Scripture, Culture, and Missions
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 55, No. 1 – Fall 2012
Managing Editor: Terry L. Wilder
By Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009. 216 pages. Softcover, $19.99.
In an evangelical subculture that has become somewhat self-obsessed with the inner-workings of church and its mission, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch attempt to get at the heart of the issue. The authors argue that when addressing the obvious errors in the church today, the focus is frequently on the externals and not on its core. In so doing, church critics may be on target in their appraisal, but the subsequent suggestions for re-addressing the situation actually provide more of the same instead of working at the root of the real issue. For the authors, a contrast between the “way of Jesus and the religion of Christianity” (6) demonstrates how far we have come from being defined by Jesus and the church of the New Testament.
ReJesus asserts that the only solution for the church struggling in a culture that has long since abandoned any semblance of Christianity is to re-Jesus the church. In other words, Christology must become the center and driving force. In the introduction, Frost and Hirsch explain that the starting point for any theology of missions or any approach to ecclesiology must be Christ. In fact, to recalibrate the church is to shift the “entire enterprise along Christological lines.”(6) It is Christology that drives missiology (defined by the authors as “our purpose and function in the world”), and missiology allows us to define ecclesiology.
After setting the tone for the project, chapter one turns to an examination of how an encounter with Jesus changes the essence of life itself in following Him. This dramatic change leads us to personal renewal as discussed in chapter two. The believer should be transformed by the very person of Jesus. Of course, these personal transformations lead to a basic change in the way congregations function. Chapter three focuses on the need for a radical Christianity defined as a return to the root of the faith itself in Jesus. This means entering into the chaos of life and a struggling church with what the authors term as “radical traditionalism” (83), a rediscovery of the original rules laid out by Christ and being defined by them.
Chapter four frames the heart of the volume as the authors advocate an iconoclasm of the images of Jesus we have erected in our minds. They take on the feminized Jesus found in William Holman Hunt’s famous painting, The Light of the World or the ethereal Jesus of Pompeo Batoni’s Sacred Heart. In the midst of the discussion of how Jesus is co-opted for everything from marketing to entertainment, we discover the image of the wild Jesus who refuses strict categorization or co-option. Any attempt at harnessing the wild Jesus of the Gospels will actually “devastate the way of Jesus from the inside” (128).
The truth of the gospel of Jesus defines our Trinitarian theology, according to chapter five, where the authors carefully define a theological framework for reJesusing the church that does not fall prey to a Jesus only or oneness theology. In the concluding chapters, Frost and Hirsch point out how the church should engage the culture. The heart of a holistic ministry in the minds of the authors is the center point between overlapping areas of orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthopathy. It is in this re-Jesused center that the church actually reflects the claims of Christ and functions as the community perpetually shaped and changed by the gospel.
There are a few drawbacks to the work. One is that the book needs stronger editing. There are little mistakes throughout (e.g. the varying capitalization of Christology). Another is a creative aspect of the book that works against its presentation. Scattered throughout the text are small vignettes of individuals that attempt to demonstrate how one could be a “little Jesus.” Some of these, like William Wilberforce or Harriet Beecher Stowe, stand out as men and women devoted to overturning the evil of slavery that marked their time. But most of the individuals highlighted, like Rigoberto Menchu, Dorothy Day, Father Damien of Molokai, and Simone Weil, suggest to the reader that a “little Jesus” is someone who works for social justices and causes. Though this is not their intent, the reader could be left with the idea that liberation theology or a return of the Social Gospel accomplishes the vision of re-Jesusing the church.
The main point that Frost and Hirsch defend—that Jesus should be the core identity that shapes the church—cannot be denied by any person serious about the church. Yet the authors fail to go far enough. Their re-Jesus sounds more like the Jesus of Barth and of neo-liberalism than that of the historical proclamation of the church. Perhaps this is an oversight on their part, but those holding to the centrality of Jesus must also deal with Jesus as the Word. And while the authors hold to a seemingly high view of Scripture, their failure to connect a picture of Jesus to the whole of Scripture instead of just the Gospels causes the book to fall short. The failure of affirming Jesus without simultaneously affirming the revelation of him in Scripture leads to the tired, worn path of liberalism where Jesus continues to be made into the image of existing social issues read onto the Gospels.
