A Question of Allegiance

I recently responded to an e-mail from Vince Rutherford, a good friend, supporter, and former long-time missionary to Pakistan who had some questions for reflections based on his recent reading of Paul Hiebert’s book Transforming Worldviews. (This is a book I would highly recommend for an understanding of missions). Hiebert identifies the difference in a “bounded set” approach toward thinking of the Kingdom of God as opposed to a “centered set.” The former focuses on the boundary – either a person is “in” or they are “out.” This is the most common approach the church has taken to the question of salvation. However, Hiebert argues that the more Biblical approach is a “centered set” where the focus is on the Kingdom center – Jesus Christ. A person is either moving toward that center or moving away. Whether or not there is a boundary becomes less the issue.

Vince repeated Hiebert’s question: “Can a village person become a follower of Jesus after only a very basic hearing of the gospel story?” Vince followed with his own musings: “I am wondering about the many people around the world who have heard a bit and have begun to pray in Jesus name for help in their problems. Are they ‘in the Kingdom’ even though they are only near the edge?”

I believe Hiebert was right on with the distinction between bounded and centered sets - as a math major, I like his use of those concepts! When one begins to understand that distinction, then it certainly does challenge all sorts of assumptions of what it means to be "in" or "out" - even those words themselves fall short of being good descriptors.

I believe for the final question, we have only to look at the Scriptures. Did the Samaritan woman, the man possessed by legion, the thief on the cross, etc have sufficient information to be considered a "follower of Jesus?" What they had was a real encounter with Jesus - not a propositional confession. That encounter was sufficient for them to shift their allegiance to Christ. I've found that speaking of allegiance to or alignment with Christ is more in line with Kingdom thinking than the more limited terms we tend to use when thinking of personal salvation. Certainly "born again" and "saved" are Biblical images - but they are not the exclusive ones that are used. They just fit more with the bounded set approach, so as children of the Enlightenment and modernism, we've tended to focus more on them at the exclusion of other images.

What this way of thinking does is really free us from assuming the burden of being the judge. It really is not (nor never has been) my responsibility to determine who is in and who is out. My responsibility is live my life in such a way that people will be introduced to Christ and have a genuine encounter with Him, such that there is a changing of their allegiance. Then in community, we work through the implications of this shift of allegiance on our lives. Our tools for that are His Word, the guidance of the Spirit, the community of faith, and (giving away my ecclesiology) the community of faith through the ages.