The Church its own Obstacle

The next two Core Issues from the Lausanne list I'll lump in together:

3. Realizing that the Church itself may be that the biggest obstacle to the progress of world evangelization - the need for a 21st Century Reformation.
4. Celebrating the new realities of the global Church—a new face and a fresh voice.

The authors of this list express a growing realization by many that something is inherently wrong with the church these days.  It is seen in the symptoms of conflict, immorality and the lack of response from people groups such as Muslims.  It is my firm belief that most of the responsibility for the lack of positive response in the Muslim world to the gospel lies with Evangelicals themselves.  I feel strongly about this for a number of reasons which I have developed at length, and will continue to do so in the chapter 'Removing the Log.'

The Western church essentially needs to get out of the way of its message.  In desperate efforts, the Western church has become more interested in self-preservation, than in handing off the baton of evangelism and expansion to the next generation, and to other cultures.  In actuality what we're trying to preserve, (albeit unconsciously) is the form of Western Evangelicalism.  Excerpt from Frontiers in Mission by Ralph Winter:

"The first reformation was the shift from Jewish clothing to Greek and Latin clothing. A second happened when our faith went from Latin Christianity to German Christianity. This “second” reformation is THE Reformation that everyone talks about, of course. But now Western Christianity, if it really wants to give away its faith, is poised to recognize (and to become sensibly involved with) something already happening under our noses- a Third Reformation. Sorry to say, as before (both in the time of Paul and in the Reformation), this rising phenomenon probably will involve astonishment and antagonisms. The Bible itself describes vividly the profound antagonisms between Jewish and Greek forms of the faith. History records vividly the same thing between Latin and German forms of the faith. In each case the burning question has been “Just how Biblical are these various forms? ...The future is correspondingly bleak for the further extension of our faith into the vast blocs of Chinese, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists unless we are willing to allow our faith to leave behind the cultural clothing of the Christian movement itself. Do we preach Christ or Christianity?”(emphasis mine) (source)

For most Western Christians the thought of a Christianity wrapped up in the cultural clothing, language, and customs of the Middle East, is unthinkable, and even disturbing.  Forms we identify as 'Islamic' (turbans, beards, prostrate prayer, and flowing robes) are just that, only forms, and the sooner we let go of the non-essentials, and allow other cultural expressions of faith, the faster the gospel may advance in unknown places.  I am not just talking about simple contextualization, this assumes we understand what the essentials are so that we can communicate them clearly.  Much of the Western church has lost touch with the essentials and included forms, ideology and even theology that were never meant to be stood upon with the veracity of the 'death, burial and resurrection' of Christ.   I agree with Winter above that we need to go beyond just missions and seek Reformation.  

Reformation would start with an apology to the Muslim (and Buddhist and Hindu) world for the 'them and us' language of the last centuries of mission. It would then go back to the scripture, and find common ground.  It would mean letting go of the Republican party, American politics and 'democracy' as co-redeemers.   It would invite the persecuted church in these contexts to take the lead and tell the Western missions enterprise how to proceed.  It would trust God to preserve his word and stop exporting political ideology, doctrinal statements, and 'good Christian propriety' and let believers in new contexts figure out their own.  Reformation would mean the church taking up the case of the fatherless, the widow, the alien and the oppressed no matter their religion or location or doctrinal persuasion.  Until we're willing to 'get radical' and let go of our own comfort and self-preservation... it ain't gonna happen... and so our slumber continues.  One day we may wake up to realize God has moved on without us.