Word: gospeleer
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...past century, as mainline Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. adopted a social gospel that stressed aiding the poor over preaching to the unenlightened, evangelizing at its purest fell to Evangelicals. Rare is the conservative Protestant church that doesn't send its teens off on short-term mission trips or play host to a stream of missionaries on home leave, their stories full of exotic places and changed hearts. Although they would never admit it, the returnees are Evangelicalism's paragons, making its philosophy of relentless outreach their lives' work. Says Beth Streeter, a Moraga, Calif., health...
...hearts of the poor, and (for the more daring) Africa and the Iron Curtain countries. Gradually, however, the focus shifted. A missions strategist named Ralph Winter suggested in 1974 that Christians turn their attention from areas already exposed to Christ to "unreached people groups" who had never heard the Gospel. The plan held special allure for those who read literally another verse in Matthew suggesting that when every nation is reached, the long-awaited end times can commence. In 1989 Argentine-born evangelist Luis Bush pointed out that 97% of the unevangelized lived in a "window" between the 10th...
...most subtle, tentmaking embodies St. Francis' edict: "Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." ("Be someone's friend, not an Amway salesman," paraphrases one veteran.) But the sometimes clandestine status can breed bad habits. Visa bans turn many Evangelicals, usually straightforward to a fault, into truth stretchers, if only at the customs desk. They use encrypted e-mail and code words or smuggle Bibles. "Some," says a Christian minister in Morocco, "seem to have been inspired by the book of James, verse 007." It is not really their fault, says the leader of one mission, contending...
...come in later on their own, printing up Arabic-language tracts in anticipation. Not all missionaries supported the Iraq war, but Robert identified personally with George W. Bush. "Something you must understand," Robert e-mailed, "is that diplomacy does not work with Satan." He realizes that interjecting an uncompromising gospel at so sensitive a time and place may provoke hostility. But he sees that as an inevitable consequence. "If Satan's armor is pierced," he wrote, "that fissure will be violently contested at every point and turn." When Christ is proclaimed in Iraq, he predicted, there would be "riots...
...Iraqi charities before the war (it spent $6.4 million in 10 years) and recently returned to pick up their pieces, has his work cut out for him. But one thing is not on his to-do list: evangelizing. Mennonite representatives delivering aid in Muslim countries do not preach the Gospel...