Strange that going to an evangelical theological college can make one reconsider one's soteriology--the what and how of salvation. I've long been more tempted by a comprehensive view, claiming that Jesus didn't just come to "save our souls", but so that we might have life in abundance! (cf. Jn. 10:10), not just saving us up for Judgment Day, when we will begin to enjoy life eternal with the Father...but beginning to live out the inaugurated (by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus) kingdom in the here and now. I guess this thinking is what's known as a supralapsarian (i.e., transcending the Fall) view. Terminology notwithstanding, it still beckons my thoughts and ponderings.
I ran across this paragraph that I think puts it well:
"Both the Bible and church tradition use different words and metaphors to describe and interpret God's mission of kingdom-building: re-captiulation, salvation, conversion, liberation, shalom-ing, reconciliation, transfiguration, etc. None of them should be 'reductive' of mission (RM 17). (Reductive examples: salvation applies only to 'souls', assumptions or only to those who are explicitly committed in faith and discipline to Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour; reconciliation, only to human or only to God relationships; liberation, only to political, social or economic conditions, or only to personal sinfulness; transfiguration, only to persons, and not to all cultures, humanity itself, indeed the whole of creation.) 'The kingdom of God is the manifestation and the realization of God's plan of salvation in all its fullness' (RM 15). It is not for us and our words to separate what the Father and the Spirit already hold together in the Word."
- Stransky, T. F., "The Mission of the Church: Post-Vatican II Developments in 'Official' RC Theology," in Evangelical Review of Theology, vol. XXIII, no. 1, Jan. 1999. NB: "RM" = Redemptoris missio, Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, 7 Dec. 1990.
One major pragmatic issue is how we incorporate this comprehensive, holistic soteriology into our common evangel. Certainly, as in the previous post, in part it means living out the life of God's people as the Church.
I'll go on thinking...
20 December 2007
10 December 2007
Point to Ponder: Missional Ecclesiology
It seems a pragmatic hallmark of evangelicalism is (or can be) the subservience of all aspects of the Christian life to the priority of gospel proclamation, of seeing people "come to faith" or "get saved". It's difficult to question this tenet without opening oneself up to the criticisms of being unbiblical, deluded, or doctrinally unsound - questioning the uniqueness of Christ, the authority of Scripture, etc.
As I continue to be drawn to the study of ecclesiology, however, I feel that such a priority can not only propagate an individualistic and anthropocentric soteriology, it can render the Church less and less meaningful...relegating it, essentially, to being little more than "friends who can help me get the work of evangelism done". When in fact, I might argue that we are severely inhibiting our evangel by not living into our God-given calling to be one holy catholic and apostolic Church: to see our gospel proclamation lived out...not as simply something we must do, but as something we, collectively, essentially are.
But it is good to find allies once in awhile. In some reading I am doing today, I ran across the following thoughtful & helpful paragraph on missional ecclesiology:
"A missional ecclesiology is not a doctrine of the church in which everything is subordinated to a mandate for missionary activity which supposedly precedes, supersedes, and encompasses all community building. Neither does it refer to a theology that places everything that the church is and does under the umbrella concept of missio Dei. It is an effort to reconsider the theological self-definition of the church in the perspective of an emphasized eschatology and in that way to help concrete communities of Christians to relate their identity to their experience of the predicament of pluralism." - Hoedemaker, B. (1999), “Toward an Epistemologically Responsible Missiology,” in Kirk & Vanhoozer, eds., To Stake a Claim: Mission and the Western Crisis of Knowledge (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), p. 227.
Granted, his last statement needs contextualizing to make more sense of it, but suffice it to say I was encouraged in some of my own ruminations by his assertions. Oh, well...back to it!
As I continue to be drawn to the study of ecclesiology, however, I feel that such a priority can not only propagate an individualistic and anthropocentric soteriology, it can render the Church less and less meaningful...relegating it, essentially, to being little more than "friends who can help me get the work of evangelism done". When in fact, I might argue that we are severely inhibiting our evangel by not living into our God-given calling to be one holy catholic and apostolic Church: to see our gospel proclamation lived out...not as simply something we must do, but as something we, collectively, essentially are.
But it is good to find allies once in awhile. In some reading I am doing today, I ran across the following thoughtful & helpful paragraph on missional ecclesiology:
"A missional ecclesiology is not a doctrine of the church in which everything is subordinated to a mandate for missionary activity which supposedly precedes, supersedes, and encompasses all community building. Neither does it refer to a theology that places everything that the church is and does under the umbrella concept of missio Dei. It is an effort to reconsider the theological self-definition of the church in the perspective of an emphasized eschatology and in that way to help concrete communities of Christians to relate their identity to their experience of the predicament of pluralism." - Hoedemaker, B. (1999), “Toward an Epistemologically Responsible Missiology,” in Kirk & Vanhoozer, eds., To Stake a Claim: Mission and the Western Crisis of Knowledge (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), p. 227.
Granted, his last statement needs contextualizing to make more sense of it, but suffice it to say I was encouraged in some of my own ruminations by his assertions. Oh, well...back to it!
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