The congregation in a pluralist society: Rereading Newbigin for missional churches today

Abstract

Lesslie Newbigin sought to engage the gospel with western culture. A re-reading of Newbigin’s work offers insights for mission and communicating the gospel in the 21st-century western world, including the need to grapple with religious pluralism. For Newbigin, ‘the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it’. How plausible is the Newbigin thesis? Can congregations today believe and live the gospel, especially in a pluralistic context? This article is an appeal for attentiveness to the place and priority of the congregation, for the sake of mission in our pluralist society. It is grounded in the experience of two congregational case studies, which opens up conversation with Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Methodologically, it applies Neil Ormerod’s understanding of ecclesiology as grounded in ‘historical ecclesial communities’ to test both the groundedness and plausibility of Newbigin’s congregational hermeneutic.