Culture & the Kingdom: An Interview with Dr. Timothy Tennent
As I sat at the 2011 Free Will Baptist Leadership Conference, I attentively listened to David Wells as he quoted extensively from Timothy Tennent’s provocative inaugural address at Asbury Theological Seminary. While I had little to no idea who Timothy Tennent was at the time, I knew that I had to read this address in its entirety for myself. That address has been formative in my life, and in many ways represents a great deal of what the Helwys Society Forum seeks to promote.
Timothy Tennent has served as the president of Asbury Theological Seminary since 2009. Prior to taking this post he served as Professor of World Missions at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary for eleven years. He has ministered and taught in multiple countries, and is the author of several books including: Building Christianity on Indian Foundations; Christianity at the Religious Roundtable; and Theology in the Context of World Christianity.
Recently, I had the opportunity through Forum13 to ask him questions concerning missions in particular and several other topics too. What follows is our exchange.
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Helwys Society (HS): Dr. Tennent, thank you for your time and willingness to answer a few questions for us. Let’s begin with a simple question: Do you have a favorite missionary (biblical or extra-biblical)? If so, why?
Dr. Tennent: William Carey is my favorite missionary because he dared to not only be a missionary, but to encourage the building of Protestant societies which would send out hundreds of new missionaries. The birth of the Protestant missionary society was the genius of William Carey. All of today’s mission societies can thank Carey for realizing that the church couldn’t obey the Great Commission unless organizations came alongside the church to assist them. That is a great legacy.
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HS: I believe that you studied at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World. What are some of the most significant ways that Western Christianity differs from non-Western Christianity, and what can we Westerners learn from non-Westerners?
Dr. Tennent: Non-western Christianity can teach us quite a few things. We have learned from the majority world how to interface with other religions and remain powerful, prophetic witnesses for Jesus Christ. The majority world is situated to show us how to best extend the gospel to those who have not heard. They have much to teach us about church planting! Only the whole church can help us bring the whole gospel to the whole world.
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HS: There are some discussions over the economic efficiency (stewardship) of short-term missions trips, as well as the utility, especially in cultures where ministry is based on relationships that take years to develop. What do you think?
Dr. Tennent: Short term missions is mostly injurious to the life of the church because it has eroded millions of dollars from long term mission support, without which the church cannot extend to new people groups. We should utilize our short-term missions program for the recruiting and training of long term missionaries. We currently invest too much money in short-term missions and, when we do send short-term missionaries, we send them to the wrong places, further impeding the growth of the indigenous church. This is an area where the church needs to do a lot better reflection. I have written an article showing how a church can turn their short-term missions program into a ‘smart’ program, but it will take a lot of work and change to see this come about in N. America.
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HS: Are there certain missiologists whose writings you find particularly meaningful (authors and books)?
Dr. Tennent: I have been most influenced by Professor Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh. They have done more to introduce me to the dynamics of world Christianity than anyone else.
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HS: My research indicates that you signed the Manhattan Declaration. Did you ever get to meet (or spend much time with) Charles Colson? If so, can you tell us about him, his personality, his passion, his vision?
Dr. Tennent: I did get to meet Chuck Colson a few times. We had breakfast together on two occasions. He had a great passion for not losing a Christian voice in our culture. He was a dedicated statesman and had a voice few of us have.
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HS: In your inaugural address at Asbury you say:
We have one foot in the mainline church (we provide more ordained ministers for the United Methodist church than any seminary in America), one foot in the holiness movement (we were founded by a 19thC. holiness, revivalistic preacher) and one foot in contemporary evangelicalism (we serve over 90 different denominations, many of them part of the evangelical movement). I guess this makes us a three footed toad!
What it is like being the president of a seminary serves such a diverse group of local churches?
Dr. Tennent: Asbury is a diverse place! We have over 100 different denominations represented in our student body. However, we are all tied together by a strong commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture and the centrality of Christ. Rather than viewing it as a complicated cauldron of problems, we see Asbury as a miniature picture of the body of Christ.
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HS: You make a quite profound statement about the state of Evangelicalism when you stated, “If liberalism is guilty of demythologizing the miraculous, we have surely been guilty of trivializing it.” Can you elaborate on this for us?
Dr. Tennent: My biggest concern about contemporary evangelicalism is that, as a movement, it is falling prey to all of the same tired old distractions which Protestant liberalism brought us for the last one hundred years. Like the liberals of the last century, we are the new vanguard of making the gospel “relevant” to people and, in the process, sacrificing so much of the precious gospel in the process. Evangelicalism is not immune to a complete collapse unless we collectively re-affirm our commitment to the authority of Scripture and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. We do not want to lose our burden to reach the lost, but we need to make certain that, in the process, we don’t forget the very gospel which purchased us from sin and bondage.
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HS: You note that it is not uncommon for churches to hire staff members who have little or no theological education, eliminate membership classes because they’re too demanding, remove the word “wretch” from songs, or allow a guy to lead congregational singing who knows little to no theology, but plays the guitar well. You then say, “[I]t happens in ten thousand small skirmishes, rarely any big, bloody battle.” What kind of damage does this sort of thing do to a church? Do you think the average church realizes that any damage has been done?
Dr. Tennent: Worship is central to the life of the church. For a church to insist that their pastor have years of theological education, but not have an equal concern for those who lead worship is a dangerous practice. The theology of every chorus or hymn should be carefully examined to make certain that it reflects the great themes of Scripture and the person and work of the Triune God. Modern day worship is far too emotive, too self-referential, too shallow and “light weight” to serve the long term needs of the church. It is common today to hear people say that we are living in the midst of a great renewal of worship. On the contrary, I believe that we are living in the middle of one of the great collapses of proper worship. All worship should be built on the foundations of the Psalms; that is the only inspired worship book for the church. We have drifted so far from the Psalms that we can hardly see our way back. We must take this drift very seriously. It is wonderful that new hymns and choruses are being written, but they must be built on a proper theological foundation.
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HS: It seems quite clear that Evangelical churches are caught up with an unbiblical view of “success”. You’ve explained, “[I]f the cross teaches us anything, it is that God sometimes does his greatest redemptive work under the cloak of failure.” Do you think a proper understanding of this truth would be enough to cure most Evangelicals of their “market driven assumptions”?
Dr. Tennent: I do believe that today’s evangelicalism is far too market driven. We have adopted the world’s standards for success and, in the process, we have not really understood the nature of the church in the world. Today, even people not in the church are well aware that the moral life of the church is at a low ebb and very few people believe that the church holds the highest moral standards for society. This is a tragedy. The church should always be the brightest light for righteousness in any culture of any time.
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HS: You point out how John and Charles Wesley understood that “[T]he gospel is about the in-breaking kingdom and the New Creation claims the whole of every sphere?” Explain to us some of the ways that the Wesley brothers lived this understanding out.
Dr. Tennent: The Wesley brothers never segmented the gospel out or reduced it to only involve “saving souls.” They understood that the gospel reaches every aspect of life and culture. The church must robustly engage our culture and show the wider culture how the truths of the gospel come to be applied in every area of life. This should influence not just a final hope, but current concerns like human sexuality, the environment, health care, education, ethics and, yes, even politics. We need to be present in every arena showing a distinctively Christian perspective which is well thought out and biblically faithful.
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HS: How vital is formal education to the life of the pastor and the local church? In other words, does a pastor need to know about Chalcedon and Nicea, Arius and Athanasius, Aquinas and Anselm, Arminius and Calvin, or John and Charles Wesley? If so, how can pastors and local churches effectively incorporate such things into their worship?
Dr. Tennent: Senior, ordained pastors should be well acquainted with church history and the theological heritage of the church. We mistakenly assume that lay people are not interested in knowing much about the church’s history or thought. The pastor should never preach “down” to people, but should lift them up and give them an appreciation for the great heritage of the church.
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HS: At the end of your inaugural address, you provide a vision for the future of Asbury Theological Seminary and a path towards a recovery of a faithful and effective local Church. Can you share some of that vision as it applies to Evangelicals as a whole?
Dr. Tennent: Ultimately the greatest strategy for the church is to be faithful to the gospel in the midst of society. We must reclaim a heritage which is biblically faithful, Christ-centered and transformative. We have relinquished too much of the church’s agenda to self-help techniques, bland moralisms and cute story telling. It is time for a much more serious engagement with the culture. The evangelical movement as we now know it may very well collapse, but there must be some movement prepared to carry the gospel forward to a new generation. I believe that a new generation of Christians is rising up who want to take up this torch and carry it faithfully forward.
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HS: Do you believe that the Western Church will recover a deeply biblical understanding of the local church or will it be our non-Western brothers and sisters who recover a rich, weighty theology of the Church?
Dr. Tennent: I believe that only the whole church can recover the proper vision for the church. Thus, it will not be merely the non-western church or the Western church who accomplishes this. It will be done by true believers all over the world who will join together to re-present the gospel to a new generation. We cannot do it alone. However, they need us as well. North America is part of the global church and we should not relinquish our role in this renewal. We may have been playing the melody all these years and now we need to play a more supportive harmony role, but we still need to keep playing. God is not finished with the Western church. He is unfolding a grand, redemptive plan and it will take the whole gospel in the whole church to bring the gospel to the whole world.
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We would like to thank Dr. Tennent for allowing us to conduct this interview. If you only read one thing by Dr. Tennent we would encourage you to read his riveting inaugural address at Asbury Theological Seminary.
March 25, 2013
I appreciate the HSF for interviewing Dr. Tennent. As I was unable to attend Forum13, this article provided great insight into his thought and teaching. I am now ready to head over to Welch’s podcast to listen to his messages. Thanks!