Click on the quiz “What’s Your View of Christian Salvation?” in the menu at the top of the webpage!
One of the primary problems I have found when working with people on evangelism is that they don’t have a compelling reason to do evangelism. There are some stock ideas about getting people to become disciples or to go to heaven, but these often ring hollow because the words don’t have much meaning in our daily lives.
Put simply, many Christians that I work with don’t have a clear idea of what salvation is. They may have some vague notions about it, but they cannot articulate it. They know it is supposed to be something that is very good and that it is supposed to save us from something that is very bad, but that’s about as far as it goes.
This lack of clarity is more than just a problem when trying to evangelize. Salvation is so foundational to Christian beliefs that, when we can’t articulate it, it muddles our sense of mission. We don’t know where we ought to put our resources since we don’t know what the ultimate good is that we want people to experience.
Worse yet, while our ideas about salvation are unformed, we still tend to hold onto them strongly because we know they are so important. This can make it difficult for us to relate to other people both inside and outside of the church. We are bound to meet people who we disagree with, but since we can’t really explain what we believe, we can’t have genuine dialogue with them.
In an effort to help Christians begin to articulate what they already believe, I have developed the quiz that is now on my website. Just click on the title in the menu at the top of the webpage. It will take you to a 9-question quiz that probes what you think is good and what concerns you most. Based on this, it lines you up with one of five historical figures, explains their view of salvation, and gives you some practical ideas of how that view can be put into practice.
Two things to note: 1) I do not make cast any judgement on the various views of salvation. The goal is not to convince you that one way is better than the other, but to help you begin to articulate what you already believe. 2) I realize that there are a vast number of possible figures I could have used and more than five perspectives on salvation. I used these figures because I have done fairly extensive research on them already and had them ready at hand. My sense is that the five views they offer will provide sufficient coverage for most Protestant Christians across the theological spectrum.
This is a first try for me, so please let me know how effective you find the tool to be, as well as any ways you can think to improve it. Thanks so much! In the meantime, I hope this is a useful tool for you.
The genesis of this quiz came this August when I had the honor of participating in the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. While there, I delivered a paper on the approaches to evangelism promoted by various leaders related to British Methodism. If you are interested, you can find that paper here.
One of my chief findings in the paper was that the leaders’ approaches to evangelism were defined heavily by their view of salvation. How they visualized the ultimate good that God had for people determined how they shared that goodness with others. (This was a nice historical affirmation of my concept of the “starting point” that I use in my evangelism equation in Evangelism for Non-Evangelists.)
After presenting, some of my colleagues at the conference suggested that the paper might serve the church better if I could create something interactive based on it. That seemed like a great idea. The result is the quiz.