Curtis A. Bronzan

The aforementioned post engaged issues related to the rise of postmodernity which prepare us to engage the issue of pluralism, a significant contemporary cultural development. It should be noted at the outset, however, that pluralism is not an invention of postmodern culture, but has existed throughout the centuries.

A helpful biblical example can be found in Acts 2, where Luke tells us that God’s Spirit fell on

Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.” (Acts 2.9-11)

Andrew F. Walls, in his essay Evangelical and Ecumenical: The Rise and Fall of the Early Church Model, argues that diversity was the norm in the first-century church:

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith. Two diverse systems of Christian living – one might almost say two parallel Christianities – existed side by side in a single church.” (Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, 33)

Thus, pluralism as such should not be condemned outright, since both Jews and Gentiles shared faith in Jesus, but expressed that faith in divergent ways.

In his book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Lesslie Newbigin offers a helpful distinction between cultural and religious pluralism, the latter of which he defines as

the belief that the differences between the religions are not a matter of truth and falsehood, but of different perceptions of the one truth; that to speak of religious beliefs as true or false is admissible.

(In an attempt to simplify the concepts presented here, I have opted to retain use of the word pluralism instead of relativism, though the latter would, at times, be preferable. This is largely due to it’s use – and definition – by Lesslie Newbigin.)

He concludes, in pluralistic societies, “[r]eligious belief is a private matter.” (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 14) The effect of modern pluralism is, of course, a result of similar thinking to what was previously addressed in postmodernism, coupled with a highly individualized Western society. Even more troubling is how postmodern, atheistic cultural theorists use biblical revelation to argue for an increased secularism, including Alain Badiou, who after quoting Galatians 3.28, goes on to state “how appropriate, for we who will unproblematically replace God by this or that truth.” (Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, 9) Badiou’s rendering reads, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female”, purposely leaving out any reference to ‘in Christ.’” (9)

Similar to our previous venture into the idols of modernity, there are idols of postmodern secularism as well. Lesslie Newbigin, in his essay Evangelism in the Context of Secularization, puts it bluntly:

In the end, the society we have is not a secular society but a pagan society, a society in which men and women are giving their allegiance to no-gods… The “secular” society is not a neutral area into which we can project the Christian message. It is an area already occupied by other gods. (Mission Legacies, 48)

Of course, it would be entirely naïve or plainly ignorant to assert that such “no-gods” of money, power, and sex are not, in some sense, worshiped by those a part of Christian community. At the same time, however, we should recognize their response to the call of God on their lives is, at least in part, a commitment to kill off these idols as much as possible, as they seek to follow Jesus – whether or not they are entirely successful in doing so.

All followers of Jesus are called not only to do so personally, but also to seek to encourage others toward this end as well. As John H. Westerhoff asserts,

Christianity is a way of life. Therefore, from the beginning it has been the responsibility of all baptized Christians to proclaim the gospel in word and deed.” (The Study of Evangelism, 239)

This way of life requires a continual reorientation toward the person of Christ, instead of baptizing Christian truth for atheistic, politically correct rhetoric, as seen by Badiou above.

In his article on W.A. Visser ’t Hooft, Newbigin asserts,

[e]vangelism needs a measure of religious freedom and therefore religious pluralism, or at least religious plurality, while the Christian missionary must proclaim the total lordship of Jesus over all of life. Its raison d’être is to being all men and women to Christ. (Mission Legacies, 120)

In is necessary, then, for Christians to be those who scatter into the world, proclaiming Jesus as the Lord of Life, and yet, a word should also be said regarding the role of such people also to gather in worship. The pluralist society, of course, is known for its multiplicity of options, which affects everything we do, even down to how we order a cup of coffee. And yet, for those who have scattered, it is integral to their discipleship that they also gather, that they might see:

This way of life is a consequence of faith, best understood as perception. Christian faith is a particular way of perceiving life and our lives. It manifests itself in believing and thinking, in trusting and loving, in worshiping and obeying, but fundamentally it is a way of “seeing.” (The Study of Evangelism, 239)

Note also, Lesslie Newbigin: “[t]he first evangelism in the New Testament… is, strictly speaking, news, and it requires an immediate response in action. There is immediate excitement. People flock to hear.” (The Study of Evangelism, )

Thus, in a highly individualized, pluralistic culture, our role is to not only scatter, but to gather, to see the world through a missiological lens, by which we can recognize the presence of the God who is at work in a plurality of places. Though previously alluded to, we must, at this point, say it plainly: though God is at work in a plurality of places, the call of Christ is to accept Him as Lord and Savior, wherever we find ourselves – and to wherever He takes us.

As has been clearly seen, the purpose for – and understanding of – the Temple in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is as varied as the texts that address it. We can thus affirm both positive and negative elements of the gathering place in light of the mission of God. While it has been asserted that YHWH was content simply “tabernacling” with His people in the wilderness, Solomon’s desires to build a temple where the nations could gather to praise the God who has both “a mighty hand and outstretched arm,” are at least justified, and at best a continuation of YHWH’s desire that His people be a “light for the nations.”

It is, of course, centripetally conceived, though, the Temple worked in the other direction as well, sending Isaiah out to proclaim God’s message. Ultimately, however, the Temple itself was judged both in terms of its injustices by the Hebrew prophets and eschatologically by the greatest Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh.

This second Person of the Trinity, we are encouraged to read in John 1 and Philippians 2, did not remain in the divine, transcendent community, but rather, recalling the Exodus and Wilderness Wandering, “tabernacled with us.” After pronouncing judgment on the Temple, He was crucified for our sins, though the Temple of His body was raised again three days later.

Because of this New Creation, we are able to receive His Holy Spirit, through which our bodies are made into His Temple. Thus, in the Divine Story, we have become the emissaries of the Living God, the actual place where God’s Spirit dwells. And so we return to our original question: What is the role of gathering places in light of our mission to contemporary culture?

As we have done throughout our study, we must answer this question by looking to the Scriptures. Hebrews 10.19-25 states,

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The anonymous author of Hebrews clearly reveals here the original – and continued – purpose for gathering together, as proclaimed throughout Scripture: to encourage one another toward love and good deeds. Or, in the words of the Abrahamic covenant, we gather so can “go” and “bless.” Indeed, as Newbigin asserts

[i]f the local Christian congregation understands its true character as a holy priesthood for the sake of the world, and if its members are equipped for the exercise of that priesthood in their secular employments, then there is a point of growth for a new social order. (Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth, 87)

Newbigin puts it in other words in his landmark work The Gospel in a Pluralist Society:

I confess that I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seek for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 227)

This gathering of any truly Christian congregation is meant to fulfill the original intent of the temple, which “looked backward to [God’s] presence in Eden, and forward to His ultimate presence among all nations in a renewed creation.” (The Mission of God, 334) May we indeed continue to live into the purposes of God the Creator, the covenant He established with Abram, the prayer of Solomon, and the (centripetal and centrifugal) prophecy of Micah:

In the last days
the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.
Many nations will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Micah 4.1-2)

As the church of Jesus Christ progresses further into the twenty-first century, it continues to address issues both new and old. While church membership is growing exponentially throughout many parts of the 3^rd world, it continues a rapid decline in the post-Christian West.

Charles Van Engen comments upon this reality when he notes

[w]e are all aware that the center of gravity of the Christian Church has shifted from North to South, from West to East. This shift does not only impact the numbers of Christians in the world, the languages they speak, and the location where they may be found. This shift also means that mission-sending is now polycentric: cross-cultural missions send their missionaries from everywhere to everywhere. (Missiological Constraints in Critical Contextual Theologizing, Van Engen)

Simply the names of a few recently published books reveal the impact of this seismic shift: They Like Jesus, but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do About It and unChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity. As such, we in the West must follow the guidance of Van Engen (see, for instance, Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology, 207-229), Lesslie Newbigin and many others who call the Church in the West to re-evangelize its increasingly secularized culture.

An interesting element of this dilemma is that many who are leaving the church in the West do so not out of a loss of faith, but rather, they assert, in order to save it. This reality is explored in personal narratives, like Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, as well as practical guides seeking to reverse the trend, such as Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts. Though the perspectives these books offer are important for church ministry and missiological practice in the West, I seek to dig deeper, ultimately presenting a theological understanding regarding the role of gathering places in the life of a faith community.

In doing so in this and posts to follow, I will holistically engage the whole of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, seeking to explicate an eschatological, missional understanding of the role of the the Temple(s) and the Church(es) as a basis for church involvement in contemporary culture. In so doing, I will utilize the positive elements of an evangelical narrative theology, recognizing that the biblical narrative is “not merely the recital of events in historical sequence. Rather, [it] seeks to convey a deeper meaning, a deep-level revelation of the nature and purposes of God who breaks into human history.” (Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology, 52)

Lesslie Newbigin puts it thusly:

The Christian church testifies that in the actual events of this finite, contingent, and yet rational world of warped space-time there are words and gestures through which the Creator and Sustainer of the world has spoken and acted. It is not that the events are anything other than part of the unbroken nexus of happenings within space-time that can be analyzed and classified along with all the rest. They are not ‘interventions’ by someone who is otherwise absent. (Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, 88)

We start, therefore, at the Beginning. At their outset, the Hebrew Scriptures assert the primacy of God, not as an “Unmoved Mover,” but quite the opposite, as Creator who exists in divine community. Indeed, Scripture boldly proclaims not simply the existence of God, but in addition His creative power: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”Noting that we ought speak not so much of the doctrine of Creation, but rather the Creator, Karl Barth rightly asserts a theme integral to our study, that humanity “was in a pre-eminent sense created for the service of God, created to be the ‘image of God,’ not only as theatre, but as active and passive bearer of that glory.” (Credo, 33)

Not long after this idyllic Creation in the Garden, however, Scripture records an escalating crescendo of sin that begins with the first couple and their children, and continues throughout the first eleven chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 12, then, God starts over, by instead – as Wright puts it – calling “an elderly, childless couple in the land of Babel… [making] them the fountainhead, the launch pad of his whole mission of cosmic redemption.” (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 199.)Indeed, Genesis 12.1-3 states

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

As has been noted by Wright, (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 199.)what we encounter in God’s calling of Abram can be categorized into two corresponding halves, each established by an imperative, “go” and “be a blessing.” These are each followed by three corresponding outcomes, which reveal the results of the commands, that is blessing for all peoples on earth. Thus, thiis new beginning should be understood not in terms of God completely starting over as much as God seeking to fulfill His original purposes inherent in the original Beginning. With the implications of the Beginning and new beginning at the forefront of our minds, then, we are now able to proceed onto our missiological investigation regarding gathering places throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.