This past week a few people alerted me to Dave Garner’s article on The Gospel Coalition website regarding Insider Movements (IM). While I strongly agree with Dr. Garner’s overarching assessment of IM, certain aspects of the essay needed further clarification and elaboration. It is my hope that this rejoinder can further the discussion on IM and possibly even prompt additional clarification from Dr. Garner. In his essay, Dr. Garner addresses five concerns. I will address three of those five points.
1. Dr. Garner Point One: “IM calls believers to stay in. God’s Word calls believers to come out.”
a.) In his essay Dr. Garner talks about the “stay-in” orientation encouraging practices such as being soft-spoken about your faith, avoiding participation in visible churches and continuing existing religious practices. Dr. Garner is right in asserting that all of these symptoms are problematic of the “stay-in” orientation. Where Dr. Garner goes wayward is conflating all missiological concepts of staying-in with IM practices. This is certainly not the case.
Countless missionaries believe in the value of staying in and yet thoroughly repudiate IM methodology. Working through family and social networks is a timeless missiological principle that goes back to the Bible. One thinks of the Gerasene Demoniac who after he is healed desires to follow Christ (in the sense of geographical proximity) but Jesus tells him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). Or one might also consider the woman at the well who upon hearing who Jesus was returns to her hometown to tell the people all that Christ had done (John 4:28-30). So when many missionaries speak of “staying-in,” or using strategies of staying in, one cannot immediately assume that they are subscriber to IM methodology. This principle is derived from a desire to see new believers live a life of obedience and evangelism from the outset rather than extracting them and keeping them in constant Bible studies/trainings to the point that they lose of effective contact with their social networks.
b.) Dr. Garner seems to drive hard at the concept of the visible church. What desperately needs clarification from Dr. Garner is what he means by visible church. What makes a church “visible?” There is absolutely nothing in the Bible or the Westminster Confession which suggests that for a church to be visible, it must stick out as plain and obvious from its cultural milieu. However, from the comments Dr. Garner made in the essay, I lean toward believing that he sees a strong linkage between a church that is literally visible and the doctrine of the visible church. Does Dr. Garner believe that all new believers from a Muslim background should immediately “join” a church that is—literally—visible?
If so, this concept is fraught with problems. From a purely biblical standpoint it doesn’t seem that the early church was extremely visible in the way that we conceive of it in the west, where we build church signs and buildings (Philemon 1:2; Col. 4:15; Rom 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19). In fact the New Testament only refers to churches meeting in houses. It speaks of early Christians gathering in the temple (which was largely evangelistic) but never refers to them as a church gathering.
The point I am making here is not an attempt to dispute that new believers should belong to a body of believers. The point is rather to open up the conceptual range for what we think of when we hear the words “visible church.”
Put practically, if a new believer from a Muslim background joins a home church where the Word of God is heard, the Gospel is upheld, community is lived out, the ordinances are carried out and people are encouraged to evangelize, is that person part of the visible church? Of course!
2. Dr. Garner Point Two: “IM makes the old trump the new. God’s Word makes the new trump the old.”
Under point two Dr. Garner, speaking for IM, explains their concept of sanctification saying, “… the shape of the gospel in my life is predetermined by my prior socio-religious context.” This was perhaps the most shocking comment in the entire essay by Dr. Garner because it comes across as short-sighted; a comment that you would not expect from someone who has served in other cultural settings. The reason I point this out is because it is absolutely critical for all readers to understand that the shape of the gospel in any believers life will be determined by cultural setting. This is so for every believer in all of history no matter where they find themselves. What do I mean by this?
Whenever discussions of IM and contextualization emerge there is often a belief among western Christians that we can achieve a biblical worldview that stands outside of our cultural influences. We often believe we can actually acquire a biblical acultural worldview. The very semantics of Dr. Garner’s comments even provide evidence for this assumption when he talks about a “prior socio-religious context.” There is no such thing as a “prior” socio-religious context. The worldview in which you were brought up will always color beliefs and obedience.
An example of this for western believers would be the type of community we see in the book of Acts where believers, “had all things in common” (Acts 2:44). As a westerner, it is nearly impossible for me to live out this verse and to let this verse shape me. That statement might shock some but think about it. With a strong value of individualism, this type of community will never (or extremely rarely) be lived out or obeyed by western believers. Why? Because we are all shaped by our “prior” socio-religious context.[1]
3. Point Five: “IM calls the established church to stay out. God’s Word calls the established church to go in.”
Dr. Garner hits on a very real and important tension when it comes to how the established church should involve itself with the Great Commission. What I want to clarify is that the issue with the established church and missions is not even remotely an issue connected solely to IM practitioners. It is a very real issue for all missionaries. There are two primary interconnected reasons for this.
First, virtually every missionary wrestles with how many established churches (though not all) can often be insular with little evangelistic focus. Where the missionary is continually reminded of Paul’s desire to preach the Gospel to those have never heard (Rom. 15:20-21), they often struggle to understand how many established churches can express the same desire all while focusing on ministries that drive at acquiring more bible knowledge rather than actually getting out and evangelizing a lost world.
Related to this is a missionary’s desire to see disciples who make disciples who make disciples. What most missionaries fear, IM or otherwise, is that new converts will be caught in a established church vortex of ever-increasing bible study and fellowship that is often coupled, tragically, with an ever-decreasing move toward evangelism and prayer. To be sure, the first two things are vital but they are just as vital as the last two.
And for reasons I am still struggling to understand, an increase in the former often comes at the expense of the latter. It doesn’t take much effort to see the pattern. All we have to do is look at our own lives and see if our “study” time drastically outweighs our time going out to reach people.
Of course, all of this does not mean that missionaries should stop working with established churches. They should do everything they can to help bring their brothers and sisters in Christ along to understand that Christ calls all of us to make disciples. At the same time, any honest assessment of the messiness of ministry will recognize that this process will often be painful and may come to loggerheads with the established church paradigm.
Conclusion
While I am extremely unsympathetic to the insider movements and even advocate for the defunding of IM practitioners, I believe the issue needs to be addressed carefully so that readers understand the full scope of the issue. I am extremely grateful for Dr. Garner’s article and his desire to bring this to the church’s attention. The article was well written, timely and helpful. Here I have sought to provide additional clarification on a few issues that I believe needed more clarity. The issues I have addressed are that “staying-in” is a timeless missiological principle not exclusive to IM practitioners, that sanctification is always tied in part to our socio-religious context and that working with the established church is often more challenging than it sounds.
It is my hope that this article contributes to the discussion on IM. I also hope to provide any additional clarification should my readers deem it necessary so that we can continue to work through this important and challenging topic.
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[1] Some will look at this example and say, “But Acts isn’t prescriptive, it’s descriptive!” While I don’t claim to be a whiz on applying inspired descriptive narrative, I still believe such an excuse is an attempt to evade the obvious issue being presented, namely, that socio-religious context colors our obedience in many ways. Another excellent example of the way in which socio-religious context colors obedience is the issue of spiritual gifts. Most Christians brought up in denominations that don’t practice the sign gifts have a hard time practicing them much less accepting those who do. A large reason why? The “prior” socio-religious context does not enable them to do so.
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