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Book review November 2004 |
book review...Signs Amid the RubbleThe Purposes of God in Human History Lesslie Newbigin, Eerdmans, Cambridge, 2003. 'God' made an uncharacteristic appearance during the recent Australian election. Of course, protagonists frequently attempt to co-opt God in support of their particular human purposes. If we disagree with co-opting God, should God then be excluded from public issues? Senator Amanda Vanstone certainly stated so in the debate concerning stem cell research, 'Your religion is your own business and no-one else's'. Does Christian faith have any role in public life? Is public life a sphere of mission? To forswear politics means surrendering control of 75 percent of life to forces over which neither the Christian, nor anyone else, has any control. That cannot be called a serious attempt to implement the requirements of God's rule. Lesslie Newbigin gave the above answer to a class of theology students in Bangalore in 1941 at the age of 31. He would continue to pursue this theme and its profound implications for the life of the church during the next 50 years of his life. Newbigin was first and foremost committed to God's mission. For Newbigin the Christian's active participation in all aspects of life, including politics, was the very stuff of our entering into God's purposes for human history. If you want to be a spectator rather than a player in God's plans, do not discomfort yourself by reading Lesslie Newbigin's writings! The beauty of this collection of talks; from India in 1941 to Cambridge in 1986 and to his final public addresses in Brazil in 1996, is his deep and abiding passion for God's people to engage with God's world to bring in God's kingdom. This is a book for Newbigin buffs and an introduction to his thinking. Newbigin paints on a broad canvas. Thus his application of Christian principles in India engaged ideas of progress and development: 'I propose for these four lectures . . . an attempt to disentangle and criticize from a Christian point of view one of the seminal ideas of European civilization, the idea of progress.' 'Every faithful act of service, every honest labor to make the world a better place, which seemed to have been forever lost and forgotten in the rubble of history, will be seen on that day to have contributed to the perfect fellowship of God's Kingdom.' Hence his book's title: 'Signs amid the Rubble'. Returning to England Newbigin wrote about the decline of western culture and the demands of the gospel on the West. Coincidently, I have recently read Australian sociologist, John Carroll's, 'The Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited', which gives a broad based critique of the failings of the West. A Christian explanation of these failings are Newbigin's gift to us, brilliantly set out in his Cambridge addresses. He knew that Christian mission was essential to the well-being of his homeland, and pulled no punches in saying so. A little over a year before he died, Newbigin (1909- 1998) spoke in Brazil on his passion to engage our culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ... Does our culture determine our understanding of the gospel, or does the gospel determine our culture? In commenting on western culture he notes that the secular model of society 'has claimed to provide freedom but it cannot sustain that claim'. What then underpins a truly free society? 'The Christian gospel affirms that, not in spite of but because of our faith, we are required to provide space for disobedience, for dissent, for disbelief, in the faith that God in His own way and in His own time will manifest His rule. Only that faith in the long run can sustain a truly free society.' The address is short but captures his heart, a heart for mission; its dedication and its joy. In the final words of his address and of the book: It seems to me, the resurrection of Jesus was a kind of nuclear explosion which sent out a radioactive cloud, not lethal but life-giving, and that the mission of the church is simply the continuing communication of that joy - joy in the Lord'.
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