DARREN CRONSHAW is impressed by Graham Hill’s Salt, Light, and a City...
Graham Hill
Salt, Light and a City: Introducing Missional Ecclesiology
Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1-60899-756-5
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“(It is) an important book for practitioners to stretch their minds with theological foundations from a dozen seminal thinkers of different church streams and their implications for a thoroughly missional ecclesiology that is life-giving, mission-forged, Gospel-shaped, Christ-centred, Spirit-empowered, Trinity-imaging dialogical and courageous about ‘being salt, light and a city’.” |
The missional church conversation, as Michael Frost explains in his foreword, has called the church back to getting a fresh understanding of Jesus, recalibrating around mission, and then thinking about how to shape church (Christology determining missiology, in turn determining ecclesiology). That is a helpful corrective to pragmatic preoccupations of church growth that wants to find a model of church that will best work, let alone postmodern consumer mentality that looks for a church system that “meets my needs”.
Re-encountering Jesus and recalibrating around mission is a healthy reality check for churches. Nevertheless, it is also important to thoroughly rethink our foundations for church for our 21st century context. Given the demands of our context, let alone the mission of God that the church is invited to cooperate with, what we need is a distinctively missional ecclesiology. But who can we learn from? What guiding frameworks will best shape a missional ecclesiology? From where can we take our bearings?
Graham Hill has been exploring these questions over the last decade as a Baptist pastor, church planter and coach and champion of church leaders and missional experiments. He did his PhD on missional ecclesiology in 2009 at Flinders University of South Australia, on which this book expands. He now teaches as lecturer in leadership and pastoral theology and vice-principal at Morling College in Sydney. His comprehensive coverage of missional ecclesiology in Salt, Light, and a City is a gift to the missional movement and the broader church.
The first part surveys a dozen Euro-American ecclesiologists – three seminal and representative theologians from each of four church streams. (Majority World contributions will be explored in a future volume in a planned series.)
The Roman Catholic section begins with Joseph Ratzinger, who among other things argues the church firstly needs to understand its essence – as communion experienced especially in the Eucharist. Karl Rahner conceptualises the local church as a community of witness; one that is declericalised, a servant to the world and attentive to the grace of God in people outside the church. Hans Küng summons the church to reform in order to serve the Kingdom of God, and to develop and release the spiritual gifts of all its members. These are important writers to understand both to understand what shapes the Catholic church, and to consider how those of us in other denominations can learn from them.
Similarly the Eastern Orthodox is a tradition that my networks tend to rarely listen to but can learn from. For example, Thomas Hopko proclaims a refreshingly high view of the church as the center of fullness God’s mission, and a high view of worship and Scripture. Vigen Guroian appeals for the church to rediscover itself as a peculiar, ethical community, appropriate for its post-Christendom context, and for public theology, ethics and ecology to be freshly grounded in the church not just societal concerns. John Zizioulas paints an inviting portrait of the church as Eucharistic communion. Hill does not agree with everything these writers teach about church and neither will all readers, but nevertheless they write from a perspective of diaspora in the Western world and help complete our understanding of where missional ecclesiology needs to develop.
The Protestant voices include Letty Russell, who articulates an imagination-grabbing feminist and postcolonial vision of “Church in the Round” that partners with those at the margins with welcome and solidarity. Jürgen Moltmann explores the church as messianic, relational koinonia that is seeking to relate to its changing cultural landscape through the creative work of the Spirit. He urges the church to seek the fulfilment of the Kingdom, functioning as missionary communities rather than merely doing mission work. John Webster appeals for ecclesiology grounded in evangelical theology, the Gospel and Scripture; and celebrates the church as a prayerfully reading community that is attentive to Scripture. Among the other insights these writers explore, it is helpful to remember the church needs to stay connected with Scripture, the Spirit and those on the margins.
As a Baptist pastor, I appreciated learning from other traditions but especially appreciated reminders of Free Church ecclesiologies. John Howard Yoder declares the church must respond adequately to the (welcome) end of Constantinianism and reclaim the need for discipleship under the lordship of Christ and the church as an alternative (not privileged) community. He says the church is itself a social ethic that exemplifies the kingdom of God, especially in its egalitarian inclusiveness, economic sharing, forgiveness and celebrating the giftedness of all. Barry Harvey upholds the church as Altera Civitas “another city”, with a population from every people and nation, separate from the Empire and Christendom and released from consumerism, but existing for the sake of the world. He suggests it is not abstract beliefs but core practices and spiritual disciplines that help the church be the church. Miroslav Volf celebrates the church as the image of the Trinity with its shared interconnected life where the whole people of God and released in ministry. This stands against the individualist tendencies of society, and the hierarchical tendencies of established churches. Missional ecclesiology needs to grapple with what it means to be Trinitarian and counter-cultural, and how to express and live its social ethics as an alternative community, for which these writers are helpful guides and conversation partners.
This first part is a helpful overview of the history of ecclesiological ideas, presents the representative ecclesiologists in their own terms, and points to further literature once the appetite is wet.
The second part introduces foundations and needed future directions for missional ecclesiology. Hill unpacks the mission of God and what it means for transitioning the church from a “a place where certain things happen” to “a body of people sent on mission”. The congregational transformation this calls for is not about church style but reshaping around missional postures and practices. He calls for a church that is Christ-centred with a fresh picture of Jesus as Lord of the church; Spirit-empowered that sees spiritual gifts as missional gifts and graces, and recognise the Spirit’s presence beyond the church; and renewed by a fresh understanding of what the Trinity means for community and mission. Finally, Hill appeals for church leaders to overcome defensiveness to prophetic missional voices, and foster the dissatisfaction and vision that will overcome resistance to change: “The Christian church has a long tradition of silencing and resisting critique and change, or, when it is at its best, listening, responding, and reforming. If the church is going to be truly reform, to become genuinely missional, kingdom-of-God-focused, and gospel-honoring, then it must allow confronting uncomfortable questions and have the courage to respond and change”.
Each chapter includes questions for reflection and illustrative stories of local churches from Australia and around the world.
This volume is important reading for students and teachers of mission, ecclesiology and ecumenism. I will be adding it to the preferred reading list for an introductory course on missional church: new paradigms for mission. But it is also an important book for practitioners to stretch their minds with theological foundations from a dozen seminal thinkers of different church streams and their implications for a thoroughly missional ecclesiology that is life-giving, mission-forged, Gospel-shaped, Christ-centred, Spirit-empowered, Trinity-imaging dialogical and courageous about “being salt, light and a city”.
This review was originally published in Australian eJournal of Theology 21:2 (2014).
To buy this book, follow this link – Salt, Light, and a City: Introducing Missional Ecclesiology
