I have a copy of the 2002 journal article by Goheen. It was the first time I had read anything from Michael. I was very impressed and have since read his dissertation and the “The Drama of Scripture.” Both well worth reading!!!

I enjoyed the comments. I’m working my way writing a book on the missional church in the biblical story and am trying to keep these discussions in view. I have put some of the stuff on GOCN and Newbigin in a journal article. Here is the bibliographical data if you’re interested.

Michael Goheen, The Missional Church: Ecclesiological Discussion in the Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America, Missiology. 30, 4, (October 2002), 479-490.

Mike

Michael W. Goheen, Ph.D.

Geneva Professor of Worldview and Religious Studies

Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Rd.
Langley, B.C.
V2Y 1Y1 Canada
Website: http://www.biblicaltheology.ca

Josh,
Well said. You are a clear thinker and writer. Yes, Richard Hays is one of my advisors. In the spring, he and Allen Verhey taught a course at Duke Divinity School that I took where they debated pacifism a bit.
Thanks. I think I’m done commenting!

Josh, well said. Thanks. You’re a clear thinker and writer.

Mike Goheen tells me:
I enjoyed the comments . . .
I have put some of the stuff on GOCN and Newbigin in a journal article. Here is the bibliographical data if you’re interested.

Michael Goheen, The Missional Church: Ecclesiological Discussion in the Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America, Missiology. 30, 4, (October 2002), 479-490.

I visited your blog, noticed that you referred to me as a PhD student; actually, I’m in the Missional Leadership DMin program at Fuller (but thanks for the compliment).

On the subject of vocation, I think Yoder’s argument is simply that every Christian is called to discipleship. Whatever their vocations, Christians are called to follow Jesus, embodying his ethic (and not some other ethic). Practicing the way of Jesus (and thereby witnessing to Christ and his kingdom) will be more or less difficult depending on one’s profession. You mention Paul’s profession of tentmaking; in this profession he was able to serve and witness to the upside-down kingdom better than if he had been, say, Caesar, whose profession required ruling and using power coercively. I don’t think non-violence is an over-arching category under which all else falls; instead, it is a subcategory under discipleship (which itself is a subcategory under the kingdom or reign of God). William Stringfellow argued that all people–even pacifists–are complicit in the world’s violence. I agree. Still, it is undeniable that some professions are more violent than others. I’ve started reading your Yoder paper, and I’ve noticed your use of Richard Hays (whose work I, too, appreciate). Hays thinks some professions are simply incompatible with Christian discipleship and witness: “This would mean, practically speaking, that Christians would have to relinquish positions of power and influence insofar as the exercise of such positions becomes incompatible with the teaching and example of Jesus. This might well mean, as Hauerwas has perceived, that the church would assume a peripheral status in our culture, which is deeply committed to the necessity and glory of violence” (“The Moral Vision of the New Testament,” p. 342).

It may seem that I’ve strayed from the original topic, but there is a connection. Some missional thinkers are mostly concerned about getting out into the world and engaging the culture, transforming it; other missional thinkers are mostly concerned about transforming the church into an alternative to the world, a contrast society. Persons in the first group suspect the witness of the second will be ineffective, as it will lack close cultural engagement; persons in the second group suspect the witness of the first will be unfaithful, as it will fall into cultural accommodation. My take is that the two need each other in order to be both faithful and effective.

You write, “I must say that I am not convinced that missiology/Missio Dei comes before ecclesiology or vice versa and I would assume Trinitarian theology gets put in there somewhere.” I was trying to communicate something similar when I wrote, “I’m not convinced that the two sides are mutually exclusive; in fact, I suspect a creative tension between the two needs to hold if the missional conversation is to lead to something that is truly new.”

Furthermore, I must say that I am not convinced that missiology/Missio Dei comes before ecclesiology or vice versa and I would assume Trinitarian theology gets put in there somewhere. I don’t think this helps us. Though I assume the point is for some people that “ecclesiology” is “the study of a flawed bureaucracy that calls itself church.” Well in that case, yes, let’s not start with that “ecclesiology.”

It seems to me that these things support what I wrote in my first comment–namely, “that there is tension within the missional conversation between persons who focus more on the world (they tend to be missiologists) and persons who focus more on the church (ethicists and others).” My comment made the case for the ecclesiological side of the argument; Len’s comment made the case for the missiological side of the argument. I’m not convinced that the two sides are mutually exclusive; in fact, I suspect a creative tension between the two needs to hold if the missional conversation is to lead to something that is truly new. Without a radical ecclesiology, the missional church is likely to do little more than duplicate the Sojourners conversation (with which it shares many political concerns, but which has little if any ecclesiology, and has therefore been called a “Constantinianism of the left” and “statist” by James K.A. Smith); without a contextual missiology, the missional church is likely to do little more than duplicate alternative-community efforts that have not closely engaged the surrounding culture.