Making Disciples Today: Christianity Today's New Global Gospel Project
Ongoing controversies over the nature of the Atonement (substitutionary or Christus Victor?), the historical Adam (creation or evolution?), the afterlife (heaven and hell or universalism?), the nature of the authority of Scripture ("inerrant" or "infallible" or "trustworthy"?)—among other debates—show how relevant doctrine remains. But the debates also reveal how confused many Christians are about the basic truths of the faith, a confusion that will worsen if we don't respond to two pressing realities.
First is an increasingly post-Christian world. The rich ideas contained in words like creation and fall, judgment and forgiveness, grace and obedience, crucifixion and resurrection, church, final judgment, and Trinity are little known to most people. In fact, many outside and inside the church are either hostile to traditional Christian teachings or mix belief systems, religious and not, to create their own.
Second is the challenge of internet technology. Secular and pluralistic worldviews were prevalent before the Internet, of course, but now every idea and worldview, every philosophy and religion is a click away. We are electronic neighbors with atheists and theists, Hindus and Muslims, terrorists and pacifists, secularists and agnostics, New Agers and rationalists. Every idea imaginable is now at the fingertips of every Christian who has internet access. The average Christian toys with an unprecedented range of ideas today, arguably more ideas and worldviews than did Augustine, Calvin, Cranmer, and Wesley. Needless to say, encounters with our electronic neighbors are both fascinating and bewildering.
Add to this the ongoing need to grow "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13, ESV), so that we might more fully love God and neighbor. It's clear as ever that we need a deeper grounding in Scripture and the great teachings of the faith. We believe this is the crucial challenge of the 21st century; without being grounded in the gospel, we simply cannot live it out for long.
J. I. Packer and Gary Parrett recently completed Grounded in the Gospel, a fresh argument for teaching the faith (traditionally known as catechesis). As Packer put it, "Ongoing learning is part of the calling of the church. It has to be taught in all churches at all times." Recovering an emphasis on careful, lifelong instruction in faith "will be totally uphill all the way. We shall be challenging the dominant trends in our culture, and it won't be easy."
With this issue of Christianity Today, we embark afresh on such an enterprise. We are calling it the Global Gospel Project (GGP), resources for a full-orbed discipleship of heart, mind, soul, and strength.
To date, nearly all catechisms have been written with one tradition or another in mind—Reformed or Baptist or Catholic and so on. Given the realities of contemporary worldwide evangelicalism, we also need discipleship resources that embrace a broad, centrist, and historic understanding of the faith, one that recognizes the gifts of our various traditions yet focuses on the gospel message and mission we share. Our mission to spread the gospel in word and deed can only be strengthened as we understand and grow together in what is core to that gospel.
The GGP resources will not replace the catechisms of our different traditions; it will not be able to drill deeply in the unique teachings of these traditions, which bring such richness to worldwide Christianity. But the GGP does have seven emphases that will, we believe, help it contribute to all churches:
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Janet
I love this idea - giving a good long time to one critically important line of study, thought, prayer and growth. My first prayer for the project is, May it be marked as never before by gentleness, love, and sincere, humble attempts to understand and internalize each others' points of view. First of all, let us BE CHRISTIAN: "They will know you are christians by your love for one another."
Ralph Smith
You not only are to blame for creating some of the problems but your GGP series may make the situation worse. The issue is not that so-called Christians don’t understand the fundamentals of their faith—it’s that they aren’t held accountable to the fundamentals that they take for granted. You yourselves showed great disdain for this when Mark Galli mocked evangelicals for “knowing better” than “trying hard to follow the rules.” No, Mark, the problem is that evangelicals refuse to follow any rules, cloak their rebellion in scripture verses selected out of context and then proclaim a love of God while ignoring much of what the rest of the Bible says. I challenge you that if you truly want to take this type of project on, then do what you should have been doing the last 15 to 20 years—stand up for the full gospel. All of it, including the controversial parts that you will lose readers over. Your first article doesn’t look promising. In “Making Disciples Today” you instead use the typicaMuch of the language you use in describing the project’s emphases actually do the very damaging things you claim you are trying to fight and correct. “What does this Bible verse mean to me today?” is not as important as a question as “What did this Bible verse mean when it was written and how should I change my life to adapt to it?”
abey
The central figure of Christianity is Jesus Christ, the will of The father, to get into Christ it requires Faith, which faith is Apostolic, the essence of the faith. Christ in the Fulness can be understood only through revelation off the faith
Jay Lehman
I applaud your new project. I also applaud your approach of a "broad, centrist, and historic understanding of the faith". Our insistence on rigid, individualistic theological bents have accomplished two goals of the Satan, the enemy. It has created walls that render the greatest command of the New Testament - "love one another" - inoperable and has driven our thinking young people from the church as we have removed the appropriate mystery of the Sovereign God and replaced it with theological pigeonholes unsupported by a straightforward reading of the text. Biblical literacy will increase our embrace of God in all His glory, and allow us to abandon the lesser God we have created to fit our human understanding.
Jake Eye
Mark, how does the historical understanding of scripture passages come into play? I'm living my faith as a Byzantine Catholic, our faith perspective leans heavily on our forefathers in faith (be faithful to what you have received in word or letter), as well as sacred scripture and the first ecumenical councils of the church. This comes into play when discussing central things like the Eucharist, Baptism, the trinity, etc. For roman catholics, not bringing historical understandings to the table on things like "Mary as the new Eve", gives an Evangelical the impression these are accretions onto the faith, when in fact there is solid historical evidence it was part-and-parcel of the faith handed on by the early church. In a nutshell, how does the historical understanding from the church fathers affect this catechesis effort?