A Call to Conversion: Lesslie Newbigin on Preaching (Critical Essay‪)‬

When Bishop Lesslie Newbigin returned to England from India after years of service as a missionary and leader of the Ecumenical movement, he turned his theological focus to the West. Beginning with a small pamphlet "The Other Side of 1984," which led to his 1984 Warfield Lectures given at Princeton Theological Seminary, which were then expanded and published as Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, Newbigin explored what would be involved in a "genuinely missionary encounter" between the gospel and Western culture. (1) Illumined by his experience in India, Newbigin was able to see that the West is no longer a Christian culture, but neither is it simply a secular culture. Rather, Newbigin saw that the modern West is best understood as a pagan culture. Christianity, he argued, has not been replaced by an absence of religious conviction, but has given way to a scientific rationalism, which implies tacit faith commitments that are often at odds with the gospel, and which thus functions as a pagan religion. For that reason, Newbigin described the Western situation as a missionary context, and raised an important missional challenge to Western Christians. More than twelve years after the publication of Newbigin's incisive critique, George Hunsberger, in his article "Renewing Faith during the Postmodern Transition," reflected on how important Newbigin's work has been for ministers and for the practice of preaching. His comments highlight Foolishness to the Creeks as particularly important to Newbigin's contribution: