I have seen a lot of connection with the early twentieth century book…”rethinking missions”

Phil said…..”Insider Movement is not an issue only about missions” Amen! So true! This is just a natural progression of the Christian and Evangelical world of the last 50 years. I would encourage people to read this book linked here. Evangelicalism Divided by Iain Murray

Link to it here> http://www.ligonier.org/store/evangelicalism-divided-hardcover/?gclid=CLm7jo_d87QCFexAMgodeHgApQ

This Insider Movement issue, like so many others, is only a reflection and natural outgrowth of our theology. A theology rooted in Pragmatism has ruled the day for 50 plus years in Protestant & Evangelical circles. It now even gains ground in Reformed circles. Many have fled Evangelical churches to good NAPARC churches, now many a NAPARC church is going down the same dark road. We need to own it if we are to change it. I hope programs like this help in that regard.

I also wonder how attractive Insider Movements may seem to missions whose sole purpose is to plant churches. It would be worth considering the differences in philosophy among a number of churches and mission agencies to see how they work out across different missiologies.

Camden,

I agree with your distinction. I am not against contextualization, as such, but as you said, much of what comes from the “Insider Movement” crowd is at the extreme end of the contextualization spectrum.

I firmly believe that many of the seeming difficulties in contextualization could be resolved by a proper and thorough application of the Regulative Principle of Worship. Sadly, most of the crowd that promotes Insider Movement thinking is unwilling to accept the RPW (if they are aware of it at all), because they are generally unwilling to allow the Scriptures to define their ecclesiology and their missiology.

Brian,

Thanks for the comments. I’m no missiologist, but I would distinguish contextualization in general from Insider Movements, the latter being a specific subset of the former in my understanding. I am appreciative of the way Harvie Conn worked through varieties of contextualization in a class I took with him on missionary encounters. It was a distance course on tape through Westminster Theological Seminary, but it was still a valuable course for me as I developed my views of missions in light of Scripture. That being said, Dave Garner introduced “Insider Movements” to me about two years ago. While this episode introduced a new topic to many of us, I’m sure the missionaries of the PCA and OPC have been aware of it for quite some time.

These issues have been discussed for at least fifteen years in places such as Evangelical Missions Quarterly and the International Journal of Frontier Missions, and the book “Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road”, ed. Woodberry (in which many of these ideas were first proposed) was published in 1989. I remember discussing (very critically) many of these topics as a student at Moody Bible Institute 20 years ago.

So while I deeply appreciate CTC devoting a show to this very important topic, I am saddened that it has taken the Reformed (and Reformed Baptist) world so long to wake up. I beg all of you involved with the Reformed Forum, and any who read this comment not to let this issue die! The extreme contextualization movement is pure syncretism that has sent, and continues to send, many to hell riding on the hopes of a false assurance!