In my ministry with Mission ONE, I am working on a multi-year project called the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project.
Here’s the big idea: There is a social, horizontal dimension to the gospel of Christ because there is a social, horizontal dimension to the atonement of Christ (Eph 2:13–17).
Hindustan Bible Institute & College(HBI) has invited me and researcher Kristin Caynor to introduce the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project through HBI’s monthly webinar series. You are invited to join us!
Date: Friday, October 8, 2021
Time: 8:30 a.m. USA Eastern Time / 6:00 p.m. Indian Standard Time (Time Zone Converter)
Platform: Zoom video conference
Title:“Ephesians 2 Gospel Project: Does the Atonement Speak to Collective Identity Conflict?”
Format: a) 20-minute presentation by Werner Mischke, b) 20-minute presentation by researcher Kristin Caynor, c) 10-minute response by HBI scholar, d) Questions and discussion
My presentation will introduce the project. I’ll discuss the social/horizontal aspect of the reconciling work of the cross in Eph. 2:11–22. Kristin Caynor’s presentation focuses on how Early Church fathers interpreted Eph. 2:11–22.
We have two goals for the HBI webinar: 1) Describe in brief the research we have done so far in the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project, and 2) invite the HBI scholar community into the learning journey with us. We want the resources that are developed to be by and for the global church.
Doing Theology, Thinking Mission is available on most podcast platforms. Here’s a link to one: Apple podcasts.
I am enthused about our new podcast “Doing Theology, Thinking Mission.” Here’s why…
1) It meets a need. You will hear compelling (and surprising!) explorations of how Christian theology and the church’s mission relate to each other; that’s pretty special in the world of podcasts. We cover contextualization, honor and shame, biblical interpretation, and the church’s mission in the world.
2) It’s engaging. Dr. Jackson Wu, Carrie Vaughn, and I genuinely enjoy conversing together about the issues we cover and the stories we tell. I’m pretty sure our joy and passion leak through.
3) It’s relevant. It is no small challenge to make the Bible’s story and truths, centered in the life of Jesus Christ, relevant to our broken world. It is an endless quest with lots of discoveries along the way. I hope that this podcast will be a help for many on that same quest.
Check out Episode 1: “How the Bible Frames the Gospel”
In episode 1, we explore the way the Bible consistently frames the gospel. While gospel formulas are comfortable, our pursuit of simple, efficient, and portable gospel explanations have led to an anemic church. Is the gospel the message about how to get saved? Maybe not completely. What if the gospel is not so much the message about how we get saved but the message we must believe in order to be saved?
We also explore the following:
“We compromise the gospel when we settle for the truth.” What does this mean?
Creation, Covenant, and Kingdom—the three gospel frameworks found in the Bible.
Is the truth that “Jesus is King” central to the gospel?
Doing Theology, Thinking Mission is available on most podcast platforms. Here’s a link to one: Apple podcasts.
“Honor, Shame, and the Gospel”, Christopher Flanders and Werner Mischke, Editors
In late 2020, William Carey Publishing released Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry. The book is a compendium of articles based on presentations given at the 2017 Honor-Shame Conference held at Wheaton College. My colleague Chris Flanders and I worked for more than two years with fifteen contributors in editing this volume. We are so grateful to Denise Wynn and her team at William Carey Publishing for their enthusiastic support for this project.
Book overview
Christians engaged in communicating the gospel navigate a challenging tension: faithfulness to God’s ancient, revealed Word—and relevance to the local, current social context. What if there was a lens or paradigm offering both? Understanding the Bible—particularly the gospel—through the ancient cultural “language” of honor-shame offers believers this double blessing. An honorific gospel offers new points of resonance with communities where shame and honor are critical values, including most unreached peoples.
In Honor, Shame, and the Gospel, over a dozen practitioners and scholars from diverse contexts and fields add to the ongoing conversation around the theological and missiological implications of an honorific gospel. Eight illuminating case studies explore ways to make disciples in a diversity of social contexts—for example, East Asian rural, Middle Eastern refugee, African tribal, and Western secular urban.
Honor, Shame, and the Gospel provides valuable resources to impact the ministry efforts of the church, locally and globally. Linked with its ancient honor-shame cultural roots, the gospel, paradoxically, is ever new—offering fresh wisdom to Christian leaders and optimism to the church for our quest to expand Christ’s kingdom and serve the worldwide mission of God.
Article #1 explores the honor and glory of Christ as foundational to the gospel and the mission of God
Steven Hawthorne, PhD: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God.” When Steve Hawthorne ended his presentation at the 2017 conference, there was an unforgettable silence. I remember an extended moment of Christ-focused worship and wonder. You can watch Dr. Hawthorne’s presentation here.
Click here to watch the presentation by Dr. Hawthorne.
Hawthorne’s article is the first in Section One of the book. (The article follows a foreword by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and an introduction/overview of the book.) Hawthorne opens with these two paragraphs:
“To understand honor-shame dynamics amid the intercultural complexities of mission, one must consider the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. And here’s why: Behind, beneath, and above all human shames and honors is the singular glory of Jesus. In this chapter, we will affirm the glory that Jesus is worthy to receive. But we will also consider the ‘praise and glory and honor’ (1 Pet 1:7), that the living God bestows upon people in Christ.
“Following some introductory remarks, we will explore what I call ‘true glory,’ the glory that God gives to people in and with Christ. Then we will identify a few highlights of the great biblical narrative of God’s glory. Finally, we’ll look at three occasions when God spoke from heaven in the Gospels, each of them increasing our understanding of how we are called to share in the suffering and joy of Christ’s glory.”1
Why is Hawthorne’s article first?Four reasons:
The Christology factor. The conversation about “Honor, Shame, and the Gospel” is grounded in the Person of Jesus Christ. Yes, the honor-shame conversation has tendrils in social science and anthropology. But for Christians, the honor-shame conversation rests upon a biblically-faithful Christology. An honorific gospel speaks to a world drenched in sin and shame (Hawthorne refers to “broken honor systems”). An honorific gospel is rooted historically and eschatologically in the glory of Christ. This is presented convincingly in Dr. Hawthorne’s article.
The statesman factor. Dr. Hawthorne is a “missionary statesman.” We wanted him to bring his passion for the glory of God and his credibility in the Christian missions community to the conference and this compendium. He is the author of “The Story of His Glory”, and editor of Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. For decades, Hawthorne has been promulgating a wise, infectious passion for the glory of Christ as central to the grand narrative of Scripture and the mission of God.
The glory-sharing factor. The multifaceted truth about the glory of Christ is well-known in the Christian community; less well known is the corresponding truth that God shares his honor and glory with those who follow Christ (e.g., John 5:44; 17:22; 1 Pet 2:7; Heb 2:10; 2 Thess 2:13–14). Dr. Hawthorne convincingly communicates this ‘both-and’ truth in his article.
The suffering factor. Hawthorne shows how our faithfulness to the Lord in the face of hardship is rooted in the glory of Jesus Christ. The longing for honor and glory, when rooted in Christ, fuels our obedience to God. Referring to Romans 8:17, the article concludes: “If we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.”
Summary: Could it be, that Dr. Hawthorne’s presentation and article will become known as one of the foundational building blocks in the global conversation about honor, shame, and the gospel? I hope so. Our Christology should be central to the conversation. The honor and glory of Jesus are ever at the heart of the gospel and the mission of God.
Steven C. Hawthorne: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God” in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry (Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing, 2020), 3.
In post #1 in this series, I introduced the topic of allegiance to Christ as King.Post #2 was on allegiance and grace, referencing primarily Paul and the Gift by Prof. John M. G. Barclay. Post #3 focused on allegiance and faith, in which we referenced Matthew W. Bates’s Gospel Allegiance. We now begin post #4.
The question we are exploring in this post: What does allegiance have to do with BAPTISM? Theologian: R. Alan Streett (info on Amazon) Book: Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 190 pages (more)
First—let’s look at two New Testament verses highlighting Jesus Christ as King of kings:
1 Timothy 6:15– which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
Revelation 17:14– They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”
Now let’s consider the main idea of Dr. Streett’s book on the sacrament of baptism in the early church, Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance. Here it is:
When the early apostles travelled across the Empire and preached that the kingdom of God was at hand, calling on their listeners to repent, be baptized, and pledge their allegiance to Jesus as Lord, they challenged imperial Rome’s assertion that it alone had a divine right to demand peoples’ loyalty. When viewed in this context, we can understand why baptism might be considered a subversive act.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (p. 22). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
According to Dr. Streett, baptism in the early church was an adult decision involving no small degree of risk, impacting much more than the spiritual, internal life of the believer. Baptism was a public statement of allegiance to “the Christ” with lifelong external, significance. It impacted the social, political, and economic areas of life for believers and for the local church. It could mean rejection, loss, shame, persecution, and sometimes martyrdom.
Streett makes his case from numerous Scriptures and from many writings from the time of the Roman Empire. It appears likely that in the early church (before Christianity was legalized by Constantine around 313 A.D.), the sacrament of Christian baptism meant switching allegiance from Caesar to Christ.
Consider the religious cult status of “Caesar Augustus.” He is famously mentioned in Luke 2:1. Dr. Streett writes about the renowned Augustus:
By virtue of being Julius Caesar’s adopted son, Augustus held the most honored position in the Empire. Until Augustus’s reign, only deceased rulers were granted divine status. Not willing to wait for such an acclamation, Augustus claimed for himself the title Divi filius (“Son of God”). . . .
Augustus and all future emperors who succeeded him were given the title “Father of the Fatherland” (Pater Patriae), which implied that the Empire was a big family over which the emperor stood as a father figure who protected, disciplined, and blessed his family members.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (pp. 23–24). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition. Streett cites Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution, p. 202, and Suetonius, who wrote the biography Augustus as well as Lives of the Caesars.
Augustus was the first Caesar, but he was not the last to be called son of god, or worshipped as divine. So when Paul opens his letter to the church at Rome, saying Jesus “was descended from [King] David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power” (Rom 1:3–4), this was likely seen by many Romans as a tension point relative to the authority of Nero, Rome’s Caesar at the time. Jesus is Lord, Caesar is not.
Or consider Jesus calling God his Father (John 5:17–18). And that Jesus teaches his disciples to relate to God as “Father” (Matt 6:9; 23:9). In the social context of the Roman Empire, this also had political implications. Only Eternal God is rightly addressed as the Father who “protected, disciplined, and blessed” his people. According to Streett, Jesus’ message was probably subversive in the Empire because it challenged the so-called divine paternal authority of Tiberius Caesar.
The imperial cult and emperor worship
Dr. Streett cites numerous sources to describe that, “Apart from ‘obstinate Jews and Christians,’ the majority living in the Mediterranean region of the Empire “worshipped at the feet of the emperor” (p. 31). He writes of “the emperor cult” as the “super-glue” cementing together the entire Empire (p. 32). This aligns with our reference (in post #2 in this series): “The emperor was the patron, the benefactor, of his every subject. The subjects, in turn, paid him back for his benefactions with their loyalty; this was the basis of his power. Thus, the empire was a single enormous spider’s web of reciprocal favours.”1
At the time of Jesus, the imperial cult permeated every facet of Roman life and culture. Public events became opportunities to pay homage to the religion of the state. Special days were set aside to honor imperial Rome and its leaders. The emperor’s birthday, which marked the beginning of the Roman New Year, was such an occasion. Others included anniversaries of great victories at sea and on land, celebrations to remember deceased rulers and heroes, attendance at sporting events, and national feast days. Banquets were eaten in Caesar’s name where people expressed piety (eusebia) and devotion, and renewed their commitment to the emperor and Rome.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (p. 32). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Streett’s last chapter gives special attention to the book of Revelation. It is in this book that the Bible’s message is most subversive relative to the Empire. Streett calls Revelation “the most overtly anti-imperial book” in the New Testament (p. 154). A crystal clear expression of this anti-imperial message is found in Rev 1:5 where Jesus is described as “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” The mentions of “Babylon” in Revelation (Rev 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2; 18:10; 18:21) are veiled references to the Roman Empire. The church of the Lord Jesus and Christ himself, the Lamb of God, are in conflict with the empire (Babylon).
New Testament scholar Dean Fleming affirms this view: “Whatever Revelation might tell us about future events related to the return of Christ, it was not written in the first place to twenty-first-century people. First and foremost the Apocalypse was intended to be a ‘word on target’ for seven churches in Asia Minor—churches that were struggling with what it meant to live Christianly in a world dominated by an empire that claimed ultimate allegiance for itself.2
Conclusion: The early church was sometimes in a stance of resistance against the evils of the Empire, and baptism was a sacrament marking this stance by publicly signaling allegiance to Jesus “the Christ.”
It was into a socio-political environment of emperor worship (Caesar Augustus worshipped as son of god) that Jesus was born (Luke 2:1).
It was during the rule of Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3:1), which is also when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, that John the Baptist began his preparatory ministry of calling for repentance, and Jesus conducted his three-year ministry.
It was in a Roman court with Pontius Pilate presiding (John 19:12–15), that Jesus was convicted of sedition (albeit cynically). “We have no king but Caesar,” said the chief priests (John 19:15)—and this settled it for Pilate. Jesus: sentenced to death by crucifixion, mocked with a sign that read, “King of the Jews.”
And it was inside this socio-political environment that Luke wrote the book of Acts. He records the birth and early growth of the church of the Lord Jesus, calling people everywhere to repent and give pistis (pledge allegiance) to “the Christ” for the forgiveness of sins.
Next post: Why specifically was baptism considered an expression of allegiance in the Roman Empire? I will finish my focus on the sacrament of baptism and its meaning in the social context of the Empire—in my next post.
NOTES
J. E. Lendon. Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (p. 12). Kindle Edition.
Dean Flemming. Contextualization in the New Testament: Patterns for Theology and Mission (p. 266). Kindle Edition.
Would you enjoy a biblically-rich learning journey to better understand honor, shame, and the gospel? Are you interested in how the gospel of Jesus Christ speaks to issues of honor and shame in you own life, family, or ministry?
Good news—Mission ONE now offers for free: Unit A (video lessons 1–6) of “Journey of Discovery in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel,” with myself (Werner Mischke) as instructor.
Also available—a free 60-page PDF study guide that goes with the videos. I carefully and lovingly crafted this guide in order to help followers of Christ internalize the relevant biblical ideas and principles in a step-by-step journey.
Here’s how to get started
Bookmark the Mission ONE YouTube page, where you can watch videos 1–6 (Unit A).
Download the free 60-page study guide; two versions are available:
Watch the videos in order: ideally, one video per week, starting with Class A1. Follow up each video session by doing the relevant set of five reflection lessons in the free study guide.
If you want, you can also read along in my book, The Global Gospel. You can get The Global Gospel, ePub edition, for just $6 here—by using a 50% off coupon: 50TGGe (expires April 30, 2020). The Global Gospel is also available at Amazon in various formats.
Curriculum design for a rich missional learning journey
Your learning tasks in the study guide are based on adult learning theory:
Inductive—begin with what you already know.
Input—receive new information.
Implementation—try it out right away.
Integration—weave it into your life and ministry.
The study guide provides guided reflection with five lessons per video session—ideally, five reflection lessons per week.
Small groups can use this video-plus-study-guide format in a six week study.
It’s a step-by-step journey; there is not too much in a single session; it is simple to do, but not simplistic.
Unit A has six lessons covering the material below:
Class A1: Honor-shame in the mission of God: Intro stories / Overview: guilt, shame, fear / Pathologies of shame / Blind spot: H-S in Western theology / ‘Honor-shame wheel’
Class A2: Honor-status reversal as Bible and Gospel Motif: Overview of status reversal motif—Old Testament and New / Honor-status reversal in Ephesians 2 / The Father’s Love Booklet
Class A3: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Love of honor: Glory of God/glory of humanity / Longing for honor satisfied in Christ / Salvation as gaining a new source of honor in Christ
Class A4: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Two sources of honor: Ascribed & Achieved: In Jesus’ life, in Christian life / Justification as God’s way to give believers ascribed honor
Class A5: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Image of Limited Good: In Christ: unlimited good / Shame resilience & honor surplus in Christ / Gospel of more than enough glory and honor
Class A6: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Challenge & Riposte: Honor competition as prominent social dynamic in NT / Phil 2:5–11 gospel of Christ as conquering sin via death and resurrection
Endorsements
WEBINAR SERIES PARTICIPANTS
I am thankful for this shame and honor webinar class. I’ve worked in French Africa for the last 25 years. Werner’s book and his teaching on honor and shame are pertinent daily in my ministry.
Mary Stone, TEAM
Werner aims for heart-integration in this class that leaves both lay and scholar with an honor-shame framework to integrate faith with holistic kingdom living. I’ve been training people in this arena for over a dozen years, yet God is using Werner’s passionate and integrative approach in this class to so bless my heart.
Steve Hong, KingdomRice
Through his book The Global Gospel and especially the webinar series, Werner has clearly, and with great depth, helped me to understand the importance of honor-shame. I am motivated me to preach it to the church to which God has called me. Also, the Study Guide exercises really help to personalize these truths.
Dennis Schwarm, Pastor, First Baptist Church Of Oakridge
Outstanding introduction and review of the world of honor, shame and the gospel. Werner’s humble delivery and personality never impede the scholarly potent message.
Marilyn Nasman
Thank you for these wonderfully helpful webinars. Each one is like a bit of yeast which really starts working after the session ends, and continues to bring transformation in our thinking and seeing. Having lived in an honor-shame culture for close to two decades, I am well aware of the many individual differences which exist between my host and home culture. However, the honor-shame webinar training has helped me begin to understand how all these individual differences hang together in a coherent worldview, and more than that, to find that same worldview throughout the Bible!
David Bakewell, Frontiers
SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS
I have found Werner’s material more helpful than any of the missionary seminars I had been to. This honor-shame material helps us craft messages that are relevant to the heart and soul of people for whom concepts of purity, defilement, and honor-shame are at the core of their being.
Sam Winfield, Avant Ministries
[After one-day honor-shame conference] … “Werner’s passion and expertise of the subject matter moved our hearts. His training and personal stories resonated with our audience, many of whom work directly with Muslims and Middle Easterners. We learned how Jesus covers our shame and restores our honor.”
Shirin Taber, Director, Middle East Women’s Leadership Network
Unit B (lessons 7–12) will be available soon. If you have any questions, write to me at werner@mission1.org.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 3.5 of my book, The Global Gospel, pages 242–244. This constitutes a summary I wrote (admittedly, an exceedingly brief summary) of Jackson Wu’s Saving God’s Face.[1] This excerpt is from Section 3 of The Global Gospel, in which I examine how various honor-shame dynamics overlap and intersect with verses about the atonement of Christ and salvation.
Atonement and the “concept of face”
One may rightly ask: Where does the atonement—the finished work of Christ on the cross, followed by his resurrection—intersect with the concept of face? It is found in the curious phrase, “saving God’s face.” I am indebted to Jackson Wu for the contours of this argument (especially points 4 and 5), which is put forward below.
God’s glory is ultimate.All creation is for the display of his glory (Ps 19:1). The honor and glory of God is both the genesis and final reality of the universe. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).
God’s sorrow in humanity’s sin. The world God made was good, but Adam and Eve were tempted by the dark devious destroyer and sinned (Gen 1–3). Thus, the world was cursed under Adam’s sin, and God was sorrowful (Gen 6:7). Sin is not only the violation of God’s laws. It is ultimately the dishonoring of God’s Person (Rom 1:21–26; 2:23). Sin is falling short of an ethical standard, but much more than that, sin is falling short of the glory and honor of God (Rom 3:23).
God’s promise through God’s family to bless all peoples. God promised Abraham, “I will bless you and make your name great” (Gen 12:2) and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). This constitutes God’s plan—to reverse the curse of sin and restore his blessing on all humanity through Abraham’s offspring. “Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’” (Gal 3:6) apart from the righteous works of the law.
God’s Son makes good on God’s promise for all peoples.Jesus Christ is the offspring of Abraham (Gal 3:16). He died on the cross to redeem us from our sins (Gal 3:13). Moreover, Jesus Christ became “a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:13–14). This opened the “door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27) so that all peoples—all tribes and tongues and nations—could receive the honor of joining God’s family-on-mission and experience eternal life.
God’s “face” saved for God’s glory in all creation.In John 12, Jesus was praying to the Father. His soul was filled with fathomless sorrow about enduring the coming events—arrest, mocking, flogging and torture, humiliating crucifixion to bear the sins of the world, separation and rejection from the Father: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (John 12:27–28).
When Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your name,” he is essentially saying, Father, vindicate your honor! Save your “face”!
Why would the death and resurrection of Christ vindicate God’s honor? Because it is the only way that God’s promise to Abraham to bless all the families of the earth could have come true. God’s credibility hinged on a means for all peoples to be blessed and redeemed. Yes, God gave the law to Moses and his people; yes, the law revealed God’s righteousness and holiness; but the law was lifeless in that it was totally unable to save (Rom 8:2–3).
There was only one way that God’s plan to bless all families—to reverse the curse among all peoples—could be guaranteed: through a heart-captivating faith that individuals and peoples everywhere would place in the name, honor, and finished work of Jesus Christ, a faith that transcends culture.
With regard to ethnicity this faith needed to be neutral, accessible to and affirming of all peoples. But with regard to ethics, this faith needed to be superior; that is, it needed to have the ability to truly transform people from the inside out, conforming them to the righteousness of the Son of God. Therefore, this faith would be a fulfillment of the covenant promise God gave to his people through Abraham (Gen 12:1–3), but the faith would be untethered from the works of the law specific to Jewish ethnicity and culture, such as circumcision. Apostle Paul made this clear:
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (Rom 4:16). (Emphasis mine.)
Jackson Wu explains:
Christ’s atonement centrally concerns the honor of God and the shame of man. Salvation preserves God’s honor and takes away human shame. God keeps his promises made in the OT, foremost to Abraham. Jesus’ death therefore vindicates God’s name. Therefore, God’s people will not be put to shame. Christ perfectly honored the Father, who then reckons worthy of honor all who, by faith, are united to Christ. … Jesus is a substitute in that he pays the honor-debt and the life-debt owed by sinful creatures.[2]
Consider this: Thousands of peoples in our world have “saving face” as a vital social dynamic in their culture. How valuable would it be to share with them a gospel framework using the honor-shame language and concept of “face”?
1. Jackson Wu: Saving God’s Face: A Chinese Contextualization of Salvation through Honor and Shame. EMS Dissertation Series (Pasadena, CA: William Carey International University Press, 2012). 2. Ibid., p. 219.
Unit B starts Thursday May 24 (see Unit A content below)
The six classes of Unit B (classes 7–12) in “Journey of Discovery in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel” begins next week—on May 24th.
Miss a webinar class? No problem. View the webinar videos at your convenience.
$60 fee includes a free 60-page study guide, five lessons per week, that you can use for reflection and discussion.
Students can join Unit B whether or not they have completed Unit A.
Please join us! Unit B classes will cover:
Class 7 / Contextualizing the gospel: H/S-1 to H/S-5: Five levels of awareness of honor-shame in cross-cultural ministry /Assuming the gospel? / Gospel seed—kernel and husk / Conversation in Scripture between honor-shame dynamics and the atonement of Christ
Class 8 / Concept of face: “Face” for all of humanity—East and West, North and South / Story of God’s glory / Maximum loss of face and shame in the crucifixion / Gospel of “face restored” as salvation message
Class 9 / Body language: “Right hand” and “feet”, honor and shame / Psalm 110 as bridge between Old & New Testament / Gospel of the kingdom—Bible story by which God saves the world
Class 10 / Patronage: Patronage in New Testament / Blessing & patronage / Abraham & Melchizedek / “Abrahamic gospel” / Patronage as gospel dynamic—for both the vulnerable and ‘post-moderns’?
Class 11 / Name/kinship/blood: Family-offspring as window to the gospel / “Blood replicates the honor of the family” / “drink my blood” as “taking in” the honor of Christ / Blood sacrifice, honor-shame, and salvation
Class 12 / Purity: Uncleanness as exclusion-shame and cleanness-holiness as inclusion-honor / Atonement, salvation, discipleship in the Bible’s purity dynamics / Gospel of purity for unreached peoples, secular peoples
CLICK HERE to learn more about “Journey of Discovery in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel”
Please join us! Unit A starts Tuesday May 22
Miss a webinar class? No problem. View the webinar videos at your convenience.
$60 fee includes a free 60-page study guide, five lessons per week, that you can use for reflection and discussion.
Class 1 / Honor-shame in the mission of God: Intro stories / Overview: guilt, shame, fear / Pathologies of shame / Blind spot: H-S in Western theology / ‘Honor-shame wheel’
Class 2 / Honor-status reversal as Bible motif: Overview of status reversal motif—Old Testament and New / Honor-status reversal in Ephesians 2 / The Father’s Love Booklet
Class 3 / Love of honor: Glory of God/glory of humanity / Longing for honor satisfied in Christ / Salvation as gaining a new source of honor in Christ
Class 4 / Two sources of honor—ascribed and achieved: Ascribed & achieved honor—in Jesus’ life, in the Christian life / Justification as God’s way to give believers ascribed honor
Class 5 / Image of limited good: In Christ is unlimited good / Shame resilience and honor surplus in Christ / Gospel of more than enough glory and honor
Class 6 / Challenge & riposte: Honor competition as prominent social dynamic in New Testament / Honor-shame and power-fear in challenge & riposte / Gospel of Christ as salvation-rescue from the Powers via crucifixion and resurrection
CLICK HERE to learn more about “Journey of Discovery in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel”
Endorsements for the webinar series
Thank you for your wonderfully helpful webinars. Each one is like a bit of yeast which really starts working after the session ends, and continues to bring transformation in our thinking and seeing. Having lived in an honor-shame culture for close to two decades, I am well aware of the many individual differences which exist between my host and home culture. However, the honor-shame webinar training has helped me begin to understand how all these individual differences hang together in a coherent worldview, and more than that, to find that same worldview throughout the Bible! —David Bakewell, Frontiers
I am thankful for the shame and honor class that Werner has been teaching. I have worked in French Africa for the last 25 years. All that his book and his teaching give on honor and shame are pertinent daily in my ministry in that area.–Mary Stone, TEAM
Werner aims for heart-integration in this class that leaves both lay and scholar with an honor-shame framework to integrate faith with holistic KIngdom living. I’ve been training people in this arena for over a dozen years, yet God is using Werner’s passionate and integrative approach in this class to so bless my heart.–Steve Hong
Honor-Shame is a KEY dynamic from the beginning to the end of Scripture. Yet for many of us it remains unknown. Through his book, The Global Gospel, and ESPECIALLY the webinar series, Werner clearly and with great depth has helped me to not only understand it’s importance but motivated me to preach it to the church to which God has called me. And the Study Guide exercises really help to personalize these truths in whatever cultural context God has you. I highly recommend it.–Dennis Schwarm, Pastor, First Baptist Church Of Oakridge
Now you can simply share the gospel with Arabic-speaking people—using The Father’s Love Booklet, Arabic edition.
Our Mission ONE partner has distributed thousands of these booklets in the Middle East. Many people like them. They love the illustrations … the unusual story … the open-ended questions … the honor-oriented gospel presentation … all about the amazing story Jesus told of the Prodigal Son.
Introductory discount: Get 20% off through May 31. Use this discount code at checkout:Arabic20(Note: this coupon code is good only for the Arabic version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet.)
Yesterday I received an interesting email from a missiologist/author/trainer. His question was about the Honor-Shame Conference, June 19–21, 2017 at Wheaton. He asked:
“… what percentage of the June conference will deal with the application of honor-shame thinking to evangelism and discipleship in America, and which presenters will be hitting it?”
As Coordinator of the Honor-Shame Conference, here (below) is how I responded to his question; the text has been edited for clarity in this blog post.
Overall, I think about 50% of the conference—and maybe more—is applicable to “evangelism and discipleship in America”. Of course this also depends on your context in America. There are so many different cultural contexts, so to generalize about “evangelism and discipleship in America” is fraught with the risk of over-generalizing and subjectivity. Having said that …
First of all, there is the hermeneutical grounding of honor-shame. The honor-shame paradigm is first of all about hermeneutics (Scripture interpretation)—and second of all about anthropology (better understanding of ourselves and other peoples).
We believe that through honor-shame, we are getting closer to the way the original authors and hearers of Scripture understood the Word of God. So this is first of all about good interpretation of Scripture; you might even say we are grounded in the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura. It is secondly about better contextualization.
The double-benefit of honor-shame
This points to a double benefit—better hermeneutics and better understanding of non-Western peoples. The double-benefit is inherent in the principle, “The gospel is already contextualized for honor-shame cultures”, quoting Jackson Wu. But even in saying this, I grimace a little, because it is not merely non-Western peoples who will better grasp the gospel through honor-shame; I so firmly believe that Western peoples also really benefit from a gospel that is infused by the Bible’s own honor-shame dynamics. We could discuss sometime the range of books that point to this reality.
So concerning the hermeneutical priority, let’s consider first the plenary sessions. In my opinion, about 80% of the content in the plenary sessions is about hermeneutics enhanced by honor-shame—how this is part of theology, how it relates to the gospel and to church life in America. (Click here to see the six plenary sessions in the Honor-Shame Conference.) If you look at these plenary sessions in totality—in my opinion—you are seeing an overall emphasis on the role of honor-shame in theology, Scripture interpretation, and the gospel. Also, in the list of workshops, one of the workshops seems to focus exclusively on hermeneutics—Dr. E. Randolph Richards: “Honor-Shame in the Gospel of John”.
Now let’s get beyond hermeneutics to whether the presentations address an “American” or Western audience:
Here are the workshops which I think which will relate specifically to an “American” or Western audience:
DJ Chuang: “Towards Erasing the Shame of Mental Illness”
Steve Hong: “Unlocking Evangelism in our Cities with an Honor-Shame Framework”
Jeff Jackson: “Honor-Shame as a Crucial Component of a Local Church’s Ministry to Current or Former US military Members and Their Families”
Mako A. Nagasawa: “How to Bring About Personal Healing and Social Justice Using Medical Substitutionary Atonement”
Robert Walter: “Grace in the Face of God: ‘Seeking God’s Face’ in Prayer as Cleansing for Toxic Shame”
The next list of workshops, in my opinion, are mostly rooted in cross-cultural ministry in overseas, non-Western communities. But I believe the relevance of these workshops is significant for many Americans and Westerners. There is cross-over impact here:
Sam Heldenbrand: “Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing the Messenger”
Dr. Katie J. Rawson: “A Gospel that Reconciles: Teaching About Honor-Shame to Advance Racial and Ethnic Reconciliation”
Randall Spacht, Lacides Hernandez, Juan Guillermo Cardona: “The 3D Gospel in Latin America”
Joyce Jow: “From Pollution to Purity: The Restoration of the Hemorrhaging Woman”
Dr. Steve Tracy: “Abuse and Shame: How the Cross Transforms Shame”
Because of the fact that there are so many non-Western peoples in the USA, there is a need for preaching, evangelism, and discipleship that is conducted without a Western theological bias (see this post about theological bias and contextualization). This makes all of the workshops relevant, because we have so many Asians, so many Latin Americans, so many peoples from Africa and the Middle East living among us.
I also suggest you read the 14-page Workshop Descriptions document to get a fuller understanding of the 28 workshops offered at the Honor-Shame Conference.
Conclusion
How do I summarize the points in my email to my friend the missiologist?
America is increasingly a land of diverse peoples and cultures—and this represents a major Great Commission opportunity for the church. Understanding the double benefit of honor-shame—1) better Scripture interpretation, and 2) better contextualization of the gospel for people in honor-shame cultures—may represent a strategic advance for the Church. This is valuable for all Americans—whether their background is Christian, nonreligious, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or other.
This is the booklet based on the Prodigal Son story (Luke 15:11–32) which allows you to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Bible’s own “language of honor and shame”.
Click here to visit The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet website page, to learn more about this resource. Note: you won’t see anything here about the Japanese version. But you will see all the pages, the drawings, the questions designed for interaction—and how we make a bridge to the atonement of Christ.
20 pages, 4.125 x 3.5 inches, fits into a shirt pocket
Designed for interaction and easy conversation
Lovingly designed for people whose pivotal cultural value is honor and shame—to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ
My friends at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville have been involved in blessing many Japanese in Middle Tennessee. They took the English version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet … had the translation work done … had the new page-layout work completed in Adobe InDesign … and got it printed. From their print run, an extra 200 copies were left over—and these were recently given to Mission ONE. Many thanks to Mike McClanahan and the missions department at FBC Hendersonville!
So for the cost of shipping, you can get these 200 gospel booklets for no additional cost. Interested? Write to me at werner@mission1.org.
Available now—200 copies of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet in Japanese.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 3.5 of my book, 
Unit B starts Thursday May 24 (see Unit A content below)
Now you can simply share the gospel with Arabic-speaking people—using The Father’s Love Booklet, Arabic edition.
Good news—200 copies of the Japanese version of 
