Subversive 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 

Stetzer, Ed. 2012. Subversive Kingdom: Living as Agents of Gospel Transformation. Nashville: B&H.

This book was not actually in Ralph Winter's library until I put it there, since it was published 3 years after his death. But it is one I'm sure he would have ordered. 

The printed title of the book whimsically conveys the main point—God’s Kingdom is backwards to the world’s expectations. This is Stetzer’s meaning of the term, “subversive,” that is the key to living the way Jesus lived and taught. Subversive means turning the other cheek, going the second mile. Stetzer interprets these examples of Jesus’ kingdom illustrations from the Sermon on the Mount in light of good cultural understanding of the ancient Mediterranean world.

 The title’s whimsical graphic also hints at the informal, easy reading style of the book. But don’t be misled. This book is based on sound biblical scholarship, although cleverly disguised at times as a friendly chat, stories in illustration of a point, or a challenging sermon.

I particularly appreciated the succinct truths punctuated throughout the book. A few examples:

If you are a follower of Jesus, you have been made a citizen of this kingdom (p. 8).

[The kingdom] is subversive. It turns against the way most people think and act—even the religious (p. 12).

We are far too pleased with the comforts of the church rather than the work of God’s kingdom (p. 48).

As big as the church is, the kingdom is even bigger (p. 55).

We carry around an agenda designed to get the kingdom of God both brought up in conversation and brought down to earth” (p. 121).

Actually, the church doesn’t have a mission; the mission has a church (p. 166).

God’s mission is God’s glory (p. 167).

We are God’s “store window” on earth where he shows off his kingdom (p. 186).

The kingdom’s work is done in small ways by people living as agents of the King (p. 227).

The kingdom of God has come near, and our families and churches are outposts for the kingdom of God (p. 231).

I’m glad I read this book when I did, as it was a helpful resource for the chapter I’m writing on health, shalom, and the church for a book Bryant Myers is co-editing for a health practitioners conference at Fuller Seminary.

I wish Dr. Winter could have read this book. He tried to introduce the label, “the Kingdom era,” for what he saw as a fourth major era in the spread of the gospel in the past three centuries. (The first three were the geographic emphasis on coastlands, then inland cross-cultural work, and now unreached people groups.) I think Winter would have especially appreciated Stetzer’s section on the need to work in community to demonstrate what God’s will for his people looks like.

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

Kingdom or Church?

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

Guder, Darrell L. 2000. The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Guder and Ralph Winter agreed that the Church does not exist for its own sake. Dr. Winter used to say the point is not gaining new members of the Church/Body of Christ just to get them to recruit more members; they are enlisting as soldiers in a battle against an intelligent enemy. Guder may not have the warfare aspect in his writings, but he is in agreement with Winter that “as the gospel proclaimed by the church has been reduced to individual salvation, that salvation has itself become the purpose and program of the church” (p. 133). Guder continues,

We must conclude that the church as an “institute of salvation” has had a greatly diminished sense of its mission to the world. It has been far more preoccupied with its inner life, thereby failing to grasp the essential linkage between internal life and its external calling.  Rather than understanding worship as God’s divine preparation for sending, it has tended to make worship an end in itself. Rather than understanding preaching as the exposition of God’s Word to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11ff), it has become the impartation of clerical wisdom to help the saints prepare for heaven while coping with this “vale of tears” (p. 135).

The missional community which Jesus intended and which the apostles formed and taught was to testify to the gospel in every dimension of its existence. Its message was never understood as simply a verbal communication about which one might argue, and for which mere mental consent was sought. The gospel of Jesus Christ defines a new reality, under God, in which Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and earth, and his followers are his sent and empowered witnesses (p. 137). 

Adelaja, Sunday. 2008. Church Shift. St. Mary, FL: Charisma House.

These themes are echoed in the next book I’m highlighting. In presenting this book to the staff shortly after it was published, Winter described its content as “really exciting and urgent to think about.” He also wrote a book review published in IJFM 25:4 [http://www.ijfm.org/25_4.htm] in which he pulled out the following quotes:

Too many Christians and Christian leaders spend their energy, creativity, and precious time promoting churches instead of the kingdom. … The church fulfills its mandate when it changes society, not when it’s confined to its sanctuary and Sunday school classrooms… The Kingdom must overflow into streets and workplaces, governments and entertainment venues. That is its nature, to grow and take over. If you try to keep it to yourself, you lose it (p. 7).

Some people believe that if they work in the nursery or sing in the choir, they are fulfilling their area of ministry. But this is not really ministry. It is merely Housekeeping. Your work as a choir member, nursery volunteer, or usher is what we all must do to keep the church functioning, but it is not necessarily fulfilling the Great Commission. The Great Commission happens outside the church. Ministry is what you do to bring your life and your sphere of influence under kingdom rule (p. 10).

Winter commented in his review: “Now I don’t think he is what they call a Dominion Theology specialist, but it is true that evangelicals in the past, who have often been very poor people, have not had the opportunity to influence society at the level of public law and public decisions, and now, more than ever, due to the tremendous growth and wealth of the evangelical movement, our call to mission is accordingly enlarged.”

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

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.)

…

(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

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

The Challenge of the Evil One, 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.)

…

 (12) The Challenge of the Evil One

Lewis, Edwin. 1948. The Creator and the Adversary. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury.

Edwin Lewis writes, “Too often we forget our Lord’s own ministry among men. We rightly enough declare that the Church is called to proclaim and exemplify the Gospel, but have we fully understood what this Gospel is? … ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’ So said Jesus, and it belongs to us to inquire what he meant by abundant life. How better can we tell than by considering the record of his own days among men? Too often when we do this we pass over … his “mighty works.” … Can it be that what they signify is as much a part of ‘the simple Gospel’ as are his most kindly sayings? Can it be that what the ‘mighty works’ were directed against was a form of evil whose continued presence in the world is … a sign of the Adversary’s activity and a challenge to the Creator and His Kingdom? Then what were they directed against? They were directed against pain, against disease, … against hunger,… For Jesus all these were the evidences not of the will of God but of they denial of his will. They bespoke the reign of that ’strong man’ whom he himself said he must first bind before he could despoil.” … The miracles … mean that they Church of Christ is committed by the example of her Lord to an unrelenting attack upon hunger and the causes thereof, and upon disease and the causes thereof….  God is against them, and he fought them, as he did in Christ, as an evidence of his real will and purpose.” (pp. 265-66).

In an explanation for the founding of the Roberta Winter Institute (www.robertawinterinstitute.org) Dr. Winter told his staff, “The primary focus of this new institute will not be laboratory science but public and mission awareness of the need for a new theological sensitivity for destroying the works of the devil.”

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