Review: T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian

November 9, 2021November 8, 2021 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian (New Explorations in Theology), Joseph H. Sherrard, Foreword by Alan Torrance. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: An examination of the contribution Thomas Torrance’s theological work makes to the church’s understanding of missiology, particularly centered around his understanding of the Godhead, the person of Christ, and Christ’s threefold offices and the church’s participation in them.

Thomas Torrance lived in the shadow of his mentor Karl Barth as well as collaborators like Leslie Newbigin. Much of his theological work addressed the nature of the Triune God and the person of Christ, as well as the relationship between science and theology. Joseph H. Sherrard asserts, contrary to first appearances, Torrance’s work offers a distinctive basis for the missiology of the church.

He begins with Torrance’s doctrine of God. Torrance’s doctrine of the homoousion leads to the idea that who the Triune God is in essence is who God is to us. There is no room for dualism, sealing God off from the material world God created. He highlights the lack of separation between God and the logos in Athanasius, the Reformation doctrine that saw the gift of grace and the Giver of grace as one, and the way Barth united these two insights in his thought. God’s mission that reconciles the world and creates the world reflects what God is in essence rather than something added or set apart.

Sherrard then turns to Christology, focusing on Torrance’s understanding of the threefold office of Christ as king, priest and prophet, and how the latter two often come together in Torrance’s work. I thought Sherrard’s treatment here was rich in material for theological reflection, including a discussion of three terms for redemption that form Torrance’s thought and how these map onto Christ’s threefold office:

paddah, referring to a powerful, gracious work redeeming from sin’s power.
kipper, the wiping out of sin, effecting propitiation between God and man.
goel, the kinsman redeemer

In his chapter on Christology, Sherrard also elaborates the importance of the ascension as creating the space for the church as Christ’s body to participate in his ministry.

He then turns to this idea of the church as the body of Christ. Torrance saw the church as shaped by “the analogy of Christ” in four ways:

As a sent church as the Son was sent
As a body constrained by suffering as was Christ as the Suffering Servant
In its identity with fallen humanity as Christ so identified himself
In its movement toward teleological fullness as Christ is the one who fills all in all.

In the chapter, Sherrard also contrasts Torrance and Newbigin, particularly with regard to the latter’s more robust pneumatology.

Chapters four and five focus on the three offices and how the church in its mission participates in these. Chapter four focuses on the royal office. The church reflects the new creation, the new order under, and exercising royal authority, in the world. Sherrard notes that in the realm of political theology, Torrance left us with some ambiguity of how this authority is to be worked out vis a vis the state, a critical lacuna in our current moment. Chapter five then turns to the prophetic ministry and its relation to preaching and the priestly ministry and the place of sacraments in enacting that ministry. One of the criticisms Sherrard notes is that the prophetic ministry takes a back seat to the priestly in Torrance’s writing and is “underdetermined.”

,He concludes with a summary and assessment of Torrance’s contribution to missiology. First is the grounding of missiology in the Triune God rather than sociology. Second, and occupying much of this work is how mission ought be shaped by Christ’s threefold office. Third, and not something I’ve discussed thus far, is the contribution of the idea of the “deposit of faith” to mission, that is that the gospel has been entrusted to the church, to be kept by its continued propagation. Finally is the idea of how the church participates in Christ’s threefold ministry, patterning its life on his.

As noted in this conclusion, it may be that Torrance’s most distinctive contribution is to ground mission in our theology of the Triune God and this God’s seamless relation with and redemptive movement toward the world. Only our ever-deepening worship of the Triune God can sustain our missional efforts. Only his Son provides the definitive pattern for our mission. Only the gospel of a gracious God is sufficiently worthy to proclaim. Sherrard rightly notes our tendency to turn from theology to sociology, or worse pragmatic methodology. We do well to attend to the caution, and the rich contribution Torrance makes to a robust missiology.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Seeking Church

February 26, 2020February 24, 2020 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to the Kingdom (Missiological Engagements Series), Darren T. Duerksen and William A. Dyrness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: An approach to the development of indigenous churches within a culture, shaped by emergent theory’s understanding of how cultural and historical forces interact with biblical understanding to form churches in culturally diverse ways.

If we are reading the same Bible, shouldn’t our churches all look similar to one another? And if not, is there something wrong, or right about that? The authors of this work, while contending for some common marks of transformative churches, would argue that it is inevitable for churches developing in different cultural contexts to look different.

They argue first of all that churches are inevitably shaped by the cultural values within which they are birthed. They then argue for an “emergent” process in which cultural influences, historical factors, and biblical understanding interact. They make the argument that this is always how God has worked and show through case studies of different churches examples of this at work.

They begin by showing that all actual instances of the church in both history, and in the contemporary world reflect this emergent dynamic. Furthermore, they argue for the reality of a “reverse hermeneutic” in which culture interprets gospel, sometimes helpfully and sometimes obstructively.

The writers then turn to biblical descriptions of the church as the body of Christ, a pilgrim people, and a community of the Spirit. They consider worship practices, especially communion in light of emergent theory and focus in on the question of what biblical markers, across culture mark transformative churches, both rooted in their home culture and forming people to be part of a coimmunity of every nation and culture worshiping God. They contend for five markers:

The story of Christ is heard and obeyed.
A community forms around this story.
This community responds to the story in prayer and praise.
The community seeks to live in peace with each other and their wider community.
There is an impulse that drives the community to witness to Christ and the transformation the Spirit has brought about.

There were two aspects I found helpful in this book. One was the recognition of ways indigenous religion and culture inform the church. Rather than a wholesale rejection, there is an openness to what is good, as well as destructive to a biblical witness. Second are the examples of the distinctive forms churches have taken within different cultures, including some of the novel approaches within Islamic and Hindu cultures.

One of the tests of this emergent theory may be whether churches develop that are recognizably Christian in terms of the transformative marks outlined by the authors, and still reflective of the best of the culture within which they have been birthed. It seems that there might be two dangers, a rigid form of “Christian practice” the conforms to cultural values, or a vitiated form of Christianity that is more cultural, particularly in the way of assimilating Christianity into existing belief. The authors point to a third way that is both culturally distinctive but formed into communities shaped by the Christian story and Christian mission in the world.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Faithful Presence

November 27, 2017November 26, 2017 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Faithful Presence, David E. Fitch. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press (Praxis), 2016.

Summary: Expands upon the idea of “faithful presence,” exploring how this may be practiced by the church in fulfillment of her mission through seven foundational disciplines practiced in three different settings or “circles.”

In 2010, sociologist James Davison Hunter penned a probing critique of evangelicalism’s “change the world” rhetoric in To Change the World (reviewed here), and proposed as an alternative, the idea of the subversive practice of “faithful presence.” David E. Fitch, co-pastor of Peace of Christ Church in Westmont, Illinois, takes up this idea contending that Hunter ran out of space in his book in fleshing out “what the actual practice of faithful presence might look like.” He contends that without a new kind of formational practice in the church (in truth harking back to our beginnings), attempts at faithful presence on the part of individual Christians will simply be absorbed by the broader culture. He writes:

“Faithful presence, I contend, must be a communal reality before it can infect the world. It must take shape as a whole way of life in a people. From this social space we infect the world for change. Here we give witness to the kingdom breaking in and invite the world to join in. For this to happen, however, we need a set of disciplines that shape Christians into such communities in the world” (p, 15).

In this book, Fitch commends seven disciplines that the churches he has pastored have practiced. He proposes that each of these disciplines presuppose the presence of God already in our lives and that our faithful presence, fostered through these disciplines, is the visible expression of God’s faithful presence going before us. He argues that these are disciplines that make faithful presence possible in our churches, neighborhoods and the wider society. He also contends that a key idea undergirding the practice of these disciplines is submission, to Christ and to one another, and that this is what makes these so counter-cultural.

The seven disciplines (he also calls them marks or sacraments) are: the Lord’s Table, reconciliation, proclaiming the gospel, being with “the least of these,” being with children, the fivefold ministry, and kingdom prayer. Fitch devotes a chapter in the book to each of these. He also proposes three circles in which each of these disciplines must be lived out: the close circle of the Christian community, the dotted circle of home and neighborhood, where Christians function as hosts, and the half-circle of wider society, where we are guests, but may also be the faithful presence of Christ. Faithful presence that advances the mission of the church operates in all three circles, not simply in the close circle, leading to a maintenance mentality, or in the half circle, leading to exhaustion.

I appreciate the effort of Fitch to expand this idea of “faithful” presence, because I also found Hunter’s proposal thin on specifics, and lacking in articulating the practices that sustain such presence and allow it to take a robust and transformative public form. I thought Fitch had some distinctive things to say about gospel proclamation, as opposed to teaching, in the context of the church, about the ministry of presence with children, and about the fivefold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers), contending for plural ministry leadership as opposed to hierarchical leadership in the church. I would like to have seen Fitch say more about the ministry of prophets, which was not elaborated.

Fitch also argues that through church history, the seven disciplines, meant to be personal, relational, and practiced in all the “circles” of life, have been institutionalized, formalized, and programmed. His proposal and practice breaks these strictures. Nowhere is this more evident than in his discussion of the Lord’s table, which is not only practiced weekly in his church but constantly in the lives of its people:

“The Lord’s table happens every time we share a meal together with people and tend to the presence of Christ among us. Granted the formal Lord’s table only happens at the close table. But that table extends from there. When Jesus said, “Whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me: (1 Cor 11:24-26, my paraphrase), he, in essence meant, in the words of theologian John Howard Yoder, “whenever you have your common meal,” whenever you eat in everyday life with people. And yet this table is shaped differently in the three spaces I call the close, dotted, and half circles of life. The table is never merely in here or out there. It is the continual lived space with and among the world. It is the table on the move. It starts with the close circle, the ground zero of his presence around the table” (p. 64).

This work is also important in how it connects our communal disciplines to mission, and particularly the working out of the practice of these disciplines in the “dotted” circle, and the “half” circle. It is a valuable resource, not only for the training of ministers, but for leaders of churches to read and discuss together as they think about the nature of the church, and the formative practices that shape the lives of its members. Throughout, Fitch couples biblical principles and practical examples, many from his own practice. In an era increasingly disenchanted with posturing and programs, this vision of faithful presence may be the cup of cold water desperately longed for in our cultural wasteland.

Review: God Dwells Among Us

May 16, 2016May 15, 2016 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

God Dwells Among Us, G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Summary: A study of the theology of the Eden-temple of creation as an expression of God’s purpose to have a dwelling place with humanity and the development of this theme throughout scripture, under-girding the mission of the church.

Good biblical theology works up from the data of particular books of scripture to develop themes that run through the whole of scripture. It helps us both hear the testimony of particular writers to a particular time, and the harmony of witness through time, and calls us to join the chorus with the worship and service of our lives. This book is good biblical theology that does all of these things.

The book arises from Mitchell Kim’s pastoral ministry, particularly a seven week sermon series based on the work of G.K. Beale in The Temple and the Church’s Mission in the New Studies in Biblical Theology series. Kim, with Beale’s co-authorship, expand this series into a survey of this theme suitable for an adult lay audience. They begin with the idea of the garden of Eden as God’s dwelling place with his image-bearers, and his intention that they would expand Eden to fill the whole earth through their offspring. Although the fall of the first couple means this purpose to extend the Eden-temple to the whole earth could not be fulfilled in the way God originally intended, we see this working out in the patriarchs with Noah once again being fruitful and multiplying after the flood, God dispersing the nations at Babel and the promise to Abraham and the response of Abraham and later Jacob in building altars throughout Canaan as types of “sanctuaries” as God begins to make a great nation.

After the deliverance of the nation from slavery in Egypt, God establishes a “tabernacle” in the wilderness, which Kim and Beale call the Eden dwelling place “remixed in the context of sin.” There is both the Holy of Holies, and provision for sin by which the people of God may approach and live in God’s Holy presence. The tabernacle, and the later temple image the cosmic temple, and the restoration of the temple, the future temple that will fill the earth.

The second Jerusalem temple never fulfills these purposes in itself, which only the coming of Jesus does; the temple that will be destroyed and raised up, signalling the coming of God’s new creation extending to the nations. This is accomplished in and through the church, the body of Christ and the temple of his Spirit, extending the new Eden-creation to the ends of the earth, even as it looks for the consummation of this purpose in the return of Jesus, establishing the new heavens and the new earth.

The penultimate chapter asks the telling question, “Why Haven’t I Seen This Before?” The authors cite four reasons. One is that very different cosmology of the biblical writers from our naturalistic cosmos disconnected from any spiritual realities. Second is that rarely is the Bible treated as a unity, a canonical whole. We look at particular books but rarely at the witness of the whole (and some who do only emphasize the discontinuities). Third is that we are unfamiliar with the use of typology. Finally, we think of “literal” fulfillment only in physical terms, when in scripture, the “true” temple is the heavenly one of which the earthly temple is only a shadow.

The final chapter returns to the idea of the mission of the church as those through whom the new creation Eden-temple is being extended to the ends of the earth. This is a call to sacrifice, and to ministry empowered by the word of God and prayer. It was here, even as I found myself saying “Amen” to these foundational aspects of the church’s life and witness, that I also found myself struggling with the very “spiritual” feel that seemed to ignore how the church’s social witness and care for creation also herald the coming Eden-temple of the new creation, portrayed in Revelation as a garden-city.

Aside from this quibble, I appreciated this book as a model of the kind of teaching that can, and I think, ought to be done in the setting of the church that helps people grasp the Big Story of which we are a part, and how we in fact have a part in advancing the plot that is life-affirming and embracing. Such teaching is rich fare that fuels both worship and work in a way that the “fast food” diets of many of our churches cannot sustain, as many of our most vibrant churches are learning.

Review: Overturning Tables

October 9, 2015October 8, 2015 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Overturning Tables, Scott Bessenecker. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014

Summary: Scott Bessenecker argues that Western missions efforts are often captive to corporate culture and practices inconsistent with efforts to reach across cultures and to the marginal peoples outside the corporate world.

“Business as mission is not what I am addressing in this book; my concern is mission as business.”

Scott Bessenecker, a missions leader working in collegiate ministry, contends that Western missions efforts are shaped more by the corporate and business culture of the Western world, and often codified in government regulation of non-profits, than they are reflective of the values, and practices of Jesus and early Christians, as well as Christian missions arising from more marginalized peoples. He calls this the “Christian industrial complex.”

In “A Tale of Two Missions” he traces the growth of two divergent models in the early 1800s. One is the missions board, headed up by church and corporate leaders that raises large sums to send missionaries with modest but western accommodations (sometimes compounds). He contrasts this with the mission started by George Leile, a former slave who goes without board or church support to Jamaica to preach among slaves, supporting himself by his own labor.

In succeeding chapters he argues for a series of shifts that reflect what he believes is a move to a more gospel of the kingdom-centered approach to missions. He calls for movement from corporate to more local, indigenous efforts. He pleads for a more prophetically driven rather than finance and “profit” driven approach. He argues for a gospel not just centered on individual converts but also concerned for the cosmos. He argues for a move from an individually focused mission enterprise to communal solidarity on both the sending and receiving end where churches really send teams into mission, and those teams integrate with local leadership. He argues for ministries that reach the margins of societies, not the middle class mainstream that our corporate models direct us toward. He calls us away from metrics being the only measures of growth to the pursuit of flourishing people.

This is hard-hitting stuff. One of the things he touches on is that our Western organizations are set up within the constraints of 501(c)(3) status that affords tax exempt and tax deductible status but comes with certain requirements. Westerners who want to do mission in a different way may need to be willing to do this without these structures–finding alternate means of support, working under agencies in other countries, living at different standards.

The book is also inspiring because the rest of the world isn’t waiting for Christians in the West to change. Bessenecker tells a number of stories of efforts in the Majority World that are bringing the gospel to marginal peoples unreached by more traditional efforts. Nigerians are planting churches in Mexico, Koreans in Mongolia and much more.

There is a challenge in every culture that we try to fill old wineskins reflecting our cultural captivities with the new wine of the message of Jesus. Missions leaders need to consider the outcome of this story which is that the wineskins end up bursting, unless new wineskins are found. Bessenecker’s book gives us some notions of the shape and character of these new wineskins.

Review: Strangers Next Door: Immigration, Migration and Mission

June 30, 2014June 30, 2014 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Strangers Next Door: Immigration, Migration and Mission by J.D. Payne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you noticed how many people from other countries are living in your city? J.D. Payne thinks this is part of God’s providential work that creates great opportunities for mission if his people will have eyes to see it. My city, Columbus, Ohio, has the second largest Somali population in the U.S. with over 40,000 residing in our city. A whole network of shops, restaurants, places of worship (mostly Islamic) and businesses have developed in consequence.

People are moving for all sorts of reasons from country to country and Payne chronicles this movement with both stories and charts of data. There are refugees, migrants seeking better economic opportunities, students enrolling in our universities. And this is not just the case in the U.S. It is the case on every continent.

Payne has one simple contention and that is that those who come from a particular country, especially those not easily open to western missions, may make the best people to take the gospel back to these countries and plant churches. The basic issue is whether believing people in host countries will recognize the opportunity and respond.

Payne suggests a simple four part strategy consisting of Reach, Equip, Partner, and Send. One of the things he warns against is that without an intentional focus on sending, many will simply assimilate into a host culture and host believing communities. Contrary to some, he believes in real partnerships and that what Western churches have to offer is not all bad, even though paternalism in various guises is to be watched for. What he does observe is that Western partners with returning immigrants have much more access to the immigrant’s culture than they would on their own.

What I like about this book is that it refocuses the discussion on immigration from national policy debates to the kingdom implications of the immigration that is taking place. While the policy debates do matter and Christians should be involved in pursuing justice and mercy that welcomes the stranger we should also be wondering what is God up to in these global dispersions and how we might co-operate with God in what He is doing.

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