Paradigms of the Church in Mission: A Historical Survey of the Church’s Self-Understanding of Being the Church and of Mission

Paradigms of the Church in Mission

A Historical Survey of the Church’s Self-Understanding of Being the Church and of Mission

Augusto Rodríguez

Paradigms of the Church in Mission

A Historical Survey of the Church’s Self-Understanding of Being the Church and of Mission

Copyright ©

2012

Augusto Rodríguez. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Manufactured in the U.S.A.

To Anabella Rodríguez, my High School sweetheart and wife, for her support throughout the years of study and research; and to my children, David Andrés, Daniel Augusto, and Denisse Anabella, my three beautiful gifts from the Lord. To my parents, Porfirio and Lucy Rodríguez, who live in El Salvador, and to whom I owe so much for the values and morals they taught me. To Ministerios Nuevo Vivir, the congregation I pastor for their support and understanding. But most of all, to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for calling me into the ministry of the written word by sowing the seed for this book, and for providing everything according to his riches in glory.

Figures

Figure 1. Micro and Macro Paradigms / 6

Figure 2. Paradigm Changes and Paradigm Shift / 12

Figure 3. Augustine’s Trifold Concept of the Church / 34

Figure 4. Centripetal and Centrifugal Mission of the Church / 43

Figure 5. The Ecology of the Church / 62

Figure 6. Charismatic Developments: A Timeline / 104

Acknowledgements

Although many people helped in one way or another in shaping me through the process of my research and writing, I’m eternally grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for his gift of salvation. I’m also thankful to many people who through their prayers and encouragement have also a part in this accomplishment; these are those faithful believers at Ministerios Nuevo Vivir.

I also want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Charles Van Engen for his inspiration and help through his teachings in theology of mission, and for his help in providing the initial steps to begin the writing process and his gracious recommendation to the publishers. To Wipf & Stock for believing in this project, to Christian Amondson because he was my first contact and in some way advocating for the vision of this book to become a reality.

Abbreviations

NIV New International Version

NKJV New King James Version

TEV Today’s English Version

Ign. Eph. Ignatius, To the Ephesians.

Introduction

A surface level reading of church history will let us see how the church has behaved throughout the centuries since its formation. However, just the reading will also bring questions about the different developments that took place within the church; such as, in the case of Acts 15, problems about evangelizing and reaching the gentiles.

We also see how believers in the early church took the Great Commission so seriously, as well as who were the first missionaries, the people of God. Later in history, we see a change in the role of the church and the empire. During this time there is also a change in the role of the clergy, the people of God, as well as a change in who were the missionaries.

Another important change we see in history is the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Once again, the role of the church changed as well as the role of the clergy and the role of the people of God. Of course changes took place, and in the last decade of the twentieth century another big change in the church occurred; a change that is still taking place that church leaders around the world are trying to understand.

As we read church history, we see different developments as a result of renewal movements in the church. These renewal periods which the church goes through, help clarify the vision and mission of the church, developing into revolutionary and cutting-edge congregations whose main purpose is to live out, as close as possible, the New Testament pattern of being the church.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the church experienced a transformation, a Holy Spirit experience similar to the one depicted by Acts 2:4. This gave rise to a Holy Spirit movement, and people related to it became known as Pentecostals. During the 1960s, the church experienced a Second Wave of the Holy Spirit reaching mainline denominations, and later in the twentieth century, in the 1980s, a Third Wave of the Holy Spirit among historic denominational churches.¹

The Second Wave or the Charismatic Movements, however, saw the birth of a number of churches and ministries that became independent of their denominations.² These churches have experienced a revolutionary transformation in their ecclesiastical structures, worship styles, mission and their understanding of being the church.³ These churches are known as Independent Charismatic,⁴ New Paradigm Churches,⁵ or New Apostolic Churches.⁶

The history of the church in mission has always been a struggle to carry out a two-sided commission, that of being a witness to the world, to convert and to save the world, and at the same time, to be different from the world.⁷ Throughout the centuries the history of the church has been a history of changes. Different developments, changes in direction, power struggles, times of change and confusion, but with always one focus: mission.

I want to devote this study to those recent changes in the church. This study will help us to understand the different paradigm shifts that took place throughout history, and how they affected the church’s self-understanding of being the church and of mission, the issue in focus is a historical survey of the paradigms of the church. Also in focus is the idea of mission, which has always been a challenge for the church.

The Research Process

I chose the process of historical research. In this process I used biblical studies, doing research and exegesis of passages from the book of Acts and other New Testament books dealing with ecclesiology, missiology, Christology, eschatology, pneumatology. This helped in developing, from a historical standpoint, an understanding of past important actions in mission in order to understand the present state of the church in mission and the emergence of its current expression, New Apostolic Churches.

Exegesis of some New Testament passages using primary and secondary sources has been essential. Sources like the Greek New Testament and other Bible translations (as needed), as well as all the necessary hermeneutical tools, with the purpose of understanding the theology of mission in first- and second-century apostolic church as well as the use of other early church writings.

The most adequate method for my research was historiography, the writing of history. This method helped me think through issues of structure, pattern, and meaning⁸ as well as the proper use of resources and tools necessary to understand church history and historical missiology.

Overview

I have separated this study into different chapters dealing with the history of the church in mission. Chapter 1, entitled Paradigm Theory, provides a theoretical base for understanding paradigm theory, which helps us to understand the different paradigm shifts in the concept of being the church and of mission.

Chapter 2, The Apostolic Paradigm, provides a description of the newborn church’s theology which would lead them into what they understood to be mission. Some theological perspectives that serve as basic assumptions and values forming the church’s worldview are their understanding of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, their concept of the church, the role eschatology played in molding the church’s mission, and of course, their concept of mission.

Chapter 3, The Christendom Paradigm, describes the changes in mission theology that took place after the conversion of Constantine and the end of official persecution. I examine the same theological perspectives in this paradigm to see how the concept of being the church also affected its concept of mission.

Chapter 4, The New Apostolic Paradigm, provides a description of the new and emerging paradigm. It explores the renewed theology of the NAP with respect to five major areas of theology: Christology, Pneumatology, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, and Missiology, as well as how this renewed theology is reflected in a renewed understanding of mission.

Chapter 5, A Transforming Revolution, deals with recent secular and religious events of the late twentieth century that set the background for the emergence of the New Apostolic Churches.

Chapter 6, The Emergence of New Apostolic Churches, traces the events that mark the origin of this form of being the church as the current expression of the New Paradigm of the church in mission, and in chapter 7 I offer some concluding remarks.

This study will help in understanding the present state of the church as a result of a more recent paradigm shift, as well as tracing the emergence of the New Apostolic Churches, the current expression of the church in mission.

1. Burgess, et al., Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements,

2

–

3

; Wagner, The Third Wave,

844

.

2. Pousson uses this term in Spreading the Flame,

17

–

18

.

3. Wagner, Churchquake,

5

.

4. Throughout his book Pousson uses this term to refer to this kind of churches.

5. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism,

1

,

13

.

6. Wagner, The New Apostolic Reformation,

18

.

7. Mead, The Once and Future Church,

9

.

8. Shaw, Introduction to Research Design.

1

Paradigm Theory

Living in a technological age at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we cannot deny the fact that rapid changes are taking place around us. Neither can we deny the fact that those changes affect us in our way of living. Those changes have an impact on us as Christians and upon the church as well.

Due to the fact that rapid changes are happening all around people and all the time, they become resistant to changes in society. But the reality is that the world changes, people change, and culture changes around us. This raises a question: If the culture changes around us, does the church change? Of course this change does not mean a change in the church as the body of Christ in essence, but the question has to do with the changes in relationship to changes in culture.

Mike Regele reminds us that the invisible church, as such, lives outside and independent from culture. However, we cannot deny the fact that the church manifests itself in different eras and societies, as a social institution that reflects the norms of society and the beliefs of the culture where the congregation is ministering.¹

It cannot be denied that the church is comprised of people who make up the culture, and as such, the church is affected by culture. Now, does this mean that the church as the body of Christ must adapt to the culture and live according to the culture? I believe so. Otherwise the church becomes irrelevant to the culture and the society it serves.

In order to understand the historical developments of the church’s self-understanding of church and mission, it is important to understand certain terminology that is widely used in today’s world. I’m referring to the wide use of the term paradigm.

When we apply paradigm theory to social science or missiology, we must try to understand why changes take place. From an anthropological point of view, we say that when people begin to question basic assumptions, changes begin to take place. That is when our worldview begins to change. Therefore, an understanding of worldview, its functions and how worldview is at the base of paradigm theory, is important.

Understanding Worldview

The concept of paradigm gained recognition especially among the scientific community after the publication of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1970). Kuhn, a physicist and scientific historian, limits his theory of paradigms to the natural sciences.² However, as Bosch says, Kuhn’s theories are of great importance in today’s changing world, changing from one way of understanding reality to another.³

Worldview Defined

Worldview is at the core of culture. It is the nerve system of culture, out of which the conceptualizations of reality by the members of a given culture ascend. Charles H. Kraft defines worldview as the culturally structured assumptions, values, and commitments/allegiances underlying a people’s perception of reality and their response to those perceptions.⁴ Kraft also says that worldview is inseparable from culture, but that it is included in culture as the structuring of the deepest-level presuppositions on the basis of which people live their lives.⁵

Because worldview lies at the heart of culture, it touches every other aspect of culture.⁶ This in turn will affect any conception, perception, or perspective of reality people have within a given culture. Worldview lies at the deepest-level of culture, conditioning the form the culture takes. That is, people’s behavior is shaped by their values, which stems out of their worldview.

Worldview is then a mental structure and a process. It is a structure because it shapes all different fields of knowledge; and a process because it integrates all various fields of knowledge, from theology to the culinary arts, governing everyday behavior.⁷ It is the basis of how people explain things happening in their life, how they ratify their beliefs and practices, as well as how they deal with problems that arise in an expected or unexpected way.⁸

Kraft’s definition says that worldview includes assumptions. This must be understood as things that are not and were not written, but that they originated, presumably, by the members of the original group, who came into agreement at a given time. Later these assumptions were passed on to other generations, probably by different means, such as oral, written, or modeled to the young members of the people group.⁹ A clear example of this is the case of the Hebrew people, who received the Law through Moses and were told to pass it on to other generations (Deut 6:5, 7).

Worldview Functions

Because worldview includes a set of assumptions and values, our commitments and allegiances will also be conditioned by our worldview. In other words, we will respond to any allegiance by making a commitment based on the worldview pattern we have learned in our culture. That is, we will evaluate, interpret and commit ourselves based on our perception of reality, which is not God’s reality, which is complete, as opposed to ours, perceived according to our worldview.¹⁰ It is ours, perceived according to our worldview.¹¹

Worldview helps cultures to perceive reality, therefore worldview acts also as a lens through which cultures see and interpret reality. As in the case of a person wearing sunglasses, sometimes that person’s view of things may be impaired by the sunglasses, or the sunglasses may help that person to see better against the sun shining on his/her face. Worldview may condition the way we see things, because of the deep-level assumptions we have been taught, which will also become our guide in life.¹² In this way, worldview helps people to explain reality as they perceive it. That is, based on the assumptions we have at the deep-level we will explain what reality looks like.¹³

Worldview provides people with the basic assumptions and values to explain anything within their reality, such as philosophy, science, history, and matters of religion; theology, missiology, ecclesiology, and the like. Therefore, it does not matter if such explanations can be proven or not, because they are assumed by people, they are part of their worldview.¹⁴

Worldview provides the means for interpreting, evaluating, and validating. The set of assumptions that lie at a deep-level of worldview will provide people with a way for interpreting things that are part of their reality. From the days of our childhood, we have been taught to interpret everything around us, from what is considered beautiful to what is considered as wrong, bad, or sinful. This does not only apply to the people of a given culture, but to families that make up the culture. Each family also has different worldviews from which they educate¹⁵ their children.

For example, worldview helps people to interpret the meaning of words. Such is the case of foul words. One may ask, what are foul words? The answer will depend on people’s worldview. Foul words in Costa Rica for