Jennings: I believe that the overriding question we actually face before God and others is whether we will unwittingly remain in our Euro-American-tribal gated communities, e.g., Greco-Latin theological instincts, or exhibit an ever-reforming growth through humbly engaging with other parts of the omnilingual Creator-Redeemer’s worldwide Church.

Garner: The IMP is the cutting edge, emergent church paradigm in missions. In all its forms, the IMP warms itself to Muslim faith and practice.(3) It encourages Muslims to cling to Islam, to love Jesus, but in the Muslim way.

Editors’ Note: This is the final installment of a three-part series. The previous installment can be found here.

Dr. Nelson Jennings’s Final Response

It is indeed a privilege to testify to God’s goodness and greatness, as well as to try and work together regarding how best to serve the cause of the Christian gospel.

It is a painful reality, however, to be thoroughly misunderstood and mischaracterized on important matters too numerous to list, much less to try and discuss, in this brief response. My earlier response (and essays) already attempts to address some of the misunderstandings and mischaracterizations. Let me quickly add that, insofar as I have (unintentionally) misunderstood and misrepresented Dr. Garner on certain points, I sincerely apologize.

Cross-cultural interaction runs the strong risk of misunderstanding and mischaracterization. I believe that these essays and responses – despite being articulated in common English vocabularies – are cross-cultural interactions that, sadly, have indeed led to confusing misunderstanding and mischaracterization. (Such an assertion will no doubt be misunderstood and mischaracterized.)

One low-blow mischaracterization that I firmly reject is that I somehow advocate that we “turn a deaf ear … turn a blind eye … [and that] we are simply to say, ‘be warm and be filled’.” That mischaracterization may be my esteemed colleague’s logical and rhetorical inference, but it is not what I would ever advocate or knowingly practice. Friends do not “turn a deaf ear….” Neither do friends dictate what friends should do and believe apart from understanding them and their situations. Friends humbly engage and serve.

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Dr. Nelson Jennings is Executive Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, Editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, and Teaching Elder in the Southern New England Presbytery (PCA).

Notes:

1. An interview with TE Bill Sim, “What You Didn’t Know about Korean-Language Presbyteries,” byfaithonline.com, Q2.14, 10.

Dr. David Garner’s Final Response

A Surrejoinder: Is Silence Golden?

The Value of Debate

Vigorous debate can aid biblical discernment, and when carried out without malice or ad hominem argument, vividly displays Christian charity.

Nelson Jennings has commendably avoided personal attack–not only in this recent interchange, but consistently over years of our engagement. I am grateful for his kindness. Though my theological disquiet over his writing rattles the Richter scale, as best as I can discern before God, esteem for Christ’s Church and brotherly love also govern my words.

May the understanding coming out of debate serve the worldwide Church unto her peace, purity and faithful witness.

The Imperialism of Silence

Out of the gate Jennings has made one thing clear: the only proper answer by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) to the Insider Movement Paradigm (IMP) is silence. Evidently, “we in the PCA lack the cultural-linguistic breadth to know, particularly when significantly different cultural contexts are involved, what true gospel communication involves.”(1)

How do we juxtapose this statement with plain biblical teaching? Jesus commands us to make disciples of all the nations (Matt. 28:18-20). Missiologist Paul tells Timothy to “follow the pattern of sound words you have heard from me” (2 Tim 1:13a). Jude 3 beckons us “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Doctrinal error (“different gospel”, Gal 1:6) puts Paul himself in debate mode: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8).

The light of Scripture illumines the global confessional Church (of which the PCA is blessedly a part). Our Bible speaks not with equal clarity about everything,(2)  but it speaks clearly to many things, including idolatry and Christ-centered gospel grace.

If God has spoken clearly, can we defend churchly silence before glaring IMP errors? With no small amount of irony, mandated silence revives the greatest enemy of contemporary missiology: imperialism. The demand for silence replaces cultural imperialism with a sophisticated missiological form of the same. Silence before unfaithful witness imposes its imperialistic western hermeneutic of anti-certainty and relativism.

The IMP at Work

The IMP is the cutting edge, emergent church paradigm in missions. In all its forms, the IMP warms itself to Muslim faith and practice.(3) It encourages Muslims to cling to Islam, to love Jesus, but in the Muslim way.

Read More

Dr. David B. Garner is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary and former missionary in Bulgaria.

Notes:

1. “Jennings’ First Response,” Reformation21 (June 2014), http://www.reformation21.org/articles/jennings-and-garner-first-rejoinders.php. Emphasis added.

2. WCF 1.7 – All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

3.This article considers IM only in its Muslim contexts. Parallels can and should be made to other religious contexts where IM exists.