Comments on: Frank Viola/David Fitch on Missiology’s Relationship to Ecclesiology

By: len

len — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:53:32 +0000

JM, Amos Yong and others have been doing some good work in this area. Newbigin is right that we need a solid Trinitarian foundation, and part of that foundation is recognizing the prevenience of the Spirit going before us in the world. Yong and others take off on this, arguing for a Spirit-Christology to replace the monomodalism we tend to in practice. See this post.. http://nextreformation.com/?p=2364

By: David Fitch

David Fitch — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:07:04 +0000

Andrew,
Yes, I think upon reading that sentence, it needs clarification. What I’m taking aim at there is the tendency to build a church around a single issue that is happening in a culture. Building a church around men and their problems thus organizing a “church for real men,” or a church for motorcyclists who have lives built around motorcycle gangs and thus organizing a “motorcycle church.” A church for alcoholics or a church for porn addicts. The problem with this kind of contextualization is that we build it around a particular cultural issue or cultural problem and exalt the issue as the chief concern instead of bringing it into the orbit of our life as a redeemed people. Should we attract people into church based upon hip hop music? It can be part of our church but should we center a church around it? i.e. hip hip church? I think even the triple X church that has been getting so much press lately has some dangers. Sex can only be properly ordered as it is set in the orbit of the whole of life to be lived as God’s people. Thus we shouldn’t have a triple XXX church but a church that inhabits and reclaims all sinners of which there might be porn addicts. This gets back to my alcoholics anonymous example in the post.
Now for sure we are to minister to each one of these people groups, and/or to each one of these hurting people, but we have to reject that life is about riding motorcycles, or that life is only about sex. Real contextualization is when we inhabit a community, live among a hurting community and seek to redeem all of its culture, piece by piece, redeeming some of it, rejecting othe parts. The other kind of contextualziation takes less time, and seems easy in terms of contextualization.

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:26:53 +0000

If you have a moment, could you help me understand:

“But it is never as simple as the cheap modernist contextualization where we go into a context and discern where the hurts are and design a church and translate the gospel message in a way that would meet these needs.”

I grew up in an attractional model of church, and now am in a wonderful community church. If I hadn’t read your blog and I was describing our church to you, I would say with great energy and passion that I was excited that our church is “in the context, understanding of the hurts and needs of the community, and presenting the gospel in a way that is understood and grasped.” Maybe I have been overly accepting of this vision/model without looking critically; why should I be questioning this?

By: JMorrow

JMorrow — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:27:37 +0000

So if I’m understanding correctly, Hauerwas isn’t making Ecclesiology an exhaustive category for Missio Dei. If so I agree, and find a healthy dose of epistemological humility in that approach. I’m also wondering if Hauerwas (or those in his ilk) would go so far as to say that neither is missiology an exhaustive category for Missio Dei? Missiology as a term seems to relate more to the Church’s own understanding of how it pursues the Missio Dei. I don’t know enough to go that far though.

As someone who was raised outside an explicitly Christian community, and interacts socially with non-Christians, I think your missiology ~ ecclesiology formula best addresses a fundamental question Non Christians have: Why be a part of the Church? For most of them, they see the Church’s movements toward social justice and perennial acts of kindness as admirable, but also wholly achievable outside the Church bounds. “Why buy the cow, when you get the milk for free.” right? Because many of them see the Church as this unnecessary middle man in their pursuit of “doing Good”. To continue the analogy, equating missiology and ecclesiology says to me, “You may think what you’re drinking is milk, but its really ‘dairy product,’ come let me show you that you only get real milk from a real cow.”

By: davidfitch

davidfitch — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:20:39 +0000

JMorrow
I’ll throw this out, another Hauerwasianism,
Hauerwas says, it is not that church is the only place Jesus is at work. It is just that we know for sure that Jesus is at work here (in the church) from which we can then go out from here and see Him clearly at work elsewhere.
We get a clear interpretive ability to see God through Jesus Christ via the Scriptures, the telling and discerning of the wor of the Spirit as a people committed under His Lordship, and “trained to see” via worship. Out of this space, we enter the world where we affirm God is truly at work, His Mission. We are now equipped to see Him in ways we couldn’t before.
In no way is the Missio Dei denied in the world, the church becomes the means which enables us to thereby participate it.
Do you buy this?

By: JMorrow

JMorrow — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:10:11 +0000

Interesting dialogue. I’m more partial to the “Missiology is Ecclesiology and vice versa” formulation. My main reason being that it helps the body of believers throughout church institutions to think of their work as more consequential to the Kingdom. Thus the hope that they’ll quit sweating the inconsequential stuff and take their role in God’s mission more seriously.

But I wonder about the place in these formulas for defining the ecclesia outside institutional settings. Does the ecclesia include those who might not be known to us but are indeed known to God? Does the ecclesia include those who wrestle with the Gospel outside the Church institution? Even if we cannot consider them the ecclesia, can we really say God is not doing mission with them? Maybe I’m existentializing or bringing in that old modernist “anonymous Christian” thing. But I’m fearful of God’s mission getting swallowed up in just what the institutional Church is doing, because sometimes frankly were not doing as much as we think we are. Anyone have a thought on this?

By: Ben Sternke

Ben Sternke — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:19:42 +0000

len, Newbigin’s formulation is definitely helpful.

Although I might argue that the conversation NEEDS to drift to ecclesiology in order to counteract the church growth stuff. I agree that many so-called “missional” approaches are church growth strategies with new dresses on, but what we need to refute some of it is a robust dialogue about the what the church really is (ecclesiology). In other words, I don’t think church growth theories would survive a strong ecclesiology. I also don’t think missional theology will survive without a strong ecclesiology.

I think the conversation drifts to ecclesiology because it’s an essential piece of the missional puzzle.

By: len

len — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:31:40 +0000

Ben, maybe Newbigins classic formulation helps: the church is a sign, instrument and foretaste of the kingdom. Secondly, I think we have to continually resist the tendency to make mission ecclesiocentric rather than theocentric. Alan Roxburgh continues to make this point that so much of the conversation drifts to ecclesiology, betraying that we are still all about church growth though we cloak it in missional language.

By: Ben Sternke

Ben Sternke — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:17:15 +0000

Oops posted too soon – to finish my thought…

What if the church is both the expression of AND the instrument of God’s purpose in creation? This comes very close to what you seem to be saying when you affirm that missiology IS ecclesiology and vice versa.

I agree that any formulation that seeks to put God’s mission “ahead of” or “prior to” the church is problematic, in that the church always ends up being provisional and/or optional.

By: Ben Sternke

Ben Sternke — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:07:24 +0000

Maybe part of the issue is whether the church is an ontological reality or simply a convenient way to organize people into God’s mission.

Is the church to be primarily understood as the instrument through which God will accomplish his purpose in creation, or rather the expression of that purpose itself?

Is the church here to work for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation, or is the church itself the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation?

If the church in the instrument of God’s purpose, then we understand it primarily in functional terms; what it does.

But if we understand the church as itself the expression of God’s purpose, we look at the church in ontological terms; what it is.

These questions are discussed in Simon Chan’s book Liturgical Theology, which I highly recommend.

In the end, it would seem that if you affirm the ontology, you get the function, but if you only affirm the function, the church becomes completely dispensable as an ontological reality.