Theology Today - Vol 42, No. 1 - April 1985 - ARTICLE - Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel

84 - Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel

Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land:
Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel
By Hendrik J. C. Pieterse

I grew up among the Afrikaner people, a so-called Christian people. The Bible was the most important book which accompanied them in the driver's chest of their covered wagons on their great trek northwards. The speeches of Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic of the previous century, are in fact sermons larded with quotations from the Bible. I was reared secure in the belief that I belonged to a Christian people. In my youth every Afrikaner boy who wanted to become a minister was both encouraged and treated with respect.

Since we all assumed that our culture was compatible with the general purposes and aims of the church, we thought that the minister's role was simply to be an agreeable person. If he appeared to be well-intentioned, friendly, fluent, and flexible, he was popular. I fitted into this role until the censure of the gospel on me and my community changed my life radically. Through wrestling with the Gospel I discovered that the entire South African system is based on the sinful principle of apartheid. I started to preach this. The resistance began. The "friendly" community responded with rancour and revenge, and to my horror I realized that my people are not a Christian people. There are, of course, those who endeavor to obey the gospel among us, but, as the Bible warns, the faithful are in the minority (Matt. 7:13, 14). The witness of believers in our country confirms the words of Matt. 10:35, 36; the gospel divides people, even families.

A deadly struggle between ideologies is in progress in this country. Nuances in opinion and ideological persuasions are found throughout the spectrum. Generally speaking, the divide is between the ideology of racial domination and separation, often maintained by force, and an ideology of revolution for change which is also committed to violence. The church ministering in this situation is often like a voice calling in the wilderness (Matt. 3:2).

Our experience in this context leads us to the inescapable conclusion: Christian nations do not exist per se. Here the realities are laid bare. Here the world is up in arms when the gospel is heard; it is a skandalon

Hendrik Pieterse is Professor of Practical Theology in the interdenominational faculty at the University of South Africa, the oldest university in that country. A member of the Dutch Reformed Church, he was a vocal opponent of apartheid, and he was deprived of his status as a minister in that church. He now works as a lay preacher in the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Pieterse has published three books and several articles on preaching, pastoral care, and the method of practical theology

85 - Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel

to us (I Cor. 1:23). It would appear that the gospel is ever at variance with society, and this is true in all nations.

What view of ministry is formed by such experience? If the practice of ministry is directed toward helping us to become believers committed to Christ and his cause; toward healing and liberating us; and, by repeated encounters with God through the Word, toward forming and shaping us to conform to God's purposes for us as individuals and as the community of believers, then ministry makes great demands on us. Mere communication composed of techniques and recipes gleaned from secular practices will not suffice for the church's ministry in the world. Ministers need to be theological practitioners.

This theory/praxis relationship is vitally important and must be in continuous interaction. Praxis must remain open to criticism emanating from theory, and theory must in principle be open to criticism coming from praxis. As our actions in the practice of ministry must accord with the goals of the case of Jesus, the source and origin of our faith, theological theory for praxis will have to be critical theory. In particular, practical theology will have to develop a theory of communication which is simultaneously a theological theory.

I would like to suggest the incarnation of Christ as the best point of departure for understanding the church's communication of the gospel. The incarnation is the embodiment of God's will to communicate expressed in human form and terms. The incarnation is the "illustration" of what God desires and can do for humankind. The actions of the church are most profoundly the praxis of God.

Practical theology focusses on the coming of God to humankind in the world in which people function as intermediaries. Through the actions of believers concerned with others for the cause of Jesus, God encounters people both in and through the Word. The mystery of this kind of communication in Christian praxis is that the living Word comes to dwell in us, and this is the prevailing principle behind all Christian communication.

One's view of Scripture is an important component for a theology of the communication of faith in ministry. My preference is for a dynamic view of the Word of God which finds expression in the Bible. God's Word was transmitted verbally-it was a Word-event which changed people and shaped them according to God's will. Today it must once more become the spoken word; then the Word-event can take place, liberating, changing, and healing. Thus there is an inner dynamic captive in the biblical text which clamors to be uttered. God's Word in Scripture is thus a living Word, and as such it speaks anew in every situation. When the Word of God becomes a Word-event, it penetrates all defenses and brings about true change. This is communication in the

86 - Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel

pregnant sense of the word: God is with us, and we are with God. God's Word is like a captive lion which must simply be released in order to accomplish its task. It requires a specific hermeneutical approach in our communication to re-present the Word of God as a Word-event.

In preaching, for instance, the Word of God moves from the Word-event in the biblical text to the present proclamation. Hermeneutics can assist in this movement, and in this regard, Gerhard Ebeling's concept of language is most helpful. According to Ebeling, the primary phenomenon in the realm of understanding is not the understanding of language, but understanding through language. The word is not actually the object of understanding, it is rather the means of opening and mediating understanding. The word itself has a hermeneutic function.

As communication, the nature of the spoken word is one of promise. It is concerned purely with promise when it refers to something that is not present, but absent-and particularly when the promise allows the absent thing to present itself, as it were. Christians believe that this Word-event takes place in the Gospel, and when a true Word-event occurs in the sermon-when the text speaks for itself-God speaks.

When God speaks as the text communicates with us, it causes a crisis in the lives of those who hear it. An anagogic moment is reached when the hearer has to choose for or against a changed life. (Anagogic means the powerful impulse for change based on the hearing of the Word which must emanate from ministry.)

III

One's concept of the church and the resulting model for ministry are also of utmost importance for the practice of ministry. There are a number of images in the Bible which attempt to describe the church (for example, servant, or body, or a people), and we must be wary of one-sidedness. All of the biblical images of the church contribute to the total concept, and, from a communicative point of view, it would appear that a conception of the church which provides for mutual participation and interaction is imperative today. Our church concept must make provision for an open system and thus maintain a dynamic affinity with God, with one another, and with the world.

For example, the shepherd-flock model is no longer helpful in a world come of age. It assumes a shepherd who knows what is good for the immature sheep. The body of Christ model offers more Lebensraum for communicative reciprocity between minister and community, between believers mutually, and as the witness of a believing community in the world.

Communication is more than a particular area of church practice. It refers to the very being and activity of the church itself. It is profoundly God's action. Christ's sacrifice in his incarnation, suffering, and death is the most supreme act of communication.

87 - Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Ministry and the Communication of the Gospel

The late T. D. Verryn, a brilliant South African theologian, states that the minister can enter into the communication process in but one of two possible roles-as a model or as a victim. As a model Christian, he or she is the all-knowing example for other believers to emulate. This model is destructive to the witness of the church in the world.

The minister can also enter the communication process as a victim of the gospel. The victim-minister is a true servant, who leads the people to freedom and community, joining in their suffering and their destiny. This is done in obedience to the charge in Heb. 13:13: "Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the stigma that he bore."

The church is called to be a source of blessing in society, not to regulate it. We are called to be a church that is not an ecclesia domesticata (a domesticated church) but rather an ecclesia peregrinatione (a pilgrim church). We are called to be a church which, though it is of every age, people, and group, will not find a final resting place in any class, nation, or epoch.