on January 19 2012

The Mark Driscoll Fiasco: What the Latest Flap Teaches Us About The Neo-Reformed Movement

You can stop reading this post if you think I am going to review Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book Real Marriage. I have a much more boring post in mind.

Driscoll’s Real Marriage book is to the NeoReformed what Rob Bell’s Love Wins was to the Emerging church last year. They both stir up humongous sales with a media frenzy and in the process reveal the “cracking” (to use Scot McKnight’s word) taking place within the mainline N. American protestant evangelical church. As with Bell’s book, so also with Driscoll’s book, each brouhaha (to use Bill Kinnon’s word) reveals something of the theological pulse driving their respective movements.

This time the Driscoll fiasco revolves an interview done by the Driscoll’s about their book with Justin Brierley on the British radio program Unbelievable (here’s the podcast of the entire hour-long interview with Mark Driscoll). There was a “dust-up” on the interview. Driscoll was offended. He then calls it “the most disrespectful, adversarial, and subjective” interview he’s ever had. And now it’s all over the internet driving up sales of his (and his wife’s) new book.

My take (and the angle I want to pursue) on the interview is that Driscoll’s “act” simply doesn’t translate well into the very post-Christendom context of Britian.  In fact the whole encounter reveals the Christendon assumptions that drive his theology. There are three missional “bugaboos” that he clashes with Brierley on. Each bugaboo represents a theological position we Missionals fear/resist because of the way these things work against mission.  In this interview, these bugaboos  are a.) Driscoll’s singular obsession with penal substitutionary atonement, b.) his commitment to hierarchical male authority in the church, and c.) his blind belief in the importance of preaching/successful preacher to the church’s identity. These bugaboos represent the Christendom assumptions behind Driscoll’s theology and way he operates. Yet I think we can make a case for interpreting Driscoll as  a symptom of the wider Neo-Reformed theological movement. So I think this episode reveals more than just Driscoll’s Christendom theology and mode of operation. I think it speaks to why the current Neo-Reformed revival and its theology will have a hard time leading missional–incarnational-externally driven church. So I put this theological psychoanalysis to the test before all my neo-Reformed friends. Let’s converse. Here goes!

(FYI: I’m riffing off of the account of the interview here and here, Driscoll’s response to the interview here, and Justin’s response to Driscoll as reported here).

1.) The Focus on the Substitionary Atonement. Towards the end of the interview, Driscoll asks Brierley if he believes in the penal substitutionary atonement. When Brierley affirms it as one of many ways to view the cross, Driscoll suggests he’s being cowardly about it.  Driscoll then insists on singular commitment to penal substitutionary atonement is essential to the success of the gospel.

To me this speaks to the singular focus on the penal subtitutionary atonement that is central in many parts of the Neo-Reformed matrix regardless of contextual considerations. Am I right? Driscoll is blind to contextual considerations concerning salvation. In other words, the atonement is many faceted (read McKnights Community of Atonement for example). One size does not fit all. It could be argued that penal substititionary atonement makes the most sense in Christendom, amidst a culture shaped under Medieval Catholicism, it’s theology and penitential system (Driscoll grew up Catholic). Moral guilt, you could say, was (and is) the singular Christendom condition into which Reformed theology was born. It is not however as universal in the West as it once was. If we insist on being locked into this one view of the atonement, we will in essence be narrowing our context for mission.

The atonement is wider, bigger and more multitudinous than substitionary theory. And the hurts and pains of the world we are engaging cannot be put fit into this one theory. I believe in the substitionary theory of the atonement. But it is limited. The work that God is doing in the world includes reconciliation, healing, restoration, justice, and the victory and authority of Christ over Satan, evil, sin and death. It is in short God at work through Christ making all things right.  A narrow focus on substitionary atonement disables the church from engaging the world outside Western Christendom culture. It discounts the manifold ways God in Christ has come to set the whole world right. Mark Driscoll can’t understand this. And so when he enters a post-Christendom context he gets frustrated.

Does not Drsicoll’s frustration then reveal the atonement myopia at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement. Does it not reveal the weakness inherent in Neo-Reformed theology for those of us minsistering in post Christendom contexts (like Brierley’s Britian)? Does not his whole fiasco reveal how the singular focus on subtititionary atonement hinders missional engagement? Yes? no?

2.) The View that Authority is Hierarchical. Towards the end of the interview the issue of women pastors came up. It caused a bit of a flare-up in Driscoll’s intensity. Driscoll ends up suggesting that the reason why more people did not show up at Brierley’s church was because of a woman in leadership. To me, this has been a subtle persistent theme within Neo-Reformed ecclesiology: that men should be over women in authority in the church. Now it explodes on a radio interview in the UK. This I suggest is a Neo-Reformed habit learned and sustained in Christendom.

Authority in Christendom is viewed in hierarchical terms. Hierarchical patterns of leadership exist readily in established church systems where you have Christianized people who are already conditioned to respect clergy authority, where things can get done, goods and services distributed, decisions made, disputes arbitrated more efficiently among Christians who already submit. It is because of these ingrained habits of hierarchy that most Neo-Reformed views of church authority have struggles with women in authority over men (OK this is at least one of the reasons). Take hierarchy out of the authority question and it becomes much harder to interpret Scripture in a way that excludes women from leadership in the church.

In the post-Christendom world, authority is flattened in the church and pushed outward (Read this post for more info). Positional authority of anyone over someone else is not the way things work in the Kingdom (read Mark 10:42). Instead we work alongside each other out of our giftedness in the communities appreciating one another gifts and mutually submitting one to another in each one’s gifts (read Eph 4, Rom 12:3-8). The authority lies in one’s recognized gift. The idea that women are over men is as unthinkable as the idea that men are over women.

Flattened authority structures push leadership out amidst the organic work of ministry in context. Hierarchy pushes church ministry inward and upward for approval. Hierarchical authority inhibits dispersed missional engagement. Its structures will miss with people who submit to authority only as encountered via authentic relational engagement. Driscoll seems blind to these issues. He’s absolutely frustrated with Brierley’s inability to be impressed with the importance of top down male leadership. My question is: are these assumptions part of the larger Neo-Reformed movement as a whole and does this mean that the Neo-Reformed will always be inhibited somewhat from true missional engagement? (Can I say “just asking?”). It will always be a movement prone to attracting Christianized people who are already habituated to submit to a pre-established hierarchical (male) authority.

3.) The assumption that “success” is best measured by the number of people who show up to hear a male preacher preach. When Mark Driscoll finds out that Justin Brierley’s wife is a pastor and is questioned on the validity of a wife whose husband supports his wife’s leadership, Mark asks about the size and growth of his wife’s church.  He says among other things “You look at your results and you look at my results and look at the variable that is the most obvious.” In other words I have thousands in my church, and you have a few hundred. That proves female leadership is inferior.

To me this is more than blind Driscollian machismo. This reveals something deeper in the Neo-Reformed ethos. There is a tendency in the Neo-Reformed movement to put a large emphasis on the gathering to hear preaching. I believe in preaching! But I see its function differently in the mission of the church. For the Neo-Reformed – correct me if I am wrong – there is a confidence that non-Christian people will still come to church to hear a good sermon. There is therefore a default tendency in Neo-Reformed churches to see success in terms of the numbers of people gathering on Sunday to hear a male preacher preach. This is a missional bugaboo. Success in mission will not always look like big numbers listening to a preacher (has Driscoll ever heard of Fresh Expressions in UK?). I see preaching as formational for a missional people, not a place where mission actually takes place (although I am uncomfortable with making that split). As a result, though often unintentional, the Neo-Reformed movement often devolves into a male led preacher attracting already existing Christians to come hear a good sermon. It thereby mistrains the congregation to think this is what church and mission is all about. That’s perhaps an over-characterization. But is there any truth to it?

Again, I think Driscoll’s question about the size of his wife’s congregation is more than a slip of the Driscollian machismo, I think it reveals something at the heart of the Neo-Reformed movement that will hinder it in the formation of congregations for mission. What say you?

In Conclusion

I see in the Mark Driscoll dust-up with Justin Brierley a revealing of some of the Christendom habits deep within the Neo-Reformed movement although often covered over by the many good things they do. The fact that Mark Driscoll’s flare-up happens in the UK – a very post Christendom place – only reinforces my case.

Some have said in response, that Mark Driscoll’s church is in Seattle, the most post-Christendom city in the US. But here, in this post, he says boldly admits going to Canada or the UK is much harder to do ministry than even in Seattle. He states “You are in a cultural context that is more non-Christian, and even anti-Christian, than even the most liberal cities in the United States. I’ve taught across Scotland, Ireland, and England. Each one is more difficult to reach than my hometown of Seattle, which is one of the historically least-churched and most secular-minded cities in America. I’ve said for years that Britain and Canada are more secular and difficult than the United States.” He basically admits that he himself with his particular approach to ministry would have difficulty succeeding in his own approach to ministry. Does this then not reveal what I am saying here? Driscoll is largely dependent upon the harvesting of already Christianized populations in Seattle area (what’s left of them)? Is this then why he then goes with video churches to go capture other such populations elsewhere? Does this then reveal some things that my Neo-Reformed brothers have to examine about their own theological modus operandi? I genuinely ask these questions for the furtherance of God’s Mission in our times.

It may seem unfair to stigmatize the entire Neo-Reformed movement with the likes of a Mark Driscoll temper flare-up. But I’ve learned that these kind of escapades are the best places to look at the cultural forces at work in theology and poitics. For myself, Mark Driscoll is an irruption of sorts on the skin of the Neo-Reformed movement.  His flare-up, if closely examined, can reveal some of the theology at work and the forces behind these theological allegiances. How other leaders in the movement respond to him, like Tim Challies,  Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, Collin Hansen,  James McDonald, will reveal perhaps even more. Is Mark Driscoll just an outlier for the Neo-Reformed movement or is he the truth that lies at its core?

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Filed under Acts 29,Mark Driscoll,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Missional Theology,Neo-Reformed,Post-Attractional,Post-Christendom,Rob Bell,Soteriology,Uncategorized,Women in MInistry 116 Comments

on January 12 2012

More Ekklesiaphobia Post #3: The Fear of the Colonialist Mistake

Continuing on the theme of ekklesaphobia from the past few weeks, I often encounter a version of it when I’m speaking somewhere on my (latest) favorite theme – How “sentness extends the authority of Christ.” I try to show how whenever we enter a context, a new culture, and practice the Eucharist or Reconciliation (and other church practices), God’s authority is extended into His Mission, Christ’s presence takes up residence. Upon saying this, some is usually offended. So they will come up to me afterwards (or during the Q&A after the presentation) and object saying something like “but that sounds colonialist” meaning that imposes a preconceived practice/authority on a context. Medieval practices of the Eucharist and Penance probably come to mind and that approach disregards the culture of that context. It dismisses what God is already doing in the midst there. It is coercive, presumptive. Upon which I emphatically agree that these are dangers with all Western forms of church. But I also see here a symptom of what I have been calling ekklesiaphobia, a excessive fear of traditional church practice in mission.  I observe this fear as infecting a lot of missional church types and so it’s healthy to deconstruct this fear and take a closer look.

A Fear of Repeating the Mistake of Colonialism:

“Colonialism” names that process by which the Western church once sent missionaries to other countries and, under the auspices of bringing the gospel, imposed their own language, customs and church institutions on the new converts. The end result was often not the furtherance of the gospel but an extension of an institution (their denomination of church) and an unhealthy dependency upon the West. Making matters worse, these institutions were often aligned with imperialist nations who used the church allegiance to exploit countries foreign to it. The so-called “foreign” country became a client of the colonialist nation.

Today, in these post-colonialist times, we nonetheless see colonialist tendencies even in the way church/mission are done in the North American church. We plant churches as extensions of a particular (denominational) form of church. We enter new contexts, set up mega-church programs, video venues assuming the singular presentation of the gospel that we preach in say Seattle is equally valid in a thousand miles away, say Albuquerque.  We hold conferences falling into the temptation to extend the institution as an end in itself. We continually fall into the bad habit of identifying our own particular Christianity as determined by our own cultural experience as “the gospel” itself for all peoples in all contexts. There is much to discuss in this malady and many versions of it, but this in short, is the Western temptation of colonialism.

Ecclesial Practices as the Means for True Contextualization (and the Resistance of Colonialism)

The Missional church has done a great job of bringing the issue of colonialism to the forefront of N American church discussion. Missional church people emphasize listening, learning, exegeting, being among a cultural context. I love this kind of work.

But we also must remember that we who are sent by definition also bring something into a context. This is what “sentness” means. We are sent from somewhere, from someone with something. To bring this “something” (the gospel) from (and with) someone (the presence of Christ) we have to then contextualize those “some-things”. Some people call this “translation” (Lamin Sanneh). But I prefer incarnation, embodying the gospel and presence/reign of Christ in a place. This is where I’d like to say that contrary to intuitive wisdom, the practices of the church I have been contending for, not only resist Colonialism/de-contextualization, they actually make contextualization (embodiment) possible. They make possible the becoming visible of the presence of Christ and His reign in our midst in a way that is unpredictable and can only truly be understood  post facto, after it has taken place.

To just take an example or two.  When we practice the ecclesial practice of reconciliation in submission to Christ’s authority (Matt 18:15-20), God uses that practice to  bring into material reality the forgiveness of Christ and the “reconciliation of all things” into our social context. It contextualizes the forgiveness of Christ. It’s a simple process, but we must in fact figure out (“discern” is the Biblical word) in each broken relationship, what this reconciliation will look like, what the Spirit is saying, what it might mean to be faithful to the cross.  In this process, described by Matt 18, reconciliation gets contextualized! People get to see it and go “wow.” We start by practicing this reconciliation together as a people of God. But then, as we extend it into every area of our lives and our community, the gospel becomes contextualized into the context. We invite people in our world (outside the church) into reconciliation. The church is birthed anew. The practice of reconciliation actually enables contextualization.

In the same way, the practice of the Eucharist requires contextualization. It is socially disruptive and demanding (read 1 Cor 11: ) It is Kingdom in that our relational bonds with one another, the ways we are committed to one another under Christ’s Lordship, the living together under the victory and forgiveness of God in Christ together, the way our money is each other’s in Christ’s Kingdom, is all made manifest in this Eucharist communion. But this requires contextual discernment (read again 1 Cor 11:29). And this becomes the basis of a unique contextualized hospitality anytime we eat together and with anyone else. From Eucharist together as church, I go share a cup of coffee in McDonald’s and I actually share the forgiveness and the bond in Christ’s Kingdom (“I confer on you a Kingdom” Luke 22:29) with someone who may not know how to receive grace, forgiveness, love and communal bond.  This ecclesial practice undercuts injustice and the social bonds based on coercion, torture (and dare I say capitalism)., It demands of us contextualization.  Kingdom breaks out. I’ve seen this happen. Likewise with all the other practices including gospel proclamation, fivefold ministry, sharing life with the poor, etc. Each practice forces contextualization (For instance, it is not gospel proclamation if transmitted via a Video feed).

All of these ecclesial practices extend the Kingdom, Christ’s authority. But we are so right to recognize that we can not own these practices and make them our possession and use them to extend our power. We must recognize they can (and have in the past) become the instrument of colonialist evils.  On the other hand, properly lead, released from Christendom control, these same practices become the means for the continual contextualzition of the gospel in our midst. In their practice, the church is rebirthed, or as Darrel Guder famously described, the church is continually being converted.”  We therefore must deconstruct our phobia of church practice and recognize the dangers of the past allowing us to go forward into the world as instruments of his Kingdom.

What do you do with the colonialist temptation? How do you resist it as you seek to lad you church into Mission? Do you see how the fundamental church practices can shape community in mission as opposed to against it?

 

 

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Filed under Church Planting,Ecclesiology,Ekklesaphobia,Missional Ecclesiology,Uncategorized 8 Comments

on January 3 2012

Ekklesaphobia Post #2: The Protestant Principle

Warning: The following post is more theological requiring some interaction with theologians and church history.

My last post I started to explore the subtle fear and resistance to church practices so common in today’s missional church. I claimed there is often an out-sized reaction in and among the missional church against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church: practices like worship gathering, teaching evangelism postures, ordination of clergy. I called this “ekklesaphobia.” I freely acknowledged that there are abuses and malformation in all of these practices so a healthy caution is good (a quick glance into the archives of this blog reveals I write a lot about this). We need a reformation of church practice in the West so as to shape a church into God’s missional life. Nonetheless, this phobia, I argue often goes too far leaving us lacking in sustainable formation of God’s people for His Mission as well as a dysfunctional leadership. I named 3 sources of this phobia. 1.) fear of colonialism, 2.)  fear of the protestant principle. 3.) fear of being abused again by corrupt authoritarian church structures as many of us have been in the past. I want to “riff” a little bit on these 3 fears in the next few posts. I want to start with the fear of “the protestant principle,” the most difficult of the three to describe and see at work.

The Protestant Principle argues that we must challenge the church (or anyone else for that matter) anytime it acts like it in any way owns the privileged place of God’s presence and authority.  Because when this happens, the church will eventually use this authority for corrupt ends. We are human after all. We are prone to ego and self-serving motives. On the other hand, without the church as  location for Christ’s social body in the world, we are basically left alone to be little Christ’s. We must be an authority unto ourselves (even if we do look to the Bible as a personal authority) in the world to do/participate in God’s Mission. As intuitively American as this is, this still leaves us to be absorbed into society’s structures even when they are bad/evil/corrupt. We get rid of the church as corrupt structure only to be absorbed into the social structures of society (which may be corrupt themselves, or at the very least lacking in the reconciliatory power of Christ).

Paul Tillich articulated the protestant principle as that theological principle which must challenge all historical representations of the divine. In other words, we cannot expect that the transcendent, almighty and perfect God would be located (or limited to being located) in a human institution like a church. For human institutions are by their very nature corrupt and imperfect. And so when we give divine authority to such a structure the worst things imaginable will happen. Human beings will claim to be acting on behalf of God (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and/or the pope). Even worse, divine salvation shall be limited to this structure and be controlled by human beings to their own benefit (i.e. the Roman Catholic church and the transubstantiated Eucharist). In the lineage of the European protestants who have gone on before us, therefore, we must protest whenever we see this happening. God cannot be controlled. God only comes in His own freedom to us (as individuals). The minute anyone associates (in any way!) a human institution as the place where God works, bad things happen! Whenever the church makes any “claims to absoluteness” (Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 3 p. 245) in the name of Christ it rejects its own identity in Christ. For God in Christ cannot be contained or boxed in by the church or any other human organization. This principle was followed by H Richard Neibuhr, his brother Reinhold and carries on in many circles of American protestant church. (For more on the protestant principle see D. Stephen Long, who first introduced the concept to me,  Divine Economy 136ff. and my own The Great Giveaway note 17, in chapter 6).

Who can deny this? There is much truth here. Especially to those of us who have seen pastor-authority figures use the church for their own ends. And we must resist the notion that God works in, especially “only in,” His church. This is a big source of the problems we now face as a church incapable of being in the world where God is working.

BUT (please, hear me on this) we must avoid the other extreme in saying that the church is merely a group of individuals trying to be little Jesus’s, and we come together for mutual support, encouragement (and worse admiration). For this denies that God in history has chosen to reveal himself in the witness of a people before the nations. God in fact does come, in authority, to inhabit a people in a social and visible way WHEN HIS PEOPLE ARE IN SUBMISSION TO HIM AND RECEIVING OF HIM IN SOME BASIC CORE PRACTICES GIVEN TO US IN AND THRU JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF.

Here is a primary example: when people gather (as in Matt 18:15-20) to submit to Christ’s authority as King (“in my name”) and be reconciled (“agree on anything”), Christ’s authority is made manifest (“what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”). He becomes present in a special way (“there am I in your midst”). His presence, and that inbreaking authority is carried with us whenever we bring this reconciliation of God in Christ into our everyday relationships, vocations and neighborhoods. This is real flesh and blood (incarnational) Kingdom authority of Christ breaking in our lives and neighborhoods. We do not control it, we cannot possess it, only cooperate with it and be instruments of it. But this is a practice of being His people in His church where God exerts divine authority and becomes divinely present by the Son through the Spirit.

The same can be said of many other practices such as the Eucharist (Luke 22:29), the proclamation of the gospel (Luke 10), of the fivefold ministry (Eph 4), Kingdom prayer (Mark 9:29, Matt 6:9ff)) and so on.

These Practices, When Practiced in Submission to Christ, Extend His Reign.  By gathering in the neighborhoods, via these practices, we bring the Kingdom into visible manifestation as a witness to His Lordship and rule over the whole earth. “Witness” always means we do cannot control or possess this authority (Karl Barth’s work on “witness” comes to mind here – Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3.2 par.71 #4) Instead we point to it and allow it to be manifest in our lives together into the world. These core practices, birthed out of the death, resurrection and enthronement of Jesus Christ as King, become the means by which Jesus becomes present and His reign breaks in. They do not need to ossify a people (like they have in the past) as a people set apart over against society. Instead they become the means by which we materialize the Kingdom in a contextualized way, offering in our midst His reconciliation (Matt 18), hospitality (Eucharist), freedom from sin, death and evil (proclamation of the gospel), leadership into God’s work in the world (5 fold ministry). It is no secret that I have a whole book in process on how these practices, grounded in Jesus Christ Himself as sent one, released through the Holy Spirit, become missional practices when they are released from the captivity of the Christendom institutionalized church.

Til then, what do you think about the protestant principle? Have you seen it at work in your church? your ministry? Do you see it as a deterrent to ministry in your neighborhood? Do you see it as a deterrant to the formation of people into God’s Mission? (P.S. should I keep more theologically intense posts off this blog? keep them in more traditional outlets like journals etc.?)

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on December 28 2011

DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE

It happens on facebook when I give the slightest indication the church is God’s instrument in the world. It happens frequently when I am speaking and assert that God has empowered the church to extend Christ’s presence in the world. It happens when I coach church planters that are missionally oriented and ask them when they gather for worship. It happens when I engage my missional friends on one of the variants of the formula “missiology precedes ecclesiology.” It happens each time I meet someone who has been abused by the traditional church. Each time there is a out-sized reaction against organizing people into practices traditionally associated with being the church (this is especially true of the public worship gathering, or the ordination of clergy).

OF COURSE IT IS TRUE that in many cases the local church has become stuck in paying for buildings, “hell-bent” on attracting people into worship services at all costs, authority structures that gum up the works via the hierarchical clergy. It is true that the Church has abused the eucharist, has tried to colonize whole people groups into a specific enculturated way of being the church, thereby making the gospel a piece of Western propaganda. It happens every time a mega church pastor exerts control over his behemoth enterprise for his/her own personal glory. It happens every time the church has used spiritual authority to abuse people so as to enrich its coffers and expand its enterprise. I think I’ve written enough on all these things to convince you all that I am well aware of these dangers. I’m no fan of what has become of the institutionalized church (especially its mega church consumerist varieties). If you don’t believe me, read The Great Giveaway for example.

But, unfortunately, this wise caution against organizing people into Christendom-tainted-functions of the church has turned into a phobia, an unhealthy fear. I call this ekklesaphobia. And I believe it is time to ask whether such an ekklesaphobia is hurting the furthering of fresh expressions of the gospel over N America as the missional movement matures into its third decade. I say yes.

This ekklesaphobia manifests itself in dysfunctional leadership that cannot recognize the Kingdom authority invested by Christ in the 5 fold gifting structure of  leadership (although hierarchy is still bad IMO). It manifests itself when we cannot understand the forming event of the Eucharist where the presence and authority of the Kingdom breaks out and forms a community of the King to spread reconciliation and renewal of all things. It manifests itself when we cannot see the formational effects of true worship (read chapter 15, p. 217 in NT Wright’s Simply Jesus to get a taste of what I am talking about). There are no missional people apart from the place in which these people are formed into His Mission. Anyone who thinks this can be done solely individually one to one does not get the nature of how sociality under the King shapes people into the Kingdom.  For all these reasons and more, I have a new phrase when I see signs of ekklesaphobia manifesting itself. I say “DON’T BE AN EKKLESAPHOBE.”

The sources of ekklesaphobia come from various places. I’ll just name 3 which I hope to expound upon in my next post. First, We’re afraid of repeating the colonialist mistake. Second we’re afraid of the protestant principle (a version of the ecclesial mistake of triumphalism in culture). Third, many of us have been abused by church authority and we’ll do anything to avoid that hell again :) . These fears lead us to throw out the practices (like worship, ordination, discipleship/baptism) by which God forms His people as the means to extend the presence of Christ in the world.

Of course, I have a fourth fear, and that is that once people are given permission to not fear the church practices anymore they will revert back to the default ways they have grown up with doing church. They will then repeat all the things that have gone wrong in N American ecclesiology these past 40 years (I’ve seen this way too often). I think therefore we must learn from each of these historical problems. So I will post some thoughts on each of these three fears in the next few weeks. Til then I urge people: Don’t Be an Ekklesaphobe :)

What do you think? Is there an eklessiaphobia in the missional church? What drives it? In what ways is it healthy? Is it unhealthy?

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Ekklesaphobia,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership,Uncategorized 34 Comments

on December 1 2011

On Planting Churches That Do Not Cannibalize: The Luke 10 Project

For much of post World War 2 North America, we have planted churches by using strategies that depend on drawing upon a market of already existing Christians (see this article where I expound on these dynamics). One way or another, church planting in North America has been taking what’s left of Christianity and creating new versions of church over against the failures of existing churches. We organize ourselves as “the next new thing” to make up for what some other churches lack. (Here I argued this is another form of  “organizing ourselves over against what we are not”)

This has been the modus operandi since the break up of Christendom. It began with the protestants telling the Catholics that they had lost justification by faith. Then the holiness/pietist churches told the established Reformer protestants they had lost the deeper sanctified life of God’s people. In N. America, we started Bible churches when the liberals took over mainline Protestantism in the 1920’s. They had lost the authority of the Bible. In the 1980’s we started seeker churches when the Bible churches became too entrenched in their own Bible speak and Bible rituals that they can no longer make sense to lapsed Baby Boomer Christians. They had lost their ability to speak the gospel in relevant ways. In the last fifteen years, we started progressive “Emergent” churches when the seeker churches become consumeristic and distanced from challenging injustice in the world. They had lost their ability to engage the world for God’s justice. And on and on it goes. We organize ourselves against what the other people aren’t.

One of the points of The End of Evangelicalism? is that we’ve reached the end of  this long history.  We can no longer expect to successfully cannibalize on ourselves in the planting of new churches. We’re running out of Christians/churches to reform to some truer, purer more relevant form of Christianity. As I said here, lets stop funding church plants (has anyone noticed it ain’t working?) and fund missionaries here in North America. We need to seed fresh expressions of the gospel that engage those outside the faith with the gospel and create the space for God work to bring people to Himself.

With this in mind, I’ve been working on a framework to fund and nurture missionary church planting in North America. I am doing this in partnership with Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions here in the United States. What I sketch below is a starting point for this effort.  I put this framework out there as a starting point to invite people to let me know how they would change it/develop it (in the comments). If you’re candidate to participate in the program, either through funding it, partnering with it (say if you are a denomination), or being an actual missionary in the program, let me know through e-mail and I’ll keep you up to date on opportunities, and set up meetings when we can.

So here goes! My first shot at laying out a structure for the Luke 10 Project!

Luke 10 Project

THE GOAL

We seek to plant missionary communities/new expressions of the gospel in North America. We desire to plant missionary communities. Over against the patterns of the post WW2 years of franchise church planting where churches were either competitive, ordered towards extending a particular brand/denomination of church, or revising the church for relevancy, ALL OF WHICH CATERS TO ALREADY EXISTING CHRISTIANS, we propose to embed missionaries to plant churches that will reach people outside of Christ with the gospel of the Kingdom. We believe all people are ultimately lost until they are reconciled to God and living their lives as life with God and His mission.

WHAT WE DO

Plant three leaders/leader couples in a context. These leaders will know each other (their respective gifts/callings and how they work in complementarity). They will know how to submit to Christ through submitting to each other as a model for discerning life with God in His Kingdom. These leaders will understand the basics of ecclesiology, gathering a people into the Kingdom as a witness to the context.

Give them two years – of housing stipend and health insurance. They will be coached to get a job that can sustain them within this context for the long haul. Yet, with this aid, they can afford to go into a lower paying status where they can learn a skill, grow with the job and become indispensible with their skill. In two years they will be viable, sustainable without any further support. The goal is not to have a financially self-sustaining church organization in 3 years. The goal is to have 3 financially sustainable missionaries/missionary couples inhabiting a context in 2 years.

These leaders will then do the following:

  • Exegete/get to know relationally the nooks and crannies of this context. Listen. Get to know people. Get to know where the third places are. Get to know where the hurts are. They will be immersed in a context as a rhythm of everyday life.
  • Begin Rhythms of Inhabiting – strategies of living life with intentional inhabiting of third places, places of ministry (like hospitals, food sites. Etc.)
  • Begin Rhythms of Mission: Having located places of hurt, or third places, we will join in. We shall be prepared to proclaim the gospel when the Spirit leads. This could take years.
  • Begin a Rhythm of discipleship: We will cultivate a discipleship practice among us.  We will work with, contextualize the discipleship shapes of Mike Breen and the missional practices of David Fitch, as well as other sources and means of developing a discipleship culture.
  • Begin Rhythms Together: of prayer, gathering for worship/eucharist/ sending, discipleship pods, acts of mission engagement all as part of a way of life.
  • Start to Gather and Relate: These three leaders will be getting to know other church leaders in the contexts so as to work in concert with them. We seek a renewal of the church as a whole. There will be those who have left church because of its hollow shell. We shall call them back into the Kingdom. There will be people who go to other churches. We refuse, SIMPLY REFUSE, to take them from their church home. But we will invite them to join in with us in Kingdom living in the neighborhood. There will be many outside the gospel who we will invite to join in with various mission engagements we are doing.

I firmly believe that all of the above is to be carried out as a sustainable way of life, not as an excessive work of human effort that consumes and destroys people’s lives. Each leader is to order his/her life so that he/she can work a job of 35 hours a week, and give 15 hours of labor to the cultivation of the Kingdom as everyday life in the context (see my post on the 15 hour rule)

Commit to This Place for Ten Years I firmly believe, if we put three leaders/leader couples in one place, committed to a context for ten years, there will be a fresh expression of the gospel in this locale until the Kingdom is consummated in Christ’s return.

PRINCIPLES

1.) We Work With All Denominations For the Renewal of the Church of Jesus Christ in North America

We will work with all Christian denominations for “evangelical renewal.” By evangelical we do not mean traditional mainline evangelicalism. We mean a vital commitment to the gospel, the whole gospel of the Kingdom of God in Christ. This of course includes personal conversion, and the forgiveness received oin and through Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross. Yet this conversion is also a turning into what God is doing to make the whole world right, not only one’s individual relationship with God. By “evangelical” we also mean a renewal of submitting to Christ by His Spirit for a fresh expression of God’s Kingdom via planting communities in each unreached context in N America.

We seek a commitment to a.) creedal orthodoxy, b.) the inbreaking and coming reign of Christ to renew the world as made manifest among us by the Holy Spirit c.) the fresh expressions of the gospel that result. We uphold a high view of Scripture, the commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ as Lord, the commitment to transformational salvation available to all by invitation into God’s Kingdom in Christ via reconciliation with God and all relationships through the person and work of Christ in the cross and the resurrection, d.) the commitment to the church as God’s means to bear witness to the world of God’s work to reconcile the whole worl to Himself.

2.) There must be at least Three Leaders/LeaderCouples

We seek to embed (at least) three leaders and/or leader couples in places that have need for a renewed witness to the gospel or have been previously resistant to gospel. Our belief is that if we can locate three such leaders in a context, have them committed to the context for ten years, so that they learn it, love it, engage relationally with it and begin a rhythm/way of life out of the gospel, if these same leaders cultivate/discern the Kingdom andsubmit to the Spirit and what he is doing, there will be a fresh expression of the gospel in this context in ten years.

We believe that contraints such as building a self-sustaining ministry that pays a single pastor’s entire salary plus all costs contrains true missionary work. The planting of churches via these means most often devolves into competition for other church members, competition for best religious goods and services to already existing Christians, depletes and exhausts most church planters within three years because such a model is not sustainable (in post Christendom contexts). One person cannot meet the needs that engendered from such a calling of gathered people in.

These three leaders must have a solid foundation theologically in order to stand and plant and discern God’s work in a context. Yet so often, the seminary education that gets a person to this level, trains them to go get an established position in church or try to make their entire living via the church which counteracts mission. Instead, we need to find a way to fund these leaders long term, less stress financially, as well as train them to understand bi-vocationality as a way of life that has flexibility and capability to resist the demissionalizing structures of the church.

AT THE END – I ENVISION TEN YEARS – THERE WILL BE BY GOD’S GRACE AND THE WORK OF HIS SPIRIT – A NEW VISIBLE EXPRESSION OF THE GOSPEL AND HIS KINGDOM IN OUR MIDST UNTIL HE COMES.

FUNDING

To start such projects, we need funding for three plus leader/couples for

a.) housing stipend/health insurance for two years.

b.) part time theological education.

c.) Coaching/assessment for each team

d.) Theological education provided within a context for each leader/couple according to need.

IN CONCLUSION

LET ME JUST SAY THIS!! I know there are organizations already out there doing this. If you are one of them, feel free to list your organization and web site on this blog post’s comments. Get the word out! Let us spur on this kind of development.

If while reading this, you can think of anything to add to this document, any missing pieces, please comment in this post’s comments.

And, if you are interested in participating in this either as a leader or denomination or just knowing more about it once we get this started, pleas e-mail me with your name address and brief three line description of how you’re interested (being a pastor-leader-church planter, being a funder, being a denominational partner etc.). I’ll keep all the names and contacts in a file when we’ve got opportunities!

Blessings on this foray. Let us see where it goes!

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Filed under Church Planting,Missional Ecclesiology,Post-Christendom 61 Comments

on November 9 2011

Scot McKnight’s King Jesus Gospel: Has The Gospel Coalition Caved?

A whole lot has been written about Scot McKnight’s latest book King Jesus Gospel. We probably don’t need another review of it. Nonetheless, since I received a free copy (in full disclosure) I need to say something :) . (Again in full disclosure, before I requested a copy, I already knew I would like it. I had a early preview).

I think pretty much everyone knows by now Scot McKnight’s contention that evangelicals equate the word “gospel” with the word “salvation.” Hence, according to McKnight, we evangelicals are really “soterians” not “evangelicals”. According to McKnight, the NT gospel should not and cannot be reduced to “our plan of salvation.”(39). Scot shows in King Jesus Gospel that the gospel according to the NT is best defined out of 1 Corinthian 15.  Here the Gospel is the telling of the whole Jesus Story as the completion of the Story of Israel, the lordship of Christ over the whole world. It is the summoning of people to respond to the completion of the promise to Israel in Jesus Christ as Lord.  Through the proclamation of the gospel, we are invited to enter into this grand work of God in history in Christ. Out of all this, we are saved and redeemed (here’s where salvation is part of the gospel but not to be equated with the gospel). Without the Story (of Israel), Scot says, there is no gospel (36). So Scot singularly does one thing in this book, he shows how “individual salvation” is part of the wider gospel. It is not the whole gospel. The salvation we as individuals receive is something we receive as we participate in the wider work of God in the world to bring in His Kingdom in and through Jesus Christ. Even this “personal” salvation is much bigger than “justification by faith” although it certainly includes that!

Scot does a good job unfurling this gospel as it appears in the Bible focusing on the apostle Paul’s 1 Cor 15, the four gospels themselves and the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts.  He gives his quick take (and it is a quick one) on how the gospel culture of the first three centuries turned into what we have now, a salvation culture obsessed with individual salvation and getting people out of hell into heaven. It is all nicely done

I think this is a landmark book because it summarizes and communicates the important issues of New Perspective, NT Wright and the Kingdom/Paul debate for everyday Christian life in a way the average adult Christian can grab hold of. That’s a feat! I have been trying to teach New Perspective on Paul, NT Wright on God’s “making all things right,” for years. I have been trying to teach how the gospel is not an either/or – kingdom or justification. It is bigger than both and includes both. This book does what I couldn’t do. My student’s light bulbs have been going on this quarter and they are using this book with elders in their churches.

Of course, if there is one lack here in McKnight’s book, it is the thin offering on ecclesiology at the end of the book (ch.10). To me, the redescribing of the gospel according to the New Testament changes how we gather as a people in the world. It changes the way we “proclaim the gospel” at Sunday gathering, “proclaim the gospel as witness in our everyday lives”, how we engage everyday life as the places where God is at work to complete His Mission, how we pray and how we inhabit the world in Mission, how people are baptized into the kingdom (we return to some of the ancient rites). It’s probably too much to ask, but the last chapter on “Creating a Gospel culture” leaves us asking for much more. But this is a short book. I chalk it up to that.

So, all this leaves me with the one question that headlines this blog post. Has the Gospel Coalition caved in all of this? These friends, who have taken on the name “Gospel” and sought a re-invigoration of it (“the gospel”) as “justification by faith,” seem largely absent in challenging McKnight’s book. There are some good reviews out there by Reformed types. Michael Horton, for instance basically argues (here) with Scot over the innocence of Luther and Calvin on the individualizing of salvation. He himself seems to fall into the trap of saying McKnight is marginalizing “salvation” as the forgiveness of sins (just like many seem to accuse NT Wright of). See McKnight’s response here. But Horton is a classical Reformed theologian. He’s not in the Gospel Coalition/Neo-Reformed camp. Where are the serious disagreements from the Gospel Coalition/Neo Reformed bloggers? Even Neo-Reformed blogger Trevin Wax seems to demure to McKnight by subordinating (unintentionally?) “salvation” into part of what God has accomplished in Christ’s Kingship over the world. Is this not what Trevin is saying when he says here “I see the announcement of 1 Corinthians 15 as the gospel presentation by which we are being saved.” But even aside from Trevin, where is John Piper, Al Mohler, or Don Carson in response to this book? (I couldn’t find reviews by them?) Why the silence?

So my question is: is this silence real? (I could have missed some reviews – please help me here) Or maybe, just maybe, has Scot McKnight done the impossible? Has Scot given us the bridge to bring together – the “NT Wright-ests” with the “John Piper-ites”? -  for a re-invigoration of the gospel of the Kingdom in our times? Is this what is happening? or am I hearing crickets chirping in “the Gospel Coalition camp? Just asking :)

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Filed under Ecclesiology,Missional Discipleship,Missional Ecclesiology,Neo-Reformed,Soteriology,Uncategorized 22 Comments

on August 31 2011

God’s Journey into the Far Country and Our Participation in It: My Last Post on the Incarnation

Warning: Academic theological discussion ahead. Read at own risk :) This post is my final post on the doctrine of the incarnation. It is dependent upon the prior two posts on the incarnation available by  just scrolling down.

Karl Barth, in his mammoth Church Dogmatics Vol IV 1 and 2, describes the Father’s sending of the Son into the world with the words “The Way of the Son Into the Far Country.” Barth characterizes the “sending” of the Son as going the way of “the prodigal son” of Jesus’ parable of the same name. The prodigal son traveled off into “the far country” (Luke 15:13) where he travels into the depths of debauchery and sin. In Jesus, the Son takes the same journey taking on the sin and the calamity of the prodigal son himself. And yet the Son of God carries out this journey not in disobedience to the Father but in total obedience. This crossing over into the far country is radical, risky, excessive and prodigal. It is the very nature of the incarnation. And Barth recounts it all in par 59 and 64 of Vol IV. Using “prodigal” in this way, I contend the two prior positions on the incarnation fail to hold onto the prodigal nature of the sending of the Son by the Father. For sure, I applaud each position for what each one accomplishes. Yet in each case the position is not prodigal enough.

And so in the case of position 1 – the Incarnation, as singular event – the incarnation reveals the majesty and all sufficiency of Christ as fully God, one with the Trinity. But it fails to account for the prodigal nature of the incarnation: that in the sending of the Son, God has not just “dipped his toe in the water,” He (the transcendent God) has entered fully into history, to dwell among us, in culture, to altar the course of history, to work redemption in and through history.

In the case of position 2, the Incarnation, as the way into God’s Kingdom, the position describes how in Jesus Christ we see what it is to be fully human. And yet this position too fails to account for the prodigal nature of the incarnation because, again, in Christ the almighty transcendent God (Borg is basically a panentheist) scandalously crosses all boundaries to enter human history, be vulnerable, become one of us, get involved and work for His Mission in the world.

We need therefore a third position (I might call it a fourth position implying we must get beyond these modernist categories – a “third way” often tries to mediate instead of go beyond) to embrace the prodigal nature of the Triune Sending of the Son into the Far Country.  Here goes my take on a position no. 3.

Position 3.) The Incarnation Continues Christ’s Presence Into The World – The Invitation to Join in the Journey Into the Far Country

In position 3, the incarnation refers to the coming of the Son into world to be with/among us in Jesus Christ, his life, death, and resurrection. Yet, the incarnation does not end there. Christ’s presence is continued into the world via a people as the participants in the Triune God’s Mission in the world. The incarnation therefore is more than the divine Son worshiped, or the way of Jesus of Nazareth exemplified or even the God ordained model of engaging our world with the gospel. It is the bringing of Christ’s very presence as Lord into the world.  Via being “his body” in the world, the church brings Christ’s presence into the world and joins in with the Triune God’s movement in the world for His mission.

The Great Commission text of Matt 28 :18 illustrates the nature of this extension of Christ’s presence beyond the historical life of Jesus on earth. Here, Jesus says “all authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me” alluding to His cosmic rule over all creation begun at the ascension. Jesus is now Lord.  Yet he also says “and lo, I am with you even unto the end of the age” aluding to the “with-ness” presence of the incarnation continuing with the church unto the end of the age. The two movements work together to bring God’s Kingdom in. Christ is ruling over the whole earth bring in the Kingdom (1 Cor 15:25). Yet He is “with” His church making His presence manifest. This two fold movement is  a continuation of the work of the Triune God in the world to bring about the redemption of the world. It says that the church, in a unique way participates (is caught up) in the Triune God’s work in history via the Son through the Spirit.

The incarnation is therefore an invitation into the journey into the far country. The church, as His body, is the joining in with the Sent One into the world on the Mission God has set into motion.

How does this happen? A few comments.

There are practices that have been given to the church from Christ via the apostles wherein Christ’s presence is made manifest in the world by the Holy Spirit. In each case Christ’s Lordship, the Kingdom is made manifest/breaks in. In each case this two fold work is evident. Practices like i.) Conflict resolution/discernment where He promises to be there “in the midst of them” yet also reveals that this is an act of Christ’s rule from on high – “whatever you bound on earth shall be bound in heaven.” Matt 18:15-20 ii.) The Ministry of the Fivefold Giftings Eph 4 where Christ gives gifts from his ascended rule (8-10) and in so doing His very authority becomes fully present in His church (the fullness of Christ v 13). iii.) Serving the poor (Matt 25) where Christ says in the context of His rule (vs31) that He has been present in the hungry and the naked (v35-36). iv.) The inhabiting of a context and proclaiming the gospel (Luke 10) where the missionary both proclaims the Kingdom (vs 9) and in so doing brings the very presence of Christ into the midst (vs. 16). v.) the Eucharist where historically the church has understood Christ’s presence (Luke 24:30-31) but also understood this as the Lord’s supper where He reigns (and judges 1 Cor 11:23-33).

Everyone of these practices is not only carried out by the church but also into the world. We practice reconciliation in the church to extend this same reconciliation into the world. We eat together in Eucharist and to extend this hospitality in the meals we share inthe world. We serve the poor in our life together as church so as to recognize and serve the poor in the neighborhood. We proclaim the good news in the gathering in order to proclaim it into every area of life we inhabit in the world. Each time we do, Christ’s presence is manifest bringing into visibility the Kingdom of God in our midst in the world.

All of this is why Paul calls the church “the body of Christ” the ultimate symbolic expression of what it means to be and extend the presence of Christ physically into the world.   As we inhabit the world under His Lordship, we become through the Spirit His enfleshed body, joining together with what He is doing in the world as the Sent One of the Father. We are joining in with His work unto the end of the age. This is the radical and prodigal nature of the incarnation.

This presence is never territorial because this presence is incarnational. In that the incarnation is by its nature a giving up of power, a vulnerable, humble, non-violent, in service to entrance into every context (Phil 2:3-16), there can be no territorial-ness to this way of engaging culture. Any hint of taking a position of power and/or superiority is a denial of the incarnation and the presence of Christ will not be there.

This Presence is not just individualist, it shapes the very social contexts in which we live. And so as we bring hospitality, the gospel, reconciliation, healing into our neighborhoods, there is a social as well as personal transformation that takes place. There is a realignment of economics and social relations that is the direct implications of the eating the Lord’s Supper together. In Mark 10 this claim is made explicitly by Christ as he talks about the wealthy entering the Kingdom. According to this text,  there will be a total rearrangement of the way we live in terms of family, our money and even the place where we live. For following Jesus means “leaving everything.” But in so doing this is not a complete removal from life and culture, it is a reordering out of it in Christ. And so Jesus says “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fieklds, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:28-30). To then follow Christ, to bring his presence into a place, is disruptive and reordering. The existing culture is not disgarded nor disregarded. It is transformed via our inhabitance in a incarnational humble vulnerable way. It is not colonialist, because each time the “body” inhabits a place, the church as His body itself is transformed, “converted” in the words of Darrell Guder, into another manifestation of redeemed culture. It never looks the same twice.

Position 3 finds expression when Leslie Newbigin says “… there is a society (the church) in which the life of the crucifed and risen Jesus lives on and his mission continues, not only as proclamation of the kingdom but as the presence of the kingdom in the form of (His) death and resurrection.” Open Secret p.52, or Hans VonBalthasar says the church is “Christ’s body, an extension, a communication, a partaking in the personality of Christ.” (Explorations in Theology II 145), or by me  when I say  “The church as Christ’s social body always lives among the world and what God is doing. It is the extension of the Incarnate Christ sent by the father to join in with what He is already doing by the Spirit. As such the church is inextricably part of the Triune mission already ongoing.” (End of Evangelicalism p. 170)

Witness and Revolution Made Possible

There’s a revolution here in position No. 3 (what Yoder called the Original Revolution). It is the way of humbly inhabiting our neighborhoods with the power of the gospel that shapes us into His rule right here, right now right where we live and invites the world along for the ride. It’s underground. It’s subversive of the powers. It is allowing God through us to bring the very presence of Christ into our neigborhoods. When we do, we join in with Christ in the journey into the Far Country.

And so I’ve seen simple but amazing things happen when Christians enter the world in these ways. When doing reconciliation between a member of our church and his landlord, when someone has proclaimed the gospel into someone’s life a third place, when people open up the hospitality of Jesus in their homes, when exercising their spiritual gifts in context, when serving the poor with Christ’s presence. Unfortunately, I suspect these experiences are too rare because we are caught up in the business of life. We simply can’t imagine that Jesus actually comes wherever we enter these simple but prodigal practices.

Comments? Does this way of understanding the incarnation make sense? It’s got a Catholic (sacramental) edge to it? Is that problematic? What dangers do you see in this articulation of the incarnation? I listed 5 of these practices from Scripture but I believe there are more. Any suggestions?

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*ADD ON Ecclesiological Implications

The ecclesiological implications of this 3rd view of the incarnation are enormous. For instance, the 1st view of the incarnation is very much at home within evangelicalism and especially mega-church evangelicalism. The 2nd is most at home in N American protestant liberalism.  These are both expressions of the modernist Christendom form of church. The 3rd view of incarnation however is largely undercut by Christendom. The two most obvious examples of Christendom church, the medieval version of Roman Catholicism and the American modern evangelical mega-church, prove this point. In Medieval Catholicism the practices I speak of are institutionalized as sacraments (eucharist, reconciliation, proclamation of the gospel,  and ordination – read Yoder’s Fullness of Christ for an account of how the church morphed from the 5 fold ministry). They turn inward and become the property of hierarchy. They no longer shape a people into Christ’s presence for the world – God’s Mission. Likewise today’s evangelical megachurch undercuts these practices. Reconciliation/conflict management is done from top down and the process of communal discernment is arbitered away. The Eucharist is largely packaged to individuals in large crowds and the practice of mutual sharing, discerning the body is largely undone. The 5-fold ministry is truncated by a single CEO mega personality. Even the serving of the poor is turned often into a program to be done one night a week (taking out the relational presence).

In my opinion therefore, this third view of the incarnation requires vibrant communities of people to inhabit local places/neighborhoods and relationally engage their contexts with all the practices of the presence of the Jesus Christ.

Filed under Incarnational,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology 23 Comments

on August 29 2011

The Incarnation: Some Clarifications on An Abused Term: Post #2 Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren

Warning: Academic theological discussion ahead. Read at own risk :)

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In my last post, I complained that the doctrine of  the incarnation had gotten a bad rap lately. For me, talk of “the incarnation” has become confused. Yet I think it is an important doctrine – especially for the missional church movement. And so last week I began a series of three posts on the incarnation to hopefully clear up some confusions and put forth a proposal. Post Number One in this series described the doctrine of the incarnation, the debate surrounding it within missional circles, and then the first of three positions ( as I see it) on the incarnation. I labeled the first position the “incarnation as singular event.” I pegged this position as the one ascribed to by John Starke at the Gospel Coalition (I think John’s position is representative of the Gospel Coalition as a whole) and people like Halden Doerge. Ironically, I see the “the Gospel Coalition” and Halden in the same camp although admittedly coming from different theological starting points.

Today, I’d like to describe a second position on the incarnation. It is equally as popular and finds its strongest advocates among the Emergent crowd along with people like Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren. It understands the incarnation primarily as God providing “the Way into the Father’s Kingdom.”

2.) The Incarnation as the Way Into the Father’s Kingdom

People like  Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren alert us (rightfully I think) to the problem within position 1.): the Incarnation as Singular Event. They say that such a position has the effect of making Jesus irrelevant for the daily challenges we face in our society. The Incarnation as Singular Event tends to focus intensely on the “event” of salvation in the individual as initiated in an already accomplished and completed work of Christ in the past. This has the effect of dis-enculturating the work of Christ, extracting salvation out of culture. So, paraphrasing the words of Brian McLaren, this view of Jesus says that “He is not the one who saves from poverty, captivity, blindness, or oppression” even though Jesus uses these very words to describe His mission (Luke 4:18-21). (NKoC  2010 p.128). This is a Jesus detached from the suffering world and the pains of our daily existence.

And so, as has become so popular these past twenty-five years (actually more like 100 years), people like Borg and McLaren (and many others) push us toward the gospels (as opposed to Paul) and the life of Jesus as the clue to understanding the incarnation, the mission of the Son and who He is. Here we see that Jesus is the revealer of God “not only in his teaching … but in his very way of being.”(Borg Jesus a New Vision 191). Jesus is a model for discipleship. Jesus modeled what it was like to live life in the Spirit, in the very center of God’s love for the world. He led us into life with the Father in His Kingdom and taught us how to always be engaging culture as God’s instrument to bring transformation for God’s purposes in the world. There is a new Kingdom of God at work here and Jesus teaches us how to live in it and asks us to go teach others to do the same (McLaren Secret Message p.75).

People like Borg. McLaren, and the Emergent church in general do a marvelous job of capturing this aspect of what God has done in Jesus Christ for the world. We see how God has entered into our world via full humanity, and has shown us the way to truly live in relationship with God and His coming Kingdom. As a human, Jesus shows us that God’s salvation embraces the whole of the world for a transformation that begins now (not just a future). We see in Christ how to live in the Spirit and be used to accomplish miraculous things God has done in and through Jesus (John 16:22).

This view of the incarnation puts the focus on discipleship. It puts the emphasis of following Jesus because to follow Him “is to be like him, to take seriously what he took seriously.” (pg 17 Jesus a New Vision Borg).  Jesus lived life to the fullest in God’s Kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit and shows us how to do the same. In Him, we become his disciples for the transformation of the world.

My Assessment

And so I applaud and agree this view of the incarnation. It focuses on the humanity of Christ and thereby enables us to see the way God has offered all of us “a way” to enter into His life. It draws us into full and earnest discipleship. People like Brian McLaren, Mark Scandrette and Marcus Borg have opened up (in their popular writings) the fullness of the incarnation in ways rarely accessible in the past to Christians in N America.

Nonetheless, in my view, this position tends to not go far enough because it fails to present the disruptive and radical nature of the incarnation as God’s incursion into the world for the salvation of the world.  In Christ, a victory has been decisively won for the world and that victory, via Jesus Christ, has entered into the world. We go therefore into the world as servants ushering in a unique victory, a new order in Christ. His rule and transforming work has invaded the world. This position, in my view, errs towards seeing Jesus as a Way into God’s Kingdom apart from Jesus also being the means.

And so, sometimes, when I hear some teachings about “the way of Jesus” within Emergent circles I worry we are putting forth a way of life that can turn into moralism or legalism. “This is what disciples of Jesus do!” Yet we are not being invited into the dynamic rule of Jesus as Lord and His victory over the powers. I agree much with the Emergent authors that this is a rich way of love and justice in God’s Kingdom. Yet devoid of the inbreaking power of Christ’s rule via the Spirit, will this not devolve into another moralistic ideal?  Jesus is not only “the way,” He’s the victor, the King, the One who is bringing in His Kingdom through a people who submit to and affirm in life and practice that “Jesus is Lord.” So, as I see it, there’s a backing off off here that creates a less radical, less prodigal gospel. What say you? Have I got this right? Does Borg do this? Does even Brian McLaren border on this error?

I suggest that the “Incarnation as the Way into the Father’s Kingdom” position too often domesticates the incarnation into a way to be followed as opposed to a new order that has begun. This rule is intrusive and radical because God in Christ, as fully God, comes into the world humbly to disrupt the world and bring forth His Kingdom. This often ends up fudging  on the divinity of Christ. Perhaps this is why their proposals cannot be radical enough for me to describe the dynamic of the incarnation for our lives today.

For sure Borg tells us that this Jesus invites us into the supernatural, that God truly is at work in the world. Borg decries the enlightenment for striping our world of the Spirit and God’s work in the world. He invites us into the fullness of God’s Kingdom and what God is doing to transform the world. He draws us into the experience of a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit that draws us into His work in the world.  All this is great!! Yet, Borg in the end wants to deny the divinity of the Son (See for example Jesus a New Vision, p. 191). By doing this, I contend, his portrayal of Jesus doesn’t match the prodigal nature of the radical incursion that is God coming to us in the Son in Jesus Christ. His version of Christianity is not radical enough.

What say you? Have I been too harsh on Borg? Have I wrongly associated Brian McL in the same camp as Borg?

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In the next post, I propose a third approach to the incarnation that goes beyond both the the Incarnation as Singular Event and the Incarnation as the Way into the Father’s Kingdom.

Filed under Incarnational,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Theology 13 Comments

on August 23 2011

The Incarnation: Some Clarifications on an Abused Term – Post#1

Warning: Academic theological discussion ahead. Read at own risk :)

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The word “Incarnation” means “take on flesh.” The word itself is not used in the NT but rather is a doctrine of the church that describes for us that God has become human in Christ and the implications of that for our lives as Christians. The task of this doctrine has always been to not only describe how Jesus is both God and human (the metaphysics) but also to explore the implications of this reality for salvation, the church and the consummation of all history. The incarnation is one of the most central doctrines in all of church history.

Recently the doctrine of the incarnation has been the subject of some blog fire. Over here in this post we have John Starke of the Gospel Coalition upset with the way some “missional practicioners” (like Alan Hirsch) use the doctrine to describe the ways and means of contextualizing the gospel. Over here in this post, Halden Doerge complains about the way I use the doctrine to defend the idea of “inhabiting place”, what he perceives to be, a territorial practice of church. Of course, I find myself in agreement with much of what these folk say- including and especially Alan Hirsch. Yet, in each case I believe that both the NT and the history of the church demand we push the doctrine further than any of these three individuals are willing to do. In short, Jon Starke, Halden Doerge and even Alan Hirsch are not radical enough. From where I sit, they do not take the incarnation seriously enough to carry out the full implications of it into our life, salvation and cultural engagement.

Admittedly, this is a bold statement, so allow me explain by trying to diagram their positions in terms of 2 positions: Position 1. Incarnation as Singular Event, and Position 2, Incarnation as the Way Into God’s Kingdom. Then I want to argue for a 3rd Position which applauds the first 2 positions but takes them further by arguing for Incarnation as Extending Christ’s Presence in and for the World. Today, I’ll start with position 1.

1.)The Incarnation as Singular Event. Starke wants to confine the doctrine of the incarnation to the one time hypostatic union in Jesus Christ. For him, it is this past event of God the Son entering the world and becoming human 2000 years ago that we can properly refer to as incarnation. Starke contends that we must be careful in extending the incarnation into history via the church’s work. For that matter, one must be careful to not improperly extend the incarnation as a principle to be applied to the church’s engagement with culture and context.

To expand on this view a little bit, we might say that this view of the incarnation is punctiliar. God breaks into history at a point in history. God, the Son, invades creation in Jesus Christ and then ascends back to heaven having completed His work for the whole world. The church in the present looks to this event in the past and proclaims it’s salvific significance to all individuals who might by faith enter into what God has done (and/or receive its merits).

This version of incarnation is common among evangelicals. It is heavily confident in the preaching of the church to proclaim the good news across time and place. There is a stream of this thinking in the early dialectic Barthians. There is also a related version of this thinking in the “new apocalypticists” who emphasize that God in Christ was an apocalyptic “event” in discontinuity with all history bringing salvation over against all previous cultural forces at work. Christ comes anew each time he brings His salvation and therefore cannot be extended from within current social structures, places or habitats. Christ comes over against all structures instead of by entering into them. In some ways, the post-Bultmanians of the 70’s, the existentialists following in the wake of Kierkegaard, as well as apocalyptic NT scholars like J. Louis Martyn fall into this category.  Nathan Kerr, drawing from various other sources, can fall into this stream at times, and of course it often seems that Halden Doerge falls into this camp

My Assessment

I agree with certain aspects of this view of the incarnation. For instance I applaud the attempt to protect the uniqueness of the one time incarnation in Christ in terms of his divinity as well as his humanity and the work he accomplished during his death and resurrection. I affirm that.

However, I fear that in an attempt to protect the uniqueness and divinity of Christ these folk haven’t taken the incarnation to its full intent as revealed in Scripture, history and the church. For God came into human life in Christ to bring new creation, reconciliation, and righteousness (2 Cor 5 17ff..) These are social realities (altho this includes the personal as well). And yet this view of incarnation tends to over-individualize salvation (something the Reformation often tends to do in its later post-medieval developments). For these folk, Jesus comes to us in the proclaimed message to individuals. There is a confidence in preaching as universal language. We do not need a social contextualized en-culturated manifestation of the salvation God has birthed in the world in order to witness to who Christ is and what he has done. But, I firmly believe, that what has been set loose in the incarnation is profoundly social/en-culturated in its manifestation.

I disagree with those that say what God has done in Christ is discontinuous (in the extreme apocalyptic sense) with history and culture. I think this defies the incarnation. The reality is that God does something new or discontinuous, but this also has continuity with who God is, what He has done in the past (in OT) and his work in and among the socialness of human life. Christ comes into history in ways continuous with the ongoing history of God with Israel. In the incarnation, He comes and works within a social reality to manifest His redemption for the whole world. This invasion into history, culture and human life sets off a string of continuous “events” which continue the presence of Christ into the world socially. The church in inherently is and must be “incarnational.”

And so I profoundly disagree with those who limit the incarnation to the past “event” of Jesus Christ alone. God in Christ has entered fully into history. It is not singularly punctiliar (which borderlines on a Nestorian Christological error), Rather, in weakness and vulnerability, Christ revealed God in the hiddeness of the incarnation. He inaugurated the Kingdom and Christ’s presence was extended into the world via the birthing of a people to participate in the new Reign He is bringing for the whole world. This “church” was given the very presence of Christ by the Spirit to witness to the coming Kingdom inaugurated in and through the work of Christ by God the Father through the Spirit. Via this participation “in Christ,” the church is caught up in, and participates in the Triune work of God for the whole world.

So in a very real way, the incarnation did not end with Jesus ascension. Its effects are extended into history until he returns. We, through participation “in Christ” actualize His real presence, his dynamic rule into space and time, contexts, local places we I habit for the Kingdom. This is not territorial  (as Halden accuses me of) because, just as God the Son did not enter human history through domination, so Christ’s presence will be and can only be made manifest in us as we vulnerably, humbly give up all power to Him and serve the world. Of course, WE MUST BE CAREFUL to MAINTAIN THE INTEGRITY OF THE INCARNATION so that Jesus’ presence in us does not become colonialist. Nonetheless, just as God came in Christ for the very reason of revealing Himself in ways which would not dominate, so we too are called to enter the world “incarnationally” under the same modus.

For me then, in closing, Starke, Doerge and even Hirsch do not take the incarnation radically enough. The incarnation is not God coming in for a one time landing, to do the things He needs to do and then jettison back out. Instead, the transcendent God has entered into history in a new way in Jesus Christ, and does not leave us, but rather extends His very presence into the world via His people in the world. The implications of this are enormous for the church’s witness, for the church’s participation in the mission of the Triune God. I will deal with all this in my third post on incarnation!

Til then, what do you think. What are the inadequacies of  current views on the “incarnation”?

Filed under Incarnational,Missional,Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Theology 22 Comments

on June 21 2011

James MacDonald’s Lost Vision For the Body of Christ?

One should be careful in criticizing another pastor, especially one in the neighborhood (we both serve in the Northwest suburbs). So I am engaging James MacDonald – not criticizing him – because he invites engagement in his post provocatively titled Congregational Form of Government is From Satan. This post caused a good bloga-stir last week. Like a grenade thrown into the room, it cleared the debris and asked the core questions “Wherein lies authority in the church? How is that authority exercised?” Pastor James answered by arguing that the authority of Christ in His church is best carried out in a hierarchy composed of a senior pastor surrounded by a group of elders, the form of church government otherwise known as “elder rule.”

I’m not much interested in the argument for “elder rule” over congregational forms of church government. Instead, I think pastor James’ post reveals much about his attitudes and understandings of what it means to be body of Christ in N America, and serve that body as a pastor. “Elder rule” is certainly one valid form of church government that has its roots in the Majesterial Reformation. It has made sense in many cultural contexts related to Christendom over the past 500 years. What I am more concerned about however in this post is the apparent loss of a very important part of the NT vision of the local body of Christ. My big question is – are we seeing a loss of vision for the active living organic body of Christ in the world. I offer 3 questions/observations.

1.) Is there Submission of the Leader(s) to the Body (in this post)? Jesus said “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first must be the slave of all. Because the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-45. The NT church built its understanding of church leadership upon these words. This is why the NT uses the term diakonia (servant, slave) far more than any other term to describe leadership in the church. I take these words of Jesus to be an overthrow of all authoritarian leadership in the church. Instead we pastors are to be yielding, serving the local Body in submission to each other out of mutual submission to Jesus as our Lord and reigning King. We are to trust together that God the Holy Spirit is working in the arena of His people where Jesus is Lord (1 Cor 12). The pastor, prophet, teacher, even apostle or elder always serves in this pattern. I could go on how this pattern is evident everywhere in the NT but instead I refer you to chapter 3 of my 2005 book The Great Giveaway.

What I hear in pastor James’ post is an account of church government that puts one man (or woman?) in charge in a top-down authority alongside a set of elders as support. This form of church government, he says, “frees the pastor from the tyranny of the untrained and the untrainable.” Huh? Where then is the submission of the pastors to the body as servants one to another? To me, the servant nature of leadership, driven by the mutual submission one to another in reverence to Christ is the very foundation of church life (Eph 5:20). How does the pastor lead in submission to the body with a statement like this? How are the elders chosen from among several thousand people church except as they are handpicked by the pastoral authority? How does this form of government not become a single personality driven church where the body has little or no voice?

When we give up the submission of the pastor to the body, I suggest we have lost Christ’s vision of the body of Christ. Has pastor James lost this vision of the body of Christ?

2.) Is There a Body of Christ Active Here in Discerning the Future? In Matt 18:15-20 Christ gives us an account of discernment (“binding and loosing” is a Rabbinic term for discerning disagreements and conflicts). Here the community of Christ, from ground up, discerns disagreements and sin among themselves by going to each other and speaking truth and confessing in love.  From these on the ground conflicts we see key issues in the church rising up to communal wide discernment. Together we gather and a council forms, and we discern together (1 Cor 2:16) the mind of Christ. We engage new territory for the gospel together. Pastor James seems to think all division is bad.  It is “good people being held hostage to bad people.” On the contrary, I suggest, conflict is ground zero for moving the church into mission (see this link here).

This way of being a people is admittedly untidy, often inefficient (although I don’t think it needs to be). But frankly, this is (one of the places) where Christ inhabits the church (“there am I with you”)and the future is discerned. But under “the elder rule,”as pastor James describes, it seems as if one man should dictate which way to go. The one senior pastor goes up to Mt Sinai, gets a word from the Lord, comes down and delivers from God the way we are to go. You as a parishioner can then decide to stay or go. I don’t think we should trust one man or a group of men (notice it’s mostly men) because I think any one man or woman is too narrowly constrained to see where God might take us. We need the body to discern, and as we engage new and different cultural challenges that we’ve never seen before, we need the body fully activated to discern. Admittedly this is impossible when you get over 200 people.

A top heavy organization run by “elder rule” naturally moves its people in and upward. The people are always looking to the one man and his elder rule for rulings on matters of “should we do this?” or “how do we reach these people, needs in our community?”  The community becomes inward focused and centered on a single voice who unilaterally drives the vision of the church. I believe a church loses its dynamism and its flexibility under these conditions. It is driven by one man’s vision for a single time and place. The body of Christ created in Christ by the Spirit for mission (John 20:23) becomes static. When this happens, churches run this way via “elder rule” have lost the vision for the active living body of Christ?

3.) Is There an Alive Body Engaging Fully in the Ministry of the Kingdom? 1 Cor 12, 14 give us a vision of the body of Christ functioning in all its gifts. Eph 4 shows how 5 gifts are prominent. This fully alive body is discussed in Rom 12 and elsewhere. It is called by the apostle Paul “the fullness of Christ” Eph 4:13. This is where the body comes to life to bring forth the fullness of life in Christ.

Where does this full participation in the body of Christ take place in a church governed by “the elder rule” polity he proposes. For pastor James, the “priesthood of all believers” refers to the protestant denial of any mediator between the individual and God. He grieves the “eldership of all believers” where each person, regardless of training,” considers their thoughts about the future to be of equivalent value” (to those with training?) Huh? Again?

The true pneumatocracy of the church relies on the plurality of the gifts all recognized within the body. Is there a place for this in James McDonald’s “elder rule”? Too often, in an “elder rule” church, I fear “gifts” and “gift inventories” turn into another organizing matrix to train volunteers to sustain a top heavy organization. The gifts become internally focused. They are not mutual participants in what God is doing in the church and the church in the world. This to me is the real tragedy of the lost vision of the body of Christ this kind of church polity represents. You tell me, have I missed something?

Conclusion

In summary my three concerns can put in the following three statements for discussion.

A. The Elder Rule form of church government (as outlined above) is prone to work for Christians who want minimal involvement in church life and want to be spoon-fed Scriptural teaching/spiritual upliftment as a regular product on Sunday morning Yes? No?

B. The Elder Rule form of church government (as outlined above) is prone to encourage pastors to function as dictators versus participants in the flowing life of God’s Kingdom at work in the living Body of Christ. Yes? No?

C. The Elder Rule form of church government does not work to develop a dynamic flexible externally focused social body that can engage new cultural challenges easily (without first getting approval from the hierarchy) Yes? No?

To those who see these things regularly occur in this form of church, who seriously wonder if there is any other way to be church, I encourage you to read this link, and then look for a missional community being birthed in a neighborhood near you.

OK, thanks to pastor James MacDonald for spurring on the conversation. That’s it for now … just putting all these questions out there … over and out …

Filed under Missional Ecclesiology,Missional Leadership 43 Comments

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