Abstract
Having responsibility for teaching evangelism in a United Methodist school, Jack Jackson is aware of a certain confusion that exists in how evangelism is understood by Methodists. So many have assumed the nineteenth-century understanding that evangelism is preaching for an immediate conversion that some scholars in the field have attempted to broaden its understanding to include other dimensions, such as initiation into the faith and even embodying a social ethic. Unfortunately, these various attempts have left the global Methodist community with “no central and guiding vision of evangelism” (xiv). Jackson aims to provide such a vision through an act of recovery, namely an examination of John Wesley’s own evangelistic practice that not only broadens the nineteenth-century assumption but also clearly emphasizes proclamation.
For Jackson, proclamation, which he understands as telling the biblical story of God in Christ, can take forms besides preaching, including in Wesley’s practice teaching and exhortation. Proclamation requires response, and response can also take many forms, not only conversion but also awakening to sin as well as repentance and faith that leads to holiness. The evangelistic vision that Jackson presents encompasses these many forms. The first three chapters of Offering Christ focus on proclamation itself, that is, on its themes, methods, and the way the Holy Spirit brings people to respond. The remaining chapters describe and explore the four main forums in the early Methodist movement for such proclamation: field preaching, society meetings, class meetings, and visitation. Each of these forums provided space to tell the story of God in Christ and encourage response. Jackson holds that the progression from one to another was increasingly personal so they led to deeper, particularized proclamation that could result in personal growth. The vision of evangelism that Jackson presents is a dynamic partnership between the proclamation of the story and the Holy Spirit who makes use of the story to bring about response in the one who hears. Evangelism, then, cannot be reduced to preaching, or to conversion. Evangelism finds a place along the entire way of salvation.
Although it is welcome to read an account of evangelism that goes beyond conversion, Jackson uses the word “conversion” as if it is self-evident what he means by it. Among Wesleyan scholars, there are enough questions to consider—including that the word was not Wesley’s own preferred language—that one wishes for a better discussion of its place and meaning in Wesleyan studies as well as in the grand vision Jackson presents.
Kingswood Books, an imprint of Abingdon Press, exists to encourage serious academic study of the Wesleys and Methodism. Jackson’s focus on John Wesley’s evangelistic vision fits this purpose. The books published by Kingswood have a strong historical component, and Jackson’s work on Wesley’s organization and practice contribute to historical study. One could wish, though, that a book on something as practical and important as offering Christ would provide some aid in imagining what this vision might look like in the twenty-first century. Because the vision looks back more than it looks ahead, the task of considering how to be guided by this vision in our time is largely left up to the reader. Still, Jackson gives the reader much to work with. He demonstrates the many levels on which proclamation worked to lead real people into discipleship. The work of evangelism informed by this vision could offer Christ in truly life-changing ways.