To Win The West

To Win the West
By Martin Robinson
Monarch. 255 pages. £7.99
ISBN 8 85424 251 2

There is surely no more urgent task in our churches today than to bring the gospel of Christ to those around us. We welcome resources which help us to understand modern Western culture and how to communicate the Gospel effectively.
Martin Robinson is Director of Mission and Theology at the Bible Society, and has examined Western attitudes to Christianity and religion in his book The Faith of the Unbeliever. In his present volume To Win the West he gives a brief survey of movements within the church and the progress of Christian mission to help us understand where we are now and how we should best go forward.
This is an important theme; sadly this book is a disappointment because of Robinson's ecumenical approach. The 'Christian church' is presented as a single entity; all the different branches and denominations are seen as parts of the same family. There is a great enthusiasm for the Edinburgh Conference of 1910 where Anglo-Catholics joined with evangelicals for unity in mission; this conference was foundational for the present ecumenical movement.
In the present day the author sees 'signs of hope' that the divisions between evangelicals and liberals (and Catholics) are becoming less sharp. Co-operation such as seen in Billy Graham crusades is applauded; Robinson evidently likes to 'think big' as he also approves of large co-operative events like 'Minus to Plus', 'JIM' and 'On Fire'. The villains are the 'fundamentalists' who are seen as narrow, anti-intellectual and divisive (Lloyd-Jones included).
Robinson embraces with excitement the modern Pentecostal/charismatic movement: 'the birth of a stream within the Christian family which stands beside the older Catholic and Protestant traditions and which is helping to redefine the essence of the Christian experience itself.' (p.148). As Robinson points out (after David du Plessis) the heart of Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is not a doctrine but an experience, so there are great possibilities for wide unity. Further-more, the author sees experiential Christianity (encountering God rather than talking about God) as the most appealing and appropriate way to reach the post-modern world.
Robinson presents an upbeat picture of the church's growth and progress, and points the way to the future through congregations oriented towards mission. He is clearly zealous for the advance of Christianity in the West but his definition of Christianity is very broad. A critique of evangelicalism is much needed, to help us understand where we are and how we must work to present the gospel both faithfully and effectively to modern culture. But such a critique must begin with a clearer definition of what we mean by the gospel; only then will we see the challenge to be both zealous and faithful, relevant and uncompromising in our evangelism.

Bill James

Main Articles

Other articles