Easter

I was going to call this Newbiginday #3 - but Easter trumps it categorically.  Christ is risen.  Hallelujah.  As a reflection, I give a summary of some more strong words from Newbigin regarding the congregation as the hermeneutic of the Gospel.  Reading below as a part of the Church, I encourage you to know our story more and more each day.  If we are the hermeneutic, the interpretive lens, of the Word, then we must know the Word.  The Bible is our primary way to know the Living Word Jesus Christ as well as our identity and our story.  Looking forwards into this new Christian year, embracing new life everyday, as Christians we must be in the Bible to know how to live in this new life.

Précis of Lesslie Newbigin, “The Congregation as Hermeneutic of the Gospel,” in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 222-233.

            To be faithful to the message of the kingdom of God, the church must claim the high ground of public truth.  This does not mean restoring a past condition of the church; neither martyrdom nor ruling power.  The current situation of a secular democratic state is weakened from divisions within, and cannot respond to religious fanaticism without denying its own principles (222-223).  The church must hold the tension of Jesus as the ultimate source of power and as the one who was nailed helpless to the cross to appropriately grasp the “impossible possibility” of salvation and that it is the supernatural work of God which accomplishes this.  The church is to be a servant as Jesus was a servant: responding effectively to people’s needs while ensuring that God alone is in control as master (224-225).  The Church represents the kingdom of God neither with the power of the world, nor modern techniques of persuasion.  The only appropriate hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe and live by it and who seek together to adopt the character of Jesus (226-227).

            This community has six characteristics: 1) It is a community of praise to God which contrasts the modern reliance on doubt and includes thanksgiving to God who has given us all we need, 2) It is a community of truth which prevents delusion by cultural plausibility structures, 3) It is a community deeply involved in the concerns of its neighbourhood; where good news overflows into good action, (228-229) 4) It is a community where members are trained and nourished in priestly ministry in the world under Jesus the High Priest and which rejoices in and embraces the different gifting of its members, 5) It is a community which functions as a new social order of mutual responsibility, (230-231), 6) It is a community which is shaped so much by the gospel story that it lives with hope!  This local congregation can represent the reality of the new creation, unmasking the illusions of culture (232-233).

A Newbiginday #2

Newbigin getting deep re: inter-religious dialogue and perhaps more controversially (yet apropos) salvation.  Keep in mind this discussion was in 1989 - so one might claim a limited perspective of the 'main world religions' from our point of view.

Précis of Lesslie Newbigin, “The Gospel and the Religions,” in The Gospel in a Pluralist

            Society, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 171-183.

            ‘Religion’ covers a wide variety of entities.  The main world religions can be divided into historical revelation: Judaism; Christianity; Islam, and a-historical revelation: Hinduism; Jainism; Sikhism; Buddhism.  Worldviews are atomic: human individual is ultimate, oceanic: all things merge to one, and relational: meaning in relationships.  The Bible has a relational view.  Religion can also mislead as it excludes secular binding commitments or life principles (171-173).  Scripture does not hold us to a strictly exclusivist view of eternal damnation outside of accepting Jesus.  This view forces creation of barriers and judgments regarding salvation which are for God only to make.  The Inclusivist view (as per Rahner) claims Christ as saviour but acknowledges that this saving can happen outside the church to individuals and religions un-confronted by the gospel reality: “anonymous Christians.”  There are those who attack people unwilling to make a judgment as to whether other religions can save because there is a need for a basis to pray together for world peace (174-175).

            The Christian approach to world religions must be developed as follows: 1) The reality of God as an ocean of love overflowing has meant all people are witness to God’s grace, 2) The revelation of Jesus compels acknowledgement that the world is in sinful rebellion, 3) Everything is held in tension between these two poles: sin and grace - both universalism and exclusivity remove the tension and disable dialogue, 4) “What happens to the non-Christian after death?” cannot be the primary question: a) God alone has the right to answer it (we see this in Jesus’ response to Peter after the rich young man), b) the question abstracts the human soul away from the entirety of the person, leaving no room for the role that is played in the present reality in light of the end of God’s story, c) this question makes the ultimate concern an individual concern and not the glory of God (176-180).  This approach to religion creates four implications: 1) we see the grace of God at work in the lives of those who do not know Jesus as Lord is an implication of God’s greatness, 2) we will cooperate with other religions on projects which move toward the Christian understanding of the end of history, 3) we create context for dialogue with others over the meaning of history, 4) the Christian contribution in the dialogue is to tell the story which God has given to us to tell.  The view developed is therefore exclusivist as Jesus Christ is the unique key, inclusivist as God works his grace as he wills, and pluralist in that God’s grace works in all lives (180-183).