A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

nurture, integration and assimilation of new members.31 These concerns would grow as Mennonite Brethren in- creasingly aligned themselves with the strategies of the 251 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH Church Growth movement, and as the prevailing North Amer- ican culture continued to impact the popular understanding of evangelism and discipleship. Evangelism In Contemporary Perspective While Mennonite Brethren preoccupied themselves with numerical growth, the popular mindset around them was changing swiftly as a result of fifty years of startling "progress"1 In the natural and social sciences. The impact of the liberal philosophy of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, which suggested that the only hindrance for progress was a narrow world view, had been devastating. It undermined all fundamental moral principles that previously served as guides to virtuous behavior. Allan Bloom, a noted American social critic wrote: Liberalism without natural rights1 the kind that we knew from John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, taught us that the only danger confronting us is being closed to the emer- gent, the new, the manifestations of progress. No atten- tion had to be paid to the fundamental principles or the moral virtues that inclined men to live according to them. To use language now popular, civic culture was neglect- ed, And this turn in liberalism is what prepared us for cultural relativism and the fact- value distinction, which seemed to carry that viewpoint further and give it greater intellectual weight*31 Relativism, which removes standards, leaves humanity without norms to distinguish between right and wrong. The Freudian psychology dominant in social sciences depersonal- izes the concept of God and destroys the basis of virtues con- tained in Scripture. The resulting American sense of individu- alism is responsible for an increasing fragmentation which erodes traditional ties of kin, community and kind. Binding 252 MENNONTTE BRETHREN EVANGELISM relationships such as marriage, once seen as sacred, become covenant, then contract, and finally irrelevant.55 According to Daniel Yankelovich the basic character of American culture is the yearning for self-fulfillment.54 It is a culture with a focus on intrinsic values, in which things are desired for their own sake without regard for anything else. In this ethic of self-ful- fillment, values as a means to an end are not enough; they need to be worthwhile in and of themselves.35 Contemporary evangelism, in this mindset, replaces the emphasis on the divine sovereignty of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in convict