Where I Am Now

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

I thought the process to establish a “digital library of resources for the future of our United Methodist Church” was going to be like feeding my chickens. I grab a handful of crack-corn and scatter on the ground and let them pick and choose. In this project I was going to scatter not crack-corn, but a handful of books. I have a list about 50 books that if digested could provide a great deal for the future of our denomination.

However, since beginning this project, I have discovered at least three books (and their ancillary books) that help to provide clear theological ideas for the future. So what I shall be laying out is not a buffet of little gems from lots of books. Instead, at least to me, these three books, and maybe a few more, give a future vision for us.

When I began this, our editor raised with me the question of whether busy church leaders would take the time to go through my many books. After some thought I must admit, I think her question is an important one. I no longer think that is the way to go and will begin laying out the core things I have learned from these several books: Transforming Mission by David Bosch, Foolishness to the Greeks by Lesslie Newbigin, and The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins. This project will entail not just reviews of these books; it will require several articles to tease out the many nuggets of wisdom within the books.

These three books focus on the question of the Church's mission: what is it, what is it not?

David Bosch’s book introduced me to a new field and a new term. Those who have been studying and writing about it call it "missiology." The new term they teach me is Missio Dei. That is the mission of God. What Bosch and Newbigin agree on is that the Church's mission – often defined in United Methodist language as "making disciples of Jesus Christ" – is not central. What is central is God’s mission, that is, God‘s purpose for God's creation.

In the New Testament, we find that the major teaching of Jesus centers around the idea of the Kingdom of God. This builds upon the idea of the scripture of the Jewish people that God has created the universe and us for a reason. Saint Augustine put it this way: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”

If you read modern theology, you will find the writers have trouble with the term Kingdom of God. It wasn’t an unusual term for the time of Jesus. There were kings ruling over kingdoms all around him, including an emperor who ruled over all of them. But these days, unless you’re living in someplace like Great Britain where I am right now, the term "king" or "kingdom" seems quaint and not relevant to the issues of our day.

So, using a different term is a way of dealing with the anachronistic metaphor. Some use the new term "Kin-dom of God" to substitute for Jesus’ term. Others, like John Cobb for instance, talk about the "Commonwealth of God." These thinkers are trying to move away from the top-down political concept to which "kingdom" refers. They want to think of it in terms of the horizontal aspect rather than the vertical aspect. It is not as much that we are living under some tyrant as that we are all equally children of God who desire that God‘s purpose for the world be fulfilled.

Let’s look at my third book for a perspective on the issue, Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom. Jenkins points out that there are two parts of our globe with respect to Christianity. There is the Global North encompassing modern Western culture. And there is the Global South. Most of us are painfully aware of the decline of the Church in the Global North. Not everybody knows that the Global South Church is different. Where the Church is declining in the North, in the South it is growing rapidly. Why is this so?

Here we find an interesting phenomenon. In the North or the modern western culture, we live in a setting of post-Enlightenment thought. Science predominates in this part of the globe. Facts are important; opinions are not. Over against this, except in the major cities of the South, they have never gone through a period of Enlightenment like the North has.

Enlightenment thought with science at the center has captured the minds of the people of the Global North. In the same North, the Church has been fighting a losing, retreating battle with science. For instance, just north of me in Oxford, there is an institution called the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion. One of its latest video lectures that I have watched is that of a woman theologian from Poland, whose lecture attempts to show how science is trying to replace religion, namely Christianity. (https://www.ianramseycentre.ox.ac.uk/article/science-and-the-future-of-religion)

If we return to Newbigin's book, we find a significant quote. It is central to his whole book. “The question with which I am wrestling in these chapters is this as people who a part of a modern western culture with its confidence in the validity of its scientific methods. How can we move from the place where we explain the gospel in terms of our modern scientific worldview to the place where we explain our modern scientific worldview from the point of view of the Gospel (italics mine).

That, my friends, requires not only significant reflection but subsequent action.

The Rev. H. A. “Bud” Tillinghast is a retired clergy member of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church

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