Don't emerge just yet: a postscript

Jerry, please indulge me but I think this needs to be heard and not buried in the comment section. I think the following insight is a wise and helpful reminder that "reaching out" through evangelism does not require a wholesale reappraisal to be effective. Thank you for your leadership and insight. He said:

"The "failures" in evangelism are glaring, yet, I think, misdiagnosed. The apparent ineffectiveness is almost always attributed to the lack of gospel fervor or soul-compassion. Emergents are quick to claim this because they equate their culture-friendly posture with true “outreach”. The very word “outreach”, however, demands not only taking the gospel “out” to the lost, but also offering what will actually “reach” them (Romans 1:16). Friendship along common pagan grounds will never reach anyone, and very often has the opposite result of corrupting the “evangelist”. Wayne Watson once wrote, “There’s a fine line between taking bed with a lost man, and being consumed by his way while reaching out in love…temptation’s right at your door…guard what you’re thinkin’ of, for it’s a fine line”."

"Furthermore, no honest Christian would deny that evangelicalism is diseased in this regard, but are such maladies the cause or merely symptoms of a more insidious degeneration? Where does the wholesale lack of gospel fervor come from? Do Christians suddenly lose their compassion for lost souls? I believe the root-problem is deeper. Whenever the transcendence and supernatural power of the gospel is traded for any one of a number of man-centered manipulations the cancer is effectively injected into the bloodstream. Gospel-fervor cannot feed on the impotent scraps of finiteness, nor is compassion for the souls of men poured out where there is no fear of judgment. The church’s true sickness is her endless crafting and idolatrous worship of “new and improved gospels”! The call for reform is desperately needed, but we must use the scalpel of scripture alone if we’re ever to return to true gospel passion. Radical change is needed, but not the surface innovations and rearranging suggested by those whose gospel is already vacuous. We need churches that, with contrite heart, “tremble at His word” and beseech the Lord of the harvest to send workers bearing His fruit!"