Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit

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George Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbign’s Theology of Cultural Plurality. Eerdmans, 1998.

Referenced in: Theology of Mission, Proposals and Formulations – Missio Dei

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

The story of the missional movement actually began with Lesslie Newbigin. Upon returning to his native England in 1974 after a missionary tour in India, Newbigin was struck by how the once mission-sending Western churches in Europe and the United States now needed re-missionizing themselves. He began to write on this, and his books inspired the beginning of what is now the Gospel and Our Culture Network (www.gocn.org).

This is one of four books that lay out the theology of Lesslie Newbigin, each of which is referenced in LifeandLeadership.com in the essay on Theology of Mission, Proposals and Formulations – Missio Dei.

This volume is not by Newbigin himself, but is a comprehensive development of Newbigin’s theology by Hunsberger and colleagues. They pored through over 200 of Newbigin’s writings (articles and books, all annotated at the end). Their purpose was to synthesize Newbigin’s theology of cultural plurality (i.e. the mission of the church in a culturally plural world) that lies beneath and continues to form and guide the Gospel and Our Culture movement. It is part of Eerdman’s Gospel and Our Culture Series published in association with the Gospel and Our Culture Network.

Chapter one presents the purpose of the volume:

“This book is an extended depiction of the theology of cultural plurality that is latent in Lesslie Newbigin’s writings, offered with the conviction that such a theology is foundational for the project of engaging the gospel’s encounter with any human culture. Its approach rests on two fundamental presuppositions: that issues of missionary approach regarding human cultures are and must be theological; and that issues of a theological approach to human cultures must account for and respond to the inherent plurality of those multiple cultures.” (7)

Hunsberger states that Newbigin never actually used the phrase “theology of cultural plurality,” but that it is implicit and/or hinted at throughout his writings. He defines each word of the phrase, and thus identifies “the inner structure and framework of Newbigin’s thought and organizes his theological reflections under this new rubric.” (8)

Chapter two discusses Newbigins’s repeated emphasis on the doctrine of election, and how this developed over the early, middle, and later period of his career. Chapter three explains Newbigin’s special perspective on election. For example, Newbigin said it was a “betrayal of trust for believers when their minds ‘are concerned more to probe backwards from their election into the reasons for it in the secret counsel of God than to press forward from their election to the purpose for it, which is that they should be Christ’s ambassadors and witnesses to the ends of the earth.’” (87) This shifts the focus away from traditional Calvinistic preoccupations of the eternal destinies of each individual soul, and toward the responsibility of the chosen to be the bearers of his witness to all mankind. Hunsberger summarizes Newbigin’s teaching on election in four statements: 1) not special privilege but special responsibility, 2) bearers of the blessing, 3) the end as well as the means, and 4) one event with significance for the whole. It is probably safe to say that no one has developed the theology of election as it pertains to the mission of church more faithfully than Lesslie Newbigin. Hunsberger lays this out skillfully.

Chapter four takes the subject of the kingdom of God as the clue to the meaning of history and the implications this has for Christian responsibility. Newbigin’s thinking on these subjects forms the essential backdrop for current missional thinking about political involvement. Hunsberger says, “Newbigin’s discussions regarding the meaning of history have always had the purpose of validating and formulating Christian political involvement.” (123)

Chapter five explains Newbigin’s theology of conversion, community, and the boundaries of the church. Hunsberger begins with Newbigin’s most complete statement on the subject from Foolishness to the Greeks, that “the missionary encounter of the gospel with the modern world” is a call to “radical conversion,” which is described further:

“This will be not only a conversion of the will and the feelings but a conversion of the mind – a ‘paradigm shift’ that leads to a new vision of how things are and, not at once but gradually, to the development of a new plausibility structure in which the most real of all realities is the living God whose character is ‘rendered’ for us in the pages of Scripture.” (158)

This signifies a clear boundary between Gospel and culture, marked by conversion. Hunsberger shows how Newbigin used this to describe the inherent tension in the relationship between Gospel and culture.

Chapter six, “The Gospel as Secular Announcement,” discusses how the withdrawal of Western churches into the private sector and just another form of private spirituality has weakened the biblical teaching that the gospel holds the clue to “understanding the whole public life of mankind.” (194) He quotes Newbigin that Christian proclamation

“Is not the teaching of new way of personal salvation after the manner of Buddha. Nor is it the announcement of a theocratic kingdom in the manner of Islam….It is neither simply the announcement of a new religious doctrine, nor the launching of a new secular programme….It is the announcement of the decisive encounter of God with men….It concerns the consummation of all things. Its character as ‘final’ lies in this fact.” (195)

This is developed more fully in The Open Secret that underscores the finality of the Gospel as a public act in which God entered decisively into world affairs. Hunsberger conveys how Newbigin says this places Christianity in a different category altogether than all other religions. Certainly Christianity is a “religion” in one sense, but it is not simply “one of the class of what are termed ‘religious’” (203) because the event of Christ is decisive for all of human life. This also begs the questions about Newbigin’s views on our dialogue with other faiths and debates about universalism, which Hunsberger discusses at considerable length.

The final chapter, “A Theology of Cultural Plurality: Charting the Agenda” synthesizes the findings of earlier chapters into a more coherent theology of the Gospel-culture encounter. This is followed by an extensive set of appendices, including an annotated bibliography.

From the Publisher

In this in-depth study of Lesslie Newbigin’s thought, George Hunsberger brings into clear view the “theology of cultural plurality” developed in Newbigin’s book and demonstrates its importance for the missiological enterprise today.

Interacting closely with Newbigin’s published and unpublished works, Hunsberger describes Newbigin’s biblical rationale for the life and witness of the church in a culturally plural world. By teasing out Newbigin’s thinking in this realm, Hunsberger gives shape to a theological area of inquiry and reflection badly needed for fruitful discussions of cross-cultural mission, religious pluralism, and ecumenism.

About the Author

George R. Hunsberger is Professor of missiology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, and coordinator of the Gospel and Our Culture Network.

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