Following Christ in a New Age
Reflecting back to move toward what’s next
In the late 1980’s, as I was edging closer to turning 18, I began to feel the weight of making adult decisions that I knew would likely set the course for the next phase of my life. I remember having a sincere discussion with my dad and asking for his help with identifying a decision-making process that would allow me to avoid major mistakes and help me progressively make better decisions along the way. There were a few options on the table for what to do after I graduated, and I wanted his help in thinking them through. When I asked my dad about this, he sat quietly for a few minutes, and I could tell he was contemplating, almost struggling with how to respond. After a long pause, he quietly told me that making my own decisions was part of growing up and that he couldn’t really provide me with any additional help beyond the upbringing he had already given me (behave morally, work hard, go to church, witness to others about Jesus). It was the first time in my life that my dad hadn't just told me what to do. It was the first time I remember seeing him in a position where he was at a loss for how to instruct me. I think part of him knew that making good decisions was more complex than this, but he didn’t have it all clear in his own mind, and he didn’t know how to communicate it in a way that would help me make specific decisions.
Fast forward 34 years, my dad is now gone, and my own son is 17, and I have a clear framework and full set of tools to help him make good decisions both now, and with his post-high school plans. He and I have conversations regularly and have intentionally engaged in some pointed study and planning. It made me realize just how much more I understand than my dad did, and how much better equipped I am than he was. I don’t blame my dad for not helping me more. I’m not angry that he wasn’t able to provide me with a framework for addressing the complexities of adult life. (Although there was a period of my life where I used this as an excuse for making bad decisions.) I firmly believe that he did everything he could to help prepare me to be a man and go out into the world. He wasn't intentionally withholding information from me, he had just exhausted the depths of his knowledge and experience, and to be honest, I think he felt a bit frustrated by that. My reaction is actually the opposite of blame. I'm elated that I've had the opportunity to learn under the care of so many wise men and women over the past few decades who intentionally invested in me and my family, helping me to gain a clear understanding so that I feel well-prepared to help my son in ways that my dad was unable to help me (even though I’m still learning and figuring out new ways to help my son all the time).
I think there’s a similar point to be made about Christ’s Grand Strategy (a.k.a. The Way of Christ and His Apostles - TWCA)1 and its relationship to Christendom. Part of what I have learned over the years in the network of leaders I’ve been privileged to work among, is that Jesus has a singular plan a sola strategia that is born out in the patterns from the book of Acts and the principles and processes we see there and in Paul’s letters. In the early twentieth century, missionary and scholar, Roland Allen wrote about it, coining the term, The Way of Christ and His Apostles (TWCA). TWCA was so effective and powerful that it shaped the life and expansion of the church for nearly 300 years, exploding from a few small, scattered gatherings in Jerusalem, to an empire-wide network of mature churches and leaders; and even though churches began to move away from TWCA after about 300 A.D., it was still powerful enough that it paved the way for Christendom, which otherwise could not have existed. Christendom, then, provided the “singular narrative and imaginative vision”2 for all of Western Civilization (and its territories) for 1,700 years. Those faithful followers of Christ who lived under Christendom's influence behaved... well... kind of like my dad. For the most part, they acted with sincerity, doing everything they could to shape believers and churches around the ideas, concepts, institutions and traditions that they themselves knew and that they hoped would provide intergenerational stability. They exhausted themselves and their knowledge, sometimes going to extremes to preserve their traditions. Yet there were some, even in the midst of it, who were able to see something more, something those before them hadn’t understood, and they creatively critiqued the thinking and practices they saw around them, clearly articulating an understanding that challenged and shaped aspects of Christian thought in new ways (in the 20th century alone you have Lewis, Kung, Allen, Wright, Kaiser, Bosch, and so many more.). Yet today we find ourselves no longer living under Christendom's deep influence. It hasn’t disappeared from the landscape entirely, but it no longer provides the “singular narrative and imaginative vision” for Western Civilization. Yet churches have grown so accustomed to its traditions and rituals that they have come to equate Christendom forms with "the faith"… to think of it as the primary tradition of faith in Christ. In short, many of us today are still trying to live out our fathers’ faith traditions, even though the Spirit has worked to give us a fresh understanding of TWCA and has given us a new time to live out His plan.
We still need to be able to look at the text of Scripture, then look around us, and make decisions differently than our predecessors did. It is up to us then, not to long for another time or reminisce about easier, more comfortable days. We aren’t to sit in judgment of those who preceded us, or of those currently clinging to the familiarity of Christendom, but to lead the way by example and to perhaps "provoke to jealousy" (Rom 11:11-16) those who will, only with much convincing, uneasily loosen their grip on the exuviae of Christendom institutions, which if they delay too long, may cause them to miss out on vibrant participation in the living organism Christ is building (John 10:7-10).
To quote a couple of my favorite literary characters...
"“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo." "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”3
We have to decide whether or not we will accept the challenge to meet head-on the time God has placed us in, and then with clarity and courage, give our entire lives to living out TWCA. (Romans 12:1-2)
Scott Canion is based out of the NYC area and is part of the METRO equipping team, a coalition of leaders who are establishing churches that are families, patterning themselves after Acts.
David Hesselgrave, in his chapter in Paul’s Missionary Methods on “Paul’s Missions Strategy,” alludes to Bishop Leslie Newbigin’s foreword to the 6th edition of Allen’s book, where Newbigin wrote, “Perhaps one word in the title of the present work is unfortunate—the word ‘Methods’. If anyone thinks he will find here a ‘method’ which can forthwith be ‘applied’, he is in for trouble” (i). This is because, Hesselgrave writes, “though readers can be expected to look for certain methods that can be applied in their own missionary ministry or in the ministry of others, they will not find any. Or, if they do, they will do so because they misunderstand what Allen has in mind” (128). Allen himself, following a 1932 visit to missions in East Africa, wrote, “I never ask anyone to do anything and consequently I do not get a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I say what seems to me obviously true, but they do not know what to do about it. One day someone will see what action is demanded, and perhaps screw up their courage to take it… All I can say is, ‘This is the way of Christ and his apostles’” (i-ii, Missionary Methods, Foreword).
Hesselgrave, channeling Newbigin, believes that what Allen is advocating is something called “generational resubmission” (129). In his foreword to Allen’s book, Newbigin wrote, “…the essential thing that Allen was concerned about (was) the resubmission of each generation of the traditions of men to the Word and Spirit of God” (ii). This is “because Allen is thoroughly convinced that his generation of missionaries is going about the work of missions in ways that comport well with inherited colonial patterns and traditions but not at all well with the way of Paul. These patterns need to be resubmitted to the searching scrutiny of the Spirit” (129).
From Christendom to Apostolic Mission – University of Mary & Monsignor James P. Shea
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring