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 PrintableVersion Disciples and citizensA vision for distinctive livingA bit ‘churchy’DISCIPLES AND CITIZENS I am genuinely sorry not to be able to be more positive about this book — for a number of reasons. Graham Cray is always interesting and stimulating. He is aware that the church is floundering in relation to contemporary society and it matters to him enough to read widely and think carefully. So the first quarter of the book surveys the main changes in our consumer-based society which make it hard for non-Christians to believe and for Christians to articulate their belief. All this is useful. Chapter 4 is entitled ‘citizenship undermined’ in which he introduces two striking images — the ‘corrosion of character’ and ‘a ‘liquid society’. ‘Character is formed through committed relationships, so the erosion of the one (committed relationships) leads to the corrosion of the other’: dead right on both counts. With respect to a liquid society: ‘the speed of social and technological change is now so fast that there is no time for re-embedding’. If everything’s fluid in society where is terra firma? — in short, two lethal influences upon Christian and non-Christian alike. He (then) looks helpfully at three main factors which have contributed to this change: individualisation, consumerism and constructivism — the last being by far the most important and meaning simply that the West is now thoroughly ‘subjective’, even to the point of thinking that we can construct our own reality. So no longer ‘objective’ in the sense of us fitting into the way God has made things, but assuming that, because no one can define the way reality is (too arrogant obviously, despite God’s written and living ‘Word’!), we can write the rules ourselves. In addition, I wholeheartedly endorse his central theme that Christians are called to be citizens as well as disciples of Jesus, hence the title. They are responsible not merely to preach the gospel and be a living community as believers, but to participate within society as a whole because it is part of their discipleship. At least 90% of all this I found helpful and inspiring — and a welcome antidote to the ‘gospel ministry only’ approach in some churches. Where I had problems was in the second half, in sections three and four: ‘the cultivation of character’ and ‘the transformation of community’. Not that any of it was unbiblical — just ‘churchy’ in the sense of long exhortations for us to be good Christians and loving towards our neighbour, etc., and virtually nothing in terms of the conflict of ideas within the context of evangelism which is fundamental to both Jesus’s teaching and that of his apostles. So it wouldn’t surprise me to hear those who espouse ‘gospel ministry’ reject this as yet another essentially ‘liberal’, ‘social gospel’ tract. Not that this is what Gray necessarily thinks, but his omission of the centrality of ‘gospel’ and ‘truth’ makes the charge understandable — which is disappointing, as I said, because so much else he says is not only good but necessary (particularly in relation to the ‘gospel ministry only’ punters — for whom the first half should be required reading!). Ranald Macaulay,
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