Rich Nathan

The authors are pastors of a mega-church, Vineyard in Columbus, Ohio. I will use the pronoun “they” to refer to them, although the text is primarily Nathan’s, who writes in the first-person singular. They are proponents of a fusion of two strands Christianity: Evangelical and Charismatic; their name for it is “empowered evangelicalism” (phrase found on p. 41).
The Both-And of their title is their way of expressing a long-recognized, common Christian insight that believers live between the now and the not-yet. It is not to be confused, they stress, with relativism. “Both-And does not involve advocating for the mean between two extremes or finding the average. Rather, it requires holding to both extremes at once and realizing the power that exists in this tension” (p. 235).
The book’s structure is clear: there are seven pairs of chapters. Taken together, they read like a mission statement:
Our Identity: Evangelical (ch. 1) and Charismatic (ch. 2)
Our Community: Unity (ch. 3) and Diversity (ch. 4)
Our Concern: Mercy (ch. 5) and Justice (ch. 6)
Our Method: Proclamation (ch. 7) and Demonstration (ch. 8)
Our Ethic: Personal (ch. 9) and Social (ch. 10)
Our Expectation: Already (ch. 11) and Not Yet (ch. 12)
Our Calling: Relevant Practice (ch. 13) and Orthodox Doctrine (ch. 14).
The book starts in a surprisingly open-minded way. The authors could be characterized as pro-life, for instance, but they recognize the social responsibility that such a stance implies, and, if I understood the text correctly, they do not categorically rule out all abortions. In Chapter 4, they make a good point that it is not enough for a congregation to be open to diversity, rather, it must be intentionally diverse. One of the strongest chapters is Ch. 6, concerning social justice, which for the authors forms a tandem with exercising mercy. Their congregation has made a name for itself in central Ohio by actively helping immigrants, and the authors are strong advocates of public policy reform.
Chapter 7, Proclamation, invites reflection and contradiction. The authors stress that it is not accurate to think that the believer is responsible for bringing a godless person to God. Rather, it is a matter of partnering with God concerning what He is already doing with a person or in a place. To explain this, they introduce a phrase used by John Wesley, prevenient grace, which is the assumption that God prepares hearts beforehand. They draw on the experience of Don Richardson, who explained the Christian message to the Sawi tribe in what was then Dutch New Guinea of the death of Jesus on the cross in terms of one of their customs, the peace child. Richardson generalized from this experience that there were similar “redemptive analogies” in other tribal cultures. Nathan and Kim concur, but don’t consider the possibility that the New Testament interpretations of the fate of Jesus are also a case of applying ideas already present in the culture of that day. To them, the crucifixion is the sacrifice of the Son of God to requite the sins of mankind and make peace between God and humans.
Nathan and Kim then cite the conclusions of a colleague at Vineyard Columbus, Stephen Van Dop, who studied why people experienced conversion in their congregation and attributed all to the effect of life crises, which he then divided into three groups, intrapersonal (addiction, depression, etc. — the most common, 63%), interpersonal (with divorce or separation accounting for nearly two-thirds of those), and situational (for instance, loss of a loved one or unwed pregnancy). Is it really true that something bad has to happen to someone before he or she becomes a serious disciple? This leads to further questions — God’s agency? evangelism as opportunism? — none of them raised by the authors.
Nonetheless, the conclusion they draw does have implications for the future of the church: “So when we meet a person in crisis, we can assume that the person may have exhausted their [sic] own resources for humanly solving their own problems and that the Holy Spirit is at work preparing that person to receive the gospel. They reference the typology of another colleague, Simon Ponsonby, who argues that various thinkers, Comte, Kierkegaard, Rahner, Otto, Lewis, and Schleiermacher have seen certain innate qualities such as anxiety, dependency or a sense of beauty as pointers to God.
The authors then make a sensible proposal: “What if we listened to people long enough that we were able to discover their own innate desires — whether for beauty, justice, satisfaction or morality — and helped them to make an explicit link between these desires and Christ? . . . What if our job is to simply help people find what they’ve always been looking for instead of trying to create an appetite for God where none previously existed?” (p. 119). What if indeed. It’s embarrassing to listen to attempts to “bring people to Christ”, well-meaning though they may be, that are framed in a one-size-fits-all assumption about what state of mind a prospective convert has to be in before “coming to Christ”. Typically, it is the assumption that the story of the cross can be reduced to “saving sinners”, therefore, the first step must be to hector someone into seeing him- or herself as one. This is not to say that no one is a sinner, but an all-encompassing sense of personal sin doesn’t seem very high on the list of concerns of people I know.
Readers who welcome the openness and flexibility of the authors in the first half of the book might be disappointed when they come to Chapter 9, devoted to personal ethics. In it, the authors mention Sodom, rejecting the common conception that the primary reason for God’s judgment was sexual, then go straight into a discussion of sexuality. Their stance here is more strict and traditional than it is regarding other issues they discuss in the course of the book. For instance, their reading of Genesis is sophisticated enough that they see no need to ascribe to creationism. Whereas their recognition of cultural factors behind the prohibition of leadership roles for women found in 1 Timothy allows them to (rightly, imho) not feel bound to apply this stricture literally today, they expressly reject this possibility in their discussion of sexuality. Everything except heterosexual relations within marriage is forbidden, even — and the authors discuss it lengthily — sex within a committed gay relationship. Throughout the rest of the book, Nathan and Kim strive to overcome what they characterize as either-or thinking, but in this area, there are only two possibilities: commitment in the form of heterosexual marriage or what they term commodified sex. It is surprising then to have them report that several gay couples attend their congregation. The authors are unaware of the irony of writing early in the chapter, “The Christian church is often criticized for caring only about sexual ethics” (p. 141), then spending the rest of the chapter discussing only that.
The book is written in a lively, straightforward manner. Long stretches of it read like transcriptions of spoken presentations. Many other authors are quoted, mostly from the evangelical and charismatic traditions. Sometimes, irritatingly, these authors are quoted in the process of citing other authors. All in all, it was interesting and enlightening to read, since I haven’t read much from this intersection of the evangelical and charismatic traditions. I went back and forth how to rate it. For me, the default is three stars, which signifies a good read. This is not quite that. Since the Goodreads system doesn’t allow wiggle-room through half-stars, I’ll give this two, which for me means that I don’t find it good throughout, but I recognize that readers more sympathetic to the stance of the authors might rate it more highly than I. Nevertheless, I did stick with it, and found much to think about in reading it.

… (mehr)

Has it ever bothered you to pass several Christian churches within a mile of each other? I've often wondered what would happen if we all joined together. You know, that strange thing called unity of faith.

Empowered Evangelicals offers a step in that direction. With a positive tone, Nathan and Wilson present a very exciting picture of a stronger and more biblical Christianity for all by combining the best emphases of conservative evangelicalism with the best emphases of Pentecostalism. The emphases offered from both segments include worship and teaching the Word, using our emotions and using our minds, valuing the supernatural world and valuing the natural world.

Whether you hold strong to the stoic exegesis of God's Word or prefer to shout for joy from the depths of your emotions, this book will encourage you to see and experience the best of both worlds.… (mehr)