The Go-Between God

John V. Taylor

Description

John Taylor’s most famous book is a reminder that the Holy Spirit urges us toward a communal humanity. Taylor’s is a message especially pertinent in an age of crushing multinational capitalism and a rising tide of individual greed and fear of the Other.
Based on his Cadbury lectures delivered in 1967, The Go-Between God is now considered one of the most important works ever written on the Holy Spirit and mission. This edition contains a new foreword by Jonny Baker.

Sujets

• Missions
• Christian Ministry
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334060161
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Go-Between God
The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission
John V. Taylor






© John V. Taylor 1972, 2004
© Estate of John V. Taylor 2021
First published in 1972 by SCM Press Ltd
Sixteenth impression 1999
Second edition published in 2004 by SCM Press
Second impression 2005
Third edition published in 2021 by SCM Press
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The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
Unless stated otherwise, Scripture quotations taken from the New English Bible, copyright © Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press 1961, 1970.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978-0-334-06014-7
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd



Contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
PART ONE • FACTS OF LIFE
1. ANNUNCIATION
The Intermediary Spirit and the Impulse of the Mission
2. CONCEPTION
The Creator Spirit and the Range of the Mission
3. GESTATION
The Power of the Spirit and the Violence of the Mission
4. LABOUR
The Spirit of Prophecy and the Historical Perspective of the Mission
5. BIRTH
The Spirit in Jesus and the Focus of the Mission
6. BREATH
The Indwelling Spirit and the Humiliation of the Mission
PART TWO • STYLE OF LIFE
7. GROWING
The Evangelical Spirit and the Structures of Mission
8. EXPLORING
The Freedom of the Spirit and the Search for a New Ethic
9. MEETING
The Universal Spirit and the Meeting of Faiths
10. PLAYING
Pentecostalism and the Supernatural Dimension in Secular Age
11. LOVING
Prayer in the Spirit and the Silence of Mission




Foreword: Fire in the Bones
JONNY BAKER
John Taylor was General Secretary of the Church Mission Society (CMS) during 1963–74, and The Go-Between God was published towards the end of that period. Some readers may not have heard of him or know a whole lot about CMS, and be wondering why a book published in the 1970s has ongoing relevance today. Let me say a word about both.
The Church Mission Society was founded in 1799 by a discussion group called the Eclectics Society, which met in London to consider contemporary issues. In March 1799 the topic of discussion was ‘What methods can we use more effectually to promote the knowledge of the Gospel among the Heathen?’ Within a month a vehicle was set up to answer that question, called the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, instituted by members of the Established Church, now known as the Church Mission Society. In the society were friends from the Clapham Sect, whose members had experienced the renewing energy and fervour of the Spirit from the evangelical awakenings inspired by the likes of the Wesleys, but who had remained in the Church of England to renew it from within. The Clapham Sect was also involved in various other projects and ideas, notably the campaign for the abolition of slavery but also a range of other social and political issues. It had a vision of mission as transforming the world – its people and society.
The initial contexts to which missionaries travelled and pioneered were Sierra Leone, New Zealand, Canada, China, Japan, Malta, India, Ceylon and the Arctic Circle. A substantial proportion of the Anglican Communion arose from these missions. The goal early on was to develop an indigenous church and then move on so that the local churches were not overly dependent and could conduct their own affairs, and the society could move on to new territories. In practice that did not happen as easily or successfully as envisaged. The history is filled with inspired stories of mission, with really good mission principles and approaches that took context and culture seriously. But it was a time of expansion of the British empire in the colonial period, and the missions were without doubt shaped by stories of British superiority and a narrative of civilizing that was at times colluding, at times conflicted and at times resisting.
Fast forward to the mid-twentieth century and perhaps CMS had drifted away from its founding purpose and looked more like the Church Aid Society, with a range of partners around the world. Reflections on colonialism meant that there was a lot of soul searching about the place of Western missions. Christianity in Britain was no longer the force it once was. John Taylor and his predecessor Max Warren were both brilliant missiologists who brought new energy and vision for mission through their leadership and a refounding of CMS. Their particular contribution was to identify how the world and church had changed and to reflect on the place of CMS in that new world. They both reflected deeply on mission in relation to other faiths and cultures, and also on the purpose of mission societies. John Taylor’s view of mission societies, taken from his newsletters, includes the recurring theme of the challenge to remain a movement rather than to institutionalize. He is keen to resist the settler impetus – the urge to settle down, to become so deeply established that lightness of touch and moving on become difficult, horizons become limited by too much stability, and presentism, imagination and risk are side-lined. Shortly after becoming General Secretary, he reflects on the possibility for an organization such as CMS, which was once a movement, to recapture that vitality to push out new shoots again that will ‘bud into fresh forms of experimentation and response’. He also named Britain as a context for mission as needy as Asia or Africa. Up to this point, mission had always been about foreign lands.
I joined CMS with an interest in cross-cultural mission as it related to Britain. To be honest, I didn’t know a lot about it, but in my work with young people I was facing questions of mission and culture. There was an expectation that young people would join the church, but it felt like there was a huge gap between youth culture and church culture. A question I had was how to grow church in youth or postmodern cultures, rather than expecting them to join in with the church’s way of doing things. This was all inspired by reading stories of cross-cultural mission. To put it bluntly, I thought CMS might have the gold in this area that I could steal. When I arrived hungry to learn, people pointed me in the direction of John Taylor as someone who carried the gold. They were not wrong.
The Go-Between God pulls together and deepens many of the ideas Taylor shared in his newsletters. He describes it as an attempt to interpret the meaning of Christian mission for contemporary humanity within the context of a fresh understanding of the Holy Spirit and his action in the world. He does that magnificently. It is his best-known and most loved book. I am delighted that SCM has republished it for new readers because he was so ahead of his time and what he has to say is so pertinent today.
John Taylor’s starting point is that the Spirit is not simply present in the lives of churches and Christians, not contained or controlled or limited. The glory of God is everywhere in all things. The Spirit is present in all cultures, all religions and all peoples. Every particle in the universe is charged with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Taylor has some lovely turns of phrase and one-liners. I have often thought he would have a lot of followers on twitter if he were alive today. One phrase that caught my attention and has stuck with me is that the Spirit’s milieu is the world rather than the church. That is the frame within which he places everything else. Moments of encounter, of attention, of awareness can happen to anyone anywhere. In those moments there is a current of communication, a connection, a sense of presence, an aliveness. The Holy Spirit is the Go Between who sets up this current of communication that flows like electricity between a person and the other whether that other is a landscape or another person.
He describes the Spirit as ‘fire in the bones’. By it he does not mean a pentecostal enthusiasm, or the sense of presence in church, or simply in the life of Christians, though it might be those things too. It’s more a deeper sense of awareness of a call towards greater personhood, an awareness that stimulates initiative, spontaneity and choice towards life between things as they are and as they could be, and that leads to giving oneself for others rather than self-interest. This process and these encounters he names are remarkable for their ordinariness, a kind of seeing with new eyes. This broad horizon or large frame is so important that Taylor spends the first four chapters on it. He was writing at a time when there were the early stages of charismatic renewal in the Church of England, but his interest is the Spirit’s work in the world rather than simply in the church.
Taylor famously describes mission as seeing what God is doing and joining in. This makes so much more sense when the Spirit’s milieu, and the frame of reference, is the whole world, where