Evangelicals are known for their emphasis on conversion, but unfortunately they often neglect life after conversion and beyond justification. Needed, therefore, is a comprehensive theology of the Christian life from beginning to end, along with an explication of the means of that transformation. In Called to Be Saints, Gordon Smith invites us to think theologically about what is means to be a mature Christian. To address matters of the Christian life and its spirituality effectively, we need to find an answer to the questions of what is the beginning of the Christian life, what is the character of Christian maturity, and what is the approach and means of the formation of this character. A comprehensive theology of the Christian life will address all three of these questions, that is, the beginning, the end, and the means by which one grows toward maturity. There are a number of publications regarding the initiation into the Christian faith. Moreover, there are likewise plenty of resources on the spiritual formation of believers. However, there are few resources regarding what it means to be a mature Christian. This book seeks to address this lacuna in Christian scholarship.

The chapters within address the goal and objective towards which Christians walk. That is, the end to which we are converted. The opening chapter makes the case for why such a theology is needed. It notes that there is a significant “sanctification gap” in the churches today – that is, there is a marked distinction between what we profess to be, i.e. saints, and what we actually are. However, there is a call to holiness – or perfection – made by the Father to participate in the life of Christ, through the power of the Spirit. As Aquinas stated, a thing is said to be perfect when it attains its proper end. Chapter 2 is the central chapter within the text, with its insistence that the Christian vision for maturity is one that is “in” Christ. To be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, and a mature disciple is one who knows Jesus through the fruit of learning that leads to intimacy, loves Jesus such that he is the first and deepest love, and serves Jesus such that all one does is in response to Christ’s call and is an expression of allegiance to him.

Chapters 3 through 6 identify four distinctive features of a mature Christian, that is, what it means to fulfill the purpose for which we are created. There are also two appendices, the first of which is an invitation to pastors to consider what it means for the character of congregational life to be “in” Christ, and the second of which is an invitation to leaders within the academy to consider how they can design the life of the university setting around a vision of transformation “in” Christ. This text affirms that our lives are a gift that is offered to us in Christ.

Overall, this book is both a call and an invitation to live life “in Christ” – more precisely, to live a life that is the fruit of dynamic participation in the life of Christ. The title has four marks, all of which are presented as invitations: 1) to be a wise person and to pursue wisdom with passion and persistence; 2) to do good work in response to the call of Christ – i.e., vocational holiness; 3) to love others as one learns to live in love; and 4) to know the joy of God, which is the deep wellspring of the blessed life. Each of these – wisdom, good works, love, and joy – are offered to us in Christ.

Being consummately practical, this book presents a trinitarian theology of holiness that encompasses both justification and sanctification, as well as union with Christ and communion with God. Smith unfolds how and why Christians are called to become wise people, do good work, love others and enjoy rightly ordered affections. This is for the whole Christian community. It is a challenge to young people to establish early in their lives the kind of life that they wish to live. It is also a guide to those in midlife who might need to make midcourse corrections to their priorities in order to focus on what matters most. And finally, it encourages those who are in their senior years to be attentive to what sort of legacy they wish to leave behind them. For each group, it is about stewardship. Christians in every walk of life, therefore, will find this text a rich resource for learning what it means to “grow up in every way… into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). I recommend it to all comers.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher page: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=4030

Preview Called to Be Saints: https://books.google.com/books/about/Called_to_Be_Saints.html?id=OppYAgAAQBAJ

This chapter is an excerpt from Steven M. Fettke, God’s Empowered People: A Pentecostal Theology of the Laity (Wipf & Stock 2011). Another chapter appears in the Winter 2012 issue of Pneuma Review.

We need to recognize that such a sense of call [as Jeremiah had] in our time is profoundly counter-cultural, because the primary ideological voices of our time are the voices of autonomy: to do one’s own thing, self-actualization, self-assertion, self-fulfillment. The ideology of our time is to propose that one can live “an uncalled life,” one not referred to any purpose beyond one’s self. It can be argued that the disease of autonomy besets us all, simply because we are modern people …

If the ideology of autonomy talks us out of our call as it talked ancient Israel out of its call, we too may settle for idolatries that feel and sound like a call. An idolatrous alternative may take the form of a moral crusade in which we focus on one moral issue to the neglect of everything else. It may take the form of dogmatic crusade, which is often a disguised form of maintaining monopoly, an ecclesiastical passion, or an echo of civil religion. These are all diversionary activities to keep from facing the yielding in obedience that belongs to all who are called by this God.¹

Introduction

Tilly has served God faithfully in the public schools for almost thirty years, most of that time as a guidance counselor in an at-risk middle school. Few would disagree that middle-school age is a very difficult age, especially when so many kids are being reared by guardians or grandparents or are latchkey kids with little love, attention, or supervision from a parental figure. Often, Tilly serves as a surrogate mother to these kids. Daily she deals with reports of parental abuse or neglect, student sexual promiscuity, pregnancy, and gang activity, along with student surliness, loneliness, threats of suicide, and exhausted teachers. In all of this chaos and despair, she prays daily for God’s strength and direction, and often she senses God’s spirit leading her and helping her love even the worst of the worst.

This is not to say that Tilly’s only concern is ministry. She strives to be the very best in her profession. Her supervisors regularly give her the highest possible ratings for job performance. Doing a good job in all aspects of her work, even the dreaded paperwork and committee work, is also a part of her mission and witness. God-called people do not slack off on those work responsibilities that they find tedious.

Tilly’s day might include kids loved, parents counseled and affirmed in caring for their kids, possible suicides stopped, potential fights between gangs mediated, lonely kids given attention, and exhausted teachers encouraged. Because kids, parents, and teachers have learned to trust her—learned that she truly cares about them—she can pray for them and recommend to them the life of faith in a place where normally such activities are forbidden. In a single day she might do more significant ministry than many professional ministers would do during an entire week. What keeps her going in such a setting? Tilly would answer this way: “It is the call of God and my desire to obey that call no matter how difficult the situation.”

Not once in her experience in Pentecostal churches did professional ministers and church leaders suggest a call to the public schools; as a young person she thought only pastors, evangelists, and missionaries were called. After all, only those people were discussed in church as “the called.” As an adult, she understands that God can call people to various places, including the public schools. However, Tilly has not discovered any setting in the local church in which she might share her struggles and prayer concerns related to her calling. She has never experienced a setting in the local church in which her call is acknowledged and where she is held accountable for her call.

Who is Tilly? She is my wife. She represents all kinds of people in Pentecostal churches who are called to work in the factory, medical profession, business or legal profession, and government service. Like Tilly, they also need to have their callings affirmed and their prayer concerns about their workplace ministries heard. These people may well be the only “minister” whom many of their coworkers, clients, students, or customers will ever encounter. Why wouldn’t the local church want to prepare them for the work of ministry in their workplaces (Eph 4:12)?

The Mission of the Church

The official statement on mission of the General Council of the Assemblies of God says this:

The Church is the Body of Christ, the habitation of God through the Spirit, with divine appointments for the fulfillment of her great commission. Each believer, born of the Spirit, is an integral part of the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven. Since God’s purpose concerning man [sic] is to seek and to save that which is lost, to be worshipped by man [sic], to build a body of believers in the image of His Son, and to demonstrate His love and compassion for all the world, the priority reason for being of the Assemblies of God as part of the Church is: (1) To be an agency of God for evangelizing the world. (2) To be a corporate body in which man [sic] may worship God. (3) To be a channel of God’s purpose to build a body of saints being perfected in the image of His Son. (4) To be a people who demonstrate God’s love and compassion for all the world.²

It is my purpose to “flesh out” in this chapter the implications of this notion of mission to the world in regard to the role of the laity and of the local church. Everyone in the community, not just the professional minister, can provide an effective gospel witness. The voices (and professions) of teachers, business people, medical professionals, and blue- and white-collar workers can and must be heard. These believers are also ministers in their workplaces. The local church can be a place where their callings are affirmed, where they are nurtured in their faith, where they are trained to do the work of ministry, and where their testimonies can be expressed. These lay ministers will go to places in North American society where the professional minister cannot go, either by law (the public schools) or by social convention (the secular workplace). In those secular places they might be the only “ministers” their fellow workers or students in public schools might ever meet.³ Often, people will never darken the door of a local church or be willing to talk to the pastor, but they will listen to a fellow worker whom they have learned to trust and respect. In effect, the believer who is their fellow worker becomes their “minister.”

Positively, Pentecostalism at its best is missional, in that it believes that the Spirit empowers all believers to work actively in the world for the growth of the kingdom, in mission and witness, by encountering the cultures of this world in redemptive and prophetic ways. At their best, Pentecostals have been able to inculturate the gospel, creating truly indigenous expressions of biblical faith. The spontaneity of the Spirit so valued in Pentecostal structures creates space for new and innovative cultural expressions of the gospel. Negatively, Pentecostals today have been seduced by the institutional model of the mega-church structure, in which the growth of numbers and trappings of success become the priority of mission. Top down leadership with a professional class of ministers who administer the faith is becoming the norm in many so-called successful Pentecostal churches, but at the cost of a truly missional approach that sustains personal formation and empowers all the people of God to work in the service of the King. The emphasis on performance in these churches, in which “professional” ministers, singers or administrators service the institution, has restricted the participation of the congregation in worship and world engagement.⁴

Charles P. Lutz and Robert O. Smith, Christians and a Land Called Holy: How We Can Foster Justice, Peace, and Hope (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 146 pages, ISBN 9780800637842.

Christians and a Land Called Holy is an appeal for action on the part of the wider Christian community in response to the vexing political situation in the Holy Land. This book was written in response to a visit of the authors to Israel/Palestine in 2002. They came away with a conviction that “Christian from elsewhere in the world have a faith-based interest in seeking a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and that they have a key role to play in pursuit of that peace” (ix).

Charles P. Lutz is a retired journalist who serves as Minnesota coordinator for Churches for Middle East Peace, a coalition of national church policy agencies. Robert O. Smith is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, who serves as Campus Pastor for the University of Chicago. Both have traveled often to Israel and regard themselves as emissaries for peace in the Holy Land.

The book is composed of two chapters each by the authors, an appendix featuring a short essay on the biblical politics of the Holy Land by Roman Catholic scholar Ronald D. Witherup, and a resource section with an annotated list of books, videos, and websites. The book also includes maps and twelve black and white photos.

The main argument of the book is that Western Christians should advocate for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The authors state four reasons in support of their argument. First, peace would assure safe passage for Christian pilgrims. Second, the indigenous Christians of Palestine are “begging us to become active in their struggle for a secure and just peace” (ix). Third, Christian ministries in Israel/Palestine are disrupted by outbreaks of violence. And fourth, America Christians should engage in citizen advocacy with their government, which has influence over the conflicting parties.

In chapter 1, Lutz poses the question, “What’s So Special about This Space?” His answer is that the religious meaning of the land called holy is significantly qualified by the universalizing love of Christ, in which “all lands become equally holy” (20). Based on his conviction that the gospel has shattered the privileged geographic significance of Israel/Palestine, Lutz argues that Christians should be primarily preoccupied with securing justice and peace for all of its inhabitants, including Muslims.

In Chapter 3, “Division in the Christian Family,” Smith assesses two opposing Christian views of state of Israel, evangelical Christian Zionism and mainline Christian Palestinianism. The former he denounces as indifferent to human suffering and the latter he upholds as the key to achieving genuine reconciliation and peace. Smith calls for a comprehensive strategy to accomplish “the marginalization of Christian Zionism it richly deserves” (80). He commends a recent appeal of the World Council of Churches for its member bodies to use economic pressures, such as disinvestment in Israel, to lobby against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

The Pneuma Review had an opportunity to speak with Ajith Fernando, the national director of Youth For Christ in Sri Lanka, about his recent book The Call to Joy and Pain. This book has received the 2008 Book Award from Christianity Today in the church and pastoral leadership category. We believe that you will likewise recognize the biblically-centered wisdom of Brother Fernando as he talks with us about the paradox of God’s provision and the call to endure hardship for the sake of Jesus and his story.

Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007).
Read the review by Thomas Doyle and Rebecca Skaggs

Pneuma Review: Please tell us a little about yourself and why you wrote The Call to Joy and Pain.

Ajith Fernando: I live in a country that has faced great tragedy for the past 25 years or so. We have an ongoing war that has claimed at least 70,000 lives, a revolution that claimed thousands more young people, and then the tsunami which took about 40,000 lives. Many, many people have left Sri Lanka, especially because of the welfare of their children. But my wife and I have been convinced that we are called to live and die here. We had to develop reasons for why we are staying on, especially reasons that made it good for our children to stay. This made me think a lot about how Christians respond to suffering.

But even more significantly, I came to the conclusion some years ago that joy is one of the most important features of Christianity. Coming as the second fruit of the Spirit it meant that the Bible teaches that holy people are happy people. My wife and I were convinced that, amidst all the suffering in Sri Lanka, the most valuable heritage we can give our two children was a home filled with the joy of the Lord to which they can come after facing the rigors of life in a hostile world.

Yet I know so many unhappy Christians. These are good people who have sought to obey God while others compromised and disobeyed. But they seem to suffer from a deep disappointment with the way life has treated them. I have grappled with this a lot and still grapple with it—pleading with God to help me to introduce these people to the joy of the Lord which is our strength amidst suffering.

These experiences and struggles convinced me that I must write this book. Because the truths in the Bible do not apply only to countries like Sri Lanka but all over the world, even in relatively peaceful and affluent countries. Yet soon in my study, I made the amazing discovery that the Bible almost never talks about suffering without talking about the rewards of it. And I also found that often the reward the Bible speaks of is joy. Therefore I decided I will not write on suffering without also writing about the joy which accompanies it and makes it bearable.