Trinity International University Deerfield, Illinois USA16-19 October 2008
Trinity International University, in conjunction with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization Issue Group 16, The Church and New Spiritualities and the Western Institute for Intercultural Studies, announces an international conference on Christianity and new religious movements hosted by the School of Biblical and Religious Studies at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois, USA on 16-19 October 2008.
The conference will be a gathering of practitioners and scholars addressing the decline of Christianity in the West and the concomitant growth of new unreached people groups expressed in religions and spiritualities such as modern Paganism, New Age, and other alternative spiritualities. Plenary sessions and parallel workshops will address the topics of the future of religion in the West, the make up of the alternative religious marketplace and approaches in engaging adherents of alternative spiritualities. For more information, contact Dr. Michael T. Cooper, Program Director, Master of Arts in Communication and Culture. Further information and registration arrangements can be found at Sacred Tribes Journal, which includes the plenary and workshop schedule.
4 comments:
"unreached"
While more kind than "unsaved", the word has some odd connotations doesn't it?
For example, am I "unreached"? I have read the Bible, attended Christian services, and spoken with several Christians. Heck, I've even been given "the pitch" a few times. Do I remain perpetually "unreached" simply because I like my religion better?
Can you be "reached" yet reject the gospel? Do Lausanne members believe that it is simply that I haven't "been engaged" by the gospel message in the proper way? That is a theme I have spotted before in your interviews, and in other places around the "missional" Christian blogosphere.
An obvious question is can healthy dialog co-exist with "engagements" aimed at "reaching" us. Can you respect us and our faith while concurrently trying to lead us away from that faith?
These are some great comments, Jason. Thanks for sharing them respectfully, and yet not hesitating to address your concerns.
I share your concerns over terminology. I have blogged on "unchurched" in the past and my distaste for that term. I don't care for "unsaved" either and am open to discussion on "unreached." The latter has been used in missiological circles in a variety of fashions, but primarily (I think) to refer to those groups that do not have an expression of the Christian gospel in a form appropriate to the culture or subculture so that people can understand and respond to it one way or another.
As to whether you are "unreached," like many Pagans it sounds like ou have a Christian background that for whatever reasons simply did not "work" for you. Given my thoughts above it would be difficult to consider you in this fashion, and those involved in such a conference as these comments refer to have no desire to pull people out of their spirituality or religion against their will.
As to your third paragraph, for me, someone can be "reached" while rejecting the gospel. For me it is a matter of appropriate communication through deed and word. Perhaps others will share their thoughts on the matter.
As to your final question, this is a good one, and one that representatives of our two communities need to continue to address. Speaking for myself, I belive that healthy dialogue can co-exist between Pagans and mission-minded Christians if dialogue is properly defined up front for everyone involved as a means of understanding and interaction, and so long as the Christian is not using dialogue merely as a means to an end of "conversion." I do not think it is necessarily a conflict for someone to pursue respectful dialogue while also being desireous of pursuasion in faith commitment. I think and hope that this has been evident in my relationships with Pagans on the Internet and elsewhere, and was exemplified in our dialogue book through Lion (Beyond the Burning Times). But again, I'd like to hear from others on this and I'd like the dialogue on this topic and those you raise above to continue between our communities. Great questions!
"As to whether you are "unreached," like many Pagans it sounds like ou have a Christian background that for whatever reasons simply did not "work" for you. Given my thoughts above it would be difficult to consider you in this fashion, and those involved in such a conference as these comments refer to have no desire to pull people out of their spirituality or religion against their will."
As a point of clarification I was not raised as a Christian. Aside from some isolated experiences and the "cultural Christianity" inherent in my Midwest upbringing, my childhood was quite secular in nature.
Also, I don't think you or the participants in this conference are looking to force me into conversion "against my will". But that doesn't remove the tensions inherent in missional activities, or the ultimate goal of fine-tuning methods of "outreach", which is to convince us to embrace Christianity.
Thanks for your further thoughts, Jason. I appreciate the clarification on your background. It helps me understand your frame of reference in all of this.
You are correct that the tension remains on this issue, and this does not to be discussed and explored within our communities and between them. And for a point of clarification from my end, this conference is not merely about fine-tuning approaches for the goal of conversion. In my view it is dramatically different from what evangelicals have presented in the past on new religions, and it represents a broader framework for understanding as well as discussion of means of engagement which are also more didverse than merely seeking to convert.
I hope this dialogue on this topic can continue.
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