Jesus Cropped from the Picture

Chapter 3: The First Cropping Tool: Individualism

I N A DESIRE to bring people to Christ, innovative approaches have been employed to reduce the message so it could be easily understood and communicated. Using effective methods of American advertising, Christians formulated a host of ways to share the gospel, resulting in countless numbers of people coming to Christ. But these methods had unintended consequences. The Hearer As the Main Character The process of simplifying the Story of the Kingdom omitted some of the key elements of the Story. Getting the message into a tight presentation retained Jesus as Savior, but placed the potential convert at the center of discussion. Evangelism was conducted to get the person to “accept Christ” in a way that caused hearers to infer that they were the central character in the discussion. Instead of inviting people to “join Christ’s Kingdom,” language was used that put the hearer at the center . From their first introduction to Christ, new Christians have been trained to understand the gospel of the Kingdom in a self-oriented way. The contrast between “accept Jesus into your life,” and “join in what Christ is doing,” is profound. For example, the image in Figure 4 shows how there are two ways of perceiving something. If the background is viewed to be white, the black candlestick seems obvious. But if the observer sees a black background, it becomes apparent that two faces are looking at each other.

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