Fall 2014/Pasadena

MT595

Sunquist

MT595: READING LESSLIE NEWBIGIN (4 Units: 160 hours). Scott Sunquist and Mike Karim instructor in training.

DESCRIPTION: Following an illustrious career as missionary and bishop in India, Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) retired to Great Britain in 1974. There he confronted a Christianity uncertain about its future and unclear about its message. In the 1982 the British Council of Churches called Newbigin to lead the Gospel and Our Culture Programme, an initiative designed to awaken the church to the missionary situation in which it found itself in the West. Through his speaking and writing across the British Isles, Europe and North America Newbigin provided leadership to the project for more than a decade. A prolific writer, he published six books and dozens of articles in which he analyzed the missionary challenge facing the post-Christendom church. His major work, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989) remains the most comprehensive statement of Newbigin’s vision for a fresh missionary encounter with contemporary culture. This reading course will provide the student with a map to Newbigin’s thought and proposals.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) Demonstrate and appraise the influence of Newbigin’s missionary experience in his development of a missiology of Western culture. (2) Evaluate the relationship of ecclesiology and mission as described and practiced by Newbigin, and appraise such a relationship for the church in Western culture. (3) Examine and evaluate the influence of Michael Polanyi upon Newbigin’s epistemology and subsequent missiology and theology. (4) Compare and contrast Newbigin’s reading of the Bible with contemporary exegetes, theologians, pastors, therapists, and missionaries. (5) Demonstrate the intellectual movement of Newbigin within The Gospel in a Pluralist Society that leads to “the congregation is the hermeneutic of the Gospel”, and appraise that conclusion by Newbigin and how others appropriate the conclusion.

COURSE FORMAT: There will be online instruction in the weeks leading up and following to the classroom section totaling 23 hours. During the online section of the course, students will interact with teacher and the course material through threaded discussions or forum posts. The class will meet during the week of the 2014 SIS Missiology Lectures for 3 hours of classroom instruction in addition to the 14 hours of participation in the SIS Missiology Lectures. Students will be expected to meet all reading and writing deadlines in preparations for and following the 2014 Missiology Lectures.

REQUIRED READING: 1,200 pp. of required reading from books and essays

Laing, Mark T.B. and Paul Weston, eds. Theology in Missionary Perspective: Lesslie Newbigin’s Legacy. Pickwick Publications, 2012. ISBN: 978-1610975742, Pub. Price $37.00 [304 pp. assigned].

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Household of God: Lectures on the Nature of the Church. Wipf & Stock, 2008. ISBN: 978-1606082225, Pub Price $18.00 [156 pp. assigned].

_________The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Rev. ed. Eerdmans, 1995. ISBN: 978-0802808295, Pub. Price $19.00 [190 pp. assigned].

_________The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches-#18. WCC, 1990. ISBN: 978-2825407844. Now available from Newbigin.net (http://www.newbigin.net/assets/pdf/83os84.pdf) [75 pp. assigned].

_________Unfinished Agenda: An Updated Autobiography. Wipf & Stock, 2008. ISBN: 978-606088050, Pub. Price $33.00 [230 pp. assigned].

_________The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans, 1989. ISBN: 978-0802804266, Pub. Price $25.00 [244 pp. assigned].

RECOMMENDED READING: A list of recommend readings will be available in the course syllabus.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

1. 1,200 pages of required reading [60 hours].

2. Online Instruction: At least one hour per week (except for week #7: 2014 Missiology Lectures) will be given to an online lecture or an audio lecture of Lesslie Newbigin. [Learning Outcomes: #1, 2, 3, 4 , 5] [10 hours].

3. REQUIRED Onsite Attendance to the 2014 Missiology Lectures at Fuller Pasadena (November 13-15), including pre- and post-lecture classroom consultation. [This assignment is related to earning outcomes #1, 2, 3, 4, 5] [17 hours].

4. Weekly Forum Posts and Replies (250 words/post; 15% of grade). Each post must be made in response to related to the online lecture and assigned reading for the week; replies must be a critical response to at least two posts (total word count: 250). [This assignment is related to earning outcomes #1, 2, 3, 4, 5] [13 hours].

5. Reflective Biographical Paper on the early life of Newbigin (1,000 words; 15% of grade). Using Unfinished Agenda, The Household of God, and The Open Secret, reflect upon Newbigin’s early missionary career, based upon one or two episodes, and judge how it contributed toward his later missiology. [This assignment is related to earning outcomes # 1, 2, 4] [10 hours].

6. Book Review of The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (2,500 words, 20% of grade). Write a critical review of GPS, paying close attention to how Newbigin construes “truth” and its relationship to the Gospel, mission, and Western culture, and the implications for congregational life. [This assignment is related to earning outcomes #2, 3, 4, 5] [15 hours].

7. FINAL Paper (3,500 words, 40% of grade). The final paper should focus upon a single missiological issue in Western culture, e.g., religious plurality, racism, secularization, migration, human sexuality, evangelism, etc., and constructively engage that issue through the missiology of Lesslie Newbigin. [This assignment is related to earning outcomes #2, 3, 5] [35 hours].

PREREQUISITES: None.

RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: None.

FINAL EXAMINATION: None.