Book Review—Joel Edwards, An Agenda for Change, 2008

Book Review—Joel Edwards, An Agenda for Change, A Global Call for Spiritual and Social Transformation, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008.

An Agenda for Change, by Joel Edwards, could be summed up with the statement, "It's all in the presentation. Early in the book he makes it clear that no one is really listening to evangelicals because of an attitude of superiority. If we want people to listen, we must change the way we deliver the message. We live in a world that celebrates differences. We have to demonstrate that what we have is better.

Edwards discusses the history of the early church in that it was in the midst of a pagan society, hated and persecuted. Why did the early church grow? Because it was sold on Jesus and the people of the early church displayed a different lifestyle that attracted others. It was not a matter of great evangelistic crusades that won the early world to Christ, but the lifestyle and the passion of the believers.

The pluralistic, anti-Christian society we face today as Christians is similar to what the early church faced for the first 300 years. The church was stronger and more vibrant before it became a "legal religion" in the Roman Empire. The challenge of a society that was basically against it gave the church more zeal and power than it would have afterwards. Today we see a similar circumstance with the church in China. Christians suffer persecution in China. But the church continues to grow and is around 10% of the total population.

Western Christianity is franchised by the government. Western Christians have been spoiled by the privileges granted by the government. The church does not have to pay property taxes as long as it remains "non-profit." The church receives millions of dollars each year that go untaxed as well as owning vast amount of property that are not on the tax rolls.

Another major part of Edwards books deals with who we consider Jesus to be. Christians have to recognize that Jesus is Lord of all before they can expect anyone else to recognize him as Lord of anything. Contrast the average Christian's attitude toward Jesus with the Muslim position on Allah.

Today the value of Christians in society will not be what they say about Jesus, but rather how they are envisioned in doing acts of kindness that serve everyone indiscriminately. We need to offer the message of Jesus in humility and respect toward others. Religion bashing is not an exercise encouraged by the New Testament.

If we speak for Jesus, then we need to speak to the issues Jesus addressed:

• Corruption in the religious world
  
• The mistreatment of children, especially infants
  
• The need to be servant leaders
  
• Jesus was a historical personality sent by God in a divine fashion—virgin birth
  
• Unique in forgiveness
  
• Concerned about the widow, orphan, and sinner
  
• Teaching, preaching, and discipling
  
• Performing of healings and exorcisms
  

In the evangelical world we have two approaches to revelation

• Strange movements of the Spirit, especially as seen in the extreme in some areas of the Pentecostal movement. Edwards says miracles carry a lot of baggage with them, but we still need them (37).
  
• Evangelicals on the theological right who are unwilling to seriously pray even for healing.
  

Miracles for the most part are downplayed by most evangelicals. It is a response to our western culture that refuses to recognize the place of the supernatural. Africans and Asians find it much easier to accept miracles because they are much closer to the supernatural. Western culture believes that we live in a physical world and when we die, if there is a life after death we go to some distant place called heaven to be with God. The Western church is not growing in spite of what we see in the Mega churches. For every mega church there are a dozen tiny churches someplace in America that are dying. The percentage of church goers has remained the same for the past 100 years.

Where the church is growing most rapidly is in Africa, South America, and Asia, and in all of these cases numerous miracles are being reported. Healing and miracles are a significant part of the ministry. Edwards says:

"The plain truth is that Christians who deny the place of miracles may wake up to find out that we are out of step with a contemporary culture growing weary with 'reason', which changes nothing and no one." (39)

The need is for dialogue—conversation at close range. We need to allow for our personal spaces to be shared. The challenge today is to get involved in the conversation. Do we have something worth adding to the conversation? We need to tell people what they need to hear, not just what they want. But even that must be done with courtesy and respect for the dignity of the person to whom we are speaking.

The need to biblicize the church. Not more study notes, but rather

• Inspiring a love for the Bible
  
• Identifying its purpose and power to deal with the uncertainties of our culture
  
• Allow evangelicals to engage people in conversation
  

The need for a thought-through church—

• one that recognizes that there are people with superior experiences in the congregation to that of the minister. Preachers should not wander into areas of expertise about which they know nothing. It is a credibility issue.
  
• Raising the bar on all moral issues, including integrity in business and personal lives. Unfortunately the church is no longer seen as credible in the moral world.
  
• The only credible Christ that the world will see is the Christ we show to it.
  

The problem of identifying evangelicals

The use of the term evangelical is used to cover extreme conservatives all the way to Roman Catholics and some Orthodox church leaders. Who is in and who is out?

• Establishing identity of evangelicals is difficult
  
• No individual evangelical group has the right to declare that it defines what an evangelical is.
  
• The truth should not be used to bludgeon others
  
• The truth should not be used to exclude others
  
• Evangelicals are not the final arbiters of the truth (those who make final judgments)
  
• Should be recognized by a commitment to the Bible and its authority in all matters of doctrine and ethics
  
• No single cultural interpretation should be allowed to dominate
  
• Orthodoxy is critical, but it is bigger than all of us. We are not appointed to be God's thought-police.
  
• God is not party-political
  
• Our evangelical status is not based on how we vote
  

Evangelicals and their relationship to the world

In the moral realm the church has lost all the battles—marriage, abortion, homosexuality.

• We need to maintain our standards, but stop screaming about them.
  
• Give up the Moral Majority mindset
  
• Watch how we deal with matters. Sometimes our approach destroys the message before or as it is delivered
  
  • Pat Robertson recommending the assassination of President Chavez of Venezuela
    
• Not giving uncritical support of Israel. There are 1.5 million Palestinian Christians. We need to learn how to mingle revelation, prophecy, and political justice.
  

Edwards concludes this section with this powerful statement:

"We are called to model a better way more that we are called to criticize the existing one. We are called to be the solution we want to see in the midst of the moral and social fragmentation of western societies. We are called to measure our effectiveness not by the size of our churches but by their impact on our communities and the radical discipleship of their members." (98)

TRANSFORMATION

• Begins with a personal encounter with God because our sins have been forgiven.
  
• Our goal needs to be bring this transformation to others
  
• A Christianity that fails to begin with the individual will never begin.
  
• Transformation is not utopianism and does not obligate us to any particular millennial position.
  
• We should not pretend that we can create perfect societies.
  
• In the process of transformation some will be saved, but everyone will benefit
  
• Transformation is not optional. It is what God is doing in the world and he invites us to participate.
  
• Transformation enforces hope
  
  • Clinics that Ken Black established in Kenya are the only medical hope for a million people now due to the riots in Kenya
    
  • School supplies for Iraq are hope for children who may never have a shot at a decent education.
    

Instead of complaining about the mess, we need to help do something about it.

God's people have always been responsible citizens

• Joseph
  
• Daniel
  
• Jeremiah
  
• Jesus
  
• Paul
  
• Peter
  

Early Christians were noted for the good they did in society, even though they were persecuted and executed. Note the following excerpt from the Letter of Aristides:

But the Christians, O King, while they went about and made search, have found the truth; and as we learned from their writings, they have come nearer to truth and genuine knowledge than the rest of the nations. For they know and trust in God, the Creator of heaven and of earth, in whom and from whom are all things, to whom there is no other god as companion, from whom they received commandments which they engraved upon their minds and observe in hope and expectation of the world which is to come. Wherefore they do not commit neither adultery nor fornication, nor bear false witness, nor embezzle what is held in pledge, nor covet what is not theirs. They honour father and mother, and show kindness to those near to them; and whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly. They do not worship idols (made) in the image of man; and whatsoever they would not that others should do unto them, they do not to others; and of the food which is consecrated to idols they do not eat, for they are pure. And their oppressors they appease (lit: comfort) and make them their friends; they do good to their enemies; and their women, O King, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest; and their men keep themselves from every unlawful union and from all uncleanness, in the hope of a recompense to come in the other world. Further, if one or other of them have bondmen and bondwomen or children, through love towards them they persuade them to become Christians, and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. They do not worship strange gods, and they go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother; for they do not call them brethren after the flesh, but brethren after the spirit and in God. And whenever one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them according to his ability gives heed to him and carefully sees to his burial. And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him they set him free. And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them. Every morning and every hour they give thanks and praise to God for His loving-kindnesses toward them; and for their food and their drink they offer thanksgiving to Him. And if any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another near. And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God; and if moreover it happen to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. And further if they see that any one of them dies in his ungodliness or in his sins, for him they grieve bitterly, and sorrow as for one who goes to meet his doom.

To be citizens of the Kingdom of God we need:

• Be a little less egotistical; we need to think about our grandchildren
  
• Adopt a more robust citizenship mind
  
• Adopt a passive-active evangelism similar to that used by the Muslims. This is the way the early church conquered the world of its day.
  
• We should constantly demonstrate love and pervasive service in our communities.