Through A Glass Darkly

“The life of the community is the primary form of its witness, and it is also the equipper and supporter of each individual Christian in the practice of his or her vocation as witnesses for Christ.” Darrell L. Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, p. 68.

“All in all, the result of twenty years of work is not some renewed vision of mission, nor a penetrating challenge to the secularism of a barren church, nor a revitalized clergy devoted to the rescue and saving of lost sheep under the sovereign rule of the Good Shepherd.  What we have is considerable theological disarray, shallowness, or indifference, a fostering of false hopes concerning what can be achieved by research and programing, and a rather conspicuous failure to face up to the radical demads of the Christian gospel.”

This is the evaluation of William Abraham in 1989 regarding the work of the “Church growth movement.”  I would say that this applies 20 years later as well.

William J. Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism p. 81.

“What is especially striking is the way in which the gospel of the kingdom initially spread.  It did not spread because of a carefully designed program of evangelism; nor did it start because the early disciples meditated on the Great Commission and felt that they had better obey it to assuage their feelings of guilt.  The church did not begin its evangelistic activity because it was terrified about the prospects that faced those who died without hearing about Christ; the Christian movement was not initiated by a band of professional evangelists eager to sign up a public relations firm and get the show on the road.  Rather, the gospel spread and the church grew because the sovereign hand of God was in the midst of the community that found itself surrounded by people who were puzzled and intrigued by what they saw happening.  The overwhelming impression created by the traditions witnessing to the early evangelistic activity of the disciples is that the Holy Spirit was present in the community, bringing in the reign of God and inspiring the disciples to speak boldly of the mighty acts of salvation that God had wrought through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.”  William J. Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism p. 37-38

Here is a great article on the missional church.

Well I was turned on to another gem regarding mission and the church by a friend. Simon Chan is the professor of systematic theology at Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He is also a liturgically minded Pentacostal and a leader in the Assemblies of God. He has written a couple of books that you can see here and here. I am mentioning Chan because I think he has something very important to say to those interested in mission and the emerging growth of missional literature. Here is a brief summary of his thoughts on this.

“I think that missional theology is a very positive development. But some missional theology has not gone far enough. It hasn’t asked, ‘What is the mission of the Trinity?’ And the answer to that question is communion. Ultimately, all things are to be brought back into communion with the triune God. Communion is the ultimate end, not mission.” (Interview with Andy Crouch, The Christian Vision Project)

Chan is onto something I think. He ultimately defines this “communion” in the Eucharist and so places the priority of the church in worship. I like it! I will be posting on some of his thought in the future. Here are a few articles from Christianity Today that you might like to read.

“More than Saving Souls”

“Stopping Cultural Drift”

“Missiologist, missionaries and representatives of missionary societies seek to promote interest in crosscultural dialogue and witness and to encourage and develop the involvement of Christians, young and old, in active outreach to non-Christians. As laudable as these endeavors are, their proponents have not always sought to provide exegetical explanations or to engage in theological discussion when presenting models for missionary work and paradigms for effective evangelism…Typically, understanding among evangelicals about the early Christian period and about the endeavors of the earliest Christians is, more often than not unconsidered, and sometimes naive and romanticized.

Views that fail to take into account the historical and social conditions of life in the first century are potentially problematic. For example, the view that the early Christians recognized the significance of “small groups” or of “house churches” fails to recognize the fact that outside of local synagogues Christians had no other option but to meet in private homes whose largest rooms could accommodate about forty people. Another example is the view, naive despite the notice in Acts 4:32, that the early Christians were a united group of activists, uniform in their theology and thick as thieves in their relationships, who were willing and eager to subordinate differences of opinion and behavior to the missionary mandate. This view fails to recognize, for example, that the conflict whose solution is recorded in Acts 15 evidently was not supported by all missionaries based in Jerusalem, or that Paul was willing to separate from missionary coworkers as a result of differences of opinion, or that churches recently established by Paul were visited by Jewish-Christian missionaries whose goal was to influence them theologically and institutionally. Or note the romantic view that the organization of the early Christian missionary work among non-Jews corresponds, at least in general terms, to the foreign missions endeavors of one’s denomination or missionary society. Before we can develop “lessons” for Christians today, we need to heed the facts as they present themselves in the New Testament. As far as mission and evangelism are concerned, this has not always happened.”

This excerpt is taken from the Preface (xxiii-xxiv) of Early Christian Mission, Volume 1 by Eckhard J. Schnabel

Well, I have some thoughts on some of the reading I have been doing in The Shaping of Things To Come. I haven’t intended to do a review of the book, chapter by chapter, but that seems to be the way its going. I will still file these in the Missional section because I am not sure how long my interest will last with the book.

So, chapter three is entitled, The Incarnational Approach. If I had a dollar for every time someone used the word incarnational, I could probably fund my 401K for the year. Here goes.

1. Incarnation as governing “prism” for mission

“For us Incarnation is an absolutely fundamental doctrine, not just as an irreducible part of the Christian confession, but also as a theological prism through which we view our entire missional task in the world.” (p.35)

I don’t like “theological prisms” or meta-contexts or all-controlling themes (or whatever else they may be called). I don’t trust them. I have never found any that fit the data completely. There is always something that sneaks its little head out of the box. Everything doesn’t fit. Viewing the “entire missional task in the world” through the prism of incarnation is just another such failing attempt…at least in my humble opinion. Is incarnation helpful in understanding mission? Absolutely. Is it very important in understanding mission? Probably. Is it the only valid way to view mission? No. What about viewing the mission of the church as war (2Corinthians 10:1-5)? What about viewing the church’s mission as the priestly duty of sacrifice (Romans 15:15-16)? What about viewing the church’s mission as farming (1Corinthians 3:5-9)? Am I missing the point? Could incarnation be the over-arching theme through which we ought to view these pictures of mission? Is our role as priest any less “real” or “important” than our being Christ’s “body” and incarnating his gospel? John Frame has a wonderful quote in relation to this issue,

“When a theologian says that we must ’see everything in relation to x (a central doctrine)’ or that we must ‘never theologize in abstraction from x,’ he is using highly ambiguous expressions, and he is in danger of making a great many methodological errors. He is also in theological danger–the danger of adopting something less than the whole of Scripture as his final authority” (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. 1987, p. 194).

2. Christology as governing all theology

“It has been noted that in the light of the New Testament, the remarkable truth is not so much that Jesus is Godlike, but rather that God is actually Christlike. (God is Christlike and in him is no un-Christlikeness at all). In the light of the New Testament revelation, all who would wish to know who God is and what he is like, need look no further than the person of Jesus (John 1:18; 14:9). From now on, all true perspectives of God must pass through the very particular lens of the man called Jesus of Nazareth. To say this more technically, all theology must now be understood through Christology. The genius of this aspect of New Testament revelation is that in Jesus God provides for us the basis of all imitation for all genuine knowing, all true loving, and all authentic following of God. This, too, will have massive implications on the church’s life and mission.” (p. 37)

Another governing “lens” for us to look through. How do you disagree with this? It’s like you are saying something bad about Jesus. But I do disagree with this and still don’t think I am saying something bad about Jesus but rather honoring the word of God in its totality. This statement really falls into the same category as the one before. However, there is something obviously correct about Jesus’ revelation of the Father…that I do not deny. He is the full and final revelation of God (Hebrews 1:11ff). However, to take that concept and say that all “theology” must now be seen through Christology can narrow things a bit too much. Let me explain. The problem is not in the way we come to know God, that is clearly done “in Christ.” The problem is rather found in the way we define Christology. As Frame has argued, scripture is “perspectivally related” which is just to say that we can look at things from many different lenses. I can view all theology through Chrstology, but I can also view all theology through Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) or any number of ologies. Each perspective illuminates different qualities of the truth. There is no question that the main purpose of redemptive history is the reconciliation of all things in Christ (Eph 1:10), but we must remember Paul says that after Christ has destroyed all his enemies, he will hand the kingdom back to the Father that God may be all in all (1Corinthians 15:28).

The importance of these two points that Frost and Hirsch make is that they build their entire missional structure based upon a particular (and in my mind, seriously truncated) “interpretation” of incarnation as the “enfleshing” of God in a specific culture. They then draw all kinds of conclusions about how the church must “enflesh” the gospel in their culture. They then describe what that might look like in all the thousands of subcultures that exist in the west.

So to summarize, I believe that these two “master contexts” proposed by Frost and Hirsch restrict the shape of mission as it is actually revealed in the bible. I hope to show this is true by comparing specific texts in the new testament with the examples given in the book. But before I do that, I want to address their views of Jesus, the Church and cultural identification as well as their views on attractional vs. missional ministry. In addressing those two issues, I will begin to show how the use of “master contexts” or controlling lenses or prisms, actually ignores important themes captured in the biblical texts.

“Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace.” This is taken from the website promoting the Burning Man Project. You can go there for more information about this yearly festival. The point I want to make about this has to do with the opening of a book entitled, The Shaping of Things To Come written by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (Hendrickson Publishers, 2003). The Australian authors begin the first chapter of the book by discussing the the significance of the annual event and why it is popular. Why do people flock to this art festival every year? What is the attraction? Frost’s and Hirsch’s answer…postmodern people want “Belonging”, “Survival”, “Empowerment”, “Sensuality”, “Celebration”, and “Liminality”(the transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous, shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms of conduct, dress, etc.). Apart from wondering if these are actually new desires particularly peculiar to the “postmodern era” I want to address (briefly) why all of this is important to the authors in the first place.

Listen to the second paragraph of the first chapter,

“Although Christians might be tempted to focus on and condemn Burning Man’s patently pagan elements–the near-deification of art, nature, and the individual, not to mention the quasi-sacred rite in which both a human effigy and “confessional cards” are burned–we should rather examine what takes place at Burning Man in order to learn why thousands of people flock to the event every year. It is actually quite easy to denigrate Burning Man as a counterfeit religious experience, but Christians who content themselves with this will never understand what exactly draws participants to live under the Man’s watchful gaze in Black Rock Desert. They will never discover what people today are searching for and thus will never offer the authentic spiritual experience that people crave.” (p.3-4)

Two quick thoughts regarding this paragraph. First, did you notice the use of the word “rather” in the opening sentence? Although a Christian might be tempted to focus on the pagan elements of the festival we should rather examine the reasons why people go there. Interesting. I really don’t want to be too hard on these guys, I am sure they would make qualifications if asked, but “rather?” Christians should rather examine the whys of sin than pointing out the sin. What would this approach to “mission” look like if we were to apply it to the Israelites about to go into Canaan? “Don’t bother occupying your mind with the fact that these people commit bestiality, sodomy, incest, child sacrifice, etc., rather try to understand why they give themselves to these things.” Oh, I know. I know. I can’t compare the Canaanites with the Burning Man festival. Israel had a direct word from God to execute judgment on them, and we obviously don’t have the same in regard to our pagan culture. But let me ask a question, when do we ever see a prophet, apostle, missionary, etc., rather than noticing, naming and condemning sin in a given society seek to “understand” why that society sins. Paul at Athens probably gets the closest when he declares to the idolatrous people the truth about the “unknown God” (Acts 17). However, I believe Paul makes just the point I am trying to make here,

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31)

I am not saying that we should not try to understand the whys behind the whats. We should try to understand why people sin so that we may better understand their needs as they perceive them. I just happen to think that the whys are not that difficult to determine and pretty much stay the same across time and culture…we are in fact made in the image of God. The real issue I have is that I continually find a de-emphasis on judgment in a great deal of missional literature, and not simply future judgment, but present judgments as well.

The second issue has to do with the statement that unless Christians properly identify these needs in the postmodern individual we can “never offer the authentic spiritual experience that people crave.” With all due respect, so what? If we are talking about the “authentic spiritual experience” of Christianity, then it is what it is. It is not adaptable to the “cravings” of postmodern, modern, premodern, etc. humanity. It seems to me that if Christians are living like Christians in fellowship and love for one another, submission to authority, communion with God, service of others, we have all we need to demonstrate to any culture the “authentic spiritual experience.”

Maybe I am making something out of nothing. I certainly am not trying to. I really believe this stuff is missing the mark in some pretty significant ways, by either de-emphasizing where the bible seems to emphasize or minimizing the Christian witness for not being culturally savvy enough.

Just some random thoughts. Think about it.

I was introduced to missional theology and methodology a little under a year ago.  At first glance I dismissed it as a regurgitated form of church growth “homogeneous unit principle” type stuff.  I was told by new adherents that my instincts were misguided. Since that time I have been convinced that my initial instincts were in fact correct. However, I wasn’t quite aware how much of a theological overhaul the missional stuff was seeking to make.  To be sure, there are those practitioners out there who struggle with small churches, no money and little enthusiasm who hope to find their pot of gold at the end of the missional rainbow.  These guys(and gals) are not so much my concern in this post…they deserve their own.  As I began to read past the popularizers of the missional approach to ministry (Driscoll, Stetzer, Roxburgh, McLaren, etc.) to the “theoreticians” of the movement (Newbigen, Bosch, Hiebert, Van Gelder, Franke, etc.) I began to realize that the issues were much deeper than pure methodology.  These guys were calling for a reworking of the entire epistemological structure of theology.  This is no new thing. The problem I was having was that I believed Cornelius Van Til had already destroyed all such presumption in the name of revelation.  What I am saying is that, as I understand Van Til, he seems to have provided the only ground upon which meaning can be “justified.”  I could not understand why there were not any reformed voices pointing to the faulty foundations that the missional theologians were seeking to build their edifice upon.  I am quite aware that there are some scholars who approach something similar to Van Til’s methodology, guys like Bloesch, Oden and other modern day quasi-fideists and also promote some sort of missiological definition of the Church.  So I guess what I am concerned with is not so much the missional approach to ministry (although I would define that very different than the practitioners listed above in that it ought to be shaped “sacramentally” and “doxologically” which is to say that worship and ordained leadership have to be central to the outworking of any missional program…just as Jesus commanded -  Mat 28:18-20) but the epistemological shifting that is taking place.  What has been needed is a thorough presuppositional or transcendental critique of postmodernist epistemological thought.  Well, I have found such a critique.  Mark R. Kreitzer; Assistant Professor of Missions and Biblical Studies, Montreat College, NC, USA has written an article doing just that.  He deals primarily with the epistemology that has undergirded missional thinking (critical realism) and much of theology for quite some time (critical realism is also the epistemological undergirdings of the entire Christian Origins project of N.T. Wright; see The New Testament and the People of God, pp.31-46). Anyway, here is the article.