Zondervan Interview with Gailyn Van Rheenen

Victoria Selles of Zondervan recently interviewed Gailyn Van Rheenen about various Monthly Missiological Reflections. The interview follows:

Victoria Selles: You describe (MMR #26) the relationship between theology and practice in missions with a very useful metaphor: the missional helix, a spiral of four interdependent activities that together form a successful approach to Christian mission (theology, cultural analysis, historical perspective, and strategy). Which of these elements do you think is most neglected by missionaries and planners in our time and at what cost?

GVR: I believe that theology is the most neglected element for at least three reasons. First, missions is a practical discipline, and practitioners assume that they know the message and simply have to apply it. Second, Westerners, especially North Americans, are highly pragmatic people. They frequently seek “what works” without adequate reflection upon the history of the Christian church and upon God’s special revelation. Third, the Church Growth movement has amplified this tendency. Church Growth has highly benefited the world Christian movement by emphasizing the missionary nature of the church, stressing pioneer evangelism, and incisively evaluating results. The movement has focused on strategy formation and cultural analysis while giving little time to theological reflection and historical perspectives.

The result has been costly. All missionaries operate within theological frameworks but these are too frequently assumed rather than articulated and thus are adopted uncritically. The significant issue of “gospel and culture” is merely reduced to tactics based upon the nebulous notion of success.

By the way, in this missiological reflection I left off perhaps the most significant element in the formation of the practice of ministry - “spiritual formation.” I consider spiritual formation the environment in which theological reflection, cultural analysis, historical perspective, and strategy formation take place.

Victoria Selles: You address (#26) the problem of intellectual colonialism – bringing a gospel wrapped up in a cultural package. Attending to all elements in the “missional helix” should help us deal with our natural tendency to do this. Yet two of the elements – cultural analysis and historical perspective – seem particularly endangered in the current postmodern atmosphere of anti-intellectualism and a rejection of history as tutor. If we don’t understand our own history and our own peculiar syncretisms of culture and faith, how can we be what you call “theological brokers” to other cultures? Culture does cling, doesn’t it? How might we, as God’s agents in the world, become aware of and less encumbered by our own cultural baggage?

GVR: It is important that missionaries consider themselves learners as well as teachers. Rather than merely telling, church-planting missionaries must meet with new Christians to study the Bible and decide mutually how to live out of a Christian worldview within their cultural context. A biblical worldview revealed in scripture should be the foundation of Christian discussion. This worldview, however, must answer the fundamental questions that local cultures are asking. All too frequently church founders provide Western answers to local questions rather than discussing biblical principles within cultural contexts and allowing the developing Christian community to make decisions.

Theology does more than simply provide worldview constructs of the Christian faith. Theology also reflects upon the nature of culture and historical analysis thus developing theologies of culture and history. For instance, a theology of culture recognizes that culture is not merely a study of human interactions and customs. The modernist perspective of culture must be desecularized. From a biblical perspective God is Creator of culture. He created marriage, work, and covenants, and as an active God continues to work in culture. We daily see Christ as the transformer of culture when individuals and families are “transformed into his likeness” (2 Cor. 3:18). Nations are called to be shaped by his holiness, compassion, and faithfulness. Satan maliciously uses his power to contort what God has created. Finally humans, given creative ability to invent and develop culture, have been created to live in relationship with God. Thus perspectives about God, Christ, and Satan form a theology of culture as well as understandings about humanity.

Victoria Selles: You quote (MMR #21) Martin Kahler’s statement that mission is “the mother of theology,” observing that theology grows in the context of the gospel’s advance in new cultural contexts. One only need look to the apostle Paul for an example of this. Yet this might come as a shock to many Christians who tend to think of theology as the sole property of the academy. Even in a shrinking world, the frontiers of cross-cultural mission may seem remote and even irrelevant in the seminaries and churches of North America. How can Western Christians tap into the theological vitality of these places where the gospel is “making it new”?

GVR: The modernistic make-up of our seminaries is very troubling. Frequently theology is discussed in the abstract as if it is theoretical. Case studies are then used, with some success, to apply what has been learned. However, the segmentation of theology from life, I believe, is the most significant problem with theological education. From my perspective theological education must significantly (but not entirely) move from encased “walls of learning” to the communities where people live. Theological education must be partially de-academized. Would Jesus become a professor of higher learning if he were living today? I think not. He would, most likely, challenge learning done without adequate human interaction. I believe that a good MDiv degree should include a year-long practicum in church planting or church development under experienced practitioners.

Because of the separation of the academy from the world, theologians too frequently set themselves up as critics of practitioners. Too often theologians evaluate ministries from long-range without adequate experience or personal involvement.

Victoria Selles: In your reflection on the “historical demise of missiological thinking,” you touch on the “Constantinization of the church” and the concept of Christendom – a geographical or cultural Christian identity. In the past, the decline of the church in the West has been taken as the twilight of Christianity in the world. But missionaries and global church historians know this is not the case. Church historian Andrew Walls and religion scholar Lamin Sennah see this process in an entirely different light: The center of the church has simply shifted from Western Europe and North America to the south and east, to countries where the church is experiencing explosive growth – Nigeria, the Philippines, Latin American countries. Philip Jenkins describes this movement of Christianity as “The New Christendom,” in his book of the same title. With this growing awareness of the global church and the patterns of its growth, how should we respond? What do we have to offer? What should we be doing, as Western missionaries, on the booming frontiers of this global church?

GVR: I do not remember the context in which I spoke of the “historical demise of missiological thinking.” I suspect I was speaking of the influence of North American pragmatism upon the mission endeavor which relegated historical and theological discussions to the periphery of Missiology.

I also think that we should not rashly prognosticate the demise of Christianity in the West. I remember that in 1969 renowned sociologist Peter Berger told The New York Times that by the 21st century, religious believers would likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture. However, more recently Berger confessed in his book The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics that the unexpected has happened. The world has become "massively religious." It "is anything but the secularized world that had been predicted (whether joyfully or despondently) by so many analysts of modernity" (1999, 9). Modern prognosticators wrongly assumed that European trends toward secularization were setting the agenda for the world. However, in the postmodern era the United States is becoming increasingly religious, more so than any industrial country except possibly South Korea.

It might be naïve to assume that the center of the church is shifting from the northern to the southern hemisphere. What is occurring is the globalization of the church with Christians from various areas partnering as brothers in Christ.

Finally, one statement about Constantinianism and Christendom. Since the time of Constantine, the church in Western society has stood both physically and spiritually in the middle of Western culture mediating cultural values and defining cultural beliefs. While this gave Christianity a sort of power, it also undermined the essence of the gospel because whenever Christian faith becomes an official or established ideology, the Lordship of Jesus gets compromised. Earthly power, money, fame, and efficacy become the new “functional equivalent of deity" (Yoder 1994). Power rather than servanthood is glorified.

The reality is that the church in the Western world has been decentered. It is now only one of many influences within society. Secular humanism, the New Spiritualities, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism have become viable alternatives to Christianity. Many Christians have not yet understood the new minority status of Christianity in North America and continue to act as if all people desire to listen to their religious ultimatums. However, the decentering of Christianity within Western culture provides numerous opportunities for authentic mission, especially in many parts of the United States where people are searching for spirituality. The church, however, must be spiritual in order to speak authentically about spirituality.

Victoria Selles: In one of your monthly reflections (#30), you deal with the issue of religious pluralism. Interestingly, the encounter you describe was not with a foreign national of another country and religious background, but with a serious American Christian who was struggling with the claim of the Gospel to exclusivity. You end by saying you consider this to be the Big Issue of our time. Geopolitics, religious militarism, shifts in the global population and multiculturalism – these have cast all types of evangelism in a new light. Evangelism is now considered by many people to be an act of intolerance bordering on aggression. How will this current – and probably not temporary – climate influence the way we do mission at home and abroad?

GVR: In that particular Monthly Missiological Reflection I attempted to illustrate what I thought to be an empathetic Christian response to the pluralistic ethos so prevalent in Western culture. The story of my conversation with Patricia illustrated that effective Christian communication is almost always dialogical, amplified by the effective use of questions. In Western contexts monological declarations of the uniqueness of Christ is an effective way of shutting down conversation and disillusioning a searcher. I felt also that it was important to declare that acceptance, toleration, and empathy are characteristics necessary for peace and security in a multicultural society. In this conversation Patricia and I discussed the cultural environment which spawned the question before I described the distinctiveness of Christ. Consistently I use narrative to describe the distinctiveness of the way of Jesus. Simply telling the story of theological history allows the narrative to define the central themes of the Christian faith and demonstrates the distinctive way to God through Jesus Christ. Finally, Patricia and I were able to specifically contrast the Christian way to that of the various world religions. Our conversation was enjoyable, interactive, and God-enthroning.

Victoria Selles: You describe the contemporary church (MMR #27) as one being forced by its own declining influence and numbers into being mission-minded. The really strange thing about this is that we have to be forced. A mere outline of church history tells us how this came to be; but it’s amazing that the church of Jesus Christ could ever forget that its soul is, as you say, “the Missio Dei.” All missionaries on foreign fields know very well that feeling of letdown they experience on their visits to churches back home. Of course, the church back home supports them with prayer and money, and church people are happy to meet them and hear reports on their work. But missionaries and the work they do so far from home are marginal to the focus and functioning of many local churches. What missionaries do is good, but a little extreme and not really for “normal” people. Will the forces of postmodernism and a declining church – by themselves – force the Western church to remember that its core is mission? Or do you think that church leaders should be doing specific things to help this along?

GVR: Churches rooted in modernity are having a hard time transitioning to a postmodern era. Rational, propositional Christianity, with little tangible ministry and community, no longer has an appeal. Many of these churches are slowly dying. They can survive and revive only by becoming seeker sensitive and thus drawing people to special performances or by authentically becoming missional churches, thus reflecting the mission and kingdom of God. Churches are “forced” by their numerical decline and perceived cultural irrelevance.

Victoria Selles: Actually, you have already taken a very practical step in that direction. Responding to a sense of “heightening dissonance” with the “comforts of Zion,” you have begun a new ministry designed to train ministry interns in the very complex skills needed for evangelism and church planting. Your interns work, with mentors, in actually planting new churches in greater Dallas-Ft. Worth. Do you envision this project as the model for a new generation of such training centers?

GVR: My wife and I (working with others) are beginning Mission Alive, an internship for evangelism and church planting. The purpose of Mission Alive is “to discover, equip, and place church-planting leaders who will plant missional churches in suburbs, city centers, and poverty areas with unbelievers as the primary target.” We will recruit and equip developing Christian leaders to become apprentices and eventually church planters in suburbia, in the inner-city, and in the rejuvenating, downtown urban contexts. Of course, by “missional churches” we mean “biblically-focused fellowships representing the purpose and reign of God on earth.” Although our ministry will be located in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area, we hope to eventually train church-planting missionaries for other North American cities and perhaps replicate our model of training (if appropriate) in other contexts.

I will minister with one foot in traditional academic training as an adjunct professor at Abilene Christian University and other mission training schools (teaching evangelism, church planting, worldview, and communicating Christ among new religionists), and the other in practical church planting ministry. We will be learning how to train experientially as we believe Jesus would if he were among us. We believe our connections with Christian schools and seminaries will draw those with a passion for church planting into training with Mission Alive.

Victoria Selles: One last question. That description of “dissonance” and its role in God’s call to new work is intriguing. That feeling could easily be misinterpreted less happily by many Christians – certainly younger ones who are feeling all sorts of dissonance in their lives, but also by people like you with two careers behind you! We’re culturally programmed to be suspicious of what we think of as “negative” feelings. We believe we’re supposed to cultivate contentment. Why should Christians pay attention to these feelings of unease and restlessness and tension with the status quo?

GVR: As you suggest, I have felt a dissonance as a professor of mission. I have often felt that experiential ministries like evangelism and church planting could not adequately be taught in a traditional academic setting as it is currently set up. Experience must go hand-in-hand with knowledge. Otherwise, learners are unable to place their new knowledge into categories and apply it to real-life situations. Yet I love and appreciate the school where I have served for over 17 years. Our decision came down to living out of passion for God’s work rather than for position or acclaim. My wife and I feel a passion to be used by God to teach unbelievers, nurture them to Christian maturity, and equip them as Christian leaders. I have always viewed myself primarily as an evangelist and church planter and secondarily as a scholar in missions equipping.