St. Francis Didn't Say It
“Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” How many (hundreds of!) times have you heard that line rolled out? The good part about the alleged saying is that we do need to communicate that we truly believe the gospel through what we do. People need to see the gospel as well as hear it. If you have any doubts about this, please refer to my post from a few days ago on “justice and mercy” ministries. But there are two problems with the way this quote is normally used. First, it is often used by people who are oriented toward social concern but who are less comfortable with verbally proclaiming the good news about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and faith in him alone. Such hesitancy to share the gospel verbally simply will not do if you even remotely consider yourself to be a biblical Christian. Second, Francis of Assisi apparently never said it.
Mark Galli, the senior managing editor of Christianity Today and who wrote a biography of Francis, made the following comment:
"This saying is carted out whenever someone wants to suggest that Christians talk about the gospel too much, and live the gospel too little. Fair enough—that can be a problem. Much of the rhetorical power of the quotation comes from the assumption that Francis not only said it but lived it.
The problem is that he did not say it. Nor did he live it. And those two contra-facts tell us something about the spirit of our age."
You can read his entire post if you wish:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/mayweb-only/120-42.0.html
Comments
PoetAndPriest Apr. 13, 2012 at 11:31 AM
Actually, according to the post, he DID live it. He used words "when necessary" — such as when preaching. But at other times he did not, as in the penance he counseled, noted in the last line of Galli's post.
And if it's true, then whether Francis said it is irrelevant, right?
Ken Berding May. 7, 2012 at 10:11 AM
I don't know who said it. Duane Litfin, in a really good article in Christianity Today (May 2012) entitled "You Can't Preach the Gospel with Deeds: And why it's important to say so" comments: "According to those who know the relevant history well--the Fransiscans--Francis never uttered these words." (p. 40) He suggests, and I would heartily agree, that one of the reasons for the popularity of this so-called saying is that it gives us a way to "preach the gospel" without having to endure the derision of people who don't like absolute truth-claims (such as "Jesus is the only way to go to heaven"). In Litfin's own words: "In such an environment, the idea that we can preach the gospel with our actions enables us to gravitate toward those parts of our calling that receive cultural approval while shying away from the part that generates cultural censure--all without abandoning 'evangelism.' We still care about 'preaching the gospel,' we assure ourselves, but we're just doing it with our deeds rather than our words. In this way, our confusion of terms enables us to deceive ourselves into a benign neglect of our verbal witness." (p. 43)
This is an excellent article, and I highly recommend it. Here's an electronic link to the same article with a different title: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/may/litfin-gospel-deeds.html