We evaluate Center Church¹, an important book in which Tim Keller present his theo­logical vision for doing church-ministry in large cities. Part 5 is entitled Cultural Engagement. In this section Keller offers an overview of various approaches to the difficult question: What is a Christian's calling in soci­ety? Taking his point of departure in Niebuhr's analysis of different models (Christ against culture, Christ of cul­ture, Christ above culture, etc.), Keller gives an update on more recent developments in the discussion, with a helpful summary of the recent "Two Kingdoms" debate between David VanDrunen and others.

Keller's own position is a blended insight approach: No model is perfect but some models are better than others. Instead of defending your own model at all cost, rather be open to adapting and improving where necessary.

In Keller's own words:

Enjoy the strengths of your position, admit the weaknesses, and borrow like crazy from the strengths of the others (p. 242).

Although Keller does not profess allegiance to one single model, his sympathy appears to lie mostly with the transformationist model. This model is indebted to the work and thought of Abraham Kuyper. Like Kuyper, Keller sees "secular" work as an important way to serve Christ and his kingdom. Also like Kuyper, he expects much from the influence of Christians in the public square (which includes not just politics but all areas of life). It is good to see that Keller appreciates the work of the great Dutch theologian. At the same time, I hope that Keller will remember the lessons from the past. While Kuyper and his followers were able to gain consider­able influence in Dutch society during the first half of the twentieth century, there was a dramatic decline of Christian influence in the government and culture of The Netherlands during the second half of the same century. D.A. Carson (Christ and Culture Revisited) has attributed this sad development to a number of causes, including a weakening of the antithesis between belief and un­belief, and a loss of personal piety among Kuyper's fol­lowers.

I do not mention these things in order to suggest that Christians should live in isolation from society. I appreciate Kuyper's (and Keller's) desire to see Christians being involved in the public square, for "Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted" (Proverbs 11:11). At the same time, as the righteous gain more influence in the city, they should take care that their hearts do not become ensnared by the world.

Missional⤒🔗

In part 6 Keller discusses the church's character as Missional Community. During the last fifteen years the word "missional" has become a buzzword in theological debates. Keller gives a good overview of the history of how the term has been used.

The problem is that people mean different things with "missional church." To one person it is just another way of saying that the church is called to be engaged in evangelism and mission. To another person it means that church people should get involved in the downtown area of the city and do good work among the poor. To Keller it means that the whole church should be mission-mind­ed and that every activity should have an evangelistic aspect to it. Keller states that every part of the church should be outward facing, expecting the presence of nonbelievers and supporting laypeople in their ministry in the world (p. 24).

In my opinion Keller tends to overstate the case. Yes, the church has a missionary calling. But that does not mean that every part of the church should be outward fa­cing. The church is called to be a witness of the truth and to urge outsiders to repentance and faith. But the church is also called to be a mother who nurtures her own chil­dren (think of Catechism teaching and diaconal care)I am indebted to J.W. Maris for this insight. ²In other words, as much as the church is called to be hospitable and receive outsiders in her midst, the church is also a family of believers and it should not feel guilty if it reserves some "family time" for itself. Of course, we should not think of these two aspects as being in com­petition. Ideally, the task of nurturing the church's own members and the task of promoting the gospel among outsiders will complement each other.

I have similar reservations about Keller's claim that every Christian is expected to evangelize, follow up, nur­ture, and teach people the Word (p. 277). He refers to Michael Green's Evangelism in the Early Church to prove the point. I wish that Keller had taken note of John P. Dickson's recent study about mission-commitment in Paul's churches.³Dickson has studied the New Testament evidence thoroughly and comes to the conclusion that there is a distinction between laypeople and office-bear­ers. While laypeople are expected to promote the gospel in word and deed, office-bearers are called to proclaim the gospel. With the Heidelberg Catechism we confess that every believer is anointed to be a prophet (LD 12) but we also acknowledge that not everyone has the gift of teaching or instructing others in the Christian faith. Yet it is true that many of us are able to do more than we think. That is why training is important.

Despite my reservations I found this part of Keller's book instructive in many ways. I really appreciated the chapter on "Equipping people for missional living," es­pecially the second half which has all kinds of excellent practical advice (p. 279-289).

Integrative Ministry←⤒🔗

In Part 7, Integrative Ministry, Keller makes the point that the church has received a multi-faceted mandate from the Lord: Evangelism, worship, fellowship, disciple­ship, etc. Ideally, the church should be balanced in ful­filling the various aspects of its mandate. Unfortunately, as Keller observes, every church tends to be naturally better at fulfilling some tasks and doing some kinds of ministry than others (p. 293).

Keller refers to Edmund Clowney as someone who presented a very helpful model for the integrative nature of the church's ministry (p. 294). Clowney identified three goals of church ministry:

1. worshipping God,
2. Chris­tian nurture within the church,
3. witness to the world.

Keller modifies Clowney's approach and presents a model with four ministry fronts (p. 293):

1. Connecting people to God through evangelism and worship,
2. Connecting people to one another through community and disciple­ship,
3. Connecting people to the city through mercy and justice,
4. Connecting people to culture through the inte­gration of faith and work.

Comparing Keller and Clowney, it seems to me that Keller puts much more emphasis on the outward facing ministry of the church than does Clowney. Personally, I feel more at home with Clowney in this regard. Never­theless, the four chapters in which Keller describes the four ministry fronts are interesting and instructive. The reader will find plenty of good insights here.

Organization←⤒🔗

The last part of the book is entitled Movement Dy­namics. Keller explains that a church that wants to grow needs to combine the strengths of an institution and a movement. In his own words, "organizations should have both institutional characteristics and movement dynam­ics" (p. 338). You need institutional characteristics in or­der to promote stability and unity. You need movement dynamics in order to create room for creative ideas and personal initiative.

Keller observes that it is difficult to maintain the right balance. Some church-plants are so rigidly organ­ized that there is no room for creative initiatives. Other church-plants are so disorganized that things go off the rails quickly. Ideally, a church plant will have the characteristics of an "organized organism" (p. 344), a movement that is well-organized yet allows for dynam­ic growth. Keller observes that churches tend to become more institutionalized over time. For that reason, he feels that there should be a bias for the "movement" side of a church plant. Otherwise the church plant will lose its momentum.

From a biblical perspective, there is much to appre­ciate in Keller's approach. The Lord's apostles planted churches that were well organized (with elders and dea­cons leading the local congregations) but they also left ample room for the use of spiritual gifts. In his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul uses the image of a body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, that grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work (Ephesians 4:16). Indeed, an organized organism!

In general, I have great respect for Keller's desire to see new churches develop in urban areas. At the same time, it seems to me that he writes off existing churches too quickly when he says: "The way to renew the exist­ing churches of a city is by planting new ones" (p. 360). I do not deny that church plants and evangelism projects can have a healthy effect on the well-being of existing churches and even a church federation as a whole. The problem is that Keller advocates an approach to renewing existing churches that is not found in the Bible. In the New Testament we encounter several struggling churches but never does the Lord recommend starting a new church on the other side of town as a means to revive the existing church. The more appropriate method for church renewal appears to be faithful preaching of the gospel, solid faith instruction, adequate pastoral care, Christian discipline, followed by repentance and faith. As I said, I have great respect for people like Keller who plant new churches in cities. But I have no less respect for ministers and church­es who persevere in old churches, trying to breathe new life in urban communities that have lost their vigour.

Another aspect of Keller's vision that warrants fur­ther debate is his plea for cooperation with churches of different backgrounds. His opinion may be summarized as follows: Although it is important to be loyal to your own theological distinctives, at a local level it is more im­portant to work together with other churches even though they may have different theological beliefs (p. 369). As a practical implication, Keller's church has given money and resources to churches of other denominations that are planting churches in New York, including Pentecostal and Baptist churches. Keller defends this approach by saying that no church can be everything to the city. Every church has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, "the city as a whole needs all kinds of churches" (p. 369).

In addition to this, Keller pleads with sending churches to allow new church plants in urban areas to develop a character that may be somewhat different from the character of the sending church itself. The sending church should not expect the new church plant to be a clone of itself.

Keller regularly warns against sectarian­ism and — "tribalism" You must be willing to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe (358).

To a certain extent I can appreciate Keller's warning against sectarianism and his fear that new church plants can be suffocated because of rigid oversight by the send­ing church. At the same time, I fear that he himself runs the risk of sacrificing confessional identity for the sake of perceived contextual relevance. A similar comment can be made with respect to cooperation with other churches. It is one thing to recognize that the Lord also uses the ministry of other churches for his good purposes. It is quite another thing to conclude that therefore we might as well join forces with such churches.

Having come to the end of the book, I realize that something has been missing all along. As Keller put together his "theological vision" for church ministry in big cities, his own confessions and church order did not play a significant role in the process. Contextualization figures prominently in the book. Confessional allegiance is much lower on the list of priorities. The implicit mes­sage of the book seems to be: Of course there are limits in how far you can go, but generally speaking if you have to choose between contextual and confessional, you go with contextual. I can see that this approach allows the "city-wide movement" to gain momentum. In the long run, however, it can have detrimental results because the movement will lack a strong identity. To say the same thing in a different way, I'm afraid that Tim Keller is more pragmatic than he probably realizes.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

In conclusion, Tim Keller's Center Church is an im­pressive book. If you are looking for a manual on church planting, you may be disappointed because it is not a "how to" book. However, if you are looking for well-in­formed and stimulating reflections on doing ministry in the city, this is a good book to read. At the same time, it needs to be read with discretion. As I have tried to show, Keller's theological vision covers many important areas but it has some significant flaws as well.