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In the last couple of weeks Gav the friendly Anglican and I (as well as others) have been discussing how we arrive at truth and how we can know things for sure. We have had a great conversation even if we haven’t always agreed. Today Danelle & I went to Scarborough Baptist Church and Andre was speaking on eschatology, especially the whole idea of heaven and what that means and looks like. It challenged a few people as he questioned the typical view we grew up with and dug into the idea of new creation etc. In our conversation afterwards I asked him about what I had heard re the shift in evangelical academic circles to an annihalationist view of hell and how that had happened. He told me it was primarily because John Stott had ’shifted’ that the view had gained credibility. Because he is such a heavy hitter people pay attention. So it seems the more orthodox view of Hell as eternal conscious torment does not wash with Stott and he offers some compelling reasons for viewing things differently. (I’ll write more on that later) However what I liked in this chapter (from Evangelical Essentials - Liberal Evangelical Dialogue) was the approach he described to how we think thru our theology and view the gospel. He suggests we need to avoid the two extremes of ‘fixity’ and ‘fluidity’. I will offer some quotes below as I found them insightful: “The first (extreme) is total fixity. Some Christians (including some of us Evangelicals) are in bondage to words and formulae, the prisoners of a gospel stereotype. They wrap up their message in a neat little package, almost labelled and price tagged as if destined for the supermarket. Then unless their precise schema and their favourite phraseology are used they declare that the gospel has not been preached. For many Evangelicals it used to be ‘the precious blood of Jesus’. Now for some it is being born again or justified by faith, and for others the kingdom of God…” p.329 “The opposite extreme to avoid is total fluidity… (he describes this as ‘not even knowing what the gospel is until you enter a specific context) what the advocates of total fluidity seem not to have noticed is that alongside the New Testament’s rich diversity of gospel formulation, there is an underlying unity which binds the different formulations together.” Stott suggest that both extremes make valuable points:
a) Fixity = “the gospel is revealed and received - we did not invent it”
b) Fuidity = “the gospel needs to be contextualised and related to the specific person or people group otherwise it is irrelevant.” I found these helpful and humble words from a man who would have more right than most of us to see his views as ‘correct’. And I would add, if we need to live with the tension of fixity and fluidity in relation to the gospel then how much more in relation to more tenuous or less central theological understandings…
Original content at: http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/09/stott-on-the-gospel.html.
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Scott Bartchy is a radical. He believes in a subversive system that embraces those on the fringes of our society and seeks to establish a new way of life that goes against the status quo.