Distinctly Welcoming

RUN and BLAH

It's been a busy time but I thought I'd share a couple of observations on two events that i was involved in last week. I dipped into the conference of RUN last week, leading a couple of seminars on Islam and was really impressed with the people that they had gathered there. Despite the rash that came over me as I walked into the atrium of what was ostensibly a mega-church, there was a real generosity and welcome in tone to all of the input, to the hosts and the delegates as a whole.RUN have clearly done a great job in connecting with a mainstream evangelical/charismatic constituency and provided a network that pushes the boat out on thinking and practice into that constituency. The keynote speakers Gerard Kelly and Brian McLaren were their usual impressive selves, basically orienting the church around a vision of integral mission: a church that makes a difference in every area of society. Gerard was especially strong in reminding us that this transformation begins at home and we dare not neglect our worship and community (in whatever package this is manifest!) in pursuit of this mission of God's.

The previous day I'd hosted Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat for a BLAH seminar on Romans. Following their glorious commentary on Colossians, they shared some thoughts on this seminal book for the Reformation, salvation by grace and the evangelical gospel. It was hugely challenging to hear their perspectives on the epistle as a radical tract for community against the empire and dismissing any simplistic view that Romans is all about individual salvation. I've linked to one of the targums that they read, on Romans 13, which gives you a flavour. Their material is the best of biblical exegesis: rooted in historical context, demanding a journey into the text from the listener and applied to some of the real issues of today.

I wasn't entirely convinced by everything that they had to say, but they do clearly have a significant contribution for us as a church in the West. There is a danger of a gospel reduced to the political and becoming severed from the life of worship and tradition in some of their emphases, and perhaps an overly counter-cultural model that fails to pastor and affirm what is "established". I wonder, juxtaposing the two days, whether there are two streams that need to feed off each other. A clear-thinking, politically relevant church married to spiritual passion. In a context of interfaith division, I have the sneaky feeling that sometimes the hardest, most unbridgeable barriers are between Christian evangelicals and liberals......Can we hear God speak to us across those borders, let alone across the borders between religions?

Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road

Last night I was at a fascinating lecture by Paul-Gordon Chandler on his new book, "Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road". Chandler is an American Episcopal priest in Cairo and has many years of living and working in the Muslim world. His challenge is that the church should be seeking to develop points of contact and commonality with Islam, helping Muslims see that Jesus can be followed entirely within the cultural and religious norms of the Islamic faith. He takes the celebrated examples of Sadhu Sundar Singh (Sikh follower of Christ) and the work of E Stanley Jones ("The Christ of the Indian Road") as indicative of incarnational models of witness that avoid the imperialism and westernisation of so much of the church.

Arabic novelist Mazhar Mallouhi is a vital example of this: perhaps the most famous living writer of fiction in the Arab world, feted by Muslim scholars and yet professing to be a Muslim follower of Christ. Mallouhi has written novels infused by his Sufi spirituality and even published a number of commentaries on the gospels. He reframes the gospel for Muslim audiences highlighting the distinctive, peace-loving and decidedly Middle Eastern Christ shorne of the offensiveness of the typical Scandinavian, western Jesus frequently on offer from the church.

There was so much to ponder in the lecture...much that I welcome and much too that I'm a little uncomfortable with (a week of discomfort perhaps?...see the previous post!). Mallouhi still holds to the 5 pillars of Islam but adds in Jesus to the traditional creedal statement of belief in Allah and Mohammed as his prophet. My questions is, what is the nature of the Muslim Jesus presented by Mallouhi? I can't wait to get hold of some of his works and check this out. Is this a reductionist Jesus; a good man with an appealing ethic? And what of the church then? Is the church entirely irrelevant in the process of a Muslim following Christ? The Old Testament and Paul are clearly no-go areas for Mallouhi and Chandler as they advocate this road. Big questions of mission, hermeneutics, eschatology and ecclesiology....

But in the meantime, there is a very real challenge for us; one that is arguably of greater urgency in the post colonial Middle East than in the West where many of our Muslim neighbours are as distanced from Arabic culture and mores as the next person: How can the life of Jesus be fully contextualised in a Muslim world which has been so immunised against the church by the self-aggrandisement and totalising power of the Christian West?

Arcade Fire, Mission and culture

One of the highlights of this year's Greenbelt was a seminar by Bishop Graham Cray on the Canadian band Arcade Fire's new album, "Neon Bible". It was the classic Graham Cray analysis of contemporary culture with reflections and challenges for the church. Well, I had the privilege of seeing them live on Tuesday evening and it was a breathtaking performance of passion with no little comment on the state of the world today; the musical equivalent of the "Great American Novel". People like Graham Cray have contributed hugely to a constructive engagement with contemporary culture, releasing us to ask questions like, "what is God saying to us through this?", "where is the Spirit at work as we hear this song?" etc. One of my intentions in this blog is to attempt to bring such a mindset into our encounter with other faiths. Apart from within the pages of heavy duty theology, there is little mainstream reflection on questions such as "what might Muslims be saying to us that deepens our own understanding of Jesus?", or "what is God doing in our plural, mixed world?" These are vital questions for the church. So, several degrees of separation from Arcade Fire, I'd like to pose the question, "what might God be wanting to the church to become through its encounter with Islam?"

Mission: technique, skill or obedience?

We live in an era when the church is, more than ever, talking about the need to "contextualise", to engage with culture or "inculturate". Whatever the jargon, the church in the West is waking up, maybe yawning and stretching in the process, to the realities of a mission environment. It's overdue and reflects the actual fact that our inherited church culture is often so far removed from the surrounding culture that it can seem to be an exclusive and inward-looking club. And yet the language of much missiology leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable. If we had the right technique, used the correct language, adopted that particular cultural behaviour, then the church would be far more successful, so the argument goes.

It's a struggle I come up against when I teach on other religions. If they were being honest, what many people are looking for is the knock-down argument or a particular way of organising the church or a  cultural nuance to observe that will suddenly convince/win-over/speak into the heart of those of other faiths.

Call me old-fashioned, but I can't help thinking that mission is actually not about success, numbers, getting our message across...it's about about obedience. The thing is, being obedient means that we will incarnate ourselves in culture, bless God at work in the world, be challenged and learn, aswell as sharing who we are. We contextualise because that happens as we follow God's spirit in his work in the world. And the results; well that's God's business.

In the meantime, I'll hold on to my allergy to the latest quick fix/strategy/church structure and strive to be obedient. The church may or may not grow...But then again, that too is God's business. Whether you be mainstream, inherited, emerged, emerging or emergent, there is no magic bullet out there. Somehow or other, it all comes back to that cross.