Relevance or Faithfulness, 2

As noted yesterday, I have been following the debates in the blogosphere over relevance and faithfulness and find the same old songs being sung. So, I thought I would offer the same old additional perspective. As I said yesterday, we can, once again, make enemies of friends. We have created a false dichotomy. Relevance and faithfulness are not the real issues. I think the real issues are quite different.

Let me make it clear -- we can be faithful and passionate about communicating the truth to people of our day!

     It all began with missions thinkers – and the fairly clear history of the wreckage created when Western missionaries failed to distinguish between culture and Scripture during the great advance of missions in the 19^th century. There was a cultural arrogance – that the dress, manners, customs, and architecture of the “Empire” were the fruits of Christian civilization.

As a result, the Gospel was preached and its expression shaped into African Christians wearing ties and white shirts attending a church with a cross shaped architecture and a cross on the top. They sang Wesley’s hymns and played a portable organ. I am not exaggerating. The same was true in vast sections of the “Empire” – India and China especially. Missionaries lived in safe compounds, a safe distance from the primitive “natives.”

Then along came Hudson Taylor who thought his goal should be to make the message of the cross the only obstacle to the Gospel – and so he dressed and grew his hair as the Chinese, moved to the interior, and began to preach – at risk of life from the Chinese (and from his British comrades). The effect was so real over time that hundreds joined him. Yet the critics continued.

Amy Carmichael came along and said that missionaries needed to know and be friends with the Christian “natives” – and not retreat to vacation spots with other missionaries. This was scandalous. She also ventured out and risked her life to bring children to safety. Their fruit proved their methods were owned of God – and their method did not get in the way of the Gospel.

We could go earlier in time when Wesley and Whitfield quit preaching in the cathedrals and went to the mines at dawn or sunset. This was considered “undignified” and “enthusiasm.” They came out of the safety of the pulpit and risked their lives as well. They broke conventions of the conservative establishment and were criticized – though their hundreds of converts bore witness to the fact that method was not a matter of indifference. 

For the most part, these were people who were faithful to the Gospel . . . and saw that they had to get OUT to unbelievers and LIVE and SPEAK in a way that communicated.  They were passionate about the Gospel and seeking to be "relevant."

I have lived through the development of the seeker movement and, while not captured by their methodology or theology, I did find many of these churches to be evangelistically fruitful in a way that my churches were not. Even if I do my "Reformed suspicion of how converts are counted" and cut the number by 80% -- it was more than I saw in places where I served.  I heard their stories and realized that these were men who were compelled by the Gospel to find some way to explain the Gospel to the people around them.

They were militant, which, as E V Hill used to say, means “we ain’t waitin’ for the walls to fall down, we is up stompin on them.”  They were fruitful. I was not. Being a good Calvinist I blamed that on God’s sovereignty. I did not like the simple thought that “he who sows abundantly will reap abundantly” may also apply to evangelism. That disrupted my neat formulas of how the decrees of God were worked out in history.

Seeker services were the target of criticism. But the best spokesmen for the seeker movement insisted it was “not about the event” – but about relationships – and that they would be examples to their people of building relationships with unbelieving people so they could be invited to the “events.” I listened to Bill Hybels tell a national meeting that he had taken up sailing and joined a yacht club and had joined a sailing team of all unbelievers. Out of that came many opportunities for the Gospel. I was ashamed of my indifference. I began to change. (As an aside, here is what I found. The more unbelievers I knew, the less I needed to read Barna to figure out what they were like. I have never met a statistical average.)

A good part the criticism had validity – but the critics (like me) were also reactionary. The seekers said, “We need to figure out how to communicate the Gospel in a relevant way.” The critics said, “Forget that – the Gospel is relevant – just preach it.” Some pastors forced a new model on their churches and this almost always led to division and splits and angry departures.

The seeker movement has, by and large, been theologically simplistic and moralistic. The critics have camped on this. But their criticism seemed to be Monday morning quarterbacking because they were not leading churches with immense evangelistic fruit – so it was simple to answer them, “We like our bad methods better than your no-methods.” 

I felt I was left with a choice of ineffective evangelism with faithfulness or effective evangelism with unfaithfulness. This has been a matter of reflection and prayer for decades.

Comments

[Howard]

As a young Presbyterian (PCA) pastor in the midst of a transitioning church (I pray from death to life), I am very grateful for your reflections and for your testimony of the struggle to really live out God-centered theology. I feel my failure to reach out to unbelievers and to nurture my people to do the same. Your posts spur me on and help me see that I am not alone in this struggle. Please pray for me as I build relationships with unbelieving ultimate frisbee players that God would change me and that He would change them as well.

[Phil]

Mark -

I just wanted to thank you for your posts. I find them very helpful and I want to encourage you to continue as you have time. Your posts on Driscoll last month were extremely helpful and I have referred several friends who have had trouble understanding how to take Driscoll. Thanks again.