lifeasmission
exploring the mystery of life and mission as one and the same
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Archive of "western culture" Category
The Role of the Bible in Society
As Christendom continues to unravel and the Church loses its privileged role within culture at large, we live in an increasingly biblical illiterate society.
– Quoting Scripture will mean less and less.
– Bible stories will be increasingly misunderstood or forgotten altogehter
– And the battles that Christians wage with one another over the objective nature of Scripture will continue to damage our reputation in a broken world.
For these reasons and more, there is an incredibly important conversation to be had regarding the role of the Bible in society.
In contributing to that conversation, here’s a 40 minute panel discussion from the recent Q conference here in Chicago between Tim Keller, Alastain McGrath, Dempsey Rosales-Acosta, and Brian McLaren (you can find brief bios on all these panelists here) on that topic. I’m anxious to see what kinds of responses others might have to the questions and discussion here.
(For those reading in a feed reader, the video is flash and may not come through, so you might want to click through to the actual post to view or download.)
An Interview with N.T. Wright
The guys over at Homebrewed Christianity recently posted an interview they did with N.T. Wright. The interview was full of some really great sound bytes that I went ahead and divvied up to make your life easier
You can listen to or download the interview in its entirety here.
On being a bishop.
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On the unfortunate split between church and academy.
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On returning to fulltime academic work.
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On Bart Ehrman.
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On Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan.
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On Jurgen Moltmann.
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On E.P. Sanders.
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On Karl Barth.
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On Stanley Hauerwas.
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On his most recent book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters and why he chose to write about eschatology before ethics.
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On the difference between Aristotelian virtue and Christian virtue.
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On the role of character and virtue in other religions.
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On cultural virtue.
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On the renewing of our minds when they have become largely detached from the rest of who we are.
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On Christianity Post-Postmodernity.
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On the after-after life.
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What NT Wright is reading, thinking, and planning for his “big book on Paul” as the next in his Christian Origins series.
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What we can expect from NT Wright in his new role.
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Alan Hirsch – Making Missional Marketable
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Alan Hirsch. The book he co-authored with Mike Frost, The Shaping of Things to Come, was the first I read that began to help me understand the angst I felt with the attractional model of church so prevalent in the US.This is why I was so thrown a few days ago when I read that Alan Hirsch had asserted that American Christianity is the great hope for the Church in the West. He made comments to this point in the opening remarks of his talk at a conference called “Verge” in Texas. You can view the video (Session 2) here. At one point he said,
If we don’t win the battle of the decline of the church here in the states, then it’s not going to come from anywhere else. We will win or lose the battle over here in the states.
His rationale seemed to be that 1) the Church is the rest of the West is all but dead and 2) that Americans have a built-in entrepenurial (apostolic) sort of spirit.
On this count, I was surprised and disappointed on 2 levels.
First, he seemed to communicate a latent assumption that “the West” maintains a position of superiority in terms of global Christianity. He admitted that Christianity is growing in non-Western parts of the world, but never suggested that our hope might lie in learning from what God is going there.
Secondly, he referenced the American entrepreneurial spirit as the key factor in our ability to “win the battle of the decline of the church.” I was blown away! I was immediately reminded of a quote by Einstein, which, even more surprisingly, he referenced later, but totally misused,
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
It is American entrepreneurialism that got us into the mess of creating a church system predicated on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism. Relying on the same characteristic is hardly a promising solution.
Over and above all these disappointments comes a more biblical/theological one, namely, that putting our hope in anything except for a willingness to sacrifice what is most dear to us, to listen to the voices of those on the margins, and to trust God with our future (which may very well mean the increasing marginalization of the church), is, in any sense, in keeping with God’s desire for the Body of Christ.
There was a 2nd major part to Hirsch’s presentation that really made me nervous.
He made the claim that the dominant expression of church in America, that of the seeker-sensitive/attractional model, has a market appeal to about 40% of the American population. This yields what Hirsch called a “strategic problem” and a “missionary problem.”
The “strategic problem” is that 95% of the churches in the US are seeking to become the kind of church that appeals to this same 40% of the population.
The “missionary problem” is that 60% (and growing) of our population is being virtually ignored.
So far so good, but at one point Alan was commenting on attractional types of churches that are “reaching” the 40% of the American population and said, “Those who do this well should strive to do it better.” Not change what they are doing, just do more of the same, better.
In affirming an attractional (or what he is now calling ex-tractional) model of church simply because it succeeds in drawing a crowd, he fails to critique the most devastating reality, namely, that these churches, on the whole, don’t make disciples. By and large, they facilitate the already pervasive nominal christianity that pervades at least 40% of the American population.
Let me try to summarize my push back on what I am hearing and seeing from Alan Hirsch as of late.
1) Putting our eggs in the basket (Easter week!) of the American church is futile, if not sinful. This is exactly how we got where we are and trying harder ain’t gonna cut it. It may very well be that God is at work killing off a defunct ecclesial trajectory and we would do better to repent and ask for mercy than to rely on any ability we think we possess to save the day.
2) Alan is right, there is a descent portion of the American population that has some natural affinity with the sort of church which thrives in Christendom. But, merely because people will respond to an attractional model of church does not make it ok. A pragmatic victory is almost never a biblical one. Attractional models of church are built on the cultural values of individualism and consumerism and, save for the grace of God, are incapable of yielding the sort of disciples the world desperately needs.
I have a serious and growing concern regarding the temptation to make missional marketable. The temptation is especially seductive to those who, like Alan, have a deep love for the church as the Body of Christ and want to see it thrive. But, if God means for missional theology/ecclesiology to benefit the church, it will remain an invitation to repentance, sacrifice, and death. This sort of invitation has never had much market appeal, especially in the US.
We Need WAY More Missional Conversations: A Response to Ed Stetzer
I regret that I’ve never med Ed Stetzer face to face. I’d like to believe we’d be fast friends who share a mutual passion for people coming to know Christ and joining in God’s mission in the world. At the same time, we’d disagree about a lot. For starters, a blog post he published yesterday critiquing the need for missional (among other) conversations.
Ed seems worried about missional conversations that don’t…
involve men and women being redeemed, changed [sic], and transformed by the gospel.
I read that and think to myself, “What? Where in the flip is he getting his definition of missional and who is he talking to? These are the things that are at the very center of missional theology and ecclesiology.” I have worked hard over a healthy number of years to stay involved in every way I can imagine in the missional conversation and outside of the very fringes that you find in any population, I simply don’t know of any missional people or groups that would merit this kind of concern.
Ed says,
It is never a good thing to be defending our lack of converts to Christ while we are busy converting people to our cause. To me, it is the difference between complaining and creating a new (and better) way.
He goes on to say,
I don’t want missional to mean attacks on mega and fast growing churches who are reaching people “wrongly,” while missional churches are reaching few “rightly.”
I think I get Ed’s heart here, but these statements are FAR too simplistic. One of the main reasons for the lack of converts in missional and emerging churches is the popularity of churches who are, in fact, “reaching people ‘wrongly’.” For those who embrace missional theology and are trying to cultivate missional communities, especially in contexts where Christendom still exists, we are fighting an uphill battle… and wearing a 100 lb. pack… and it’s raining… and we’re barefoot… and… You get the point. In a culture which still features the cheap grace of individualistic salvation and consumeristic church involvement, guess what – the message of dying to yourself, submitting yourself to a community and joining in God’s Kingdom mission that will, in all likelihood, threaten your identity and lifestyle is pretty unpopular. When given the option, would-be converts will of course respond,
Thank you very much, I think I’ll just attend St. McDonald’s where I get saved by raising my hand, I can disappear in the mass of people, and the entertaining music & speaking gives me warm fuzzies every time I’m there.
The fact of the matter is that those who identify with missional theology engage in this fight for the very reasons mentioned above – because the converts made by the dominant expressions of Christianity in the US are in no meaningful way redeemed, changed or transformed. I doubt many people are more aware of the crisis of nominal Christianity in the US that Ed, so I find this a surprising oversight. So, albeit with the character and concern of Jesus, I think this is very much a biblically justifiable fight for missional people to be engaged in – the fight for biblical faithfulness and fulfilling of the command to make disciples.
Ed goes on to say,
I am not willing to say that a lack of converts is a sign of unfaithfulness. But, I am willing to say that too many change movements are not seeing lost people’s lives changed.
Fair enough, but this reality is far more poignant and dire when we consider the lack of disciple-making happening in long standing traditions that aren’t thinking about change at all!
Stetzer rounds out his post by saying,
So, let’s continue conversations about being “missional” or whatever, but let’s not do so if it distracts us from the mission. Instead let’s talk about these issues but not let them distract us from our main focus–showing and sharing the love of Jesus to a desperately lost world that needs a message of hope.
To this I say a quick and hearty AMEN! But I am also quick to resist Ed’s false dichotomy by pointing out that having “conversations about ‘missional’ or whatever,” aimed at the faithful practice and witness of the church is VITAL to the manner in which we show and share the love of Jesus. Not having these conversations, or having them poorly, is far more dangerous than seeing them as a distraction.
Between the promise I believe missional theology and ecclesiology hold for the trajectory of Western Christianity and how incredibly misunderstood both remain, I submit that we need WAY more conversations, not less.
Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Cultural Pioneering
Previous posts in this Series:
Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness | Character Formation | Conviction Shaping | Contextual Training
Christendom bore no real need for leaders who were cultural pioneers. After all, if the culture is already Christian, what do we have to pioneer? It would be logical to conclude then, that as Christendom crumbles, the need for leaders with the skills for cultural pioneering would increase. This would be true and mistaken at the same time. It’s true that we have a greater and greater need for cultural pioneers, but the crumbling of Christendom isn’t the reason. Rather, a missional vision of the church carries with it an inherent need for leaders who serve as cultural pioneers which means we need a vision of theological education capable of equipping men and women for this task.
Allow me to offer just 2 basic points to support my argument for this need.
First, missional churches operate out of the assumption that mission is part of God’s very character and nature. God sends the son, the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, the Trinity sends the Church as the Body of Christ. Little wonder then that missional church leaders lament the modern phenomenon of churches playing the role of vendors of religious goods and services that spend the bulk of their time, energy, and money trying to get people to come. Missional churches are not those who focus on offering the best “Christian” stuff (teaching, programs, groups, etc.), but those who focus on engaging with world’s darkest and toughest needs.
Second, missional churches tend to be marked by their attention to Jesus’ announcement of the good news of God’s Kingdom, the new reality inaugurated in Jesus. Just as Jesus stood at odds with the culture of his day on account of his allegiance to God’s Kingdom, so too the missional church of today will find itself at odds with the culture of our day as we seek to embody God’s Kingdom through faith in Jesus. To understand the local church as an expression of a new reality, however, means that we recognize the need for leaders capable of cultural pioneering.
Current models of theological education seem to come up short in terms of their fit to equip male and female leaders on both these counts. How then are we to go about doing so? I offer three ideas for the training of cultural pioneers.
1) Deep involvement in a missional community
There is no better way to learn how to be a cultural pioneer that to participate in a community that is seeking to do this very thing. My hope and expectation would be that to a great degree, the various aspects of this missional vision of theological education that I have been describing would all serve to produce leaders who think and act in terms of cultural pioneering. I have a hard time imagining that someone could give themselves to a process of formation that is rooted in community and centered around character formation through the shaping of Kingdom convictions and contextual training and emerge as someone who would rather manage a program driven group of individuals than lead a community into the world as an expression of God’s alternative reality.
2) Encourage Cultural Creation & Cultivation
I am indebted to Andy Crouch and his book, Culture Making, for my thinking (and language) on this. The power and trajectory of Christendom resulted in a church that, at various times, thought of “culture” as some monolithic thing that it could condemn, critique, copy, or consume. Only now, as we increasingly find ourselves on the margins of society, are we rediscovering the postures of creating and cultivating culture. We create culture through values, practices, and imagination. However, as Crouch says,
We cannot make culture without culture. And this means that creation begins with cultivation – taking care of the good things culture has already handed on to us. The first responsibility of culture makers is not to make something new but to become fluent in the cultural tradition to which we are responsible. Before we can be culture makers, we must be culture keepers.
This leads us directly to the third ingredient in forming cultural pioneers.
3) Practicing Discernment
The need for skilled discernment is going nowhere but up! Never before in human history has so much information and so many opinions been so easily accessible. Add to this the pervasive individualism and relativism of Western culture and you are left with a cultural nightmare for those who believe in such a thing as contextual faithfulness to biblical truth. As Jesus’ disciples were, we must be taught to see, hear, and feel with eyes, ears, and hearts attuned to the reality of the Kingdom of God in our midst. How are we ever to create culture unless we can discern our way through it as followers of Jesus? This takes years of practice within community and remains a lifelong discipline.
Are there other aspects of cultural pioneering that you think I’m missing? How else might we equip others to this end? Anxious for your (end of the year and end of the series!) thoughts.
Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Contextual Training
Previous posts in this Series:
Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness | Character Formation | Conviction Shaping
I have tried to make a case that a missional vision of theological education is one rooted in community that emphasizes the formation of Christan character marked by Kingdom convictions. I would further suggest that a missional vision of theological education will seek to train leaders contextually.
This is missiology 101. Urban ministry is different than suburban. Ministry amongst the poor is different than ministry amongst the affluent. Ministry with adolescents is different than ministry with senior citizens. Traditional theological education, however, is not equipped to train people with these nuances in mind. The dominant expression of theological education within Christendom has been training at geographically specific institutions. These schools of course bring their own context to bear on the training they are doing, but are necessarily limited by that same feature. Geography isn’t the only problem, the very model of education employed in the seminary environment distances, if not outright separates, theological education from contextual factors. Some schools have begun trying to correct this problem through online education, allowing students to continue serving in their present context while doing intensive biblical & theological study. As I said here, these innovations within the current system of theological education are helpful, but they aren’t aimed at the other aspects of missional theological education that I have already covered. So, the question before us is,Within a missional vision of theological education, how will contextual leadership development take place?
I can think of at least three aspects of a beginning answer to that question.
1) Networks
Church networks are the missional answer to the decay of denominations. For good or for bad, denominations are crumbling. In an era of post’s (post-modernity, post-Christendom, etc.) you can add to the list post-denominationalism. Springing up in their place are inter-denominational networks of churches. In my opinion, the best of these are striving to make a shared vision of missional living more central than individual points of doctrine. Besides always being rooted in a particular context, the realities of globalization and pluralism mean that no one congregation has the capacity to train leaders for the church of the future by itself. It must look outside. If leaders are to be identified by local communities and if these same communities are to take primary responsibility for their holistic formation and contextual training, then meaningful involvement in a healthy network of missional churches through the sharing of resources and common ministry is a big part of how we accomplish the contextual training of leaders.
2) Apprenticeship
The most valuable resources to the spiritual formation & training of leaders are men and women who offer years of faithful service within a given context. Reading, writing, and peer discussion all have a vital place in the formation of missional church leaders, but all of these dimensions gain their final value in terms of their practical implications in a given context. Seasoned leaders are invaluable in helping to achieve this goal. Cultivating missional church leaders who have the skills necessary to help a body of people understand the gospel and its implications in contextually appropriate ways calls for a mentor-apprentice(s) dimension to any process of theological education.
3) Civic Engagement
Civic engagement needs to increasingly become a hallmark of both missional church ministry and leadership formation. Immersion has long been a defining mark of truly cross-cultural ministry. Therefore, those churches who embrace the West as a mission field should immediately resonate with the idea that the best way to become incarnationally faithful is to immerse themselves in their context. The reason for this is at least 2-fold 1) To discover where and how God is already at work. 2) To discern what incarnationally faithful witness to the gospel will mean and look like.
If it’s not already obvious, this aspect of a missional vision of theological education is tied directly to the centrality of the Missio Dei for a missional ecclesiology. A big part of what makes missional churches missional is their abdication of attractional approaches to church and ministry in favor of incarnational ones. All that Jesus said and did was said and done in light of the people he was speaking to and the place he was speaking in. In both ministry and leadership formation, we do well to follow this pattern of contextual wisdom.
What has your experience with contextual leadership training been? Do you see other ways to accomplish this goal in or outside of traditional models of theological education?
In my next post, I hope to round things off with some thoughts on cultural pioneering as a final mark of a missional vision of theological education.
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