RENEWAL MOVEMENTS AND REACTIONARY MOVEMENTS

I am working my way through a well written and thought provoking book at the moment called MISSION SHAPED QUESTIONS edited by Steven Croft. It’s a collection of essays which are looking at critical questions surrounding mission in post-modern and post-Christendom Britain.

The essay which is particularly exercising my grey matter this morning is one by renowned New Testament scholar James Dunn. In his essay “Is there evidence of fresh expressions of Church in the New Testament” he looks at the character of NT Christianity and how it freshly expressed the faith of Israel. Of course this area of Christian and Jewish divergence is Dunn’s particular area of interest and expertise so what he says comes with real understanding and authority.

He sees the New Testament Christianity as having five characteristics and goes on to draw out these implications based on those characteristics:

• A Christianity that has lost all sense of newness, of what had only been hoped for being now realized, is no longer Christianity as defined by the NT.

• A Christianity that cherishes no sense of intimate relation with God through Christ, that regards the Spirit as effectively shut up in the bible or confined to the church, and that treats experience of the Spirit as essentially threatening, is no longer Christianity as defined by the NT.

• A Christianity that regards the maintenance of and faithfulness to tradition as its highest responsibility is no longer Christianity as defined by the NT.

• A Christianity that can think of Church only as building and not as people and that is not seeking new ways to be the people of God, to be church, is no longer Christianity as defined by the New Testament.

• A Christianity that defines itself less in terms of Christ and more in terms of ecclesiastical hierarchy and liturgically correct forms is no longer Christianity as defined by the NT.

Dunn goes to described early Methodism as a renewal movement within Anglicanism seeking to restore these characteristics to the church, to express them freshly, to be a fresh expression of church to use the current British term. He goes on to say “Methodism reminds us that fresh expressions are not the only way in which Christianity began but also the way in which Christianity will be revived.”

 As part of my doctoral course we did a huge survey of church history and what struck me was the regularity with which revival/reforming movements emerged in the church to “freshly express” these characteristics Dunn is talking about. There were the Montantists and Dontatists in the Early Church. In the Catholic Church the Franciscans and the Brethren of the Common Life. Then of course the Reformers themselves and the Annabaptists. When the reformed tradition was established along came Pietists and Moravians. Of course we have mentioned the Methodists but when Methodism became institutional the Free Methodists, Wesleyans, Nazarenes and Salvation Army emerged as “fresh expressions.”

But sadly that is only half the story because in each of those cases the renewal movements were met by reactionary movements within the church that tried to defend the ecclesiastical “status quo” as they understood. Wesley clung onto the Church of England but most Anglicans wrote him off as an “enthusiast” of the worst kind. William Booth was forced out of the Methodist Reform Church and Phinees Bresee was forced out of the United Methodist Church. Renewal movements inevitably are met by reactionary movements in the Church. I think in general these people’s hearts are in the right place, to start with, but they end up defending the status quo which they fail to realise was once a fresh expression of the church opposed by a previous reactionary movement.

I think this gives me some perspective of the current controversy between those of us who want a fresh missional incarnational expression of NT and Wesleyan Christian within the Church of the Nazarene for our 21^st culture and the so called “concerned Nazarenes” who claim that such a movement is seeking to destroy the church just as those who forced the early Nazarenes out of the Methodist Church claimed. Its only to be expected. As I currently work part time for an Episcopal Diocese in Scotland I am encouraged by the determination of the Anglican Church in the UK to encourage and enable fresh expressions of church, protect them from reactionaries and keep them within the Anglican communion. My prayer is that my own church would exhbit the same nurturing and protective attitude to those of  uswho want to freshly express our faith and heritage incarnationally in our communities.