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.)

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(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

Unreached Peoples

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.)

…

 (1) Unreached Peoples

"The U.S. Center for World Mission was founded, in part, on the discovery that many people groups still have no viable, indigenous church community in their midst – and require pioneering, cross-cultural outreach." (Ralph Winter’s “Frontiers of Perspective”)

Wagner, C. Peter and Edward R. Dayton, eds. 1979. Unreached peoples ’79: The challenge of the Church’s unfinished business. Elgin, IL: David C. Cook.

From the Introduction to the first volume:

This book is intended to be the first of a series of annual publications on unreached people. The series will constitute a growing reference library for mission executives, missionaries, professors of mission, church mission committees, seminary libraries, and Christians with a higher than average interest in and commitment to world evangelization. … Each book in the series will contain indepth articles by recognized missiologists on reaching the unreached.… It is a planning guide for those responsible for making missions happen. … Where are workers needed? Where has God ripened the harvest? Where should we concentrate our prayers, our funds, and our personnel at this particular moment of history?

From Ralph Winter’s chapter, “Penetrating the New Frontiers":

Strategy I: Rebuild pioneer mission perspective (pages 41-46)

            Class I Tactics: Rebuilding in the local church, among students, in the mission agencies, and in the ‘younger’ churches. … “Most strategizing takes place on the level of the mission society, and therefore whatever task is inherently beyond the scope of any one mission society has fallen by the wayside. … An example is the Misisonary Research Library … the decline of [which] is one of the great tragedies in modern mission history.” (pages 56-63)

Strategy II:  Rediscover the Hidden People (pages 46-51)

            Class II Tactics: “The tactics necessary to rediscover the hidden People must be developed in close coordination with existing churches and missions, especially missions arising inside the same political boundaries as the hidden People.… Ultimately, however, the Hidden People belong to God, not to man, and we must all recognize the need to obey God rather than man in fulfilling the biblical mandate to seek and find those who sit in darkness. An overemphasis on ‘partnership in mission’ is stagnating many potential efforts.” (pages 63-68)

Strategy III: Reevaluate All Previous Approaches (pages 51-53)

            Class III Tactics: “There is much to be gained by disciplined reflection upon past experience. Have we learned all we should from the movements of Jewish and Christian merchants in the early centuries, and the importance of a relatively simple process whereby a synagogue or a church can be founded? Or the significance of the involuntary cross-cultural transmission of the gospel to or from captured peoples? … Or rigorously-committed communities devoted to the transmission of the Bible? … Or puzzling proposals for maintaining respect but not worship of ancestors?” (pages 68-71)

Strategy IV: Reconsecrate Ourselves to the Wartime, Not Peacetime, Life-style (pages 53-54)

            Class IV Tactics: “God cannot expect less from us in our struggle to save Hidden People than our own nation conventionally requires of us in wartime. … To reconsecrate ourselves to a wartime life-style will involve a mammoth upheaval for a significant minority. It will not go uncontested any more than did the stern warning of Isaiah and Ezekiel. But we do not need to defend our campaign. It is not ours.” (pages 71-76)

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

Ralph D. Winter Books and Archives

Ralph Winter had a list of 12 "Frontiers of Perspective" that represented major shifts in his thinking since 1976 when he left Fuller Seminary to found the U.S. Center for World Mission and William Carey International University. He explained that "this list can be looked upon as my own personal experience since 1976 that has profoundly modified and molded my perception of the mission task."
      I'll be using these categories for sharing some of the adventures and discoveries our team is having as we go through his books, writings, and documents:

(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

Under the category of "Recruitment," here's one of the books I pulled off the shelf this week to look at more closely:

Speer, Robert E. 1944. What Constitutes a Missionary Call? New York: Student Volunteer Movement Booklet.

            This caught my eye because our academic administration building is named after Speer and because I have a daughter who is in the age group he was writing about. Speer passionately urged that “students are old enough to decide to do their duty. They are old enough to decide to go to college, they are old enough to decide for law and medicine and other professions; they are old enough, too, to decide this question also. … have you any reason for not going that you could give to Jesus Christ? That is the real question for every one of us.” (p. 30)

Ralph Winter's own writing echoed Robert Speer’s plea to students in the article, “Join the World Christian Movement,” found in the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Reader.

          Winter concludes: “We sometimes seem more geared to do our ‘utmost’ than we are to seek out patiently, deliberately, and painstakingly that role which will make the maximum contribution to ‘His highest’—the coming of His kingdom and power and glory to all the peoples of the earth. … It is not to please ourselves that we give our lives to Christ. Yet, we may find that His will involves greater pleasure and fulfillment than anything we ourselves could have chosen! A famous missionary wrote back to fellow students and pled with them: ‘Give up your small ambitions and come East to proclaim the glorious gospel of Christ.’ For me to give ‘My utmost for His highest’ is no guarantee of health, wealth, or happiness … but that kind of crucial choice is … the most exhilarating and demanding path of all callings. You don’t lose if you go with God. But you have to be willing to lose or you can’t stick close to God.”