This chapter is about disciple making, which Hirsch calls “perhaps the most critical element in the mDNA mix” (102).  While I’m in agreement with the most essential concept of the chapter, I’m not in love with most of the discussion itself.  A significant reason for this is the extended aside on the context of disciple making as Hirsch sees it.  I think he misses some things in that analysis, which I’ll critique at length.  But there is also something about his slant on disciple making itself that doesn’t sit well.

The Main Idea

Hirsch relies on Neil Cole again, coming to a conclusion to which I am amenable: “we seem to make church complex and discipleship too easy” (104).  He rightly identifies the persecuted early church’s disposition, including the development of the catechisms, as “far from being seeker-friendly” (104).  This jab at attractional church has a sharp point.  In a time when persecution, including martyrdom, was already a deterrent, the church went ahead and screened those who still wanted to follow Jesus.  This historical fact is not just a contrast with the notion of seeker-friendly or attractional churches, it is a radical departure.

I find the idea of demanding discipleship to be consonant with Jesus’ own call.  What I find puzzling about Hirsch’s discussion is that he seems to be referring to a high level of “commitment to the cause” rather than commitment to Jesus.  That is a distinction he might not wish to make, but I perceive it in his writing anyway.  For example, he holds up the example of early Methodism: “the key to Methodism’s success was the high level of commitment to the Methodist cause that was expected of participants” (103).  Likewise, he summarizes Steve Addison’s findings on the nature of missionary movements.  One of the points reads: “Commitment to the Cause: The people who are touched in such a way by God give their lives to the cause as articulated by the movement” (105).

As I said in the final paragraph of my first post in this series, I appreciate the clarity with which Hirsch states the need for a direct, explicit, even covenanted commitment to be missional (read: to multiply).  And I haven’t forgotten that the previous chapter was about the centrality of Jesus.  But it makes me uneasy that the notion of discipleship comes across as commitment not to Jesus but to being a movement.  “In fact,” says Hirsch, “without meaningful discipleship there can be no real movement and therefore no significant impact for the gospel” (106)—a statement that reveals the value of discipleship relative to the real end, which is the movement (and reiterates his numerically-oriented understanding of what is “significant impact” in kingdom work).

The question is, then, of what does discipleship actually consist in the chapter?  The flow of the chapter is odd, but Hirsch does come to this point, which he ends up elaborating in a few short, somewhat disconnected, sections.  First, Jesus’ primary aim (mission) is “to fill the world with lots of “little Jesuses” (114).  Discipleship is, as has been said many times, about imitatio Christi, but Hirsch correctly emphasizes the point that the imitation of Christ is, beyond personal holiness, participation in his mission to redeem the world.

A section on embodiment of the message follows, in which the reader infers (as a direct connection lacks) that discipleship is also about transmission of the message by “modeling” it (116).  Discipleship as embodiment on one hand demonstrates an integrity that authenticates the message and on the other establishes a pattern for subsequent disciples.

The next two sections are about leadership, the first of which has no clear connection to the chapter’s topic, though the second bothers to spell it out: “If this is not already obvious by now, let me say it more explicitly: the quality of the church’s leadership is directly proportional to the quality of discipleship” (119).  Thus, discipleship is also the stepping stone to missional leadership.  “If we wish to develop genuinely missional leadership, then we have to first plant the seed of obligation to the mission of God in the world in the earlier and more elementary phases of discipleship” (119).

The chapter’s final section is an unfortunate attack against academic learning (seminary), which Hirsch characterizes as “Greek,” in contrast with holistic, hands-on “Hebrew understanding of knowledge” (123).

It is genuinely hard to change one’s behaviors by merely getting new ideas, as behaviors are deeply entrenched in us via our ingrained habits, upbringing, cultural norms, erroneous thinking, etc.  Even though gaining knowledge is essential to transformation, we soon discover that it’s going to take a whole lot more than new thinking to transform us.

The solution, he proposes, is the so-called Hebrew way of “acting our way into a new way of thinking” (124).  What this accomplishes is the formation of a false dichotomy that relegates certain teaching and learning styles, not to mention gifts, to a status of inferiority.  Whatever is not his practical, action-reflection mode is seemingly the wrong kind of discipleship.  In his own training organization, trainers may make referrals to books, etc. “We do hold inspiring learning intensives where we pass on a lot of information,” he says, “but this information is communicated only by those who have demonstrated their own capacity to do exactly what they are teaching” (124).  Those kinds of knowledge that are not strictly doable, therefore, are not even in view.  In short, I find the dichotomy misguided.  It is not that the stereotypical ivory tower is the best place for forming missional leaders, but Hirsch’s proposal is an overreaction that fails to promote a truly holistic view of knowledge or allow for a diversity of authentic discipleship paths.

The Aside

The problem with the aside on the context of discipleship is that it is a jumble of ideas that are, while not entirely erroneous, poorly explained.  The root issue is that Hirsch’s understanding of secularization lacks nuance.  He contends that the context of discipleship is one in which consumerism, along with a copule of other (apparently less powerful) cultural forces, has taken the place of religion.  “If the role of religion is to offer a sense of identity, purpose, meaning, and community, then it can be said that consumerism fulfills all these criteria” (107).  This was possible because of secularization, which he defines as “that process whereby the church was taken from the center of culture (as in the Christendom period) and increasingly pushed to the margins” (108):

The explicit aim (as in the French Revolution) was to create a secular social field whereby the state is not controlled by the concerns and domination of the church as it was in earlier periods, but one within which a plurality of opinions, ideas, and activities can compete for our attention and allegiances based upon rational discourse, individual freedoms, and democracy.  This was a significant part of what is called the Enlightenment, or modern, period of Western history.  But the end result of this process created a massive spiritual vacuum into which stepped an unprecedented host of cultural forces. (108)

The massive spiritual vacuum was filled, he believes, by capitalism, the nation-state, and science, which constitute the “public realm” over against the “private realm” of “private opinion, personal values, and individual taste” (108).  Whereas previously the church has “played the overwhelmingly dominant role in the mediation of identity, meaning, purpose, and community” (108), these public-realm forces have “all but completely replaced the church in our culture” (109).

Thus, Hirsch sees the appropriation of “personal identity and religious meaning” in the religious marketplace as signaling the “consumerization of faith” (109).  In this context, passive church members are understood to be participating in a consumerist religious experience.  Yet, Hirsch declares, “we simply cannot consume our way into discipleship.  Consumerism as it is experienced in the everyday and discipleship as it is intended in the scriptures are simply at odds with each other” (110).

I have to agree with the claim that consumption has religious dimensions, as it always has.  But I don’t think that secularization is to blame—at least not in the US, and probably not in more European contexts such as Hirsch’s Australia either.  I will reference sociologist José Casanova’s article “Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective” as I explain why.

Casanova has defended the notion that we should distinguish between various uses of “secularization”: (1) the decline of religious beliefs and practices, (2) privatization of religion, and (3) differentiation of the secular sphere (state, economy, science).  Basically, Hirsch has not done so, leading him to see causality where it does not exist.  He has what Casanova would call a Euro-centric perspective:

European sociologists tend to view the two meanings of the term as intrinsically related because they view the two realities—the decline in the societal power and significance of religious institutions, and the decline of religious beliefs and practices among individuals—as structurally related components of general processes of modernization. (Casanova, 8 )

Comparative analysis puts this perspective to the test, however.  Casanova emphasizes in the article how secularization-as-differentiation is now seen to have taken place in many global societies without leading to secularization-as-religious-decline/privatization.  This only confirms what has always been the case in the US—a differentiated but highly religious society.  The US phenomenon in particular is the more important point here, though, because the “we” and the “West” of Hirsch’s writing is certainly referencing the US missional church audience to whom the book is marketed.

It still seems to be the case that the context of discipleship in the US is religiously charged consumerism, but I’m not content with Hirsch’s description of how we got here or what is going on.  In fact, given his earlier critique of Christendom church, I find his argument to be not only wrong for the US but also strangely inconsistent for his own position.  Hinting at this conflict, he says, “For all its failings, the church, up till the time of the Enlightenment, played the overwhelmingly dominant role in the mediation of identity, meaning, purpose, and community” (108; emphasis added).  This way of putting it suggests that that mediation was a positive thing; yet, I would not construe it as positive.  Rather, as his previous statement about secularization being liberation from control “by the concerns and domination of the church” admits, mediation is actually about brokering from a position of domination.  It is a power play—a kind of power the church should never have exercised.  Here is the issue.  “Mediation” is indicative of precisely the institutional substitute for discipleship—the authorization of a worldview rather than the facilitation of its appropriation (i.e., disciple making).

I put it this way because “identity, meaning, purpose, and community” should be understood more broadly than merely as “religion.”  These are important components of worldview, and worldview is what is actually at issue in the discussion of secularization.  The question that lingers over Hirsch’s discussion is whether secularization in the “West,” when it resulted in the decline of institutional religion as “mediator,” actually resulted in a massive spiritual vacuum or merely revealed one.  Because mediation is not discipleship, I suspect that on the societal level (not the individual case-by-case level) we are discussing, it was revealed, meaning already existent.

Differentiation needn’t result in either decline or privatization.  Taking the US as an example, it resulted in neither.  But even if it were to result in privatization (which, by the way, is not synonymous with relativism as Hirsch seems to think), which is a viable option in the current US social climate, that is hardly decline.  The vast majority could be privately highly religious, rather than being adrift without identity, meaning, and the rest.  More to the point, disciple making, which is to say worldview transformation, can happen—indeed, must happen—regardless of how differentiated the secular sphere is from dominant religious institutions.

The real problem in the US is that the context of discipleship is the lack of discipleship among Christians.  Just as the demise of institutional religious domination revealed an existing vacuum in Europe and its colonies, so a very similar vacuum has existed and been filled in the US despite strong ongoing religiosity.  In both cases, pseudo-religious forces such as consumerism function to define the society’s story.  In other words, I agree with Hirsch where it counts: in the analysis of consumerism’s function and the challenge that implies to the missional church.  But I strongly disagree that the problem is that the Christendom church was victimized by secularization, “pushed to the margins,” and thus ceased to mediate worldview.  (Becoming marginal is probably the best thing that could have happened!)  What we need is what the chapter is advocating: radical discipleship.

I think Casanova goes a long way in clarifying what is actually going on in the US, where the problem is not just consumerism.  Borrowing Weber’s analytical distinction between “community cult” and “salvation religious communities,” he observes:

The truly puzzling question in Europe, and the explanatory key in accounting for the exceptional character of European secularization, is why national churches, once they ceded to the secular nation-state their traditional historical function as community cults—that is, as collective representations of the imagined national communities and carriers of the collective memory—also lost in the process their ability to function as religions of individual salvation. Crucial is the question of why individuals in Europe, once they lose faith in their national churches, do not bother to look for alternative salvation religions. (Casanova, 15-16)

In other words, why did the vacuum “appear,” given that it didn’t have to.  I have already suggested that the answer to this is that the role of mediation (of community identity, in Casanova’s terms), already failed to involve a complete worldview formation through discipleship.  That is, it was already only functioning as a community cult.  The result was that the perception of need for “salvation” (the worldview question “What is the problem?” being at issue here) was already nonexistent.  That is one sweeping way to put it at least.

But how does the US compare?

In contrast, the particular pattern of separation of church and state codified in the dual clause of the First Amendment served to structure the unique pattern of American religious pluralism. The United States never had a national church. Eventually, all religions in America, churches as well as sects, irrespective of their origins, doctrinal claims, and ecclesiastical identities, turned into “denominations,” formally equal under the constitution and competing in a relatively free, pluralistic, and voluntaristic religious market. As the organizational form and principle of such a religious system, denominationalism constitutes the great American religious invention. Along with, yet differentiated from, each and all denominations, the American civil religion functions as the community cult of the nation. (Casanova, 16; emphasis added)

In the US, the salvation religion is in place, and this resonates deeply with the tendency of American conservative Christianity—the overwhelming emphasis on personal salvation.  But the community cult has been co-opted by civil religion and nationalism.  The vital point is that worldview encompasses all of what Weber distinguished analytically, meaning that the dominance of civil religion and nationalism at the community-identity level amounts to syncretism from a missiological perspective.  Americanism coexists with Christianity and becomes a powerful religious force within the salvation religion.  Flags are hung in sanctuaries.  Christians are expected to be of one political party or the other.  National political agendas, complete with violent intent, are sanctified from the pulpit.  And so on.

When the salvation religion is already weak on discipleship because of its particular construal of salvation, the vacuum already exists from the other side as well.  Then consumerism comes alongside nationalism in an increasingly toxic syncretism, and matters of identity, meaning, purpose, and community are badly misconstrued within the supposedly Christian worldview.  Because the “secular spheres” consist of state, economy, and science, it appears that secularization as some sort of malignant force  is responsible, as though state and economy were infecting the Christian worldview.  But the fact is that mere differentiation does not logically result in such syncretism.  The secular spheres, though neutral in and of themselves, can indeed offer an areligious alternative metanarrative.  Yet, the only reason they can act infectiously upon an existing metanarrative is that it is already inadequate—that the longing for identity, meaning, purpose, and community is unmet.  Only then do state, economy, and science turn into -isms.

Thus, while in Europe the context of discipleship is one in which a dominant secular worldview provides its own religious values (especially consumerism), in the US it is one in which secularized values (especially consumerism and nationalism) are accepted syncretistically within ostensibly committed Christian salvation cults.  While many of the issues are similar, I find the distinction to be helpful.  Moreover, I find it worthwhile to observe that the differentiation of the secular spheres per se is not to blame.  What differentiation did, in fact, was to make evident the previously hidden inadequacy of worldview formation in many corners of Christianity.  For that we can be grateful.

We’ve been studying Galatians here on Sundays. The conversation has caused me to reflect on why it is so difficult to communicate effectively the challenge that exegesis issues to the traditional Reformation and evangelical readings of the letter.

I’ll let N. T. Wright speak for the exegesis:

What, then, is Paul attacking under the label works of the law? Not, we must insist, what one might call proto-Pelagianism, the belief that one must earn ones justification and salvation by unaided good works. (Of course, had Paul met Pelagians, real or proto-, he would have given them short shrift. But there is no evidence that he did.) Nor, we note, is he attacking the idea that true religion is about outward observances rather than inward attitudes. That caricature of Paul has become so popular that Paul is still sometimes criticised as though he had anticipated Luther, or even Kant. . . . Rather, Paul is denying that the basic biblical commands [sabbath, food laws, circumcision], which in his day were the most obvious defining marks of Israel over against the nations, are of any continuing relevance in defining the true people of God, the people in and for whom the promises of Deuteronomy, and for that matter the promises to Abraham, were now coming true.

We should note in the same breath, of course, that for Paul the basis of this critique of the works of Torah is not that the Torah, or its commands, were evil, stupid, wrong-headed, demonic, or any of the myriad other things that Paul has been thought to say about the law (often by those in the Reformation or Enlightenment tradition who wanted him to say such things about law in general, about medieval catholic superstitions, or whatever). Rather, the basis for the critique is eschatological. Torah has done its primary job, a job designed for the period before the time when Deuteronomy 30 would be fulfilled. Now, in the new age ushered in by Jesus death and resurrection, Torah is relativized, and in particular is of no use, as it stands, when it comes to defining the eschatological people of God. (N. T. Wright, “4QMMT and Paul: Justification, ‘Works,’ and Eschatology,” History and Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr E. Earl Ellis for His 80th Birthday, ed. Aang-Won [Aaron] Son [New York: T & T Clark, 2006], 124-25; http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_4QMMT_Paul.pdf)

Despite the historical and textual evidence that brings Wright and others to this (in my view) well-founded conclusion, I see one overarching and two specific reasons why it is so difficult to let the text say what Paul meant. There are undoubtedly more, but these seem primary. The overarching reason is the current of historical theology: swimming against it, one realizes how powerful it is. Because “justification by faith alone,” conceived of in direct relation to the passages in Galatians and Romans that deal with “works of the law,” was so essential to the Reformation a whole, it is a central pillar in the theological system(s) that spun out of it. I’m mixing metaphors, but the point is simple: the whole of Reformation and, subsequently, evangelical theology is moving in the direction set by a certain reading of Paul. That reading is like a small stream that initially cut a channel in the ground and eventually grew into a massive river. Challenging that reading is like trying to carve out a new small channel to divert the whole river. The rest of the theology wants to keep flowing down the previous reading’s spacious riverbed—the path of least resistance.

That is the general issue that shapes two specific difficulties: the established “logic” of the straightforward reading and the established hermeneutical move.

By the “logic” of the straightforward reading I mean the theological thought world that controls the deductive reasoning applied to specific statements. This reasoning process must make meaning out of statements that presume a great deal about Paul, the Galatians, and the judaizers’ beliefs. This is specifically where the exegesis issues its challenge. The fruit of exegesis is a reconstruction of their thought world that is no less “logical” where the reading of those ambiguous passages is concerned. Yet, when someone with Reformation assumptions attempts to read Galatians in light of this exegetical insight (generally called the New Perspective on Paul), the “apparent” meaning of Paul’s phrasing still seems to cohere far more logically with the Reformation system. This is because reconstructing the first century thought world does not amount restructuring our own. The current of the river pulls us along, whereas the logic that coheres with the exegetical evidence feels, as a thought process, like swimming upstream. Thus, in the course of the discussion, it is very difficult to communicate what that evidence suggests, because it already seems so “obvious” what Paul is saying. Of course, it is equally obvious that he is saying something else once that Reformation logic is no longer operative.

Gal 3:10-14 is a good example:

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law; for The one who is righteous will live by faith. But the law does not rest on faith; on the contrary, Whoever does the works of the law will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for usfor it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (NRSV)

The Reformation system assumes certain meanings of works of the law (along with a entire conception of the OT law), curse (along with a entire theology of “the fall” and sin), and justification that control the passage’s logic, making its meaning fairly straightforward. This passage in particular plays an important role in reinforcing those assumptions. Thus, when one claims that “works of the law” refers so specific practices (sabbath, food laws, circumcision) rather than an attempt to “earn righteousness,” the rejoinder is that obviously they were trying to keep the whole law in order to be justified. Why else would Paul (quoting the law itself) say “cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law”? The “clear” meaning of this, coherent with the Reformation system of theology, is that the law required Israel to be perfect or go to hell.

Yet, the point of this example is that from within the thought world of the letter’s original context, that phrase would have very logically meant something else. It only seems to mean “Jews had to earn salvation” because of the imposed theological system that creates that logic. Unfortunately, it is actually the “obviousness” that comprises the force of the argument against the New Perspective’s alternate account, forgoing the possibility of a corrective to the Reformation system. The only way to avoid this circularity is to allow the results of exegesis to create dissonance with our systems and assumptions. Since we cannot revise them all at once, dissonance is inevitable.

I’ll try briefly to explain the logic of Gal 3:10-14 within a NPP reading of the letter before coming to the second (hermeneutical) difficulty.

(1) The “curse” is not the condemnation that corresponds to sinfulness in general. It is, very specifically, the result of Israel’s collective, persistent, historically particular unfaithfulness as members of the Sinai covenant—that result being, namely, exile (Deut 29:24-28). Exile was loss of “the land,” but that loss came to its sharp point in the loss of the temple, which is to say, of God’s special presence. This is the curse in simplified terms. This curse is not generalized or individualized. It is the historical reality to which the law, and therefore the Sinai covenant, had come.

(2) By quoting “Cursed be anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by observing them” (Deut 27:26), Paul does not intend to extract it from its entire OT context. It is one of many instances in Deuteronomy alone where God says that Israel must obey all the commands that he has given them. That God says it and means it is not in dispute. Rather, the reader of Galatians, in order to understand Paul’s logic correctly, must also presume the grace and forgiveness that permeates the OT, including the law. Paul does not separate the quotation from this context, therefore it cannot be understood as a proof text for the demand of moral perfection with its corollary need to “merit” justification. It is a proof text for the issue that hangs over the judaizers’ intentions in Galatia: we already know how the story of the law ends. To bring Gentiles into the Sinai covenant is to bring them into a realm in which curse already overcame blessing.

(3) There are a number of grammatical points that would clarify the sense of Paul’s wording if they didn’t get lost in translation. The translation I’ve used starts, “For all who rely on the works of the the law. . . .” This wording is already pushing the mind in the wrong direction. Literally, the phrase is, “For as many as are of works of the law.” This is important because parallel constructions throughout the passage (and the letter) help clarify Paul’s logic. The point here isn’t to quibble over whether they were “relying” on the works of the law—the NRSV translators are not to fault for choosing dynamic equivalent language. But what we need to see is the construction “of works of the law” (ex erga nomou). Paul explains, the curse pertains to those who are “of works of the law”—defined by circumcision, sabbath, and food laws. Being “of” those works places one “in” the law, which is where curse rather than justification already (in history, as exile) reigns. By contrast, those who are “of” faith are “in” Christ, which is where blessing reigns. Now, the fruit of these observations is clearer when we put all the phrasing together. I’ll use the same translation but change the key phrases to reflect Paul’s parallelism.

For all who are of works of the law (ex erga nomou) are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God in law (en nomō); for The one who is righteous will live of faith (ek pisteos). But the law is not of faith (ek pisteos); on the contrary, Whoever does the works of the law them will live in them (en autois). Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree in order that in (en) Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (NRSV)

(For readers with an understanding Greek grammar, I am not trying to make a case for a strictly locative use of en nomō or en autois, over against the more natural instrumental use. But there is a very important theological sense in which Paul relies upon the idea of being “in” Christ for his understanding of justification. That usage in parallelism with the law necessarily gives it at least a locative flavor, so to speak.)

As a side note, the translators’ decision to help the reader by making “works of the law” the antecedent of “them” in “Whoever does them will live in them” is understandable but, I think, wrong. The original text of Lev 18:5 is actually quite different than Paul’s phrasing: “You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing so one shall live: I am the LORD.” In any case, “them” would appear to be all the law’s statues and ordinances, which includes but is not synonymous with Paul’s use of “works of the law.”

So, boiled down, the parallelism goes like this:

of works of the law > in law > under curse > [lose presence]

of faith > in Christ > under blessing > receive Spirit

(4) It is important to reiterate that this curse did not come merely because individuals were morally imperfect.

It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them (Deut 29:25-26).

A broad covenant unfaithfulness is in view, which culminated after centuries of patience and forgiveness on God’s part.

Thus, there is no sense in which the judaizers were attempting to make the Gentile converts earn justification or merit salvation by “observing and obeying all the things written in the law.” Instead, they were apparently attempting to make Gentiles to be covenant members “of works of the law” (circumcision, et al.), and Paul’s point is that if they are “of works of the law,” then they are necessarily “in” the whole law—and that logically means under the curse. In other words, Gal 3:10 means that the law is where the curse is, and it is impossible to participate in just the works of the law and not the whole law (“all the things written”).

(5) “The law is not of faith” is not making the claim that keeping the law is somehow opposed to having faith in God. The prophet whom Paul quotes as saying “The one who is righteous will live of faith” was himself a law-abiding OT Jew who would have rejected that dichotomy. The key to understanding the passage is once again to note the grammar but also to grasp that Paul means something very specific when he says “of faith.” Namely, he is referring to faith in Jesus the crucified and risen Messiah. Paul appropriates Habakkuk’s phrase to talk about faith in Jesus. His argument is simply that the law is not “of faith” because what is “of faith” places the believer “in Christ” rather than “in law.” But whoever does the law lives “in law”—so it is self-evident that the law is not “of faith.” In summary, the two are mutually exclusive realms; the judaizers who believe in Jesus but still want to be “of works of the law” cannot overcome this paradox.

(6) The “us” of “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” refers only to Jews. As obvious as it should be that only those under the law (Israel) would need redemption from its curse, this observation is especially difficult for many to hear, because the passage is taken so personally. But Paul’s argument unfolds reasonably enough. It is necessary for Israel to be redeemed from the curse “in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” The blessing, which Paul quotes and identifies just verses earlier as “the gospel,” must come through Abraham’s descendants (Gen 12:3). Yet, they are under the curse of the law, which is a status that impedes the flow of the blessing through them. Thus, Christ takes care of the curse in order that the blessing might finally flow to the nations. Given that dilemma, it is inconceivable to Paul that the judaizers would want to bring the Gentile converts into the law and the curse.

(7) Moreover, among many things, the arrival of the promised Spirit is the answer to exile and the fulfillment of blessing. It is, therefore, also unnecessary for Jews (much less Gentiles) to look for blessing in the law, since the ultimate outcome of Israel’s redemption from the curse “in Christ” was “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” If the blessing is already fulfilled through redemption from the law’s curse “in Christ,” then why the preoccupation with being “in law”?

Swimming against the current sometimes feels futile. Hopefully I’ve offered a glimpse into a thought world that necessitates a very different reading of the passage but one from within which Paul’s words have an equally logical and straightforward meaning. Now for the second problem.

The almost instinctual rejection of a non-traditional reading of Galatians is rooted, in part, in the fact that the interpretive move from text to application is so seamless and, again, straightforward in Reformation and evangelical traditions. My perception is that people are at a loss for how to apply a New Perspective reading as easily to their own lives. Additionally, by now the desire to hear Paul saying, “Don’t try to be good enough” and/or “Don’t be a legalist,” in deeply ingrained in many. Thus, it is a rather foreign experience to hear the New Perspective explanation and be unable to nod along with immediate application to one’s own guilt complex.

Indeed, this guilt complex may be the most important factor of all. Krister Stendhal’s “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” continues to be one of the most insightful articles in the last century of Pauline studies, in my opinion. The extent to which the Western conservative conscience feels guilt and fears condemnation, provoking a deep longing and need to hear Paul say, “You don’t have to be good enough,” is impressive to say the least. The study of Galatians is therefore never just a detached cognitive exercise in which exegesis is free to draw its conclusions. The emotional element is powerful and often reactionary—even though we can go to many other passages to come to the conclusion that grace is actually a free gift. To say that Paul is not claiming “you can’t earn justification” in Galatians is not to say that he wouldn’t make that claim. That matters little, however, when dealing with passages that have been go-to proof-texts for the anti-works-righteousness claim during the entire history of Protestant Christianity.

Such difficulty aside, if we come to the conclusion that Paul is logically making a different point, then we must still ask hermeneutical questions. So, what application can we make from a New Perspective reading? I’ll quote from N. T. Wright and James D. G. Dunn’s work respectively, to demonstrate what the natural, easy connection probably is:

To sum up thus far, then, the phrase “the works of the law,” does, of course, refer to all or whatever the law requires, covenantal nomism as a whole. But in a context where the relationship of Israel with other nations is at issue, certain laws would naturally come more into focus than others. We have instanced circumcision and food laws in particular. In the Qumran sect the sensitive issues were not those between Jew and Gentile, but those between Jew and Jew, and so focused on internal disagreements on issues like sacrifice and purity. Elsewhere int he Jewish literature of the time we are aware of violent disagreement about how to calculate the appropriate feast days, whether by the sun or by the moon. The disagreement was so sharp that each regarded the other as failing to keep the feast, as observing the feasts of Gentiles and not those of Israel’s covenant. Equivalent defining issues within the history of Christianity have included believers’ baptism, speaking in tongues, or apartheid. Today we might think of issues like abortion, women priests, scriptural inerrancy, or papal infallibility. None of the disputants in such internal controversies would regard the point at issue as the whole of their faith or even as the most important element in their faith. But the issues have become foci of controversy to such an extent that the status of the opponent’s confession as a whole can in fact be called into question. (James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], 358-59; emphasis added.)

The passage speaks powerfully to every situation in which as is, sadly, far more common than in Pauls day the church is divided along ethnic or cultural lines. Most of the great divisions in Christendom—Eastern Orthodox over against the Western churches (i.e. Rome and the churches that broke away from Rome); the protestantism of northern Europe and its colonies against the catholicism of southern Europe and its offshoots; the vestigial Scottish/English division of presbyterian and episcopalian; and many of the newer free churches, often reflecting different cultures and social types—most of these divisions, though understandable historically, fall under Gods judgment when considered in the light of this chapter. A passion for Pauls gospel translates directly into a passion for the unity of the church. (N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, New Testament for Everyone [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002; Kindle Edition], 42-43.)

Wright, in the commentary referenced, also has a steady drumbeat throughout in reference to racial and ethnic divisions as well as table fellowship. These are equally natural interpretive connections, and which to emphasize will depend upon the interpreters’ context. But regarding the intentions of the judaizers and the covenantal meaning of “works of the law,” I think they are right to see the divisions within Christianity as the most direct correlation. Yet, I also think that neither (at least in these paragraphs) has really pried underneath the equivalency to the deeper issue of identity.

The first difficulty of application here is that Paul bases the illegitimacy of the judaizers’ claim specifically on the curse. The problem with their desire to “wear certain badges of covenant membership,” as both Dunn and Wright would put it, was the “of works of the law” that placed them firmly “in law” and thus “under curse.” While we might principlize the problem of “covenant badges other than faith,” we have to admit that other badges are not problematic for the same reason—others would not place us under the law’s curse. Still, it is legitimate to draw out the implication from Paul’s argument that the only acceptable badge of covenant membership is faith, because it is the only one that places one “in Christ.” (Others wouldn’t place us under curse, but they might leave us under wrath—a different but related issue for which we need would have to turn to Romans.)

This in no way short-circuits doctrinal differences, because Paul would say on the same breath that being in Christ necessarily produces certain results. So we can come in the back door and go on arguing about what those necessary results are, with the exact same divisions as the outcome. My expectation is not that understanding faith as the only badge of identity will preclude all division, as though saying “we all believe in Jesus” were sufficient. James certainly didn’t think so! I don’t think Paul wants Jesus to be an excuse for facile pluralism.

But it is game-changing if we begin by fighting, as ferociously as Paul, for faith in the crucified and resurrected Messiah as the one and only badge of covenant membership. If our essential identity is those who are in Christ by faith alone, then we have a basis for working out together the results and implications of that life. It makes possible the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, discerning God’s will through difficult conversation and communion. Because we are all still “us.” If, however, something else becomes a defining mark of Christian identity, there is no basis for us to sit at the table together; the conversation is over before it starts; “they” are not “us.” (Speaking of Christian unity, not the hospitality that should characterize the church’s table anyway.)

Given that Wright’s observation is correct—divisions often reflect cultural and social differences—it is all too easy to avoid the missional engagement of cross-cultural dialogue by allowing things other than faith to define God’s people. Instead, let us fight to sit at the table with all who are in Christ and discern together how to love and serve each other for God’s glory.

The Heart of It All: Jesus Is Lord

By way of reminder, starting with this chapter we’re diving into the various components of Hirsch’s Apostolic Genius. The first is the christology at the heart of the proposal. To cut straight to the problem from my perspective, there is a strong tendency in both Restoration and evangelical Christianity toward reductive theology, especially where the little phrase “Jesus is Lord” is concerned. Thus, when I read the title of this chapter, I’m immediately on guard against an oversimplified message.

As it turns out, Hirsch participates ideologically in the usual reductionism, and at the same time he pushes toward a substantive construal of the idea “Jesus is Lord.” On one hand, under the rubric of “distilling the message,” he argues that persecuted Jesus movements (which are, the reader will recall, prima facie authentic missional Jesus movements in Hirsch’s narrative) discard the “unnecessary impediments,” “unnecessary traditional interpretations and theological paraphernalia,” and “unnecessary complexities” (85) in order to get to a “simple Christology” (85) the “simple, uncluttered message of Jesus as Lord and Savior,” and the message “reduced to utter simplicity” (86).

On the other hand, he says (seemingly unaware of the contradiction) that the NT witness is “not just the simple confession that Jesus is our Master and we are his servants” (87) and goes on to explore OT theological backgrounds and Hebraic contextual issues. This is, even in his own words, hardly utter simplicity. It seems to me that Hirsch is at cross purposes in these pages, which is something I can sympathize with. While I am happy to read him suggest that the missional church needs to eschew some of the systematic and traditional baggage weighing it down, I am also committed to a scriptural construal of Jesus that cannot be pithy and easily communicable per se. Thus, when Hirsch suggests that the reason the gospel goes viral in missional movements is that it is an idea “easily grasped by any person, and in many cases illiterate peasants,” I have to chuckle (again, in sympathetic frustration) that he needs to go on for a few pages describing his understanding of “Jesus is Lord” in a way that is definitely not, in format or content, accessible to illiterate peasants.

Aside from the need for a more substantial Christology than one that meets the “easily transferrable idea” criterion, the problem with Hirsch’s argumentation is that it is not self-evident that persecuted or otherwise missional movements necessarily move in the reductive direction he claims. His only two test cases are, to review, the early church and the Chinese underground church. The former, by any account I’m familiar with, did not begin to have very sophisticated theological reflection and a very developed teaching tradition only when persecution ended. Rather, it was capable of something a great deal more complex than utter simplicity during persecution. Paul, if we were to take him as a representative of the early church, was persecuted quite often and yet found both “the time” and “the internal capacity” (85) for rather lofty theological reflection. As for the Chinese church, perhaps the gospel has spread virally because it was reduced to “essentials,” but I don’t think we know that, nor should we discount the teaching gifts of Chinese church leaders, underground or not.

And of course, considering Hirsch’s emphatic repetition of “unnecessary” in the quotes above, we have to ask that timeless question: “According to whom?” Now isn’t the moment to get into that discussion, but the question must be asked of his argument, because he is insistent that “simplifying our core messages, uncluttering our overly complex theologies, and thoroughly evaluating the traditional templates that shape our behaviors and dominate our consciousness” (99) is non-negotiable for Apostolic Genius. Restorationists will once again rejoice to hear him say that “in particular the primitive, unencumbered Christology of the NT church . . . lies at the heart of the renewal of the church” (99). Yet, we have well learned (haven’t we?) that primitive and unencumbered do not equate to easily agreed upon. One interpreter’s unnecessary complexity is another’s necessary inference.

Now for the strength of the chapter. “Jesus is Lord” in Hirsch’s presentation is a worldview. I don’t think he could be more right. His quick treatment of monotheism and its outcome—a holistic (contra dualistic) way of life—is a wonderfully succinct rendition of what is at stake. It is not theoretical christology but lived “christocentric monotheism” (93) that stands at the heart of Apostolic Genius. The “Jesus is Lord” worldview is a framework for everything, which affects theology undoubtedly, but results in so much more—namely a missional way of life.

I end with a relevant aside. “Christology must define all that we do and say,” writes Hirsch (94). What he is doing in the representation of Apostolic Genius and mDNA with christology at its center is a creative reiteration of a known position. He and Michael Frost somewhat famously advocated the theological ordering that goes christology-missiology-ecclesiology (http://missionalconversation.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/christology-missiology-ecclesiology/). David Fitch has prominently taken issue with the linear priority of missiology over ecclesiology, and for good reason (http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/missiology-precedes-ecclesiology-the-epistemological-problem/). But see these links for come clarification: http://bobhyatt.me/2011/05/christology-missiology-ecclesiology/ and http://churchplantingnovice.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/hirsch-vs-stetzer-on-ecclesiology/. What is not in dispute, however, is the centrality and priority of Jesus. Recalling that this is a book about ecclesiology, it is worthwhile to note what Hirsch is effectively demonstrating. Theologically, “Jesus is Lord” precedes all else. The way that is does so in The Forgotten Ways, namely, as worldview, is a helpful addition to the conversation. Interestingly, the relation of missiology and ecclesiology (being included in the rest of the “components” of Apostolic Genius) is in no way linear and may be taken as Hirsch’s corrective (or maybe just clarification).

Charles Kiser has written a thought provoking article on his blog. Rather than clutter his comments section with an overlong reply, I’ll post it here.

I’ve just been thinking similar thoughts. I recently asked a mentor whether he was ambitious. He said, “No, because I don’t have ego needs. I don’t need anyone’s approval or praise for what I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m ever satisfied with the level of my performance.” I found that to be a helpful point of reference for self-reflection, because I think the American definition of ambition favors our cultural sense of competitiveness and tends toward the utilitarian.

For Americans, competitiveness is a good that justifies the singleminded pursuit of honor. “Well, this is a competition” is a phrase that covers a multitude of wrongs. But “competition” has been generalized in such a way that it is the framework for the whole of American life rather than, say, just sports. Thus, even to expect gainful employment, one needs a “competitive edge.” Everything is a competition, and therefore everyone is simply expected to strive to be the best in relation to everyone else. We have a very hard time even conceptualizing excellence without measuring the self in reference to the other—those who are our “competition.” In all things, there are winners and there are losers.

Ambition is culturally acceptable, furthermore, because it is a means to an end. This in particular seems to have changed the connotation of the word. “That is an ambitious goal” means merely that it is a high standard, not that the person setting it is a glory hog. In fact, it is no longer possible to call someone “ambitious” as a criticism. Where once it meant that one’s motivations were corrupt and selfish, now is just means that one has significant goals. I suspect that this is because the Machiavellianism at work in our culture allows the end to justify the means in so many cases. The shift in the meaning of “ambitious” bears this out. The focus of the word is no longer on how one achieves but on the achievement itself.

The danger in our case, as church planters, is that the end is obviously good. If, then, selfish ambition is our internal dynamic, it matters little. We might not have achieved as much “for God” had we not been ambitious. And, after all, we should try to be the best. But if I put competitiveness and utilitarianism to the side as ethical criteria and reflect upon the idolatrous and destructive nature of my ego needs, I think I come closer to a position from which to answer Charles’s question (Is ambition for good something to applaud or something to confess?).

Yet, I still want to do some biblical reflection for the sake of theological nuance. First, Charles mentions Phil 1:17, which features the word eritheia. There, two points pique my interest. First is the definition itself, which BDAG’s entry makes extremely interesting. I’ll modify it a little for readability:
eritheia:
found before NT times only in Aristotle . . . where it denotes a self-seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means. Its meaning in our literature is a matter of conjecture.
A derivation from eris [Engagement in rivalry, esp. w. ref. to positions taken in a matter, strife, discord, contention] is not regarded with favor by recent NT linguistic scholarship and some consider it also unlikely for the sources from which Paul possibly derived the lists of vices in 2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:20, since eris and eritheia are both found in these lists;
yet for Paul and his followers, the meaning strife, contentiousness . . . cannot be excluded (compare Phil 1:17 with v. 15 . . .).
But selfishness, selfish ambition . . . in all cases gives a sense that is just as probable.
With zēlos Js 3:14, 16. kata eritheian Phil 2:3; . . . ex eritheias Phil 1:17; hoi ex eritheias Ro 2:8 . . . . Plural disputes or outbreaks of selfishness . . . 2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:20. . . .

It’s noteworthy that there is a connection, especially in the Philippian context, with the creation of division by virtue of eritheia. It has a social, communal effect. Because “ambition” is now neutral in English, eritheia must be translated as selfish ambition rather than just ambition; it is not about just being motivated. In particular, it serves the self over against the other. The NRSV describes the motives of the ambitious as “envy and rivalry,” rivalry being that word eris referenced above. The idea that gives shape to eritheia is, more than just selfishness, strife.

The second point of interest is that Paul actually seems to take a utilitarian view of their motivation. “What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice” (Phil 1:18). The end does not justify the means, however. Paul actually means that he doesn’t mind that his “suffering in imprisonment” be increased if the gospel is proclaimed. Moreover, the attitude of eritheia is precisely what Paul tries to address in the church through the famous poem in ch. 2. “Do nothing from selfish ambition (eritheia) or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (2:3)

Second, Charles mentions Rom 15:20, which employs philotimeomai, which is an especially cool word:
philotimeomai:
. . . special honor (timē) was accorded persons who rendered exceptional service to the state or other institutions, and many wealthy persons endeavored to outdo one another in philanthropic public service (cp. the billionaire Opramoas . . . who probably outdid all)
have as ones ambition, consider it an honor, aspire, w. focus on idea of rendering service . . . Ro 15:20; 2 Cor 5:9 (w. euarestos . . . a term frequently applied to philanthropists); 1 Th 4:11. . . .

Here, the linguists put to use the flattened English idea of ambition as aspiration. At least from an etymological viewpoint, though, “ambition” may be the right word anyway, for the fundamental idea is the love of honor that compels good deeds. Yet, the word is inextricably related to service. And so, we have just the word we are looking for when we try to reconcile the “ambition for good” that, at the same time, brings with it personal glory/honor. The word itself does not speak to the motivations of each philanthropist’s heart—whether good will first or glory first. But it does hold the two in the realistic tension any public good must create. And Paul’s use of the word 2 Cor 5:9 is indicative of the desire not just to do good but to be pleasing, so that he might “receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10).

Thus, some interesting questions arise: Is it selfish ambition to strive for recompense? Returning to Romans for consideration: “For he will repay according to each ones deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking (ex eritheias) and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury” (Rom 2:6-8). Here Paul explicitly contrasts seeking glory and honor through doing good with our word “selfish ambition.” Can we reconcile seeking glory and honor with seeking first the kingdom?

It’s necessary, undoubtedly, to emphasize from whom we seek approval and glory—God. But if that is the answer that releases all the tension from the question, I think it is too easy. Because we are asking about the place of the self in relation to a variety of things, and in guarding against selfish ambition, we may misconstrue other matters. The self-emptying of Christ in Phil 2 is the paradigm for not acting out of selfish ambition or conceit—well and good. But “therefore God also highly exalted him” is part of that paradigm as well. We too easily confuse “not self-seeking” with selflessness. Jesus was not selfless but rather, in full control of himself gave himself for us—and for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2); the hope of vindication and glory beyond the cross (Jn 17:1-12). In fact, the connection between glorifying God through doing good and being glorified is so strong that Jesus in John’s Gospel identifies the cross, which is the quintessence of shame and dishonor, as his moment of glorification:
Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Now my soul is troubled. And what should I sayFather, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. (Jn 12:23-28)

Again, his sacrifice is our paradigm, but ever with a view to keeping our life for eternal life and being honored by the Father. Yet, these motives are outweighed in the agonizing moment of self-surrender by the overruling desire to glorify the Father. And so the poem ends: “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).

Through these reflections, I find the need to nuance my own thinking about ambition. There is a place for “ambition for good,” and that is frankly more flattering than “love of honor” as we might call it. But our motivations cannot be limited to the self—whether baser ego needs or higher approval-of-God needs. We must seek foremost his glory. But we must neither be disingenuous about our motives, least of all with ourselves. We seek also for glory and honor. Doing nothing out of selfish ambition is not selflessness, but neither is it false humility. Paul can say, for example:
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. (1 Cor 15:10-11)
If he worked harder than others, then he did, and he feels no compunction about making the comparison. But it is not a competition. Whether they or he proclaimed, it was just as good. Or, returning to 2 Cor 5 and context, it is likewise by God’s mercy that Paul has his ministry (2 Cor 4:1), and he is a mere jar of clay (2 Cor 4:7), to the glory of God (2 Cor 4:15). But by his honesty he does “commend” himself “to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2), and the church should rightly boast about Paul’s ministry: “We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart” (2 Cor 5:12). This presumes, of course, that the church’s conscience is well-formed; that it is able to view from a transformed point of view (2 Cor 5:16). But presuming it can, then it is right to esteem and honor and boast about a servant who carries out ministry by the grace of God in forthrightness and Christlikeness. It is right for the church to agree with God when he would honor such servants.

From the servant’s point of view, there is perhaps much temptation involved. Even Paul must play a fool’s game when he would boast, and in the end, will boast only of weakness—though making a point all the while that his particular type of ministry is the kind the church should esteem and commend (2 Cor 11-12). But I suppose that we should nonetheless be ambitious for good, seeking honor and glory from God, “commending ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute” (2 Cor 6:4-8)

Yet, I still want to do some biblical reflection for the sake of theological nuance. First, Charles mentions Phil 1:17, which features the word eritheia. There, two points pique my interest. First is the definition itself, which BDAG’s entry makes extremely interesting. I’ll modify it a little for readability:
eritheia:
found before NT times only in Aristotle . . . where it denotes a self-seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means. Its meaning in our literature is a matter of conjecture.
A derivation from eris [Engagement in rivalry, esp. w. ref. to positions taken in a matter, strife, discord, contention] is not regarded with favor by recent NT linguistic scholarship and some consider it also unlikely for the sources from which Paul possibly derived the lists of vices in 2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:20, since eris and eritheia are both found in these lists;
yet for Paul and his followers, the meaning strife, contentiousness . . . cannot be excluded (compare Phil 1:17 with v. 15 . . .).
But selfishness, selfish ambition . . . in all cases gives a sense that is just as probable.
With zēlos Js 3:14, 16. kata eritheian Phil 2:3; . . . ex eritheias Phil 1:17; hoi ex eritheias Ro 2:8 . . . . Plural disputes or outbreaks of selfishness . . . 2 Cor 12:20; Gal 5:20. . . .

It’s noteworthy that there is a connection, especially in the Philippian context, with the creation of division by virtue of eritheia. It has a social, communal effect. Because “ambition” is now neutral in English, eritheia must be translated as selfish ambition rather than just ambition; it is not about just being motivated. In particular, it serves the self over against the other. The NRSV describes the motives of the ambitious as “envy and rivalry,” rivalry being that word eris referenced above. The idea that gives shape to eritheia is, more than just selfishness, strife.

The second point of interest is that Paul actually seems to take a utilitarian view of their motivation. “What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice” (Phil 1:18). The end does not justify the means, however. Paul actually means that he doesn’t mind that his “suffering in imprisonment” be increased if the gospel is proclaimed. Moreover, the attitude of eritheia is precisely what Paul tries to address in the church through the famous poem in ch. 2. “Do nothing from selfish ambition (eritheia) or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves” (2:3)

Second, Charles mentions Rom 15:20, which employs philotimeomai, which is an especially cool word:
philotimeomai:
. . . special honor (timē) was accorded persons who rendered exceptional service to the state or other institutions, and many wealthy persons endeavored to outdo one another in philanthropic public service (cp. the billionaire Opramoas . . . who probably outdid all)
have as ones ambition, consider it an honor, aspire, w. focus on idea of rendering service . . . Ro 15:20; 2 Cor 5:9 (w. euarestos . . . a term frequently applied to philanthropists); 1 Th 4:11. . . .

Here, the linguists put to use the flattened English idea of ambition as aspiration. At least from an etymological viewpoint, though, “ambition” may be the right word anyway, for the fundamental idea is the love of honor that compels good deeds. Yet, the word is inextricably related to service. And so, we have just the word we are looking for when we try to reconcile the “ambition for good” that, at the same time, brings with it personal glory/honor. The word itself does not speak to the motivations of each philanthropist’s heart—whether good will first or glory first. But it does hold the two in the realistic tension any public good must create. And Paul’s use of the word 2 Cor 5:9 is indicative of the desire not just to do good but to be pleasing, so that he might “receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10).

Thus, some interesting questions arise: Is it selfish ambition to strive for recompense? Returning to Romans for consideration: “For he will repay according to each ones deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking (ex eritheias) and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury” (Rom 2:6-8). Here Paul explicitly contrasts seeking glory and honor through doing good with our word “selfish ambition.” Can we reconcile seeking glory and honor with seeking first the kingdom?

It’s necessary, undoubtedly, to emphasize from whom we seek approval and glory—God. But if that is the answer that releases all the tension from the question, I think it is too easy. Because we are asking about the place of the self in relation to a variety of things, and in guarding against selfish ambition, we may misconstrue other matters. The self-emptying of Christ in Phil 2 is the paradigm for not acting out of selfish ambition or conceit—well and good. But “therefore God also highly exalted him” is part of that paradigm as well. We too easily confuse “not self-seeking” with selflessness. Jesus was not selfless but rather, in full control of himself gave himself for us—and for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2); the hope of vindication and glory beyond the cross (Jn 17:1-12). In fact, the connection between glorifying God through doing good and being glorified is so strong that Jesus in John’s Gospel identifies the cross, which is the quintessence of shame and dishonor, as his moment of glorification:
Jesus answered them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Now my soul is troubled. And what should I sayFather, save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. (Jn 12:23-28)

Again, his sacrifice is our paradigm, but ever with a view to keeping our life for eternal life and being honored by the Father. Yet, these motives are outweighed in the agonizing moment of self-surrender by the overruling desire to glorify the Father. And so the poem ends: “to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).

Through these reflections, I find the need to nuance my own thinking about ambition. There is a place for “ambition for good,” and that is frankly more flattering than “love of honor” as we might call it. But our motivations cannot be limited to the self—whether baser ego needs or higher approval-of-God needs. We must seek foremost his glory. But we must neither be disingenuous about our motives, least of all with ourselves. We seek also for glory and honor. Doing nothing out of selfish ambition is not selflessness, but neither is it false humility. Paul can say, for example:
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of themthough it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. (1 Cor 15:10-11)
If he worked harder than others, then he did, and he feels no compunction about making the comparison. But it is not a competition. Whether they or he proclaimed, it was just as good. Or, returning to 2 Cor 5 and context, it is likewise by God’s mercy that Paul has his ministry (2 Cor 4:1), and he is a mere jar of clay (2 Cor 4:7), to the glory of God (2 Cor 4:15). But by his honesty he does “commend” himself “to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2 Cor 4:2), and the church should rightly boast about Paul’s ministry: “We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart” (2 Cor 5:12). This presumes, of course, that the church’s conscience is well-formed; that it is able to view from a transformed point of view (2 Cor 5:16). But presuming it can, then it is right to esteem and honor and boast about a servant who carries out ministry by the grace of God in forthrightness and Christlikeness. It is right for the church to agree with God when he would honor such servants.

From the servant’s point of view, there is perhaps much temptation involved. Even Paul must play a fool’s game when he would boast, and in the end, will boast only of weakness—though making a point all the while that his particular type of ministry is the kind the church should esteem and commend (2 Cor 11-12). But I suppose that we should nonetheless be ambitious for good, seeking honor and glory from God, “commending ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute” (2 Cor 6:4-8)

The introduction of Acts (1:1-5) summarizes the end of Luke and reminds Theophilus about “the promise of the Father.” Luke undoubtedly focuses the reader on that promise, which is the Spirit. The proofs, the appearances, and the continued kingdom teaching all hang in a cloud of unmet expectation. God has proven himself faithful in Jesus, and so the unfulfilled promise presses in on the continuing story with a sense of urgency.

The coming of the Spirit is, of course, an eschatological event. It is a moment of consummation, the inauguration of the new era that will culminate with the final day. Because the Apostles continue to struggle with preconceptions about what God intends to achieve through all of this, they misconstrue once more what the kingdom is about. Tellingly, they ask whether it is time for the “restoration” (1:6) of Israel. This language tells us that they are sorting out prophetic texts—and quite logically, as the coming of the Spirit was associated with the restoration of God’s people (not least in Joel 2, which is quoted in Acts 2). But they have not in this moment grasped the real end game, even though their point of reference is the right one.

Christian missions has often turned to Acts 1:8 in order to articulate the broadening horizon of the church’s proclamation, and rightly so. But if we observe the passage’s connections, there is perhaps more present than merely a proof text for outward orientation. Keep in mind that 1:8 is the direct response to the question about the restoration of Israel. The eschatological arrival of the Spirit, which is the main concern of the section, serves to empower testimony to the ends of the earth. The arrival of the Spirit does in fact constitute the restoration of Israel, but only in order to give powerful witness to the kingdom of God (not the kingdom of Israel). Jesus will not let them have their eschatological dreams fulfilled without God’s teleological priorities front and center (cf. Isa 49:6).

Then as Jesus ascends, Luke quite overtly offsets the Apostles’ anemic eschatology with an ironic angelic admonition, even as that eschatology takes on new dimensions with the enthronement of Jesus. Whatever is unfulfilled must now await his return. But the angels will not let the apostles fixate upon that eventuality—upon Heaven. Rather, before the backdrop of Jesus’ commissioning final words, the angels say, “Why are you standing there staring toward Heaven?” Yes, he’s coming back just as he went, but you’ve got work to do! And although Luke’s concerns must have been very different than those of the 21st century church, the connection seems amazingly direct. Western Christianity’s eschatology, if it were personified, is a group of sent, empowered disciples, standing staring at Heaven. So here’s the eschatological corrective: Do not fix your eyes on Heaven. If that surprises you, then Luke is having success.

It is false Christianity that stands around staring toward Heaven. That is a Christianity that fails to grasp its purpose. It is a common kind of spirituality, but it is not true religion. We do not stand longing for his return, contemplating his absence, watching the sky. That is selfish faith. No, we work toward “the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day” (2:20), so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (2:21). The power of the Spirit is for testimony, for work, for purpose: “the definite plan” of God (2:23).

The Spirit’s power leads others to “stare” (atenizō; same word in 1:10) in the wrong direction as well, but the Apostles understand their role as witnesses, not focal points (3:12). His glory (3:13), his name (3:16), is all. Faith in his name, then, will bring some to repentance. They will turn to God because of Jesus—this is the witness that the Twelve give everywhere from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. And what is the result of that repentance? Forgiveness of sins (3:19), replies the reader quickly. But the subsequent clause teaches us that such an answer is eschatologically nearsighted. Although that answer couples nicely with the individualistic, Heaven-fixated posture of the late Western church, it fails to see the real relationship between forgiveness and God’s purpose. Thus, 3:20-21 are critical for understanding the angel’s words in chapter 1. In the first place, v. 20 mentions two eschatological outcomes, both of which refer to the same thing. “The presence of the Lord” and the sending of the Messiah both refer to the return that the angels mentioned. “Times of refreshing” refers to the Messianic age that that return will bring about. It is a particular reality to be (re)created. We also call it the consummated kingdom of God. Then v. 21 brings us full circle to the exchange at the beginning of the book. Peter is now aware and able to articulate that it is necessary for Jesus to remain in Heaven until “the restoration (apokatastase?s; same lexeme in 1:6) of all things.” He is no longer staring toward Heaven but working toward Heaven’s arrival on earth.

Moreover, the restoration of the kingdom of Israel is no longer Peter’s concern. It is the restoration of all things, the kingdom of God, that matters. The actualization of the kingdom is dependent upon the return of the king, and the return of the king is, according to Peter, contingent upon proclamation that results in faith and repentance. It is in this sense that we participate in establishing the kingdom of God. There is no delusion of control. It is not even for us to know times (1:7), much less to control outcomes. Yet, Peter believes that the Apostles’ testimony in all places is headed toward the restoration of all things; there is a causal “in order that” involved (3:20). He is not staring toward Heaven but serving on earth, because it is to earth that the Messiah will return, and in heaven and on earth where restoration and refreshing will take place.

The notion that God has chosen to involve the church in the realization of his telos (purpose) is at the heart of missional eschatology. It is necessary these days to reorient the church away from escaping to be with Jesus in Heaven, toward the restoration of all things with his coming. But in fact the best way to accomplish that is, rather than standing around staring toward Heaven, to get on with participating in the inbreaking of the kingdom. The angels did not attempt to instruct the Apostles once more on what the kingdom of God is really about. They just said, “Get on with it!” Through participation in what God is doing now, we come to realize that he is not about what we thought. Sometimes those lessons are shocking, as they were for Peter in ch. 10—he had not really grasped the meaning of “all things.” By participating in the mission of God, in hastening the day of his coming, we come to understand more fully the end to which God is working.

In this post I’ll deal with the introduction to section 2. Section 2 is the bulk of the book, wherein Hirsch deals with each aspect of his Apostolic Genius. The intro. to section 2 overviews the idea of mDNA, Apostolic Genius, and “missional” once more before launching into the in-depth treatment.

Since each subsequent chapter will occasion thorough discussion of Apostolic Genius, it is sufficient to review only a couple of big-picture points from the section 2 intro. One, the battle within the missional church discussion between a “truest” ecclesiology and a contextually “relative” ecclesiology is evident here. What this entire Apostolic Genius proposal is about is “the church in its most phenomenal form” (75) and “a distinctly higher and more authentic form of ecclesia” (76). Hirsch is clear that he is writing about the true church; he is making a truth claim that carries with it judgement for other ecclesiologies. As ever, the adjective “apostolic” seems implicitly to make a claim of superiority, but to be clear, he does mean that less apostolic churches are in fact less truly the church.

I appreciate that so postmodern a discussion hasn’t lost its bite. For those of us who still put stock in the early church as a compass for the present church, a renewed discussion of what “apostolic” really means is welcome. We do not presume to have articulated that meaning perfectly and universally. From one important viewpoint, then, what FW offers is a fresh, missional investigation of what constitutes the “apostolic.” That alone is well worth the read.

Pulling in the other direction is the force of his mDNA metaphor. The big idea is that there is something “organic” (over against institutional) embedded in the Christian and the church, which functions like DNA does in the body. Its components manifest together as Apostolic Genius (77) and, thus, the phenomenal (or perhaps “elemental”) church. But because this is an internal, not an external, dynamic, at the level of formal ecclesiology, there is a great deal of relativity:

If we can embed this inner meaning into our essential identity as God’s people, we will be well on our way to becoming an adaptive organization. This mission can express itself in the myriad ways in which the kingdom of God expresses itself–highly varied and always redemptive. (82)

The question, to my mind, is: When a church conforms to all the “phenomena, impulses, practices, structures, leadership modes, etc., that together form Apostolic Genius” (79), just how much room for contextual diversity and variation is actually left? When we get down to really thoroughly defining the “authentic” church, how much uniformity must creep in? Not knowing the answer to this question, I leave it for readers to ponder.

As a church planter, the thing that captures my imagination in this proposal is, in fact, the extended DNA metaphor. I’ve encountered the idea of ecclesial DNA before, most influentially in Neil Cole’s Simple Church (which Hirsch references extensively at this point in the book). But Cole’s DNA, an adaptation of which we have attempted to embed in the church in Arequipa, is not nearly as comprehensive. The idea itself, aside from the content of the DNA, is that this encoded core is what controls and compels the church rather than an outward structure. As a Restorationist who has given up on literal-logical biblicism and patternism but is still committed to non-institutional, non-hierarchical grassroots Christianity, the DNA metaphor holds out a promise for planting diverse congregations with a unifying essence more substantial than just “following Jesus.” Exploring that DNA, then, is vitally important to me.

The old-school Church of Christ laid the smack down on me recently. I should have been ready for it, but I wasn’t. I should have, because I know from whence I come. I wasn’t, because much of the old school was never actually a part of my immediate experience; it was a caricature. My family comes from truly rural Churches of Christ, the kind that know the old line and hold it with ferocity. But the thinking part of my youth, the formative part, was spent among more middle-of-the-road conservatives; those more suburban in style and savor. I hesitate to characterize too much, because the generalizations break down quickly within the ambit of personal relationships. But I know from experience that there are very distinct subcultural worlds within Churches of Christ, and certain styles of reading, thinking, and arguing tend to coincide with these sociological spheres. I mention them, because I’ve been trying to understand where I’m coming from—what makes it so hard for me to fathom the approach to Scripture with which my own recently collided.

In the aftermath of conflict, there are very few good reasons to make public one’s thoughts about contested issues. There are just too many motivations that arise from the nature that Paul called “unspiritual,” the very nature that inhibits spiritual discernment (1 Cor 2:14-15). But there are good reasons. If I risk too much in the hope that mine are among them, it is not without awareness that perhaps in this my own weakness of character is on display. Yet, I have been told that I am damaging the church in Peru and teaching false doctrine. If that is true, then quiescent false piety will avail me little in any event. I am writing here about the work for which I have prepared since I was seventeen years old, which has been the focus of my life, which my family has fought to make possible, and for which many others of God’s people have sacrificed to support. More importantly, I am writing about the kingdom of God. So I will risk it, and God be merciful to us all.

My other reason for opening this discussion publicly is two-fold. We are open about what we teach and practice in Peru anyway. Anyone who would visit or simply ask can know precisely what goes on. In addition, the kind of brothers and sisters who challenged our practice of the Lord’s supper here have a long history of “writing up false teachers” in the “brotherhood periodicals,” so I’m sharing all of this preemptively. This is not the first and will hardly be the last point of contention between the established Churches of Christ and the mission churches that grow in different soils the world over. Such conversations are inevitable and necessary. For my part, I say a spirit of openness is healthiest.

The story begins a few of months ago. A couple from a traditional Church of Christ background—the kind I’m describing as “old school”—visited our church meeting. At its conclusion the couple approached me and said that they didn’t know whether we’d thought about it or what our reasons were for using leavened bread, but we really needed to consider using unleavened bread for the Lord’s supper. That would be more biblical, they said. So here’s the first problem: it didn’t appear that they were actually interested in whether we’d thought about it or what our reasons were; they just wanted it to be know that we needed to be more biblical. There was no interest in conversation or mutual understanding. The truth is a known quantum, and the only obligation for the one who would “reprove” is to make known the necessary information. Relationship, prayer, listening, and discernment have no place. I’m not proud to admit it, but my response was in kind. Since we were not going to bother with a discussion, and since it wasn’t the time or place for it anyway, I stated in the friendliest tone I could muster that, if they would study the issue more deeply, then (I felt) their understanding would change. That prompted the comical question as to whether I had been raised in “the church,” as though proper indoctrination would have put such deviance to bed. I say comical, because that is precisely the sort of traditionalism the original Stone-Campbell Movement rejected. I was raised in the Churches of Christ, I replied, but managed to study my way out of certain assumptions. We traded a few more quick thoughts on the matter, but it was going the way of proof-texting, and the conversation fizzled.

Their presumption bothered me on an emotional level, but I had too much else going on at the time to really mull it over, and it quickly became a thing of the past. Recently, though, this brother and sister bumped into me and seized the opportunity to request a conversation. I knew what was coming, but I conceded and sat down with them anyway.

They would be remiss, they explained, if they didn’t try one more time to teach me the truth. They needed to give it one more shot in order to be absolved of responsibility, you see. After this, they could wash their hands of us. It was a long shot—in the end they said that they knew it would probably be a “waste of time,” but they had to try anyway. Their argument went like this, as far as I followed it: (1) 1 Cor 5:6-8 “makes the connection” between the significance of unleavened bread and the celebration of the Lord’s supper. Unleavened bread is a vitally important symbol of the purity of the church. (2) Moreover, Jesus used unleavened bread, giving us the example we must follow.

I should have thanked them for their concern and gone on with my day. Instead, I engaged. What ensued was about an hour of sometimes heated discussion. It is beyond my skill to represent it in writing, mostly because it unfolded so non-sequentially and often irrationally. I do not say this to disparage them, but the fact is that I could not develop a logical, cohesive argument, because I could scarcely utter two sentences without being interrupted, and when I did manage to make a point, their response was unrelated or tangential or just a repetitive refrain like “What did Jesus do?” It was unproductive, to say the least.

What I want to do is try to represent the key dimensions of the discussion, though my presentation here will be far more orderly than it actually was, and my own thoughts will be more developed. What is at issue for me is not just the Lord’s supper, though I hope my understanding of it will be apparent in the end, but also the interpretive problems that plagued this representative exchange. Thus, I intend to explore the essential differences related to where we are coming from that make each unintelligible to the other.

The conversation opened with a reading of 1 Cor 5:6-8:

Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

My first question was whether they believed that Paul was here talking about the Lord’s supper. The response was that it “makes the connection.” The assumption, naturally, is that the Lord’s supper was a passover meal, instituted as a “celebration of the festival.” More importantly, the aim in turning to this passage is to establish perspicuously (read: self-evidently) the meaning of unleavened bread in connection with the “celebration” of the Passover meal, which is (presumably) an indirect reference to the supper. Thus, we must eat unleavened bread, because Paul says it has a particular meaning: the purity or righteousness of the body of Christ.

The major problem with this reading is that while Paul does appropriate symbolic meaning from the Passover, he is simply not talking about the ritual observance of the Lord’s supper. It is right that unleavened bread has symbolic meaning, and I was pleasantly surprised that my conversation partners went in so theological a direction. If there is a strong argument to be made for the use of unleavened bread, it is surely bound up with the theological significance to be derived from its symbolic OT meaning. Yet, Paul here moralizes the symbol, abstracting the conduct he advocates from the symbol itself, rather than reinstating the ritual observance of the form as normative for the church. It is the conduct he cares about, not the bread. Moreover, he does so quite apart from a discussion of the supper. The passage clearly identifies Christ as the lamb, not as the bread. If Paul were talking about the Lord’s super, he has taken a nonsensical tack. In the context of the supper, the bread is the body of Christ, not the lamb meat. It is a misapplication to make 1 Cor 5:6-8 a proof text for the form of the Lord’s supper elements.

Even so, the more important argument for the biblicist position is that of Jesus’ binding example. Jesus’ intention, so it goes, was to establish the authoritative form of observance. He used unleavened bread; so must we. I take issue with this argument in two ways.

One, the assumption about the function of Scripture is erroneous. This is the most fundamental disagreement undermining the intelligibility of our exchange. Their presupposition is that if Scripture has Jesus eating a particular kind of bread, the purpose of that information is to provide the church with a form that is acceptable and pleasing to God. The belief is that God cares about things being done just so, and Scripture exists in order to let us know what just so is. While I believe there are forms that matter, at a more fundamental level, I do not assume that Scripture functions in this legal or blueprint way. Anyone who asserts that it does must explain why; it is not self-evident, and it is not the only option. My purpose in this paragraph is not to lay out an alternative (which is what my explorations of missional hermeneutics is about) but to point out the difference—and the presumption—involved.

Two, the argument is inconsistent. If the kind of bread Jesus ate is determinative, then so should be the kind of drink: wine. Upon making this assertion, I was told that I could not know that they were drinking wine, because it only says “fruit of of the vine” (Mark 14:25; Matt 26:29; Luke 22:18). They are “just doing what it says,” not more. Of course, I might have pointed out that it also only says that Jesus “took a loaf,” not that it was unleavened. Knowing (or thinking) that it was unleavened depends on something more than “just doing what it says.” To expand this point a bit, those who have tried to be more consistent with the interpretive methodology my conversation partners employed have required only one cup, because it only says that Jesus took “a cup” and gave it to the disciples to drink from. On the inconsistent side, the unleavened crackers passed around my childhood congregations were hardly “a loaf”—and the oneness of the loaf is even something that Paul expands upon theologically in 1 Cor 10! The one-cup argument is a deeply problematic one—every bit as problematic as the unleavened-bread argument—and I’m not advocating that my conservative brothers and sisters go all the way and become completely consistent in their patternism. I’m pointing out the inconsistency in order to make the assertion that their claim to a simple “just doing what Jesus says/does” biblicism is not only wrongheaded but also false. They are already engaged in selective reading and patterning. Unleavened bread: yes. One loaf: no. Fruit of the vine: yes. Wine: no. Why not think more deeply about what is at work behind such interpretive decisions and develop a more conscious, less presumptuous approach to Scripture?

My brining up the wine at the Last Supper took us down a tangential path, but the conversation was so indicative of another problem that I have to mention it here. Their claim was that not only could I not know that the fruit of the vine at their Passover meal was wine, but that they wouldn’t have been drinking wine anyway, because “they” (presumably, Jews) only drank grape juice, and if it fermented it was on accident because they didn’t have refrigeration. Well, that blew my mind. In the first place, the claim that first-century Jews didn’t make wine is just spurious. In the second place, Jesus himself made wine at the wedding at Cana (John 2). In the third place, we know what the drink was at the Passover. Any Bible study resource on the historical background of the Passover meal will make it quite clear that “the cup” was wine. Everett Ferguson is a perfect example, being both an eminent NT backgrounds scholar and a conservative CofCer. In his Backgrounds of Early Christianity he explains plainly: “Four cups of wine mixed with water were passed around during the meal” (3rd ed., 558). This is a matter of historical fact: we know exactly what kind of fruit of the vine Jesus was drinking, just as much as we know what kind of loaf he took and broke. My appeals to historical-contextual study, however, were rejected as “listening to men rather than the Bible.” There is my problem, they said. I have listened to men instead of just doing what the Bible says.

Likewise, my appeal to John 2 was met with obstinate rejection of sound exegetical principles. I was flabbergasted to learn that the “good wine” that Jesus made was “good” because it wasn’t actually wine. I’ve since learned that this has been taught in certain Churches of Christ, though I somehow missed it in my youth. Upon my offer to retrieve a Greek lexicon in order to determine whether Jesus make wine (on this point I was, ironically, keenly interested in “what it says”), I was told that I could get ten lexicons and it wouldn’t matter, because they knew what it says. The point of this little rabbit trail is to highlight another insuperable disconnect: their rejection of exegesis and my requirement of it. I don’t know how we are supposed to read the Bible while ignoring the historical and linguistic evidence that makes sense of it. They, on the other hand, accused me of having an arrogant attitude because of my appeals to scholarship. Those who know me know that I do sometimes have an arrogant attitude, and I’m not unaware of the sin, but at that moment I was not committing it. I was only appealing to easily accessible data that we could all agree upon, not to the superiority of those who make that data available. I actually feel that it is far more arrogant to reject the help of scholars. Listening to those who know what we do not and depending on those who know what we cannot is an act of humility. And it’s something we practice involuntarily every time we pick up a translation of the biblical text in order to “just read what it says.” Ignorance is not the key to faithful biblical study.

I return now to consider another aspect of the inconsistency of patternism as I have known it in the Churches of Christ. To reiterate, there are forms that I believe to be important. The problem with typical biblicism is its inability to discern theologically which are important and which are not. Often, the more important forms are disregarded while those of little relevance persist. In regard to the Lord’s supper, for example, I believe the sharing of a meal is one of those forms in Scripture that functions. The table fellowship involved is an efficacious form, one that reifies the ritual of remembrance as a social expression of solidarity and unity. My question for the typical pinch-and-sip practice of the Lord’s supper is: Why reduce the supper to the elements of bread and wine in abstraction from the shared meal? Not only is that a major theological move (to the surprise of many, no doubt), it is also the loss of a deeply significant NT form. It is, in fact, the only Lord’s supper form that Paul wrote about keeping properly: 1 Cor 11:17-34. To this assertion my conversation partners responded that Paul says in 1 Cor 11:20 that they are expressly not eating the Lord’s supper—they were eating a meal instead of doing the supper. This is, however, a compete misreading of Paul’s logic in the passage. He argues that their mistreatment of one another makes the meal not the Lord’s supper, but if they would treat everyone rightly (“discern the body”), then their meal would be a proper Lord’s supper. The meal is the social expression of “communion” that makes or breaks the ritual; it is the table fellowship, the togetherness of the meal, that constitutes the most important form.

To take this further, the meaning of the supper—particularly the manifestation of unity—matters far more than the kind of bread or drink. The meaning revolves unanimously (according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul) around remembering (cf. the point of the Passover) the significance of Jesus. Moreover, Paul is emphatic that unity (1 Cor 10 and 11) expressed in the meal (and the loaf!) is essential. The Lord’s supper actually has layers of meaning, and I might say much more, but these two principle ideas are the sort of thing that actually matters. My point, therefore, is that discerning the “weightier matters” must inform our use of NT forms. Patternism is inevitably inconsistent, because it purports to imitate all NT forms, no more and no less, but it actually engages in unintentional selective patterning. In so doing, it also fails to realize that some forms are more important than others and may even overlook important forms, not to mention essential meaning. The wiser interpretive course is to self-consciously and critically engage in theological discernment of more important matters and then to be intentional about the imitation of biblical forms that seem to function. Having adopted this approach, I believe that we practice the Lord’s supper according to its meaning—remembrance and unity—when we practice it with whatever bread is part of our shared meal (usually leavened).

A few other points specifically in reference to leaven bear mentioning. Acts 2:41-47 succinctly describes the life of the first Christian congregations. Verse 42 in particular lists four activities, in almost ritualized language, that made up their spiritual life together: “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (NRSV). These are clearly the “religious” activities they engaged in, and we correctly understand “the breaking of bread” (tē klasei tou artou) as a reference to the supper, echoing the language of the Last Supper story when Jesus broke (eklasen) the bread. Verse 46 then says: “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (NRSV). Some would argue that “they broke bread” (klōntes arton) here refers to eating a meal and not to the Lord’s supper, but that strikes me as special pleading. The language in this context is fairly loaded. In v. 46, it is associated with the “religious” activity of worship. Both v. 42 and v. 46 employ the word proskarterountes, translated “they devoted themselves” and “they spent much time,” suggesting that both passages are describing the practices of the Christians in very similar terms. Verse 42 mentions “fellowship” (koinōnia), and v. 46 mentions “togetherness” (homothumadon), which inhere in the meaning of the supper mentioned above. The case is strong. Luke certainly could have meant two different things by this word choice, but it is not probable.

If it is true, then, that the earliest church was participating in the Lord’s supper every day as they ate together, we may make an deductive inference: they were not making unleavened bread for every meal. They could have, most likely, but there is no reason (outside the supposition that they were patternists) to think that they would have begun eating Passover bread with every meal. They seem to have understood “this” in “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24) in a broad sense. Rather than understanding the antecedent of “this” to be the eating of specifically Passover bread, which would have limited the remembrance to once a year, they seem to have generalized “this” to be “breaking of bread.” There was, no doubt for good reasons, a change some time later to meeting weekly rather than daily, but in Acts 2 they broke bread and remembered Jesus literally “as often as” they met together—every day. This is natural enough given the number of initiates coming in every day coupled with the need to share food with out-of-towners, not to mention the likely impossibility for the Apostles of eating a meal without remembering that fateful last supper together. How could they break bread or drink wine and not remember Jesus? The kind of bread would be inconsequential in this context.

Moreover, assuming that the Last Supper was in fact a Passover meal, it did not involve merely unleavened bread. It was bread made in a house (Exod 12:54) and in a region (Exod 22) in which there was no leaven at all. It was not just a symbolic tip of the hat made by not putting leaven in a loaf. For the bread to be really “unleavened,” the whole country had to get rid of its yeast. This strengthens the inference that the Acts 2 church was not eating Passover bread with every meal—it wasn’t actually possible outside of an immediate abstraction of the superficial symbol of unleavened bread from its OT law context. But it also problematizes the symbolic meaning of unleavened bread (which was, according to Deut 16:3, affliction and haste) for Gentile Christians. The festival—which Paul would have been rather strongly against perpetuating among Gentile converts—and its accompanying symbolism would have been lost on Gentiles. Not to say they wouldn’t have been taught the Exodus story and the law. Yet, it does create a difficult transfer of significance.

One final, well-known difficulty presents itself for those who want to be very adamant about the form of the bread. The synoptics, though not totally unambiguous about the matter, intend to leave the reader with the impression that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. John, however, has Jesus crucified during the slaughter of the Passover lambs—clearly before they are eaten. From this I believe it is fair to draw the conclusion that at least one inspired apostolic author (a) really didn’t care about the kinds of minutia my whole confrontation revolved around and (b) in particular, didn’t give a rip about preserving the particular Passover character, including the unleavened bread, of the Last Supper. There were, to risk redundancy, more important theological concerns.

Which presents a segue to another side conversation. When I made the claim that there are far more important matters that Jesus actually teaches but we don’t do, they asked for an example. So, I responded with “sell your possessions and give to the poor.” They were very adamant that that command only applied to the rich ruler, a particular case. I tried to clarify that I wasn’t talking about that story but rather Jesus’ teaching in Luke 12. They continued to assert that it was only taught in the one story of the rich ruler and applied only to him. Once I realized that we weren’t going to make any progress until I made it clear that I wasn’t talking about the rich ruler, I opened up a Bible and read Luke 12:33: “Sell your possessions, and give alms.” Well, they said, that is just a principle that means we should love our neighbors. That’s right: Jesus said it, but we don’t have to do it. Here we have a direct command—not even an example from which to infer a command but a straightforward imperative from Christ himself—and we’re not going to “just do what he said.” The rest of the conversation was infuriatingly illogical, but the details aren’t of great import. The point here is to marvel at the fact that there is principlizing happening, despite the claim of reading and obeying. They are doing theology—albeit badly in my opinion—and I just wish we could all get honest about that fact and proceed to do it better.

Finally, I have to say something about the terrible overall effect of failing to discern between more important and less important matters. The basic idea underlying their confronting me was that this issue matters so much that to be wrong about it is tantamount to teaching false doctrine and damaging the church. They asserted that if I really believed what I was saying, then I was implicitly condemning all the Christians who think and practice differently and should be traveling around the country correcting them. The conclusion was natural for them, because they were actually condemning me, so the inverse must be the case if I were right. And that is the real difference between our positions on this issue. It’s not that leavened bread is “right” for me and “wrong” for them; it’s that I think it’s a matter of very little import and therefore let other factors determine practice. They said that I would cause divisions by teaching this false doctrine. The fact is, they will split the church (more) by declaring this a divisive issue in the first place. And that is the point that, in the course of the conversation, I felt responsible to make to them. Making everything a matter of truth or damnation is what causes unnecessary division. Focusing on Jesus and core issues is what really matters. Their reply—and I cringe to repeat it—was, “That’s what the denominations say.” I pointed out that our sectarianism has caused far more harm than many of the “denominations” ever did. And they asked, in genuine distress, “Are you saying the denominations are right?!” And that question about sums it up. If I have to side with “the denominations” to say that Jesus and his kingdom are what really matters, then sign me up. For my traditionalist brother and sister, it is far more important not to be in agreement with those outside our little group than to place Jesus above all else and have unity with others who do the same. That disposition is the most deadly threat to the church, the ultimate negation of the Restoration Movement, and the greatest barrier to a productive conversation.

So this is my plea: let us place Jesus, rather than ecclesial and liturgical forms, first. Let us read the Bible with humility, ever striving against our assumptions and prejudices and ever seeking a more faithful manner of reading. Let us put aside the presumption of the patternist “just what it says” claim and begin to listen to those God has gifted and raised up as teachers of the church—who have the gift of knowledge that not every reader of the Bible possesses. Let us deepen our practice of the Lord’s supper by obedience to its true meaning. And let us stop bickering over minor concerns and start advocating for the kingdom, which is not a matter of what we eat or drink but of justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Holy God, may you be honored in our struggle to discern your will. If we must be freed from our assumptions, then you must be our Liberator. Fill your people with your Spirit, and do what we cannot, for only your Spirit knows your mind. Salt us with grace and truth, and do not let us lose that flavor; do not let our presence in your world be made worthless because of our failure to seek first your kingdom and justice. Forgive us and transform us, that we might faithfully proclaim Christ until he comes.

I come from a church tradition established most notably by a man who founded a journal called The Millennial Harbinger. Alexander Campbell was a postmillennialist–he believed that Christ would return after a thousand year utopian period. Moreover, he believed that he was part of ushering in this “millennium.” Commentary abounds on the these heady Enlightenment days, when optimism prevailed, and the perfection of human society seemed immanent and inevitable. Like all of us, Campbell was a product of his culture.

Campbell’s chief Restorationist coconspirator, Barton Stone, held a far more pessimistic view (often called “apocalyptic”). In the spirit of the prophets who decried the world-destroying juggernaut that is human evil, Stone had no expectation that humans would progress morally or socially. Society was hopeless unless God would interrupt history to set things right.

I don’t know precisely what Campbell had in mind for the future. It probably didn’t include the horrific wars that ensued after his death and ultimately broke the optimistic spirit of Enlightenment cultures. Safe to say, he probably didn’t imagine the current decline of Western Christianity, though he might have dreamed of the current rise of global Christianity. And the technological revolution has not only outstripped the wildest dreams of the industrial revolution’s pioneers but has given rise to an unprecedented kind of globalization. The world has changed. It is neither a Christian utopia nor a downward spiral of degeneration. But it is very different. In a variety of ways, Christians are still choosing between these two broad streams of optimism and pessimism.

These thoughts come to mind at the intersection of my current reading. Amid preparations for a Missio Dei issue on globalization, I’m also slowly reading Tom and Jess Rainer’s The Millennials. The present globalization is really about the nature of global human society at the dawn of the new millennium. The Millennials are the first generation of this new era. Of course, Campbell didn’t have the calendar millennium in mind per se. Still, I can’t help but think of his hopes as I survey the trends of the globalized world and the outlook of many Millennial Christians. To be clear, I’m not talking about a particular eschatology here; I’m talking about a new Christian optimism and the new global context in which it exists.

So far, The Millennials has demonstrated some interesting characteristics among my peers. The Rainers define Millennials as those born between 1980 and 2000, though other demographers adopt different ranges. 1982-2001 is an influential one. Either way, I (b. 1982) am on the front edge of this generation, so I’m looking at our characteristics form the inside. On a personal note, though, my mother was born at the end of the Silent Generation, whereas most Millennials are characterized by the influence of their Baby Boomer parents. I’ve noted differences as I read.

In any event, one of the most interesting hallmarks of the Millennials is the strong, pervasive belief that we can change the world for the better. We are confident that we are truly capable of tackling the world’s problems and prevailing. We look for ways to integrate this sense of purpose in our lives and careers. Consider the following extended excerpt:

One of the most amazing responses in our study was to a simple statement: “I believe I can do something great.” First, the number of respondents who agreed is amazing. About 60 percent agreed strongly and another 36 percent agreed somewhat. Of course, that’s almost every respondent, 96 percent in total!

But the data based response needs unpacking. As much as the number is incredible in its sheer magnitude, the voices behind the numbers were even more telling. This is where the subjective responses in our study were extremely helpful. Millennials do not, as a generation, define greatness in the same way others may perceive it. When Tom was growing up as a Boomer in Alabama, he and his peers defined greatness in terms of fame, wealth, and personal power.

But Jess did not have that same perspective as a Millennial growing up in Louisville, Kentucky. He had great hope for greatness as did his Boomer predecessors, but the hope was not locked into the achievement of great wealth, fame, or power alone. Instead, if a Millennial does achieve wealth, fame, or power, it is a means to a greater good than an end in an of itself.

Sharon reflects this sentiment well. She was born in 1984 and has experienced early success as a registered nurse. She is continuing her education toward a doctorate so she can train other nurses in a university. “I have a good income,” she began, “and this is not unimportant to me. I want to be financially successful. At least I want to be financially stable. I certainly have seen what can happen when you’re not financially prepared for personal or economic crises. I mean, look how many people got wiped out in the Great Recession.”

She continued her point. “But my desire for a good income is so I don’t get sidetracked on my greater goals. I became a nurse because I really like helping people. It’s good money, but there are better paying jobs out there. I then decided to pursue my doctorate because I saw the nursing shortage might become a big issue as the Boomers become senior adults. I want to be able to be part of the training of the upcoming generation of nurses. That’s how I want to make a difference.”

Sharon also mentioned that nursing as a profession has a great opportunity to be on the scene when global tragedies strike. “When the Haiti earthquakes happened in early 2010, I was prepared to go,” she explained. “I took two weeks vacation, and my employer was gracious enough to give me one extra week of paid leave. Those three weeks in Haiti were life changing for me. That’s what I mean when I say I want to be great. I want to do something that makes a difference. I am doing something that makes a difference.”

Sharon’s attitude is pervasive among the Millennials. A significant majority of this generation was raised to be hopeful. . . .

Thus we have a generation of optimists unlike the Gen X members before them. The Millennials tend to be upbeat, positive, and happy. But they are realists as well. They know that not all is well with the world. The Boomer Generation knew that and protested it. The Gen X Generation knew that and was depressed about it. And the Millennials know that, but they believe they can have a role in changing it. (16-18)

In an article on The Next Wave, Palmer Chinchen labeled Millennials as “Generation Justice.” Writing of evangelical Millennials, he sees this concern for making a difference in a suffering world as their standout quality. “Generation Justice,” he contends, “has taken to heart Jesus’ kingom-cry to feed the hungry, give clean water to the thirsty, put clothes on the naked . . . , and care for the sick—and end the pandemics.” Chinchen’s observations are a poignant description of a generation whose concern for serving the world is an increasingly dominant trait.

Interestingly, though, the motivation behind this tendency remains ambiguous. The Rainers surveyed a representative American sample group—meaning hardly even religious, much less evangelical. Yet, the great expectations of social activism are present. Among evangelicals, says Chinchen, it’s “Jesus’ kingdom-cry.” Clearly, among Christians, there is more than one force at work upon Millennials pulling them toward an optimistic, activist disposition.

Before suggesting some of those possible forces, I note that this commonality irrespective of religion is a very good thing. As Tom Krattenmaker recently suggested in a USA Today article, social activism provides a common platform for bridging one of America’s deepest cultural rifts. Many evangelical Millennnials are prepared to seek common good with any fellow do-gooder.

So what contributes to this phenomenon? The Rainers attribute the generation’s optimism primarily to their parents instilling hope and a belief that they can do and be anything. That’s not an incredible claim, but I don’t find it to have quite enough explanatory power. What we are talking about is an emerging American worldview. What else has shaped it?

Some, no doubt, will point out the youth of the Millennials and suggest that what we are dealing with is naivete and idealism, soon to be stripped. Yet, whatever frustrations the Millennials’ philanthropic ambitions meet, the uniquely benevolent drive is undeniable. Moreover, the expectation of success thrives despite a far keener awareness of poverty and desperation in the majority world than ever before. And notably, 9/11—a defining moment for this generation—and the ensuing “war on terror” has done nothing to curb their optimism.

This is where my globalization studies come in. I think that the Millennials’ resilient optimistic worldview can be chalked up, to a great extent, to a literally new world. The globalized world, and particularly the technology that has enabled globalization in the postmodern sense, has convinced my generation that possibilities for human progress are as infinite as the digital worldscapes many of them have created and inhabited. The rate and scope of change we have grown to take for granted is the reality we assume. Change and progress is not only possible. It is seemingly natural. It is simply the world we know.

Ours is not merely an era of technological advancement, akin to every era of technological advancement. It is an era of exponential growth, in which paradigm shifts have become typical.

Technological Paradigm Shifts: The Rise of Digital

These shifts are not unprecedented. And they are not truly diverse, because they all revolve around the same kinds of technology. But I believe the speed and breadth of sustained change has profoundly affected the way my generation sees the world.

The shift from the gramophone (vinyl) record (ca. 1880s-1970s) to the battle between the eight-track and the cassette tape just predates the Millennials. No sooner had the cassette won the day than the digital revolution began. Millennials have grown up alongside the CD, then the digital file and the Napster controversy, and finally the rise of iTunes. All of this involved not only a change in format, but also a shift to no physical medium and a whole new discussion about the economics of the music industry and copyright law.

Similarly, magnetic video tape was a major development in the 1950s. But Millennials have witnessed the move to DVDs and, again, to iTunes and, of course, YouTube. Not only the user end of video technology changed. Digital video also made every personal computer into a studio. Expression and creativity have exploded as a result. (I might have made similar comments about audio technology, but YouTube is evidence that society has a high tolerance for all kinds of video quality, whereas music still demands artistic sensibility and talent.)

I note briefly the equally colossal move from film photography to digital cameras. I will look more at the digital camera evolution below.

One final example is the transition from telephones to cell phones to the iPhone and its competition.

It virtually goes without saying that all of this is profoundly connected to the rise of the personal computer. The Millennials were the first generation born into a world where the PC was a given. The year I was born, 1982, Time named The Computer as Machine of the Year.

But the truly game-changing phenomenon of the Millennial generation flowered in the mid-90s: the Internet. The Web changed everything. Virtual reality became our new reality. Millennials can’t imagine the world without the Internet and all that it implies. We see everything in terms of its connectivity, its plurality and relativity, and its efficiency.

Probably much like the children of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, Millennials know only a world where massive swaths of their culture change for the productive and efficient on a regular basis. Change, progress, innovation, flexibility, and adaptability: these are norms for the Millennials. Stability, consistency, tradition, and predictability are not.

Yet, it is not merely the normativeness of technological and cultural transformation that shapes Millennials. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, the speed at which the technology evolves. If the optimism of Millennials is rooted in anything, it may be the exponential rate of change coded into their world. Some examples:

Millennials are the video game generation. The iconic Nintendo Entertainment System hit the shelves in 1985, when I was three. It was an 8-bit system. The Nintendo 64, a 64-bit system, debuted in 1995. In the course of 10 years, the game console’s CPU capacity had doubled every 3.3 years on average. These numbers are impressive and certainly exponential. But consider what lies underneath them. From Wikipedia: “There are . . . 256 . . . possible values for 8 bits.” “A 64-bit register can store . . . 18 446 744 073 709 551 616 different values.”

Or consider the digital camera. “In 1991, Kodak brought to market the Kodak DCS-100, the beginning of a long line of professional Kodak DCS SLR cameras that were based in part on film bodies, often Nikons. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor and was priced at $13,000” (Wikipedia). Today, 20 years later, professional-grade digital cameras are taking pictures upwards of 24 megapixels. That is, the resolution—and therefore the visual quality—of digital pictures has doubled at a rate of slightly less than once every five years.

Another easily observable example is the storage capacity of PCs. “The IBM PC/XT in 1983 included an internal standard 10MB hard disk drive” (Wikipedia). The laptop I’m typing on has a 750 gigabyte hard drive, but terabyte drives are common. In my lifetime, the storage capacity on a personal computer has increased by a multiple of 100,000. That is astounding. I would expect nothing less.

A final example (and there are many, many more) is one of the most important among my peers: Internet connection speed. In high school, the infamous 56k dialup modem was our pathway to the Web. Today in Peru, a majority world country, I will post this article via a 4mbps connection—over 71 times faster than my stateside connection 12 years ago. Of course, most states in the US average between a 6 and a 10mbps connection. 10mbps is 178 times faster than 56kbps. Then there are the business connection packages of, say, 100mpbs. You get the idea. At this point, things only seem to be escalating.

The point of these simple observations is to draw out the implications for Millennials’ worldview. In every one of these examples, the proof is in the pudding. Graphics improve drastically. Gameplay transforms by leaps and bounds. The movement of information and media excellerates seemingly without brakes. And this is the world we’ve known from day one. Moreover, my specific examples aside, it is virtually impossible to find an aspect of life the technology doesn’t touch. I really do not find it surprising that Millennials have such an optimistic outlook, because our existence has been tinged with unyielding, apparently limitless progress, and it has formed some of our foundational, unconscious assumptions. If we had a mantra, it might be “It just keeps getting better.”

This is why I think many Millennials look at Tahrir Square with something like satisfaction rather than surprise. While much of the media, mainly represented by older generations, was flabbergasted by the impact of social media on a momentous democratic revolution, I suspect many Millennials saw events unfold and thought, “That figures.” It was a confirmation of the reality they already live. That socio-political situation is extremely complex, sure. But if people plug in with good intentions, communicate and share, act innovatively and get outside the box—then good things are bound to happen. I’m not saying this isn’t simplistic. And I’m not trying to make sweeping generalizations. I’m just saying I think it’s the lenses through which many of us Millennials perceive the world. It’s why we’re so sure we can change the world: because the world changes, fast.

Finally, the idea that we can change the world often refers specifically to the many poor segments of the world. Those segments are usually distant both spatially and culturally. Yet, Millennials feels more empowered to make a difference than ever before. This is due in some measure to greater ease of travel, and it will remain the case as long as no more planes fly into skyscrapers and the US economy doesn’t evaporate. Far more important, though, is the connection and impact the Internet makes possible. The problems of struggling nations and people groups are no longer as distant and overwhelming as they once seemed to the individual. For example, a solitary person with only $25 dollars can personally impact a struggling entrepreneur across the globe through initiatives like Kiva or the ministry that I work with, CUDA. We can change the world, because the whole world is only a few clicks away.

Christian Millennials

Now as for Christian Millennials (referring broadly to evangelicals/conservatives, but specifically post-conservative/emergent/missional types), there is another set of issues. In fact, I hope there is a significantly different worldview, in the sense that the biblical narrative intends to transform all our worldviews. I expect the general contours remain the same. Yet, there are some important theological developments compelling certain Christian Millennials further into an optimistic activism.

Foremost is the increasingly popular conception of the kingdom of God. Krattenmaker says it well:

What these younger evangelicals mean by “kingdom” is not a Christian conquest of America as the ranks of the wary might fear, but the divine ideal of something closer to heaven here on earth a world in which the most vulnerable are protected and the poorest are fed and clothed.

Likewise, in the context of a globalized world, the kingdom is not confused with American cultural imperialism or a political power play by the church. Although there is undoubtedly confusion about what exactly this “divine ideal” will be or how to get there—and some problematic elements will get mixed in along the way—the intention is not anything akin to historical colonial missions or the Religious Right. It is a fresh look at Jesus’ message and the way his particular lifestyle and teaching is in fact the path to the kingdom.

And maybe this is about eschatology after all; just not pre- and post-millennialism. Rather, it is about the extent to which the kingdom has come and extent to which the church can bring it in. Whatever the answers to those questions, the Millennial Christians described here are committed to working toward it and participating in it one way or another.

I also note that many evangelicals are moving beyond the predominant but distorted “grace alone” teaching. I haven’t seen any indication that Millennials are trying to “earn their salvation.” But many seem to be recognizing that the overdone anti-works polemic ended up undermining the biblical imperative to do good works and be kingdom people. Millennial Christians may still humbly believe they are not “good enough” to save themselves, but they realize that they are good enough to effect real, lasting good in the world. This is connected with a resurgence of a creational theology that recognizes the image of God as a powerful reality, and a pneumatology that recognizes present transformation into Christlikeness to be that reality’s vindication.

If Chinchen is right about “Generation Justice,” then it is worthwhile to note “justice” and “righteousness” are the same word in the NT. We may not have “works righteousness,” but we’re not going to be shy about working justice as Jesus taught us to do. There is a pessimism inherent to the old “grace alone” teaching. It is a low view of humanity, and not without reason. The corollary is that an optimism shines through the new emphasis. To put it bluntly, our works, done in Jesus’ way, are truly righteous and precisely what God wants.

Two Big Problems, Briefly Stated

It’s not clear just how much faith Christian Millennials are putting in the technology and in the free market capitalism that is globalized through it. Perhaps far too much.

It may also be that Christian Millennials have an over-realized eschatology. That is, they may be too ambitious, too arrogant, in their presumption about “building” or “demonstrating” the kingdom. As usual, hubris may be the Achilles Heel of this new optimism.

Your thoughts?

“The problem we face is that while as a sociopolitical-cultural force Christendom is dead, and we now live in what has been aptly called the post-Christendom era, the church still operates in exactly the same mode” (61).

In chapter two, Hirsch sketches the contours of Christendom and makes the case for its inadequacy. The emerging missional church (EMC) is, he contends, the hope for the future, which brings him to overview its observable characteristics as well. He ends the chapter with a challenge to these emerging ecclesiologies.

The big idea here is, in the tradition of Lesslie Newbigin, that “the church in the West had to change and adopt a missionary stance in relation to its cultural contexts or face increasing decline and possible extinction” (50). The Christendom model of church is not a missionary stance, and it is therefore “literally outmoded” (65) in the postmodern context. He appropriately undertakes this critique on the level of assumptions and worldview, though the goal is clearly to communicate the basic idea of this level’s role in ecclesiology rather than to deal with it thoroughly.

Hirsch employs a very interesting illustration, which I think is helpful enough to consider here and possibly improve. He compares (a) the relation of foundational ecclesiological assumptions to missions programs with (b) the relation of a computer’s hardware/basic language to its programs.

This is a useful metaphor with which to analyze our approaches to change and reform. Many efforts to revitalize the church aim at simply adding or developing new programs or sharpening the theology and doctrinal base of the church But seldom do we ever get to address the “hardware” or the “machine language” on which all this depends. This means that efforts to fundamentally reorient the church around its mission fail, because the foundational system, in this case the Christendom mode or understanding of church, cancels out what the “software” is requiring. Leadership must go deeper and develop the assumptions and configurations on which a more missional expression of ecclesia can be built (52).

The way this looks in Hirsch’s conception is:

programs: interface with end user

operating system: mediates between program and machine

maching language / hardware: basic code of hardware

programs and ministry

theological ideas

ecclesial mode / system

This raises a major question for me, however. Is ecclesiology most foundational? Hirsch, like many missional church types, seems to think it is. But how can ecclesiology be the legitimate precursor to all other theology? To begin first with the doctrine of the church is a dubious move by itself. But the question is even sharper when we recognize that the missional church movement is, or should be, founded on the move away from an ecclesiocentric mode of existence (which is a chief characteristic of Christendom) to a theocentric mode of existence that begins with the missio Dei. But Hirsch himself said it in the last sentence quoted above: missional church is built on assumptions. These assumptions are theological in nature. As Hirsch goes on to talk about the “systems story” that needs to change, he is talking about a narrative theology of which ecclesiology is only one upshot. He is right to talk about paradigms and worldviews as he seeks to provoke the kind of assumption-level change that will allow the church to be effective in mission (53–54). The problem is that one’s worldview is not founded on one’s understanding of church. But the theological processes that must take place in order to provoke worldview change are not to be confused with merely “sharpening the theology and doctrinal base of the church.” That would indeed be inadequate.

Considering what Hirsch is trying to communicate with the computer comparison—namely, why efforts to reorient the church around mission fail—I still find it incredibly illustrative. I would just suggest switching the bottom two terms:

programs: interface with end user

operating system: mediates between program and machine

maching language / hardware: basic code of hardware

programs and ministry: specific “applications” compatible with our “operating system”

ecclesial mode / system: our ways of living out a missional worldview in community

theological ideas: basic assumptions about God’s mission

Every metaphor breaks down eventually, but this one has a lot going for it, especially given a cultural-linguistic (Lindbeckian) view of theology. The implicit narrative theology at the heart of our worldview is our basic language. What we do as a church, speaking and acting, must be compatible (cohere) with this language. Thus, our doctrine of the church, as well as our practice of church life, are the operating system compatible with the theological syntax coded into our hardware. This OS further determines how the church serves others. Only certain software will work on this OS, and those programs are the user interface, which provides the real service of the computer and makes its functions understandable. And . . . here’s where it breaks down, since users are people, not other computers.

Anyway, Hirsch’s diagnosis of the problem is still correct. Many attempts to be missional are like trying to run slick Mac software on the old IBM running Windows XP. It’s just not compatible. And the solution is not to try to load Mac OSX onto the IBM. It won’t take, because the language coded into the hardware is all wrong. Even valiant efforts at more thorough imitation of OSX (yeah, I’m talking about Vista) will fail, because they still assume the old IBM way of coding hardware. Okay, it’s breaking down again, but I couldn’t resist the pot shot.

The point is, we have to have some fundamental paradigm shifts in order for the church to become truly missional. From another angle, I suspect Hirsch may simply be advocating a “mission is the mother of theology” approach, presuming the church’s shift to a radically missionary posture (i.e., eschewing outmoded church structures) is the fundamental thing. I could agree with that in practice, meaning I see how starting there rather than with theory is best. But the sort of commitment that shift requires presumes some strong controlling assumptions regarding what God is and is not about. Furthermore, this order of operations is just an affirmation of the fact that acting on more surface levels of culture can effect deeper assumptive levels.

Moving on to other aspects of the chapter, Hirsch makes a number of thought-provoking observations. The section “Yeah, but What Would the Bible Say?” contends that “prophetically consistent Christianity means that we must remain committed to a constant critique of the structures and rituals we set up and maintain” (55). That is, he enlists the biblical prophetic tradition in the service of his anti-institutionalism. This may not be far from fair (I personally tend to agree), but there is no actual handling of the text to substantiate it, and the probability that he is reading in postmodern anti-institutionalism is fairly great.

The use of Ralph Winter’s cultural distance model is helpful. With it, Hirsch explains more missiologically why the church needs to take a missionary stance toward its own context. The distance is real. This section is where he outlines Christendom and then explains how postmodernism has led to “what sociologists call the heterogenization, or simply the tribalization, of Western culture” (61). The resulting subcultures further increase the cultural distance between the churched and the unchurched or dechurched. “Each of them takes their subcultural identity with utmost seriousness, and hence any missional response to them must as well” (61). Adopting a missionary stance, he says, “partly . . . will mean adopting a sending approach rather than an attractional one, and partly it will mean that we have to adopt best practices in cross-cultural missionary methodology” (62–63). I think that is among the best possible summaries of what missional church is all about.

His brief discussion of Alpha groups (a kind of small community evangelistic tool) is a powerful example of the point that a fundamental shift is necessary. For all the numerically impressive involvement of unchurched and dechurched people in United Kingdom Alpha groups (3 million people), there has been no noticeable impact on actual “church growth.” Why? It is still just an add-on to Christendom church; “church growth” still means Christendom growth. “[Alpha] has so many elements of Apostolic Genius latent in its structure but is hindered by a more institutional understanding of church” (63). Churches that think of adding such programs without more essential transformations need to take note.

Hirsch answers an important question about “the way we’ve always done it,” furthering his comparison between the Apostolic church’s genius and that of recent movements such as the Chinese church. There is a pre-Constantinian mode that was lost in the wake of Christendom. This is not a new assertion, but Hirsch does much to make the connection between the critique of Constantinian Christianity and the advocacy of the emerging-missional ecclesiology. As a Restorationist, I have to say that the EMC plea, if you will, is almost comically familiar. My fellow Churches of Christ folk may mistake the following as something from the memoirs of Alexander Campbell:

The leadership emerging in them tends to be imbued with a creative and pioneering spirit. And few of them are ordained—this is a genuine grassroots people movement. There is a rediscovery of Christology and the person of Jesus as the center point of faith, rather than all the highly stylized dogmas and creeds that have defined the Christendom mode. On the whole it is very much a fringe movement—there is no sense that they have a central role in society at large—and yet it seems to be committed to faith in the public sphere. And what is exciting is that all these churches tend to have a missional heart, the desire to reach others with the message of redemption in Jesus (68).

No clergy. Grassroots. “No creed but Christ.” A missional heart. And a keen sense that the church got badly off track when it climbed into bed with Rome. Campbell and Stone would be proud. Moreover, I think the Churches of Christ need to sit up and take note of these resonances. There are certainly important differences, not least because Churches of Christ have themselves crystalized and sold out to Christendom more than the Restoration Movement founders might have imagined, but also because there were some things we just never got right. But for that reason we may find a way out of our own ecclesial quagmire by engaging the EMC.

The above quote is not exhaustive, and the reader will gain much from Hirsch’s fuller description of the EMC. As a brief aside, I note that one of its primary values is creativity and innovation. I’m not sure how much this is Hirsch’s personality shining through or how much is careful analysis of the movement, but it is unmistakably part of his characterization. It strikes me that the way he talks about innovativeness suggests it is a sine qua non of Apostolic Genius, though it is not formally included in his proposal.

Finally, Hirsch’s challenge to emerging ecclesiologies deserves quoting in full:

The absolutely vital issue for newer emerging churches will be their capacity to become genuinely missional. If they fail to make this shift, then they too will be another readjustment of Christendom. A mere fad. As we will see throughout this book, new and emergent forms of church are the result of being missional, not the other way around. I therefore present the same challenge to my brothers and sisters in the emerging church as I do to the established church: if you don’t just want to be another church fad, don’t just make the service and spirituality suit a postmodern audience, start at another place—put the M in the equation first, and EC will follow (72).

I couldn’t agree more. Two observations: (1) Hirsch defines missional in stark contrast to Christendom. What is not missional is just more Christendom. Is, then, what is not Christendom missional? (2) Missional church is not a fad. He recognizes the problem of faddishness among emerging churches. That is not missional. Rather, Apostolic Genius is missional, more on which to come.

William Baker of Cincinnati Bible Seminary and the Stone-Campbell Journal has been facilitating a conversation on Evangelicalism and the Stone-Campbell Movement for some time (see vol. 1 (2002) and vol. 2 (2006)).  This is a fascinating discussion about some of our fundamental agreements and disagreements with broadly “evangelical” Christianity.  Yet, there is a great deal of diversity within evangelicalism as well, making the basic question more interesting, and an important divergence within evangelicalism has also been accelerating since 2006 when the last volume came out.I appreciate the motive of the underlying question about unity between us.  There should be unity in Christ between the variety of SCM churches and the variety of evangelical churches, but the issue is not so simple as a questions about static doctrinal nuances defining who is “in” or “us” and who is not.  Rather, I tend to think that, for all our historical and cultural overlap, the distinctions between our movements (or denominations) is significant in terms of identity and priorities.  I should reiterate, I do not see this as undermining substantial, essential unity in Christ.Roger Olson has written a very helpful post about “The New Fundamentalism.”  The questions facing what I call neo-restoration are very similar to the ones facing evangelicalism, for precisely the reasons that Baker has been able to generate the dialog.  Our shared context is powerfully influential.  Yet, many Churches of Christ (again, I limit myself to my context) seem to be voting one way or another with their actions, perhaps without critically engaging all the question facing us.  We cannot speak helpfully of Churches of Christ simply “mainstreaming” into Evangelicalism, because there are a lot of currents in that main stream.  There is, in fact, quite a diversity of directions among Churches of Christ at this point in the century, and I would like to consider where we should be going.As I have said elsewhere, SCM churches need to be looking long and hard at missional (and emergent) ecclesiology from our particular starting point.  But starting with and focusing on ecclesiology, as SCM churches are in a bad habit of doing, is not the way forward.  Olson identifies himself theologically with the “postconservative” current of evangelicalism, and while I don’t know if he is referring to Kevin Vanhoozer’s use of that term in The Drama of Doctrine, I have great appreciation for the hermeneutical approach Vanhoozer lays out in that volume.  And because SCM churches are so disparate and essentially autonomous (as is much of evangelicalism despite a more institutionally inclined way of organization) it is helpful to think about the way forward in terms of what Olson is doing in his post: engaging the discussion openly for the sake of clarifying where he is and who he is not to be confused with.  That is the only way to chart a course with intentionality, and that is what the NR community discourse is aiming for.

As my post on baptism indicates, I think a convergence of New Perspective scholarship (N. T. Wright and co.) and missional concerns is the best option presently available.  While emergent church types have been a fan of Wright in particular for some time (despite his Anglican commitments), I have not seen an positive discussion of this convergence until Andrew Perriman’s recent posts “The Great Convergence: the emerging church and the New Perspective” (March 3, 2011) and “From New Perspective to missional praxis: plotting the tensions” (March 25, 2011).  I won’t reproduce his diagram from the latest post, because it requires his explanation as well.

The question for NR, though, is what this diagram looks like from our starting point.  Because the “old perspective” is so broadly Lutheran-Reformed, it is easy to affirm that we as a Protestant branch are there as well.  And, to reiterate, I believe both of these direction (New Perspective and missional praxis) are the brightest future.  Yet, we are thankfully not fully entrenched in the concerns of the evangelicals who are resisting the burgeoning Neo-Reformed movement’s anti-emergent u-turn.  Churches of Christ in postmodern contexts are, however, manifesting an interest in what Perimann labels “Emerging theology” (by which he means Rob Bell and Brian McLaren).  If I could offer one critique of the diagram, it’s that I would much rather see a rigorous post-conservative theology equally rooted in missional praxis than one that is all “hesitancy to give solid answers.”

So, is this the best way forward for SCM churches?  What particularly restorationist concerns change the landscape?  What are our “measurable and ‘orthodox’ results”?