Word and World 8 (January 2020)

‘Hope for Creation’ is the theme of the latest issue of Word and World, published by IFES. The issue contains the below pieces, and is available as a pdf here.

Las G. Newman

Is There Hope for Creation?

As climate change and its devastating consequences accelerate, we ask: is there still hope for creation? In this article, Las Newman takes a biblical and practical look at the relationship between faith in Christ and our attitude to creation care.

Ruth Hicks de Olmedo

Good News for the Whole Creation: Creation Care at University Campuses in Ecuador

We all know we should care for God’s creation – but how? What might that look like on campus? Find out how one student group in Ecuador changed environmental attitudes and practices in their university.

Andrew Shepherd

Creaturely Theology: Sharing Life and Worship with Other Species

As followers of Jesus, what should our response be to the enormous loss of biodiversity happening in our generation? Andrew Shepherd invites us to recognise non-human animals as our fellow creatures, breathed into life by God as his agents and our fellow-worshippers.

Pablo Pistilli

Pessimistic Theology and Its Impact on the World Today

Pablo Pistilli from Argentina invites readers to move beyond a pessimistic theology to caring for God’s creation.

E. Daniel Cárdenas-Vásquez

Feeding the Poor: Genetically Engineered Foods and Care for the Entire Creation

Genetically modified food is widely considered as detrimental to the farming communities who produce it. But have we misjudged it? Cárdenas-Vásquez proposes that genetically engineered foods could be a way to feed those in most need and proclaim good news to the poor.

Mission Frontiers 42, 1 (January-February 2020)

The January-February 2020 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles on the theme of ‘Catching the Vision for Movements’.

According to the blurb:

‘The January/February 2020 issue features an in-depth look at Disciple Making Movements. The vision for DMMs is now bursting forth from the mission field and impacting the ministries of existing churches around the world and in the USA.’

The issue is available here, from where individual articles can be downloaded, and the entire issue can be downloaded as a pdf here.

Centre for Public Christianity (February 2020)

This month, the Centre for Public Christianity links to a page containing several (with the promise of more to come) video interviews from their For the Love of God documentary. Check them out from here.

Lausanne Global Analysis 9, 1 (January 2020)

The latest issue of Lausanne Global Analysis, from The Lausanne Movement, is available online from here, including pdf downloads.

In the issue overview, editor David Taylor writes:

‘In this issue we consider the protests in Hong Kong and how Christians should engage with the issues behind them; we examine spiritual warfare and mission, asking what we can learn from an African context; we look at strategies for staying updated and relevant as we seek to follow Jesus globally; and we ask how we can use stories from the Disney universe to help communicate the gospel and its values to the young.’

Business as Usual?

I wrote the below piece for ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Big Ben won’t bong, but time will roll on regardless and Britain will leave the European Union at 11pm on Friday 31 January 2020. It will be the end of one of the most significant political processes of our times.

How we feel about that and the new era that lies ahead will depend on a host of well-rehearsed and hotly-contested factors, which will not disappear overnight.

Noting that Christians ‘in good conscience continue to hold a wide range of views about Brexit’, leaders of church denominations have encouraged prayers for peace and reconciliation. Tweeting a prayer every day this week, Justin Welby notes the importance of ‘praying for our country as we move into a new season of challenge and opportunity’.

How, then, do we navigate this moment?

The slogan from Christians in Politics – ‘decisions are made by those who show up’ – offers a helpful prompt. It reminds us not just to ‘show up’ when it’s time to vote or debate, but to ‘show up’ in daily life too.

Many Christians are on the frontline in the world of politics itself, but politics affects us all, wherever we find ourselves – the teacher in the classroom, the cleaner in the hospital, the parent in the home.

Every sphere – education, business, economics, the media, law, health, family – can be influenced for the good by the presence of Christians. These are the everyday places where we are able to build relationships, seek justice, model reconciliation, make a gracious stand for the truth, live and speak as messengers of the gospel. And we do so not to get what we want, but as an overflow of our love for God and other people.

So, however we feel about the turn of the clock later this evening, we can move forward purposefully. Let’s pray for the Government and for our local MPs. Let’s ask trusted people to help us think through issues from a Christian perspective. Let’s inform MPs of matters that concern us – not simply the narrow range of topics where people expect us to speak out, but on other things too – education, health, unemployment, environment, immigration. Let’s get involved where we’re able to do so. And let’s recognise that the best changes will be brought about by demonstrating through our lives that there is a better way to do business as usual.

Not Without God

The below is an edited version of a piece I wrote for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which I thought I’d post again for the anniversary (which was yesterday) five years later.

‘If we held 1 minute of silence for every victim of the Holocaust then we would be silent for eleven and a half years.’ So several tweeted yesterday on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Although powerfully distressing in its own way, not to stall on some disagreement over the maths, others understandably took considerably more space than 116 characters to unfold the horrors of what took place, with survivors urging that the tragedy never be forgotten.

Not for the first time are we challenged to ask how millions of men, women, and children were murdered with planned and systematic efficiency. Nor does what has since taken place in Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Syria and elsewhere leave us hopeful that we have moved on. We are probably not surprised that the involvement of ‘religious’ people in what happened at Auschwitz has been enough to rid some people of any kind of belief in a good God.

Indeed, there are some experiences of evil before which we defend our faith only with deep sensitivity. We listen with deference to those like Elie Wiesel who speak for the victims. In Night, an account of his experience in concentration camps, Wiesel describes in painful and graphic detail his first viewing of a hanging, with the haunting question of the man behind him, ‘Where is God now?’.

And yet, in a television interview years later, Wiesel affirmed: ‘For a Jew to believe in God is good. For a Jew to protest against God is still good. But simply to ignore God, that is not good. Anger, yes. Protest, yes. Affirmation, yes. But indifference to God, no. You can be a Jew with God; you can be a Jew against God; but not without God.’ For Wiesel, the consequences of leaving God out of the Holocaust are worse than keeping him in.

From a Christian perspective, it’s right to have a problem with evil. It’s an alien intrusion into God’s good world. But the gospel allows us to understand the gravity of evil, our complicity in it, and God’s determination to deal with it. And for Christians, God’s wisdom and power are seen supremely in the death of Jesus, who died to destroy the power of sin and death, and was raised as the firstfruits of a new creation. There is a hope of unending joy for the earth – but not without God.

Asbury Journal 74, 2 (2019)

The latest issue of Asbury Journal is now available, containing the below articles. The entire issue is available as a pdf here.

From the Editor

David R. Bauer

The Theme of Mission in Matthew’s Gospel From the Perspective of the Great Commission

Presented as the keynote paper at the Advanced Research Program’s Interdisciplinary Colloquium, held October 12, 2018. The Theme was the “Theology of Mission as an Interdisciplinary Enterprise.” This paper explores the theology of mission found in the Gospel of Matthew through the lens of the Great Commission, using the tools of Inductive Biblical Studies. The Gospel of Matthew has mission as a central focus, even though Matthean scholars often overlook this focus. The paper argues three essential conclusions. First, the theme of universal mission is of critical importance in Matthew’s Gospel. Second, Matthew insists that all the major themes in his Gospel, even Christology, must be understood finally within the framework of mission. Third, the Great Commission is intimately connected with Matthew’s Gospel in the large and must be interpreted specifically in light of its function within the entire Gospel. These conclusions are explored throughout the remainder of the paper.

Jerry Breen

An Ancient Hope: Matthew’s Use of Isaiah to Explicate Christianity’s Mission to the Nations

The early church explained their story within the context of the story of Israel contained in the Hebrew scripture. The life and death of Jesus indicated that God was doing something new and amazing, but it could not be understood apart from God’s ancient promises of hope delivered through the prophets. Each of the writers of the New Testament quote and allude to the story of Israel in their works, but perhaps none more than Matthew. This paper explicates Matthew’s use of Isaiah to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills the promised restoration of Israel so that Israel can be a light to the nations. This study can help the reader understand how Matthew uses Isaiah to achieve his narrative purposes by identifying which significant themes Matthew has applied to his presentation of Jesus.

Sochanngam Shirik 

Epistemological Foundation for Contemporary Theology of Mission: Trajectories from a Conversation Between J. Andrew Kirk and John Hick

With the expansion of Christianity comes different ways of expressing the Christian faith. When new ways of conceiving Christian faith are presented, old models are challenged. Sometimes, tensions arise. During such transition, our epistemological convictions play an important role in the decision we make. J. Andrew Kirk and John Hick’s positions are two examples. While both care deeply about Christianity and peoples of other faiths, the conclusions that they reach from their different epistemological stances are telling in their differences, indicating the crucial role that epistemology plays in mission. As representatives of a broader group, their positions remind us of the importance of assessing our epistemic positions in relation to mission, especially in thinking about our theology of mission. This article presents and evaluates their epistemological positions and uses them as catalysts for conversations in exploring the theology of mission. The aim of this article is to illustrate the need for critically assessing the epistemological assumptions behind our theological positions so that we can effectively navigate the terrain of shifting theological paradigms in mission.

Kristina Whiteman

Blessed Is the Kingdom: The Divine Liturgy as Missional Act

In the last 20 years, the Protestant Church has undergone a revolution in its self-understanding through the Missional Church movement. However, with its emphasis on changing forms of worship and on sending people out from the Church, the Missional Church discussion has been inaccessible (or even antithetical) to Eastern Orthodox Christians. This paper proposes a new way for Orthodox to enter the conversation, to contribute in a spirit of collaboration. With the goal of overcoming East/West theological differences by recognizing the inherent missionality of Orthodoxy’s most central service, the Divine Liturgy, this paper will: explain the centrality of the Divine Liturgy to Orthodoxy, describe the general missional flow of the Divine Liturgy, and give specific examples of ways that various parts of the Divine Liturgy directly contribute to the Inward-Outward missional nature of the Divine Liturgy. Finally, some conclusions will be offered as to what the Divine Liturgy as a Missional Act might mean in the daily lives of the Faithful.

Philip F. Hardt

The Capital of Methodism: The New York Station: 1800-1832

For the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the New York Station could easily be considered the pre-eminent circuit in American Methodism. During this period, highly dedicated, extremely gifted, and deeply evangelistic preachers and laity and the newly relocated Book Concern joined forces in an unparalleled way to impact the station and, in some cases, the entire denomination. This occurred within a rapidly growing city with tremendous commercial importance, especially in shipping. As a result, the New York Station developed a uniqueness that was unmatched in the denomination. Two of the ways it differed from a more traditional circuit were its deployment of stationed and local preachers on the Lord’s Day and its rapid response to benevolent, educational, evangelistic, and missional needs.

Fred Guyette

The Apostle Paul: A Transformed Heart, A Transformational Leader

When we first meet Paul in Acts 8, his zeal for the Law leads him to persecute Christians. After Paul’s conversion, however, his great zeal is transformed by God’s love. Motivated by agape-love, he founds many new churches in the Mediterranean world. Throughout his letters, Paul makes use of the “one another” commands (allelon) to help strengthen the solidarity of these communities, a message that the church in Corinth certainly needs to hear. The Letter to the Philippians describes Christ’s “downward mobility,” which runs counter to the shame/honor code that characterizes the Roman Empire. In a final section, I show how Paul is a transformative leader in three settings, micro, meso, and macro. (1) In his letter to Philemon, Paul seeks creative change at the level of face-to-face interaction. (2) When he works on the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem, he is trying to transform relationships on a meso-level. (3) Paul’s encounters with Greek philosophy (Acts 17) and Roman law (Acts 21-26) show how he seeks to transform discussion of public theology on a macro-level.

Matt Ayars

Wesleyan Soteriology and the New Perspective of Paul: A Comparative Analysis

This essay offers a comparative analysis of Wesleyan soteriology and Pauline soteriology as interpreted by the New Perspective of Paul (NPP). The analysis unfolds against the backdrop of Wesley’s and the NPP’s mutual criticism of the reformed tradition’s configuration of the forensic metaphor for justification at the center of biblical soteriology. The opening section surveys the various aspects of Wesley’s and the NPP’s criticism of reformed soteriology, namely, that the overemphasis on forensic justification leads to interpretive conclusions incongruent with an integrated biblical soteriology (i.e., a doctrine of salvation that is informed by the entire Christian canon) and particularly negligent of other biblical metaphors for salvation. The second section surveys key interpretive conclusions of the NPP for its reading of Pauline soteriology. The third section explores various commonalities and differences between Wesleyan soteriology and the NPP. The fourth and final section is a concluding summary of content discussed.

R. Jeffrey Hiatt

Caring for the Masses: Insights from John Wesley on Spiritual and Physical Healing

John Wesley approached Christian mission through a therapeutic (in the biblical sense) motif. Wesley used physical, spiritual, and social healing to further Christian mission in England, Ireland, and America. The gospel informs, and Christian mission drives, Wesley’s comprehension and practice of healing. This study illumines the ways and degrees that Wesley employed physical healing practices that helped him to care for and reach the masses in England with the gospel. Wesley demonstrated that medicine and medical intervention was an important element in the missionary/ ministry work. God not only works through direct intervention but through medicine, as well. Wesley used whatever means was biblical, ethical, and theologically expedient for Christian mission. If it was “good,” then it was fair game for use in reaching people for Christ and helping to heal their hurts, no matter what caused them.

James Patole

Towards an Understanding of the New Middle Classes in India: Missiological Perspective and Implications

One of the distinguishing features of contemporary India is the emergence and the rise of the new middle class/es (hereafter NMC). The confident and ambitious NMC has sprouted up across the country, now numbering about 300-400 million people and the number is increasing rapidly. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the emerging NMC is relatively an unexplored and unengaged people group in urban missions in India and beyond. It is a contemporary movement that is fluid and still in the process of emerging. In further exploration of the NMC, this article provides few key implications for an effective engagement with the NMC both in India and abroad. Recognizing that a sizable majority of the NMC are transnational, the NMC represents the Indian diaspora globally. 

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