New Evangelical Manifesto [4] theology into the world

Paul Markham writes a chapter entitled A Theology that 'works'. For him the chapter has an existential origin in the sense of not really 'fitting' in Evangelical circles and discovering he was not as alone as he had thought. He also notes that 'new Evangelical' is not a self-designation for most of the people the label is designed to designate: these are people who tend to resist labelling.

Markham outlines a characteristic of New Evangelicals as 'having a Kingdom vision for the common good'. In fact he identifies striving for social justice as the unifying characteristic of the group and that it is a spiritual issue. Furthermore, they (we) are willing to engage in partnership for the common good which implies with people of good will beyond the Christian faith. More than this, such partnerships are  most likely to be 'grassroots' -what I would probably call 'bottom-up' and 'self-organisinng'.

What I found intriguing was linking this with the story of Nehemiah: noting that Nehemiah did not do the SMART planning thing but rather empowered and encouraged people to work together and to do their bit and in so doing to discover their community with one another. He doesn't mention the word 'emergent' or 'emerging' -but here it lurks close behind and so exposes why those terms have had saliency.

I loved this phrase: 'empowering communities to become co-creators of the world not merely consumers of it'. Just so, and I think that the co-creator theme is actually also important, in fact characterising. Related to this is the phrase 'the Commonwealth of God'.

The bottom up approach to action is mirrored by a bottom up approach to theology: rather than starting with the theory and methodology from first principles, let the action open up the imaginative space to understand better and more fully both what is going on and what the theology is. A willingness to "start in the middle" and trust that clarity can emerge is another characteristic.

I found this chapter helpful, because it has a real sense of laying bare some important dynamics of what is happening. The odd thing is that it doesn't quite name them or join them altogether and the word 'emerging' -which would do the latter- only occurs right at the end and not in that way. But it is that word that captures and pulls together the phenomena being identified and furthermore explains the occurrence of the word for at least some 'new Evangelicals'.

In the next chapter, Glen Harold Stassen writes about Kingdom discipleship as being God's vision for the Church. The diagnosis here is that many churches separate Jesus as personal saviour from Jesus the one who calls us to be disciples -following his teaching and example. Furthermore he notes that in practice Christologies that are docetic or gnostic inform their thinking. I think I'd say that monophysite ought to get a look in and perhaps not so much gnostic. Whatever the analysis, the point Stassen is making is that 'conversion' is important.

He mentions too the importance of an incarnational approach by which he means 'entering into the lives of others different from ourselves' (p.66) in a costly way; it's actually an 'incarnational solidarity' especially with the poor. This requires a 'participatory' 'christomorphic' grace; that is to say a recognition that God gives us grace to work with God and that it is a grace that forms us into the image of Christ. He notes that such a grace challenges our culture's relegation of faith matters to the private sphere. And this means, I would say, that his next point is a logical outcome; justice is something not merely about secular authority but something that our faith asserts and looks to find mirrored in the public sphere. Stassen mentions then that prayer is an important lesson from the lives and ministries of Bonhoeffer and MLK. He rightly notes the mismatch between the agenda of the right in the USA which seems to draw from Ayn Rand and, on the other hand, the teaching of Jesus. It is good to know that Stassen detects signs that megachurch leaders are choosing the latter rather than the former to help form their view of faithful Christian living where it impinges on the public sphere.

If I have a concern about Stassen's article it is about the centrality of conversion. I have a phobia about that word. I have a conversion story myself, so it's not a 'phobia' rooted in lack of experience or envy. Rather my concern is twofold. One aspect is knowing people who find it difficult to say they had a conversion because they cannot recall a time when they didn't have a real sense of God's involvement in their life and living formed by Christ. Another aspect is the way that that conversion becomes a procrustean bed forcing people to tell their stories in a certain kind of way, including distorting them by removing aspects that don't work so well and heightening or re-interpreting events to provide the required fit with the canonical story-arcs. One of the ironies of this is that when I deal with evangelical youth, I discover most of them are the products of Christian homes and their 'conversions' are arguably more about transition to adulthood  and integrating their faith in that. That's not to deny there is an element of commitment (or recommitment), but it is to note that there is a huge amount of cultural interpretation and translation going on.

To be more positive and to step back from projecting my hot-button reaction onto the article; I think that he actually means that we have an identity which is founded in Christ rather than social or political loyalties. But the danger is of using a word like this where certain connotative meanings are so prevalent. I suspect that its use is a kind of shibboleth; I can't decide whether it is well or ill to pander to the apparent need for it.