EVANGELISM FOR TOMORROW

The author, Charles Templeton, has had a wide experience of some twenty years as an evangelist, and so he writes with authority of a subject upon which more and more attention is being focused today. With all the media of mass communication available to modern evangelists, and large numbers of people being evangelized at one time, an examination of the nature of, and the need for evangelism is in order, if certain opportunities are to be used most fully, and dangers and pitfalls avoided. To this task the author addresses himself and has produced a book which is at once an analysis of the situation and a handbook for those who feel called to do the work of an evangelist. He calls attention to both the weaknesses and the strengths of such men as Billy Graham and Norman V. Peale who achieve such a wide hearing today, and reminds his readers that the true goal of evangelism is not to make converts, but to produce mature Christians. To that end, Evangelism seeks not only to win men to Christ but also to the Church. The work of evangelism, he reminds us, is not only the necessary work of the ministers but also of the laymen of the church, ambassadors of Christ who may often speak with more power because they are not professionals. In all of this the mind as well as the heart is involved. Emotion is a most important part of the evangelistic process, but to evangelistic passion must be joined the added insights that have accrued to our generation through the increased understanding of theology, psychology, sociology and other fields of human knowledge. God must be loved with the whole heart and the whole mind. Moreover, any Christian evangelism of the future must go beyond a mere individualistic emphasis or cease to be taken seriously. It is not enough to cry, ""What must I do to be saved?"" A man must go on to cry, ""What can I do to save?"" So every converted Christian must seek ways to exercise his own evangelism. A wise and useful book, for clergy and laity, one to reward their zeal and increase their vision.