Risking heresy to gain the truth: an exploration of Christian cultural relevance

Preface

I have written this article and am looking for feedback on it, both the content and the manner of expression. Any comments would be gratefully received! Michael

Abstract

This paper brings together the thinking of the best of contemporary missiologists, Andrew Walls, and emergent theologians, Rob Bell and Ray Anderson. Walls shows that the Christian faith makes itself at home in different cultures in quite different ways, and that theology must be local in character. Because of this no group of Christians has any right to impose their assumptions upon another group of Christians. Rather, we are likely to find theologies arising out of other cultural contexts puzzling, even disturbing. Anderson demonstrates that the ‘work of God’ helps us interpret the ‘Word of God’. For example, the Apostle Paul used the fact that God poured his Spirit out on uncircumcised Gentiles (that is, a work of God) to reinterpret the Word of God – and he found an interpretation of the Word of God that was in line with that new reality. Anderson then gives two contemporary example of something similar going on. Bringing together these two strands of thought, this paper argues that in any culture, even contemporary Western culture, we need to be alert to the work of God by his Spirit as we explore how to be culturally relevant, while true to our faith. This is risky business, always running the risk of taking one small step too far into ‘heresy’ (Bell) or ‘blasphemy’ (Walls). The current debate about the blessing of homosexual couples is an example of this process.

Introduction: heresy and blasphemy

Rob Bell[1]:

The great German scholar Helmut Thielicke once said that a person who speaks to this hour’s need will always be skirting the edge of heresy, but only the person who risks those heresies can gain the truth.

Andrew Walls[2]:

It was necessary to explore the sense of the Scriptures using the indigenous vocabulary, the indigenous methods of debate, the indigenous patterns of thought. It was a risky business. There’s no such thing as safe theology. Theology is an act of adoration fraught with a risk of blasphemy, but an act of adoration, of worship, nevertheless.

Risking heresy. Risking blasphemy. I do not know whether Rob Bell has read Andrew Walls. I do not know whether Andrew Walls has read Helmut Thielicke. But Bell and Thielicke on the one hand and Walls on the other hand are saying pretty much the same thing: if our theology (that is, our study of God and God’s relation to the world) is going to be relevant it will be right there on the cutting edge, running the risk of going too far. But unless we run that risk of going too far (heresy, blasphemy) we will never gain the truth.

Andrew Walls and The Indigenizing Principle of Christianity

It was in 1982 that Andrew Walls wrote his paper, The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture. The paper begins with five snapshots of the global church down the ages. First there are the original Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, around 37AD. Then there are Greek Christians at the Council of Nicea in 325AD. Thirdly, a group of Irish monks, c600AD. Fourthly Victorian Christians in London in the 1840s, and finally Nigerian Christians dancing through Lagos in the 1980s. These groups are very, very different from one another, yet they are all good examples of the church in different places and at different times. Walls goes on to point out that there are certain key similarities between these (and any other) local incarnations of the Church:

Ø  each was founded (in some way) by the previous group

Ø  Jesus Christ is central to each

Ø  all use the same sacred writings, and use bread & wine and water in special ways

Ø  each thinks of itself as having some continuity with the others

Ø  each sees itself as in some way continuous with ancient Israel.

Walls proceeds to explain what he calls The Indigenizing Principle. That is, since God accepts us as we are, culture and all, there has always been the desire – the need, even – to make the church a place where people feel at home. This was what was decided at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Walls summarises: Paul taught that “since God accepts the heathen as they are, circumcision, food avoidance, and ritual washing are not for them”.[3] The broader principle that Walls extracts from this is that, “no group of Christians has any right to impose in the name of Christ upon another group of Christians a set of assumptions about life determined by another time and place” (ibid p8).

Walls’ second principle is The Pilgrim Principle. That is, God transforms people, God transforms cultures. As part of this process the Christian is given an adoptive past, linking all to the people of God of all generations and to the whole history of ancient Israel.

The final part of Walls’ paper looks at The Future of Christian Theology and its Cultural Conditioning. Even in 1982 when Walls wrote this paper he could state that the centre of gravity of the Christian world has moved south, to Africa and Latin America. How much more is that the case now, 31 years later! In fact in a more recent paper, the one from which the initial quotation was taken, Demographics, Power and the Gospel in the 21^st Century written in 2002, Walls adds Asia and the Pacific to the list of places to which the centre of Christianity has moved. And so he states that the theology of Europe and North America is going to become a backwater, while it’s the theology of the new centre (or centres) that is going to be of greatest significance. Because: theology “springs out of practical situations and is therefore occasional and local in character” (p10). Scripture is paramount, but hand in hand with real life: “Theology is about testing your actions by Scripture.” (p11)  “Theology arises out of situations that actually happen, not from broad, general principles.” (p11)  In short: theology is about doing. Therefore each agenda will be local and different.

Walls’ focus is on new African theologies, particularly as Africans grapple with their past. What might we white Anglo-Saxons make of African theology? Walls suggests: “It is safe for a European to make only one prediction about the valid, authentic African Biblical theology we all talk about: that it is likely either to puzzle us or to disturb us.” (p11) The sourcebook of all valid theology is the canonical Scriptures, but they are read with different eyes by people in different times and places. We all approach Scripture wearing cultural blinkers, and as we do theology we are engaging with the communities with whom we live and in the context of whom we are doing our theology. This is dynamite!

Walls’ Principles and the 21^st Century West

As just stated, Walls’ focus is on the emerging church in Africa and other places which were once the mission fields of western missions. That is, lands which until a few hundred years ago had not had interaction with the Christian faith; cultures which were grappling with local theologizing because they had not had any Christian influence earlier.

I would suggest that when culture changes that same process must take place. Unless that process of theological grappling takes place in each generation, our theology will quickly become outdated and of less relevance. Rob Bell compares this with his old Oldsmobile car. “They used to be popular, and your grandparents or roommate may still drive one, but the factories have shut down. Eventually the only ones left will be collector’s items, relics of an era that has passed. Oldsmobile couldn’t keep up with the times, and so it gradually became part of the past, not the future. For them, not us. For then, not now.”[4] So with God and theology. Our grandparents grappled in their day and age so that their faith and their articulation of it was relevant – or, in the words of Andrew Walls quoted above, “occasional and local”.

Western culture is changing at breakneck speed. What kind of theology and theologizing is “occasional and local” to contemporary post-modern Western culture? Before we seek to answer this question let us note, from Walls (quoted above) that:

Ø  the church looks utterly different in different places and eras

Ø  “no group of Christians has any right to impose in the name of Christ upon another group of Christians a set of assumptions about life determined by another time and place”

Ø  theology “springs out of practical situations and is therefore occasional and local in character”

Ø  traditional modernists who do not embrace post-modern culture are likely to find emergent theology puzzling or disturbing.

The Work of God and the Word of God

Ray S. Anderson wrote An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches in 2007. Chapter 6, entitled It’s about the Work of God, not just the Word of God, looks at the interaction between the written Word of God (the Scriptures) and the contemporary Spirit-inspired work of God. He begins with Jesus.

Jesus did not observe the law of Moses as understood by his contemporaries. For example, he broke the Sabbath law and allowed his disciples to do so too:

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2.23-27)

Note that Jesus did not tell the Pharisees that the Sabbath law no longer mattered. Rather, he appealed to Scripture itself for a different interpretation of the text of Scripture.

Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shrivelled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shrivelled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”

Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3.1-6)

Jesus could have healed this man on any day of the week. But he didn’t. He deliberately chose to heal him on the Sabbath. He wanted to make a point. Whatever the rights and wrongs of traditional Sabbath practice, Jesus, as “Lord of the Sabbath” reinterpreted it. And he wanted his disciples, the Pharisees and any others who were watching or listening in to note this reinterpretation. Jesus did not claim a higher independent authority over the Scriptures. That is, he did not say, “The law of Moses says such and such, but that no longer matters because I’m saying to you something else.” Jesus showed high respect for the Scriptures (our Old Testament) and used it to show that another interpretation was possible, and indeed preferable.

Paul worked similarly. He faced the objective reality that Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit. They had received the Holy Spirit as Gentiles. They had not been circumcised and become Jews first. The problem was that the Scriptures stated that circumcision was necessary to be included amongst God’s people and to be considered righteous before God. The fact was that the Word of God (circumcision is necessary for God’s approval) disagreed with the work of God (God pouring out the Holy Spirit on uncircumcised Gentiles). So Paul did what Jesus did: he went back to the Scriptures and discovered that the popular interpretation was not the only possible interpretation, and indeed another interpretation was preferable. Paul dug more deeply and discovered Abraham – or rather, Abram, as he was at that point:

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15.6)

Paul realised that when Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord credited this to Abram as righteousness, Abram was an uncircumcised Gentile. So clearly circumcision was not necessary to be considered righteous before God, not necessary in order to have God’s approval.

If it had not been for the work of God (filling uncircumcised Gentiles with the Holy Spirit), Paul might never have gone back to the Scriptures and sought for an interpretation which was in line with this reality. It is the work of God that forces Paul to go back to the Word of God and dig more deeply in it. Anderson describes this in terms of two ‘narratives’: there’s the written narrative of Scripture, the Word of God, and then there’s the new action narrative of the work of God. And so he writes, “The contemporary narrative of the Holy Spirit’s coming to the Gentile believers is laid alongside the narrative of Scripture so that the work of God through the Spirit becomes the lens through which he reads the Word of God.” (p123) This is an important point, let’s unpack it.

First of all, let’s consider Jesus again. Jesus showed that another interpreted of the law of the Sabbath was possible. From that point on it was not that followers of Jesus would choose, ‘Shall we adopt Jesus’ new interpretation or shall we keep the traditional interpretation?’ No. The followers of Jesus saw the work of God through Jesus (as summarised in the statement, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”) as the definitive understanding of the Sabbath – or, to use Anderson’s phrase, it “becomes the lens” through which the written Word of God would now be read. There was no choice. The work of God (Jesus’ Sabbath activities and his accompanying statements) has become the “new narrative” which guides the behaviour of those who followed Jesus.

Likewise Paul and the Gentiles. Paul and the early Christians recognized that it had been God’s intention right from the beginning to include Gentiles in his plan. When the Old Testament (the Word of God) is read through this “lens” of the work of God (God pouring out the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles) God’s truth falls more fully into place. This is the lens through which to read the Old Testament. We don’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t believe there are any followers of Jesus today who believe that Gentiles need to, essentially, become Jews in order to follow Jesus. In fact the great majority of followers of Jesus are not Jews, and (quite rightly) feel no sense of obligation to adopt a Jewish lifestyle.

Anderson emphasises that the Word of God and the work of God function together. On the one hand, the work of God does not replace the Word of God. But on the other hand, the Word of God does not crush the work of God. Both come alive “as revelation”(p123). By this I believe Anderson means that both the Word and the work reveal God and his will to us, and that is why they need to operate together. The work of God interprets the Word of God, and we discover the truth of God by studying both these two narratives, the Scripture text and the work of God through the Holy Spirit.

Discernment is of course vital. Not everyone who claims to be led by the Spirit of God is in fact led by the Spirit of God. If a new work of God seems to be happening we need to search the Scriptures. Jesus and Paul always had a “biblical antecedent for what presents itself as a creative and liberating work of the Spirit” (p125). “Without such an antecedent we cannot allow for what might be claimed as a new work of the Spirit to become a hermeneutical criterion.” (p127)  A hermeneutical criterion is a pivotal point which guides or determines our understanding or interpretation of the issue in question. In other words, if there’s no antecedent the so-called new work of the Spirit is most likely not actually a new work of the Spirit.

Was God at work through his Holy Spirit only in the days of Jesus and the New Testament Church? Anderson: “The same Holy Spirit that brought about the work of God in the church at Antioch and those that emerged out of Antioch, is at work today as the Spirit of the risen and coming Christ.” (p125)

Which brings us back to Walls and contemporary missiology.

What happens when Christianity makes itself at home

“Christianity lives by crossing cultural frontiers.”[5] This is a deep and profound truth. In his 1982 paper Walls shows us glimpses of Christian communities in different places and times (p1 above). Not only are these different incarnations of Christianity, but Christianity lives by means of incarnating itself  in different cultures. Walls observes that if Christianity had remained a Jerusalem-based Jewish sect it would never have survived. But it “had crossed a cultural boundary into the Greek world” (ibid p4). Then, before the Greek world declined, Christianity had crossed another cultural boundary, to the barbarians of Northern Europe. This pattern has followed over the centuries. “Christianity lives by crossing the boundaries of language and culture. Without this process it can wither and die.” (ibid p5)

Each time Christianity crosses a new boundary and makes itself at home in a new culture, the Spirit of God is at work. The new believers, living as part of a culture which had never before been Christianized, need to find a way of being a Christian that is true to both the Word of God and to their own culture. The Holy Spirit is what equips them for this formidable task. “Hellenistic believers would have to find a Hellenistic way of being Christian under guidance of the Holy Spirit because they had to live in Hellenistic society and they would have to change Hellenistic family and social life, but change it organically, from the inside. The Hellenistic way of being Christian would be different from the Jewish way of being Christian and yet the two belonged with each other.” (p5)

Every culture where Christianity takes root needs to use its own local materials as theological building blocks. As the Greeks did this they gave us the doctrines of the Incarnation and Trinity, constructed “from the materials of middle-period Platonism converted to handle the material of the Christian tradition” (p7). As the barbarians did this they brought a higher level of understanding to the doctrine of the Atonement. How did this happen? “Of course the Bible was central to the debate, but there was no single text that would clearly settle the matter. It was necessary to explore the sense of the Scriptures using the indigenous vocabulary, the indigenous methods of debate, the indigenous patterns of thought.” (p8)

Walls writes of “exploring”. Anderson writes of “contemporary works of God”. These two need to work together closely. There is no single proof-text in the Bible for most of the issues Christians grapple with as their culture interacts with Christianity. And so we explore the sense of the Scriptures using the tools our culture gives us. But God does not leave us alone in this. He is at work by his Holy Spirit, and so it may just be that it is a contemporary work of God by his Spirit that shows us the route that we need to explore. This exploration, as Walls points out, is risky business. “Theology is an act of adoration fraught with a risk of blasphemy.” (p8) Or, as Rob Bell and Helmut Thielicke put it, “A person who speaks to this hour’s need will always be skirting the edge of heresy” (p4). “This hour’s need” is one’s culture’s need at this point in time.

Are there any absolutes? Or is theology destined to drift on the tides of culture as each evolving culture grapples with what its own occasional and local theology looks like? Yes, of course there are absolutes, and Andrew Walls hints at them when he draws our attention to what the original Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, the Greek Christians at the Council of Nicea, the Irish monks, the Victorian Christians in London and the Nigerian Christians in Lagos had in common. That is, the centrality of Jesus Christ as revealed in the sacred writings we call the Bible, and a sense of continuity and connection with one another and with ancient Israel. These statements could be unpacked at great length – but this is not the place for that.

Walls’ interest is those parts of the world to which the centre of gravity of Christianity has now shifted: “More and more the responsibility [for theological creativity] will fall on the Christians making their Christian choices in mother tongue theological thinking in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in the Pacific islands.” (p8) But what of those formerly Christian cultures in Europe and North America?

Contemporary Western examples

What does this mean for the 21^st Century Church in the West? What are some of the issues we face in Europe and North America where Christianity is grappling with our contemporary culture, where a “work of God” is evident and we explore the significance? Anderson gives two examples.

Anderson’s first example is the ordination of women. Although there were instances earlier, it was during the 1960s that God began to call women into the ordained ministry and their churches were affirming that call. Anderson states that this was not based on ideological feminism or cultural changes. However I would suggest that if the surrounding culture had not been beginning to place an emphasis on the equality of women and men that this “work of God” might not have taken place and neither would the subsequent exploring of Scripture using indigenous vocabulary and patterns of thought. The result of this exploration of Scripture was that it was discovered that there are ways of exegeting the Scriptures to allow women a full role in church leadership, including ordination, just as it was discovered nearly two millennia earlier that Gentiles have a full and equal place amongst the community of the people of God.

Anderson’s second example is divorce. The Bible states clearly that divorce followed by remarriage would constitute adultery. See, for example, Mark 10.11-12:

Jesus answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Yet it would seem that the Spirit of God is at work, enabling divorced people to experience the forgiveness and healing of Christ. Should they have the Word of God held against them when the work of God brings them mercy and forgiveness? This was brought home personally to Anderson (who is also a pastor) when a member of his congregation, a divorced woman, asked, “On which side is God? Is God on the side of the Bible, or is God on our side in our new relationship in Christ?” (p131) Such a question and the way it is phrased bring home the warning that Bell, Thielicke and Walls give about being on the edge of heresy and blasphemy! But unless the question is asked, real theologizing cannot take place. Anderson states his conclusion: “When Jesus said that humans were not made for the Sabbath but that the Sabbath was made for humans, I took that also to apply to marriage. Humans were not made just to live under the law of marriage with no mercy for failure, but marriage was made for the benefit of humans. Jesus is not only the Lord of the Sabbath, he is the Lord of marriage… I could not and would not use the words of Jesus to cancel out the work of Jesus in his redemption of those who were not able to live by the law.” (p132) And so he married her and her partner.

Paul brought greater understanding of the inclusivity of Christ. Classical Greek culture brought greater understanding of the person of God. Barbarian culture brought greater understanding of the atonement of Christ. Is 21^st Century emergent culture bringing greater understanding of the mercy of God?

The current Big Debate in the Western Church is homosexuality, and in particular whether the church should bless homosexual couples and be in favour of gay marriage. Some well-known Christian leaders, such as Rob Bell, Steve Chalke and Brian McLaren, say yes. Others say no. I do not consider myself qualified to say either yes or no, but I will offer one or two thoughts, based on the preceding analysis of Gospel, culture, the Word of God and the contemporary work of God.

1.      The Word of God, both Old and New Testaments, states that homosexuality is wrong. For example, “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” (Leviticus 18.22) “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1.26-27)

2.      It may be that the contemporary work of God is blessing gay people and gay couples. There are testimonies of gay Christians who live monogamously and faithfully with their same-sex spouse, potentially affirming a contemporary work of God in blessing monogamous, committed gay marriages.

3.      On the other hand there does seem to be a parallel work of God whereby gay people, through Christ, change their sexuality and celebrate the greater richness of life they experience heterosexually. Or they are convicted that a homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with Christian faith, and as a result remain celibate.

4.      Points 2 and 3 above do not negate each other. In Corinth there were different forms of Christian conviction and practice with regard to the eating of meat sacrificed to idols, and Paul affirms both. If monogamous, gay, Christian marriages are a work of God, that in no way invalidates those who are convicted to give up their homosexual lifestyle. Neither would the fact that some are convicted to give up their homosexual lifestyle invalidate monogamous, gay, Christian marriages.

5.      Paul states in Galatians 3.26-28, “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul was listing contrasting pairs well-known in his day. Could we legitimately add “neither gay nor straight” to this list, or would that be one step too far?

6.      If we were to accept this as a contemporary work of the Spirit of God as we engage with contemporary Western culture, we would need to go through a process similar to Jesus’ reinterpretation of the Sabbath law, Paul’s reinterpretation of how God accepts those who are not Jewish, and Anderson’s examples relating to the role of women and the permissibility of divorce. Chalke, McLaren, Bell and others would seem to have already gone through this process and are ready to affirm that this is a contemporary work of God. Others have gone through this process and state that this cannot be a work of God since it is in direct violation of the Word of God.

Closing thoughts

Anderson cautions (in the context of the ordination of women): “To refuse to recognize the work of Christ through the contemporary operation of the Holy Spirit might well be hindering the work of God.” (p130) However, Gamaliel advises (in a quite different context, but the truth of his words transcend context): If this is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop it; you will only find yourselves fighting against God (paraphrased from Acts 5.38-39).

The truth is that we need to make decisions. We, that is, inspired by the Spirit of God who dwells within each of us who follows Jesus. We have dual citizenship: we are each part of the culture into which God caused us to be born. We are also citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. May we have the discernment to see where the Spirit of God is at work in our day and age, the ability to distinguish what is of God and what is not, and the courage to risk following him. May our roots be firmly planted in the Word of God so that we will not take that small step into heresy or blasphemy as we seek the truth of God and seek to make the Church a place where people feel at home, whatever our place, time and culture. But may fear of that small step into heresy or blasphemy not stultify us from following the Spirit of God.

Bibliography

Anderson, Ray S (2007) An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches

Anderson, Ray S (2001) The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry with Theological Praxis

Bell, Rob (2013) What we talk about when we talk about God

Bell, Rob and Andrew Wilson with Justin Brierley (2013) Homosexuality & The Bible Live discussion @ www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable

Dickenson, Ruth (ed) Christianity magazine, February, March & June 2013

Walls, Andrew (1982) The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture. This is also published as chapter 1 in Walls (1996) The Missionary Movement in Christian History

Walls, Andrew (2002) Demographics, Power and the Gospel in the 21^st Century, available at http://www.wycliffe.net/resources/missiology/globalperspectives/tabid/97/Default.aspx?id=3041

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[1] What we talk about when we talk about God (2013) p4

[2] Demographics, Power and the Gospel in the 21^st Century (2002) p8

[3] The Gospel as Prisoner and Liberator of Culture (1982) p8

[4] What we talk about when we talk about God (2013) p5-6

[5] Andrew Walls, Demographics, Power and the Gospel in the 21^st Century, p4