RT Article
T1 The congregation in a pluralist society: Rereading Newbigin for missional churches today
JF Pacifica
VO 27
IS 2
SP 206
OP 228
A1 Cronshaw, Darren
A1 Taylor, Steve 1968-
LA English
PB Sage Publ.
YR 2014
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/177519664X
AB Lesslie Newbigin sought to engage the gospel with western culture. A re-reading of Newbigin’s work offers insights for mission and communicating the gospel in the 21st-century western world, including the need to grapple with religious pluralism. For Newbigin, ‘the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it’. How plausible is the Newbigin thesis? Can congregations today believe and live the gospel, especially in a pluralistic context? This article is an appeal for attentiveness to the place and priority of the congregation, for the sake of mission in our pluralist society. It is grounded in the experience of two congregational case studies, which opens up conversation with Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Methodologically, it applies Neil Ormerod’s understanding of ecclesiology as grounded in ‘historical ecclesial communities’ to test both the groundedness and plausibility of Newbigin’s congregational hermeneutic.
K1 Pluralism
K1 mission to the West
K1 Missional Church
K1 Lesslie Newbigin
K1 gospel and culture
K1 Ethnography
K1 Ecclesiology
K1 Dialogue
K1 Contextualization
K1 congregational renewal
DO 10.1177/1030570X14549272