A Braver Palace Than Before

By William Edgar

[William Edgar is Professor of Apologetics and holds the John Boyer Chair of Evangelism and Culture at Westminster Theological Seminary. This article is a revised version of the address he delivered at his installation on February 19, 2014.]

I. Introduction

Friedrich Nietzsche once queried:

When on a Sunday morning we hear the bells ringing we ask ourselves: is it possible! this is going on because of a Jew crucified 2000 years ago who said he was the son of God. The proof of such an assertion is lacking. . . . A god who begets children on a mortal woman; a sage who calls upon us no longer to work, no longer to sit in judgment, but to heed the signs of the imminent end of the world; a justice which accepts an innocent man as a substitute sacrifice . . . prayers for miraculous intervention. . . . Can one believe that things of this sort are still believed in?[1]

Well, yes, Fred, one can, not including the caricatures. And there are far, far more of these strange believers than there were in your own day. And they gather in places way beyond those European churches atop of which the bells rang to gather God’s people. Proof, far from lacking, abounds, proof for the person and work of Christ, and proof that God has been able to overcome all of the obstacles, to wrestle with his people down through the ages, to give great success to the enterprise that is at the heart of his interest: missions.

One could look at the history of missions from the apostolic times to the present and be amazed at both the unity and the diversity of methods and contexts. To quote J. H. Bavinck, who spent so many years in Indonesia bringing the gospel to a people Westminster loves well: “The history of missions does not move smoothly and with a uniform rate of speed. It is subject to quick starts and stops, to shocks and obstacles. Its progress is at times arrested completely or seriously checked, and then again it proceeds with a sudden advance. God has set his mark upon its entire history.”[2]

The obstacles vary, as do the opportunities. But the gospel of Jesus Christ remains the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Rom 1:17). Thus, in an important sense we never are far from the original call to “go and make disciples of all the nations.” Richard Bauckham helpfully reminds us:

So the church’s mission is not a steadily cumulative process in which we move ever further away from the biblical narratives. We are always beginning again from the biblical narratives, which still open up unexpected possibilities for our own future within the future of Jesus Christ. We are always figuratively starting again from Jerusalem on our way to the ends of the earth.[3]

Most importantly, we easily think of Christians having to cope with, defend against, challenge, or simply wonder about world events. We worry about culture and its grip down through the ages. But if we are thinking rightly, we are not bystanders, even less victims. All of it is part of God’s plan, and his plan is for his gospel to make its way through history, or, better, to define it, even though we do not always see how. It turns out we are the central characters in the march of history. Or, rather, God is using his people for his purposes.

From the book of Revelation we learn that the great scroll of God’s judgments and redemption can and will be opened by Jesus Christ, the slain and risen Lord. God the Creator is always sovereign over the events of history, but here the emphasis is on the one person worthy to undo the seals on the scroll, the “Lamb,” that is, Christ, whose sacrifice unleashes the forces described later in the book. The conflict between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed began at the dawn of post-lapsarian history, but now has come to its dénouement in Christ. This is D-Day insuring the eventual victory of the allies. The gospel of the coming of the kingdom is here, and all its powers are set in motion, as we wait for the full unfolding of God’s purposes in history.

So, what is this gospel, based on the future of Jesus Christ, the hope of the world? Very simply this: the good news that God’s unmerited grace in Jesus Christ, who died and was raised for sinners, is now offered to anyone who would raise the empty hands of faith to receive not only the forgiveness of sins, but full reconciliation between himself, or herself, and the Lord God, the sole judge of the world, who so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that the gates of heaven can be opened to penitent sinners.

May I say here that it is my solemn pledge that, as long as I occupy this chair, this gospel message will be at the center of its purposes!

II. World War I

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. The incident that touched it off was the assassination of Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, in Sarajevo, June 28, 1914. The war was perhaps the most significant turning point in global history since the fall of the Roman Empire.

In her classic The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman argues that the war was caused by a series of errors and miscalculations.[4] These included an over-reliance on free trade to solve problems, as well as an overestimation that the fear of economic disaster would serve as a deterrent to war. She also argues that the leaders of the European countries that were implicated believed that any war would be short and decisive. A good deal changed because of the First World War, indeed, perhaps even more than Tuchman realized.

The nineteenth century had seen the greatest age of peace in Europe’s history. Liberalism (understood in its true, nineteenth-century sense as the right of individual people to pursue self-interest within a healthy community) had promoted a degree of toleration, of constitutionalism, of free trade and international economic systems. Europe had always shown a tendency to expand. Though colonialism developed more and more, at first there was little overt conflict among the colonists. For sixty years after the Peace of Vienna in 1815 there were no significant European rivalries. The European empires were based on trade. Of course all was not well. In part, the success of their mercantile endeavors depended on slavery and other kinds of exploitation. Colonists raided the coastlines of Africa and took workers as live chattel into North America. Eventually slavery was abolished, peacefully in some instances but violently in others.

Then, everything began to change. The latter part of the nineteenth century witnessed an aggressive competition for territory. This was spurred on in part because of the industrial revolution. Now it was no longer enough to purchase local goods. There was a demand for greater quantity, which could only be derived from various countries by building mines, plantations, docks, warehouses, factories, railroads, and so on. European countries vied for their part in the global South.

The rate of change during this time is astonishing. During my own grandparents’ life, travel went from covered wagons to the jet plane. Goods that had been produced or farmed at home, later were purchased from a market and consumed. Over-production meant advertizing had to persuade people they needed goods, whether they did or not. Before the industrial revolution such items as soap, clothing, food, and tools were made at home. After, goods were more homogenous, made in factories by machines. Consequently men went to work outside the home, becoming more distant from their families.

Declining wages often meant the mother, even the children, also had to go outside the home to find work.

1. In The Raw

The seeds of change were also inspired by philosophical and cultural approaches that challenged the Enlightenment’s more liberal thought. Darwinism in effect put into question the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, suggesting instead that human improvement was achieved by the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Class warfare, not humanism, explained the movements of history according to Karl Marx. Courage and daring, not the traditional virtues, favored human advancement, according to Nietzsche. James Frazer’s Golden Bough (1890) set out to solve the problem of the sacrifice of kings in many traditions. Many of the world religions, he argued, were based on fertility rites, a dying god, and the idea of the scapegoat. Even though modern mankind was more mature and trusted more in scientific thought, the vestiges of these ancient religions were still with us. Frazer never came out directly and stated that the Christian faith was not unique. He did not have to, since he compared rites and symbols found in numerous cultures with each other, and noted their similarities.[5]

Though science still reigned, the idea of human beings as purely rational creatures was threatened from many corners. Sigmund Freud stressed the power of subconscious forces. Music and the arts moved from picturing the visible world to tapping the deep-seated psychological motives in the viewer and listener. Wassily Kandinsky painted Improvisation 27 (1912), meant to leave the visible world and take the viewer into the spiritual realm through music-like abstraction. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (1913) was, according to the composer, “a musical-choreographic work, [representing] pagan Russia . . . unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring.” Musically, as one historian put it, “The Sacre is undoubtedly the most famous composition of the early 20th century. . . . It had the effect of an explosion that so scattered the elements of musical language that they could never again be put together as before.”[6]

Thus, ironically, “the end of the nineteenth century, the greatest age of peace in Europe’s history, abounded in philosophies glorifying struggle.”[7]

Within this social context the principal powers found themselves more and more in conflict with one another. The Great War was unprecedented for its sheer carnage. Walk around any village in Europe and you’ll find monuments with the names of the young men who fell during the four years of conflict. Indeed, such monuments can be found all over the world, since the war drew soldiers from Asia, Africa, and North America. Millions of combatants were killed, often in horrible ways such as gassing. Millions of others were wounded. Casualties numbered over 16 million deaths and 20 million wounded; the deaths included nearly 10 million combatants and 7 million civilians. In France 1,700,000 were killed out of a population of about 39 million. There the decades following the Great War were called le grand deuil, the great mourning, not only for those who died but for those who would never be born. Civilizations were destroyed and empires shattered.[8]

The war and its aftermath effected a giant leap forward for globalization. We tend to think globalization is characteristic of our own times, but truly the early twentieth century connected people and countries as never before. Consequently, even remote parts of the world were drawn into the conflict. As we know, globalization paradoxically can produce reactions in the form of nativism and local fanaticism. Because of rapid transportation and rapid communication, groups can share ideologies and plot to overthrow the existing social order. Just before World War I there were all kinds of anarchists and revolutionaries who sought utopia. The young revolutionary Serbs who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand were avid readers of Nietzsche and Bakunin, as were their French and Russian counterparts.[9]

2. The Church

So great was this global conflict that it was easy to imagine that if God were at work it was in unleashing the terrible judgments foreseen in the book of Revelation, not the advancement of the kingdom of heaven through evangelism and missions. Yet, was there anything positive going on for the advancement of God’s kingdom?

There was. For one, the church responded to the needs presented by the war. Even as hundreds of church buildings were being destroyed, there was also a good deal of Christian outreach. Some of it was within the war itself. Many of us have enjoyed reading J. Gresham Machen’s Letters from the Front, edited by Barry Waugh.[10] America did not enter the war until April 1917. Machen went to France in January 1918 to serve with the YMCA, which was a largely Christian and evangelical endeavor in those days. His main responsibilities were to create and maintain the Foyers du Soldat, basically huts which gave respite to the men fighting. The letters tell of the dangerous work of gathering supplies like coal for these huts. Some of the letters recount how a soldier who suffered a nervous breakdown because of the battles was befriended by Machen and became eternally grateful for his tender care. It is important to note that Machen was against American involvement in the war.

Other organizations heavily involved in relief work during the war included the International Red Cross, which was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863 by Jean Henri Dunant and Gustave Moynier, both committed Christians. Dunant was raised in a Calvinist family which had been deeply affected by the revival earlier in the century.[11] He had witnessed the aftermath of the battle of Solferino in June 1859, and was deeply troubled by the carnage he saw. This modest institution that he helped found came into its own and became truly international through its involvement in World War I. Among other activities the Red Cross was concerned to deliver information about prisoners to their families.

The Roman Catholic Church was also involved in a number of ways. Actually Pope Benedict XV was quite opposed to the war, calling it “the suicide of Europe.” When his call for a truce went unheeded, he and the Vatican organized important humanitarian efforts. For example, a Vatican bureau was established to help prisoners of war and to attempt various peace negotiations. This made him unpopular with the Italians who wanted nothing less than total victory. In 1917 Benedict offered a seven-point peace plan which was ignored by most leaders, with the significant exception of Woodrow Wilson.

On the Protestant side, a number of initiatives can be noted. In the interest of space, we will focus on the Anglican Church. The change of views from before and during the war is remarkable. For example, in 1911 the Anglican Church established the Church of England Peace League. Its stated belief was that “war is the result of people’s failure to appropriate the Gospel, and that therefore, the Church’s task was to make the Gospel heard in the corridors of power as well as in the parishes.”[12] When news of the German violation of its treaty came, followed by further news of the barbarity of its military, virtually all Anglicans, indeed, all Britons, supported entering the war.

At home in England, one of the goals of the clergy was to use the war as an opportunity to draw people back into the church after a period of increasing secularization.[13] Patriotic sermons were preached urging parishioners to join the war effort. Many of them argued that civilization itself was at stake.[14] If ministers went to the Continent they were encouraged to become chaplains to the soldiers. A number of charities connected with the Anglican Church participated in assistance of different kinds. The S.P.C.K. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) distributed millions of tracts, Bibles, prayer books, and hymnals. The Society even translated this material into German for the benefit of the enemy. The Church of England provided great amounts of material goods as well. The Church contributed great sums of money to organizations such as the Belgian Relief Fund and the Russian Jews Relief Fund.[15]

3. Evangelism In The Century After World War I

The subject of this lecture is evangelism. In keeping with the purposes of the Boyer Chair, we wish to look into trends in missions over the previous one hundred years and try to evaluate our present challenges and opportunities. Indeed, I am hoping that the items enumerated below will become part of the agenda for this noble chair at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Clearly the twentieth century with its two world wars and so many other upheavals had a sobering effect among Christians. Among non-evangelicals this was very certainly the case. Karl Barth’s entire theology was arguably defined by the shock of the war. Barth (1886–1968) described the effect of his Römerbrief on the readership in the church. He said it was like a man climbing up the church bell-tower in the dark, and, looking for the handrail, instead grasped the bell rope and sounded an alarm throughout the countryside.[16] Though trained in the optimistic liberal theology of his day, the war had had the effect on him of proclaiming a God “wholly other,” who is related to the creation only in “crisis.” So zealous was he to keep God untainted from earthly matters he stated that there was no point of contact in experience or history with the content of eschatological hope.[17]

Neo-liberalism in its own way asserted itself as a quite sober theology. Paul Tillich (1886–1965) affirmed that theology must be an “answering” or “apologetic” theology. The surrounding culture “asks” existential questions about the nature of being. Accordingly, using the “method of correlation,” theology brings answers to the questions human beings formulate through philosophy, psychology, and the arts. This helps us deal with “the ontological awareness of the unconditional.”[18]

But we also see a certain sobering in the more evangelical and Reformed circles as well. A remarkable initiative from within our own walls is covenantal apologetics, spearheaded by Cornelius Van Til.[19] Following Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper, though with important modifications, this approach to defending and commending the faith stressed laying bare the deepest pre-conditions for meaning and value, rather than looking at evidences on the assumption they were neutral. In a word, the approach was transcendental rather than empiricist. Whether directly connected with the atmosphere of the post-war years or not, there is no doubt that the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century affected this slant. It would appear that the older Enlightenment confidence in empiricism and rationalism could not survive the twentieth century intact.

In the remaining part of this address I would like, very briefly, to outline a few of the issues raised by World War I, which have developed up until the present time, issues that we need to continue to work on today and in the near future. Five issues present themselves to me. Neither are they exhaustive nor will we be able to treat them with the kind of depth they deserve.

III. Clarifying Church-Society Relations In A Global World

It is easy to attack what appeared to be the vulgar nationalism of some who supported the Great War. There was indeed “war preaching” and “war theology.” Most of the churches interpreted the war in decidedly nineteenth-century terms. To our ears, chastened by the horrors of the rest of the twentieth century, these views appear naïve and imperialistic. But, as we saw, the war represented for church leaders of all sides a sacred calling. Even for the Germans, the war was a divinely guided struggle against foreign rivals, particularly the French, who since Napoleon’s conquests had been a thorn in the flesh. For the Catholic clergy of France the war meant God’s judgment against a secular Third Republic, as well as a providential opportunity to regain the role of the great civilizing force in the world, a role which had begun to diminish. For liberal theologians in Great Britain and the United States, interestingly, it meant a chance for their views to be vindicated: God’s kingdom would advance, just as the social gospel foresaw, through a greater spirit of solidarity and of sacrifice in the face of a consuming global conflict.[20]

Having begun with resolute patriotism, in the peace after the war such voices became equally strong in the defense of internationalism. Because of the horrors of the Great War the call for cooperation between nations appeared not only plausible but necessary. Woodrow Wilson’s famous “Fourteen Points” included the right to self-determinism, the need to safeguard imperial territories, and the creation of the League of Nations.[21] Many of the more liberal Christians tended to agree.[22]

1. Missions

What about missions? Movements begun before the war, such as the YMCA, the Student Volunteer Movement, and the World Student Christian Federation, really came into their own in the years after the war and spread abroad to many nations. The missionary agenda was charged with internationalism. Student evangelistic movements in Great Britain and the United States connected the emerging consciousness of globalization to the need to cooperate in world evangelization. Tissington Tatlow, General Secretary of the British Student Christian Movement, attended the gathering of its Manchester Quadrennial Conference in 1925 and declared himself “deeply moved” by the presence there of so many different groups and races. He spent the decade building relationships across national boundaries, all for the cause of missions. He reached out to German students to seek reconciliation. As such attempts progressed some Germans objected, suspicious that the internationalist agenda was a way of hijacking the kingdom of God for a particular political program.[23]

The spirit of internationalism certainly moved missions in a healthy direction, away from raw nationalist purposes and toward cooperation across the globe. Still, the purposes of the gospel were often joined with political agendas. Even today we are wrestling with ways to disentangle evangelism not only from national agendas but from inappropriate cultural accoutrements. The challenge is great indeed. For there are many advantages to some of the cultural packages that might have come with the preaching of the gospel. Contrary to some of the rhetoric, certain Western ways and Western values are not a threat to indigenous expressions of the ways of Christ but an enhancement of them. Others certainly are a threat, of course.

The temptation to confuse the gospel with the messenger’s culture is hard to avoid. When my family and I lived in France we experienced this challenge first-hand. I well remember sitting in faculty meetings at the theological seminary in Aix-en-Provence where we were facing a particular issue and we kept being told the scores of reasons why the problem was insoluble. As the one American I had to be careful that I did not come across as the Yank who had all the answers. On several occasions I could easily see what needed to be done: ten steps, a five-year plan, just vote on it and move on. One evening we were entertaining an American couple we had met in church. The husband had been hired as a security expert in the local nuclear plant. I asked him his impressions of his fellow workers. He said two things. First, they are the most brilliant mathematicians and scientists he had ever encountered. Second, they struggled to solve some of the most basic problems. When he made suggestions and they tried them out, they were amazed at the results.

What is the lesson here? Patience? Tact? Wait until they get it? No. Instead, look for ways to work together and to learn from each other. There is indeed much to learn from the French way of facing issues. What may look like inefficiency to us could actually be thoroughness, a willingness to look deeply at the complexities of the issue. The French often can look at two levels, the surface and the deeper level, in ways that are hard for pragmatic Americans. The French Huguenots had a long and hard history of survival. Their cautious spirit, sometimes odd for Americans, is a sobering reminder that we do not have a push-button religion.

At the same time, it remains true that some of the best missions work in France, and many other countries, is supported by American funds and staffed with American personnel. When put forward respectfully and empathetically our “can-do” mentality is helpful. The balance is delicate. The current plea in missions strategy is for partnership, a term which can be helpful if somewhat vague.

One of the most fascinating missionaries to India was Daniel Fleming (1877–1969). The author of Whither Bound in Missions?, he was one of the first to argue for the disentanglement of Christ and Western Christianity in a systematic fashion.[24] To be sure, Fleming was not a card-carrying evangelical. But his prescient views of the need for interdependence among Christians, rather than a top-down “great white father” approach proved to be liberating for the preaching of the Word. For example, he noted that often missionaries brought their ecclesiology with them, including presbyteries, synods, paid pastors, deacons, and so forth, to cultures which had no way to adapt it.[25]

This mentality of partnership owes something to the increasing globalization of the world. As I mentioned earlier, it is commonly thought that globalization began only recently. But of course it has a long and fascinating history. World War I is no doubt a high point in the history of globalization. In the nineteenth century, governments discovered that they could not fully develop their powers without practicing global community at various levels. There was an increasing sense that their children and their children’s children will be committed to a collective destiny on earth.[26]

2. The Post-Colonial Setting

By the dawn of the twentieth century colonialism was at its apex. While it is proper to identify the evils of colonialism, such as mercantile policies which enriched the ruling countries at the expense of the colonies, it is important not to forget the benefits: education for all, health care, and, of special interest to us, the evangelization of local peoples. Post-colonialist thinkers such as Edward Saïd have argued forcefully that one can find all kinds of evidence for the paternalism of Western culture, not only in its foreign policy but deep down in its cultural products. According to him paternalism is present even in French literature, such as the works by Balzac, Baudelaire, and Lautréamont. Saïd is particularly worried about the realism of Samuel Huntington, and his peers, which he believes not only describes the “clash of civilizations” but unwittingly prescribes a defensive attitude between them. Of particular note is Huntington’s notion of “the West vs. the Rest,” which has been used by historians and politicians alike as a valid description of global affairs after the end of the Cold War.[27] Huntington achieves his view by defining civilization and culture as “the overall way of life of a people, and a civilization is a culture writ large.”[28] Among other arguments, Saïd pleads for greater complexity in understanding various cultures and local histories than is possible with Huntington’s “civilizational identity,” which is “stable and undisturbed.”[29]

I think the truth is in a third way. Subaltern studies have rightly highlighted the way colonists have exploited peoples for their own benefit. But they have neglected the other side: how the presence of certain Western methods have been of great benefit to local peoples. The realists rightly see human conflict and the balance of powers as one of the dynamics of the modern world. But they tend to reduce everything to the vestigial Cold War mentality of us vs. them.

It would be tempting here to explore the daunting question of the relation of missions to colonialism. At the very least, we would find that Michael Bourdillon’s statement is worth taking seriously: “missionary Christianity cannot simply be identified with colonialism.”[30] Indeed, many missionaries had to fight against their supposed colonial hosts in order to do their work. William Carey (1761–1834) constantly did battle with the East India Company in order to do his work of Bible translation and education in Serampore. Having said that, there is no way to disconnect the two, any more than we could disconnect the Apostles Paul and Peter from the context of the Roman Empire.[31]

One of the most important chapters in missions history is being played out today. Post-colonialism is a vast phenomenon, and no one narrative can accurately describe it, nor its consequences for missions. One of the most powerful novels of the twentieth century is Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.[32] Achebe is from the Igbo people of Nigeria, and he writes of both the evil and the good effects of European missions on his culture. Nigeria was colonized by the British in 1906. Achebe, born in 1930, was raised by Christian parents, whereas his grandparents were still practicing African religion. Believing strongly that so many white authors, such as Joseph Conrad, had badly misrepresented African culture, Achebe set out to give a different view, one which was sympathetic to many of the virtues of his people. To varying degrees the white missionaries are portrayed as destroying Igbo culture. At the same time, Achebe’s criticism is milder than most, because he saw the good that some of the missionaries brought, particularly in the area of education.

In my opinion, Achebe goes too far in romanticizing Igbo culture, which includes polygamy and the sacrifice of a newborn twin. However, the novel raises a number of questions about the post-colonial context for missions that must be addressed if we are going to make headway on the issue of church and society.

Some good progress is being made. Missiologists are increasingly recognizing the tension between local cultures and globalization. They are intelligently assessing the inevitability of modernization, while at the same time the need to respect local contexts which may be quite removed from modernity. More studies are being made of displaced peoples (diaspora and transnational studies).[33]

As Christians whose ultimate authority is the Bible we should have access to the ideals God wants for his kingdom as it comes into our globalizing world. Remembering the New Testament patterns of missions, we ought to be in a good position to strive for both the unity and the diversity of God’s people. James Skillen responds to those who might equate globalization simply with homogenization, or “flattening,” to use Thomas Friedman’s image.34 Skillen says that instead, “we might better think of the world as an arena where new valleys and peaks are emerging in a culturally diverse and institutionally differentiating world that is also, simultaneously becoming more integrated.”[35]

When the church in general, and missions in particular, can be aware of this, we will have made some progress in evangelization in our times. Thus, the issue of church and society is of great importance and will continue to be so. As we move away from colonial models, without embracing ideological post-colonial ones, and toward a better understanding of the relation of the church to the social context, we will begin to arrive at biblically sound practices.

IV. Clarifying The Relation Of Evangelism And Social Action

Related, but a bit different, is the issue of evangelism and social action. Since the Great War, there has been a good deal of reflection on this question. One of the reasons is that liberal theology had rather reduced the gospel to social action, whereas neo-orthodox theology so stressed God’s sovereignty as to leave the impression that social action was secondary to an encounter with Christ.

Skeptics say social action is simply a way of softening people up for the purpose of giving them the opium of the masses. Here is a recent example from (of all places) Pravda:

According to the popular and scholarly history of Christianity, the early Christian Church found its greatest appeal and attracted its greatest number of converts from the poor people of the Roman Empire. The early Christian churches raised money through a tithe, or ten per cent income tax, levied on their members, and the early Christian church is said to have had a strong ‘sense of community’, which implies that it had a well-organized social, financial, and political network among its membership. 

Using your wealth to purchase other people’s loyalty is a game as old as humanity itself. . . . Organized religions are inherently POLITICAL organizations. There is a fundamental difference between the financial enterprise and political machinations of an organized religion versus a mass of independent, unaffiliated believers, philosophers, and mystics who do not support any organized religion.[36]

Perhaps the author had forgotten the far more ruthless methods of exploiting his own people in the Soviet Union and now in Russia. The policies of Vladimir Lenin became known as war communism. They justified the confiscation of private property. Peasants were required to surrender all of their surplus for redistribution. Although the Bolsheviks had hoped war communism would lead to a large-scale increase in economic prosperity, the opposite happened: manufacturing went way down, commodity production and market exchange were all but eliminated, and the seven-year war resulted in the deaths of nearly ten million people.

To take the high ground and believe Christian social action is merely manipulative is to forget the many ways in which the church has benefitted those societies where it has an influence. To be sure, one can find examples of the church overstepping its bounds and succumbing to exploitation. In the late middle ages, while the church never ceased providing for the poor, it nevertheless engaged in an unhealthy control of various sectors of society, including political and economic spheres.

Again, during the years since the Great War the issue of relating evangelism to social action has been moving toward a greater biblical balance. One of the reasons this has been difficult is because of the attitudes that are hard-wired into our culture. James Skillen explains that much of the Christian church has not properly understood how the lordship of Christ affects all of life.[37] Beginning with Augustine, the perfection of Christ’s love and justice in the city of God is only ambiguously related to the earthly city. The “two swords” doctrine developed in the Western church says that Christ’s rule over the political realm is mediated through the papacy. Thus, the earthly city became in effect disconnected from Christ’s rule. This approach was further developed by Thomas Aquinas, who taught that various aspects of earthly life belonged to a “natural” world not directly connected to the “supernatural” world of grace. Modern Americans, Skillen argues, have little sense of the present rule of Christ over government. They assume that the liberal/conservative discussion is at the heart of a democracy, whereas the real discussion should be about the proper administration of justice.[38]

If we had a more biblically based view of the present lordship of Christ, we would have both a proper view of what government can and cannot do, as well as a healthier understanding of the integrity of every sphere of human life, under that lordship. Such a view can only be set forth when we begin, not with redemption, but with creation. Paul sees Christ’s preeminence in all things, beginning with the creation and then moving to redemption and reconciliation (Col 1:15–20). True, we do not see the hand of Christ guiding each event, and yet we believe it does (Heb 2:5–9). A dichotomy between the preached word and social action is then a false one. They are different activities under the one rule of Christ.

1. The Two Greatest Commandments

Throughout the Word, we are commanded to feed the poor and provide health care. The care for the impaired is not a preparation for conformity to faith, but is a vital part of preaching the gospel. Thus, when Jesus delivered his first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth based on Isa 58, he declared that the Year of Jubilee was now inaugurated (Luke 4:16–21.). And the Jubilee meant both that good news was preached to the poor and that the oppressed, the blind, and the captives would become free at last.

One of the founding documents of the Protestant Reformation is Martin Luther’s On the Freedom of the Christian (1520). It sets forth what looks like a paradox: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”[39] Those justified in the gospel by faith alone become kings and priests, as 1 Pet 2:9 reminds us, and therefore are lords, subject to no one, spiritually. Luther was thinking of the oppressive late medieval church, and of any other magistrate claiming authority over our souls. But then precisely because we are free in Christ we are bound to one another, servants of all. The gospel is not salvation plus social improvement. Social improvement is part and parcel of what salvation means; indeed, the word sōzō is quite comprehensive, meaning to save, to heal, to deliver, to protect.

For a time after the Great War, Christians were divided on this issue. The more liberal-minded tended to stress responsibility to the needy ahead of proclaiming the gospel. One version of this view became known as the “social gospel.” Among representatives of the social gospel were Richard T. Ely, Josiah Strong, Washington Gladden, and Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) was a colorful figure who insisted that though action was primary, there needed to be a theology of action. In his major book, A Theology for the Social Gospel, he made a plea for a return to the theme of the Kingdom of God and the brotherhood of mankind.[40] John the Baptist, he argued, was not preaching individual salvation but dedication to a religious and social movement.

At the other end of the spectrum, many fundamentalists downplayed social involvement in the wake of World War I. There were several reasons for that trend. First, they concentrated many of their efforts on theological issues in defense of the conservative faith against the so-called “modernists,” whom they accused of hijacking the gospel with social concerns.[41] Second, while most fundamentalist churches did have diaconal ministries they exercised them on their own terms, rather than participating in wider outreaches. Third, the few forays into political lobbying they attempted ended in failure. One case in point is Prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution forbidding the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Prohibition soon devolved into illicit production and many (often Mafia-controlled) clandestine clubs and bars.

Attitudes began to change when Carl F. H. Henry made his well-publicized appeal, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, which bolstered up the neo-evangelical movement.[42] Henry complained that fundamentalists had abandoned their historic commitment to humanitarian endeavors. Not only were they overdue for social engagement but also for artistic and cultural excellence.

One of the many decisive steps taken by evangelicals both to admit previous shortcomings and pledge future action was at the first Lausanne gathering in 1974. Called by Billy Graham, the meeting gathered hundreds of leaders from every corner of the planet with a view to addressing some of the pressing issues in the church. One of them was the divorce between proclamation and social action.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the gathering was the Lausanne Covenant, a document whose chief architect was John R. W. Stott. It must not be forgotten that the Lausanne Covenant was not only a call to rethink the relation of preaching salvation to enacting social improvement. It was first a general admission of embarrassment at not having carried out the principal task of evangelization:

[God] has been calling out from the world a people for himself, and sending his people back into the world to be his servants and his witnesses, for the extension of his kingdom, the building up of Christ’s body, and the glory of his name. We confess with shame that we have often denied our calling and failed in our mission, by becoming conformed to the world or by withdrawing from it. Yet we rejoice that even when borne by earthen vessels the gospel is still a precious treasure. To the task of making that treasure known in the power of the Holy Spirit we desire to dedicate ourselves anew.

But then the Covenant does go on to admit shortcomings not only in doing justice but also in formulating the relation of evangelism to social action:

Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, colour, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbour and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead.[43]

This was an important step forward. Still, saying that social action is not evangelism but its necessary fruit might be a shade timid.[44] I want to be very careful here so as not to slouch into a warmed-over social gospel. Being right with God was the central concern of the Reformation, and indeed is the central concern of the New Testament. The forgiveness of sins is at the very heart of the proclamation of the good news. Yet, as we saw in Jesus’ ministry, it will not do to dissociate proclamation from action.

Perhaps our own Harvie Conn has given us some of the best statements of the relationship of the two. “We can talk about evangelism in words and propositions. But the test of whether ‘teachings’ and ‘doctrines’ are ‘sound’ must always be their function of covenant faithfulness. Testing the spirits is done in discerning love in each other and working justice for each other.”[45] Conn aims his critique both at the “body-only” kind of initiative, which ends in a social gospel, and at a soul-only evangelism, which reduces the initiative to a Platonic spirituality. If we see the covenant at the heart of evangelism, we will then see how the so-called “cultural mandate” of Gen 1:26 and the so-called “Great Commission” of Matt 28 are not two contradictory covenants but two expressions of the same covenant, the first at the dawn of creation, the second in view of the fall into sin and the need for grace.[46]

A helpful way to think this issue through is to call to mind the two greatest commandments: (1) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and (2) you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). The two are indissolubly linked. Loving God is not narrowly a spiritual matter, while loving our neighbor is earthly. Rather, loving God is a commitment of my whole self to the Lord, which includes doing his will on earth. And we cannot claim to love God unless we love our brother (1 John 4:20).

The story of the “Good Samaritan” helps us see the relation. The Jewish lawyer knew that these two commandments were a summary of the law. But he wanted to see if he was properly loving his neighbor, and so he asked Jesus who his neighbor might be. I imagine he was hoping the Lord would either approve his categories or perhaps expand them a bit. Perhaps he was a bit short on his care for the poor, or his family. But Jesus surprised him with a story wherein the hated outsider, the Samaritan, is portrayed as showing mercy, rather than the professional clerics. And then he characterized, not the victim, but the Samaritan as a neighbor. Indeed, he had the neighborliness of Christ himself, a “hated outsider” who bound up the wounds and paid the full price for the victim’s redemption. Here, being merciful is not only the right way to obey the second commandment, but also the first.

To put it succinctly, one cannot be merciful unless one has first received mercy (Matt 18:21–35; 1 John 4:19). The Beatitude seems to reverse the order: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt 5:7). But in reality, our being merciful is no more a way to earn God’s mercy than our forgiving our debtors is a way to earn God’s forgiveness (6:12). The reason we can show mercy is that we know something of the mercy that has been shown to us.

V. Clarifying Co-Belligerence And Confrontation

Related to this concern is the whole question of how the Christian faith differs from other initiatives and other religions. Again, we unfortunately do not have space to develop this urgent question properly.

The beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement can be traced to the hope represented by the church in the wake of the devastations of the Great War. The International Missionary Council was established in 1921, meant to encourage cooperation in missions among the younger churches. Other meetings followed, such as Life and Work (1925), Faith and Order (1927), and after World War II, the World Council of Churches in 1948.

In 1930 a meeting was held to help decide about the relation of the Christian religion to other religions, known as the Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry. The convener was the American William Ernest Hocking, professor at Harvard. The Inquiry, and especially Hocking’s famous Report (1932) were quite positive toward world religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, and notably unenthusiastic about conversions to the Christian faith. The most notorious statement within this report was near the conclusion: “The final truth, whatever it may be, is the New Testament of every existing faith.”[47]

The Report drew a good deal of criticism, not the least of which was from Hendrik Kraemer, the Dutch professor of the history of religions at Leiden. He was a veteran missionary, whereas none of the members of Hocking’s Inquiry had had any missions experience. The document The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World was Kraemer’s reply to Hocking.[48] It contained a wide-ranging assessment of the contemporary world: secularization, the incursion of the machine, spiritual and social revolutions, and, in particular, the intrusion of the West into the East. Faced with these problems, Christian missions are more crucial than ever. We are not at the end of the missions enterprise but only at the beginning. While amelioration may come as a side benefit, the reason to evangelize is the Great Commission, the call to proclaim the lordship of Christ over every part of the world. This requires a clear understanding of the Christian faith, as well as its translation into the matrix of modernity.

Kraemer was influenced by Karl Barth, though he does not appear to have been a doctrinaire “Barthian” as such. Thus he calls Christianity the “religion of the Incarnation.” He adds, “The message of the Gospel is that God has begun in Jesus Christ a new divine order of life, of which Christ is the center and the head.”[49] Consequently, the Christian attitude toward other religions is decidedly different from the views of Professor Hocking. While avoiding any pride or sense of superiority, Christians should point uncompromisingly to “the prophetic wisdom of Biblical realism.”[50] Although he appreciated numerous parallels between religions such as Hinduism and the Christian faith, he opposed syncretism on the grounds that while it seems to say all truth is relative, in fact it behaves like a “militant absolutism.”[51]

The issue of cooperation became a burning one in American Presbyterian circles. Westminster’s founder, J. Gresham Machen, was a strong critic of what was then called “modernism,” which included, in his view, “doctrinal indifferentism” on the mission field. My own early history as a believer was with Francis Schaeffer, who had participated in Carl McIntire’s alternative to the WCC, the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), with headquarters in Amsterdam, where the WCC had its first meeting. Strongly opposed to cooperation, Schaeffer nevertheless sought a way to work with people on specific concerns, even if they did not share his worldview. Thus, as a variant on open-ended cooperation Francis Schaeffer coined the term “co-belligerence,” meaning joining together on a particular issue without having to share fundamental philosophical or ecclesial commitments.[52]

Today among evangelicals this question is acute, particularly so as it relates to world religions and the way of salvation. I will leave aside the question of the “insider movement,” which is one about strategy, with important theological implications.[53]

But a good deal of work needs to be done on the whole discussion of exclusivism, inclusivism, and various positions in between. Scholars will have to interact with the enormous body of Roman Catholic theology dedicated to this subject, and certainly also to the increasing literature in evangelical circles. This will have to include biblical studies as well as missiological and apologetical ones.

Intrepid scholars such as Daniel Strange at Oak Hill College in London are focusing on a biblical theology of religions. One of his principal concerns is to compare and contrast a biblical view of true religion to the approach to ancient Near Eastern religions as found in the Old Testament. Daniel Strange revives the whole question of idolatry, which he understands as the invention of homo adorans worshiping counterfeit gods.[54] After detailing both the discontinuities and the continuities between biblical religion and unbiblical ones, he understands the gospel to be a “subversive fulfillment” of idolatrous religion. The expression is from Hendrik Kraemer, and it signifies that on the one hand the gospel subverts other religions, by being their antithesis, their condemnation; and on the other hand the gospel is the fulfillment, that is, the “glorious reality” of which non-biblical religion is only a “disastrous dream.”[55]

VI. Clarifying The Way To Face Evil

The twentieth century was without a doubt the deadliest in all of human history. And that is saying quite a lot. We would have to remember the Diocletian cleansings, the barbarian invasions of China, the Hundred Years War, the pandemic of the black plague in fourteenth-century Europe, deaths due to the slave trade, the Taiping Rebellion, and much more. Still, for the twentieth century, adding up the Russian deaths, the butchery of the two world wars, Pol Pot’s killing fields, genocides, comes to a total number of deaths that is nothing short of staggering. If we add to the death toll all the ways people have suffered, from mourning, from economic stress, from war-related disease, from displacement, we can honestly say the twentieth century was the worst. We cannot forget that behind these numbers, every one concerned is a human being, made after God’s own image.

Equally sobering for us is that the twentieth century saw more Christian martyrs than in all previous centuries combined. Persecution of Christians continues right down to our own time. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observation group in Frankfurt, some 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today is directed against Christians. According to the Pew Forum, between 2006 and 2010 alone Christians faced discrimination in a total of 139 nations. These are but more numbers. Putting flesh and blood on them makes them come home. In Baghdad, Islamic militants stormed the Syriac Catholic cathedral on October 31, 2010, killing two priests and fifty-six worshipers. A staggering number of Iraqi Christians have fled or been killed since the First Gulf War in 1991. Orissa, in India, saw the most violent pogrom of the twenty-first century in 2008: thousands were killed or wounded by Hindu radicals using machetes, and 50,000 were left homeless.[56]

What should be the Christian response? Let us be clear that we are by no means the only people persecuted. When others suffer there is no place for thinking they are somehow being punished. No, in a fallen world, the fire of affliction is an equal opportunity inferno. Having said that, there is something intentional about the reasons Christians suffer for their faith. Opposition to the faith has been foretold, and is indeed to be expected. The Apostle Peter tells us not to be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon us, “as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Pet 4:12). Suffering for the right reasons is an enormous privilege, he goes on to say, because in the experience we “share Christ’s sufferings.” There is mystery here, but Peter reminds us that to suffer with Christ is to be blessed, “because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (4:14). He calls for godly patience: “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (4:19).

This view is worlds apart from masochism. Paul tells us we rejoice in our sufferings, not that the pain is enjoyable. There are traditions of pain infliction within parts of the Christian church that confuse a proper passivity with self-flagellation. Christ suffered and died once for all to put away sin, and no amount of human suffering can add to his finished work.

Second, God always provides a way out. “No trial has overtaken you that is not common to man,” Paul reminds us, and further, God will not allow us to be put to a harder test than we can bear. But he will, with the trial, provide a way of escape, so that we may endure (1 Cor 10:12–13). This is not the “health and wealth” gospel of so many manipulators. It is the sober hope we have that nothing can defeat us if we are in Christ. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. “Nothing” includes that wonderful list in Rom 8, death or life, angels, rulers, and so forth (Rom 8:38–39). To be sure, the way of escape may be death itself, the ultimate gateway to Paradise.

Third, we must insistently preach the gospel. Embedded in Peter’s guide to suffering is the verse we use to warrant Christian apologetics, the “apology for apology” (1 Pet 3:15). As we lift Christ up in worship, we must be ready to make a defense, an apologia, to anyone who asks what we hope for. Stephen was stoned for preaching to his people. Paul was often beaten and imprisoned for preaching. He was afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing (2 Cor 4:8). So preaching is both the answer for suffering and sometimes the divinely ordained instrument that provokes it.

Fourth, we should take action alongside human rights advocates and put pressure on governments and other authorities to end persecutions. Much of this advocacy is by Christians. Paul Marshall has devoted much of his life to advocacy for religious freedom. As a Senior Fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, he speaks and writes extensively on the plight of victims of religious persecution. He is in touch with hundreds of organizations dedicated to relief work. All churches, particularly those which are not presently enduring this kind of hardship, should be engaged in praying for, and then pressuring, authorities to act.

Humanitarian work is also done outside of the Christian community. Here is where it could be right to practice Schaeffer’s co-belligerence. There are thousands of advocacy groups, with varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses. Many of the best provide a variety of services, such as legal guidance, “truth-and-reconciliation” platforms, and investigations against slavery.[57] Some are specifically dedicated to fighting religious persecution. One could think of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a post that rotates more or less amicably among the nine members of a panel that is mandated by Congress to monitor freedom of conscience across the world, and then spur the government to action.

Facing evil involves far more than the matter of persecution. Missions efforts should address disease, famine, poverty, and the full range of human misery. Most missions agencies have departments dedicated to medicine or poverty relief. More work in these areas is needed, however, at home and internationally.

VII. Clarifying The Ministry Of The Local Church

Finally, clarifying the ministry of the local church is a direction that I believe is crucial. Often modern world missions have been accomplished by individuals. We think of William Carey going out to India in 1792. Or of James Thompson distributing Bibles throughout Latin America. Or the African-American Lott Carey going to Sierra Leone with a boatload of missionaries to create new churches there. Most often, and appropriately, such missions are accomplished through missionary societies. Some have a specific purpose, such as Bible distribution or medical assistance, or George Müller and his orphanage, or L’Abri, where I started my own walk with the Lord.

Here, I want to talk about a crucial biblical theme in missions, one that is easily neglected by modern Christians, even Reformed ones: missions as a part of church life. I am thinking particularly of the local church, though I fully recognize the larger picture. And my interest is specifically the outreach of lay people, although I certainly endorse the special calling of the ordained clergy.

The background for this approach is in the Old Testament. Israel was never meant to be entirely self-contained. The promise to Abraham is but one of many proofs for this wider calling. Israel was “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Pss 18:49; 45:17; Isa 42:6).

But it is in the New Testament, with the coming of Jesus Christ, that the light shines most brightly. One of my favorite passages is Zech 8:20–23.

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, “Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts; I myself am going.” Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

This is an astonishing prophecy. Commenting on it, John Calvin says the author needed to mention his source because “he was here speaking of what was incredible.” A handful of people had returned to their country and every day was full of dangers. Some even preferred exile. But, Calvin says, the glory of the second temple would be far greater than that of the first. The nations from all kinds of cities would stream into Jerusalem to worship. They would even stimulate each other: “let us go!” Calvin says, “Faith then only produces its legitimate fruit when zeal is kindled, so that everyone strives to increase the kingdom of God, and to gather the straying, that the church may be filled.” He goes on to admonish his congregation to go beyond private benefit and care more for others.[58]

The nations come by hearing the Word of God. But that Word is exhibited by the community. Outsiders come because they have heard God is with you! Now in the New Testament it all begins to explode. According to Peter, our identity as a chosen race, a royal priesthood means that we are possessed by God. We are so full of his presence that we “proclaim the excellencies of him” (1 Pet 2:9–12).

Missions in the New Testament is primarily the task of the church. The Epistles were written, as it were, on the mission field. Paul and the other authors are aware of their calling as apostles, to fulfill the Great Commission (1 Cor 9:16; 2 Cor 5:18–20). Surely apostolic ministry and preaching the gospel are tantamount (Rom 10:14, etc.). So, then, do we not see how the whole church is involved?

In his book Evangelism in the Early Church, Michael Green argues that the explosive growth of the church “was in reality accomplished by means of informal missionaries.” They proclaimed Christ “in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls. . . . They did it naturally, enthusiastically.”[59]

Ephesians 4:15–16 tells us, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” Commenting on v. 16, J. H. Bavinck says: “Here we have in a few profound words the difficult lesson which we are in the process of learning on every mission field and in all our evangelistic work. That church alone, which is itself a living spiritual fellowship, an organic whole, has power ‘to increase the body.’ All work, however costly and well-organized, which is not rooted in a church that has found the secret of mutual love, is in the long run powerless.”[60]

The church, then, is a missions agency simply as the church. Wherever the church was planted, there was the spread of saving grace through the preaching of the Word. This is why Paul insisted that believers lift up prayers specifically for the success of missions. Praying for the apostles and for missions was not simply a luxury, but essential to the task of the spread of the gospel (1 Thess 5:25; 2 Thess 3:1).

But preaching was not only for the “professionals.” When the church was scattered from Jerusalem, and persecuted by the likes of Saul, who later would become Paul, it “went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Later it was reported that the Word sounded forth from the Thessalonians in Macedonia and Achaia, and “everywhere” (1 Thess 1:8). Though specific personnel are not mentioned, the assumption is that every believer participated in this preaching.

The faith was to be commended to unbelievers in a number of specific ways. Following upon the thought from Zechariah, we read of various injunctions to Christians to commend the faith, and to walk as children of light so that unbelievers may be drawn in. This includes loving one another (John 13:35), worshiping with clarity and purpose (1 Cor 14:23), refraining from giving offense (1 Cor 10:32–33), following the good and being honest (1 Thess 4:12; 5:15; 1 Tim 3:7), and the like. In his rich theology of the exclusion and then inclusion of God’s historic people, Paul speaks of the “jealousy” of the Jews over the Gentiles taking, as it were, their place (Rom 11:11).

Another key way the faith was commended to outsiders through the church was in the manner in which believers were meant to face suffering. When they confronted suffering and hostility well, not only were “ignorant people” put to silence, but the gospel was commended as a hope worth having (1 Pet 2:15; 3:15). The church today is faced with redoubtable persecution, as was suggested above. The way God’s people face this opposition is a witness and a way for unbelievers to be drawn to the gospel.

VIII. Conclusion

With these five agenda items in view, all of them made vivid because of the Great War and its aftermath, we will better be able to focus on the work of evangelism. These five components will serve for the advancement of God’s kingdom. As Christ unseals the great scroll, it is clear that evangelism is not simply one aspect of this work. It is the central aspect. Yet the gospel message is full-orbed, and aims for salvation in the widest terms: justification before the living God, yes, a church freed from the control of other sectors of society, yes, and yet also a church fully engaging culture, both as good stewards of God’s gifts and as destroyers of strongholds and rebuilders of a better place, or, as George Herbert puts it, a “braver palace than before.”

Love built a stately house; where Fortune came,
And spinning phansies, she was heard to say,
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame,
Whereas they were supported by the same:
But Wisdome quickly swept them all away.

Then Pleasure came, who, liking not the fashion,
Began to make Balcones, Terraces,
Till she had weakned all by alteration:
But rev’rend laws, and many a proclamation
Reformed all at length with menaces.

Then enter’d Sinne, and with that Sycomore,
Whose leaves first sheltred man from drought & dew,
Working and winding slily evermore,
The inward walls and Sommers cleft and tore:
But Grace shor’d these, and cut that as it grew.

Then Sinne combin’d with Death in a firm band
To raze the building to the very floore:
Which they effected, none could them withstand.
But Love and Grace took Glorie by the hand,
And built a braver Palace then before.[61]

Notes

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (trans. R. J. Hollingdale; Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 65-66 (§113).
2. J. H. Bavinck, Introduction to the Science of Missions (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1977), 275.
3. Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 21.
4. Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Random House, 1962).
5. James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: The Roots of Religion and Folklore (repr., New York: Gramercy, 1993).
6. Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music (3d ed.; London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1981), 713.
7. Robert R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World (2d rev. ed.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), 611.
8. See Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 11-25.
9. Margaret MacMillan, “The Great War’s Ominous Echoes,” International New York Times, December 14-15, 2013, 8-10. Such terrorism is eerily similar to that of our own times. And yet, as historian Margaret MacMillan reminds us, today we could make the same mistake that was made in the era of World War I: overestimate the threat of these small groups and underestimate the greater threat of the capabilities of war from the larger powers.
10. Barry Waugh, ed. and transcriber, Letters from the Front: J. Gresham Machen’s Correspondence from World War I (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2012).
11. He later would wax cold about the Christian faith. His business was affected negatively because of the large amount of time he spent in humanitarian activities. He had a falling out with Moynier, who disagreed with Dunant’s call for neutrality. Later still, he found his path and was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
12. “Church of England Peace League,” Times, London, February 6, 1911, 4.
13. See Stuart Mews, “Spiritual Mobilization in the First World War,” Theology 74 (1971): 259-60.
14. See Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1960), ch. 13.
15. Albert Marrin, The Last Crusade: The Church of England and the First World War (Durham: Duke University Press, 1974), 78 and ad loc.
16. Clifford Green, ed., Karl Barth: Theologian of Freedom (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991), 16.
17. George Hunsinger, ed. and trans., Karl Barth and Radical Politics (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 213.
18. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), 22.
19. A concerted effort is being made at Westminster to phase out the term “presuppositional apologetics” and phase in “covenantal apologetics,” for a host of reasons, including the rather intellectualistic character of “presuppositional” and the richer theological nature of “covenantal.” See K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 38.
20. Alan Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (London: SPCK, 1978), 26.
21. The fourteen points came in a speech before the American Congress, January 8, 1918. The speech covered such items as reduction of the military and self-determination for all nations. It was influential in Germany’s decision to accept an armistice in November of that same year. The proposal for a League of Nations was the fourteenth point.
22. Anyone paying close attention during the Olympics will find some of this same rhetoric about the nations coming together, amidst the strong nationalist cheering sections from each country.
23. On Tatlow, see Theodore H. Robinson, “Tissington Tatlow,” Religion in Education 24 (1956): 10-12.
24. Daniel Johnson Fleming, Whither Bound in Missions? (New York: Association Press, 1925).
25. Ibid., 164.
26. Palmer, History of the Modern World, 510. On the history of globalization, see Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
27. See Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 183-206.
28. Ibid., 41.
29. Edward Saïd, “The Clash of Definitions,” in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 581.
30. M. F. C. Bourdillon, Religion and Society: A Text for Africa (Gweru: Mambo Press, 1990), 269.
31. Many studies on missions and colonialism exist. One of the more helpful ones is Amanda Berry, Joanna Cruikshank, and Patricia Grimshaw, eds., Evangelists of Empire? Missionaries in Colonial History (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2008).
32. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (New York: Anchor, 1994).
33. A host of academies around the world have diaspora studies. Hundreds of articles and books are coming out on the subject, and an increasing number of such studies are related to missions. See, e.g., Afe Adogame, The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013); Enoch Wan, Diaspora Missiology: Theory, Methodology and Practice (Portland, Ore.: Institute of Diaspora Studies, 2011); Mark Gornik, Word Made Global: Stories of African Christianity in New York (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).
34. Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Picador, 2005).
35. James W. Skillen, The Good of Politics: A Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 185.
36. Gregory F. Fegel, “Missionaries Are Colonialists,” http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/21-10-2008/106593-missionaries_colonialists-0/ (accessed November 15, 2013). The capitals are in the original.
37. Skillen, Good of Politics, esp. 120-26.
38. Ibid., 128-29.
39. Martin Luther, On the Freedom of the Christian (LW 31:344).
40. Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel (New York: Macmillan, 1917).
41. See A. James Reichley, “The Evangelical and Fundamentalist Revolt,” in Piety and Politics: Evangelicals and Fundamentalists Confront the World (ed. Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Cromartie; Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1987), 89.
42. Carl F. H. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947).
43. Lausanne Covenant, http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/lausanne-covenant.html (accessed December 1, 2013).
44. In § 6 the document says, “In the Church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary.” Harvie Conn calls this “a piece of undigested two-dimensionalism in the throat of the Lausanne Covenant,” in Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 61.
45. Conn, Evangelism, 49.
46. Ibid., 62-63.
47. See Roger E. Hedlund, Roots of the Great Debate in Mission: Mission in Historical and Theological Perspective (4th ed.; Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 2002), ch. 5, “The Hocking-Kraemer Debate,” http://www.ichenetwork.net/P5_P8.pdf (accessed December 5, 2013).
48. Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh House Press, 1938).
49. Ibid., 77.
50. Ibid., 170.
51. Ibid., 206.
52. A good deal of documentation on these interactions can be found. See James A. Patterson’s articles; his “The Loss of a Missionary Consensus: Foreign Missions and the Fundamentalist-Modernist Conflict,” in Earthen Vessels: American Evangelicals and Foreign Missions, 1880-1980 (ed. Joel A. Carpenter and Wilbert R. Shenk; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 73-77, tells one version of the story.
53. For a general introduction to the “insider movement,” see Doug Coleman, A Theological Analysis of the Insider Movement Paradigm from Four Perspectives: Theology of Religions, Revelation, Soteriology and Ecclesiology (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey International University Press, 2011). For a critical appraisal, see David Garner, “High Stakes: Insider Movement Hermeneutics and the Gospel,” Them 37, no. 2 (2012): 249-74.
54. Daniel Strange, ‘For Their Rock Is Not As Our Rock’: An Evangelical Theology of Religions (Nottingham: Apollos/InterVarsity, 2014), esp. 53-94.
55. Ibid., 266-73. See also Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), ch. 2, “Biblical Theology and the Problems of Monotheism.”
56. For a more detailed account of persecution against Christians, see Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea, Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2013).
57. Just to name one, The Advocates for Human Rights, headquartered in Minneapolis, is having a growing impact at home and abroad (http://www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/).
58. John Calvin, Zechariah and Malachi (vol. 5 of Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 227.
59. Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 243, quoted in Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 277.
60. Bavinck, Introduction to the Science of Missions, 47.
61. George Herbert, “This World,” in The English Works of George Herbert (ed. George Herbert Palmer; 3 vols.; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1905), 2:225-26.