There is a phenomenon in evangelism that is quite strange to me. I call it Necro-Evangelism and it is where local or even national radio fundamentalist and evangelical churches continue to play the sermons of the long dead founders to convert the masses. There are at least three major churches in my area and one I know of nationally that practice necroevangelism and I’d like to explore the pitfalls of this if I could.

I find it amusing in a macabre way to hear, usually the surviving son of the now-dead evangelist, inviting the audience to listen for a message from my long-dead father and pastor. Some of these types of evangelists have been dead for only a few years, so we might chalk their ongoing ministry up as a shock that the man died from the family who has no idea how to keep the business going. Others have been dead for decades and I suspect that as long as the tapes are played and can be recopied, they will continue to preach until the Second Coming and perhaps beyond! There is usually a college or “job” that the family of the now-deceased evangelist has inherited to support and while current family members may be up to the task, it’s nice to hear from the founder as if he were alive and well. all right. in the air. Others, to me, seem like the type who could never do on their own what Dad did with evangelism, but they can’t give up the programming Dad put into their heads or the dollars he can still generate. That’s a point about method, not sincerity.

People hate change and this delays the reality of many who have grown up with the words of the evangelist, now dead. A local university where I live continues to reproduce the sermons of the long-dead founder even though two or three generations have taken over the family business of evangelizing since his death. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an on-air sermon from any of the sons, all with the same founder’s name, except for the II, III, or IV behind the name. Some Christian evangelists may be happy to return to glory, but you’ll never know as one family desperately tries to keep things the same as they were before he became a necroevangelist. Why do we do this and what is the message it sends? You don’t see necroevangelists on TV, only on the radio. The television would be too much and obviously tacky.

In the first place, it doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong to do it. I’m sure the argument is “well, if we had Jesus or Paul on tape, wouldn’t we play it?” Well, yes it would, although that’s not going to happen. We have them on books and we’re not sure there if they actually said and wrote what some say they did. All we need is a bunch of fake Jesus tapes floating around and here we go again! An entire industry would explode verifying or repudiating “the Jesus tapes.” So while I get the point, these men aren’t Jesus or Paul, and besides, if you really know theology, you might suspect that the real Jesus wouldn’t have really appreciated the real Paul anyway, so now we have a tape conflict. Then we’d have to deal with James’s tapes and what a mess! There would be a whole market for underground tapes and pseudotaperapha and we wouldn’t be much further along than we are today with our knowledge.

So while necroevangelism might keep the family church, college or business going for a few more generations, is it really the right thing to do and what message does it send? One advantage is that it actually gives unskilled or founder-beaten kids time to regroup and figure out what to do now that daddy’s gone. All their lives they had preached that the Second Coming would surely be in their lifetime, but what now? Usually the first generation finds something, the second keeps it, and the third loses everything. Necroevangelism can postpone the necroevangelist sinking into a “who?” a generation later than this, perhaps. But back to the message it sends that it might not be good.

1. Necro-evangelicalism tells the audience that the kids don’t have the conviction or skills that dad might have but are unwilling to give up as something dad did but we don’t want to do. So we interpret dad’s sermons, and we don’t have to make up our own, “living.” In my town, one of those family members certainly doesn’t have the voice quality or sound of conviction of his father, so I can see why he might want Dad to keep things going. He just introduces “my late father, Dr…” and sells his tapes and even library books that his father appreciated, which he obviously doesn’t do. But he also has another line of work from what I understand, so he doesn’t depend on his Necro-Evangelist dad for his sole income.

2. Necroevangelism sends the message that survivors are spiritually lazy, but again, they just can’t give up the potential to have followers or keep things going. The second generation dabble in the world of evangelism, they usually get caught up in politics more than Dad because deep down they know that most of what Dad predicted or said didn’t really happen that way, and they just aren’t doomed. the same way. how was dad Daddy kept them out of “the world”, and damn, they’ll see that before they become Second Generation Necro-Evangelists too. Since Dad impacted his life with his own worldview, and often not in a very good way, they just don’t have the same need to convey it along with the same fervor of Dad, the Necro-Evangelist. In fact, they can’t. So they get busy producing Dad’s tapes and books and don’t have to do much to show their own creativity. They can run for public office or lecture as they please, but keeping the ball rolling is much easier than getting it rolling. Anyone can be the next president of a Necro-Evangelical College or Pastor of a Necro-Evangelical Church. Plucking the sucker is the hard part. Keeping it going can be a challenge, but if we keep our late father in the picture, it sure gets easier. Somehow we leak the fact that the Necro-Evangelist is long dead and maybe evangelism is a profession for the living convicts.

3. Necroevangelism sends the message that the necroevangelist knew everything there was to know about the Bible and all related topics. There is nothing new to learn or even unlearn as Dad made no theological mistakes, which is not true. Since we all like to hear the “old, old story,” let dad tell it to you over and over again. This is something wrong with religion in general. Assume that all its spokesmen were right from the start. If only they could read the bible, tell some good stories, stay interested and convince yourself that the reading was the same yesterday, today and forever, bingo!…why change a winning game during the sermon or even the family notices that how or what dad said that day is not true or appropriate today and let’s just not play around with it. Hits of the Necro-Evangelist”, selected by the next generation. That’s not fair to me!

4. Most of those who had been inspired by the now Necro-Evangelist are now Necro-Christians themselves, so they aren’t even around to listen to dad anymore. They were all around the same age and had long since moved to other heavenly realms. The children of those who loved the now Necro-Evangelist are not going to be inspired by a dead man. Sorry, they just aren’t. They will feel the above three points even if they do not express it. Children are not stupid and they will see what the II and III generations could be doing and how silly it is. These kids tend to find churches saying “as for me and my house, we will serve a living evangelist” and not just the memory of the good old days when parents thought the now Necro-Evangelist could do or say nothing wrong. He used to pastor a church that too often sent out recorded sermons from the then-living Apostle and the occasional evangelist. It was hard enough when they were alive, don’t make me listen when they’re dead!

Well, I think we get the point. Is it right or wrong to carry out a Necro-Evangelical-Centric ministry? I dont know. It’s just lame and nothing more than an evangelical dead end.