Having considered in the previous post Newbigin’s insistence that the church must recover its eschatological imagination, we now turn to the second of what could be called his seven marks of the missional church — a true Christian doctrine of freedom. Two sets of concerns fall under this heading for Newbigin. The first set deals with matters that pertain to the relationship between church and state, while the second touches upon issues related to anthropology.[1. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1986), 137-141.] (more…)
Tag: mission
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Series: Newbigin on “The Call to the Church” – 1. Eschatology
The previous post set the stage for a series of posts on Lesslie Newbigin’s understanding, as presented in Foolishness to the Greeks, of the seven essential conditions that must be recovered if there is to be a genuine missionary encounter between the church and the modern West. The first of these essential conditions, Newbigin asserts, “must be the recovery and firm grasp of a true doctrine of the last things, of eschatology.”[1. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1986), 134.] (more…)
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Series: Newbigin on “The Call to the Church” – Introduction
This past week marked the start of a course I am teaching at Tyndale Seminary called “Integrative Seminar II.” Don’t let the nondescript title fool you; this course may very well be the most enthralling course that I’ve had the privilege to be involved with at Tyndale. There’s a variety of reasons for this, including the fact that the course occurs near the end of the MDiv In-Ministry program and provides an opportunity for the students to bring together what they have learned and the skills they have developed over the course of the entire program. Probably the biggest factor, though, is the compelling character of the subject matter itself. “Integrative Seminar II” is shaped around exploring the life and thought of six twentieth century Christian pastor-leader-theologians: Lesslie Newbigin, John Perkins, Vinay Samuel, Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (more…)
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Christopher Wright and the Mission of God
This past Thursday, Christopher Wright was at Tyndale University College and Seminary to present a lecture entitled, “The Mission of God and the Cape Town Commitment.” Wright’s contributions to missional hermeneutics, as well as his massive textbook, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, have been hugely influential on the theological curriculum at Tyndale in recent years. Wright is a consummate “churchman” whose current role as the director of Langham Partnership International has involved him in teaching ministries across the globe. While chairing the Lausanne Theology Working Group, he was the chief architect of “The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call to Action.” (more…)
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Upcoming Conference Presentation
I’ve had a lot on my plate in recent days – including wrapping up an intensive theology course at Tyndale Seminary and preparing to preach on the Samson narrative at Toronto Chinese Alliance Church this coming Sunday – which has contributed to somewhat of a lull in my production of blog posts. Also quickly approaching is the “Participation in God’s Mission” conference at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY, where I will be presenting a paper. (more…)
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“Tolkien and the Adventure of Discipleship”
I received in my inbox this morning a digital copy of the latest edition of the Canadian Theological Review. The issue (2014, vol. 3, no. 2) includes my article, “Tolkien and the Adventure of Discipleship: Imaginative Resources for a Missional Ecclesiology.” My former theological students at Tyndale Seminary will be able to trace some of the material back to my lecture on “The Christian Life” where some of the thoughts first appeared in seminal form. I had the opportunity to further develop this line of inquiry within the context of addressing the National Conference of the Congregational Christian Churches in Canada in 2014 on the theme of “The Adventure of Discipleship.” (more…)
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Presence and Servanthood
A recurrent theme which came up in the discussions surrounding my previous postings on John Howard Yoder’s Theology of Mission was the integral connection in Yoder’s thought between the medium and the message. This connection is made explicit in a couple of chapters where Yoder explores under the heading “Message and Medium” what could be described as the fundamental stance or posture of the missionary community. Yoder’s thoughts at this point are not simply for “professional missionaries” in faraway places, but for the people of God who are always in mission wherever they find themselves. (more…)
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Persuasion vs. Proclamation
In his posthumously published collection of lectures, Theology of Mission, John Howard Yoder introduces an interesting analogy to differentiate between communication that is truly evangelical, as opposed to that which is simply manipulative. The former, which he describes as proclamation, begins from a theological starting point. The latter, which he describes as persuasion, starts from an anthropological starting point. Yoder introduces the analogy of a train compared to a taxi in an attempt to introduce the difference between these two modes of speech. As someone raised on the music of Johnny Cash, I’m probably partial to the suggestion that “the kingdom is more like a train,” but I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. Here’s the quote: (more…) -
“The Believer’s Life as Mission”
“Paul generally does not urge his readers to proclaim the gospel to their neighbors, nor to go to the ends of the earth with the saving message of Christ. Rather, he urges them and commands them to live a life of holiness, to walk worthily of their calling, to demonstrate in loving and harmonious unity the new powers which have entered into the world in Christ, to demonstrate through victorious living the present victory of Christ over the powers of evil. It has been suggested that the reason why Paul does not urge his readers to a life of verbal witness is primarily because the early churches were not deficient in this respect. Though this is possible, it should be emphasized that what Paul is really doing in his letters is stressing the significance and importance of the believer’s life as mission.” – Edwin Roels, God’s Mission: The Epistle to the Ephesians in Mission Perspective (Franeker: T. Wever, 1962), 57, quoted in John Howard Yoder, Theology of Mission: A Believer’s Church Perspective, ed. Gayle Gerber Koontz and Andy Alexis-Baker (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), 103.
