Theos Report on Recovering from the Riots

The latest report from Theos has just been published:

Hannah Rich, Disunited Kingdom? Local Churches and the Riots of Summer 2024 (London: Theos, 2024).

Here’s a quick summary:

‘In Summer 2024, the most extensive outbreak of riots across England in over a decade took place, driven by anti-immigrant sentiment, civil unrest and online misinformation in the wake of the murder of three girls in Southport.

‘The local church played an important role in the response to the riots, both immediately and over the longer term in rebuilding communities. This report explores how local churches in places where riots occurred were well-placed to respond by: (a) leveraging their strong community networks in order to work with other faith and activism groups; (b) maintaining a trusted presence in the community even when the riots threatened the buildings; (c) holding institutional relationships with local police and being conduits for information; and (d) using their convening power to draw the community together for vigils and moments of much-needed reflection.

‘There are lessons to learn from these experiences, about the causes of the riots, the emergency response and what preventative measures might be developed going forward. There is a willingness from local churches to engage in the deep listening required to heal communities fractured by the riots, addressing the sense of disenfranchisement and material challenges, as well as correcting misinformation. We offer recommendations to national and local policymakers as well as to churches in how all might work together to improve cohesion and rebuild communities.’

A summary blog of the report can be found here.

A pdf of the full report is available here.

The Asbury Journal 71, 1 (2016)

The latest issue of Asbury Journal, containing the below main articles from a Colloquium held on ‘The Church and Its Expansion’, is available from here.

Kenneth Cain Kinghorn

A Tribute to Ellsworth Kalas

Christine D. Pohl

Personal Reflections on Christian Endeavor

Brian Hull

Sending Silent Missionaries: How One Man’s Writing Helped Transform Youth and the Global Church

Robert A. Danielson

Floating Christian Endeavor as a Model for Mission to Migrants

This article explores how the little-known history of the Floating Societies of Christian Endeavor can provide a useful model for modern mission approaches to mission among transnational people, especially migrant workers, who seldom settle in an area long enough to be effectively reached by traditional church planting methods. Evangelizing and discipling people on the move is not a new problem for the church, but one which was addressed in the late 19th century and early 20th century in attempting to reach sailors for Christ. The model developed by the Floating Societies of Christian Endeavor were flexible, lay-led movements that leveraged traditional mission outreach to sailors coupled with the innovative youth organization of Francis E. Clark and the Christian Endeavor Movement. A similar model is suggested for work among migrant worker communities for today’s church, albeit with some warnings from the historical problems of the Floating Christian Endeavor.

Art McPhee

The Kingdom Life and the Witness of the Church

This paper was presented in Asbury Theological Seminary, on October 9, 2015 at the Advanced Research Program’s Interdisciplinary Colloquium on the subject, The Church and Its Expansion. This paper explores the role of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching and its potential impact on the Church for the work of evangelism and church planting. As a central theme of Jesus, it becomes a metaphor and a model for how the Church should be involved in ministry to the world around us.

M. Andrew Gale

Justice and Truth, Theology in the Context of Emerging Young Adults

Emerging young adult church planters face challenging epistemological shifts within their congregations. With the proliferation of postmodern critique, the word truth has lost sway and is being supplanted by the concept of justice. In this article the author details this shift, looking at truth within postmodernism and justice as understood by the emerging young adult generation. He then offers a call for a rediscovery of an evangelical theology of justice and suggests helpful actions emerging young adult church planters can engage in that bridge this linguistic gap to their peers.

Benjamin J. Snyder

From Jerusalem to Jerusalem: Essential Contours of the Modern Messianic Movement

The modern messianic movement is only beginning to be noticed and is often met with confusion by Gentile believers. In an effort to promote better understanding and positive engagement with a view toward mutual collaboration between Jew and Gentile within the modern Church, this paper outlines the essential contours of the movement. Additionally, it appeals to a missiological model that offers a framework to aid the Gentile believer in understanding the movement. As a result of this awareness, this author hopes to see concrete engagement on the part of Gentiles with this expanding work of God among Jewish people.

Thomas Lyons

Praxis, Phenomena, and Spirit Reception in Luke-Acts: A Study of Shared Elements in Luke’s Corporate Baptism of the Holy Spirit Accounts

At the center of pneumatological Luke-Acts discussions is the function and purpose of Holy Spirit Baptism. Central to these debates is the relationship of water baptism, the laying on of hands, and glossolalia to the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This study will explore each of these elements in the Holy Spirit reception accounts of Acts 2, 8, 10, and 19 by considering each element in their historical and literary context before surveying scholarship on the relationship between these elements and Spirit reception. The study concludes by evaluating to what degree any of the elements may appropriately be considered normative.

Sheryl Marks-Williams

Globalization and its Effects on the Expansion of the Church: Doing and Being Church Among Immigrants in the USA

At any given time, three percent of the world’s population is on the move. These migrants travel across regions and continents due to various push and pull factors, and do so with their systems of belief. With approximately 106 million of the 232 million global migrants being Christian, churches in the twenty-first century recognize that the church continues to expand not as it crosses new frontiers to new lands, but as it crosses personal boundaries to include all people. As the number of Western Christians decline, so will their influence in global missions. Consequently, it will become necessary for people living in diaspora to be in Christian ministry to, through, and beyond the diaspora. This paper discusses the need to create Kingdom communities among immigrants in the United States of America (USA) by being intentional about understanding immigrants so as to include them in an existing congregation, or by planting new congregations with, for, and by immigrants. It also seeks to identify the type of church or community that might be successful in helping immigrants to connect in meaningful ways to God and God’s people.

William Price Payne

Folk Religion and the Pentecostalism Surge in Latin America

Latino Pentecostalism and the Roman Catholic Charismatic Movement have experienced massive numerical growth since becoming viable options for the masses in the late 1960s. Contextualization theory suggests that they have experienced exponential growth because they have become indigenous faith systems that mesh with Hispanic cultures and give folk practitioners functionally equivalent alternatives to the syncretistic practices associated with popular religion. Specifically, as a native religion that engages all aspects of the Latino worldview, Latino Pentecostalism operates at the level of a popular religion without being inherently syncretistic. In this regard, it can be described as “folk Christianity.”

The entire issue is available as a pdf here.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research 39:4 (October 2015)

The latest issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a collection of essays written in honour of Jonathan J. Bonk.

In view of the ongoing refugee crisis, it might be worth noting that the issue features articles around the broad theme of ‘Engaging Mission: Hospitality, Humility, Hope’, with a number of the contributions addressing issues related to migration, assimilation, and hospitality.

The whole issue is available as a pdf here.

Guy Brandon on a Christian Response to Immigration

Guy Brandon, A Christian Response to Immigration (Cambridge: Jubilee Centre, 2011).

Guy Brandon, at the ever-productive Jubilee Centre, has produced a short document offering a Christian perspective on immigration. Here’s the summary:

‘Immigration is a live and perennial issue, and often prompts polarised and unhelpful responses from politicians, the media and the public. Our default viewpoint is frequently one of suspicion, a simplistic reaction that assumes immigrants all come for the same reason and have identical motives. The Old Testament’s approach to immigration was far more nuanced, and a biblical view of nationhood and immigration helps to bring a degree of balance and proportion to the debate.’