Page 196 - tesis
P. 196
side interest in this real world. At the same time, it is observable that their emphasis on the spiritual sphere of some of these pastors limits their presence and role in society.\u000AM\u00EDguez Bonino notes that Evangelicals have confused \u2018evangelism\u2019 and \u2018mission\u2019. He underlines that they have reduced the totality of mission to the \u2018task of evangelism\u2019 known as the plan of salvation and the invitation to conversion. Later he notes that in practical terms this dichotomy separated \u2018evangelization from service, conversion from the search for justice, worship of God from life in the world, participation in the community of faith from responsibility in society\u2019 (1995b: 139). Although the NPS show more interest today in the present world and in the social development of their members, they tend to reduce the social effect of the gospel to the personal and family lives of the believers. Along with other Evangelical pastors, the NPS are beginning to include in their church activities some social programmes to help the needy. For example, they now send medical teams out to offer their services, they distribute food and clothing and other projects which the NPL noted in the GSNPL. Natural disasters such the earthquake of 1976, hurricane Stan in 2005 and other such problems, have stimulated the emergence of social aid projects.\u000Ab. Conversion and the change of the nation\u000AConversion in the thinking of the NPS is not limited to the salvation of the \u2018soul\u2019 in the spiritual sense, nor is it separated from daily life. At the centre of their message is the call to conversion which involves every believer \u2018being born again\u2019. This is the difference between Christianity as culture and the Evangelical tradition which emphasises the new birth. From the point of view of Protestantism \u2018Personal conversion\u2019 based on a personal encounter with Jesus Christ provides the convert with a new perspective of themselves and of their new life. This encounter eliminated the mediations of Catholicism, helped the convert to subordinate natural events to the supernatural, and provided ethics and morality (Miguez Bonino n.d.: 10-13). Cleary adds that among Pentecostals \u2018Conversion serves as\u000A183\u000A