CHAPTER 15:
SPIRIT, KINGDOM AND POSTMODERN CITY

The Kingdom of God is the highest good. The idea of God is the highest and most comprehensive conception in philosophy; the idea of the Kingdom of God is the highest and broadest idea in sociology and ethics (Rauschenbusch, 1916:59).

In this chapter, I propose a new evangelical understanding of the Kingdom of God as centre of a web of belief about transformative goals. This is a conversational response to themes of postmodernism. It reflects a personal pilgrimage of twenty-five years of use of the Kingdom as missiological framework for social change – one tested in numerous situations, surprising me again and again with life-changing paradigm shifts for people, churches and movements into holistic transformation.

I begin with the relationship of the city and the Spirit to the final coming of the Kingdom. I then explore the role of the Kingdom as one of the integrating themes of the Scriptures. I look at the pneumatological nature of the Kingdom, expand holistic Kingdom themes and the responses to the Kingdom (discipleship), as they relate to conversation spaces identified in the study of postmodernism. These cluster around the Kingdom as integrating centre, the revitalisation of postmodern humanness, the morality of the physical world and the Kingdom and the New World Order (diagrammed in Fig. 4 on page 2 and Fig. 5 on page 2). I then demonstrate the missiological implications by reflecting on conversations between the Kingdom and business in Auckland.

Kingdom, City, Spirit

The ultimate reign of God is integrally connected with the coming of the city of God in the final chapters of Revelations.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband (Rev 21:2).

This bride, has been the hope of the saints, Abraham looked forward to “a city whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:10), a city prepared for his faithful people (11:16). “For here, we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (13:14). The church is the bride in preparation, the city being built. The city is preceded in verse 1 with the broader context of the universal Kingdom:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea (Rev 21:2).

This quotation above by John, from Isaiah 65:17, is not of a creation ex nihilo, but a transformation. As in Genesis 1, so in this revelation of the eternal Kingdom, environmental structure precedes life-forms. But it appears to be metamorphosis, for he goes on, in verse 5, “Behold I make all things new.” Paul, in Romans 8, tells us that “the whole creation groans, waiting our adoption as sons”, thus this metamorphosis is integrally related to our salvation. The Kingdom involves a renewal of creation, a transformation of world and universal orders. In reference, perhaps, to the waters of primeval chaos of Genesis 1, he then states, “there was no longer any sea,” and the transformation of chaos is complete.

Then is voiced a grand climax, for the crowning of the creator, his taking up his reign on earth, his Kingship, has to do with his presence with the created social creature,

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with humanity and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev 21:1-3).

“The dwelling of God, (or the tabernacle, or tent Gk: skene) is with humanity.” ^[1] This is an allusion to the Hebrew shekinah, God’s immanence both in the world and among people. It is an echo^[2] of the new covenantal promise of Ezek 37:27, “My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (see Ezek 34:30; 36:28; Zech 2:11a; Lev 26:11-12). Paul links this dwelling of God among people to believers being the temple of the living God, the temple of the Spirit of God.^[3] The linkage of people to city is perhaps a reflection on Ps 46:4, where the phrase “city of God” parallels “dwelling place of the most high” (Aune, 1998:1122).

Kingdom as Centre of a Web of Belief

This framework of the Kingdom of God most recently has enabled breakthroughs for Evangelicals in their involvement in transformation.^[4] The theme of the city of God and framework of the Kingdom are considered in this study, firstly because they are both common integrative biblical themes, used by movements across history. Secondly, they are accessible and potentially popular and open up study of classic Christian theologies to Pentecostals, since they both include pneumatology. The work of the Spirit is integral to entrance, expansion and the nature of the Kingdom. The Kingdom includes the theme of the “people of God,” an existing strongly held foundational theme for a “Christ against Culture” movement.

Up to this point, while the Kingdom of God theme is now familiar and discussed among New Zealand Pentecostal leaders, it has failed to provide broad mobilisation of the Pentecostal movement, perhaps largely because the breadth of the theme has not been extensively taught among Pentecostals. I have examined other theologies of city, justice, liberation theologies, covenants and the cosmic Christ, but these can be subsumed under the Kingdom. They also lack a popular base within these movements.

The theme is evident in the Genesis accounts,^[5] though the terminology begins during the monarchy of David (Psa 45:6; 103:19; 145:11). It was the central theme in Jesus’ teaching, beginning with Mark’s use of it as a summary of his focus (Mark 1:15) (Beasley-Murray, 1986:71). Paul is last heard of in Rome, “preaching the Kingdom of God” (Acts 28:31). The end of the Scriptures is about the return of the King to bring his reign. It recurs uncannily in almost every generation. Perhaps indicating its power, is its history as the theme underlying much of Calvin’s work and much of the liberal social gospel movement earlier last century.

This theme, in contrast to the dispensationalism of fundamentalist groups (hence breaking its interpretative power), is developed in the belief that the Scriptures are a unity.^[6] While there is differentiation as to God’s activity at different phases of redemption history or expressed in different narratives, this does not mean that God changes in personality, style or fundamentals. God’s interventions at every phase of redemption history are consistent. The discontinuities at the incarnation, the cross and the parousia, are subject to the continuities of his nature.

But a further step is needed beyond existing, culturally limited,^[7] evangelical theologies of the Kingdom of God, such as by Bright (1953), Ladd (1959) or sociologist Kraybill’s more socially aware Anabaptist perspective (1978). We need to move to a more comprehensive biblical understanding of the nature of the Kingdom as involving the socio-economic, spiritual and political.

Charles Van Engen (1998), reflects on missions theologian emeritus, Glasser’s The Good News of the Kingdom (1993) (which in turn draws on Ladd (1959) and in turn Oscar Cullman’s “Kingdom present and not yet” (1962)). He indicates four things the theme of the Kingdom has done for evangelical missiology:

1.            The Kingdom of God concept broadens missiological reflection beyond a predominantly individualised and vertical understanding of salvation to a holistic view of the interaction of the church and world.

2.            Glasser’s Kingdom missiology breaks the impasse between evangelism and social action that has plagued Evangelicals.

3.            Kingdom-of-God missiology creates the possibility of new conversation among Evangelicals, representatives of the conciliar movement, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostals and charismatic.

4.            Glasser’s own personal pilgrimage made him deeply aware of the social and political implications of the Kingdom of God that challenges all governments, all forms of racism and all social structures that would seek to deify themselves.

Independently, Dyrness (1983/1991) working in Manila, and Bellingham in Bangladesh and India (1987), have grappled with relating the Kingdom to the social realities of poverty and oppression. The most lucid evangelical statements I have read are in Howard Snyder’s A Kingdom Manifesto (1997). Two decades of theological conferencing by Chris Sugden and Vinay Samuel and the Transformation network produced Mission as Transformation (1999), with several chapters on the Kingdom. This and Glasser’s teaching at Fuller have influenced the Latin American Theological Fraternity and Petersen in Latin America (1996:209-224). Brian Hathaway developed a New Zealand church-based missiology of the Kingdom (1990) reflecting these influences.

Nevertheless, with the exception of the latter, the evangelical understandings lack the comprehensiveness of social gospel conceptualisations of the Kingdom by evangelists significant in the early World Council of Churches and liberal social gospel theology, such as Rauschenbusch (1907/1968); Kagawa of Japan in Christ and Japan, (1934); E. Stanley Jones in India with The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (1972); or H. Richard Niebuhr of the US (1937/1988).

Continuity and Discontinuity of the Kingdom

OT Intervention; NT Invasion

In the Old Testament, the reign of God was acknowledged and frequently he intervened in situations, applying the social, economic and political principles of his Kingdom (first part of Fig. 1). Yet the presence of God was not with humankind, his Spirit did not dwell with men and women. Thus in the times of Samson and the judges, he exercised his rule as the Spirit came upon chosen individuals for the duration of each crisis.

Then Isaiah, in the Servant Psalms, prophesies of the Servant of the Lord who would exercise his ministry through the eternal anointing of the Spirit (Isa 42:1-14; 61:1-3). This is what differentiates the New Testament from the Old — the small baby in a little manger in an insignificant town, surrounded by a host of angels, shepherds and wise men. The King has come! The Kingdom of God has invaded the Kingdom of the ruler of this world. The Kingdom is now in the midst of us! First in the Christ and then in his body, the Spirit dwells among humanity!

Fig. 1: The Kingdom of God as Integrating Biblical Theme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1 indicates eternal consistencies of the Kingdom (and the covenants) and its social, spiritual and economic principles. These are contrasted with the differences in the relationship of the Kingdom of God to humanity in the Old Testament, the New Testament and after the parousia. In the Old Testament he intervenes but does not dwell. The New Covenant is of an indwelling God, choosing to suffer as servant, creating communities that model social, spiritual and economic principles. After the judgment he will rule the earth.

In the Old Testament, the King intervened in the life of Israel. Now he has invaded! His strategy? Throughout the whole world he has set up small bands of men and women (churches) at warfare with Satan, the ruler of this age. In the narratives of these guerrilla units, the principles and values of the Kingdom are demonstrated (2nd part of Fig. 1).

The Holy Spirit as First Fruits of a Future Kingdom

These principles are manifested through the power of the Spirit in transformed believers. Stronstad (1984) indicates the centrality of the anointing of the Spirit on Christ, expanded into the outpouring of the Spirit on the charismatic first church, as the integrating centre of the Kingdom in the two volume Luke-Acts story.

But the Kingdom is also still to come. Half of the parables of the Kingdom are of a present Kingdom and half of a future Kingdom.^[8] Jesus came the first time, humbly, quietly as foretold in the four Servant Psalms of Isaiah, not as judge but as servant. He brought his Kingdom into the world. One day he will return again, to break the Kingdoms of this world and establish the rule of his Kingdom forever ((Dan 2:31-35), third part of Fig. 1).

So we enjoy a taste of its blessings here. We “have tasted of the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5), through the Holy Spirit . That is a power and conflict-related experience:

‘But if I cast out spirits by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of God is come to you’ (Luke 11:20).

At times, the Spirit restores our bodies through healings, though usually we have to wait for his coming when we will receive new bodies (I Cor 15:50). He gives us power over the evil one by his Spirit, but “Satan is not yet cast into the place prepared for him.” At times we see clearly, as the Spirit of Truth guides us, but mostly we “see in a mirror, darkly.” “On that day we will see him as he is.” This imperfection means that much of what we do is incomplete, a sign of the fullness of the future Kingdom.^[9]

Discipleship, Response to the Kingdom

Discipleship, our human response to the Kingdom, is a significant theme among Evangelicals, but has been disassociated from the Kingdom. It has become an extension of evangelistic motifs, popularised by the Navigators as methodologies for post-conversion sanctification, as they worked with Billy Graham in the 1950’s. Its reinterpretation, if we are to understand the fullness of the Kingdom, is one key to an evangelical theology of transformation. Fig. 2, in a new way, expands discipleship from classic evangelical holiness motifs to its fuller meaning spiritually, economically and socio-politically. Foundational aspects of each of these three arenas and their relationship to the work of the Spirit, are examined next.

The starting point is the common evangelical understanding of discipleship as the human “spiritual” response to acknowledge the King, to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. Jesus left behind him the indwelling Holy Spirit in the believer, the incarnate presence of God as against his being wholly other. Indeed we cannot enter the Kingdom unless we are born again of the Spirit (John 3:1-16). Jesus did not leave us comfortless, but promised the Holy Spirit (John 14:1-7). The book of the Acts demonstrates the centrality of the work of the Holy Spirit in advancing the Kingdom.

But that hope is defined in Isaiah much more broadly than the simple indwelling of the Spirit as companion and comforter. The hope is defined as “justice for the nations,” established through the anointing of the Spirit (Isa 42:1-4).^[10] Jesus tells us to seek his Kingdom and his justice above all else, as a first principle of discipleship.

Disciples, Kingdom people, as a result of the indwelling Spirit, are also expansively proclamative. Because the Word was God, the communication of his being in person, we become communicating people as we enter into his being — with both word and deed being part of that communication. Similarly, whenever the Holy Spirit falls on people, there is communication. Jesus, upon the anointing of the Spirit, came preaching, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15).”

Jesus preached through word, deed and power, ruling over creation, for as he preached he “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” This he did in the “power of the Spirit”(Luke 4:14,18). Mark 3:14 tells us quite simply that the twelve were “to be with him and to be sent out to preach, with power to cast out demons.

Along with communication of the gospel by speech is the communication of character. The fruit of the Spirit makes men and women agents of transformation by their very being. They have presence because of the presence of the Spirit. Historically, the presence and character development have been related to the exercise of spiritual disciplines in “discipleship”.

Discipleship as Methodology or the Fruit of the Spirit?

The Navigators developed from the American Evangelical centre represented by Billy Graham. Their theology builds off biblical texts to develop discipleship themes in individualistic terminology. As pietist descendants of Wesley, they have defined discipleship as the centrality of Christ, disciplines of quiet time, prayer, Bible Study, obedience and proclamation.

They began as a highly influential university movement and grew rapidly in New Zealand as a significant renewal movement that has sustained the faith of thousands in fundamentalist and evangelical churches, while largely operating outside of church structure.

As one indebted to this movement for the sustaining of these disciplines over 40 years, I would affirm these as a powerful basis for sustained spirituality. But they have limitations.

Holistic Discipleship

My first step to move beyond the rigidity of such disciplines to more comprehensive holistic discipleship was an understanding that Jesus defines the disciplines of the Christian life not by religious rituals, but as the character qualities in his manifesto in the Sermon in the Mount (meekness, poverty of spirit, purity of heart and so on) (Grigg, 1979; 1980). Paul, the apostle, devotes the majority of his teaching not to religious methods, but to character issues.

Fig. 2: Discipleship as Response to a Spiritual-Economic-Socio-Political Kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 2 indicates three sets of relationships between King, people and created order within the Genesis account. Obedient human response to the King is known as discipleship. The first two relationships, God-human, God-human-land are primarily those of authority. The human-human relationships are primarily of equality. These define the primary arenas of “spiritual” discipleship, economic discipleship and socio-political discipleship. Holistic discipleship includes all three arenas.

The second step, was an understanding that these are the work of the Spirit. In the overwhelming presence of the Spirit in revival contexts, these characteristics begin to manifest. Yet they require all the above human disciplines to be sustained. However, the emphasis of the Scriptures is on these being the fruit of the Spirit, rather than the fruit of human endeavour.

Thirdly, in Luke 14:26-33, Jesus himself defines discipleship in economic (part 2 of Fig. 2) and social terms (part 3 of Fig. 2) (Scott, 1980). For discipleship, the response to the Kingdom, is not simply a spiritual relationship with God (part 1 of Fig. 2).

At a missiological level, the most powerful way I have found to move people to this understanding has been through action involving Kingdom incarnation. For Jesus’ first step of discipleship, his incarnation, is a historically central socio-economic-political subversive act, not simply a spiritual act. Luke 2, in its descriptions of the incarnation, reflects the Jewish understanding of the prophets in their denunciation of social sins. The Magnificat tells us how the incarnation places the locus of economic theory at the point of uplift of the poor. The incarnation was a profound social act, making the issue of identification or solidarity with the poor central to social action and defining the locus of Christian mission among the poor. The incarnation was a profound political act, defining the nature of godly politics as politics that serves the least important of society (Grigg, 1992a; Kraybill, 1978).

It is logical that any person filled with the Holy Spirit will tend to emulate these preferences in theologies of justice, incarnation and transformation. This supernaturally happens in revivals. Jonathan Edwards, the revivalist in his post-Great Awakening Religious Affections (Edwards, 1742/2005), asks the question, “Where does one look for true signs of revival?” His answer – “In those who seek to relieve the poor”. As indicated in the diachronic survey, historically this has subverted existent economic, social and power structures towards good.

Incarnation among the poor confronts the powers. The preached Word results in confrontation with the powers. These two elements of incarnational and confrontational discipleship become central to its expansion into socio-economic political dimensions.

Jesus not only preached the presence of the Kingdom, he demonstrated that Satan’s works were destroyed (Matt 12:28). When the disciples came back enthusiastic because even the demons were subject to them, he tells them “I saw Satan fall like lighting from Heaven” (Luke 10:18). Finally he “triumphed over Satan in death.” Satan was rendered inoperative (I Cor 15:26; Heb 2:14). Thus spiritual warfare themes are integrally related to our understanding of the nature of the Kingdom and the clash of this Kingdom with the Kingdoms of this world, their economics, societal issues and political issues.

Transformational theology is thus an expansion of discipleship, Kingdom oriented, incarnational, justice and character focused, proclamative in its central thrust and involves ongoing power confrontation with the Kingdoms of this world (Samuel & Sugden, 1999:xvi).

Discipleship as Communal

Discipleship is also communal, not simply individualistic. A significant theological shift occurs when Evangelicals grasp that Jesus’ commission was “to disciple the nations,” not just individuals, but to bring the nations (ta ethne = peoples) under his authority.

Changing the Mindset of a Nation

Since the 1980’s, Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a Pentecostal short term youth training mission, has become the biggest mission in New Zealand. It popularised Kuyper’s theology, as the ‘7 mind moulders’, looking at issues of how to affect the mindset of a nation or city. Kuyper, a Christian theologian who became the prime minister of Holland early last century, did extensive thinking on the ‘spheres’ of Christian influence, building off Calvin’s Kingdom theology (1998a; 1998b). He, in turn, built from an Augustinian framework. An underlying concept is that ‘discipling the nations’ involves bringing not just individuals but nations under the reign of the Kingdom. This pattern of thinking has resulted in former YWAM’ers in parliament, as business leaders and in educational reform.

The Kingdom and Postmodernism

Defining the Kingdom

As a simple definition of the Kingdom of God, I will utilise Dyrness’ phrase, God’s active, interventive rule over humankind and the creation.^[11] This rule has always existed and always will (indicated by the arrow in Fig. 1), defining the personal nature at the centre of the universe. While Genesis does not use the phraseology of the Kingdom of God, it lays the foundation — “In the beginning, God…” To speak of God’s creation is to remember that God created all things. He rules and reigns from before the beginning. He is King of Creation.

This is integrally connected to revival. God’s Spirit was the creative breath that formed the universe. The Spirit’s voice has not stopped speaking. The Spirit continues to create. The universe is thus infused with the voice and the breath and the being of a personal God. This view follows Philo and Augustine, in that God is not dependent on that universe, nor is the universe God, but matter is infused with his being, his personality, his breath.[12]

He does not depend on the process of nature and history for his existence, but he does have purposes that can only be realised in nature and history (Bennett, 1941:39).

The Personality of Matter

I suggest that economic discipleship, the Christian response to the fundamental postmodern questioning of rationalist materialism, beyond the transformation of Newtonian physics and the death of materialism into chaos theory or relativity, is based on an understanding of matter as infused with personality, the personality of the Spirit of God, spirit not of chaos, but of structured creativity - what the Scriptures call righteousness, wholeness, holiness. Matter is not only, as Einstein derived, energy. Personhood is the source of the energy. Matter has an infusive personality. The universe at its heart has a personality. Colossians 1:15-20, the grand song of the apostle about the great sovereignty of his Lord, speaks first of our Lord’s creation, then of an integrational role, then of his immanence, his infusion of all in all. That song is central to our conversations with the postmodern city and the star-trek generation.

And that central personality of the universe is community. Within that community, the source of power and authority is the Father; the exercise of power is by the Holy Spirit. This creates a conversational space connecting with the search for creative power so central to many postmodern media productions. Relationship to the Holy Spirit as the essential creative power of the universe is a central element of charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity. This could place Pentecostalism at the centre of postmodern conversation. But only if it extends the conversation into the fullness of a Christian ecology and environmentalism.

The breath of God is also by nature expansive, as science has discovered in its conclusions of an infinitely expanding universe. As described in Error! Reference source not found., it is the Spirit who is continually hovering over and creating cities, giving a basis for Christian involvement in all things related to construction of good cities and entrepreneurial business. These themes enable structural conversations with the post-star-trek generation that understands an expanding universe.

The Morality of the Physical World

To humanity is passed the responsibility to manage, husband, care, rule over this creation,^[13] to guard over something so preciously created by God’s own breath. Our relationship to creation raises a major theological question. Since the creator is moral, his creation must also be moral. What is the moral nature of the material? Is the world good or evil, godly or demonic?

There are opposing scriptural streams that must be held in tension. On the one hand, the Scriptures are world-affirming. God made all things good. Very good! Even in humanity’s sin they remain good, though the land is cursed and work is hard. God not only created, he also loves the world and sent his Son into the world as an incarnate being in material form, affirming the importance of that material existence. These statements form the basis of conversation with society about good work, fruitful agriculture, expanding economies, etc.

On the other hand, the Scriptures are world-denying.^[14] We are not “of” the world and are to separate from the world, the flesh and the devil. This fallen “world” (Gk: Aeon or present age) is the value system of society hostile against God. Rather than creation, the Scriptures are talking here of the derived sinful human culture of the world and demonic intrusions.

This tension is central to the metamorphosis of Evangelicalism under consideration. In seeking as part of our discipleship to “not love the world,” to “not be conformed to this present age,” Evangelicals in the early part of last century concluded that they should not be involved in the social issues, the political issues, the governmental issues of the world. Don’t they hinder us in our primary focus on evangelism? Yet, St. John, tells us that “if we see our brother (or sister) in need, yet close our heart against them, how does God’s love abide in us?” (1 John 3:17). According to the Old Testament concept of righteousness, right relationships with our brother are a sign of our right relationship with God. Our calling is to be “in the world but not of it.”

It is as if Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism were locked into a truncated spirituality. They have focussed on only the first two steps of Matthew Fox’s (1983) reiteration of paradigms of spirituality, the four paths of delight (via positiva), letting go (via negativa), creativity (via creativa), and compassion (i.e., celebration and peacemaking (via transformativa). But socio-economic discipleship in a postmodern city requires the release of creativity in the freedom and gifts of the Spirit (via creativa) and must move into this via transformativa. Socio-economic discipleship must engage the created world, enter into it after the manner of Christ, but separate from the values of the world of fallen human culture.

Beyond Inanimate Materialism

It is the empty modernist theory of inanimate materialism that is dead — not God. The new physics has blown apart the centrality of materialist doctrine. Relativity exposed the clockwork universe as shifting and warping. Chaos theory has replaced Newton’s determinative machine. Chance has replaced causality. Solid matter has dissolved into apparently empty space seething with quantum activity. In its place, chaos theory has opened a future of creativity. Collaborative particles drive new forces (Davies & Gribben, 1991).

These changes in the underlying perception of matter mirror changes in production and the market economy. The physical materials in a silicon chip are negligible yet the information and creativity released are far more productive than the iron of steam engines that drove the industrial revolution. Human imagination and creativity has now become a major dimension of formerly mechanistic production in what is becoming known as knowledge economies.

That discovery opens up the possibility of conversation between those who know him who is creator and the wisdom of the universe^[15] and the children of the Silicon Valley generation, the children of those who developed the internet, DVD and ipod.

Economic Values: Human Dignity Against Technologically-Defined Non-Personhood

Again in the area of economics, one could ask, to what extent Evangelicals have enabled society to respect the dignity of the human being. Jane Kelsey, in Reclaiming the Future: New Zealand and the Global Economy (1999), has a well-documented analysis of the effects of overly rapid commitment to the positive benefits of free trade with concomitant loss of jobs in several sectors, including 21,000 in the textiles and clothing sector, the loss of sovereignty over many of our national assets leading to increasing foreign debt and increase in inequity and insecurity.

It is apparent, in returning to New Zealand after a decade, that governments, year by year, have increased the levels of pressure on New Zealanders to produce. This has included the increase of employment, deliberate policies to force women into the workforce in order to increase productivity (Knight & Laugeson, 2005), yearly increase of the tax take, as well as the destruction of the power of the trade unions (developed to protect the poorest workers) and collective bargaining processes and the creation of an indebted student population.

The reassertion of human dignity against such policies, which are based on assumptions of man the machine, woman the equal machine, is crucial for the sustaining of a just and good society. While there is no evidence of Evangelicals bringing these principles into the national legislative process, the stories basic to Error! Reference source not found. each contain the application into the workplace of values of the worth, the creativity, the dignity of each individual. However as the stories of managers, they show an emphasis by Evangelicals on three of several major, economic themes of the Scriptures: work, production and creativity. These are paralleled by ministries from many churches to sectors of poor in the community, including almost every church in Auckland reaching out to migrants. These tend to represent part of the search to apply two other biblical principles of equity and redistribution.[16]

The Biblical Critique of the Consumer Society

In a context of increasing differentials between rich and poor and expansion of indebtedness via credit card, postmodern discipleship cannot be less than economic, if it is to be true to Jesus’ words.

For example, following Jesus’ simple statement that, “the cares of the world, the delight in riches and the desire for other things enter in and choke the Word (Mark 4:19),” classic Christian discipleship has developed another principle in its rejection of greed, the accumulation of wealth and consumerism. The great transition away from this standard perhaps occurred with the failure of the puritans after Calvin, to keep regimentation on “profitable industry.” As Britain led the world into the new consumer and technological age, Bishop William Temple (1881-1942) (1942:29-34) indicates that the church for 150 years failed to sustain a consistent public critique of these sins. While Christian socialism and the social gospel, spoke to the issue of redistribution of wealth, they did not deal with the popular value systems of ordinary Christians with a call to the principles of co-operative economics and simplicity, without greed, in the midst of increasingly competitive systems.

This directly contrasts to earlier Calvinism, with its understanding of the just use of resources for the common good, frugality, diligence and their relationship to the emergence of capitalism.^[17] While we are enjoying the expansion of wealth, the abolition of poverty and the freedom of the middle class, we pay a price in the violation of other biblical principles of stewardship, remaining debt-free and wealth for work (vs. creation of paper money). One of those costs is the increasing debt burden of New Zealanders. What is a Kingdom response?

Liberty Trust: A Vision of Escaping Economic Bondage

One model that breaks the power of debt in New Zealand is Liberty Trust — a cooperative venture that enabling people to place their money for housing into a common pool, then making no-interest loans from that pool to others, until all in the pool have received sufficient to escape bondage to bank interest. It was birthed in a vision received by a Bruce MacDonald, a New Life pastor, during the renewal and has operated since 1985.

A Kingdom of Dignity: Redefining Humanness

A second area of the Kingdom as response to postmodernity is in the redefinition of humanness. The Genesis account indicates that not only is the created world a reflection of a good creator, so too the creature is a reflection, a mirror of his goodness. Jesus discusses the infinite worth of a person when he queries the cost of a sparrow and the size of the hairs of our heads and tells us that our Heavenly Father cares for each of us more than these details.

Initially humanity was created in all the glory of God’s image. The image is replaced by a fallen and damaged image, like the grotesque shapes of the poverty-stricken faces of the slums. Yet humanness is restored to that image by the presence of his glory upon us. This comes from the transforming Holy Spirit (II Cor 3:18). This is the end goal of discipleship.

These Kingdom presuppositions are the basis of Christian engagement in the major debates of biotechnology and psychology. Let me relate two stories to illustrate this:

DNA Determinism

My biochemist friend argues (while we watch our sons fight it out at soccer), that based on modern project presuppositions after B. F. Skinner and Darwin, humanity is simply a result of mechanistic process which include variations because of probabilities. If so, then there is no justification for giving people a sense of moral worth and dignity. There is no defence of innocent men and women against those who would call for a higher purpose, a rabid nationalism, a role for a super-race.

The Source of Psychology

That becomes the basis of a God-conversation with a psychologist at the other end of the field — a simple query as to whether her search for understanding of personality has led to the knowledge of the person behind the creatures.

No other philosophic or religious system beyond Christianity has such a high view of man and woman, of the dignity and worth of man and woman. They are defined not as an advanced evolutionary animal, but as created (whether that be through intelligent intervention in an evolutionary process or otherwise) by God, with a peculiar God-capacity. They are not simply an extension of levels of life, but are vice-regents of the creator. A low view of man or woman results in the hierarchical oppression and slavery in each of the Hindu, Islamic or Buddhist societies with which I have dealt. While it is difficult to indicate the relationship of ethical ideas and social changes accurately, Mangalwadi has demonstrated in the Indian situation (1986; 1998; 1999)  that where genuine Christianity moves, the view of the dignity of man and woman results in a democratising of social systems, in the uplift of women, in the abolition of oppression and slavery.^[18]

Without such a high view of humanness, there is no option for defence of the poor. Each one must look after himself, for survival of the fittest is survival of the human race. With such a high view of humanness, the affirming of the dignity of the poor and raising them from destitution becomes a source of our future and a centre of our purpose. This becomes the basis for social themes seeking to eliminate prostitution, slavery, workplace oppression, racial, sexual and political exploitation and affirm the dignity of committed marriage, democratic ideals and so on. Jesus tells us that all will know we are disciples because of our exercise of love.

Postmodern Kingdom discipleship will involve multiple social expressions of love and affirmation of the fullness of the anthropological dimension.

Reviving the Corpse: Revitalisation of Postmodern Humanness

New understandings in a postmodern context, of the morality of creation, are determinative also of new understandings of the created being. Humanity has always been defined by its relationship to the creation that it is commanded to husband — “from dust we came, to dust we return” (Ecc 3:20). Discipleship can never be pursued independent of its economic dimensions.

While God is our final environment, we can only know him in the spatial and temporal forms of his creation (Dyrness, 1991(83):24).

The turning away from God by unemployed workers, dispossessed Maori tribes and affluent middle class Kiwis may all be seen as related to their alienation from their environment.^[19]

Creating a new cultural value system involves the necessity for repeated restatement of the Kingdom values of humanity with soul, identity, meaning, accountability and an eternal future beyond being part of an evolutionary biology. In Paul Tournier’s phrase (1957), there needs to be a continuing public statement of the Meaning of Persons.

As described in the previous chapter, fundamental in the progression from collapsing modernism into postmodernism, is the anthropological redefinition, the remaking of modern technological machine person in a clockwork universe into postmodern being. The machine-mindedness of the modern industrial period has led to demoralisation and depersonalisation. In this vacuum of definition, Christians now have a season in which to redefine humankind beyond modernism’s machine.

Some say humanity died when its soul died, when God (Western Christendom’s God?) died at the birth of the modern rationalist period. Nuttall places God’s death between VE night and VJ night, between the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima that cancelled any right to morality by authorities in the Western world of Christendom and the end of the Second World War. It cancelled any possibility of the future, resulting in the absurdity of Dada art, or the surrealism of James Joyce (Reid, 1972: 12,13). The soul is dead! Despair remains! Or given the speeding up of technology, schizophrenia!

Values Renewal and Redefinition of Humanness

To what extent do the fruits of the New Zealand renewal accomplish the goals of redefinition of humanness? Certainly the early phases of the renewal were phases of great release of people from bondages and at times of emotional and physical healings. In the creativity of new-found spiritual gifts and prophetic words as to God’s future, new identities and purposeful meaning were born. These replaced the frustrations of an often non-participative and meaningless traditional religion.

However, as indicated earlier, the significant dependence on the controls of the new experts, in the migration to Pentecostalism — those gifted with powerful sign gifts and the technique of success and the subsequent church growth institutionalisation — foreshadows a decrease in meaning. Narrow bibliolatry or fanaticism, rote liturgies of popular songs and sign-generating preachers served up in the weekly shows eventually result in disenfranchised believers without meaning.

The failure of Pentecostalism to develop a full-orbed biblical teaching on the nature of humanness can only lead to the death of being and meaning. In the failure of the movement to expand its life into culture transformation, eventually one sees the death of culture – unless the synergy of revival from other movements continues to renew. Pentecostal rejection of intellectual pursuit needs changing into an affirmation of Spirit-directed academic discipline. If not, Pentecostalism may be expected to have little long-term conversation about meaning in an increasingly meaningless, bored, suicidal city. The alternative, a more academic approach to postmodern emergent churches, is seen by some to provide an alternative model that has intellectual validity, as well as postmodern cultural relevance (Taylor, 2004; 2005).

On the other hand, beyond modern man and woman is another dimension, postmodern cyborg. Rats with long ears and similar genetic selective breeding experiments are now common in the University of Auckland laboratories, so my professor friend tells me. Humanoids cannot be far behind. The movie predictions in The Six Million Dollar Man of a partially bionic man, pale. Newspapers, talkback shows and political courts are full of wrangling over lack of ethical controls on the outcomes of new possibilities of cloning and genetic engineering. Postmodern humanity is beyond pure humanity, perhaps, at least according to Fukuyama in Our Posthuman Future (2002).

Frankl (1978) reflects on the uniqueness of humanity, which demands that life has meaning and purpose in an age of despair. The good news of a Kingdom of new humanity, in all its biblical comprehensiveness, provides that meaning.

The redefinition of personhood needs also be related to work and rest, for in the definition of the God-human axis, we are made in the image of the Worker who rested on the Sabbath. It has importance in the regaining of the meaning of “good work,” to use Schumacher’s phrase (1979). Without this teaching, life in an ambitious culture ceases to have meaning — except in production and consumption of goods. With this teaching, life is filled with the creativity, the artistry, the hospitality, the grandeur of the cultures of mankind. God, the worker in the creation story, becomes the worker reflected in our story.

This element of discipleship is the work of the Spirit. Volf, disciple of Moltmann in his Work in the Spirit (1991:113-122), suggests a pneumatological understanding of work. In the Old Testament, the Spirit inspired craftsmen and gave David the plans for the temple. In the New Testament, this entrance of the Spirit into our beings becomes the basis of co-operation in the Spirit’s ongoing creative activity in the development of the earth. This also enables non-Christian work to have value and gives a basis for judgement as to what work is against the Spirit. Volf believes that releasing the charisms of the Spirit gives a better basis for understanding the diversity of working roles in the postmodern city context as against the classic sense of vocation in Lutheran and historic Catholic analysis.

The Kingdom of Hope and the New World Order

Discipleship also involves us in inverse politics. The Kingdom of God is here, yet not fully realised. Until it is fully realised there will exist two different Kingdoms.

One is a Kingdom of this world, symbolised through the Scriptures and in their great climax, as Babylon, a great religious-political-economic conglomerate (Rev 17-19), that has grown out of the rebellion of humanity — its nature is that of idolatory, oppression, exploitation and unrighteousness. It is, at heart, a massive world-wide market place, eventually dominated by a single lawless authority (2 Thes 2:3-12),^[20] in the midst of an increasingly lawless world.

The other is a Kingdom of the Spirit…

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17)…yet a Kingdom that profoundly transforms economics, social relationships and political issues.

Moltmann (1998) defines theology as Kingdom-of-God theology and as Kingdom of God theology it has to be public theology. Rauschenbusch, in his simple yet masterful analysis of Jesus’ understanding of the Kingdom, relates it to social structure:

The phrase, then, embodies the social ideal of the finest religious minds of a unique people. The essential thing in it, is the projection into the future of the demand for a just social order. The prophets looked to a direct miraculous act of God to realise their vision, but they were in close touch with the facts of political life and always demanded social action on the human side (Rauschenbusch, 1916: 57).

Yet he refuses to limit the Kingdom to social structure, measuring the structures against the Kingdom not vice-versa. Along with a call to fully evangelise the world and bring the peoples into the Kingdom, he poetically called the educated of his day to full involvement in bringing existing structures into line with the righteousness of the Kingdom:

A collective moral ideal is a necessity for the individual and the race. Every man must have a conscious determination to help in his own place to work out a righteous social order for and with God…We must relate (our particular job) to the supreme common task at which God and all good men are working (1916:77).

While Evangelicals are too rooted in an understanding of the nature of sin to accept either Rauschenbusch’s (or Moltmann’s) hope-filled progressive evolutionary view of the growth of the Kingdom and its transforming of the societal structures of the earth,^[21] our role and call should not be dissimilar to that which he states — we are to live as people of hope,[22] which involves a discipling of the structures relating them to the demands of the King. We should work with all our energy to see, “Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as in heaven!” as much as is presently possible. This should not only be in individual lives but in the social order of our nation and globe. This is the content of preparation for the second coming, for this gospel of the Kingdom must be preached to every people, not just as simple “Four Spiritual Laws,”^[23] and a sinner’s prayer, but as the gospel of the King who fills all in all and is all in all.

Rauschenbusch and the liberal social gospel may be considered as one of the final attempts to rejuvenate Western Christendom. However, postmodernism has moved into multi-religious cities and multi-ethnicity. Thus such an integrative vision as the Kingdom must grapple with its association with alternative visions within pluralistic urbanism (Mouw & Griffioen, 1993: 110-129). I suggest that the freedom and openness of the Kingdom along with Kingdom themes of reconciliation and servanthood, provide the widest metanarrative for moral dialogue and affirmation of commonalities. Humanism and rationalism pale into insignificance beside the grandeur and fullness of such themes and are unable at the end of debate to define common morality, for they lack the sacrificial motivation to service that is inherent in the cross.

Paul Hiebert, one of the world’s leading missionary anthropologists, with years of interfacing Hindu and Christian worldviews, once commented to me that in his studies on the options for approaching pluralism, a Christian context of tolerance and freedom created a better environment for harmony than the other major religious worldviews. Madood, a Muslim scholar, also concludes that an established religion in Anglicanism in the UK is a far better option for openness to diverse ethnicity and religion than “triumphal secularism”.[24]

This appears also true when considering Hindu affirmation of plurality and its pain in caste differentials or Islamic demands for submission to Islamic law or secular frameworks within which it is difficult to deal well with differences in morality, ethics or religious values.

In general, within such a framework of Christian tolerance, clarity of our own beliefs makes dialogue easier. I conclude that the most loving option is to call the society to be faithful to the living God, while working hard to build public space for dialogue between ethnic-religious communities within a Christian framework of freedom and tolerance.^[25]

From Fractured Stories to Kingdom Theologies

The above are complex theological reflections. As an illustration of the use of the Kingdom at a grassroots level, I will now consider the Kingdom as a theme to serve the business leaders in their conversation about transforming Auckland’s business culture (described in Error! Reference source not found.).

As I analyzed their stories it became apparent that little forward development towards a collectively owned indigenous business theology could occur without an acceptable theme. Fig. 3 shows the key themes of their grassroots conversations and biblical source. The final column indicates ways these could be integrated within a Kingdom framework. Such a framework provides the possibility of passing business values by story from generation to generation of business leaders. Discussions with several of the leaders at the time, received very positive responses as to this being a way forward. Martien Kelderman and the late Brian Hathaway of the Bible College of New Zealand have over three years subsequently expanded theological processes in this sector using this as an integrating theme… This morning, over coffee, a couple talk of their attempts to integrate business coaching with Kingdom values…

 

Fig. 3: Auckland Business Theology and the Kingdom of God

Business Conversation Themes	The Businesspeople’s Biblical Conversation Themes	Their Biblical Sources	Parallel Kingdom Themes
Creativity	Releasing full potential, human dignity	Gen 1	Kingdom and humanness Kingdom and mustard seed and yeast (Matt 13:31-34)
Productivity	God made it fruitful Hard work God of blessing  Tithing releases blessing	Gen 1; John 15:7,16	Kingdom economic principles (Matt 18:23-35: 20:1-16; 21:28-31; 21:33-44) Parable of the sower of the seed of the Kingdom (Matt 13:1-23) Parable of sheep and goats - caring for poor (Matt 25:31-46) Rich man and the Kingdom (Matt 19:23-26)
People-centred management	Loving relationships Management in different societal spheres Harmonious work environment Pastoral care Redemptive leadership, forgiveness	I Cor 13, I John 4:7-21   I John 1:-10	Kingdom social principles Love as great commandment (Matt 22:32-40) Kingdom theology of work
Ethics in business	Integrity, financial honesty God of faithfulness Ten commandments Fruit of the Spirit	Exodus20:2-17 Gal 5: 22, 23	The King as supreme sustainer Kingdom & faithfulness (Matt 25:1-13; 25:14-30) Kingdom and social order (Matt 22:2-14)
Struggle against business ups and downs	Spiritual warfare Sovereignty of God Life of faith	Eph 6:10-20	Kingdoms in conflict (Matt 16:19) Kingdom and mustard seed and yeast (Matt 13:31-34)
Handling power plays	Sovereignty of God Trust in God’s purposes	Psalms	Kingdom leadership (Matt18:1-4: 20:1-16, 21; 23:1-14)
Positive mental attitude	Problems as opportunities for faith and prayer Spirituality heightening the intellectual integration of logic, intuition, emotions	I Cor 1:20-25	Kingdom and mustard seed and yeast (Matt 13:31-34) The Spirit and the Kingdom
Career commitment	Business as a vocation		Kingdom and hiring workers (Matt 20: 1-16)
Mentoring excellence	Discipleship Holiness, search for perfection	II Tim 2:2-6	Discipleship as response to King
Responsible economic policy and structures	Prophetic voice to the economic powers	Eph 6:10-20	Kingdom economics Kingdom conflict

Fig. 3 shows a correlation between the ad hoc business theologies of Chapter 14, their sources and the theme of the Kingdom. This shows both the spread of theologies involved (from only a sample of 11 businesspeople) and demonstrates the comprehensives of the Kingdom as an integrating and interpretive framework.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: Hope Beyond Postmodernity’s Fractures

In this chapter, I have completed the transformational conversation concerning goals of transformative revival, glimpsing the hopes of a cultural revitalisation in response to the presence of the Spirit in the city. The holistic Kingdom provides a framework for goals that will reintegrate city culture beyond the fracturing of postmodernism. In responding to the loss of the metanarratives of modernism, it provides a powerful metanarrative around which Auckland and New Zealand can be integrated, building hope, community and coherence, diffusing power and democratising social systems. Even when the King is not acknowledged, the power of its themes are such as to significantly influence the conversation in the secular public domain concerning goals. I have related it to the economic, social, political and spiritual:

Transformative revival and the material (Fig. 4:I): The personality of God, as both independent creator of the material world and one whose life is all in all, is the basis for understanding the moral nature of the universe, in contrast to postmodern death of inanimate, mechanistic materialism. The nature of the trinity as source of productivity enjoins cooperative economics, while his creativity is the basis of entrepreneurial expansion and technological innovation. The elements of rejection of materialism and greed, choices for simplicity and redistribution, delimit the acquisitive possibilities of such creative productivity.

Kingdom and our humanity (Fig. 4:II): The nature of our humanity as reflective of his image leads to dignity and worth in the context of loss of meaning in a DNA-defined evolutionary environment of cyborgs and mechanistic McDonaldisation. It becomes the basis of community and of defence of the poor and marginalised against the survival of the fittest.

Kingdom and the social order (Fig. 4:III): The nature of the Kingdom as source of social order contrasts with the spirit of the emergent New World Order of oppression, exploitation and global domination of indigenous cultures. It creates space for pluralism with morality in the public domain, defending marginalised and oppressed cultures. It is a movement of people separated from greed, immorality, the passion for power and resistant to governmental intrusion and abuse.

Kingdom and coherence (Fig. 4: IV): The Kingdom integrates, bringing coherence, meaning, hope and an understanding of truth.

I have anchored this discussion showing the relationship of Kingdom themes to the issues of the business sector of the city, demonstrating the nature of the Kingdom as an integrating theme that enables transferral of business cultural values from generation to generation.

From Revival to Hope

This culminates the discussion of Part 3, in its search for end goals of transformative revival in the postmodern city. As those touched by the Spirit in revival (phases 1-3), engage the culture in multiple sectors (Phase 4) in transformative revival, conversing about a Kingdom and City of God that transform economics, politics and social life, a cultural revitalisation may be triggered (Phase 5) and the city rapidly respond so that the hovering Spirit of God has freedom to create a good city.

In Part 3, in an interplay between cultural studies and theology, some underlying ideals for Auckland as a postmodern city have been identified. Some would say that this requires more, a comprehensive program, definition of details. But the goals of any city are in constant change, so that what is needed is not a one-off strategy (that is the role of the political leadership at any given moment), but a framework for ongoing visionary conversation. What has been achieved here has been to create the theological content to enable Pentecostals and Evangelicals to engage the anthropological, economic, and political issues, the interfacing questions about where the city is going. In chapter 9, I have outlined a strategy for engagement that requires creating conversation spaces in forums, think tanks, institutes, universities, between theologians, the technique of Christian lay experts and their non-Christian counterparts. This needs to move rapidly, in order that there be a synergy across multiple sectors sufficient to catalyse a cultural revitalisation. Failure to do this in New Zealand may leave the nation in an eternal time warp of the disintegration of Postmodernity, or open the door for entrance by other oppressive metanarratives.

Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 summarize the main themes, some of the modern/ postmodern characteristics they converse with from previous chapters and the necessary Kingdom lifestyle needed to engage these issues. The diagram illustrates elements of postmodernism. I could describe these more exactly, but these figures are intended to replace a few thousand words. The objective has been to define the framework rather than all its details.

Addenda: Missiological Action Steps

But some would wish for specific action steps as well. This study has included strategic proposals throughout, particularly in Error! Reference source not found.. Some major steps implied in this study include:

1.      Extensive training of Pentecostal and Evangelical leadership in theology and practice of transformative revival. The genesis of a new prayer movement nationally is crucial for this.

2.      Popular dissemination of the theology of the socio-economic-political Kingdom and how it engages the culture.

3.      The multiplication of forums, think tanks and publications that enable discussion between the experts in each sector of society with theological perspectives. Eventually these to become a network of graduate level institutes, based on storytelling, with ongoing missiological dynamics.

4.      These need to identify and build alliances within Catholicism and at times with other faiths and among wise secularists in societal leadership.

5.       I would suggest the following priorities might be considered:

a.       The analysis of postmodernism indicates media as the new institutional carriers of postmodern culture. Evangelicals have already significantly penetrated the music industry, but such leaders need training in Kingdom perspectives.

b.      Expanding training and placement of Christians in TV and print media is a high priority. This is particularly true to effect a change in disinformation about relevance of Christianity and the importance of marital faithfulness.

c.       A critical issue that needs public confrontation is the abuse of power by the recent governments seen in failures to listen to the voice of the people on moral issues, the imposition of a moral agenda that violates historic cultural norms, Christian morals and the mores of migrants from traditional societies.

d.      I have indicated a number of economic areas, where several larger Pentecostal churches have moved away from Kingdom understandings. Rethinking economics from classical church teaching on equity, wealth creation (vs the myth of wealth creation = wealth concentration), dealing with ecology, the domination of technology on personhood, rest and work, greed in societal structures, etc. and then working with Catholic and mainline Protestant thinkers to bring these biblical principles into the cultural mindset and government is a crucial agenda.

e.       Recreating a national core for new waves of revival across the denominations: among Pentecostals in defusing centralisation of pastoral power, confronting the prosperity gospel and expanding understanding of transformative revival; in the declining Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican denominations at a level of reinventing the training of pastors and lay leadership; and among Baptists and other Evangelicals in a return to a confessional small group movement.  

Fig. 4: Kingdom Discipleship Beyond Modernism

	Kingdom Integration Beyond Modernism	Postmodern Characteristics Addressed	Values and Lifestyle of Disciples In Postmodernism
	I. The personality of God infusing matter	Failure of rationalist materialism
The morality of the physical environment		Expansive exploitation of resources	Moral care of the environment
Relationship to the creative power of the universe		The search for creative power	A healing lifestyle both of sickness and for the environment
Biblical critique of the consumer society		Advertised greed	Simplicity, wealth for work, redistribution, avoidance of debt
God as Community		Competitive economics	Cooperative economics
Expansive creative structuring of the universe		Entrepreneurial postmodern mindset Expansion of wealth Technological innovation	Affirmation of entrepreneurial care of the created order, productivity and expansion of wealth
	II. Redefinition Humanness	DNA defined evolutionary humanism
	The dignity and worth of humanity	Humanness may be tampered with.	Affirmation of the creative design of God in humanity
	The defense of the poor	Survival of the fittest.	Abolition of oppression and slavery, care for the damaged and less able
	The regaining of civility	The tough Kiwi image	Deference, respect, love in public relationships
	The meaning of personhood	Humans as modern technological machines	Protection of life.
	Revitalisation of postmodern humanness.	McDonaldisation and a future of creativity	Meaning in work as cooperation with creative Spirit. Rest in God as source of creative.
	III. An Alternative Kingdom to the New World Order	Growth of a global religious-political-economic authority	The Kingdom of God as a movement of people separated from greed, sexual immorality, the passion for power, resistant to governmental intrusion, etc.
	Defense of the marginalised	Economic oppression and exploitation	Resistance to global domination, political & economic
	Affirmation of culture and local community	Global domination of indigenous cultures	Affirmation of local cultures and communities
	Creation of public space for pluralistic values	Pluralistic dissociated communities	Creation of public space based on moral dialogue & affirmation of God-given commonalities
	IV. King and Kingdom as integrating centre	Loss of integrated authority and truth, loss of metanarrative, image as substance	Coherence and centrality of truth in relationship to the King as integrator of the universe Coherence between image and deep meaning, hope in a Kingdom future
	Kingdom as both present and future	Loss of hope under increasing oppression and lawlessness under a global world order	Hope based on a future Kingdom Diffusion of power, Democratising of social systems
	Kingdom as community	Alienation / fragmentation of family / social relationships	Embrace of communities of faith

 

Fig. 4 relates elements of the Kingdom (Chapter 1), with elements of postmodernism (Error! Reference source not found.). The third column gives an overview of a Kingdom lifestyle (discipleship) in the cultural transition of postmodernism.

Fig. 5: Elements in the Conversation: Kingdom Integration in and Beyond Postmodernism

Fig. 5 Shows elements of the Kingdom that create a reintegration of elements in postmodernism.

 

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