The Gospel-Driven Church: Retrieving the Classical Ministries of Contemporary Revivalism by Ian Stackhouse, Foreword by Andrew Walker

Two books appear by Paternoster Press (U.S. publisher Send the Light, Inc.) that will offer food-for-thought to pastors who are looking to go deeper into the mission of Christ’s church in the 21st century. Though books from “across the pond,” these two works will provide necessary theological stimulus to those who want to think more creatively about “emergent” and “missional” forms of church. This reviewer heartily recommends a good dose of cross-fertilization in the process.

To begin, there is much conversation inside and outside the church over and about “emergent” and “missional” forms of Christian community. In North America and Great Britain, in particular, this conversation has gained momentum, with serious conversation occurring across the ecclesiastical spectrum (e.g., mainline Protestant churches, Church of England, and Evangelical and Charismatic churches, to name a few). Websites, conferences, gatherings, publications, journals – all speak to the growing awareness of the church on a new mission field in the West and to the way the church may reach this field more effectively with the gospel. The conversation among “emergents” and “missionals” continues to grow (if not in Europe and North America, certainly around the world, in places like South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, to name a few).

It is within this matrix of Deep Church that I review the two works above. The first, by Ian Stackhouse, critiques the excesses of the Charismatic Renewal in Great Britain and looks to provide a more sobering account of renewal in the church over the long haul. With aspirations for revival running high across the church, Stackhouse wants readers to consider the underlying logic of revival in a consumer-driven society. Coming out of the Reformed tradition, Stackhouse puts great weight on a theology of the Word, but always, as he shares in Chapter Three, within the context of the practices of the church and the means of grace (e.g., with renewed emphasis on the sacraments and the life of prayer.) In fact, pastors will want to read how Stackhouse seeks to incorporate the sacramental within the revival elements of the faith and how he moves away from the growing consumerism within revivalism (Chapter Four).

But as with all renewal efforts in the church, questions of pathology do come to the forefront. Here, Stackhouse addresses these questions and concerns and offers a stimulating alternative to the “faddist” mind set that can dominate the “church of the quick-fix.” Of particular interest are Stackhouse’s critical comments on the Toronto Blessing, the role of prayer in Charismatic Renewal circles, and the incorporation of Reformed theological voices in the life of the church (e.g., P. T. Forsyth and Eugene Peterson, to name two). While the first in a series on Deep Church, Stackhouse’s volume supplies a much-needed critique of the excesses of revivalism while also offering a critical dialogue partner among those who are looking to anchor “emerging” and “missional” forms of church in the deeper waters of God’s grace and truth.

The same goes for On Revival: A Critical Examination. A collection of essays from a two-day conference at King’s College in London in 2002, these essays put forth a scholarly account of how revival has been practiced and received throughout a wide variety of churches in Great Britain and Ireland. With persons questioning the mission of the church in the West, particularly in secular Britain, questions abound as to what constitutes genuine revival: What is revival, and how do we distinguish between genuine revival and revivalism? What conceptual tools do we use to understand revival in a world dominated by creeping secularization on the one hand and growing religious fanaticism on the other? Crusades, intense outpourings of the Holy Spirit, awakenings, evangelistic weekend campaigns – all point to a need to understand genuine revival amidst a sea of cultural change and flux. These essays spark biblical, theological, historical, and cultural conversation to that end.

Therefore, central to these essays is the way the church seeks to understand the phenomenon of revival in a world that wants to reduce religion to the private sphere, dismiss religion altogether, or exaggerate its claims. These arguments, while growing in currency in the United States, have grown in intensity in the United Kingdom. The secularization of Great Britain (along with much of Europe), coupled with the growth of Islam, has prompted a new kind of study of religion. And what scholars have discovered is that the sociology of religion cannot fully comprehend all the changes underway. There are limits to the sociological study of the religious and secular. In fact, as a number of the authors of these essays point out, the whole thrust of revival remains ambiguous. Believing genuine revival is an act of God’s gracious Spirit in the life of the church is what prompts Christians to pray; nevertheless, questions are prompted about the human efforts to make revival happen by other means (e.g., Finney). These articles give readers grist for the mill in what is a confusing ecclesial environment.

With these introductory comments in mind, a couple of remarks are worth noting: First, as a reader new to the scene of “emergent” and “missional” church, the whole thrust of the Deep Church movement (if we want to call it a movement) is compelling. To be sure, there is a great deal happening among many ecclesial fronts. Pick up a book and you soon realize the focus has shifted to the church [e.g., Organic Church (Cole), Liquid Church (Ward), AquaChurch (Sweet), Emergent Church (Kimball, McClaren, et. al.), Purpose-Driven Church (Warren), Missional Church (Guder and Hunsberger), Resident-Alien Church (Willimon and Hauerwas), Canonical Church (Abraham)]. And that’s the short-list! There is more! There is no shortage to the topic of church! Ecclesiology is big business, even when we say it isn’t a business, and even when we throw down the gauntlet on consumerism! This is both stimulating and confusing – stimulating because we are now asking the necessary questions to engage a new missional situation and confusing because we all have an ecclesial agenda to sell! Whose ecclesiology anyway?

What remains promising in this endeavor, however, is that dialogue and conversation are taking place on both sides of the Atlantic on the nature and purpose of the church: What is the church and what is the church’s mission? And what comes across as hopeful are voices along a generational and theological spectrum. There is growing depth to the conversation. Challenging the church to connect to the “deep artesian well”of the tradition can only assist the church to grow unto the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). It is a welcomed sign of how God’s Spirit is moving in the church.

At the same time, there is always the danger of faddism in what Stackhouse and others write when it comes to the church: slogans, phrases, words - can all become cliches; a pastiche theology can emerge without much theological or biblical substance; simple dualisms come to the fore between modern and postmodern, liquid and solid, secular and sacred. The hard theological work is left to someone else, usually someone not acquainted with life in the ecclesial trenches. The artful skill of spiritual discernment is pitched, and along with spiritual discernment the wise voice of caution and/or the prophetic voice of critique ignored. Either way, as Marx once said, what was solid now melts into thin air. Nothing of substance remains.

Like with any movement, this is always the challenge. But what these two books on revival communicate is how we as Christ’s church may still yet accomplish more than we ever thought we could accomplish by God’s grace (Ephesians 3:20) and do so with the power to understand how broad and long, and how high and deep, Christ’s love truly is (Ephesians 3:18). And that’s worth living and dying for!