Robert Webber, a man who encouraged Christians to reclaim the Great Tradition and to learn from the ancient church in matters of worship, died on Friday after a serious illness.
In honor of Dr. Webber and his tireless efforts to call evangelicals back to a God-centered worship, I am posting an interview I had with Dr. Webber last year.
Dr. Robert Webber was one of evangelicalism’s foremost authorities on worship renewal. He founded the Institute of Worship Studies in 1995 and spent the last ten years conducting seminars across the United States. He authored more than 40 books, including Worship Old and New, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, the Ancient-Future Series, and The Younger Evangelicals.
Dr. Webber did extensive research on the younger generation of evangelicals (of which I am part). So I was thankful that Dr. Webber agreed to answer some questions I had for him after reading many of his works.
Trevin Wax: Who are the younger evangelicals?
Robert Webber: The Younger Evangelicals are characterized by three commitments:
1) To deconstruct the reliance of evangelicalism on modernity, especially the empirical method and on culture, especially its anti-historical attitude, its pragmatism, and narcissism.
2) To return to the sources of the Christian faith, especially in the ancient church, and
3) To build a church in the postmodern culture that reflects the two previous commitments.
However, let me add, there is no uniformity in the movement yet. So my answers to your questions will reflect my own challenge for evangelicals to recover an “Ancient-Future faith.”
Trevin Wax: What are the major distinctives of the younger evangelicals, in comparison to the previous generations?
Robert Webber: My distinctive is that evangelical ministry be re-situated in the divine narrative. Scientific theology based on reason and science has resulted in a compartmentalization of theology from practice. For example, worship separated from the divine story is free to “free float.” In this state it has been shaped by pragmatism and narcissism. Worship returned to the divine narrative “tells and enacts God’s story for the life of the world.”
Trevin Wax: Do you see postmodernism as more of a threat to historic Christianity or as a window of opportunity?
Robert Webber: I see postmodernism as an opportunity and threat. The threat is in the temptation to adapt faith and practice to postmodern philosophy. To do this is what moderns did with science and reason. We don’t want to go there.
The opportunity is that postmodernism culture is so much like that of the early church (Roman era) in pluralism, relativism and pagan religions, that we can look at how the church thought and ministered in that ancient culture as a model for how we minister today in this post Christian, neo-pagan culture.
Trevin Wax: In a postmodern society, how are the younger evangelicals treating the role of apologetics in the task of evangelism?
Robert Webber: Here is a good case in point. In the ancient church, the primary apologetic was the “embodied community.” Tertullian writes that the pagans say “look at how they love each other.” We aren’t there yet, but it is a goal.
Trevin Wax: How can the churches of younger evangelicals become transgenerational, avoiding the trap of generation-isolation in order to effectively minister to all age groups?
Robert Webber: Generational studies and divisions primarily arose out of the “consumer mentality.” It has some value, of course, but it is the “slick trick of marketing.” We need to deconstruct our reliance on marketing and return to the authentic life of the New Testament and early church community.
Trevin Wax: What lies at the heart of younger evangelical worship services? And why is there such a hunger among this generation for liturgy and ritual?
Robert Webber: Traditional (1950’s) worship is based on reason and verbal communication. Today’s young (older too) live in a culture of mystery and symbol. Words remain important, of course, but communication must also be embodied. Today people want to worship with their bodies. Again this was true in the ancient church. The models are there, we don’t need to create new models, but adapt ancient models to our life in this world. Worship that continues to be verbal only, simply does not engage the whole person.
Trevin Wax: What view do younger evangelicals have of the church?
Robert Webber: There is a growing sense that the church is an incarnational continuation of the presence of Christ in and to the world. This lies behind the new Ecumenism in which the barriers with Catholic and orthodox Christians are breaking down.
Trevin Wax: What dangers lie ahead for younger evangelicals? Where are we most likely to become captive to culture?
Robert Webber: The primary danger is to remain disconnected from God’s story and theological reflection on that story. Until we re-situate faith and practice into God’s story through serious study of the activity of the Triune God in creating, becoming incarnate to re-create, and calling the church and its worship to “re-present” and to “live out” God’s action in history moving toward the restoration of all things in the New Heavens and the New Earth, our ministries will continue to be shaped by new forms of pragmatism and narcissism.
