We begin with the 4-Laws because the booklet itself is most likely the most widely used tool to communicate the gospel in modern times. The late Bill Bright, founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) in generally credited with overseeing the development of this presentation.
Literally hundreds of millions of people have either gone through the booklet or listened to a public proclamation of the basic content of it. Many of those who received Christ as their Savior and Lord by this means have remained life long followers and have made very large contributions to the cause of Christ through missional and even scholarly work.
Here is a link to Cru’s (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) sites, which allow you to view the Four Spiritual Law Booklet in on-line form:
Originally people were trained to memorize the content and reproduce it on napkins or pieces of paper when engaged in evangelistic presentations. Later a booklet called the Four Spiritual Laws was printed by the organization. People were typically (and largely) trained to read the booklet out loud while using a pointer to keep the listener on topic and to keep moving through the booklet. It was thought crucial to get to the end (or close) of the booklet without spending too much time answering questions which might lead the conversation in diverse and non-productive bunny trails.
We wish to offer some analysis in terms of how effective we think it can be when used in peer to peer evangelism with faculty in higher education.
Analysis
Pros:
- 1.) Laws 1-4 (especially 2 & 3) clearly explain the need for (substitutionary) ‘atonement’--though that word is not mentioned--and how that can be individually appropriated through faith in Jesus Christ. The important teaching of “by grace through faith” which is central to the gospel is found there.
- 2.) It attempts (according to Bill Bright) to boil down the gospel in succinct terms, yet remaining faithful to the (biblical) text. In so doing the booklet wants the evangelist to be confident they have touched virtually all of the most important propositional aspects of the gospel. One benefit of ‘reducing’ the presentation in this way is that it makes it more possible that one might be able to get through all the really crucial things in one conversation.
- 3.) Within Cru (the staff & student organization) there are various levels of training available for using the booklet, which can greatly help communicate the gospel message more skillfully and more clearly.
- 4.) The booklet can still be effective even when those who present it lack the skill to present it well because the message is 1) written, 2) succinct and 3) can be left as a follow-up piece that could be read and understood at a later time.
- 5.) It (the content of the Four Laws) worthy of note that the 4-Laws is most likely the most fruitful tool of gospel presentation in the twentieth century--a whole generation of college students and beyond have heard it and responded to the message of the gospel and became followers of Christ. So it seems ridiculous to think it isn’t effective at all in a large range of venues.
- 6.) There is scriptural support for the possibility of seeking to reduce the gospel to essentials; we do see so-called ‘reductionist’ accounts of gospel presentations in the NT, especially in Acts. Christ’s followers proclaiming condensed versions of how to become followers of Christ (the gospel) which seems to imply that there is justification for some packaging or condensation of the gospel message (occasionally pejoratively referred to as a reductionist gospel). At least they are recorded that way! So the key to evaluating the content of gospel presentations is to look at patterns in the NT for delivering it. From those examples you can decide if what is presented is about right in terms of the quantity of information instead of malignantly reductionist. It also seems possible (generally, but not in the case of the 4-Laws) that presentations can be inflationary to a point where the audience stops listening. Thus in certain situations to reduce the gospel to essentials does not mean you are necessarily preaching a malignantly reductionist gospel as some allege. Of course, we believe, all things being equal, the more background and context one has, the more likely they are to understand what is being communicated.
- 7.) Begins on a positive note: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for you life.
Cons:
- 1.) The booklet content has been criticized for creating the impression that the gospel is merely personal and that allegation seems at least partially true. While it is true that each of us must personally receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, the booklet as a whole does not make clear enough (we think) the larger meta-narrative of God’s redemption for the whole of His creation which can help the outsider to better see some of the communitarian aspects of the gospel. We think therefore that in this respect the 4-Laws misses too much of that larger context.
- 2.) A tool like this which communicates only or mainly the propositional elements of the gospel can give the impression that proclaiming the truth of the gospel can be divorced from the well lived lives of individuals and communities that proclaim it. It can give this impression because the content of the Four-Laws can be presented without the outsider’s intimate knowledge of individuals and their community life--which is not necessarily wrong; but it can still be argued it often neglects an important means of clarifying the meanings of the gospel other than just proclaiming the truth of its propositions.
- 3.) Related to this, it could be said that evidence for the criticisms of 1 & 2 (above) is that this sort of proclamation is somewhat responsible for producing a generation of new Christians, who do not value Christian community and tend to think of the gospel in only personal terms which reinforces western individualistic dispositions. One of the “dangers” of presenting a condensed version of the gospel is that outsiders thereby don’t receive a full(er) context by which to understand it. All things being equal, the more context the better in coming to understand the meaning of the gospel.
- 5.) In some cases the use of the passage where Jesus says he “...came to give life and give it abundantly...” (in Law 1) can be easily misunderstood especially in the context of the explanation of the two circles in Law 4 of the booklet. That is, often the impression received by an outsider is that she is trading one existentially unorganized way of life for one that is better organized because Christ would now be in the life. Problems with giving that impression include disappointment when new (or even older Christians) who receive Christ in this manner despair when their life has dark moments of the soul or when their life seems chaotic (cf. Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane or Paul in I Corth. 2:3 & II Corth. 6: 4-10, 11:24-30 & 12: 7ff). The fact that many people seem to misunderstand this aspect of the presentation is partially due to natural inclinations to misunderstand the importance of grace in the relationship and also seems partially to the lack of clarity between the communication of substitutionary atonement and the circle diagrams.
- The gospel, it can be argued is not so much at first inviting Christ into you life to get it organized properly, but rather receiving grace and atonement for sins and thereby enter into relationship and fellowship with God. That new relationship will surely change affections and priorities if allowed and that may reduce the hardships and consequences of sin; but difficulties and chaos in a person’s life following conversion are not necessarily signs that a person is out of relationship or fellowship with God. This last point can hardly be stressed too much.
- 6.) Some people (professors) take offense at anything like a booklet presentation. Some are genuinely offended because they consider such a tool simplistic and others are just generally offended by religion and so jump on the first thing they can find that doesn’t sit well with there sense of aesthetics. In any case it takes a little discernment to judge whether it’s a good idea to bring out such a booklet.
[It’s been our experience that academicians who grew up in a very conservative religious background and didn’t like it and who have the intellectual capability and the will to succeed enough to make it in academe, can be particularly aggressive foes of the gospel on their turf. They often feel they understand the intellectual issues better than most conservative Christians (and sometimes they do) and they often have little patience with what they sometimes consider Madison Ave. techniques. That’s why conversations that involve a lot of listening are important in these situations to locate where people are in their life’s journey and to break that stereotype of a hard-sell approach.]
Summary: The booklet and the training (which we believe is highly necessary to be consistently effective) has made this the most fruitful tool in explaining the gospel in recent memory in the academic world and business world, but not necessarily in the “higher” parts of the academic community.
We do think that training Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ) offers for making the issues of the gospel in this booklet clear is very important. We also think that is important to clarify that outsiders are NOT merely trading one unorganized existential experience without Christ for an organized existential experience with Him--they are trusting Christ for more than that; they are to trust Him to pay the penalty for their sin by His work on the cross.
Parenthetically, we want to mention that some if not many in academe might (subjectively) feel their life is well organized and prioritized, especially when compared to some Christians and others who are not their peers. At the same time, it is also likely that SOME do feel their life is not well organized and not well prioritized...even if only vaguely. Objectively if a person’s life is not oriented by Christ and the grace he affords us there is something out of order in a person’s life. Having said these things we think that circle diagrams in the 4-Laws which seems to read and heard (and proclaimed) as Christ bringing order out of chaos in one’s life may not effectively speak to a significant number of highly educated people even if there is a real sense without Christ their lives are poorly oriented.
Probably the best way to use this presentation resource in academe is to understand both the gospel and the booklet profoundly. It is also very advantageous to be familiar enough with both so you can in many cases avoid using the booklet altogether and either write it out, or use certain aspects of the booklet (diagrams, verses, etc.) to make the gospel message clear conversationally.