And that was enough for me.

I've had other similar conversations since then.  I have certainly not led anyone to Christianity, as far as I know.  I have shared verses on occasion, but not out of a need that I persuade them that what I believe is the only thing that will save them.  I share with them because we are friends and friends share their lives with one another.

I have recently come across a very interesting theological perspective - that of Christus Victor rather than penal-substitutionary atonement.  Basically what this means is that I am coming to believe that the New Testament and Jesus' death/resurrection are more about conquering the power of death than about Jesus protecting us from God's wrath.  Sin becomes less about breaking a moral code and more about the things people do as a consequence of our mortality.  When Jesus died, he broke the power that death holds over us.

I think this changes my perspective on evangelism, too.  I was brought up learning the importance of letting people know just how sinful they are and just how much of a gap this puts between them and God.  I still believe that.  But for me the emphasis has shifted.  I tend to look at the Gospel in a more positive light now, and evangelism as the incredible opportunity to tell people that because of Jesus death holds no power over us.  Because of Jesus, I have traded mortality in for immortality.  He broke the chains of sin and death.  This is the good news of which I wish to tell the world.