Today, in a class I'm taking about Christian icons, Kavin Rowe, assistant professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, came in as a guest speaker to talk about the earliest uses of images in a Christian context. Plenty of what he said about the question of images and idolatry was intriguing, but it was a comment made in passing that stuck with me in a very real way.
When discussing a Gentile's conversion to Christianity, Rowe described the move as "tectonic." Especially in the nascent Christian Church of the New Testament, conversion to Christianity meant not only assenting to a set of beliefs but also radically and fundamentally changing one's way of life and way of thinking. For Jews who followed Christ and even more so for Gentiles coming from pagan backgrounds, to subscribe to a faith that bowed before a triune God, a savior who was incarnate as fully human and fully divine, was to completely overthrow previous modes of thought surrounding material culture and the relationship of humankind to God.
Today, we live in what is often referred to as Christendom, a term that can be used as a reference to the western world and generally understood. Rarely do conversion in this hemisphere require such a seismic conversion. Lesslie Newbigin, a theologian and Presbyterian pastor who spent years as a missionary in India, notes that for Indians and other peoples in non-Western cultures, converting to Christianity means drastically changing basic elements of daily life. Only in places where Christianity is not so domesticated as in the industrialized West can the kind of conversion that the earliest Christians went through be seen today.
I spent this past weekend on a retreat with my campus ministry group discussing evangelism. Since I've read Newbigin, I couldn't help but suggest that it is not only non-Christians who oftentimes need to hear the Gospel, to be brought to Christ. Newbigin believes that the West needs to be re-converted. Living in a nation where the American flag is often as common as the cross (if not more so) in sanctuaries, I think he might be right.
Monday, January 28, 2008
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Monday, January 28, 2008
A Seismic Conversion
Posted by
Sarah S. Howell
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6:17 PM
Today, in a class I'm taking about Christian icons, Kavin Rowe, assistant professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, came in as a guest speaker to talk about the earliest uses of images in a Christian context. Plenty of what he said about the question of images and idolatry was intriguing, but it was a comment made in passing that stuck with me in a very real way.
When discussing a Gentile's conversion to Christianity, Rowe described the move as "tectonic." Especially in the nascent Christian Church of the New Testament, conversion to Christianity meant not only assenting to a set of beliefs but also radically and fundamentally changing one's way of life and way of thinking. For Jews who followed Christ and even more so for Gentiles coming from pagan backgrounds, to subscribe to a faith that bowed before a triune God, a savior who was incarnate as fully human and fully divine, was to completely overthrow previous modes of thought surrounding material culture and the relationship of humankind to God.
Today, we live in what is often referred to as Christendom, a term that can be used as a reference to the western world and generally understood. Rarely do conversion in this hemisphere require such a seismic conversion. Lesslie Newbigin, a theologian and Presbyterian pastor who spent years as a missionary in India, notes that for Indians and other peoples in non-Western cultures, converting to Christianity means drastically changing basic elements of daily life. Only in places where Christianity is not so domesticated as in the industrialized West can the kind of conversion that the earliest Christians went through be seen today.
I spent this past weekend on a retreat with my campus ministry group discussing evangelism. Since I've read Newbigin, I couldn't help but suggest that it is not only non-Christians who oftentimes need to hear the Gospel, to be brought to Christ. Newbigin believes that the West needs to be re-converted. Living in a nation where the American flag is often as common as the cross (if not more so) in sanctuaries, I think he might be right.
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