DOCSLIB.ORG

Stewart Sbts 0207D 10169.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Stewart Sbts 0207D 10169.Pdf Copyright © 2013 Joe Randell Stewart All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation or instruction. THE INFLUENCE OF NEWBIGIN’S MISSIOLOGY ON SELECTED INNOVATORS AND EARLY ADOPTERS OF THE EMERGING CHURCH PARADIGM ___________________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ___________________ In Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements of the Degree Doctor of Education ___________________ by Joe Randell Stewart December 2013 APPROVAL SHEET THE INFLUENCE OF NEWBIGIN’S MISSIOLOGY ON SELECTED INNOVATORS AND EARLY ADOPTERS OF THE EMERGING CHURCH PARADIGM Joe Randell Stewart Read and Approved by: __________________________________________ Hal K. Pettegrew (Chair) __________________________________________ Timothy P. Jones Date ______________________________ I dedicate this dissertation to my loving wife, Nancy. I will always love you. Thanks for your constant encouragement. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES . x LIST OF FIGURES . xi PREFACE . xii Chapter 1. RESEARCH CONCERN Introduction to the Research Problem . Newbigin’s Influence on the Innovators and Early Adopters Newbigin’s Influence on the Missiology of the Emerging Church The Scope of Newbigin’s Influence Selected Concepts of the Innovators and Early Adopters of the Emerging Church Paradigm . 22 The Pervasive Impact of Christendom . 24 Communal Dimensions of Witness: The Church as a Hermeneutic of the Gospel . .. 30 The Church as Sign, Instrument, and Foretaste . 33 Research Thesis . 40 Focus Statements . 40 Delimitations of the Study . 41 Terminology . 41 iv Chapter Page Research Assumptions . 51 Procedural Overview . 52 2. NEWBIGIN’S IDEA OF CHRISTENDOM’S CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH IN THE WEST . 55 Epistemological Turn . 56 Precursors of the Enlightenment . 57 Speaking Truth to Caesar . 65 Newbigin’s Concept of Pluralism . 72 Types of Pluralism . 74 Dialogue with Other Faiths . 76 Proper Confidence . 79 Evaluation of Newbigin’s Views . 85 McLaren’s Postmodern Turn . 86 McLaren on Modernity . 89 McLaren and Scripture . 92 McLaren and Epistemology . 95 A Multi-Faith World . 98 Newbigin and the Kingdom of God . 103 Dissecting Truth and Mission . 105 v Chapter Page 3. NEWBIGIN’S VIEW ON THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION OF MISSION AS A HERMENEUTIC OF THE GOSPEL . 110 Focus Statement Synopsis . 111 The Communal Nature of Mission . 111 Hermeneutic of the Gospel . 113 Radical Conversion . 116 Principalities, Powers, and People . 118 Missio Dei . 120 The Scandal of Particularity . 122 Trinitarian Mission . 125 The Nature of the Biblical Story . 127 Evaluation of Newbigin’s Views . 137 Tony Jones: Relational Ecclesiology . 139 Confessionalism and Contextualization . 142 Navigating Community . 144 Navigating Scripture . 146 e Church Reimagined – Doug Pagitt . 151 unity in the Inventive Age . 153 Scripture in the Inventive Age . 155 Heaven on Earth . 158 Evaluation of Pagitt and Jones . 160 vi Chapter Page 4. THE CHURCH AS SIGN, INSTRUMENT, AND FORETASTE . 163 Focus Statement Synopsis . 165 Triangular Movement of the Gospel . 165 Contextual Theology . 168 Sign, Instrument, and Foretaste . 176 Evaluation of Contextualization . 186 Mark Driscoll and Reformission . 188 Reformission Without Ruin . 190 Contextualization in Reformission . 200 Dan Kimball’s Vintage Christianity . 204 Kimball’s Missional Motif . 207 A Holistic Gospel . 212 Evaluating Driscoll and Kimball . 216 5. CONCLUSIONS . 221 Newbigin and the Emerging Church . 221 Christendom, Culture, and the Gospel . 222 Missiological Corrections in Society . 224 Community, Mission and a Reciprocal Relationship . 228 Mission in Community . 229 Neglected Notes in Evangelical Life . 231 vii Page Challenging Relevance in Contextual Settings . 234 Reaching a Pagan World . 236 A Missionary Encounter in the West . 238 Practices and Prospects of the Emerging Church . 239 Practices of the Emerging Church . 240 The Prospects of the Emerging Church . 252 Further Research . 255 Some Personal Reflections . 256 REFERENCE LIST . 259 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CSI Church of South India CASA Christian Agency for Social Action CWME Committee on World Mission and Evangelism (WCC) EACC East Asia Christian Conference GOC Gospel and our Culture (Britain) GOCN Gospel and our Culture Network (North America) IBMR International Bulletin of Missionary Research IMC International Missionary Council IRM International Review of Mission(s) SBC Southern Baptist Convention SBTS Southern Baptist Theological Seminary SCM Student Christian Movement SIUC South India United Church TEF Theological Education Fund USA United States of America WCC World Council of Churches YLN Young Leader’s Network ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Models of contextual theology . 170 2. Kimball’s Emerging Church . 208 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Lesslie Newbigin’s triangular movement of the Gospel . 15 2. Three streams of the spectrum within the Emerging Church . ..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Significance of Lesslie Newbigin for Mission in a New Millennium
    The Significance of Lesslie Newbigin for Mission in the New Millennium Michael W. Goheen A Remarkable Life Bishop Lesslie Newbigin is one of the most important missiological and theological thinkers of the twentieth century. The American church historian Geoffrey Wainwright, from Duke University, once remarked that when the history of the church in the twentieth century comes to be written, if the church historians know their job, Newbigin will have to be considered one of top ten or twelve theological figures of the century. In his book, he honours Newbigin’s significant contribution by portraying him in patristic terms as a “father of the church.”1 Newbigin was first and foremost a missionary; he spent forty years of his life in India. But he was much more: he was a theologian, biblical scholar, apologist, ecumenical leader, author, and missiologist. The breadth and depth of his experience and his contribution to the ecumenical and missionary history of the church in the twentieth century have been “scarcely paralleled.”2 Newbigin was born in England in 1909. He was converted to Jesus Christ during his university days at Cambridge. He was married, ordained in the Church of Scotland, and set sail for India as a missionary in 1936. He spent the next eleven years as a district missionary in Kanchipuram. He played an important role in clearing a theological impasse that led to the formation of the Church of South India (CSI)—a church made up of Congregationalists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists. He served as bishop of Madurai for the next twelve years.
    [Show full text]
  • ED278595.Pdf
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 278 595 SO 017 879 AUTHOR Semonche, John E., Ed. TITLE Religion and Law in American History. Church,State and the First Amendment: A North Carolina Dialogue. INSTITUTION North Carolina Univ., Chapel Hill. SPONS AGENCY National Endowment for the Humanities (NFAH), Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 85 NOTE 135p.; Prepared under the auspices of theProgram in the Humanities and Human Values. For related documents, see SO 017 880-881. PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Churches; *Civil Liberties; Civil Rights; *Constitutional History; Government Role; *Religion; *Religious Differences; Religious Factors;State Church Separation; *lin,ted States History ABSTRACT This two-part anthology contains a series of background readings on church-state issues designed to provide primary materials through which North Carolinianscan better understand the religion clauses of the First Amendment.Part 1 gives historical and philosophical background in fourchapters: (1) "God's Country: Perception or Presumption?"; (2) "Near the Beginning:Should God's Realm Be Separated from Man's?"; (3) "The Rights _)fMan and Other Bases for Religious Liberty: A Practical Accommodationor a Moral Imperative?"; and (4) "The Constitutional Foundation:What Did the Religious Clauses Mean?" Part 2 describes the legalexperience in four chapters numbered sequentially from part 1:(5) "The Basic Cases: What Limits Do the Religion Clauses Place Upon the States?"; (6) "Free Exercise of Religion: How Much Room ShouldGovernment Allow?"; (7) "School Prayer and Financial Assistance:What Tends To Establish Religion?"; and (8) "Historical Exceptions:Does Custom Equal Constitutionality?" Each chapter contains readingsand questions for discussion. A list of suggestions foradditional reading is included.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 the GOSPEL of the KINGDOM and the CHRISTIAN GOSPEL By
    THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM AND THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL by Pastor Mike Harding The Christian Gospel The Good News of the four Gospels centers on the bloody, sacrificial, vicarious death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins evidenced by His burial, and the bodily resurrection of Christ evidenced by the empty tomb. The necessary implications of these truths include that we are hell-bound sinners, incapable of atoning for our sins, meriting our justification or contributing to our salvation, and that apart from a personal unreserved trust (repentant faith) in the Theanthropic Christ (God-man) and His Crosswork, each of us will be eternally judged by God. Additional implications of the Christian Gospel which cannot be denied are His miraculous, virginal conception/birth as well as His absolute equality with the Father and distinctive personality in the Triune God-head (Phil 2:5-11). The Gospel of the Kingdom The way of salvation has been exactly the same at all times and in all places: by grace alone, through repentant faith alone, grounded in the merits of Christ alone. However, the content of faith increased progressively throughout biblical history, beginning with the proto-evangelium (first gospel - Gen 3:15) and concluding with the all-sufficient revelation of Christ in the sixty-six inscripturated books of the Bible. When Jesus began his ministry, He immediately proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom to national Israel (Matt 3:2; 4:17). Jesus’ numerous references to the Kingdom of God call attention to the antecedent prophecies in the OT involving the Divine Messiah and describe a literal, earthly realm involving the land of Palestine and the nation of Israel over which the Messiah would reign (cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Listening to God and the Missio Dei
    Listening to God and the missio Dei By Murray Harold Olson B.Sc, B.Theol A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Divinity Date 12 February, 2016 1 ABSTRACT The early church was a church of mission; incarnational mission. This changed when the church entered into the Christendom era and church membership grew by birth, rather than by conversion, so there was no need for mission. The decline of numbers attending church services in recent years forced the church to look at mission and a number of church-centred models have developed. But in recent years there has been an awareness that mission is not the mission of the church. It is the missio Dei, the mission of God. In this thesis I have outlined the evolution of the concept of the missio Dei and its importance to the church. I have also given some examples of the way that the missio Dei has been put into action and the importance of listening to God when you are involved in it. This listening to God involves listening, individually and as a church, to God using prayer and Scripture. It also involves listening to God in the lives of the people in our neighbourhoods. This is because God is active in our neighbourhoods and we can join in this activity of God. 2 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that this thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university or other institution and affirm to the best of my knowledge, that this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference in made in the text of the thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Surprise the World: the Five Habits of Highly Missional People, Frost Gives Us a Memorable Strategy That We Each Can Put Into Practice Every Day
    Michael Frost has done it again, as he continues to raise the temperature for missional living. In Surprise the World: The Five Habits of Highly Missional People, Frost gives us a memorable strategy that we each can put into practice every day. You’ll want to get multiple copies to share with your team to ensure that each one of us is prepared to live on mission to help even more people find their way back to God. DAVE FERGUSON Lead pastor of Community Christian Church Even after people read multiple books, they often ask, “So what does being missional really look like?” One of my answers is to go practice Mike Frost’s BELLS. Mike has simplified the way of Jesus for our world today. Grab some friends, commit, and watch the kingdom become tangible. HUGH HALTER Author of Brimstone, Flesh, and The Tangible Kingdom Surprise the World is Mike Frost’s missional genius made accessible for the average person. So many lives will change as a result, as people hear about and follow Jesus. DAN KIMBALL Pastor, Vintage Faith Church Michael Frost’s insights have made him a leading voice in the missional church movement. The habits commended in Surprise the World will only cement Michael’s place as an original thinker who envisions and serves those of us who are pastors and leaders in churches. I will enthusiastically commend this book to the churches for whom I am bishop, and I will make use of it to train Holy Trinity Church, where I am pastor. BISHOP TODD HUNTER The Anglican Church in North America A core part of the gospel is that Jesus came from the comfort of heaven to a dark and broken world in order to rescue humankind.
    [Show full text]
  • Generous Orthodoxy - Doing Theology in the Spirit
    Generous Orthodoxy - Doing Theology in the Spirit When St Mellitus began back in 2007, a Memorandum of Intent was drawn up outlining the agreement for the new College. It included the following paragraph: “The Bishops and Dean of St Mellitus will ensure that the College provides training that represents a generous Christian orthodoxy and that trains ordinands in such a way that all mainstream traditions of the Church have proper recognition and provision within the training.” That statement reflected a series of conversations that happened at the early stages of the project, and the desire from everyone involved that this new college would try in some measure to break the mould of past theological training. Most of us who had trained at residential colleges in the past had trained in party colleges which did have the benefit of strengthening the identity of the different rich traditions of the church in England but also the disadvantage of often reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes and suspicion of other groups and traditions within the church. I remember discussing how we would describe this new form of association. It was Simon Downham, the vicar of St Paul’s Hammersmith who came up with the idea of calling it a “Generous Orthodoxy”, and so the term was introduced that has become so pivotal to the identity of the College ever since. Of course, Simon was not the first to use the phrase. It was perhaps best known as the title of a book published in 2004 by Brian McLaren, a book which was fairly controversial at the time.
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of the Teaching of Missional Concepts of Christian
    Concordia Seminary - Saint Louis Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project Concordia Seminary Scholarship 12-15-2017 An Examination of the Teaching of Missional Concepts of Christian Discipleship and their Potential for Creating an Attitudinal Change at Berea Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota Kevin Tiaden Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.csl.edu/dmin Part of the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Tiaden, Kevin, "An Examination of the Teaching of Missional Concepts of Christian Discipleship and their Potential for Creating an Attitudinal Change at Berea Lutheran Church, Richfield, Minnesota" (2017). Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project. 114. https://scholar.csl.edu/dmin/114 This Major Applied Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Concordia Seminary Scholarship at Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN EXAMINATION OF THE TEACHING OF MISSIONAL CONCEPTS OF CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR CREATING AN ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT BEREA LUTHERAN CHURCH, RICHFIELD, MINNESOTA A Major Applied Project Presented to the Faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Department of Practical Theology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Ministry By Rev. Kevin Tiaden November 27, 2017 Approved by Dr. David Peter Advisor Dr. Victor Raj Reader Rev. Benjamin Haupt Reader © 2017 by Kevin Norman Tiaden. All rights reserved. This MAP is dedicated to my beautiful chef/lawyer/wife Kathleen.
    [Show full text]
  • T. F. Torrance As Missional Theologian by Joseph H
    Taken from T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian by Joseph H. Sherrard. Copyright © 2021 by Joseph H. Sherrard VI. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com 1 Dualism and the Doctrine of God T. F. Torrance’s Trinitarian Theology and the Gospel Within Western Culture The Missio Dei and the Doctrine of God In our introduction we noted the recent appearance of a number of argu- ments for the fundamental importance of the category of mission within the discipline of systematic theology. These attempts are often gathered under a single descriptive heading: missio Dei. This term and the conceptual framework attached to it, often (apparently erroneously) traced back to Karl Barth,1 describes the fundamental conviction that unites all these recent projects. In Transforming Mission, a foundational text for both strands of biblical and theological reflection upon mission, David Bosch describes the conviction in this way: “Mission was understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It was thus put in the context of the doctrine of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. As far as missionary thinking was concerned, this linking with the doctrine of the Trinity constituted an important innovation.”2 1See John G. Flett’s helpful historical study of the term missio Dei in chapters three and four of his The Witness of God: The Trinity,Missio Dei, Karl Barth, and the Nature of Christian Community (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010). Flett argues that while Barth is an important contributor to the church’s reflection on its mission, the specific term missio Dei was neither used nor defined by Barth.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreting Short Term Mission for Long Term Discipleship Creating a Standardized Short Term Mission Experience Training Manual for Hales Corners Lutheran Church
    Concordia Seminary - Saint Louis Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project Concordia Seminary Scholarship 5-1-2018 Interpreting Short Term Mission for Long Term Discipleship Creating a Standardized Short Term Mission Experience Training Manual for Hales Corners Lutheran Church Chrisitan Wood Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.csl.edu/dmin Part of the Practical Theology Commons Recommended Citation Wood, Chrisitan, "Interpreting Short Term Mission for Long Term Discipleship Creating a Standardized Short Term Mission Experience Training Manual for Hales Corners Lutheran Church" (2018). Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project. 127. https://scholar.csl.edu/dmin/127 This Major Applied Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Concordia Seminary Scholarship at Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTERPRETING SHORT TERM MISSION FOR LONG TERM DISCIPLESHIP “CREATING A STANDARDIZED SHORT TERM MISSION EXPERIENCE TRAINING MANUAL FOR HALES CORNERS LUTHERAN CHURCH” A Major Applied Project Presented to the Faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Department of Practical Theology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Ministry By Christian Richard Wood May 2018 Approved by Dr. Victor Raj Advisor Dr. Robert Kolb Reader Dr. David Peter Reader © 2018 by Christian Richard Wood. All rights reserved. ii To by beautiful bride, April, and our sons, Elijah, Ezra, and Caleb. You have blessed me beyond words, and I am honored to be a family on mission for the Lord.
    [Show full text]
  • Lesslie Newbigin Remembered Rought up an English Presbyterian, I Can Hardly Remember Not Be Ignored
    Lesslie Newbigin Remembered rought up an English Presbyterian, I can hardly remember not be ignored. As on so many major issues, agree or disagree, B a time whenIdidn'tknow Lesslie as a legend.We first made approve or disapprove, you have to face him .Thereis no honest contactin 1965when our two sonsconjointly had a difference of way round.We disagreed on two things:how long it took to the opinion with their headmaster and were not welcome in their railway station or airport, and Margaret Thatcher, which we school for a spell . Lesslie and Helen were in Geneva, my wife never discussed. was in Taiwan, I was in New York, and tomorrow was my Some of us are tolerant because we have so much to tolerate doctoral oral. With visions of our erring sons loose on London in ourselves: a sin-based tolerance that sometimes tolerates the streets, Lesslie and I corresponded. On the occasion of my intolerable. Lesslie's tolerance was cruciform, giving him a retirement in 1986,Lesslie reread my letter, which he had kept. sternness in his mercy. He could afford to be severe, but the Wheredoes ourthanksgivingbegin? Lesslie would haveus severity was healing. begin with God. Then comes Helen, greatly loved and greatly He gave one the self-honesty to know one was the monkey loving. What other retiring bishop's wife would, with two on his barrel organ, but yet the monkey felt a little leonine. suitcases and a rucksack, have taken a bus from Madras to Although you were four feet high, you felt basketball tall and London? inspired with a proper confidence.Treating you as an equal, he We give thanks for a man of prayer.
    [Show full text]
  • “As the Father Has Sent Me, Even So I Am Sending You”: the Divine Missions and the Mission of the Church
    JETS 63.3 (2020): 535–58 “AS THE FATHER HAS SENT ME, EVEN SO I AM SENDING YOU”: THE DIVINE MISSIONS AND THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH TOREY TEER* Abstract: Presentations advancing an ecclesiology that favors the church’s ontology before its function have become more common in recent years. Further, mission models employing a Trini- tarian framework (viz., the missio Dei) have likewise become popular in contemporary conver- sation. This project explores the implications of the divine missions—of the Son and of the Spirit—upon the mission of the church while also drawing out some pneumatological emphases vis-à-vis ecclesiology. Specifically, I present a biblical-theological synthesis of the divine missions grounded upon Johannine language of “sending,” framed by Thomas Aquinas’s conception of the divine missions, and augmented by John Calvin’s notion of the “double grace” conferred via union with Christ. I then apply this synthesis to the mission of the church, showing that the church participates—analogically—in the Trinitarian agency carried out in the missio Dei. In so doing, I offer a unique line of reasoning that further supports the church’s ontology before its function as well as a Trinitarian framework for missions. Key words: pneumatology, ecclesiology, missio Dei, Trinitarianism, Johannine theology, Thomistic theology When the concept of “missions” comes up in biblical, theological, or ecclesial discourse, it typically takes one of two forms: the Great Commission (Matt 28:18– 20) or the missio Dei—though thE two arE not mutually ExclusivE. ThE formEr typi- cally refers to the work of the church to bring the gospel to unreached people groups around the world (often called “church missions”), while the latter rEfers to the triunE God’s redemptive mission to the world in which hE graciously allows the church to participate.
    [Show full text]
  • Missio Dei and the Corrosion of Christian Missions
    Missio Dei and the Corrosion of Christian Missions Peter Pikkert D.th., Cornerstone Bible College for Mission Training, Beugen, Holland [email protected] Introduction This article argues that missio Dei, a theology of missions embraced much of evangelical Christendom today, is corroding the evangelical missionary enterprise from within. It first presents a brief – and, due to space constraints, somewhat simplistic – review of Missio Dei for the sake of the uninitiated, and then list a number of reasons for this dire assessment. 1. Missio Dei in a nutshell The concept of Missio Dei has led two lives. It was first embraced by the mainline churches. When it had virtually run its course there some theologically conservative missiologists embraced the basic idea, reconceptualized aspects of it, and saw it become the most popular theological basis for missions. This article focuses on the contemporary, “evangelical” model setting the tone today. 1.1. Christian Mission is the all-encompassing work of the Triune God Missio Dei’s fundamental idea is that Christian mission is rooted in the all-encompassing work of the Triune God. This led to a shift in focus from missions as something the church does to something which God does through various ways and means. To say that the church is essentially missionary does not mean that mission is church- centered. It is Missio Dei. It is Trinitarian. It is mediating the love of God the Father who is the Parent of all people, whoever and wherever they may be (Bosch 1991:505). 3 (2018) 1.2. God’s mission flows from His loving and compassionate nature God’s love is perceived as his defining characteristic.
    [Show full text]