The Gospel as a public truth: The Church s mission in modern culture in light of Lesslie Newbigin s theology

Transcription

1 The Gospel as a public truth: The Church s mission in modern culture in light of Lesslie Newbigin s theology Guest Lecture given by the Secretary General of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, Dr. Jukka Keskitalo, at Tumaini University Makumira, Tanzania, on 24 October Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to thank you for the possibility to give this lecture here at Tumaini University Makumira. This is the first time I have visited this theological university, although I became familiar with Makumira already at least 30 years ago. As a young student in Helsinki, we once gathered in the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission building to hear presentations about missions and churches in different countries. I remember that the late Raimo Harjula and Erik Vikström, who later became the Bishop, spoke about Makumira's theological seminary. I thought to myself that this would be one place I would love to visit someday. And now, that wish has been realised. Similarly, many theologians who have studied at Makumira have come north to visit and carry out further studies in Finland. Of them, I would like to mention, in particular, Hance Mwakabana, who became a Doctor of Theology in Finland, and returned to work as the Rector at Makumira and then serve as the Bishop of the Mid-South Diocese of your church. I am also glad that Tumaini University and the University of Helsinki have established a functional exchange programme. The challenge of contextual theology The theme of my lecture is missiological, though not in a conventional meaning of the concept. I also use the concept of contextual theology. I will come later to the definition of that concept. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same regardless of era, country or continent. It must, however, gain its own form of expression within each culture in order to reach the people and speak to their lives on a deeper level. The Apostle Paul gives us one example of this in his speech to an educated Greek audience in the City of Athens. He proclaimed the Gospel from a point of view that was familiar to the listeners. The Apostle referred to holy places he had seen, including the altar dedicated to the unknown god. You are ignorant of the very thing you worship, and this is what I am going to proclaim to you (Acts 17:23), Paul skilfully stated. His principle was that one should speak as a Jew for the Jews and as a Greek for the Greeks. The Apostle Paul s approach was similar to the way a skilled contextual theologian works. Contextual theology refers to a theology that is culturally sensitive and endeavours to make the Gospel understandable by utilising the fact that local cultures are both different and genuine expressions of God s creative work. Contextual theology must, however, as shown by Paul s example, be practiced in such a way as to ensure that the message of the Gospel does not come to be viewed as an aspect of local culture, thereby losing its fundamental power.

2 Contextual theology does not, however, refer only to a theology that seeks to praise the richness of cultures. It refers also to a theology that tries to interpret cultural context critically in order to make gospel more accessible. In terms of the development of contextual theology, we can primarily thank the churches and theologians of Africa, Asia and Latin America. For a long time, the Western churches and theology thrived on the belief that Western culture was so impregnated with the message of the Christian faith that there was no particular need for any special contextual theology in Europe, for example. We now know that this was a fallacy. At this point it is time to introduce you with Lesslie Nebigin. Lesslie Newbigin was an English Bishop and important figure in the ecumenical movement. He was also one of most significant theologians involved in the development of contextual theology particularly for the Western countries. He analysed what we call modern and postmodern culture and worked on understanding the Church s specific mission within this cultural context. Modern culture has rapidly globalised, largely due to new means of communication such as the Internet. Modernisation concerns all countries and nations, Tanzania as well as Finland. In this context, it might be useful for us to take a closer look at Newbigin s ideas. Who was Lesslie Newbigin? Lesslie Newbigin was born in 1909 to a Presbyterian family in Northern England. He studied Economics and Theology at the top university of Cambridge. As a young pastor, he journeyed to Southern India for missionary work in There, Newbigin contributed actively to the negotiations of the Anglican and protestant churches in India, which led to the birth, in 1947, of the Church of South India, formed jointly by the Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists. At the age of 38 in 1947, Newbigin was appointed a Bishop for the Church of South India. He retired from this position in At one point, Newbigin took a leave of absence for six years and, during that time, he worked as the General Secretary for the International Missionary Council and later as the head of the Division of World Mission and Evangelism within the World Council of Churches. When Newbigin returned to Great Britain in 1974 after having been abroad for 38 years, most of which was spent in India, he found himself surprised and quite shocked. He felt that the English and European culture had changed and lost hope. Newbigin was not at all pleased with the situation in which he found the churches in England. The churches had become too cautious and focused inward. Newbigin s experience was that it was rare anymore to hear a confident and courageous proclamation of the liberating word of the Gospel. Newbigin began to wonder what exactly had happened to the churches. The Europe that he had left behind 38 years earlier was completely different from the Europe to which he returned. Newbigin sought to find the reason for this change. This path of questioning led him into another career for two decades during his retirement. His work as a lecturer took him all around Great Britain and the world. He published about ten books and dozens of articles on the Church s mission in a modern and pluralistic culture. Newbigin died in He was a highly regarded theologian and ecumenist. His ideas have been praised, but also debated. Many books have been written

3 concerning his ideas, and they have also been subject to academic research, including my own doctoral thesis for the Faculty of Theology in the University of Helsinki. Set to the margin as a private aspect of life Newbigin placed the roots of the Church s stagnation far back in history, in the age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. This is the period that we also attribute as the starting point of modernism. The period introduced a scientific-technical and mechanistic way of understanding reality. The modern worldview that began to take hold during Enlightenment involved the idea that there are facts that everyone is assumed to agree upon, and that these facts can be proven true by the natural sciences. According to this understanding, facts are objective, not reliant on opinions. The area of values, on the other hand, included all the so-called soft issues, such as morals and religious truths and narratives. They are subjective and rely on the personal conviction of each individual. Facts dominate the public life of the society. Values only have their place in the private aspects of life. Of course, Newbigin recognised that science and modern technology, as a consequence of Enlightenment, have a positive impact on human lives. The science of medicine has provided us with the means to help people with diseases and illnesses. Many inventions have made our lives easier. This is not, however, the whole picture, particularly when it comes to the churches. Newbigin stated that, gradually, churches have submitted to the idea that the Christian faith is something that only concerns the private aspect of human life. In the Western countries, faith had become an internal matter of the heart, which was not discussed openly, for example, in the workplace. The Christian faith had become more of a mode of therapy; it had lost its ability to challenge the public truths of the modern culture. The Church didn't speak about facts, but about values. Newbigin did not feel, however, that religion or the Church would have lost their significance in the Western countries. On the contrary, religion was even regarded highly, but only in a limited sense. The Christian faith began to be viewed as a guarantor of good values and a decent life. Whenever a spiritual atmosphere or more spiritual hold was needed in society, the Church was called in to help. In accordance with the foundations of Enlightenment, however, the Church was not expected to say anything about reality or the world itself. Newbigin found that churches in the West had become withdrawn and fearful. As a consequence, they had become easier to disregard and ignore simply as something that only concerns the private lives of certain people. Gradually, Western churches had also, in Newbigin s opinion, lost the ability to see that there might be something inherently wrong with this state of things. The Church and Christians settled in so well on the margins of life that it began slowly to feel like their natural state. Enlightenment and reasoning became the glasses through which the Western churches, theology and Christians saw the reality. And as we know, while we view the world through the lenses of the glasses, we don't see the lenses themselves. They do, however, colour our image of reality. This is precisely what had happened to the Western churches in Newbigin's opinion.

4 And speaking of glasses, Newbigin stated that he had been given another set of glasses during his 38 years in India. Glasses that showed a natural view of the Christian faith as a holistic interpretation of the world and reality. According to the thinking of the Indian church, the Gospel concerns all aspects of the overall person, not simply one's hidden private life. Faith belongs in the workplace and the schools, not just in private prayer chambers. With the help of these new glasses from India, Newbigin was able to see that the West needed contextual theology that challenges the conventional understandings of the Church's role and mission. The Gospel as a public truth This, what I have been referring to, thus far, is the first part of Newbigin s contextual theology. It serves as a diagnosis of the state of Western culture and the Church. A diagnosis is not enough, however. We also need a treatment; in other words, a reform programme for the Western Church. Newbigin was convinced that the prerequisite for the reform of the large Western churches was the exposure of the reasons for their crippling shyness and withdrawal. For the purposes of recovery, one must identify and recognise the illness. Only then can medicine be prescribed, if I may continue with the metaphor as such. And what was the medicine that Newbigin recommended as a prescription for the reform of the Church? His central thesis focused on the idea that the Church should break out of the margins and begin to pronounce the Gospel once again as a public truth. A truth that concerns the whole of reality and the whole of an individual person. This would mean a solid confidence in the power of the Gospel and that we would not try to limit God's ability to impact on all aspects of our lives. In his suggested reform, Newbigin emphasised that the truth of the Gospel calls us to make a radical conversion, not simply in the traditional sense of religious conversion, but also as it concerned a conversion of the structures of our thinking. If I were to sum this idea up in a nutshell, it means that conversion does not concern only the soul and heart, but also the brain. A key element of Newbigin s programme was the call for individual Christians, as well as churches and theology to reform. It was an invitation to the churches to begin courageously offering people a kind of life understanding that is shamelessly based on God s self-revelation in Jesus Christ; God s pronouncement, which has been brought forth in the Bible and has taken form in the tradition of the Church. It is a truly missionary approach to modern culture. Newbigin felt that the Church and the Christian faith did not exist only to support the virtuous personal values of individuals. The Gospel is about us as human beings and the fundamental truth that touches our lives. The truth-value of this cannot be assessed through a scientific-technical world view or scientism. On the contrary, it is precisely in the light of the Gospel that we should assess the other views on truth. Is this only a problem for Western churches? I have introduced you to Bishop Lesslie Newbigin s contextual theology, which he used to analyse the state of the Western culture and Church, and to present his programme for reform. You, my esteemed listeners, are living in another context altogether. Already on my journey in Tanzania thus far, I have seen that the Gospel is being interpreted here in a very holistic manner. The Gospel

5 concerns all aspects of life, both private and public, and is present in both the everyday and the celebratory moments. In the same way as Newbigin s experiences in India provided him with glasses through which he was able to see more clearly the state of his Church in England. In the same way, I am convinced that this experience in Tanzania, albeit a short visit, will help me to gain, to some extent, the same visual advantage by which to see the challenges of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland more clearly. In this lies a grand opportunity for the co-operation between churches and for the general mission of the Church. Mission is not a one-way approach, it is reciprocal and takes place everywhere for everyone. Through a mutual sharing, we are able to become more knowledgeable about the depth and breadth of the Gospel. No church can claim to be aware of all the dimensions of the Gospel s truth. There is always something we can learn from one another. In the beginning, I mentioned rapid communications and globalisation. For these reasons, I feel that those challenges which Newbigin encountered on his return from India to England may possibly be encountered here in Tanzania as well. I cannot be sure about this, of course, as I quite naturally am not all that familiar with your context. This is, rather, my question and challenge to you for further consideration. According to Lesslie Newbigin the challenge of the Western churches has been their marginalization on the private sphere of life. That might not be the biggest challenge with the Tanzanian church and theology at this moment. But it not impossible that it might be a challenge in the future. I would like to challenge you to use Newbigin's method of trying to see your own culture through different classes and ask whether this kind of critical contextual theology could reveal new aspects from your culture and new richnesses from the gospel.