A minister from the Church of Scotland and promising student of theology answered God’s call to be a missionary to India back in the early part of the 20th Century. His name was Newbigin, and he was so loved by the Christian believers in South India, when the new Church of South India was formed they elected him as their first bishop. Returning back to his homeland of Britain in the last part of the century, Newbigin was struck by the unbelief that had enveloped a once “Christian nation.” Having been used to the theological terrain of pluralism of a Hindu nation, Newbigin began a ministry of theological reflection on the need to bring the gospel back to the Western world. This sentiment has created a new and almost vogue way to look at missions. I have been very appreciative of the kinds of issues Newbigin addresses and especially his treatment of the liberalism of the church that promotes relativism which undercuts the very power of the Gospel that is fundamentally about truth and is not culturally derived. Newbigin clearly articulated the call that the Gospel is public truth. I caution any reader to beware of the way that Newbigin is being quoted and used today. Newbigin is hard to put in a box, because he was not a systematic theologian. He was first and foremost a missionary and a pastor. He placed his prophetic ministry in the context of the mainline church and the broader church of the ecumenical movement. While critical of the movement, he was also a part of it and he should be read in light of his context. His books "Foolishness to the Greeks", "Public Truth", and "The Gospel in a Pluralistic World" are among the best of theological apologetics aimed at our age.
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