1. To truly understand how I have domesticated the gospel, I first reflected on what it means to domesticate. To me, to domesticate means to take something that is wild and free and make it tame and enslaved. For me, growing up in the church I saw the Bible and all of its stories as wild and exciting as a child, however, as I continued to go to church and grow up, it lost some of its appeal. In fact I often would try to use it to help convince myself or prove that whatever I was doing or not doing at the time was okay with God. For instance in college I remember my friends giving me a hard time about drinking beer, because that is not what Christians are suppose to do, so after reading the story of how Jesus turned water into wine, I drank only red wine that weekend. So, when my buddies asked me about it, I told them that Jesus drank wine and so it was okay for me to do the same. The difference, however, was the fact that Jesus didn't drink an entire bottle of wine in one night. Needless to say I found no relief for my headache the next morning in the Bible.
Thankfully, through God's grace and eternal love, I have found the passion of the scriptures once again and can't wait to share it with others.
2. I believe that the gospel itself is not public truth and I say that because I honestly don't believe that the majority of nonbelievers have ever been told the gospel and what it means. I think for the most part people in America know about the Bible, and who God and Jesus are, but I think that knowledge of whats in the Bible exponentially decreases after that. I recently spoke with a friend about this very same topic and he commented that the ladies he works with knew about Noah and the flood and maybe a couple of other stories, but after that they were clueless. He went on to tell me how he used that situation as a evangelizing tool and was able to witness to them. Due to the fact that Darwin's theory is taught in school is no wonder that it is considered public knowledge or truth. I am willing to go one step further and say that unless a church is growing spiritually and stretching its members, then I would wager a guess that even believers don't truly know what the gospel says. Sure they will know more of the stories, but do they truly understand what is being said? Or do they take scriptures out of context in order to prove or disprove a point?
3. In order for the ECM to be effective, according to Newbigin, the ET must be "more compelling..., a vision of reality which commends itself by its beauty, rationality and comprehensiveness." (pg 47) What this means is that how we present and represent the Good News, must be done in such a way as to cause those in society to stop what they are doing so they can get a better look. It doesn't mean we need to try to convert them there on the spot, but rather act, speak and behave in such a way as to cause them to take a double take at what we are doing. Once we have their attention, again we don't go in for the conversion, but rather for the meaningful relationship. And we continue to do that, hoping that someday we will be given the opportunity to share with them what Christ has done for us and how he can do the same for them.
Picture this, the world is in black and white and shades of grey. As the ECM we take the gospel which is a bright, vibrant yellow item and we carry it around with us. Someone from the world is used to seeing only black and white and shades of grey, when suddenly they see we have a bright yellow item. So, they stop what they are doing and come over to see what we have. Being of the world they are skeptical so they never mention the yellow item and much to their surprise neither do we. We merely become friends with them. Hanging out together, eating together, spending time together. And every time we come around we have that yellow item. Finally, they can't stand it anymore and ask us about the yellow item, at which time we tell them all about it and how they can get one too.
4. Logic of election almost sounds to me like a title that man has come up with for something that God has created. It makes me think of the Pharisees and how they couldn't just live with God's command of keeping the Sabbath holy. They went and detailed it out to include the fact that if a man had a needle in his robe pocket and walked over a certain distance that was considered work and therefore, violated the law. God's gifts are so simple and uncomplex, but for whatever reason we as humans feel the need to complicate them. I love what Newbigin says on page 85, "Gods grace is free and unconditional." That means that we have no right to make people pay for it or feel like if they receive it they are now in some binding contract. I also like how Newbigin emphasized the importance of receiving salvation thru someone else. This thought totally supports the need for us to come together as a body and to reach out to those who are not yet part of the body. All in all I have enjoyed reading this book. I do find that Newbigin tends to repeat himself, but I think he is merely trying to hammer home his thought or idea. Since the Bible as the Universal History is part of next weeks reading, I will respond on that chapter then.
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Great post Jason, thanks for sharing your insights and critiques of Newbigin. Your yellow gospel is a very creative foil to the polarized discussions!! Newbigin does repeat himself for emphasis, the public truth is part of thesis (page 7). He is an assertive missiologist, consider his cultural background (see his website biography) he returns home to jolly ol' England from a lifetime of mission work in India--shock! He is in a new mission field--Europe. He discusses the philosophical systems that rule the day in the West, and he is countering with a call to arms--missional proactivity. The British parson mentality of serving the church, which is an endowed, inward, dwindling enterprise is his audience--remnants of Christendom. This makes him a guru for PM and ECM.
Newbigin is hitting some core theological issues in the logic of election. The Reformed theological nuances in Roman Catholicism, Anglicans, and later Baptists in Europe helped them feel comfortable not engaging in missions because God in His sovereingnity would elect, call, and save the lost; the church had lost its missional vision. This is the issue that William Carey the father of modern missions countered in England, as he wept over the lost while making shoes. Election is a responsibility for Newbigin that the people of God are missional by nature and activity.
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