| November 16 2003 at 1:39 PM | Johan (no login) |
| BOOKS - last edited August 5, 2004
(I'll add some quotations further down this message thread.)
Postmission: World Mission by a Postmodern Generation, ed. by Richard Tiplady. Carlisle UK and Waynesboro, GA, USA: Paternoster Press, 2002. Fascinating symposium from a group of Generation-X mission activists. I'm resisting the temptation to put in long quotations, but please read this book and assess for yourself. I appreciated the insights into generational conflicts over the nature of leadership, lifestyle and behavioral standards, Biblical interpretation and authority, workaholism, and (especially important for my present project) the shift from a focus on individual salvation to a more social concept of salvation.
Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai by Vincent J. Donovan. London: SCM Press, 1982; recently reprinted both here and in the USA. If this book is right, we would change mission work drastically, along the lines of Paul (and of the Valiant Sixty), emphasizing seed-planting rather than institutional-church-planting. Donovan wants us to communicate Jesus the God-man in conversation with a community, answer their questions, give them an opportunity to discuss it, invite their acceptance or rejection … and then move on. No “building a church,” no setting up a “mission,” no confusion of evangelism with pastoral care, just go to the next place, as Paul did. “There is something definitely temporary about Paul’s missionary stay in any one place. There is something of a deadly permanence in ours.”
Mission and the Peace Witness, ed. Robert L. Ramseyer. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1979. Does anyone know of a more recent attempt to look directly at the relationship of social testimony to evangelism and missions from a peace church viewpoint? Despite the age of this book, many chapters sound very contemporary.
Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, David J. Bosch. Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books 1991. Maybe the single most important book on this list for both historical and theological perspectives on how discipleship and evangelical communication relate. In describing the evolution of missions, Bosch touches on how Christians have viewed the biblical mandate for evangelism, the role of the church in defining the universe within which evangelism operates, the role of ordinary people vs 'clergy' and missionaries, the changing definitions of 'missionaries' and 'mission' and the different ways Christians have viewed non-Christian religions.
Mission and Meaninglessness: The good news in a world of suffering and disorder, Peter Cotterell. London: SPCK, 1990. A humane and passionate book from an evangelical perspective, placing the mission imperative firmly in a setting of spiritual and social liberation. A thoughtful treatment of pluralism, too. For 'liberals' who have never explored thoughtful, reflective examples of evangelical writing, this would be a good introduction, perhaps an eye-opener.
The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, Brian D. McLaren. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. McLaren organizes this book into clusters of suggestions that he calls "strategies," although they're often simply seeds for discussion - ways of considering how to shake up, re-vision and re-establish the church after its enforced detoxification from the modern-era addiction to social advantage, social approval, and credibility based on rationalism. The books is written with a refreshing lack of postmodernist jargon and McLaren as author does not represent himself as being some kind of superior guru. (He draws on the thinking of Leonard Sweet without Sweet's irritating cleverness.)
Some of the chapters/"strategies": Maximize discontinuity; redefine your mission; practice systems thinking; trade up your traditions for tradition; design a new apologetic (see quotations below); learn a new rhetoric.
The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World. Robert E. Webber. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002. A sober, systematic but also positive assessment of the "younger evangelicals" whose turn it has become to shape the evangelical Christian movement. Webber summarizes the achievements and limitations, in turn, of the generation of leaders who arose from the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century, and the pragmatic generation of baby-boomers that followed them. In contrast with their concerns for orthodox doctrine and successful church marketing, Webber turns his sympathetic attention to the rising generation shaping today's most interesting developments in the evangelical world. So much of what they espouse seems to me to be amazingly consistent with historic Friends faith and practice - a desire to evangelize through the public witness of authentic Christ-centered communities where it is safe to be vulnerable and honest; a desire to live with economically poor people rather than ministering "to" them; servant leadership; a yearning for inclusive communities and for the real presence of God; a suspicion of formulas and hype.
There are also aspects of the "younger evangelicals" that some Friends might find awkward - but it is a creative awkwardness. For example, there is a desire to recover the ancient Christian sense of reverence and mystery through liturgical paths, and, sometimes, the use of candles and icons. On the other hand, some also enthusiastically appropriate contemporary digital technology for use in worship and teaching.
Webber summarizes these developments in the realm of theology, apologetics and discipleship; and then goes on to describe the practitioners and their churches, drawing liberally on their own stories, interviews, letters, and so on. A few examples follow below, in Quotations XII.
Permission Evangelism: When to Talk, When to Walk. Michael L. Simpson. Colorado Springs: NexGen, 2003. I almost didn't list this book because of its high jargon ratio and its (to my mind) overemphasis on the substitutionary atonement. However, the thesis of the book doesn't depend on these elements, and perhaps they gain the author credibility among those who most badly need to read about and adopt his approach to evangelism. His basic message is that effective evangelism is based on the three C's: compassion, consideration, and the Counselor (Holy Spirit). ("Success in evangelism is obedience to the Holy Spirit, not saving souls" - his italics.) It is that second C, consideration, that carries the unique message of the book - namely that we have no license to impose the Gospel on someone who hasn't asked to hear it. Much of the rest of the book simply involves building a level of communication and trust within which that permission is granted, and learning to recognize that permission when it is extended.
The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice. Kenneth Leech. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1992. There's a longer description below introducing several quotations from this book. (Quotations VII, March 28, 2004.) Here I'll just say that Leech does an amazing job packing historical, theological and devotional resources for Spirit-led activism all into one readable book.
On Kingdom Business: Transforming Missions through Entrepreneurial Strategies. Ed. Tetsunao Yamamori, Kenneth A. Eldred. Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2003. In one of the essays in this book, Wayne Grudem writes, "I believe the only long-term solution to world poverty is business." Other authors make equally ambitious claims about the effectiveness of business and entrepreneurship in reaching people with the Christian message - in ways that traditional missions and tent-making ministries cannot do. I was particularly impressed with this book's emphasis on ethics. Lots of case studies, including non-success stories.
The End of an Era: Africa and the Missionary, Elliott Kendall. London: SPCK, 1978. Documents the postcolonial shift in missions work in Africa, and urges churches to work cross-culturally on a church to church basis rather than through mission bodies that emphasize an attitude of "our work" and one way resource transfers.
Poverty and Christianity - Reflections at the Interface between Faith and Experience, Michael Taylor (Bernard Gilpin Pastoral Theology Lectures for 2000, University of Durham). London: SCM Press, 2000. Difficult reading, but important for understanding intelligent doubts about Christianity, and for doing the spiritual and intellectual work to prepare for faithful public witnessing in a terribly hurting world. Baptist minister and social theologian Michael Taylor writes, from a background of twelve years of leading the British agency Christian Aid: "My experience of famine in the Horn of Africa led me to re-examine my belief in a loving and powerful God. My experience of disastrous floods in Bangladesh led to doubts about the impact of Christianity and its claim to be redemptive and creative." If your faith remains intact after carefully reading this book, you will be a stronger evangelist.
Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World, Lee C. Camp. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003. Many of the ideas in this book are familiar to long-time Evangelicals for Social Action members, Sojourners readers, John Howard Yoder fans, etc. However, this book conveniently packages a comprehensive and unified outline of radical evangelical discipleship - that is, if Jesus is truly Lord, what are the implications for our prayer life, for the way we conduct church, and what are the implications for prayer, evangelism, and our political, social and economic behavior? For those who've never quite thought in those terms but are open to considering such ideas, Lee's book is an excellent introduction, one that respects the intelligence of the reader.
I've always believed, despite the evidence of the religion industry, that the more conservative our theology is, the more radical our practice ought to be. Lee Camp presents the case for this viewpoint. It is well-written but not always easy reading; on the other hand, for those who want to go even further than the text, there's a lot of additional material in the footnotes. I would love to try this book in an adult Sunday school class, one that was prepared to do some real work.
I've put some quotations below under the subtopic Quotations XI.
The "responses" below include suggestions from others, a few Web sites, additional books from me, and a series of quotations from various books, including many on the list above. See especially Quotations IV from Missions and the Peace Witness and Quotations V from Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.
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Johan
(no login) | Some Web-based resources | November 21 2003, 4:57 AM |
Specific to Quakers: - www.Quakerinfo.com (Bill Samuel's intelligently annotated Quaker news site, portal and discussion site, well-balanced and diverse with respect to book reviews and news, but also unusually sensitive to resources related to the Christian renewal among unprogrammed Friends).
- www.qhpress.org (You will find a number of historic Quaker texts, a catalog of historic Quaker texts that are currently available in print or online (with links to the online ones) whether published by Quaker Heritage Press or by someone else, Rosemary Moore's bibliography of early Quaker and anti-Quaker publications, and other interesting stuff. You can spend many hours here).
- Ben Richmond's 2002 Johnson Lecture (a very important document relating to the ground and motivation for evangelism, and to much else that is crucial to Friends).
- www.nonviolence.org/quaker/ (Martin Kelley's Quaker Ranter homepage, a welcome synthesis, refreshingly hard to categorize - see for yourself!)
- Quaker Outreach Forum (a lively and interesting forum whose participants are predominantly from the unprogrammed Friends communities; also, this forum's links section is great!).
Nominations for this list are welcome!
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Johan
(no login) | Web evangelism | February 4 2004, 2:40 AM |
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Nick
(no login) | Re: Books & other resources | November 21 2003, 6:28 AM |
RETROFUTURE
Rediscovering Our Roots, Recharting Our Routes
By Gerard Kelly; IVP
Part 1. Root Change: An Age of Social Transformation
1. No Small Change: In One Era & Out the Other
2. Homo Xapiens: The New Prototype
3. Seven Seas of Why: Charting Currents of Change
Part 2. Root Causes: The Five "Posts" of Generation X & Beyond
4. New Tools, New Rules: Postindustrial Technology
5. High-Cyber Diet: Living with Postindustrial Technology
6. Gutenberger & Fries: Postliterate Communications
7. Screenagers in Love: Living with Postliterate Communication
8. "This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours": The Postmodern Worldview
9. Reimagineering the Church: Living with the Postmodern Worldview
10. The Power of Globfrag: The Postimperial World Order
11. Picking Up the Pieces: Living in the Postimperial World
12. Gods R Us: Post-Christian Spirituality
13. Karmageddon: Living with Post-Christian Spirituality
Part 3. Root Growth: Resources for the Management of Change
14. Pillar to Post: The Impact of Change on the Church
15. Tsar Wars: New Models of Leadership
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Johan Maurer
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner | Re: Books & other resources (revised) | January 26 2004, 10:42 AM |
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Ron Stansell
(no login) | Re: Books & other resources (revised) | January 26 2004, 10:45 AM |
Have you seen Philip Jenkins' book entitled The Next Christendom from Oxford University Press? Or Andrew F. Walls book, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith. I have found both of them immensely valuable, the first to shake the western world into the reality of the global non-Western Christian movement, and the latter to help us understand what the developing churches are experiencing theologically. Both have significant social implications, but they also both implicitly acknowledge the transformational power of belief and the work of the Holy Spirit in individuals and social units. They don't so much focus upon the pain and suffering of the world (as real and as important as that is), but I think acknowledge how much the hope of the gospel has power.
Walls book is from Orbis, dated 1996. He is Scottish and has published several books since this one....
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Johan Maurer
(no login) | Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization | March 3 2004, 10:48 AM |
Here's the link to the Web resources of this committee: http://www.gospelcom.net/lcwe/ I'm constantly impressed by the thoughtfulness, gracious tone and urgency of the covenants produced by this committee's assemblies. Here are a few excerpts that seem directly related to what I'm trying to do with this "Evangelism and the Friends Testimonies" dialogue:Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand. But evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Saviour and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all who would follow him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with his new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into his Church and responsible service in the world. (I Cor. 15:3,4; Acts 2: 32-39; John 20:21; I Cor. 1:23; II Cor. 4:5; 5:11,20; Luke 14:25-33; Mark 8:34; Acts 2:40,47; Mark 10:43-45) - Lausanne Covenant (1974), 4
We pledge ourselves to seek a deeper unity in truth, worship, holiness and mission. We urge the development of regional and functional cooperation for the furtherance of the Church's mission, for strategic planning, for mutual encouragement, and for the sharing of resources and experience. - Lausanne Covenant (1974), 7
All of us are shocked by the poverty of millions and disturbed by the injustices which cause it. Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple life-style in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism. - Lausanne Covenant (1974), 9
Worldwide evangelization will become a realistic possibility only when the Spirit renews the Church in truth and wisdom, faith, holiness, love and power. We therefore call upon all Christians to pray for such a visitation of the sovereign Spirit of God that all his fruit may appear in all his people and that all his gifts may enrich the body of Christ. - Lausanne Covenant (1974), 14
The proclamation of God's kingdom necessarily demands the prophetic denunciation of all that is incompatible with it. Among the evils we deplore are destructive violence, including institutionalized violence, political corruption, all forms of exploitation of people and of the earth, the undermining of the family, abortion on demand, the drug traffic, and the abuse of human rights. In our concern for the poor, we are distressed by the burden of debt in the two-thirds world. We are also outraged by the inhuman conditions in which millions live, who bear God's image as we do. - Manila Manifesto (1989), A4
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Esther Murer, via Johan
(no login) | Trueblood and Kelly | March 4 2004, 2:19 AM |
Dear Johan,
I wasn't sure where to post the quote, so I'll leave it to you. But I may as well get it right, so here it is verbatim:
Evangelism is the effort to facilitate the growth of new life, while proselytizing is the effort to enhance the power, prestige or numbers of one's own particular sect or organization. --Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed, p. 54
And for good measure, here is Thomas Kelly:
...where there is no impulse to communicate the good news (i.e. Gospel), there it is doubtful whether there is any living good news to share. (Thomas Kelly, "Quakers and Symbolism," in The Eternal Promise, FUP 1991, p 79)
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations I | March 9 2004, 9:53 AM |
Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Lesslie Newbigin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1995.
24-25 By the mercies of God, human beings are often saved from their intellectual follies, and so European society has not yet perished. But the method of Descartes has cast a deep shadow of skepticism over the subsequent history of European thought, even in the midst of the superb technical achievements it has made possible. At the most obvious level it has created a prejudice in favor of doubt over faith. The phrases "blind faith" and "honest doubt" have become the most common of currency. Both faith and doubt can be honest or blind, but one does not hear of "blind doubt" or "honest faith." Yet the fashion of thought which gives priority to doubt over faith in the whole adventure of knowing is absurd. Both faith and doubt are necessary elements in this adventure. One does not learn anything except by believing something, and - conversely - if one doubts everything one learns nothing. On the other hand, believing everything uncritically is the road to disaster. The faculty of doubt is essential. But ... Rational doubt always rests on faith and not vice versa.
38-39 The third dualism [post-Descartes, after thinking/external world and "objective"/"subjective"] was the dualism between theoria (theory) and praxis (practice). These two Greek words are absent from the Bible because they express a way of understanding things which is foreign to the Bible but which is now so deeply implanted in our culture that it is difficult to avoid using the two words. The words obviously belong to the dualistic worldview in which one first develops a mental picture of how things are anhow they ought to be and then, as a second step, applies this picture to the "real" situation. There is a marked contrast between this way of thinking and that which we find in the Bible, where the way in whih God makes himself known is not through vision but through hearing. Because the ultimate reality in the Bible is personal, we are brought into conformity with this reality not by the two-step process of theory and practice, vision and action, but by a single action comprised of hearing, believing and obeying. The operative contrast is not between theory and practice; it is between believing and obeying on the one hand and he refusal of belief and obedience on the other. Believing and obeying are not two separate moves. When Jesus says to Simon, "Follow me," the response is a single act of faith and obedience; there is no gap between a mental action of believing and a bodily action of following. The human person is not a mind attached to a body but a single psychosomatic being. The implication of this, of course, is that the gospel does not become public truth for a society by being propagated as a theory or as a worldview, and certainly not as a religion. It can become public truth only insofar as it is embodied in a society (the church) which is both "abiding in" Christ and engaged in the life of the world.
65 The revelation of which we speak in the Christian tradition is more than the communication of information; it is the giving of an invitation.
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations II | March 9 2004, 10:02 AM |
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Philip Jenkins. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
43-44 In its early days, African Christianity was conspicuously a youth movement, a token of vigor and fresh thinking. Commonly, the key African converts were the younger members of society, teenagers and young adults, the ones most likely to travel to cities, ports, or trading posts during the first great age of globalization between about 1870 and 1914. These were the migrants, laborers, traders, and soldiers. In these border communities, they encountered the Christian faith that they subsequently brought home to their villages. Whatever the initial audience, what made Christianity successful was the networking effect, as the word was passed from individual to individual, family to family, village to village....
We can suggest all sorts of reasons why Africans and Asians adopted Christianity, whether political, social, or cultural; but one all-too-obvious explanation is that individuals came to believe the message offered, and found this the best means of explaining the world around them.
74 Churches provide a refuge during a time of immense and barely comprehensible social change. [Harvey] Cox aptly writes of modern urban centers that "sometimes the only thriving human communities in the vast seas of tarpaper shanties and cardboard huts that surround many of these cities are the Pentecostal congregations." A study of new Pentecostal churches in the barrios of Bogotá, Colombia, notes that "the *compañerismo* (fellowship) of the believers is comparable to the intimacy of a large family gathering." [Cox: Fire from Heaven, 15; Rebecca Pierce Bomann, Faith in the Barrios (Boulder CO: L. Rienner, 1999), 32.]
75-6 The reshaping of gender roles echoes through Southern Hemisphere Christianity, and Latin American churches often present Jesus as divine Husband and Father. In practical terms, the emphasis on domestic values has had a transformative and often positive effect on gender relationships, what Elizabeth Brusco has memorably called a "reformation of machismo." Membership in a new Pentecostal church means a signficant improvement in the lives of poor women, since this is where they are more likely to meet men who do not squander family resources on drinking, gambling, prostitutes, and second households. [Carol Ann] Drogus quotes one Pentecostal woman who reports that "I met a wonderful man. He never drinks, never smokes, he is polite, and he has a good job." As in matters of race, Christianity is far more than an opium of the disinherited masses: it provides a very practical setting in which people can improve their daily lives.
128 In understanding what can look like the oddities of Third World churches, it is helpful to recall one basic and astonishing fact, which is that they take the Bible very seriously indeed. To quote Richard Shaull, "In Pentecostalism, poor and broken people discover that what they read in the Gospels is happening now in their midst." For Southern Christians, and not only for Pentecostals, the apostolic world as described in the New Testament is not just a historical account of the ancient Levant, but an ever-present reality open to any modern believer, and that includes the whole culture of signs and wonders. Passages that seem mildly embarrassing for a Western audience read completely differently, and relevantly, in the new churches of Africa or Latin America....
For many new believers, stories of miracles and healing are so self-evidently crucial to the early Christian message that some suspicion must attach to any church that lacked these signs of power. As one Old Testament passage laments, "In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions. To quote a modern follower of the Shona prophet Johane Masowe, "When we were in these synagogues [the European churches] we used to read about the works of Jesus Christ...cripples were made to walk and the dead were brought to life...evil spirits driven out. ...That was what was being done in Jerusalem. We Africans, however, who were being instructed by white people, never did anything like that.... We were taught to read the Bible, but we ourselves never did what the people of the Bible used to do." [Does this remind anyone of John Wimber? - Johan]
129 For African Christians, one of the most potent passages of the New Testament is found in the letter to the Ephesians, in which Paul declares that "Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." However superstitious and irrelevant it appears to mainstream Northern Christians, the passage makes wonderful sense in most of Africa, as it does for believers in Latin America or East Asia. Once again, we can draw parallels between the modern expansion of Christianity and the growth of the religion in ancient times. Writing of the Roman world, Peter Brown comments that "However many sound social and cultural reasons the historian may find for the expansion of the Christian Church, the fact remains that in all Christian literature from the New Testament onwards, the Christian missionaries advanced principally by revealing the bankruptcy of men's invisible enemies, the demons, through exorcisms and miracles of healing."
[Shaull: See Ed Gitre, "Pie-in-the-Sky Now," CT , posted to web site November 27, 2000. Masowe: Quoted in Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa, 256. Brown: Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971), 55.]
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Johan
(no login) | Quotation IIa, more from Jenkins | March 9 2004, 10:12 AM |
160-61 In one possible scenario of the world to come, an incredibly wealthy although numerically shrinking Northern population espouses the values of humanism, ornamented with the vestiges of liberal Christianity and Judaism. (And although the United States remains a far more religious nation than Europe, North American elites are quite as secular as their European counterparts.) Meanwhile, this future North confronts the poorer and vastly more numerous global masses who wave the flags not of red revolution, but of ascendent Christianity and Islam. Although this sounds not unlike the racial nightmares of the Cold War years, one crucial difference is that the have-nots will be inspired by the scriptures and the language of apocalyptic, rather than by the texts of Marx and Mao. In this world, we, the West, will be the final Babylon.
This vision may simply be too far-reaching, but a secularized North could well be forced to deal with religious conflicts that it genuinely does not understand. One augur of this cultural divide is the dismal record of the United States and its allies in dealing with the new Islamic fundamentalism of the late twentieth century. We recall the policy disasters that resulted in Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere from a basic failure to take seriously the concept of religious motivation. By common consent, Western policy makers have never excelled at understanding Islam, but perhaps the great political unknown of the new century, the most powerful international wild card, will be that mysterious non-Western ideology called Christianity.
As Northern media come to recognize the growing importance of Southern states, and seek to explain their values, it is all too likely that Southern Christianity will be interpreted through the same kind of racial and cultural stereotypes that have so often been applied to fundamentalist or enthusiastic religion. Two related processes will interact here, namely a familiar kind of Orientalism and a racially based concept of Third World primitivism. As Southern Christianity becomes ever stranger to Northern eyes, it will acquire the same kind of bleak stereotypes that were in bygone years applied to Muslims. In the 1980's, these labels particularly adhered to Shi'ites, whom Western media transformed into legendary monsters. The Christian faith of the rising states, we will probably hear, is fanatical, superstitious, demagogic: it is politically reactionary and sexually repressive.
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations III | March 9 2004, 10:24 AM |
Empowering the Poor, Robert C. Linthicum. Monrovia CA: MARC, 1991. 13 The economics of the society God would build through his people, is an economics of grace. A recurring theme throughout the Old Testament is that the Jewish people own nothing. The land and its possessions are not theirs to do with as they would please. It is a gift from God, "cities not of your building, houses full of good things not furnished by you, wells you did not dig". All of life is a gift from God. Therefore, those who are responsible for the economic maintenance of a society must be committed to its stewardship. The wealth is not an indvidually-owned wealth; it is a "common wealth" - a wealth belonging to everyone because it ultimately belongs to God. Therefore, the task of those who manage that wealth is to be good stewards of it, maintaining and using it for the common good. 35 In the third century A.D., the pagan Celsus and the Christian Origen engaged in a debate on Christianity. In the course of the debate, Celsus reportedly declared, "When most teachers go forth to teach, they cry, 'Come to me, who are clean and worthy,' and they are followed by the highest caliber of people available. But your silly master cries, 'Come to me, you who are down and beaten by life,' and so he accumulates around himself the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity." Origen's response to Celsus' attack ranks as one of the most profound statements ever made about the power of Christianity. He replied, "Yes, they are the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as useless, he fashions [people of strength], giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet and look God in the eye. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free." 108 The book of Ephesians is about the liberation that comes to humanity through Christ (Eph. 1:3-14; 2:1-22), who defeats both the heavenly principalities and powers and their possession of the systems and structures which drive humanity's institutions (1:15-23; 3:1-13). When the church becomes a body of believers committed to each other's liberation and empowerment in Jesus Christ (4:1-16), this will have a profound impact not only upon each other, but on all society around them. It will radically alter the Christian's life-style into a pure, disciplined life (4:17-23). It will create a body of Christ truly liberating (5:1-20). It will profoundly change the relationships in marriage, empowering the woman (in Paul's day, the legally disenfranchised party) (5:21-33) and protecting defenseless children (6:1-4). It will transform the economic institutions of society, especially protecting the right of the employee (6:5-9). Finally, it will equip the church to engage its city's or nation's political, economic and religious systems in a a spiritual warfare that will cause those systems to become what God intended them to be (6:10-17).
Yakov Krotov on witnessing vs proselytism, in his article, "Is it possible to witness and not proselytize?" pp 68-91 in God in Russia: The Challenge of Freedom. Ed. Sharon Linzey and Ken Kaisch. Lanham MD: Univ Press of America, 1999: I am most seriously persuaded from my Christian work and experience that the less the missionary condemns, the healthier will be his spiritual fruit. I am not sure this is true in all religions, but in Christianity this spiritual law would seem to flow from the nature of Christ Himself and his life. 87-90 ... I have formulated five principles which aid me in my efforts not to proselytize, and still bear Christian witness. They are: 1) ask only kind questions; 2) answer only kind questions; 3) understand that our fight is against evil spirits, not confessions; 4) understand that love means the sharing of information; and 5) care more for individuals than organizations. In asking only kind questions, you can ask, "Do you know you are a sinner?" This is a kind question. A question such as, "Do you know that Catholics are enemies of Christ?" is an evil question because it elicits ill will towards Catholics. Another evil question is: "Do you know icons are idols?" Refrain from asking such questions in order not to elicit ill will. This means that you voluntarily resolve never to be the aggressor, never to attack a denomination. If you want to provide some information in another form, you can use the third principle. In answering only kind questions, you are not obliged to answer questions which contain a form of trickery. When someone asks your opinion of the Unification Church, you may answer honestly, but honesty is not enough. You also need some wisdom. The same question can be asked with opposite intentions. A person can ask about Catholics because he hates them. He may only want to receive from you ideological fuel for his hatred. If you are preaching publicly, he wants to manipulate you as a weapon of his hatred. Don't elicit ill will. Ask him to speak to you privately. Our fighting is against evil spirits, not confessions. "We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph 6.12). Here is a secret if you enjoy condemning centuries of the veneration of icons, for example. You want to condemn icons as a dangerous example of worshiping idols? Condemn the spirit of idol-worshiping without mentioning icons at all. Let your listeners decide for themselves whether icons are idols. Give them principles and leave the conclusions to them. This tactic must be done very carefully and seriously. If listeners feel that you are holding back because of some manipulative intentions, you will lose. You must really feel that not icons, nor the Roman papacy, nor Russian Orthodox nationalism, fo example, are the main enemies. They are only 'flesh and blood,' but you can and must fight against the spiritual roots of evil. Certainly this is difficult, because most people, even adults, better understand concrete things, not abstractions. You must feel that you are struggling not with principles, but with principalities. You must attain to the spiritual experience of the concreteness of 'heavenly places.' Love is sharing information. This simple truth allows us to share information about salvation. It makes oneself a missionary. If you want to be the best missionary, share information not only about Christ, but about yourself, and share it not only with your listeners, but with those who don't listen, those who don't want to listen, even with those who want to deprive you of listeners, to make you silent, to expel you. This means that you should admit your denominational affiliation when you preach to newcomers. Do this not to convert others to your confession. Do it in order to avoid accusations of trying to look like you are Russian Orthodox. Such accusations have already been made in Russia. ... From my point of view missionaries must show not only honesty but also love, which includes tact and scrupulousness. [Note from Johan: For more from this remarkable and humane thinker, go to http://www.krotov.org/.]
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Stan Thornburg
(no login) | "Overhearing the Gospel" | March 10 2004, 6:07 PM |
Craddock, Fred B. Overhearing the Gospel, 1978 Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn. Overhearing the Gospel is a delightful and insightful book about communication. Though it was written to apply primarily to preachers and other speakers addressing Christian audiences, it is just as, and maybe more, appropriate for Christians seeking to effectively communicate the Gospel to their friends and/or co-workers in non-church settings. Evangelism. "The premise of Dr. Craddock’s message is found in this quotation from renowned theologian Sören Kirkegaard: 'There is no lack of information in a Christian land; something else is lacking, and this is a something which the one man cannot directly communicate to the other.'" – Quote from the dust jacket of Craddock’s book. Craddock’s own method as he teaches about method is to take Sören Kirkegaard’s (SK) work on the subject of "indirect communication" and apply it to the communication of the Gospel. Interestingly, the book reads like a primer on communicating to post-moderns, even though that use of it is not even dreamed of in the book itself. Craddock takes on some sacred cows and lays bare many of the illusions which have shaped Christian communication up to the time of his writing (and far beyond, I am sorry to say). I personally found his writing extremely helpful and have referred to it over the years as a way of honing my own communication skills. Common Ground Seattle is an evangelistic effort based North of Seattle. They have based their whole approach to ministry on SK via Craddock’s premises. Their services are a blend of movie clips, homily, music, readings, poetry, etc. Not the slick, performance driven stuff, but thoughtful, challenging, and insightful presentations of art from the culture. Attending these presentations has challenged me to ask, "How can I present the Gospel in a way that allows listeners (one on one or in a congregation) to overhear the Gospel? How can I create the distance they need to feel safe from the story and yet tell the story in a way which invites them to be a anonymous participant?" See their story at http://www.commongroundseattle.org. Craddock and SK emphasize those same two elements, distance and participation. The telling of the story must provide distance, "...a necessary dimension of the experience of overhearing that says to the listener, 'You are sitting in on something that is of such significance that it could have gone on without you.'" (p.122) It must also provide participation: "...free participation on the part of the hearer in the issues, the crises, the decisions, the judgment, and the promise of the message. Participation means that the hearer overcomes the distance, not because the speaker 'applied' everything, but because the listener identified with experiences and thoughts relayed in the story that were analogous to his own." (p. 123) This book is well worth the read for those Friends who are searching for a way of telling the Gospel story that preserves Friends' respect for persons, and Friends belief that there is that of God active in every person. P.S. Brian McLaren’s experience with Alice in his book More Ready Than You Realize is a prime example of Craddock’s teaching applied to an individual in a post modern setting. Additionally, Leslie Newbigin’s concept of "indwelling the Gospel" in The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, applies this insight to the corporate body. -- Stan Thornburg
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations IV | March 11 2004, 3:22 AM |
Mission & the Peace Witness, Robert L. Ramseyer, ed. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1979
Ronald Sider, "A Call for Evangelical Nonviolence"
54 A movement of evangelical nonviolence would immerse its direct action in prayer. Like Jesus, who agonized in prayer before facing the political and religious establishment of His day, it would pray for days and weeks for the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit before initiating a nonviolent campaign. It would make an evangelistic call for biblical repentance central [p] to its approach. It would call upon politicians and business people to repent of their involvement in the institutionalized sin of economic justice. Finally, as a last resort, it would picket, boycott, obstruct, and paralyze unjust political and economic structures.
60 Christians do not claim that we should wait to live by the kingdom's standards on lying, theft or adultery until non-Christians stop lying, stealing and fornicating. Nor should the church delay implementing Jesus' nonviolent method of overcoming evil with good until the Caesars and Hitlers disappear.
John Howard Yoder, "the Evangelical Revival and the Peace Churches"
76 Many have considered the "distinctives" all of one piece, so that those who are at home in the counterculture of buggies, cape dresses, and no neckties doubt that the peace witness can be shared with "worldly Christians." Those who want to show themselves liberated from that ethnic culture tend to think that the peace witness is part of what has been outgrown or become embarrassed about.
80 Each of the peace church movements arose as an evangelical revival which broke through certain barriers into the creation of a new style. Whether it be the youngest, the Brethren and the River Brethren, wehther it be George Fox, the sixteenth century Anabaptists, or the fifteenth-century Czech Brethren, in each case the message which we now call evangelical reached beyond superficial renewal and created a new community of spirit, conversion, outreach, and biblical authority. All of the peace churches come from such origins. Each peace church represents an evangelical renewal which went all the way into renewal of church order and social style.
Robert L. Ramseyer, "Mennonite Missions and the Christian Peace Witness"
119-120 Most Christians concerned about the basic missionary task would probably agree that evangelism and church planting have higher priority for the foreign missionary than do the long-term pastoring and teaching of people who are already Christians. The place of the peace witness in missions then depends on how we understand salvation and becoming a Christian. If our image of conversion is limited to the spiritual act of opening the doors of our hearts and saying, "Come in, Lord Jesus," then the peace witness will logically be the work of pastors and teachers who follow the missionary. If however we understand salvation and becoming a Christian as a turning around in all of life, if we understand the presence of Jesus in the heart as an empowering for change from not following Jesus in the way we live to following Him, then obviously the way of peace will be part of that initial evangelistic witness since who Jesus is and the road that He leads us on are inextricably bound up with the way of peace.
124 In many discussions of evangelism and mission, salvation has been twisted until it refers almost entirely to what happens after physical death, and the fact that Christian discipleship is itself the state of being saved while we are here in this world has often been forgotten. When this happens, discipleship becomes a difficult task, an ethical duty designed to please or impress God, instead of the joyful salvation for which we have been created, for which His Spirit gives power, and for which the entire world yearns.
133-134 As we attempt to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others, we will want to show both by what we say and what we are that Jesus is in no sense a new superior object of worship to replace whatever they have worshiped up to that time. Both what Christ is and who He is as a Person are vitally important as we are called to follow Him. He is not and cannot be a sacred object to be manipulated into granting us a spiritual salvation. He is our living Lord, a Person to be followed in the way we live.
We will want to make that far clearer than we have in the past that there is no such thing as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ who does not follow Him in the way of peace. If we as missionaries do not insist on this as a basic part of the good news about Jesus Christ, then we ourselves are being unfaithful and we are deliberately helping to make unfaithful disciples. God forbid that such should ever be our role.
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations V | March 16 2004, 1:42 AM |
Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. David J. Bosch. Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books 1991.
2 [quoting Hendrik Kraemer 1938] "Strictly speaking, one ought to say that the Church is always in a state of crisis and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it." This ought to be the case, Kraemer argued, because of "the abiding tension between (the church's) essentially nature and its empirical condition...."
9 The Bible is not to be treated as a storehouse of truths on which we can all draw at random. there are no immutable and objectively correct "laws of mission" to which exegesis of Scripture gives us access and which provide us with blueprints we can apply in every situation. Our missionary practice is not performed in unbroken continuity with the biblical witness; it is an altogether ambivalent enterprise executed in the context of of tension between divine providence and human confusion .... The church's involvement in mission remains an act of faith without earthly guarantees.
11 The church-in-mission ... may be described in terms of sacrament and sign. It is a sign in the sense of pointer, symbol, example or model; it is a sacrament in the sense of mediation, representation or anticipation.... Living in the creative tension of, at the same time, being called out of the world and sent into the world, it is challenged to be God's experimental garden on earth, a fragment of the reign of God, having "the first fruits of the Spirit" (Rom 8:23) as a pledge of what is to come (2 Cor 1:22).
33-34 [Is God's reign political?] We cannot apply Jesus' ministry in a direct manner to our contemporary controversies. it is not easy to spell out how the manifestation of God's reign in Christ can help us find the right political system or an ideal economic order or a fair national labor policy or correct relations with foreign powers. Jesus did not address the macrostructure of his own time. To the embarrassment of many he appears to have said virtually nothing by way of criticism about the Roman masters of his day. His immediate concern is the small world of Palestine and the Jewish rather than the Roman [p] establishment. It is wishful thinking to describe the movement he founded as a revolutionary organization for the political liberation of the Jews. He was not a Zealot. When the people try to make him king, he withdraws (Jn 6:15). This report is hardly a "distortion" of the trdition by John or prudence on the part of Jesus since the time for a coup has not yet come, but it is consistent with what we otherwise know about him....
Even so, in another sense the mainfestation of God's reign in Jesus is eminently political. To declare lepers, tax-collectors, sinners and the poor to be "children of God's kingdom" is a decidedly political statement, at least over against the Jewish establishment of the day. It expresses a profound discontent with the way things are, a fervent desire to see them changed. It certainly does not wipe out as if by magic the oppressive circumstances under which those people exist, but it brings their circumstances within the force field of God's sovereign will and thereby relativizes them and robs them of their ultimate validity. It assures the victims of society that they are no longer prisoners of an omnipotent fate. Faith in the reality and presence of God's reign takes the form of a resistance movmeent against fate and against being manipulated and exploited by others....
34-35 We can neither apply Jesus' words and ministry on a one-to-one basis to a fundamentally different world nor just deduce "principles" from his ministry. Rather, and once again, we are challenged to let Jesus inspire us to prolong the logic of his own ministry in an imaginative and creative way amid changed historical conditions. Now, as then, it should make all the difference to society if there is within it a group of human beings who, focusing gtheir minds on the reality of God's reign and praying for its coming, advocate the cause of the poor, serve those on the periphery
407 By the early 1980's, then, it seemed that a new spirit was establishing itself in mainstream evangelicalism. regional evangelical groupings followed suit. One of the most remarkable documents in this respect was the _Evangelical Witness in South Africa_, produced by a group of "Concerned Evangelicals" in 1986. In the context of the apartheid system and the experience of repression and police brutality during a state of emergency, evangelicals felt forced to respond and articulate their views on evangelism, mission, structureal evil, and the church's responsibility with respect to justice in society. They had no doubt that they were called to a ministry of proclaiming Christ as Savior and ovf inviting people to put their trust in him, but they were equally convinced that sin was both personal and structural, that life was of a piece, that dualism was contrary to the gospel, and that their ministry had to be broadened as well as deepened. This represents an important shift in evangelicalism and not simply a return to a nineteenth-century position. At that time, and due to the prevalent optimistic mood, Christians tended to believe in a “natural” and evolutionary improvement of societal conditions. Today both evangelicals and ecumenicals grasp in [p] a more profound manner than ever before something of the depth of evil in the world, the inability of human beings to usher in god's reign, and the need for both personal renewal by God's Spirit and resolute commitment to challengeing and transforming the structures of society.
454 Inculturation suggests a *double movement*: There is at once inculturation of Christianity and Christianization of culture. The gospel must remain Good News while becoming, up to a certain point, a cultural phenomenon…, while it takes into account the meaning systems already present in the context…. On the one hand it offers the cultures "the knowledge of the divine mystery", while on the other it helps them "to bring forth from their own living tradition original expressions of Christian life, celebration and thought" (CT[Catechesi Tradendae, Apostolic Exhortation of Pople John Paul II, 1979] 53). This approach breaks radically with the idea of the faith as "kernel" and the culture as "husk"-which in any case is, to a large extent, an illustration of the Western scientific tradition's distinction between "content" and "form".
515 In the Eastern churches it is the resurrection of Christ which is God's salvific event par excellence.... The most common summary of the early church's missionary message was that it was witnessing to the resurrection of Christ. It was a message of joy, hope, and victory, the first fruit of god's ultimate triumph over the enemy. And in this joy and victory believers may already share. This is, among other things, what the Eastern church gives expression to in its doctrine of *theosis*, of divinization; it is the beginning of life in incorruption (Clement of Rome). In the resurrection of Christ the forces of the future already stream into the present and transform it, even if everything that meets the eye appears to be unchanged. The Christian's life continues on two planes, as it were.... God's promise and our hope are already full reality in Christ, before they are fully realized in human history; in Christ eternity has entered time, time has conquered death (MEMORANDUM).
Missiologically this means, first, that the central theme of our missionary message is that Christ is risen, and that, secondly and consequently, the church is called to lvie the resurrection life in the here and now and to be a sign of contradiction against the forces of death and destruction-that it is called to unmaks modern idols and false absolutes (MEMORANDUM).
[Memorandum=Memorandum from a Consultation on Mission (Produced by a Consultation held in Rome, May 1982, and Organized by the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity), International Review of Mission vol 71, pp 458-477.]
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Johan
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner | Quotations VI | March 19 2004, 12:49 PM |
The End of an Era: Africa and the Missionary, Elliott Kendall. London: SPCK, 1978.
171 One of our basic needs is to produce a real shift in the thinking of Christians in the West which has necessarily been tied by its association with missionary societies to giving to people in a distant place. The giving is traditional and it is associated with sending funds and people. Mission in which people are thus involved is in an activity which takes place in an area far removed from where they are. Missionary societies are essentially identified with giving rather than receiving. It is a church which can receive rather than a missionary society. Yet our involvement in world mission is out of balance if it is fundamentally a giving to what other people do in an area about which we are only dimly conscious. Mission is not really giving or receiving, but sharing in God's work everywhere in the world. It is far easier to achieve this understanding if we are involved as Churches with other Churches, because they are so clearly equally dependent upon God and manifestly are endeavouring to fulfill his purposes. Churches are essentially part of God's mission, using their common resources and equally sharing a servant role in the Body of Christ. Autonomous Churches are not subservient one to another. They have the opportunity of developing a more mature relationship than that of giving and receiving which naturally tends to characterize the relationship of a missionary society with the Churches overseas with which they are connected. However much one may struggle against it, there is inevitably a possessive or paternalistic element in a missionary society relationship, which can more readily be overcome and eliminated as Churches are forced to work out more virile relatinships between one another. How often one hears the revealing phrase 'our work' in this country or that which is reminiscent of old dependent relationships. A more rigorous relationship between Churches is perhaps the best means of breaking old attitudes of giving to dependent work, and of establishing in people's [p] minds that we share in a common task of participation in God's mission which is equally demanding everywhere.
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations VII | March 27 2004, 4:13 PM |
Many years ago I read Kenneth Leech's excellent book Soul Friend. During this fellowship year when I've been researching the relationship between evangelism and the Friends testimonies, I rediscovered Kenneth Leech in the form of his book,The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice. As a survey of Christian thinking in relation to social justice, it is a bit disappointing. Too often it comes across as a catalog of Christian experiments in progressive politics. In particular, I squirmed when he went into Christianity and feminism. Rather than his ultra-cautious and fastidious approach as a male commenting on women's views of Christianity, it would have been better (I think) to invite a woman collaborator to write that section.
However, having gotten that off my chest, I can say that when Kenneth Leech talks about spirituality and doctrine and discipleship in relation to social justice, he is absolutely superb, very inspiring. I especially love the clear humanity in the tone of his writing, a tone that has remained consistent over the years. These quotes are chosen to whet your appetite ....
The Eye of the Storm: Spiritual Resources for the Pursuit of Justice, Kenneth Leech. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1992.
14 ... A correspondent to the Church Times wrote, "Political churchmen have been the bane of our church.... The political spirit is always fatal to spirituality."
87-88 In spite of the massive and growing industry of books about liberation theology, there remains a large area of ignorance, confusion and misrepresentation of this movement. Some writers see it as a movement which replaces spirituality by political action, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary - for rarely can there have been a theological movement which is so clearly and so deeply rooted in spiritual experience. Many continue to see it as nothing more than Marxism in theological dress, although it has been shown that the contribution of Marxist theory to most work within the liberation theology tradition is very slight. WSe are in fact dealing with a theological tradition which takes its starting-point from the experience of oppression, which is rooted in the sharing of the life of very poor people, and which exists in an atmosphere of great physical danger; a tradition which seeks to break with the narrow academic captivity of theological work, which is partisan in its understanding of solidarity, and which seeks to unte contemplation and political struggle; a tradition which has been most marked since its early years by its concern for the deepening of spiritual life.
98 In a book published in 1989 [Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony], Hauerwas claims that Christianity is 'mostly a matter of politics'. However he stresses that the Church is 'a countercultural phenomenon, a new polis'. Rejecting the approach of Jerry Falwell, whom he sees as a modern equivalent of Reinhold Niebuhr, and oother exponents of 'public religion', he argues that 'the political task of Christians is to be the Church rather than to transform the world.'
137 A major part of the Church's political task is to subject political claims to the most rigorous scrutiny. The unmasking and exposure of illusion and falsehood is central to prophetic political work, and here it is important that intellectuals, theologians an other academics, should be brought into close practical collaboration with grass roots Christian activists.
139 Christian engagement in politics must be rooted in an honest facing of current reality with all its gloom and hopelessness, yet nourished by the firm belief in the resurrection and in Christ's victory over all unjust powers. That Christ is risen, and has conquered not only death but the death-dealing world of political oppression, must be the driving hope of the Christian in the march from Babylon to the New Jerusalem.
194-196 I have come to see, as an activist, the central place of silence in my life and in the lives of all who would work for peace and justice at a more than surface level. There is a sense in which silent waiting on God is the heart of prayer, a simple abiding in emptiness, weakness and attention, a recognition of the fact that it is the Spirit who prays within us in inarticulate groanings (Romans 8:26). For Jesus, the very early dawn was a key time for prayer (Mark 1:35) and so it has been for me and for many others for whom the day becomes busier as it progresses. I would not recommend this time of prayer as a rule for everyone, and it is important that we do not become slaves of time. Our prayer rhythms and patterns need to be very flexible. But there is something very special about the early morning, when in many places there is physical stillness and a reduction of external activity, which can be conducive to the prayer of attention. To spend an hour in waiting on God in the early stillness is a valuable preparation for the hectic and often frenzied activity of the day.
It is equally important, however, that the inner stillness which comes from the practice of silent attention to God is allowed to spill over into the activity itself, so that it is not all tense and in danger of becoming manic. St Anthony, the first Christian hermit, advised: 'If we push ourselves beyond measure, we will break: it is right for us from time to time to relax our efforts'. This remains sound advice, for there is a real danger of 'burn-out', that affliction which leads many activist Christians to the point of collapse and subsequent withdrawal from the active life. But burn-out is not simply a problem about personal survival, or personal health: it has spin-offs on the community who are the recipients often the victims, of social action or pastoral care. The hyperactive person, whether community worker or pastor, who has not given time for inner stillness (hesychia) will soon communicate to others nothing more than his or her inner tiredness and exhaustion of spirit - not a very kind thing to do to people who have enough problems of their own.
Silence is an integral part of ministry and of effective Christian action. In silence we open ourselves up to the activity of God and to the movements of history. If it is important to listen to the voice of God, to try to discern and distinguish the voice of God amidst the conflicting voices around and within us, it is also important to listen to the voices of the world, particularly the hidden, neglected voices. It is important to listen carefully to the language of silence, the silence of crushed, broken, battered people. A contemplative, reflective approach is a necessary part of any sustained social action, and without that base it is bound to become superficial and to lack both depth and staying power. Silence helps to create stillness and the ability to hear. It also creates a climate of discernment and scrutiny, of persistent interrogation, of inner struggle to discern the signs.
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Johan Maurer
(no login) | Quotations VIIa - More from Kenneth Leech | March 29 2004, 1:04 PM |
Here are a couple of paragraphs from We Preach Christ Crucified, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1994.
48 ... It was his attack on the Temple, the centre of financial operations, which was the major factor in the build-up to the crucifixion. It could be argued that the accounts of Jesus's time in Jerusalem are among the most political sections in the whole of the Bible. His life was a threat to the sacred and to the status quo, to religious purity and political order. He chose the most visible symbol of complicity between the occupying power and the religious authorities. For the Temple represented the intersection of the Roman money market and the local economy. Here he seems to have performed a material exorcism, an act of cleansing, using words from two prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. (Jeremiah, soon after he had uttered those words, was imprisoned.) During the polemic prior to his trial, the words 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up' were important. The cleansing scene seems to have been viewed as a messianic claim, for the prophet Malachi had predicted that the Lord would suddenly come to his Temple.
50-51 So Jesus died the death reserved for rebels and criminals, threats to the stable order: death by crucifixion. Josephus described many crucifixions outside Jerusalem, all of them for rebellion. Crucifixion was particularly used to subjugate people, and often its victims were slaves. When the rebellion of Spartacus failed, six hundred rebellious slaves were crucified on the Appian Way. Jesus was crucified betwen two criminals. The whole affair - arrest, trial and death - has the atmosphere of an intensely political drama, with conspiracy, deals, torture, covert action, arguments about exchanges of prisoners, plans for manipulation of the authorities, and finally the judicial killing.
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Johan
(no login) | Quakers in Revolutionary Russia | April 14 2004, 4:43 AM |
Constructive Spirit: Quakers in Revolutionary Russia, a new book by David McFadden and Claire Gorfinkel (and a chapter by Sergei Nikitin) is a fascinating case study in building a holistic Friends mission in a time of crisis. The book touches on important themes that relate to the present "Evangelism and the Friends Testimonies" forum, including:
- If we say too much about our spiritual motives, will we still be acceptable to the Bolsheviks? How will we respond when the people we help ask us about why we are there? (Interestingly, the AFSC and British Quaker workers didn't seem to be shy about using Christian language to describe their motives.)
- Can we operate a school with the compulsory Soviet requirement of atheism? Is it good enough that they tell us informally they won't enforce it in our case?
- How much assistance and coordination from the US government can we accept? (The US did not recognize the Soviet government at the time, so some accommodation with the government seemed necessary to get past official restrictions.)
Later this year, Quaker Life plans to print my review of this book. In the meantime, here's a brief note I prepared for the Friends House Moscow newsletter: Constructive Spirit: Quakers in Revolutionary Russiaby David McFadden and Claire Gorfinkel, with an overview by Sergei Nikitin Intentional Productions, 2004, 232 pages, $16.95 Friends House Moscow inherits a long legacy of Quaker involvement in Russia. One of the best ways of learning about this legacy is by reading the new book, Constructive Spirit: Quakers in Revolutionary Russia. Although the focus of this book is the joint British-American Friends service work of 1916-18 and 1921-27, the authors summarize earlier episodes of Quaker-Russian contact, dating back to Peter the Great and including Friends' intervention in the gathering clouds of the Crimean War. Constructive Spirit goes on to describe the nearly epic story of Quaker response to the economic collapse and famines of the First World War and the revolutionary/civil war era. Many Friends may have no idea of the scale of this involvement. At their peak, Quaker service teams were keeping as many as 397,000 people alive in the area between Samara and Orenburg, a thousand miles southeast of Moscow, centering on the town of Buzuluk. Friends ran a thousand feeding centers, a hospital, over 40 malaria clinics, and a number of children's homes; they negotiated with their own governments, with the shifting cast of Soviet bureaucrats, with local officials; they taught tractor mechanics, bought and sold horses, organized employment, and advocated passionately for Russian relief among variously supportive and skeptical home-office Quaker leaders, all in the service of (in the words of the AFSC's director, Wilbur Thomas) "a Christian message of goodwill...." Sergei Nikitin's introductory chapter provides a historical summary and gives an overall context for this service. Succeeding chapters describe the medical, famine-relief and reconstruction phases of the work, as well as the political, public-relations and interpersonal dilemmas involved. The cooperation and conflicts between the American Friends Service Committee and Friend Herbert Hoover, and the occasional clashes of philosophies and personalities within the relief teams, illustrate perennial dilemmas of emergency relief ministry. This book is the successful culmination of years of dedicated research and writing, and is highly recommended. Johan Maurer (clerk of the board of Friends House Moscow)
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations VIII - an exhortation from George Fox | April 23 2004, 3:07 AM |
excerpted from Epistle CCLXXV, 1669 (from Earlham's Digital Quaker Collection at http://dqc.esr.earlham.edu:8080/xmlmm/login.html) All Friends every where, in the living spirit, and living power, and in the heavenly light dwell, and quench not the motions of it in yourselves, nor the movings of it in others; though many have run out, and gone beyond their measures, yet many more have quenched the measure of the spirit of God, and after became dead and dull, and questioned through a false fear: and so there hath been hurt both ways. And therefore be obedient to the power of the Lord, and his spirit, and his spiritual weapons; war with that Philistine that would stop up your wells and springs. Jacob's well was in the mountain, (read that within,) he was the second birth. And the belief in the power keeps the spring open. And none to despise prophecy, neither to quench the spirit; so that all may be kept open to the spring, that every one's cup may run over. For you may all prophesy one by one, and the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. 'Would all the Lord's people were prophets,' said Moses in his time, when some found fault; but the last time is the christian's time, who enjoys the substance, Christ Jesus; and his church is called a royal priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices; and his church are his believers in his light. And so in the light every one should have something to offer; and to offer an offering in righteousness to the living God, else they are not priests; and such as quench the spirit cannot offer, but become dull. 'I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, in the last time,' saith the Lord, which is the true christian's time, God's sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and old men shall dream dreams; 'and on my servants and handmaids I will pour out of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.' Now friends, if this be fulfilled, servants, handmaids, sons, daughters, old men, young men, every one to feel the spirit of God, by which you may see the things of God, and declare them to his praise; for with the heart man doth believe, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; first, he has it in his heart, before it comes out of his mouth: and this is beyond that brain-beaten-heady stuff, which man has long studied, about the saints' words, which the holy men of God spake forth as they were moved by the holy ghost: so the holy ghost moved them, before they came forth and spake them. And therefore, as I said before, do not resist the holy ghost....
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Johan
(no login) | Quotations IX - gems from AMONG FRIENDS | May 12 2004, 11:41 AM |
In 1999, Earlham School of Religion published a book researched and written by Crane MetaMarketing entitled Among Friends: A consultation with Friends about the condition of Quakers in the U.S. today. Here is a microscopic sample of the fascinating observations in this book, with unauthorized commentary from me. The full book is available from Quaker Hill Bookstore for US$15.
page 24 We evangelicals don't know what to do beyond the Great Commission. [Do we even know that much?] Are we just trying to get everyone into heaven? [Just?] Or is there a reason to become a Christian and be a disciple? Our faith in Christ is to change us so that we redeem our culture, not just get into heaven. Sometimes we seem to have no goals beyond evangelism. [I might have ended that sentence two words earlier.] page 24 Quaker culture rules in the eastern unprogrammed tradition, and it's a silly, pedantic, uninspired, rather marginal culture that determines everything about how you behave as a Quaker - including the color of the car you drive and the type of clothes you wear. But more importantly, it precludes us from doing some of the most important things like evangelism or outreach, which the culture says we "don't do" but the faith says you definitely do. We've really gotten that bdly wrong and as a result, we're disappearing.
page 54 When I look at what we've taught over the years, I think, "This is hot stuff." It's a message of scriptural common sense - and it could be deeply joyful. I dream of great changes for us. There's a group of people out there now, some of whom maybe aren't even Friends yet, who are radically discontented with the old structures but have recovered some of the excitement of being Christian. I think big changes will happen even if we don't officially nurture that excitement - but our business is to figure out how to nurture it, without occluding it with the old arguments.
page 102 When I was in the Midwest I did lots of preaching and pastoring small churches all over the Midwest. Most of these churches to the outward eye were deader than a doornail. They were small. I discovered an incredible secret in almost every one of those, and it wasn't their sin - they all knew their sins, small towns all know their sins. It's all their secrets about what God had done. They would tell me as an outsider. They would tell me that their marriage had been healed, or that their son had been healed, or that at this job they had this answer to prayer, but they refused to tell God's story to one another. They didn't have any forum for being authentic with one another. Consequently it feels like we are the most selfish people on the face of the earth because it's like having the cure for cancer and refusing to tell anybody about it. [I don't suppose I could get them to contribute to this forum....]
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Johan
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner | Quotations X: The Church on the Other Side | May 20 2004, 4:34 PM |
The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, Brian D. McLaren. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000.
57 We will trade in our private histories for one grand, shared history. Over the horizon of the new world, we wil cherish not the memories of our splintered clans, but the story of a whole tribe. Clinging to our little histories - whether Methodist, Brethren, Mennonite, Presbyterian, or Baptist - is like guppies tryinig to feel big in little bowls. In the new church we will empty out all our little stale bowls and discover a broad, windy ocean of memories to swim in. We will see that although the names and datelines were different, the same dynamics were at work in all our little histories, the same psychologies, the same sociologies, the same dark pathologies and blushing embarrassments. And oddly enough, those embarrassments will probably do us more good than the inspirations, since the more humble we feel, the better prepared we are to receive abounding grace.
On the other side, then, we will see the broader scope of our shared history as Christians. ... In the new church, our Roman, Orthodox and Protestant historical bank accounts will seem more like one combined mutual fund.
59 Similarly, we will trade up in the matter of spirituality, contributing our snacks of loaves and fishes - our discreet spiritualities and distinctive spiritual disciplines - and gaining a veritable five-course spiritual feast in return.
For example, on the other side, one local church may, in one month's time and through various venues during the week, offer for its congregation's spiritual enrichment the following: a Quaker-style meditation service, a Brethren-style communion service, a healing service derived from charismatic Episcopalians, weekend seeker services a la Willow Creek, a silent retreat with fasting at a Benedictine monastery, a lecture series comparing Calvin's Institutes and Aquinas'sSumma, and more. Meanwhile, the church will encourage private journaling (inspired by Roman Catholic mystics), shared experiments with living in community (inspired by the Jesus People), short-term missionary service in an inner-city neighborhood (the influence of the Salvation Army or of the social gospel?), a public demonstration for racial reconciliation (in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr.), and a field trip to an art gallery to enjoy an exhibit of Byzantine iconography. The following month there may be an evangelism class (showing the influence of Campus Crusade), an inductive Bible study class (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), a class in personal Bible study and memorization (the Navigators), and a class in Christian literature (studying Catholic writers Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Thomas Merton, and Henri Nouwen).
Does all this suggest schizophrenia? Multiple personality disorder? Relativism? An identity crisis? No, this will be the expression of a normal, healthy sense of the Christian spiritual tradition on the other side.
78ff [McLaren offers five themes for the "new apologetics" - here are the titles of the themes with a few extracts from the descriptions] -
1. We don't just offer "answers"; we offer mysteries.
78 Our easy answers wore pretty thin pretty fast. In the new apologetic, we offer the faith, not because it has easy answers to the big questions (that is, shallow answers to deep questions, but because the faith is the context in which one can explore the mysteries that underlie these questions.
2. We don't debate minutiae; we focus on essentials.
79 Is there a God? Can God be known or experienced? ... Why should unbelieving nonseekers consider a change of status? What are the consequences of not believing anything, or not being sure? ... Why so many religions and so many Christian denominations? What isn't the truth more obvious to more people? It will be to the tiger questions, not the field mouse questions, that the new church will devote her best energies.
3. We don't push credibility alone; we also stress plausibility.
79 Credibility has to do with the intellectual coherence and verifiable evidence for our faith. Plausibility has to do with its beauty and satisfactions - balanced realistically with its costs and struggles - as it is lived out in real life.
4. We dont' condemn our competitors; we see them as colleagues of sorts and reason with them with winsome gentleness and respect.
84 People are sick of religions fighting with each other (except, of course, some of those doing the fighting!) Most of us don't want to embrace another religion that is peddled by so many cranky people.
However, the religion that can enlist people in a fight with evil - wherever it is found, including in our own hearts and religious communities and systems - that religion will win their hearts.
5. We don't rush people; we help them at a healthy pace.
84 Twentieth-century Americans like me were taught to focus on an instant salvation, a decision-oriented regeneration, a conversion event. The church on the other side, more in keeping with Christians throughout history, will emphasize the process of conversion, not only the event.
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Johan
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner | Quotations XI | June 5 2004, 4:59 PM |
Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World. Lee C. Camp. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003.
24 There is, I must confess, a deep part of me that is embarrassed to advocate a “radical Christianity.” For I find, especially in these recent days of my pilgrimage, that the more I seek to surrender to Christ, the more I discover those idols to which my “old self,” as the apostle Paul calls it, has been desperately clinging. It turns out, of course, that my sins are not all that interesting, but the same as the lot of all humankind: pride, ambition, lust, greed, self-seeking. The more I pursue the light of Christ, the more he illumines the diseases of my heart, the dysfunctions of my soul. I have long desired quick fixes for my thorns in the flesh, my defects, my failings - but Christ has granted me none. But he does, as I walk behind him, alongside him, and alongside others on the Way, grant me daily bread, daily sustenance, his grace being always sufficient for the day.
I also fear speaking of “radical discipleship” because I continue to encounter innumerable souls deeply wounded by moralistic perversions of discipleship, by legalistic religion, good souls burdened with shame, knowing neither the joy nor peace that are born from the Spirit of Christ. I have walked that long, lonely road, too, and have found in it not life, but shame, and anger, and resentment. But this is not following the Master, in spite of its weighty religious veneer, for the true religion, the true life is found in the One who first loved us, even while we were yet self-centeredly rebelling; in the One who forgives us seventy times seven, even before calling us to do so; in the One who was tempted in all ways, like as we are, in order to share our suffering, to know our weakness, so that he might love us even there in our weaknesses.
106 Being church means embodying God's intentions for the world as revealed in Christ. “Church” is not about showing the world how to be “religious,” but showing the world how it is supposed to be a world that reflects the intentions of its creator. The body of Christ, by simply being the church, exhibits to the world “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:9-10). The church embodies the new social order, the new-world-on-the-way; the church exists as an outpost of the coming kingdom.
129-30 The 1991 Gulf War experience of one particular student appears to be representative of a large number of Christians. “I served in the war in Kuwait,” he began, “but I didn't want to be there. I didn't like being there. I disliked the 130 degree temperatures, and I thought being there was wrong. The war was abut money, about oil, and we shouldn't have been there, and we didn't accomplish anything because we still have the same problem. But I went - I did my duty, because I did what I was told to do.” Regardless of the accuracy of his judgment of the reasons for the war, I asked whether he should have done “what he was told to do.” In response, he appeared to have few moral resources for making sense of such a question. That one would defy the will of one's government simply appeared incomprehensible. In order to have those things we value, it was argued, we must rely upon the military to protect us from outside threats. Therefore no one could have such rights as freedom of speech and religion if they did not rely upon the military in order to protect these rights.
This is a great irony of American Christianity: exalting the nation that affords us “freedom of religion,” we set aside the way of Christ in order to preserve the religion we supposedly are free to practice. We kill our alleged enemies in order to “worship” the God who teaches us to love enemies. The most important question about our pledge of allegiance is not whether we pledge allegiance to a flag under “one God,” but to what god we are pledging our allegiance. Perhaps it is, after all, not the God revealed in Jesus Christ we are worshiping, but the god of the nation-state, the god of power and might and wealth.
188 Does not the witness of history and prophecy itself deny your claim that Jesus is the Messiah? No, replied the early church father Justin. The fulfillment of God's purposes has already begun, he claimed, and the evidence of this fact lies in the very ethic and lifestyle of the church. Yes, there are portions of the prophetic proclamations yet to be fulfilled, which await the coming advent of Christ. But in the meanwhile, the church lives and exists as a community that bears witness to the reality of the kingdoms of God having already invaded human history: “We who were filled with war, and mutual slaughter, and every wickedness, have each through the whole earth changed our warlike weapons, - our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into implements of tillage, - and we cultivate piety, righteousness, philanthropy, faith, and hope, which we have from the Father Himself through Him who was crucified.”
Justin's mode of apologetics stands in stark contrast to many contemporary models of apologetics. Books on “Christian Evidences,” for example, often proceed upon the assumption that one might appeal to some “objective” court of appeals to demonstrate empirically that Jesus is Lord. But Justin here, at least, employs a different strategy: we claim that Jesus is Lord, and that certain practices accompany that claim, and one may see the truth or falsehood of that claim depending upon the degree to which our lives manifest that claim.
So in his First Apology, Justin cites Isaiah 2:3* as evidence for the Messianic status of Jesus. “That it did so come to pass,” that the Messianic age began with Jesus, “we can convince you,” he boldly asserts: twelve illiterate men went out from Jerusalem, proclaiming by the power of God that they were commissioned to teach the word of God, and “we who were formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.” In other words, Justin asserts that the nonviolent, truth-telling church embodies the new social order foretold by the prophets. You don't believe the new age has come? - asks Justin. Well, just look at the church, and you'll see that all things have begun to be made new.
* Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD , to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
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Johan
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner | Quotations XII: The Younger Evangelicals | August 5 2004, 10:02 PM |
The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World. Robert E. Webber. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002. I've reviewed this book briefly in the lead to this topic. Here are some excerpts.
47-8 The younger evangelicals are marked in a very special way by the events of Septemb er 11, 2001. They know that the world will never be the same, that the ideals of prosperity and the hopes of a pre-September 11 world of peace will never happen. The rise of terror by militant fundamentalists is marking their world and creating an ideological battle of religions. Life will be marked by issues of peace and war, a new form of American patriotism, a wave of conservative political philosophy, a new form of civil religion, a new economic tightening of resources, and a more disciplined life. This cultural setting is radically different than the cultural setting of the post-World War II generation, which was resolved to rebuild their world, and of the post-sixties generation, which was bent on breaking from the past and asserting their freedom to reinvent ethics, religion, and the church. The postmodern September 11, 2001, world has led to the recovery of the biblical understanding of human nature. The language of sin, evil, evildoers, and a reaffirmation of the deceit and wickedness of the human heart has once again emerged in our common vocabulary. The liberal notion of the inherent goodness of humankind and the more recent neglect of the language of sin and depravity have failed to plumb the depths of the wickendness that lurks in the human heart. The younger evangelical approaches humanity with a more realistic and biblical assessment of our estrangement from God. This juxtaposition of a postmodern relativistic worldview with a post-September 11 world of terror and evil has created a new context for ministry. The climate of an apocalyptic age has resulted in a new openness to hear the gospel and to get connected with the church as a community of supporting people. The younger evangelicals now minister in a climate open to an evangelical awakening, an openness and vulnerability not known to their traditional and pragmatic evangelical predecessors. Younger evangelicals freely acknowledge that _they differ with the pragmatist's approach to ministry_. Paul Keith is not attracted to "showy worship and things that please my felt needs." Bernie Van De Walle finds "most, if not all, of the church-growth strategies based on methods, almost revolting." Dale Dirksen, a young college professor, sums up the younger evangelical difference with the pragmatist in these words: "This is not a mere generation gap, it's a total paradigm shift - the immense change of one civilization to another."
69 ... Younger evangelicals, by virtue of their embrace of the new audio and visual forms of communication, reject the restrictions of print communication with its emphasis on knowing primarily through rational means. Instead, they more readily embrace the more emotive, imaginative, and symbolic forms of communication (without rejecting the significance of the spoken word). Their embrace of the new means of knowing bears significant consequences in their approach to faith, as I will show. Because the current revolution in communication is a return to the oral and visual forms that dominated premodern Christianity, the yonger evangelical is much more open to tradition and to the Catholic and Orthodox church and to their use of ceremony and symbolism. They are also very suspicious of propositionalism, rational apologetics, and the church invisible. Because of the influence of the oral and visual forms of communication, the younger evangelical is more apt to embrace story, the apologetics of embodied presence, and the church visible. 91 "The story," writes David Taylor, "has become the chief unifying principle in contemporary evangelism. It is now," he says, "an important epistemological force binding a group or community or society together. No longer is it simply a brute concept, whether political or economic, or in the form of universal reason, or brute force, whether military or ideological - all of which functioned as an external entity imposing itself up on the community. It is now the story, the narrative that provides the cohesion and thus meaning to the community. Truth comes from the story; it is both organic and dynamic, and in an unexpected way very substantial, not experiential, meaning. Furthermore, it is only humans who can and do write stories. Hence truth is fundamentally personal, involving and legitimizing both the subject and the object, both the I and the Thou." His point is "that what we have here is a mgnificent coincidence: a coinciding of postmodernity and orthodox Christian faith. For it is Christianity that declares the essential truth that reality is personal and relational because God himself, revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, was a person in an intimate union with God and humanity. Postmodernity in this sense reflects greater than modernity the biblical perspective on life." 104 Historically, because the church was the guardian and chief interpreter of Scripture and because it was guided by leaders in apostolic succession, a person was regarded as Christian because of his or her "participation in the community of faith." In other words, faith is participation in truth embodied by the community. To "know" truth, one needs to step inside the community and into the stream of its interpretation and experience of reality. However, this approach to truth changed when scriptural texts were separated from the church. The texts were perceived to stand "outside" the church and were therefore subject to the interpretation of the individual. Students of the text, ignoring the communal interpretation of scriptural texts, sought through reason and historical criticism to understand authorial intent. Subsequently, reason, not the text, became authoritative. This separation of Scripture from the church forced Christianity into a rationalist apologetic, which in the end put reason over the church and its interpretation of the text, thus modern apologetics was born. The goal of postmodern apologetics is to recover the role of the church as the interpreter and the embodiment of truth. Thus faith is not born outside the church but within the church as individuals see themselves and their world through the eyes of God's earthed community. This, in essence, is the "communal epistemology," which Joseph Clair suggests "needs to be revalidated and rediscovered in the Christian church today." But the individual does not merely acquiesce to communal truth in an intellectual way. "The correct interpretation of the narrative is response to it." This "true interpretation then becomes transformation, transformation into a new existence of virtue (e.g., love, peace, joy) within the faith community." In sum the community embodies the Christian narrative, the unchurched "step into" the narrative, the narrative grasps them even as they grasp it, and eventually the individual embodies the reality of the church's story as he chooses to live his life from the standpoint of the community of faith."
116-7 Eric Stanford, a younger evangelical, writes of six ways the new postmodern church differs from the pragmatic seeker church: - First, while Boomer churches tend to be highly structured and organized, Xer churches tend to operate by what you might call charismatic leading. Church staffs are smaller and less hierarchical. There's a strong emphasis on all church members helping out in the activities of the church. These churches take seriously the idea that God is the leader of the church, moving mysteriously and powerfully in individuals' lives, and so curch ministries are not always planned by the church leadership but instead are instigated by church members who feel led by God to start a ministry. - Sedcond, while Baby Boomer churches tend to rely heavily on programs, Xer churches put their emphasis on relationship. There's a very clear understanding in Xer congregations that programs are means and not ends. Their purpose is the lacing together of souls. Church events, as well as spontaneous gathings of church members, are less about learning or doing than about just being together. Xers seem willing to take the time that is required for developing relationships; that's where their priority lies. - Third, while Boomer churches emphasize "excellence" in church ministries, Xer churches emphasize "realness." Xers don't seem to care much if the preacher stumbles over his words or the singer is of merely karaoke quality or the small-group leader doesn't know much about the Bibl. But they inssit that people be authentic. Don't pretend you've got it all together, spiritually or otherwise. Admit y mistakes and struggles, for then we can work on them together. No posers allowed. - Fourth, while Boomer churches often tout themselves as "contemporary," Xer churches are typically "ancient-future." That is, the Xer churches ha a dual orientation when it comes to time: they are naturally and comfortably up-to-date wit a high degree of respect for the traditions of the Christian past. It's not unusual for an Xer pastor to refer meaningfully to Thomas á Kempis and Bill Gates in the same sermon. More than one hip Xer Web designer practices the Lectio Divina. - Fifth, while Boomer churches are basically rationalist, Xer churches are more holistic, honoring intellect and emotions, doctrine and intuition. You can see this in Xer preaching, which is highly narrative, emphasizing both the stories of the Bible and the stories of Christians of today. YOu see it as well in worship, which involves an apologetics which is not a mater pf presenting evidence an demanding a verdict but rather of urging people to say yes to Jesus on a daily basis. - Sixth, while Boomer churches often have a competitive streak, Xer churches are more cooperative. It's not us-them; it's all us. Xers see, on the one hand, that God is working in the lives of non-Christians and that, on the other hand, Christians are not too different from nonbelievers in a lot of ways. Xers note things of value in other congregations and don't care for the walls put up between denominations. To many Xers, even the walls between the big three - Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism - seem as ready for demolition as was the Berlin Wall. [ http://www.next-wave.org/dec99/newwaveofgenxchurches.htm] 119-20 This younger generation wants the wisdom of other generations; they don't want to be separated out as a group with characteristics they "will grow out of and graduate from. Instead, writes [Dieter] Zander, Xers have "the very characteristics that the church ought to grow into," one of them being their commitment to the intergenerational church, another their love of intercultural communities. Demographer Barbara Parsole from Atlanta reminds us that numbers of "ethnic people are growing at six times the rate of the U.S. as a whole. Demographer William Frey writes, "Historically Christians responded to America's growing diversity by starting churches aimed at distinct ethnic groups. But as assimilation and intermarriage blur those ethnic lines, perhaps a new kind of multicultural church will emerge." It will. ... This lack of distinction between people is carried over into the younger evangelical attitude toward denominations, including Catholic and Orthodox. Mark Driscoll describes the postmodern world as a "postmodern network." The day of "central hierarchy," at least in denominations, is a thing of the past. The trend, he claims, is toward "local, connected churches from various traditions bringing their gift to the larger body and celebrating the other gifts that are brought to the party." 122 It is interesting that for the most part younger evangelicals are committed to start-up churches. Many existing churches, perhaps most, still function in the modern established pattern and are fearful to take the kind of risks it takes to become a post-Constantinian church. ... Among people who have no tradition to uphold and no denominational battles to fight, the younger evangelicals find open hearts and minds to the fresh winds of the gospel.
(Also see entry for August 6 at Can You Believe?)
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Bill Samuel
(Login BillSamuel) | Opportunities for Friends | August 6 2004, 5:38 PM |
I think the quotes show that what many in this generation long for should provide opportunities for Friends. I think the approach that FUM is taking around the basic description of Friends as "Listening to Christ: a simple faith that transforms lives" is right on point.
I do worry about how many Friends churches and meetings would actually appear to those attracted by this message to be actually living it out. The outreach that FUM does needs to be matched by renewal among the local faith communities.
One issue that I can identify is that Quakers have gotten into process and structure in such a big way that it often seems bureaucratic and cumbersome to newcomers (as well as to many who are already in Friends). But things like the elaborate committee structure are departures from both the early Church and early Friends.
What will attract the younger evangelicals would be a faith community with ministry teams and cell groups rather than committees. In other words, the "structure" would consist of groups formed around actually doing common ministry and relationships, not committees which are often discussing what others would implement rather than building relationships and doing ministry together as the group that is meeting. It would be more open to small groups following ministry leadings without a long, seemingly bureaucratic process vetting it.
I think such a change in structure could release spiritual energies in meetings/churches for work both within the body and in the wider world.
I suspect there are some Friends meetings/churches which indeed have moved to this kind of structure. I would love to hear of such experiences, and to see them shared widely.
Bill Samuel, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Member, Adelphi MM, Baltimore YM
Affiliate Member, Rockingham MM, Ohio YM
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Licia Kuenning
(Login LiciaKuenning) | Books, links, resources | August 12 2004, 2:30 PM |
On the assumption (possibly radical?) that those who set out to do Quaker evangelism should be well read in historic Quaker writings I recommend: http://www.qhpress.orgwhich contains a number of historic Quaker texts, a catalog of historic Quaker texts that are currently available in print or online (with links to the online ones) whether published by us or by someone else, Rosemary Moore's bibliography of early Quaker and anti-Quaker publications, and other interesting stuff. Licia Kuenning Friends of Truth/Glenside Friends Meeting/Quaker Heritage Press
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Johan
(Login Reedwood)
Forum Owner |
I've added it to the list of links up near the top.
Johan |
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