A few weeks ago, I started what will be a three-part series on the concept of incarnational mission. It was prompted by a not-so-subtly titled article, The Incarnation Is About a Person, Not a Mission. It is a well-written article on mission (unlike many things about "mission" lately). Also, it is published at The Gospel Coalition, a group with which I resonate. So, with those things in mind, I decided to write a short response-- which turned into three parts!
Be sure to read part 1 before venturing into this post. Also, read John Starke's post at the Gospel Coalition site.
In that post, I wrote:
If we lose our grasp on the doctrine of the incarnation we lose the gospel itself. However, I believe it is not only helpful to use the term to apply to the mission of the church, but that it is also biblically justifiable. In fact, the more we understand the incarnation, the better equipped we are to live incarnationally as the church reflecting the glory of our Savior while obeying the Great Commission.
Part of the problem is that this pushes Jesus as the model of our mission into the forefront of the discussion of mission, while most evangelicals prefer to use Paul as the sole model. We would do well to allow both persons and all of Scripture inform and guide our approach to mission.
So, why use that term? Well, first we have to understand the usage of the term.
Just as there are various views on the atonement, there are differing perspectives on incarnationalism. Some argue for a Liberation Incarnationalism that emphasizes social justice and bringing liberty to the oppressed. Others see the mission of the church as encompassing everything God has commanded his people to do. This Holistic Incarnationalism makes little distinction between social action and evangelism. These perspectives on incarnationalism are actually more reflective in the conciliar (think World Council of Churches) and Catholic views of incarnationalism.
Remember, earlier, that I said "groups" use words. In missiology, there are three primary groups-- Catholic, conciliar, and evangelical. Thus, for example, when John MacArthur speaks of how "The apostles went out with an absolute disdain for contextualization," the kind of contextualization (I hope) he is referring to is generally the views of the conciliar missions movement (Catholics tend to refer to "accommodation" rather than "contextualization"). But, what he is speaking against is certainly not how many Evangelicals (including just about every evangelical missiologist) use the term-- thus my earlier comments about the problem with his condemnations of contextualization.
Of course, for some in the church the answer is to stop using the term altogether. I understand and appreciate the impulse, but think it is an overreaction. Terms are often misused by others, and rather than giving up on the use of the word a better response is to clarify what we mean when we use it.
Let's get back to incarnation. Evangelicals tend to focus on Conversionist Incarnationalism. My colleague Andreas Köstenberger (both at LifeWay and at Southeastern) used the term Representationalism, but I think that Incarnationalism is a better term. In Paradims in Conflict, David Hesselgrave explains,
Conversion-Incarnationalists, in the sense in which I employ the term here, maintain clear priorities. They understand the mission of the church in terms of discipling the ethne (i.e. peoples, people groups; Gentiles but not exclusive of Jews) by proclaiming the gospel, bringing people to Christ, baptizing converts, instructing them in the faith, and incorporating them into responsible reproducing churches. Christ is Messiah, Redeemer, Savior, and Lord-- all these and more. He is also our Model in the way he understood and carried out his mission, but undergirding all he said and did was the fact that "the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10).
(pg. 147)
Pocock, Van Rheenen and McConnell defined Incarnational Mission this
way,
Just as Jesus Christ was incarnated as a person, so missionaries, it can be said, need to incarnate themselves into a new context. They cannot enter as newborns, but they can learn the language and the culture of their new context in such a way that they behave like those who were born in the culture.
(page 15)
Alan Neely has a lengthy article in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions under the entry "Incarnational Mission." Interestingly, that article tends to reflect more of a conciliar view. He traces the first use to Frederick D Maurice in his book, Kingdom of Christ (1838).
Yet, for example, Neely cites M. Theron Rankin, a former president of what is now the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention: "The most effective witness the church makes will always be in the lives of those who in Christ's name bury themselves in the lives and struggles of another people, missionaries who serve the people, learn to speak their language, develop the capacity to feel their hurt and hunger, and 'who learn to love them personally and individually.'" (EDWM, 475)
That is how typically how Evangelicals use the term and, in my view, is why we should continue to do so. Incarnationalism speaks of identifying with and living among the people God has sent us to. The incarnation was about the Word taking on flesh, but in taking on flesh Jesus didn't live an isolated life divorced from the culture. He lived with and among people in such a way that his words and actions made sense to a specific people group. He was in many senses one of them, while remaining distinct as the Son of God.
In the next post I'd like to explain a bit further what I mean by incarnational and how it connects to the incarnation of Jesus. Until then, you can help work out ideas through some healthy dialog in the comments section below.
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