Deeper shade of grey | lost theme 8

Lost themes of mission… judgement

Judgement 

I’ve been spending a bit of time in NT Wright’s writing recently and it has inspired some new lost themes of mission. 

The whole concept of judgement seems to be a pretty loaded word. I remember as a kid watching a guy walk up and down Oxford St in London with a sandwich board informing the tourists and shoppers that God’s judgement was at hand. Hell and damnation, eternal rest the destination of such judgement - the communication of eternal sentence.

NT Wright points out in Evil And the Justice of God (Ed: opens an 89 KB pdf]) that 

”God’s justice is not simply a blind disposing of rewards for the virtuous and punishments for the wicked, though plenty of those are to be found on the way.

God’s justice is a saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation, and whose justice is not simply designed to restore a balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place.”(2006:36) 

Wright, N.T. (2006) Evil And the Justice of God

It seems that the whole concept of judgement becomes ever so much more than merely that of a sentence of reward and punishment - it is that of a ‘putting to rights’ that which is wrong. “Judge me O Lord … judge our nation” becomes a plea for a putting to rights that which is wrong.

This makes sense within a culture and through judicial metaphors that would seek judgement for the redress of what was wrong.

The guy with his imminence of judgement placards - is right, the church has to communicate that which God means by judgement, but like so many others he has got the wrong end of the stick. Shame his message was not more reflective of the restorative judgment that says “God is wanting to put this world to rights!”

The task of the church is to reflect this sense of God’s judgement, to be part of God’s redemptive plan by being signposts of God’s saving, healing and restorative justice. Being part of God’s judgement in the sense of putting the world to rights is most definitely mission and while understood by a sizable majority in terms of merely an eternal sentencing remains a lost theme of mission.

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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