Environmental Stewardship and the Gospel of the Kingdom

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

Barkey, Michael B., ed. 2000. Environmental stewardship in the Judeo-Christian tradition: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant wisdom on the environment. Washington, DC: Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship.

From the Foreword:

The biblical starting point for any discussion of the nature of religious environmental stewardship must begin with the witness of the Book of Genesis: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he create im; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Gen. 1:28-28). In our modern times, however, this biblical vision of the relationship between God, man, and nature is muddled by two false views. The one sees the natural world as the source of all value, man as an intruder, and God, if he exists at all, as so immanent in the natural order that he ceases to be distinguishable from it. The other view places man as the source of all values, the natural order as merely instrumental to his aims, and God as often irrelevant.

            Genesis presents a radically different picture of how the world is put together. In this account, God is the source of all values—in truth, he is the source of everything, calling the world into being out of nothing by his powerful word. Man is part of this order essentially and, what is more, by virtue of his created nature, and is placed at the head of creation as its steward. Yet this stewardship can never by arbitrary or anthropocentric, … for this notion implies that man rules creation in God’s stead and must do so according to his divine will (p. vii).

Sections include:
The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship

A Comprehensive Torah-Based Approach to the Environment

The Catholic Church and Stewardship of Creation

A Biblical Perspective on Environmental Stewardship

Although Ralph Winter did not often write or speak specifically about environmental issues, his explanation of his sixth “frontier of perspective” shows his disappointment with evangelical believers who have left concerns for creation care, among other vital topics, to the secular world to deal with. He wrote:

Latter day Evangelicals have … made their “Gospel of salvation” a nearly total substitute for the Gospel of the Kingdom. Why is this? Nineteenth century Evangelicals were very socially conscious compared to Evangelicals in 20th century. Sub-Saharan Africa is 80% Christian, but has been described as having a faith that is … a mile wide and one inch deep. Apart from otherworldly assurances the avowedly Christian structures contribute very little to “Thy will be done on earth” as Jesus asked us to pray. [Cross-cultural workers] are not normally trained nor well-equipped to take on the social, commercial, medical, engineering, and political problems of Africa. Neither are the national pastors. This vast array of problems is not part of our Gospel of Salvation even though it is definitely part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. We leave these problems to the “secular world.” In a word, we think of ourselves as survivors not soldiers.

What might Winter have said and written about the Christian’s responsibility for the environment if his time had not been taken with theologizing and mobilizing believers to eradicate disease in demonstration of God’s character? (See www.robertawinterinstitute.org)

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

 (7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

Guder, Darrell L. 2000. The continuing conversion of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Darrell Guder served as a committee member for one of WCIU’s doctoral students, Bob Blincoe, U.S. Director of Frontiers. Guder and Ralph Winter shared a common interest in “sodalities,” structures found in early Jewish and early Christian mission, and throughout history, for the purpose of accomplishing special tasks. In this book, Guder includes a section on the challenges of “Translation as Cultural Formation and Transformation” (pages 82ff):

The difficult question of circumcision in the early experience of the church illustrates the difference between literal translation and cultural translation. … Events are translated in such as way that Jesus is recognized as Lord and Savior, his call to discipleship is followed, his teaching received and implemented, and the apostolic witness extended. This must happen so that God’s mission may continue in each successive evangelized culture. … To put it in other words: It was not merely God’s intention that the message, as disembodied language, be translated from one language to another. … If the gospel is faithfully translated, then it continues to work as a two-edged sword. That transformative witness will hallow some elements of the culture, adapt others, and reject others. The receiving culture cannot be any more normative than the culture of the evangelizing witnesses. The desire to control constantly asserts itself here. Cultures try to bring the gospel under their control, attempting to fit the person and work of Christ into their patterns of accepted religious practice. Translation is a risk, and thus the process must be one of continuing conversion.

Compare Guder’s comments to Winter’s explanation of the fifth of his “twelve frontiers of perspective” and in a paper presented to the Frontier Mission Fellowship August 20, 2003.

Winter, Ralph D. 2005. Twelve frontiers of perspective. In Frontiers in mission, ed. Ralph D. Winter, 30-42. Pasadena: WCIU Press.

As I have thought about this, it became to me ominous and suspicious that our own form of Christianity has been unthinkingly assumed to be the most balanced, Biblical, and properly contextualized. Is it possible that we need to know how to de-contextualize our own Christianity before we can ever very successfully contextualize the Bible for somebody else?

            Let’s assume for a moment that our best understanding of the word contextualization here at home is not that of seeking indigenous forms to make our faith, our form of Christianity, more acceptable to others, but also means trying to make sure that existing indigenous forms employed by our own people are accurate carrier vehicles for a true, balanced, Biblical faith. In that case we need to be doubly sure what Biblical faith really is.

            Thus arises the idea of the de-contextualization of our own tradition, or reverse contextualization, which means being willing to find major philosophic or Biblical or theological flaws in our own tradition. It really isn’t the same as asking if the as-is Christianity of our stripe will ever fit into the Hindu tradition. It’s a different task requiring us to talk about the proper contextualization of the Gospel in two directions: into the field culture and, even before that, into our home culture.

Winter, Ralph D. 2003. W. 1234.3 The last act. Paper presented to the Frontier Mission Fellowship, 20 August, in Pasadena, California.

We note Greek followers of the faith who sneered at Jewish believers who maintained their cultural traditions. We note a major spiritual tension arising as both Jesus and the leaders who followed him underscored a theme basic to the Old Testament, which demanded heart faith not just outward compliance with religious forms. Emphasis on faith then appeared to some as a reason for ignoring all outward obedience. This same tension would arise again and again down through history whenever the faith would flow from the forms of one cultural tradition to another.

            True faith always is evidenced in true obedience, but the form of that obedience is always cultural. This was the basis for the hostility aroused against Paul by Jews. It presages the opposition that may arise every time the Gospel takes on new cultural clothing.

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Disease and the Challenge of the Evil One

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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 (12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Felton, Ralph A. 1955. Hope rises from the land. New York: Friendship Press.

Excerpts from the chapter, “The Devil under a Microscope,” p. 27, could easily have been part of Ralph Winter's thinking in the 1950s, long before he founded the Roberta Winter Institute (www.robertawinterinstitute.org).

They come from many miles to see the devil. Even African pastors, deacons, and deaconesses come to the laboratory of Alice Strangway to see for themselves real ovilulu (evil spirits).

            Many Africans believe that devils or evil spirits bring their diseases.

            “This one is the bacillus of tuberculosis,” explains Mrs. Strangway. “This disease abounds and is spreading rapidly, due to poor sanitation and faulty nutrition.”

            One pastor looks at it a long time. “If we had only known about it,” he sighs.

            Next they watch the moving microfiliaria that causes so much blindness in Angola. How could there be a worse devil!

            “Here are the red and blue stained parasites of malaria.”           

            “Three of my six babies left us because of these,” one mother sighs. She has the same deep sorrow that mothers have in every land.

            What a collection of devils to be seen through one microscope! Rickets, pellagra, anemias, goiter, scurvy, diarrhea, and many more.

            Africa’s native religion is based upon devils. Witchcraft is a religion of evil spirits. The witch doctor in every village stays in business to cast out just such evil spirits.

            Many leave this laboratory and return to their villages to spread the lessons they have learned. For them belief in witchcraft is gone forever. They learn how to cast out devils—by the food they eat.

This reminds me of several things Ralph Winter used to talk about. Here’s an excerpt from his talk to the Asian Society of Missiology about the “Twelve Mistakes of the West,” in which he turns the use of the microscope around to be used for observing God’s handiwork:

11. The Mistake of Assuming Science Is a Foe Not a Friend

When I was a young person missionaries were showing science films 2,000 times per day in the Non-Western world. The Moody Institute of Science films were shown even more widely in America. Many times in history Christian scholars have recognized that God has revealed Himself in “Two Books,” the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture. As Psalm 19 indicates, the Book of Nature does not even need to be translated into the world’s languages. Every missionary must take with him to the mission field both a microscope and a telescope if we are to properly glorify God. Even more important is the need to take to the field a true reverence for the glory of God in Creation. This requires a substantial knowledge of nature. Science is the study of God’s creativity. Art is the study of man’s creativity. We cannot truly expect educated people to accept Christ if our hymns in church reflect no awareness of anything discovered in nature in the last 400 years, or if our young people are being led astray by recent and superficial theories that the world is only 6,000 years old. That is an improper reading of Genesis 1:1, as well as a reckless ignoring of thousands of honest Evangelicals who are outstanding scientists.

In a document of compiled quotes from Ralph Winter, describing the purposes of the Roberta Winter Institute, he acknowledged that not everything in this world is the way God designed it to be. “The Intelligent Design people don’t take into account that they are attributing the creation of evil to God." …

At this point it is time to ask the question why it is that the mounting muscle of the very considerable movement of all those globally who are moved by Jesus Christ has not weighed in either theologically or practically in the area of working to correct distortions of nature and of God’s will by going to the roots of the problem. …

Surprising recent insights show that many diseases are basically caused by outside invaders which we need to fight in the same sense as we fight the crime of visible terrorists. Does nutrition, exercise, banishing anxiety, etc. protect you or cure you of Malaria? Are our immune systems normally capable of defeating Malaria, Tuberculosis, Smallpox, Anthrax, etc.? No, not normally. And, if the latest thinking is correct slow-acting viruses underlie heart disease as well as cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Schizophrenia. So, do we go on just praying in addition to making sure we heed these other things (nutrition, exercise, peace of soul and mind, etc.)? It is understandable, of course, that we would not automatically think about going beyond prayer and taking concrete measures to quell the source of these destructive diseases if we did not know that they are caused by attacking pathogens which our immune systems, no matter how healthy, cannot always overcome.

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Environment and the Kingdom

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

…

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

Sinclair, Maurice. 1980. Green finger of God. Exeter: Paternoster Press.

Foreword by Samuel Escobar; includes practical stories from Latin America interwoven in the chapters.

Chapter Titles:

Does God Believe in Development?
   The effects of the fall. The Gospel and development. A biblical corrective.

Educational Development

Economic Development

Community Development

Medicine and Development

Politics and Development

The Role of the Church in Development

Gremillion, Joseph. 1978. Food/energy and the major faiths. Maryknoll: Orbis.

From the Foreword:
Thirty-five participants were present for the first Interreligious Peace Colloquim held in Bellagio, Italy, May 1975. The majority were religious leaders from the five world faiths—Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Christians. … Our purpose was to help believers of these five faiths, so often in conflict, to work together on issues affecting the fate of the whole human family—above all to work for peace. The food/energy crisis challenges peace and justice and human rights—for what right takes precedence over the right to eat? It raises questions about the value of life, social ethics, and the meaning of the human person that are so basic that they call upon faith for adequate response.

Division Titles:

The Facts of the Food/Energy Crisis

Impact of the Crisis on World Peace and Social Justice

The Role of Religion in Politics and Society

Strategies for Meeting the Food/Energy Crisis

Some of Ralph Winter’s thinking that relates to concern for world food and environment issues.

From his elaboration on the 6^th of his 12 “Frontiers of Perspective”:

It may today be the distinctive heresy of the Evangelical that we have become specialists in merely getting people happy and getting them into heaven. … The Bible does not talk so much about how to get people into heaven as about how to get heaven into people.

Latter day Evangelicals have … made their “Gospel of salvation” a nearly total substitute for the Gospel of the Kingdom. Why is this? Nineteenth century Evangelicals were very socially conscious compared to Evangelicals in 20th century. … Christian structures contribute very little to “Thy will be done on earth” as Jesus asked us to pray. Missionaries are not normally trained nor well-equipped to take on the social, commercial, medical, engineering, and political problems of Africa. Neither are the national pastors. This vast array of problems is not part of our Gospel of Salvation even though it is definitely part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. We leave these problems to the “secular world.” In a word, we think of ourselves as survivors not soldiers.

From the 2006 FMF Principles Members Manual:

Another example, in view of our “international development” approach to mission, is that we seek the goal of effective land use and thus decry the excessive use of land for the production of animal protein. We feel strongly that in the Western world, and in the U.S. in particular, animal protein is commonly used in excess and not only tears down health, but diverts a huge percentage of land that would otherwise be available for the cultivation of more efficient foods. (The corn grown on a given tract of land will feed ten times as many people as it will if fed first to cattle which are then eaten as meat. The people of India could not support their population if India were not mainly vegetarian!).

From an electronic document in Ralph Winter's files:

 In Ralph Winter’s electronic files I discovered a sermon by Greg Boyd, “A War-torn Creation,” that I later included as a chapter in a book I edited with Scott Moreau, Evangelical and Frontier Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel, available from William Carey Library: http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/product.php?productid=717&cat=0&page=1ngelical and Frontier Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel.

A few excerpts:

“Creation is permeated with spiritual warfare. It’s not just human beings who are sort of the plane of spiritual warfare, but creation itself has been corrupted. … Colossians chapter 1: it says that “God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.”

Know that you are doing spiritual warfare whenever you fight the evil effects of nature. You are reclaiming nature, you are rebuking the curse. We are doing spiritual warfare when we fight disease. Not just when we pray, anything you do to push back the harmful effects of nature. When you fund famine relief, you are doing spiritual warfare. When you support organizations that help people that are suffering from a drought you are doing spiritual warfare. When you go to build wells in villages you are doing spiritual warfare. When you teach people better farming and irrigation skills, you are doing spiritual warfare. When scientists do scientific engineering to develop crops for people they are doing spiritual warfare. When they investigate new ways to sanitize water, they are doing spiritual warfare. When they discover ways to fight diseases, that is spiritual warfare. Anything you do to fight poverty and hunger is spiritual warfare. In fact, having mercy on animals is a form of spiritual warfare. Anything you do to reflect God’s ideal for creation is a form of spiritual warfare. In fact, everything you do positive for the earth is a form of spiritual warfare. 

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Church History and the World Christian Movement

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

Ralph Winter taught mission history at Fuller Theological Seminary and built his historical perspectives into the curriculum of the World Christian Foundations study program. <www.worldchristianfoundations.org>

Irvin Dale T. and Scott W. Sunquist. 2006. History of the world Christian movement, Volume I: Earliest Christianity to 1453. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Co-author Scott Sunquist is the newly appointed Dean of Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies, where Paul Pierson was also Dean when it was called the School of World Mission. Pierson wrote a book that the World Christian Foundations curriculum continues to use, that followed the basic outline of Ralph Winter’s approach to history. Winter helped Pierson edit Pierson’s book, published by WCIU Press and available through William Carey Library: http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/product.php?productid=628&cat=72&page=1

Sunquist and Irvin include chapters in each early historical era on the development of the Church in the East, Africa, and India. Because they are writing a multi-volume coverage of Christian history, they are able to spend more time than Winter and Pierson devoted to non-Western streams of the faith. I’d like to have someone compare these various books and make a recommendation for the World Christian Foundations curriculum future revisions.

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One

The Religion of Science, Part 2

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

…

(11) The Religion of Science

“The Book of Scripture and the “Book” of Creation have each spawned a huge, global community of faith. Our challenge is to bridge the divide between science and religion and to declare the manifest glory of both His Word and His Works.”

Newbigin, Lesslie. 1986. Foolishness to the Greeks: The gospel and western culture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

What I hope to do in this book is the following: first, to look in general at the issues raised by the cross-cultural communication of the gospel; second, to examine the essential features of our modern Western culture, including the present signs of its disintegration; third, to face the crucial question of how biblical authority can be a reality for those who are shaped by modern Western culture: fourth, to ask what would be involved in the encounter of the gospel with our culture with respect to the intellectual core of our culture, which is science; fifth, to ask the same question with respect to our politics; and finally, to inquire about the task of the church in bringing about this encounter. (page 4)

Winter, Ralph D. 2005. The comprehensive story. In Frontiers in Mission, 242-46. Pasadena: WCIU Press.

Available from William Carey Library: http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/product.php?productid=546&cat=0&page=1

            We do not do well to close our minds to the possibility that we have often simply misunderstood the Bible and in the process given it a bad reputation. That has been done. For example, when both Calvin and Luther opposed the Copernican theory employing Bible verses, in those cases they simply did not understand the Bible. People have even “proven that the earth is flat” by quoting the Bible. We do not deny the inspiration of the Bible to question interpretations.

In other words, for many thinking Evangelicals the inspiration of the Bible is not the issue. The issue is what does the Bible really teach and on what matters is it silent, focusing on what it addresses readers at a time when they by no means yet knew everything about the planet, the solar system, etc. These would give exciting revelations of God’s glory later on. (page 245)

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One