I may be misunderstanding the turn that this conversation is taking, but I would like to probe what lies behind the arguments that are being put forward.

In Andrew’s argument I sense there is the issue of a way of being the people of God which takes a different stance towards the world from seeing the world purely as the target of its evangelistic agenda. This emerges in proposals such as using the temple as a model for a ‘court of the gentiles’ as distinguished from the ‘court of the Jews’ and so on. Am I right in thinking this? Around this sort of thinking emerges the idea of God’s people exercising a priestly role, in which God’s goodness is mediated to the world in less confrontational ways than those associated with evangelism (which sets up the us/them relationship). It’s probably as much to do with attitudes to people as particular actions or methods. Hence the importance of establishing continuity with the ways of God’s people in pre-New Testament times.

However, I think Chris is also arguing for something which is beyond dispute - that the New Covenant superseded the ‘Old’, replacing it entirely. New Testament realities are not a mix of old and new: in the sense that we can take elements of the previous dispensation, and mix them with the new. The new fulfils the old. But in this, we still look on the Hebrew scriptures as being of importance to us, not simply as a way of seeing what has now been fulfilled, or seeing the Old purely as soemthing that has been left behind. God still speaks through the Old - and perhaps in more than a simply metaphorical way. The Old brings its distinct witness to God’s dealings with the world - eg in issues of justice, and in the responses of God’s heart towards humanity - in its alienation from Him, and in His search for a people through whom He can express His redemptive purposes.

I do feel a little uncomfortable with Andrew’s apparent displacing of evangelism as the priority item on God’s agenda, but maybe it needs to be displaced in this way (although not removed from the agenda entirely). Are we called primarily to mission, or to worship as God’s people? Are we called primarily to the work of God, or to a relationship with Him? Are we called primarily to be, or to do? We are clearly called to both, and to set one up against the other is misconceived, but asking these kinds of questions perhaps gives some pointers as to a way out of a polarised debate. What I think is called for is more definition of what is meant by the ‘priestly’ role of believers, as Andrew envisages it.

Are we talking about creative tensions, or priorities? Again, I suspect, both. There is an apparent creative tension between the call to the ‘merciful’ expressions of the gospel, and the call to its proclamation - the call to proselytisation.

God is working in surprising ways. I would never have thought it possible that God could be worshipped through night-club types of environments - but that is precisely what God is doing. (And I don’t mean Christian night clubs!) God is challenging the mind-sets of the church today - and we need different sets of lenses to view what He is doing. I’m not suggesting that we need a theology that abandons orthodoxy - but I do think that ‘orthodoxy’ has to be viewed from very different perspectives if we are to gain access to the world which God wants to bring withing the orbit of his redemptive plans.