In 1999, at the end of The Story of Christian Theology (a single-volume, readable church history that I often recommend to people), theologian Roger E. Olson called for “a new reformer of the universal church” and imagined such a figure arising from Asia or Africa and going on to influence the Western world.
Reading this closing reflection, the first person that comes to mind is Watchman Nee. Nee embodies many of the qualities Olson describes: a reformer deeply concerned with clarifying the gospel, articulating Christian truth, calling for the recovery of central Christian practices, guiding believers into the experience of God, and outlining a compelling vision of God’s eternal purpose for the church. And while Olson was not writing about Nee specifically, his description fits him remarkably well. It is difficult to read the following passage without noticing significant points of contact.
Olson writes:
Sometimes, of course, doctrines and systems of ideas did become ends in themselves, and salvation was wrongly equated with mere intellectual assent to them. Whenever that misunderstanding of the gospel became prevalent, new characters stepped onto the page of the story of theology to reform the church and return it to a balance between orthodoxy and experience of God, with the latter having priority and the former serving a protective function….
Christianity is neither primarily a philosophy to be understood intellectually nor an indescribable mystical experience without cognitive content. A nonconceptual experience of God is meaningless; theologically correct belief without a corresponding experience of God is empty. Orthodoxy and orthopathy must go hand in hand. But the tensions between them have plagued the Christian church for two thousand years….
Many observers would argue quite rightly that the worldwide church of Jesus Christ is overdue for a new reformation. This time that reformation will need to be a reassertion of basic, or mere, Christianity that strikes a healthy balance between experiencing God and knowing about God intellectually. A new reformer of the universal church is needed….
Is it possible that the twenty-first century reformation of the church will begin somewhere in the Two-Thirds World and spread from there to North America and Europe? I think it is likely….
The younger Christian churches of Asia, Africa and Latin America may provide the theological prophet for the next century and perhaps for the next millennium. Perhaps the European and North American wells of spiritual and theological renewal have run dry and need to be refreshed from new sources. For over three centuries Western theology has been obsessed with issues and problems posed by modernity so that all of its major branches have become prisoners of that Zeitgeist, or cultural ethos. Both liberal and conservative Christian thinkers have tied their ideas about God and salvation too closely to it. A vision of Christian theology unfettered by now-outmoded modern thought forms may have to arise from a non-Western Christian source if the story of Christian theology is to move on into the twenty-first century and third millennium with new vigor and vitality.1
Whatever one makes of Olson’s prediction, Watchman Nee seems to embody much of what he describes. Many of these aspects of his life and work are highlighted in Paul Chang’s new biography of Nee. Nee’s life and theology teem with the vigor and vitality Olson envisioned, while consistently seeking to hold together doctrinal breadth with experiential depth.
Who else fits this description in your mind?
- Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology, pp. 611-612. ↩︎
conversant faith 