God's Missionary People | Book Review

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough.

Charles van Engen is a leading missiologist, and this book is in its eighth printing. In keeping with the subtitle of his book: "Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church", Van Engen briefly sets ecclesiology and missiology in historical and contemporary perspective, then introduces "a new perspective", expanding both on its significance and application as the book progresses.

WHAT IS MISSIONS?

Van Engen refers to his view of missions as a "radically new way of affirming the congregation's missionary nature" -- in fact as signalling "a new era in the history . . . of Christianity" -- a break with the past twenty centuries of ecclesiology and missiology. While the received definition of missions is "spreading the message of His salvation to the world" (Fleming 1990:296), the Van Engen definition is "to spread throughout the world the knowledge of the rule of the King". That is, the received definition would consider that the Church needs to share "salvation" with the world, because the world does not have it. The Van Engen definition would consider that the Church needs to share "the rule of the King" with the world, because the world DOES, in fact, have it. Christ's people proclaim "his Lordship over all people". Christ "is present in the world", and Christians need to make this "tangible, real, visible, and effective". In keeping with this theological shift, Van Engen redefines the boundaries between what the Church "is", and what it is "becoming". While the Protestant Church previously took a more synchronic view of the "already" yet "not-yet", of "form vs. essence" -- arguably best encapsulated in Martin Luther's SIMUL JUSTUS ET PECCATOR (justified yet still sinful), a Church moving continually upward towards God -- Van Engen reinterprets this diachronically as the Church as it exists today, yet as it moves forward through "the impelling force of the Kingdom of God", towards the "anticipatory focal point" -- a movement of "what the Church is toward . . . what the Church must become", "an emerging church". This is arguably both the central theme and the central contrast of the book. It is a view which is not unique to Van Engen, but represents a major theological stream of the 21st Century.

ARE "MISSIONARY CONGREGATIONS" ELITIST?

While Van Engen emphasises the necessity to "receive by faith the ONENESS of the church", stating that we cannot justify (in the words of Karl Barth)

"mutually excluding one another", yet he himself would appear to adopt a sharp exclusivity with regard to "missionary congregations". While he rightly points out that a defective ecclesiology may unnecessarily lead to disunity, his deploring of disunity does not appear to translate into a generous view of unity. Van Engen defines "missionary congregations" specifically as those which are "called to spread throughout the world the knowledge of the rule of the King". These are congregations which adopt a non-judicial view of salvation, congregations which advance "not toward . . . individual salvation [but toward the] reign of the King over the cosmos". Further, Van Engen's definition of conversion is "to become the ministering people of God". With this in mind, he states that "conversion . . . happens uniquely in missionary congregations". Apparently, therefore, it would not happen outside them. There is little to dispel the suspicion that the rest of the Church is written off as being worthless to the central interests of the Church. It is "missionary congregations" which are "uniquely suited to be the anticipatory 'first-fruits' of the kingdom in the world" -- not others. Therefore, while apparently espousing, in the early pages of the book, a charitable view of the Church as being "large and encompassing", this impression quickly dries up as it progresses. Van Engen's "missionary congregations" would appear to be exclusivist at best, condemnatory at worst, and largely shadowing those which he takes to task.

DOES THE BOOK DO JUSTICE TO THE OPPRESSED?

On the surface of it, Van Engen would appear to take an uncompromising stand on "the Church's role in establishing justice, righteousness, and SHALOM" -- a recurring theme of the book. Closer examination, however, would appear to reveal a different picture. A characteristic Western duality creeps in, of which he would seem to be unselfconscious. He states that the Church has "a debt to the poor and oppressed" -- as though the Church should exist on one side, the poor and oppressed on the other. One finds little in the book to dispel this impression of duality, and much to confirm it. The perspective from the side of the oppressed would seem, by and large, to be unfelt. Further, in the absence of any material hope for vast numbers as the world slides deeper into crisis, Van Engen would appear to offer only that which is not to hand. The Church is "working toward justice". It is "the essential nature of the Christian Church to minister to anyone and everyone in need". There is little sense of inability, and much of "can do". His suggestion that the Church is "called to Christian liberty" in this context would seem insensitive, while "incomplete manifestations of the working of the kingdom" are given short shrift, perhaps fatalistically. Van Engen himself would seem to sense the inadequacy in his views as he hesitates to comment on "political and social action", and notes awkwardly that the Church should "at least struggle more deeply to define" its identification with the oppressed. He recognises the emptiness of "activism", and fleetingly suggests "renewal and fellowship with God", but without application. Bearing in mind that his entire theology may be seen as being orientated towards shalom, this surely exposes a major shortcoming.

SYNTHESIS

Like all things "radically new", this theology would seem to lack ripeness. While it contains a useful reminder that we need to "propel the people of God out in ministry in the world", a number of aspects of the book, if not fundamental assumptions, would seem yet to be "under construction", even unsustainable -- of which this review is but a brief reflection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fleming, Don. Bible Knowledge Dictionary. Amersham-on-the-Hill, Buckinghamshire: Scripture Press, 1990.

Van Engen, Charles. God's Missionary People: Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1991. ISBN 0-8010-9311-2. Publisher Price $21.99.