In a provocative blog post, Anthony Bradley, raises penetrating questions that I wanted to pass on. He writes:
The secret to the PCA’s multi-year decline may be primarily external to a denomination that is losing its ability to connect and lead an American culture that is increasingly multi-ethnic and non-white, as many are now arguing. The internal issues of new generations, missional emphasis vs. traditionalists, and so on may, in fact, be more tangential to a larger external reality: the PCA primarily appeals to a dying demographic and is, therefore, being left behind by global Christianity. Is the PCA’s cultural captivity to white, Western culture (including Southern white culture) going to make it increasingly irrelevant to a global Christian world that is primarily African, Asian, and Latin American?
Unfortunately, his questions are directed to his denomination, the PCA – a focus I would like to expand to all of North American Protestant Christians. It would seem to me that we, at Reformation Covenant Church, and in our denomination, the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, and most of the churches in our land need to be asking themselves similar questions.
The Next Evangelicalism
Bradley uses Soong-Chan Rah’s book, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity as a basis for his comments, and to to answer this question, “Is the PCA being held hostage by white, Western (and Southern) cultural captivity?”
As the gospel goes out into the world over time – Christ, by His Spirit, transforms people, institutions, social structures and whole cultures in ways generally unanticipated by those preaching the Word. Christ confronts our biases, misapprehensions of the truth, prejudices and hard-heartedness as we clash with new problems and new opportunities.
While I like Bradley’s desire to sensitize us to the need to see the world differently than we often do, like so many other helpful missional/missions tends books, he tends to reduce the problem to a power struggle between the establishment and the disenfranchised, between the rich and poor, between white people and all the other races, between the West and East, etc. As if it’s possible, by sheer force of will, the reforming of minds and social structures, to just move into an age without such cultural divides in the church.
The Next Christendom
It seems to me that the problems raised by Bradley (and others) are not going to be solved by the benevolence of the leaders of the existing Christian social structures, and just stepping aside or placing non-white, non-western and non-traditional men into leadership in our churches and denominations. The real transformation that we all hope for will happen when these non-white, non-western and non-traditional men become recognized as such good leaders and so important to the life of Christ’s Body that we all desire them lead the Church into new and important directions. What the church needs to pray for is the day when God raises up men of such inspiration and influence that everyone looses all interest in an ecclesiastical affirmative action program.
Historically, the leadership of the Church passed from the Jerusalem Jewish-Christians to the more prominent leadership of Gentile Christians. God raised up, over time, more competent men from other cultures to succeed the initial Jewish leadership. It did not happen because the Gentiles sought to have the Jews relinquish leadership – It happened because God provided the Body of Christ with the men that were needed to move the church forward at that time in history.
For the same thing to happen in our time, it seems to me that what needs to happen is several things:
- We need to labor to have a more global perspective.
- We need to learn progressively more about what God is doing in various parts of the world (there are many books and resources now available to help with this)
- We need to meet and fellowship with international believers locally
- We need to discover meaningful ways to provide help to Christians around the world
- We need to discover who the prominent people God is using in various parts of the world and learn about what they are teaching and doing for the Lord. These may be the futures leaders God will give us.
- We need to be more prayerful, both privately and in corporate worship, about the world.
- Pray for Christians in various parts of the world
- Pray for persecuted Christians
- Pray for Churches by city, nation, region and people groups
- We need to build relationships with people different than those we normally associate
- Associate with, and learn to love and appreciate those of different races, classes and social standing
- Associate with, and learn to love and appreciate those outside of our own narrow Christian traditions and circumstances
- Work cooperatively with other local churches to produce more of a “city church” or “regional church” that is inclusive of various orthodox traditions, denominations and theological perspectives.
- Be willing to learn from those who are bringing challenging insights to us, even if it is not done in the most edifying way, or with the best theological or philosophical reasoning.
- Sometimes we just need to hear people, letting them speak freely, so that we can learn what their concerns are so that we can consider how to best minister and serve them.
- We need to avoid, when we disagree with folks like Bradley and others, reacting badly (one person’s reaction to Bradley was: “Personally, I think the guy is a racist pig! It’s reverse racism.” Not, in my opinion either humble or helpful!). This kind of reaction closes off further discussion and the sharing of ideas and visions, and actually perpetuates existing problems thoughtlessly and tragically.
