Missional theology wants to hold tensions in a balancing act
Scot McKnight Image: Cover Photo
Any reading of missional theology today intensifies the tensions of local context and continuity in the church. It is the genius of missional theology. It is also its problem. Just what one is to believe or even do are not spelled out with concreteness. Why? It can’t be done that way. That’s what missional theology is about.
There is much emphasis in particularity, or local expression of the gospel and mission. There is also a buy-in on unity and even theological affirmations, but many think unity is strained today and many think any appeal to unity is coercive. There is so much diversity – or Franke’s sense of plurality and manifold witness – that one can be forgiven for bypassing any meaningful sense of unity.
A theologian suggest Pentecost created multiplicity
Scot McKnight Image: Cover Photo
The first noticeable reality of Pentecost was that different people groups were speaking about God (and the gospel) in their own languages. The second reality is that they went home and carried that reality with them and began to form witness in new locations.
John Franke’s new book,
Missional Theology, calls all of this “missional multiplicity” and appeals to an older expression of his “manifold witness.” The essential ideas of this chapter are that gospel truth expresses God’s Truth in particular settings in particular ways while also being a faithful witness to the gospel.
Scot McKnight
The newest kid on the block for framing theology is missional theology. That needs explanation.
One way of doing theology is to frame theology by the Creed. So one takes the Apostles’ Creed or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (the official name for the Nicene Creed) and fills in the lines and blanks with more theological reflection. Thus, Calvin’s
Institutes.
Another way of doing theology is to frame theology by Topics. So one lists the major topics in some order: God, Humans, Christ, Sin, Salvation, Ecclesiology, Eschatology. Then one maps each of these topics.
Another way of doing theology is “nothing but Bible, baby, nothing but the Bible.” The Bible is our only Creed kind of people. No one actually does this, so I’ll drop it. Why? Because everyone’s theology is shaped by one’s past, one’s community, one’s previous learnings.
God is love.
Difference and otherness are part of the divine life.
The love of God is not an assimilating love.
Creation is a manifestation of the expansive love o[ God.
Human beings, created in the image of God, have rebelled against the love of God.
Jesus is sent into the world to bring about salvation.
The Spirit is sent into the world to call: guide, and empower the followers of ]esus to continue his revolutionary mission.
On which a missional theology rests:
These commitments provide the theological background for understanding the mission of the church, which is a community sent into the world as a continuation of the mission of God. As Jesus is sent, so he sends the church as a sign, instrument, and foretaste of the kingdom of GOd. As such, the historical and contemporary embodiments of the church are local outposts of God’s universal mission.