{"id":4573,"date":"2015-04-11T11:47:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T11:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=4573"},"modified":"2015-04-11T12:03:01","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T12:03:01","slug":"going-glocal-faith-with-a-global-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/going-glocal-faith-with-a-global-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Glocal \u2013 Faith with a Global Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

In July of 2012, the Evangelical Alliance in the UK (United Kingdom) released the fourth in a series of survey documents on \u201c21st<\/sup> Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK.\u201d The focus of the fourth survey was on the question, \u201cThe World on our doorstep? Are we going global?\u201d[1]<\/a>The document outcomes report on the beliefs and practices of UK evangelicals to the issues that confront the worldwide church. \u201c[T]here is much to celebrate,\u201d according to Evangelical Alliance general director, Steve Clifford as he summarized the outcomes as showing \u201clittle sign of a Christianity which is merely a traditional national religion. Instead, they [survey respondents] related to a global church.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

My interest in the Evangelical Alliance\u2019s study centered on the attitudes and reactions to the global shifts through migration and immigration that has brought diverse religions and cultures to the local community. The transition to diverse and multicultural community requires adaptive change and often results in more migration when people fail the means to adjust and relate to the new community life. For the Christian individual and the church, this \u201cworld on our doorstep\u201d highlights the question, \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d[3]<\/a> The Evangelical Alliance summarizes the outcome for the evangelical church in the UK:<\/p>\n

There is a limited understanding of the world on our doorstep, and still a tendency for Christians to huddle together with others from their own culture and ethnicity. As a result many British Christians feel they are now in the minority and feel overly fearful and beleaguered.[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Evangelical Alliance study along with numerous books on the impact of \u201cworld culture\u201d phenomenon on local church ministry,[5]<\/a> suggests the need to pursue the connection between \u201cglobal\u201d and \u201cevangel,\u201d specifically in the context of diverse culture. Donald Lewis and Richard Piernard, editors of Global Evangelicalism: Theology, History & Culture in Regional Perspective<\/em>, have provided an impressive collection of articles that contributes to understanding globalization and the impact of evangelicalism on world Christianity. In the introduction the editors\u2019 note that their \u201cmain purpose is \u2026 providing a general introduction to the beliefs, practices and characteristics of evangelical Christianity.\u201d[6]<\/a> Defining relevant terms is an essential starting point according to Mark Noll in the opening chapter, \u201cDefining Evangelicalism.\u201d[7]<\/a> A glossary of terms succinctly and clearly defines significant terms used throughout the book. Noll defines the terms evangelical and evangelicalism. \u201cThe word evangelical\u201d Noll asserts, \u201cdesignates a set of beliefs, behaviors and characteristic emphases within the broad Christian tradition.\u201d [8]<\/a> The beliefs that are identifiable in the Christian tradition include: the centrality of the person and place of Jesus Christ, the Bible as sacred scripture, the joined body of believers, and the practice of baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper. To define the specific concept of evangelicalism, Noll appropriates Bebbington\u2019s four \u201cspecial marks of Evangelical religion:\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Conversionism<\/em>, the belief that lives need to be changed;<\/li>\n
  2. Activism<\/em>, the expression of the gospel in effort;<\/li>\n
  3. Biblicism<\/em>, a particular regard for the Bible;<\/li>\n
  4. And what may be called Crucicentrism<\/em>, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

    Donald Lewis, in the best chapter in the book from my perspective, \u201cGlobalization, Religion and Evangelicalism,\u201d defines globalization. Lewis states that globalization is the \u201cprocess of modernization and worldwide spread of a common culture\u201d along with the global expansion of Western nations.[10]<\/a> The development of technology that transformed travel and communication \u201ccombined to \u2018shrink\u2019 and \u2018compress\u2019 the world \u2026 link[ing] distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away\u2026\u201d[11]<\/a> Here we have the coming together, melding of the global and the local. Lewis refers to this as \u201cglocalization;\u201d the local and global culture adapt: unplanned, uncontrolled with no adaptation the one<\/em> way. It is adaptive change, culturally diverse \u201cyet resisting the homogenizing tendencies of globalization\u201d and the isolating tendencies of localization.<\/p>\n

    How does the church witness faithfully in a glocal multicultural neighborhood? Perhaps the greatest challenge the Christian community must confront is to interpret the gospel for the diverse cultural context where they live.<\/p>\n

    William Shenk in the essay, \u201cThe Theological Impulse of Evangelical Expansion,\u201d places the cultural contextualizing of the gospel as a long standing implication to faithful Christian living.[12]<\/a> Shenk refers to two seventeenth century pastors, Johann Arndt and Lewis Bayly, who wrestled with the failure of scholarly knowledge and ecclesiastical practices to relate to the \u201c\u2019practical wisdom\u2019 which is gained from life experience.\u201d[13]<\/a> Shenk observes that the pastors \u201c\u2026 noted a deep separation between what people confessed when they recited the creed in the parish church and the way they lived their daily lives. The cultural norms by which people lived could not be reconciled with the gospel.\u201d Through spiritual writing, pastoral leadership, and spiritual renewal in Christian living there was a change in seventeenth and eighteenth Evangelicalism. \u201cReligious life and practice was inexorably being separated from the ecclesiastical life represented by the church.\u201d[14]<\/a> This concept is very relevant in twenty-first century evangelical Christianity. It sounds much like our contemporary phrase, \u201cThe church has left the building!\u201d<\/p>\n

    In Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, Lewis and Pierard have brought together concepts that can guide Christianity in the twenty-first century; from both a world and local perspective. The evangelical, evangelion<\/em> or good news<\/em>, has historically been the message (belief and theology) that accomplished God\u2019s plan of salvation to all nations, peoples and cultures. There is a significant lesson in this truth. Globalization in any form cannot conquer the Christian faith. By contrast a world Christianity can move into the local community and engage culture notwithstanding the diversity. We need to redefine our concepts of global and world. Lamin Senneh clarifies this distinction:<\/p>\n

    World Christianity is not one thing, but a variety of indigenous responses through more or less effective local idioms<\/em>, but in any case without necessarily the European Enlightenment frame. “Global Christianity,” on the other hand, is the faithful replication of Christian forms and patterns developed in Europe.[15]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Is it possible that Global Evangelicalism<\/em> through its Regional Perspective<\/em> gives \u00a0twenty-first century evangelicalism the key to local church ministry in a multicultural neighborhood? Kevin Vanhoozer confronts the evangelical church this way:<\/p>\n

    If theology is to serve the church, the new challenge is how to give local expression to the understanding of faith while at the same time coping with globalization \u2026 The bad global is the power of the cultural \u2018one\u2019 (homogenization); the good global is the awareness of the cultural \u2018many.\u2019[16]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Noll states that Evangelical Christian, \u201cAt its core, it is a faith with a global vision<\/em>.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> Evangelical Alliance, \u201c21st<\/sup> Century Evangelicals: The world on our doorstep?\u201d Evangelical Alliance: Better Together<\/em> (2011)\u00a0 accessed April 5, 2015, http:\/\/www.eauk.org\/church\/resources\/snapshot\/the-world-on-our-doorstep.cfm<\/a>, p.3.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a> Ibid., 8.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a> Ibid., 18.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a> See for an example: Branson and Mart\u00ednez, Churches, Cultures & Leadership: A Practical Theology of Congregations and Ethnicities<\/em> (Downers Grove, II: InterVarsity Press, 2011; Roxburgh, Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing, 2011); Stetzer and Putman, Breaking the Missional Code:Your Church Can Become a Missionary in Your Community<\/em> (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006); Craig Ott and Harold Netland, eds. Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006); Lamin Senneh, Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel beyond the West<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2003).<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a> Donald Lewis and Richard Pierard, eds. Global Evangelicalism: Theology, History and Culture in Regional Perspective<\/em> Kindle, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 113.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a> Mark A. Noll, \u201cDefining Evangelicalism\u201d in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, 154.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a> Ibid., 160-184.<\/p>\n

    [9]<\/a> D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 190s <\/em>Kindle (New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 1989), 3 (emphasis mine).<\/p>\n

    [10]<\/a> Donald M. Lewis, \u201cGlobalization, Religion and Evangelicalism\u201d in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, 880.<\/p>\n

    [11]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [12]<\/a> Willim R. Shenk, \u201cThe Theological Impose of Evangelical Expansion\u201d in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, 494.<\/p>\n

    [13]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [14]<\/a> Ibid., 528.<\/p>\n

    [15]<\/a> Lamin Senneh, Whose Religion Is Christianity?: The Gospel beyond the West<\/em> Kindle ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2003), 217 (emphases mine).<\/p>\n

    [16]<\/a> Levin J. Vanhoozer, \u201cOne Rule to Rule Them All?\u201d Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 99.<\/p>\n

    [17]<\/a> Mark A. Noll, \u201cDefining Evangelicalism\u201d in Global Evangelicalism<\/em>, 183.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In July of 2012, the Evangelical Alliance in the UK (United Kingdom) released the fourth in a series of survey documents on \u201c21st Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK.\u201d The focus of the fourth survey was on the question, \u201cThe World on our doorstep? Are we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[495,621],"class_list":["post-4573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp-lgp4","tag-lewispierard","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4573"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4576,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions\/4576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}