Aug
13
2010
A Call For Missionary Minded Churches
Lesslie Newbigin (1909- 1998) played a vital role in helping the church understand the intersection of theology and mission–specifically the mission of Jesus Christ to the complexities of modern Western culture. A missionary himself to India, he was a contextual theologian par excellence. He understood long before most that Christians are to be good interpreters not only of Scripture but also of culture. He understood that God wants us to be like the men of Issachar, “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32). He understood that faithfulness to Christ and His mission means we can’t afford to leave our culture unexamined–and unchallenged. He understood that “the church was instituted by Jesus Christ to be a sign of God’s reign and the means of witnessing to that reign throughout the world [so that] the church that refuses to accept its missionary purpose is a deformed church.” So he thought long and hard, deep and wide about the cultural climate in the West (its challenges and opportunities) and all the issues surrounding the church’s mission—its proper relationship to this world and its proper place in it.
No one (including me!) agreed with everything Newbigin said or believed. But his counsel to the Western church regarding mission was winsome and wise. Below is one of my favorite Newbigin quotes. Enjoy:
If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the “high ground” which they vacated in the noon time of “modernity,” it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the “Constantinian” era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s redeeming grace for the whole life of society.