Missiology seems to me to be a rather odd thing to study. It is highly dependent on the findings of sociology - which are notoriously variable and uncertain. On the other hand, I am certainly aware - and passionately believe - that theology HAS to take mission seriously if it is to be true to itself. AND that Christians need to be better listeners to their own culture etc...
Anyhow, my proposal is that the church ought not to accomodate the gospel to its culture but rather trade on its dissonance with culture. Why not proclaim the real gospel and not sweeten the pill? What do I mean:
I mean, tell them that when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die (with Dietrich B.). Tell them they are going to suffer persecutions and humiliations. Tell them that they might as well forget about respectibility; and that they are going to have far fewer sexual partners and drink less. Tell them are going to have un-PC views, and so be out of kilter with the cool inner city crowd. Tell them that they will no longer be numb to the sufferings of others or be able to stand by. Tell them that they may be poorer and be called to live in a smaller house and not wear a Rolex. Tell them their family may reject them or consider them an embarassment... Tell them they will actually feel bad when they do the wrong thing. Tell them that they will have to deal with church and all its human mess.
Then hand out the comment cards...
What do you think?
11 comments:
As long as they are also told they don't get to feel good about being bad, or feel cool for being so dorky, or proud about being so ruddy humble.
Sorry to take two bites of the cherry before others have even found it, but it's so juicy, I could resist posting a response. Oh, and Jess had written a very humorous and insightful reply too, but, alas, the computer ate her first attempt at entering the blogjam.
He's studying Eliot, martyrdom and the self, and thinks missiology is a rather odd thing to study because it is dependent on something variable and uncertain...
I think the point isn't actually whether we should accommodate or trade on dissonance. Rather it's that our proclamation of the gospel needs to engage with culture -- as Paul did in both synagogue and agora -- not hit and run. And to do that we need to listen -- to individuals as well as 'bigger trends', because 'culture' is an unhelpfully big target. So, Michael, the fact that your examples of what might be seen as negative consequences of being a disciple of Jesus, revolve (resorting here to a caricature) around things like PC views and Rolex watches says something about how you perceive those around you (or those who you think read your blog). It also says something about the way you see the gospel being proclaimed in the environments you are familiar with, since you write as though you are setting out an alternative.
Love your work...
Greg Anderson
Thanks Mike,
Have I understood you right?
I'm preaching on Revelation 16 tomorrow and its impossible not to feel 'dissonance with the culture' - its hard to imagine something less PC than the wrath of God. I've been struggling with this all week.
Are you saying I musn't be too 'apologetic' for God and explain away the force of the passage - instead play up the dissonance which is there?
Sounds like a call to fight bravely against sin THE WORLD and the devil.
Michael K
PS Is wearing a Rolex knock off OK or is that worse?
Fair cop Greg A!
I guess, yes, you have encircled me here somewhat...
I have lately been reading Niebuhr's Christ and Culture, and reflecting on the arbitrary way in which Christians from wherever select which bits of the world they accept and which they reject...
I have also been thinking about apologetics...because the more we trade in the currency of secular reason the more we are beholden to it. And it undermines our case somewhat.
For example: is NT Wright's attempt to beat the Quest for the historical Jesus at its own game in the end self-defeating because he plays on a modernist field with modernist equipment? That's a question that has to asked I think.
Accommodation, dissonance, legitimising, subverting…
Michael is absolutely right in challenging the domestication of the gospel. Many of the issues he raises are regarded as aspects of discipleship that are taught later in the journey in a game of bait and switch.
Yet, the call to follow Christ cannot be separated from the call to embrace his agenda, a value system that is so often antithetical to our own.
But it is not simply the case that our culture's values will always be opposed to our own. Sometimes the gospel both subverts and yet strangely realises our dreams in a new and wonderful way. For example the kingdom values around womanhood subvert the values of feminism, but then realise an even greater, almost unthinkably wonderful vision of womanhood. Oh, that we could capture that in our evangelism.
Where is wonderful vision of womanhood? ;-)
Yes...there is a human universal longing/desire tow which the gospel corresponds of course and it is often embedded in our culture. Fair enough.
I suppose I am afeard that sometimes the cultural analysis that we trade in (which is taken second-hand from sociologists/anthropologists etc and trades in the broadest generalisations) becomes the driver of theological reflection and evangelism... while at the same time wanting to see genuine responiveness to the culture as well.
It is funny, too, how what we feel our distinctives become prominent in our message. So, an intra-church fight becomes the thing that shapes our gospel, because we are so used to defining ourselves in that way. (I think there are liberal and conservative versions of this).
I never heard my grandfather preach - he was a baptist lay preacher in South Australia. He would have been about a 115 now, if he were still alive. His nickname was certainly evocative: "The Brighton Rocket" - the only tantalising clue I have as to his preaching was my mother recalling the phrase (with high melodramatic emphasis) "Ye are CARNAL! SOLD unto SIN!". My auntie Joan, always an extrovert, (eventually she became an anglican clergy wife in West Lindfield) went forward each week at the altar call.... every week. My mum, more naturally shy, never did (though something must have sunk in at some point, because she doesn't seem particularly sold unto sin). Point is, it seems pretty familiar, that new thing you are proposing, ain't it just the ol' fire and brimstone under a new unpronounceable name? And I'm sure it would be great in the right hands. But surely its not for everyone. it would go well with being shamelessly passionate and probably a bit bombastic: no use just adopting it as a technique if it requires narrating an unfamiliar, hollow sounding self: behold the Oxford Rocket, swatch-wielding nemesis of the cool inner city crowd!
(I had fun imagining reponses for the comment cards "my doctor won't let me drink, the cool inner city crowd hates me since my renovations built out their water views, and I don't have any sexual partners, not even my wife. Don't take the rolex...have mercy")
(P Knight)
No no, I don't mean 'hell-fire and brimstone' as an attack on the pagan lifestyle: I mean 'let's not 'market' the gospel sweetening the sometimes bitter pill...' because we actually misrepresent the whole thing in doing so... I guess I was havin' a go at what is in its ugliest form the prosperity gospel - come to Christ and get rich... but there are more subtle forms.
Come to church and feel rich - or at least smug, safe, comfortable and untouchable: which is what rich is often really about.
Tim Foster's MTh thesis seems to be coming up with similar conclusions to your suggestion here.
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