Word: newbigin
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...formal action by the W.C.C. General Assembly in New Delhi in 1961. Nevertheless, the friendly offices of pro-western Orthodox delegates made many Protestants more tolerant of Orthodoxy's ancient position. "It's a miracle that the Greek Church exists at all," said British-born Bishop Lesslie Newbigin of the Church of South India. "It's only been possible by a barnacle-like adhesion to what they have...
...Bishop Newbigin, who has spent twenty-two years in India as a missionary, and has thought deeply about the meaning of his experiences, dealt with massive tidal movements of society in our time, only one of which is the repudiation, implicit or explicit, of the Christian faith by most members of western society. This declaration, on which you have based your headline and lead sentence, can be understood only in the context of the entire lecture. Further, that a Harvard reporter can state in one paragraph, "He called for a return to a cyclical religion," and two paragraphs later report...
Contrary to the impression given by your article, Bishop Newbigin's lecture was carefully outlined and followed a logical progression. He began by considering the ending of the centuries-old movement of western culture into the rest of the world, referring most of his remarks to India, the country he knows so well. The eastern cultures have now asumed the western, and are facing the world with a new serenity and sureness of their own position. Nehru, for instance, is now saying that all things are ours, whether ancient or modern, eastern or western...
...programs of technical advancement by rejecting Christianity; and in the process they had to set up new absolutes. In Russia the idea of the Kingdom of God was transformed into the vision of the classless society; Japan instituted emperor-worship and the messianic mission of the Japanese people. Bishop Newbigin believes that technical culture is not religiously neutral. If it does not keep its roots in the Christian faith, it will have to find a new absolute, and will become demonic...
...Cooperation is the necessary starting point, but it cannot be considered the goal," Newbigin continued. The Christian unity, the "binding in Christ," makes manifest a total commitment that makes it impossible to evade the question of full Church unity throughout the world. Newbigin strongly asserted the imminence of the problem and the importance of its solution. "The issue of Church unity," Newbigin concluded, "must be treated as an issue not for tomorrow, but for today...