Learning to be Free: In Search of a Vineyard Theology of Conversion

[Michelle Wilson]

Abstract:

Having taught a number of workshops on sharing faith through praying for others in Vineyard churches, I find that many people are eager to pray for non-Christian friends but struggle with articulating an invitation to follow Jesus. This paper suggests the difficultly lies in an inadequate theology of conversion.

The classic Vineyard approach to power evangelism is based on a narrative theology of the Kingdom that lends itself naturally to Christus Victor models of the atonement. But, ties to broader evangelicalism have often kept propositional assent to penal substitution at the center of how we understand conversion. Looking at the Kingdom narrative through the lens of Paulo Friere’s critical pedagogy and Jose Comblin’s liberation pneumatology to see conversion as a freedom-learning event, this paper develops a proposed set of criteria for an atonement model consistent with Vineyard theology. It then evaluates penal substitution, Christus Victor (“fishhook”), and recapitulation models based on these criteria and argues that a version of the Christus Victor model that incorporates recapitulation (after the fashion of Irenaeus) is most consistent with a Vineyard theological perspective. Ideas for how this might affect evangelism in the Vineyard are briefly considered.

The full paper is attached to this post.