He birthed the missional and emergent church movements, called the church to its missionary vocation and has been named among the top 10 theological thinkers of our century. The Fall 2014 Symposium at Nashotah House Theological Seminary celebrated these contributions and more of late British theologian and missiologist Lesslie Newbigin, whose ideas still guide the Western church through the challenges of cultural change and ideological pluralism.
Representing the Diocese of C4SO, Bishop Todd Hunter co-taught on Newbigin’s book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society with George Hunsberger, professor of Missiology at Western Theological Seminary and the world’s leading authority on Newbigin. Heavily influenced by Newbigin’s call to a missionary church, Bishop Todd complemented Hunsberger’s scholarly material, unpacking Newbigin’s concepts and how to put them to use in everyday ministry. Together, they offered four sessions of intimate, conversational teaching interspersed with morning, noonday and evening prayer.
“No one has had a bigger impact—with missiological principles, missional epistemology and biblical theology—on helping me navigate the Gospel and our changing culture than Lesslie Newbigin,” Bishop Todd says.
Over 30 attendees sat five to a table, each with a big pad of paper. During breakouts after each session, the working groups answered questions, sketched ideas and wrestled with different contexts and perspectives. At one of the tables, C4SO church planter Shawn McCain sat with the former Bishop of Pittsburgh, a parish priest and a seminary student.
“We had a lot of really interesting and diverse conversation,” McCain says. “These were people invested in mission and deeply convincted by Newbigin. Most of us had been thinking about Newbigin for years and have been unpacking his missional mindset in our ministry contexts.”
With Newbigin’s writing as their missional “bread and butter,” attendees were familiar with phrases like “The church is the community that indwells the story,” but each person received more to ponder.
“I was struck by how Anglican Newbigin really was,” McCain says. “When he talks about indwelling the story, he’s talking about people who rehearse the biblical narrative again and again through the liturgy and the sacraments. I’m an Anglican missional church planter, and the tools he was using are the same ones available to me. The impact he had on culture is totally within reach and still has the ability to shape a society.”
The group also discussed Revelation 5 and Newbigin’s point that the gospel is not some obscure religious claim but about the meaning of history.
“In The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Newbigin is dealing ahead of his time with the same challenges we’re dealing with today.” McCain says. “He helps us continue to ask, ‘What is the church and what does it do in the world?’ and what does all of this mean on the ground. He is helping people indwell the story of God in ways that are public and true and concern everything.”