These matters are not trivial. Some of these current renewal movements compete for the same donors and constituents, duplicating each other's work (and in some cases, working against one another). It would be good if we could agree on just what kind of renewal we want so that we can adopt similar strategies to get us there. William J. Abraham wrote The Logic of Renewal in 2003 to address these questions, and his method of sorting out the various methods is compelling. In seven chapters he pairs together 14 different theologians, essentially setting forth a volume of "contrast and compare" among the different proposals.
Most of the chapters provide a stark contrast between two very different views. For example, the chapter called "Foundations and Food" sets James T. Draper (a fundamentalist Southern Baptist) against Dennis Bennett (a charismatic Episcopalian). Draper asserted that the church lost its way by substituting the reason of a scientific worldview for the revelation of scripture. His plan for renewal was to establish a rule of faith that church leaders could affirm, one that proclaimed the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. (This was a battle he largely won, within the Southern Baptist Convention anyway.) By contrast, Dennis Bennett said that what the church needs most is to be fed, in the form of powerful encounters with the Holy Spirit. If the differences between these two men can be boiled down to a simple formula, one is about the head (renewal comes from right belief) and the other is about the heart (about a direct, emotional touch of the Spirit).
Lesslie Newbigin |
Abraham's bigger argument is that renewal requires more than a revolution in philosophy: "for surely we are not healed or saved by philosophy. We are saved and healed by the living God" (p.158). He wants us to see that the traditions of the church—scripture, ordained forms of ministry, the sacraments of Communion and Baptism—are not just the dead weight of tradition. These aspects of our life as a church are the results of past spiritual renewals, ones that were inaugurated by the Triune God: "Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the church; the Holy Spirit constituted the church" (p.158). In short, the church is a gift from God. To Abraham a renewed church is one that comes to grips with the Spirit-filled nature of its systems and structures: "To see this canonical heritage as a gift of the Holy Spirit or as the life of the Holy Spirit in the church radically alters how the various elements are received" (p.161).
I like this proposal, and I agree with what Abraham is suggesting. (One of the occupational hazards of being a pastor is believing that the church is a gift.) That's why I wish he had put all his chips on Newbigin. But, sadly, Abraham dismisses him as too philosophical, failing to see how his own proposal is not far off from Newbigin's. In the last quote listed above, Abraham calls the church "to see." But what is a call "to see" other than an argument to be more philosophical—that is, to construe one's categories of the world a bit differently from other people? That's what Newbigin was doing in calling us to break out of false categories, making illogical separations between faith and reason (or mind and Spirit). He proposed that we find new "plausibility structures"—that is, ways of seeing the world—which we can only do by changing the way we live. That change can only happen when we attach ourselves to a community of people who believe the unbelievable:
How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. (Newbigin in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p.227)
But these congregations are not just communal gatherings of like-minded people. They are gifts of God, both Christ-instituted and Spirit-filled:
"What He left behind was a fellowship, and He entrusted to it the task of being His representative to the world...He endowed them with His own spirit to be His witnesses. They were given His authority to case out sickness and evil. To receive them was to receive Him, and to reject them was to reject Him." (Newbigin, The Household of God, p.50).
For Newbigin, the church today is still the same gift that was given to the apostles.
"How is Jesus present to us today?—it is surely clear that at least a very central part of the answer must be: He is present in His people, His apostolic fellowship." (Household, p.50)
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