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St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 6 | December 2010 This indicates that “extraction” language, whilst rhetorically powerful, must be carefully qualified in order to preserve the nuanced, Biblical position. Spiritual/religious extraction always occurs in genuine Christian salvation, as repentance reorients a believer’s fundamental allegiance from idols to Christ. This allegiance is expressed by exclusive inward and outward reverence, 114 an integrity stipulated by the psalmist, 115 and characterising God’s faithful remnant. 116 Inward belief and outward expression can be divided only by recapitulating the gnostic denial of God’s lordship over both the spiritual and the physical realm. 117 Sociological extraction may follow spiritual extraction: it depends on the response of the local community to the believer’s public confession of faith. Cultural extraction, however, is not necessary for salvation. That many Arab believers today identify themselves as both Arabs and Christians belies the assumption that Islam and culture are completely inextricable. 118 This suggests, in turn, an alternative to C5 contextualisation: by working closely with local churches, missionaries may find that indigenous believers have already discovered acceptable, non-Islamic cultural forms that can be used appropriately to contextualise the gospel. 119 When evaluated against these categories, the disadvantage of IMs becomes clear. Sociological extraction may well be minimised, but at the cost of spiritual extraction from the saved community. MBBs who remain “inside” the Muslim community position themselves 114 Nikides, ‘Lost in Translation’, p. 10. 115 Psalm 15; 24:3-4; 86:11. 116 1 Kings 19:18. 117 Nikides, ‘A Response to Kevin Higgins’, p. 96. 118 To be exact, “Masihiyin,” the common Arabic term for “Christians.” Stringer, ‘Of Straw Men and Stereotypes’, p. 591. 119 Smith, ‘An Assessment of the Insider Principle Paradigms’, p. 48. 905 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 6 | December 2010 “outside” the sphere within which Christ’s full salvation blessing is experienced – the local church. 5 Conclusion The distinguishing factor between CPMs, as described by Garrison, and IMs, described by Lewis, is their approach to non-Christian religions. CPMs break free: 120 IMs remain inside. 121 This makes IMs biblically impermissible. By excluding visible Christian fellowship, IMs withdraw vital spiritual support from young believers struggling against evil, demonic forces which would snatch away the gospel seed, cripple their walk with Christ and snuff out their Christian witness. By reducing faith to a merely private inner expression, IMs hamper believers from living lives of integrity, expressing their distinctive faith in distinctively Christian works of love before their watching community and their Lord. Worst of all, by dabbling with false religions, IMs implicate themselves in idolatry, and provoke God’s righteous indignation. Perhaps Lewis does not see these problems because she, selfconfessedly, bases her missiology on observation, not the Bible. 122 Methodologically, Garrison is the same. 123 Nevertheless, CPMs 120 Garrison, ‘Church Planting Movements vs. Insider Movements’, p. 154. 121 Lewis, ‘Insider Movements’, p. 16. 122 “My opinion is that missiology must be based on seeing what God seems to be doing and evaluating that in the light of scripture (copying the apostolic process in Acts 15).” Lewis in Dick Brogden, ‘Inside Out: Probing Presuppositions among Insider Movements’, in IJFM 27:1 (2010), p. 36. Cf: ‘The earliest insider movements out there did not start because someone had a great missiological idea and said “Let’s try starting an insider movement.” As usual, theory is following observation. As in the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles in Acts, God is moving this way and we are trying to catch up by analysing the phenomenon.’ Lewis in Corwin, ‘A Humble Appeal’, p. 8. 123 Garrison begins from the assumption that CPMs are a ‘divinely produced phenomenon’ and then attempts to ‘reverse engineer’ them to discover ‘the Creator’s de- 906 St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision
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