Essay # 2 The Gospel in Human Contexts by Paul G. Hiebert.
Inasmuch as this book had style borrowed from Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” by essayists addressing Missions Past, Present and Future, Hiebert takes his essay on Missions present and established some bold truths. His style is more like reading Goldilocks. He presents extremes of Minimal Contextualization (Papa Bear) and Uncritical Contextualization to prepare us to swallow everything he is going to feed us in his appreciation of Critical Contextualization.
Don’t misunderstand me- Heibert is a brilliant man and a legend in his field. I think he is a must read for people who want to comprehend contextualization. However, I, like some of the critics of his position, believe that there are too few tent-poles to hold up his tent. Whether he was intentionally imprecise on these missing markers or simply felt they were unnecessary, it caused his presentation to create concern and discomfort.
He shines the light on the crude methodology of missions during the colonial period as a reason to study our methods and motives. Again demonstrating the extreme isn’t always a good reason to adhere or depart from a particular conviction.
It reminds me of those who grew up in tremendous wealth who after serious introspection suddenly think there is great virtue in poverty. Another example would be the politician who highlights the extreme failures of his opponents to make his/her own weakness seem more palatable.
For Heibert the key weakness seems to cause the missionary to doubt or even despise the impact his own culture had on his view of taking the Gospel in it’s purest form to a new field. He touches on the C-1 through C-6 levels of contextualization proposed by Travis, but doesn’t really clarify his position about which “C” crossed the line into syncretism. He also believes there is no way to compare “belief systems and to test them.” If so, how do you determine success?
In his essay I felt like we were being taught to see western culture as a hindrance rather than simply a starting point. I like his comments like: “…we need to involve people in evaluating their own culture in light of the Bible...” and “Knowledge of the Gospel makes us responsible to share its message of salvation and transformation with all people…” But there was this constant shadow of guilt by association. Guilt that our cultural heritage must always be a curse in our attempt to be contextually relevant and plant indigenous Christians and churches.
Pocock’s Response: After giving proper admiration of the author and his essay and previous works, Pocock praises the impact of Critical Contextualization on contemporary missionary efforts in resistant cultures. I enjoyed his summary: “Rigorous biblical reflection by those who are closest to the situation always yields the best results.” However, those closest to the situation can also lose their objectivity in establishing effective and faithful methodologies for contextualization.
Whiteman’s Response: Also very Pro-Heibert, Whiteman refers to the colonial crudeness of missions as non-contextualization. He also bounces off of the extremes as he summarizes and appreciates Hiebert’s article. He cites the essayists three steps: 1) uncritically study the local culture; 2) study the Scriptures related to the problem area, 3) (indigenous believers) evaluate their own past customs, and then adds the information discussed in this particular essay to have a fourth step: 4) Divine revelation in human contexts. Well, at least they both landed in the scripture, but as Willis and Geisler will point out, the perfect Word of God should be our starting point, not the last resort.
Also worth noting is how much Hiebert, Pocock and Whiteman give focus to the term ‘the Gospel” rather than the entire Word of God. Whiteman’s Johari window wasn’t especially enlightening, but it gave visual learners a chance to grasp the obvious.
Geisler’s Response: Geisler cuts right to the chase and gives us points of agreement and disagreement. Agreement: Interpretation of Scripture, Nature/Role of Language, Translation of Scripture, Role of Culture, Objective Nature of Meaning, Universality of Truth, Need for a Metamodel Perspective, Need for Realistic Metaphysics, Nature of the Mission Enterprise. Then he has some areas of disagreement: Scripture: “..fails to note the Bible is an infallible and inerrant written revelation from God.” And states the Lausanne “statement of faith as well as the Chicago statement. Meaning: “Nowhere does Hiebert spell out just how one can avoid total skepticism in his knowledge of God whose Word we proclaim to the nations.” And Truth: Geisler cites Arostotelian principles of logic: law of contradiction, exclusion and excluded middle to point out that Truth is truth in any language or culture. And also notes that Heibert’s comment “No one ever meets universal Christianity in itself” is troubling.
Willis’s Response: Willis responds to Heibert, then presents Jesus’ model of contextualization. What a divine contrast! The Gospel itself was already presented and modeled to be contextualized. Study the original – what a concept. And as Willis points out we will never be able to completely and perfectly devoid ourselves of our context of origin the way Jesus did (Heb. 1:3; Phil. 2:6-7, and 2 Cor. 8:9). Wilis also notes that theology and anthropology are constructs of man – not God, and “In both, man’s reason attempts to become judge over God’s revelation.” So his solution is 1. Begin with the supremacy of Scripture, 2. Understand the biblical culture, 3. Understand your own culture, 4. Understand the receptor culture, 5. Use oral communication of Scripture, 6. Aim for spiritual transformation, 7. honor indigenous transformation, 8. Practice dynamic equivalence translation and application, and 9. Promote continuous adaptation to their culture. His summary: Allow the truths of Scripture to be Supracultural in order to maintain the integrity of the Gospel when there are conflicts.
Stetzer’s Response: I got the impression that Stetzer could find himself holding hands with Heibert, Pocock and Whiteman on one side and Geisler and Willis on the other and thus bring together the best of both sides of this debate. He also helps us understand a term that may not be familiar ~ Semiotics. He appreciates how Paul modeled taking the Gospel across cultures without “yielding on the stumbling block of the cross.” Our goal is the same to produce healthy churches that are faithful with the gospel and yet appropriately reflect their cultural context. However, as Stetzer demonstrates, there is still much dialogue or even debate to happen on how to achieve this God-given goal.
My Humble Opinion: As I saw how people fled from being called Fundamentalists because of the heavy approach that was often used by the militant-extremists, I see people afraid to be associated with groups that have a stigma attached by extremist association. Likewise I think much of the time people who question our methodology in missions may do so under the guise of a science like contextualization, but they become unwilling accomplices in throwing out the baby with the bath-water to appease those who have judged too quickly. Our context of origin is not a curse – it simply a starting point. If we will be honest with those people we are trying to reach, tell them we do not fully comprehend their culture, but we bring a truth that is truth in every culture and be adaptive in our presentation of it, we will see the results we seek.
I close with an example of a method we used in a culture not too different form our own. The method allowed us to connect and leave a meaningful tool in evangelism with a Central American community during a short-term mission trip. Instead of bringing our English version of a Gospel presentation, we learned an acronym based on a single Spanish word: SALVO (saved). Each letter stood for a Spanish word which explained an essential component of the Gospel message: S= Señor (the Lordship of a God), A= Abismo (the chasm caused by our sin), etc. The result was our short term mission trip – though not fully appreciating the context of our mission, was able to leave a contextually relevant long lasting tool in the hands of the believers we trained there. Another interesting point: In that particular culture, the fact that we came from America (the West), was a help and not a hindrance. We started each door visit with the statement of introduction: “Hi, my name is ________, and I believe God has brought me from the United States to share with you a very important message…” Our context of origin can be a benefit at times. There may be many more times that our recipients would rather us be honest about where we came from and why were are there rather than simply trying to look, and act like everyone they already know.
Reflections on a life invested deeply for Jesus Christ. An opportunity to invite others to join with God in His Kingdom activity leading to a missional lifestyle.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A New Project - MissionShift - A Book and A Debate
I have a new project! I have agreed to help in a dialogue about a book that is a dialogue on missions and missiology. First you should know where I come from. I absolutely love to bring evangelical fervor to the individuals in the church and help them discover the mission(s) for which they are gifted to serve. I have not been tremendously excited about the methodology of the emerging church movement and you’ll catch my deeper thoughts on the subject as I review the portions of this book.
MissionShift (I’m not sure if it is one word or two) is a fresh approach to opening up a conversation. It would compare to the merger of a very academic convention of speakers on the subject of missions / being missional and the modern, fluid communication that develops through a blog.
The entire work is divided into three parts like a Dicken’s Christmas play. We are visited by three messengers: The ghosts of missions past, present and future. Then the book contains commentary articles reflecting on those three essays. So with those thoughts laid out and a new direction within my blog, I hereby enter into the mix.
Essay 1: “Mission” Defined and Described. Charles Van Engen brings a view of the history of what this term has meant to the church. He is honest in that it has not always been driven by the best of motives. Van Engen introduces his subject with a story where a lady attributes the high attendance at a conference to dropping the use of the word mission. )What a tragedy since the church exists to achieve God’s mission) She claimed that the word was a turn off.
So Van Engen takes us on a journey through the historical use of the term mission and the ensuing activity to fulfill that work. I found the survey to be brief and insightful. He demonstrates how a reactionary driving force in each generation caused the shift of missions to somewhat “over-correct.” The Constantinian model failed because the work of the Holy Spirit (redemption and revival) cannot be governed by earthly authorities (although it should be modeled by them). William Carey brought a mission awakening and fathered a tremendous increase in relating the church to her mission. Van Engen also points out how that shift was short sighted in they often planted churches that were neither autonomous nor indigenous.
Venn, England, and Anderson were cited as helping bring about an awareness of the need to plant self-governed churches that propagated themselves and communicated well in the culture without compromising biblical convictions. The curse that came with this shift was that the focus changed to mission administration. It also provided the foundational principles that many counter-culture missional movements have built upon such as missio Dei and social gospel engineers form the 1930’s through today with the World Council of Churches.
The benefit of missio Dei was a more Trinitarian basis for missions. The over-correction is evidenced in how they departed from a Gospel that started with the conversion of an individual soul and focused on meeting human needs. This was a critical over-reaction to institutionally driven mission activity.
Another great movement was the rebirth and redefinition of mission in the 1980’s through 2000 which in my estimation has been the final movement that has fully matured and can be reviewed. Major players in this movement were Donald McGavran and Billy Graham’s World Congresses on Evangelism. Ralph Winter brought even more clarity on the return to bringing a Gospel of seeing the lost converted and established into churches when he directed attention to the unreached people groups.
Van Engen wraps up his rapid historical survey with a suggestion of a church only being missional if it is: Contextual, Intentional, Proclaiming, Reconciling, Sanctifying, Unifying, and Transforming. In my small opinion, these are very good, but maybe not in the correct order. I love his conclusion. How does he answer the woman who saw the word mission(s) as a turn-off? That underlies the vital importance of “the ways in which we define mission.” Our orthodoxy (corrected beliefs) will determine our Orthopodos (corrected walk) Gal. 2:14 (ὀρθοποδέω). What a sweet summation at the end: May the Holy Spirit teach us how to be… “God’s missionary people”…”
Eitel’s critique: An awesome story of a missionary who was observed to perfectly don the practices of Hinduism in hopes of communicating spirituality to the people in his field. What a powerful illustration of someone who become “of the world” while he was “in the world” and in doing so lost his saltiness. Eitel points out that Van Engen “returned to biblical soil.” That is refreshing. I know that each wave of missions-awakening thought they had the cure for what ailed the definition and manifestation of missions in their day. The emerging church leaders believe they are returning to a more biblical perspective than the people they criticize. I agree with Eitel that Van Engen has retuned to genuine biblical grounds. He summarizes the four sections and presnts the key engaging ideas.
Eitel makes a statement that I’m not sure I can be comfortable with: Leadership is suspect if they claim to know truth especially if it is deemed biblical since truth is personally derived. That sounds awfully close to the post-modern academicians who boldly proclaim there are no absolute truths. He may not believe the latter statement, but the similarity made me uncomfortable. I think he meant that perception of truth is relative therefore we should be careful to make claim to absolute possession of truth.
Another great summation that Eitel makes is found in his statement “Saving the world is the purpose that drives the church.” As he affirms the importance of theological methodologies from Van Engen’s essay he agrees that the results of proper conviction should be “godly disciples and New Testament churches.
Wan’s critique: Wan seemed to affirm Van Engen as achieving his stated purpose of a “historical overview,” however, he didn’t favor what he perceived as a emphasis on institutional dimension of mission. I would defend Van Engen to Wan by stating that the wealth of data that could be drawn upon for such an essay is largely documented in terms of institutional missions. Wan uses this opportunity to present a diagram illustrating “Missio-Dei of the Trinity and Christian Missions at Two Levels.” It a complex and fairly exhaustive illustration that demonstrated an appreciation for the individuals who did the missional work of the New Testament. Some people cannot see the trees for the forest. Wan appreciates the trees. He cites the profound impact of people like Ananias (Acts 9), Simeon, Lucious, Barnabas and Saul and is willing to acknowledge “the church in Antioch” (Acts 13). The flavor that I tasted coming off of Wan’s critique was that he might have a bad taste of institutional church.
I have always been under the impression that the individuals are the church and the church is made up of individuals. It is a safe assumption that missional work is always done at an individual level. I don’t agree that Van Engen had any serious omission. Wan also seems to equate the spiritual and social scope in his alternative definition of mission. My perception has always been that the social impact is secondary. When genuine conversion and spiritual transformation takes place, it will have social impact. But I don’t see the Scriptural basis of having social reform as a focus or motivation in our definition of mission. The social impact would make a good litmus test of the effectiveness of a spiritual conversion, but it is not co-regent with the spiritual.
Guder’s Critique: Guder gets the opportunity to critique the critics and thus makes me fell like my work is becoming redundant. I found myself in agreement with his concerns of Wan and he surfaced concerns about Eitel that I had missed. He deemed Eitel’s work as defensive in the selection of certain terminology. Gruder has a far wider knowledge of the historical work that has been the building blocks of this discussion. This is obvious as he draws parallels to Van Engens work and many of the dominant works of the twentieth century. I liked how he adjusted Eitel’s comment about Scriptural boundaries by saying how a proper view would have this result: The authority of Scripture is not then defined so much by our anxiety about boundaries and guidelines, but by the powerful way in which God’s written Word..cotninues our conversion to our vocation. Where Gruder and I part company is on his point that “The tendency to individualize God’s gift of salvation and to separate it form the healing purposes of for the world must be rejected as unbiblical.”
Nausea overwhelmed me as I read this. While we are to be salt and light, I just don’t see Christ’s goal as renovating a world that will eventually be destroyed after His return. While we should be concerned for the poor and seek justice for the downtrodden, we will not eliminate it. Conversion is not the cure for all social ills that plague our world. Conversion impacts whosoever will. It does not eventually overpower those who will not. While Jesus directed us to minister to the poor, sick, and imprisoned, he also said, “the poor you will have with you always.” (Matthew. 26 & Mark 14) – Remember it was Judas who was looking at the perfume and noting (probably with selfish motives) what an impact it could have in this world. Jesus wanted them to get their eyes off of this world for the moment and see the Kingdom event that was about to take place. So I would guess Wan and Guder would call me unbiblical…but I don’t think Jesus would.
I’m not sure I would agree with his point either that “mission” is borader than “missional church.” I still point out that the work is done by individual believers who have been called out (ekklesia) – oh wait, Dr. MacGorman taught me that was the Greek word for….(tumpet blasts) church. So the church IS the individuals who have been called out. If they have formed and institution out of it – so be it. Therefore the church that they would marginalize in favor of the broader scope of mission” or by focusing on individuals who do the work, is in fact the very clumsy organism that Jesus loved enough to die for and Paul challenged to learn to work together like a body in disagreement (Rom 12, Eph. 4) to accomplish the Kingdom work. I think Guder agrees with me at the point where he says “the personal and the corporate are inseparable.”
Guder goes on to bring Karl Barth into this discussion as a major player in this topic. However, I think the points he extracts from Barth’s not only work undergirds Van Engen’s essay but also my concerns about his leanings toward the Gospel being a cure for the world we live in today.
Kostenberger’s critique: This critique also reflected on Eitel and Wan as he proposes twelve theses. It would appear to me the article presents this dozen in order of importance. Key words I found in each statement reflect this structure: 1) grounded in the biblical theology.. 2) affirmation of the full and sole authority of Scripture… 3) the church’s responsiveness to the missionary mandate (some might point out that he highlighted the Lord Jesus here and omitted the Trinitarian perspective—) 4) hermeneutically sound, 5) Theocentric rather than anthropocentric… 6) Trinitarian in its orientation… 7) context…ought not override the church’s commitment to the authority of Scripture. 8) the church is the God-ordained agent of His mission…9) The way the Kingdom..is extended in theis world today…is through regenerate believers acting out their God-assigned spheres of life:…10) There is no true lasting social transformation apart from personal conversion….11) Human organization is perfectly compatible with…God and His initiative in mission. 12) The church’s task today is to nurture, renew and plant churches composed of spiritually regenerate membership and constituted in keeping with the biblical teaching regarding church leadership.
The thing I really liked about Kostenberger was his quandary over whether the pursuit of an agreeable definition of mission will produce the outcome we desire. Instead of seeking wide-spread support, he offered these 12 theses. I say, “nail them to the church door, brother Andreas!”
Ed Stetzer’s summation: Using his usual tact without compromise, Stetzer assesses this dialogue with precision and insight. I think we’d both agree that methodology should never continue simply because there is a historical basis for it. Rather simply building on a strong Scriptural foundation and mandate, the work should be carried out in a means that has the greatest fruitfulness so long as the message is not compromised…even if it makes the “status quo uncomfortable.” That is a struggle that we must all learn to enter into with tact and love; but a love first and foremost for our God and the Word which He has given us as a perfect revelation of Himself and His mission. He points out that Eitel drifted off course and took aim at “thorn in his side over the term “missional.” Stetzer points out the flaw in Eitel’s argument being the logical conclusion being “you could never apply “creative” to the things of God. I also affirm his analysis that each book of the New Testament is an attempt to contextualize the Gospel.
Stetzer also illuminates for Wan that Van Engen can discuss a view without endorsing it. He also points out that Kostenberger’s criticism was more indirect but can be interpreted in light of his 12 theses. Dr. Stetzer goes back to Van Engens article and how he returned to the original problem with a woman who was uncomfortable with the term missions – therefore opted for the expression “Global Mobilization TaskForce.” While 1) that is a good description of what a missional church should be and 2) I have learned a deeper appreciation for the impact of a good dialogue and definition of mission, I wonder if we have lost the ability of determining when the study and debate should end and the work should begin.
Granted, the work and study should be able to happen simultaneously, but the statistics (which if Ed would quote some here would cause an angel to get his wings) bear out that we are doing the work. This will be the thesis that I tend to elaborate on. Pastors are not doing the work of an evangelist. Not many pastors cant tell you the last time they personally presented the Gospel or led someone to faith in Christ. I suspect that we can get lost in the debate and forget the mandate. The “Work” is a verb so we better start doing it.
More next week from the Missional Monday channel!
MissionShift (I’m not sure if it is one word or two) is a fresh approach to opening up a conversation. It would compare to the merger of a very academic convention of speakers on the subject of missions / being missional and the modern, fluid communication that develops through a blog.
The entire work is divided into three parts like a Dicken’s Christmas play. We are visited by three messengers: The ghosts of missions past, present and future. Then the book contains commentary articles reflecting on those three essays. So with those thoughts laid out and a new direction within my blog, I hereby enter into the mix.
Essay 1: “Mission” Defined and Described. Charles Van Engen brings a view of the history of what this term has meant to the church. He is honest in that it has not always been driven by the best of motives. Van Engen introduces his subject with a story where a lady attributes the high attendance at a conference to dropping the use of the word mission. )What a tragedy since the church exists to achieve God’s mission) She claimed that the word was a turn off.
So Van Engen takes us on a journey through the historical use of the term mission and the ensuing activity to fulfill that work. I found the survey to be brief and insightful. He demonstrates how a reactionary driving force in each generation caused the shift of missions to somewhat “over-correct.” The Constantinian model failed because the work of the Holy Spirit (redemption and revival) cannot be governed by earthly authorities (although it should be modeled by them). William Carey brought a mission awakening and fathered a tremendous increase in relating the church to her mission. Van Engen also points out how that shift was short sighted in they often planted churches that were neither autonomous nor indigenous.
Venn, England, and Anderson were cited as helping bring about an awareness of the need to plant self-governed churches that propagated themselves and communicated well in the culture without compromising biblical convictions. The curse that came with this shift was that the focus changed to mission administration. It also provided the foundational principles that many counter-culture missional movements have built upon such as missio Dei and social gospel engineers form the 1930’s through today with the World Council of Churches.
The benefit of missio Dei was a more Trinitarian basis for missions. The over-correction is evidenced in how they departed from a Gospel that started with the conversion of an individual soul and focused on meeting human needs. This was a critical over-reaction to institutionally driven mission activity.
Another great movement was the rebirth and redefinition of mission in the 1980’s through 2000 which in my estimation has been the final movement that has fully matured and can be reviewed. Major players in this movement were Donald McGavran and Billy Graham’s World Congresses on Evangelism. Ralph Winter brought even more clarity on the return to bringing a Gospel of seeing the lost converted and established into churches when he directed attention to the unreached people groups.
Van Engen wraps up his rapid historical survey with a suggestion of a church only being missional if it is: Contextual, Intentional, Proclaiming, Reconciling, Sanctifying, Unifying, and Transforming. In my small opinion, these are very good, but maybe not in the correct order. I love his conclusion. How does he answer the woman who saw the word mission(s) as a turn-off? That underlies the vital importance of “the ways in which we define mission.” Our orthodoxy (corrected beliefs) will determine our Orthopodos (corrected walk) Gal. 2:14 (ὀρθοποδέω). What a sweet summation at the end: May the Holy Spirit teach us how to be… “God’s missionary people”…”
Eitel’s critique: An awesome story of a missionary who was observed to perfectly don the practices of Hinduism in hopes of communicating spirituality to the people in his field. What a powerful illustration of someone who become “of the world” while he was “in the world” and in doing so lost his saltiness. Eitel points out that Van Engen “returned to biblical soil.” That is refreshing. I know that each wave of missions-awakening thought they had the cure for what ailed the definition and manifestation of missions in their day. The emerging church leaders believe they are returning to a more biblical perspective than the people they criticize. I agree with Eitel that Van Engen has retuned to genuine biblical grounds. He summarizes the four sections and presnts the key engaging ideas.
Eitel makes a statement that I’m not sure I can be comfortable with: Leadership is suspect if they claim to know truth especially if it is deemed biblical since truth is personally derived. That sounds awfully close to the post-modern academicians who boldly proclaim there are no absolute truths. He may not believe the latter statement, but the similarity made me uncomfortable. I think he meant that perception of truth is relative therefore we should be careful to make claim to absolute possession of truth.
Another great summation that Eitel makes is found in his statement “Saving the world is the purpose that drives the church.” As he affirms the importance of theological methodologies from Van Engen’s essay he agrees that the results of proper conviction should be “godly disciples and New Testament churches.
Wan’s critique: Wan seemed to affirm Van Engen as achieving his stated purpose of a “historical overview,” however, he didn’t favor what he perceived as a emphasis on institutional dimension of mission. I would defend Van Engen to Wan by stating that the wealth of data that could be drawn upon for such an essay is largely documented in terms of institutional missions. Wan uses this opportunity to present a diagram illustrating “Missio-Dei of the Trinity and Christian Missions at Two Levels.” It a complex and fairly exhaustive illustration that demonstrated an appreciation for the individuals who did the missional work of the New Testament. Some people cannot see the trees for the forest. Wan appreciates the trees. He cites the profound impact of people like Ananias (Acts 9), Simeon, Lucious, Barnabas and Saul and is willing to acknowledge “the church in Antioch” (Acts 13). The flavor that I tasted coming off of Wan’s critique was that he might have a bad taste of institutional church.
I have always been under the impression that the individuals are the church and the church is made up of individuals. It is a safe assumption that missional work is always done at an individual level. I don’t agree that Van Engen had any serious omission. Wan also seems to equate the spiritual and social scope in his alternative definition of mission. My perception has always been that the social impact is secondary. When genuine conversion and spiritual transformation takes place, it will have social impact. But I don’t see the Scriptural basis of having social reform as a focus or motivation in our definition of mission. The social impact would make a good litmus test of the effectiveness of a spiritual conversion, but it is not co-regent with the spiritual.
Guder’s Critique: Guder gets the opportunity to critique the critics and thus makes me fell like my work is becoming redundant. I found myself in agreement with his concerns of Wan and he surfaced concerns about Eitel that I had missed. He deemed Eitel’s work as defensive in the selection of certain terminology. Gruder has a far wider knowledge of the historical work that has been the building blocks of this discussion. This is obvious as he draws parallels to Van Engens work and many of the dominant works of the twentieth century. I liked how he adjusted Eitel’s comment about Scriptural boundaries by saying how a proper view would have this result: The authority of Scripture is not then defined so much by our anxiety about boundaries and guidelines, but by the powerful way in which God’s written Word..cotninues our conversion to our vocation. Where Gruder and I part company is on his point that “The tendency to individualize God’s gift of salvation and to separate it form the healing purposes of for the world must be rejected as unbiblical.”
Nausea overwhelmed me as I read this. While we are to be salt and light, I just don’t see Christ’s goal as renovating a world that will eventually be destroyed after His return. While we should be concerned for the poor and seek justice for the downtrodden, we will not eliminate it. Conversion is not the cure for all social ills that plague our world. Conversion impacts whosoever will. It does not eventually overpower those who will not. While Jesus directed us to minister to the poor, sick, and imprisoned, he also said, “the poor you will have with you always.” (Matthew. 26 & Mark 14) – Remember it was Judas who was looking at the perfume and noting (probably with selfish motives) what an impact it could have in this world. Jesus wanted them to get their eyes off of this world for the moment and see the Kingdom event that was about to take place. So I would guess Wan and Guder would call me unbiblical…but I don’t think Jesus would.
I’m not sure I would agree with his point either that “mission” is borader than “missional church.” I still point out that the work is done by individual believers who have been called out (ekklesia) – oh wait, Dr. MacGorman taught me that was the Greek word for….(tumpet blasts) church. So the church IS the individuals who have been called out. If they have formed and institution out of it – so be it. Therefore the church that they would marginalize in favor of the broader scope of mission” or by focusing on individuals who do the work, is in fact the very clumsy organism that Jesus loved enough to die for and Paul challenged to learn to work together like a body in disagreement (Rom 12, Eph. 4) to accomplish the Kingdom work. I think Guder agrees with me at the point where he says “the personal and the corporate are inseparable.”
Guder goes on to bring Karl Barth into this discussion as a major player in this topic. However, I think the points he extracts from Barth’s not only work undergirds Van Engen’s essay but also my concerns about his leanings toward the Gospel being a cure for the world we live in today.
Kostenberger’s critique: This critique also reflected on Eitel and Wan as he proposes twelve theses. It would appear to me the article presents this dozen in order of importance. Key words I found in each statement reflect this structure: 1) grounded in the biblical theology.. 2) affirmation of the full and sole authority of Scripture… 3) the church’s responsiveness to the missionary mandate (some might point out that he highlighted the Lord Jesus here and omitted the Trinitarian perspective—) 4) hermeneutically sound, 5) Theocentric rather than anthropocentric… 6) Trinitarian in its orientation… 7) context…ought not override the church’s commitment to the authority of Scripture. 8) the church is the God-ordained agent of His mission…9) The way the Kingdom..is extended in theis world today…is through regenerate believers acting out their God-assigned spheres of life:…10) There is no true lasting social transformation apart from personal conversion….11) Human organization is perfectly compatible with…God and His initiative in mission. 12) The church’s task today is to nurture, renew and plant churches composed of spiritually regenerate membership and constituted in keeping with the biblical teaching regarding church leadership.
The thing I really liked about Kostenberger was his quandary over whether the pursuit of an agreeable definition of mission will produce the outcome we desire. Instead of seeking wide-spread support, he offered these 12 theses. I say, “nail them to the church door, brother Andreas!”
Ed Stetzer’s summation: Using his usual tact without compromise, Stetzer assesses this dialogue with precision and insight. I think we’d both agree that methodology should never continue simply because there is a historical basis for it. Rather simply building on a strong Scriptural foundation and mandate, the work should be carried out in a means that has the greatest fruitfulness so long as the message is not compromised…even if it makes the “status quo uncomfortable.” That is a struggle that we must all learn to enter into with tact and love; but a love first and foremost for our God and the Word which He has given us as a perfect revelation of Himself and His mission. He points out that Eitel drifted off course and took aim at “thorn in his side over the term “missional.” Stetzer points out the flaw in Eitel’s argument being the logical conclusion being “you could never apply “creative” to the things of God. I also affirm his analysis that each book of the New Testament is an attempt to contextualize the Gospel.
Stetzer also illuminates for Wan that Van Engen can discuss a view without endorsing it. He also points out that Kostenberger’s criticism was more indirect but can be interpreted in light of his 12 theses. Dr. Stetzer goes back to Van Engens article and how he returned to the original problem with a woman who was uncomfortable with the term missions – therefore opted for the expression “Global Mobilization TaskForce.” While 1) that is a good description of what a missional church should be and 2) I have learned a deeper appreciation for the impact of a good dialogue and definition of mission, I wonder if we have lost the ability of determining when the study and debate should end and the work should begin.
Granted, the work and study should be able to happen simultaneously, but the statistics (which if Ed would quote some here would cause an angel to get his wings) bear out that we are doing the work. This will be the thesis that I tend to elaborate on. Pastors are not doing the work of an evangelist. Not many pastors cant tell you the last time they personally presented the Gospel or led someone to faith in Christ. I suspect that we can get lost in the debate and forget the mandate. The “Work” is a verb so we better start doing it.
More next week from the Missional Monday channel!
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