There’s an old Hauerwas quote that a Mennonite friend of mine never tires of sharing:
Christians are often tempted, particularly in this time called modern, to say more than we know. We are so tempted because we fear we do not believe what we say we believe. So we try to assure ourselves that we believe what we say we believe by convincing those who do not believe what we believe that they really believe what we believe once what we believe is properly explained.
As a result we end up saying more than we know because what we believe—or better, what we do—cannot be explained but only shown. The word we have been given for such a showing is “witness.”
I am not sure about everything in that quote. But one sentence in particular strikes me as increasingly essential for understanding one of the foremost temptations set before anyone who cares about evangelization: “So we try to assure ourselves that we believe what we say we believe by convincing those who do not believe what we believe that they really believe what we believe once what we believe is properly explained.”
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