‘It is one of the weaknesses of a great deal of contemporary Christianity that we do not speak of the last judgement and of the possibility of being finally lost.’ (Lesslie Newbigin)
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Yes, that’s the voice of Lesslie Newbigin, the same Lesslie Newbigin that some have condemned as a heretic for all sorts of reasons, whether his missional view of election, or his critiques of fundamentalism, or his passion for church unity and ecumenism, or his suspicion of Enlightenment-influenced theological methodology, or…well, you name it…the doctrine police are always on patrol. And my hunch is that there are never enough boxes to be checked to be a true believer. There are some people who make a living waiting, lurking, looking for the opening in the armor for the kill. And it’s the shame of Christianity. It’s our embarrassing Civil War.
Yet, I believe that Newbigin will emerge an extraordinarily important voice after his death, much like C.S. Lewis did. I was reminded of this again during the wave of tweets, blogs, and comments surrounding Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. An editor at Crossway, Justin Taylor, wrote an ill-advised post on his Gospel Coalition blog after reading a mere summary of Bell’s book on heaven and hell. I know no editor who could keep his job judging books on mere summaries, but Taylor’s tactics represent why Newbigin’s voice is so very important today. I believe people are growing increasingly weary of the deafening certainty of both fundamentalists and liberals. Consider Newbigin’s words:
The words “liberal” and “fundamentalist” are used today not so much to identify oneself as to label the enemy. From one side comes the accusation that the mind of the fundamentalist is closed, shuttered against the possibility of doubt and therefore against the recognition of hitherto unrecognized truth. From the other side comes the charge that liberals are so open to new ideas that they have no firm commitments at all, that every affirmation of faith must be held only tentatively, and that every dogma must, as a matter of principle, be challenged. There are terms of moral opprobrium that each side employs to attack the other: the fundamentalist is arrogant, blinkered, and culturally illiterate; the liberal is flabby, timid, and carried along by every new fashion of thought. From the point of view of the fundamentalist, doubt is sin; from the point of view of the liberal, the capacity for doubt is a measure of intellectual integrity and honesty.
Taylor’s blog clearly touched a nerve, particularly in his first version, which clearly implied that Bell was a servant of Satan. Fundamentalists speak with this kind of infallible certainty. John Piper tweets “Farewell” to Rob Bell as if he is eulogizing his death, his quick descent a hell Piper believes Bell refuses to believe in. As a psychologist, I can’t help but wonder about the histrionics involved in all of this, the drama of needing to be one of the last true believers, the almost martyr-like sense of joining the few who still believe that God, before the foundation of the world, decided to condemn many to eternal damnation. My friend and theologian Justin Holcomb made a great point when he tweeted, “Why do some exclusivists sound like they’d be angry if hell was empty? Theology is both what you believe and how you believe it.”
But the drama goes both ways. Consider Scot McKnight’s wonderful CT review of Brian McLaren’s New Kind of Christianity, which wonders if McLaren’s Christianity can even be called Christianity. I find that McLaren can, at times, seem embarrassed to be a Christian. In the end, I wonder what’s left for Christian to believe. McLaren’s emergent brand of Christianity, however, doesn’t work in a city like San Francisco where I live, an urban and secular place where people don’t care for the bait-and-switch versions of Christianity, but want to know where you stand and what you believe. Emergent churches have died in this city precisely because they often do not offer anything more than questions, mysteries, struggles, and laments. People in a post-Christian culture want to know what you believe. They have serious intellectual questions, as well as serious existential concerns. And this leads me to agree with Newbigin that neither fundamentalism nor liberalism has a missional voice for an increasingly secular culture.
The doctrine police are out in full force right now, tracking down those asking questions about universalism and hell (as if this is a new question…ask John Stott or Karl Barth), and calling out those who are trying to interact with the best science on evolution (we’ve never been big fans of science…ask Galileo), and prosecuting those who’d dare raise any questions about how people are justified (certainty on this led others to be condemned…ask Luther). A new generation of young and militant crusaders of theological dogma are emerging…or resurging…zealous for truth, training in their seminaries to pass rigorous ordination exams that separate the wheat from the chaff, organized like the Tea Party for revolution. But for what end? For ‘truth’, or for the mission of God? Sometimes I’m not sure.
On the other side, proponents of toleration are among the most intolerant. A denomination is dying (the PCUSA, and I pray it does not die) because, once again, the mission of God has been lost in the radical politicization of the Gospel. It’s a new kind of Christianity, alright…but so much the same in its profound certainty about all sorts of things, and usually the things that are no longer cool to believe in. Go to a church like this (and there are many in SF) and you’ll wonder if it’s a church. It feels more like a cause, and a cause defined against its arch-enemies the Fundamentalists. And though it’s done in the name of love, it’s ultimately unloving, intolerant, and hopelessly ambiguous.
I believe that Newbigin’s voice will be increasingly appealing as both fundamentalists and liberals see that their churches are not speaking the language of ordinary men and women who could care less about subjective or objective genitives, or academic debates that you and I care about, but that they neither have a clue about nor care about. That’s not to say that good theologizing should end. Note the opening quote. Newbigin did not learn the South Indian language of Tamil to say, “It’s just a big mystery…who knows what to believe!” Yet, Newbigin knew that a theology-in-mission required greater unity and ecumenical connection than we’re willing to concede. Hell (since the subject is ‘hot’)…I’d not be welcome into Justin Taylor’s Gospel Coalition, nor would my City Church colleagues, or my former professors and colleagues Dr. Roger Nicole and Dr. Bruce Waltke, or F.F. Bruce, or Gordon Fee, all of us egalitarians. A missional theology requires that our “coalitions” major on the majors, and not demonize on the minors.
I’m not sure what Rob Bell believes. Personally, I don’t think Rob’s questions address what post-Christian San Franciscan’s care about. Maybe Grand Rapids kids who’ve left the faith can return because of Rob’s hipper and cooler brand. I’m not sure, but I really don’t care either. If Bell wants to enter the academic debate and join in with Barth and Berkhouwer, with Pagitt and Piper, I’m completely uninterested and I’m not buying his book, in large part, because people just aren’t asking those questions. The big Baptist church where I lived in Oviedo, FL tried to scare the “hell” out of people in their alternative Halloween event. And many Emergents are responding to this kind of cultural Christianity with a vengeance. But I’m uninterested, in part because there is much more at stake. A small, uninteresting minority American Christian debate is almost pointless in the world in which we live.
What’s at stake? Ask Lesslie Newbigin. When he returned to the West after living in South India for many years, he saw a culture in demise, and a Christianity unable to address the major questions of post-Christian, post-Enlightenment culture. But if there’s a future, perhaps it’s in people like Mark, who approached me after Communion a few Sundays ago. Yes, we fenced the table. But we also made the time sacred for those wrestling with Christian faith. We prayed a pastoral prayer that remembered world crises as well as national apathy on a Super Bowl Sunday. A seeker, this man was moved by the broken bread just as those who accompanied Jesus on the road to Emmaus were. Something inclined him to think that this might be a place where real belief is held with confidence and humility, where real prayers are prayed for the world, where real hope is embraced for the broken. The prayer prayed that morning is below. Maybe it struck a chord that morning for him, and perhaps it might even for you, as a way between the ditches of fundamentalism and liberalism, a hope beyond blogs that call pastors angels of darkness or books that attempt to make Christianity’s difficult message somehow more palatable, no matter how noble the motives are on either side.
The Pastoral Prayer:
Our Lord and our God, it is with grateful hearts that we come to you now, recognizing that you have filled our hungry hearts with food and drink that lasts. It is with this gratitude that we turn our eyes now to the enormous task we’re given to be the bread of life to the world as a people who are taken, blessed, broken and given. You’ve given your Church the profound responsibility of being an agent of restoration in this broken world, and we take that responsibility seriously.
We are especially aware of the world’s brokenness as we see unrest in the world, particularly in places where it seems as if turmoil is not the exception but the norm. We think of the instability in Egypt, Lord, praying for your peace, your shalom, at a critical time in the nation’s history. Give wisdom and humility to President Mubarak, and bring this turmoil to a conclusion in a way that enables men, women, and children to flourish, living with the dignity and glory for which they were designed as image-bearers of you.
Lord, on a day when we gather together to enjoy a football game, we’re reminded of both the gift of friendship, fellowship, and sport, as well as the distraction it can be in a time of crisis. We recognize the gift of living in our prosperous American culture, but also recognize our tendency to switch the channel when the world news is disturbing. Give us the courage to enter in when we’re tempted to avoid, to be agents of love and compassion when we’re inclined to become numb to the pain around us. And may your Church be a source of healing not just to this city but to the world.
God of compassion, we ask you to act. Recognizing the depth of brokenness we see around us, we dare to imagine that you are the God who commands the rise and fall of nations, who acts on behalf of the helpless, who meets both the orphan and the opulent in their distress. We long to join you in a mission of remaking, restoring, and redeeming this world in your own image, and according to your will. And it is with this hope that we join Jesus in praying the Lord’s Prayer…