Missional Dynamics: Righteousness & Justice
Last year, when representing YWAM at local church on their missions weekend, Kim & I had the opportunity of listening the guest speaker, James Cantelon. During his message he shared a story about his time pastoring a significant and large Evangelical congregation in Jerusalem. An all too common experience in his position was to respond to Christians showing up at his door with “prophetic words” from the Lord, most of them bizarre. Inspired by one such encounter (where God supposedly spoke to a woman in Texas through her teddy-bear telling to go to Jerusalem), Cantelon decided make a thorough study of the Old Testament prophets/prophecies, a common source cited by these delusional fanatics.
What emerged for him was a surprise. He already knew that Biblical prophecy had far more to do with “forth-telling” than “fore-telling”, but he saw two themes consistent throughout- a call for Israel to a) return to right relationship with God and b) return to a right relationship with their neighbours. In essence, the message was about righteousness and justice. (For a fuller exploration of his ideas, get his excellent book “When God Stood Up: A Christian Response To AIDS In Africa”).
I believe that this is clearly reflected in the Jesus Creed (ht: Scot McKnight) to love God and love your neighbour. It is easy in our culture, where the word “love” is thrown around so flippantly, to fail to see the connection between love and justice. Certainly we know that being unjust would be unloving, but we fail to see how significant the connection between the two is. In a study of Scripture, we begin to see the theme of justice being central in its emphasis on protecting, serving and loving the marginalized and standing against the systems/powers of injustice in the world.
When we consider, then, what it means to fulfill Christ’s command to love God and others, we must read it through this more thorough Biblical understanding. No longer are we able to see the so called “social gospel” as secondary (or wrong) compared to the “salvation of souls”. Without the whole message of the Gospel and the transformative life of righteousness and justice it requires, we end up preaching and living an anemic expression of faith.
Of course, just as we in the Evangelical church have erred with out under-emphasis on justice, so too can we risk swinging to the opposite extreme of under-emphasizing righteousness. Notice, I am not saying over-emphasizing or over-valuing either, as I am not sure, ultimately, that is possible. It is should never be one at the expense of the other, but both mutually being the life blood of missional, incarnational living.
Therefore, as we seek to discover and live out all that it means to be missional, I believe it is critical that we see these two foundations as critical within that. To incarnationally fulfill our vocation as the Body of Christ, the Church, we must remember and embrace the mutually dependent dynamics of righteousness and justice.
What do you think?
jamie,
something about this post of yours rings true in my heart. i recall stephen shields at faithblogs (formerly known as emergesque) posting of this often. keeping the two in balance. not being afraid to talk about righteousness, even on a personal level (which many of us who are exploring our faith more tend to be afraid to do).
i have too many thoughts and too many ‘prophets’ speaking ‘words’ in my community right now to speak at any lenght on this. however, i’m grateful for the book reference.
thanks again, and thanks again for your insight for our trip to bulgaria. much appreciated:)
brad
Brad,
My pleasure. I may develop this post more thoroughly. Have you gone on the trip yet? Let me know how it turns out.
Peace,
Jamie
fantastic jamie. this so excellent and well balanced. coming from the YWAM world, it always seemed most of YWAM was a little one-sided (in my circles). I am glad you are out there.
tell the story.
peace.
Thanks Joe. YWAM is a diverse group. There are all sorts of us out there (wink).
Peace,
Jamie
Hey Jamie, there’s a lot there I can agree with, maybe we are not so far apart.
Couple of questions, you said: “In a study of Scripture, we begin to see the theme of justice being central in its emphasis on protecting, serving and loving the marginalized and standing against the systems/powers of injustice in the world.”
How does a “missional” Christian stand against the systems/powers of injustice in the world? What are the weapons of your warfare?
I don’t have a problem with social gospel but if it isn’t accompanied with the proclamation of truth, the sharing of the Gospel message, then it makes no sense to me from a Christian perspective.
If we are truly in Christ and He is in us, if we are truly saved, that should spur us on to share the Good News that can set people free like it has set us free. After all the Bible tells us that he who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son does not have life and the wrath of God remains upon him. If we truly have the Son it makes no sense that we wouldn’t share His truth with others.
That is always my question to the emergents I have dialogued with. They communicate this humanitarian concern they have, but the proclamation of truth is not big on their agenda. That makes no sense to me. Its only through the truth of Jesus Christ that people can be set free forever, free from the penalty of their sin, for which the wrath of God remains upon them.
So, I don’t know much about you Jamie and I will look forward to seeing how you might develop this post.
Cheers,
George
Great post, Jamie. I was reminded of a phrase John Goldingay used in our exegetical study of Isaiah at Fuller: “A prophet is someone who knows what time it is.” (He was quoting someone else, but I can never remember who…) Sometimes the prophetic call is to repent; other times, to worship; still others to cry out to God for rescue or to cling together in hope. God does not move and work within the bounds of our understanding: the prophet is one who is used by God to point us toward the thing God is doing and how we can participate. And the prophets in our midst are God’s grace to us: to invite us to open our eyes and see; to leave prostitutes and pigs and return home; to sell what we have to inherit treasure unimaginable.
George,
Great question. In fact, if you will be patient with me, I will answer this in a follow up post on Monday. So stay tuned.
I will comment on one of your statements though. Speaking of proclamation evangelism you said:
“That is always my question to the emergents I have dialogued with. They communicate this humanitarian concern they have, but the proclamation of truth is not big on their agenda.”
There are definitely some within the emergent-missional conversation who have perhaps gone too far in their attempt to compensate for the over-emphasis of propositional/proclamation evangelism (and there has been over-emphasis). However, the majority of emerging-missional types see proclamation of the Gospel central, but would argue that there are more methods of “proclamation” than presenting it in propositional terms. They would argue (and I would have to agree) that the means by which we have done so in the last century or so is more a reflection of modernism than Biblical modeling.
Anyway, more on Monday. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
Erika,
Well said. Thanks!
Peace,
Jamie
jamie,
we just returned from the trip. i posted a thanks to you and the guys for your insight, and i will be posting on the trip sometime next week.
in reference to your comment regarding proclaiming the gospel through living rather than ‘just’ propositionally…a hardy amen!
brad
Thanks Brad!
Jamie, I remember someone (and it wasn’t Brian McLaren lol….) saying that they had been asked “Pastor, all this social action stuff is great and right but when do we start preaching the gospel.” The guy replied “we already are”. I think there’s a lot to that. By our actions we point to so many of the attributes of God – love, grace, mercy, restoration, redemption and righteousness. Makes me think about what message “I already am” preaching. Good post, thanks.
Duncan,
Well said.
Peace,
Jamie