The Scandal of Evangelism: A Biblical Study of the Ethics of Evangelism - Paperback

by Elmer John Thiessen (Author)

In today's multi-cultural and multi-religious world, evangelism is often viewed as scandalous, not only by those who are opposed to anything religious, but also by many Christians. In this book, Elmer Thiessen provides a response to those who find most or even all Christian evangelism objectionable. He does this through a careful analysis of what the Bible says about the ethics of evangelism. Based on this inductive study, mainly of the New Testament, Thiessen proposes thirty guidelines for ethical evangelism. Part II examines some specific contexts that pose unique challenges for doing evangelism ethically--evangelism of children, evangelism within a professional context like the secular academy, evangelism within the context of humanitarian aid, and finally the problem of proselytism, understood in the special and narrow sense of sheep-stealing.

Author Biography

ELMER JOHN THIESSEN taught at Medicine Hat College (Alberta, Canada) for thirty-six years. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Emmanuel Bible College. He is author of The Ethics of Evangelism: A Philosophical Defense of Proselytizing and Persuasion (2011).