Papers prepared for a Christian Associates colloquium at the Carmelite Retreat Centre in Glasgow (8-10 June 2003).
I suggest that we take as a starting point the distinction between two tasks.
The first task is that of defining as well as we can the historical-eschatological narrative that has given rise to a ‘gospel’ that needs preaching. The primary reason for doing so is to ensure that we are telling the right sort of biblical story, but this approach may also prove especially helpful for defining a postmodern ‘orthodoxy’. Michael’s paper offers important guidelines for exploring these questions further, but this summary will concentrate on our attempts to answer the particular question about the gospel.
There seemed to be agreement in our discussions that the thinking and agenda of modern evangelicalism have created distortions in the core narrative of Christian faith and that these distortions have in turn forced us into certain doctrinal positions with which we are personally uncomfortable and which are especially unhelpful for the purposes of emerging culture mission. There is a need, therefore, to revisit the biblical texts and reconstruct the story in the light of an historical-critical hermeneutic (Andrew). We are likely to find, as a result, that much of the language of eschatology and salvation, by which we define the gospel, relates specifically to the fate of second temple Judaism and the emergence of a renewed people of God in the pagan world. How this works out in detail still needs to be clarified but it is already evident that this sort of retelling of the story will have important implications for how we understand the gospel.
The second task has to do with determining how we interpret and apply this gospel within a postmodern cultural context.
A useful distinction was made between an essential ‘kerygma’ and the secondary teaching that safeguards the integrity of the kerygma and expounds its implications for mission and the life of the church (Dan). We recognized the possibility that the secondary teaching might have to be adjusted in response to social and cultural change.
However, we also identified at least two respects in which the gospel has to be shown to be more than a set of abstracted beliefs or propositions. First, the gospel should not be separated from its narrative context, which helps us to keep in touch with the historical-eschatological story behind the gospel; secondly, the gospel should always be embodied, communicated, lived out, in relationship and in the life of the community. One way to ensure this relational aspect would be closely to identify the gospel with the person of Jesus (Hud).
The emphasis on community here also has implications for how we understand conversion. We found Kallenberg’s suggestion helpful that conversion should be understood as ‘naturalization into community’ (Rogier). This way of thinking corrects the individualism and epistemological reductionism of traditional evangelical models of conversion. It also agrees with the argument that in a ‘post-eschatological’ situation salvation should be understood not as gaining life after death but as entering a community of the Spirit in which we experience the life of the age that has come.
This ‘new life’ also needs to be understood in creational terms (Wes). If in certain respects the gospel is the product of the narrow and particular story of Israel, it must also be fitted within a wider creational or cosmic narrative. This expansive, holistic outlook resonates with postmodern hostility to reductionist intellectual strategies, but at the same time there is an inherent optimism in it which challenges the scepticism and pessimism of postmodernism, offering not another way to announce the demise of the modernist project but an authentic new beginning. Again there is a significant connection here with the ‘post-eschatological’ emphasis on the ‘worldly’ orientation of the renewed community of God.
The gospel is indeed the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. But what is it that must first be believed on for this salvation? And how is that “good news” assimilated over time and further reinforced in the hearts of those believing? By observing Luke’s account of Paul and Barnabas’ first missionary journey (late 40’s AD) from Syrian Antioch into the multi-cultural terrain of Cyprus and Asia Minor, I believe we can gain a fresh appreciation into what I would call the gospel’s progressive or cascading impact upon responding audiences.
At the outset of that famous trek recorded for us in Acts, chapters 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas were commissioned by the early church at Antioch to communicate this gospel not only to practicing Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, but to Gentiles who had little or no connection at all to Judaism. As they encountered these two primary audiences throughout this journey, the two itinerant preachers used various means to access each. The former was strategically approached via the established synagogues, where Paul integrated his gospel presentation into the normal flow of the Sabbath service. The platform for the latter group involved such events as power encounters or larger, more eclectic gatherings pulled together after this preaching duo’s unusual message leaked out to the general populace from earlier synagogue preaching.
As we consider what Paul and Barnabas proclaimed in the towns visited in this particular journey, we see the presentation of a very basic kernel of gospel material - a “kerygma” which was apparently nuanced according to the audience encountered.[1] For example, among the Jews and God-fearing Gentile proselytes in Pisidian Antioch, we see Paul proclaiming what some have called an updated “Old Testament kerygma”.[2] A similar presentation may have been made in the synagogue at Iconium. In Lystra, among the Gentiles not practicing Judaism, Paul appears to be in the act of presenting the “Veggie-Tails” super-basic version of the gospel (turn from your worthless gods to the living God, the Creator who shows His care for you in his many providences and…). But then suddenly he appears to be tripped-up by the crowd’s desire to pay homage to his godhood rather than listen to his message. One gets the idea that more content might have been shared (probably not of the Jewish kerygma variety - what sense would that have made to most of them?) had the crowd not been so busy trying to worship them (and then later to stone them!).
Among a similar kind of Gentile audience earlier on in the towns of Cyprus, we read that one proconsul, Sergius Paulus, was “amazed at the teaching of the Lord” (which may have included some redemptive acts in Jewish history, but probably included the object lesson of God’s power in blinding the proconsul’s sorcerer attendant). In Derbe we’re told only that Paul and Barnabas “preached the good news and won a large number of disciples.” What was included as part of that good news we’re not told.
So, what seems to be the picture in the Lukan account of this missionary trip is a series of gospel presentations that included selective emphasis on certain aspects of a broader pool of “good news”. How much content was shared and to what degree varied according to the audience encountered.[3] Some contexts afforded a more opportune and hence thorough gospel presentation, while others only allowed certain bare essentials to be brought forward before the opportunity was truncated.
As the good news was proclaimed within a given locale, and people were won to Christ, we recognize a further interesting dynamic on this missionary journey (a dynamic which is arguably germane to most gospel presentations in the New Testament). It seems over time, in subsequent contacts with given responding audiences, additional primary and secondary material needed to be introduced to supplement what was shared in the initial proclamation. That additional material might constitute an extra dose of core material missing in the first-round proclamation; or it might involve further essential teachings to under-gird the gospel to which they had earlier converted. In some instances it probably involved both. In any case, over time a fuller proclamation of the basic kerygma seemed to regularly involve supplementation with essential doctrine. Without this additional secondary material, the original gospel could conceivably not root in someone’s life. This subsequent teaching, probably equivalent to Paul’s “good deposit” (II Timothy I:14), helped foster an environment in the heart conducive to growth in the gospel. It’s not that the gospel was in any way deficient; it’s just that the assimilation of it seemed to involve ongoing reminding, processing and wrestling with further complementary teaching (including core gospel material). One’s understanding and appreciation of the good news was thereby deepened by this further “washing with the Word.”
Looking back to that 1st missionary journey, we see evidence of this dynamic. As the missionaries backtracked through the cities they just visited, we’re told they engaged in “strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith” (14:22a). I imagine in those re-visitations Paul and Barnabas stressed certain deeper teaching (perhaps showing converts “the way of God more adequately”, as Priscilla and Aquila did for the Jewish preacher Apollos in Acts 18). They may have also highlighted the aspect of suffering as a more subliminal yet very important part of this gospel (in 14:22b, we see Paul and Barnabas returning to the towns and informing the new disciples of that additional heavy reality they face: “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”).
What I’m getting at is this: we cannot rightly talk about the “gospel” in isolation from the necessary follow-up ministry of under-girding that gospel. It trails behind but is still part and parcel to the kerygma seating itself in people’s hearts and lives. As Paul noted to Timothy, sound doctrine is in accord with or “conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (I Timothy 1:11). This suggests that the good news is ideally shared in a multi-layered fashion over time, with an outer prominent kerygma, but also with accompanying layers of deeper material. These layers complement and further enrich it as good news.
At this point I’d like to expand this discussion beyond this 1st missionary journey and briefly explore the makeup of both this “good news” and this “good deposit”. When we observe Paul in action, he seems to have a firm grasp of a basic kerygma, and he and his close cohorts appear to have had a uniform grasp of a broader doctrinal good deposit. So, what was the composition of that core gospel? And what about the good deposit – what did that constitute? C.H. Dodd and many others have argued that Peter’s speeches represent the kerygma ideal in terms of the inclusion of certain bare essentials. The ancient kerygma as summarized by Dodd from Peter’s speeches in Acts was:
These key elements or something close to them, Dodd argues, would have been part of the primary repertoire employed to elicit faith in the hearer, whether that hearer heard the full scope on round one, or whether they heard that full scope over time in successive presentations of the good news.[4] (I find it surprising that Dodd’s summary excludes any obvious reference to the aggressive inclusivity we see exhibited by Paul in locales such as Pisidian Antioch, and emphasized so prominently in letters like Galatians and Romans. This was a huge part of what made the gospel good news for the Gentiles – that they were actually included and united into one people of God).
Whatever primitive kerygma the Apostles drew upon in their missional preaching, Dodd contends that within the Apostolic era and beyond, into the history of the early Church and its liturgy, a mature, more evolved kerygma emerged:
“As the Church produced a settled organization of its life, the content of the kerygma entered into the Rule of Faith, which is recognized by the theologians of the second and third centuries as the presupposition of Christian theology. Out of the Rule of Faith in turn the Creeds emerged. The so-called Apostles’ Creed in particular still betrays in its form and language its direct descent from the primitive apostolic Preaching. At the same time, the kerygma exerted a controlling influence upon the shaping of the Liturgy. While theology advanced from the positions established by Paul and John, the form and language of the Church’s worship adhered more closely to the forms of the kerygma. It is perhaps in some parts of the great liturgies of the Church that we are still in most direct contact with the original apostolic Preaching.”[5]
Has the Church over the ages unnecessarily complicated matters by moving away from a simple kerygma employed by the original Apostolic preachers? Have we as a Body, historically, been guilty of elevating secondary material into the realm of primary gospel? And do we thereby obstruct the way to faith in our missional preaching, by making the gospel overly complex or a matter of cognitive ascent to a list of doctrines? Should we rather provide a very simple gospel message that even the most unsophisticated could manage to grasp? A lowest-common denominator kerygma which might be comprised of only the following: God has made a way to Himself through Jesus’ death that involves the pure gift of His acceptance and the wiping away of our sins, offered apart from anything we have done or could do to earn or obligate that acceptance, and conditioned upon our endurance in trust (through the encouragement and inspiration of the Scriptures and the ongoing kindness of God in the Holy Spirit).[6]
Whatever we conclude ought to be part of a bare-minimum kerygma, we do need to keep the focus on Jesus Christ resurrected, given as the Savior of the world to all who will believe (Romans 1:2-4). Along with this, we need to offer the community of Christ an ongoing immersion in the stories and instruction of Scripture (the good deposit will thereby continually touch us to help insure that the primary gospel remains alive in our hearts). This good deposit, as Paul envisioned it, is admittedly difficult to pinpoint with precision. And it may have included 1st century cultural elements which have over the centuries been superceded (e.g. the role of women, slaves, etc.). I suppose this is where our confidence in the ministry of the Holy Spirit is called upon. As we let the Scriptures master us in our community studying to show ourselves approved, we can be assured that the Spirit of God will shore up the gospel in our hearts.
In the Modern era the Church has, as the argument goes, overemphasized the gospel as content to be believed, rather than as encounter with the living Person, Jesus Christ. So as to avoid any conclusions that what I’m suggesting thus far is skewed too far toward content or assent to doctrinal formulations, I want to underscore this other key facet integrally wed to our gospel proclamation and under-girding – the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In his letters to the Ephesians and the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul mentioned another “good deposit” left to the church – “the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:14; cf. II Corinth. 5:5). We cannot fairly talk about the “good news” if we leave out the prospect of a long term, increasingly deeper and satisfying interaction with BOTH good deposits that point us to Jesus (and what true life in Him means). In the gospel we meet Christ, and we continue to find encouragement in the living Word of God along with the active presence of the Spirit (also ministering in power, not just revealing the Scriptures). This dual interaction is the only way that we too, like an aging Paul, might be disposed to say at life’s end “bring the scrolls, especially the parchments” (II Timothy 4:13). Still intrigued by God’s Word to the very end. Still looking for how the Spirit might yet make this good news even better.
To put a wrapper on this discussion, I want to re-iterate my belief in the simplicity of the gospel. It is first and foremost encounter with Jesus Christ Himself – He is the embodiment of the good news (which can be understood and eventually articulated by its recipients in concrete words – even if that means a person only initially knows inside that God has forgiven and accepted them in Christ). As well, I would add that before the Apostle Paul or any gospel proclaimers from his day on, down to the present, ever muttered a word about Jesus into a given context, the Spirit was active preparing the ground to receive the seed of the Word. This advance work of the Spirit, including His confirming signs and wonders in certain cases, along with the personal meeting of Christ (Spirit to spirit), sets the stage for the deeper ministry of the washing with the Word over time. The kerygma and the “good deposit” and the “Good Deposit” all harmoniously over time increasing our appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This leaves room for a “belonging before believing” perspective (which was arguably also present in Paul’s day among the newly forming church communities where the gospel was first going out), where we value giving normal people adequate immersion in the body of Christ. This community immersion enables them to feel and experience Jesus Christ in people who “embody” that gospel and good deposit, and hence fosters openness to receive the forgiveness, acceptance and hope that Christ offers.
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Some afterthoughts as they pertain to postmodern ministry:
1. Exegeting our audiences is as important as exegeting the Word we bring to them, if we hope to have the gospel heard as good news.
2. Missional preaching is not primarily about one-shot unloading of the kerygma on unsuspecting people. In whatever opportunities God allows for sharing these words of life, may we be ever prayerful and discerning about how best to share (what to include; what to hold back on). An ongoing relationship with our hearers helps insure that the gospel gets a fuller hearing (in which we are ideally over time able to pass on the good deposit).
3. However we view Scripture and theology, we must not tire of pursuing fresh, creative, multi-dimensional ways of interacting with the good deposit, toward the under-girding of this wonderful gospel in our lives. May we break out of the mono-lithic manners in which we promote that interaction.
4. See that growth in the gospel involves a commitment to remain missional and to live out the gospel together like we really believe it.
5. In Pisidian Antioch, Paul clearly laid out a warning for those Jews rejecting the gospel. This was part of his proclamation. Does any warning fit in our presentation of the gospel today, or do we not feel there is any place for that?
6. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God”, Paul told the churches in Asia Minor as he backtracked through. What does this mean as it pertains to the good news? Is it part of that, and if so, does it make it less good or even better?
7. One way we effectively under-gird the gospel is through the repetition of the drama of Communion. Jesus knew we needed to remember and keep remembering this enacted kerygma, so that we might keep it alive in our hearts and communities.
[1] C.H. Dodd popularized this term “kerygma” in a series of lectures given in 1935, which are bound in the book, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (Harper and Row, 1964); I’m using the term in a more generic sense to describe the essential kernel of truth, the core gospel content. Dodd viewed kerygma much more narrowly, as the content of the good news proclaimed in order to introduce a person to Christ and to appeal for their conversion. He saw as a separate category the doctrinal and ethical teaching of the church (“didache”) a person needs to be grounded in once they become a Christian. Kerygma and didache could of course overlap (e.g. Jesus’ atoning death having a key role in both), but didache was broader in thematic content and not strictly ‘kerygmatic’ as it was used in edifying the body.
[2] In Acts 13:17-22 Paul’s speech before the Jews at the synagogue (not unlike Peter and Stephen’s famous speeches recorded in Acts 2 and 7, respectively) seems to contain a confessional summary narrating certain great redemptive acts of God (e.g. God’s choice of the Patriarchs, His blessing of the children of Israel in Egypt and their favored Exodus; God’s securing of Canaan; His provision of Judges and choice of David to be Israel’s king). To this list Paul adds John the Baptist’s ministry pointing to the coming Saviour, and, most importantly, Jesus’ “unnoticed” arrival, death and resurrection. These events become the sequel to God’s dealings with His people, and ultimately the grand fulfillment of all the Scriptures have promised - in essence, a more updated or developed kerygma. See Tyndale NT Commentary on Acts, by E.M. Blaiklock (IVP, Leicester, England; 1977), pp. 105-106.
[3] This seems to have been standard practice for gospel-proclaimers in the book of Acts. If we look more broadly to Paul’s preaching on other missionary journeys, or at significant gospel-sharing situations (like Peter’s and Stephen’s speeches), we see a corroborating pattern of proclaimers tailoring their first-round gospel presentation according to audience. Certain aspects of an overall kerygma are included or excluded according to their hearers’ pre-understandings about God (e.g. In Acts 2 before a Jewish audience Peter presents what many call the most thoroughly developed kerygma; In contrast, Paul before the Athenian philosophers presents only key aspects about a living Creator God who is calling people everywhere to repent, and who one day will judge the world by His appointed One whom He raised from the dead).
[4] A slight alteration of Dodd’s kerygma: the apostolic kerygma was “a proclamation of the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus that led to an evaluation of His person as both Lord and Christ, confronted man with the necessity of repentance, and promised theforgiveness of sins” (R. H. Mounce. The Essential Nature of New Testament Preaching, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960, p. 84).
[5] Quoted from the third lecture in The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments, by C. H. Dodd (Harper and Row, 1964).
[6] This might be equivalent to the kerygma Paul urged Titus to stress among the new converts on the island of Crete (see Titus 3:4-8). Most commentators argue that this kernel in verses four to seven is a quote from an early church hymn sung at baptisms. In this case there seems to be a direct correlation between their holding this kerygma in steady view and their success in aspiring to holy living (“This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things [the kerygma just mentioned], so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.”).
Wes White
Wes White pastors a Christian Associates church community in Glasgow, Scotland, called Mosaic.
IntroductionNew sights and sounds and smells are infiltrating the Mosaic community. In the past month we have welcomed the arrival of two babies, the first generation in Mosaic’s short history. Amidst the mirth and challenge, which naturally arise out of such joyous occasions, additions of this kind also instigate a subtle appreciation for the “new birth” terminology of Jesus (John 3:3). Unfortunately, it is on the basis of this singular text that some (notably, evangelical traditions) subscribe to a very individualized gospel that is essentially understood as the offer of being “born again.”[1]
But new babies also reawaken a sense of beginnings in the community which is so fortunate as to welcome and receive them. Church-planting, by its nature, accentuates the unique sensation of beginnings, and physical births only adds to its luster. Beyond that, however, we may wonder whether this sense of radical beginnings is the broader concern at the heart of such an earthy concept as being born again.[2] It may, in fact, be the broader idea suggested by the New Testament’s proclamation of “good news” as well.
Beginnings as an Attractive Alternative to the EndWhen the parameters of the gospel are broad enough so as to be understood in terms of a radical beginning, it can be received (in one sense at least) as a welcome contrast to the postmodern predilection to define itself negatively as the “end” of modern constructs. “Postmodernism” as a label is already overwrought, if for no other reason than it is couched in the language of reactionary pessimism. We speak, after all, not of “pre-idyllic” (or an other “pre-” designations), but simply “post” modern. Thus, for example, Walter Anderson demonstrates (rightly so) the end of an objectivist outlook in the light of the constructing games that have evolved out of the hermeneutics of language and the implications of global politics.[3] Similarly, Jean-Francois Lyotard refers to the end of any sort of meta-narrative, and Robert Matthews discusses the end of dependable science.[4]
Given these cultural/philosophical developments, Karl Barth’s treatment of the gospel as divine optimism is refreshingly relevant. It is the announcement of a new beginning in Christ that is backed up with a hearty “Yes,” rather than “No.” Over and above all, it is “the wise and intrinsically powerful Yes which God has spoken to His creature and which He will finally execute and reveal.” “The presence of this divine Yes,” according to Barth, “is the new and glorious message which is entrusted to the Christian community and which it is commissioned to deliver on earth.”[5]
The allusion to Second Corinthians, chapter one, verses eighteen to twenty, is necessarily poignant. In the context of affirming the integrity of his own apostolic ministry, Paul resorts to the grand affirmation of God. The hapex legomen of the Apostle’s choice of title (“Son of God, Christ Jesus”) underscores the unique person who is the core of what is preached, i.e. the God-Man. The emphatic gegonen (perfect) in verse nineteen suggests the historical reliability (unchanging) of the divine affirmation, leading Barrett to add the adjective “final” in his English translation.[6] But the critical concern in the text is the relationship between Christ himself and such divine optimism that is demonstrated in the exclamatory “Yes,” as opposed to “No.” All the promises of God culminate in “Yes” when they are realized by being “in” Christ. It is God’s “Yes” to a new beginning inaugurated in Christ.
Beginning…of What?Beginnings, however, can come in diverse spheres and settings and sizes. The beginning of a movement in a symphonic work is different in scope and sphere that the beginning of a social movement. The beginning of a football match is likewise different in setting and scope than the genesis of a family. The question remains, therefore, in terms of a new beginning inaugurated in Christ. What beginning does the New Testament have in mind?
Nothing less than a comprehensive (centrist) biblical theology may be in view. In a compelling argument, Greg Beale contends for a “defensible centre for New Testament theology” that is wholly focused on new creation.[7] Jesus is the foundation stone, which makes the building of the new creation possible.[8] More specifically, Beale suggests that all the major theological ideas of the New Testament flow out of (and into) God’s intent of a new creation for His own glory that has already seen its genesis in the Christ-event.[9] I find a lot to commend itself in Beale’s arguments, and go further by suggesting that the pronouncement of this beginning is, in fact, the heart of the good news.
The Apostle Paul’s direct use of such new creation vocabulary further on in his Second Letter to the Corinthians is one reason why.[10] “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,” we read in 5:17, “a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold new things have come.” Again, the critical idea is being “in Christ.” What comes of it? New creation, understood personally, socially, cosmically? Paul’s language knows no limits. Simply the sudden (even the syntax suggests it) eruption of the new! It is a beginning, but it is historically rooted and eschatologically oriented. “These pivotal events in Christ’s life, death and resurrection,” according to Beale, “are eschatological because they launched the beginning of the new creation.”[11] Furthermore, the Apostle’s direct allusion to Isaiah 65:17 in 2 Corinthians 5:17 only serves to broaden its scope.
New Creation and Related ConcernsAn eschatological understanding of the gospel, then, is inherent in new creation centrism. It does not refute, but rather refines the contributions of those who have espoused inaugurated eschatological views by suggesting that the overarching concern in New Testament eschatology is the realization of new creation. All the major New Testament doctrines, including missiology, Christology, pneumatology, regeneration, sanctification, justification, reconciliation, law, ecclesiology, and final tribulation can be seen to reflect it.[12] In fact, Beale goes so far as to offer that the title of a biblical theology of the New Testament could read, “New Testament Theology as Eschatology.”[13]
New creation centrism must also account for the New Testament’s obvious allegiance to notions of the Kingdom of God. The message of Jesus unquestionably equated the gospel itself with God’s reign over all things, as Matthew’s account (4:23; 9:35; 24:14) particularly highlights. The genre of the kingdom (rule, power, authority, monarchy, etc.) essentially provokes the awareness of “God in strength” in the midst of all that He has subjected to human dominion.[14] “Your kingdom come…on earth,” Jesus encourages us to pray. But how does it relate to new creation eschatological concerns? Beale maintains that Christ, as the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-47) administrates (reigning vicegerent) all life as befits new creation, ultimately accomplishing the subjection of all things (1 Corinthians 15:20-28), which the first Adam should have done, but failed to do because of sin.[15] The first and last Adam Christology of Paul brings kingdom and new creation eschatological concerns together as one.
Finally, it should be clear that new creation centrism promotes what Stanley Grenz wonderfully describes as a “dynamic ecclesiology.” The good news, thus understood, is not only an announcement, but an invitation into community that is defined eschatologically as it “pioneers in the present the principles that characterize the reign of God.”[16] To the degree that the church humbly demonstrates the real presence of the kingdom, it offers the world a foretaste of a completely new heavens and earth (Isaiah 65:17). It is a harbinger of re-creation realized.
The Resonating and Challenging GospelWhen the good news is understood as embracing the breadth of a biblical theology of new creation, it has a great deal to offer the emerging (emergent?) postmodern western world. It is a gospel that can be seen as both resonating with and challenging postmodern distinctives and concerns. It fully resonates with the sense of tiredness bequeathed by modern categories of epistemology, hermeneutics, the trustworthiness of historical facticity, and objective social constructions. It resonates with the need to seriously question the reliability of Enlightenment thinking generally, by remembering the reality of marred creation.
But, at the same time, this is good news that challenges the postmodern proclivity for simple skepticism by recovering the heart of divine optimism. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16), not the disgust of God unto nihilism. In fact, perhaps one of the ways this good news can most effectively be preached is by challenging all the ends postulated in postmodernism with the beginnings proffered in new creation centrism. The end of science only points to that which lies beyond science in the supernatural configuration of new creation. The end of meta-narrative only suggests a new and better story, which is all about re-creation. The end of the world only instigates a desire for a whole new world.
This is the gospel the church can preach without hesitancy or ambivalence, for in so doing we are welcoming others into a dynamic community that is beginning to experience what it means to be “in Christ.” Behold, new creation!
[1] It is, minimally, ironic that evangelicalism has turned to this text as the essential expression of the gospel, given the paucity of such terminology in the New Testament.
[2] I have long contended that women who have actually given birth need to do the bulk of the exegesis of John 3:3. I interviewed five women in Mosaic who thus qualify. Their thoughts all turned to the radical nature of the birthing process and, of course, the birth itself for the baby. They spoke of the radical intimacy of sex, the radical changes in the mother’s body, the radical delivery procedure, the radical pain, and the radical life-change thereafter for both baby and parents.
[3] Walter Truett Anderson, Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Post-Modern World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 8.
[4] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Benington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1984), p.xxiv. Robert Matthews, Unraveling the Mind of God (London: Virgin Books, 1992), 148-49.
[5] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, authorized English translation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), III, 4, pp.506-508. Barth contends that when the gospel is understood in this way, it does not allow it to be interpreted as a means of simply helping humanity do something itself, but is premised on “the truth that God has already begun something for them and that He will also complete it in spite of their opposition, outbidding all attempts which spring form this opposition, overlooking and bypassing all their perversity and futility.”
[6] C.K. Barrett, The second Epistle to the Corinthians (London: A&C Black, 1973), 77.
[7] Greg Beale was Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary from 1993-2000. He is now chair of the PhD program in New Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, Illinois. For a summary of his ideas reviewed here, see his, “The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,” in Eschatology in Bible & Theology: Evangelical Essays at the Dawn of the New Millenium, ed. Kent E. Brower and Mark W. Elliott (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 11-52.
[8] The notion that the building of the new creation begins when Christ, as the foundation stone, “has come into position,” is suggested by William Manson, “Eschatology in the New Testament,” Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers No.2 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953), 6.
[9] Understanding new creation as the centre of New Testament theology “is supported by the broad sweep of canonical thought,” says Beale, “wherein the Bible begins with original creation which is corrupted, and the rest of the Old Testament is a redemptive-historical process working toward restoration of the fallen creation in a new creation. The New Testament then sees these hopes beginning fulfillment and prophesies a future time of fulfillment in a consummated new creation, which Revelation 21:1-22:5 portrays.” See, “The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,” p.44. Similarly, William Dumbrell understands the story of the Bible to be the movement “from creation to new creation by means of divine redemptive interventions.” See, William Dumbrell, The End of the Beginning (Australia: Lancer, 1985), 196.
[10] The phrase kainay ktisis occurs only in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15. Beale, however, rightly reminds us that paraphrastic variants of it appear six times in the New Testament, and the same theme occurs in numerous passages. See, “The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,” 23, footnote number 24.
[11] Beale, Ibid., 18.
[12] Beale, Ibid., 28-42.
[13] Beale, Ibid., 18.
[14] Bruce Chilton coins the phrase “God in strength” as the self-disclosure of God, which is inherent in Jesus’ ubiquitous use of kingdom terminology. See, Bruce D. Chilton, “God in Strength: Jesus’ Announcement of the Kingdom,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1987, 287-88.
[15] Beale, “The Eschatological Conception of New Testament Theology,” p.25.
[16] Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 478-79.
Rogier Bos
One of the chief goals of preaching the gospel is conversion. This article seeks to demonstrate that our understanding of conversion has been influenced by the modern philosophical context of the enlightenment. It then puts forward a new paradigm for conversion. The underlying thought is that the way we preach the gospel will change if our understanding of conversion changes.
This article outlines the ideas put forward by Brad J. Kallenberg, as they first appeared in an article by the same name in Evangelical Quarterly,[1] and later in Live to Tell - Evangelism for a Postmodern Age.[2]
A MODERN VIEW OF CONVERSIONKallenberg’s argues that the doctrine of conversion is in need of a re-assessment. Modern formulations of the doctrine have presupposed modern philosophy, and are deficient to the extent that they have done so. To demonstrate this, Kallenberg examines the doctrine as put forward by American conservative theologian Louis Berkhof, and then outlines three ways in which this formulation is deficient.
Berkhof’s understanding of conversion is soteriological in nature. In his analysis conversion is the second of the three phases that together make up the process of salvation. It follows regeneration, and comes in two parts: active conversion in which God turns the sinner to him, and passive conversion, in which the sinner turns to God.
Kallenberg sees the influence of modern philosophy in three ways.
First, Kallenberg argues that Berkhof’s understanding of conversion is guilty of metaphysical reductionism. This refers to the fact that Berkhof can only see the whole as the sum of its parts. For Berkhof a church is nothing more but the sum of its members: “a believing community is incidental to, and really nothing but, the sum of the individual members.”[3] In a group there is really nothing more than individuals, and so the individual is always logically prior to the group. Kallenberg says this places undue emphasis on the parts and overlooks the objective reality and causal powers of the whole.
If Modernism sought to break things apart to study their function in the whole through analysis, then Postmodernism seeks to study the whole, and how it determines or influences the behavior of the parts. In this mode of thinking, called metaphysical holism, there is a community-aspect to the behavior of the individual that needs to be considered.
[To put it simply, the modern concept of conversion is faulty in that it looks only at the individual. The role of the community in the conversion experience is ignored. Furthermore, a person may be born again, but he is not necessarily born into community. Berkhof’s formulation does nothing to emphasize community, and may in fact encourage individualism.]
The second deficiency in Berkhof’s understanding of conversion is Linguistic Reductionism. Berkhof adopts the modern emphasis on the rational part of human life. Repentance and faith have strong cognitive elements to them. Conversion is the act of believing that certain propositions are true. Thus modern theology falls prey to representationalism, the idea that language is nothing but a picture of the world. Kallenberg does not argue there is no representational element in the truth claims of scripture. He argues that linguistic reductionism fails for what it ignores: that is, the power of language to create experience.
[To put it simply, in the modern world a person was converted if he could agree intellectually to central Christian doctrines formulated in clean propositional statements. This is problematic because it fails to recognize that language has a degree of ambiguity, and it disregards its experiential aspect. Language does not only convey meaning, but can also create feelings and emotions. Berkhof’s formulation, however, ignores these aspects of language, and as a result his understanding of conversion is high on reason, and low on emotions and experience.]
The third deficiency is epistemological absolutism. In Berkhof’s view of the world beliefs are statements about the way things really are. To believe requires absolute certainty. In Berkhof’s thinking such certainty is possible, as Scripture contains the truth of God, and the theologian merely needs to unearth it. What Berkhof fails to take into account, says Kallenberg, is that in the process of unearthing it, the theologian brings his own set of historical circumstances, which are going to color his conclusions. The certainty Berkhof presupposes is in fact not possible, says Kallenberg: the theologian’s historical circumstances are always going to play a part in the formulation of the essentials. As an alternative to Berkhof’s epistemological certainty Kallenberg proposes a distinction made by George Lindbeck between first-order doctrines (historically contextualized formulations) and second-order doctrines (ideas that remain unchanged in successive formulations).[4]
A POSTMODERN VIEW OF CONVERSIONKallenberg recognizes that Berkhof’s concept of conversion was very helpful in the modern era, and that he cannot really be blamed for defining conversion in what can in hindsight be called a modern fashion. Likewise, Kallenberg recognizes that the understanding of conversion he is about to put forward is also not the new and eternal truth, but will also be impacted by the socio-historical circumstances of our time. His proposal is not meant to replace Berkhof’s concept, but rather to complement Berkhof by making up for the deficiencies.
Where Berkhof’s definition of conversion deals mainly with the transaction between God and man, Kallenberg’s proposal looks at the human or sociological side.
In Kallenberg’s proposal conversion is a process that has three identifiable elements to it. First, Kallenberg seeks to overcome metaphysical reductionism by proposing that conversion is the naturalization into community. In the postmodern world faith is not something you hold, or arrive at, individually; rather faith is held by communities. No community demonstrates this more clearly than the Christian community. To come to faith, it is necessary to enter the community at some level. There is a causal relationship between a person coming to faith and the community where this happens; the community is both the context and the cause for process of conversion.
The second issue, linguistic reductionism, is overcome by proposing that conversion involves the process of language acquisition.
Every community has its own vocabulary or language, and in order to understand the community and belong to it, understanding that vocabulary is important. The Christian community is no exception; it in fact has a well-developed language that can seem like complete nonsense to the outsider. Hence language acquisition is a necessary element of entering the community and starting to understand the community’s beliefs. A person entering the Christian community will need to learn a whole new conceptual language, where words like ‘grace’ and ‘sin’ -to name only two- play a major role. Kallenberg’s proposal overcomes the linguistic reductionism he sees in Berkhof’s teaching by emphasizing the fact that language creates experience, and therefore language-acquisition is a key element in the process of conversion.
Mere translation is not enough. It is no use ‘dumbing the language down,’ says Kallenberg, because in the process you sacrifice much that is of value to your community. Instead, it is necessary to help outsiders who are making their way in understand what is meant by your unique vocabulary. Since language actually creates experience and ‘embodies’ meaning, a word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase translation won’t do: a person needs to acquire the language and make it his or her own.
Kallenberg overcomes the third deficiency; epistemological absolutism or foundationalism, by suggesting that conversion involves a paradigm shift. Following Kuhn and Quine Kallenberg suggest that knowledge can best be regarded as a web of interdependent beliefs that are subject to change. A paradigm is a ‘constellation of group commitments, and in a paradigm-shift one such constellation is exchanged for another. Conversion is such a paradigm shift; as a person enters a community and acquires the language of that community, he also starts to understand the paradigm of that community. If he or she chooses to stay he will have to accept that paradigm, and make it his or her own.
All of the above leads Kallenberg to the following conclusion: Conversion is the emergence of a new mode of life occasioned by the self-involving participation in the shared life, language and paradigm of the believing community.[5]
CHANGING EVANGELISMKallenberg suggests that this approach to conversion has implications for how we do evangelism.
First of all, evangelism must be incarnational. The community of faith becomes the bearer of the message. It is through that community that outsiders encounter Jesus.
Secondly, evangelism must be pedagogical. Outsiders who accept the invitation to take a closer look at our community must learn both the language (‘what we mean when we say…’) and the story or beliefs we share. In a day and age in which the general understanding of vital Christianity in the secular world is ever decreasing, teaching others what we belief and how we express that is of vital importance.
Lastly, evangelism must become dialogical. Reducing our faith to a set of formal propositions may have helped us systematize our beliefs, but in the process we loose sight of the fact that every individual is impacted differently, and that every individual is a potential ‘tradition-bearer,’ from our community to the world. Evangelism must take this into account by encountering the individual where he or she is.
WHY I LIKE KALLENBERG’S PROPOSALKallenberg’s proposal is attractive to me for a number of reasons. It emphasizes process rather than event. I find this more consistent with the experiences of conversion I see around me.
It also recognizes the uniqueness of every process. The modern formula provided the same answer regardless of the question: “you must be saved by believing in Jesus.” Kallenberg’s approach recognizes that people come into our community at different places in their life, and the Christian story meets them in different places. I saw this illustrated in the conversion of a friend of mine: he had been a believing Christian for 9 months before he came to understand that he too needed forgiveness.
There is an important role and appreciation for community. Conversion happens not without the community, but within.
The evangelist or preacher becomes a teacher or coach, who gently leads people into the faith over time. This is in marked contrast to the one-stop evangelist as turn-or-burn shock therapist. Evangelism takes time. Says Kallenberg: “the persuasiveness of the gospel must be delivered in a patient dialogue that seeks to inculcate the language by the telling, retelling, and reretelling of the story.”[6]
The proposal further takes into account that we live in a cultural context where less and less people have any knowledge of the contents of the Christian faith.
Kallenberg does not negate the old soteriological paradigm that Berkhof and others have proposed. Rather, Kallenberg’s understanding of conversion as a sociological phenomenon complements the soteriological understanding. This adds a dimension to our understanding and hopefully makes our preaching more effective.
Lastly, Kallenberg is not blind to the fact that understanding of conversion presented is a postmodern approach, which will in time be replaced by ‘the next best thing.’ Kallenberg resists the temptation to come up with a new ‘timeless truth,’ and instead recognizes that ‘any drat (of the doctrine) we generate will be filled with historically conditioned phrases and philosophical assumption.’
SUMMARYThe modern understanding of conversion is deficient because it looks only at the individual and ignores the role of the community; it ignores the complexity and power of language, and it reduces faith to intellectual assent to a few propositions.
Kallenberg, recognizing that every philosophical context brings its own ideas and assumptions, proposes a postmodern view of conversion. He suggests that conversion is a process whereby a person enters a community of faith, learns the language of that community, and adopts the story of that community.
[1] Brad Kallenberg, “Conversion Converted,” Evangelical Quarterly, EQ 67:4 (1995), 335-364.
[2] Brad Kallenberg, Live to Tell - Evangelism for a Postmodern Age (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2002). Kallenberg is assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton (Ohio), and received his Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
[3] Brad Kallenberg, Live to Tell - Evangelism for a Postmodern Age (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 2002), 16.
[4] George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1984) 33, 81.
[5] Brad Kallenberg, “Conversion Converted,” Evangelical Quarterly, EQ 67:4 (1995), 358.
[6] Brad Kallenberg, “Conversion Converted,” Evangelical Quarterly, EQ 67:4 (1995), 361.
Hud McWilliams
‘The devil hath the power to assume a pleasing shape.’William Shakespeare, Hamlet
As I have mused about this question that we are focusing on, I believe that it will aid the reader if they know what meaning I am assuming with certain terms, really only one, the ‘gospel’. After looking and reading some variety of sources and then checking all 99 references in the NASB 1995 (New Testament only), my definition of the gospel is, Jesus. Now what I mean by this is, I believe that the relational aspect of this message / truth is bound up essentially in the call to relate (if you will) directly with/to the Christ. How this takes place is as unique as each individual person.
In a recent review of a book by Lauren Winner, Girl Meets God, the author tells of reading Lewis’s Mere Christianity in high school. She said she really didn’t like it. ‘One of the reasons spiritual memoir has been popular throughout the last decade is that there are a lot of people who aren’t asking the Enlightenment questions that the more standard apologetics texts like Mere Christianity strive to answer. Having Lewis, however brilliantly, explain the logic and rationality of Christianity didn’t speak to me where I lived.’ She continues to reflect ‘Christians have, for a very long time, lived very much as Enlightenment people. We talk about knowing God through our minds. In fact, I think Christian tradition offers something much richer than that.’
Since the claims of Jesus are startling, the focus of personalness / relationalness seems to be the stumbling block for most throughout the last 2000 years. Christianity is inherently communal/relational. The Body of Christ isn’t language that lends itself to individualism. We seem to want to contain this ‘Gospel’ and domesticate it/him. This I believe is what drives the entire concept of religion and essentially sets the Christian message starkly apart. Jesus came (into this world) to give life. This life is the core message of the ‘Gospel’, that Jesus is the guarantor of eternal life. In contrast to this, is the driving piece of all religion that is, it strives to somehow escape this world by earning / figuring out / laboring , in order to get out of here (find eternal life) or descend into some form of escape / despair. Buried in the midst of this is the exclusive claim that causes so much difficulty when the ‘gospel’ is presented/broached. It is with this in mind that I would like to discuss the whole concept of tolerance as it relates to the pomo.
Paired with Girl Meets God is another small book written by a friend of mine, Daniel Taylor, Is God Intolerant? Here, Taylor challenges us to think hard through this very contemporary issue. Tolerance is seen as one of the few universally commended values in our society. One of those values is the autonomy of the individual. My individual judgments and behaviors should not be suppressed in the name of something higher, because there is nothing higher. Being autonomous, my responsibility is to maximize my potential, without harming others. Furthermore, this all is in keeping with a third contemporary value-diversity. In a world where there are countless different cultures, all expressing different values, and attitudes and behaviors, it is not only necessary that we be tolerant, but it is morally incumbent upon us to celebrate those differences and all that diversity. To do any less is to be intolerant.
Context is everything when it comes to questions of tolerance and intolerance. And the single most important thing to understand about the context in which the current tolerance debate takes place is the concept of relativism. Relativism is the view that all truth claims are rooted in opinion, not in fact or the nature of things. If I say, ‘This is true or this is wrong’ I am stating a personal opinion. My opinion has been formed by my society and my personal experience. The result has authority for me, for the moment at least, but no necessary authority for anyone else. Relativism is related to but not the same as pluralism. Pluralism is based on the clearly observable fact that there are many different views and values and practices in this world. Pluralism is an observation, not an evaluation. Relativism absolutizes pluralism. It takes the fact of diversity of outlooks - pluralism-and draws the illegitimate and illogical conclusion that because there are many views no one of them is better than any other. From the clear fact that we cannot agree on what is true, it wrongly deduces that there is therefore no truth-only opinions. Maybe best stated: ‘Everything is right somewhere and nothing is right everywhere.’
A handy working definition of tolerance is ‘putting up with the objectionable’. Central in that statement is the necessary fact of moral judgment. If by tolerant, someone means a healthy notion of tolerance as a willingness to get along , then I want to be tolerant, in fact, I want to affirm most of the diversity in the world, especially since I believe most of it was created by God. If by tolerant, however, one means unable or unwilling to make moral judgments or to believe in truth, then I must decline to be tolerant. This diseased understanding of tolerance is as dangerous as a diseased kind of intolerance, perhaps more so.
There are three relational applications of this, I believe. First, the relationship between God and humanity, where God does not affirm us in our sin, nor is he indifferent to our sin. He loves us despite our sin. Second, there is the relationship between believers. The goal of this relationship is captured in the word shalom. It is a word whose concept is nothing less than God’s vision for his entire creation, especially as it manifests itself in human well-being: individual, interpersonal, and social. Shalom appears more than 250 times in the Old Testament and many more times in its Greek counterpart in the New Testament. A shortened definition is peace that comes from everything being right in the world, each thing and person in its proper place doing that which it was created to do. (Of course, if you do not believe there is such a thing as ‘proper’ or ‘created’ then you will not believe in or seek shalom.) Understanding shalom provides a paradigm for understanding how Christians should conduct themselves regarding present-day calls for tolerance. The third relationship is between believers and the larger world. Tolerance in the New Testament is more often a question of Christians needing to get along with each other than it is a question of how believers relate to a pagan culture. God’s love is the starting point. It’s the master theme of creation and no amount of sin and brokenness can erase it. There is nothing weak about God’s love and nothing harsh about his justice.
The bible establishes love not tolerance as the standard by which we relate to all people - both within and without the community of believers. See Romans 5:8. An intolerant God would destroy us in our sin. A tolerant God would merely put up with our sin. A loving God dies for our sin.
There are many telling biblical story examples of how this might work in our everyday lives. Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-9, or being a neighbor in Luke 10:30-37.
As so often in the bible, we are called on to hold two different but complementary ideas in tension together. This is but one example. The dual commands, you must love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Too often these commands are separated and distorted. ‘Love the lord your God’ is used as a rationale for condemning people for their sinfulness, and ‘love your neighbor’ is distorted into a call for accepting sinful behavior. In one case, love is used as an excuse for condemning, in the other as an excuse for enabling. It is instructive that we find ourselves turning to stories to understand what the bible has to say about love and tolerance and righteousness. Stories move us away from theory to the everyday world in which we must live. So look at John 8, where we see one of the most enlightening stories about God’s attitude toward tolerance. In short Jesus does not dismiss her sin, nor does he dismiss her!
‘Speak the truth in love’ (Eph 4:15) Here is where we find the first casualty of relativistic tolerance is truth. The first casualty of legalistic morality is love. The one who can hold onto both at the same time is a true follower of Jesus, truly in relationship.
What we know for certain is that we must be loving (read relationship), and that is a far greater challenge than being tolerant, with far greater dangers and rewards. Our calling is not to be popular but to be witnesses to the truth to a society that profoundly doubts there is any such thing and is disgusted by anyone suggesting he or she knows what the truth might be.
We must avoid the twin errors of arrogant, authoritarian condemnation on the one hand and relativistic moral paralysis on the other. Between these lies a third way: loving faithfulness. We are called to live the gospel as well as to proclaim it, Jesus has provided us the model and the possibility of relationship: Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.
This is a very broad-brush attempt to understand the gospel within the context of first-century Judaism. It is very incomplete as it stands - a fuller version can be found here. I’ve also no doubt it is mistaken in some of its details - but I think we need to get back to this sort of story before we can properly define a gospel for the emerging church.
Let’s start with a summary of the traditional evangelical gospel. It’s going to look something like this: we are all sinners; God sent his Son from heaven to die for us; if we repent of our sins, believe in Jesus, invite him into our hearts, we will be saved and will receive the Holy Spirit as an assurance that we will have eternal life with God when we die; if not - though we rather play down this aspect - we will go to hell.
What is wrong with this? There are a number of things that we might mention. The language can sound trite and complacent - certainly to the ear of the jaded evangelical but surely also to most people who are conscious of the fact that they live in a post-Christian culture. The argument takes no account of how problematic or irrelevant notions of sin, God, and heaven may be for people who do not already share basic Christian presuppositions - ironically, it only really sounds like ‘good news’ to believers. It fails to acknowledge the difficulty and mysteriousness of spiritual experience; it describes salvation in highly individualized and even self-centred terms.
Failings such as these have generally been recognized by the emerging church movement and much has been done to alleviate their effects. What I want to suggest in this essay, however, is that there is a more fundamental problem with the traditional evangelical gospel, which may well prove to be at the root of these distortions. It is that a synopsis such as this fails to take into account the landscape of history. It is played out instead against the backdrop of a simple existential requirement - the plight of the sinner who needs to be reconciled to God in order to be certain of eternal life. It is the ‘good news’ reduced to the terms of a universalized, standardized contract, almost entirely disengaged from its original narrative and historical context. If New Testament stories feature at all in the announcement of this gospel, they serve merely as illustrations for general spiritual truths. In effect we take as our frame of reference the over-refined end-product of a long process of interpretive rationalization rather than the raw material of the original historical narrative.
There are reasons why this has happened. i) Real history (rather than the processed history of popular piety) is difficult, messy, ambiguous, and controversial: it is poor material out of which to construct a system of universally applicable truth. ii) Being a pragmatic form of faith evangelicalism has always stressed the immediate relevance of the gospel whereas history creates intellectual and cultural distance: a thoroughly Jewish Jesus, embroiled in the religious and political conflicts of first century Israel, speaking the strange language of Jewish apocalyptic, appears as a daunting and inaccessible figure. iii) Post-enlightenment rationalism has persuaded us that absolute truth is better communicated in formal abstract categories than in story. iv) Various social and cultural factors have contributed to the production of a highly individualised and simplistic restatement of the gospel. These include: the evangelical reaction against religious formalism and the need to emphasize a personal relationship with God; the disintegration of community and the shift towards a culture of personal fulfilment; and the pressures of a mass-marketing ethos.
If we are to recover a gospel that is both biblical and credible, however, the message about Jesus must be relocated in the tumultuous landscape of first century Jewish belief and experience. There must be some conscious rediscovery of the fact that the gospel is the product of the narrative logic of Jewish eschatology. This approach relates closely to two recent developments in New Testament studies: the ‘Third Quest’ for the historical Jesus (Vermes, Borg, Sanders, Wright) and the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul (Sanders, Dunn, Wright).
At first glance this appears a very unpostmodern exercise: we have come to doubt that history can be told objectively or neutrally; we understand that the writing of history is always a political activity, a means by which a group justifies its behaviour or asserts its identity. I want to suggest, however, that the attempt to recover - to bring to the surface of ordinary Christian discourse - the historical dimension to the gospel in fact constitutes an intrinsically postmodern manoeuvre. Indeed, a proper historical understanding of the gospel may be found to confirm and reinforce many of the conclusions that postmodern Christians have already reached on intuitive or philosophical grounds.
Some general points are worth mentioning briefly, though they need development. i) Postmodern theology recognizes that one of the most effective antidotes to the formulaic propositionalism of modernist evangelical thinking is narrative. There is a real danger, however, that the emerging church will simply repeat the mistakes of modernism and subordinate the narrative - or worse, odd bits of disconnected narrative - to its own philosophical and cultural agenda. Only a consistent commitment to an historical hermeneutic, no matter how imperfectly conceived, offers us any real prospect of not simply repackaging the gospel according to a new set of prejudices. ii) The story about Jesus that is derived from this process of historical contextualization appears to correct, or at least reconfigure, many of the traditional notions that postmodern Christian thinking has reacted against. The language of judgment, forgiveness, salvation, mission, etc., makes better sense when restored to its original narrative context. iii) A return to history inevitably brings into view the limited concrete ‘particularity’ of the story, offering us a legitimate means of deconstructing our own meta-narrative: history gives us the narrative prior to the meta-narrative, the story before it is interpreted by faith, the disconcerting humanity of actors who have been transformed by tradition into quasi-mythical figures. Perhaps it is as simple as going back to the beginning and setting out again with a new set of interpretive tools.
The story begins with bad news. Israel had failed to realize the potential inherent in its religious institutions and traditions, in its national identity and in its calling, to be a righteous, God-centred people and an authentic and effective ‘light’ to the peoples of the earth. This alienation from YHWH was apparent in various ways: creeping Hellenization, Roman occupation, the fragmentation of religious leadership and community, the loss of any prophetic voice, and the awareness that the return from exile in Babylon remained tragically incomplete.
This state of religious failure, however, would not continue indefinitely but would culminate in a devastating act of judgment against the people of Israel. John the Baptist first gave voice to this conviction: ‘Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matt. 3:10; Lk. 3:9).
John the Baptist is also interpreted by the Gospel tradition as the messenger who cries in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ (Mk. 1:2-3; Matt. 3:3; Lk. 3:4-6). The quotation from Isaiah 40:3 invokes a declaration of ‘good news’ to Jerusalem that the punishment of the exile is coming to an end, that her sins have been forgiven, and that the Lord God is about to return to Zion. Central to this prophecy is the description of a righteous ‘servant’, who is both an individual and ideal Israel, who will suffer, but who will be ‘a covenant to the people, a light to the nations’ (Is. 42:6).
This is the context in which Jesus begins his ministry. Like John he puts before the people two paths: one that leads to destruction, another that leads to life (Matt. 7:13-14; Lk. 13:24). This is not to be read as a universal religious choice: it was simply Israel’s choice at that moment. Jesus foresaw an appalling fate for the nation: foreign armies would invade, Jerusalem would be beseiged, many Jews would be killed or scattered, the temple would be destroyed, the religious life of the old covenant would be terminated. This would be the end of the age, a catastrophic ‘day of the Lord’; the weeds within Israel would be separated from the wheat and burned, the bad fish would be sorted from the good and thrown away (Matt. 13:40-42, 47-50); in the suffering and destruction was the gehenna of fire.
The pressing question was whether in the aftermath anything would be left of the ‘chosen people’. Devastation on this scale inevitably threatened the existence of the small, vulnerable ‘sect of the Nazarenes’ (Acts 24:5) who were to be the nucleus of a restored people of God. Salvation, in the first place, therefore, was simply the survival of this community: for Israel to be ‘saved’ there had to be an historical continuation into the age to come. The flight of the disciples from Judea before the ‘end’, their steadfastness in the face of extreme opposition, and the preaching of the gospel throughout the known world were the practical means by which this salvation was assured.
The renewed community of God - Israel redeemed, forgiven, made righteous, rescued from destruction - was defined by a new covenant which recognized the significance of Jesus’ death for the formation of the community. Membership was no longer restricted to Jews but was open to all who were willing to be incorporated into this reconstituted people: a movement that took the death of Jesus in the place of the people as its starting point could hardly impose a system of religious apartheid. ‘Religious’ life would be determined not by Torah but by the Spirit of God manifested in the life of each believer. The plethora of rules and restrictions that made up the law of Moses was replaced by the single command to love. And where there was a real prospect of suffering and death, there was also the hope of sharing in the glory of the one who suffered before them.
The Old Testament motif of the restoration of the people following exile and the return of YHWH in glory to a rebuilt Zion determined the shape of the church that would emerge after the fires of judgment had died down. But this was never going to be a painless, uncontroversial process: the emergence of a renewed, energetic, missionary people of God was bound to provoke opposition not only from ‘old Israel’ but also from the wider pagan society: other very powerful forces claimed absolute sovereignty in the world. A second Old Testament motif is drawn upon, therefore, to give warning of this conflict and present the eventual vindication of those who would choose the path of life.
Daniel’s visionary drama of the conflict between the fourth beast with its little horn and the figure like a Son of man is, I think, of central importance for our understanding of the ‘gospel story’. These ‘prophecies’ originally depicted the crisis that was provoked in Israel by the intervention of Antiochus Epiphanes, who installed an abomination of desolation in the temple. In the New Testament they are reapplied to the situation of the community of Jesus’ followers facing hostility, first from Judaism then from Rome. Jesus repeatedly identifies himself with the Son of man figure who will suffer but will in the end receive ‘dominion and glory and kingdom’ so that ‘all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him’ (Dan. 7:14; cf. 7:27). This is the meaning of the ‘coming of the Son of man’ on the clouds of heaven - the righteous one who is oppressed but is vindicated by God.
But the ‘Son of man’ is also the community: the saints of the Most High against whom a powerful and godless ruler will make war (cf. Dan. 7:24-26). In addition to the concrete ‘salvation’ of the community, therefore, there is the ‘mythical’ salvation (‘mythical’ only in the sense that this was not an historically observable event) of those who during this period suffer with Christ and are exalted with him. The belief surfaces at a number of points in the New Testament. For example, those who continue with Jesus in his trials will also be assigned a kingdom and will ‘sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Lk. 22:28-30). Paul assures the Thessalonians that by their suffering they are ‘made worthy of the kingdom of God’ (2 Thess. 1:5). In the ‘first resurrection’ those who were killed ‘for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God’, are raised to life and ‘reign with Christ for a thousand years’ (Rev. 20:4-6).
At his ‘coming’, therefore, the Son of man, who is in the first place Christ but also those who suffer with him, receives the kingdom from the Ancient of Days. We should not make the mistake of assigning this vindication to an as yet unreached future: it is an eschatological event but it has taken place within real history. In this way, the restored kingdom of God centred on Zion has been transformed into the kingdom of the Son of man who reigns at the right hand of God.
The church has passed through the eschatological crisis of the end of the age. On the rough ground of history this transition was marked by the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the spread of Christian communities beyond Palestine, periods of intense persecution by Rome, and the eventual displacement of the imperial cult by a gospel that proclaimed Jesus as messiah and Lord. At the same time, it is the fulfilment of a prophetic narrative about judgment on Israel, judgment on Israel’s enemies, the restoration of the people of God under a new covenant, and the vindication and enthronement of one like a Son of man who comes with the clouds of heaven. What are the implications of this reconstruction for the gospel that we preach today?
In a post-eschatological situation the emphasis shifts from the apocalyptic notion of salvation as gaining life after death to ‘salvation’ as participation in a community of the Spirit that has been ‘chosen’ by God to fulfil the purpose originally given to Abraham (cf. Acts 3:25-26). The terminology of ‘saved’ and ‘lost’ has become less relevant; much of the imagery of ‘hell’ is seen to have historical rather than eternal application. What becomes significant instead is the idea of a ‘holy’ community and the question of its purpose. The point of ‘election’ for Israel was not that this nation was ‘saved’ whereas other nations were ‘lost’. The descendants of Abraham were chosen for the sake of an orientation towards the world, not out of the world: Israel was a holy nation in the midst of ordinary nations, to be a light and a blessing.
The purpose of the new community is not to be a holding pen prior to transhipment to heaven. Heaven hardly comes into it. Salvation in the Bible generally is a very worldly notion: it is enacted on the plane of history. It describes God’s intervention to rescue the people from a difficult or dangerous situation and restore them to wholeness: salvation is health, safety, peace, military victory, deliverance; it is the continuing well-being of the people. Only in extreme instances does salvation require rescue beyond death in the form of resurrection. The eschatological crisis that marked the transition between the old Israel and the new brought salvation as resurrection to the fore because the continuation of the community required faithfulness and steadfastness to the point of death. We should not lose sight of the fact that salvation is the response of God to a particular set of concrete circumstances.
The primary purpose of the new community is to be advocates of, propagandists for, exponents of a God-centred righteousness in the world. The invitation to be part of this community, which takes its identity from Jesus Christ, remains, and with it the prospect of sharing in the abundant life of the Spirit, which is the life of the age that has come, eternal life. But what I think we may need to make clear is, first, that we ‘win’ people (not the ‘lost’, just people) not so that they will go to heaven rather than to hell but so that they may be part of the people of God rather than not part of the people of God; and secondly, that membership of this community cannot be separated from the missionary task of embodying Godness and goodness in the world.
Christ died in the place of Israel - as a substitute, a final sacrifice for the sins of a persistently rebellious nation - so that there could be a continuation of the people of God, so that the covenant community did not have to be finally exterminated. The benefit that we have by grace, through faith, is that we too, as Gentiles, may inherit the promise of Abraham - we may share in the ‘richness of the olive tree’ (Rom. 11:17), we may experience the life of the age to come (cf. Acts 13:46-47). The assurance of reigning with Christ in glory, however, belongs to the ‘first resurrection’ of those who suffered for the sake of Christ. We may enjoy the goodness of God here and now as members of the covenant community; we are witnesses to that goodness in the world. But in the end we face judgment on the basis of what we have done (Rev. 20:12-13), which reintroduces a crucial ethical component into our understanding of the gospel. In fact, the distinction between entry into the community and final judgment may help us to resolve the long-standing tension between faith and works.
The next step to take would be to consider how we might begin to preach this story. What sort of language do we need? What forms of discourse? How do we make sense of it for ordinary people today? How do we overcome the distance that we have created? I will make only one suggestion here. One way to connect the present with the past would be to say that we are a community of faith with a history, a community that has emerged from a story. Part of that history is where we are coming from as church-planters, as movement-makers, as Christian Associates, as evangelicals in transition; part of it is the long and not always glorious history of the church. But the key to understanding who we are as a community is the extraordinary period of crisis and reconstruction in the national life of Israel that is recounted in the New Testament, central to which was the death of Jesus and his vindication as the Son of man.