Making Peace sans Evangelism (Part One)

I was sitting with a woman (and many others) at Bernie’s Taproom in Waukesha Wisconsin as she wondered aloud about making peace with people of other faiths as Christians.  For her, and I believe for many others, all conversations about making peace seem to necessitate parallel conversations about evangelism in Christianity.  How can we make peace with our religious others without wanting them to no longer be different than us?  Isn’t it counterintuitive to making peace to be simultaneously hoping for or working towards the conversion of the other?  Is evangelism (as a strategy for changing the hearts and minds of others) a necessary component of peacemaking from at least a Christian perspective?

Peacemaking relationships across lines of religious difference are complicated matters.  On the one hand, if we sincerely believe something and sincerely love our friend, it’s only natural to want to see them believe what we believe.  It’s only natural to want them to become a part of our tribe, whether as a convert or a revert (which is what many people who convert to Islam call themselves – they believe they are reverting to their natural religious inclinations).  If I believe that I am on the right path, it would be strange not to invite others to join me on that path, right?  That’s essentially the heart of evangelism: I have found something that I believe is good for me, I believe you would find it to be good as well, so I tell you about it hoping that you will see it as good.

To take an everyday example, let’s say I’m a parent and I just took my kids to see Zootopia.  Later that week, I bump into my friend Sean, also a dad, and we start talking movies.  I ask him if he has taken his two kids to see Zootopia.  He says he hasn’t even heard of the film.  Knowing that my kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that it is the number one film in America, I start to tell him all about it.  I might say, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”, and then go into a three minute diatribe on why he should absolutely go see it.  I tell him about how funny it is, how it mirrors real life, and how his kids will dig it.  That’s evangelism at its core.  It says, “This movie/restaurant/beer/tv show/book/person has made my life more enjoyable/better, and I want you to also have that experience because I believe it will do the same thing for you”.  This is due in part to our desire to bring people closer to our tribe.  When we have shared beliefs/experiences, our life together is enhanced.

This impulse to evangelism is also a part of human nature.  The difference between the example above and traditional (at least Christian) understandings of evangelism is that the relationship isn’t contingent upon a positive response.  If Sean doesn’t care to take his kids to see Zootopia, if he never sees the film, he doesn’t cease to be my friend.  Though we may have one less thing to relate with each other on, our relationship continues.  What sometimes happens when it comes to religious evangelism is we feel we need to abandon the relationship all together if our friend doesn’t respond positively to our words.

This traditional understanding of friendship and evangelism needs to be abandoned if we want to seek peace across lines of religious difference.  Several commitments need to be made in peacemaking relationships which include being equally as committed to the friendship as we are to our faith.  Neither of these commitments can be discarded.  A relationship that discards the commitment to faith as a vital component of the friendship cannot make peace.  This would be to deny a fundamental part of who we are.  You can’t be a friend if you aren’t fully present to the relationship in every way.  Likewise, a relationship that discards the commitment to friendship cannot make peace.  This would be to say, “If you don’t change your beliefs we can’t be friends”.  You can’t be a true friend if you aren’t fully committed to the friendship in every way.

For some, this seems like an impossible task.  It’s either friendship or faith.  It can’t be both.  I have met plenty of people who would argue otherwise.  If we want to participate in the healing of human to human relationships we have to be fully present with our commitments in those relationships.  Once we understand this truth, we can begin to fully engage in meaningful, reciprocal, life changing and life giving relationships across lines of religious difference.  Our future, I believe, desperately depends on it.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Making Peace sans Evangelism.  For more reading on this, buy Of Strangers & Enemies, get together with some friends, and talk about what making peace looks like in your world.