I recently read a perceptive article by Alan Roxburgh titled The Church in a Postmodern Context in Craig Van Gelder’s collection of essays on the gospel in North America. Some writers just seem to answer the questions you never quite know how to ask. Or they answer the questions you never thought to ask. But in doing so they lead you to a new level of understanding. Alan Roxburgh does this for me. Here are his thoughts on the church in postmodernity:
What is happening is that the “beginnings” are disappearing in the constant work of rewriting the script for every moment, since the last moment will not do for the new. We need to distinguish between the need for a contextualized church and a theological critique of the context that is grounded in a different narrative. The postmodern context is forever rewriting the script, so that it is continually being born again in newer forms. A proper contextuality is one that brings the power of an alternative narrative into an encounter with this reality…
…This is what is not happening. The postmodern church is forever embracing the new in the name of reaching the unchurched, and therefore is in danger of losing the gospel.
JR Woodward is a pastor theologian in Los Angeles and serves on the Board of Directors for our college campus church planting movement. I’ve had the opportunity to hear JR speak a few times and am one of the millions who regularly read his blog.
JR is writing a series of books titled Re-Sketching the Church wherein he develops the five equipping roles found in Ephesians 4: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. He will write 5 short books focusing on each of these equipper roles. I’m not sure when they will be released (if you read this, JR, let us know). For now JR has the short book that introduces the series available on his blog. It serves as an equipping overview.
You can read this short, 3-chapter intro book here.
Yesterday in my seminary class titled Missional Church we watched a portion of this lecture given by Dr. Michael Frost at the 2007 Presbyterian Global Fellowship. Frost challenges the church to see God, the church, and the world differently. If you want to learn more about the missional church movement, this is a great introduction.
An article by Fuller Seminary President (and world-class Christian philosopher) Richard Mouw has been posted on Christianity Today’s online magazine. Entitled “The Heresy of ‘Individualism,’” the article addresses recent comments by Katharine Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Episcopal Church, denouncing the “individualist focus” of evangelical teachings as a “great Western heresy.”
The individualism evangelicals profess, says Dr. Mouw, not only is not a heresy, it is at the heart of the gospel. “Many of us in the evangelical world have devoted much effort toward remedying what we see as an unhealthy individualist focus in our ranks,” Mouw concedes; however, “we evangelicals never downplay the importance of individuals—as individuals—coming to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.”
This article brought me such joy. Amid all the fighting over “individual first” versus “society/community first” comes the true evangelical stance: the gospel is individualistic and at the same time it is so much larger than the individual. It’s not an “either/or” issue but a “both and” one. The Good News is the news of the Kingdom come in Jesus Christ. That news speaks a powerful word not only to the individual sinner but to a world of injustice and pain. How small is our gospel if its influence be over an individual’s sin only. But equally concerning is this: how empty and weak is our gospel if it does not transform the life of the individual.
While on a short break from school and the craziness of ministry life, I thought I’d focus my posts during the next couple months on quotes from various books that I’ve been wanting to read and just now have the time to do so. One of those books is Confident Witness, Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America, a collection of essays edited by Craig Van Gelder, Professor of Congregational Mission at Luther Seminary.
This is a quote about the church from Douglas Hall’s essay titled Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora. Speaking of the reality of the North American church’s outdated identity and structure, Hall states:
We need to learn a critical and constructive theology of the church that is based on the character of Scripture and informed by the Holy Spirit, in contrast to one that is entrenched in the ecclesial conventions of Christendom.
Where is it written that the church must be a majority? Where are we told that the dignity, order, and authority of the corpus Christi can only be maintained if the church mirrors, in its internal structure and its mission, the accepted patterns of its host culture. Where, in our biblical charter, does it stand written that the Christian religion, being the only true one, must displace and repel every other claim to truth and goodness, and get the whole human populace onto its registry.
We have been giving to God what belongs to Caesar! We have been reading our scriptures with Constantinian eyes! We have made much of the so-called Great Commission, but little of the characteristic metaphors by which our Lord described his “little flock” (Luke 12:32). And we have made almost nothing at all of his question whether, upon his return, any faith would be found on earth (Luke 18:8). We have isolated and grossly exaggerated all the triumphal language of the Bible, and have paid little attention to the fact that the cross is the center of our faith where it ought to condition the whole of our ecclesiology.
Wow! I find this quote radically eye-opening. The Church has too long been condition by the ways of a now-defunct Christendom world (one where the church sought to maintain its legitimacy and majority influence in society). I think Hall is here serving as a prophet to us today.
Spring quarter is now over. Three more classes down, way too many to list yet to go. What is both exciting and saddening is that I am now done with Hebrew coursework (after 9 months of intensive study). I recently spent time reflecting on how the study of the language of the Old Testament has influenced the formation of my character. This is what I came up with:
What I must first affirm is that the actual exposure to the Scriptural text, oftentimes more robust in meaning in the original language, brings about a transformation that no doubt shapes character. However, equally impactful for me is how the study of Hebrew offers me a constant reminder of the great weight of handling the inspired Word of God. Since beginning this course, I have often been reminded of a few verses from the New Testament:
Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly (James 3:1 NIV).
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15 NIV).
The task of shepherding the people of God through the ministry of teaching and equipping is indeed a weighty one. So, as I engaged in the study of Hebrew, I constantly asked God to grant me a heart of deep passion and eager willingness to submit to Him. I often asked Him to allow my character to “keep pace” with what I am learning in the original language. I was reminded of how blessed I am to learn the language and now feel a nearly immediate instinct to share what I learn with others. Yet when I consider sharing with others, another instinct rises to the surface: to check where I am in my journey to know and experience the God revealed through the medium of language.
For a term paper in my History of Christian Mission course, I am studying the missional nature of the Church before the reign of Emperor Constantine (272-337), whose decision to legalize Christianity drastically altered the primitive and pure faith of the early church. Here are a few quotes I think speak to how the first Christians understood the faith and their mission as followers of Jesus.
Eusebius, the great Church historian, who lived from 263-339, wrote:
Then did they show themselves to the heathen in the clearest light. For the Christians were the only people who amid such terrible ills showed their fellow-feeling and humanity in their actions. Day by day some would busy themselves with attending to the dead and burying them; others gathered in one spot all who were afflicted by hunger throughout the city, and gave bread to them all.
Lucian, a Greek satirist and writer, who lived from circa 125-180, wrote this:
It is incredible to see the ardor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator (Jesus) has put into their heads that they are all brethren.
What might we learn from our ancestors? Their compassion for others is simply a “given.” No need for powerful, guilt-producing sermons from the podium. No “hunger awareness week” on their church calendar. No visit and lecture from a social justice expert. No outsourcing the work of mercy to experts. No division between gospel and social action.
None of that. Instead, just plain-old obedience to Jesus’ command to love others before self.
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