Paradigms of the Church in Mission

A Historical Survey of the Church's Self-Understanding of Being the Church and of Mission

Rodriguez

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781630879181
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this book Augusto Rodriguez provides a historical survey of the different paradigms of Christianity in order to understand how and why the church has changed her concept of being the church and of mission. This book will help in understanding how the different paradigms of Christianity, throughout history, have changed the church's self-understanding of being the church and of mission. Rodriguez's aim is to provide an opportunity for Christians to see the different paradigms the church has gone through and understand the present situation of the church in order to live out as fully as possible the New Testament understanding of its mission and better accomplish the task.

1

Paradigm Theory

Living in a technological age at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we cannot deny the fact that rapid changes are taking place around us. Neither can we deny the fact that those changes affect us in our way of living. Those changes have an impact on us as Christians and upon the church as well.

Due to the fact that rapid changes are happening all around people and all the time, they become resistant to changes in society. But the reality is that the world changes, people change, and culture changes around us. This raises a question: If the culture changes around us, does the church change? Of course this change does not mean a change in the church as the body of Christ in essence, but the question has to do with the changes in relationship to changes in culture.

Mike Regele reminds us that the invisible church, as such, lives outside and independent from culture. However, we cannot deny the fact that the church manifests itself in different eras and societies, as a social institution that reflects the norms of society and the beliefs of the culture where the congregation is ministering.1

It cannot be denied that the church is comprised of people who make up the culture, and as such, the church is affected by culture. Now, does this mean that the church as the body of Christ must adapt to the culture and live according to the culture? I believe so. Otherwise the church becomes irrelevant to the culture and the society it serves.

In order to understand the historical developments of the church’s self-understanding of church and mission, it is important to understand certain terminology that is widely used in today’s world. I’m referring to the wide use of the term “paradigm.”

When we apply paradigm theory to social science or missiology, we must try to understand why changes take place. From an anthropological point of view, we say that when people begin to question basic assumptions, changes begin to take place. That is when our worldview begins to change. Therefore, an understanding of worldview, its functions and how worldview is at the base of paradigm theory, is important.

Understanding Worldview

The concept of paradigm gained recognition especially among the scientific community after the publication of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1970). Kuhn, a physicist and scientific historian, limits his theory of paradigms to the natural sciences.2 However, as Bosch says, Kuhn’s theories are of great importance in today’s changing world, changing “from one way of understanding reality to another.”3

Worldview Defined

Worldview is at the core of culture. It is the nerve system of culture, out of which the conceptualizations of reality by the members of a given culture ascend. Charles H. Kraft defines worldview “as the culturally structured assumptions, values, and commitments/allegiances underlying a people’s perception of reality and their response to those perceptions.”4 Kraft also says that worldview is inseparable from culture, but that “it is included in culture as the structuring of the deepest-level presuppositions on the basis of which people live their lives.”5

Because worldview lies at the heart of culture, it touches every other aspect of culture.6 This in turn will affect any conception, perception, or perspective of reality people have within a given culture. Worldview lies at the deepest-level of culture, conditioning the form the culture takes. That is, people’s behavior is shaped by their values, which stems out of their worldview.

Worldview is then a mental structure and a process. It is a structure because it shapes all different fields of knowledge; and a process because it integrates all various fields of knowledge, from theology to the culinary arts, “governing everyday behavior.”7 It is the basis of how people explain things happening in their life, how they ratify their beliefs and practices, as well as how they deal with problems that arise in an expected or unexpected way.8

Kraft’s definition says that worldview includes assumptions. This must be understood as things that are not and were not written, but that they originated, presumably, by the members of the original group, who came into agreement at a given time. Later these assumptions were passed on to other generations, probably by different means, such as oral, written, or modeled to the young members of the people group.9 A clear example of this is the case of the Hebrew people, who received the Law through Moses and were told to pass it on to other generations (Deut 6:5, 7).

Worldview Functions

Because worldview includes a set of assumptions and values, our commitments and allegiances will also be conditioned by our worldview. In other words, we will respond to any allegiance by making a commitment based on the worldview pattern we have learned in our culture. That is, we will evaluate, interpret and commit ourselves based on our perception of reality, which is not God’s reality, which is complete, as opposed to ours, perceived according to our worldview.10 It is ours, perceived according to our worldview.11

Worldview helps cultures to perceive reality, therefore worldview acts also as a lens through which cultures see and interpret reality. As in t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Paradigm Theory
• Chapter 2: The Apostolic Paradigm
• Chapter 3: The Christendom Paradigm
• Chapter 4: The New Apostolic Paradigm
• Chapter 5: A Transforming Revolution
• Chapter 6: The Emergence of New Apostolic Churches
• Chapter 7: Conclusions
• Bibliography