This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

It's All About the Mission

If one listens to the ecclesial chatter of our day for very long, one soon comes across a notion that goes something like this: "Yes, we have strong and clear differences which divide us one from another, but we share a common mission in Christ to bring God's love to humanity, and we should find every way possible to unite our efforts together in this mission."

Sometimes this sentiment is raised in ecumenical discussions, as when some mainline Protestant group wants to work together with a traditional (small-o) orthodox group. Other times this sentiment is raised in contexts where, as in the Episcopal Church, there has been an attempt to change Christian teaching (sexuality), and with it the subsequent righteous indignation of the conservatives and traditionalists, and now one needs to try to hold the disparate groups together. And sometimes one hears these sentiments from conservative and traditionalist Christians themselves, who, having been distracted by controversy and false teaching, want sincerely to be about the business of evangelism without having to siphon off energy and resources on "nonessential" matters.

The thinking seems to be this: The most important thing in the world we can do is to spread the Gospel of Christ. Evangelism is not about hammering out the nuances and technicalities of dogma, but about getting people to meet Jesus one on one. After all, no one was brought to the Gospel through a discussion of the hypostases of the Trinity.

This is a very persuasive position. After all, who hasn't had the experience, or know of someone who has, in which a congregation divided over the color of the carpet in the auditorium? Who hasn't wearied of the accusations and counter-accusations in the culture wars? So much energy seems to be invested in shoring up the walls which separate "true believer" from "false" and yet so little labor seems to go into "winning souls" for the Lord. It just makes sense that we should preach the Gospel and not worry about dogmatic niceties.

Yes, it's a very persausive position.

And it's dead wrong.

It would be good to start with the words of our Lord:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:16-20 ESV)

Notice something that is very clear: Discipleship, or obedience, and Christ's teaching are part and parcel of evangelism. Or to say it another way, the Gospel is dogma. And therefore, the dogma is life.

Some, like Canada's Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham, want to claim that

The existence of God is a foundational belief. Christian social ethics is derivative. And while we must not separate them - and we should never claim that moral law is merely a human construct independent of the will of God - neither should we confuse the eternal and timeless truths of the Christian faith with the historic and temporal working out of those truths in the changing conditions of human life. To do so is a fundamental category mistake.

But this doesn't work. Ingham claims that the confusion of dogma with ethics is a category mistake. Unfortunately, his is a logical fallacy: the false alternative. Furthermore, he's just plain wrong. The ethical life of a Christian is as much part of Christian dogma as is the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures in the one Person of Christ. And the dogma of the Person of Christ is as much part of the Gospel as is the exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount: "Be ye perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

The fact of the matter is this: Christian dogma cannot be separated from faithful obedience (and ethics) simply because it is the very nature of the Truth to obligate us to its norms. That is to say, if Jesus is the Truth, then truth is all about discipleship.

But more to the point, if Jesus is Truth, then the Gospel cannot be preached, or heard, without dogma. What Christ do you preach when you preach the Gospel? The very moment you begin to answer that question you have ventured into the world of dogma. And if you answer that "This is the Jesus to whom has been given all authority" then the very moment the words spring forth from your mouth, you are in the world of discipleship and ethics.

It's not difficult to see why some mainline church groups would like to focus on mission over dogma. When one gives up one or another aspect, or a whole bunch of them, of the life and teaching the Church has lived for two thousand years, it is tiresome to have to spend all the time and energy necessary in defending one's innovation. Furthermore, since traditionalists are so doggone trucculent and stubborn, such discussions will ultimately go nowhere. Far better to focus on the one thing that can be agreed on: evangelism (never mind that what constitutes the actual Gospel is as contentious as the filioque clause).

But it's not difficult to see why traditionalists and conservatives eventually give way to this thinking as well. Traditionalists and conservatives seem always to be the small minority within mainline groups, as well as within our larger culture. They find themselves confronted with the aggressive spirit of anti-christ in the culture, as well as find themselves set upon by their co-religionists. They largely feel, and to some degree are, without ally in their fight. Many of them being realists, they understand their co-religionists hold political authority in their church group and they understand the powerful forces arrayed against them in the wider social context. They conclude that the only way to win either war is to bring in converts who espouse their beliefs. By retreating from the debate on dogma and ethics, they can pool their energy and resources into mission.

But all of this is an illusion. There is no Mission without Gospel. There is no Gospel without Dogma. And there is no salvation without discipleship. If we really want to be all about mission, we're going to have to preach Christ, which means Chalcedon, which means Christ's command: "Be ye perfect."

If we separate out dogma from Gospel, then we have no Christ to preach. And if we don't have Jesus, we don't have life. If we separate out ethics and discipleship from Gospel, then the sin that Jesus came to save us from remains, and we lose the life we may once have been given. Gospel, dogma, discipleship are all about Christ and therefore all about life. Apart from Christ there only death.

So if you hear someone express the sentiment "It's all about the mission of the Church," be careful. If they attempt to separate Gospel, dogma and ethics, then know them for what they are. Perhaps sincere and misguided. Perhaps suffused with secularism. But in any case, dead wrong. Their teaching, unwitting or not, is deadly. Stay away from it.

And get on with the true mission Christ has given us.

Posted by Clifton at March 18, 2004 06:17 AM | TrackBack