How History Demonstrates that Incarnational Discipleship is Solid Ground (Appendix: Kai-man KWAN's Response)

How History Demonstrates that Incarnational Discipleship is Solid Ground

Glen H. STASSEN

According to the author, we live in “the Age of Interaction.” Many perspectives and ideologies that were once thought of as universal have been shown to be particular and, even, narrow. Therefore, people are searching for what Bonhoeffer called, “ground to stand on.” Christians, like everyone else, need to find a solid ethical ground to stand on. Some would base this ground on the teachings of the Bible. Although this is correct, it still faces the problem of verifying different ways of reading the Bible. The solution advocated in this essay is to test an interpretation against the way Jesus Christ read the Bible. More specifically, interpretations are tested by their fruits (Matt. 7: 15-20) in concrete historical situation. The author calls this principle, “Incarnational Discipleship.”

Four historical situations are cited to illustrate how incarnational discipleship works out in practice. The first historical example cited is the opposition to the Third Reich by the Barmen Declaration, which upholds a Trinitarian understanding of incarnational discipleship. The author also argues that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spoke out against Hitler's war spirit and injustice to Jews, and André Trocmé, who led the small village of Le Chambon to hide 2,500 Jews from the Nazis, passed the historical test. The second historical situation cited is the US Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., following Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, led a non-violent movement against segregation and racism while Clarence Jordan, following the same teachings, started a cooperative farm where everyone, Whites as well as Blacks, was a co-owner that shared in the work and proceeds of the farm. The third historical situation concerns the ministries to the poor by Muriel Lester in London and Dorothy Day in New York. Finally, the Revolution of the Candles that led to the toppling of East German dictator Eric Honecker and the Berlin Wall in a nonviolent manner is also cited. The Christ centered interpretations of these people are validated in concrete historical situations, thus validating, in turn, incarnational discipleship as a solid principle of interpretation.