Today I attended a “round table discussion” as part of the Regent College Spring School. The panel consisted of
Krish Kandiah, the Executive Director of Churches in Mission of the UK Evangelical Alliance, who is teaching a Spring School course entitled, “Subzero Evangelism: Communicating the Gospel in Post-Christian Contexts.”
Hans Boersma, the JI Packer Professor of Theology at Regent.
Rikk Watts, Professor of New Testament at Regent.
A couple of months ago I attended another debate between Hans and Rikk which centred around their (sometimes opposing) views on philosophy and history. In that debate it was Hans who impressed me and his defence of sacramental ontology. This time is was Rikk who impressed me and his passion for the good news of Jesus. But I think I was really reserving my loudest cheers for what Krish had to say.
There was so much more that could have been said. For example, in “defending” intentional time for doing theological reflection not in a context of mission Rikk cited the example of the Apostle Paul who spent years in Sinai after his conversation. What he failed to mention was that that was in preparation for him to be first and foremost a missionary not a theologian. With Paul we find him doing theology (i.e. writting the books of the New Testament) in the context of mission (i.e. the growth of new church plants).
Anyways… here are some notes that I took of the discussion. The notes are not a “verbatum” recording, but I think most of what is noted was “essentially” said. I’ve grouped the “highlights” under each particular speaker.
So… if you have a read, feel free to let me know what you think.
Hans Boersma
- Theology is ecclesial engagement… it belongs within the church. It is Christians speaking about the God they really love…. its task is to draw Christians in into the life of the triune God. It is evangelistic in its very nature.
- Theology has to do with liturgy. The rule of faith comes from the rule of prayer. When I do theology I want to connect this to the liturgy of the church.
- There is no one method (or model) of evangelism.
- Modernity cut the link between theology and the church. Thus we have theology with no ecclesial embodiment and no ecclesial authority.
- Among younger evangelicals… there has been renewed emphasis on the centrality on the church… and talk about monasticism. Perhaps we don’t live as monks enough. New monasticism follows through on writers such as Hauerwas who believe that modernity is incompatible with the Christian faith. The questions we ask need to be shaped by the gospel and not necessarily the questions of modernity.
Rick Watts
- Mission has to do with participating with God in the “othering”. Life does however have a number of facets. Paul after his conversion goes to Sinai and spends a lot of time in reflection (not mission).
- We need models, but they are personal. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
- I don’t think the problem is modernity. The problem goes back to the influence of Greek philosophical thought when the discourse of the elite gets co-opted… and you need to know philosophy to do this.
- Maybe our problem is that we are not comfortable with Jesus. The key question is… how do we form Christ in our lives holistically so that his life flows out in whatever situation we are in?
Krish Kandiah
- Mission is the total task. Evangelism is a sub-set… the verbal communication of the Gospel.
- To a certain extent I think there is a divorce…. You can get theological degree without doing evangelism. A key question… is theology learnt in mission? It was only as the early church engaged in mission that they did theology. Thus… can we do theology in the academy through the writing of essays?
- We need to break down the barriers. In practice there is a division… evangelists don’t tend to think theologically… evangelists don’t think theologians have anything to say… some theologians spend little time in mission. We need to expose theologians to evangelism and expose evangelism to theology.
- Jesus academy was on the road (in the context of God’s mission in the world). He said… -eat, live and breath with me for 3 years… I’m not going to give you a model… I’m going to ask you to live out my life.
- Just take a look at commentaries. Most are written with a set of questions about the text, which are not missiological.
- Jesus model of training was not taking his disciples up a mountain for 3 years to exegete the Old Testament.
Sounds like a good discusison. The problem seems clear enough (too much theology divorced from mission/ecclesial life/liturgy), and practices of theological development seem to contribute to this (theological study & evangelism are divorced, theological study in seminary is removed from actual missional practices/communities), but as often happens with these discussions there is little creative discussion of alternative models/practices.
What are some positive alternatives? Abolish seminaries and do theological education in local churches? Required evangelism in seminaries? None of these seem adequate, or even helpful. And the problem seems real enough, but it’s interesting to me that the discussion is happening among elites, as Rikk points out, and doesn’t move beyond analysis to practice. For the very structures (seminary education apart from a particular ecclesial community) that perpetuate the problem also foster the discussion – it’d be difficult to imagine this discussion, with it’s level of sophistication, happening outside of the academy.
I would like to hear more about how mission & theology can be brought together “on the ground” in actual practices of mission/evangelism (ie local churches/parachurch/monastic efforts).
Hi Kim,
Thanks for the comment.
For me one of the alternatives is to look at the way we teach theology – especially so called systematic theology.
Here’s a para from my thesis:
In 1982 Harvie Conn was inaugurated as Professor of Missions at Westminster Theological Seminary and his address was entitled “The Missionary Task of Theology” (Conn 1983). Conn’s experience of cross-cultural mission work in Korea clearly comes through in what is a passionate plea for Western theologians to reflect on the purpose of theology in context of global Christianity and global need. For Conn, “The question is not simply, or only, largely, missions and what it is. The question is also theology and what it does. The time has come, we are saying, not to talk about the biblical basis of missions but about the missionary basis of theology.”
So… I believe we need to establish a missiological basis for theology… and in doing so this will impact the way we do theology… starting with the starting point. The starting point needs to be Jesus, who is God’s ultimate missionary… rather than (Greek influenced?) concepts of God as some kind of abstract omni-being! Mission should not simply be a concept tagged on at the end somewhere at the end (usually under the doctrine of the church), but needs be the very basis of theology.
But yes… I would agree… let talk about, discuss and discover some constructive and imaginative alternatives that are our there.
What resources do you know of do this currently? Your missiological basis for theology would make for a good seminar!
Kim