A Dialog with Ralph Winter et al from Mission Shift, Essay III
In this look ahead at the future of Evangelicals in Mission, Winter begins by differentiating between “earlier Evangelicalism, which was characterized by both spiritual and social concern, and the latter Evangelicalism, which emphasized evangelism predominantly” (p. 164). In Winter’s timeline, socially conscious and spiritually sensitive “First Inheritance Evangelicalism” started near the First Great Awakening. It’s holistic approach finally met its demise by the time D.L. Moody had risen to prominence in 1875. Winter calls this post-Moody period “Second Inheritance Evangelicalism”. “You don’t polish the brass on a sinking ship” became their modus operandi and frequently ours after this time.
Winter paints a sobering picture of how Moody’s approach succeeded in building a network of Bible institutes and churches that congratulated themselves on their orthodoxy while ceding cultural impact to those they despised as “worldly”. Winter, along with a younger generation of Christians, hopes this strategy of planned pious social irrelevancy will be rejected as a more “Full Spectrum Evangelicalism” reminiscent of the First Inheritance makes a comeback. Winter is clear, though, that he envisions an Evangelicalism where evangelism and social concern work together in a virtuous cycle where one spawns the other in clockwork fashion. But beyond individual good works – which all agree flow from conversion as surely as Ephesians 2:10 follows 2:8-9 – Winter argues that for the cause of “Doxological Mission”where our goal must be organized good works well above the level of individuals (pp. 174-175).
Winter paints a picture of the Evangelist Moody as a dyslexic hayseed who practiced what he preached in trusting God to use a quite common man for His glory (pp. 175-176). Though the Christianity of America’s founding was a largely middle and upper class phenomenon, Moody succeeded in winning the working man who had no use for fine intellectual distinctions and niceties though. The institutions founded in the wake of Moody’s work like the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in 1908 only matured into Biola University a century later. Converts from the working class after the trauma of the Civil War had little hope of shaping whole worlds and looked to heaven instead (p. 177). Indeed, they even embraced en masse a then new eschatology (pretribulation rapture premillennialism) that jibed with their longings and pessimism.
Evangelicals have subsequently re-entered positions of civic responsibility as their institutions and social position matured. Their privatized piety, however, left them unprepared for such responsibility and they were easily co-opted by secular movements offering perspectives they hoped would fill the void in their functional world view (p. 178). As Evangelicals are coming to this point where they will either be revitalized or die, Winter notes the variety of missiological challenges facing them. He trusts the word kingdom may re-enter the everyday Evangelical vocabulary. He is thankful that “social action” ministries like World Vision and Compassion International are not suspect. But what is lacking, Winter states, is any genuine theology for integrating justification by faith and good works. Yet today the Evangelical mind often harbors a guilty conscience about its good works, however much they might glorify God and lead to personal conversions in those we serve (pp. 182-183).
As sickening as some Evangelicals will find it, Winter lauds Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates and Bono as having the kind of gargantuan vision believers ought to have when it comes to good works (pp. 186 ff). He hints that Evangelicalism’s present activity in charitable ministry is one advantage over resurgent worldwide Islam that should be more thoroughly exploited. If the modern Evangelical vision enlarges, and its theology can embrace kingdom obedience as fiercely as a previous generation embraced premillennial pessimism, Winter sees an extremely bright future for Evangelical Missions (p. 190).
Scott Moreau’s response highlights the strength of Winter’s vision while nudging us back to reality. Quoting the author of The White Man’s Burden, Moreau reminds us that many of the West’s grandiose – but ultimately ineffective – projects operate with the donor as the actual customer. These projects fail at the point of effectiveness and disregard the situation “on the ground”. If long lasting, these efforts succeed only because they do effectively meet the donor’s need to “feel needed”. Furthermore, Winter’s vision depends on many assumptions that are increasingly invalid. Moreau, then, questions the possibility of effectively pursuing Winter’s agenda for mission, as it is stated.
Christopher Little – whom Winter quotes – responds by noting that “evangelism only” funding for missions is already dwarfed by the growth in donations designated for alleviating human suffering (p. 205). The Western church and, especially the European church, must arguably be reminded that they exist for something BESIDES simply meeting human needs. Instead, our real crisis in the West is that the church must be reminded that it exists to bear an evangelistic witness. Modern evangelicals (as the World Council of Churches before them) are dangerously close to adopting the “kingdom” motif in a way that forgets that – for Jesus – “Kingdom” cannot exist without conversion and the church (John 3:5; Matthew 28:18-20). Furthermore, the kingdom never did exist as an end in itself, but for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 15:24ff). Little, then, questions whether Winter’s agenda can “keep the main thing (gospel proclamation), the main thing.”
Mike Barnett echoes Little’s call for evangelism and discipleship to have their proper – primary – place. One can’t organize Christian good works as Winter proposes unless there are Christians to do those good works. He notes that Winter’s vision is “upon us” but critique’s Winter at a point not mentioned in his essay. Winter was known for his distinction of the church as modality (the church considered as a whole) and as sodality (the church consisting in a subset, i.e. as a “parachurch” ministry). Barnett is not fearful Winter’s agenda will be corrupted as long as the operative definition of the church is as modality versus church as sodality.
J. Mark Terry reminds us that Donald McGavran complained as early as 1955 that there was already too much attention to humanitarian efforts, and not enough attention to church planting. Missionaries were perhaps more sensitive to doing word and deed evangelism than Winter’s history admits. Terry affirms Winter’s thesis ultimately but complains that Winter does not deliver on the predictions promised in the title of his essay or comment on trends emerging at the time of its writing. Terry aims to fill that gap by discussing a wide variety of trends as they impact missions from Globalization to Orality to Business as Mission and Member Care (care for missionaries). The trend he mentions in closing is the fact that he expects most missionaries by 2050 to be sent from the “Majority World”. Assuming that is so, we might rightly wonder how they would react to Winter’s vision as they seem to be the ones upon whom its success will depend.
Ed Stetzer reveals the disconnect between Winter’s actual essay and what the editors had hoped he’d write. Playing the cards Winter has dealt him, Stetzer responds to the essay delivered. He voices his preference for “Second Inheritance Evangelicalism” and notes he finds it the solution for the deficiencies of the first. Essentially he questions Winter for encouraging First Inheritance Evangelicalism at all.
This reviewer notes though that “Second Inheritance Evangelicalism” started as a movement within a completely different cultural context than “First Inheritance Evangelicalism”. As a relatively powerless working class phenomenon that has increasingly come to maturity, it can no longer remain culturally aloof. It MUST develop an evangelical theology of civic leadership if it wishes to retain its own Christian integrity and not be co-opted by the political machinations of the Right or the Left. Both sides of the spectrum are, after all, desperate to capture the energy and resources of evangelicals for their own secular agendas which value Christian compassion but despise its message of the Cross.
Hesselgrave enters the discussion with his “second thoughts” and lauds a number of the changes he sees in Winter’s mature thinking. Hesselgrave is not ready, however, to put his imprimatur on Winter automatically, however. To that end, he evaluates Winter through the lenses of St. Paul’s “Postulates” of mission. He finds Winter to be imprecise at several points and, inadvertently perhaps, providing ammunition for the ecumenical liberals who denied the very Gospel Winter had spent a lifetime promoting. In the end, he embraces Winter’s newfound concern for good works as adornment for the Gospel message while cautioning against an unthinking embrace of the “New” Winter, without proper reference to the “Old” Winter.
My Response:
Ralph Winter’s hopes for the future of Evangelical Mission are appropriate on a number of levels.
Winter has done an excellent job in linking the role of good works to the larger missionary enterprise. He has opened the door to an analysis of the various historical forms of “Evangelicalism” and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Likewise his work promotes a larger discussion of Church History and its implication for missions. Lastly he has challenged us to “attempt great things for God and expect great things from God”, to borrow William Carey’s words.
As the responses show, Winter has set off a lively discussion! Each response makes an important contribution to refining Winter’s premises so that we do not stray into Christless activism. Perhaps this example will suffice to show the fear provoked by Winter’s bare proposal:
The largest worker’s cooperative in the world is the Mondragon Corporation of the Basque region of Spain, founded in 1956. It was begun as an entirely worker owned cooperative based on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. It’s creation was, in fact, encouraged by a Roman priest, Father José Arizmendiarrieta. While it was built on Catholic Social Teaching, it is not today known as a “Christian” company in the way, say, “Chik Fil A” is considered “Christian”. In fact, the success of Mondragon is more likely studied in the United States by those who are hostile to the Christian (or at least the Evangelical) Church! In this regard, Mondragon is a living example of what many of the responses to Winter fear: the establishment of successful, even world changing, institutions that have no long term regard for the Lord Jesus Christ whose Good News established them!
The discussion’s value also lies in reminding modern Evangelicals about several crucial issues related to mission:
1. Modern evangelicals are still essentially ahistorical. This was my criticism of Van Engen’s essay as well. “Church History” in evangelical seminaries is usually little more than an exercise on “where others went wrong”. In the end, the goal for most seminarians is to memorize basic dates and themes to pass the class while remembering that all moderns need to do is recreate the “New Testament Church”, which is impossible. Like Winter, modern Evangelicals only perk their ears up in historical discussions when the topic seems to be turning towards something familiar. Perhaps that’s why we have spent so much time focusing on little more than 10% of the Church’s history in this discussion of mission.
If the heirs of “Second Inheritance Evangelicalism” don’t want to “go back” and thought they were the “solution” to the failures of “First Inheritance Evangelicalism”, do they want to go back to a time before there were hospitals? The First Inheritance Evangelical Deaconess movement (along with Roman Catholic nuns and other Evangelical “sisterhoods”) enabled hospitals to function – not well meaning entrepreneurs. What else might have been missed in this discussion of future of Evangelical Mission in our casual approach to Church History?
The solution is an unpopular one: theological education. Second Inheritance Evangelicals created “Bible Institutes” because they feared too much “education” might make them “liberal”. Indeed, education without spiritual formation (discipleship) is deadening. My suspicion, though, is that pastors who know more about the development of doctrine, the importance of the church and the sacraments, and not just the shibboleths emanating from his branch of the Evangelical Ghetto will be less likely to separate Word and Deed. Why? This pastor will sense an obligation to be true to the faith “once for all delivered to the saints”.
2. Disdain for the Church and Sacraments ultimately undercuts Christian Mission. While it is useful to use Winter’s schema of modality and sodality to describe how parachurch structures relate to the larger church as a whole – the distinction is subject to abuse. Forgetting many positive contributions for a moment, we see this abuse in the way “parachurch” organizations consider themselves able to “make disciples” when they they do not (and should not) practice the sacraments. As a result of their actions, “discipleship” has become an exercise in curriculum, acquiring knowledge, engaging in certain practices of devotion or evangelism, but NOT grafting people into the Body of Christ as a whole. When one no longer fits into the parachurch organization’s target group, the “discipleship” learned is easily written off as appropriate to a previous stage of life only, instead of a stepping stone to lifelong discipleship in the Church.
When we can mentally separate discipleship from life in the Church, we have the tendency to separate our life of discipleship from Christ Himself. This means we live in a constant state of self-reliance where it seems “natural” to separate what we do from the power of Christ’s life at work within us. We have been given the sacrament of baptism to concretely exhibit to us what it means to put on Christ. We have been given the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to likewise exhibit what it means to feed on Christ and be sustained by His Life. These outward signs represent to us what God does to and for those who follow Jesus Christ as members of His Body, the Church. “Excommunication” used to mean something before “discipleship” and “life in the church” were separated.
Today, if our only Christian interaction is primarily through a parachurch “sodality” (or in a church that has little value for the sacraments or “ordinances”), we have already severed the link between the Christian Life and the gifts Christ has given the church to understand what it means to have “Christ in us the hope of Glory” (Colossians 1:27). This severing is the first step in replacing a supernatural view of Christianity with a naturalist view that becomes a Christless “Social Gospel”. Modern evangelicals who diminish the sacraments may not have renounced supernaturalism yet, but it is likely because they have replaced Christ’s gifts with substitute experiences they find emotionally or spiritually gratifying. If they ever lose faith in that substitute sacrament, they too will quickly focus solely on the good works they can produce because – long before – they separated those good deeds from a vital union with the Risen Christ declared in the Holy Scriptures.
In short, Evangelical Missions is more likely to replace the Gospel with humanistic good works to the degree Discipleship is separated from the Church and the Sacraments.
3. Projects meeting Winter’s criteria have already failed.
As Moreau notes, many grandiose plans have been attempted in the past but have only served the donors who wished to “feel good,” instead of the intended recipients. One need not look too far into the past to witness such a Evangelical failure.
The legacy of Bruce Wilkinson’s “Dream for Africa” might be an interesting case study for Winter’s proposal. It seemed to meet all the criteria Winter advocated – It was a massive outpouring of good works designed to wipe out HIV/AIDS, it’s intent was to link such good works with the Gospel, and it was a massive work on the scale envisioned by Winter. And nobody would question the individual’s credentials as a “Bible Believing Evangelical”.
Christianity Today recounts the story:
For months, Wilkinson had negotiated with the Swazi government for permission to launch his African Dream Center. The center would house, educate, and feed children whose parents had died of AIDS. It would also have a golf course and other tourist attractions. Swaziland, located between Mozambique and South Africa, is one of Africa’s smallest nations and has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates. Dream for Africa had hoped to house 10,000 children on a 32,500-acre complex by the end of 2005.
The proposal was outlined in a complex 40-page document that Dream for Africa gave the Swazi government a mere five days to approve, the Journal says. The approval never happened. Then, in September 2005, Wilkinson flew to New York to meet King Mswati III. “The king’s chief of staff … agreed to set up the audience, but only at a time that would have required Mr. Wilkinson to wait in New York a few extra days,” according to the Journal. Apparently, Wilkinson’s schedule did not permit such flexibility.
Less than a week later, Wilkinson abruptly announced his resignation as president of Dream for Africa. He named as the new president Ian Maxwell, a Toronto marketing executive who had joined Wilkinson’s staff four months earlier.
This stillborn work continues after a fashion as “Heart For Africa” which resembles other existing child sponsorship ministries. The question remains though: What went wrong? What could be done to avert the problem? It would seem that those advocating Winter’s vision must account for failures of this sort so that donors might have confidence that their funds are not squandered in projects that merely sound glorious.
Before signing on to Winter’s admittedly exciting vision, it will pay to ask if the results promised are likely to be realized. Advocates for these plans should be forced to grapple with the “Dream For Africa” case study and explain how they intend to avoid a similar outcome.
In closing, I appreciate the opportunity provided by Dr. Stetzer to participate in this discussion. The book Mission Shift should be widely used as a modern missions text that gets directly to the heart of the issues in Evangelical Missions today!
Chuck Huckaby Pastors St. Andrew’s Church – Mission Lawrence in Lawrenceburg, TN. His website is http://MissionLawrence.org
