A preaching of the gospel that calls men and women to accept Jesus as their Savior but does not make it clear that discipleship means a commitment to a vision of society radically different from that which controls our public life today must be condemned as false.
Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 132.
It has become a commonplace to say that we live in a pluralistic society – not merely a society which is in fact plural in the variety of cultures, religions and lifestyles which it embraces, but pluralistic in the sense that this plurality is celebrated as a thing to be approved and cherished.
The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, Eerdmans, 1989, p. 1.
There has been a long tradition which sees the mission of the Church primarily as obedience to a command. It has been customary to speak of “the missionary mandate.” This way of putting the matter is certainly not without justification, and yet it seems to me that it misses the point. It tends to make mission a burden rather than a joy, to make it part of the law rather than part of the gospel. If one looks at the New Testament evidence one gets another impression. Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is more like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.
The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, Eerdmans, 1989, p. 116.