Deeper shade of grey | lost themes 6

Lost themes of mission… righteousness

Bosch points to the damage that has been done to the biblical concept of righteousness through the churches’ maintenance of a separation of inward and spiritual righteousness from an outward and manifest justice in social relationships.

Leslie Newbigin points out that it is easy: “to see how the use of two different English words ‘righteous’ and ‘just’ for the single biblical word has seduced evangelical Christians into a mental separation between righteousness as an inward and spiritual state and justice as an outward and political programme.”

NT Wright writing on righteousness reminds us that: “The church is to be not only an example of God’s intended new humanity, but the means by which the eventual plan, including the establishment of world-wide justice, is to be put into effect.”

Bruggemann continues to make sense of righteousness within the understanding of the great commandment that obligates us to ‘love God’ and to ‘love neighbour’ and therefore sees righteousness as characteristically investing and lending stability in the community, taking responsibility for the community through showing special attentiveness to the poor and the needy.

The damage to missiology that the ‘Lost Righteousness’ represents is that there are generations of church that see righteousness only in the light of upholding ‘right’ living yet are happy to see justice and commitment to community as a optional extra - at best a negotiable. I’m wondering whether mission without righteousness makes sense?

Writer: Capt. Gordon Cotterill lives in London, England, is married to Kate and has two daughters Bethan and Eryn. He has been a Salvation Army officer for ten years and ‘cut his teeth’ in ministry with his wife as the corps officers at Poplar in the East End of London. The lessons he learned there in his day-to-day ministry, amid the chaos of the inner city, continue to shape his understanding and passion for biblical and grace-centred mission. His latest appointment as Spiritual Programme Director at the William Booth College, London now offers him the opportunity for the fusion and exploration of ‘mission’ and ’spiritual formation’ while trying to inspire a new generation of Salvation Army officers as to their role in God’s plan for His creation. Gordon keeps a blog where he mulls over themes of mostly, mission and spiritual formation.

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