Principle of Spurgeons College, Nigel Wright says, "There is every reason why Baptists should be able to address the contemporary and do so with energy and insight." An honest look at the state of affairs and what opportunities this brings.These are the best of time and the worst of times. Learning to cope with the tension is part of what is now involved in engaging in Christian mission and ministry.
They are the worst of times because decade by decade, despite ceaseless strivings and energetic activity the churches of Christ as a whole continue to decline in most Western countries. If you are content not to grow this is not a problem. For those churches and Christians whose brand of triumphalism consists in glorying in decline it is a welcome sign. If however, like me, you rather believe that Christ is glorified as the knowledge of him is shed abroad in one life after another, it is a depressing picture. This is especially so when you have devoted your life to achieving the opposite effect. The times are also bad as the darkness creeps into our corporate social life creating predictable havoc along the way. Societies which have no overall aim and purpose inevitably lose a sense of what it means to live a good and virtuous life. If it is left to each of us to construct a framework of meaning for ourselves it is no surprise if the meaning people embrace involves the belief that life most certainly does consist in the abundance of our possessions, and God help anybody who gets in the way of me and my fair share. No, the times are not good.
These are the best of times. For what time is better than when the days are dark and the challenge is sharp? This is a good time, for instance, to be defending Christian orthodoxy, to be giving an account of the hope that is within us. To be sure, orthodox Christian claims do not chime in readily with the emotivism of the contemporary moral climate which espouses the view that as long as nobody is getting hurt you should leave people alone to get on with their own lives. Christian faith does, after all, proclaim constant and universal truths. It believes that truth and morality are not purely subjective, although they certainly involve personal commitment and situational discernment. It believes that there is a reality in accordance with which we have to live, and when we run against it we do ourselves no good. But Christian faith is nothing if not robust. It has seen (and has seen off) all manner of alternative philosophies. It is also every productive, giving rise to new insights and possibilities of thought. It is realistic, describing the world in which we live accurately, but not despairingly. It has the ability to capture the imagination being grounded as it is in a great story, and not just a story.
And these are also good days for persisting with Christian community. Here we hit one of the big issues. It is often said that in a society in which community is lacking the ability of the churches to offer this is one of our big pluses. Yes and No. In my view it is precisely the fact that we live as communities of believers that many find repellent. The fact is that community is demanding. It involves face to face engagement with other people. It is particularly demanding when at the heart of it there is a moral demand, an ethic of justice and self-sacrifice. Let’s face it: most people don’t want this. They want a more distant, transaction based form of community: if I pay this I get that, and we all know where we are as sellers or purchasers. It is only the minority which is really ready for community, for commitment to a disciplined and communal way of life. Perhaps part of our Christian strategy is to give up any notions of mass appeal, to accept (with the current pope incidentally) that the church’s way of being is as a ‘creative minority’ embodying an alternative way which is able to resist the ‘tyranny of relativism’.
In the churches we have decisions to make. Are we going, for instance, to reduce the expectations and demands of what it means to live as disciples in Christian communities? Or are we going to step up our expectations, to have done with minimal ecclesiologies and go for the maximum? Or is there a half-way house, communities which embrace a full-bodied Guinness-Extra-Stout–type of discipleship at the centre{mosimage}{mosimage}, while securing the margins as places where people can explore and gradually heat up like kettles, until the time when they ‘whistle’ for a deeper commitment? Practitioners of mission and ministry have some creative and demanding times ahead of them.
Whatever the overall picture of decline, and one suspects it is set to continue for some time, there is ample room for individual churches, whether they be traditional, contemporary or emergent in shape and type, to make their mark when they are well led. This is what we need, mission leaders who are not overwhelmed by the worst of times but see them as the best opportunity they have to buck the trend. Baptists are well placed to address the challenge. They have an ecclesiology which is big on discipleship and community. They believe in the freedom and autonomy of the local church and this should make for flexibility of response to the challenges of the day. They are committed to winning people to a faith they own for themselves, rather than one they have inherited from the past. They believe in liberty of religious commitment for all as the best context in which people may choose Christ over against the prevailing ideologies and religious alternatives which are on offer. They are willing to work with others in the work of God’s kingdom. There is every reason why Baptists should be able to address the contemporary and do so with energy and insight.
Dr Nigel G. Wright
Principal. Spurgeon’s College
