How the Church Lost Her Story, Part 2

When I speak of a worldview driven church, I am not speaking in theoretical or academic terms. I am not suggesting that as a cure-all the church today ought to embrace a set of abstract doctrines about God or philosophical beliefs about reality in some kind of arid, cognitive manner. Far from it.

Instead, I refer to the establishment of the church’s life and ministry on the basis of a clear and substantial vision centered in the human heart that is derived from the complete canon of Scripture and grounded in the Trinitarian God and His comprehensive works of creation, fall, and redemption. These great works of God carry with them all their attendant, holistic implications and are centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ and His gospel as the beginning, middle, and end of all things. This gospel of God in Christ is promoted throughout the world in all its power and glory by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit. Churches, I propose, ought to be driven, that is, informed and guided by the coherent theology of the total biblical metanarrative with its cosmic scope and matching emphasis on the totality of life under the authority and blessing of the triune God. In short, I am striving for a way to emphasize the wholeness of genuine biblical religion in order to recover what has at least, in part, been known classically as the “catholicity” of Christian church.

So far, this proposal consists of three essential papers, soon to be a book, Lord willing. The first paper consists of a charitable yet firm critique of Rick Warren’s wildly popular purpose driven church and purpose driven life books. I am grateful for Warren’s talents and influence in multiple ways. I also recognize that we are all subject to deficiencies in our thinking and systems. Otherwise, God couldn’t use any of us. At the same time, it seems to me that Warren’s two volumes come up short hermeneutically and theologically, and in many ways foster the three problems of bits and pieces, the breakdown between the testaments, and the dualism itemized earlier.

As an alternative, I propose a worldview driven church in which I reflect on its theological foundations (part two) and ministerial functions (part three) in the context of a holistic biblical vision framed by creation and new creation and illuminated by historic Christian perspectives on God, humanity, and the world. In this modest attempt to revitalize evangelical ecclesiology, I capitalize on a theology of the imagination, concurring in many ways with Walter Brueggemann who argues that “People are not changed by moral exhortation, but by transformed imagination.” Beyond the uninspiring cliché that Christianity and the gospel consist of going to heaven when you die and taking as many people there with you as you can (do we really think the Roman empire put Christians to death just because they preached a message like this?), I suggest that what we need is an expanded perception. God’s grandeur and His larger creative and redemptive purposes for the world and His people must captivate our imaginations and our hearts. After all, life proceeds “kardioptically,” out of a vision of our hearts. A fresh grasp of these grand theological and cosmic realities will purge our spiritual vision of the “film of familiarity” and provide new ways of living.

THEOLOGICAL CONCERNS
Theologically, and first of all, my proposal begins with an attempt to recover the Church’s central purpose as the glory, worship, and love of God in order to insure that the means of the ministry are not substituted for the Church’s final end. Joining the praises of creation already in progress, the Church offers praise and commitment to God as its chief reason for its existence.

Second, I summarize the whole story of the Church as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, making sure that we understand the Church’s theological identity and role in the world in the context of the whole counsel of God. Grasping the nature of God’s enduring purposes in creation, their corruption due to sin, and their progressive restoration through a covenantally-structured redemptive history promised to Israel in the Old Testament and fulfilled and consummated by Christ for the church in the New Testament is the absolute prerequisite. The whole counsel of God from creation to consummation, in other words, must provide the framework for any sound ecclesiology.

Third, I present the person and work of Jesus as the Cosmic Christ in an effort to counter act the effects of reduced, pietistic interpretations of Christology. Without sacrificing the importance of our personal bond with the Savior and the meaning of our pilgrimage in life with Him, a more complete perspective will showcase His cosmic identity and roles as the Creator and Redeemer of all things. After all, God's method for dealing with the whole creation, with all the nations, with Israel, and with the church are focused in Him.

Fourth, I highlight the centrality of the kingdom/reign of God and its redemptive significance both present and future for the whole of life, to offset the confusion and neglect surrounding this crucial theme. The New Testament affirms that through the words and works of Jesus, the kingdom of  God broke into history and is now present, arriving in a mysterious way as a serving and suffering Lamb of God. This same kingdom, which by the Spirit is presently affecting the salvation and sanctification of those who believe, will be manifested in its fullness when Christ returns. This kind of royal theology implies that real, historical life is to be redeemed now as it is lived out by the people of God, resulting personal salvation and cultural transformation.

Fifth, I make the case that the people are not simply souls temporarily inhabiting bodies, but that people are whole persons as God’s image and likeness. To be such constitutes their genuine humanity and is the source of their dignity and worth. This unifying perspective of the total human person as the imago Dei is confirmed by the incarnation of Jesus Christ who was fully human as well as fully God. It is also affirmed by His subsequent resurrection from the dead in whose train all believers follow as they too are being restored to their complete humanity in Him.

Sixth, I argue that the Church is the new Israel in substantial continuity with the people of God in the Old Testament from Adam to Abraham to David to Jesus. The election of Abraham in Genesis 12 began the process of forming the covenant people of God, and whose own call was the divine response to the advent, spread, and escalation of sin in the world (Genesis 3-11). From Abraham’s race came the Christ who is also the new Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45; Romans 5:12-21) and who has fulfilled the OT redemptive promise, restored fellowship with God, and renewed His purposes for the world in the body of Christ. The church as the worshipping community based on the ministries of the Word and sacrament is best identified as the people of God standing in continuity with the Old Testament covenant community of Israel.

Finally in this theological category, I describe the eschatological character of the Church in redemptive history, demonstrating that present kingdom redemption will culminate in the new, redeemed heavens and earth where God will abide with His saints forever. The presence of the God’s rule, the order of the resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the fact of justification, the reality of glorification are all presented in the New Testament as eschatological magnitudes that have leapt from the future into the present. Within this eschatological framework and identity, the church enjoys her life in Christ and carries out her ministry in the present as the “already but not yet” people of God.

MINISTRY ENCOURAGEMENTS
Ministerially, I begin with the area of worship, calling for a reconsideration of the historic liturgies of the Church, and recommending the incorporation of such classic traditions such as the Christian calendar into evangelical congregations with biblical fidelity as an ancient and yet fresh way of worshipping God and edifying believers.

Second, I encourage preachers and teachers in the Church to recover the Christ-centered character of Scripture and the theological framework provided by creation, fall and redemption as the guiding hermeneutical principles for proclaiming God’s Word.

Third, I emphasize the importance of cultivating authentic Christian community as a central biblical mandate and solution to the contemporary problem of radical individualism.

Fourth, I recommend the vision of Christian humanism as the goal of spiritual formation and Christian discipleship, thwarting unbiblical interpretations of the Christian life that tend toward dehumanization.

Fifth, I urge congregations to promote the classic doctrine of giftedness and calling as the basis for service inside and outside the Church, valuing the roles and vocations of all believers who are making a difference where they worship and work.

Finally, as the outgrowth of the preceding theological and ministerial components, I advocate a view of evangelism and mission that emphasizes the whole gospel for the whole person for the whole world in the whole of life.

Just imagine, then, a plethora of evangelical churches informed and guided by these thirteen total theological and ministerial components as an expression of a complete, worldview, grounded in the Scriptures, from creation to new creation with all of its attendant ecclesiastical, cultural, and practical implications. This just may be enough to transform some bad news into good news in more and more local evangelical congregations.

RECOMMENDATIONS
I have some recommendations for my recommendation for a worldview driven church that I would like to present before I conclude. First, I recommend a prudent use of the word “worldview” in a church context. Its academic tone may be a turn off to some. Its overuse may cause other congregants to grow weary of it. I would advise compiling a good list of synonyms to use in its place (e.g., outlook, vision, perspective, frame of reference, vantage point, etc.). Today the terms “story,” “narrative,” or even “meta-narrative” are the most popular, and I use them frequently.

Many alternate terms may have an immediate appeal and they certainly fit well with Scripture a large percentage of which is obviously of the narrative genre (even though none of them is found in the Bible per se). Such terminology is quite useful as long as it is cleansed of any fictive nuance or postmodern skepticism. Still, the word worldview has philosophic strength (perhaps more so than “story” or “narrative”), and is capable of conveying rigorously the distinctive perspective of biblical religion on reality.

Second, I recommend that church leaders beware of intellectual approaches to worldview promotion in their congregations. It is rather easy for the concept itself to be construed in a dry, academic manner. However, if my own biblically based definition of the concept as a vision of the heart is legitimate, then worldview is not just a mental matter, but a fusion of mind, affection, will and spirituality residing at the center of the person. It is a deeply existential notion, one that is integral to our human identity as the image and likeness of God. There is no excuse, therefore, for a dry, scholastic approach to investigating worldviews in general or a Christian worldview in particular. They are the stuff of real life, governing the destinies of men, women and nations.

Third, I recommend that a Christian worldview be Trinitarian in character with a Christ-centered focus. People sometimes get side-tracked regarding the final goal of their actions. What counts in shaping a Christian worldview is not just the worldview itself, but God at the center of it. The two of course go together. It is easy, however, to embrace system building or cultural transformation as the chief end. It is not. The chief end is loving God, promoting His glory in everything, and finding joy and fulfillment in Him. At the end of the day, therefore, developing a Christian worldview in our churches is simply an important means to authentic spirituality and genuine holiness as these affect everything. The final goal, in other words, is true saintliness.

If there is anything that the devil and his minions don’t want, it is for our churches to recover their true story, to recover a holistic, comprehensive world and life view as the basis and framework of the churches’ ministries. What kind of demonic strategy might be in use to thwart such a vision?

To this end, in imitation of the inimitable C. S. Lewis, I have written a new Screwtape letter that I think may put the matter in perspective. Here we have Screwtape as the veteran demonic tempter admonishing his pupil Wormwood on how to make sure his pastor patient is kept in the dark regarding the relevance of a biblical worldview for local church ministry. I have put it in the context of this seminar here at GRTS and specifically with each of you and your roles as church leaders in mind.

Click here to read Part 1 of this sermon.

David Naugle is professor of Philosophy at Dallas Baptist University where he has served for 14 years. In addition to teaching and working with students, he maintains an active schedule of writing and speaking.