There was an old Monty Python gag line, “And now for
something completely different” that I might employ today. In recent days we’ve
been covering a lot of things related to text criticism, but one of the bread
and butter content elements of this blog has been book reviews. So, in WM 181 I
am going to be offering a review of K. P. Johannan’s book Never Give Up: The
Story of a Broken Man Impacting a Generation (Gospel for Asia, 2020).
I picked up and read K. P. Yohannan’s Revolution in World
Missions decades ago. The book was first published in 1985 by Gospel for
Asia, Yohannan’s parachurch mission organization. There are millions of copies
in print. I have used anecdotes and illustrations from the book over the years.
Two things stood out about this book:
First, and most importantly, Yohannan critiqued the whole
Western missionary enterprise and its sending of Western missionaries into the
third world and suggested instead support for indigenous Christian workers.
Second, he critiqued the whole idea that doing “good works”
(or social work) is equal to preaching. A typical statement: “Substituting a
bowl of rice for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God will never save a soul and
will rarely change the attitude of a man’s heart” (112, thirtieth printing,
2004). I knew Yohannan did not share my Calvinism but saw him, nevertheless, as
an earnest evangelical and resonated (especially as a former missionary) with
many of his critiques of Western missions and the substitution of the social
gospel for the preaching of Christ crucified.
I had lost track of Yohannan until recent days when I saw this video of his conversation
with Hank Hanegraaff and Francis Chan. It was obvious that some major changes
had taken place in Yohannan’s life and ministry both by his personal appearance
(long hair and beard, large cross around his neck) and his new title
“Metropolitan” and even new name (Moran Mor Athanasius Yohan). Had he become
Eastern Orthodox, as has Hanegraaff? I followed up by listening to Hanegraaff’s
interview with Yohannan on his Unplugged podcast.
Mention was made in the podcast interview of Yohannan’s
memoir Never Give Up: The Story of a Broken Man Impacting a Generation
(GFA, 2020). I ordered a used copy and read it.
This is quite a different book than Revolution in World
Missions. Yohannan begins by describing and responding to charges of
financial corruption and mismanagement that had been lodged against Gospel for
Asia.
See this 2019 online article from the Time of India. If you want
to dig a little deeper read various blog posts on Yohannan and the GFA scandal
posted by Warren Throckmorton.
Yohannan begins by describing his despair in dealing with
this scandal and even confesses that he suffered suicidal thoughts during this
time. He is, on one hand, seemingly open, but on the other, rather vague, not
only about the whole financial scandal but also about the momentous spiritual
changes that have taken place in his life.
The man who wrote Revolution in World Missions was a
Protestant evangelical. It is clear that the man who wrote Never Give Up
has gone through some profound changes in his convictions. Let’s consider two:
(1) his transition from evangelical Protestantism to what might be called
Evangelical “Orthodoxy” [“Orthodoxy” is in quotes because Yohannan’s church
does not appear to be part of mainstream Eastern Orthodoxy—see below] ; and (2)
his embrace of social ministry apart from gospel preaching.
The move to Evangelical “Orthodoxy”:
For more biographical information, I turned to Yohannan’s Wikipedia page. It notes that Yohannan (b. 1950 in
Kerala, India) had worked with the parachurch ministry Operation Mobilization
in India for eight years (from age 16) and came to the US in 1974 to study at
(what was then) the Criswell Bible Institute in Dallas, TX, upon the personal
invitation of W. A. Criswell. After a short stint as pastor of an ethnically Native American SBC church, he and his
German-born wife started Gospel for Asia.
I also noted that according to the Wikipedia article states
that Yohannan had grown up in the Mar Thoma Syrian church in Kerala India, an offshoot of the St. Thomas Christians. The Mar Thoma church is an apparent
example of an Eastern (Oriental) Protestant church, which emerged in the nineteenth
century. This church, under the influence of Anglicanism, attempts to meld
Protestant theology with Orthodox liturgy.
This helped me understand his pilgrimage and how his
itinerant church planting ministry, under Gospel for Asia, has now issued in
the establishment of the Believers Eastern Church, over which Yohannan is now
Metropolitan (leading bishop).
There are references to this transition in Never Give Up,
but the details are sometimes vague. There is no “linear” narrative of how exactly
he made this transition from American-style evangelical para-church Protestantism
to this new episcopal, Eastern-influenced liturgical denomination came about.
Here are a few of the interesting statements made about Yoahannan’s
new theological conviction in Never Give Up:
The headwaters analogy (136-137): KPY uses the analogy of
needing to return to the “headwaters” of a stream to find water that is “still
clear and clean and pure.” He adds, “We can’t simply go back 500 years to the
Reformation and think we’re at the beginning. We need to return to the real
beginning, the early centuries” (137).
On theosis: KPY affirms the Eastern Orthodox concept
of theosis (deification) over against the Protestant concept of
sanctification/glorification (142-143).
On the acceptance of the Nicene Creed and its recital in
Sunday liturgy in the Believers Eastern Church (160-167): He writes, “It is our
plumb line of faith” (160).
On ecclesiology: He writes, “The true church is not
just individuals worshipping God on their own” (161).
On problems of “individual interpretation” of the Bible:
After affirming that the Bible “is God’s primary way of speaking to us” he
adds, “At the same time, we must keep in mind that the Scripture is not meant
for individual interpretation, for each of us to just read it and do what is
right in our own eyes” (163). He continues with an argument common with Roman
Catholic and Orthodox apologists, arguing that when Christians began to
interpret the Scriptures individually the result was “42,000 denominations”
each claiming “to be the one true church” (164). He closes, “Almost all cults
started as Bible study gatherings…” (164).
On Western Protestant intellectualizing of the faith: “Years
ago, in my journey, I found my heart and my head were in two completely
different worlds” (165).
On the centrality of the Eucharist: “If you are seeking for
the truth, I think you will eventually arrive at the reality that Holy
Communion (the Eucharist) is an important, unexplainable mystery” (169).
The embracing of social ministry apart from gospel preaching:
KPY confesses, “There was a time when I was a radical,
calling only for preaching the Gospel and forgetting about any kind of social
work. I’ve since had to repent and change my ways from saying social work
cannot be mission work” (173).
He does nuance this by saying that the Great Commission
cannot be fulfilled through social ministry alone but now lauds this
type of ministry (174).
He later shares that he even added a new chapter to the
latest editions of Revolution in World Missions to reflect his
repentance in this area (202).
How it Ends:
Never Give Up ends with a Biblical quote from the NLT of 1 Corinthians
4:4-5 that seems more than a little ambiguous: “My conscience is clear, but
that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and
decide” (224). Does he have a clear conscience even if not proven right
(guiltless) with respect to charges of financial mismanagement?
Final Thoughts:
Let me return to the two big transitions in Yohannan’s life
and thought:
First, what do we make of his transition to Evangelical
“Orthodoxy”? On one hand, we might say at KPY has simply come full circle in
returning to his childhood roots after a long detour through American
Protestant evangelicalism. So, his story could be seen as a personal journey.
It can also be examined for its wider implications. Yes,
there are many glaring weaknesses in evangelicalism: ecclesiologically,
theologically, and liturgically. Yes, the Western, Enlightenment influenced
approach to the faith too often addresses the head and not the heart. These
things finally caught up with KPY. Along these kinds of lines, one might
compare my previous review of Thomas Howard’s Evangelical Is Not Enough.
Yes, broad and vacuous evangelicalism too often results in spiritual
anemia in those hungry for substance, which sends them to Rome or
Constantinople or Canterbury looking for substantial nourishment. Former Christianity
Today editor Mark Galli’s conversion to Roman Catholicism in September 2020
is but the latest high profile example of this (see this article).
In KPY’s case, however, it seems he has not gone over to
Orthodoxy but to something like an “Orthodoxy” by way of Canterbury. By
founding a new church could he not be charged with just adding to the supposed
42,000 plus denominations?
It is also interesting that despite his critique of the
failures of evangelicalism, Never Give Up has a forward written by George
Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization and the back cover has an endorsement
blurb from Calvary Chapel pastor Skip Heitzig (as well as Hannegraaff, now
Orthodox).
As a confessional Reformed Protestant, I also take exception
to his statement, “We can’t simply go back 500 years to the Reformation and
think we’re at the beginning. We need to return to the real beginning, the
early centuries.” By going back to the classical Reformed confessions, however,
are we not attempting to go back to the apostles and also back to the classic
creedal statements of the early church related to the doctrine of God and
Christ (as affirmed in the WCF and her daughter confessions)?
Rather than move to Rome, or Constantinople, or Canterbury,
can one find perhaps a more serious and meaningful expression of the faith by
going to Geneva (or London)?
Second, what are we to make of his embrace of “social
ministry”? Though Christ certainly taught that we are to love our neighbor as
ourselves and Paul taught in Galatians 6:10 that we are to do good to all men,
but especially to those who are of the household of faith, I still think that
the “old” Yohannan was right strongly to challenge the idea of social ministry apart
from the preaching of the gospel.
JTR
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