Missionaries: Everlasting Gospel, Ever-Changing World (A Book Review)

This post contains comments related to lesson 2, "'All Things to All Men': Paul Preaches to the World," of Agents of Hope: God's Great Missionaries.

In this post, rather than really going into the lesson, I will review Jon Paulien's recent book, Everlasting Gospel, Ever-Changing World: Introducing Jesus to a Skeptical Generation (or from the Adventist Book Center HERE).

The majority of us as Christians will not go far from our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches to serve as missionaries. More and more, research shows that the secular societies of North America and Europe are becoming the largest mission fields. In other words, for many (based on visitor data of this blog) who read this, our mission field is not South America, Africa, or India, but literally right next to where we live, work, play, and worship.

The problem is that the majority of people we associate with today have little or no Christian, or even spiritual, backgrounds. To launch directly into the story of Jesus, of sin, of Creation, or anything that uses vocabulary and background based in the Bible has the potential to, at best, be ignored, and at worst, alienate.

Dr. Paulien's book is an attempt to bring Paul's "all things to all men" principle into the 21st century. The first section of the book draws pictures of how today's secular people think about and relate to the world and how that differs from even a few decades ago. Paulien discusses whether "successful" churches (primarily Adventist ones) are really succeeding in meeting today's secular people (the answer is, "No"). He goes on to discuss the evolving definition of the term truth in today's world.

This first section of the book, I see as a broad summary of many other research and works on postmodernism. As such, a reader new to the idea might want to do further reading on more extensive works.

What Paulien adds to the broader discussion is an Adventist-specific context to postmodernism. He describes how Adventism is uniquely affected by it, and how Adventism can make unique contributions towards engaging postmodernism. This forms the middle section of the book.

The last half of the book begins with general principles to keep in mind while engaging postmodernism. For me, one of the large contributions that the Paulien makes is that idea that most things in this world are not easily categorized as black and white, but as shades of gray. He begins the discussion with boundaries. In the middle of it he draws a Best/Better/Good/Fair/Poor/Bad scale (p. 117) and uses the scale to discuss the need for flexibility and resiliency. On the ends are things that are clearly right and wrong. But in the middle, context and relationships make a difference.

Another key point Paulien makes it that not everyone is called to be missionaries to secular people. I believe what he is trying to bring out is that it takes someone who is flexible and resilient, yet not swayed and moved, to successfully minister to secular people. For some, temptations in the secular world may be too great. For them, it may be best to stay within the "fortress" of the church and support those who are out in the mission field (being the "salt," p. 86). But even those within the "fortress" still need to adapt -- if not their behaviors, at the least their ways of thinking to that the support offered is sincere.

The final portion of the book gets into more practicalities of what being "salt" in the secular world around us might look like. Once again I see this section as a broad summary of many previous works, adapted to the Adventist context. As such, I believe it offers a valuable perspective.

I recommend this book to all who are seeking to understand and minister to secular people, and to reach them with the good news of Jesus Christ. The message does not change; but how we communicate it, and the portions we choose to emphasize or de-emphasize (Paul did this, too), must change if we are to become and remain effective missionaries in our backyards, front yards, side yards, school yards, work, and church yards.