Alan Hirsch has recently written: "[A]s church leaders continue to pile onto the missional bandwagon, the true meaning of the word may be getting buried under a pile of assumptions.... I am concerned about the confusion surrounding the meaning of the word missional. Maintaining the integrity of this word is critical, because recovering a missional understanding of God and the Church is essential not only for the advancement of our mission but, I believe, also for the survival of Christianity in the West." One person whose theology has been described as missional is Tim Keller (see: http://jrwoodward.net/2008/11/a-primer-on-todays-missional-church/). Is Keller's theology truly missional? Or is using this word to describe his project contributing to "the confusion surrounding [its] meaning"? The review following has these questions in mind.
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2008), pp. 294.
Part I
Pull up the web page for Timothy Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism at amazon.com, and you will find many customer reviews—almost all of them positive; and almost all of these positive reviews have been written by Christians who agree with most of what Keller, the pastor of New York City's Redeemer Presbyterian Church, has written. Despite its stated aim, Keller's book (like many works of apologetics before it) seems more likely to reinforce what some Christians already believe than to convert true skeptics to Christianity. Moreover, if my experience is at all indicative, then readers who occupy a missional theological house (or any theological house other than conservative evangelicalism) will be dissatisfied with Keller's work for a number of reasons.
These reasons begin with the book's title, whose promise goes unfulfilled. The book's first part does not give reasons for God (much less "The Reason"); instead, it gives defenses of garden-variety evangelicalism in the form of responses to assertions and questions that Keller has commonly heard during his time as the pastor of a growing megachurch in New York. Reasons for God and defenses of Christianity are not the same thing. The second part of the book begins with a chapter titled, "The Clues of God"—which is as close as Keller comes to giving reasons for God.
Keller opens his book with an intriguing diagnosis: "There is a gulf today between what is popularly known as liberalism and conservatism. Each side demands that you not only disagree with but disdain the other as (at best) crazy or (at worst) evil" (p. ix). He then suggests a third way—namely, that both skeptics (liberals?) and believers (conservatives?) reconsider doubt. "Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts," he writes, while skeptics "must doubt [their] doubts" (p. xvii). While Keller seems to be seeking moderation (he hopes for "civility in a pluralistic society" [p. xix]), skeptics—both non-Christians who are skeptical about Christianity in general and Christians who are skeptical about Keller's particular brand of Christianity—may be skeptical, as Keller expresses few if any doubts of his own about any traditional doctrines in the rest of his book.
Certainly, he does not doubt that Christianity is exclusively "right" (the subject of the book's first chapter). In response to concerns about exclusivity in an increasingly pluralist society (concerns which the missional conversation has engaged), Keller observes: "It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways" (p. 13). Keller does not seek to deny Christianity's exclusivity; rather, he points out the inconsistency—even hypocrisy—of persons who complain about this exclusivity. While this critique is fair, Keller seems to confuse the act of making a claim (which is exclusive) and the content of a claim (which may be more or less exclusive or inclusive).
More importantly, the problem of exclusivity—which Keller concedes often leads to violence—remains (though now it belongs to everyone). Keller argues that the solution to this problem is the "exclusive belief system" of Christianity, which promotes peacemaking because it has at its "very heart...a man who died for his enemies, praying for their forgiveness" (p. 20). In this section, Keller boldly lifts up the example of the early church—a church that took the teaching and example of Jesus so seriously that it practiced non-violence even in the face of persecution. Had Keller only ended his opening chapter on this note! Instead, on the next page he concludes, "[W]ho can deny that the force of Christians' most fundamental beliefs can be a powerful impetus for peace-making in our troubled world?"
About which Christians does Keller write? Is a view of Jesus as peacemaker truly a "fundamental" conviction of most Christians today? It is held by Anabaptists (Mennonites and others), and by some Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants. Sadly, however, history has repeatedly shown that many (perhaps most) Christians are quite willing to bless their nation's war-making.
These questions point to another reason for dissatisfaction with Keller's book—his tendency to write as if there is only one understanding of the Christian faith (a notable exception to this tendency is found in the "Intermission" between the book's two parts). Keller's tendency to overlook the fact that pluralism is a reality not only in the world but also in the church surfaces especially in the next chapter, whose focus is on the problem of evil (an issue that begs for more than a chapter treatment). Keller points readers who are struggling to reconcile belief in a good and all-powerful God with the existence of great suffering to the cross. On the cross, explains Keller, God in Christ has shown solidarity with us by suffering with us. This pastoral move is perhaps the best response anyone can give to this perennial question. Still, it is in making this move that Keller again fails to recognize the diversity of Christian thought, writing, "Christian theology has always recognized that Jesus bore, as the substitute in our place, the endless exclusion from God that the human race has merited" (p. 29). Besides its sloppy logic (the suffering of Jesus on the cross was not "endless"), this claim is arguably wrong about what "has always [been] recognized." As Gustaf Aulén has shown in Christus Victor, early Christianity did not understand the cross primarily (much less solely) in substitutionary terms. The substitutionary theory of the atonement was developed by Anselm at the end of the eleventh century.
One other note about this second chapter: C.S. Lewis makes his first appearance here—the first of many appearances. Keller quotes Lewis repeatedly and sometimes at length. In fact, it would not be unfair to call Lewis Keller's primary source. For decades, Lewis has been the theologian of choice for many conservative evangelical Christians. Because of his heavy reliance on Lewis, Keller’s work is derivative; he serves readers little more than warmed-over evangelicalism. Fans of Lewis (of which there clearly remain many) will appreciate this fact; others will yearn for more, something new and different for engaging a cultural context that has changed and is changing—something missional.
Part II: http://postyesterdaychurch.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-tim-kellers-theology-truly-missional_22.html
Part III: http://postyesterdaychurch.blogspot.com/2008/12/is-tim-kellers-theology-truly-missional_8076.html
Of course the question that your first paragraph begs is - "What is missional?" "Who get's to own the term?" For me much of the "proof" with Keller is "in the puddin'".
ReplyDeleteA conservative, calvinist, evangelical, church plant in Manhatten - to me - only grows if it is missional.
Bill, thanks for reading and commenting on my excessively long book review!
ReplyDeleteWhat is "missional"? I should have linked Alan Hirsch's article in that first paragraph, as it is helpful toward defining this word. It can be found at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/fall/17.20.html?start=1. I am in agreement with Hirsch that the word is suffering from overuse; it has come to be used to describe almost anything, and is therefore losing its power as a descriptor (put another way, when words come to mean too much, they begin to mean very little). My concern here is simply that the missional conversation has gotten confused with other conversations (the church growth or attractional model conversations, for example). You are right, though, that no one has a monopoly on a given term.
Your comment that "the 'proof'...is 'in the puddin'" gets at what I tried to articulate in the last paragraph of my review:
"Of course, Keller’s project has an obvious strength—it works. His church has many members and his book has many readers. Readers who have come to question the faithfulness of modernity’s popular Christianity will have to decide whether or not effectiveness is enough. For his part, Keller has used undeniably effective communication skills to prove that whatever the changes we have experienced in postmodernity, Lewis still sells."
It is undeniable that Keller, his church, and his book have been successful (at least, measured by numbers). The question, then, is this: Is effectiveness proof of faithfulness? I'm not sure it is. I am not questioning the authenticity of Keller's faith; I am questioning whether or not the theology he articulates in this book has heard the missional critique and been transformed toward a way of being and doing church that is more faithful in our context. I suspect many churches will lose members as they become more missional; it does not necessarily follow that what they are doing is unfaithful.
I agree with you that Keller's project is conservative and Calvinist and evangelical. I make this point more than once in my review. The question I raise in/with the review is this: How does the missional conversation challenge conservative and Calvinist and evangelical theology? (In different ways, it also challenges liberal and Lutheran and Catholic theology; I haven't addressed these theologies because they are not featured in Keller's book.) I identify a number of ways in which it does so. These challenges are not just eschatological (a challenge that Keller, to his credit, does engage), but also hermeneutical and soteriological--not to mention ecclesiological and missiological. It seems to me that once the missional conversation's holistic (restoration of all creation) eschatology is embraced, it becomes intellectually untenable to hold onto the hermeneutics of modernism and an individualistic soteriology.
I'm sure Redeemer is missional in some ways (my critique was of one of Keller's books, not his church); however, having a charismatic pastor who attracts people is undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its growth. Also, in a city with the population of New York (over eight million people), there is bound to be a market for every brand of Christianity; and the conservative/Calvinist/evangelical market most likely has few options there. Perhaps Redeemer simply has a particular market cornered.
By the way, with about six thousand people, Redeemer includes about .08% of NYC's population; your church includes .6% of your city's population.
Could you explain this part of your comment?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that once the missional conversation's holistic (restoration of all creation) eschatology is embraced, it becomes intellectually untenable to hold onto the hermeneutics of modernism and an individualistic soteriology.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteGiven the missional conversation's (not to mention the Bible's) hope for the restoration of all creation ("new creation"), I find myself unable to make much of an argument for interpreting Scripture through the lens of the individualized self (a creation of modernity), as it reduces salvation to the deliverance of individual souls to heaven upon death. N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope" is helpful on this subject.
Haven't read NT Wright - was hoping to hear what you were meaning by that don't much care for Wright's opinion.
ReplyDeleteHI Josh - I love the thoughtfulness of your brand of missional - almost never a dull moment in reading what you write. But this is where the fun begins, as in this quote of yours (from a response comment):
ReplyDelete"I am questioning whether or not the theology he articulates in this book has heard the missional critique and been transformed toward a way of being and doing church that is more faithful in our context."
If I'm hearing you (and the mucho others out there using similar language) close to the centre of your issue with Keller is this: he hasn't picked up your "missional" lens and looked at (and then tweaked) his theology accordingly. To push it further - your understanding of missional is incompatible with classic reformed/evangelical theology. So if he keeps that, he hasn't heard you.
IF Keller were here, I'm guessing he would say something along the lines of: some of your critique of western church and its relationship to Mission of God is valid; but it does not follow that the flaw is inherently in the theological core we hold (he would of course say it oh so much better!).
FROM where I sit, it seems (if you'll permit a gross simplification): the tension/argument is really about which set of glasses to put on. You start with Mission and look at theology through that lens; he starts with theology and looks at Mission through that lens.
IF you say - but Mission and Theology must inform each other, I agree! But is there room in the kind of Christianity God intended for non-negotiable pivot points around which other things can move? Keller says yes, and for him, penal substitution (which he would trace at least back to Paul) is one of those.
THAT's what I hear in this conversation. How do you hear this conversation?