Stuart Murray

The context

I want to begin this session by reflecting on two significant features of the context within which we engage in evangelism and plant churches. These are realities that Christians across Europe have been facing for some time, and they are increasingly apparent also in North America. The first is the demise of Christendom. The second is the disintegration of modernity.

In the sixteenth century Anabaptists challenged the system known as Christendom that had dominated Europe for the past millennium. Catholics and Protestants alike remained wedded to this system in which all were assumed to be Christian, church attendance was compulsory, freedom of conscience was regarded as heresy, and church and society shared a common culture. But Anabaptists rejected the notion that Europe was Christian, denied that faith could be coerced, and claimed that this system seriously distorted the gospel.

Christendom survived the Reformation, but the seeds of its destruction had been sown. Nearly five centuries later, battered by the Enlightenment, industrialisation, urbanisation, and secularisation, the Christendom era is drawing to a close. Churches in western culture are struggling to adjust to the arrival of post-Christendom, a very different era which presents us with a new missionary challenge.

What is the task of the church in this new context? What forms of mission and what ways of thinking about church life that have been inherited from Christendom must be jettisoned or at least adapted in order to respond creatively to the new challenges and opportunities? What kinds of churches should we plant in a post-Christian society? Models that are effective in a pre-Christian society or were suitable for a Christendom context may be quite inappropriate now.

We can no longer continue as if we were living under Christendom. Some argue that mission in a post-Christian culture does not mean abandoning the past but drawing on the experiences we bring from the past into this new situation. Valuable though this legacy may be, it may also constitute a mission liability, hindering us from developing more appropriate models of mission. David Bosch asks: "Is a secularised and dechristianised European . . . a not-yet-Christian or a no-more Christian?" He concludes: "Such a person is a post-Christian rather than a pre-Christian. This calls for a special approach in communicating the gospel."¹ Lesslie Newbigin insists that contemporary society is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been born out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar. "We are in a radically new situation and cannot dream either of a Constantinian authority or of a pre-Constantinian innocence."²

Evangelism and church planting in a post-Christian society is not easy. Unrealistic goals and expectations will hinder the careful and prayerful reflection needed to interpret this context and develop appropriate strategies. There are many aspects to consider, but the fundamental issue is the recalling of the church to its primary task. This may have been obscured under Christendom, but it is inescapable in a post-Christian society that the primary task of the church is mission. And if mission is our priority, our churches will need to change. Renewed commitment to the missionary task of the church will require, through both church renewal and church planting, creativity in developing new forms and shapes through which the gospel can be expressed in contemporary society.

But there is another "post" word that we must consider: postmodernity. Europe has been deeply impacted by the culture that developed from the Enlightenment. Based on reason rather than revelation, committed to progress through scientific discovery and technological development, the culture of modernity has marginalised religion and suggested that humanity has come of age and outgrown the superstitions of the past. Although churches have found ways to survive and even thrive in this culture, they have steadily been pushed out of the centre of society to the margins. Secularism has become dominant in the public arena, leaving the private sphere for religion. This has hastened the demise of Christendom.

But modernity itself is now in trouble. Confidence that science and technology will solve all problems has given way to fear and disillusionment. Secular philosophy and reliance on reason alone does not satisfy the deepest longings of human beings. Since at least the 1960s the term "postmodernity" has been used to signal a growing sense of discontent with modern society, a disintegration of this culture, and a search for different values. Postmodernity, not surprisingly since this is an inherent feature of the concept itself, means different things to different people. It is not easy to define because of its scope and varied expressions; it is as much a mood as a set of beliefs and carries a range of meanings.

Among the main features of postmodernity are: a commitment to relativism in relation to questions of truth; understanding meaning as subjective rather than objective; the significance of spiritual values without allowing claims to exclusivity; the importance of imagination as well as rationality; interpreting the world through a biological rather than a mechanistic model; concern for the environment and an understanding of humanity as part of this environment, rather than separate from it; a distrust of institutions, hierarchies, and structures, and a preference for networks and grassroots activities; a rejection of male domination; an iconoclastic refusal to respect established traditions, or to take anything, including itself, too seriously; an emphasis on the chaotic and fragmentary rather than order and harmony; a readiness to hold together contradictory beliefs; a commitment to choice at every level; and deep scepticism.

We live in a time of cultural overlap, transition, and uncertainty. Modernity is still very much alive and remains part of our mission context. But as postmodern ideas become more popular and influential, we must engage with these if we are to be effective in mission to this generation. What is unclear is whether these ideas will lead to the emergence of a new and more diversified culture or to a reassertion of the culture of modernity, either in a chastened and modified form or with renewed vigour.

The challenge facing us, as we consider mission in a postmodern environment, is to remain flexible and alert, neither buying uncritically into an apparently emerging culture that may be short-lived, thereby leaving the church stranded in a cultural dead-end; nor remaining "trapped in a modernist mode,"³ ignoring or resisting cultural changes that require clear and creative thinking about the shape and role of the church in society.

There are features of postmodernity that we will perceive as liberating, which we can endorse and even celebrate within our churches. There are other features that we will regard as dehumanising, to which our churches could offer viable alternatives. Some aspects of postmodernity may present challenges to the gospel and require us to develop creative responses; other aspects, such as the growing interest in spirituality, may present fresh opportunities if we can find the courage to seize these.

So, then, the context within which we explore the topic of church planting includes both the demise of Christendom and the disintegration of modernity. These are, of course, linked. In a post-Christian society, the churches seem to be part of a fading culture. In a postmodern culture, all institutions (not just the church) are suspect. It is crucial that we take time to understand this context, to interpret it carefully, and to recognise the implications for our churches and our church planting strategies.

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1. David Bosch, Witness to the World (London: Marshalls, 1980), 14.

2. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 1989), 224.

3. Robert Warren, Building Missionary Congregations (London: Church House, 1995), 37. Warren suggests that we will need to be "bi-lingual; able to relate to those who belong to the old order, as well as to those who live in the new" (p. 7).

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