St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol.
III (December 2007)
Super-sizing Jesus: Enlarging the Incarnation in
Contemporary Missiology
The Rev. Basil Grafas
1 Introduction: Working our
Way in: Issues, Definitions
There may be no more hopeful and cherished
doctrine in the Christian tradition than the
Incarnation. The very word conjures memories
of wise men, stars, and mangers laden with
straw. The word evokes hope and charity in
an otherwise cold world. There is another side
to the concept. Perhaps the dominant term in
evangelical missiology today is ‘incarnational
mission.’ Championed by a broad constituency
advocating everything from social justice and
postmodernism to extreme contextualization
that calls for converts from Islam, Hinduism,
and Buddhism to remain within their original
faith systems, incarnationality weaves its way
through all of these as a common theme. In
some quarters, it is now seen as a given, rather
than as a recent missiological construct less than
50 years old. Because the Incarnation is real and
biblical, we reason that incarnational mission
must be also. But is it? Furthermore, if it is not
a given, but a choice, what are the alternatives?
How should we think about this? The
following is an attempt to describe incarnational
mission, to set it within some historical context,
evaluate its constructs and claims, and make
some recommendations with regard to dealing
with it.
Incarnation: According to Robert Reymond,
quoting in part from the Westminster Shorter
Catechism, the Incarnation is ‘the act whereby
the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of
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the Holy Trinity, without ceasing to be what he
is, God the Son, took into union with himself
what he before that act did not possess, a human
nature, ‘and so (he) was and continues to be
God and man in two distinct natures and one
person, forever.’’1 Ross Langmead opts for the
following: ‘The central mystery of Christianity,
that is, the event in which, for the salvation
of the world and without ceasing to be fully
divine, God became fully human uniquely in
Jesus Christ.’2 Wayne Grudem keeps things
simpler: ‘The Incarnation was the act of God
the Son whereby he took to himself a human
nature.’3 ‘In the Christ of Israel this Word has
become particular, that is, Jewish flesh. It is
in the particularity of the flesh that it applies
universally to all men. The Christ of Israel is
the saviour of the world.’4
The Navigators opt for a distinctly sociological
definition. Incarnation means, ‘The messenger
identifies with the community in order to create
understanding and demonstrate the good news.’5
They flesh this out (no pun intended) with a
list of questions that address John 1:1-4, 14:8-9
and Hebrews 2:14-18. ‘Do I understand the
worldview of the community and communicate
in such a way as to be an acceptable member of
the group? Is the good news I am presenting
to the community authentic, i.e. the way Jesus
himself would present it, or culturally distorted?
Does it connect with natural bridges within
the culture? Is there a clear understanding of
who Jesus is and how they can be reconciled
to God?’ The differences between the earlier
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sets of definitions and the Navigators’ are
profound. The former all concentrate on the
unique work of Christ. The Navigator version
leaves the historical act of Christ distinctly in
the background. None of the questions or the
definition actually refers to the event of the
Incarnation at all. Two questions refer to the
gospel, but none actually says what it is and none
connects it to the Incarnation.
Dean Gilliland summarizes the Incarnation
by saying that, ‘Jesus came into the world to
be at home with all people in every place. In
a radically different paradigm, the Incarnation
of Jesus Christ brings God into ‘our house’ in
a way that sets the Christian faith apart from
any other. Through the Incarnation, the door
is open wide for all human beings, to have a
close and personal relationship with God.’ This
is accomplished as God, through the divine
Logos, ‘opens the way to receive the truth that
men and women of every culture and nation
are created in God’s image.’ He adds that the
good news is that the image can be restored.6
This is very interesting because, wasn’t the
Good News something already accomplished
in Christ? Additionally, what is the connection
between the Incarnation and the Logos
opening the way for people to know that they
are made in God’s image? The key is his use
of Logos. Historically, the word has different
interpretations owing to the fact that it applies
to the second member of the Trinity before he
became man.
A key may be found in Gilliland referring to the
spkermatikos logos of Justin Martyr as a way
of explaining how cultures and even religions
have a built-in receptivity to the Gospel because
a bit of the truth is already in them.7 Charles
Van Engen sounds a similar theme. The Gospel
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and church are not foreign plants that have
been slightly modified to be able to grow in
foreign soil. ‘Rather, this Gospel is a new hybrid
seed with new and different characteristics
that allow it to grow in a new climate.’8 At
least, on the surface of it, his characterization
seems to conflict with the historical reality
of the Incarnation which rooted in one soil.
The tension resident in trying to stretch the
Incarnation into an umbrella that can include
the idea of inculturation is evident.
Incarnational mission: Incarnational mission has
to be modeled on Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, and
siding with the poor.9 Lingenfelter and Mayers
state that the Incarnation is God’s model for
relationships.10 This means that Jesus came as a
helpless infant, a learner and as a 200% person.
This, he explains, adds up since he was 100%
God and 100% Jew. Aside from the disquieting
implications of applying mathematics to God
in such a way, what the authors are doing is
explaining that Jesus’ young life is paradigmatic
in the sense that, just as Christ was a helpless
infant, we should not assume the position of
a ruler, expert or adult over other people with
whom we have a relationship. Just as Jesus is a
learner (gleaned from his visit to the temple and
sitting with the elders who marveled at what he
knew), we should be good learners. In other
words, Jesus is our exemplar.
The authors then proceed to explain why cross-
cultural learning based on the Incarnation is
necessary. It is because we learn from within
culture. Moreover, ‘it is because of cultural
blindness that we must become incarnate in
the culture and thus in the lives of the people
we wish to serve.’11 This becomes a pattern for
learning within any culture. ‘If Jesus did indeed
set the example, then it is clear that it was my
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responsibility to work as hard to become Yapese
(for example) as he did to become a Jew. We are
to become incarnate in the cultures to which we
are sent.’12
We can see from this that the authors leave the
event of Christ’s Incarnation in the background
as they use it as a paradigm for our actions
as believers. The Incarnation is useful in
establishing relationships as we imitate Christ.
Gilliland goes one step further. He does not
think that the Incarnation is reducible to a
model. Rather, he sees it as the matrix through
which to see and conduct all ministry. When
we do this properly, when we appropriately
contextualize the Gospel according to the
Incarnation’s example, we have ‘appropriate
Christianity.’13
Leonard Hjalmarson recently reviewed an
important text used to outline the premises
of incarnational missiology. The text he
examined was The Shaping of Things to Come
written by Frost and Hirsch in 2003. The
authors note four seminal characteristics of the
incarnation and then apply each in practical
terms to contemporary mission. The four are
identification, locality, the Beyond in-the-midst
and the human image of God. Incarnational
mission that embodies these ‘implies a real and
abiding presence among a group of people’
and ‘implies a sending impulse rather than an
extractional one.’ 14 The language of extraction
is gleaned from anthropological terminology
and implies that any communication that is not
presented as coming from within a given culture
is ‘extractional.’ This is a negative value. They
then attempt to connect the idea of incarnation
to a theological construct framed earlier by
Stanley Grenz. They posit two possibilities for
core beliefs. They either serve as boundaries
(propositional doctrines that set boundaries and
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exclude) or as centers (irreducible attractors that
invite people in). Boundaries are exclusive and
centered sets are inclusive.
Since incarnational mission endeavors to
‘incarnate’ the message of the Gospel in each
culture, centered sets are better at reducing
the number of cultural impediments that
can obstruct the clear communication of the
Gospel. At the same time, their very nature
tends to devalue the role played by doctrine and
the ability of the new faith system to critique
the culture within which it is embedded. This,
however, while being a concern, takes a back
seat to the importance of taking down potential
barriers. As Hjalmarson says, ‘We need a
spirituality of the road, a missional spirituality.
This is a spirituality that is self-authorizing,
decentralized, sacramental, personal, creative
and incarnational. It is a spirituality for the
road…a missional spirituality.’ The fruit of this
labour, as David Bosch outlines, is ‘not so much
a case of the church being expanded, but of the
church being born anew in each new context
and culture.’15
Building on the idea of coming alongside, or
identification and locality, Langmead cites Jean
Danielou as saying that this must only be the
first step in incarnational mission. This must
lead to bringing the good news, challenging
others and transformation.16 Transformation is
seen in the holistic sense espoused by the Missio
Dei, ‘God’s incarnational mission.’17 Langmead
notices that Bosch excludes the cross and
resurrection at this point because their omission
‘helps Christians to bleed with the victims of
oppression and engage freshly with the practice
of Jesus.’ Like many other missiologists,
Langmead adopts critical realism and applies it
to say that incarnational mission has to be firmly
Christological but without being reduced to the
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propositional formulas of Chalcedon. In his
interpretation of this, Langmead sees metaphor
as being essential in coming alongside people.18
Being too literal places barriers that may not
be surmountable. It also indicates another
common theme in advocacies of incarnational
mission: the imprecision of doctrine. He
roots his own understanding of incarnational
mission in early Anabaptism and contemporary
Mennonite thought.19 We will explore this
connection later.
Mission, therefore, does not flow primarily
as proclamation, as a kind of heralding or
representation, but from ‘living as Christ
lived.’ He cites J.A. Osterbaan as saying that
Anabaptists did not emphasize faith’s content
or objective, doctrinal truth, but something that
was more relational and imitative.
2 Contemporary missiology
The Lausanne Committee for World
Evangelization ‘Willowbank Report’ strikes the
tone of present missiology when it intones that
the Incarnation should serve as the model for
Christian witness. In keeping with John 20:21,
we should model Jesus in mission. Philippians
2 is cited in suggesting that having ‘the mind
of Christ’ implies a profound respect for the
people and cultures that missionaries serve, that
missionaries should be under the authority of
local Christians, learn dependence on others,
expect to be vulnerable and be able to identify
with other peoples.20
John Stott bases this ‘modeling’ on John 1:14’s
proclamation that ‘the Word became flesh.’ In
so doing, Christ became a very particular Jew
in First century Palestine while, at the same
time, not surrendering his identity as the eternal
Son of God. This Stott sees as the opposite of
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cultural imperialism, as Christ ‘emptied himself
of his glory and humbled himself to serve.’
Dean Flemming, in expositing Philippians
2:5-11, says it means ‘nothing less than a
contextualization of the self-denying story of
Jesus. In context, it meant no longer thinking
and acting according to the cultural scripts of
hierarchy and self-promotion.’21 This is what
the Lausanne Covenant meant when it said,
‘Christ’s evangelists must humbly seek to empty
themselves of all but their personal authenticity,
in order to become the servants of others.’
(Para 10).22. Stott modifies this by insisting that
this also meant that Christ’s presence would
challenge every culture, challenging every
person to follow him. This is necessary. On the
other hand, there were also unnecessary threats.
Stott notes these as the abolition of harmless
customs, and the destruction of national art,
architecture, music and festivals.
Well, what does this mean in practical terms?
According to Steve Griffiths, a proponent of
the Emergent Church, it means, ‘God took the
initiative in assuming cultural identity through
Christ and so we are to take the initiative in
developing ministerial and ecclesiological
forms that identify with the shifting patterns of
contemporary society. It is no longer enough to
assume that the world will come to us. It is no
longer enough to assume that we should go to
the world. The Emerging Church Movement
is concerned to blur - even dismantle - the
distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in an
honest endeavor to present a Christ for today.’
Furthermore, this incarnational ministry must
be motivated by love, as Christ was, and that
love has to be unconditional. According to
Griffiths, that means loving when faced with
rejection, and challenging without condemning.
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All of this is derived from living out Christ’s
example. In a sense, it is the living out that is
emphasized, rather than the word that inspired
it. ‘It is in Philippians 2:5-11 that we see this
truth expounded most graciously. This passage
of course, is not about Jesus. It is about you
and me.’ Like Stott, he also issues a caution as a
counterbalance to open-ended contextualization.
He sees the danger of too radically blurring
the distinction between non-believers and
us.23 Unfortunately, fellow proponents often
undercut it. ‘If we look at the Scriptures, we see
that the Jewish people, chosen by God to bear
witness to monotheism, had to accomplish their
mission in a religiously pluralistic environment.
That the relationship was largely conflictual can
be considered irrelevant.’24
Darrell Guder speaks for much of the
postmodern or reformist evangelical community
in defining incarnational mission as ‘the
understanding and practice of Christian witness
that is rooted in and shaped by the life, ministry,
suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.’ He
also cautions that too broadly defining the term
runs the risk of diluting the ‘uniqueness and
centrality of Christ.’25 Key to Guder is linking
incarnational texts such as John 1:14 to the 20th
century theological development, the Missio
Dei. The Missio Dei, often but ambiguously
based on Barth’s influence, called for a holistic,
communal basis for ministry on the basis of
Christ’s earthy ministry.26 In the eyes of some,
that meant equating words and deeds in terms
of missiological emphasis. Missio Dei states that
mission is not the church’s mission but God’s.
It is God on mission and he uses whatever
means he wishes in order to recreate the world.
Mission is not therefore exclusively wedded to
the church. For some, it went further than that.
Guder is forthright in insisting that the goal of
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incarnational mission not be ‘a continuation
of the once-and-for-all Incarnation but the
continuation of the incarnate Lord’s mission as
he shaped and formed it.’27 Nor is the church
its goal or outcome. This links him to other
contemporary developments in ecclesiology.
‘The church is not the ultimate and intended
outcome of God’s grace. Christ did not die
only to save Christians (strange statement),
nor to form a church of the saved, but to bring
God’s healing love to the world.’28 Similar are
the words of Mark Norridge. ‘The ultimate
goal of mission is peoples on the earth living
out the reality of what it (the new creation)
means to true humanity, living out the reality
of communion with God, community with
each other and entering into co-creativity with
God.’29
This reflects the under-emphasis of the church
endemic to incarnational mission. Missio Dei
and incarnational mission are not about church
as a visible, historically defined organization
at all. The church is a construct, a useful
mechanism, but not necessary in any particular
form in carrying out mission. God has many
other ways through which to work. What
matters is that people come to Christ. It does
matter that they form communities but these
do not have to be connected to the historical,
visible, doctrinally bounded church. This
thinking makes form incidental (or accidental
in the theological sense) to the process. Guder
accepts the institutional nature of the process,
especially given the physical implications of
incarnational thinking. He does, however,
minimize the historical framework of the church
for the sake of maximizing inculturation. He
is trying to distance his thinking from what he
considers to be Western anachronism. The
point, however, is not to throw out the baby
with the bath water.
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More radical are Mark Norridge’s insights. To
Norridge, the institution of church is not merely
a fact to live with, but may be unnecessary
altogether. ‘Whereas an attractional church may
confuse the church gathering or building as in
someway sacred, the incarnational church must
have a view that God is already working in the
world and that, since the Holy Spirit indwells
the community, they also carry God in the
world.’ Somehow this implies to Norridge that
the form of church we have is altogether a social
construct. Well, what of his idea? It is valid to
posit real differences in form based on culture.
On the other hand, it does not imply jettisoning
the ‘guts’ of the model of church we have in the
New Testament. This form was not incidental,
but instrumental.
For some postmodern Christians, incarnational
theology means having the self-emptying
humility of Christ. What does emptying
yourself mean? For Jesus it meant giving up
the privileges of the Godhead for the position
of slave and willing sacrifice. According to Mark
Norridge, it means to give up those things that
would cause us to feel superior to people in our
interaction with them. Self-emptying is the
required step before being able to truly identify
with others.
When we think of cross-cultural mission, this
self-emptying involves the ‘putting off of one’s
own culture.’30 We will take a closer look later at
the possibility of ‘putting off one’s own culture’,
For the moment, let us look at his earlier
statement about feeling superior. If he purports
to be incarnational as Jesus was incarnational,
can we really say that Jesus, in being fully man,
put off his ‘feelings’ of superiority? This smacks
of pop culture, not a serious engagement with
the reality of the Incarnation and its implications
for us. Furthermore, for Norrridge, it means
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that self-emptying ‘involved the adoption of the
culture being reached out to.’ It did involve
his being born into the Judaism of first century
Palestine, but this was not just any culture. It
was part of the covenantal framework and
therefore unique. More importantly, Norridge
does not acknowledge the unique consequence
of Christ giving up the prerogatives of deity.
The omission is important because it severs
the act of incarnation from its association with
atonement.
For others, it implies the necessity of dialogue
with other cultures and religions. ‘Culture
(and religion) becomes the basis from which
the gospel is unfolded to us. This should lead
us to seek out, dialogue with, and learn from
other cultures because it gives us continuing
opportunity to discover the fullness of the
gospel.’31 Aware that this might be seen as an
endorsement for heterodoxy, Bos underlies his
commitment to Chalcedon. However, he seems
to undercut his own position later in the same
article when he promotes dialogue on the basis
of his belief that the Old Testament assimilated
Canaanite religion into its beliefs. Does that
mean syncretism is permitted as long as it is
biblical syncretism? This also demonstrates a
growing pattern among evangelicals to simply
espouse ideas that originated with 19th century
liberalism.
3 Historical Background
3.1 Pre-modern Discussions:
The Incarnation has played a prominent role in
the earlier history of the Church. Prior to the
12th century, however, opinions considering its
purpose were uniform. It represented a once
and for all manifestation of God’s love being
poured out in answer to the dread consequences
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of the fall. In other words, the Incarnation of
Christ was necessary to either propitiate the
wrath of God or serve to expiate man’s sin.
‘The Word was made flesh, in order that sin,
destroyed by means of that same flesh through
which it had gained the mastery and taken hold
and lorded it, should no longer be in us…and
overcome through Adam (Christ as a second
Adam) what had stricken us through Adam.’32
‘Great, then, was the mercy of God the Father:
He sent the creative Word, who, when he came
to save us, put himself in our position, and in
that same situation in which we lost life; and he
loosed the prison-bonds, and his light appeared
and dispelled the darkness in the prison, and he
sanctified our birth and abolished death, loosing
those same bonds by which we were held.’33
Methodius opined, ‘Christ, the heavenly man,
when he appeared, bore the same form of limbs
and the same image of flesh as ours, through
which also he, who was not man, became man,
that ‘as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall
all be made alive’ (1Co 15:22). For if he bore
flesh for any other reason than that of setting
the flesh free, and raising it up, why did he bear
flesh superfluously, as he purposed neither to
save it, nor to raise it up.’ To the contrary, ‘He
did not then take the form of a servant uselessly,
but to raise it up and save it.’34
The early Church also held to Christ’s pre-
existence and participation in Creation.
This is the firstborn of God
Who was begotten before the morning star
Who made the light to rise
Who made the day bright
Who parted the darkness who fixed the first mark
for creation
Who hung the earth in its place
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Who dried up the abyss
Who spread out the firmament
Who brought order to the world.35
On the other hand, the early church, because it
was so exclusively wedded to biblical proof, did
not see in that any independent justification of
the Incarnation. In other words, for the Church,
the Incarnation was inextricably linked to God’s
atoning purposes. Athanasius, in perhaps the
classic exposition on the Incarnation, summed
up the early church’s opinion, ‘He alone,
being Word of the Father and above all, was
in consequence both able to recreate all, and
worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an
ambassador for all with the Father. For this
purpose then, the incorporeal and incorruptible
and immaterial Word of God entered our world.
He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men
was mounting up against them; He saw also
their universal liability to death. All this he saw
and, pitying our race, moved with compassion
for our limitation, unable to endure that death
should have the mastery. He took to himself
a body, a human body even as our own. Thus
taking a body like our own, because all our
bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he
surrendered his body to death in place of all, and
offered it to the Father. This he did out of sheer
love for us, so that in his death all might die, and
the law of death thereby be abolished.’36
Medieval and Reformation Developments: A
new wrinkle was introduced to the Church’s
thinking about the Incarnation by Rupert of
Deutz (d.1135), who pondered the ‘necessity’
of the Incarnation.37 His concern was picked
up later by Duns Scotus (a. 1266-1308), a
Franciscan, who was particularly concerned by
the Church’s classic doctrine. Scotus and his
followers believed that the doctrine as it had
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been stated made it appear as though God’s
actions were made necessary by an action of
humans, namely sin.
Scotus was attempting to resolve a dilemma in
mediaeval theology, the relationship between
two kinds of God’s power, ordained (potentia
Dei ordinata, i.e. the way that God chose to do
things) versus absolute (potentia Dei absoluta,
i.e. the way that things might have been).38 In
other words, Scotus, eager to protect God’s
ultimate freedom, could not accept that the
only reason that God ordained the Incarnation
was because of the fall. The Incarnation would
have happened in any case, because it was the
very reason for the creation in the first place.
The world was created so that Christ could
be incarnated. This, in itself, was therefore an
act of pure love. A contemporary Franciscan
explains it well, ‘Sin has been given too much
prominence in contemporary soteriology: God
redeems from sin because he loves us? no, says
the Scotist. God loves us and then redeems us.
Redemption is an act of love first and foremost,
not an act of saving us from sin, and the first act
of redemption is the Incarnation.’39 Scotus took
aim at Dominicans such as Thomas Aquinas,
accusing them of not honouring Paul’s words
describing Christ as ‘the firstborn of creation’
(Col 1:16). How could the Church do justice to
the fact that all of creation pointed expectantly
to Christ, when he was reduced to being a
means to an end?40 Scotus’ opinions, generated
subsequently, are supported by late nominalists
such as Gabriel Biel, the radical Anabaptists
Michael Servetus and Faustus Socinus, the
Reformer Andreas Osiander, as well as by
contemporary scholars such as N.T. Wright.
Radical Anabaptist support for Scotus fused
with their spirituality to develop the ethos that
eventually gave rise to incarnational theology
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and missiology. Thomas Muntzer, for example,
rather than pursuing and radicalizing Luther’s
call for justification by grace through faith alone,
called for reform based on a purified mediaeval
devotion. ‘For Muntzer, salvation is not through
faith but through the imitation of Christ.’41
Hans Denck saw genuine baptism as an inner
experience that did not purify us, but created
the covenant of a good conscience with God.
‘This covenant is the promise to die with Christ
and to walk in Christ’s way of life. It is living
the imitatio Christi’42 Hughes Old points out
that in his most mature work, Denck, after two
years of constant conversation with Anabaptist
leadership, concludes that every human being
has a little spark (Funklein) of love which is
God. ‘The spark of the divine in each human
being naturally strives to reunite with what is
divine.’43
Lest we think these comparisons between
Anabaptists and contemporary missiologists
overwrought, consider Dean Gilliland’s
approving use of Justin Martyr’s concept of
spermatikos logos. Gilliland defines these as
seeds of the gospel of Christ already planted in
cultures and religions.44 The most interesting
thing about this is that Justin Martyr and Denck
both thought there was a time when Christ did
not have personhood.
While most Anabaptists held to the historically
based atonement, many also embraced a
backward-looking sanctification based on the
imitation of Christ. Others such as Karsthans
Maurer, Hans Wolf and Clement Ziegler were
all strong prophets of social justice.45 Rational
Anabaptist spiritualists such as Sebastian
Franck stressed the presence of the celestial
flesh of Christ, a ‘seminal reason or Logos
common to all mankind as revealed in history
and contemporary societies which he studied
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comparatively.’46 Here we see a Protestant
belief that God works within cultures not
committed to the Gospel. It is true that
modern day incarnational ministry cuts across
denominational affiliation, as evidenced by the
broad contributions of as diverse a group of
thinkers as John Stott, Darrell Guder, Brian
McLaren, David Bosch and Darrell Whitman.
Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that
ideas generated by the Anabaptist wing of
the Reformation and marginalized within
modernity, were set loose and conquered the
evangelical world of missions in the 21st century.
The importance of this excursus is that while
postmodern evangelicals present incarnational
theology and mission as new developments,
they actually represent centuries-long
commitments that come through one branch
of the Reformation. In other words, they have
historical and theological roots.
Scotus’ thinking contradicted the earlier opinion
of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas did not base his
argument on a philosophical or theological
construct such as the tension between God’s
ultimate freedom and contingency. He
suggested that since there was no evidence in
Scripture of an Incarnation without the fall, it
was unwise to postulate one. Aquinas pointed
out that, ‘The cosmic significance of Christ
cannot justify the conclusion that he would
have been made flesh without the fall.’ There
is simply no biblical evidence to support Scotus’
contention. To Aquinas, it was an argument
made from possible, not necessary inference.47
Aquinas marshals Augustine to his aid, as the
latter expounded Luke 19:10, ‘For the Son of
Man is come to seek and to save that which was
lost.’ Therefore, if man had not sinned, the
Son of Man would not have come: and, 1Ti
1:15, ‘Christ Jesus came into this world to save
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sinners.’ ‘Take away diseases, take away wounds,
and there is no need of medicine.’
What the Scriptures tell us is that we needed
salvation and that Christ was incarnated so that
we could have it. The principle of not going
beyond what Scripture teaches on this point was
critical for Aquinas. ‘For such things as spring
from God’s will, and beyond the creature’s
due, can be made known to us only through
being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which
the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence,
since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the
sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of
the Incarnation, it is more in accordance with
this to say that the work of the Incarnation was
ordained by God as a remedy for sin so that, had
sin not existed, the Incarnation would not have
been. And yet the power of God is not limited
to this; even had sin not existed, God could have
become incarnate.’48 In other words, God did
not have to choose the route He did. ‘But once
God determines which potentialities to actualize,
he is obliged to himself to honour his own
choices. Therefore, the present created order is
an expression of wisdom and benevolence rather
than necessity.’49
Calvin picked up the same thought in his
debate with Osiander. Calvin accused him of
deriving theology on the basis of speculation.
According to Osiander, Adam had been the
first to see what the image of God was; man
according to the pattern of the Messiah to
come. Calvin responds, ‘I should also like to
know why Paul calls Christ the ‘Second Adam’
(1Co 15:47), unless the human condition was
ordained for him in order that he might lift
Adam’s descendents out of ruin. For if Christ
came before creation, then he ought to be
called the ‘first Adam.’ Paul, calling Christ the
‘Second Adam,’ sets the fall, from which arose
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
the necessity of restoring nature to its former
condition, between man’s first origin and the
restoration that we obtain through Christ. It
follows, then, that it was for this same cause that
the Son of God was born to become man (Inst.
II.12. 6).’50 Calvin emphasized that the delivery
from sin and eternal death was the biblically
stated motive for the Incarnation. Christ
himself declared his reason for coming, being
the Second Adam. Henri Blocher notes that
Calvin hated even the idea of separating God’s
righteousness from his freedom.51 This did not,
however, mean that God was acting in a way that
undercut his freedom.
As Blocher points out, there are different ways
with which to consider necessity. In Calvin’s
view, he was not forced by anything man did.
He was, in effect, obligated to himself, based
on his own undeniable goodness, to incarnate
his Son fully as man. Citing Isa 53:10, God
chose the way he did because he was good,
not because he was forced by his creation.52
What both Aquinas and Calvin were doing was
observing that the Bible linked the Incarnation
to the Atonement. Both were sensitive not to
imply that God only acted reactively and both
understood that God’s power was unlimited.
They simply stood with Scripture because to
stand anywhere else was to open the way to
error and therefore move away from God’s
leading.
We should remind ourselves that these
discussions are germane to our discussion.
There are profound consequences to either
linking the Incarnation and Atonement or
severing the necessity of the tie. In a similar
way, the Reformers always linked Christ, the
Word, and the Spirit. What happens when you
separate out each of these elements? In the case
of Word and Spirit, it becomes possible to posit
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God saving people that do not acknowledge
Christ as Lord and saviour, much less consider
him God or join a church. The Spirit, in such
a case, can save whom he wills. It is true that
Christ’s sacrifice pays for the sins of the whole
world but, according to this thinking, does that
necessitate tying the Spirit’s hands? No, they
say, the Spirit moves where it wills. You can see
the point. Decoupling things has a significant
consequence. This also explains why people
like Luther and Calvin were so resistant to such
initiatives.
Well, what about the Incarnation and the
Atonement? For one thing, it allows us to make
‘incarnation’ a general principle for our actions.
When you separate it from the Atonement you
allow yourself the ability to redefine it or modify
it for your intended use. It can, for example,
become shorthand for having an attitude that
accommodates the observations and direction
of cultural anthropologists. They introduce
us to sociological constructs such as ‘insider’
and ‘outsider,’ implying that ‘insider’ is much
better for the Gospel. We accept their guidance
because it is ‘incarnational to do so.’ Jesus
humbled himself. Shouldn’t we?
Roman Catholic Developments: One of the
principal developments in missiology during
the 20th century was the increasingly close
collaboration between Protestants and Roman
Catholics. This mirrored ecumenical initiatives
that swept through and continue to engage
both mainline denominations and evangelicals.
Missiology was particularly affected as the
field moved from a stronger dependence on
theology and denominational affiliation to a
greater concentration on the social sciences
and linguistics. ‘Neutral’ disciplines such as
cultural anthropology and translation afforded
an opportunity for scholars reflecting differing
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
faith systems to interact in a way that minimized
the differences located in their traditions. For
example, one can see the helical development
of missions in the ascendancy of Roman
Catholic organizations such as Orbis Books,
and evangelical organizations such as the Fuller
School of Intercultural Studies and the William
Carey Library Press.
Louis Luzbetak traces Roman Catholic
contributions toward incarnational theology
(termed ‘enculturation’ by the author and most
Catholic scholars) back to a Christmas message
of Pope Pius XII in 1945. ‘As Christ was in the
midst of men, so too his Church, in which he
continues to live, is placed in the midst of the
peoples. Christ assumed a real human nature
so too the Church takes to herself the fullness
of all that is genuinely human wherever and
however she finds it and transforms it into a
source of supernatural energy.’53 In other words,
the Church incarnates Christ in a real, visible
and active way for the sake of the Church and
the world. Though the fullness of meaning
resident in incarnational theology is not yet
evident, Pius’s words indicate a movement
within Catholicism towards the embracing of a
profound paradigm change.
The Nigerian priest and scholar Francis Oborji
notes the work of the Belgian Jesuit, Pierre
Charles. In his last work, Charles highlights the
importance of genuine adaptation to successful
church planting. In this regard, the Incarnation
serves as the church’s ideal model. As Oborji
explains, ‘To save humankind and to restore
human nature to its full dignity and to attain
its potential, the word of God became flesh in
human history.’ By serving incarnationally, a
missionary becomes a mediator of grace.54 The
subsequent work of Vatican II in the mid 60s
accelerated greatly the focus on coordinating
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contextualization/enculturation and the
perceived principles of the Incarnation.
Vatican II contributed familiar ingredients to
some versions of the incarnational mix. Pope
Paul VI in Lumen Gentium (The Light of
Nations) focused on the unconverted. ‘In the
first place we must recall the people to whom
the Testament and the promises were given
and from whom Christ was born according
to the flesh. On account of their fathers this
people remains most dear to God, for God
does not repent of the gifts he makes nor of
the calls he issues; but the plan of salvation
also includes those who acknowledge the
Creator. In the first place amongst these are the
Mohammedans, who, professing to hold the
faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one
and merciful god, who on the last day will judge
mankind. Through her (the Church’s) work,
whatever good is in the minds and hearts of
men, whatever good lies latent in the religious
practices and cultures of diverse peoples, is not
only saved from destruction but is also cleansed,
raised up and perfected unto the glory of God.’55
Gaudium et Spes highlighted the role of the
Church in following Christ by incarnating a
spirit of love to it. ‘And Christ entered this
world to give witness to the truth, to rescue
and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not
to be served.’ This love had to be visible and
contextual. ‘It is the function of the Church,
led by the Holy Spirit who renews and purifies
her ceaselessly, to make God the Father and his
Incarnate Son present and in a sense visible.
This faith needs to prove its fruitfulness by
penetrating the believer’s entire life, including
its worldly dimensions, and by activating him
toward justice and love, especially regarding the
needy.’ This all has to be based on the singular,
incarnational work of Christ. ‘For by his
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
incarnation the Son of God has united himself
in some fashion with every man. He worked
with human hands. He thought with a human
mind, acted by human choice and loved with a
human heart.’
As we go to the nations, we learn to
contextualize the truth of the Word. ‘The ability
to express Christ’s message in its own way is
developed in each nation, and at the same time
there is fostered a living exchange between the
Church and the diverse cultures of people.’56
Paul VI in his address to the Fourth Synod of
Bishops on Evangelism, Evangelii Nuntiandi,
sounded the new note of urgency and delineated
themes that would become a permanent part of
incarnational theology’s identity. ‘What matters
is to evangelize man’s culture and cultures
(not in a purely decorative way, as it were, by
applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in
depth and right to their very roots). Every effort
must be made to ensure a full evangelization
of culture, or more correctly of cultures. They
have to be regenerated by an encounter with the
Gospel. The Church links human liberation
and salvation in Jesus Christ.’57
Pope John Paul II championed mission in the
Roman Catholic Church. His Redemptoris
Missio reflected his sense of urgency. He
also most clearly endorsed the relationship of
incarnation to mission. In the section entitled,
‘Incarnating the Gospel in Peoples’ Culture’,
he states, ‘Through enculturation the Church
makes the Gospel incarnate in different
cultures and at the same time introduces
peoples, together with their cultures, into
her own community. She transmits to them
her own values, at the same time taking the
good elements that already exist in them and
renewing them from within. Developing
ecclesial communities, inspired by the Gospel,
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will gradually be able to express their Christian
experience in original ways and forms that are
consonant with their own cultural traditions,
provided that those traditions are in harmony
with the objective requirements of the faith
itself.’ Interestingly, John Paul adds something
that contradicts much contemporary practice
associated with incarnational mission. ‘In this
regard, certain guidelines remain basic. Properly
applied, inculturation must be guided by two
principles: ‘compatibility with the gospel and
communion with the universal church.’’58 Of
course. all practitioners will admit to the first.
Not all, however, can claim the second.
Francis Oborji expresses a mature post-Vatican II
understanding of the role of the Incarnation to
mission. ‘Just as Jesus Christ, the Word of God,
became incarnate in a human culture, in the
Jewish milieu, the gospel of Jesus Christ should
be allowed to be inculturated (or incarnated)
in the local culture and context. It means the
process of mutual penetration of the gospel
and culture so that Jesus Christ may be present
‘today’ in every culture.’ According to Oborji,
it has a second sense that refers exclusively to
the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, when ‘the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (Jn
1:14). This serves as the ‘foundation and model
for all subsequent enculturation.’ The author
then cites Justin Ukpong’s observation that
‘enculturation involves immersing Christianity
in the local cultures of the people so that just as
Jesus became man, so must Christianity become
the cultural religion of the people.’59
3.2 Protestant and Evangelical Background:
Incarnational mission is often attributed to
the work of Karl Barth. Darrell Guder, for
example, mentions Barth’s contribution in 1932
to articulating the centrality of the incarnation.
In some way, said Barth, every action of the
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
church is a self-revelation from God.60 At
the same time, Barth was also sensitive to the
possible abuse of the word ‘incarnational’
when it was being used to describe an ongoing
activity. Guder’s way of applying Barth to the
possibility of abuse is to create a description
of incarnational mission that does not allow
for the separation of ministry from Christ.
‘Incarnational witness is focused entirely upon
the event of Jesus Christ as God’s saving action
for all creation.’61 This is strongly Barthian
language, both in terms of its inclusive scope
and its ambiguity. What event? What does
saving action mean? Who is all of creation?
Lausanne and John Stott: Stott’s exposition
and commentary of the Lausanne Covenant is
a good place to begin.62 Under ‘The Purpose
of God,’ the document addresses the need
for the church to be sent out into the world.
This is what mission means. It means going
as servants and witnesses, just as Jesus did.
The objectives in going are to extend the
kingdom, build up Christ’s Body and the glory
of his name. The Covenant then confesses
the failure of the church to do this faithfully.
Stott elaborates. This is because the church
either courts the world or shuns it altogether.
‘The best way to avoid these two mistakes of
conformity and withdrawal is to be engaged in
mission.’ Stott’s use of ‘mission’ rather than
‘missions’ is also significant, the former being
the general Catholic expression for holistic
ministry. Under ‘The Prelude to Evangelism,’
the Covenant promotes listening and sensitivity
in the form of dialogue as an essential part of
mission. It does not imply compromise, but
rather understanding. Its desired outcome is
spelled out next: the conversion of people, with
regard to Christ, the church and the world.
Conversion itself is no truncated decisionism,
but includes the social and economic sphere.
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The Covenant states, ‘The message of salvation
implies also a message of judgment upon
every form of alienation, oppression and
discrimination.’
The section, ‘The Mission of the Church’ is
full of significant detail. As Stott puts it, ‘It
recognizes that Christ’s mission in the world
is to be the model of the church’s and that
this calls ‘for a similar and deep penetration
of the world. For when the Son of God was
sent into the world he did not remain aloof
from its life or pain. On the contrary, he
penetrated deep into our humanity by the
Incarnation, and by becoming man he became
vulnerable to temptation and suffering.’ We
can see Stott’s engagement of Philippians 2:5-8
here, as he equates mission with the earthly
imitation of Christ’s Incarnation. Critically for
future incarnational mission, Stott brings in
Ralph Winter’s anthropologically determined
categories of evangelization (within our own
culture/language, similar culture/language
and cross-cultural). Though the roots of this
are earlier, Stott provided a powerful boost to
anthropology as a discipline that could guide
and define mission. Section 10, ‘Evangelism
and Culture’ established the principle of
evaluating and judging each culture by its own
standards. The only thing insisted upon was
moral absolutes. It seems to imply that to
do more would be to impose our own alien,
culturally conditioned standards on others.
This is significant because it implies that
there can be no statement of absolutes that is
not also contaminated by particular cultures.
That being true, any attempt to impose these
understandings would be tantamount to
imposing our culture on others.
Stott attempts to explain this by bringing
in another giant influence in contemporary
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
mission, Donald McGavran. According to
McGavran, ‘God has no favorites among
cultures. He accepts them all (Rev 21:6).’
This muddies the waters as it leaves out the
unique relationship of Israel and its culture as
a vehicle for the gospel. In a sense, McGavran
cannot avoid the problem since he is wedded
to anthropological models from which to
understand culture. The Covenant proclaims,
‘Missions have all too frequently exported with
the Gospel an alien culture.’ I hope so, because
if the culture is not alien to mine, I cannot be
converted since the answers to my sin condition
lie outside not inside. Once again, we have to
wrestle with the fallout of mixing anthropology
and theology in such a way that biblical meaning
is distorted. Stott closes his commentary on
culture by exhorting Christians, once again, to
be servants, by imitating Jesus and emptying
themselves of their ‘cultural status, power,
privileges and prejudices.’ The Willowbank
Report of 1978 also explored the relationship of
evangelism and culture in detail. It mediated
specifically on the importance of Christ’s
example in Philippians 2. Most of its comments
mirrored earlier statements and are generally
helpful other than in its implicit assumption that
mission should in fact be driven by the imitation
of Christ (incarnational mission). It had more
to say later in the document when it alerted the
church to the dangers posed by incarnational
mission through dynamic equivalent theology,
provincialism and syncretism.
A strong influence on Stott came through the
‘left wing of evangelicalism’, in the work of
people such as Rene Padilla, Orlando Costas,
Samuel Escobar and other members of the
Radical Discipleship Group that were present
at the first Lausanne Congress in 1974. The
group reflected the political radicalism spreading
through the evangelical world in the 1970s as it
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pushed out from its Roman Catholic Liberation
Theology epicentre. These drew up a ‘Response
to Lausanne’ that was signed and advocated by
John Stott. This signaled an embracing of social
concern and holistic mission by evangelicals
based on an incarnational model that relied
on verses such as John 20:21 for support.63
Evangelicals that subsequently networked into
the same or similar ethos included Christopher
Sugden, Jim Wallis, Richard Mouw, Pete
Broadbent, and Mennonites such as John
Howard Yoder, Wilbert Shenk, Donald Kraybill,
and Ron Sider.
Other than Stott, none of these early pioneers
of incarnational mission was more important
perhaps than Orlando Costas. Padilla describes
an article written by Costas in 1982. He
described three qualities that had to be present
in the church in order to grow. The three were
faithfulness, incarnation and spirituality. These
three qualities in turn had to be manifest in four
dimensions: numerical growth, organic growth,
conceptual growth and diaconal service to the
world.64
Costas has had a profound and lasting influence
on incarnational mission along with Barth,
Stott, David Bosch, Andrew Walls and in some
ways Lesslie Newbigin. An article by J. Todd
Billings in 2004 outlined Costas’ contribution
and influence.65 Costas is important, as
Billings notes, because he is one of a handful
of people that have written theological defenses
for incarnational mission. Most literature
assumes and promotes it. It and Missio Dei
have become de facto elements of evangelical
doctrine. Costas’ most influential defense
of incarnational mission is found in Christ
Beyond the Gate. He devotes one chapter
to ‘contextualization and Incarnation.’ The
coupling of the two is important and echoes
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other, largely Catholic, writing that couples
contextualization, or in the case of Catholicism,
inculturation, with incarnation. The two are
seen as rough equivalents, though incarnation
retains clearer theological connections. On
another level, the pairing of these words also
indicates a potential problem with the construct
itself. Does incarnational theology flow out of
the sociological concept of contextualization or
vice versa?
Costas, however, takes incarnational
ministry beyond any rough equivalence to
contextualization. He keys on John 1:14 and
the idea of the Logos being made flesh. In a
departure from the orthodox path of Chalcedon
with its two nature Christology, he frames the
Incarnation in the same manner as Moltmann.
Moltmann rejects the two natures, affirming
the ultimate possibility of God. God himself
is vulnerable. Christ is fully man, poor and
oppressed. As Billings points out, it is important
for Costas to identify Jesus with the lowest social
strata of humanity. Jesus becomes the lowest of
the low. Because God is passible, God suffers on
the cross and not just in the humanity of Jesus.66
There is, therefore, a total identification between
the Godhead and the poor.
Another way of seeing it is to say that there
is no correlation between God and power,
glory or coercion. God is only revealed in
weakness and suffering that shows his love.
Bauckham notes, ‘Moltmann sees Jesus, in
his godforesakenness on the cross, sharing
the plight not only of sinners who suffer their
own turning away from God, but also of the
innocent victims of meaningless suffering who
experience their suffering as abandonment
by God. God’s love, enacted in the event of
the cross, is love that suffers in solidarity with
those who suffer. God’s love is not only active
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benevolence, but also love which willingly
incurs suffering.’ Moltmann is also important
to Costas and for incarnational mission in
general for another reason. Moltmann rejects
any sort of hierarchy within the Trinity, whether
immanent or economic. There can be no
monarchy within the Trinity. Everything has
to be fully communal and participatory. There
can be no directive element to the relations in
the Godhead; no privileged place. Therefore,
everything done among the Trinity is of equal
importance.
This drives Moltmann to posit a very strong
endorsement of holistic ministry as we strive to
live authentic Trinitarian lives. For Moltmann,
for example, holistic soteriology means ‘a view
of salvation which encompasses body and soul,
individual and community, humanity and
the rest of nature, in a vision of the universal
abolition of transience and death and the new
creation of all things.’67 In Moltmann, we
can see themes that will emerge more fully in
incarnational theology; an immanent God, the
solidarity of God with people in their specific
circumstances, the holistic recreation of the
world by God, the interaction of God with
humanity based solely on love and not anger,
etc.
Costas extrapolates from this that missionaries
cannot act from positions of distance, let alone
privilege. They cannot do things for people,
but with them. Billings, at this point, offers an
interesting observation. It is clear enough that
missionaries must be for people; he is just not
sure what Costas says they can do for people.
Billings brings this dilemma back to Moltmann.
Moltmann was explicit about God identifying
with suffering humanity. On the other hand, he
was also very unclear about how Jesus’ death was
for humanity. It seems to place a wedge between
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Christ, the immanent presence, suffering along
with us from the Christ who had a divine work
to complete for our salvation. This creates
problems for Costas who, as Billings states,
knows how to tell missionaries to be with people
and not for them.
The same problem can be said for missionaries
that participate in extreme contextualization.
They encourage Muslims to embrace Jesus
without leaving Islam. They (the missionaries)
are outsiders, however. They can be with
people, but they cannot do anything for them.
At this point, Billings stops and makes an
interesting assertion. ‘One should admit that it
is not self-evident that the Incarnation should
be a significant model for the task of missions.
There are many other starting points.’ So there
are. It would seem that a reliance on Moltmann
actually may create more problems than are
solved. Billings adds, in agreement with Barth,
‘Christ meets humanity in the extreme limits of
human experience, but ‘salvation is not in those
limits.’. As such, the suffering of the Christian is
not redemptive in and of itself; one must always
sharply distinguish between the cross of Christ
and the cross of the Christian.’ We can say the
same with regard for the Incarnation. While
writers such as Guder are quick to distinguish
between the ‘Incarnation’ and ‘incarnational’, it
is not apparent that proponents of incarnational
mission get the point.
Melvin Tinker comments on Stott’s
understanding of holistic mission that embraced
the incarnational paradigm. He notes that
Stott’s and others’ understanding hinged largely
on what they thought the Kingdom of God
meant. He quotes Chris Sugden’s use of the
phrase to cover ‘all positive social change in
society.’68 Tinker then musters the aid of D.A.
Carson and R.T. France to give a more precise
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reading based on exegesis. Carson maintained
that ‘Kingdom of God’ had to be understood
within the context of the sphere of salvation
entered into through faith in Christ. France
agreed with Carson, ‘It is wrong to identify the
Kingdom with social reform as it is with the
church or heaven, and for the same reason: it
is a category mistake…To talk of men, even
Christian men, bringing about God’s kingdom
is to usurp God’s sovereignty. It is strangely
reminiscent of 19th century liberalism, which
called upon men to create a just and caring
society which was called the ‘Kingdom of God.’’
The role of social sciences: Perhaps the greatest
developments and changes in missiology in the
past century have come through the blossoming
of incarnational mission that weds traditional
categories of mission with insight and guidance
gleaned through the contribution of cultural
anthropology. Anthropologists such as Darrell
Whitman complain about their under-utilization
in the mission community, but the facts to do
not bear him out.69 It may be true that most
missionaries lack specific anthropological
training, but it is also true that anthropology
exerts inordinate influence among intellectuals
and seminaries that train missionaries. Even
a cursory glance at missiological publications
demonstrates conclusively the dominance of
anthropology in the definition and actualization
of contemporary mission. It’s not your Dad’s
missiology anymore. Mike Raiter surveyed
missiological publications for content in 1997.70
What he found was revealing. He surveyed 10
years of Missiology, International Bulletin of
Missionary Research (IBMR), and Evangelical
Missions Quarterly (EMQ) publications. What
he found was that Missiology only had 5% of its
articles dealing with Bible studies, the IBMR,
none and EMQ had five of 312 articles devoted
to Bible study.
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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
A similar look from the perspective of theology
nets similar results. When Biblical theology
is addressed, it is often harnessed as just a
way of justifying anthropological conclusions.
The truth is that most articles, like most ideas
formed within the mission community have to
do with the practice of mission and no factor
impacts modern mission as much as cultural
anthropology. This admittedly was not always
so. Harvie Conn’s Eternal Word and Changing
Worlds, written in 1984 was a call for balance,
largely to the theological community. He
pleaded for the missions community to bring
in anthropology and have it serve along with
theology. He did not suggest that anthropology
begin to dictate theology or drive mission, but
strove for an informed, contextual application
of biblical truth. Well, the chickens have come
home to roost. I am not attempting to denigrate
anthropology at all. It is immensely useful. I
simply point out that protests to the effect that
anthropology isn’t listened to, are, to say the
least, exaggerated.
Darrell Whiteman explains the role of
incarnation in connecting anthropology and
mission.71 The construction of his argument
is interesting. In order to help readers
become familiar with anthropology, he starts
with providing background that explains
the development of the field as an informer
of mission. There is a great deal of useful
background here. He punctuates the section by
showing how anthropology can help connect
the gospel to culture. He then switches gears. ‘I
now come at last to what I call the incarnational
connection between anthropology and mission.
I have argued… that for reasons of pragmatism
and efficiency, anthropology should inform
mission, but there are also important theological
reasons for doing so.’ Given his task, Whiteman
sensibly organizes his address. I become
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uncomfortable, however, with words such as
‘also’ and ‘important.’ It just sounds as though
theology and exegesis provide additional reasons
why we should conduct mission in a certain
way. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Isn’t
anthropology just a tool for helping to apply
theology and exegesis more wisely?
Whiteman continues, ‘The Incarnation is
our model for cross-cultural ministry, and
the biblical reason why anthropology needs
to inform mission.’ This is fine as long as
it does not mean that we can read modern
disciplines such as anthropology back into the
Bible. Whiteman plows familiar ground in
asserting, ‘God did not become a generic human
being.’ The author musters Philippians 2:5-8
in pointing out the particularity of Jesus’ Jewish
identity. As in other works, he does not seem to
recognize the significance of Christ being Jewish
from a historical-redemptive perspective. It
makes sense in this instance, since anthropology
has no inherent sensitivity to theological
imperatives. What is important is that, ‘In the
same way that God entered Jewish culture in the
person of Jesus, we must be willing to enter the
culture of the people among whom we serve,
to speak their language, to adjust our lifestyle
to theirs, to understand their worldview and
religious values, and to laugh and weep with
them.’
As in other instances, the decisive bits are in the
fine print. What does ‘in the same way’ actually
mean? The point for Whiteman is that only
anthropology can help with this acculturation
process. While agreeing to the usefulness of
the discipline in providing necessary insight,
it does seem a bit of a stretch. How did Jesus
or the early church do it? They never had the
training. Neither did Roberto de Nobili, the
Jesuit missionary in South India in the 17th
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century. To say that the field is valuable is not
the same thing as saying that it is indispensable.
The Bible is indispensable. Theology, when it is
rooted in the Bible, and faith are. Anthropology
and the social sciences are hugely useful, but not
indispensable. On the other hand, there is no
need to choose between them. Anthropology
conducted within the framework of biblical
integrity and a doctrinal soundness that is
historical, contemporary, universal and local is of
tremendous benefit.
Whiteman says, ‘The same process of
Incarnation of God becoming a human being
occurs every time the gospel crosses a new
cultural, linguistic, or religious frontier.’ He
obviously sees incarnation primarily in the
sense of a small ‘I’, an ongoing imitation of
Christ without all of the transcendent salvific
implications. Again, it seems that incarnation
equals the imitation of Christ. It is the
Incarnation idealized and made into a program.
This is justified on the grounds that ‘we are
bound to work within the limitations of the
cultural forms of the people to whom we are
sent.’ As an anthropologist, he is wedded to the
idea that things have to work from the inside
out. Incarnation links that methodological
perspective to the faith. He finishes his work
with eight implications of being incarnational.
1. We start with people where they are, embedded
in their culture, and this frequently requires
downward mobility on our part.
2. We take their culture seriously, for this is the
context in which life has meaning for them.
3. We approach them as learners, as children,
anxious to see the world from their perspective.
4. We are forced to be humble, for in their world
of culture we have not yet learned the acquired
knowledge to interpret experience and generate
social behavior.
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5. We must lay aside our own cultural
ethnocentrism, our positions of prestige and
power.
6. We will be very vulnerable; our defenses
will have to go, and we’ll have to rely more on
the Holy Spirit than our own knowledge and
experience.
7. We make every effort to identify with people
where they are, by living among them, loving
them and learning from them.
8. We discover, from the inside, how Christ is the
Answer to the questions they ask, and to their felt
needs.
It is a very good list. It provides insight that
would benefit any missionary. I do not see how
anthropology is necessary in either coming up
with the list or carrying out its objectives. I
can see where anthropology can help tune this
properly. There is also something else to add.
When telling the tale about why anthropology is
necessary, we are usually reminded of the many
failures of the institutional church through
the mid-twentieth century. The point is, what
caused the failures? Often, as it is pointed
out, missionaries exhibited arrogance and
Western syncretism as they attempted to serve.
This is fair to say. On the other hand, was the
resolution of the problem bound up in the social
sciences alone or in a revival of the faith once
delivered up for the saints? It seems to me that
many of the issues were spiritual ones. If that
is the case, perhaps the problems lay more with
the church’s failure to adjust to modernism.
Additionally, I find it strangely ironic that we
now embrace, along with social sciences, a
large dose of liberal theology in order to rectify
problems that were caused in large part by
modernism itself.
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4 Evaluation: Super-sizing the
Incarnation
Influence of incarnational mission on Open
Theism and the Emergent Church Movement:
The close connection between the theology
of Openness and incarnational models is
deeply disturbing. There is everything wrong
with modeling theology exclusively on the
immanence of God, something promoted by
Open theology. This is how Richard Rice
understands John 1:14: ‘The fundamental claim
here is not simply that God revealed himself in
Jesus, but that God revealed himself in Jesus as
nowhere else. For Christians, Jesus defines the
reality of God.’ Bruce Ware sees the problem
with this, ‘If Jesus defines God’s reality, as Rice
has stated, it is easy to see that we end up with
not only an incarnational Christology but with
an incarnational theology proper.’72 In other
words, we base our thinking about God on
what he reveals about himself. When we create
incarnational theology, we essentially say that
the Incarnation is what God says about himself
in his fullness. The problem, of course, is that
this is not true. The point of the Incarnation is
not only about what it says about God; it is the
limits it sets about what it says. It is a limited
expression. ‘And now, Father, glorify me in your
own presence with the glory I had with you
before the world existed’ (Jn 17:5). What could
we say before the Incarnation? A great deal.
Look at Hebrews 1 or the Book of Revelation.
Theology and the church are distorted badly
when they are based so exclusively on the
Incarnation.
Brian McLaren devotes an entire chapter
in his Generous Orthodoxy to, ‘Why I am
Incarnational.’ His application says a great deal
about how incarnational theology ‘supersizes’
the Incarnation in order to accommodate all
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sorts of ideas that are frankly contradicted by
Scripture as a whole. According to McLaren,
the Incarnation implied inclusion. Jesus came
for people after all. ‘Jesus threatened people
with inclusion: if they were to be excluded, it
would be because they refused to accept their
acceptance. If people rejected his acceptance,
he did not retaliate against them, but submitted
himself to humiliation, mistreatment, even
crucifixion by them.’73
This acceptance and humiliation then become
hallmarks of his practical application. First, it
breaks down the barriers between people. He
quotes Daniel Crawford, ‘I am de-nationalized
- a brother to all men; Arab, African, Mongol,
Aryan, Jew; seeing in the Incarnation a link that
binds us up with all men.’ So far so good. All
believers should rejoice at reading these words,
but how does he apply them? ‘The Christian
faith, I am proposing, should become (in the
name of Jesus Christ) a welcome friend to
other religions of the world, not a threat. We
should be seen as a protector of their heritages,
a defender against common enemies, not one of
the enemies.’74
It takes your breath away: Incarnation means
love and love means acceptance. Is this the
meaning of the Incarnation? If there had
been that sort of acceptance by God of other
religions, there would have been no need for
an Incarnation. You can see the syncretistic
confusion of ideas with his contemporary
pluralism and pop psychology being actualized
by his mistaken, disembodied concept of
‘incarnational.’ ‘I believe he (Jesus) comes today
not to destroy or condemn anything (anything
but evil) but to redeem and save everything
that can be redeemed or saved.’ He, of course,
had already excluded false religions from the
realm of evil so they have to be supported.
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Disapproving of non-Christian faith systems,
therefore, is not incarnational. It is, in fact,
Pharisaical.75 This only leaves us with one thing.
We must support Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and
Jewish followers of Jesus.76 This is a complete
distortion of the Incarnation as seen by its
context.
Michael Horton puts his finger on the fallacy
found within this thinking. ‘The problem, of
course, is that we have an outside God and an
outside redemption. Everything inside of us
is the problem. The good news, however, is
that the God who is completely other than we
are became one of us, yet without succumbing
to our selfish pride.’77 I suspect the problem
behind the problem is theological. We can
posit the sort of ‘insider’ thinking to which
Horton refers only if we have a limited
understanding of the fall and cannot, therefore,
see a wide distance separating nature from grace.
Incarnational mission, the Emergent Church,
and modern anthropology may attempt to
downplay theology, but that perspective is itself
a theological one. Theology undergirds every
action and every perspective - even of those
people that descry theology’s relevance.
Let’s look at Philippians 2:5-8 for example.
What is going on in the text? Well, the
immediate context is the call to unity of the
body as it faces persecution. Consider 1:27-30,
‘Only let your manner of life be worthy of the
gospel of Christ, so that whether I (Paul) come
and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that
you are standing firm in one spirit, with one
mind striving side by side for the faith of the
gospel, and not frightened in anything by your
opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their
destruction, but of your salvation, and that from
God. For it has been granted to you that for
the sake of Christ you should not only believe
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in him but also suffer for his sake, engaging in
the same conflict that you saw I had and now
hear that I still have.’ Paul is telling the church
that their context is an unbelieving world that
hates them and will do everything it can to
destroy their faith. He also reminds them that
the threat comes from within and without. As
they are subjected to the pressure, cracks appear
in the body. Therefore, they are to submit to
one another in love and unity in imitation of
their Lord. I love the way Calvin related to
this passage, ‘The strongest bond of concord is
when we have to fight together under the same
banner.’ The Philippians are therefore ‘fellow-
soldiers’ that have a ‘common enemy’ and are
engaged in the same battle that necessitates their
having their minds united together.78
Second, as they stand together, they stand with
the Lord against the enemies of Christ and the
covenantal faith he sums up within himself.
‘Brothers, join in imitating me (Paul, not Jesus
directly), and keep your eyes on those who walk
according to the example you have in us. For
many, of whom I have often told you and now
tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the
cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their
god is their belly, and they glory in their shame,
with minds set on earthly things’ (Ph 3: 17-19).
These enemies are considered opponents to the
Church, not to some sort of privatized faith.
It would have included pagan temples, Jewish
synagogues and professing believers not willing
to openly declare their faith in opposition to
the world and life views of the visible body
of Christ. This seems to be an application
of the Incarnation for McLaren that is too
uncomfortable to consider. Christ embodied a
love for sinners, it is true, but he also stood for
biblical, doctrinal truth without compromise,
regardless of consequence. ‘Suffering, for
Paul, is ultimately a theological matter; it has to
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do with our relationship with Christ and our
unyielding commitment to the gospel. The
suffering must be the direct result of trying
to bring others into the joy, or it deflects from
Christ’s suffering.’79 For him, as it should be
for us, anything other than the truth that came
through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Christ is
idolatry, regardless of whether it professes to be
monotheist, polytheist or pantheist. This fits the
historical context of Philippians as well.
As Frank Thielman recognizes, there is a
relationship between the faith of the Philippians
and Old Testament Israel even though few if
any of the believers were Jews (e.g. Paul and
Silas being thrown into prison as Jews, Act
16). Paul, when he taught them, considered
them as inheritors of the promises of Israel.
They were ‘thus comparable to the desert
generation of Israelites and so should learn
from their conduct, and they have assumed
eschatological Israel’s vocation of being a light
to the Gentiles.’ The continuity between the
Philippians and the people of God, Israel, is very
strong.80 In other words, you cannot take the
Incarnation and divorce it from its canonical and
theological context in order to support your own
contemporary contextual agenda. The context
in Philippians is also of people recognized as
separate or different from the surrounding
community. Therefore, maintaining a privatized
faith is not an option. It is not OK, according to
Jesus and Paul, to worship in the temple or stand
with the enemies of Christ as long as you love
Jesus in your heart. Neither Philippians nor
John will support it.
Let’s pick up a point alluded to earlier. Paul not
only mentions Christ as an example, but himself
as well. What about it? First, Paul did not adopt
the habits and practices of an alien culture.
Rather, God fashioned a culture from which to
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generate a universal witness that would have a
clarity sufficient to communicate with all other
cultures, and then have Paul speak from within
that tradition.81 This underlines the importance
of three things. First, Paul did not manifest the
sort of incarnational witness popularly talked
about. He proclaimed the salvation of the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to the world.
Second, he did maintain sensitivity to culture.
He always strove to communicate clearly. Third,
he highlighted the uniqueness of his heritage.
Incarnational literature often paints the Jewish
background of the Bible as coincidental. To the
contrary, it was deliberate. As Deuteronomy
9 points out, it was not because Israel was a
superior choice. Nevertheless, God chose to
root his redemptive plan in a particular people,
not just in a particular person, Jesus, as if his
Jewishness had no bearing. Jesus is the focus,
the end and the means of salvation because he is
rooted in a covenantal salvation. This is a major
fault of incarnational theology. It ignores the
centrality of the covenant.
Yes, the world is saved by and through Jesus,
but it is saved as it is also incorporated into
the covenant. Once again, this demonstrates
incarnational theology’s disturbing postmodern
Western individualism and pluralism. It
purports to be the faith of here and now but it
only does so by severing its ties to the there and
then.
In their rush to enlist the Incarnation as an
endorsement for missiological innovation,
people consistently overlook the most
prominent reminder of the Incarnation found
in the Word - the Church. The church is the
Body of Christ. The Word is redolent with
reference to it. It is the focus of the celebration
of the Eucharist (1Co 10:16), a statement of
the essential unity of the church (Eph 4:1), of
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its being united to Christ in all things (Rev 21),
interdependence (1Co 12:27; Eph 4:12) and love
(Ph 1:7; 1Th 1:2-4- 2:8-11), the home of truth
(1Ti 3:15) that calls for its common suffering
(Ac 8:1; 9:1-14; Ga 1:13) that purifies it (Rev
6-7). All of these references link the church to
Christ in such a way that reminds believers of
the once-and-for-all-time accomplishment of
salvation in Christ that links the Incarnation and
the atonement.
Why then does the Emergent Church and
evangelical missiology downplay or ignore
the visible church if it is so committed to
incarnational thinking? Several factors may
contribute. First, regardless of how committed
missiologists are to contextual ministry, they
cannot avoid their own Western thinking. Over
and over, when we encounter the Incarnation in
modern missionary or church growth literature,
we find it expressed in either generalized or
localized terms. Therefore, the Incarnation
becomes a slave to sociological constructs
and methods, or it extends the reductionist
decisionism of evangelical pietism. We end up
with two possibilities: ‘Incarnation’ becomes
an empty vessel that we fill with our own ideas,
or it serves as a justification for our continuing
to reduce biblical faith to easy-believism. It is
only in the Church as a biblical, historical and
visible body that we reliably see the Incarnation
fully lived out. I am not, of course, suggesting
that the church gets it right all of the time.
The continuing dominance of parachurch
organizations in missions testifies to that fact.
Nevertheless, it is only within the visible,
biblically constituted, historically rooted and
internationally connected Body of Christ that
the Incarnation has human expression.
On the other hand, to say that it is the Body
of Christ does not equate it with Christ in
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all his fullness.82 This is the error of Roman
Catholicism, where the church stands altera
persona Christi as the prolongation of the
Incarnation. It does so because grace has to
be embodied. It has to be embodied because,
according to Catholic theology, nature has to be
elevated. Leonardo de Chirico explains, ‘The
Incarnation is the divinely appointed meeting
point of nature and grace. Its basic pattern
surpasses the particularity of the historical event
of the mission of Jesus Christ and shapes the
whole of salvation history, determining the
visibility and instrumentality of every act of
grace towards nature culminating in the coming
of the eternal Son but also characterizing the
on-going service of the church.’83 In other
words, the Incarnation forms an almost exact
bond between Christ and the church. The
church is lex mundi, the mediator. In the long
run ‘the church is seen as the same person as
the Son of God who continues and renews the
unique event of the Incarnation, being in herself
the locus where the Incarnation takes place and
where the mission underlying the Incarnation is
made present in an ongoing way.’84
Doesn’t that sound a lot like incarnational
mission? While evangelical incarnational
missiology avoids investing the visible church
with that identity, it does manifest the same
thinking with regard to the relationship of
nature and grace. It also mirrors the same
role in terms of incarnating Christ for other
cultures and people. Consider the comments
of Vincent Bacote, a postmodern Christian, ‘I
think a core aspect of incarnational theology
is becoming incarnational. To use the phrase
of some people, ‘You might be the only bible
anyone reads, the only Jesus anyone ever sees.’
We have to literally take that on and live that
out to people, which is an applied incarnational
theology.’ Sherri King adds crucially, ‘At the
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end of the day, truth is not a syllogism.’’85 This
is why traditional missionary understanding
championed proclamation rather than
incarnation. While they embraced being Christ-
like in their behaviour and actions, they never
confused themselves with the message they
were ordained to bring. Incarnational mission
and the Emergent Church do just that. It is, as
Chris Green points out, the result of confusing
two unequal and different kinds of terms -
‘Incarnation’ and ‘mission.’86
There is something else as well. Gerald Bray
explained, reflecting on the meaning of John
1:14, ‘The Word of God which became flesh in
Jesus Christ has also, in a different way, become
paper and ink in the words of the Bible. The
Holy Scriptures are the voice of God to the
Church, the Word inscripturated. As Christians,
we need to understand that the Bible performs
for us the same function as the incarnate body
of the Son of God performed for the disciples.
In other words, our doctrine of Scripture is
not a philosophical abstraction based on some
essentially pagan notion of ‘inspiration’, but an
offshoot of our Christology.’87 This is amazing.
Rather than making the false choice between
relationship or doctrine, a common tactic of
those espousing incarnational theology, we see
the two properly wedded in the Incarnation.
Thus, we are left, not with our own local
ideas of how best to imitate Jesus, but with
the indwelling presence of Christ in the Holy
Spirit and with the perfect Word of God. The
extension of the Incarnation is not us and our
sociologically conditioned ministries modeled
on the imitation of Christ: it is the Word and
Spirit. Real power for witness resides in the
confluence of these two. Incarnational mission
implies that God cannot communicate unless he
is embodied. This ultimately undermines the
power of words and the power of God.88
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Called From Islam to Christ: Why Muslims
Become Christians by Jean-Marie Gaudeul
is hugely helpful in this regard.89 The book
examines Muslim conversion by allowing the
converts to tell their own stories. Over and over,
the reader is introduced to Muslims that are
highly resistant to the gospel, who cannot relate
to its message or its messengers. As Gaudeul
allows each story to unfold, we meet people who
have to struggle with the strangeness, the alien
nature of the new faith, but who, in one case
after another, finally cast their lives before the
Lord Jesus Christ. In some cases, Christ appears
in dreams. In others, their consciences are made
tender and vulnerable by circumstances. For
many, they are initially repelled, but eventually
overwhelmed by the truth of Scripture. A factor
Gaudeul mentions with regard to the acceptance
of the gospel message was the consistency
with which it was related to the listener. In
some cases, a contrast formed in the mind of
the seeker between the Christian who could
be relied upon to tell the truth and Muslims
who would commonly change their stories and
approaches in order to block his or her eventual
conversion.
5 Conclusions
What is the motive of the Incarnation? It self-
evidently fits into the redemptive-historical
plot, but is there more to it than that? G.C.
Berkouwer suggests that it is not just unwise,
but also impossible to separate Jesus from his
work. ‘For he manifests himself in his work
as the Mediator between God and men (2Ti
2:5), so that even the slightest abstract notions
of his work and of the valuable influences and
impulses proceeding from Jesus of Nazareth
immediately derogate from the real essence of
his work.’90 He is not an example in isolation
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from his redemptive role. Therefore, imitating
him in a way that separates him from the
atonement repeats the mistakes of mediaeval
devotion, minimizing rather than centralizing
the role of the new birth. The problem is that
‘Incarnation’ becomes the subject itself, an
entire canvas, rather than one part of a larger
painting whose subject is Christ. By moving the
Incarnation into the foreground and isolating it
from its context, we run the risk of moving the
atonement, redemption in Christ and the glory
of God in the worship of the Son of God into
obscurity. This therefore becomes a manifest
distortion of the core message of the Bible.
What should the model of mission be?
Better still, what does ‘model’ mean? How
do creativity and planning relate to biblical
paradigms? What about the past, present and
future? What room is there for innovation and
modern developments in intellectual disciplines
in mission that is based on the old, old story?
What role can the Incarnation play in that? We
saw the pivotal role played by three sets of verses
in incarnational theology: John 1:14, ‘And the
Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and
we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father, full of grace and truth; John
20:21, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am
sending you’; and Philippians 2:5-8, ‘Have this
mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ
Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the
form of a servant, being born in the likeness
of men. And being found in human form, he
humbled himself by becoming obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross.’
Does Jesus’ life have anything to say to us in his
coming? Certainly it does; John and Philippians
prove that. It is not his life in its exact details;
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we cannot go there. We cannot give up the
privileges of divinity in order to bear the
weight of the world’s sins and suffer a Father’s
abandonment and absolute punishment. There
are other things that can be ours. This is how
B.B. Warfield, in his evaluation of Ph. 2:5-8,
put it, ‘It is the spirit which animated our Lord
in the act of his Incarnation which his apostle
would see us imitate. He would have us in all
our acts to be like Christ, as he showed himself
to be in the innermost core of his being, when
he became poor, he that was rich, that we by his
poverty might be made rich.’91
Can we be more specific? His example
can drive us to what Warfield termed ‘self-
abnegation, entire and ungrudging self-sacrifice.’
‘Is it to be unto death itself? Christ died. Are
we to endure wrongs? What wrongs did he
not meekly bear? Are we to surrender our
clear and recognized rights? Did Christ stand
upon his unquestioned right of retaining his
equality with God? Are we to endure unnatural
evils, permit ourselves to be driven into
inappropriate situations, unresistingly sustain
injurious and unjust imputations and attacks?
What more unnatural than that the God of the
universe should become a servant of the world,
ministering not to his Father only, but also to
his creatures - our Lord and Master washing
our very feet? What more abhorrent than that
God should die? There is no length to which
Christ’s self-sacrifice should lead him.’92
Well, there was one. He would not compromise
his beliefs. He would not commit idolatry. The
whole context of Paul’s incarnational musings
is that of suffering as the consequence of
maintaining a visible fidelity to biblical truth.
It is because believers would not cave in to the
world that they incurred its ire. In so doing,
they followed Christ’s lead. This is a far, far cry
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from the applications of incarnational theology
evident in the world today.
John also has much to say in terms of Jesus
serving as our model. Andreas Köstenberger,
having written a commentary on John, also
explored the book’s significance to mission. It
is clear that Jesus is the sent one. ‘He is the
shepherd-teacher who calls followers to gather
in the eschatological harvest.’93 In this sense, we
do not duplicate Christ’s Incarnation - no one
can. On the other hand, we imitate a pattern.
We become sent ones that follow our Lord Jesus,
both in our being sent and in sending others
after us to complete God’s Kingdom work.
As we are sent, there is much we are called to
model in Jesus, the sent one, who is now the
sender. Köstenberger delineates some of these
things:
1. Know the sender intimately.
2. Live in close relationship to him.
3. Bring him glory and honour.
4. Do the sender’s will.
5. Do the sender’s works.
6. Speak the sender’s words.
7. Follow the sender’s example.
8. Be accountable to the sender.
9. Bear witness to the sender.
10. Exercise delegated authority.
This does not mean that we are simply
replacements for Jesus. D.A. Carson notes,
‘The perfect tense in ‘As the Father has sent me’
suggests, at the risk of pedantry, that Jesus is
in an ongoing state of ‘sentness.’ Just because
he ascends to his Father does not mean he is
no longer the ‘sent one’ par excellence. Thus
Christ’s disciples do not take over Christ’s
mission; his mission continues and is effective
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in their ministry.’94 We get to carry on Christ’s
work, filled by his Spirit, guided by his Word
and inspired by his example. All of these things
are set firmly in the context of God’s redemptive
purposes expressed in one unalterable story. We
cannot make the Incarnation become a slave to
our own intentions, honourable or otherwise.
To do so would put a lie to our claims to be
followers. Köstenberger has it right when he
says, ‘The mission of Jesus’ followers should
mirror the same parameters that determined
the sender-sent relationship of Jesus and the
Father.’95 In other words, it is the relationships
and character of the follower we are called to
imitate.
As he ponders the meaning of the book of John
in all of its redemptive dimensions N.T. Wright
notes, ‘There is a fad in some quarters about a
‘theology of incarnation,’ meaning that our task
is to discern what God is doing in the world
and to do it with him. John’s theology of the
Incarnation is about God’s Word coming as
light into darkness, as a hammer that breaks the
rock into pieces, as a fresh word of judgment
and mercy. You might as well say that an
incarnational missiology is about discovering
what God is saying no to today and how to say
it with him.’96 What Wright sees is that there is
a vast gap between what the Incarnation actually
means and how we attempt to apply it today. It
is a word of judgment of the world even as it is a
word of reformation of his creation.
David Bosch on the other hand trumpets that
vengeance is superseded. Comparing Isa 61
with Luke 4:18-19, Bosch notes the absence
in the latter of a call for retributive justice.97
Proponents of incarnational mission typically
attempt to make proclamation of truth and
relationship antithetical. Fore example, Ross
25
 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)
Langmead attempts to describe a prophetic,
declarative mission as one that ‘sees the primary
task to be persuading others to believe certain
propositions rather than inviting others to enter
a new reality in relationship to Christ and the
Christian community.’98 Wright, on the other
hand, is simply saying that if you are going to
model your ministry on the Incarnation, you
need to express it in all of its dimensions, not
just the ones that seem to accord more easily
with your own sensibilities.
Wright’s comments are so important. We
cannot be allowed to shape the Word; we must
be shaped by it. When we ignore the judgment
that is implicit in the Incarnation, we reveal our
hidden agendas. We do not want to be shaped
or transformed. We do not want to be recreated.
We want to be creators ourselves. We are so very
confident of our carefully derived insights that
we will not let anything, not even God, stand
in our way. The Incarnation stands in our way.
‘The loving God who is incarnate in Jesus is the
same God before whom the prophet Isaiah cries
out in horror, ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a
man of unclean lips and I live among a people
of unclean lips’ (Isa 6:5). While God’s terrifying
holiness is veiled in the humility of One who
came not to be served but to serve, the divine
kenosis or self-emptying, it does not alter the
fact that in Christ a people of unclean lips come
face to face with a holy and just God. Jesus’
mission is unrelentingly countercultural. It is as
an implacable judge of the current order that he
sweeps through the temple, upsetting the tables
of the money changers.’99 If we are going to start
using the Incarnation to describe ourselves, we
should ensure that we use it fully and honestly.
There is a caution in all of this for us as we
so easily toss around the word ‘Incarnation.’
Andreas Köstenberger sets the framework
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for our understanding. We cannot make it
say what we wish. ‘John conceives of the
church’s mission in more humble terms than
an analogy with Christ’s Incarnation, affirming
the uniqueness of the Word’s becoming flesh
and of Christ’s salvific work.’100 It is true
that the suffering of Christ has value as an
example, but ‘the New Testament never forgets
the unbridgeable gulf that exists between the
suffering of Christ and human suffering.’101
‘On that cross, at its darkest point, the Son
knew himself only as sin and His Father only as
its avenger. Here was a singularity.’102 In this
sense, the Incarnation cannot be duplicated. It
happened once because no one else could do it
and because once was enough. This is reason
enough to shift it to the foreground and not let
it get lost in the background as we feebly seek to
imitate it.
Mateen Elass is right. ‘Christmas is ineluctably
linked with Good Friday, Easter and
Pentecost.’103 Contextualizing the Bible because
we are a particular, a cultural people is right.
Seeing in Jesus an example of the new life, and
in particular, an example of how a sent one sends
others is also right. None of this, however,
justifies as it were, paradoxically ‘disembodying’
the Incarnation and making it a rubber stamp for
our missiological enterprises. Just as stitching
a fish on the back pocket of a pair of jeans
does not make the wearer a Christian, neither
does adorning modern anthropological ideas
with the adjective ‘incarnational’ make them
appropriately biblical.
We must preserve the links as Elass commends
because the Bible does and because it is the
only means through which to ensure that we
are not writing our own Bibles. This is the
significance of the narrative itself. It means that
God is the maker and the teller of the great story.
26
 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)

We cannot take each of the words and make a Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (Downers
different story out of them. We must not allow Grove: IVP, 2005) 175.
22
Stott, ‘The Bible in World Evangelization’ Perspectives
ourselves to highjack the words themselves for 24.
as we do so, we become idol makers. 23
Steve Griffiths, ‘An Incarnational Missiology for the
Emerging Church’ www.opensourcetheology.net (30
January 2007).
Endnotes 24
Michael L. Fitzgerald, ‘Religious Pluralism - A
1
Robert L. Reymond, ‘Incarnation’ Evangelical Dictionary Theological Consideration’ Plenary Assembly of the
of Theology Edited by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Catholic Biblical Federation Lebanon (7 September 2002).
Baker, 1984) 555. The author considers the impact on incarnational thinking
2
Ross Langmead, Towards an Incarnational Missiology on Roman Catholic theology.
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004) 17. 25
Darrell Guder, The Incarnation and the Church’s
3
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Witness (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1989) xiif.
Zondervan, 1994) 543. 26
Guder 8ff.
4
Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction 27
Guder 23.
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963) 24. 28
Guder 24.
5
The Navigators, ‘Definitions and Principles’ www. 29
Mark Norridge, ‘Incarnational Mission’ www.ccn-
navigators.org. online.org.uk.
6
Dean S. Gilliland, ‘The Incarnation as Matrix for 30
Norridge.
Appropriate Theologies’ Appropriate Christianity Edited 31
Michael S. Bos, ‘The Dialogical Imperative’ The Gospel
by Charles H. Kraft (Pasadena: William Carey Library, and Our Culture Network www.gocn.org.
2005) 493. 32
Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching (New York:
7
Gilliland 508. Newman, 1952) 68.
8
Charles E. Van Engen, ‘Five Perspectives in Contextually 33
Irenaeus 72.
Appropriate Missional Theology’ Appropriate Christianity 34
Methodius, ‘On the Resurrection’ Patrology Vol. 2 ed.
Edited by Charles H. Kraft (Pasadena: William Carey By Johannes Quasten (Allen, Texas: Thomas More, 1950)
Library, 2005) 188. 135.
9
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts 35
Melito of Sardis, ‘Homily on the Passion’ Patrology Vol.
in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991) 27f. See 1 245.
also Langmead 8f. 36
Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Crestwood: St.
10
Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Vladimir’s Seminary, 1993) 33f.
Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for 37
Peter J. Leithart, ‘Necessary Incarnation’ (26 May 2007)
Personal Relationships (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986) 16. www.leithart.com.
11
Lingenfelter and Mayers 22. 38
Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the
12
Lingenfelter and Mayers 24. European Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987) 19.
13
Gilliland 497. 39
Seamus Mulholland, ‘Incarnation in Franciscan
14
Leonard Hjalmarson, ‘Toward A Theology of Public Spirituality-Duns Scotus and the Meaning of Love’
Presence: Incarnational or Attractional?’ www.allelon.org. Franciscan www.franciscans.org.uk (2001)
15
Bosch 454. 40
G.C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ Studies in
16
Langmead 18. Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 27.
17
Langmead 216. 41
Hughes Oliphant Old, The Shaping of the Reformed
18
Langmead 34ff. Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century (Grand Rapids:
19
Langmead 64f. Eerdmans, 1992) 83.
20
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization’ 42
Old 105.
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader 43
Old 106f.
Third Edition (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1999) 44
Gilliland 508.
492f. 45
Old 84.See also The Radical Reformation by George
21
Dean Flemming, Contextualization in the New Huntston Williams and two works by James M. Stayer,

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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)

The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community Ecclesiology for Integral Mission (Buenos Aires: Ediciones
of Goods and Anabaptists and the Sword for extended Kairos, 2003).
treatments. 65
J. Todd Billings, ‘’Incarnational’ Ministry and
46
George H. Williams, ed., Spiritual and Anabaptist Christology: A Reappropriation of the Way of Lowliness’
Writers Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: Missiology: An International Review 32.2 (April
Westminster, 1957) 33. This is not to say that modern 2004) www.jtoddbillings.com. See also Ken Baker,
evangelical missiologists all embrace the same position, ‘The Incarnational Model: Perception or Deception?’
but it is to say that modern pluralism as expressed by (January 2002) www.emqonline.com and Harriet Hill,
Brian McLaren and others makes more sense when set ‘Incarnational Ministry: A Critical Examination’ (April
against this background. 1990) www.emqonline.com.
47
Berkouwer 27. 66
Richard Bauckham, ‘Moltmann’ The Blackwell
48
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Vol IV. Q.1 Art.. 3 Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought (Oxford:
Pt. III (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1948) 2022. Blackwell, 1993) 386. Moltmann saw passiblity as he belief
49
McGrath 20. that God can feel pain and, in a broader sense, be affected
50
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.12.6 by his creation.
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 471f. 67
Richard Bauckham, ‘Jürgen Moltmann’ The Modern
51
Henri Blocher, ‘The Atonement in John Calvin’s Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in
Theology’ The Glory of the Atonement (Downers Grove: the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) 220.
IVP, 2004) 297. 68
Melvin Tinker, ‘Reversal or Betrayal? Evangelicals and
52
Blocher 300. Socio-political Involvement in the Twentieth Century’
53
Louis J. Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures Churchman (11 March 1999). Online.
(Maryknoll: Orbis, 1988) 69. 69
See Darrell L.Whiteman, ‘Anthropology and Mission:
54
Francis Anakwe Oborji, Concepts of Mission: The The Incarnational Connection’ Luzbetak Lecture,
Evolution of Contemporary Missiology (Maryknoll: Catholic Theological Union (5 May 2003). Despite my
Orbis, 2006) 84f. disagreements with many of the author’s conclusions, his
55
Paul VI, Pope, Lumen Gentium Dogmatic Constitution article is a gold mine of good information.
on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican 70
Michael Raiter, ‘Sent for This Purpose: ‘Mission’ and
Council (21 November 1964). ‘Missiology’ and Their Search for Meaning’ (1997).
56
Paul VI, Pope Gaudium et Spes Dogmatic Consitituion 71
Darrell L Whiteman, ‘Anthropology and Mission.’
on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican 72
Bruce A. Ware, God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished
Council (7 December 1965). God of Open Theism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000) 145.
57
Paul VI, Pope, ‘Evangelii Nuntiandi: On Evangelization 73
Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids:
in the Modern World’ Apostolic Exhortation (8 December Zondervan, 2004) 247.
1975) www.papalencyclicals.net. 74
McLaren 254.
58
John Paul II, Pope, Redemptoris Missio Encyclical 75
McLaren 257.
Letter on the Permanent Validity of the Church’s 76
McLaren 264.
Missionary Mandate (7 December 1990) www.aderemus. 77
Michael S. Horton, ‘Christless Christianity:
org. Getting in Christ’s Way’ Modern Reformation www.
59
Oborji 19f. modernreformation.org (May/June 2007).
60
Guder 2. 78
John Calvin, Philippians Calvin’s New Testament
61
Guder 19. Commentaries: A New Translation Torrance & Torrance
62
John Stott, ‘The Lausanne Covenant: An Exposition eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 241.
and Commentary’ Lausanne Occasional Paper 3 (1975) 79
Gordon Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (Grand
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization www. Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 258.
lausanne.org. 80
Frank Thielman, Philippians (Grand Rapids:
63
Langmead 94f. Zondervan, 1995) 143f.
64
C. Rene Padilla, ‘Evangelical Theology in a Latin 81
Green 139ff.
American Context. www.integral-mission.org. Published 82
Gerald Bray, Steps of Understanding: Key Events in
in The Local Church, Agent of Transformation: An Jesus’ Life (Fearn: Christian Focus, 1998) 34.

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 St Francis Magazine Nr. 3 Vol. III (December 2007)

83
Leonardo de Chirico, Evangelical Theological 97
Bosch 109f. Darrell Bock deals at length with Bosch’s
Perspectives on Post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism supposed discovery of the cessation of judgment. He
(Bearn: Peter Lang, 2003) 249. notes two possibilities: ‘First, the omission may have
84
De Chirico 253. been made to delay the allusion to judgment until Jesus’
85
Carlos Aguilar, Vincent Bacote, Andy Crouch, warnings in 4:24-27. But another reason is more likely:
Catherine Crouch, Sherri King and Chris Simmons, ‘The the ultimate time of God’s vengeance is not yet arrived in
Antimoderns: Six Postmodern Christians Discuss the this coming of Jesus (9:51-56; 17:22-37; 21:5-37). This
Possibilities and Limits of Postmodernism’ Christianity omission represents part of the ‘already-not-yet’ tension of
Today www.christianitytoday.com (13 November 2000). NT eschatology. Jesus’ mission is placed initially in terms
86
Chris Green, ‘The Incarnation and Mission’ The Word of hope, but it also brings an implication of judgment
Became Flesh (Cumbria: Paternoster, 2003) 127. about which he will warn in 4:24-27.’ See Darrell L.
87
Gerald Bray, 33. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50 Baker Exegetical Commentary on the
88
Green 135. New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 411.
89
Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Called From Islam to Christ: Why 98
Langmead 218.
Muslims Become Christians (London: Monarch, 1999). 99
Christopher A. Brown, ‘More Than Affirmation:
90
G.C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ Studies in The Incarnation as Judgment and Grace’ The Rule of
Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 19. Faith: Scripture, Canon, and Creed in a Critical Age
91
B.B. Warfield, ‘Imitating the Incarnation’ The Person (Harrisburg: Morehouse, 1998) 88f.
and Work of Christ (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1950) 565. 100
Köstenberger 226. He notes in a reference to his
92
Warfield 572f. earlier work on John that, ‘John seems far too concerned
93
Andreas J. Köstenberger And Peter T. O’Brien, Salvation to preserve Jesus’ ontological uniqueness to make his
to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission incarnation the model for the church’s mission.’
(Downers Grove: IVP, 2001) 203. 101
James Montgomery Boice, Philippians (Grand Rapids:
94
D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Baker, 1971) 126.
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991) 649. 102
Donald MacLeod, The Person of Christ (Downers
95
Köstenberger 213. Grove: IVP, 1998) 217.
96
N.T. Wright, ‘What is This Word? The 103
Mateen A. Elass, ‘Why Christmas is Dangerous’ www.
Incomprehensible Intimate Christmas Story’ Christianity moodymagazine.com (10 October 2007).
Today www.christianitytoday.com (10 October 2007).

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