20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part II

Coming to Terms With Jesus
Intro | Part I

How do you explain the rapid spread of Christianity? Within the world of academia, litres of ink are spent trying to explain, understand and justify this phenomenon. In articulating the enormity of what took place, Tom Wright writes:

“The single most striking thing about early Christianity is the speed of its growth. In A.D. 25 there is no such thing as Christianity; merely a young hermit in the Judean wilderness, and his somewhat younger cousin who dreams dreams and sees visions. By A.D. 125 the Roman emperor has established an official policy in relation to the punishment of Christians…”

Christianity exploded into the Greco-Roman world. What had started in Jerusalem had, within 100 years spread as far as southern France, Ethiopia and possibly even India. This is quite remarkable, given what we said about Jesus in the previous post. Jesus saw himself as the pinnacle of God and Israel’s story, limiting his ministry almost exclusively to Israel. What he offered, and what he embodied, was a new way forward for Israel. So how did we end up with the church? Although the church’s praxis in 125AD bore some continuity with Israel, the church’s shape and life was also looked quite different from Israel.

Various reasons have been suggested to explain this. For instance, was this the work of the Apostle Paul, distilling Jesus’ call to Israel into a more palatable message for non-Jews? Or perhaps the fourth century ‘pagan’ Roman Emperor Julian was right when he argued the church grew because of their love and hospitality:

“These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agape, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”

There’s some truth in this, and we’ll explore Julian’s raison d’être for the growth of the church more in a future post. However, I want to suggest that the answer lies in a major shift in the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. They came from a Jewish background, and held a worldview consistent with first century Judaism. Yet for some reason their worldview had totally changed. I want to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus was a complete shift in the first century Jewish worldview.

That the early Christians believed in the resurrection is unsurprising – it was part of the standard Jewish worldview. However, what stood at the periphery of the Jewish worldview was now front and centre of the Christian hope. The conviction of the early church was that the resurrection had happened, not at the end of history as the Jewish worldview believed, but now in the middle of history. The resurrection of Jesus changed everything. We can trace what this meant for the early church in Paul’s letter to the Roman church (see Romans 1.1-6). The resurrection of Jesus declared that he was the Son of God, the Messiah; the true descendant of David and hence Israel’s true King.

The resurrection showed that Jesus was Israel-in-person, Israel’s representative, the one in whom Israel’s destiny had reached its climax. He was Israel’s King – raised from the dead. And if he was Israel’s King, then the Psalms and the prophets insisted he was also the world’s true Lord:

“Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” Romans 1.5-6

This is why Christianity developed new practices and symbols apart from Judaism. The early Christians understood that Israel’s story had come to fruition in Jesus. The old symbols of God’s people would have to find new meaning in him. So the church started meeting on Sunday’s to celebrate his resurrection. They broke bread and drank wine together to commemorate his death and remind each other that they belonged together in him. The prayed and sang to him, because the story of Israel and the world was now focused around Jesus. And they were now on a mission. Jesus had fulfilled Israel’s vocation to be a light to the nations; now the nations must be brought into allegiance to him. It was time for the nations to join in God’s promises Abraham.

“For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.” Romans 15.8-9

This raised questions about the continuing connection between the church and Israel, and the place of the law and Israel’s symbols in the life of the church. The early Christians only started to answer this question as they came to terms with who Jesus is and what that means for the world. The church grew first and fore mostly because they understood themselves to be on mission. Jesus has been raised, and he is the King, of both Jews and Gentiles.

________
I feel that it’s all too easy for us to underestimate how big an issue this was for the early church. Yet this was the major issue in the first century church, that the gentiles could be “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus”. We do ourselves a disservice when we screen this issue out of our reading of the New Testament.

My other reflection on this post is that mission and theology need to be more closely held together than is often case today. From what I’ve seen, the two ‘disciplines’ are often at arm’s length of each other. Yet, in one sense, it was because of theological reflection that the early church launched into mission. I wonder what would happen if our missionaries, church planters, evangelists etc. spent more time talking to theologians, and vice versa because the theological reflection in Acts often happened after the Holy Spirit took the initiative to bring gentiles to Christ.

For Further Reading:

• NT Wright: The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003. RSG is a tour de force. Read this if you want to understand more fully how the resurrection of Jesus changed the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. If 800+ pages isn't your cup of tea, try Wright's Surprised by Hope, 2008.
  
• James Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 2003 and Beginning from Jerusalem, 2008. I've only just managed to look through these. Massive and magnificent!
• Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 1997. Stark isn't a historian by training, and is a little bit sketchy when he moves away from history. Nevertheless, this is a important book. Helpful to have a sociologist's perspective.
  

Lessons from Lesslie Newbigin

"If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the Church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lands which were once called Christendom it is in decline.Surely there can be no more crucial question for the world mission of the Church… Can there be an effective missionary encounter with this culture – this so powerful, persuasive, and confident culture which (at least until very recently) simply regarded itself as “the coming world civilization” (Newbigin, 1985).

If you're interested in things like:

• evangelical epistemological humility (similar to Mike and Steve)
  
• the gospel not as timeless metaphysical truths but as story
• the gospel as history
• the expansive impact of the gospel
• the necessary role of the church in mission

Then you should read Krish Kandiah's homage to legendary missiologist Lesslie Newbigin. It's quite an exciting read, which you'll find here.

Saying No To The HUP

No, it's not a new disease or government initiative known only by abbreviation. The Homogenous Unit Principle - or the HUP amongst it's hipster friends - is the missiological idea that "people like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic or class barriers" (McGavran and Wagner 1970). And to a certain extent, it works. So as you look around the contemporary church scene, you'll find a church for almost every social and cultural group in Australia. Armed with pragmatic, 'missional' ecclesiology, churches have been started that minister to artisans, entertainers, etc. "Homogenous churches are those in which all the members are from a similar social, ethnic or cultural background. People prefer to associate with people like themselves – ‘I like people like me’. And so we should create homogenous churches to be effective in reaching people" (Tim Chester).

The only problem with the HUP is that's questionable just how biblical actually is. According to Tim Chester:

"The main criticism of the homogenous unit principle is that it denies the reconciling nature of the gospel and the church. It weakens the demands of Christian discipleship and it leaves the church vulnerable to partiality in ethnic or social conflict. It has been said that ‘the homogenous unit principles is fine in practice, but not in theory’!"

A central picture in New Testament of the church is of Jews and Gentiles with one voice glorifying the the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Romans 15). In Christ two peoples become one; Christian Jews and Gentiles become one new people of God, part of the one body of Christ. So then "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (cf. Galatians 3.28-29). Or again in 1 Corinthians "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12.13). And according to Ephesians 3, it is the unity of the church "across barriers that have hitherto divided humankind is the sure sign to the powers that their time is up, that they are not masters of the world and that Jesus is" (NT Wright). The very fact that "Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free" (Colossians 3.11) can praise God together in and of itself declares that Jesus Christ is Lord.

So this year, at Sydney Uni in the eu postgrads & staff faculty, we've said no to the HUP. Campus life is already segmented enough as it: between arts and science, staff and students, academics and support staff. According to Alasdair MacIntyre this results in:

“the graduates of the best research universities tend to become narrowly focused professionals, immensely and even obsessively hard working, disturbingly competitive and intent on success as it is measured within their own specialized professional sphere, often genuinely excellent at what they do; who read little worthwhile that is not relevant to their work..." (MacIntyre 1999).

Instead of organizing our groups by schools and faculties, this year our small groups, prayer groups and reading groups will be organised by broad geographical terms, i.e. Darlington, Fisher, Manning, etc. So in 2011 we're making the English and Physics postgrads sit down and read the Bible - together. We are convinced that they have great things to offer each other, and by talking to each other they'll become more rounded academics. But more importantly, we are convicted that the gospel tears down whatever barriers people place between themselves. We are convicted that what defines as people isn't our academic disciplines (and the expectations these entail) but our identity in Christ. And we are far more united than the academy would have us believe.

We don't do this to ignore the different academic disciplines. The Physics postgrads will still need to support and talk to each other as the live out the Christian life in their school. We're not intending to force people to blandly assimilate. Rather, as we acknowledge the wealth of diversity across eu postgrads and staff, we realise that their is more that unites us than divides us. "...[F]or the same Lords is Lord of all" (Romans 10.12).

To The Nations

"Jesus told his apostles to disciple all the nations. The way his words are often translated, “to make disciples of all nations”, allows for a misconception to arise. It is the nations that are to be discipled, baptized and taught, not merely individuals out of the nations. The gospel will heal the nations and in the book of Revelation the nations shall walk in the light of the glory of God and bring their treasures to the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:24, 26; 22:2). This glorious result of the exaltation of the Messiah had been prophesied in the Old Testament (Isa 11:10, 12; 25:7; 49:6, 7; 52:15). All the nations, that is the peoples and their cultures, are to be Christianized by the knowledge of the triune God. Christ’s commission to his followers is to baptize the nations, to bring them under his leadership, as their Lord and their teacher." - D B Knox, D.Broughton Knox Selected Works Volume II - Church and Ministry; ed. K. Birkett p.277-282. h/t Michael

The Brain Drain?

In case you missed it, Southern Cross (the Sydney Anglican mag) ran a two page feature this month on higher education and the Wesley Institute. Bryan Cowling argued that the newly envisioned Wesley Institute might help fill the gap of "well-informed Christian educators in the university". What Cowling imagines for the university is very similar to what I've come to see this year as I've served alongside Christian academics at Sydney University:

"We need lots of intelligent, mature articulate Christian philosophers of education who are equally skilled and knowledgeable in their academic discipline as in applied biblical doctrine and theology. We need hundreds of these academics in our public universities and colleges to nurture the next generation of visionary educational leaders (you could say the same about about each of the gatekeeping, public-policy shaping professions)." - Bryan Cowling, The Hole in Higher Education, Southern Cross: November 2010, pp 28-29.

As I've argued elsewhere, the university offers a unique opportunity to affect the world. I do have some misgivings about Cowling's conclusion (which you might like to ask me about in the comments), but I'm genuinely glad that I'm not alone in praying that the hearts and minds of academics would be shaped by Christ.

However, there is one sentiment in particular that I do find concerning. After calling for a hundred of thought-out academics in the university, Cowling goes on to argue:

"There needs to be career paths in public universities and colleges in this country if we are to avoid losing our best Christian minds to leadership positions in other countries."

Lose our best Christian minds to other countries? I find this to be unbelievably short-sighted and parochial. Instead of worrying about a brain drain, we should be encouraging our best Christian minds to use their opportunity in the academy to leave. For eu postgrads and staff, our vision is that when Christian academics finish at Sydney University, they'll go to other universities in less reached and less resourced parts of Australia in the world. Our vision is that they'll be people who - with all the energy that God powerfully works within them (Col 1.29) - will be shaping peoples lives in Christ. They'll be academics who can engage and speak the gospel into public policy and discourse. They'll be academics who know how to support campus ministry. And if they find themselves in a university where there is none, then they'll know how to start it.

Hording our academic minds is not the right response to the "marginalising of respectable Christian thinking in Australian society."* Taking every thought captive to obey Christ can't stop at the Australian coastline.

__*Is marginalisation the problem? For more thoughts on marginalisation see this from Chris.

Anglicanism's Mid Life Crisis

Has a denomination ever had as much trouble understanding it's identity as the Anglican church has? Every few months there seems to be a new book released either articulating what Anglicanism looks like (i.e. Tom Frame, Bruce Kaye), or commenting on the current crisis in the Anglican Communion (i.e. Oliver O'Donovan). One only needs to briefly scan one of the many blogs searching for an Anglican identity (such as hebel; also this and this) to see how widespread the quest is.

At the centre of the current crisis in the Anglican Communion is a question of scripture and authority. But what is at stake are opposing visions of what the Anglican Church should look like. The crisis, which has rages for several decades now (the main crisis vis-a-vis scripture and authority has stayed the same even the issues have changed, i.e. woman's ordination, homosexuality), can be interpreted as one front of the cultural wars that have raged since at least the end of the second world war. However, I want to suggest that there are several other reasons operating here.

Anglican identity has historically been in flux. Whilst there has always been a solid evangelical (reformed, protestant) core that has sought to define Anglicanism by the Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and Ordinals, and the Homilies (the Anglican Church League in Sydney was founded a century ago to persevere these things), there have always been other "factions" (i.e. Anglo-Catholics) that have nuanced the Anglican identity. The Tudor and Stuart periods are the classic example of this, where Anglican identity would vary according to how sat on the throne of England. The emergence of liberalism from the 18th Century has only increased the divergence of and competition for Anglican identity. The variegated historical experiences of Anglicanism since the 16th century continue to challenge our assumptions of Anglicanism today.

Naturally, related to this is the theological breadth of Anglicanism. It is often said that the genius (and frustration) of Anglicanism is that is both catholic and protestant, it holds the middle ground. But the challenge of walking the tight-rope of the via media is not to sway too far to one side or the other. Even then we have to realize that neither side is a homogeneous unit (i.e. the variances amongst contemporary Anglican evangelicals). "Anglican theology" has always had a polemic streak to it. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (a founding document for the formation of the Anglican Communion) aimed at restoring unity with other churches with the episcopacy (Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxy), whilst providing a stumbling block for protestant churches with other forms of church government.

The polemics in Anglican theology have become more and more pointed in the past 50 years: Evangelicals v Anglo-Catholics v Liberals (v Charismatics?). The spread of Anglicanism through mission has changed the face of Anglicanism forever. The Church of England may still be established in England and considered by some to be the "mother church" (with the Primate of All England being the symbolic head of Anglicanism worldwide). The American and Canadian Episcopal Churches may still be the wealthiest churches in the communion. But the spread of the gospel on the coat tails of the British Empire through mission agencies such as CMS has resulted in Africa, Asia and Latin America having the largest populations of Anglicans in the world. Although the traditional realms of Anglicanism (England and North America) are still quite influential, but Anglicanism today is being the defined by the churches in the Global South. As you may know, the churches of the Global South are closer to what I have described central core of Anglicanism (protestant, reformed, evangelical and catholic) than the Anglican Church in North America.

These three factors, history, theology and mission, have not caused the crisis in identify. But they are crucial in understanding the struggle to define Anglicanism. Already we are seeing some answers to question of scripture and authority. One proposal is to strengthen the organisational structures of the Anglican world, particularly the instruments of communion. At this stage the success of this approach seems quite unlikely. I feel as though to define Anglicanism structurally is to miss the point. The past century has provided several examples of valid forms of Anglicanism that are out of step with the communion (i.e. The Church of England in South Africa).

Long gone are the days when you could walk into any Anglican Church in world and roughly understand what was happening. But the end of a common liturgy etc. does not spell the end of Anglicanism.

I am not a prophet nor the son of prophet, but the future of Anglicanism would appear to lie with GAFCON. This is a difficult process. It is also tremendously exciting as it offers a reinvigorated Anglican identity that is built on the central core of Anglicanism I have previously identified (protestant, reformed, evangelical and catholic) that is also truly global. It is an expression of church that will, Lord willing, continue to proclaim his life, death and resurrection until he returns.

Photos from the GAFCON website.

Saul shall save my people from the hand of the Palestinians

My CMS Reflections

We've been reading 1 Samuel in bible study recently. I love this book, not least for the twists and nuances of the narrative (it is one of the oldest highly developed narratives around). There's plot development, and really complex characters. It's beautiful.

However, I've have a lurking nervousness in the back of mind as we've read further into the story. It's not 1 Samuel itself that makes me uneasy. Instead, it's knowing just how similar things are now as they were in Saul's time. What we know call the Gaza Strip has been a source of conflict in 1 Samuel as much as it has been in our time. Israelites are still fighting with the Philistines, although we call the Palestinians (you do know that Palestine comes from the word Philistine?).

Talking to a couple yesterday who've been ministering to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, there has been a real issue for Palestinian Christians. Still, in Arabic today Palestinians are called Philistines. It is a real issue for them, especially as they read the Old Testament.

Palestinian Christians have often been caught in the middle of Arab-Israeli conflict. Please pray for them.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." - Galatians 3.28-29

Mission Exists Because Worship Doesn't?

The phrase "Mission exists because worship doesn't" has been often used in recent years to give a justification for mission. John Piper coined this phrase in response to Christians who feel ashamed or embarrassed about the strong conversionism tendencies in Christianity. He writes:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. (Let the Nations Be Glad, 2004, p.17).

I sympathise with piper on this point. Worship and the Glory of God definitely have something to do with mission. In Romans 1 God justly judges humans everywhere who neither thanked him or worshiped him. And a great eschatological vision in the scriptures is of "the whole earth being filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11.9 and Habbakuk 2.14).

But something in Piper's statement irks me. Maybe it's a reaction against Piper's reduction of everything to glory - I'm not sure what it is, but the biblical theologian in me whats to nuance Piper's thesis. Maybe something like: Mission exists because evil does. On reflection this does sound pretty similar to Piper, but I'm trying to locate mission within the framework of the biblical narrative. (I'm not convinced that Piper does this in Let the Nations be Glad, largely because the first reference to Genesis 12 is on page 30 and is talking about the Puritans. When he does get back to Gen 12 around page 130, this foundational text only rates a passing mention). Mission is God's plan to redeem humanity and creation from the captivity of evil and sin: idolatry, hatred, famine, death, etc. In the proto-gospel, the promise is the crushing of evil: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3.15). God works through Abraham and Israel and finally Jesus to make this happen. In Abraham all the nations will be blessed. Israel is a light to the nations (never mind for now that she constantly failed this) and the "nations will stream to her". And Jesus is able to totally obliterate evil cf. Colossians 2.15. My point is that mission is not just a New Testament concept, it's deeply ingrained in the story of the bible.

But then again, I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with: "Mission exists because evil does". Forgetting issues of theodicy for now, there is a sense in which mission exists because God does. God creates the world ex nihlo, making something out of nothing. He separates light from darkness, gives shape to a world that is formless and void. And just before God rests, he creates Man and Woman in his image and charges them with a mission: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1.28). I take it that this mission of reflecting the image of God into the world continues despite the 'the fall'. It's given fresh impetuous by Jesus who commanded his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations - so that everyone will hear that Jesus is King and we should reflect his image. And I take it that this will continue in some form in the new creation, after Jesus reigns unchallenged and sin and death are no more. And this to me seems to be a more complete "justification" for mission.

Missions and Empire

A common complaint of Christian mission is that it has often been a compliant agent of European imperialism. Although there is some truth in that at times, it is by no means a defining characterization of Christian mission. According to David Bebbington argues that the overriding result of global Christian missions was not the growth of empire but the implanting of Christian faith in fresh lands, often not through the missionaries themselves but local indigenous Christians. He argues:

"One of the misrepresentations of Livingstone in later legend was that he was an advocate of the type of empire that emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century. The belief is part of a broader association of the missionary enterprise with the spread of the British Empire that has become a commonplace. It is held that missions were the ideological arm of territorial expansion in the period. Certainly evangelicals saw imperial advance as an opportunity for the gospel. British Wesleyans, for instance, applauded their Australian co-religionists [sic] in 1860 for 'laying foundations of a great Protestant empire'. Furthermore, the protection of indigenous peoples from the slave trade and other forms of oppression could seem a worthy humanitarian motive for annexation. Yet there was no simple correlation between missions and empire. Sometimes, as in Nigeria at the end of the century, the British authorities discouraged evangelistic effort since it might cause public disorder. Missionaries themselves were often wary of the colonial authorities because they might do as much to corrupt the peoples under their care as to protect them. Within British territory, the advance of evangelical usually owed little or nothing to government patronage, which in a forml sense had all but disappeared by the middle of the [19th] century. There are instances, conversley, where British Christians established flourishing missions outside British territory and even outside British sphere of influence. The Baptist mission in the Congo, which became the personal apanage of the King of the Belgians, is a case in point. There was a marked difference between Anglicans, who rarely saw drawbacks to the expanison of empire, and Nonconformists, who leant to a pacific policy abroad and so commonly opposed imperial wars. Thus slaughter on the north-west frontier of India was denounced by the Nonconformist newspaper the Christian World in 1897 as 'A National Crime'. Although the distinction between the two parties within evangelicalism was eroded in the last few years of the century, when many Nonconformists were caught up in the popular imperialism of the times, here remained among them vestiges of resistance to the growth of empire. Consequently, the relationship between missions and empire is much more ambigous than it is usually supposed to be. Evangelicals were by no means consisten apologists for painting the map red." - David Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 2005, pp. 106-107.

Mission: 18th and 21st Century

At the start of the 21st Century, for CMS-NSW to send 1 missionary family requires:

• 7 link churches
  
• 100 members
  
• 90 supporters
  
• $70,000 Field Costs
  
• 65 Summer School attendees
  

During the 1700's the Moravian Church sent 35 missionaries per 100 church members.

Bauckham on the Biblical Narritive

Richard Bauckham's first point aspect of Biblical Narrative is that it is temporal.

"The temporal movement of the biblical narrative runs all the way from creation to the eschatological future. It runs from the old to then new, constantly reconstructing the past in memory and constructing the future in expectation. Within this movement mission is movement into the new future of God. It is the movement of the people of God whose identity is found in the narrative of the past but also in their being turned by that narrative towards the coming of God's kingdom in the future. The possibilities the narrative opens up for them, when they find themselves in it, are those God gives as they live towards God's future. Temporally, then, mission is movement into the ever-new future." Bible and Mission - Christian Witness in a Postmodern World.

Bauckahm argues that from Genesis 12 to Revelation the narrative is in transition from 'a particular past' towards the universal future. This is seen definitively in the gospel - the life death and resurrection of Jesus, the coming of God's kingdom and the opening up of the future for God's creation. For Bauckham then, "Mission is the movement that takes place between Jesus' own sending by his Father and the future coming of Jesus in the kingdom of his Father."

A while between drinks

It has been a while since I posted. Since my last post, I've:

• survived CMS Summer School.
• got married (and picked up Church Dogmatics vol 1.1 and 1.2 as wedding presents!).
• been to Fiji and witnessed poverty, third world Christians, South Pacific Apartheid and survived a tropical cyclone.

I've also read a great book by Richard Bauckham. It is a small book entitled "Bible and Mission - Christian Witness in a Postmodern World". Bauckham's aim in the book isn't so much to provide another rational on why the church should do mission. Instead Bauckham sets out to provide a hermeneutic for the type of mission he thinks the church should be doing in a post-modern, post "911" world. I am very excited by the book. Bauckham talks about meta-narratives, the post modern suspicion of them, the dominate meta-narratives of today (which he labels as Islamism and Western Globalism) and what the Christian response should be. It has been a joy to read a book like this that is written by such a renowned New Testament scholar and theologian as Bauckham is. So I thought I'd post some quotes from the book:

"This book's proposal of a hermeneutic for the kingdom of God involves...a focus on one prominent aspect of the narrative shape of the biblical story: its movement from the particular to the universal. As I have also briefly suggested, this direction of the biblical story corresponds to the biblical God, who is the God of the one people Israel and the one human being Jesus Christ, and is also the Creator and LORD of all things. We can better appreciate this universality and particularity of God himself when we recognize that this biblical God's own identity is itself a narrative identity. It is a particular identity God gives himself in the particular story of Israel and Jesus, and it is an identity which itself drives the narrative towards the universal realization of God's kingdom in all creation. God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Israel and Jesus in order to be the God of all people and the Lord of all things. Moreover, in the narrative world of the Bible the people of God is also given its identity in this movement from the particular to the universal, an identity whose God-given dynamic we commonly sum up in the word 'mission'. God, God's people and God's world are related to each other primarily in a narrative that mediates constantly the particular and the universal."

- Bauckham, Bible and Mission, pp. 12-13, italics original.

Bauckham then proceeds to outline three aspects in the biblical narrative of the movement from the particular to the universal. But I will outline these in the next post. But it was great for me to really understand this particular and universal (the one, the three, and many) concept that kept popping up in books I was reading last year.

It is great to think that: "God, God's people and God's world are related to each other primarily in a narrative that mediates constantly the particular and the universal" is evidenced now in the unity and diversity (to found amongst the church around the world (I first stumbled across the idea of 'unity and diversity' by reading papers written for the SUEU by Andrew Errington). Stay tuned for more.