mission | Tim Høiland

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Book Review: Christ Our Reconciler

May 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

When 2,700 Christians from 150 countries gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1974, it was, according to TIME, “a formidable forum, possibly the widest ranging meeting of Christians ever held.” As I wrote in Serving Justice vs. Saving Souls for RELEVANT late last year, that first Lausanne gathering represented a watershed moment for evangelicals, helping us move past the word-and-deed dychotomy that had no business existing in the first place.

A significant part of that initial gathering’s contribution was the Lausanne Covenant, which affirmed (in part): “Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.”

In the nearly four decades that have passed since then – through two more full-fledged global congresses and a variety of smaller events – the Lausanne Movement has continued to convene Christians from around the world under the auspices of its audacious tagline: “The whole Church taking the whole Gospel to the whole World.”

Following Cape Town 2010, the third global Lausanne Congress, InterVarsity Press published Christ Our Reconciler: Gospel, Church, World, a wonderful collection of messages from the gathering’s main speakers.

The book is organized based on the themes of each of the six days of the gathering: Truth, Reconciliation, World Faiths, Priorities, Integrity, and Partnership. There are contributions by Christians from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, and the Middle East, drawing on the diversity represented by delegates from 198 countries around the world. It’s rare to find a book with such diverse contributors, yet all are united around their commitment to the gospel.

A particular highlight of the book for me was reading the testimonies of believers from North Korea, the Holy Land, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, and Egypt. Being a Christian in any one of those places is a very different experience from being a Christian anywhere else, and each context certainly has its unique challenges, whether outright persecution, or violent conflict, or systemic injustice, or the apathy of an affluent society. For those of us immersed in North American evangelical sub-culture, we’d do well to be reminded that the latest controversial tweet from Mark Driscoll (and the obligatory ensuing blog response from Rachel Held Evans) isn’t necessarily the most important thing to be concerned about. These testimonies reminded me yet again that the church is so much bigger than any particular Christian tribe, and that we have much to learn from each other.

There were other highlights in the book as well. For instance, Ajith Fernando of Sri Lanka on embracing suffering in service; Chris Wright of the UK calling the church back to humility, integrity, and simplicity; Antoine Rutayisire of Rwanda on the gospel of reconciliation; and Ruth Padilla DeBorst of Argentina/Costa Rica calling us to pledge allegiance to the Lord of history, the only true Prince of Peace.

Read this book to be encouraged, to be challenged, and to be equipped to participate more fully in God’s global mission. We have much to learn from the saints who are serving the church in varying degrees of obscurity around the world, and this book is a great way to dip our respective toes in those deep, deep waters.

If this is your first introduction to the Lausanne Movement, I’d encourage you to spend some time studying the Covenant for yourself. You may also find the Cape Town Commitment, which includes a confession of faith and a call to action, to be helpful.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest thoughts.

In Gospel Cape Town 2010, Christ Our Reconciler, church, evangelization, gospel, Lausanne, mission, world

Missionaries, cultural imperialism, and The Poisonwood Bible

November 15, 2012 — 2 Comments

I recently read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, a true modern classic. In the novel we’re introduced to Nathan Price, a fierce Baptist missionary with an independent streak who took his family to the Congo in the late 1950s. Narrated by his wife and four daughters, it is simply a spellbinding story. It’s also a brutal story, particularly in its indictment of Price for his selfishness, legalism, heavy-handedness, arrogance, and callous disregard for the wellbeing of his family and of those he has purportedly been sent to serve. He’s not only an ugly American, he’s also an ugly Christian.

Kingsolver’s own childhood included a brief stint in the Congo as the daughter of an American physician, and this experience undoubtedly shaped the way she sees the world. Interestingly, though, in the Author’s Note she writes:

I thank Virginia and Wendell Kingsolver, especially, for being different in every way from the parents I created for the narrators of this tale. I was the fortunate child of medical and public-health workers, whose compassion and curiosity led them to the Congo. They brought me to a place of wonders, taught me to pay attention, and set me early on a path of exploring the great, shifting terrain between righteousness and what’s right.

As a son of missionaries, and one with a particular interest in matters of faith, ethics, and justice, I’d wanted to read The Poisonwood Bible for a long time, and I’m glad I finally had the chance. It really is a great novel. And while the damning portrayal of Nathan Price is admittedly a caricature, an honest look at the history of Christian mission reveals that self-identified followers of Christ have at times been involved in some pretty awful stuff.

Which raises an important question: Do missionaries destroy cultures?

Veteran missionary Don Richardson, best known for his books Peace Child and Eternity in Their Hearts, addresses this question in an article in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader (article available as a PDF here).

“There have indeed been occasions when missionaries were responsible for needless destruction of culture,” Richardson writes. “Whether through misinterpreting the Great Commission, pride, culture shock, or simple inability to comprehend the values of others, we have needlessly opposed customs we did not understand. Some, had we understood them, might have served as communication keys for the gospel!”

Me as a kid with some friends in the community where we lived in Guatemala.

But Richardson goes on to argue – convincingly, I think – that missionaries who destroy cultures are the rare exception; most are far more often hard at work preserving languages and cultures, and serving communities in practical, tangible ways through education, public health, or other community development initiatives.

My own parents served in the highlands of western Guatemala for many years as missionary linguists, and far from seeking to destroy the local culture, they honored and respected it, while teaching us to do likewise. Eventually we did.

For better or worse, remote communities no longer have the option of remaining “undisturbed,” even if that’s what they’d prefer. It’s well known that in the Amazon region, for instance, loggers continue to encroach on indigenous land all the time. And as self-described atheist Matthew Parris famously wrote a few years ago regarding another continent, “Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.”

It’s true that people who more or less resemble Nathan Price exist, and some of them call themselves missionaries. But when missionaries are at their best, Richardson writes, they “are advocates not only of spiritual truth, but also of physical survival.” He describes how his own service in Indonesia included persuading his neighbors to give up the practice of cannibalism, knowing that if they didn’t do so willingly, the Indonesian government would have forced the point through more aggressive means. In that way, he had a hand in changing the culture, which in turn kept it from being destroyed:

Do missionaries destroy cultures? It’s true that we destroy certain things in cultures, just as doctors sometimes must destroy certain things in a human body if a patient is to live. But as we grow in experience and God-given wisdom, we must not – and will not – destroy cultures themselves.

Once again, you can read the entire article here, which I’d recommend you do – right after you read The Poisonwood Bible for yourself.

[Photo credit: "Canoe in the Congo" by Michael Nichols via nationalgeographic.com]

In Justice Barbara Kingsolver, culture, ethics, faith, indigenous, justice, mission, missionaries, The Poisonwood Bible

Subversion, gospel transformation, and safety

September 17, 2012 — 1 Comment

I’ll be honest: I’m always a little nervous when I start reading books with words like “radical” or “manifesto” or “secret” in the title. Or, while we’re at it, words like “subversive.” I don’t get nervous because I’m particularly afraid I’ll find the book too challenging; I get nervous because I’m afraid the book can’t live up to the hype.

I recently threw caution to the wind and decided to read Ed Stetzer’s latest, Subversive Kingdom: Living as Agents of Gospel Transformation (B&H). I follow Ed on Twitter, generally enjoying what he has to say, and having not read any of his previous works, I decided it was about time.

The first section of the book is called “A Subversive Way of Thinking,” which, as you can imagine, has a lot to do with setting the theoretical framework for what’s to follow. He begins the book with a historical anecdote, about how the people of East Tennessee were loyal to the Union during the Civil War, even though they were surrounded by those who made up the Confederacy. They were, in effect, “rebelling against the rebellion.” That’s the metaphor he uses for us: we’re citizens of the Kingdom of God, called to live by a different set of priorities from those around us.

Part two, “A Subversive Way of Life,” is where Stetzer seeks to get practical. The first step in becoming agents of gospel transformation, he says, is to be transformed ourselves and to eliminate our many idols. This is only possible, of course, through Christ’s transforming work. While we’ll encounter many in the world who are “commonly bad” and a few who are “uncommonly bad” Christians are called to be not just “commonly good” but “uncommonly good.” Stetzer points to the Sermon on the Mount as our “rules of engagement” for subversive living.

The book concludes with part three, “A Subversive Plan of Action.” Stetzer reminds us that while God uses us to fulfill his mission on earth, it is ultimately his mission, not ours. We are not at the center of the story. The kingdom that was inaugurated at the birth of Jesus will come in fullness some day. In the meantime, our lives are to point to that already-but-not-yet kingdom, both individually and as the church, the changed community of God’s people.

I follow Stetzer’s basic arguments, and I’m on board with what he has to say. But there’s not a whole lot of groundbreaking stuff here, at least in my reading of it. Then again, it’s of course good to be reminded from time to time of what we think we already know. After all, God knows we all struggle to live accordingly.

Unfortunately, the book failed to live up to its “subversive” claim, in my opinion. As another reviewer aptly put it, this book is just too safe. While Stetzer hit all the right biblical themes, perhaps his biggest failure was his tendency to steer clear of any specific “subversive” application. What does being subversive look like, exactly? We live in a world of war and grinding poverty and sex trafficking and broken marriages and drug addiction and loneliness and greed and pride and ugly incivility in political discourse, all of which present us with real ethical and moral dilemmas. For a book like this to be truly practical, much less “subversive,” it would need to really get into these issues, or at least give us something to work with in navigating those troubled waters on our own. And in my reading of it, it didn’t go nearly far enough.

My second complaint is related to the first. The book has a lot of anecdotes and illustrations from what we might call “the real world,” but these are quickly spun into applications that are too seldom grounded in that same real world. Maybe there’s a place for drawing personal and “spiritual” applications from world events, so take this critique with a grain of salt. But before D-Day and VE Day were illustrations of the inauguration and consummation of the kingdom of God, they were actual days in history in which real people in real places experienced the full force of brutality of war, in which wives and mothers lost their husbands and sons, and in which others, reunited with loved ones, rejoiced with tears of joy. I wish this book would have dealt more honestly with those kinds of realities that people continue to experience in one way or another every single day, rather than using those stories as jumping off points for “spiritual” applications.

Stetzer is right that Christians are called to be agents of gospel transformation, and he’s right that living lives that point to the already-but-not-yet kingdom will be subversive in all kinds of ways. And maybe this book was merely intended to gently encourage readers rather than provoke. It’s great if that was Stetzer’s intent, and I trust many will be encouraged by his thoughtful reflections. But it’s a stretch to call subversive what is, in this case, for the most part safe.

I received a copy of this book from the author/publisher for free in exchange for this review.

In Gospel B&H, Ed Stetzer, gospel, mission, review, Subversive Kingdom

Repaso: September 14, 2012

September 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. What does justice look like?
Kelli Trujillo explores this question in the latest issue Reject Apathy:

Whatever the specific call ends up looking like for you, a lifestyle of justice is ultimately one saturated in caritas—the all-encompassing, unconditional, grace-filled love of God. It’s a life that sees, knows and loves those in need. It’s a life of passion for a cause that is equally matched with compassionate action. It’s a life in which your own hands and feet and life get dirty as you wade into the messy, painful reality of human need and suffering. And when you do, perhaps even by surprise, you will discover Christ Himself present in the mess.

2. More Phoenix coverage in Christianity Today
The This Is Our City project has continuing coverage of Christians seeking the flourishing of Phoenix this week with a book review about Christians on both sides of the immigration debate, a reflection on what artists can teach us about the importance of people and place, and a video featuring Ricardo, a young undocumented immigrant who was brought to the U.S. by his parents as a child. You may remember I interviewed Ricardo earlier this year for Undocumented.tv (here and here).

3. The dark side of Dylan
John J. Thompson reviews Bob Dylan’s new record Tempest, which comes 50 years and 35 albums after his debut:

Like a master painter, Dylan uses these darker brush strokes to give his songs depth, contrast, and resonance. He may be bending the escapist rules of popular music by constantly contemplating mortality, sin, the dark power of the human heart, and the fallen-ness of the world he calls his temporary home, but his creative DNA is far more informed by traditional blues, country, and folk music than contemporary pop. Thank God.

4. Engaging high and low culture
Katie and I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Richard Mouw on Sunday. We had a nice chat and he signed a book for us (“With Kuyperian best wishes”). Here he answers the question whether Christians need to “choose between highbrow and lowbrow when promoting the life and mission of the church”:

I am not ready to give up the distinction between “high” and “low” in thinking about cultural expressions. But at the same time, I am convinced that the Christian community needs to take both ends of the spectrum seriously… Both explorations are necessary for the life and mission of the church. In each case, we should be motivated by what we used to sing about with much gusto: “I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.” Both the higher and the lower in human culture are motivated by “golden fancies” and “golden dreams.”

5. The Civil Conversations Project
Gabe Lyons (Q Ideas) and Jim Daly (Focus on the Family) shared a stage this week with Krista Tippett as part of On Being’s Civil Conversations Project (more on the project here). It’s nearly two hours long, but certainly fascinating if you have the time.

The Civil Conversations Project: The Next Christians ~ In the Room with Gabe Lyons, Jim Daly, and Krista Tippett from On Being on Vimeo.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: "Palm trees" via soalaurable.blogspot.com]

In Repaso Bob Dylan, Civil Conversations Project, civility, culture, Gabe Lyons, immigration, Jim Daly, John J. Thompson, justice, Kelli Trujillo, Krista Tippett, mission, Phoenix, Reject Apathy, Repaso, Rich Mouw, Tempest, This Is Our City

Lesslie Newbigin on the Bible’s unique interpretation of history

August 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

After some time living in India, the missiologist Lesslie Newbigin was challenged by a well-educated Hindu friend, who said to him:

I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion — and anyway we have plenty of books on religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.

Newbigin realized his friend was right. This was a turning point in Newbigin’s understanding of the Bible, and in turn, his understanding of mission. In A Walk Through the Bible (Barefoot Ministries), the print version of a series of radio talks, Newbigin presents the Bible as one story that offers a unique account of history and “enables us to understand our own lives as part of that story.”

This is especially crucial, he says, because humans have tended to go in one of two directions in making sense of life. On the one hand have been those who have seen individual human beings as expendable contributors to some ideological project. “The logic of this,” Newbigin says, “has been developed with terrible precision in some of the movements of the twentieth century in which millions of men and women have been sacrificed for the sake of some ideology, some vision of a perfect society in the future.”

On the other hand, many attempt to find meaning and purpose through the pursuit of personal fulfillment, which “inevitably takes [us] away in the end from total involvement in the human project of civilization.” There are many who pursue personal fulfillment without any reference to God, but this approach is at home in religious circles as well. As we all know, “there is a kind of spirituality that leads us away from our active involvement in the business of the world.”

“So the alternatives,” Newbigin summarizes, “seem to be either finding meaning for history as a whole at the cost of no meaning for my personal life; or else finding meaning for my personal life at the cost of no meaning for the story as a whole.”

The Bible, however, read as “a unique interpretation of universal history,” shows us a third way. And it does so by making sense of death. As Newbigin writes, “We die because nothing that we have done or been is good enough for God’s perfect kingdom.” But Jesus, by his death and resurrection, takes care of the problem of sin and death as a barrier to the kingdom, and that, as we know, makes all the difference both now and forever:

So in so far as I commit all that I do, imperfect as it is, to God in Jesus Christ, knowing that much of it is utterly unfit to survive and yet trusting that what has been committed in faith will find its place in God’s final kingdom, that gives me something to look forward to in which both my hopes for the world and my hopes for myself are brought together.

The book of Revelation offers us the vision of a city which is on the one hand the perfection of all human striving towards beauty, civilization and good order, and on the other hand is the place where every tear is dried and where every one of us knows God face to face, and knows that we are his and he is ours. That is the vision with which the Bible ends, and it is a vision that enables us to see the whole human story and each of our lives within that story as meaningful, and which therefore invites us through Jesus Christ to become responsible actors in history, not to seek to run away from the responsibilities and the agonies of human life in its public dimension. Each of us must be ready to take our share in all the struggles and the anguish of human history and yet with the confidence that what is committed to Christ will in the end find its place in his final kingdom.

That means that as I look forward I don’t see just an empty void, I don’t just see my own death, I don’t just see some future utopia in which I shall have no share. The horizon to which I look forward is that day when Jesus shall come, and his holy city will come down as a bride from heaven adorned for her husband.

What would change if we began reading the Bible not merely as a book of “religion” but as “a unique interpretation of universal history”? How can we ensure our lives are aligned, not according to some ideology or pursuit of personal fulfillment, but to the story of the Bible?

In Gospel Bible, culture, Lesslie Newbigin, mission, Scripture, story, theology