Renewing the Evangelical Mission: Book Review
A recent Forum essay explored the theological contributions of David F. Wells, particularly those over the last 20 years. His work has been appreciated by so many that it wasn’t surprising when the Forum recently acquired a copy of Renewing the Evangelical Mission (Eerdmans, 2013), a volume dedicated to Wells.
Edited by theologian Richard Lints, Renewing is a collection of essays based upon a symposium about a collaborative project that began in the early 1990s. This project included Mark Noll, Cornelius Plantinga, and David Wells, who were all tasked with addressing the demise of evangelicalism’s theological character. Their respective publications during that time were notable works in their own right, but it was Wells’ continued research into evangelical faith and practice that was the focus of the symposium that produced this book.
Although it doesn’t bear some of the conventional qualities of a festschrift, it still succeeds in honoring Wells by addressing key themes that have been implicit or explicit in his publications and other ministry efforts. I will provide an overview and some reflections on this dedicatory work.
Part I – Renewing the Global Vision
Richard Lints, long-time colleague of Wells at Gordon-Conwell, begins by sharing some brief reflections on the challenge of defining evangelical identity. The book is then divided into three main parts, which include contributions from a number of scholars who have been appreciative of or in dialogue with Wells throughout the years.
Part 1 includes five, loosely-related essays, beginning with Yale theologian Miroslav Volf’s chapter on human flourishing. Volf unmasks early-to-late modern notions of human flourishing for what they are: inadequate accounts that fail to connect a faithful account of reality with a coherent vision of flourishing. Instead, he says we must recover an ancient perspective that links hope with love, and love of God with love of neighbor. Volf summarizes by saying that the most “fundamental challenge for theologians, priests and ministers, and Christian lay people” is for us to
really mean that the presence and activity of the God of love, who can make us love our neighbors as ourselves, is our hope and the hope of the world – that that God is the secret of our flourishing as persons, cultures, and interdependent inhabitants of a single globe.[1]
African theologian Tite Tiénou then considers evangelical renewal “from the margins.” Without a change in attitude toward non-Western theological scholarship, Tiénou argues, “evangelical identity cannot fully gain from the renewal potential of the margins.”[2] He helpfully warns, “Care must be taken to avoid asymmetrical partnerships because ‘genuine listening’ can occur only in the context of true mutuality and interdependence.”[3]
Historian Mark Noll relates evangelical theology to the contemporary, ecumenical scene. Understanding the American context in relation to historical Western Christianity is important, Noll acknowledges. However, if Wells’ work is taken seriously, then the groups that display the fewest weaknesses relative to Wells’ critiques should be our dialogue partners. In my own reading of Wells, I had overlooked his interesting study of Vatican II from decades ago. Noll engages this work and describes some interesting Catholic trajectories (which he sees as Protestant-friendly) developing concurrently with Wells’ work. Noll argues that “if evangelicals seek constructive ecumenical dialogue with the Christian movement that is most strongly committed to truth and virtue, that dialogue must engage the Roman Catholic Church.”[4]
Rodney Peterson’s “Mapping Evangelicalism” is the most descriptive chapter in the volume. It provides extensive historical discussion, reflection on ethnographic realities, and many of the ecumenical patterns that have influenced Christian mission in the 21st century. Peterson seems less concerned about the traditional theological character of evangelicalism, while being very interested in how global, civic concerns shape how evangelical mission is formulated.
Social critic Os Guinness concludes Part 1 with a call to faithfulness in the modern age. With his background in the social sciences, it is no surprise that Guinness chooses to provide a summary of seven challenges that arise from the social, cultural, and religious environment in which renewal efforts must occur. Those familiar with Guinness’ work will notice these as recognizable themes.
Part II – Renewing the Evangelical Mission
Part 2 comprises three essays on renewing the evangelical mission, which is the most useful part of the book in my judgment. This is perhaps because the local church is in clearer view, as both analysis and prescriptions are given.
Drawing on their previously co-authored volume, evangelical stalwart J.I. Packer and professor Gary Parrett offer an excellent chapter on catechesis, and how catechizing might look in modern times. They describe catechesis as the following:
[The] integrated, orderly—you could say, systematic—teaching of the truths that Christians do and must live by, coupled with the instruction on the ways to live by them. Catechesis is the practically oriented imparting of the doctrine and ethics of discipleship, along with such apologetic wisdom as will keep the substance and application of this teaching from being distorted, obscured, or undervalued.[5]
Parrett concludes with a useful acrostic, which lists essential, indispensable features of a contemporary evangelical catechism. Pastors and educators would greatly benefit from this chapter.
In the following chapter, Presbyterian theologian Michael Horton compares and contrasts evangelical ecclesiology with a distinctly Reformed approach. Horton argues that the former envisions faith and church membership in contractual terms (what my Lutheran friends call “decisionist”), whereas the latter views them in covenantal terms. Evangelical ecclesiology tends to misconstrue spirituality as it concerns God’s means of spiritual transformation. He poignantly reminds readers: “We will never appreciate sufficiently the role of the Holy Spirit in our ecclesiology unless we reckon with the real absence of Jesus Christ in the flesh.”[6]
Finally, he rejects the false distinction between “going to church” and “being the church” that is regnant in evangelical literature. Horton concludes with a useful clarification, saying, “Evangelicalism is not the Big Tent or the cathedral that reduces these churches to chapels, but the place where they spill out from their own churches into mutual fellowship, encouragement, admonition, service, and witness.”[7]
Volume editor Richard Lints follows by providing a framework for understanding unity and diversity in the church. He describes this framework as a “post-partisan partisan ecclesiology.” He shows that democracy has impacted our ways of thinking about politics, and that this functions as an analog for problems that develop within our ecclesiology, as well as possibilities that emerge.
Part III – Renewing the Theological Mission
Cornelius Plantinga’s chapter is an appreciative reading of Wells’ cultural criticism. While he offers a selective reading of more incisive criticisms (which will be unhelpful for readers not familiar with the broader context of Wells’ work), it provides enough humor to keep one reading:
What would St. Paul make of worship without lament, of pelvic-thrusting praise teams and beaming ministers on their barstools, swapping stories and jokes with an applauding audience and announcing ‘top ten’ listings borrowed from Letterman?… Where does [St. Paul] get off implying that the woman singing special music should not do so while lying on top of the church’s piano?[8]
Plantinga concludes that Wells’ “five books diagnose the evangelical sickness and prescribe Reformation to cure it.”[9]
The next two chapters are decidedly more constructive. Kevin Vanhoozer recounts some historical tendencies to separate biblical exegesis and scholarship from systematic theology. He then offers a prescription for how to “tear the disciplinary curtain that divides biblical studies from theology in the ivory temple in two.”[10] He offers a detailed proposal in which “exegesis and systematics . . . keep one another in check.”[11] Adonis Vidu, another Gordon-Conwell professor, addresses some of the challenges posed by emergent theologies that question the traditional use of religious language, especially concerning God. Vidu’s chapter will perhaps be the most difficult for readers without a philosophical background.
Bruce McCormack of Princeton Seminary concludes the volume with a theologically-challenging evaluation of penal substitutionary atonement as a defining doctrine of evangelical faith. He offers an extensive argument of how such a doctrine must arise from a carefully defined understanding of Christ’s two natures, as well as the doctrines of divine impassibility and simplicity. Specifically, McCormack suggests that evangelicals should abandon the doctrines of divine impassibility and simplicity if they are to be able to defend penal substitution—a suggestion that will convince few, but challenge some.
Recommendation
Like many multi-contributor volumes (and festschrifts in particular), this book will be selective reading for most. The book’s outline is somewhat forced, which is predictable since these chapters originally arose out of a symposium context.
For those seeking a thorough introduction to David Wells’ work, this is probably not the place to begin. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a recent critique of evangelical theology and trends, this volume will be more suitable for that type of study. Most readers will benefit by simply surveying the table of contents, and pursuing the specific subjects that interest them.
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[1] Miroslav Volf, “Human Flourishing,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, ed. Richard Lints (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 30.
[2] Tiénou, “Renewing Evangelical Identity from the Margins,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 44.
[3] Ibid., 45.
[4] Mark Noll, “Ecumenical Realities and Evangelical Theology,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 68.
[5] J.I. Packer & Gary Parrett, “The Return to Catechesis: Lessons from the Great Tradition,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 112.
[6] Michael Horton, “The Church After Evangelicalism,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 150.
[7] Ibid., 159
[8] Cornelius Plantinga, “Renewal of Evangelical Theology: The Contributions of David F. Wells,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 193.
[9] Ibid., 191.
[10] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Interpreting Scripture between the Rock of Biblical Studies and the Hard Place of Systematic Theology: The State of the Evangelical (dis)Union,” in Renewing the Evangelical Mission, 217.
[11] Ibid., 218.
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