Being God's People

"The Church is a congregation, set to draw all people of whatever kind into one family. But it is also a mission sent to the nations, that is to say, sent to people not as isolated individuals, but to people in the full reality of their cultural, social, economic life as people. For the fulfillment of that mission it is not enough to say 'Come -- all are welcome'. It is also necessary to go, to leave the establishment behind, to make daring experiments in seeking to learn what it means to live the life of Christ in every one of the idioms and patterns of the myriad human communities. It is necessary that the corn of wheat fall into the ground in order that the particular fruit of that ground may be brought to perfection in Christ. But yet again, all the fruit is to be brought into one store. The variety is for the sake of the unity of the Body of Christ that each may serve not itself but the whole. This going and coming, this scattering and gathering of fruit, is the very life of the Church when it is true to its proper nature."  (Lesslie Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man, p. 111, 1966).

Missional Reflections on Violent forms of Islam

             To be a follower of Christ requires speaking the truth in love.  The impetuous apostle Peter had learned this, and instructs us, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).  This means that we must treat followers of Islam with “gentleness and respect.”  The King James Version says “with meekness and fear.”  

When we engage Muslims, we are hypocrites, if we claim to bring them a message of good news from God, and yet act in an ungodly way towards them.  We must take to heart the words of the prophet, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).  We must, by God’s grace, strive to be disciples of Jesus in the very manner in which we do our mission work – we must pray for the fruit of the Spirit in our lives:  especially love, joy, and peace.  This focus should encourage us to imitate the way in which the best missionaries of the past have engaged with Muslims – they have done it with empathy, fairness, compassion, as well as courage and truthfulness.

One scholar, who had worked with Muslims for over fifty years, towards the end of his life and reflecting on his own careful study of Islamic resources wrote,

This also helped me to learn (to try) to reflect with Muslims, to understand with empathy and friendly criticism.  It is this also which was the basis for my teaching of Islamic studies in various Church institutions especially in Egypt.  For I try to present Islam, as far as possible, as Muslims would wish to see it presented, with objectivity and affection, which in no way prevents a critical view and questioning.  I consider it necessary to apply the Gold Rule of the Gospel to one’s observation and understanding, then to try to look at the other and understand him as I would myself wish him to regard and understand me.  (Christiann van Mispen tot Sevenaer, “A  Man of Dialogue,” [2012] in Christian Lives Given to the Study of Islam, 130).   

            This may be a challenge for us as frail human beings when we are engaging with people who are progressive Muslims, or moderate adherents of Islam, or even non-political traditional Muslims.  It requires an extra measure of God’s grace when we are dealing with radical or puritanical Muslims – the so called Islamists, whether Sunni or Shia. On the ground some Islamists could be, depending on the circumstances, people bent on violence against others, and against our brothers and sisters in Christ, or even against us personally.  But it is precisely here that we are put to the test by the Lord, who taught us to love our enemies, do good to them that hate us, and pray for those who persecute us (Matt 5:38-39).  “The commending of the Christian faith has to be in accordance with its own character, with the inner coherence of word and deed in the person of Jesus Christ” (Christopher Lamb, “An Engagement  with Islam,” [2012] in Christian Lives Given to the Study of Islam, 159). Surely, we need grace and wisdom here, beyond our own ability. 

 

            It is helpful, of course, to remember that there are as many understandings of Islam as there are Muslims.  Again, we must not fall into the error of essentialism.  Too many political commentators, talk show hosts, and unfortunately Christian pastors, fall into the error of reading the puritanical interpretation onto all Muslims and onto Islam as a religion. Here, whether we agree or not with the thesis of Miroslav Volf’s, book Allah: A Christian Response, we ought to appreciate his desire to address Islam in its best light and not in its worst light.  He writes, “For me here the ‘paradigmatic’ Muslim is the great and immensely influential thinker Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1056-1111), and not, for instance Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), the most popular representative of radical Islam” (Volf, Allah, [Kindle], loc 253).   The great missionary Samuel Zwemer focused on al-Ghazali, as a Muslim seeker after God, who shows Islam at its best.   

            It is a mistake to argue that the true Islam is the most violent or viral form of it.  It is both unjust towards Muslims who hold different views as well as politically unwise.  It is also simply disingenuous, when thinking about Islam, or when interacting with Muslims, to compare and contrast an idealized picture of the “Christianity,” with the worst form or features of certain expressions of Islam.  We must bear witness to the Scriptures and the truth of the gospel (if we are, in fact, followers of Jesus), but we should be careful to distinguish it from our own failed attempts to fully live up to its standards within “Christianity.”  At the same time we should let Muslims state what they believe Islam to be.

Why should we agree with the puritanical Islamists that their expression of Islam is the correct view?   Does this not inadvertently give weight to their cause?  Again, there are as many views of Islam as there are Muslims, and there are certainly a great variety of traditions and expressions within the world of Islam, both in history and today.  But radical and dangerous forms of Islam do exist in the world, and the gospel compels us to love and share the gospel by life and word with those caught it its clutches.  Here the saying of the Lord Jesus is especially applicable:  we are to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Matt 10:16). May the Spirit help us to live in obedience to our Lord, and share his heart for all people.

To Change the World: A Fourth Political Theology

James Hunter's book, To Change the World, is a stimulating challenge to the question of church and culture. Hunter's identification of the two essential tasks of the church with regard to culture and power are worth pondering:

"The church has two essential tasks. The first is to disentangle the life and identity of the church from the life and identity of American society. The second task is for the church and for Christian believers to decouple the “public” from the “political.” The way of Christ differs. His way operated in complete obedience to God the Father, it repudiated the symbolic trappings of elitism, it manifest compassion concretely out of calling and vocation, and it served the good of all and not just the good of the community of faith."

Hunter's groundwork for an alternative approach is described as follows:

"Christians are called to relate to the world within the dialectic of affirmation and antithesis. If there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world, it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better, but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God, and a fulfillment of God’s command to love our neighbor. Antithesis, in contrast, is rooted in recognition of the totality of the fall. Consequently, however much Christians may be able to a affirm in the world, the church is always a “community of resistance.” The objective is to retrieve the good to which modern institutions and ideas aspire, to oppose those ideals and structures that undermine human flourishing, and to offer constructive alternatives for the realization of a better way."

Both of these above paragraphs are taken from the abstracts to the various chapters of his book, which Hunter provides at his web site.

The Church's Particularity

“Each church…reflects a distinctive culture or cultures…Regardless of its relationship to the prevailing culture around it, a given church is itself a cultural community with its own language, spoken or unspoken rules of conduct, expectations, and the like. While it is possible to discern authentic and inauthentic expressions of the gospel and church in a given culture, it is impossible to separate the gospel and the church from culture….As Newbigin sees it, ‘The idea that one can or could at any time separate out by some process of distillation a pure gospel unadulterated by any cultural accretions is an illusion’” (Exploring Ecclesiology, by Harper and Metzger, p. 275).

The Western, White Cultural Captivity of the Church

Soong-Chan Rah has written an important book, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. It has an edge; it is a bit redundant, but it is an important book. If you are interested in the church and its cultural instantiation, this is a must read. Part of what it reveals is how far behind many of us (read "white cultural Christians") are with regard to the whole question of "race" and diversity, especially as it is impacting the church. Perhaps growing up in Asia and then working with the church there for so many years has biased my view. But I felt embarrased as I read this work: embarrased at our own cultural blindness. May the Lord use this volume to help open our eyes.

What Role Does the Church Have in Politics?

An interesting book, Debating the Divine, on the role of religion in American politics is now available in pdf format from American Progress.

Here are the contents:

Introduction

Debating the Divine, by Sally Steenland (pdf)

About the Authors (pdf)

Opening Essays

Civic Patriotism and the Critical Discussion of Religious Ideas, by David A. Hollinger (pdf)

Religious Pluralism in the Public Square, by Eboo Patel (pdf)

Responding Essays

The Two Cultures?, by Mark Lilla (pdf)

Religion in the Public Square, by Nicholas Wolterstorff (pdf)

Religions and Public Life: Problems of Translation, by Martha Minow (pdf)

Wisdom, Not Prescription: One Size Does Not Fit All, by Mark A. Noll (pdf)

Nobody Gets a Pass: Faith in Reason and Religious Pluralism Are Equally Questionable, by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite (pdf)

Clothes Encounters in the Naked Public Square, by T. Jeremy Gunn (pdf)

America’s Tower of Religious Babble Is Already Too High, by Susan Jacoby (pdf)

Religion and Community Organizing: Prophetic Religion and Social Justice Offer Avenues to a New Democratic Pluralism, by Charlene K. Sinclair (pdf)

The Rules of Engagement: How the American Tradition of Religious Freedom Helps Define Religion’s Role in Civic Debate, by Melissa Rogers (pdf)

Globalization, the End of Easy Consensus, and Beginning the Real Work of Pluralism, by Vincent J. Miller (pdf)

Liberals and Religion, by Alan Wolfe (pdf)

Closing Essays

Patterns of Engagement and Evasion, by David A. Hollinger (pdf)

The Promise of Religious Pluralism by Eboo Patel, (pdf)

Policymaker Response

Transforming the Religious–Secular Divide to Work for the Common Good, by John D. Podesta and Shaun Casey (pdf)

The Conservative Response in Anglicanism

An interesting meeting will take place starting tomorrow within the more conservative wing of the Anglican Church; the gathering is called GAFCON, the Global Anglican Futures conference. "Many conservatives pulled out of Lambeth (the gathering of Anglican bishops every ten years) in the ongoing dispute over homosexual ordination and same-sex blessings." Peter Jensen, who heads up the conference, suggests that GAFCON could turn into a movement "with sufficient institutional reality to make it a new force within the Anglican Communion." Again, the question is raised, what does it mean to be the Church today? What kind of corporate life do we construct together? What does the Church "as culture" look like?