The Logical Break Between the Missio Dei and the Missio Ecclesia -- OR -- Why Comprehensive Salvation does not Necessarily Imply Comprehensive Mission.

Salvation does not imply mission.  And frustratingly, everyone thinks it does.  So much missional theology in, say, the last 25 or 50 years, has so emphasized the comprehensiveness of God’s salvation, and from that claimed that mission should be comprehensive.  But it doesn’t follow.

Yes! We must say it—we must proclaim it:  God wants every aspect of created existence to experience his transforming and healing restoration. God wants to heal—to recreate—the relationships between people, to dissolve animosity and hatred, arbitrary exclusions, such as racism, for example.  God wants to care for the poor and provide for them, to lift them out of poverty to provision and dignity.  God wants to transform politics, so that it reflects the political relationship between Jesus and the church, so that leaders with power serve in humble, self-denying love and truth. God wants to transform creation and our relationship with it, so it no longer groans, so we no longer abuse it, and so we no longer suffer from it. God wants to transform individuals’ human hearts, so they are not driven by pride, crushed under anxieties and wounds, or sullied by hatred, bitterness, or selfishness; he wants to make them fully healed, fully alive with love, ready to love and serve and delight in doing so.

Isn’t all that what we think of when we think of “salvation”?  And yet, something is seriously missing from that list, namely, our relationship with God himself.  God’s interest is not just in the existence of a thoroughly, overflowingly good created order, bringing it back (or even forward) to the way he would delight for it to be.  God wants to transform people’s (both individually and “as a whole”) relationship with himself.  For people to totally love, delight, and glory in God’s goodness greatness and grace; for them to find satisfaction in him and not stuff; for them to want him most; for people to use all they have to worship and honor him; for people not to sin by living lives of distraction and diversion, but to be totally centered in Christ, living from his love and grace.  God wants to transform our understanding of him, so that we understand him rightly, so we can praise and love him rightly, and realize his own love for us rightly.  Yes, salvation is comprehensive, capturing not only every relationship within the created order, but also the relationship of the created order to himself.

To speak of “the comprehensiveness of salvation” is really to speak about the character of the vision which God has for the world, the character of the telos God has for it.  God has not left the world to its current condition of brokenness and suffering—comprehensive brokenness and suffering.  Instead, God has committed to heal it in every aspect.  There is a world God has in mind for this world, a future state to which he has committed to bring it, and “comprehensive salvation” refers to the character of that future state: it is healed comprehensively, in every dimension and depth.

Here is what I hate: you cannot go from this fact that the salvation which God desires for the world is a comprehensive one, to the fact that the church’s mission should be comprehensive.  The comprehensiveness of mission absolutely does not follow from the comprehensiveness of salvation, at least not inferentially.  Let S stand for the statement “God’s will is for every aspect of the created order to experience his salvation.”  Let M stand for the statement “God’s will is for the church to work toward every aspect of the created order experiencing God’s salvation.”   P does not imply M.  P might be the reason M is true, if M is true; but it does not imply M.[1]  

I cannot stress strongly enough that the question for mission is not “where does God want to bring the world?” but “what specific part does God want the church to play in his work of bring the world to the end he desires for it?” It’s not, What does God want generally?  Its, What does God want of us specifically.  He may want a comprehensive mission; but he may not.  In his wisdom he might have a strategy, a plan for how he wants to bring about the comprehensive salvation of the world, and it might not include the church getting started on all of it now (or at least it might not include the church focusing equally on all of it now.)  God might well have a task he wishes the church to focus on now, because that is the role he wants them to play now in his larger drama.  God might well wish for the church not to undertake to “mediate salvation” to certain aspects of the world and its existence.  Maybe he does, but a case has to be made for it—and all evidence for S is not relevant to making that case, the case for M.  The fact of the comprehensiveness of salvation must not stop the question of the limits and priorities, of the specific character of the mission God has for the church specifically.   The question for the church’s missiology must only be what God wants it to be doing at this time, what role he wants for it to play at this time, given what he wants to do at this time.  The missio Dei and the missio ecclesia are not necessarily the same, and they must not be assumed to be so.[2] 

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[1] Example/analogy: The reason I might want my mechanic to repair my car is because I want my car fixed; but the fact that I want it fixed does not necessarily imply that I want my mechanic to do it!  (maybe it’s too expensive right now, etc).

[2] And the missio Dei is not imply that God is always working at realizing all of the future he is bringing to the world; he might be focused on achieving different aspects of the goal at different times.  

What I like about Open Theism...but why its probably wrong.

I'm reading about Open Theism in a Greg Allison's Historical Theology, in the chapter on Providence.  Its been a while since I last read about it--wow, around 5 years ago.  But as I'm reading about, there is something I like about it!  This sentence hit me:

• "God is free to sovereignly decide not to determine everything that happens in history."

Is not God's freedom this radical?  is not God even so free as to become a man? (can we even say, free to become a creature?)?

I think what I like about John Sander's open theism (Sanders is representative open theist here) is that it reminds us--us who have long emphasises God's total omnipotence -of God's vulnerability.  Sanders makes the issue whether or not God risks: the God who knows all and has all power is "the God who never takes any risks..."  What Sanders says is that God has the sovereign freedom to chose to be affected by his creatures.  He is free to give his creatures power, free to give them a power, and free to become vulnerable to their power.  What I like in open theism is not so much its metaphysics (which I will dispute shortly), but its portrait of the suffering God.  Does not God suffer?  Is that not where love takes him?  What else could the cross lead us to say? When we just think of God as the one who has all power, power power power, we can forget that God is vulnerable. [of course, saying that might be the wrong words, but I hope you feel my sentiment]

I think what I like too is the idea that God has chosen to "give us space to operate." Rather than determining every action, God has let us determine actions.  It is the flip side of GOd's otherness.  He has chosen to create something other, and to let it be other.  He respects its ability to be what it is, because that is his sovereign will. God, because of his love for love, because of his love to create people who can love, sincerely  from themselves, has given them true freedom, freedom to self determine.   This is the God of love.

I think we should, somehow, welcome this portrait of the God who blesses man, who gives him freedom, who desires after communion with them (does that sound wrong to you?  It almost does to me, but how can it be?  does not God desire communion with man?  Is that not ridiculous?  Is it not true though?), and who in this decision to give freedom and this decision to love, if that love was a decision, does not God in this make himself vulnerable, open himself up to suffering, open himself to the sorrow of sin?  In making the cup for a sweet wine, he makes the a cup from which to drink bitterness.   In some way  this all seems kind of biblical, and powerful, and profound, and worshipful...

 But of course, I think the issue is that maybe God is not free to not be in control.  Here's my thought: If God knows everything, if he know all counterfactuals--that is, if he knows all the ways that the world could play out for every different way it could start--then anything he chooses is in a sense a choice that implies the whole future.  God knows what will happen if he he sovereignly chose to not to determine everything that would happen in history.  And if one knows everything that would follow from one's choice, and those things only follow given ones choice, then God knows what he is choosing  God knows what his creatures will do.  He knows the world that is to follow from his decision.   And do something when you know exactly what the results will be...that's not really a risk.  So yes, God has sovereignly chosen to not control each action, he has chosen even to be vulnerable to human action (maybe). But that doesn't mean God's not in control.  It just means that in his control he chose to permit a thousand actions.  It doesn't mean that he's risking.  A God who knows everything is a God who cannot risk.  A God who knows everything knows exactly what he is doing in making this world with freedom.  A God who knows everything that is happening, and a God who can intervene  is a God who has to chose at each and every moment whether to intervene in what he sees, or to allow what he sees.  But a God who is allowing, or choosing to contradict, or just choosing to act at every point in time regarding every event in time...well, there's a word for that kind of God.  Its a God who is in control, who exercises providence. 

If Mission isn't the goal, what is?

(continuation.  Also, please note, most of what I say i do not believe; I'm just explaining the logic of the view I find myself holding, even though I think they are probably wrong.  I'm just trying to be honest and face the assumptions I (and probably others) sometimes imbibe)

Some might say intimacy with God is what our Christian life is all about, but that seems too self centered.  I don’t exist just to forget everyone or just use them to get closer to God. Being like Jesus as the goal seems too unrelational.  While we may need relationship with God (addressing and attending to God himself), the goal—taking on some character—is not relational. 

Maybe the goal isn’t singular.  Maybe it is two-fold.  That seems to be the wisdom behind the wesminster confession’s statement that the chief end of man is to a) glorify God, and b) enjoy him forever.[1]  To my mind, the marriage image given in scripture of our relationship with God suggests the two-fold activity of giving and receiving from God.  We love God through worship and service and through how we love eachother; we receive from God by enjoying, savoring, thanking (this is getting into worship) and growing. 

OK.  So, maybe the goal is giving and receiving, living in marriage with God through worship, obedience,receiving, etc.  This just changes my inquiry and shows that I was never interested in the goal of the christian life in the first place.  Rather, I just wanted to know, what is the life with which God is pleased?  What is the life which he praises?  What is the life that matters, is great, that is most honored, that is above?  

Is there a problem with this question?  Does it show that I am still trying to gain social superiority (in the kingdom), respect, a satisfaction in some affirmation, to be the best?  I want to be in first place, or at least the upper level (elite), in the kingdom.   

For the God for whom everything is mission, and whose central preoccupation is redemption of the world, it tends to seem that he wants me to serve that mission, and values me in accord with how well a role I play in that mission story.  So, the key to praise and value is performance of mission.  And, as ministry tends to refer to public tasks, I thus need to accomplish something great in the sphere.  These are the people some of us praise in the Christian community: brilliant thought-leaders, heads of amazing ministry organizations, etc.  We praise world-shapers.  That’s the measure of stature, significance, value, honor, praise, etc in the kingdom.

The other God I believe in, besides the God for whom mission is everything, is the God for whom the church is everything.  He cares about how much or how well people participate in serving this new community, the church.   For both these gods, marriage is nothing.  A husband (or father) (in his husbanding and fathering) is no world-shaper.  His only value is in the hope of a spiritual assist. And nobody thinks that having a fun day with your wife or kids is ministry to the church.

We can be great world shapers without being great lovers and worshippers of God.  And we can be great world changers for whom everything, including our love and worship of God, is for being great world changers.  But what is the life with which God praises most?  These world changers are great in our eyes for what they have done, but are they great in God's eyes, and if so, why?  What are we to be growing towards as Christians?   I’m so hungry for praise I can’t, like most do, pursue it on the side and be content with happiness as my main dish. 

Maybe this is all a problem of trying to find identity and worth in the church, rather than in God, or in God as a servant, whose exellence is in his work, rathther than as a wife or son, whose excelence is in love, affective (subjective) and enacted (obedience). I don't know.  

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[1] Aside: ugh, I hate academics.  I've put the Westminster Confession (without reading it) into the box of naieve, unenlightened, overly simplistic hermeneutics (they didn't read the Bible historically, but instead with that the more timeless, systematic, abstract, dejudiasized, protestant scholasticism approach).  Its not of enduring value because it’s the product of its times.  Unlike our theology today…

Is Mission Everything?

(this post is prompted by realizations I had during a conversation with my beautiful fiancée a few days ago, in which I began putting my finger on some of the structure and difference of our paradigms).

Lots of things are important in our Christian life: living holy, becoming like Jesus Christ in our character, worshiping God and having affective love for and an obedient will toward him, being used in our gifting for the building up of the church, glorifying God, etc.  On the one hand, these Christian injunction (being used, becoming holy, conforming to the character of Jesus, etc) are all connected , all of them promoting and spilling over into each other (this is how my fiancée would naturally see it).  But, for someone like me who tends to think of the logical relationship between ideas, and the organization of truths, I tend to think of one as ultimate.  One of these is the goal to which the others contribute.  The question I had recently is, “Which one?”

Historically, I’ve tended to believe and live like mission is everything (i.e. the goal).  I want to be holy so that I can be ready to be used by God. I want to be growing constantly so that I can become equipped for serving God.  I want Christ-like character so that I can have a heart and reputation and connection with God that makes powerful ministry possible.  I want to be close with God so that I might be lead by his Spirit … into ministry.  I even want to rest so that I can be rejuvenated for serving God.

(this view of the Christian life where mission is everything has been encouraged, I think, by some (recent) biblical theology which seems to emphasize the mission of God as the essence of the Bible and the most fundamental theological reality.  The implication of this seems to suggest that mission is everything to God.)

Relationships are also about mission.  The hope is, sometimes, that my friendships will help me (or them) grow for more effective mission.  The whammy is marriage.  Marriage is a consuming commitment, so how does this fit in a world that’s all about mission?  The answer is, “Not easily,” but that hasen’t stopped me from trying: “maybe marriage will help me do mission better… if not, then maybe marriage just represents a different strategy for mission: rather than doing ministry out there, I spend my labors trying to build up a few, trying to form a spiritual DNA in my family that will multiply ministers.”

The problem with mission as the ultimate goal is that it seems to not include so much of the not-so-missional stuff that makes up the reality of marriage (recreation, romance, and domesticity) and raising kids (playpens, base ball games and skateboarding, etc.).  Pursuing marriage (and the family it brings along with it) has caused to wrestle with what life is all about, because it doesn't seem it can be all about mission, at least not in the way I (and others?) typically conceptualize “mission” (or “ministry”).  Most take mission to refer to things we do out there in the public sphere of the church or world.  But most of our life is not there or in tasks, let alone those tasks. 

Secondly, mission as the goal of the Christian life is not a God-ward goal, but rather a world-ward one.  I can be all about mission and accomplishment, but not really about loving God and knowing him.  My goal is not that I might know Christ and be conformed to him, but that I might accomplish great things for God.  My goal is not relationship or fellowship with God, but simply success in the work for God.  That seems wrong. 

Thirdly, making mission everything makes everything be all about work.   All my deeds and pursuits are to accomplish.  This kind of thinking—having mission as the goal of all my life—has revealed to me that I don’t know how to live, but only how to work.  Is it a surprise that much of the mission emphasizing is written by men (who—and this will offend some—often tend to focus on work compartmentalized from the context of relationships and family) and that my paradigm has been challenged by beginning to live with a woman?  What is it to live as a Christian, aside from working for the Kingdom?  What is my ultimate calling (if it is not ministry)?  Im not sure, but Ill give my other thoughts in my next post.

A Defence: Further thoughts on a Missiology based on heaven.

Two great friends, who I love, respect and appreciate, have replied to my  previous post on "The Missology that comes from rethinking heaven."  Here's my defence.

My main criticism in the previous pose is NOT of a holistic missiology.  My main criticism is with saying that a) the NT's vision of an ultimately this-worldly, embodied, social, physical eternity somehow implies b) that social justice and creation care should therefore be priorities of the church's mission.  

Heck, I dont even care if the NT teaches "b", or even if it claims b on the basis of "a"!

I have a problem basing one's missiology on the Bible's teaching about the final world.  We should base our missiology on the Bible's teaching about missology.  Maybe I've gone crazy, but I think that doing so--basing a missiology on the Bible's teaching of the final, future salvation--amounts to saying, "If I was God and I had a physical, embodied, earthy, and thus social and political world, as my ultimate goal, and if I was using the church in my plan of redemption, then I would want that church to pursue in the concerns of social justice and creation care during this present time, in order to gradually begin bringing in in that end world."  

Well who cares what you would do or think if you were God!  I care what God thinks and wills to do.  I care what God wants his church to being doing now. And that just happens to be something of native concern to the NT, and something about which the NT has a bit to say! I don't care that there are people's who perceive in the NT a holistic missiology.  That's fine. I don't care, except that one day I might listen to them (i.e. read their books and consider them).  Presently, as I see it, Hauerwas' account (as I understand it) resonates with my experience of what the NT actually says and emphasises: namely, that the mission of the church is of the NT is not to make this world or its structures a better place (except as those structures are existing within the community of the church), but rather the NT pretty much emphasises proclamation and working to achieve a renewed life within the community of the people of God (a community that should be ever expanding).  That's how I see it.  A bunch on proclamation, a bunch on bringing the gentiles in, a bunch on being the renewed people, living out and working for a community shaped by a radically different set of values (love, mercy, loving the broken, etc).  That is not about reforming global issues of structures. 


If he, or the Bible, teaches that creation care / social justice (or secular political reform for that matter) are the business he wants the church to be about now, then fine.  Lets do it.  If God or the Bible teach that and happens to base the logic of that teaching in the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, of our present participation in the escaton, fine.  At that point, out missiology would be based on Biblical teaching about what God wants the church to be doing now. But us looking at a doctrine, and then basing a missology on it, that seems like a bad way to derive our missiology.   I think that the shape of the missiology for the church should follow the shape of the missiology in the Bible, not some other shape, even if that other shape is constructed using certain Biblical principles or doctrines.  


Of course, my position--that one should not base their missiology on some theological premise, but instead on the Bible's own teaching about missiology--is something to think more about.  On the one hand, it seems potentially limiting to theology, and I probably actually practice this deductive thing elsewhere.  But, at the same time, it would be weird to base a christology straight on OT texts about messiah.  hello, the NT teaches a lot about christology itself.  That's my beef.  I'd be happy to hear more thoughts. 

The Missiology that comes from Rethinking Heaven

Surprisingly, Time Magazine recently devoted their cover study to reviewing a trend in academic theology.  Weird.   The essay was titled "Rethinking Heaven."  It basically recounted how a team of  theologians--with NT Wright as the captain--are writing about how Christian salvation is not a ticket out of this world to some other worldly place called heaven where we go when we die, but rather, that the ultimate future of the saved is one this planet, when heaven comes to earth.  Christian believe that God will raise the dead and that they will live on this earth--albeit renewed and restored earth--and will there enjoy an embodied eternity with God. God is not abandoning his world, but intends to bring salvation to it.

The author, following the work of those he reported about, claimed that this view of heaven supposedly gives renewed support to causes of environmentalism and social justice.  I guess the reasoning goes: "God is ultimately interested in this world, in its embodied concreteness, which means in its social and physical dimensions.  He is not giving up on it, but instead, his plan is for salvation to reach into those dimensions too. [tha'ts the point it makes against the older, "fly away from this earth to a paradise in the clouds" view of heaven]. So, we the church, God's people and the agents through which God works out his salvation, should pursue those causes, because God pursues them too."  Salvation includes creation and embodied life, so that should be the church's mission.

I hope I'm not caricaturing the logic of this kind of position.  That's just how it seems to me to go, both in Rethinking Heaven, and in the works of those like NT Wright.  But I just think that one's view of heaven is entirely not the point when it comes to the question of the church's mission.  Who cares!  One's view of heaven is not what really determines it.  I'm fine saying that future salvation is embodied; that heaven will not be in the clouds but will be on earth.  talking about the final state does not tell me what God wants his people to do now. This is my big frustration in all this talk.  The fact is, God may want that end state, but he might have his own time and way for achieving that goal.  How can we jump from "God ultimately wants it" to "We're supposed to pursue it now?"  God has his own design and his own strategy, his own game plan and time table for when and how he wants to do things!

As far as I can tell in the NT, I see Paul, to take one example, very concerned with sharing the good news and tangibly and materially loving Christian communities, or those on the verge of becoming Christian.  I don't see him pursuing social reform in the Roman empire, with the important exception that in his mind, the church was the sphere of social reform. But addressing problems of Roman governmental policy or the environment, or even trying to make this world a better place--NO!  I don't see it.  A more biblical view of heaven doesn't imply a missiology, let alone one that, at least in my view, isn't a strong theme in the Bible.

I guess what im upset with is that the missional conclusion that people claim to follow from the "rethinking of heaven' in fact doesn't follow (its invalid; not to mention deduction seems like a fishy method for generating a missiology).  Just because the earth and embodied life is God's ultimate object, that doesn't mean that now is his time for that.  You know, God doesn't necessarily want to use the church to everything he wants done.  ...There will be, um, that thing called the return of Jesus. 

If we want to think about the mission and calling of the church for this time, why not just start with that question?  The Bible does have a lot to say about it--directly. 

Sometimes, I just really want to figure it all out.  To understand Paul and his theology, to understand Jesus as he really was and as the gospels present him.  Sometimes I want to figure out the historical genealogy of modern theology and of the views and theological language the flutter about in the swirl of our evangelical world.

Its a great feeling when those moments come,when the insight flashes.  There is a conversation, a million thoughts out there in the world of ideas, but I have a few thoughts that organize all the others...

But--and this is always such a challenge for me to remember!--I am not called to be a theologian!  Even if I am, I am  not!  I am called to walk with God, to love him, to worship him, to rest in him, to receive from him, both blessing to be enjoyed, as well as tasks to be performed.  "Walk before me and be blameless" (Gen 17:1), not, 'Walk before the community of thinkers and be successful or insightful."  Its hard to do theology as a living, because my walk with God is a condition for my work!

I can turn my attention and affections (away from God) toward learning and knowledge and understanding for happiness!  But no!

Lord, give me a chest and a heart big enough to support the brain I want to have.  There is a joy and excitement in insight, but give me the heart to love you. Lord, if you will be something I talk about for the next...bunch of years, I must have a lot of love for you.  i don't want to write of you without loving you.

Academia only cares about my brain.  But if I am a Christian first, then you care for my heart too.  Lord, may my scholarship be part of my worship, of my love, of our fellowship.