Category Archives: Missions

Desert Like a Rose by Peter Leithart

First Things has published a thoughtful article by Peter Leithart regarding missions and culture. I encourage everyone interested in understanding how missions should be done in light of various cultures to read this article. It addresses the issue of compromise and the gospel and much more. Enjoy!

A Rose in the Wind

Excerpt:

Time was when Christian missions occurred “over there.” Every now and then, the missionary would show up at church dressed like a time traveler, to show slides of exotic places and to enchant the stay-at-homes with tales about the strange diet and customs of the natives. Foreign missions still happen, but that model seems like ancient history. With the new immigration and the increased ease of travel and communication, the mission field has moved into the neighborhood, and every church that has its eyes open is asking every day how to do “foreign missions.”

That poses a problem. Missions has always been the place where the bookish question of “Christ and culture” turns practical. Now, at the same time that missions has become a challenge “right here,” multiculturalists question the very legitimacy of missions. Since the gospel always comes clothed in culture, how, on the premises of multiculturalism, can missionary work be anything but a veiled form of cultural imperialism? From Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, missionaries are depicted as tools of Western hegemony. But, if we’re all missionaries now, are we all cooperating in genocide?

Under the regime of multiculturalism, mission efforts face a cruel dilemma. Either missionaries can preach an uncompromising gospel that will cause everything to fall apart, or they can soft pedal the gospel of God’s judgment and grace in order to permit non-Christian cultures to survive. But is the situation as dire as this? Does the Bible perhaps offer a model for re-conceiving the question in a way that avoids the unhappy choice between compromise and cultural cataclysm?

The answer, I think, is yes. [Continue…]

Wade Burleson Censured

Critic Censured

Above you will find the link to the recent post by Christianity Today on this issue. Below you will find Wade’s response last month regarding the censure:

I Support Lottie Moon, the IMB and the SBC

I have followed this whole debacle since the first blogging incedent occured with Wade and the IMB Trustee Board. I cannot say how upset and dis-heartened I am to find out about this most recent attempt to censure Pastor Burleson. As of today, I can tell you that you should continue to support the IMB if you currently do, but that you should seriously consider protesting the action of the trustee board by letter or phone call. If the trustee board continues to affect bad policies on the IMB and it’s missionaries, I’m not sure what should be done except to say that those trustees should be gagged and bagged and tossed out for the sake of God’s Kingdom. Ultimately it is up to the SBC messenger to deal with these problems at the yearly SBC meeting. I just don’t know if that is going to happen any time soon.

Pray for the IMB Board of Trustees and pray that they will stop this non-sense!

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

Fellowship of Mere Christianity

This is a great new fellowship that I hope and pray will do more to unite Christians under one name and banner. I found out about it from P. Andrew Sandlin here. Please visit their site and see what they are up to. Pray for the first meeting in Texas and hope for more things like this to succeed and grow the Church’s important doctrine of catholicity.

Here is their purpose:

Continue reading Fellowship of Mere Christianity

Ascension Day and David Field

David Field has pointed out that most Evangelicals are defeatist in their view of history and fail to see how the Biblical narrative works – because most Evangelicals fail to understand and affirm what the doctrine of Jesus’ ascension really means. I cannot say how sad that makes me and how much I pray and hope for the Church to change it’s mindset. Here is a portion of his post that I cannot commend to anyone more enthusiastically!

Continue reading Ascension Day and David Field