May 10, 2011

Michael Green has said that “most evangelists are not very interested in theology: most theologians are not very interested in evangelism.”1 Unfortunately, Green’s statement could easily be restated, “Most church growth theorists are not very interested in theology: most theologians are not very interested in church growth theories.” The discipline of church growth has long been beset with criticism for its lack of a consistent theological anchor. Influenced by J. Waskom Pickett’s Church Growth and Group Conversion,2 Donald McGavran, founder of the Church Growth movement, accepted a favorable view of pragmatism. Hence the credo in church growth circles has arisen: “if it is not unbiblical, and if it contributes to the growth of the church, then do it.”3

This philosophy of pragmatism4 has contributed to a discipline that has at times been unbalanced between methodology and theology. This lack of a single theological thrust, however, actually helped to popularize the church growth movement. Eddie Smith points out in Balanced Church Growth,

Christians and groups with varying views of the millennium, differing ideas of the manner of baptism and church government, and opposing concepts of the meaning of God’s sovereignty could all accept and employ Church Growth methods. There is ‘a’ theology for church growth but not ‘the’ theology.5

This inconsistent relationship between church growth methodologies and theology may cause many problems. Since a theology is present in every church growth methodology, one wishing to pursue a new, innovative methodology must take great care in examining it for its underlying theological presuppositions prior to its implementation. There is no consistent framework which church growth theorists utilize to test the veracity of new methodologies. Most give lip service to the claim that all methodologies must be biblical; few, however, have explored in detail how one determines what is and what is not biblical. This examination for underlying theological presuppositions is the work of hermeneutics which is an area lacking sufficient attention in church growth circles.

Wagner defends himself and other church growth theorists for having put off the erection of a theological matrix by stating,

Systematized theological work usually is developed from a movement, not vice versa. For example, Jesus never wrote anything, much less a theology. The book of Romans, the most systematized theological development of Jesus’ gospel in the Bible, was written 30 years after the preaching of the gospel began. Luther and Calvin did not systematize the theology of the Reformation until after it had begun.6

Wagner’s point reveals a serious flaw in his and many church growth theorists’ epistemology. He begins with the event and then works himself back to theology. His point should not be well-taken with regards to the Reformation’s or Jesus’ theology. Jesus did not need to write a theology as his words are theology. If one accepts Grant Osborne’s assertion that the purpose of a systematic theology is “to contextualize [the biblical message] in developing theological dogma for the church,”7 then Jesus’ earthly ministry was theology.8 Second, to suggest that Romans is merely a systemizing of Jesus’ teaching written thirty years following his death is to deny or discount the Holy Spirit’s role of inspiring the biblical authors. Third, to assume that Luther and Calvin got their theology from their experiences in the Reformation is to overlook the reference which the reformers raised as their sole source, sola scriptura.9These statements reveal the phenomenological nature of Wagner’s and many others’ hermeneutic in the church growth movement.10 To be fair one must hasten to add that Wagner’s theological precepts, following his acceptance of many Pentecostal ideas, are less and less representative of church growth theorists.11

This lack of a solid theological mooring causes the discipline of church growth to be in dire need of a consistent biblical hermeneutic. In Church Growth and the Whole Gospel Wagner discusses the tension between “the ‘Ought’ and the ‘Is.’” He lists “the solid bedrock of a ‘verbally inerrant’ Scripture,” and a subordination of the social sciences to “the rigorous evaluations of the Scripture,”12 as the two criteria on which the church growth movement must be based. The problem arises, however, when one attempts to systematize a means of striking the proper balance between the two (Y). Wagner offers a model of the “ought – is” spectrum in which a pendulum swings between the theological ‘ought’ on the one hand and the phenomenological ‘is’ on the other.

?William Beckham, a church growth theorist who advocates cell churches, in The Second Reformation sees the dilemma as needing to balance God’s transcendence and immanence. In his “two-winged church” model, Beckham insists that “the advantage of the cell church is found in theology, not structure.”13 Beckham, like Schwarz, is seeking to bring about a new reformation through striking the proper balance in the practice of theology. Schwarz’s neo-orthodox view of revelation, however, when mixed with McGavran’s pragmatism, curtails the Scripture’s ability to correct and reprove methodological or doctrinal excesses.

Excesses in contextualization from the field of missiology have caused many evangelicals to see the need for a hermeneutic that will supply the balance between what one experiences and what the biblical texts teach. The most glaring example of this excess of contextualization is Charles Kraft’s acceptance of polygamy and infanticide, while pointing to the Bible for support, as peripheral matters14 that should be accepted among newly reached peoples. Wagner’s statement that the hermeneutic for church growth is phenomenological opens it up for further misuse. Thom Rainer insists that

Church growth . . . must affirm a hermeneutic that captures the tension of being in the world but not of the world. A hermeneutic that attempts to isolate the text from modern culture will not speak to the world. However, a hermeneutic constantly seeking the favor of culture, even if numerical growth results, may gain relevancy while losing true disciples.15

One example of why evangelicals need to speak to these hermeneutical issues is demonstrated by Cecilio Arrastía’s article “The Church as a Hermeneutic Community.” Arrastía demonstrates how the New Hermeneutic has influenced the thinking of persons within the church growth movement internationally. He presents a methodology for the church to create a committee that works with the pastor to assist him in determining what the community believes a text says prior to his study. Following the sermon the committee meets with him to discuss their perceptions of his interpretation. Thus, some Spanish-speaking churches have accepted the concept of the community being the final arbiter of truth. 16Aside from Rainer’s treatment of a theology for church growth, little of substance had been written on the subject of theology and church growth until Schwarz’s Paradigm Shift was released. Schwarz should be commended for presenting a theological treatment for his Natural Church Development methodology. He could have remained silent and not affected his sales, and perhaps eventually allowed NCD’s popularity to quiet his critics. 17

End Notes

1. Michael Green. Evangelism In The Early Church, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 7.

2. Rainer, Thom S.  The Book of Church Growth: History, Theology, and Principles. (Nashville: Broadman & Holman), 29.

3. Ibid.,  30.  Church growth advocates today embracing pragmatism commit the logic fallacy of ignoratio elenchi which is simply an irrelevant conclusion.  An irrelevant conclusion gets the focus off the point to be proved by substituting a related, but logically irrelevant point for it.  Specifically described as operat ergo veritat, “It works, therefore it is true.”  Results have never been a guarantee for truth.  For example, Christianity is true, regardless of what works, and the propositions that support its truth are not based on personal testimonies.

4. C. Peter Wagner. Church Growth and the Whole Gospel (New York: Harper Row, 1981),72.  Wagner lists three sources of the church growth’s pragmatism. First, cultural sources emanating from the “American intellectual [who] ‘has been consistently pressed to show the utility of his ideas and theories.’”  Second, historical sources founded in the disciplines attempt to observe how God works and then create a methodology around the observed phenomena. The earliest demonstration of this is in J. Waskom Pickett’s Christian Mass Movements in India. Third, the pragmatism of Church Growth is based on theological sources within the Scriptures.  Wagner notes Nehemiah, Hebrews depiction of Jesus’ going to the cross as a pragmatically determined action, and the pragmatic statement of Paul in I Cor. 9:19-22, “that I might by all means save some,” as biblical examples.

5. Eddie Smith. Balanced Church Growth. (Nashville: Broadman Press), 50.

6. C. Peter Wagner. Strategies for Church Growth: Tools for Effective Mission and Evangelism, (Ventura CA: Regal, 1989), 37.

7. Grant R. Osborne. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation.  (Downer’s Grove: Inter Varsity Press), 1991.

8. See Jn 8:28-29, 10:38, 15:15, 17:6, Rom. 16:25-26.

9. Robert Logan the lead Natural Church Development consultant in the United States would also disagree with Wagner’s point.  Logan has stated, “The first reformation was a reformation of theology by Martin Luther and companions.  The second reformation was a reformation of spirituality. [Phillip Jakob Spener] The third reformation, building on the first two, is a reformation of structures.  Natural church development is a reformation of putting the wonderful insights of Reformation and Pietism into practice.”  Robert E. Logan, first lecture of the Natural Church Development Consultant Training in Calgary, May 1999.  Quoted in David C Choi “Growing a Healthy Church: The Concept and Proposed Training Program of Natural Church Development” (D. Min. diss., Western Seminary, 2000), 23.

10. Wagner, Strategies for Church Growth, 37.

11. Rainer, The Book of Church Growth, 45.  See C. Peter Wagner. Look Out! The Pentecostals Are Coming (Wheaton IL: Creation House, 1973).

12. Wagner. Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, 150.

13. William A. Beckham.  The Second Reformation: Reshaping the Church for the 21st Century. (Houston: Touch Publications1995), 83.

14. Charles H. Kraft. Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 364.  “By first transforming such a core concept as the people’s understanding of and commitment to God, such peripheral matters as polygamy and infanticide will be dealt with in due time, and with a minimum of trauma, under the leading of God — mediated, frequently, through the helpful counsel of aware and understanding outsiders. Meanwhile, though, the people of God will follow him according to their own intelligible customs. In polygamous societies the people of God may not only include but be led by Christian polygamists (just as in the Old Testament) until such a time as changing the custom becomes a Spirit-led priority item of God’s people. Without the interference of the static caused by outside pressure to change such a peripheral custom, then, the message of God will be heard as good news concerning salvation rather than as bad news concerning polygamy.”  Kraft can hold such a position because he views the Scripture’s revelation to be almost open-ended. “The Bible, the source of the data that we are attempting to analyze, is a more wonderful book than evangelicals have often realized. It has been customary to look to it as the source of the message we are to proclaim. That message we regard as inspired. There is, however, more to the Bible than just its message. It shows also the method of God in dealing with that life-transforming message. That method is always personal, interactional.”

15. Rainer, The Book of Church Growth, 91.

16. Arrastía, Cecilio, “La Iglesia Como Comunidad Hermenéutica.” Apuntes 1 (Spring 1981), 7-13. “. . . in view of renewing and redefining the homiletic task, the local Church becomes, by way of a representative group of the same, a hermeneutic community that participates in the labor of reflection previous to the weekly preaching of the pastor.  Said in another way, the Church has been called a ‘Community of Faith,’ ‘of grace,’ ‘that worships,’ ‘of hope.’  We propose without discarding those beautiful characterizations, that one more function be added, and that it be called a ‘hermeneutic community.’

17. Schwarz’s NCD has taken the church growth field by storm. This popularity is due in no small part to bold claims like “this study developed into the most comprehensive research project of the causes of church growth ever undertaken,”Schwarz. Natural Church Development, 18.