Discussing Incarnational Youth Work – Part 3. Doesn’t the Bible back it up?

Welcome back to Incarnational youth ministry week. We looked at the definition in Part 1, and we unpacked the importance of the meaning of the word in Part 2. Tomorrow we’ll dig deeper doctrinally, and on Friday we’ll look some of the practical dangers with some incarnational methods.

Today we’re looking at the Bible! Woohoo!

Quick caveat. I’ve had a message from someone who was a little upset with my tone on the previous Part. I’m really sorry! I guess I came across like a bit of a know-it-all. Totally not my intention. Those of you who know me know that I hate upsetting anyone. I don’t mean to come across poor, but I do want to be clear that I think this is a really really deep problem. I really think that this needs to be challenged because it does represent a Gospel issue that cuts to the center of who Jesus is and why He came. My caveat is please trust my heart is motivated by desire to help youth ministry and honour Jesus. We’re in this together. Back to Part 3.

What we can tell from method

Incarnational theory sounds theological, not just because of the word, but because of the texts that – at least at first glance – seem to back it up.

As with any theological issue, the problem stems from how we interact with the Bible. As is endemic in youth ministry culture, I think that the problems arise from a general lack of confidence in, and competence with handling the Bible itself.

How someone uses the Bible itself should be a key indicator of the surety of their theological conclusions. What this part is intending to do is gently poke at the exegetical methods used in incarnational theory to answer the question does the Bible really support it?

Throughout the youth ministry volumes that advocate for incarnational youth ministry, three passages of Scripture are used almost exclusively: Jn. 1; Phil. 2; and 1 Cor. 9. These are all used sparingly and, honestly, in some cases just very poorly.

Before we move on to look at these verses specifically, we should stop for a moment and consider which passages are often (if not usually) used in theological discussions about the Incarnation. Sorry about list, but Ex. 25:8; Is. 7:14; Mic. 5:2; Mal. 3:1-5; Matt. 1:18-23; 3:17; 17:5; Mk. 1:24; 10:17-18; Jn. 5:18; 6:29; Col. 1:15-20; Heb. 1:1-14; 20:28; Rev. 19:11-13 all are seen by systematic theologians to be significant passages in the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Now I know that systematic theology and youth work books are different genres, but when a theorist of any stripe appeals to a well known and particular doctrine for their practice, then technically they are doing systematic theology. This is especially true if they take the same name and describe the practice as the same thing.

There are many staple Bible verses (including all those above) that incarnational youth ministry theorists don’t use at all. I don’t expect youth work books to use all relevant passages, but I think the selective way they have picked their verses is a little telling. It’s almost like they had a point ready to go, and then looked for verses that fit it – rather than the other way around.

That said, I’m not sure the verses they’ve picked actually do always support the points they make. I think their idea is too easily read into the verses, rather than derived from them. Let’s have a look.

John 1

Almost every Incarnational writer that I read (in both youth ministry and contemporary missiology) used The Message version of verse 14, which says Jesus ‘moved into the neighbourhood’ (for instance Dean Borgman, Agenda for Youth Ministry, 1998:10, and Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 2006:131).

I’m actually a fan of the Message and this is absolutely a helpful interpretation at one level, but it’s also quite misleading and limiting at another. It is a partial interpretation of the whole, focusing on just one piece of the doctrine of the Incarnation. There are several other important aspects of the Incarnation spoken about in Jn. 1, but they get missed by this translation, and as such are all but left ignored by most of the writers I looked at.

A much better example would be Dr. Sally Nash, for instance, who uses the Message and also does a good job with the verse (as you’d expect) by pointing to the LXX to discuss the etymology of the word ‘incarnation’ as sarx egeneto (becoming flesh) (What Theology for Youth Work, 2007:13). This was a good read, but doesn’t unfortunately go beyond this revelation idea. Mostly, I assume, because of the limitations of only having 9000 words to work with.

Liz Edrington (a Young Life worker) also does a better job, spending 150 words opening both the divine and human side of the incarnation from vv.1-18. This was the most I’ve seen written about the verse in a youth ministry book, and a rare breath air of theological engagement (in Gospel Driven Youth Ministry, 2016:69-75). Her good work on the verse, however, was then not then used to formulate her conclusions. She looked closely at the text, then left it behind. Her summary was God empathised with humanity, which she called ‘presence sharing’. She then said that we are called to do likewise. This is a case of the conclusion not flowing out from the exegesis – or putting the cart before the horse.

I found very little actual textual engagement in any incarnational theorist beyond mere allusions to a purely cultural mission that we could then emulate.

You could summarise almost every discussion of this passage in incarnational books with the following line: Jesus became a relatable human, immersing himself specifically in 1st century Jewish-Aramaic culture… go therefore and do likewise to various cultures today. Todd Billings, after attending an incarnational training day, put it this way,

‘If moving into the neighbourhood and immersing oneself among the people is God’s strategy for ministry, I was told, then certainly it must be ours… But there was apparently no need to mention Jesus any further’ (Billings, Incarnational Ministry in Christianity Today, 2012:60).

In contrast, Jim Packer, when looking at the same passage on the same topic, works through each section sequentially, relating it to the broader context of John and the wider doctrine of the Incarnation. He showed actual exegesis. This resulted in a clear textual understanding of the incarnation before any applications were made (Knowing God, 1973:62).

It should be very difficult to come away from Jn. 1 without a clear sense of the uniqueness of Jesus as the Word, both eternal and creator (M. Driscoll and G. Breshears, Doctrine, 2010:212-214). Incarnational youth ministry advocates unfortunately pass over both of these aspects in their rush to make it about what we should do instead.

Making what Jesus does in Jn. 1 primarily about what we should do today is just a little bit weird. We do feature in Jn. 1, but as His creation (v.2), needing His light (vv.4, 9), and made to be His children through faith (vv.11-13). Jesus is our way of knowing God (vv.1, 7, 14, 18) and our place in this story is to believe in God by accepting Jesus. It’s not that we can’t learn from the life of Jesus, of course we can, but to focus on that in Jn. 1 and miss all the pieces about who Jesus is as our faith-given way to salvation is a tragic misreading of the passage.

Philippians 2

Packer again gives a good example of what handling the Bible carefully should look like Knowing God, 64-65). He draws Phil. 2 out exegetically to demonstrate the Christology of Jesus, as divine and born to die, drawing a straight line from the complete uniqueness of Jesus to the atonement won by His death.

This was a ‘loving act of humility’ (S. Jeffery, M. Ovey, & A. Sach, Pierced for our transgressions, 2007:133), but one which is made to show Jesus’ headship over creation by demonstrating perfect obedience to the Father (135).

Incarnational youth ministry advocates (for instance Andy Borgman, When kumbaya is not enough, 1997:xv), however, don’t spend any time on the salvation aspects of this passage.

That’s a significant oversight considering it’s the central part of the passage. Instead Borgman (and many others) used it solely as a blueprint for our own humility and work today. Using Phil. 2 without mentioning salvation won through Jesus, however, is missing the very core of its message.

Quoting this verse Pete Ward says, ‘in doing these things we will actually be doing exactly the same thing Jesus did when he became a human being’ (Liquid Church, 1992:31). No, we won’t. Not really anyway, there are aspects that we will be doing a little bit like Him would be fair, but the central place of salvation (and the central point of this passage) belongs to Jesus alone.

Billings reminds us that our place in Phil. 2:1-11 ‘means displaying a life of service, obedience, and harmony in Christ—not imitating the act of incarnation’ (2012:61).

1 Corinthians 9

This is another verse that is thrown into the mix without any real unpacking or discussion on the central ideas it contains (again, Borgman, 1997:30-31). Sometimes, things were even added to the verse to make it say it’s about us today. Steve Gerali, for instance, uses the verse by adding a likewise clause, drawing a straight line from what Paul did to what we should do, without any explanation of why. He says

‘In 1 Corinthians 9:19-22, Paul addressed what it means to become like. Paul became a student of the community and culture of those that he was trying to reach. “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (v.22). Our goal is to become all things to all adolescents so that we might reach them.’ (Gerali in Starting right: thinking theologically about youth ministry, 2001:286).

In the very next chapter Paul unpacks exactly what this looks like, and it is largely about being full of grace and patience, and communicating clearly. It is not about indiscriminately immersing himself in the culture or becoming just like a teenagers to reach teenagers.

At one level that’s really unhelpful and could even be dangerous – what, for instance, would you do if you would needed to sin to enter into a particualr culture? What if you needed to flaunt safeguarding policy? At another level, however, it’s just creepy – teenagers aren’t looking for adults who dress like kids and can quote box sets, they’re looking for deep authenticity and genuine realism.

This verse is often used as scriptural basis for the accommodation principle – meaning to ‘oblige or adjust oneself to another’ (K. Creasy-Dean in Starting right: thinking theologically about youth ministry 2001:74). Richter says

‘Youth ministry must be guided by this accommodation principle. We must not expect teenagers to bear the primary burden of accommodating themselves to our agenda, schedule, and program design.’ (Richter in Starting right: thinking theologically about youth ministry, 2001:75).

The problem here is twofold. First, as A. Thiselton explains, accommodation is poor translation of the verse (1 Corinthians, 2000:706), and moves too far from the context of engaging people from a specific religious and socio-political spectrum (703-707). Second, it seems that accommodating oneself to God’s agenda is precisely what humans are called to do when accepting salvation.

There’s goodness in here, but I’m not convinced it flows out form the verse, and making it do so adds obligatory weight to our practice making muddy our boundaries. More on this in Part 5.

What does the Bible say?

To decide if something is theologically sound, we start by asking if it’s biblically grounded. To find out if something is biblically grounded we need to do more than bounce off heavily interpreted proof-texts. We need to grapple with their original meanings.

Through this exploration of the key verses used by incarnational youth ministers, we see that the Bible-reading method is to proof-text and then apply, with very little discussion or explanation of the texts in their contexts first. Exegesis is not just found wanting, it’s almost entirely absent.

I’m not saying you need to be a Bible scholar to write practically or even theologically, but all of us should start by giving more respect to the passages themselves if we’re going to use them. If, however, we are going to appropriate significant theological terms (like Incarnation), then we set ourselves up to be biblically robust.

In no case can we detect serious theological misinterpretations within the usage of these passages,  there are, however, some very serious omissions, especially in regard to who Jesus is and how He saves.

Tomorrow we will draw this out in more detail.