Living at the Crossroads A Faithful and Relevant Witness in 生活在十字路口的忠实和有关证人.ppt

Living at the Crossroads: A Faithful, Relevant Witness Living at the Crossroads Chapter 8 Comprehensive Vision for Cultural Engagement Jesus Christ is Creator and Redeemer of all things Salvation is restorative and comprehensive Church is called to witness to this comprehensive salvation Evangelicalism and Comprehensive Salvation Early 20th century: Salvation otherworldly, individualistic, dualistic Retreat from cultural engagement Did not see gospel as transforming power of all of human life Retreat into Private Religion As our concern over rampant secularization increases, we may in fashioning a missiology of Western culture easily be seduced into concentrating on the “religious” aspect only, leaving the rest to the secular powers, not least because these powers exert massive pressures on the church to limit itself to the soul of the individual. This is, after all, in keeping with the Enlightenment worldview: religion is a private affair, its truth claims are relative and have no place in the public sphere of “facts.” But Christian theology itself also contributed to this notion, as it increasingly individualized, interiorized, ecclesiasticized, and privatized salvation (David Bosch). Evangelicalism and Comprehensive Salvation: Turnaround in late 20th c. Carl F. H. Henry challenged narrow mission of the church Challenge to Evangelicals Whereas once the redemptive gospel was a world-changing message, now it was narrowed to a world-resisting message. . . . Fundamentalism in revolting against the Social Gospel seemed also to revolt against the Christian social imperative. . . . It does not challenge the injustices of the totalitarianisms, the secularisms of modern education, the evils of racial hatred, the wrongs of current labor-management relations, and inadequate bases of international dealings. Evangelicalism and Comprehensive Salvation: Turnaround in late 20th c. Carl F. H. Henry challenged narrow mission of the church Lausanne Covenant (1974) and World