Stumbling toward Zion

David W. Smith

Description

In this powerful and challenging book, David W. Smith identifies a crisis at the heart of the church. It is the crisis of triumphalism – the tendency to avoid honest engagement with brokenness and suffering, privileging victory while rejecting the practice of lament. This imbalance, Smith argues, threatens to undermine the credibility of faith for a watching world, alienating those experiencing hardship and oppression; those wrestling with doubt, uncertainty, and loss.
In Stumbling toward Zion, Smith reclaims the importance of lament throughout Scripture – from the Old Testament to the gospel narratives and Paul’s letters – and explores the history and impact of its loss within certain church traditions. World Christianity, with its heartlands in contexts of poverty, war and persecution, has a crucial role to play in recovering an understanding of God’s love for a suffering creation capable of restoring the credibility of Christian witness in the midst of our brokenness. Containing practical application for church life and mission, Smith offers an opportunity to reengage with biblical lament, rediscover neglected aspects of Christian faith, and reawaken to God’s heart for a suffering world.

Informations

• Publié par: Langham Creative Projects
• Date de parution: 29 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783688197
• Langue: English

Extrait

As we celebrate the start of the year 2020, the world is already troubled with environmental hazards and strain in international relations. At a personal level lurks the sad news of the loss of a loved one and the abducting of a 20-year-old daughter of a close family friend by Boko Haram in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The harsh realities of a broken world can either drive us to despair or pretence. In despairing we seem hopeless; in pretending we lie. Even the neatest of theological paradigms can let us down with regard to answers in the face of real suffering.
In Stumbling Toward Zion: Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the Era of World Christianity , Dr David Smith brings an age-old biblical tradition back on the table. He points out biblical examples of what was sometimes a long and hard struggle between things promised or hoped for and fears arising from a contradicting reality. Such tension between promise and brokenness is still with us to this day.
In affirming the spirituality of lament, Dr Smith helps us to see how the troubles of a broken world can interact with the reliable promises of a faithful God. He bravely ventures into thoughtful expressions on how the understanding of biblical modes of lament can be insightful basis for real hope and change. The book rightfully reckons with Christianity today as being increasingly shaped by the experiences of non-Western communities. While acknowledging that human suffering is universal, this book brims with examples of adversity from non-Western contexts, underscoring how such hardship can breed unique perspectives on the spirituality of lament, thereby leading to hopes of social transformation and healing.
For all who yearn to see a bridge in the gap between faith and suffering, promise and reality, vision and limitation, divinity and humanity, through deep reflections on prayerful lament, this book is a very promising read. Dr Smith’s reflection is also a brotherly solidarity with many around the world who find it hard to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.”
Samuel O. N. G. Nwokoro
Lecturer in Early Christian-Muslim Relations and Church History,
Department of Public Theology,
Theological College of Northern Nigeria, Jos, Nigeria
Stumbling toward Zion is an outstanding book that makes a unique contribution to Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the Era of World Christianity . There is a deep authenticity about David Smith’s approach. He listens carefully to the biblical text, is attentive to a rich diversity of voices from the Majority World church and crucially, demonstrates an honest and vulnerable spirituality in his own writing. After reading this stunning work, the reader is left in no doubt that the church in the West must recover the biblical tradition of praise and lament if its witness is to be in any way authentic for our twenty-first-century contexts. A critical factor in that recovery, as Smith points out, is the Western church’s willingness to listen to the global chorus singing new songs from the world Christian movement across the southern hemisphere. It is in those contexts that we see a spirituality of lament connecting with a broken world in such ways that the church in its worship and witness embodies the good news of Christ crucified, buried and raised. I warmly commend this book and its author.

Peter Rowan, PhD
Co-National Director, OMF (UK)
Stumbling toward Zion offers a penetrating analysis regarding the loss of lament amidst global and cultural changes that are overtaking Christian faith and witness. The book is pregnant with biblical scholarship and insights from the world church; David Smith weaves personal stories of loss and hope and includes thoughts for reflection at the end of each chapter. I recommend this treasured gift warmly to mission workers and church leaders for careful study and application.
Kang-San Tan, PhD
General Director, BMS World Mission

Stumbling toward Zion
Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the Era of World Christianity
David W. Smith

© 2020 David W. Smith
Published 2020 by Langham Global Library
An imprint of Langham Publishing
www.langhampublishing.org
Langham Publishing and its imprints are a ministry of Langham Partnership
Langham Partnership
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ISBNs:
978-1-78368-777-0 Print
978-1-78368-819-7 ePub
978-1-78368-820-3 Mobi
978-1-78368-821-0 PDF
David W. Smith has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the Author of this work.
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Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, Anglicised, NIV®. Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc®. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78368-777-0
Cover & Book Design: projectluz.com
Cover Image: Painting by Anneke Kaai – Psalm 119 : 105 from series In a Word . www.annekekaai.nl
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For all who suffer the absence of God and experience the pain of his silence, longing for the renewed presence of the Father who comforts those who mourn and runs to embrace his returning children.
Contents

Cover


Foreword


Preface


1 Recovering a Lost Biblical Tradition


For Reflection


2 The Testimony of Biblical Israel


What Has Job Ever Done for Us?


The Crisis of Faith at Ground Zero


For Reflection


3 The Testimony of the Jesus Movement


Shalom and the Gospel of Peace


The Day God Died . . .


. . . And the Day After!


Faith During a Long Saturday


For Reflection


4 The Witness of Paul: Ecstasy and Agony


The Scum of the Earth


The “Wretched Man” of Romans 7


Like a Mother in Pain


“Remember My Chains”


The Precarious Vision


For Reflection


5 Speaking of God


Lost in Translation


The Crucified God


Speaking of God in a Globalized World


Lament, Hope and the Endless City


For Reflection


6 Biblical Lament and the Future for World Christianity


Weeping with Those Who Weep


Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs


Credible Testimony in a Broken World


For Reflection


Appendix 1 Paul’s Missionary Theology


Appendix 2 A Global Chorus Singing New Songs


Bibliography


About Langham Partnership

Endnotes
Foreword
I have long been an admirer of David Smith’s writings, since he brings together wide literary and theological reading with deep reflections drawn from his long cross-cultural missionary experience. Moreover, since my wife died in May 2018, David and I have been in regular email correspondence and on Skype, sharing our experiences of bereavement and the deep dismay we have both felt over the superficiality of much evangelical worship and preaching, particularly in churches removed from the daily agony of peoples ravaged by chronic illness, poverty, unemployment, violence and war.
David’s present book addresses head-on that superficiality, indeed, evasion of the pain, anger and doubt that we find running through the biblical writings and, if we are honest, central to every Christian’s experience. David takes us on a survey of relevant Old and New Testament material, and constantly relates his exposition to the global political and economic powers against which we struggle today. To illustrate his themes he not only marshals biblical and theological arguments but draws on his musical and artistic knowledge. I was so moved by his description of the sixteenth-century Isenheim altarpiece by Mathis Grunewald that, on a trip to France, I made a special detour to the French-German border town of Colmar to see it for myself. David’s commentary enriched the sense of awe I felt gazing at the crucified figure.
This, then, is a book that will provoke, enlighten, comfort and inspire a hope that is the opposite of a shallow optimism. It should be read by all who hunger for honest theology.
Vinoth Ramachandra, PhD
IFES International Secr