Gospel Conversations Reimagined: Shifts & Disruptions
When I began my PhD research several years ago, I was acutely aware of what felt like a shift taking place in culture and society. I mentioned in my previous post that I was encountering barriers to sharing the gospel in that I never had before. I tried to initiate conversations with different people, but I found that many were increasingly unfamiliar with terms like “God,” “sin,” “guilt,” or “salvation,” and tended to load these terms with meaning that I never intended.
My PhD research afforded me the opportunity to consider the work of missiologists and theologians from a variety of different points of view. I was intrigued to find that many had been anticipating these shifts for nearly a century. I was also motivated to press into the uneasiness I was experiencing and to recognize that this moment is charged with opportunities for the gospel.
Here is a quick snapshot of some of the missiologists and scholars God began to use to shape my initial research:
Missionary Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998), on his return home to Great Britain from the mission field of India, saw the West through a fresh missionary lens and heralded the need for a cross-cultural missionary approach in the so-called Christianized West. He is often quoted for his thought-provoking question, “Can the West be converted?”[1] In other words, Newbigin challenged believers then and now to step out of the comfort of a Christianized culture and take a fresh look at God and the gospel.
Early in my research I was introduced to David Bosch (1929–1992), a South African missiologist and theologian, and his hefty tome, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. His insights and scholarship were quite helpful as I began my research. Bosch contends that the Western church has lost its position and privilege in society today and calls for a revision of traditional approaches to mission in light of this shift.[2]
Contemporary missiologists Craig Van Gelder and Dwight Zscheile in their book, “Participating in God’s Mission: A Theological Missiology for the Church in America, trace several paradigmatic shifts or “disruptions”[3] that have taken place in America since the 17th century that led to an “unraveling” of cultural assumptions.[4] I found it intriguing to look back across history and to consider paradigmatic shifts that have taken place along the way.
Timothy Tennent in Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century, affirms these disruptions as a crisis that concerns missions and Christian identity within the global movement of Christianity. He suggests seven megatrends that are shaping twenty-first century missions.[5]
This initial phase of research revealed two things for me. First, it convinced me of our need to keep reading the Bible. So, rather than study a book at a time—which I had done for many years, I began reading from Genesis to Revelation. It was exciting to discover God and the Bible in a fresh way. In my next post I will unpack a little bit more about my journey and how The True Story of the Whole World shaped my research and my theology in a profound way.
Secondly, my research required that I step out of my cultural robes, so-to-speak and look around, pay attention to these unsettling shifts and listen to the people with whom I was conversing. Together with my colleagues in Cru, I began to understand a little bit more about our cultural landscape in America. I will provide a Missiological Snapshot in a future post.
Where do you experience barriers to engaging in meaningful gospel conversations and where do you see opportunities?
[1] Lesslie Newbigin, “Can the West be Converted?,” IBMR 11, no. 1 (January 1987): 2–7.
[2] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012).
[3] Craig Van Gelder and Dwight J. Zscheile, Participating in God’s Mission: A Theological Missiology for the Church in America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 1.
[4] Van Gelder and Zscheile, Participating, 1.
[5] Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010). Tennent’s seven megatrends include the following: (1) The Collapse of Christendom (p. 18); (2) The Rise of Postmodernism: Theological, Cultural, and Ecclesiastical Crisis (24); (3) The Collapse of the “West-Reaches-the-Rest” Paradigm (p.31); (4) The Changing Face of Global Christianity (p. 33); (5) The Emergence of a Fourth Branch of Christianity, which refers to independent, Pentecostal-oriented, prophetic movements, some originating in insider movements (p. 37); (6) Globalization: Immigration, Urbanization, and new Technologies (42); and (7) Deeper Ecumenism (p. 47).
