The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (1989)

Lesslie Newbigin — British missionary and bishop, for many years in India

Weathered, patient, and quietly amazed that home is the mission field.

Catch rate: 60 / 255
Base research: 262
Stat total: 352

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina92

Contend92

Defend88

Popularity80

Total352

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 92

STAMINA — Solid. He wrote it after a long missionary life, and it carries the whole of the argument in one book.

Contend 92

CONTEND — High. He argues that the church has a claim about the world, and a claim about the world is owed to everyone.

Defend 88

DEFEND — Solid. He answers the pluralist from the inside, having lived among people of other faiths.

Popularity 80

POPULARITY — Solid. It is read far beyond missions, in churches that never send anyone abroad.

Cited for this book

Lesslie Newbigin came home to England after a long time in India, and saw his own country as a mission field. He argued that the gospel is public truth, a claim about the whole world and not a private taste. A missionary’s question runs all through the book: what happens when a whole society has stopped believing that anything can be true for everyone?

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	Good News That Is True News	Rationality	Argument	84	100%	15
14	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
26	The Domesticated Jesus	History	Argument	82	100%	15
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
40	The Gospel as Public Truth	Anthropology	Argument	88	100%	10
52	The Empty Tomb, and No Worldview	History	Argument	92	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“There can be no true evangelism except that which announces what is not only good news but true news”
Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell (1991), p. 52, as quoted by Shane Lems, Modern Reformation, “The Church in a Pluralist Society” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

Good News That Is True News

RationalityArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameOne sentence that no honest evangelist can get round. There is nothing worth announcing if it is only comforting. It has to be true, or it is not news.

Strong against

×3Truth Is What Works for Usan argument · why?

Rorty’s advice to the churches is to make the faith less demanding. Newbigin says the news has to be true as well as good, or it is not evangelism at all. A church that gave up the second word would have nothing to announce.

×2.5Sheilaisman argument · why?

She believes in a God who wants people to take care of each other. Newbigin says news has to be true as well as good. Being told that God really is like that, and how anyone knows, is worth more to her than being agreed with.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

The Domesticated Jesus

HistoryArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameA summary, not a quotation. Newbigin spent long years as a missionary in India. One Christmas he saw people worship a host of gods and Jesus among them, and understood that this was not a step toward the gospel. It was a way of fitting Jesus into what was already there.

Strong against

×2.5The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?

Newbigin saw one Christmas in India what Hick’s hypothesis does to Jesus: he is admitted as one god among many. That is not a welcome. It is a way of making him fit.

“When the church affirms the gospel as public truth it is challenging the whole of society to wake out of the nightmare of subjectivism and relativism, to escape from the captivity of the self turned in upon itself, and to accept the calling which is addressed to every human being to seek, acknowledge, and proclaim the truth”
Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell (1991), p. 13, as quoted by Shane Lems, Modern Reformation, “The Church in a Pluralist Society” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Gospel as Public Truth

AnthropologyArgument · power 88 · 100% accurate

In the gameNewbigin says the church is not offering a private comfort to people who like that sort of thing. It is offering a claim about the world, and a claim about the world is owed to everyone. It is a call to wake up from a life turned in on itself.

Strong against

×4Sheilaisman argument · why?

Newbigin describes the captivity of the self turned in upon itself, and he means it kindly. Her creed is honest and warm and has no way to be wrong. The gospel is offered to her as something outside her own voice that can tell her something she did not already know. That is the gift, and it is the opposite of a threat.

×3Truth Is Poweran argument · why?

If truth is only power, the powerless have nowhere to stand. Newbigin says the gospel is public truth, owned by nobody and owed to everyone. That is exactly what the powerless need it to be, and it is what a king cannot buy.

×2.5Truth Is What Works for Usan argument · why?

A truth that only a group allows is not public. Newbigin’s answer is that the gospel is public truth, owed to everyone, and that a society which has forgotten that is asleep in a nightmare of its own making.

“It is obvious that the story of the empty tomb cannot be fitted into our contemporary worldview, or indeed into any worldview except one of which it is the starting point.”
Lesslie Newbigin, as quoted by Shane Lems, Modern Reformation, “The Church in a Pluralist Society” (2011). Short excerpt from an in-copyright work, used under fair use.in copyright · fair use

The Empty Tomb, and No Worldview

HistoryArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe resurrection does not fit inside any picture of the world unless it is the starting point of the picture. Newbigin says so about his own age, and it is the sharpest answer to the pluralist, who has a place for every religion except one that begins with an event.

Strong against

×4The Many Faiths, One Realan argument · why?

Hick has a place for every religion except one that begins with an event. Newbigin points out that the empty tomb fits into no picture of the world unless it is the starting point of the picture. It cannot be one road among several, because it is not a road. It is a fact that everything else has to be arranged around.