ebookgroup

The continuing conversion…

This very modernreductionism struggles with the tension between evangelism and social
justice, which ultimately will not be resolved, according to Barth, unless and until one finds something beyond them which unites them.That which lies beyond these dichotomies is the gospel, which is
greater than these (and many more) reductions. 126

In the exploration of the missiological implications of reductionism, 1 have stressed that the reduction of the gospel to individual salvation, with all of its surrounding and resulting implications, is the gravest and most influential expression of the human drive for control. The consequences of this reduction are profound, ranging throughout every dimension and expression of Christian thought and action. A reduced gospel trivializes God as it makes God into a manageable deity. 131

The congregation either a missional community - as Newbigin defines it, "the hermeneutic of the gospe1 - or it is ultimately a caricature of the people of God that it is called to be. 136

The missional community which Jesus intended and which the apostles formed and taught was to testify to the gospel in every dimension of its existence. Its message was never understood as simply a verbal communication about which one might argue, and for which mere mental consent was sought. The gospel ofjesus Christ defines a new reality, under God, in which Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and earth, and his followers are his sent and empowered witnesses. 137

But, as a community of forgiven sinners, we constantly try to bring this gospel under our control. We do that by reducing it to manageable proportions. In a great variety of ways, that reductionism has become characteristic of our Christian witness, especially in the Western world, among the heirs of the oldest traditions. For evangelistic ministry, that reductionism is displayed in its most potent way in the division of the gospel into "benefits" and "mission." What the believer receives from responding to Christ has become the focus: forgiveness, new life, and assurance of salvation. These truly blessed benefits may not, however, be separated from the calling of the Christian community to be Christ's witness. Thus, the heart of the church's evangelistic ministry is its own continuing conversion to the fullness of Christ and his mission. 144

Gospel reductionism has, however, led us far from that dynamic and incarnational understanding of membership. As the church focused more on the benefits of salvation enjoyed by the individual Christian, membership came to mean "saved." 170

Their survival as a separate religious group, rather than their commitment to the reign of God, began to preoccupy them."13

This survival as a religion was linked with the church's growing perception that the gospel was primarily directed to meeting individual human needs. This meant from very early on, as discussed above, the reduction of the gospel to an individually and privately defined vision of salvation. This salvation was, quite rightly, understood as a fundamental change in the relationship between the person and God, and the assurance of life after death in heaven. Re4uctionism does not mean that what remains is wrong: it means that What remains is too little. The church, as it institutionalized, did not set aside the gospel; it reduced it and made it manageable….The reduction of the gospel to the individual and personal dimensions of salvation had profound reductionistic implications for the institutional shape of the church. To summarize what was discussed at length in chapter 5: This reduced gospel shaped a church with a reduced mission. It was now to be focused upon the issue of personal salvation, This salvation was to be managed by the church with the administration of the sacraments and the distribution of grace, and it was all dependent upon the development of special offices of the church empowered to administer God's grace in churchly actions. Bosch calls this "the ecclesiasticization of salvation." 188

As we have seen, this reductionism of the gospel has meant, almost invariably, a separation of the gospel message of salvation from the gospel message of the kingdom of God. 15 One of the continuing evidences of that fateful separation is the kind of evangelism, still widespread in North America, which claims that it can justify separating between the saviorhood of Jesus Christ and the lordship of Jesus Christ. There the reductionism is complete. Jesus as the source of a person's salvation is reduced to the level of one's salvation need; the claims of jesus as Lord of life and history are reserved for another time and place. In effect, they are never heard, because such claims burst the boundaries of the safely reduced gospel which ensure that Christianity will never be as radical in our social setting as in fact it must be.190



Guder be my witnesses…