Mission in the Kingdom

April 25, 2008

Joe,

As I have been thumbing through Kingdom Come, the book which I reviewed yesterday, I feel compelled to add one more thing. I suppose it is a kind of caution, for the sake of balance. I said yesterday that this book provides a much needed kick in the pants to a kind of Christian who only regards Kingdom work as getting souls saved, yet is indifferent to the cosmic scope of God’s work of redemption in Jesus.

But Wakabayashi’s emphasis on a holistic approach toward spreading God’s kingdom does run the risk of minimizing the importance of evangelism. There are several places where Wakabayashi tries to ensure that he will not be misunderstood in this way. He often says things like, ‘I’m not saying that we shouldn’t care about calling people to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins…we should!’ Nevertheless, I think the greatest shortcoming of the book is that it tends to minimize the radical nature of man’s alienation from God, which is dealt with primarily through the task of traditional evangelism. Let me explain what I mean.

On page 84 of Kingdom Come, Wakabayashi writes,

‘I suspect that because many Christians think that the most important thing they can do is to help others find salvation in Christ, the Christian church’s mission is targeted toward the salvation of lost people. Much less significance is attached to being an agent of the kingdom in and around us in all of our interactions, responsibilities and activities.’

Now remember that Wakabayashi’s goal is to awaken a slumbering church, which cares much about souls going to heaven, but is often indifferent toward feeding the poor, freeing the oppressed, caring for orphans, providing good education for our children and creating social systems that are more in line with God’s intentions for restoring the whole lost creation.

But I think Wakabayashi errs when he addresses this failure of the Church by suggesting that the problem is that Christians think helping others find salvation in Christ is the most important thing. As I said, I think this ignores the radical nature of man’s alienation from God.

I take the word ‘radical’ as Tim Keller does in his excellent book Ministries of Mercy (review forthcoming!). Like Wakabayashi, Keller is also committed to seeing Christians live out a more holistic approach to spreading God’s Kingdom. He sees personal evangelism and mercy ministry as both being means to the end of the spreading of God’s Kingdom. This places a high level of importance on both evangelism and social justice.

But Keller wisely identifies that the forgiveness of sins through Christ’s substitutionary death is the radical need of all humans. By radical he means going to the root of a thing. And it is man’s alienation from God that is the root from which every other human misery flows. Therefore, in Keller’s view (and I agree wholeheartedly), ‘The more radical ministry to the condition of man is to proclaim the word of faith. There is no more fundamental means to cut the root of sin and death than with the verbal message of the gospel.’

While many people think evangelism and the Word are more important than deed-based social justice, this is based on an unbiblical belief that the spiritual is more important than the physical. Both are important, and Christ’s redemption aims at restoring both. But because man’s alienation from God is the radical need, Kingdom-minded people realize that global renewal of the whole creation is grounded in God’s saving activity with human beings through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. As humans go, so goes the whole creation. When Adam fell, the whole creation was cursed. And now the whole creation waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19), because our final redemption will bring the creation to its final redemption.

For all I know, Wakabayashi affirms all of this. But, in my opinion, the greatest shortcoming of his book is that it is not clear enough in addressing how man’s alienation from God is the radical root from which all other Kingdom advancement must flow. I still think it is a helpful book worth reading, but I hope this qualification provides a bit of balance to my very positive review from yesterday.

Larry

Posted by Larry | Filed Under Random Musings, Seeking Him