The Gospel and the Changing World

Global Trends and the Advancement of the
Gospel of the Kingdom in the American Context

Alan Andrews and Christopher Morton

Copyright © 2006 • The Navigators • P.O. Box 6000 • Colorado Springs, CO 80934 • www.navigators.org

Table of Contents

Introduction........................................................................................................................................................... 1

Trends Affecting the Spread of the Gospel...................................................................................................... 2

Initiating Trends................................................................................................................................................... 2

GLOBALIZATION............................................................................................................................................ 3

How Globalization Enhances Our Opportunities to Advance the Gospel...................................................... 4

How Globalization Hinders the Advancement of the Gospel......................................................................... 5

URBANIZATION.............................................................................................................................................. 6

How Urbanization Hinders the Advancement of the Gospel.......................................................................... 7

The Opportunities Urbanization Provides to Advance the Gospel................................................................. 9

Responsive Trends.............................................................................................................................................. 10

PLURALISM.................................................................................................................................................... 11

How pluralism enhances our opportunities to advance the Gospel............................................................... 11

How pluralism hinders the advancement of the Gospel................................................................................ 12

Post-Modernity or Philosophical Pluralism....................................................................... 13

How post-modern thought provides opportunities to advance the Gospel................................................... 14

How Post-Modern thought hinders the advancement of the Gospel............................................................ 15

TRIBALISM..................................................................................................................................................... 16

How tribalism enhances our opportunities to advance the Gospel................................................................ 18

How tribalism hinders the advancement of the Gospel................................................................................. 18

The Implications................................................................................................................................................. 19

Bibliography....................................................................................................................................................... 23

Appendix: A Brief Description of the Gospel of the Kingdom................................................................... 25

Forgiveness of sin and repentance................................................................................................................ 25

The Restoration of Humanity in Relationship to God and One Another...................................................... 25

Salvation to the Families and Nations of the Earth....................................................................................... 26

New Life Beginning Today and into Eternity............................................................................................... 26

Substantial Healing within this life............................................................................................................... 26

Kingdoms in Conflict................................................................................................................................... 27

Restoration of Creation................................................................................................................................. 27

The Gospel and the Changing World

Global Trends and the Advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom in the American Context

Alan Andrews and Christopher Morton

Introduction

Culture watchers, such as the late Lesslie Newbigin, believe that in many ways the start of the twenty-first century is closer to the first century than it is to the start of the twentieth century.[1] The Roman Empire was a highly connected environment that in some ways resembled the globally connected world in which we live. The empire that Rome dominated was also an incredibly pluralistic environment, united under the Roman emperor. Whether the thesis is correct or not, many believe that the approach of the early church to advancing the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom is very similar to what we need in the twenty-first century.

Michael Green, in his book Evangelism in the Early Church, discusses at length many of the advantages that the early church had as a result of the unifying influences of the Roman Empire. He also identifies many of the obstacles that the emerging church experienced in its early years. After all was said and done, he drew some significant conclusions. “They went everywhere gossiping the gospel; they did it naturally, enthusiastically, and with the conviction of those who are not paid to say that sort of thing. Consequently, they were taken seriously, and the movement spread, notably among the lower classes.”[2]

Rodney Stark, the sociologist and historian from Baylor, proposes a different thesis on the spread of the Christian faith. While agreeing that Christianity was popular among the lower classes, it was also a full societal movement, including the upper classes and intellectuals.[3]

Both Green and Stark agree on one important fact. Green points out that, “It was axiomatic that every Christian was called to be witness to Christ, not only by life but by lip.” Stark points to these interpersonal connections through social networks. “Social movements recruit primarily on the basis of interpersonal attachments that exist, or form, between the convert and member of the group.”[4]

Believers in the early church were marked by their transformed lives and their willingness to talk to their friends and neighbors about what made their transformation in Christ a reality.

Just as Jesus was incarnate among us, so the early Church followed the mandate of their Lord, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

In the following pages I intend to point out five global trends that are greatly impacting our world and the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom[5]. I hope to demonstrate that while these trends present both obstacles and opportunities to the advancement of the Gospel, in the end a whole Gospel incarnated and proclaimed to those around us will touch their deepest longings. We do not live in a terribly resistant culture as much as we live in a profoundly changing culture.

I hope to provide for church leaders an understanding of the shifting sands of our culture, and to propose a way forward. This should not be a time for pessimism, though there are certainly trends that could lead us in that direction, but a season for understanding of our times (1 Chronicles 12:32). We must realize that our day is one that requires a demonstration of the transformed life in Christ. Integrity, authenticity, and relationships really matter. Our proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom must be vitally linked to genuine relationships and the transformation of our lives.

Trends Affecting the Spread of the Gospel

Our world is incredibly connected today through technology, knowledge, trade, immigration, and so forth. As a result of this connectivity, we see numerous major trends. These trends arise either because of the positive realities of the connected world or because of a reaction against such profound connectedness.  For the purpose of clarity, these trends can be divided into two major types of trends: Initiating Trends (those that have been the catalyst for change in the world) and Responsive Trends (those that have arisen because of the change initially brought by the Initiating Trends). 

Initiating Trends

To say the world has changed has become a catch phrase in the past decades.  This world is not the same as it was in the centuries leading up to it.  The world of the 21st century has been building over the past five hundred years, but these changes have sped up in the past century thanks to two initiating trends: globalization and urbanization.

GLOBALIZATION

Globalization is a controversial word because it means different things to different people. It can represent everything from selling McDonald’s hamburgers in Beijing, to multicultural people from varying social economical groups converging on the internet, forming informal communities around the world. On a deeper level, globalization can be seen as a negative, culture-destroying force where smaller communities are swallowed up and sometimes eradicated in the name of progress and productivity.

Consider for a moment a story I recently heard. One day, a young man went to Starbucks to meet his friend. While there, they discussed globalization and the implications of this trend in modern day society. The more they talked the more they realized how far reaching globalization really is. The point was magnified when the men discovered one of them was wearing shoes that were made in Indonesia, a shirt sewn in Bangladesh made with cotton grown in Uzbekistan and sunglasses that were manufactured in Brazil.

The story becomes even more amusing when you understand that this man drove his Japanese car to Starbucks where he ordered an Ethiopian coffee that he drank as he read the London Telegraph on his laptop that was manufactured in Malaysia and supported in India.

At a less humorous and more scholarly level, Peter Beyer notes in his book Religion and Globalization, “Globalization . . . is more than the spread of one historically existing culture at the expense of all others. It is also the creation of a new global culture with its attendant social structures, one that increasingly becomes the broader social context of all particular cultures in the world, including those of the West. The spread of the global social reality is therefore quite as much at the “expense” of the latter as it is of non-Western cultures. Globalization theories cannot describe contemporary global society as simply the extension of a particular society and its culture (that is, as one part becoming the whole) because these also change dramatically in the process.”[6]

We live in a world that has an emerging and changing global culture. The more connected the world becomes, the more complex and dynamic the global culture becomes. This is a process that has been underway for sometime, and is not going to abate. As Thomas L. Friedman describes it in The World is Flat, the world has entered into a new phase of globalization, whose history he briefly characterizes as follows: the years 1492 to 1800 were “Globalization 1.0,” which was driven by “countries and muscles”; the years 1800 to 2000 were “Globalization 2.0,” which was driven by “multinational companies” and came in two parts, the first marked by “falling transportation costs,” and the second by “falling telecommunication costs”; the years beginning in 2000 are “Globalization 3.0,” which will be marked by the empowerment of “individuals.”[7]

How Globalization Enhances Our Opportunities to Advance the Gospel

Reflect with me back to the nineteenth century when Adoniram Judson, the Congregationalist missionary, traveled to Calcutta after God called him at the Haystack Revival. During his four-month boat trip from Providence to Calcutta, he and his partner concluded they no longer believed in the Congregationalist position on baptism. With no other options available to him, Judson sent his wife back to the United States, on his behalf, to seek new support. Each trip was four months in length, meaning that more than a year elapsed from the time they left Providence until they were set up and ready to minister under their new agency in Calcutta.

Now, fast forwarding to the present—a time where I believe Judson would have been amazed. Instead of a four month voyage across the ocean, today he could fly from Providence to Calcutta, including layovers, in approximately 26 hours. Instead of having to part company with his wife for almost a year, Judson could send an e-mail from one of a dozen internet cafes in Calcutta and have a response from his mission agency regarding his change in views on baptism.

It is apparent that globalization provides opportunities that would not have been contemplated 100 or even 50 years ago. It has paved the way for missionaries to live anywhere in the world fully supported and connected regardless of their location.

The advantages go beyond e-mail and travel. Even in the most disadvantaged locations, technology has more widely opened the door to spreading the Gospel than ever before. For example, today a Hindu in Calcutta can access the entire Bible, both in written and spoken form, on the internet. A Muslim can watch the entire Jesus film from Campus Crusade for Christ online, in Arabic, and then request follow-up materials directly from their website. But it is not just foreigners that are touched by globalization.

Who could forget the feeling that all Americans had watching the news as it played out live on our PCs, televisions, and other media sources on 9/11. In one moment in time, through technology, a nation was united in grief and pain. If used with integrity and in line with the Scriptures, how much more could that same technology minister the Gospel to a lost world?  Already today, Christian are using the internet (in some cases effectively) for evangelism and discipleship.  You may not know, but May 7th is “Internet Evangelism Day.”

How Globalization Hinders the Advancement of the Gospel

Globalization is ultimately about a “culture of modernity.” Its core values reside in the capacity of the human spirit and the power of technology to lead us into continual progress, though whether that is true depends on one’s definition of progress. The scientific method reigns supreme. Many believe the cognitive processes coupled with careful rational analysis, will lead to ultimate fulfillment and destiny.

Modernity creates “Disney World hopes” and expectations for those who pursue its pot of gold at rainbow’s end. These are not hopes for deeper meaning but simply for a “happier life.”

Benjamin Barber describes the extreme hope that some embrace as they seek the rewards of globalization. He says that globalization often “. . . paints that future in shimmering pastels, a busy portrait of onrushing economic, technological, and ecological forces that demand integration and uniformity and that mesmerize peoples everywhere with fast music, fast computers, and fast food—MTV, Macintosh, and McDonald’s—pressing nations into one homogenous global theme park, one McWorld tied together by communications, information, entertainment, and commerce.”[8]  In short, globalization offers a form of utopia for those who seek its benefits. However, it offers width at the cost of depth. Everything collapses into everything else, in a superficial soup that Zygmunt Bauman calls 'liquid life'.[9]

Globalization, and its foundational roots in modernity, creates a misapprehension where the consumer believes in and trusts the fruits of technology, the scientific method and the human spirit rather than the living God. A secular tsunami with technology and materialism at its core, globalization anesthetizes large portions of the global community against the true need of the human soul—the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom.

Another hindrance that globalization brings to the advancement of the Gospel is the perceived association of the Gospel with Western colonialism and modernization.[10] In truth, over the past few centuries the Gospel has followed the progress of colonialism and modernization as it has moved around the world. While this was a natural path for the spread of the Gospel to take, it has still led to a distorted belief in many parts of the world that the Gospel is a Western message—a form of imperialism (primarily American) that seeks to dislocate and ultimately replace existing cultural systems.

Compounding this issue is the fact that many around the world view shows like Baywatch, and Desperate Housewives, which we agree are hardly reflective of Christian values, as an illustration of modern Western Christianity. Presentations like these shows are in direct conflict with the beautiful message of the grace and love of the Lord Jesus undermine Christianity at its core. This is one primary reason why, as believers, we must utilize technology to counter these hollow travesties of our faith and spread the Gospel in integrity, love, and compassion.

Another barrier that globalization presents to the advancement of the Gospel is the creation of “cyber or virtual community.” These communities provide safety without depth. Yet they still meet profound social needs without requiring full disclosure as they encourage us to conceal our identities. This not only encourages a distancing of the person from their true selves and others, it inoculates them to the gift of true community to which Jesus calls us. This false idol of cyber-community is so destructive precisely because it can give the illusion of the real thing but can never satisfy.

Globalization provides both profound opportunities and hindering factors in the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom. In the end it presents a distorted and reduced view of reality. The result is deep distrust and skepticism among many around the globe. Breaking through into the lives of these people will require a deep demonstration of the Gospel of the Kingdom in life and message. The heart cry of those who have been broken by the “culture of modernity” is for authenticity and integrity— the very gifts that the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom offer.

URBANIZATION

In many ways the growth in urbanization is an extension of globalization and the “culture of modernity.” Harold Netland points out, “One of the most significant consequences of modernization has been urbanization. The massive shift from rural communities to urban centers constitutes one of the great social transitions of modern times.”[11]

I have experienced this transition in my own life. From my early childhood until I was a young man ready to head off to college, I lived a small town in West Virginia. I knew my neighbors, coworkers, fellow students and the folks at church intimately—as they did me. I walked the streets day and night in safety and security. I rarely experienced a sense of danger but instead developed a deep feeling of community that I have carried with me all of my life.

In our small community we had enough of our own social problems that make it easy for me not to idealize those days. However, there are profound differences between rural West Virginia and the urban centers where I have lived most of my adult life. The largest difference, I believe, is that urbanization does not allow for that sense of security and community that existed in my small hometown. The rural community setting, for the most part, is quickly becoming a distant memory of times gone by.

In the past century we have witnessed a massive movement of people from rural to urban centers. Today, almost 80 percent of Americans live in urban settings. Throughout the world that percentage is up to 47 percent (2005 World Population Data Sheet). It is the promise of modernity, whether they realize it or not, that most often draws people to the urban centers. But, according to the U.N., most people who come to the cities find poverty, not the promises of modernity. More than 1 billion urban poor live in the cities of the developing world. This trend looks to increase, even as more and more rural dwellers come to these same cities in search of the fruits of modernity.

In its 2002 edition, Britannica puts it this way: “Urban-industrial life offers unprecedented opportunities for individual mobility and personal freedom. It also promises the attainment of dazzling prizes, in wealth and honours, for those with the enterprise and talent to reach for them. The other side of the coin is the loneliness of the city dweller and the desolation of failure for those who cannot win any of the prizes.”

As Emile Durkheim analyzed it (presciently almost a century ago), the individual is placed in the pathological condition of anomie. He experiences “the malady of infinite aspirations.”[12] The decline of religion and community removes the traditional restraints on appetite, allowing it to grow morbidly and without limit. At the same time the competitive modern order that stimulates these unreal expectations provides insufficient and unequal means for their realization. The result is an increase in suicide, crime, and mental disorder.”[13]

The sad reality is that the promise of modernity comes at a great price.

How Urbanization Hinders the Advancement of the Gospel

Picture for a moment a young woman—let’s call her Kathryn—who has spent the majority of her life growing and developing in a tight-knit rural community. She is an all-state basketball star and on the road to being valedictorian of her graduating class. When the temptations of life have come, the knowledge of a small army of Moms and Dads watching, guarding, and when necessary correcting her, has been more than enough to help her avoid the temptation. Life is simple. Nevertheless, she has a deep understanding of her place within not only her family—but also in her community as a whole.

Midstream of her senior year, Kathryn’s father decides to sell his grocery store and move the family to the city that is just over two hours away. Times have been hard and he needs to provide a better living for his family and make more money just in case that basketball scholarship they’ve all been counting on doesn’t come through.

In what seems like a blink of an eye, Dad is working at a leading grocery store where, instead of enjoying rich conversation with friends, he now listens to the complaints of the various patrons criticizing his inefficient checking abilities. Dad feels like a no name. But, he perseveres since his bottom line has improved and he believes the benefits to his family by far outweigh the negatives.

Mom has settled nicely into their new town home—though she longs for her friends. She can’t pick up the phone anymore to “just say hi” since everyone is a long distance phone call away. Everything is different. Mom begins to feel unfulfilled and uninspired in life. Maybe she needs to get a job.

Kathryn enters school and instantly experiences culture shock. Now she is just another face in the crowd. It seems to her that nobody is interested in her old life or accomplishments. She isn’t even able to play on the first string of the school basketball team. “It just wouldn’t be fair,” the coach explained. Soon, Kathryn feels lost, unimportant, and insignificant. Her once stellar grades no longer reflect her potential or abilities. The teachers are too overworked to compare her new grades with her old ones and there is no longer an army of Moms and Dads to catch her as she slips into a cycle of ambiguity and low self-esteem.

While we would all agree the story above is not what happens to all who move from a small rural community to a more urban city setting, it is easy to see the dynamics that are present in a more urbanized setting.

When people move to the “big city,” more often than not their conscious goal is not the material dream but rather a better quality of life just as the father’s was in the prior story. Soon, however, the trappings of the promises of modernity (a better bottom line, money for college, Mom returning to work to be fulfilled) give way to the central promise of material gain.

Jesus said, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). This puts the advancement of the Gospel in direct conflict with the central value of most people living in urban centers. To say the least, we are dealing with Kingdoms in conflict.

The material dream of urbanization places profound stress on most people living in large city environments. One of the first sacrifices made on the altar of materialism is severance of deep relational connections, or community. Rarely do people in the modern urbanized world get to know their neighbors. However, society is crying out for deeper relationships and a rich sense of community.

We need only look as far as two of the most popular TV shows in recent history: Seinfeld and Friends. Each show featured fellow apartment mates hanging out, talking and visiting each other’s homes regularly. It was a cozy picture—but it belies the reality that people now move in and out of apartments and houses in the urbanized world without really getting to know each other.

One has to wonder if shows like Seinfeld and Friends were so popular because of the punch lines or because they struck a common chord in the hearts of people who want to be deeply connected in the community in which they live.

Robert Putnam addressed the problem of lack of community in America in his book Bowling Alone. He blames sub-urbanization more than urbanization for the problem of disconnection. He says, “Could disengagement perhaps be linked not to urbanization, but sub-urbanization? Suburbs have been a feature of American life since the mid-nineteenth century, driven in large measure by revolutions in transportation. First the streetcar and later the automobile enabled millions of us to live on the leafy urban periphery, while enjoying the economic, commercial, and cultural advantages of the city.”[14] No matter whether the problem is strictly urbanization or sub-urbanization, it is clear that movement to large cities is creating a serious problem for us.

The problem of isolation is compounded for those who are shut out of participating in the economic and social dreams that urbanization seeks to offer. Not only are individuals isolated from one another, but racial communities and social classes also become isolated from one another. Putnam puts his finger on the problem when he says, “Suburbanization meant greater separation of workplace and residence and greater segregation by race and class. Such segregation was hardly new to American cities, but increasingly in the postwar period it took on new character.”[15]  What is true in America is to some degree true around the world. Many countries are not as suburbanized as America, but similar issues manifest themselves in different ways.

This lack of connection with one another creates other challenges as well. As people become more isolated from one another and less connected, crime increases. This factor not only creates real danger to people, but it also increases the fear factor. The combined problem of lack of connection, isolation, and fear opens the door for deep distrust. It is this lack of trust and skepticism on the part of people living in urbanized settings that becomes a big problem for the advancement of the Gospel.

The Opportunities Urbanization Provides to Advance the Gospel

Missiologist and urban expert Ray Bakke said, “In 1900 about 8 percent of the world’s population lived in sizable cities. Today almost 50 percent of this earth—over three billion people—lives in world-class cities. We aren’t prepared for that.”[16] The fact that opportunities for the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom abound in major urban centers is obvious. The difficulty, as Bakke points out, is meeting the challenge.

The Gospel of the Kingdom speaks powerfully to the material dream of modernization and urbanization. As people begin to realize that the dream of the “culture of modernity” is so shallow, their openness to the Good News of the Kingdom should greatly increase. By gaining an understanding of the Gospel of the Kingdom, not only do people learn to put material possessions in the proper perspective, they also learn about true spiritual reality that aligns the whole of our lives to the image of Christ.

Accordingly, the isolation and fear that abounds in urban areas should open the hearts of thousands as they seek to find meaningful community. Once again the Gospel of the Kingdom has the capacity to provide the meaningful connection with God and others that will introduce them to the true community of the Spirit.

The Gospel of the Kingdom also provides reconciliation to racial and class isolation that abounds in our urban centers. Jesus tore the relational dividing wall down and opened the door to genuine reconciliation and just relationships through His work on the cross and bodily resurrection (Ephesians 2:13-17).

The real question is, “Are we prepared to take on the task?” Urban ministry demands both life and message. Once again the failure of the “culture of modernity” to deliver on its promises is creating a climate of skepticism and distrust. Only as the followers of Jesus embrace the Kingdom message and embody it before those in need will people begin to trust again. This means that a large segment of the Body of Christ will have to intentionally live and minister among lost people. Evangelism by extraction will not communicate the integrity of the Gospel of the Kingdom like genuine involvement of God’s people in the lives of the lost and broken.

Responsive Trends

The shrinking and interconnecting of the world through globalization and the destruction of traditional ways of life that have occurred through urbanization have created pushback from people and communities.  While these pushbacks take many different individual forms, the three main and overarching responses to the trends of globalization and urbanization are pluralism, postmodernity, and tribalism. 

There is a great deal of overlap and connection between pluralism and postmodernity.  Indeed, it could be argued that they form one single trend, rather than two separate ones.  However, there are individual complexities and opportunities that are unique to both pluralism and postmodernity which can be better appreciated by viewing each trends separately.

As shall be discussed, while pluralism and postmodernity have a sense of the current, tribalism appears to be a 19th century problem.  However, as the world moves into the 21st century tribalism is as much a current and present response to the changes brought by globalization and urbanization as pluralism and postmodernity.

PLURALISM

Pluralism is a multi-faceted word encompassing cultural pluralism, religious pluralism, racial pluralism, ideological pluralism, and the like. Lesslie Newbigin defined pluralism in the following way: “[Pluralism] holds that variety and diversity are positive good, and denial of variety and diversity is bad. In its extreme form, pluralism opposes syncretism, i.e., the combining of various traditions. Rather, it so affirms the integrity of a given approach to life that any attempt to change it is considered a moral violation.”[17]

While various forms of pluralism have been with us for at least 2,000 years, modern forms of such thinking powerfully emerged at the start of the twentieth century. Essentially, this modern version developed as an attempt to minimize the harsh side of modernity. Many social scientists began to espouse the view that pluralism would provide the social backdrop to allow immigrants in Europe and America to cope with the demands of modernity. As the editors of Britannica note, “Pluralism was stressed most vigorously in England during the early twentieth century by a group of various writers who reacted against what they alleged to be the alienation of the individual under conditions of unrestrained capitalism. It was necessary, they argued, to integrate the individual in a social context that would give him a sense of community, and they pointed to the medieval structure of guilds, chartered cities, villages, monasteries, and universities as an example of such a society. Pluralists argued that some of the negative aspects of modern industrial society might be overcome by economic and administrative decentralization.”[18]

We live in a world today where more likely than not the person living next door to us was not raised in the same religion, in the same state, or even the same country as us. We are exposed to a world—through media and other technology—that brings varied viewpoints right into our homes, our schools, and our workplaces. This has many positives to it, but it also has created some real obstacles to the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

How pluralism enhances our opportunities to advance the Gospel

Healthy pluralism opens eyes to legitimate differences in the world. It pushes people out of comfort zones and forces them to actually engage with those who are not the same as they are. Pluralism breaks down mindsets and teaches us to see the world from other points of view and that God actually created a very diverse world.

Matthew explains when Jesus went to towns and villages preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, He saw the multitudes and felt compassion for them. Like Jesus, believers must see the plight of those who are different. Pluralism pushes us into environments that allow us to see people as they really are rather than how they seem to be from a distance.

Pluralism also seeks to honor the margins of our society. This aligns with much of Jesus’ own ministry. When Jesus announced His ministry, He made it clear that He had come for the poor, prisoners, brokenhearted, those who were fainting, and those who mourn (Isaiah 61:1–4; Luke 4:18–19).

We should rejoice that we live in a world that on many occasions looks to those in need and seeks to give them a place in society. We should also honor this commitment in so far as it aligns with the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom.

The very nature of the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom is about the nations (ethnos). The Gospel is indeed good news for all the peoples of the world. In this sense, the Gospel is intended to go to the ends of a pluralistic world. Our message offers to the nations entrance into the Kingdom of God without ethnocentric baggage.

The Apostle Paul fought for the rights of the Gentiles to freely hear the Gospel without the demands of the Jewish law. He predicated the calling of his whole ministry on Isaiah’s Servant Song in Isaiah 49:6; Acts 13:47, in saying that he was called to be a light to the Gentiles and to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

We live in a pluralistic world by the design of God. In this sense we should honor and celebrate the diverse nature of God’s creation. It is only when the world embraces a pluralism that rejects God and the centrality of His person does pluralism present fundamental problems to believers.

How pluralism hinders the advancement of the Gospel

Pluralism, at its core, embraces the principle of tolerance. Tolerance is commendable and valuable in most circumstances, however, it simply cannot be maintained in all situations. God is a holy God, and there are things that He, because of His character, will not tolerate and because of this, neither can believers.

In a pluralistic, tolerance-based society, no one has the right to say that anyone’s approach to life is wrong. Tolerance is the primary value—trumping all other values, especially the search for truth and the importance of meaning in people’s lives. What we are left with is the inability to aid anyone in the search for what is real.

Concerns about tolerance have had a profound influence on the ability to advance the Gospel. Even though believers now literally live alongside people from every faith on earth, many have become very hesitant and filled with doubt about spreading the Gospel. We have, in some cases, lost our sense of boldness and joyful confidence.

Recently, I have been reading through the Book of Acts on a weekly basis. As I was flying to Phoenix, I paused to ask myself what I was learning through these weekly journeys in God’s Word. I jotted down a number of words that reflect how the apostles ministered the Gospel. Words like boldness, personal security, wisdom, and power came to mind. As I reflected, I tried to determine what it is that causes many believers, including myself, to lack these qualities.

Tolerance, in the sense of respect for people and their beliefs, is essential. Far too often the message of Jesus has been shared with arrogance and the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom has been stymied. In this sense, we should all be more tolerant of others. We should never forget Jesus came in love and with open arms. When we walk outside of His example we violate the very essence of how Jesus comes to people.

Conversely, believers must be committed to overcome impediments that arise during discussions about convictions and what they believe to be true in love. With Peter we must say, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19–20).

Pluralism in the end leads to less meaning, not more. Pluralism seeks to create multiple centers of thought with all having equal importance just because they are there. As we have entered into a globalized world, where we interact with people who are very different from us in language, culture, tradition, and especially religion, the ability to find connection becomes more difficult. The way we find that connection is often through “lowest-common–denominator” thinking. When we disagree we simply agree to tolerate one another’s views. “Lowest-common–denominator” thinking is an insult to the intelligence of human beings created in the image of God.

We can respect the right of others to express their beliefs, while clearly articulating ours. This means that while we can affirm the freedom of people everywhere to believe as they see fit, we do not claim that all beliefs are equally valid or true. We cannot abandon the uniqueness of the claims and person of Jesus Christ in order to somehow “get along.”

Post-Modernity or Philosophical Pluralism

Pluralism and post-modernity are closely related.  While pluralism has operated within modernity, post-modernity is a deeper philosophical extension of pluralism and a reaction against modernity.  Post-modernity remains as of this point a complex and intentionally ill defined philosophy. It is not a complete rejection of all that modernity stands for, but a rejection of the arrogance of modernity’s commitment to absolutes. It is what comes after modernity while continuing to embrace some of what is thought to be the best of modernity. Some have preferred to call it “hyper-modernity.” Post-modernity deconstructs the use of power and often attempts to lift up rejected and ignored margins. It embraces pluralism as a way of viewing reality.

D. A. Carson says that “philosophical pluralism (post-modernity) has generated many approaches in support of one stance: namely, that any notion that a particular ideology or religious claim is intrinsically superior to another is necessarily wrong. The only absolute creed is the creed of pluralism.”[19]

Robert Greer affirms Carson’s comments by stating, “Roughly stated, modernism affirms the existence of absolute truths. Post-modernism affirms the opposite: the nonexistence of absolute truths.”[20]

Post-modernity insists that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any metanarrative or all encompassing story that can be embraced as an explanation of life’s reality. The proponents of post-modernity seek to demonstrate that truth-claims are really a product of our own cultural context. In fact, many proponents of philosophical pluralism even suggest that most metanarratives are really motivated by our own desire for power and political control.

Many intellectual elites of the Western world have wholeheartedly bought in on the fundamental tenets of post-modernity. Other intellectuals around the non-Western world have done so as well. Most of the media and entertainment industries espouse a popular version of post-modern thought. In many instances it is part of the air we breathe.

Post-modern thought, with its commitment to philosophical pluralism, presents formidable challenges to the advancement of the Gospel. But we must remember that the early church emerged in a pluralistic setting. God’s wisdom and power are on the side of His people: “Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord” (Zechariah 4:6).

How post-modern thought provides opportunities to advance the Gospel

There are healthy aspects of post-modern thought. The ability to fully grasp truth with propositions and fully explain reality has been overstated. There is also validity to the charge that Christian truth-claims have sometimes been more influenced by cultural perspective rather than a clear understanding of the Scriptures. Unquestionably, some believers’ insistence on truth has been motivated more by a desire to control than by obedience to the truth. Post-modern thought has sobered and humbled many in the Christian community—including myself—for an exaggerated and overstated understanding of God’s truth.

Post-modern thinking has also had a profound impact on secular human thought that emerged out of the enlightenment. Many intellectuals were certain that truth would emerge if given time and the pure application of the scientific method. Post-modern thought has dashed those dreams and burst the bubble of modernity’s intellectual arrogance.

Post-modern thinking has blasted down the walls of modernity’s reduced scientific certainties. People are now open to intuitive, creative, and subjective thought. Spirituality is “big” and it is “in”. All of this opens people to all kinds of spiritual danger. However, the door is also opened to explore the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom. It is no longer ridiculous to think that God may reveal Himself. The pursuit of God is no longer out of the question though the process of seeking Him can go down some profoundly difficult paths. The winding road to the revealed Savior of the Scriptures may be long and difficult, but the way is open if the process is handled carefully.

Many who embrace post-modern thinking are willing to engage an authentic Gospel reflected in life and message and presented with humility and grace. While authoritative truth-claims may not have the same impact as in years past, lives that have been truly transformed by the power of Jesus Christ can have a prevailing influence. Just as the early church advanced the Gospel by means of ordinary people living out the life of Christ, so we, too, can have a similar impact in our own world today.

Advancing the Gospel of the Kingdom in a pluralistic, post-modern world, requires “insiders” living out their lives in Jesus with integrity, transparency, and vulnerability. They will have to enter the unbelieving world, build trust, and communicate life and message with grace and beauty. If we are willing to pay the price to become “insiders” in our post-modern world, we are much more likely to gain a hearing.

People in a post-modern world have a deep desire to experience life in community and have a place to belong. When they see people incarnating and proclaiming Christ with humility and grace, they are often interested and attracted to such communities. They are often willing to step into these environments to taste and see if the Lord is really good.

How Post-Modern thought hinders the advancement of the Gospel

Post-modern thought is at minimum a powerful deconstruction of language, ethics, and aesthetics.[21] To the post-modern’s mind, our language, our pursuit of justice and our pursuit of beauty are only mental constructs in our culture to perpetuate our desire for power and control. There is no identifiable meta-narrative (big story) that leads us into absolute truth. We must learn to be content with who we are in our own cultural constructs.

For centuries, the Christian community aligned itself with those who governed in a culture of Christendom. As modernity emerged there was a strong attempt to move the Church and Christendom to the margins of Western Society and replace it with its own secular metanarrative. Now with the rise of post-modernity we see an attempt to push both the Church and modernity off center stage and replace it with the central cultural values of tolerance and pluralism. To some degree it has succeeded.

Post-moderns place a high value on experience as a guide to what is genuinely and personally believed. This presents a problem for us who seek to advance the Gospel among those with a post-modern mindset. The tendency to exalt experience over the content of the Gospel message can lead to an ongoing experimentation with faith rather than genuine repentance and entrance into the Kingdom of God. Certainly truth really becomes truth to us as we genuinely experience it. However, when experimentation is simply trial and error to see if it feels good, then we have a problem.

For most post-moderns the critique of modernity has not led to a rejection of the material dream of modernity. While they often decry the profound impact of modernity and capitalism on our culture, for the most part they seem to be pursuing the same material dream (the central idol of American culture) that their mothers and fathers sought.[22] For them it is personally legitimate to pursue material goals while critiquing the aspects of culture and faith that offend them. Personal consistency is not necessarily valued or required. For those of us who seek to convince people out of logic and consistency, proclaiming Christ to post-moderns can be very frustrating.

What is apparent is that the advancement of the Gospel will require attention to life and message. Post-moderns must see and experience the Good News and then they are often ready to hear the message. Not all post-moderns are hardcore. Many are rather soft in their commitment to post-modern thinking. Generally they are very committed to the two core values of tolerance and pluralism. Many post-moderns are wounded and fragmented in their lives and have lived with pain from the breakdown of the family and relationships. There is a longing to see authentic, integrated lives in strong relationships.

Most often the moral values of post-moderns are very fluid with very few strong convictions—they tend to live with truth preferences rather than core moral convictions. However, their choices often lead to shame without an ability to identify why they feel the way they do. In this cultural milieu it is essential that there be a strong connection between a demonstration of the life in Christ and a loving message of the Good News. Advancing the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom demands a demonstration of wholeness and integrity. We no longer have the option of presenting a short presentation of the Gospel among most post-moderns. Living and ministering among the lost will be the required approach to mission.

TRIBALISM

Globalization, urbanization, pluralism and post-modernity are in many ways an attempt to “get along” with the new world as we all pursue the material dream. Tribalism is an attempt to go back to the world we knew—its core values and the ways that made the good old days so good. This is happening in most parts of the world—in the Muslim world with the rise of fundamentalist groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, in Europe with the backlash against the World Bank, and in America with the problems of racism, anti-Semitism, and white supremacy. As Peter Kuzmic remarked, “One of the most disturbing threats to peace in our time is the shift ‘from totalitarianism to tribalism’, issuing in conflicts rooted in national, ethnic, and religious differences.”[23] I might add also that many Christians are not immune to this kind of thinking as we sense that we are losing our place in society.

Tribalism usually arises among those who perceive themselves as “losers” in the new globalized world. These people think something has gone terribly wrong—we have lost out in the spoils of the world because we have lost touch with our roots, the values and beliefs that used to make us strong and successful. The response is not just an inward turn, but a turn marked by anger at what the world has become and what it has done to them. As Ralph Peters of the New York Post commented after his 2006 travels, “the tenacity of local traditions defeated global models . . . globalization as we know it has not encouraged a sense of common humanity among the masses—only a sense of common interests among the new aristocracy (with no sense of noblesse oblige). For the billions left outside the gated communities, globalization has excited fear and revived old hatreds: It’s revelry for the rich, rivalry for the poor.”[24]

This is true even when the winners are only marginally better off than the losers. The spate of post Cold War civil-wars in nations cobbled together from various ethnic communities in Yugoslavia, West Africa, and Afghanistan are not wars marked by poor vs. rich, but poor vs. slightly-less-poor. Around the world there is a new emphasis on local loyalties in an attempt to preserve or attain a better life situation.

Benjamin Barber has encapsulated this in his book Jihad vs. McWorld. He uses Jihad as an expression of tribalism, saying, “I use the term in its militant construction to suggest dogmatic and violent particularism of a kind known to Christians no less than Muslims, to Germans and Hindis as well as to Arabs. The phenomena to which I apply the phrase have innocent enough beginnings: identity politics and multicultural diversity can represent strategies of a free society trying to give expression to its diversity. What ends as Jihad may begin as a simple search for local identity; some set of common personal attributes to hold out against the numbing and neutering uniformities of industrial modernization and the colonizing culture of McWorld.”[25] Tribalism becomes explicit in American society as hard-liners of both left and right forsake dialogue and listen only to their own gurus. The center is a lonely place.

How tribalism enhances our opportunities to advance the Gospel

Tribalism calls for a deliberate approach to the advancement of the Gospel. Messages brought from outside the tribe are naturally distrusted, naturally rejected, naturally feared. The primary way to advance the Gospel in a tribalized setting is to earn trust by incarnating the Gospel in the tribe’s midst. Hearts must be won by first winning trust. Trust is earned when the Gospel is seen as a friend to the tribe and not a danger, then the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom can advance. Because of the high-trust nature of those within the tribe, the acceptance of Jesus and His Kingdom by key people can lead to the rapid movement through the rest of the tribe. But this happens only after the hard work of building trust has first happened.

As the Gospel of the Kingdom is advanced in a more and more tribalized world, it is important to understand that demonstration of the Gospel becomes essential. The luxury of proclamation alone is no longer as powerful as it once was. Our world cries out for a demonstrated Gospel that can then be proclaimed as trust is built.

How tribalism hinders the advancement of the Gospel

Tribalism, as a response to globalization, shuts down the points of entry of new things into the tribe. What is outside is evil and dangerous. As Barber again points out, “Jihad in its most elemental negative form is a kind of animal fear propelled by anxiety in the face of uncertainty and relieved by self-sacrificing zealotry—an escape out of history. Because history has been a history of individuation, acquisitiveness, secularization, aggressiveness, atomization and immoralism it becomes in the eyes of Jihad’s disciples the temporal chariot of wickedness, a carrier of corruption that, along with time itself, must be rejected. Moral preservationists, whether in America, Israel, Iran or India, have no choice but to make war on the present to secure a future more like the past: depluralized, monocultured, unskepticized, reenchanted. Homogenous values by which women and men live orderly and simple lives were once nurtured under such conditions.”[26]

In that environment the Gospel will be seen as alien. As David Ronfeldt of the RAND Corporation has stated, “Democracy may appear in tribal councils, but it is not liberal, since it does not tolerate minority rights and dissident views once a consensus emerges.”[27] This means that outside voices are decidedly out-of-favor among the community. Gaining the right to be heard requires overcoming the loss of hope that has drawn people to tribalism’s skeptical message about the future. This is not a “broadcast the message” and leave situation. It is a come and learn our ways, live with us, prove you have what is in our best interests at heart, and then—and only then—will we hear what has caused you to abandon all to be part of our community.

The Implications

As we observe the five major global trends, one must ask the question, “What are the implications?” Many would say that the Western world is now engaged in a profound paradigm shift. Where the shift is leading us is not yet clear, but what is clear is that we are experiencing significant change with post-modern thought leading the way.

Post-modernity is virtually part of the air we breathe. I am convinced that the influence of post-modernity will continue to affect us for some time to come. However, I am also convinced that what we are experiencing in culture is really the accumulated impact of the five trends that have been described above.

These five global trends are like multiple currents that intersect at times to produce powerful forces that effect the way we live and think. Post-modernity is very significant but the other trends are as well. Some cultural analyst would like to make globalization, urbanization, pluralism and tribalism major components of post-modernity. I prefer to use the image of multiple intersecting currents. The trends are not the same but they certainly work together in powerful ways.

The central strand that runs through most of the trends is the focus on the material dream in pursuit of affluence, pleasure, and power. Our world in varying forms offers the “fruit of the tree.” However, in the end it does not offer the deep abiding relationships and reconciliation that is so desperately needed. It is true that post-modernity calls, to some degree, for deeper relationships, but in most cases what results is more image than substances.

The overwhelming impact of these cultural trends is a reduced value system that can only produce “winners” and “losers”—far more losers than winners. A further complicating factor is that today’s winners are often tomorrow’s losers. We also observe that even the winners live with a profound sense of emptiness—observe entertainers, sports personalities, politicians, and corporate executives in general.

These global trends cannot produce a value system that provides for healthy marriages, wholesome relationships, safe and secure children, fair employment, racial reconciliation, justice for the poor, and a cared for creation. The material dream is too narrow and too reduced to provide for the kind of deep longings that lie at the heart of most people.

Post-modernity may “honor” the margins, but essentially it is a critique of modernity with little substance to offer to those in need. It is more a way of thinking or an ethos than a comprehensive philosophical system. The unwillingness of post-moderns to deal with the material dream reveals post-modernity’s inadequacy. It is one thing to correctly criticize the past, but a very different thing to provide for the future. Therein is the weakness of post-modernity.

We live in a culture that offers a material hope and its by-products that it cannot possibly bring to fruition. The writer of Proverbs tells us that, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). Western culture has advanced a dream that has now led us to what some call the “therapeutic society,” as we numb the pain. When our hopes cannot possibly become a reality, mental illness is not far behind.

It is this gap between what is promised and what our culture cannot deliver that produces the neurosis of our age. We are a society that has not necessarily lost hope but it is incredibly worried about attaining that hope. When the pain, fragmentation of broken families, addiction, broken relationships, and trauma hit, our culture has a limited ability to cope.

Western culture now lacks (and I might add rejects) a comprehensive story that explains reality. We do not have categories that allow us to understand suffering and pain. Neither do we have the capacity to understand broken relationships, unresolved sin and wounding. Our emptiness and limited categories for defining reality opens the door of many hearts to deeper and more comprehensive answers to life.

Our culture produces in people a deep longing and desire for wholeness and a place to belong. This opens the way for a story embodied (incarnated) in community that explains reality. In other words, the story has to be tested in the fires of everyday life and be shone to have integrity and authenticity. Post-modernity doubts that such a story exists and is deeply suspicious of anyone claiming to have such a story. When life is lived authentically and gracefully, it impresses post-moderns.

The Scriptures provide us with a marvelous and comprehensive story that describes life as it is. The Gospel of the Kingdom provides hope for our relationship with God, our relationships with one another and hope for creation through Jesus Christ.

What the heart of humanity seeks is shalom (wholeness) and only the Gospel of the Kingdom can deliver that wholeness. What is required is the whole Gospel for the whole person for the whole world.

Cornelius Plantinga describes the meaning of shalom in rich terminology. “In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom He delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

The Bible tells us why things are not as they should be and how the rule and reign of God is about turning the world right-side up. We are told that those who enter the Kingdom are immediately participating in the processes that ultimately completely makes things right. God’s Kingdom story is a story that trumps all stories (a metanarrative) in that it does describe reality in the present and in the future. It is a description of wholeness and beauty in the midst of our pain and disappointment. It makes sense of what is. It offers the possibility of living in the Kingdom reality.

If we, the people of God, want to influence this world that is now in a significant paradigm shift, it will require demonstrated solutions to multiple and complex problems. The world we live in is deeply fragmented and fractured. We live in a world of broken relationships at every level. We also live in a world of racial hatred, injustice to the poor, and a poorly cared for planet. Post-modern communicators are powerfully pointing out these incredible problems in living color, but they have limited or inadequate answers.

The Gospel of the Kingdom probes the depths of our needs before God, one another and the earth. It speaks to our heavenly and earthly problems in providing salvation in Christ and life in the Kingdom of God now. It brings us into right relationship with God and one another through the work of the cross and the sanctifying work of Christ. It allows us entrance into an incredible environment of grace that opens us up to be truthful and to seek truth. It is concerned for our formation in Christ, for reconciled relationships, and justice. In short, the Gospel of the Kingdom is about shalom (wholeness) in every aspect of our lives.

In 1947, Carl Henry challenged evangelicals to develop a deeply applied theology of the Kingdom of God.[28] Most observers would say that his admonition was never thoroughly applied. Today, more than ever, the Church stands in need of a well developed and applied theology of the Kingdom especially as it speaks to discipleship, reconciled relationships, and to creation.

A vivid illustration of the point I am making is the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. It is now clear, in my opinion, that this is an issue that evangelicals should have more intentionally engaged. Whether in the United States or in South Africa, evangelicals were often found on the wrong side of the issue. Today we are terribly vulnerable to the critique of the post-moderns. A well developed understanding of the whole Gospel to the whole person to the whole world would have helped immensely.

The implication for us is that we can no longer proclaim a reduced Gospel that merely calls on us to gain entrance into heaven and hopes that we will volunteer to be Jesus’ disciples. The Gospel we live and proclaim must be relevant for the whole of life. The world will only be impressed with what is whole, what has integrity, and what speaks to the whole of life. If we live well and proclaim well the whole Gospel for the whole person to the whole world, we will have a powerful voice in our world for years to come.

If the Body of Christ in America is to advance the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom, mission, spiritual transformation, and community will have to be organically connected as a life giving whole. Integrated relationships will be vitally important. Fragmented and specialized ministry will be less effective while holistic ministry focused on the whole person will be more quickly embraced and understood.

Certainly, we all understand that our ability to demonstrate and proclaim a whole Gospel of the Kingdom will always lack complete fullness. We know that we live in the in between time of the inauguration of the Kingdom and its consummation. However, as Francis Schaeffer said, we can expect “substantial healing” now. Substantial transformation is possible and it is this possibility that must be demonstrated to a tragically fragmented and damaged world. Our world cries for wholeness, integrity, authenticity—not perfection.

We must be a Church that lives and speaks the Kingdom of God with humility, confidence, joy, and personal security. Peter said it well when he spoke to the religious leaders of his day, “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

 “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

!!! Bibliography

Bakke, Ray. A Theology as Big as the City. Downers Grover: Intervarsity Press, 1997.

Barna, George. Revolution. Carol Stream, IL.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2005.

Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991.

Conn, Harvie M. et al. The Urban Face of Mission: Ministering the Gospel in a Diverse and Changing World. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002.

Conn, Harvie. M. and Ortiz, Manuel. Urban Ministry: The Kingdom, the City, & the People of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Greer, Robert C. Mapping PostModernism: A Survey of Christian Options. Downers Grove: InverVarsity Press, 2003.

Hiebert, Paul G. The Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts: Affirming Truth in a Modern/Postmodern World. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1999.

Henry, Carl. F. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmann’s Publishing, 1947.

Long, Jimmy. Emerging Hope: A Strategy for Reaching Postmodern Generations. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

McLaren, Brian. More Ready than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

Moore, Russell D. The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective.

Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004.

Netland, Harold. Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith and Mission. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture. Grand Rapid: Eerdmans Publishing, 1986.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1989.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Trinitarian Faith and Today’s Mission. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1964.

Perkins, John M. et al. The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Smith, David. Mission After Christendom. London: Darton Longman & Todd Ltd, 2003.

Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: Harpers, 1997.

Sweet, Leonard I. Soul Tsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999.

Vanhoozer, Kevin, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God. San Francisco: Harpers, 1998.

Additional Sources:

Encyclopedia Britannica (www.britannica.com)

United Nations (www.un.org)

Demos USA Web Site (www.demos-usa.org)

“Today’s Wars Are Less About Ideas than Extreme Tribalism,” The Christian Science Monitor, 03.27.06.

Peter Kuzmic, “An Evangelical Looks at Nationalism and Nation Building,” Evangelical Review of Theology, 24.4 (2000), pp.292-298.

Ralph Peters, “The Tribes are Back: Globalizations False Prophecies,” New York Post, 05.03.06.

Interview with Rodney Stark, http://www.jknirp.com/stark.htm.

!!! Appendix: A Brief Description of the Gospel of the Kingdom

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God is the unifying principle of the entire Bible, and, as such, it underlies and flows through the whole Bible. It is also the hope to which this paper and the papers in this series are looking towards as the answer for our world. 

We live in an in between time; the time between the inauguration of God’s reign and rule and the consummation of His Kingdom at the end of the age.  Many theologians argue over how much we should expect of God’s Kingdom in this in between age.  Some have over realized expectations while others have an under realized hope.  Some strain to bring in the consummated reign now while others just manage their sin until Jesus comes.

Most likely we will never get our expectations fully aligned, but we can and must come closer to God’s plan for us.  We no longer have the option of preaching a reduced gospel that offers salvation but does not apply God’s good news to every aspect of our lives.  The Gospel of the Kingdom is good news about everything for those who repent and believe. It touches every dimension of life and all of creation. In the end it is the restoration of all that God has created. 

While a full explanation of what is meant by the Gospel of the Kingdom is beyond the scope of this paper, the big themes can be listed and briefly explained.

Forgiveness of sin and repentance

At the center of God’s Kingdom is repentance and forgiveness of sin.  While the Gospel of the Kingdom includes much more than forgiveness of sins, the idea of forgiveness and the call of repentance remain central to the meaning of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The history of Israel provided throughout the Old Testament is filled with sin and its consequences.  The forgiveness of sin was always the desire of God, as an element of salvation to the Kingdom of God.  Sin is rebellion against God and against his kingdom and defies his desires for the world.  The message of repentance is closely tied to forgiveness.  Certainly in the Old Testament repentance, not doom, is the goal of the speeches given by most of the prophets.

Jesus called out to the world, offering the forgiveness of sins, meeting and healing the broken, and giving the strong warning to go and sin no more.  The healings of Mark 2:1-12 and John 9 provide wonderful examples of God offering forgiveness and seeking repentance in people.  Any kingdom salvation that does not call for repentance and offer forgiveness of sin is to enter a kingdom other than the Kingdom of God.  In other words, filling out acceptance cards and raising of hands are not enough to call one a member of the kingdom.  Additionally, any view of kingdom liberation that does not free the captive from the bondage of sin, is merely loosening some but not all the chains of death and sorrow.  Living life in light of forgiveness and repentance is certainly a key component of kingdom salvation.

The Restoration of Humanity in Relationship to God and One Another

Relationship to others is a recurring theme in the Bible, especially in those passages concerned with the Kingdom of God. From the Covenant Code in the Pentateuch, to the warnings of the prophets, to the Sermon on the Mount, through Paul and finally to James, the idea is that being saved to the kingdom means relationships must change.  We are challenged to see every living soul as special to God.  The understanding that God is for humanity means that salvation must include corresponding activity.  All citizens of this earth are to receive respect and honor, and all ought to receive the grace of God.  Salvation to the kingdom means restoring grace to all human relationships.  The story of Zacchaeus has Jesus’ own stamp of approval, as Zacchaeus rehabilitates his relationships with the poor and his neighbors.

Salvation to the Families and Nations of the Earth

The repeated message of Old Testament and of the New Testament is that the promise of the good news of the kingdom and its salvation is not for any one group alone.  The Kingdom of God is not the property of any ethnic, economic, or societal group.  The Kingdom of God does not come in one city, nor does the worship that takes place occur in any one place.  It has been offered to all people, all nations and, if they are willing to accept it, is realized in every place on earth.  Further, the kingdom is to come with joy and excitement.  What was found is no longer lost, the children have been invited into the kingdom of their Father.  While this may not seem to be a radical thought, the history of missions is loaded with emotions other than joy.  Since the time of Jonah the message that the gospel is even for one’s enemies has brought disdain, horror, and rebellion.  Kingdom salvation is ultimately the challenger and changer of prejudices and hatred.  It crosses all the boundaries we can set up.  This is a new kind of kingdom and a new kind of salvation.

New Life Beginning Today and into Eternity

The first three elements of kingdom salvation are not necessarily surprising to the Evangelical mind.  The concepts of forgiveness, better relationships, and the universality of the gospel have always been preached to greater or lesser degrees as part of the Christian kerygma.  But physical salvation has a greater role than it is given in a traditional Evangelical understanding of the kingdom.  By physical salvation we are referring to the kingdom’s impact on the elements of life that are not, strictly speaking, spiritual. 

The Kingdom of God is very earthy.  Salvation is not salvation out of this world, but always salvation of this world (Bosch 1991:399).  Humans are created as holistic beings- emotional, spiritual, and physical ones whose elements are not disconnected from one another.  Humans are not primarily spiritual beings (as the resurrection visions of the spirit and body being reunited demonstrates), but rather a complex organism that functions with all three elements in reliance on one another.  Perhaps the greatest difficulty in understanding shalom wholeness is that only Jesus has lived it since the fall.  The Kingdom of God is meant to be a return to Eden wholeness so that humanity can grow to live, love God and learn to reign with him. Shalom in its fullness comes at the consummation of the Kingdom, however, the Kingdom is substantially present in our own day and God’s Kingdom people can live with the hope of its presents now, not in fullness but certainly substantially.

 Substantial Healing within this life

While not a tangible component of salvation in the same manner as forgiveness of sins and restoration of relationships, salvation within this world is essential to properly understanding the interaction of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and history.  The Covenant Code was intended to be lived out within the life and history of Israel.  The traditional argument is that the code is to make it so that others would know about the God of Israel and understand his character.  This is certainly true, but the code was meant to be a first-fruit of the in-breaking kingdom.  The kingdom was always meant to become reality within the pages of human history.  The entire record of God’s interaction with humanity is done within the pages of human history except for the final two chapters of Revelation.  While there is a totality of the Kingdom that awaits the closing of the history of this world, the expansion and blessing of the coming, establishment, and growth of the kingdom, and, most importantly, salvation, occur in this life and on this earth.  David Bosch hits perfectly on the importance of this life, especially in light of the next:

Those who know that God will one day wipe away all tears will not accept with resignation the tears of those who suffer and are oppressed now. Anyone who knows that one day there will be no more disease can and must actively anticipate the conquest of disease in individuals and society now.  And anyone who believes that the enemy of God and humans will be vanquished will already oppose him now in his machinations in family and society.  For all this has to with salvation (Bosch 1991:400).

An offer of salvation that does not touch this life, is not kingdom salvation, as Carl Henry warned us Evangelicals way back in 1947[29].  This has real consequences for the message that we as Evangelicals announce to the world.

Kingdoms in Conflict

 Closely aligned with the idea of kingdom salvation is opposition to anti-kingdom powers.  The Gospel that we share with the world must have a kingdom approach to opposing any power that stands in opposition to the shalom of God’s kingdom, but must oppose such evil by God’s grace, God’s power, and without vengeance.   As Christians, we cannot produce the kingdom, but our mission needs to reflect the kingdom character.  The kingdom promises a day of reckoning for all who oppose God’s ways.  True kingdom missions must, to a lesser extent, facilitate the process by opposing those forces that will, on the day the kingdom comes in fullness, meet with the reckoning of the Triune God. 

Restoration of Creation 

These different elements of the gospel provide reminders that the good news of Jesus and his kingdom is good news in the present as well as in the future: It is the power of God unto salvation—unto wholeness and the end of fragmentation of people, of communities and of creation.  It comes with a price—the price of the surrender of the will-to-power that has dominated human nature since the beginning of recorded time.  Every attempt of human creatures to establish a meaningful and coherent world on their own ends in violence, in injustice, in the degradation of creation and eventually in death.  It is indeed a painful picture of ugliness that repels all hearts and has planted the seed of despair in the minds of many people today.  But the Gospel of the Kingdom is the fragrance of life and beauty, for all of the created universe, and is the true affirmation of all the genuine hopes and desires that the five trends discussed in this paper have sought to meet.

----

[1]     Newbigin, Trinitarian Faith and Today’s Mission, p.13.

[2]     Michale Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970: p. 173.

[3]     Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, San Francisco: Harper, 1997, pp.32-33.

[4]     Stark, p.138.

[5] See Appendix, A Brief Description of the Gospel of the Kingdom

[6]     Peter Beyer, Religion and Globalization, London: Sage Publications, 1995:p. 9.

[7]     Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006: pp.9-10.

[8]     Benjamin Barber, Jihad v. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World, New York: Random House, 1995: p. 4.

[9]     Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life, Oxford: Polity Press, 2005.

[10]     The interaction between colonialism, commerce and Christianity is at present a very hot topic. For further reading we suggest “Christianity, Capitalism and Empire” in the April 2006 issue of Transformation and “Reclaiming the M-word: the Legacy of Missions in Nonwestern Societies” in the spring 2006 issue of The Review of Faith and International Affairs.

[11]   Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism: The Challenge to Christian Faith and Mission, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001: p. 78.

[12]   Emile Durkheim, Suicide, trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson, New York: Free Press, 1951: p.257.

[13]   Encyclopedia Britannica, 2002, Modernization.

[14]   Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000: p. 208.

[15]   Ibid.

[16]   Conn, et al., p. 29.

[17]   Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 9.

[18]   Britannica Online, Pluralism, (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9060460?query=pluralism&ct=eb).

[19]   D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002: p. 19.

[20]   Robert C. Greer, Mapping Postmodernism: A Survey of Christian Options, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003:, p. 11.

[21]   Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003: Introduction.

[22]   According to recent studies on debt among young adults (GenerationX), the median credit card balance was $12,000 for 2002 up from $3,989 in 1991 (in 2002 dollars) and more than 25 percent of GenerationX carried what are considered to be substantial credit card balances. Also, 75 percent of this generation carries a balance from month-to-month. (See study at http://www.demos-usa.org/pubs/Generation_Broke.pdf)

[23]   Peter Kuzmic, “An Evangelical Looks at Nationalism and Nation Building,” Evangelical Review of Theology, 24.4 (2000), p.296.

[24]   Ralph Peters, “The Tribes Are Back: Globalization’s False Prophecies,” New York Post, 05.03.06, online edition.

[25]   Barber, p. 9.

[26]   Barber, p. 215.

[27]   “Today’s Wars Are Less About Ideas than Extreme Tribalism,” The Christian Science Monitor, 03.27.06.

[28]   Carl F. Henry, The Uneasy Conscious of Modern Fundamentalism, p.53.

[29] Carl F. Henry, The Uneasy Conscious of Modern Fundamentalism, p.53.