Implications of Keller’s
View of Contextualization
1. The
contextualization described in CC produces personality cults (Paul,
Apollos, Cephas or fill-in-the-blank with your favorite cultural
contextualizer—cf. 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:21-23; 4:6).
2. This
contextualization undermines God’s power with the wisdom of man. To preach the unchanging message of the
gospel with the changing methods that match the culture is to empty the message
of its power[1],
and leave the audience with a presentation that finds its success on the wisdom
of man![2]
If the church continues to move in this explicitly unbiblical direction, God
may sovereignly grant conversion through the message in spite of your method, but you will have no criteria to evaluate
whether the faith of the hearer rests in the power of God or on the wisdom of
men! I pray no pastor would be willing
to go this direction or pay this price.
3. This contextualization will never attract
the world. Every previous form of
contextualization has earned the laughter of the world when compared with the
world’s power to accomplish it. Don’t
get me wrong, the world will always appreciate it in the sense that it isn’t
offensive or intimidating like the gospel.
But, when the church attempts to sound like Coldplay, why would the
world listen the copycat when the real band sounds better and doesn’t have the
baggage of a message about sin, righteousness and judgment? When the church attempts to produce like
Hollywood, why would the world watch with anything more than mild curiosity
when the movies are always seven years behind in technology and filled with
B-rated actors? For that matter, Oscar
winners would add nothing of spiritual power to the production even if more
people might pay to see it. So, when
contextualization goes the route of cultural renewal, the churches efforts will
always pale in comparison to the efforts of the secular government and
subsidized secular non-profit organizations.
If this is our sales-pitch, we’ll never earn the right to be heard.
…and my message and my preaching
were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the
power of God. (1 Cor. 2:4-5)
Common Grace
The
biblical doctrine of common grace highlights the love of God shown to His
enemies. It both extols God’s gracious
character and the urgent need of the unbeliever to repent. Common grace, as seen in God’s revelation of
Himself through general revelation, the work of the conscience, and undeserved
gifts given to the righteous and the unrighteous always point toward God’s desire
for repentance, and the lack of excuses for unbelief. CC
simply follows Abraham Kuyper’s view of progressive common grace which affirms
that God’s common grace can be seen in the increasing progress of human
existence in this cursed creation.
According to Keller, part of God’s mission for the church is to help promote
human flourishing. This view depreciates the value of special
grace in the power of conversion, and it distracts the church from the great
commission.
Keller’s emphasis on the need for
the church to do whatever is for the good of “human flourishing” or for the
“common good” or the “good of humanity” or “human thriving”[3]
is intriguing. I acknowledge that where
the gospel is embraced by a society, human beings flourish as God
designed. However, I am more concerned
that where the church pursues the common good outside the special revelation of the gospel, she is eventually
prevented from fulfilling the great commission. This view makes a gospel out of common grace
rather than special grace.
Keller has long been indebted to
Abraham Kuyper’s influence as a theologian and a cultural thinker. He rightly puts Kuyper in the Transformationist camp on the issue of
how the church responds to the culture and admits that he has “a
Transformationist slant” (195). Keller
expresses appreciation of the Transformationist model and affirms them for
“giving guidance to Christians in business or public service—particularly a
Christian vision of human flourishing” (200).
Keller is simply following Kuyper
here. In 1902, Kuyper articulated common
grace in the first volume of his work on common grace
called De Gemeene Gratie. After explaining special grace as
regeneration and removal of sin from the heart in sanctification, he says,
But common grace does nothing of the sort. It keeps down but does not quench. It tames, but does not change the
nature. It keeps back and holds in
leash, but thus, as soon as the restraint is removed, the evil races forth anew
of itself. It trims the wild shoots, but
does not heal the root. It leaves the
inner impulse of the ego of man to
its wickedness, but prevents the full fruition of wickedness. It is a limiting, a restraining, a hindering
power, which brakes and brings to a standstill (I, p. 242).[4]
Here, Kuyper’s definition of common
grace is biblical. But, in the second
volume of De Gemeene Gratie, Kuyper maintains his previous definition of common grace under the label
of constant common grace, adding a
new dimension which he calls progressive.
Kuyper states,
Yet common grace could not stop at this first and constant
operation. Mere maintenance and control
affords no answer to the question as to what end the world is to be preserved
and why it has passed throughout a history of ages. If things remain the same why should they
remain at all? If life were merely
repetition why should life be continued at all?... Accordingly there is added
to this first constant operation of common grace…another, wholly different,
operation…calculated to make human life and the life of the whole world pass
through a process and develop itself more fully and richly… (II, p. 601).
The constant
[operation] consists in this that God, with many differences of degree,
restrains the curse of nature and the sin of the human heart. In contrast with this the progressive [operation] is that other
working through which God, with steady progress, equips human life ever more
thoroughly against suffering, and internally brings it to richer and fuller
development’ (II, p. 602).[5]
For Kuyper, the difference between constant common grace and progressive common grace is that in the
first operation, God works apart from man, but in the latter, man becomes an
“‘instrument and co-laborer with God’ (II, p. 602).”[6] This pursuit of God—to work against suffering
and bring humanity into a richer and fuller development—seems to be the same
goal that Keller is after in his pursuit of human flourishing. Kuyper and Keller agree that God is doing a
work outside of the gospel (as do I), but then Keller’s position affirms two unavoidable
implications: 1) that every culture (think of it as a conglomerate of fallen
men) always has predispositions toward truth and what is good, and 2) what
unbelieving man can do for human flourishing must become the goal of the church
as well. ARTICLE TO BE CONTINUED...
Article written by Pastor Jon Anderson. Jon is a pastor at Grace Immanuel Bible Church and a PhD student at Southern Seminary. His future dissertation will be on presuppositional hermeneutics.
[1] 1 Cor. 1:17
[2] 1 Cor. 2:4-5
[3] I.e., pp. 24, 47, 89, 170, 195—even modified by “as
the Bible defines it”, 199, 200, 201, 202—three times, 210—twice, 227,
235—twice, 236—four times, 238, 246, 253, 339.
[4] Translated and quoted by Cornelius Van
Til, Common Grace & the Gospel
(Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972): 15-16.
[5] Ibid., 17.
[6] Ibid.
