Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T10:32:24.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped? Apostolic Challenges to the Mission-Shaped Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2010

Abstract

John M. Hull has raised a number of criticisms about the understanding of worship found in Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context. In this article, some of these criticisms are explored further. Analysis of Paul’s proposed reforms to the Lord’s Supper in Corinth show that worship must address social concerns and not focus exclusively on a God-ward aspect. Paul does this by describing the Lord’s Supper as a paradigm for behaviour and world-view using the Greek symposium tradition. Paul’s response to the Corinthian situation raises questions about the suitability of the Homogeneous Unit Principle and its role in mission, as do aspects of the controversy with Peter documented in Galatians 2. His wider exploration of the sacramental dimension of ritual meals (1 Cor. 10–11) further shows that worship cannot be divorced from ethics and behaviour if it is to be truly effective and based on Pauline principles

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

Fergus J. King is Rector of the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Kotara South in the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and Conjoint Lecturer in theology and religious studies at the University of Newcastle, specializing in New Testament and missiology.

References

2. Cray, Graham (ed.), Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context (London: Church House Publishing, 2004).Google Scholar

3. Nicholls, Alan (ed.), Building the Mission-Shaped Church in Australia: A Resource Book for Churches, Home Groups, and Diocesan Staff Meetings with Questions for Small Group Discussions (General Synod Office: Sydney, 2006).Google Scholar

4. Moore, Lucy, Messy Church: Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centred Community (Abingdon: Bible Reading Fellowship, 2006).Google Scholar

5. Robinson, Stuart, Starting Mission-Shaped Churches (Sydney: St Paul’s Parish Council, 2007).Google Scholar

6. Withers, Margaret, Mission-Shaped Children: Moving towards a Child-Centred Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2006).Google Scholar

7. Collyer, Michael, Dalpra, Claire, Johnson, AlisonWoodward, James, A Mission-Shaped Church for Older People? (Solihull: Levenson Centre, 2008).Google Scholar

8. Gaze, Sally, Mission-Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside (London: Church House Publishing, 2006).Google Scholar

9. Mobsby, Ian, Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church: How Are they Authentically Church and Anglican? (London: Moot Community Publishing, 2009).Google Scholar

10. Percy, MartynNelstrop, Louise (eds.), Evaluating Fresh Expressions: Explorations in Emerging Church: Emerging Theological and Practical Models (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2008).Google Scholar

11. Croft, Steven (ed.), Mission-Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s Church (London: Church House Publishing, 2008).Google Scholar

12. Hope, Susan, Mission-Shaped Spirituality: The Transforming Power of Mission (London: Church House Publishing, 2006).Google Scholar

13. St Mark’s Review 200 (2006).

14. Hull, John M., Mission-Shaped Church: A Theological Response (London: SCM Press, 2006); ‘Only One Way to Walk with God: Christian Discipleship for New Expressions of Church’, in Percy and Nelstrop (eds.), Evaluating Fresh Expressions, pp. 105–21; and ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom-Focussed’, in Croft (ed.), Mission-Shaped Questions, pp. 114–32.Google Scholar

15. Mission-shaped Church, p. 85, quoted in Hull, , Mission-Shaped Church, p. 27.Google Scholar

16. Hull, , Mission-Shaped Church, p. 27.Google Scholar

17. Hull, , ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom-Focussed’, p. 129.Google Scholar

18. Hull, , ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focussed’, p. 131.Google Scholar

19. Witherington, Ben III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992), p. 252.Google Scholar

20. It is held that Joseph and Aseneth is a Jewish text originating outside Palestine between 100 bce and the time of Trajan (98 ce–117 ce). For a detailed bibliography on the provenance and date, see King, Fergus J., More than a Passover: Inculturation in the Supper Narratives of the New Testament (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007), p. 85.Google Scholar

21. O’Neill, J.C., ‘Bread and Wine’, Scottish Journal of Theology 48 (1995), pp. 169184CrossRefGoogle Scholar (179). See also Kilpatrick, George D., The Eucharist in Bible and Liturgy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 5968Google Scholar. On the dating of the Last Supper and the Passover, see King, , More than a Passover, pp. 201208Google Scholar.

22. Burchard, C., ‘The Importance of Joseph and Aseneth for the Study of the New Testament: A General Survey and a Fresh Look at the Lord’s Supper’, New Testament Studies 33 (1987), pp. 102134 (118–19). The Greek in the original has been transliterated.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Thiselton, Anthony, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), pp. 866868.Google Scholar

24. Fitzmyer, Joseph, Romans (AB; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), pp. 275276; Witherington, Conflict, pp. 5–9.Google Scholar

25. Milavec, A., ‘The Purifying Confession of Failings Required by the Didache’s Eucharistic Sacrifice’, Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer 2003. Online: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0LAL/2_33/103673632/print.jhtml.Google Scholar

26. Smith, D.E., ‘Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke’, Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987), pp. 613638CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smith, Dennis E., From Symposium to Eucharist (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 4766Google Scholar.

27. Szesnat, H., ‘ “Pretty Boys” in Philo’s De Vita Contemplativa, The Studia Philonica Annual 10 (1998), pp. 87107 (91–93).Google Scholar

28. Bowie, A.M., ‘Thinking with Drinking: Wine and the Symposium in Aristophanes’, Journal of Hellenic Studies CXVII (1997), pp. 121 (21).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Brumberg-Kraus, J., ‘ “Not by Bread Alone…”: The Ritualization of Food and Table-Talk in the Passover Seder and in the Last Supper’, Semeia 8 (1999), pp. 165191 (171).Google Scholar

30. Lukinovich, A., ‘The Play of Reflections between Literary Form and the Sympotic Theme in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus’, in Oswyn Murray (ed.), Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposium (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 263271 (269–70).Google Scholar

31. Witherington, , Conflict, p. 244.Google Scholar

32. Smith, , Symposium, p. 174.Google Scholar

33. Smith, , Symposium, p. 175.Google Scholar

34. See further Nkemnkia, Martin N., African Vitalogy: A Step Forward in African Thinking (Nairobi: Paulines, 1999), pp. 5056Google Scholar; Nyerere, J.K., ‘The Church’s Role in Society’, in John Parratt (ed.), A Reader in African Christian Theology (London: SPCK, 1997), pp. 109119Google Scholar (113–14).

35. One of the criticisms made of Theissen, Gerd, (‘The Strong and the Weak in Corinth: A Sociological Analysis of a Theological Quarrel’, in Gerd Theissen (ed.), The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 121144Google Scholar), is his use of the predominantly economic ‘class’ rather than ‘status’ to delineate Corinthian society. ‘Status’ involves a ‘multidimensionality of stratification’ with a number of components: see Meeks, Wayne A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 54Google Scholar, and Fotopoulos, John, Food Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth (WUNT 2. Reihe 151, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), p. 13Google Scholar.

36. Harland, Philip A., Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 27.Google Scholar

37. Harland, , Associations, p. 27.Google Scholar

38. Meeks, , First Urban Christians, p. 55.Google Scholar

39. Neyrey, Jerome H., Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 67.Google Scholar

40. Bartchy, S., ‘The Historical Jesus and Honor Reversal at the Table’, in Wolfgang Stegemann, Bruce J. Malina and Gerd Theissen (eds.), The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2002), pp. 175183Google Scholar (178). There is an extended description in Neyrey, Honor, pp. 5–34.

41. Martial, , Epigrammata, 3.60, quoted in Smith, Symposium, p. 45 and Witherington, Conflict, p. 242, n. 3.Google Scholar

42. Translation in Melmoth, William, Pliny the Younger: Letters (Harvard Classics, New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14). Online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/pliny-letters.html. See also Meeks, First Urban Christians, p. 68.Google Scholar

43. Adams, Douglas, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. in Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy (New York: Harmony, 1983), p. 153.Google Scholar

44. Witherington, Conflict, p. 247. Cf.Mitchell, Margaret M., Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), pp. 151157.Google Scholar

45. Thiselton, , First Epistle, p. 849.Google Scholar

46. Witherington, Conflict, 249; cf. Thiselton, First Epistle, pp. 898–99 for whom the key issue is shame, not hunger. Those who stress timing as the source of Paul’s concern include Burchard, ‘The Importance of Joseph and Aseneth’, p. 127, Frör, Hans, You Wretched Corinthians! (London: SCM Press, 1995), p. 59Google Scholar and Henderson, S.W., ‘“If Anyone Hungers…”: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.17-34’, New Testament Studies 48 (2002), pp. 195208CrossRefGoogle Scholar (200). Others think timing is not an issue: Thiselton, , First Epistle, p. 863Google Scholar; Schrage, , Die Erste Brief an Die Korinther (EKK VII.3, Zurich: Zurich Benziger Verlag, 1991), p. 57Google Scholar. For some, the use of prolambanei implies a further twist, on the grounds that food shortages caused participants to rush to eat ( Thiselton, , First Epistle, pp. 852–853Google Scholar, 863). Critics of the timing thesis include Das, A.A., ‘1 Corinthians 11:17-34 Revisited’, Concordia Theological Quarterly 62 (1998), pp. 187208Google Scholar (188–89). Others argue that people ate what they brought, and this led to distinctions on the basis of foodstuffs: thus, Hofius, O., ‘The Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25’, in Ben F. Meyer (ed.), One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor 11 and Other Eucharistic Texts. The Cambridge Conference on the Eucharist August 1988 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988), pp. 75115Google Scholar (88–92). Schottroff, L., ‘Holiness and Justice: Exegetical Comments on 1 Corinthians 11.17-34’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 79 (2000), pp. 5160Google Scholar (53) also thinks food lies at the centre of the problem.

47. Garnsey, Peter, Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schnackenburg, Rudolf, The Gospel According to St. John, Vol. 2 (London: Burns & Oates, 1980), p. 442Google Scholar, n. 25.

48. Langer, R., ‘Wine’, in Ed Kessler and Neil Wenborn (eds.), A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 445446)Google Scholar. Hofius, , ‘The Lord’s Supper’, pp. 85–86Google Scholar, is more skeptical about the privileged status of wine noting that it need not be associated solely with the Passover or festal meals.

49. Mission-shaped Church, p. 108. Hull, Mission-Shaped Church, p. 15, notes that McGavran (see n. 50) might not agree with the implications of the use of his work as manifested in the report. Yet, Padilla, C.R., ‘Unity of the Church and the Homogeneous Unit Principle’, in Robert L. Gallagher and Paul Hertig (eds.), Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), pp. 7392Google Scholar (89–92) is highly critical of MacGavran’s theorizing for reasons very similar to those given by Hull.

50. McGavran, Donald A., The Bridges of God: A Study in the Strategy of Mission (London: World Dominion Press, 1955).Google Scholar

51. McGavran, Donald A., Understanding Church Growth (rev. edn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 223243Google Scholar. For a fuller definition and analysis of the sociological underpinnings of the term, see Fong, Bruce W., Racial Equality in the Church: A Critique of the Homogeneous Unit Principle in Light of a Practical Theology Perspective (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996), pp. 1012Google Scholar. Fong, , Racial Equality, pp. 39–69Google Scholar summarizes the exposition and criticism of the HUP in recent missiological debate.

52. McGavran, , Bridges, p. 9.Google Scholar

53. McGavran, , Bridges, p. 10.Google Scholar

54. Bosch, D.J., ‘Nothing but a Heresy: Church Unity amidst Cultural Diversity: A Protestant Problem’, in John W. DeGruchy (ed.), Apartheid Is a Heresy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 2438Google Scholar. (27–28). See also Bosch, D.J., ‘The Structure of Mission: An Exposition of Matthew 28: 16–20’, in Wilbert R. Shenk (ed.), Exploring Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 218248Google Scholar (236–40) and Fong, Racial Equality, for an exposition of the HUP interpretation (pp. 20–21) and critique (pp. 59–60).

55. Barth, K., ‘An Exegetical Study of Matthew 28:16-20’, in Gallagher and Hertig (eds.), Landmark Essays in Mission and World Christianity, pp. 1730 (25).Google Scholar

56. Pierard, R.V., ‘Significant Currents in German Protestant Missiology’ (Currents in World Christianity Position Paper Number 102, Currents in World Christianity Project, Westminster College, Cambridge, 1999), p. 22.Google Scholar

57. Pierard, ‘Significant Currents’, p. 22. Yates, Timothy, Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 4854.Google Scholar

58. Thus, Pierard, , ‘Significant Currents’, p. 22.Google Scholar

59. Yates, , Christian Mission, pp. 54–56.Google Scholar

60. Hoekendijk, Johannes C., Kirche und Volk in der deutscher Missionswissenschaft (Munich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1967), p. 280. This translation in Yates, Christian Mission, p. 54.Google Scholar

61. Plaisted, R.L., ‘The Homogeneous Unit Debate: Its Value Orientations and Changes’, Evangelical Quarterly 59.3 (1987), pp. 215233 (228–29).Google Scholar

62. Cf. Bosch, ‘The Structure of Mission’, p. 237.Google Scholar

63. Neusner, Jacob (with Bruce Chilton), Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 202.Google Scholar

64. Hicks, Frederick C.N., The Fullness of Sacrifice: An Essay in Reconciliation (London: SPCK, 1959), pp. 106107.Google Scholar

65. Mamfredis, Maria, ‘ “A Nation of Priests”: The World-View of the Temple Scroll and its Application to the Way of Life Prescribed in the Sectarian Scrolls from Qumran (unpublished PhD thesis, Concordia University, Montreal, 2000), pp. 197; 205–206; 209–10; 235–36.Google Scholar

66. Newsom, C.A., ‘Apocalyptic Subjects: Social Construction of the Self in the Qumran Hodayot’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 12 (2001), pp. 335. (6–7).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67. Norris, F.W., ‘Strategy for Mission in the New Testament’, in Wilbert R. Shenk (ed.), Exploring Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 260276. (272–73).Google Scholar

68. Fong, , Racial Equality, p. 27.Google Scholar

69. Fong, , Racial Equality, p. 61.Google Scholar

70. Betz, Hans D., Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 106Google Scholar; Burton, Ernest D., Galatians (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), pp. 104105Google Scholar; Lightfoot, Joseph B., The Epistles of St. Paul. II — The Third Apostolic Journey. 3. Epistle to the Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1880), p. 112Google Scholar.

71. Bruce, Frederick F., The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1982), p. 130.Google Scholar

72. Burton, , Galatians, p. 110Google Scholar. See also Bosch, , ‘The Structure of Mission’, p. 240Google Scholar.

73. Gration, R., ‘The Homogeneous Unit Principle: Another Perspective’, Evangelical Missions Quarterly 17.4 (1981), pp. 197202. (202).Google Scholar

74. Fong, , Racial Equality, pp. 6768Google Scholar. See also Allen, Roland, Missionary Methods: St Paul's Or Ours? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 [repr.]), pp. 7071Google Scholar for anticipated criticism of theories such as the HUP.

75. Burchard, , ‘Importance’, p. 117.Google Scholar

76. Kilpatrick, , The Eucharist, p. 57.Google Scholar

77. Burchard, , ‘Importance’, p. 117.Google Scholar

78. Barrett, Charles K., Essays on John (London: SCM Press, 1982), pp. 8283.Google Scholar

79. Söding, Thomas, translation and quotation from Eckhard Schnäbel, Early Christian Mission. II. Paul and the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004), p. 1347.Google Scholar

80. Metzger, Bruce, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish and Christian (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), p. 14.Google Scholar

81. Laertius, Diogenes, The Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers, Vol. VI. From Yonge’s translation online at http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diogenes/dldiogenes.htm.Google Scholar

82. Beck, R., ‘Ritual, Myth, Doctrine and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel’, Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000), pp. 145180 (172).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83. , Beck, ‘Ritual, Myth, Doctrine’, pp. 173–74.Google Scholar

84. Harland, , Associations, p. 75.Google Scholar

85. Harland, , Associations, pp. 70–7.1.Google Scholar

86. Zielinski, Thaddeus, The Religion of Ancient Greece: An Outline (translated from the Polish with the author’s cooperation by George Rapall Noyes; Chicago: Ares, 1974), p. 149.Google Scholar

87. Fraser, C.G., ‘The Jewish and Hellenistic Influences on Paul: A Case Study of Mysterion’ (unpublished MA thesis, University of Windsor, Ontario, 1998), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

88. Meyer, Marvin W., The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), pp. 5059. for the relevant texts from Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 4: Messenia 33:3-6 and the Rule of the Andanian Mysteries.Google Scholar

89. Fotopoulos, , Food, pp. 227–29.Google Scholar

90. Witherington, , Conflict, p. 251.Google Scholar

91. Thiselton, , The First Epistle, p. 889.Google Scholar

92. Kasemann, Ernst, Essays on New Testament Themes (Studies in Biblical Theology, First Series, 41; London: SCM Press, 1964), pp. 122123.Google Scholar

93. Kasemann, , Essays, pp. 124–25.Google Scholar

94. Fotopoulos, , Food, p. 8.Google Scholar

95. Schnäbel, , Early Christian Mission, p. 1346.Google Scholar

96. Aune, D.E., ‘The Phenomenon of Early Christian “Anti-sacramentalism” ’, in David E. Aune (ed.), Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren (Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 194214 (200).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

97. Hull, , Mission-shaped Church, p. 27.Google Scholar

98. Walz, C.A., ‘The Cursing Paul: Magical Contests in Acts 13 and the New Testament Apocrypha’, in Robert L. Gallagher and Paul Hertig (eds.), Mission in Acts: Ancient Narratives in Contemporary Context (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), pp. 167182 (168–72).Google Scholar

99. Fotopoulos, , Food, p. 231.Google Scholar

100. Fotopoulos, Food, p. 22. Willis, Wendell L., Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985).Google Scholar

101. Schnäbel, , Early Christian Mission, p. 1347.Google Scholar

102. Aune, , ‘The Phenomenon’, p. 213.Google Scholar

103. Burchard, , ‘Importance’, p. 123.Google Scholar

104. Burchard, , ‘Importance’, p. 125.Google Scholar

105. Schnäbel, , Early Christian Mission, pp. 1347–1348Google Scholar. For an overview and criticism of critical trajectories which have attempted to divorce Paul from a Judaic background, see Gager, John G., Re-inventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 4042Google Scholar.

106. Weston, Frank, In Defence of the English Catholic (London: Mowbray, 1923), p. 30.Google Scholar

107. Hull, , ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focussed’, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar