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Questioning evangelism

Why not ask?

QUESTIONING EVANGELISM
By Randy Newman
Kregel. 270 pages
ISBN 0 8254 3324 X

Randy Newman is an evangelist of many years’ standing with Campus Crusade for Christ. This book is a long read, but broken up into 13 chapters, dealing with many different topics which commonly challenge any Christian seeking to witness to the truth of the gospel.

The main thrust, which Newman repeatedly emphasises, is his refreshing and distinctive approach to evangelism. He postulates the necessity of three skills — those of declaring, defending and dialoguing the gospel. He believes those skills will reach a much higher degree of impact and effectiveness through the evangelist asking questions, rabbinic style, to help to guide the non-believer towards saving faith in Christ, rather than through the more conventional method of direct proclamation. There is a section of questions on each chapter to help the reader work through and apply this rabbinic method.

Questioning evangelism was a finalist in the Gold Medallion Book Award, and is highly acclaimed by five high profile Christian personalities. This acclaim is merited. This book is readable. It’s brave. Newman is not afraid to deal with evangelistic hot potatoes — the topics we hope our non-Christian friend will not think to ask us … suffering, reliability of Scripture, evangelical view of homosexuality, fundamentalist intolerance of other religions … because we suspect we will be soundly defeated by our friend.

Newman is extremely human, humane and compassionate. His clear agendum is a sincere love of other people’s souls and a passion to see the lost saved. He writes in a way anyone can understand. He intersperses his book with many illustrations from his own and others’ experience, from other writers as diverse as C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley, and quotes from Scripture. There are appropriately humorous stories, many sample dialogues and models for effective conversations and an original perspective which cannot help but compel the reader to keep page-turning.

Newman makes us question ourselves and our (perhaps) hackneyed evangelistic methods. Above all, he provides hope. He demonstrates convincingly how a question, intelligently targeted and fired, can become a cannon ball which demolishes the wall so that the army of the Lord of Hosts can storm a previously unassailable fortress of wrong ideas with the result that the prisoner inside can pass from death to life.

Vicky Dixon,
a housewife married to Henry Dixon, pastor of Poplar Baptist Church in East London