Here’s the rest of the notes from the appendix I gave to Yorkshire Training students yesterday (first half HERE).
B. Clarifications and answers to common objections
- Doesn’t this confuse the earthly with the heavenly?
In a very real sense history is about the ‘heavenification’ of the earth. After all, we regularly pray ‘your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Christ reigns over the whole creation, seated in the heavenlies, and the Church’s mission is to see that reign recognised and enjoyed on earth to as great a degree as is possible before Christ returns. When he does return, the bible describes it as heaven and earth becoming one place.
There is a potential danger that we get so concerned with transforming the culture around us that our focus shifts from the fact that our life is hidden with Christ in God, and that what we’re really longing for is when he appears. However, the problem there is not so much a Transformationist approach to culture as a neglecting of what it is that must drive any transformation (whether big or little, personal or societal), namely, the gospel. So, in Colossians, we are called to focus on Christ in heaven so that our lives and our churches are transformed by the gospel.
-Doesn’t this approach confuse the here and now with the future?
Despite all that has been said in the answer above, it would be possible to make the mistake of investing all our time and energy on our impact on the culture here and now, forgetting that our real and ultimate hope is for the return of Christ and the consummation of all things. That kind of trying to build ‘heaven’ here is unbiblical, and is guaranteed to lead to disappointment.
But, just because the full transformation of all things will only take place at the consummation that’s no excuse to fail to subject everything we do, and everything within our sphere of influence, to the transforming power of God’s word in the gospel. We’d never dream of saying someone should forget about their own personal pursuit of holiness simply because we know we’ll never be perfect this side of the new creation. Transformationists simply believe they are broadening the definition of what this pursuit of holiness looks like to include every area of life that Christians are involved in.
- Doesn’t this sort of approach lead to confusing the Church and the State?
No doubt about it, some Christians have confused the roles of the Church and the State, most of them in the Roman Catholic and Anglican streams of Christian thought. Interestingly enough, the Transformationist approach is far more closely associated with various branches of Presbyterianism, both now and in the past, and Presbyterians are far clearer on the distinct roles of the Church and the State than many Anglicans and Catholics have been. Most Transformationists have pretty well-formed views on the relationship between Church and State. It is important to say that a. Institutionally the two ought not to be confused (such that church leaders were also members of the commons, for example), and b. functionally the two have sovereignty over different areas of life and exercise their sovereignty in different ways (for example, the State can’t excommunicate adulterers, whereas the Church can’t execute murderers).
The real issue is whether or not both the State and the Church ought to be governed by God’s word in Christ, albeit in their differing functions. Transformationists argue that they both should be. This emphasises the centrality of the Church in God’s plans for his world, since although the Church shouldn’t run/ be the State, in an ideal situation the biblical teaching that MPs and PMs receive from the Church would shape their policy decisions.
It’s worth reflecting on where we’ve come from in history on this one too. To us in the modern UK, Transformationist views look like they might lead to confusing the Church and the State because they encourage churches to be involved in activities that are currently organised by the State, such as welfare and education. Historically speaking however, these areas of life were not in the domain of the State’s control – that is a feature of modern democratic socialist thought, and it is worth pausing as to whether this is something the bible thinks is a good arrangement or not. Historically speaking the Church (or Christians banded together in parachurch organisations) has been deeply involved in welfare and the like as good works and love for neighbour flowed from the effect the gospel was having in people’s lives.
