Part 1: Structure and Context of the Research
Chapter 1:
Introduction to
the Thesis
Throughout the last two decades, increasing
numbers of spiritually gifted New
Zealand believers have moved beyond the
charismatic renewal, searching for a greater reality between faith and their
leadership roles in society. Our faith has been born and nurtured in the midst
of revival, with the work of the Spirit central to our spirituality. We are
searching for significant theologies of societal transformation and informed
leadership configurations in secular society in order to revitalize the
national soul and vision. In this thesis I seek theological pathways towards
this end.
The personal cameos
which introduce this study reflect my thirty years of involvement in developing
communal theologies. For the roots of theology are autobiographical, though
theology is not an autobiography. The autobiographical is in community.
Preaching
Socio-economic Revival
At times between 1976 to 1984, I was
back in New Zealand after
living in various Manila slums. I spoke across
the New Zealand
charismatic renewal movement and called many renewed churches to commitment to
the poor. A significant percentage of evangelical churches in both mainline and
evangelical denominations were experiencing direct encounters with what
evangelical theology defines as the Holy Spirit. Waves of small confessional
groups, prayer movements and signs and wonders occurred up and down the country.
I spoke concerning the progression of renewal to revival, teaching from
Luke 4: 18: The Spirit of the Lord is on
me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. It is
a declaration that wherever the anointing of the Spirit occurs, it is for the
purpose of preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God
among the poor. Jesus then expands on the context of that proclamation —
a context of healing and deliverance, social involvement and an understanding
that jubilee has come where economic issues are addressed. I used the Acts 2
story to demonstrate how the empowering of the first church resulted in new
economics and new social structures of the Kingdom (1985/2004:152).
This theme of the Kingdom of God
became popular among national leaders in the Evangelical and Pentecostal
churches, influenced further by sources from the global charismatic Evangelical
and Pentecostal world. Embryonic teaching on socio-economic aspects of the
Kingdom began to develop. The story became communal. In today’s world,
the communal is globalised.
Shifting the
Global Evangelical Mindset
Ten years on, moving on from pioneering in Calcutta in 1991, I found myself drafting the
goals for the global AD2000 city leaders'
network around the theme of city evangelisation and transformation. As I
presented it to a grouping of Evangelical and Pentecostal global mission
leaders, there was quiet rejection. How does transformation help
evangelisation? The link between preaching the Kingdom and socio-economic
transformation was distant from the mainstream evangelical mindset at that time.
This had changed radically
by the end of the century. In giving guidance to two global city leadership
networks around these themes, I have seen such ideas and concepts multiplied in
a number of cities.
By 2001, urban mission leaders
were writing articles like Ten Paradigm
Shifts Towards Transformation (Swanson, 2003). George Otis Jr., leader of
the Sentinel Group which researches spiritual phenomena in cities and countries
and who was part of the AD2000 leadership, subsequently developed a video
demonstrating the theme, simply called “Transformations” (1999).
Over 8000 sold within a few months.
Building an
Apostolic Network
As
part of modelling this in the local context, in January 1996, I invited an ad hoc group of fifteen Auckland charismatic and
Pentecostal leaders to the home of the then deputy mayor to discuss issues of
citywide leadership. This group, meeting monthly for the next six years,
becoming the Action Group then the Vision
for Auckland forum.
These leaders had emerged during the
charismatic renewal which swept through most churches in New Zealand in the 1960’s - 1980’s
and resulted in expanding the Evangelical/Pentecostal wing of the Christian
churches to approximately 6% of New
Zealand’s population among the 10-15%%
of Kiwis who seek to attend church weekly, 17-19% who seek to attend 2-3 times
per month or more.[2]
Results from this season of spiritual encounters included a culturally adaptive
entrepreneurial Christianity, several significant Pentecostal denominations,
renewal movements within traditional denominations, structural changes in some
denominations and inner personal character and vision formed by revival
dynamics in many lives. However, the penetration of this renewal into society,
its consummation in significant societal movement towards the values of the Kingdom of God, seemed frustratingly distant.
From Theology
to Prophetic Call in Auckland
At a hui following two years reflecting with
the Vision for Auckland Action Group,
the following challenges were made to seventy leaders of the church of Auckland
(Grigg, 1999b).
1. The call to unity:
networked
leadership infrastructure with common visions.
2. The call to redefine the soul of the
city
from
bicultural reconciliation to a multicultural church and city.
3. The call to Kingdom transformation
of
values and institutional directions of major sectors of society in the
midst of decline of
Western (Pakeha) civilisation.
4. The call to a progression of public
events
that
transform public perception of Christianity.
5. The call to prepare for the
emergence of a multicultural youth revival
and
integrate it into sustaining movement structures.
6. The call to waves of repentant,
broken holiness
that
release evangelisation of the unchurched 80% and lift
church attendance from 16% to 20% to 25%.
I began this thesis as a reflection on these
six calls but then focussed on the theological elements of the call to
transformation of values in sectors of Auckland
city.[4] I
will develop this study around two themes related to transformation –
revival and the Kingdom
of God. In the New Zealand
revival a certain level of clarity developed in relation to these two themes,
collectively owned across the eldership of the renewal.
The Kingdom as
Integrating Vision
In 1982 as I had founded Servants
to Asia’s Urban Poor, I brought
“Kingdom of God and the Poor” seminars to many charismatic
churches. Then a group including Wyn Fountain, Bernie Ogilvie, Brian Hathaway,
Tom Marshall and others built a
network nationally, taking teaching about the Kingdom to churches in towns
across the nation. They published a Kingdom
Manifesto and later Brian Hathaway integrated this into a book (1990) about
his Brethren assembly, which had applied these principles in Te Atatu Peninsula.
Tom Marshall, a businessman and
pastor, published a magazine, Saltshaker,
for several years. This expanded on these issues. After his death, the Bible
College of New Zealand integrated it into Reality
magazine. This continued to emphasize the themes of the Kingdom disseminated
into every sector of society.
The outcome of this study is a missions theology underlying both process
and goals of “Citywide Transformative Revival.” This has been
grounded in local realities of Auckland
as a representative modern/ postmodern city.
Global processes among urban missions
strategists and theologians have provoked the question, “What is the relationship of the Spirit of Christ to the
transformation of a postmodern city?” I have examined this in a limited
manner by using two local indicators, the NZ revival (for the work of the Holy
Spirit) and Auckland
city (for emergent modern/ postmodern megacities). This has resulted in an
exploration of revival theology and its
limitations among Auckland’s
Pentecostals and Evangelicals and a
proposal for a theology of transformative revival that engages the postmodern
city. Thus, the study oscillates between local analysis and global
theologies.[5]
To accomplish this within an evangelical
perspective I propose as a research framework, a new hermeneutic of “transformational conversations”,
an interfacing of faith community
conversations and urban
conversations.
I use this to develop a new theory of “citywide transformative revival” as
an expansion of revival theories, a field within pneumatology. Citywide
transformative revival is a concept of synergistic revivals in multiple sectors
of a mega-city. This results in long-term change of urban vision and values
towards the principles of the Kingdom
of God.
I develop a theology of transformative process from apostolic and prophetic themes. These
are outcomes of gifts released in revival. Transformative revival results in
new transformative apostolic and
prophetic structures that engage the postmodern city soul.
Transformation implies goals. I explore the
results of revival, the transformative
visions for the city, from themes of the City of God
and the Kingdom
of God. I expand largely
“spiritual” Western formulations of the Kingdom to a holistic
Kingdom vision of the spiritual, communal and material aspects of the
postmodern city.
Part 1: Frameworks
The present chapter surveys content, the
genre of urban missions, steps in the research process, definitions and
presuppositions. In Chapter 2, I develop the hermeneutic framework in a theory
of “transformational conversations”. Chapter 3 lays a foundation
from historical trends in the literature on social transformation and its
relationship to pneumatology.
Part 2: A Theory of Transformative Revival
In Part 2, I develop a theory of
“transformative revival” examining the cradle of citywide revival
— the church in Auckland (chapter 4) in
the context of the rise and decline of the 25-year charismatic renewal in New Zealand
(5). This is evaluated in the light of revival movement theories. In chapter 6,
I develop a model of classical views of revival and revival movements. This
enables an examination (7), of the dramatic reversal of Evangelicals as a
disenfranchised minority over 30 years, from non-engagement to
“enraged” engagement with societal issues.
In Chapter 8, I move beyond engagement to a
theory of “transformative revival” in examining the release of
prophetic roles in transformative revival (9) and apostolic engagement in
multiple sectors of Auckland
(10), describing this in more detail in the business sector (11).
Part 3: Conversing with the Post Modern Urban Context
Part 3 moves from a theology of revival
process to a theology of end-goals for transformative revival. It focuses on
discerning the vision for the city, beginning with reflections on a biblical
theology of the ideal city of God
and the work of the Spirit in its genesis (12).
I link this ideal nature of the city with
items derived from modern urban social theories (13). Then expand this with a
second conversation between postmodern urban exegesis and its implications for Auckland (14) and a response from the viewpoint of the Kingdom of God as centre of a transformation web of
belief (15). Evangelical understandings of the Kingdom of God
are expanded to provide theological content for new cultural conversation
themes – in the material, postmodern humanness, community and an
alternative social order.
I define revival
as the experience of the person of the Holy Spirit falling on groups resulting
in a dramatic transformation of their Christianity, caused by or resulting in
repentance, accompanied by boldness in evangelism, power, love and unity.
A revival
movement occurs when the Holy Spirit falls on multiple groups, as those
initially touched by the Spirit, go in power and take his presence into related
social groups.
Transformation,
in the text on Social Transformation of the Wheaton 83 Consultation is:
The change from the condition of human existence contrary to God’s
purposes to one in which people are able to enjoy fullness of life in harmony
with God (World Evangelical
Fellowship, 1983: section 11).
I use transformative
revival for a consummated revival movement. It may cause a cultural revitalisation, beginning with
engagement in the public domain.[6] Then
as major paradigm shifts occur within a generation or so, progressively
transforming the values and vision of major cultural sectors with the values of
the Kingdom. The public domain is that space
of conversation about vision, values and structure between diverse
ethnicities, interest groups and corporate structures in sectors of the city.
The Movements
Evangelicalism
includes traditionally orthodox
Protestants from many denominations and includes Pentecostals, charismatics,
conservatives and fundamentalists. The term was popularised during the Great
Awakening in Britain and the
US,
dramatic periods of revival resulting in conversion of hundreds of thousands.
Three global networks currently link these: World Evangelical Fellowship, the
Lausanne Movement and, during the 1990’s the AD2000 movement now morphed
into the Transformation Movement. Central to Evangelicalism is belief in the
atoning work of Christ for salvation, the necessary proclamation of the gospel
and the authority of the written Word of God “in faith and
practice.” The
term came to represent a historic conflict with “liberal”
Protestants who are defined as those who would not necessarily centralise
verbal evangelism or historic Christian commitments to the authority of the
canon as the Word of God.
The Pentecostal
movements[11] grew
in multiple indigenous movements parallel to Evangelicalism, involving those
who by their own definition, have passed through two determining experiences in
their relationship to the God of the Bible. The
first experience is conversion based on repentance and receipt of forgiveness
through the atoning work of Christ on the cross. The second is a concomitant or
subsequent experience of the “baptism of the Spirit” which may
signify receipt of the Holy Spirit, extra empowering, anointing or a host of
other existential experiences.[13],
Global researcher, David Barrett
defines,
Christians who are members of Pentecostal denominations… whose
major characteristic is a rediscovery of and a new experience of the
supernatural with a powerful and energising ministry of the Holy Spirit in the
realm of the miraculous that most other Christians have considered to be highly
unusual (1988:124).
Generally, Pentecostals identify these experiences
as the release of spiritual gifts and in particular, the gift of speaking in
tongues (glossolalia). In practice,
only half of Pentecostals actually speak in tongues.[14] The
specificity of these doctrines results in the establishing of independent
Pentecostal churches although these rapidly form into some form of
denominational structures.
In comparison, charismatics tend to have had similar experiences of the Holy
Spirit but to have chosen to remain within their older denominational
structures, forming organised renewal groups. As a result, their
interpretations of cause and effect tend to be different. Catholics, Anglicans
and Lutherans, for example, do not necessarily see the need for a
“conversion” experience prior to a “baptism of the
Spirit” experience, but rather understand that baptism as an affirmation
of their being part of the faithful, born into the church and confirmed into
their faith.
Many charismatics do not see “speaking
in tongues” as the necessary sign of the “baptism of the Spirit”,[15]
recognizing that the Scriptures teach of multiple giftings for individuals.
Many would also consider the work of the Spirit as contiguous with multiple
experiences along the pathway of discipleship. The “baptism of the
Spirit” as a sign of conversion is not highly differentiated from the
“baptism of the Spirit” as a sign of spiritual power and anointing.
Charismatics do not see a common doctrinal agreement on these issues as
essential – but the reality of the experience and ongoing power in
ministry is.
Evangelicals also include Fundamentalists,[16] who
tend to be more literal in their understanding of the genesis and use of the
Scriptures, to reject many charismatic and Pentecostal experiences of the Holy
Spirit and to hold rigid commitments to doctrinal positions with strong
emphasis on end-time scenarios. However, many Pentecostals would be
fundamentalistic in their view of the Scriptures and attitude to truth.
Important within this stream is the century-old teaching of dispensationalism
which divides history into seven dispensations each possessing different
God-human-state-creation relationships. Significant for this study is their
rejection of the “sign gifts.” Many believe these “ceased
with the early church.” Thus, they reject renewal, revival and associated
phenomena, while working in uneasy alliance with Evangelicals, Pentecostals and
charismatics because of sharing other underlying values. The Brethren
assemblies, Salvation Army and Churches of Christ, among others, tend to be
fundamentalist in New Zealand.
Many interdenominational evangelistic groups such as Scripture Union, the
Navigators and Open Air Campaigners developed from earlier phases of
fundamentalism (Gilling, 1989:43-53).
This is an urban missions’ theological
study. Missiology is well defined as a relatively new[17] but
eclectic discipline,[18]
accepted across the spectrum of Christian denominations (as best shown perhaps,
in the diversity of one of its major journals, The International Review of Missions). It is eclectic, integrating
perspectives from four major fields: theology of mission, cultural studies and
linguistics, aspects of sociology of religion (particularly movement growth,
leadership and church growth) and mission history (related to, but distinct from,
church history). A theology of mission cannot be developed independent of these
fields.
Within missiology, the field of Urban
Missions is well defined. It expands the evangelical mindset into handling
heterogeneity, spirituality within the urban environment and a holistic
integration of evangelism with response to structural evils (Conn,
1993:96-104). Urban Mission
is grounded in urban anthropology (Shipp, 1992:3). In
past research, I have found anthropological case study and participant-observer
processes to be compatible with involvement in the leadership and movement
dynamics that I have been investigating. In terms of urban missions theology,
this participatory approach provides a “theology of the people,” as
the starting point and partial data for this study.
In this kind of research, I cannot look at
the development of mission theologies without referring to the actions they
produce — their structural outworking. This, however, differs from
development of a comprehensive strategic study in business, as it is an
analysis of the theology underlying such strategies. Analysis of theology-based
actions is included as illustrative.
The next chapter outlines the hermeneutic and
theological research methodology. In this section, I identify research steps
taken and identify issues in participant-observer methodology.
Step 1: Literature Search
Throughout the study, I searched for
literature in urban missions, focussing on theological issues related to
transformative revival. This research covered historic transformational, NZ
church-state, urban and revival theologies. As no comprehensive data was
available on the transformative workforce or growth of the movements, I
collated analyses of the recent growth of the charismatic Evangelical movement
(extensive but based on attendance records for some denominations and other
available secondary data, such as yearly polls).
Step 2: Networking Analysis of Movement Leaders in Auckland
Over four years, I developed a database of significant
charismatic and Pentecostal leaders. This involved identifying 736 leaders
nationally and 729 mission organisations. These were identified through
networking from leader to leader and included my personal interaction with 150
emergent Christian leaders in some secular roles in major societal sectors of Auckland. I complemented
this with a database of 1084 Auckland
congregations and their leaders, including 350 ethnic congregations and
leaders. These had to be identified
through networks in each ethnic grouping as many are independent and do not
meet in a “church” building but warehouses, school halls and large
homes. They included major streams
of church life (some mainstream Protestant, many conservative evangelical,
majority charismatic evangelical and Pentecostal, a few Catholic). I analysed
these in terms of denomination, 15 societal sectors, or 18 ethnic sectors, and
their level of leadership (local, city sector, citywide, national,
international) and type of Christianity (evangelical, charismatic,
fundamentalist, liberal, Catholic).
I have used four cycles of action-reflection,
following the transformational conversations approach developed in the next
chapter.
While the primary cycle of research was in
the city leadership group, I had to go back one cycle to locate their issues in
the context of social disempowerment during the expansion of the revival. From
the action group discussions came a growing understanding of what had forced
Evangelicals into social issues – their sense of disempowerment as New Zealand
culture diverged from its Christian foundations. The energy for change however,
could frequently be related back to experiences of the Holy Spirit in the
renewal. Expansion of these themes required research in the published
literature on involvement in public issues.
Cycle 2: Participant-Observation in Theological Action-Reflection
I have been participant-observer in a cycle of action-reflection with
the Vision for Auckland
leadership. This included think tanks with groups of Christian leaders in each
of several societal sectors. In these, I sought to document emerging theologies
and to test the viability of elements of teaching on transformative revival.
Among the groups were:
The national VisionNZ city
leadership network and theology working groups in their reflection process,
with leadership and theology working group documents outlining vision, strategy
and theology (participant-observer).
The Vision for Auckland leadership team in strategies,
ethnic and transformation task forces, public meetings and four consultative
hui produced shared visions and fifty-five vision summaries. I was involved in and reviewed the minutes of discussions of over
fifty ongoing monthly forums of Vision for Auckland. This was the primary context for
continual integration of the broadest level of transformational conversations
between Evangelicals and the city (initiator and leader of process for
two years, then participant-observer).
Cycle 3: Redefinition of Themes at City Sectoral Level
This open-ended approach, with initial
consultations at national and city leadership levels, resulted in redefinition,
particularly my re-examination of the city of God
as a theme defining the end goals of revival, with a final preference for the
expansion of the Kingdom
of God. In a cyclical
dynamic, initial leadership gatherings set the ongoing research agendas for my
encouraging smaller work groups, developing a web of research studies. I
analysed seven factors including theology, vision, leadership progressions,
etc., in twelve societal sectors.
The networks and my roles were:
· An ethnic leaders' network drawn together in hui (as catalyst, participant-leader).
· A network of intercessors across Auckland (as occasional
participant, observer).
· A business leaders’ network,
sports network, legal network, medical network, etc. (as observer, at times
theological integrator).
Cycle 4: The Kingdom in the Business Sector
I created a business leaders’
storytelling process and publication which resulted in a more detailed analysis
of the theological nuances occurring in that sector and their relationship to
the Kingdom of God as an integrative theme for
transformation (as research designer, editor and theologian).
Step 4: Analysis of Theological Conversations from Among the People
Reflection on the above four cycles enabled
me to first develop a model of revival movement processes, then the
transformative revival theory. I had to anchor it in the context of Auckland as urban and
postmodern environment, identifying conversation
spaces between the Kingdom and postmodernism which enable definition of the
goals of transformative revival.
I set the following limits to the study:
1. Representative City:
The study is based on Auckland
as representative postmodern mega-city. This is not unreasonable as definitions
of a modern mega-city include recent rapid growth due to migration,
multi-ethnicity, multiple cities within a city and a population of over 1
million. At 1.3 million, it is the 433rd city in terms of population in the
world.[20]
Comprising several cities, it is the centre of northern New Zealand and a centre for the Pacific Islands. Relatively new as a city, at
only 150 years old, it contains tribal, modern and postmodern elements.
Studying multiple cities would have widened the theoretical base and given
cross-linkages as to dynamics but allowed less depth to the research. I have
used that approach in two previous books, but learned in the last that communal
theologising and global analysis can result in idealized theology that is not
always accurately reflecting realities.
2. Participant-observation: This study is
not a statistical, sociological survey approach to vision change within a city
but a participant-observer’s analysis. The observational nature of
participant research must also be integrated with the predictive nature of the
prophet and strategist in an urban missiology. This requires care to avoid
predetermined biases. Fortunately, I have been somewhat blessed to be an
‘exile’ for long periods, so write from a liminal position within
New Zealand Evangelicalism, living in several worlds concurrently and thus free
to compare the present context under study with parallel universes (Bauman,
2000: 203).
3. A theological focus rather than strategy:
Theology does not predict future effectiveness independent of the social
structure of movements. These issues are too broad to cover in one study so I
have chosen to focus on the theological. In doing so, I recognise the complex
interplay between the social structure of movements and their underlying
theology, each being determinative at certain points. Issues of group
mobilisation, the turning of theology into slogans for the masses, popular
appeal, appropriateness of theological response for the given time and so on,
are touched on in this study. Full development requires a parallel study.
Seeking the derivation of theology from the people,
I have utilised aspects of ethnographic research. Definitions of cultural
research, identify particular methodological aspects:
ethnographies
generate hypotheses, focus on context, are written up using thick description,
require participant-observation and use multiple measures for data collection,
that is, triangulation… More recently, definitions explore case-study
reporting and the dual roles of ethnographers in composition…(Bishop, 1999: 18).
This study carries all these elements. The diversity of disciplines in
urban missiology results in a thick description and a diversity of styles.
Oscillations between biblical thematic studies to theological concepts to
cultural analysis to case study and strategic thinking, at times represent
marked departures from classical historical/biblical theological studies done
in New Zealand.
They are, however, common in missiological studies globally (Elliston, 1997).
Role of
participant-observer: In the research I have been observer, while at times,
I was also involved relationally and emotionally and deliberately active in
determining the directions of theological change, particularly in the second
research cycle. Dewalt, Dewalt and Wayland talk of the tensions:
Participation involves emotional involvement, observation requires
detachment. Pure observation requires removal from the object. Pure
participation involves “becoming the phenomenon.” In examining
participation, we need to identify both the level of participation and the
level of emotional involvement (1998: 263-4).
I prefer to see these as integrative aspects of truth seeking. This is
something I have developed in missiological research over the last two decades.
While I have sought full engagement with the processes under study; in my
analysis I have sought to be objectively detached. This involved defining my
biases without necessarily rejecting them and identifying emotional and
volitional elements that affect my evaluations. In wanting Evangelicals to move
in the directions proposed by the study, I have had to also evaluate hindrances
to those progressions. In proposing a certain theological path ahead, I have
had to deduce why other possible theological configurations (some held
aggressively by those studied), will not achieve the ends proposed. In part, I
also modified my relationships to the core group of leaders in the study,
moving back from being instigator to observer, after an initial period as
catalyst.
The Locus of Authority
This study is within an Evangelical and
canonical tradition, which would understand that the knowledge of Christ, the
living Word, is through the Scriptures as “the Word of God.”[21] They
are seen in total as “truth,” or as the Westminster Catechism puts
it, “the only rule for faith and practice.” This tradition holds
that “all Scripture is inspired by God” (II Tim 3:16), including
the sum total of Old and New Testament canon, as defined by the early church.
Personally, while this belief in the
authority of the Scriptures may be rationally justified, it seems that all such
logical arguments are circular and supplementary to experiential dynamics.
Consistently, through the years, I have found myself agreeing with each
rational step but with an intuitive sense that the mode of dogmatic or
reductionist rationalism used to justify such an approach (e.g. Packer, 1976)
itself is flawed.
Brueggeman helps here when he depicts the
struggle for control of interpretation between the orthodox, who defended
Reformation doctrine, the rationalists, who sought an autonomous learning space
and the pietists who resisted the hardening of both orthodoxy and autonomous
rationalism (1997:5,6). The pietistic impulse, that sense of the Holy
Spirit’s leading, while applauding the rational affirmation of the
Bible’s authority, sees rationalism as a secondary source of affirmation.
This is as old as the monk Anselm of Canterbury’s notion of “faith
seeking understanding.”. This contrasts with Descarte’s
“appeal to reason through doubt.”
Evangelicalism also tends to ignore the
relationship of the human to the divine in the development of the Scriptures
and in the decisions defining the canon. This involves blind faith in the
sovereign hand of God on these processes, ignoring issues of oral history and
form criticism.[22]
Numbers of evangelical scholars (Hagner, 1998) have moved to a wider acceptance
of these fields and greater appreciation of the human traditions in the
biblical manuscripts, particularly at the interface with postmodernism (Dow,
2005). The basis of my commitment to a classical Christian and evangelical view
of the whole of Scripture as being the Word of God is thus largely a pragmatic,
pietistic understanding that recognises these human elements in the
communication of the divine. This is not illogical but also not watertight.
Reality of the Person of the Holy Spirit
Commonly, in the rationalist analysis of
religion, religious experience is relegated to psychological realms. However,
this study begins with evangelical a
priori assumptions of the Bible as authority and thus, secondly of an
external God revealed in the Scriptures as supernatural and personal. The
Scriptures show development as to the personality of the Holy Spirit. This
begins with the wind of God (ruach),
the Spirit, involved in a three-way conversation within the Godhead, in the
work of creation. It extends to the teaching of Jesus about the personality of
the Spirit as guide (Rom. 8:14), counsellor, teacher and the one who speaks,
convicts and bears witness to truth (John 14:15,26; 16:8,9). This contrasts
with the understanding by over a third of those identifying themselves as
Christians in New Zealand,
that the Spirit is an impersonal life force (Webster & Perry, 1989:83).
Given the scriptures as source of authority,
the logical extension of these statements is to presume that when people speak
of personal encounters with God the Holy Spirit, they may reasonably be
speaking truth (i.e., they are not deluded). Alternatively, these experiences
can be logically tested against the biblical data as to the nature of God and his
encounters with men and women in redemptive history and the nature of the Holy
Spirit. The Scriptures themselves give guidelines for judgement of the validity
of prophecy and other supernatural phenomena.
The study presumes some missiological
background in the literature of pneumatology and phenomenology of religion. For
those coming from another faith community, helpful foundations may be found in
anthropologist Paul Hiebert’s “Flaw of the Excluded Middle”
(1982), or the sympathetic analyses
of the Pentecostal movement in Harvey Cox’s Fire from Heaven (1995). Morton
Kelsey’s works analysing Christian supernatural phenomena from Jungian
psychological perspectives (1977; 1991; 1995) could follow. Or within
charismatic evangelical literature, John Wimber’s exegeses (1985) on the
miraculous in the life of Jesus and church history and its implications in
terms of theological interpretation of phenomenology are useful.
Summary
I began this introduction with stories framing the topic of this
research. I have then outlined the topic, content, processes, presuppositions
and limitations. Some essential definitions have been documented. I will
develop the hermeneutic theory underlying this study in chapter 2.
Chapter
1
Transformational Conversations
(Hermeneutic for the Postmodern City)
Revolutions in human thinking are
not created by new information but by new paradigms that allow more information
to be fitted more fully and adequately. And revolutions in scientific paradigms can be awesome moments of cognitive
dissonance.
Harvey Conn[24]
Fig. 1: Urban Theology as Transformational Conversation
Fig. 1 shows a process for developing an urban theology about transformative
revival. It begins with (1) an entrance story and involves three components:
(2) internal Christian conversation on pneumatology,(3) the in-city
conversation, and (4) the interfacing of these in a transformational
conversation. (5) All these contribute to the central theme.
Theology
begins in the truth of story — God’s story, my story, our story.
Over the last fifteen years my involvement in leadership of the global AD2000
cities network mentoring city leadership teams and the Encarnação
network of urban poor mission leaders has prompted the evolution of a new
hermeneutic – new at least for Evangelicals. This study develops the
concept of a “transformational conversation hermeneutic.”
I discovered
urban practitioners constantly struggling with the sense of
“irrelevance” of their training in systematic theology and its
dissonance from the nature of the God of action they followed. In contrast they
loved building collective theologies
from their stories. I build the theory from such tensions; defining my terms
and relating these tensions to four polarities in our perception of the
godhead: his structuring and creativity, his relationship to the present and to
history, his existing and acting and his transcendence and immanence. I
consider the relationship of this hermeneutic with Postmodernity in an excursus
on page Error! Bookmark not
defined., exploring to what extent evangelical theology can
engage with or become postmodern in style.
Transformational
Conversations
The
phrase “transformational conversations” was sparked by
Brueggeman’s comments about intertextuality as “an ongoing
conversation that is as urgent and contemporary as the present moment, but it
is also a conversation that stretches over the generations” (1997:78-79).
This study regards theology as both diachronic “conversations”
(over the generations) and synchronic conversations (one time, across
cultures). It defines urban theology as communal conversations with the
potential to result in societal transformation.
The
three circles in Fig. 1 link three
conversations in a total process which I am calling a “transformational
conversation”: firstly, the conversation within the faith communities,
secondly, the community conversation within the city and thirdly, the
transformational conversation between these two. The transformational
conversation hermeneutic is fed by the metaphors and symbols, imagery and
grammar, dialect and cadence of both the city and the faith community. The
hermeneutic results in defining public space for open conversations about
complex issues (I will use the term “conversation spaces”), in
contrast to some approaches that reduce the scriptures to singular meanings or
to absolutist slogans.
Theology
may be considered as human reflections on the nature of God. In grappling with
story-telling theological processes in urban poor pastors’ and city
leaders’ consultations we stumbled onto an understanding of doing
theology as conversation. Doing theology this way consistently answered four
polarities about our perception of God better than the systematic rationalist
approaches common among Evangelicals:
·
Is God a rationalist
philosopher or creative storyteller?
·
Is God or was God? Do we know
God primarily in his present actions around the globe or through his
involvement in history?
·
Is God incarnate or cosmic?
Immanent or transcendent? Local or global?
·
Is God or does God? Is God the
God of being or the God of action?
God of Story or Rationalist
Philosopher?
From
many of the last 30 years in and out of slum areas in cities around the world I
have concluded that Jesus’ storytelling style embodied the primary style
of teaching of the poor and those of us who choose to live among the poor. We
think story, communicate story to story. At a leadership level, the process
becomes more refined:
Storytelling
Consultation Process
In 1996, we held a typical
storytelling consultation in Mumbai with 80 leaders of urban poor ministries.
Each day we would introduce the day’s theme. Each worker then had ten
minutes to tell his or her story. At the end of each day, we would integrate
the theology and strategies that had been shared. Many worked for Western
funded missions to the poor. On the side, they did what they knew really
worked. It was these Indian stories of how Indians were finding solutions in
their context that were crucial. At the end of the week, the whole group knew
we had developed a genuine Indian theology and praxis of working with the poor.
In
integrating urban poor theologies we extended this methodology of developing
grassroots theology, simply labelled as “storytelling theologies.”
This
requires a theological facilitator trained in ethnotheological perspectives and
able to work with a leadership in designing insider-outsider reflection
processes. The role of the trained theologian is thus not that of the expert
coming with truth, but as:
The reflector and thematizer, the
one who is able to provide the biblical and traditional background that will
enable the people to develop their own theology (Bevans, 1996:51).
I
would add that the theologian must come as revivalist, bringing the presence of
God, for such theologies have been developed much on our knees. These
gatherings are often filled with a sense of the presence of God, so that the
theology evolved is not simply cognitive and communal but experiential,
healing, creating unity and love.
From Stories to Global Theology
From 1991-1997, as part of the
AD2000 city network, a global team of city leaders from most continents
extended the “storytelling” method to city leadership consultations
in other regions and cities. From these were developed urban theologies and urban strategies (Grigg,
1997b). At this level, the complexity increases. We drew from stories given in
multiple city contexts. I remember sitting with the leadership team for five
days in 1993, identifying strands that seemed to keep twisting with other
strands, becoming braids that eventually linked to major themes. The themes
became paramount in the final written theology. The outcome was a globalised theology and strategy
reproduced now in a number of cities.
Fig. 2: Processes in a Transformational Conversation about Transformative
Revival
Fig. 2 expands the steps for developing
a transformational conversation on the relationship of Holy Spirit and city. It
begins in an action story (#1). A faith community conversation on pneumatology
(#2) develops from that entrance story. From reflection on the action, biblical
urban themes develop (#3a). This leads to an interface between the urban
conversation (#3b), the communal context and Scripture. In turn, this leads to
an interface between these two conversations on the Spirit and the city —
the transformational conversation (#4a). This creates a new praxis (#4b).
The theologies are not developed in a vacuum.
The synchronic are based on the diachronic Participants come with previous
formal or informal theological training that draws on historical, systematic
and biblical theologies, for these remain foundational. What they had never
been able to express was the outworking of that theology into new indigenous
theologies for their decade (thus answering the second query, “Is God or
does God?” by a transition to the present and synchronic, but with
reference to the diachronic). These new theologies are not grounded in a single
denominational view imported from another continent, but from indigenous
expressions within the workers’ own people and land. They often
contradict their own views developed from imported formal training. Thus communal ownership occurs.
Such theologies develop comprehensive themes
of city leadership, holistic ministry among the poor, urban poor church life,
etc. This comprehensiveness is not
because the theologies are developed with systematic logic, from a foundational
web of belief, but because the stories cover the essential range of current
issues, related to a given theme, identifying a new web of belief. Stories also
gave a warm human sense of truth, honed from both Scripture and involvement.
“Systematic theology engages the intellect; storytelling engages the
heart and indeed the whole person” (Bausch, 1984:6).
Struggles with "storytelling
theology” led me to “transformational conversations” as a
more encompassing description. Stories are part of wider urban conversations.
Stories, Chaos and the Multivariate Urban Context
This
illustrated a major shift in urban theology from the stability and continuity
of rural theologies (emphasis on God is, the God of being and stability) that
have been the context of the historic church, to the ongoing discontinuities
and chaos of the mega-city (emphasis on God does, the God of action and
change). Ariovaldo Ramos, Brazilian Evangelical leader, commented once to me, “since
the city is always somewhat chaotic, an urban theological response should also
be somewhat chaotic.”
My
father, a scientist, left a book around on chaos theory in mathematics. Chaos
theory developed because of the nature of multivariate analysis — small perturbations
in starting conditions lead to extensive divergences in ending conditions,
apparently random, but actually following clear mathematical rules, such as in
predicting weather conditions across the earth (Gleick, 1987). Cities are
multivariate. Indeed, within urban planning, there is a whole science of
fractal geometry based on multivariate analysis, that when applied to the
apparently chaotic emergence of city forms enables planning predictions (Batty
& Longley, 1994). The parallel concept is multivariate theologies.
In a
period in Brazil
during this study I discovered that some Latin theological methodology has also
progressed from the intrusion of Marxist analysis into Catholic theology
through liberation theology. Fr. João Batista Libanio in a Brazilian
Catholic theology of the city, As
Lógicas da Cidade (The Philosophic Structures of the City (2001)),
affirms the approach of beginning from stories. He expands on an idea of
Foucault (1972:10) about seeking discontinuities beneath grand themes and
relating them back to the continuity of historic theologies:
We opt for a reading (of theology,
of the city) that creates discontinuity before we create order. This is in
contrast to two very different ideological options of our time… One
traditional reading prefers order, continuity… The other posture, with a
modern tinge, specializes in the unity of thought of neo-liberalism. This also
announces changes but at their heart, these changes only maintain continuity.
It fixes on a unified structural model of the city... (2001: 23 tr. from Portuguese mine).
This concept of multiple discontinuities, multiple variables,
causing us to stop in our tracks because they are different or perplexing, is a
feature of urban theology.
However,
if multivariate analysis in chaos theory produces beautiful art out of apparent
discontinuities, can an overarching pattern be seen in the Scriptures? This
highlights a historic hermeneutic problem of the search for a unifying centre.
Osborne states,
As the interlocking principles between strata of the biblical period
become visible, the patterns coalesce around certain ideas that bridge the gaps
between the individual witnesses. However, it is very uncertain whether any
single theme or concept stands at the apex of biblical theology. Many believe
that the complete lack of consensus demonstrates that a cluster of ideas,
rather than a single theme, unites all others (1991: 282).
If
there is no single theme, can multivariate theologies be patterned? William Temple
utilised a concept of drama:
What we must completely get away
from is the notion that the world as it now exists is a rational whole: we must
think of its unity not by the analogy of a picture, of which all the parts exist
at once, but by the analogy of a drama where, if it is good enough the full
meaning of the first scene only becomes apparent with the final curtain: and we
are in the middle of this.[28]
Another
perspective was to examine stories within multiple contextual theologies in
both Scriptures and everyday contexts. This theological storytelling or conversational approach led us to a more fruitful
practical approach, since most Evangelical/Pentecostal preaching is populist,
from contextual story to biblical story, rather than systematic.
The
pattern of transformative theology thus becomes a dancing, multifaceted
conversations, rising from the lowest classes into multiple sectors of society.
It is like a series of candles that flame into life in ten thousand corners of
the city. The mapping of this urban conversation cannot simply be a search for
a grand theme but for multiple simultaneous interwoven themes and within them
tens of thousands of vignettes.
But
what should the dance, the drama, the conversation, be called? Reflecting on
Brueggeman’s concept of the unifying substance of the Old Testament as a plurality of voices led to an expanded
hermeneutic for transformational
conversation as the interface of that biblical plurality of story with the
plurality of urban conversations.
In
this study, themes of revival, the Kingdom and city of God will be viewed as frameworks for such
conversation spaces (like the plot of temple’s drama). However, no one
can be elevated to a single integrating theme subsuming all others.
Narrative
theologies give us some exegetical tools for step #2 in Fig. 2. Narrative theology in the second half of the
twentieth century developed as crossover of ideas from literary theory to
become popular as a style of interpretative approach to the biblical stories.[29]
In the
plot, coherence, movement and climax that characterize a story, narrative
theology sees a way to overcome the problems theology creates for itself through its subservience to discursive reasoning (Fackre, 1983:340).
Evangelical
theologians have recently been more receptive to a liberal exegetical concept
of “narrative” (Van Engen, 1996:44-70). However, there are problems.
Only parts (admittedly large) of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Gospels and Acts
are narrative in style. Pauline and Johannine theology are both conceptual. The
Wisdom literature is of a very different genre. Thus a purely narrative focus
reduces the range of the God-side of a transformational conversation purely to
story. The Proverbs and poetry (of David),
the rhetorical questions (of Job), the pathos (of Jeremiah) and rationality (of
Paul) must all be aspects of the conversation.
Thus,
in seeking a better phrase than “storytelling” I have chosen not to
use “narrative theology.” It is too emotionally loaded for
Evangelicals and too limited in its biblical compass.
Is God or was God?
In
answering the second question, “Is God or was God?” I recognise
that philosophic and systematic theologies tend to be diachronic, testing for validity against historical patterns of
theology back to the Scriptures. All theology must pass this test to some
extent. In theology within a context of historic roots in traditional Western Europe, diachronic approaches are appropriate.
In
contrast, practical, pastoral, contextual and missions theologies prefer to
start with contemporary stories of the day (real stories = truth) and then find
biblical truths and stories responding to these. As the global village of the
20th century transitions into the urban millennium, the verification
of theology has moved from the above diachronic perspective to a synchronic
perspective where we contrast theology across cultures in a single timeframe.
When operating globally, those of us doing theology largely share e-mail
networks enjoying collective paradigms. This process moves too rapidly for
formal publishing.
Biblical
theologians of the recent decades, have responded to the milieux of societal
change by also increasingly speaking about the active “God of redemption
history” in contrast to historical theological categories of the
“God of being” of classic theology. This raises the question about
whether foundationalism (building rationally from some foundational truth) has
failed[30] as the basis for theological study. In a
postmodern world, history as a rational construct has been found wanting by
some (see discussion in Hagner, 1998; Perdue, 1994), so ceases for many to be a
valid basis for testing truth — but both rationalist liberal and
evangelical theological study are deeply rooted in historical paradigms. However, there are other routes to
rationality than Cartesian foundationalism, which requires beliefs to rest on
verifiable evidence and deductions from inarguable foundations (Vanhoozer,
1995:11).
A Web or a Building?
A
helpful model is that of “knowledge as a web or net”[32] with neither foundation nor starting point
(Quine & Ullian, 1978). Quine argues that nonfoundational theology fits the
way Christian faith and practice generally operates. This requires attention to
patterns inherent in beliefs and practices rather than a general theory of
rationality. Since knowledge is seen as a web, there is not the problem of the
building collapsing if one piece of knowledge is found wanting. The stories
must mesh, but need not necessarily do so in a rationalistic linear manner from
a foundational point.
This
web approach better describes global thought processes. Filipino or Maori
cultures like most band, tribal or peasant societies are story-based, holistic
in discerning truth. The aberration has been the Western nations’ loss of
story as primary vehicle for truth.[33] As Newbigin says about Western imposition of
principles on biblical interpretation:
Our European culture (with its large
non-biblical component) predisposes us to think of the biblical stories
primarily as illustrative of principles which can be grasped conceptually and
which enable us to remain in orbit after the supporting illustrations have been
jettisoned. To live with the Bible, however, means to recognize that it is the
story which is primary and irreplaceable, a story of which we and our
contemporaries are a part and that the “principles” are not the
enduring realities behind the story but rather the time conditioned attempts of
a people at particular moments in the story to grasp its meaning (1981:357).
This
is not a rejection of rationality. However, it is an understanding that
rationality need not be linear and foundational, but can be holistic.
Nancey
Murphy (1997:120) develops MacIntyre’s (1988) description of tradition,
to give a three dimensional, (what I call a “helical”) model
linking the diachronic and synchronic components. In transformational
conversations, we mesh synchronic Quinian web analysis with diachronic
analysis, interfacing the historic conversations with the present web (see my
summary diagram in Fig. 3). The
storytelling consultations involve people trained in diachronic theologies, yet
immersed in urban contexts, providing a multi-traditional background to the
synchronic processes.
Fig. 3: Elements of a Web of Belief Analysis
Fig. 3: The elements of a web of belief analysis. In synchronic (present time,
global) analysis, the integrating truth is validated by comparison of
theologies across cultures. Multiple historic Christian communities and
traditions feed these. In contrast, validation in traditional diachronic
analysis is against past traditions derived from a formative tradition. The particular community of faith, reflecting on both Scriptures and
traditions informs and validates each web of belief.
This
helps answer the third question, the dialectic of cosmic Christ and incarnate Son.
Urban missiologists generally insist that transcendence is rooted in
incarnational living. We share a strongly held value that following Jesus
demands this.
But
some of us while living in the story-telling environment of the poor, also
gravitate to linking the stories to global systematic theologies based on
principles and philosophy. This reflects not just Western rationalism
accentuated by rationalist modernisation but the mind of Christ who structures
and organizes the universe. In his image, we intuitively search beyond the
stories for supra-theological truths to connect our contextual theologies to
one another.
The final stage of development of a
biblical theology is the identification of an archetypal concept(s) or unifying
themes behind the diverse documents.… Many believe that the complete lack
of consensus demonstrates that a cluster of ideas, rather than a single theme,
unites all the others (Osborne, 1991:282).
Thus
in answer to the third question, “Is God cosmic or local God?
Transcendent or immanent?” we recognize the necessity of both poles, but
among urban workers keep the emphasis on story for we find the storytelling
carries living theology better than global rationalism.
This
leads to the next concept. Transformational conversations exist within a genre
of contextual theology. Urban missions theology is by its very label contextual
theology. In reality, all theologies are in essence contextual:
The Bible is a library of books and
consequently of theologies. The Hebrew Scriptures are made up of Yahwist
theology, Elohist theology, Priestly theology, Deuteronomic theology and Wisdom
theologies, prophetic theology, exilic theology… the New Testament
includes Pauline theology, Johannine theology — to name but a few (Bevans, 1996: 3).[34]
Systematic
theology itself is a contextual theological genre, with its Western,
Aristotelian roots, philosophic context, establishment environment and so on.
The
fourth question in establishing this hermeneutic theory is, “Is God or
does God?” This is at the heart of praxis theologies. City
transformational conversations begin in missional action where we seek to
respond in godly manner to a need or an issue in the city. That is biblical.
Theology, the knowledge of God, flows from obedience. This is part of the
unspoken hermeneutic of Pentecostal theology, part of the “but does it
work?” syndrome.
Like
the incarnate Word, we live out conversations. Moreover, the incarnation is
communal, hence structural. Structures are indicators of the realities of our
theology, an anchoring into earthiness, demonstrating the God-humanity-creation
linkages of a full-orbed theology.
Lawyers
in Christ
As an example of discerning or
creating a charismatic/ Pentecostal transformational theology, we could take
the legal sector of New
Zealand. I first asked several Christian
lawyers for stories of how the Holy Spirit has led them into the public arena
as Christians in an anti-Christian environment. Doing this collectively helped
identify the first themes of a transformational conversation in the legal
sector — themes that in their professional isolation they have been
unable to identify. For lawyers work alone much of the time.
However, from the entrance stories
we must press on through the conversational process to new action stories, for
God is a God of action. That means enabling the lawyers to engage fully in
conversation between the Scriptures and the legal sector of the city. Part of
that conversation is conversation as structure. Two evangelical Christian law
firms have become the core of that structure and worked with Australian
counterparts to put together consultations of Christian lawyers every second
year, though mainly focused on the details of Christians in the legal
environment.
This
study explores the idea that major urban conversations are conversations of
ideas embodied in structures. Sustaining and expanding the structural base
numerically and concomitantly in quality is essential for ongoing societal
influence. The perception of entrepreneurial success, momentum and structural
expansion is part of gaining credibility in the postmodern cultural milieux.
Those who lead larger structures often gain necessary credibility to speak into
higher levels of city leadership. More than image, the reality of numbers of
people on the ground, with capacity to speak, expands the potential of
meaningful conversation at critical societal junctures.
This
study proposes that should that be the case, conversation may ensue — if
the theological hermeneutics enable the conversationalists to impart
significance of meaning in their conversation. A discussion with a battered
mother about the dignity of personhood from Genesis 1 and Psalm 139 while
watching our kids score goals at Saturday soccer is only possible if I
understand the theology of the meaning of personhood. The same principle is
true at a structural level in the city.
Conclusion and Implications
for this Study
“Transformational
Conversation Hermeneutics”, a paradigm for creating new postmodern
theologies, is rooted in the nature of God. Bringing together the stories, then
identifying and reflecting on themes enables conversations within the community
of faith, within the postmodern urban context and between the two. (If the
reader wishes to evaluate this hermeneutic approach as a postmodern approach at
this point, they may turn to the excursus after Error! Reference source not found. on postmodernism, p Error! Bookmark not defined.).
I
have introduced the study with action stories (#1 in Fig. 2) in chapter 1. In this chapter I have
developed a hermeneutic theory for the research process. Chapter 3 reviews
literature that reflects transformational conversations of the modern period.
This lays the basis for Part 2 where I trace the pneumatological conversation (#2). Part 3 develops the city conversation (#3). Transformational conversations (#4) are
developed contextually within both part 2 and 3 (particularly Chapters 7, 10,
11, 13 and 15).
Chapter 2
Literature: Transformational Conversations
The earth was formless and void,
darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the waters… and God said, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:2).
This is
the first image of transformation.
In
examining a web of belief that relates revival and transformation in the New Zealand
context, are there conversations within history that are essentially
pneumatological, but feed into a theology of transformative revival? I will
examine transformational themes during the modern period, demonstrating the
drift over the last half century towards the emphasis on the Holy Spirit and
cultural transformation and examine the literature on societal vision and
revival in New Zealand.
Let
me begin again in a story. Twenty-four years ago, I recall an old saint from
among the Brethren, Milton Smith (Steel, 2003), laying out a fascinating
scenario of church history from the Anabaptist point of view. The central motif
was that the primary work of the Spirit of freedom has always been external to
the institutional church (the stuff of church histories). He expressed a
popularly held belief among Evangelicals and Pentecostals that power and
institutionalisation corrupt and hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Such a
view affirms apostolic succession not through the bishops but through the
apostles (how many bishops are apostles)?
Within
the flow of this strand of history, Joachim Fiore (ca. 1130-1202) predicted a
new utopian “Age of the Holy Spirit” replacing existing Christian
institutions and practices as the world is evangelised and the church
perfected. This idea affected many subsequent movements such as the
Franciscans, Cistercians and Dominicans who understood their mission in terms
of her renovatio mundi (Burgess,
1997a:131). During this period the Albigensians linked the “Baptism of
the Spirit” with a moment of cleansing or perfecting — a doctrine
that resurfaces (a little mutated) today.
My
saintly friend Milton traced these themes as they migrated up into the
Anabapist movements of Southern Germany
resurfacing in Zwingli, Spener, Zinzendorf and the Moravians and from there
into the teaching of Wesley, the Holiness movement, then the explosion of
Pentecostalism. These radical reformers understood the relationship between the
work of the Holy Spirit and the social reformation, emphasizing the creation of
alternative societies.
I was
fascinated a few years later to hear a learned Presbyterian, professor of
missions history at Fuller Seminary, Paul Pierson, tell the same story (1985;
1998). Then to find a Wesleyan professor, Howard Snyder (1989/1997; 1996a;
1996b), write yet again of the same themes.
Wesleyan Revival Roots to Transformative Actions
We
can briefly trace much English-speaking evangelical understanding of revival to
Wesley’s influence at the beginnings of the industrial revolution.[37] Whitefield and the Wesley’s
experiences were profoundly affected by encounters with the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit as they preached. Their conversion theology involving a personal
relationship with God manifested by an experiential knowledge of God’s
presence was essentially Moravian. David
Smith (1998:x) asserts that this was coupled with aspects of Calvinistic
world-transforming commitment to social responsibility, inheriting a Reformed
doctrine of the Christian calling in the world and anticipating the spread of a
gospel with significant social consequences.
The
aristocratic evangelical, William Wilberforce and the Clapham sect (a group of wealthy and influential men from
Clapham parish church) were direct spiritual descendants of Wesley’s
emphases on conversion and the necessity of revival power. They brought
Wesley’s experiences and theology among the common people into upper
levels of nineteenth century society. Wilberforce and this group of wealthy
leaders initiated scores of legislative reforms for the poor, for factory
workers, child labour and so on. His motivation was not so much structural
change as revival among the elites and ethical change within existing social
structures.
…softening the glare of wealth
and moderating the insolence of power, (it) renders the inequalities of
the social state less galling to the lower orders, whom she instructs in their
turn, to be diligent, humble, patient; reminding them that their more lowly
path has been allotted to them by the hand of God (Wilberforce, 1797:405).
The
Second Evangelical Awakening of 1858-9 produced over a million conversions in Great Britain and similar numbers in the US
(Orr, 1955:76-78, 83). Its fruits included great evangelical unity across
denominations, leading to the Evangelical Alliance which was the direct
ancestor of the global WCC, World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF), Lausanne and
Transformation networks today; the emergence of a lay leadership movement; the
expansion of a global missions movement and dramatic social and ethical changes
(Orr documents the drop in criminal convictions in six counties during the time
of revival (1955:92)). From it came the YMCA, the Barnardo homes, the rescue of
prostitutes (over 1000 a year, which resulted in a petition of over two million
signatures in 1887 to repeal government patronage of prostitution in the UK),
Sunday schools for uneducated youth and thousands of other organisations.
Central
in this was a response to the Dickensian evils of urban England, the spawning of a home
missions movement and inner city missions. With the blessing of others, a major
denomination was created, the Salvation Army. General Booth’s grand
schema for transforming London
is documented in In Darkest England and
the Way Out (1890). The revival created new and intense sympathy with the
poor that went straight to the heart of the slums with practical responses but
also cooperation with “all wise legislative improvements.”
I had the privilege of attending the
last classes of Dr Edwin Orr, author of over 50 books on revival. His summary
conclusion in this class about the 1858-9 Awakening was that it gave birth to a
litter of active religious and philanthropic societies, which accomplished much
in human uplift, the welfare of children, reclamation of prostitutes, reform of
alcoholics and criminals and the development of social virtues. He reflected on
the political changes it and its predecessor wrought, in that it prepared America for a theistic republic and saved Britain from a bloody Revolution, such as
occurred in France.
It changed the social order by stages, spectacularly in the abolition of
slavery. The Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth Century, instead of
producing a revolutionary development, made possible an evolutionary
development, achieving as much liberty, equality and fraternity in the long run
by less harmful means.
Orr
identified these two major revivals and their centennial predecessors, the
sixteenth century Reformation and the Seventeenth century Puritanism, as
primarily religious and social in manifestation — the “political
factors” being treated as important accidentals. They were, “radical in their liberating
power, unleashing forces for the greater emancipation of mankind…
spiritual freedom seems to develop unendingly.”
A
generation later, in an opposite camp, the Christian social gospel at the turn of the century was integrated around two
major works. Ernst Troeltsh wrote on the “modern social problem” of
making “Christianity relevant to a nationalistic, capitalist,
technological and increasingly secular order” in The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (1911/1960). This was
published five years after the manifesto of a burgeoning Christian social
movement appeared from the pen of Walter Rauschenbusch in Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907/1991), followed by The Social Principles of Jesus (1916)
and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917).
The
1937 Oxford
Conference on Church, Community and State was pivotal in creating a new
global consensus for ecumenical social ethics for the next 25 years. It was a
significant gathering in the birthing of the World Council. This lasting
influence was possible because of the number and quality of the
Conference’s reports and other related publications which it inspired (Evans, 1992:51-52).
Integral
in the deliberations of the conference were the question of the increasing
de-Christianisation and growing totalitarianism of Western societies. The
church must neither stand aside, nor assume the role of the state. But if not,
what is the relationship? The resolution was to call on the laity to institute
change. But on what matters can the church advise the State, particularly where
technical and expert knowledge is required? The solution here followed the
arguments of the “middle axioms,” of John Bennett, an American
social ethicist (1941:77) and William Temple. The State should adhere to
certain Christian principles, but the church should not comment at the level of
specific programmes, including legislation and political strategy. A middle
axiom is more concrete than a principle but less specific than a political
programme or legislation. To arrive at a middle axiom it is necessary to move
from general principle to consultations, drawing on relevant expertise and
practical experience as well as theological reflection. Consensus may or may
not develop as committed Christian technical experts may disagree. If agreement
is reached the church may make pronouncements. If not, the areas of
disagreement can be defined and the process assists the practitioners to
reflect on finding middle ground from within an ethical framework. Preston’s comments about alternatives are valid for
the movements under discussion in this study:
The alternatives on offer usually
want to move from some biblical text or doctrinal statement directly to a
detailed policy conclusion in the modern world, which is inescapably arbitrary,
or to take over some secular analysis of that world without a sufficient
theological critique of it. Against these, Temple’s procedure is better (1981).
The
delegates from 120 countries at the Oxford Conference gave leadership and
published extensively across the globe. Kagawa of Japan (Davey, 2000), stands
out as the theologian of last century in the application of these theologies.
After 15 years in the slums he took his understanding of the social gospel,
learned from a stint in the US,
into reconstruction of the very centre of Japanese society. While he
evangelised Japan,
converting more Japanese than any other, he established trade unions,
agricultural cooperatives, reconstructed Tokyo
after an earthquake, preached to the emperor and wrote 50 novels and other
books on these themes.
The
globalisation of Christianity has created a plethora of theological issues
embracing religious, cultural and ideological perspectives unknown to the early
social gospellers. By the 1960’s, the consensus of liberal Christianity
had broken down. The integrating theme of the responsible society with its
emphasis on Christian order had failed. Central themes such as managing class
conflict, democratising of economic power in a new socio-economic order, issues
of equality of opportunity and so on, remained. The collapse of American
liberal theological consensus in the middle of last century, is analyzed in Soul in Society (Dorrien, 1995).
These
liberal theologies make little mention of the Holy Spirit. David Bosch in his exhaustive mission treatise, Transforming Mission, picks up on this
theme of the Spirit occasionally (1991:40, 113-115), but there remains a sense that
the Spirit is an afterthought to the activity of the church in connection with
Jesus (Kim, 2000a: 173). That was to change dramatically with the seventh
assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra in 1991. The assembly, with growing
representation of Pentecostal and indigenous churches, was based on a
missionary pneumatological and creational theme, Come Holy Spirit — Renew the Whole Creation, influenced by
the “Spirit of Life” theology of Jurgen Moltmann (1991; 1993;
1997).
While
liberal Protestant churches were grappling with these issues, Evangelicals,
retreating from the social gospel since the turn of last century, had
emphasised inner holiness.
But
such reductionism was unsustainable. Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There (1968a; 1968b), became a popular leading
Calvinistic spokesman for Evangelical intellectuals seeking a faith that dealt
with the social agendas of modernism. Jim Wallis edited Sojourners as a focal journal of this movement in the US,
sparked by the questioning of a generation locked into the Vietnam War. People
such as Charles Colson, converted aide to President Nixon and President of
Prison Fellowship, became popular. Two of his popular but intellectually
significant books on evangelical political engagement, Against the Night (1989) and Kingdoms
in Conflict (1987), develop political applications of the Kingdom
The Lausanne Covenant
The Lausanne
Covenant (Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1974), marked a
watershed for Evangelicals globally. The Lausanne Congress was, for the
world’s millions of Evangelicals, equivalent to Vatican II for Catholics, though lacking in its decorum. The Lausanne movement was for
15 years, until 1989, the international forum for global evangelical debate,
involving over 80 consultations and scores of publications. The Lausanne Covenant justified a
paralleling of evangelism and social involvement. It has become a generally
recognised doctrinal statement across the Evangelical world.
In
1983, the Wheaton Declaration further
strengthened the theological basis of holism and chose what had become a
popular term in international development circles around 1980 — the term
of “transformation.” Among Evangelicals involved in third world
development during the 1980’s, “transformation” became the
preferred term. This includes as definition:
According to the biblical view of
human life, then, transformation is the change from a human existence contrary
to God’s purposes to one in which people are able to enjoy fullness of
life in harmony with God (John 10:10; Col 3:8-15; Eph 4:13).
(World Evangelical Fellowship, 1983).
Subsequently
Transformation magazine from three
centres — a group at the Oxford Centre in England,
from Ron Sider and Evangelicals for
Social Action based at Eastern Baptist Seminary, Philadelphia, and from Tokunboh Adeyemo of
the World Evangelical Fellowship,
— has disseminated these ideas.
1989
was the year of collapsing command economies. It signalled a death-knell for
the social Christian consensus which pitted biblical commitments to cooperative
economics against the competitive spirit behind laissez faire capitalism. The Christian social gospel movement had
fractured and lost its momentum in the 1960’s. However, although
Evangelicals became a primary religious force in Britain
and the USA, as well as globally, they have not
generated a comprehensive theological momentum to become a voice on economic
philosophies.
In
contrast, from the 1980’s onward, there has been a multiplication of
right-wing, Calvinist justifications of American Republican (or British
Thatcherist)[38] views on dismantling the socialised aspects
of the modern capitalist state. Griffiths
advocates severing the market economy from secular humanism and incorporating
it within a distinctively Christian ideology (1984:112). These voices appear to
be prophetic in attempting to downsize governmental economic controls, yet
violate the biblical commitments to defend the poor against the powerful.
Right-wing
Republican economics and political books[39] are more readily available to New Zealand
Evangelical leaders, who now travel more in the US
than in Europe, than writings from what appear
to me to be more balanced European democratic traditions, such as British M.P.,
David Alton’s Faith in Britain (1991). Even more
extreme, are patterns of reconstructionism.[40] The central tenet is to reconstruct American
society as a Christian society of a previous era.
In both
liberal and evangelical streams, through people like E. Stanley Jones in India
(1972); Kagawa of Japan in Christ and
Japan (1934); Vishal Mangalwadi of India (Truth and Social Reform (1986)) or Bishop Lesslie Newbigin (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
(1989)), the discussion ceased to focus primarily on the historic structuralist
question of church and state but on the anthropological question of the nature
of the gospel and culture. It became a discussion about worldview change
resulting in structural changes.
This
outworking of the globalisation of the church represents the progression from
Western Christendom to indigenisation. Indigenisation led to theologies of
contextualisation, incarnation, social change, transformation and liberation as
against reform. Cultural hermeneutics produces new patterns of biblical
hermeneutics. The emergence of free nations from the colonial era led to issues
of national identity, national church and national economic development. Local
theologies arose to meet these needs.
The
progression has been aided by the cross-fertilisation of ideas through journals
such as Missiology (read by
Catholic, liberal and evangelical missionaries alike). Fuller Theological
Seminary School of World Mission professors developed models of the gospel and
culture and church impacting culture, growing out of an evangelistic
commitment.[41] These models multiplying through evangelical
seminaries worldwide, have a ring of truth to Evangelicals. Liberal German
theologians such as Tillich, in his distinctive method of
“correlation” (Stenger & Stone, 2002), or Pannenberg in his
anthropological theology (1995), had also explored the anthropological question
of Christ and culture, but are not as common reading for Evangelicals because of
their source in a tradition with a different style of commitment to biblical
authority.
Urban Missions
Within
this progression urban missions developed. My categories in this study are
informed by years of leading and teaching urban missions from a framework of
urban anthropology. My foundations were laid under missionary anthropologist,
Paul Hiebert. His teaching reflected in Incarnational
Ministry (Hiebert & Meneses, 1995), relates urban studies to urban
church.
One
stream of urban missions developed among churchplanters on the frontlines of
penetration of Buddhist, Hindu and animist cities and presumes on the
incarnational and evangelistic formation of holistic church as a primary goal.
Roger Greenway with the Christian Reformed Mission (1989; 1978; 1979) mapped
the field and Harvey Conn in Urban
Missions magazine at Westminster Theological Seminary, provided a ten year
forum. Since these deal with poverty as a primary context, they draw on urban
economic theories (de Soto, 1989; Jacobs, 1984; Santos, 1979) and the
holistic church among the poor (Grigg, 1984/2004, 1992/2004). The second stream
is essentially American deriving from Chicago,
where the church already exists as a significant player in a highly government
funded context of meeting social needs. Eastern Seminary urban missiologist Ray
Bakke, has advocated this school globally (1987; 1997), in his role as urban
consultant with the Lausanne Committee. Both schools adhere to an evangelical
view of the Scriptures, commitment to doing justice (Linthicum, 1991; Lupton,
1993), structural transformation and to centralising ministry to the poor.
These
schools drew on urban studies, derived from the comprehensive sociology of
Weber in The City (1921/1958) and
historical works of Mumford (1969). These were further developed by the “Chicago School”. The index of Gmelch and
Zenner’s anthology, Urban Life
(1996), (see also Eames & Goode, 1977; Palen, 1996), show the emphasis of
common urban anthropology on urbanism as a way of life, migration, family and
kinship, class and ethnicity, urban places and spaces. Urban planners and
geographers would emphasize other issues of infrastructure, transportation, or
public services (e.g. Gale & Moore, 1975). I have been influenced by the
reflections on urban planning by Catholic urban missiologists, Tonna, in his, A Gospel for the Cities (1982). Newer
works related to the emergence of postmodern cities are being produced from the
University of Southern California (Dear, 2000; Soja,
1989/1997).
Harvey
Cox, author of a popular urban theology The
Secular City (1965), derived from liberal English Bishop Robinson’s
“Death of God” theology, which in turn was based on a view of the
triumph of secularism, twenty years later retracted much of it in Religion in the Secular City (1984). A
decade later he analysed Pentecostalism in Fire
from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion
in the Twenty-First Century (1995). He begins with this humble retraction:
Even before I started my journey
through the world of Pentecostalism it had become obvious that instead of the
“death of God” some theologians pronounced not many years ago, or
some waning of religion that sociologists had extrapolated, something quite
different had taken place... I had swallowed them all too easily and had tried
to think about what their theological consequences might be. But it had now
become clear that the predictions themselves had been wrong (1995: xvi).
Recognising
the explosion of global Pentecostalism in one century to 400 million, he then
analyses them as a response to the modern context.
While
the Lausanne Congress of 1974 greatly influenced Evangelicals, Pentecostals
were not greatly integrated into this conference. However, by 1989, they were a
dominant force at the second Lausanne
Congress in Manila. This conference faced major tension between the
pragmatic evangelistic Pentecostal growth of the Third World and the entrenched
theological streams of the US
and European Evangelicals. The subsequent AD2000 movement developed the Global Congress on World Evangelism (GCOWE) in 1995 in Korea, the first global
congress funded primarily from non-Western sources and led by non-Western
leaders, largely Pentecostal. This strategy conference focused on evangelism.
The finer theological nuances of transformation were relegated to one of ten
tracks — the urban track.[42] Partly because evangelical transformational
theology leaders critiqued this conference as a step backwards, in 2000 they
developed a consultation of 300 in England around the themes of
discipleship leading to transformation.[43] These conferences expanded an environment of
dialogue, opening up to Pentecostal leadership the possibilities of the social
aspects of the gospel. (Thus through last century, global consultations shifted
from the English Anglican power centre and then to an American
evangelical/fundamentalist centre to an increasing global Pentecostal
influence).
Meanwhile,
global contextual issues moved beyond the North-South Marxist-Capitalist
development debates to postmodern cultural debates located in mega-cities. A
series of monographs in the Christian
Mission and Modern Culture series by the Mennonites, (including Shenk
(1995); also Bosch (1991: 349-362)), sought to locate mission in postmodern
culture. While the context of mission has largely migrated to the global
mega-city, I would propose that pneumatology has concurrently become the
central theme of missions theology for the next decade. The logic is
strategically inescapable.
Firstly,
the Protestant church has become global and is predominantly a missionary
church in the developing world, largely Pentecostal in style. This affects even
the World Council of Churches in its agendas and created major debate as to the
nature of that Spirit at the seventh assembly in Canberra.[44] In a sense, this was prophesied by Karl
Barth:
Barth also told of his dream — which he had also occasionally
mentioned in conversations — that someone and perhaps a whole age, might
be allowed to develop a “theology of the Spirit,” a “theology
which now I can only envisage from afar, as Moses once looked on the promised
land.” He was thinking of a theology which, unlike his own, was not
written from the dominant perspective of Christology, but from that of
pneumatology (Busch, 1976).
This
task was completed by Jurgen Moltmann as the fourth book in his systematic
theology, The Spirit of Life (1991).
He attributes its writing in part to the influence of supervising student dissertations
of Pentecostal background. This comprehensive book, affirms the work of the
Spirit in all life-giving, what Moltmann calls “holistic
pneumatology”. Unfortunately, it is limited in value by the imposition of
the WCC biases as to the activity of the Holy Spirit in the world
(universalism, a focus on liberation, an optimistic non-apocalyptic
futurology).[45]
Secondly,
theology in the global missional church, reasonably moves to a focus on a
theology of the Holy Spirit, for sentness is the essence of missio-n — the Spirit is the one
sent from the Father, (or Father and Son) and is the one who convicts and
converts.
Thirdly,
in the West, the sweeping charismatic movements among both Catholics and
Protestants have caused the Holy Spirit and revival to become significant
themes. As these Catholic charismatics and Protestant Pentecostals increase in
influence, spawning leaders into the government bodies, they find former
theologies inadequate to deal with issues of changing governmental systems.[46] Thus, paralleling the cry in New Zealand
is a cry from Latin Pentecostalism (Berg & Pretiz, 1996; Petersen, 1996;
Villafañe, 1993) for transformational theologies to serve a new
generation of Evangelicals.
A
review of specific revival literature appears in chapter 6.
How
did revivals affect the attempts of the New Zealand church to define a
vision for the nation? Revival is not seen as a significant factor in church
life or social transformation by the historians. Allan
Davidson in Christianity in Aoteoroa (1991) includes
several chapters on church and society. In an extensively annotated doctoral
thesis on Church-State Relationships in New Zealand:
1940-1990, Evans (1992) has developed this more thoroughly. Neither indicate
the work of the Holy Spirit as a significant factor.
When
focusing on Christian social vision, a series of works from a group connected
to the Joint Board of Education of the National Council of Churches are
available, beginning with a comprehensive monograph, Finding the Way: New Zealand Christians Look Forward (Martin, 1983)
and Christians in Public Planning
(Nichol & Vietch, 1981).
Other
mainline church analyses have been attempted. George Bryant, Methodist lay
preacher and prolific author, brought together articles by sixteen leaders in
societal spheres and projecting a future from a mildly Christian perspective on
New Zealand 2001 (1981). In 1990, the Catholic and Anglican
Bishops gathered four hundred people for a Symposium on New Zealand’s Future in Wellington, Te Ara Tika — The Way Ahead. This included workshops on
fifty-two topics and a progression from theory to practical outcome in the
discussions covering six themes — environment, education, economy, social
equity, bicultural society and human rights (Roman Catholic and Anglican
Bishops of New Zealand, 1990). Neither an integrated theology nor reflection on
praxis emerged — perhaps it was too hastily brought together in only five
months. These themes are reflected however, in Making Choices: Social Justice for Our Times
(Smithies & Wilson, 1993), 9000 of which were distributed across the
churches for discussion (Lineham, 2004: 161-2).
Alternative
analyses were produced in the late 1980’s and 1990’s by
Evangelicals that give a different interpretation of the church of New Zealand.
Four books from VisionNZ conferences
(Bruce Patrick, 1993; 1997a; 1997b; 1993) collated visions from over fifty
Evangelical leaders and include considerable church growth data, along with
some embryonic social analysis.
Kevin
Ward has, step by step, expanded sociological analysis of New Zealand
church growth and its relationship to baby boomers and postmodernity (2000;
2001; 2004; 2004a). Steve Taylor represents a cluster of thinkers delving into
the nature of the postmodern emergent church (2004; 2005). My arguments partly
focus on the expansion of that church into societal roles. Rex Ahdar (2000;
2000) develops the idea of conflict with a “Wellington worldview”, in a series of
papers reflecting on relationships between Evangelicals and the State from a
legal perspective.
Published
near the completion of this study, recent perspectives in The Future of Christianity
(Stenhouse & Knowles, 2004), have given opportunity to verify aspects of
this thesis. Peter Lineham’s article on “Social Policy and the
Churches in the 1990’s and Beyond”,
contextualises engagement of mainline church voices and recent governments.
Brett Knowles’ chapter on “The Future of Pentecostalism”, follows a similar trajectory to
my own interaction with the work of Harvey Cox, raising similar concerns about
Pentecostal control structures and changes in spirituality. Recently, Steve
Taylor in A New Way of Being Church (
2004)), has examined the design of postmodern church frameworks.
Conclusion
This
chapter has briefly surveyed literature on the relationships between revival
and transformation in the modern period with an urban emphasis. I have noted
progressions from envisioning social order based on models of Western
civilisation to anthropological issues of social change within national and
indigenous cultures. This has been the context of the development of urban
missions studies, which have drawn heavily on urban anthropology. I have
indicated the lack of emphasis on the work of the Spirit in transformation
throughout history and located this study within the experimental expansion of
this theme in the present global conversation. Neither evangelical nor liberal
attempts at defining vision in New
Zealand show significant relationships
between pneumatology and social change. This study also enters that gap from an
urban missions theology and strategy perspective.
In
Part 2 of the study, I examine revival
processes as they move towards transformation.
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