In a day where technological advancements could make theological education more accessible, we find our seminaries takings steps to make their campuses more accessible, read “attractive,” with a new entrance at Southern Seminary at a reported cost of $5,000,000. And, if we are not beautifying the campus with a new chapel or dressing up Pecan Manor, we are acquiring fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not that these two investments are reckless. The question begging to be asked is just when cuts are being made and dollars are scarce, what about doing theological education? It is a bit like major insurance companies resisting health care reform then announcing ahead of the vote they will increase premiums by as much as 30%.

Hutchinson believes we need more money for theological education. The SBC Outpost reported in the past how a number of the seminary presidents were pushing for an offering akin to Lottie and Annie. Perhaps if some of our seminaries took a more aggressive approach to a new kind of theological education they would find more support for this idea from churches and not have to lobby the Executive Committee.

Donors like their names attached to large projects. How may we help them attach their dollars to students desiring theological education? That may be a good place for Hutchinson to put his energy.

And what seminary is he writing from?

Did foolish purchases by low income adherents of “prosperity theology” play a role in the real estate market collapse in the US? The Atlantic Monthly seems to think so. A Hanna Rosin article in the December 2009 edition (read it here) posits that prosperity gospel proponents encouraged church members, many of whom were poor Latino immigrants, to claim the blessings that God had for them, including the blessing of getting loans through sub-prime lending.

Read the rest here.

I would venture a guess that most who have used the word never read the book by Guder titled, The Missional Church. Even fewer will have read his book, The Continuing Conversion of the Church. In the best sense of semper reformanda, Guder contends that the church in every context and age must experience conversion from the barnacles it attracts as it passes through culture. He never suggests there is a pristinated version of church but opens the reader up to understand that when the church becomes complacent in its self-criticism it eventually loses its voice as it takes on the worst characteristics of the culture in which it finds itself.

Yes, Ed Stetzer regularly tweets in love and favor of the church. What he does not do is suggest it is perfect, just not worth bashing.

Monday I spent the day at a conference hosted by our contributor John Elam and the Northwestern Baptist Association in Woodward, OK. That’s right one of the smallest associations in the SBC hosts a conference titled, For the World. (Oh that our larger associations would consider these kinds of regular events.) Applying the best sense of the word missional the conference sought to encourage pastors to lead their congregations to live out the mission of God “for the world.”

SEBTS professors Nathan Finn and Alvin Reid offered two sessions each. Dr. Anthony Jordan, Exec. Director of the BGCO was featured for another session. The three combined with John Elam for a panel discussion moderated by Douglas Baker, new Executive Editor of The Baptist Messenger.

The point of this piece is not to offer a review or necessary critique. I would suggest you listen to the sessions. The discerning ear will hear some surprises. For instance, what would it mean if we really grasped Finn’s description of Baptists as an “ecclesiological reform movement?” Let that sink in a bit you who want desperately for Baptists to be a “theological reform movement.” Finn does not suggest an a/theological move for Baptists, instead he outlines historically what it means when we talk about the “five Baptist distinctives.” One must confess they are all ecclesiological in their affirmations.

Maybe you would find Reid’s attention to the 120 in the early Acts narrative compelling. Regularly we pay attention to the extraordinary “move of the Spirit” in Peter’s preaching. But, would we concede that contextually the 120 likely had as much going on in that fast movement of Gospel embrace? Or with all the bantering about “contextualization” would you be willing to accept the methodological adaptations evident in the growing story of the church?

There is little doubt a firestorm could swirl around Dr. Jordan’s contention that we make second order or tertiary confessional commitments matters of collegial cooperation. Recent moves to attach secondary issues to first order matters in an event to tighten the circle for cooperation would surely resist that the BFM article on the family does not rise to the level of the deity of Jesus. What’s more, will we ever concede unity does not of necessity mean uniformity? And, can that apply to more than our preferred music or governing polity?

Take some time to listen to the sessions. Come back and engage a conversation.

Second Continental Congress

Whether the belief that England was in a covenant relationship with God, thus the moral authority to launch crusades against infidels, or that France was in a covenant relationship with God, thus the moral authority assumed by Joan of Arc to crusade against the antagonistic English, or the belief that “New England” was in a covenant relationship with God since “Old England” has turned away from the covenant, nations and peoples since the ascension of Christ have sought to pick up, dust off and wear the mantle of Israel’s covenant with God. Almost without fail this leads to an idolatry from which there is rarely a return. Even many pre-WW2 Christians in Germany welcomed the influence of the Nazi Party as if it were the evident blessing of God on “the Fatherland.” Thankfully the Confessing Church stood against the embodied blasphemy that was the 3rd Reich.

Amid the many “taking America back” ideas that permeate that portion of Americans who are Christians there seems to run a common thread of misunderstanding. There has never been a Christian America and never will be. Just as there has never been nor ever will be a Christian Sudan, Ghana, Canada, Russia or Egypt. “Christian” should refer to people who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, not countries, bookstores or concerts. While it should be obvious to any reader of the Scriptures that Jesus died to save Americans, He did not die to save America. To think that God has only used America for His purposes is to misunderstand history; to think that God has chosen American for special blessing in a way that He has chosen no other country is to misunderstand theology. Second Peter 2:9 makes it clear that the “holy nation” God has chosen in these day is the church, not a geopolitical entity. The church exists within the borders of United Nations national charters, she does not take the place of them or become them. The ongoing conflation of the two kingdoms has created an unhealthy relationship between church and government even here in the United States where both left and right leaning Christians equate the presence of the Kingdom of God with whether or not we get a single payer healthcare option or we finally drill for oil in the arctic preserve. It bears remembering for all American believers that every time the church has crawled in bed with the state, the government prospers and the church is left cold, wretched, miserable, blind and naked.

Valid questions for all American Christians are: Do we worship America or Jesus Christ? Have we been brought into the relationship marked by Christianity or the religion of Americanism? Consider the following as possible indicators that we might have switched kingdoms:

Does your blood pressure goes through the roof when you see someone burning the American flag, yet you can hear someone take the name of Jesus in vain and you don’t flinch?

Are you angered when you see disrespect to an American soldier, yet when the persecution of Christians is reported on the news you give it not a second thought?

Will you walk across a restaurant to thank a service man/woman you have never met, but never thank your pastor for taking care of the flock?

Are you worried more about the country going into socialism than you are praying for the financial obedience of your own church?

Do you actively recruit people to your political positions, but ignore the need those same people have to know Jesus?

Does the national anthem or “American the Beautiful” brings tears to your eyes while worship songs bring dullness to your ears?

Are you more concerned when the Constitution is ignored than when the Bible is ignored?

Are you more appreciative of freedom of religion granted in the First Amendment than of freedom in Christ promised in John 3:16?

Is there a greater place in your heart for Washington, Adams and Jefferson than for Abraham, Paul and Peter?

Is it more important to you to support war or to try and bring peace?

At the National Prayer Breakfast in 1973 Former Senator Mark Hatfield said, “Let us beware of the real danger of misplaced allegiance, if not outright idolatry, to the extend we fail to distinguish between the god of an American civil religion and the God who reveals Himself in the Holy Scriptures and in Jesus Christ.

If we as leaders appeal to the god of civil religion, our faith is in a small and exclusive deity, a loyal spiritual adviser to power and prestige, a defender of only the American nation, the object of a national folk religion devoid of moral content. But if we pray to the biblical God of justice and righteousness, we fall under God’s judgment for calling upon His name, but failing to obey His commands.”

Hatfield had it right. God help us not to get it wrong.

The Kingdom Principle

Several years ago I accompanied a friend on hiking trip. Our objective was more than just spending a few days in the great outdoors. The location was a restricted-access country in Asia where mission work is forbidden. My friend, a strategy coordinator for an unreached people group, asked me to join him on the trip high in the mountains to locate and mark with a GPS villages previously untouched by Westerners. His desire was to count doors, do a needs-assessment and hopefully encounter men of peace through whom he could introduce the Gospel to a secluded people. As a journalist, I planned to do a feature package on the people and the challenge of bringing the Gospel to them.

We spent our first day navigating dusty trails and narrow goat paths straight up a mountain nearing 10,000 feet. At one point, having run out of water, we resorted to drawing and filtering from streams that were no more than mud puddles. Periodically, we encountered people living on the mountain; villagers tending to crops on semi-flat fields or goat herders on patches of mountain grass. At one rest stop, two members of our team engaged a couple of farmers in light conversation and gave them tracts in their language.

In our ignorance, we didn’t realize those farmers were heading down the mountain to a village at a lower trailhead. I can imagine their report to the local officials: white devils were on the mountain handing out (illegal) materials. To our dismay, as we broke camp the following morning we saw coming up behind us a trail of military vehicles. Needless to say, the language barrier didn’t mean much as the officials angrily interrogated our leader and hauled us all off the mountain.

We were held for several hours in the village headquarters. Our team leader received the brunt of their wrath since he knew the language, but after a time we were left under the watch of one of the armed guards. As we sat in the sparse room, our team leader sat at the doorway engaged in conversation with the guard.

After several hours a bus arrived. We were told we would be taken down the mountain to the provincial capital and expelled from the country. As we loaded our gear on the bus, I noticed our team leader place both of his hands on our guard’s shoulders and speak to him. The guard’s head lowered. He nodded, seemingly with resignation.

I knew my friend was telling this man about Jesus. I couldn’t wait to hear the whole story.

The guard had continued to tell our team leader that what we were doing was illegal. But “I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him the eye,” my friend shared. “I told him: ‘You know that the Kingdom of God has come near to you today.’” The guard nodded his head and said, “Yes, I know.”

It was a simple statement, but it reflected our marching orders. Before our hike we were told we were operating under the “L.K. 10 principle” just as Jesus had instructed the 72 as He sent them out – to proclaim the Good News; to speak to those who would listen; to pray for the sick; to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

While this story is digestible in the context of being overseas in a country resistant to the Gospel, I feel this basic principle is one that is too often overlooked in the safety shell of our American church. Most understand the mandate to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but do we take seriously the mandate to intentionally intersect the lost, the questioning, the maligned, the people all around us; to look them in the eye and proclaim the truth, challenging them to understand through our actions and words that the Kingdom of God has come near to them? How have I brought near the Kingdom of God today? Did anyone even realize it?

What does “L.K. 10” look like in the missional context? Is it enough to hope that the waitress serving us thinks we are “different” because we smile and leave a decent tip? That the store clerk is impressed that we don’t get aggravated in the long checkout line like those around us? That maybe we give a sandwich to the homeless vet on the corner? These things are good and should be expected of Christ-followers. But isn’t there more?

There is intentionality in the series of instructions given to the 72: Ask the Lord…Go!…Speak peace…stay…eat…drink…heal…tell them: “the Kingdom of God is near you.”

I’m not suggesting you grab someone on the street and say, “The Kingdom of God is near you!” That could get ugly. But why are we afraid and intimidated to ask about the needs of someone’s heart and explain how every desire and broken promise they have been harboring can be found in the person of Jesus? Is it because we know it’s been attempted so many times in harmful “turn-off” ways that we’re fearful of being lumped in with the offensive kooks? Is it because we really don’t have a clue how to effectively translate God’s story into someone’s context and language? Is it because we ourselves don’t know it well enough? I wonder.

By the way, we created a second chance for ourselves that day on the mountain by giving the bus driver the slip and trekking back into our targeted territory. God’s story was communicated to a people for the first time. May His Kingdom come.

For those who are newcomers to this blog and may not be as familiar with our past involvement with “The Dark Side,” the men listed on the Editors page were, for 2-3 years, avid (some might say “rabid”) critics of the SBC and, often, some in its leadership. Though motives were questioned then as well (both by us and toward us), to a person our goal was to try and instigate some type of reform that would address the backroom politics, good ole’ boy nomination processes and bureaucratic redundancies all of which we felt were suppressing the SBC’s creative talent and innovation, disenfranchising younger leaders and threatening the long term viability of the Southern Baptist Convention. While we were critical of some of the entity heads within the convention, we also recognized that any lasting change would have to come as a result of the “blog conversation” moving into the arena of official leadership. On June 18, 2007, on the last “SBC” commentary on my (Marty) first blog, SBCOutpost, I wrote that “change must come from Frank Page, Thom Rainer, Geoff Hammond, David Dockery, Timothy George, Danny Akin and others of their tribe.” Sans Geoff Hammond, each of these leaders is involved at some level of driving change in the SBC. Knowing that these men have stepped up to the plate does not make us mad; it gives us varying degrees of hope from fleeting to great.

Having said that, anything that appears to be criticism from our end should be read as a hope that the GCRTF will go the distance and not be, to use biblical phrasing, “of those who shrink back and are destroyed,” but will press to the farthest extent and let the convention itself decide. In other words, we believe the GCRTF should bring “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” to Orlando and let the assembled messengers determine how to proceed from there. We do not want them to “shrink back” out of fear, uncertainty or concerns about walking on the toes of feudal lords.

Therefore, if we were the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, we would make the following recommendations:

1. That the Southern Baptist Convention intentionally downsize is structural complexity by recognizing the series of autonomous relationships that exist between churches, associations, state conventions/fellowships and the national body and that the local churches must take the lead in re-shaping this autonomy to all extremes in each direction.

2. That the Southern Baptist Convention re-focus NAMB’s ministry tasks, retaining only on those areas that empower the churches through national coordination and facilitate the planting of churches in frontier areas. This would be best accomplished through decentralization. NAMB should begin to act as a true missionary sending agency while funding those missionaries accordingly.

3. That the Southern Baptist Convention cease from the practice of voting on “Resolutions.” The purpose of resolutions in theory makes sense, but in practice they are great tools for making Southern Baptists look like fools. We have long passed the point that our society cares at all what we think about its ills; resolutions have become points of disparagement for our host culture, another stigma that must be overcome by Southern Baptist churches and do nothing to help us fulfill the Great Commission.

4. That the Southern Baptist Convention focus its coordinated efforts toward only what local churches, associations, or state conventions cannot do alone or by voluntary networking. By definition this implies the closure of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

5. That the Southern Baptist Convention instruct the International Mission Board to implement strategies that empower national believers rather than seeking to primarily deploy western missionaries and make those stories a focus of all promotion.

6. That one-third of the trustees on Southern Baptist Convention entity boards be comprised of men and women younger than 40 years of age and that the total number of years that a single person shall be able to serve on all boards combined is twelve.

7. That churches be given the option to direct their Cooperative Program funds through their local association consistent with the mission of the local church and the accountable practices at all levels of our cooperative effort toward fulfilling the Great Commission.

8. That all bodies within the SBC–local churches, associations, state conventions and fellowships, and all national entities–strive for absolute accuracy in reporting of statistics and that a differentiation be made between what is accomplished by our own direct ministry efforts and those of groups with whom we partner both in North America and internationally.

9. That the Southern Baptist Convention explore alternative methods of theological training that retain an emphasis on conservative, classic theology, but are local church-centric and host culture specific. A new educational paradigm should be introduced which places Missiology on the same plane as Theology proper, Christology and Pneumatology and staffed accordingly.

10. That funding the Cooperative Program not be considered as the basis for being a cooperating church. The basis for cooperation should be missional engagement as the local church furthers the stated goals of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Cooperation” should not be reduced to money.

———-

“Through a Glass Darkly”

With these words St. Paul (1 Cor. 13:12) contrasts the limitations of our present spiritual vision and understanding with the fullness of knowledge that will be ours at the return of the Lord.  This metaphor may be helpful as we consider the last of Biblical Seminary’s theological convictions.

The Necessity of Cultural Engagement

We are committed to ongoing engagement with culture and the world for the sake of our witness to the gospel, and to continual learning from Christians in other cultural settings.[1]

There are three points I want to make about this statement:  1) culture as the context for mission, 2) culture as a way of seeing, and 3) the need for cross-cultural learning.

1.    Culture as context

By “culture” we refer to the traditional ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that characterize a particular group of people. In our highly mobile Western world, we must think of culture not as a single entity but as a complex interplay of contrasting and even competing ways by which different groups construe their world.

This diversity of cultures is one reason the church in North America must now think of itself as a missionary church. We are surrounded by groups of people who do not share our way of viewing the world. To bring the gospel to our world we will need to engage in the missionary task of translation.  We must communicate the truth about Jesus in ways that are faithful to Scripture and effective in crossing cultural boundaries.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, understands this challenge better than most. “When Paul spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture’s idol of speculation and philosophy with the ‘foolishness’ of the cross, and then presented Christ’s salvation as true wisdom. When he spoke to Jews, he confronted their culture’s idol of power and accomplishment with the ‘weakness’ of the cross, and then presented the gospel as true power (1 Cor. 1:22-25).”[2] In affirming one gospel, Keller nonetheless argues that different “forms” of the gospel are appropriate to people of differing cultural backgrounds.

So, in the context of his own ministry in New York City, Keller recognizes that people with religious backgrounds understand the concept of sin as an offense against the law of God.  These people can therefore be reached with the more traditional evangelical summary of the gospel which presents the cross as divine provision for human sin and guilt.

But Keller notes, “…Manhattan is also filled with postmodern listeners who consider all moral statements to be culturally relative and socially constructed. If you try to convict them of guilt for sexual lust, they will simply say, ‘You have your standards, and I have mine.’ If you respond with a diatribe on the dangers of relativism, your listeners will simply feel scolded and distanced.”[3]  For this audience Keller finds it more effective to speak of sin not as guilt but as idolatry.

My point is not to argue the rightness or wrongness of Pastor Keller’s specific approach to preaching, although I agree with much of his article. The point is rather to emphasize the missional challenge we face. Careful interpretation of Scripture must now be combined with careful interpretation of culture(s) if we are to witness faithfully to our generation.

2.     Culture as a way of seeing

Paul talks about seeing in the mirror “dimly” or “obscurely.” This is due both to our finiteness and our fallenness, and both play out in the influence of culture upon us and upon those to whom we bring the gospel.  Culture allows us to see certain things while it makes other realities opaque.

Here’s another way of saying this: None of us perceive reality (including the Bible) in a purely objective way. We are all imbedded in our culture. We observe from a limited perspective.  No one enjoys a God’s-eye view of the world except God himself.

When I was a beginning student in theology, most evangelicals were objectivists. We saw ourselves as people who could simply observe the world and the Bible without being impacted by our cultural surroundings. Perspective (bias) was not a problem, at least not for us! Abstract scientific induction was our model for the study of the Bible and the articulation of theology: begin with the pure data and by careful, logical process craft your sermon or build your theology.

But now postmodernism has powerfully critiqued that type of naïve modernism. There is a growing convergence among evangelical scholars that objectivism is not workable. No less a conservative than D.A. Carson now says that “… human beings may know objective truth in the sense that they may know what actually conforms to reality, but they cannot know it objectively, that is, they cannot escape their finitude and (this side of the consummation) their fallenness….”[4] Similarly, John Franke writes, “We simply cannot escape from our particular setting and gain access to an objective, transcultural vantage point.”[5] The result, says Carson, is that we are all perspectivalists.

This has both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, culture may function in a positive way to help us see particular dimensions of our humanity or of the world that may otherwise escape us. Our conviction statement reads:  “It is also true that God can work in a culture to surface issues of justice, equity, or mercy that the church has neglected.” Clearly the civil rights movement of the second half of the 20th century surfaced a glaring inconsistency in the theology and practice of many white Christians in North America.

On the other hand, culture can impact the church negatively as well. In this case it blinds us to truths that may be obvious to those of a different cultural background. For example, the narcissistic individualism[6] of the West has left American Christians with an anemic understanding of the church.  As a result many of us would summarize the gospel with no reference to the centrality of the church in God’s purposes, and many of us live as if salvation were merely a private affair between Jesus and me.

3.     Cross-cultural learning

So, any particular culture both illuminates and obscures aspects of reality. To quote Carson again, “…every expression of human culture simultaneously discloses that we were made in God’s image and shows itself to be mis-shaped and corroded by human rebellion against God.”[7]
How then are we to live out Christian faith without being co-opted unknowingly by the most dangerous elements of our surroundings?  The primary answer is that we must be willing to bring our most fundamental assumptions back to Scripture in the recognition that a fresh hearing of the Word may yet disclose points of correction or expansion in our living of the gospel.

However, our convictions statement speaks of the need for “continual learning from Christians in other cultural settings.” The way we understand and live out the gospel needs to be compared with the ways brothers and sisters in other places hear the same message. In the process we will find elements of similarity and difference; the commonalities will confirm our faith and the plurality of views will humble and perhaps instruct us.

The growing weakness of the church in the West and the explosion of the church in the two-thirds world should make us teachable. Wheaton College professor Kevin Vanhoozer says, “Those who cannot see their own cultural conditioning are doomed to repeat it. It is just here that Western sytematic theologians have much to learn…. It is ultimately for the sake of better biblical interpretation that Western theologians need to attend to how the Bible is being read and practiced in the non-Western world.”[8]

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In summary, none of us can escape culture. It is the context in which we understand, embody, and communicate the gospel. The church’s missional challenge in every particular cultural setting is to incarnate the message faithfully. At Biblical Seminary we believe the best hope for carrying out that mission is a fresh listening for the voice of the Spirit as we read Scripture together with the global church.

[1]The full text of our Convictions is found here:  http://www.biblical.edu/images/discover/Convictions0808.pdf
[2] Tim Keller, “The Gospel in All Its Forms,” at http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/spring/9.74.html?start=1
[3] http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/spring/9.74.html?start=5
[4] D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Eerdmans, 2008), p. 101.
[5] John Franke, The Character of Theology (Baker, 2005), p. 90.
[6] See my earlier Missional Journal on Narcissism:  http://www.biblical.edu/images/belong/PDFs/Vol1No11.pdf
[7] Idem, p. 49
[8] Kevin Vanhoozer, “One Rule to Rule Them All?” in Globalizing Theology edited by Craig Ott and Harold Netland (Baker, 2006), pp. 116-17.

Early Wednesday afternoon, around 1:50 local time, a sudden tornado traveled from south Minneapolis into the city damaging the Convention Center, a Lutheran church and a music shop. Dozens of homes and trees were damaged in the early touching down, while a different tornado crushed the roof of a North Branch middle school about 50 miles away, bringing doubts as to whether that school might open on time. The tornados were described as “weak” as the Weather Service gave both wind funnels a rating of EF0, the lowest on the scale.

Perhaps it was the “weak” designation that prompted popular Minneapolis pastor, John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church, to wonder on his blog whether God was giving a gentle warning to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who were about to debate the ordination of practicing homosexuals into the ranks of their ministry. Piper wrote of seeing the cloud from distance, posted a picture of the damaged steeple of the Central Lutheran Church where the ELCA attendees were meeting and divined that the purpose of the tornado was related to the ELCA’s decision, writing, “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction.” Not the possibility of one of the damaged houses being a crack den, or the school being a poor use of money or the music store having the name “Electric Fetus,” which, had I been God, would have received a lightning strike in addition to wind damage.

Finish reading at the Atlanta Southern Baptist Examiner