Form and Meaning

A key part of Newbigin’s missional vision involved the reunification of form and meaning within Christianity. He believed that a dichotomy had developed in Western churches. Mainline churches diligently maintained the traditional forms of Christianity. Meanwhile, evangelical churches focused on the meaning of Christian faith while often neglecting its historical forms. Newbigin wanted to bring these dimensions back together in a way that would resonate with a post-Christian society increasingly detached from its Christian roots.

Mainline Churches: Preserving the Forms

In Newbigin’s opinion, mainline churches were commendable for preserving the forms of Christianity. They continued to observe communion every Sunday. They followed the Christian calendar. They maintained liturgical practices that had endured for almost two thousand years. However, Newbigin was concerned that these forms risked becoming mere rituals. To perhaps most evangelicals, they seemed disconnected from the vibrant, transformative meanings they were intended to have.

Evangelical Churches: Preserving the Meaning

On the other side of the spectrum, Newbigin praised evangelical churches for their dedication to the meaning of Christianity. They emphasized a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the absolutely essential need for faith. Evangelical churches wanted a living, personal faith in the hearts and minds of believers. Yet, in their zeal to emphasize meaning, there was a risk of neglecting the rich historical forms that had traditionally conveyed and sustained that meaning.

Gathering and Scattering

Newbigin aimed at reconciling these seemingly divergent paths. He proposed a holistic approach that integrated both the forms and meanings of Christianity. In his vision, the church was not just a custodian of ancient rituals or merely a dispenser of personal faith. He longed for a church that was a dynamic community engaged with the broader culture.

According to Newbigin, the missional church needs to both gather for worship and scatter into the world. It should both maintain the historic forms of traditional Christianity in its gathering and bring its meaning into diverse societal contexts in its scattering. To re-integrate the form with the meaning, the church would need to have more than secluded worship or a privatized faith that stays in the walls of the church. But it would also have more than a disembodied faith that is only about evangelism. An integrated faith would see the transformative power of Christianity make its way in every aspect of life, both individual, social, and public.

Newbigin acknowledged the challenges in implementing missional ecclesiology. The disintegration of Christianity in the West, the rise of post-modern questions, and evolving moralities posed formidable obstacles. Yet, he believed in the imaginative capacity of the church to adapt and respond, led by the Holy Spirit. Missional ecclesiology wasn't a rigid formula but an integrative and imaginative approach, deeply rooted in Christian tradition and propelled by the Holy Spirit.

His Strategy Today

What would it look like to try to implement Newbigin’s strategy in the predominantly evangelical church of twenty-first century America? Would it have any effect toward reversing the trend toward an increasingly post-Christian society? 

On the one hand, evangelical Christianity has a clear presence in the society of the United States at present. In fact, it has been having a very powerful political impact on the culture of the United States in the last decade. History will tell whether the very political form of its presence has a net effect of reversing movement toward a post-Christian society or, ironically, hastening it because of cultural backlash.

Would a reclamation of the historic forms of Christianity have a positive impact on American culture in its slide toward post-Christendom? On the one hand, the formalism of mainline churches seems only to have declined and withered even further in the last fifty years. It seems true that many millennial Christians were attracted to these historic forms. A reclamation of liturgy in the early 2000s was a return to mystery and a “re-enchantment” of faith, the “ancient-future” movement. However, it is not clear whether this return to historic forms has had much effect on the secularization of American culture or whether Gen Z has a similar attraction to those forms.