davidfitch on May 27 2009

“The Gospel Coalition” and Post-Christendom: Will it be a Coalition or an Expedition? Some Reflections and Concerns

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There can be no doubt, The Gospel Coalition (TGC) has been galvanizing many younger evangelicals to re-think their theology and practice (especially if it is of the Reformed variety.) I applaud this new theological energy. My question nonetheless is (given its moniker) will TGC be a force for coalition or expedition? “Coalition” describes the coalescing of a group of people or nations to agree on some understandings in order to defend some boundary or prepare for war (think Pres. Bush’s “coalition of the willing”). “Expedition” on the other hand, is the organizing of a group to adequately prepare for an exploration/adventure into unknown territory. Will TGC be a coalition for the hardening of some doctrinal lines in order to defend boundaries and/or launch an attack of some kind (say against others who don’t agree with its take on Reformed theology)? Or will TGC be a force for the preparation of missionaries (in doctrine and practice) to engage the unknown territories of the new cultures of post Christendom? Will TGC be a coalition or an expedition?

Ever since the publishing of Collin Hansen’s The Young, Restless, Reformed, a lot of attention has been drawn towards the revival of a Neo-Reformed theology among the younger evangelicals. In distinction from the pragmatic and the emerging responses (remember this) to the challenges of post Christendom/post modernity and the decline of evangelicalism in N America, the Neo Reformed groups have pressed for a return and renewal of protestant orthodoxy as the means towards renewal of the church. Main figures in this new push for a purer or more missional Reformed theology include David Wells, Al Mohler, John Piper, Don Carson, Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer and Tim Keller. Let me be explicit that I value and have learned much from each of these writers/thinkers/ preachers. I especially value what I have learned from Tim Keller and Ed Stetzer. Let me also say explicitly, I do not disavow the Reformation. We can no more write off the past 500 years any more than we can write off the patristic age and return to a purer “primitive” Christianity. Nonetheless, for the current cultural challenge – post Christendom/post modernity in the West – I am concerned that the approach of the Gospel Coalition is ill-suited to engage the cultural challenges of post-Christendom. Let me offer five statements that encapsulate what I think TGC might be implying in their work so far, even though they may not say it explicitly. I think, if true, each of these positions will inhibit, if not prohibit, TGC from being a cause for Christ in the engagement of the new post Christendom cultures of the West. TGC will then become more of a coalition than an expedition. So I am asking (with genuine concern) whether these statements are accurate to the positions as navigated by TGC or just the misconstrual of my Anabaptist fear laden projections?  Here are the statements:

1.) If We Purify Our Doctrine The Rest Will Follow. I have observed an impulse in the TGC that says if we just get our doctrine right (which means a certain version of Reformed orthodoxy), then mission and church renewal in post Christendom will follow. But at least in post Christendom (as it is in the N United States urban areas and Canada) this is not enough. This is not 16th century Europe where the majority Catholic population, under the influence of a corrupt Roman Catholicism, need doctrinal renewal. This is not the 1920′s N. America where the majority protestant mainline Christian population,  under the influence of a modernist liberalism, need doctrinal renewal. This is post Christendom territory where there are very few Christians of any kind left who have no doctrine to be renewed. If TGC then thinks doctrinal purity is the single issue, and leave it at that, they will be a coalition for retrenchment as opposed to an expedition for mission. (As some have suggested, this is already proving true in the SBC).

2.) We Must Return to the Reformation. Is the TGC seeking a return to the Reformation? The Reformation cannot be discounted, but neither can it be returned to. The Reformation was built on the back of Christendom. It gave birth to the Sola’s, especially Sola Scripture and Sola Fide which in their time called people to a renewed purity and personal commitment to the gospel. Today however, those same impulses, aligned with the Enlightenment, have given birth to a modernist individualism, Christian relativism, Cartesian rationalism and experientialism that later became modernity, protestant liberalism and indeed the current manifestations of evangelicalism that the TGC appears to be in critique of. We therefore must go beyond the Reformation, not back to it. We must be sober about the doctrinal problems of the Reformation that elevate the individual, isolate Scripture (as an authority and conceptual document) away from the church and a way of life. If TGC is only a call to a purer Reformed orthodoxy, it will be a coalition for retrenchment as opposed to an expedition for the advancement of the gospel into post Christendom.

3.) Woman Cannot Be Pastors. Is TGC seeking to enforce a particular reading of the NT that opposes the role of  women in authority within church ministry? I have observed the prominence of a particular view of women in ministry in the TGC. I would characterize this view as a.) based in an inerrancy view of the text, which b.) latches on to texts as if they were isolated units of universal teaching on women, which then c.) leads to a blindness to the NT’s overall elevation of women into ministerial authority in the church. To me, this robs the church of the new politic that was birthed in Jesus Christ. It robs our witness to the reconciled relationship born of Jesus Christ in the post-non-Christendom cultures. I personally have spoken against the egalitarian form of politics I believe has been adopted naively by some evangelical feminists at the expense of both women and Christian marriage. Nonetheless, I believe that the NT calls women into the full participation in the new authority of the Kingdom unleashed in the church (this means I affirm the full ordination of women). I believe the TGC will be impotent to engage the culture of post Christendom if it cannot give witness to the new new “politics of Jesus” in its gender politics. It will be a coalition for retrenchment versus an expedition for the advancement of Christ’s Mission in post Christendom.

4.) The New Perspective is Our Enemy. John Piper and Don Carson have energetically sought to dismantle the New Perspective on Paul (most notably here, here and here). I do not agree with everything written by Stendahl, Sanders, Dunn, Wright etc. Nonetheless, I believe it is a mistake to see the New Perspective as the enemy (it’s not even that new any more). I believe there is much to learn from it.(I recommend everyone start with ch. 11 of John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and go from there).  The Reformation tendency has been to separate the justification of the individual in Christ (due to developments extending from the  Reformation) from the justice of God and the new social order God is inaugurating in the world thru Christ. As long as we keep doing this we will forever be conceptualizing the gospel and separating it from the life of the Triune God as worked out in His Mission. We then will be hindered from socially embodying the gospel in post-Christendom. Maybe even worse, emerging Christians will continue to make the error of separating social justice from the redemption of the individual in Christ. I think the New Perspective is not the enemy but a source of great insights for this much needed renewal of the gospel. If TGC makes the New Perspective the enemy, I believe this is another sign TGC is becoming a coalition for retrenchment not an expedition for Mission.

5.) The Mega Church Still Makes Sense. Because of the above mentioned Reformed tendencies (exacerbated by American pragmatic evangelicalism) to individualize the gospel, to individualize the reading of Scripture, to individualize salvation, to separate doctrine from “way of life,” the Neo-Reformed do not see the problem of mega church for the future of church engagement with post-Christendom. Mega churches have worked well within Christendom’s modernity. Here the individual reigned supreme and the remainder of Christian culture lingered long enough to provide a foundation for masses of individuals to become Christians within large servicing organizations. Now however, with the lingering remainder of Christian culture gone, the gospel must take root in a social communal embodiment. Here is where the gospel can be seen, heard, understood, experienced by those completely foreign to our faith in Christ. This kind of communal embodiment is nigh impossible in mega sized organizations (although I think I’ve seen it at least once). Still, I see the Neo-Reformed enamored that good solid preaching and culturally relative apologetics will gather post-non-Christendom into its churches. I fear TGC then becomes a force for coalescing mega size preaching churches that preach to the already initiated. We in essence become a church that preaches to ourselves and in the process retrench from being expedited for Mission into post Christendom. (P.S. I still strongly believe in preaching!! As my writings and “the college of preachers” at our church will attest to).

A Call to The Neo-Anabaptist Missional Vision

For the reasons stated above, and indeed some more reasons I have not posted, I suggest that the Neo-Anabaptist Missional impulse is a viable alternative to the Neo-Reformed groups including TGC. For both historical reasons and theological reasons, I believe the Anabaptist Missional impulse has much to offer the dwindling churches of N America in engaging the new post Christendom cultures of the West. I include in this camp Alan Hirsch, Alan Roxburgh, Shane Claiborne, Neil Cole, Scot McKnight. I myself have tried to write to contribute to the furtherance of this vision. Tim Keller has characterized the Neo Anabaptists on this blog as follows: “… As you know, I think that the neo-Anabaptist missionals are a bit too rigid in what they are putting forth for the future, but its emphasis on process over program, ecclesial liturgy over experientialism, deep community, concern for the poor and justice, and contextualization-are all quite right. and traditional mega churches don’t see this.” I agree with Tim Keller on his description, including the being “a bit too rigid” part. Such statements however encourage me to believe that Neo Reformed and Neo Anabaptist should be in dialogue together to further Christ’s Kingdom (some of my best friends are Neo-Reformed :) ). So I am open to dialoguing and even being proven wrong on the five positional statements above that I suspect the Gospel Coalition of advocating. Where am I right? Where am I wrong?

Filed under Missional,Neo-Anabaptist,Neo-Reformed 49 Comments

davidfitch on May 16 2009

The Bad Habits of Christendom Evangelism – “The Romans Road,” The Four Spiritual Laws, Evangelism Explosion and the Bridge Illustration (WTWNC 3)

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When They Will Not Come” (WTWNC) names the social dilemma of the church in post Christendom when we can no longer assume non-Christians will come to church even when they are seeking God. This new cultural condition forces us to change the way we think about every aspect of the church. WTWNC is a series of posts that reflect on the ways the practice of being Christ’s church/church planting must change because of this new cultural dilemma.

Illustration by Ben Sternke of http://benjaminsternke.typepad.com.

In the West, especially within the N. American evangelical church, evangelism usually meant  “going out” from the church. We trained our church people to be individual agents of salvation “going out” to engage others in the ‘act’ of evangelism. I use quotation marks here however around the words “going out” because much of what we did went the way of “you will come to us on our terms.” We went out, yet it was still from a position of power, “that we already had the answer you need,” that we already knew what your problem is. We went out to them, yet we still presumed they would understand and learn our language – another indication of the Christendom mentality. We went out assuming we did not need a relationship. We could simply present the gospel, the one form of it that was true for all people. We went “out” – but the posture was still “you will come” … “once you hear what we have, you will come on these pre-conceived terms.” In this way, our strategies of evangelism in the West have been sorely dependent upon the social conditions of post Christendom. How must this all change, “when they will not come?” (I understand that in a totally different sense – everyone is either coming or walking away from the one true Incarnate Son – Jesus Christ 2 Cor 5).

Ever since I wrote this piece and this piece, and pointed out some of the problems of our evangelism, many have asked have you come up with an evangelistic tool for these new cultural conditions you call “post Christendom?” This week Scot McKnight and Michael Spencer have been blogging on the related problem of a reduced gospel. At Life on the Vine we have been thinking through these issues as a church group at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings before we gather to worship. We have come to some insights. We have been discussing some practices we must learn if we are to truly to engage in post-Christendom evangelism.. Yet I cannot say we’ve come up with a new tool quite yet. Next post I’ll offer some of the practices. Here are a few insights we’ve learned (as I report them from my own perspective.)

1.) The old ways – Romans Road, Evangelism Explosion, The Four Spiritual Laws, The Bridge - approach the “lost person” from a position of power. They come to the lost person with a prepackaged message that assumes one gospel fits all. They assume the questions to be asked and the answers that shall be given before we have even listened. (intellectually, and more important attitudinally – we are saying with our posture that we already know what you need, what your problem is, and we’re right and you’re wrong – none-Christians come away feeling like “I’m one of your ‘cases’”).  I contend this is contrary to the gospel. For the gospel always comes incarnationally: i.e. humbly, entering in to hear each person/ culture in its own language. The one message fits all implies that everyone has the same problem. Only in Christendom, where everyone was already pre-initiated and where the cultural problems are homogenous, would this make sense. (The Romans Road BTW still makes sense ( and ‘works’) even to this day for the many families who go to large mega churches – offering a simple teaching tool for converting those already raised in the foundations of the Christian faith). If you read the New Testament however, the gospel is posed differently in each context, in each gospel or epistle. The problem the gospel addresses and the way in which the good news of Jesus Christ addresses it – differs between the gospel of John, Luke, the epistles of Romans, versus 1 and 2 Peter, versus James and Hebrews.
2.) The old ways assume the Christian language as a given. When the Romans Road has three words on either side of the chasm that is then bridged by the cross, it assumes these words are understandable. The average person however outside of Christ has no language by which to understand how the word “sin” (on the left side of the chasm) might make sense of their existence. When they hear the word ‘God’ (on the right side of the chasm) they ask “which one?” (co-pastor Matt Tebbe put the issue this way Sunday morning). We could do the Romans Road in Christendom, but not post Christendom. It is another way our evangelistic strategies are off putting … requiring non-believers to come to us on our terms.
3.) These evangelistic habits of Christendom separate the gospel from real life. They do this by “Cartesianizing” the gospel: i.e. they make the gospel into a mental concept separate from real life (the only place where people can really be reached). We could do this in Christendom, when people were largely still marrying, having children, maintaining domestic propriety, living within their means etc. and living a moral ethos still governed by the Roman Catholic and protestant worlds. In such a society, becoming a Christian means assent, or personal commitment. It’s about personal meaning and in some ways this works because one’s life is already habituated in Christian ways. These are the habits of Christendom. Yet they are reversed in post Christendom. In post Christendom, people generally (even among those rasied as Christian) come to God in Christ broken, often from homes of divorce, sexual abuse, places of despair. The gospel cannot be a concept, it must be the invitation into an entirely reordered way of life – the world of redeemed creation.

About a month ago, a man got up in our church in the gathering time and told a story about how he had been working at a Starbuck’s for over a year. He got to know some of the people there and about a month ago, a woman asked to talk. She poured out her grief over her life, the many misfortunes that had befallen here, and how she had lost all hope. As she looked towards the future, she could see no reason to live. This man said that he had a moment to respond with the “good news” but all he knew was to start charting the diagram of the Romans Road.  Yet this made no sense. This little episode speaks to the problem of evangelism in post Chrsitendom where the old ways do not make sense. We missionaries simply have to think about inhabiting our worlds differently for the gospel.

In my next post I talk about how we go “from presentation to invitation.” These are the brilliant words of (co-pastor at Life on the Vine) Matt Tebbe that describe so well the transition we must make if we would carry the gospel into the new worlds of post Christendom. We will learn that Biblically the gospel is never a set of “laws.” Rather it is a Story. We will learn that we always engage the world and “the Other” in the posture of listening (as a sign of our humility). This is the posture of servanthood. We will learn there is never a pre-conceived outcome. Salvation is a mystery, it happens in God’s moment not ours, it is always the work of God. He is already working, we are simply the servants, the very participants in what God is already doing. We will learn that salvation happens as an invitation into the relationship we have with God through Christ, always as a way of life, never a singular moment or transaction. We will learn the gospel is always contextualized, addressing the issue of lostness, separation, disorder, that each person is encountering personally, culturally and socially. We will learn that it is impossible to invite someone into such a life if you yourself are not authentically immersed into that very life with the Triune God yourself.

In the meantime, what other ways has our habits of evangelism been dependent upon Christendom cultural conditions?

Filed under Evangelism,WTWNC 13 Comments

davidfitch on May 7 2009

Should We Chase After Christians Who Come to Our Sunday Gathering When They Do Not Feel Welcome?: When They Will Not Come 2

WTWNC

When They Will Not Come” (WTWNC) names the social dilemma of the church in post Christendom when we can no longer assume non-Christians will come to church even when they are seeking God. This new cultural condition forces us to change the way we think about every aspect of the church. WTWNC is a series of posts that reflect on the ways the practice of being Christ’s church/church planting must change because of this new cultural dilemma.

Illustration by Ben Sternke of http://benjaminsternke.typepad.com.


All church leaders will recognize this situation. Some people, maybe a couple with children, come to the church and they attend a service or two. They don’t return. They tell someone that “they did not feel welcome,” or “they just did not feel like they fit in.”  This is never a positive and we lead so as to nurture hospitality as a practice of the church gathering. Yet there is a danger to this as well.

Sometimes these words from the visitor reflect a mistaken assumption about church: that they should somehow feel “warm.” comfortable and part of things in just a few short visits. Yet any community of any significant depth will present barriers to entry for the new person. The community will already know each other deeply, the visitor will not. The community will have shared a journey, struggles, pains, sorrows and joys. We will already understand deeply our purpose, our Mission as worked out for our context because we have spent months, maybe years, praying and listening to God. We should ALWAYS BE HOSPITABLE in inviting others into this great life we have been called to share. But frankly, it cannot be communicated or extended through the exchange of simple pleasantries after church gathering on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, there will always be these communal hurdles to becoming part of such a community of Mission.

I think it is a mistake to over react to the visitor and try to create a welcoming team that engenders a false sense of community to those visiting on any given Sunday. It may have an initial positive effect, but long term I think it raises false expectations. Community, formed around Mission, cannot be commoditized or made easily accessible ( Tim Keel says something like this). Community comes through understanding a common goal and becoming committed to it with other people of like mind and then struggling through the trials and pains of that journey together. It takes long-term commitment. I think that the Walmart-like greeters who wear a smile and have a system to greet you going into the large church are a sign of the loss of this community. It is false, a simulacrum, and it eventually breeds cynicism. I think it is better to have a pamphlet to give to visitors explaining that community is difficult and will take time and offering them helps on how to get connected.

In post Christendom, as I have often argued, the Sunday morning gathering is essential, buts its very character changes from the ways we met in Christendom. It is no longer structured to attract seekers or non-Christians and evangelize them. It is no longer put together to attract Christians wandering away from other churches. It is instead formational, it brings us corporately into the practice of encountering God and being transformed by that encounter for life and Mission in Christ. The very nature of what we do changes if we are not seeking to attract but instead to be trained into a Call-Response vital relationship with the Triune God of Mission. This time around the Word and the Table is certainly a powerful witness to the presence of our God in Christ, but it cannot always make sense and should not be tailored to the one who is outside of Christ.

Last Saturday, as a number of us sat around my back deck (talking Missional stuff at what I am now calling the “Missional Back Porch” meeting at my house on every first Saturday night), this issue came up. J R Rozko said that the shape of Sunday gathering changes in the Missional context. Instead of a place for strangers to feel immediately welcome, we would do better to understand it as a “family gathering.” We would not expect people to come to our family gatherings as strangers. More likely they come invited through a significant relationship. And when they do come, say when one’s new fiancé comes to the family thanksgiving meal for the first time (is J R expressing some personal anxiety here?), there is an unease and a feeling of unfamiliarity which out of commitment this “stranger” will work through.

It should be expected that new people get to know the community in social contexts outside the church, in the bar, at the house gathering, in friendships of many other ways. They come with someone they already know well and can rely on them to navigate “the family” for them.

I have made it a habit not to chase every Christian visitor to our church (this is different from when I was first starting the church and was seeking to gather a people). There are simply many Christians who are looking for something that we cannot and probably should not offer. I do not often chase Christians, who after a time with us, choose to leave. I think pastors/leaders have often spent inordinate amounts of time trying desperately to cater to Christians who have, for better or worse, a consumer mentality. (I know, this certainly does not apply to every Christian searching for a church). I think we are to spend our time searching out the lost however. And I think we should listen deeply to one another as COMMITTED MEMBERS of a community to the complaints, concerns, issues of our community. And I think we should nurture the practice of hospitality to all strangers. But there is no doubt, that in the new cultural conditions of post Christendom, the nature of this welcome has changed and we must be sensitive to it.

Some have said this is too harsh. Others have asked do you not want this church to grow? What do you think?

Filed under Missional,Missional Leadership,WTWNC 16 Comments

davidfitch on May 4 2009

J R Woodward’s “Good News” Series: Life After Easter in the Suburbs

J R Woodward is a church planter in Virginia and now in L.A., with an apostolic gift who is ever pushing forth new ventures for the Kingdom. Just hanging with him for half a day last summer made me tired. He is also an innovator intellectually doing some great work for all of us missional leaders on his blog Dreamawakener (and other writings).

His most recent blog series on “The Good News” asks missional authors, bloggers, professors, and practitioners to answer the question “what is the good news?” for your context. If you were to write an announcement of the good news for your newspaper what would it look like? I urge you to read these 300-500 word posts.  You will hear perspectives from different ethnicities and different genders, as well as from Asia, South America, Europe and North America. I post the entire list of contributors below. Today is my contribution entitled “What is the Gospel to the massive subdivisions of the North West Chicago?: Life After Easter in the Suburbs”. Thanks J R for doing this. This is rich!

The Dreamawakener Good News Blog Series

April 13: Len Hjalmarson / The Good News post
April 14: J.R. Rozko / The Good News post
April 15: Brad Sargent / The Good News post
April 16: John Chandler / The Good News post
April 17: Sivin Kit / The Good News post
April 18: Brother Maynard / The Good News post
April 19: Danny Gutierrez / The Good News post
April 20: Dave Kludt / The Good News post
April 21: Kurt Fredrickson / The Good News post
April 22: Winn Collier / The Good News post
April 23: J.R. Briggs / The Good News post
April 24: Noel Heikkinen / The Good News post
April 25: Dustin James / The Good News post
April 26: Jim Pace / The Good News post
April 27: Erika Haub / The Good News post
April 28: AJ Sherrill / The Good News post
April 29: Andrew Perriman / The Good News post
April 30: Raffi Shahinian / The Good News post
May 1: Benjamin Sternke / The Good News post
May 2: Joey Tomassoni / The Good News post
May 3: Brian Hopper / The Good News post
May 4: David Fitch / The Good News post
May 5: Christine Sine
May 6: Jonathan Dodson
May 7: Kathy Hanson
May 8: Jason Clark
May 9: Alistair Johnson
May 10: Greg Larson
May 11: Brian Russell
May 12: Sonja Andrews
May 13: Jamie Arpin-Ricci
May 14: Nathan Colquhoun
May 15: Todd Hiestand
May 16: Doug Paul
May 17: Luis Fernando Batista
May 18: Evan Hansen
May 19: John Santic
May 20: Mark Van Steenwyk
May 21: Ryan Bell
May 22: Eugene Cho
May 23: Joe Racek
May 24: Audrey Blumber
May 25: Tony Stiff
May 26: Maria Drews
May 27: Jason Coker
May 28: Andy Bleyer
May 29: Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
May 30: Jon Tyson
May 31: JR Woodward

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