* From J. Daryl Charles' book The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism: Recovering the Church's Moral Vision (IVP, 2002).
"Cultural critic Os Guinness* identifies what he believes to be strategic or 'tactical' errors that are recurring in evangelical attempts to develop a 'public witness.' Evangelicals, he notes, have frequently concentrated their efforts in domains that are peripheral to society rather than central. Correlatively, they have relied heavily upon populist strengths and rhetoric rather than addressing 'gatekeepers' of contemporary culture. Moreover, and critical to the viability of the evangelical social ethic, we have sought to change society through political and legal means rather than contending in the marketplace of ideas at the intellectual level. Thus, evangelicals have tended to rely on 'a rhetoric of protest, pronouncement, and picketing' rather than on moral persuasion.
"While there is nothing inherently wrong in a 'rhetoric of protest'--indeed there are seasons in which the Christian community is called to such a strategy--there is doubtless something to be said for Guinness's concern. The relative inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention that tends to depreciate a long-term strategy of building relationships and addressing moral-philosophical complexities, has lasting results that are counterproductive to evangelicals' mission to the world.
"If one argues that moral persuasion is necessary in society, one must also assume that the church has undertaken the task of moral education." (pp. 226-227)
* Charles is quoting Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994), pp. 17-18
