Book Review: A Generous Orthodoxy Part 8 of ?? With Graphics!

Missional

Starting with this chapter, McLaren explains what kind of Christian he is - one (or two) terms at a time. The first term he uses is missional. One way of looking at a missional approach to Christianity is that it seeks to offer a third way to do Christianity. That is, something other than the "conservative" approach that McLaren feels overemphasizes the "personal savior" aspect, or the "liberal" approach which he indicates has rejected aspects of orthodoxy in its engagement with modernity.

The term missional also applies to the concept that theology should be seen as a study within Christian mission rather than seeing missiology as a subset of theology. It also includes an embarrassment over how some parts of the world were treated during the colonial age (when Christian missionaries often worked to suppress local customs) as well as a greater appreciation for the contributions to Christian thought and practice by believers in former colonial nations.

The main use of the term missional, however, is to refer to an approach to Christianity that McLaren sums up as "to be and make disciples of Jesus Christ in authentic community for the good of the world." This is presented in contrast to the common me-centered Christianity in the U.S.

Basically, this me-centered approach looks like this (the graphics in this entry are my imitation of graphics in this chapter):







In this approach, the most important things are my soul, my destiny in heaven, my maturity, and my rewards. When people who take this approach to Christianity do evangelism, it is often appeals to people who want to know what's in it for them, and tends to produce self-centered Christians who in turn produce communities that are too self-interested.

In contrast to that, the missional approach would look like this:







In this approach, the emphasis is on joining "Jesus in expressing God's love for the whole world, to follow Jesus in his mission of saving love for the world." This view sees the Jesus' message as good news - both for believers and non-belivers. An example is what God told Abraham in Genesis 22:17-18: "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." If this approach were followed, it would have the effect of freeing oppressed people, freeing poor people from poverty, sinners being loved instead of resented, etc.

One result of the missional approach is that what some have viewed as a dichotomy - evangelism and social action - is resolved. I have normally said that both evangelism and social action need to be done, but some groups have fallen into thinking that either social action or evangelism are seen as worthless. However, the missional approach takes this line of thinking a step further than I did, social action and evangelism are really the same thing - the Church's mission on earth.

McLaren also spends several pages in this chapter refusing to label himself a universalist (basically everyone goes to heaven) or an exclusivist (basically only truly professing Christians go to heaven). I pretty much agree with him, that it's not really something we need to worry about and we can let God handle that sort of thing.