Skip to main content

The great cancer: the gospel assumed


There’s a very important article by David Gibson called ‘Assumed Evangelicalism’.  It's well worth reading the whole thing but just to whet your appetite I'll summarise...  Gibson starts by retelling the stories of two movements – the Mennonites and the UK Student Christian Movement:
The first generation of the Mennonite Brethren movement believed and proclaimed the gospel and thought that there were certain social entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel and advocated the entailments. The third generation denied the gospel and all that were left were the entailments. 
In its earliest days the SCM believed and proclaimed the atoning blood of Jesus. The next generation assumed it but did not make it central. The following generations have rejected and denied the apostolic gospel.
Gibson defines ‘assumed evangelicalism’ as a church, organisation or movement which: 
believes and signs up to the gospel. It certainly does not deny the gospel. But in terms of priorities, focus, and direction, assumed evangelicalism begins to give gradually increasing energy to concerns other than the gospel and key evangelical distinctives, to gradually elevate secondary issues to a primary level, to be increasingly worried about how it is perceived by others and to allow itself to be increasingly influenced both in content and method by the prevailing culture of the day.
It's a subtle and difficult thing to spot but Gibson gives us two helpful questions with which to examine ourselves:
  1. To what extent does scandalous and transforming grace dictate our priorities and shape our visions and strategies? If the gospel is assumed there will be legalism and/or license. We will think that the gospel is just for unbelievers not for believers. We will look for Jesus plus...
  2. To what extent do the evangelical distinctives of biblical authority and the Cross dictate our priorities, and shape our visions and strategies?  Are these truths just filed away in a dusty doctrinal basis or they the source of our joy, taught and preached week after week.
Assumed evangelicalism is rife. And the solution is getting explicit. As Glen Scrivener tweeted a few years ago:

“For every use of ‘gospel’ as adjective I want 3 explanations of the noun & if u bang on abt gospel-centred by golly u’d better centre on it”

Good point well made. So here are a few explanations to get us going: What is the gospel?
Let's be explicit about the gospel. Let's not lose our relish for the good new of Christ crucified and risen and given to us. Let's communicate it with all the different colours that the Bible paints it for us. Let's be gospel-centred in a richly biblical way. Let's keep pointing to Christ in his Word.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 things servant leadership is

Having cleared away 10 things servant leadership is not , here are 10 that it is. [Credit to Harrison Mungai for his help in observing many of these features and helping us to think through this really important area.] I used to think that all that was necessary in gospel ministry was faithful Bible handling. Preach the Word carefully and surely everything else should follow? But I was wrong. Sadly it is possible to have high quality expository preaching and ungodly leadership. It shouldn’t be possible but it is. And it’s a very ugly thing. Peter Mead has written  on the danger that can be done to a church or ministry when appointment of leaders values ability over character. So here are ten aspects of biblical servant leadership, specifically in relation to gospel ministry leadership, from 1 Thessalonians, especially chapters 2 and 3: Servant leadership is, wherever possible, Plural . A lot of articles and books on leadership assume that it is a personal project. Search G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Utumishi wa Neno taster

It's finally starting! We had our first taster day for the church-based Utumishi wa Neno preaching course on Saturday. It was great to spend a few hours with 14 or so brothers and sisters and just spend soak in the Word. One of the crazy things we did was to read through the whole of Philippians out loud. How long did it take us? 15 minutes. And all of us enjoyed the experience and heard things we'd never noticed before. More thoughts on the day here . And for those who asked for the notes, they're available to download here . If you're in Kenya and want to get involved in the on-going Utumishi training see more info on the iServe Africa website .
5 comments
Read more

Too short a text?

I was a bit concerned recently when I found that a church I hugely respect had been going through the letter of 1 Peter for the last 7 months and were only just beginning chapter 5. It's wonderful to preach through the books and letters of the Bible. All that was said was true and helpful. But is there a danger in only taking three verses at a time? I think there is. You're likely to lose the flow of the letter. 1 Peter only takes 16 minutes (max) to read out loud. That is how the first readers would have heard it. That's how it's meant to be experienced. Certainly there's a place for more detailed study but there is a great danger we lose the flow, the themes, the life of this living letter. If you preach for 45 minutes on 3 verses you're likely to be bringing in all sorts of cross-references, lots of systematic theology. In fact the verses of 1 Peter itself are probably going to be only a small proportion of your content. So the great danger is that I...
1 comment
Read more