The Need for Process and Crisis in Evangelism

Last weekend I was at a Study Day organized by the Colchester Episcopal Area, part of the Diocese of Chelmsford, on the topic of ‘Evangelism Without Tears’.

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, observed that properly speaking, evangelism could well be ‘with tears’, but he gave a rousing introductory talk nevertheless.

Both he and subsequent contributors also rightly stressed the importance of ‘process’ in evangelism. Research shows that the average length time from first becoming aware of spiritual questions to full faith is from four to five years. Certainly this was true in my own experience. I have often said that it took me my first year at university to work out what a real Christian was and a further two years before I took the plunge of personal commitment. Many others would tell a similar story.

In the question-time at the end of the Study Day the matter of ‘process’ was again stressed. Some people, it was said, become believers ‘overnight’. For others it may happen much more gradually. And this is true. But there is a danger, I think, of representing ‘process’ and ‘crisis’ as exclusive alternatives, whereas in fact they need to be kept as complementary factors in the path to faith.

To return to my own example, the ‘process’ of conversion took three years. But there was also a ‘crisis’ — a day and an hour in which I quite consciously ‘became a Christian’. And in our thinking about evangelism, I would argue that we need to see the ‘crisis’ not as an alternative to, but as part of, the ‘process’.

Take, for example, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. He was clearly a man on a journey in every sense. When we meet him, he had been up to Jerusalem and was on his way home with his souvenir scroll. But he clearly had not ‘arrived’ where God wanted him to be, for the Holy Spirit himself directed the evangelist Philip to meet with him and answer his question concerning Isaiah 53: “About whom is the prophet talking, himself or someone else?”

And it is important that we relate Philip’s response to our own practice. What would — or should — we say to someone to cause them to ask, “Here is water, what is to prevent me being baptized?”

Or again, what of Cornelius? Here is a man who is also ‘on a journey’, at least spiritually. Indeed, we might be tempted to say when we meet him at the beginning of Acts 10 that he has already ‘arrived’. His prayers and alms are already a memorial offering before God (10:4).

But once again, God clearly has other ideas, sending an angel to tell him to send for a man called Peter. And when we read in chapter 11 Peter’s re-telling of the story to the Jerusalem church, we learn an important detail about this vision that is actually not in chapter 10, for the angel told Cornelius that the man they would find at Joppa “will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved” (11:14).

Thus whatever we may make of the positive verdict pronounced on Cornelius in 10:4, we must concede that there is more. The process in his case must also include the crisis — a crisis which, in a real sense, can be called ‘salvation’.

And this raises two questions. First, does our understanding of ‘process’ evangelism include an adequate view of ‘crisis’? And secondly, what actually needs to be communicated at the point of ‘crisis’ in order for ‘salvation’ to result? To quote another example from Acts, what should we answer to the question of the Philippian jailer, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30) What must we say if we are to ‘speak the word of the Lord’ to others in a similar situation (16:32)?

In Acts 16, we are not actually told what Paul said to the jailer. In Acts 10, however, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the subsequent sign of speaking in other languages, can reasonably be taken as signalling the point at which Cornelius and his household have heard enough. So when does the Spirit descend?

Peter has been rehearsing the events of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. Yet still the Spirit is held back. And then he comes to these crucial words:

⁴² He [Jesus] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:42-43)

Here, surely, we have the sine qua non of evangelism — that without which the gospel message is incomplete and without which faith has no suitable object.

Thus we may suggest that no matter what the process by which people become Christians, or how long it may take, it cannot be regarded as ended until they are essentially brought to this point: to believe the apostolic message that there is a coming judgement of the living and the dead and that the crucified, risen Jesus is the saviour from sin of all who believe in him, as testified to by the prophets.

You will notice — and some will doubtless take delight from the fact — that there is no explicit theory of the atonement put forward here. But one should not be too hasty. In Acts 8, for example, we have the reference to the prophetic testimony of Isaiah 53, which also includes important references to the nature of God’s work through the ‘suffering servant’:

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (vv 5-6)

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and ... [to make] his life a guilt offering ... (v 10)

... my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (v 11)

... he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (v 12)

Steve Chalke writes concerning these verses,

I ... have no desire to become involved in a technical debate about how the cross works. As Scripture says ‘he was wounded for our transgressions, by his stripes we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5), and for me that is enough.

Yet it would seem to me that the penal nature of God’s action and the substitutionary office of the servant makes a doctrine of ‘penal substitution’ hard to avoid. Nevertheless, we are saved by that work not by our right grasp of doctrine. It is sufficient to believe that, as another Apostle puts it, “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3).

At the same time, however, it is vital to recognize not just the sufficiency of this faith but its necessity.

Paul asks the Galatian Christians, “Did you receive the Spirit [ie ‘were you saved’ cf Acts 11:14] by observing the law or by believing what you heard?” (Gal 3:2). The form of the question means he clearly expects the answer, “By believing what we heard.” But what was it they heard? The answer is, “the gospel”. And once again the emphasis in that ‘gospel’ is on the death of Christ on our behalf for our sins:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” ¹⁴ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Gal 3:13-14, NIV)

And here is another important point, for if hearing and believing this gospel message is the key to receiving the Spirit, then we must solemnly say that anyone who has not heard this and believed it, or who has heard it and has not believed it, has not received the Spirit.

Returning to my own example, I think this is the state I was in on the afternoon of that particular day in August 1971 when I opened up my copy of Journey Into Life and began to read what I had to do to be saved. In all my years of churchgoing, I had not really ‘heard’ the message that Jesus died for my sins and that I must believe and trust in him. And when I did hear it, through my Christian Union friends in my first year at University, I understood it, but did not want to do it.

What happened that afternoon was that I received the Spirit, although I didn’t understand it in those terms at the time!

This is not to make my experience normative. On the contrary, the normative pattern is found in Scripture. But what my experience shows is that when we follow that pattern we see its certain effects in the lives of those to whom it is applied.

As our own diocese gears itself up for a year of evangelistic effort in 2014, this is surely something that needs to be clearly understood. Evangelism is about more than a positive encounter with the church. And whilst ‘belonging’ may well precede ‘believing’ (indeed we see that all the time) it is no substitute for the latter.

Furthermore, it may be possible to have beliefs about Jesus which, whilst correct and sincere in themselves, are not a sufficient belief in Jesus to count for our salvation. There are some — indeed many — in our churches whose faith goes up to Acts 10:41 but has not encountered, or in some cases baulks at, Acts 10:42-43.

They rightly believe in Jesus who “went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (10:41). Yet the apostolic testimony, “he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead” and the message of the Scriptures that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” is either unknown or, in some cases, unacceptable.

Evangelism is a challenging task. And yet as Stephen Cottrell observed on Saturday, it is the Great Commission of the Church. We are to go and make disciples, and anything which contributes to that is evangelistic — it is part of the process.

But the word ‘evangelism’ derives from the Greek word for our ‘news’ or ‘proclamation’ from God. And to engage in that task as the apostles did, we must proclaim what they did, which means bringing people to the point of ‘crisis’. Therefore we must proclaim to all that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:23-24). This is what we must make known, and this is what they must believe.

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Some Notes on Modern Marriage and the Church's Role

I have been asked to lead a session during our Episcopal Area Study Day on 'evangelism and marriage'. The theme of the day is 'Evangelism Without Tears' and very encouragingly over 250 people have signed up for it. Below are my notes.

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Making Marriage Matter

1.         Introduction

Consider the following statement about marriage, put forward in an official Anglican report on evangelism:

Marriage presents the parish priest with, perhaps, the greatest evangelistic opportunity of all. [...] We would emphasize that no preparation for marriage is adequate which does not appeal for decision for Christ, as the only sound foundation for married life. [Note 1]

But things are different now. According to the same report, the opportunity is so great because:

As at no other time in their lives, those who are about to embark on the adventure of uniting their personalities “as joint heirs of the grace of life,” and of setting up a home for themselves, are moved to listen to the claims of Christ and to yield their hearts to His obedience.

We must think about what is different now from 1945, particularly as suggested by the assumptions in the above sentence.

2.         Modern Marriage and the Church’s Role

In 2006, the Church of England commissioned some official research on modern marriage from market researchers Henley Centre and HeadlightVision. This looked into why couples choose to marry in church and put forward some suggestions as to how the Church of England might respond as one amongst several ‘players’ in the marriage ‘marketplace’. [Note 2]

The authors observed:

            1.         We believe that there is ‘space’ within contemporary society for the Church to talk positively about marriage

            2.         There is a need for clear, coherent and unapologetic communication about what the Church does in fact stand for in relation to marriage

            3.         There is a need for the Church to make explicit the implicit understandings within the Church about who is entitled to a church wedding, and to actively reassure couples that the Church is happy to marry them

            4.         Couples have different expectations of a church wedding experience, and it is important that clergy are aware of these and communications tailored accordingly where possible

            5.         The personal dimension of a church wedding is a huge potential draw which the Church should emphasise

            6.         Couples preparing for marriage and planning a wedding have many anxieties that the Church could look to at least partially alleviate (Kasriel, 3-4)

3.         Marriage — What’s the Difference?

In 1945, getting married involved undertaking several major transitions at once: leaving home, setting up in your own place, moving in with someone, having a legitimate sex-life within which to have legitimate children, etc.

For some decades this has not been the case. In 1960, according to figures from the US Census Bureau published in 2002, over 60% of men had completed five key milestones (completing school, leaving home, becoming financially dependent, marrying and having a child) by the time they were thirty. In 2000, that figure had dropped to about 27%.

People do not get married now for the reasons they got married in 1945. The shift in sexual behaviours in particular is highly significant. TTCE deplored the fact that,

The “double standard of morality” for men and women ... no longer obtains. Instead, owing to the immunity which contraceptives and prophylactives [sic] promise, the “man’s standard” is increasingly being adopted by both sexes. (TTCE, para 7)

            Kasriel and Goodacre note, 

In 1990 the mean number of sexual partners in a lifetime was 3.7 for women and 8.6 for men, whereas in 2000 the figure had risen to 6.5 for women and 12.7 for men. (11, quoted from ‘The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles’, 2000)

Interestingly an awareness that they might be judged as ‘living in sin’ is one factor in people deciding against a church wedding (Kasriel, 35).

4.         Why Marry?

Kasriel and Goodacre identify the primary motivation for marriage as ‘usually a couple’s desire to feel more committed to one another by making a public, lifelong commitment.’ (16)

This is, incidentally, important in helping us understand the current debate on ‘same-sex marriage’. In modern terms marriage is all about a public expression of love and commitment.

We need to see, therefore, that the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of marriage is not a matter of a radical change in lifestyle but of a declaration, thus making the wedding the key event. Kasriel and Goodacre note ‘a growing disconnect between the marriage ceremony and the marriage itself” (23).

Significantly, according to Kasriel and Goodacre ‘getting married’ is seen as a more significant social marker of commitment than starting a family, which actually comes third after moving in together!

The normal pattern of a modern relationship is thus:

Meet ➔ ‘Go Out’ ➔ Have Sex ➔ Move In ➔‘Commitment’ ➔ maybe Engagement ➔ eventually Marriage

5.         Where Does the Church Fit in?

Yet a remarkable percentage of couples want to get married in Church: 53% of the population think church weddings feel ‘more proper’ (Kasriel, p29) and in couples planning a church wedding, 56% state that their own or their partner’s religion was an important factor.

In other words, it is not just about the venue, although it would be naive to suggest the venue makes no difference.

Couples fear the interview with the ‘vicar’, which may be perceived as a ‘grilling’, but can be pleasantly surprised. A good relationship with the vicar can ‘make the day’, but it has to be genuine and personal. Modern and not too stiff, ‘approachable but not too matey’, are perceived as good (Kasriel 32).

Marriage preparation is also appreciated: ‘36% of those getting married in church say the sessions offered by the church were an important part of their decision’ (Kasriel 31), though the prospect of this can also be off-putting. Much depends, once again, on the relationship with the minister.

According to Kasriel and Goodacre, men particularly were found to appreciate preparation sessions, not least as a ‘check’ that they are doing the right thing:

Rather than simply being commitment-phobes as the stereotype would have us believe, men are often more likely than women to think about the meaning and the significance of the marriage commitment, and are less willing to rush to this stage. (Kasriel, 16)

Marriage preparation thus offers an opportunity for the Church to be involved in a way that many couples appreciate. (In our benefice we have been using the ‘Prepare Enrich’ programme [Note 3] for which I am also about to take the training course.)

6.         Marriage and Evangelism

But what of the earlier statement, ‘We would emphasize that no preparation for marriage is adequate which does not appeal for decision for Christ’? Is this also possible?

Kasriel and Goodacre offer a number of observations in their Recommendations:

It is absolutely reasonable for the Church to have a strong view on marriage, and to firmly hold to its values; people are in fact counting on the Church to do so. [...]

... it is vital that the institution recognises the importance of clear, coherent and unapologetic communication about what the Church does in fact stand for. It is absolutely vital for many couples that the Church continues to take marriage as seriously as it does, and to continue to emphasise that the wedding is primarily about the marriage commitment. [...] (Kasriel, 40)

Finally, the challenging nature of contemporary meanings of marriage and weddings mean that couples preparing for marriage and planning a wedding have many anxieties that the Church could at least partially alleviate. For example, the Church could help couples to understand and overcome the tension between individualism vs a desire for security within their relationship ...

And,

... it could provide particular support for men helping them to overcome fears about the seriousness of the decision ... (Kasriel, 41)

But what is the gospel for couples getting married?

Marriage is ‘an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church’ (Book of Common Prayer). The trouble is, we expect this to be accomplished by two sinners living together in close proximity.

The problem is particularly acute where the Church is approached by those who have been divorced and now wish to remarry. Jesus’ words (eg Matt 19:1-12) must be taken with full seriousness, indeed they underlie the Church’s unique, and apparently valued, view of marriage. But we are in a different situation to 1945, when TTCE could deplore the fact that,

In the past 30 years the number of divorces has risen from upwards of 500 a year to approximately 12,250 in 1944. (para 7) [Note 4]

According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 119,589 divorces in England and Wales in 2010. [Note 5] Indeed, these divorce statistics themselves suggest just how much marriage is in need of the gospel:

22 per cent of marriages in 1970 had ended in divorce by the 15th wedding anniversary, whereas 33 per cent of marriages in 1995 had ended after the same period of time. [Note 6]

Despite, therefore, the widespread acceptance of cohabitation before marriage and the general agreement, even amongst the younger generation, that marriage is an expression of commitment, divorce is widespread, and although people are marrying older, they are also divorcing older.

Contra what was said in 1945, it may well be that marriage is no longer the best time at which to engage people with the challenges, demands and promises of the gospel. But we must nevertheless ask with absolute seriousness what the gospel is for marriage and how we may convey it, not just at the point of the wedding, but before and after.

Endnotes

1. Towards the Conversion of England (The Press and Publications Board of the Church Assembly, 1945) para 97.

2. Tamar Kasriel and Rachel Goodacre, Understanding Marriage, Weddings and Church Weddings: An Exploration of the Modern Day Wedding Market Among Couples (Henley Centre HeadlightVision, 2007) http://www.churchofengland.org/media/45657/weddingresearch.pdf

3. http://www.prepare-enrich.co.uk/

4. The actual figure for England and Wales was 12,312. It peaked at 60,254 in 1947 but thereafter dropped back to 30,870 by 1950, not rising greatly again until 1965. The 1947 figure was only surpassed in 1971. (Source: The Office of National Statistics, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-238035)

5. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/divorces-in-england-and-wales/2010/stb-divorces-2010.html

6. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/divorces-in-england-and-wales/2010/stb-divorces-2010.html

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Wanted: Believing Bishops for the Salvation of the Nation

The other day (as you do) I wandered over to the ‘Thinking Anglicans’ website to see what Anglicans were thinking about. Apparently it is women bishops and same-sex marriage (or for tweeters out there #WomenBishops and #gaymarriage).

Actually, you might well get the same impression reading this blog, though in fairness to myself I would point out that when I try posting on other topics the rate of hits goes down and vice versa (on the day of the women bishops vote, there were over eight hundred hits before I even posted anything), so perhaps the problem is also the readership.

But what should Anglicans be thinking about? Or to what will their thoughts turn when we have bishops who are women (and same-sex marriages at least in some denominations)?

I doubt whether it will be what they were thinking about towards the end of the Second World War, namely the conversion of England. As some readers of this blog will be aware, I have gone on at considerable length about the report Towards the Conversion of England and have posted extracts here so people can read it for themselves.

Indeed, I could genuinely claim that this report provides the framework for everything I am trying to do via the blog and my other involvements. My personal dream would be ‘every parish an evangelizing parish’.

And that is why the present debate about the gender of our bishops has to be seen as a distraction.

Please note, however, my careful choice of words. I am referring to the present debate, not all debate. There are perfectly good grounds for debating the role or otherwise of women in the episcopate, but in the present situation in the Church of England, our troubles will not be resolved either way by settling this issue, whether to the satisfaction of some or of all.

The Church of England has only ever had male bishops, and until 1993 only had male incumbents, but for several decades (at least) it has failed to be an evangelizing body, or even to uphold the core truths of the gospel.

Consider what Towards the Conversion of England had to say about the state of the Church of England in 1945:

In view of the immense opportunities open to parochial evangelism, it is alarming to discover how few of the clergy have been given any training in the work of an evangelist, such as in the art of preaching or of personal dealing with enquirers; how few, again, have been used of God to bring a soul to new birth ... (98)

Or again,

The ignorance of the Bible to-day, not only in the ranks of the laity but also amongst many of the clergy (and particularly the younger clergy) is really horrifying. Yet there is nothing more vital for the work of evangelism. The Bible contains the title deeds of our Faith. How many priests, to-day, by pointing to passages and verses from the Holy Scriptures, can bring that assurance of salvation to enquirers which our Bible-loving forefathers were able to mediate to countless multitudes? (100)

Indeed earlier on the report makes this damning observation:

... the Church is ill-equipped for its unparalleled task and opportunity. The laity complain of a lack of creative leadership among all ranks of the clergy. The spiritual resources of the worshipping community are at a low ebb. Above all, the Church has become confused and uncertain in the proclamation of its message, and its life has ceased to reflect clearly the truth of the Gospel. (6)

Yet that was the situation with an all-male clergy and all-male bishops. And whilst it might be objected that little has changed today, clearly gender is absolutely no guarantee of evangelistic endeavour.

And here is another point to recognize. If that is still the situation in much of the Church of England today, creating and maintaining all-male enclaves of ministry and episcopal oversight, far from transforming matters may actually make them worse.

But what have bishops got to do with it? Some critics of Conservative Evangelicals have rightly observed that until they were threatened with women in the role, they rather preferred to ignore bishops entirely. And that is true. But the answer is not to carry on ignoring them.

Another book that I believe should be on the shelf of every bishop is that by the Rt Revd Samson Mwaluda, Bishop of Taita Taveta in Kenya, titled Reorienting a Church for Accelerated Growth (Nairobi: Uzima, 2003). In it, Mwaluda points out,

Our experience in Kenya, as in many parts of the Anglican Church worldwide, is that the diocesan bishops [sic] leading rôle affects every aspect of the Church. I want to contend that one key factor in the reorientation of the Anglican Church in Taita Taveta for accelerated growth, is for the diocesan bishop to focus on his rôle as the chief teacher-evangelist.”(18)

Then he adds,

The Anglican Church, particularly in the West, is decreasing in areas where bishops undervalue evangelism and the teaching of the apostles’ doctrine. [...] Anglicanism is growing quickly where bishops are vision bearing evangelist-teachers ... (19)

And this is surely the crucial point — not just about bishops but about the Church of England. According to the latest census figures, nominal Christianity has fallen by about 10% in ten years. That is not a decline, it is free-fall. And that has taken place whilst the majority of the population have, I would suggest, been indifferent to the Church’s disputes about the gender of its bishops or its attitude to homosexuality. (And furthermore it is during a period when women vicars have become widely accepted as normal. The Vicar of Dibley, which initially relied on the ‘novelty factor’, first aired in 1994.)

I don’t know how many contributors to Towards the Conversion of England are still alive (and I would very much like to contact any who are), but they must be amongst the most disappointed people in Christendom.

But as Mwaluda suggests, we do not have to look far to find one area we might address, yet which has been almost entirely ignored, and that is the attitude of our clergy in general and our bishops in particular, to evangelism and apostolic doctrine.

Towards the Conversion of England actually has some suggestions to make in this regard:

Any forward move ... in evangelism must begin with the clergy themselves, and with their coming together to gain a new liberation into the vision of the glory of God. Our first recommendation as a Commission is that the Bishops (if they have not already done so) should arrange for gatherings of their clergy for this purpose. (90)

That was in 1945. Yet what bishop has done so? I am not saying there are none, but certainly none under whom I have served (which is several). Indeed in all my thirty six years (almost to the day) in ordained ministry, none of those bishops has tested me on my understanding of any theological issue whatsoever, let alone the gospel itself.

There aren’t even questions asked during the process of Episcopal Review. Yet surely the most basic question that ought to be asked regularly of all clergy is ‘What do you preach and what do you teach?’

And this is where we come to the bishops themselves.

Bishops are the overseers of the shepherds and the guardians of the gospel. I feel no embarrassment in making that statement. That is why we have them and that is, first and foremost, what they are supposed to do. If they don’t do it, no one else will or can.

So the first question that should be asked of any candidate to the episcopate is the one they themselves ought to ask regularly of those under their charge: ‘What gospel do you preach and what gospel do you teach?’

Actually, I do know a suffragan bishop who, in his interview, was asked almost exactly this, and I was very impressed by the fact. (I don’t know his answer, but I am glad the question was put.) Yet if you look at the preaching and teaching, or simply the priorities of bishops, you do wonder what they feel about the Apostle Paul’s charge to the Corinthians:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ... (1 Cor 15:1-3, NKJV)

Now whenever I post this, someone always objects ‘What about the resurrection?’ And indeed the resurrection is there in Paul’s preaching. But the crucifixion is the horse that pulls the cart, as we see elsewhere not least in the words of Jesus himself:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45, NKJV)

But the important word in what Paul has to say, as far as our present debate is concerned, is the word ‘if’; as in ‘the gospel ... by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you’.

For the Apostle views life in these terms: that the only guarantee of salvation is to hold fast to the word of the gospel, of which the first and key element is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (which means, incidentally, as a ‘penal substitutionary’ sacrifice — try Numbers 8:15-18 for a change and Article II).

This concern — this gospel — is what should be at the forefront of episcopal ministry. Every bishop should believe that the word of the gospel begins with Christ’s death for sins, scripturally understood, and only if people believe and hold fast to this can we be sure of their salvation from the coming wrath of God.

And every bishop should ensure, as far as possible, that the clergy under his — or her — charge, who hold his or her license, believe, preach and teach the same.

Whether and how that can be the case is the real debate we should be having and which we are yet to have. Who are the bishops who believe this, and who are the candidates for the episcopate who believe it?

Without that, we will never be the Church which Christ builds and whose prevailing against the gates of hell he guarantees.

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Challenging our Culture: What you need is hope

Time running out, time running out
For the fool still asking what his life is about
Time running out time running out.  (Jackson Browne, Black and White)

Sitting in a quaint tea-shop in the village of Clare the other day and musing on the problems of rural ministry, I found myself looking around at the other diners and asking myself, “What, really, has Christianity got to offer these people which they might possibly recognize that they need?” That is surely a question we need to answer before we can think about reversing the decline that affects so much of the church in this country.

At one table were a couple of women in their twenties gleefully discussing a recent trip to Paris. What could belief in God give them that they didn’t already have? At another were an older woman and someone who was probably her daughter. They looked well-off and comfortable. What did the ‘God-shaped gap’ in their lives look like?

And then there was my wife and I. What would make the other diners want to swap their lives with ours?

What I think we can’t say is, “Come to Jesus and your life will be happier and more fulfilled.” Frankly, I get very irritated by the stories in UK Focus along the lines of “My life used to be an utter mess but then I did an Alpha course and now I’m married and it’s all brilliant.”

Maybe it’s just envy on my part (it may be!), but life can be an utter mess after you become a Christian. Indeed, it can go downhill from that point. Certainly I don’t feel that I could personally offer such a ‘package’ with any integrity.

So what can we offer, if not that? Certainly one thing is the experience of God. Indeed, I would go so far as to say this is the key to Alpha’s success. I once had a very long one-to-one conversation with Nicky Gumbel, who insisted this was integral to the Alpha ‘model’ —that they wanted to give people an experience of God, not just a message about him. This is why the ‘Holy Spirit weekend’ is meant to be a non-negotiable part of the Alpha package. It is the point at which ‘theory’ translates into ‘practice’.

And although I can’t endorse the Alpha model, I certainly wouldn’t deny the importance of the experience of God in my own life. The great difference that becoming a Christian made to me was the sense that now I knew that I knew God —that, and an otherwise hard-to-explain enjoyment of things I’d previously avoided, like Bible study, Christian Union Meetings and church.

This, however, is hardly a ‘unique selling point’. Or rather, it is unique, but is it a selling point to happy twenty-somethings and contented fifty-somethings? “Come to Jesus and you’ll start enjoying church” —hmmm.

There is, however, something which is very much part of the Christian message which intersects precisely with people’s experience of daily life and present need, without making unjustifiable promises. And whilst it relates to our subjective experience it stems from an objective fact.

We are all of us, young and old, rich and poor, happy and sad, black, white, brown and yellow, running out of time. That is a hard, objective, fact; an undeniable reality. Indeed, it is not just we who are running out of time —the world is itself running out of time, and I am not talking about global warming. On present models, the universe came into existence about 15 billion years ago. Our solar system has existed for about 5 billion years. In far less than another 5 billion years, this whole planet will be gone. We will never ‘save the whale’, much less ‘save the earth’. All we can do is stave off the inevitable demise of everything we know for less time than it has taken it to get here.

But, some will say, we could migrate elsewhere, to other planets. And even if we couldn’t there must be life on other worlds —the story will go on. Well, for a while, perhaps, though why that story should matter is hard to define. However, (again on present models) the universe itself has a finite capacity for existence. Due to the increase of entropy, eventually every single atom and molecule will simply stop vibrating. When this point is reached nothing else can happen.

I read somewhere once that this ‘end point’ for the universe would be reached in 10¹⁰⁰ years. That is an astonishing length of time. To put it in perspective, it hasn’t yet been around for 10¹¹ years. But it is not an unimaginable length of time. On the contrary, yu just have to imagine ‘lots of the same’ and you’re there. In fact, it doesn’t require much imagination at all

Our human lives, meanwhile, are less than the blink of an eye. Moreover —and here’s the unwelcome bit —we occasionally become conscious that they evaporate just as surely as the energy of the entire universe is evaporating. I can still remember the morning I woke up at the beginning of the school summer holiday in 1957 with the awful realization that one day, inevitably, the holiday which was just beginning would be over, and it would be back to school. It was a difficult moment for a seven year-old!

Now, as I approach sixty, I am even more conscious that the same is true for life itself. One day —perhaps one day soon —I will wake up one last time.

And this knowledge has a very immediate impact. In fact, it has more impact as each year flashes by. (It is not yet Christmas and already we are planning the Easter outreach for our churches.) For it directly affects my hope about the future. When I was seven, life was full of hopes, stretching off into the infinity of the twentieth century. And there are still hopes for this life at the present time —but realistically they must be limited by the fact that there is so little of it left.

Now these may sound like the ramblings of a born pessimist, but I would respond they are the uncomfortable awarenesses of a realist. They are precisely the truths of which we should all be aware, and in the light of which we should all live our lives. The reason most people don’t think along these lines is that they are in a state of deliberate denial or blind ignorance —and in this category I would put most of our current crop of militant atheists. (If you want to read an atheist who’s got it right, try Charlie Brooker who writes for the Guardian and occasionally manages brilliant streams of invective prompted by just this awareness.)

I am reminded of the Alpha Mummy blogger who wrote how, given her “otherwise-strident aethism”, nevertheless when her children asked about death, “I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO TELL THEM THEY ROT, OK?” But yet in the same week, she wrote,

... I had a revealation [sic]. I interviewed Eddie Izzard — pretty much the most urgent and driven man in the world; which he all puts down to his mother dying when he was five —and realised that so much of what screws up this world comes down to not having a sense of urgency: of time passing, and, eventually, completely running out.

Quite so. And perhaps losing my own mother in that year of 1957 explains my own acute awareness of this reality. But shouldn’t everyone be made aware of this, as soon as possible? Shouldn’t we give little children a ‘memento mori’ — a reminder of death — as did those funeral clubs that Sunday Schools used to run for their own members? That particular Alpha Mummy’s column is revealing in the disingenuousness of its own conclusion:

Next time they ask about death, I’m going to say, very gently, “The amazing thing is kids, we’re alive! We can do anything we want now, if we put our minds to it. We can think and talk and feel and move, and make our lives pretty much however we want. So that when we die, we don't regret anything. We die with our diaries full.”

Recently, I have started taking Communion to a parishioner who knows she has only months —perhaps weeks —to live. Contrast Alpha Mummy’s message to her children with the words of the Collect we heard together for the first Sunday in Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Which would you rather teach your children? Keep your diaries full of busy-ness, or keep your mind full of hope? At least if the collect for Advent Sunday reflects the truth about this world, then it offers a true hope. The words of Alpha Mummy, and all such ‘consolations’, are self-consciously untrue, even in the hope they pretend to offer.

The picture of a life remains
And the high ideals and the promise
You once dressed the future in
Are dancing in the embers with the wind.

Time running out, time running out ...  (Jackson Browne, Black and White)

John Richardson
9 December 2009

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Going down: the 'inexorable' decline of rural churchgoing?

One of the things I am doing at the moment is chairing the Saffron Walden Deanery Church Growth Task Group - a bit of a mouthful, but it was set up in the context of establishing our 'Deanery Vision' to come up with practical suggestions as to how to increase Sunday church attendance.

In general, it has been a positive exercise, but in preparation for this week's Synod meeting, I sought to update the initial figures we started with when establishing our 'base line' for growth. These were derived from the annual 'Statistics for Mission' submitted by each congregation. Previously I had the figures for what is called 'Normal Sunday Attendance', for the years 2001-2006. I have since been able to add the figures for 2008 (as yet, I've not got hold of the 2007 figures).

My reaction when I saw the apparent decline was to go back and double check the figures for 2006. Sadly, they turned out to be correct.

As a caveat, I have to point out that these figures do not include every congregation, and therefore are not an 'absolute' total for the whole Deanery. There are also variations in the ways that congregations establish and submit these figures, which means that they are difficult to compare between different churches. However, I have assumed they will remain reasonably consistent within the same congregation over the (relatively) short span of eight years.

The graph does not make happy viewing! I did suggest that we might be turning a corner, if it turns out that 2007 was actually lower than 2008, but I suspect this is unlikely. The truth is, we are quite possibly seeing a predictable sharp decline due to the bias towards the 65+ age group in our congregations. Intriguingly, the biggest losses have actually been amongst the biggest congregations -but there is no obvious reason why this might be so.

I am not saying from this 'we're all doomed'. I am saying the church in our area could be in real trouble very shortly - not least because declining membership results in declining income. And trouble here spells trouble for the rest of the diocese since, because we are rated as a 'rich' area, our parish shares are proportionately higher than in other parts of the diocese, which therefore rely, to some extent, on giving from areas like our own. If we cannot meet our payments, we are not the only ones to suffer.

The Diocese of Chelmsford has just told us that it has to lose 47 stipendiary clergy by 2016 - one of whom will be from our area. As things are going, we will soon have just four conglomerations of parishes (either that, or, as someone else cynically put it at the Synod, there will be just one big Parish of Essex). The smallest will be ourselves with three, and the largest Saffron Walden itself, with over a dozen. These will be run by maybe no more than half-a-dozen stipendiary clergy and probably the same number of non-stipendiaries.

I passionately believe we could overcome the challenges this brings, but we need to be allowed three things: first, the authority to start our own initiatives, using lay people to lead services and to preach and teach; secondly, the ability to raise and disburse funds locally; thirdly, the ability to recruit and deploy locally our own church workers (whether lay or ordained).

So long as we remain tied to a central authority which insists on controlling local strategy, we will continue to be frustrated in our hopes and efforts.

John Richardson

15 October 2009

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Evangelism and baptism (again)

I want to pick up on my suggestion that there is something not right about evangelical evangelizing with this lengthy quote from Jens Christensen’s The Practical Approach to Muslims:

38. [...] The work of the Church should be like a fire thrown upon the earth. Then every fire department the devil has in that area would be put to quench it. Then, and only then would our Lord’s warning ring in our ears: ‘He who denies Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father’.

[...]

40. Now in our Utopian dream Church, which is the Church of our faith as opposed to the Church of our experience, the personal witness of the believer is like all else: inside the context of the Church, the Corpus Christi. There, in the Church, the very first and fundamental witness is baptism. Please don’t misunderstand this. Baptism is NOT the witness of the individual that he now has faith in Christ. If it were it could never be a Sacrament, and it could have no more value than that which is put into it by each individual. Baptism, considered as a witness, is the testimony of the Church to an act of God. Baptism proclaims to the world that God has a pact with mankind, mediated through the body of Christ, the Church. Baptism is a witness to the fact that God claims His own, and that in each particular baptism, God has claimed this very person being baptised. In this connection it is immaterial whether the recipient of baptism is two months or eighty years old; baptism is still a witness to the fact of God’s pact with mankind, in the Church.

41. Experience in all countries where Christianity is not the accepted religion goes to show that people seem to be aware of the fact that it is baptism that makes the real difference to a man’s standing in the community.

Now notice that when Christensen says that God’s pact with mankind is “mediated through the body of Christ, the Church”, he is not ‘institutionalizing’ or ‘clericalizing’ the work of the gospel. He is not saying that only the clergy, or ecclesiastically sanctioned individuals or groups, may spread the gospel. He is certainly not saying that provided we baptize people, the gospel has been spread!

However, in speaking of baptism, he puts “the personal witness of the believer ... inside the context of the Church”.

By contrast, evangelicals are sometimes actually encouraged to leave any consideration of the church out of their evangelism. Thus, in student ministry we were repeatedly told that “the Christian Union is not a church”. True, the Christian Union existed for the purposes of fellowship and evangelism —but it was not a church. No wonder, then, if those evangelized through the initiative of the Christian Union saw ‘gospel’ and ‘church’ as two different things. ‘Gospel’ was the thing by which you became a Christian and was the focus of fellowship and life in the Christian Union, ‘church’ was the (comparatively dull and hidebound) organization you joined after becoming a Christian.

In the same way, for many people baptism is what you do after becoming a Christian, to show you’ve come to faith —and even, in some cases, to qualify you for membership of the local church ‘club’.

This, I would suggest however, is not what we see in the Bible. There, the Apostle Peter can speak of the ark coming through the flood, and then write, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you ...” (1 Pet 3:21). New Testament baptism is not a testimony to an earlier event —becoming a Christian —it is the embodiment of the event.

Of course this does not justify an ex opera view of baptism, as 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 makes clear:

For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, ² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Like any saving ordinance in Scripture, baptism which does not meet with faith (cf the Law in Heb 4:2) will not save anyone. This is why I have suggested that baptism needs to be seen as an act of faith (not a sign of faith). Baptism holds out to us the gospel: if we will die with Christ, if we will be buried with Christ, if we will rise to new life with Christ, then we shall be saved. When we are baptized, we take hold of the gospel by faith.

I think something like this is the way that we should present baptism in our evangelism —by telling people that Christ died for their sins and was raised from the dead, and that by faith in him we are baptized into his death and raised with him to newness of life.

That might also help us address a situation the Apostles would surely have found incredible, namely that there are tens of millions of people in this country (and more being produced every week) who are baptized but who live as if they had no awareness of the gospel. To these people we must say, “You are baptized, yet you live as if God meant little or nothing to you. It is time to repent of your unbaptized ways.”

In this respect, I think the Federal Vision Movement is right —in that we cannot speak to the baptized unbeliever in the same terms as we should speak to the unbaptized unbeliever. To the former we can speak more as Paul did to the Athenians at the Areopagus, reassuring them that ‘the times of ignorance God overlooked’ (Acts 17:30). To the latter we must say, “Someone somewhere decided that you should receive something very precious —God’s promise of salvation. It is surely time for you to decide now for yourself whether to accept this or reject it.”

At the same time, though, those of us who are happy ‘paedobaptists’ should nevertheless be questioning our present policy of a baptismal ‘free for all’, wherein promises are made on behalf of children too young to speak for themselves which those making these promises neither understand themselves, nor intend that the children should be made to keep. That is also an evangelistic problem area!

Revd John P Richardson
9 September 2009

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Looking for God? The Alpha Male's experience

The Fulcrum blog was, until a little while ago, carrying links to Adam Rutherford’s Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ diary of doing an Alpha Course — not least, I’m sure, because he was doing it at St Mary’s Islington, until recently home of the now Bishop of Sherborne, Graham Kings.

I’m not sure the latest updates have been linked, but the diary is well worth reading, not least to see how a Guardianista approaches the faith. One thing that seems clear to me is that Rutherford has a fixed view that Christianity is essentially a moral philosophy propagated by a man called Jesus which, if we could strip it of its ‘miraculous’ accretions, would reveal something worth living by, if not necessarily dying for. It all sounds wonderfully reminiscent of the Enlightenment. Take this summary of ‘the story so far’, for example:

What I have learnt so far is that Christianity does not lend itself well to hard rational and factual analysis. No great revelation there. But what appears to be a theology of atonement via penal substitution relies on the physical truths of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. My sense from this course is that our latent cultural Christianity, particularly amongst us, the de-churched, means we are prone to relinquishing critical faculties out of apathy. Barbara, of whom I am growing fond, doesn’t buy into the resurrection myth and is unmoved by this session. But she’s not bothered enough to let it shake her belief that there is something divine to inspire her faith. It strikes me this might be a key to Christianity’s success: give them enough to believe, but not enough to tear it apart.

Now I am not a great fan of the Alpha Course (though I’m pleased to see it means penal substitutionary atonement is alive and kicking at the heart of Open Evangelicalism), but I will endeavour to keep following this to see how it turns out. I will be particularly interested in the ‘Holy Spirit weekend’ (if they did it — I gather the diary is well after the event).

Meanwhile, I commend it to you for consideration as to how you would handle the same issues, and how you would talk to Mr Rutherford if you met him at a dinner party.

John Richardson
10 August 2009

Week 1: From AA to Alpha
Week 2: A Matter of Facts, not Faith
Week 3: Why did Jesus die?
Week 4: Resurrecting Doubt
Week 5: The Good, Sexist, Beautiful, Violent Book

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Witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses

Last Thursday was a bit curious — I actually had a scheduled visit from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Typically, this had started with the ringing of the doorbell (at an inconvenient moment, but then what moments are convenient for such a visit?) by a young woman with child in tow.

It is usually easy to spot JWs , and tempting simply to tell them to go away, but I think being a Jehovah’s Witness must be like working for a call centre. It must be awful knowing everyone hates you and wants you to go away. So I usually try to be pleasant, both on the phone and at the front door.

Anyway, this time one thing led to another, and I said I’d be quite happy for her to call again, which she duly did, with her ‘supervisor’, as arranged, last Thursday.

Personally, I’ve long since given up wondering whether JWs might just be right. My first encounter with them was in 1972, when they were still forecasting the end of the world in 1975, and might reasonably have claimed to have still been in with a chance.

However, I think any organization predicting the date of Christ’s return (unwise in itself) ought to operate on a ‘three strikes and you’re out basis’, and so having been wrong in 1914, 1925 and 1975, the JWs really ought to call it a day.

Nevertheless, my encounters with them in ‘72 resulted in the purchase of my first theological book: A A Hoekema’s The Four Major Cults, which I read avidly. As a result, I reckon I’m pretty well informed about what the Witnesses believe and teach — sometimes more so than a novice Witness. But the important question is surely not so much, “How can I prove the Witnesses wrong?” (especially since they are approaching the conversation exactly with the intention of proving you wrong) as, “How can I get through to this person with the gospel?”

Sometimes this may indeed be by proving them wrong. Back in the ‘70s I had a ‘result’ with two Witnesses over the issue of the 144,000 in the Book of Revelation. ((I basically objected that if the number itself was 'literal', then so, too, ought to be their description as being male Jewish virgins.) One of them later told a friend of mine they’d given up being Witnesses after their conversation with me. But I’ve also had unfruitful and unproductive conversations which have gone nowhere, on whether Jesus was God, on whether the doctrine of the Trinity is true, and so on.

More recently, therefore, I’ve tended to concentrate on another question, namely, “How are we saved?” This has, I think two advantages. First, it isn’t part of the JW training and, secondly, it gets really to the heart of the matter.

I did actually bone up a bit before our Thursday meeting, from the book the woman had left with me previously, so I did know the ‘right’ answer was that Jesus had paid a ransom for us. (Of course, JWs have a very different understanding of ‘Jesus’ from orthodox Christianity.) What our discussions revealed, however, was that this ransom provides no assurance of salvation. Thus the younger Witness said to me at one stage, “I don’t sin at all.”  And the reason was because if she did, Jehovah would condemn her.

This naturally led to a discussion about God’s answer to sin — in fact I kept trying to press the point, “What does God do about our sins?”, though without getting a clear answer.

Then came the wonderful moment when the older Witness asked me, “So do you think you could just go to the confessional and say you were sorry and then go out and sin again, and keep on being forgiven?”, to which I said, “It’s funny you should say that, because if you turn to Romans 6, you’ll find exactly that question. And,” I went on, “It’s a question you’ll only ask if you’ve really understood the gospel, because only the gospel will ever allow you to think that is possible — no other religion will ever make you think that way.”

After that, we talked on for a bit, but I felt we’d reached the most useful point, and I think they felt they weren’t getting anywhere. Certainly they left without trying to book another appointment.

But it left me wondering, “Can you be a Witness and be saved?” I think my answer would be, “Yes, but accidentally, and without really knowing it, or being in a position effectively to bring others to salvation.”

Today on the train back from the Reform conference in London, I was reading John Stott’s classic Your Confirmation. In it, he talks about salvation in these terms:

We must believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died on the cross to be the Saviour of the world. This is about all you need to believe in order to become a Christian. Of course, there is much more to believe later. Once you are committed to Jesus Christ, you will be in a better position to think through the rest of the Christian creed, than if you remain uncommitted. You do not have to believe the whole Bible to become a Christian; nor to be well versed in the Christian philosophy of religion; nor to know the Catechism by heart! These things can wait. What you do have to believe is first that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, uniquely divine, who came down from heaven and became man; and secondly that He deliberately went to the cross to die for the sins of the world.

Of course, JWs explicitly deny that Jesus is ‘uniquely divine’, but on the other hand, many of them do indeed believe that Jesus ‘went to the cross to die for the sins of the world’.

The fundamental problem, as far as I can see, is that identified by Stott later in the same book:

If you are hoping that you are forgiven and that you are going to heaven when you die, in what are you trusting for these things? ... If you reply (as many people do to whom I have put this question): “Well, I have tried to lead a good life; I go to church regularly; I say my prayers; I ...” I must stop you. You need go no further. The first word of your answer was “I”. Exactly! You are trusting in yourself and in your own works, your good deeds and religious observances. No wonder you have no assurance of salvation. The answer to my question in one word is “Christ” ...

Of course, it could be argued that the answer, “Because I,” means I am in a wrong relationship with God, and therefore not saved. But it also means that the first issue to address with my two Witnesses was the effectiveness of Christ’s death, and their own need for assurance.

Clearly, their own assurance came from their own works, even though they explicitly said they weren’t ‘earning’ their salvation. But the equally important point is that an argument about the nature of Christ or the precise status of ‘Hell’ would have taken us off on a diversion, rather than getting to the heart of the matter.

Naturally, I would also want to challenge their view of Christ, but I suspect it would be easier to do so when the extent of Christ’s saving work was properly understood. Arguing about whether Jesus was divine, or whether, as Witnesses teach, he was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael, is less ‘academic’ when his nature means his death is capable of dealing with all the sins of the whole world.

Meanwhile, though, I also find myself asking whether new understandings of the atonement, which see Christ’s death and our works acting ‘cooperatively’ do not undermine assurance just as much as the teachings of JWs, and therefore whether we shouldn’t be just as inclined to proclaim the fullness of salvation as the truth in opposition to error in these cases as well.

John Richardson

14 October 2008

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A superb evangelistic resource

Some weeks ago an Australian friend of mine sent me a copy of The Christ Files, a DVD set based on the book of the same name by Dr John Dickson.

I must admit to having left it to one side (not least because of the wedding), but in an idle moment yesterday stuck it in my computer DVD player.

Rarely have I been so pleasantly surprised. The Christ Files is not a mere imitation of 'religion debunking' TV specials (although it clearly sets out to put something up against them). It is a superb two disc resource.

The first disc contains the four main 'programmes': 'Gnostics and Romans', 'Jews and Christians', 'Lost Sources and Oral Traditions', 'Archaelogists and Artefacts'. The production values are superb, and these alone would give any serious inquirer (or even a brash opponent) something to think about. The great highlight of these programmes are the interviews with leading scholars:
Richard Bauckham, Marcus Bockmuehl, James Charlesworth, James Dunn, Sean Freyne, Martin Hengel, Alanna Nobbs, Adolfo Roitman, Peter Stuhlmacher, Christopher Tuckett and Tom Wright. These I found fascinating.

But then the second disc contains what people like myself really want in addition to the main programmes which is the extended interviews with these scholars.

'Evidentialist' evangelism seems to have gone out of favour in recent years - yet the world seems to have regained its interest in evidentialism, not least through people like Richard Dawkins dismissing religion in favour of 'the facts'. This DVD is a great resource to use with people who want factual reasons to believe.

You can view the promotional material, including selected clips of the interviews here.

This is Tom Wright being interviewed.

The DVD is not yet available directly in the UK as far as I am aware, but The Good Book Company are planning to stock it soon.

If I could have one to give to every house in the parish, I'd do it.

John Richardson
27 August 2008

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Mission: why the future determines the present

One of the great truths of church life is this: missiology follows eschatology.

Missiology refers to the mission of the church — what the church does, or aims to do, in the world in the present. Eschatology is the doctrine of the ‘last things’ — where the church thinks the world is heading and what the future holds.

And the important thing to recognize is that the church’s understanding of the future absolutely dictates the church’s mission and ministry in the present.

However, it is also important to recognise that the church often approaches mission without any clear or coherent view of the future. How, then, (someone might ask) can this dictate the church’s mission? The answer is simply that if there is a lack of clarity about the future, there will be a lack of clarity about the present. A missiology without a clear eschatology will lack focus and coherence.

Nevertheless, just as Abraham Lincoln once said we cannot escape history, so we cannot escape eschatology either. The end of all things is heading towards us at the pace of sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour.

Leaving aside any theological considerations, and barring other occurrences, the Earth is going to be destroyed in some 5 billion years time when the Sun becomes a ‘red giant’. This will be global warming on a grand scale — in fact the Sun will expand in size to embrace the Earth’s orbit. It may, however, have become uninhabitable before then, not because of the ‘global warming’ about which we currently exercise ourselves but because of things like the fact that the Moon is moving away from us and eventually our tides will cease and our planet will be free to tilt on its axis to the extent that we don’t have any seasons either.

These are just raw, inescapable, scientific facts, and if anyone thinks they’re a long way off, I used to think being 57 was a long way of as well, but here I am! Time will take care of everything eventually.

Others may dismiss this as an irrelevance. What matters, they will say, is the problems we are facing now: ecological disasters, HIV, poverty, injustice, starvation — indeed all the things and more that are covered by the Millennium Development Goals. But the problem here is that, to a greater or lesser extent, we in the West have already achieved six of these goals: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combatting HIV, malaria and other diseases. Yet no one is seriously suggesting that the church’s work is done or that we have in some sense ‘arrived’.

To define our eschatology, therefore, we have to go beyond these issues and ask, “Even assuming these goals could be met, what happens next?”

The reality, one suspects, is that no one is really asking that question at all, because no one really thinks it is going to happen. Our tacit assumption (unspoken, but widely assumed) is that the poor will indeed always be with us, and that surmounting one set of problems will merely reveal another set — like Western obesity, for example.

Under these circumstances, we may expect the church to focus on achieving short term goals of ‘improvement’, but not to be looking too far into the future — in fact, this is precisely what we do find in many situations.

At the same time, however, the church will generally couch its mission in biblical terms, primary amongst which is the notion of the Kingdom of God. The problem is, of course, what we mean by this expression, and here we find a wide divergence.

For many in the church, this ‘Kingdom’ is coterminous with achieving the Millennium Development Goals and whatever will succeed them as the next set of problems reveal themselves.

Biblically, however, it is something else. In biblical terms, we see three exemplars of the Kingdom. The first is the idealised situation in Eden: mankind in harmony with God, with themselves and with nature. The second is the geo-political nation of Israel: every man dwelling under his vine and under his figtree all the days of king Solomon. The third is the person of Jesus: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

Yet there is still a future Kingdom, quite distinct from, though foreshadowed by, these particular instances. Moreover, the biblical witness shows that each of these other instances is inadequate as expressions of the coming Kingdom. The Garden of Eden is lost through the Fall, the kingdom of Solomon is lost through idolatry. The incarnate ministry of Jesus is terminated by the powers of this world. If the Kingdom is to arrive, rather than always be a future hope, something must change.

This also means that the church must not mistake the present manifestations of the Kingdom, which share the character of these earlier manifestations, with the Kingdom itself. Eden is lost. The kingdom of Solomon proved unsatisfactory. The ministry of Jesus is a foretaste. We may plant our gardens, we may fight in the political arena, we may heal the sick and bring good news to the poor. But the Kingdom is still to come.

And the other aspect of this future Kingdom, in biblical terms, is that between us and it lies individual judgement and divine wrath.

It should be obvious, then, that if this is our eschatology, it will give a particular shape to our missiology. On the one hand, we ought to be concerned with how we can live the life of the Kingdom in the present, just as Jesus did. On the other hand, we ought to be concerned, just as Jesus was, with how people, including ourselves, can be saved from the coming wrath.

A ministry which treats the present as an irrelevance in terms of our engagement with life is failing to understand what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom in the present. A ministry which treats the future as an irrelevance in terms of judgement, wrath and salvation is failing to understand what it will mean to be a citizen of the Kingdom in the future.

How we understand these things will then shape how we proclaim Christ. If our understanding of the future is hazy about judgement and dismissive of wrath, we will focus on those aspects of Christ which relate to life in the present. In short, we will downplay the cross, despite our emphasis on the life of Jesus. The justification for evangelism will become the benefit to the individual, in terms of a life made fuller, and to society in terms of a world made better. We will want to see people converted, but the unanswered question will be, “What happens to those who are not?”

It is, however, possible to forget that Jesus’ own ministry shows that the life of the future Kingdom is to be lived in the present. And when this happens the church’s ministry is again distorted. Then we find there is no real difference between the believer and the unbeliever — except that the believer believes that they are saved! And this, we must recognise, is just as much a false gospel, and just as serious a threat to salvation, as ignoring future salvation entirely.

It is much to be doubted whether the church currently has a good grasp of these issues. Some of us live as though there were no judgement in the future. Others live as if there were no purpose in the present. The answer, however, is not to ‘get the balance right’. It is to get the right perspective. Christ is coming again, but when he comes, will he find faith on earth (Lk 18:8)? Getting that right should be enough to keep any of us occupied until he returns.

Revd John P Richardson
26 June 2007