Looking back, looking forward

Tony Payne ponders 21 years of The Briefing, and the next 21.

Whenever I look back over the history of The Briefing—all 366 issues, all 21 years—I find it almost impossible to resist thinking about my eldest daughter, who (like The Briefing) was born in April 1988. In fact, I've used the image so often in the past, I'm sure long-term readers are heartily sick of it by now. Still, it's an apt comparison, as any parent will confirm. It's almost impossible to believe, looking back, that the tiny, bald, helpless little bundle she was then could become the beautiful young woman she is now. And in the blink of an eye, so it seems. When we launched The Briefing, it was published twice a month on 11 sheets of single-sided paper in black and white with a design we came up with ourselves and with not so much as a staple to hold it together. Here's a photo of it: The initial subscriber base was around 800. They were mainly former readers of The Australian Church Record, and were almost entirely located within Sydney. Now The Briefing is a 36-page colour magazine, designed and laid out by the brilliant Joy Lankshear, with a worldwide readership of over 20,000, the vast majority of whom live outside Sydney. Mind you, those early no-frills editions are still among my favourites. There was John Woodhouse's remarkable trilogy ‘The God of Word’ in issues 10-12, which managed to capture in three brief essays an entire theology of God, his word, his Spirit, and our experience of those realities. There was ‘Herman who?’ in issue 4, which took a swipe at the then trendy new discipline of hermeneutics. And there was the article that, perhaps more than any other in our 21-year history, summed up our theological standpoint and agenda. It was called ‘Four Ways to Live’, and it appeared in Briefing #3 on May 15, 1988. The full text of this article is available online and on the special CD-ROM that came with this Briefing, but here is an extract that gives the essence of its argument:

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Most of the issues facing evangelicals today resolve into a debate about authority, and in particular the authority of the Bible. In each area of controversy, the issue is ‘Where do we go for the answer on this question? What is the truth by which we must live?’ We all believe in the authority of the Bible, or say we do; why then do we disagree? While nearly all Christians uphold the authority of the Scriptures, in reality, there are other authorities which compete with the Bible for supremacy—other sources of truth about God and our world. Most commonly, there are four claimants to religious authority:

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• Bible
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• Institution
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• Experience
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• Reason.

Put simply, these four competing authorities represent four Christianities. There are those who seek to understand their lives in terms of the Bible and who treat the Bible as the final and comprehensive authority in all matters of faith and life. Others wish to be led more by their experience of God. They see their Christian lives in terms of following the movings and promptings of the Spirit. A third group regard the teachings of the institution or tradition to which they belong as authoritative for their life. If their church or priest or bishop or pastor offers direction for their behaviour or understanding, they will adopt it readily and fall into line. The fourth group base their understanding of God and what he requires of us on human reason. They will accept and practise whatever can be demonstrated as sensible, rational and intelligent, and discard the primitive or irrational. Each of these views springs from an understanding of what God is like. The first view is based on a God who speaks. God reveals himself to mankind through speech—through his word—and can only be known through his word. The second view assumes that God moves and acts in our lives and can be experienced directly today. The third is built on a God of order who has called out a people to be his own —a people who are to live in unity. The fourth group has as its God one who is reasonable, rational and true. We should find ourselves giving some assent to each of these understandings of God. Our God is all of these things. Nobody adopts any of these views to the extreme. Everybody's theological position has a measure of Bible, Experience, Institution and Reason mixed in.

Areas not points

If we were to draw a diagram of these authorities or sources of truth, we would need to draw an area, not simply four unrelated points. There is a continuum between these different areas of authority. Those, for example, who wish to rely chiefly on reason may also use the revelation of Scripture, as well as their experience and the teachings of their denomination. In fact, this process is inevitable. We can hardly read the Bible without using our reason to help interpret it, and our experience to apply it to our lives. Unfortunately, the fact that we have areas of authority rather than points leads to confusion amongst Christians. Those of us who want to have the Bible as our final authority keep finding ourselves using reason or experience to back up our argument—even appealing to the traditions of our institution and its leaders. Furthermore, those who ultimately do not accept the authority of the Bible keep appealing to it to support their points of view, claiming all the while that the Bible really is their basis. Add to this the theological grasshoppers who flit about without a qualm and the scene is one of chaos.

Drawing the line

Should there be lines drawn between these different viewpoints? Some say no. They argue that the Church (the institution) has given us the Bible; or that the Spirit we experience today is the same Spirit who wrote the Bible; or that the Bible will always be rational (being the product of a rational God). However, we must not be fooled. The end result of these arguments is that the Bible's sphere of influence is radically diminished. When it is subordinated to or diluted among the other areas, the Bible ceases to speak with its own voice. It becomes a rubber stamp for our own views and prejudices. There comes a point where one has to choose between these four competing authorities. What will we do when our experience doesn't tally with the Scriptures? Or when our reason disagrees with our church's teaching? Or when the Bible seems irrational or unreasonable? It is at this point that we reveal our true colours. We draw a line and take our stand. Within our authority diagram, the four areas of authority and truth need to have boundaries.

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If you understand this quadrilateral diagram and the concepts behind it, you've pretty much understood what The Briefing has been trying to do over the past 21 years. Our basic mission has been twofold:

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• to warn evangelicals about the constant temptation to leave the ‘Bible area’ and start living under one of the alternative authorities;
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• to encourage evangelicals to “understand our lives in terms of the Bible”—that is, to think and live and minister with the Bible as our basis and guide.

This is why, for example, we've consistently opposed the charismatic movement in its various forms (the authority of Experience)—perhaps most famously in our articles about John Wimber (issue 45/46) and Hillsong (issue 340). We've also warned against capitulation to Roman Catholicism and to denominationalism in general (the authority of Institution). And we've consistently attacked Liberalism in all its guises (the authority of Reason), especially with respect to the two major presenting issues of Liberalism over the past two decades: the ordination of women and homosexuality. Experience, Institution, Reason. As I look back over our 21 years, I'd struggle to think of any 12-month period in which we haven't beaten the drum on these three major alternatives to evangelical theology. Of course, the very fact of drum beating has been one of The Briefing's defining features and, as a result, we've been accused from time to time of being negative and critical. Personally, I'm quite proud of our occasional negativity because it shows that The Briefing has managed to remain faithful to the Bible's authority. The Bible urges and commands us to be negative when necessary­—to warn, rebuke, admonish and criticize. This is a difficult and unpopular thing to do because it transgresses the relativism of our age and its accompanying tyranny of niceness. And so, in deference to worldly norms and culture, many people prefer always to be positive. But to give up critiquing error is to abandon the authority of the Bible that tells us to critique error. The vast bulk of our readers understand this only too well—especially those who live and minister in difficult environments where the gospel is hated and opposed. One of the deepest encouragements of the last 21 years has been the regular stream of letters from readers in tough circumstances thanking us for sticking with the Bible's truth. The word ‘lifeline’ often appears. So negativity is sometimes necessary, as surgery is necessary. But of course, it is not sufficient. The positive agenda of The Briefing has been to keep applying the truth of the Bible to our lives—to the way we think, to the way we evangelize and minister, to our church lives, to our home lives, to the issues and controversies of our world, and so on—so that God's people might be encouraged and spurred on to good deeds. That's, in fact, how we originally came up with our name. A ‘briefing’ is a set of instructions in preparation for a task. Its end result is action, not simply discussion. And that's we have always wanted The Briefing to be: a shot of encouragement to evangelicals to stick with the gospel and the Bible, to keep living for Christ and to keep serving Christ day by day. As I browse back through the issues, the large volume and variety of positive articles is hard to categorize—everything from understanding the cross or the Holy Spirit through to issues of daily godliness, or the challenge of evangelism and church planting. I have my favourites, as I'm sure other readers do. And we could spend a page or two, no doubt, in happy reminiscence. (You'll find my own selection of the Top 21 Briefing articles of all time on the CD that came with this 21st birthday edition.) However, rather than spending too much more time looking back, let's think more about the future. When you've been doing something for a while (as in 21 years), it's always worth stopping to ponder what you're really on about. Do we still stand for the same things we always did? Are we achieving what we set out to achieve? What do we really want to do in the future? We've been doing quite a lot of that sort of thinking over the past few months. The fruit of this thinking is two new things I want to tell you about.

1. A new statement of Gospel Convictions

We've often been asked about our ‘doctrinal basis’, and up to this point, we have been happy to point people to a 10-point statement on our website. It's a standard and widely-used statement derived from the InterVarsity Fellowship. It's also now used by the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students and numerous other fine organizations. However, good doctrinal statements, while expressing the unchanging teach­ing of the Bible, are always shaped by the issues of their time. If we were going to start from scratch and express the theological standpoint that we hold, and that we want to defend and promote through The Briefing in the 21st century, what would it be? What better time to do this than on our 21st birthday! On pages 14-15 is a draft of a new statement called ‘Gospel Convictions: A call to evangelical integrity in truth and life’. I say ‘draft’ quite deliberately because, although we've put a lot of effort and thought into it so far, we're not assuming it's finished. We'd very much like you—our subscribers—to tell us what you think. Is this a good summary of what you believe? Are these the truths you wish to contend for and live for? Is there anything central and vital that needs to be added, or anything secondary that should be omitted? Is there anything that could be better expressed? Is this a statement around which you could rally, and persuade others to do the same? As you read, bear in mind that the statement is not intended to be a detailed confession of faith that outlines an entire theological system. It does reflect and express the deep structures of Christian doctrine, and its order is significant. But we're not trying to nail down every point. (You'll notice nothing about baptism, for example, or church polity.) Nor are we simply trying to draw a circle around correct doctrine in order to identify the false alternatives, although it is important that the statement does that to an extent. What we really want to do is propose a Bible-based agenda for evangelical thinking, character and ministry. We want to see these truths run and prosper because we think they are the central and most important ones. Evangelicals will inevitably disagree on many secondary things not contained in this statement, but can we agree not only on the content of these statements, but on their centrality? Can we spend the bulk of our time on these issues and their outworking, rather than other more peripheral concerns? So it's by no means just a defensive statement. In fact, it's a distinctively evangelical doctrinal statement in that it assumes the vital connection between theology and practice—between believing these doctrines, personally embracing them and thus living a certain way. It gives us not only a position to defend, but a set of convictions to live by. We look forward to your feedback. Our plan from here is to take as much comment and input on board as possible over the next two months, and then to issue a final version in August or September. Our hope is that ‘Gospel Convictions’ will not only be useful for crystallizing what The Briefing has been doing and should be doing, but will also assist lots of Christian individuals, churches and organizations in re-focusing their vision and mission.

2. A new editor

One of the joys of the last six months has been welcoming Paul Grimmond into our Matthias Media team. From the beginning, the plan was that Paul would gradually take over responsibility for The Briefing. Let me hasten to add, before the emails and phone calls start arriving, that I'm not resigning to become a golf professional (although if I leave it much longer, it will be straight to the Seniors Tour for me). In fact, I'm not resigning at all; I'll still be around, writing regularly, shouting instructions from the backseat, and keeping (with Paul) the title of ‘editor’. However, it's time to let a fresh pair of eyes take a look at The Briefing and work out how we can improve what we're doing. Paul is the ideal man for that job. He's smart, he's godly, he's 10 years younger, and he comes (like me) from the best place in the world: Lismore, in northern New South Wales. If I were going to let someone else get their hands on the steering wheel after 21 years, I can think of no-one more gifted or trustworthy. Elsewhere in this 21st birthday edition, Paul will tell you about some of the new features he's already planning to introduce. The place to finish this little look back and forward is with thanksgiving—to you, our readers, for such an encouraging level of support and fellowship over so many years (stretching back, for a surprisingly large number of you, to the very beginning!); to the many people who have contributed to The Briefing over the years as authors, editors, designers, managers and administrators; and to God our heavenly Father, who has provided for us, blessed us, and given us the immeasurable privilege of being slaves on his team.