McKnight, Scot; Barringer, Laura | A Church Called Tov

A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing
Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer

Hardback: Tyndale, 2020, 243pp.

Introduction

Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer, authors of A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing, begin with a simple premise: as people in churches live by the Word of God, conforming their lives to the image of Jesus the Son, they create tov—the Hebrew word for “good”—cultures. The goodness exudes from these individuals, as it was always intended to. People living in and into the life of God produce flourishing wherever they go.

Flourishing, however, often seems more incidental, even accidental, than the regular state of affairs in churches. What explains the disconnect between God’s good design and the dysfunction, if not abuse, that prevails in many churches? McKnight and Barringer suggest the answer lies in toxic cultures, which are rooted in sin and self. McKnight and Barringer do not belabor that answer. They emphasize the better vision depicted in the Bible and offer practical steps for developing tov cultures. Forming them is not for “elite” Christians; rather, tov “is rooted in the ordinary. We can do good things, certainly, but goodness implies an ongoingness of good things to the point that they become, well, ordinary” (181). Through ordinary means—the sharing of meals, empathizing with others—tov streams forth, enriching anyone who comes into contact with it.

Radical Kinship

McKnight and Barringer emphasize that one essential effect of God’s reconciling work in Jesus is that Christ’s followers are formed into a family of sisters and brothers where all siblings have equal status. “True sibling equality,” they write, “has huge implications for ending power-based and fear-inducing cultures. Equality under God the Father and Christ [the] Son wipes out any hierarchy of superiority and rank” (118). It is the Holy Spirit, who transforms us “from enemies and strangers into friends and family” (118). The authors offer the apostle Paul as one whose work was marked by the radically transforming power of the Spirit. “Nothing is clearer in the missionary work of the apostle Paul,” they write, “than his determination to not only get people saved, but to get saved people to learn how to get along with one another. Particularly those who had not traveled in the same circles. His mission, it can be said, was to expand the close-knit nation of Israel into a multiethnic people” (119).

Table Worship-Fellowship

Sometimes, living in the good news of Jesus’s kingdom begins with “welcoming [people] into your home and eating with them” (128). Kathy Fletcher and David Simpson enacted that kingdom reality when their son started inviting his friends, who came from poorer families, over for dinner. His friends invited other friends, and eventually, “more than two dozen kids were coming for dinner each week. Soon, other adults were coming as well, and the table of generosity became a table of healing for all” (128). 

Barringer and McKnight then provide an anti-example of table fellowship: “We must always be aware of the effects of our service on those we serve. Calvin Miller, a well-known author, pastor, and professor who passed away in 2012, grew up in very serious poverty in the later years of the Great Depression. He and his family were the grateful recipients of charity during those years, but they were also ashamed of their need and wise to the ulterior motive behind it. Observing the irony of it all, he later wrote in his memoir, Life Is Mostly Edges:

Needless to say, we children didn’t want to go to those churches that brought us the baskets. The last place you want to go worship is the place where the people need you to be poor so they themselves can feel rich in the dispensation of their charity. There is something grandiose in receiving it. Beggars don’t ask for money so they can think well of themselves, but because feeling bad about themselves is usually less painful than starvation” (180–181).

Church as Culture

Early in the book, McKnight and Barringer say, “Every church is a culture” (13). Each church, through its words, actions, and verbal and nonverbal reactions, defines what is normative. Church culture is not solely a matter of “leadership”; rather, culture forms through leaders and congregations. Together, they shape a culture—for good or ill.

When the culture is good, or “tov,” it engenders empathy, compassion, and grace. When the culture is ill, or toxic, it generates fear and insecurity, and usually abuse. McKnight and Barringer illuminate culture’s possibilities, as well as its dangers, in Chapter Five: “Church culture matters. As we live in our culture and also into our culture, our culture begins to live in and into us. A good culture will shape us toward goodness; a toxic culture will shape us toward evil. … How we understand and feel about our relationship with God is formed and fostered by the culture of the church we’re in. We tend to equate how we stand with the leaders of the church, and how we stand with the congregation—that is, our conformity to what they approve and disapprove—with how we stand with God” (83).

The authors conclude, “Let’s be clear about one thing from the outset: Choosing a church is choosing a culture, and the culture we choose will form us into the people we become” (84).

Culture of Toxicity vs. Culture of Tov

What culture, then, should Christians choose? The answer seems obvious. But as McKnight and Barringer disclose, many Christians, including Barringer and McKnight themselves, find themselves in toxic cultures. McKnight and Barringer outline some characteristics typical of a toxic church culture and counter it with seven life-giving qualities found in a tov culture: empathy and compassion, grace and graciousness, selflessness, truth telling, justice, service, and Christlikeness. They provide the following overview of the two cultures: “Toxic, flesh-driven cultures breed a lust for power, success, celebrity, control through fear, an emphasis on authority, and demands for loyalty. These values may not be explicitly stated, or even outwardly recognized, but as they fester in the heart of a leader, they can’t help but bear bitter fruit, damaging the culture of the church and seeking to destroy anyone who gets in the way.”

“A Spirit-formed, Christlike culture, on the other hand, nurtures truth, offers healing for the wounded, seeks opportunities to show redemptive grace and love, focuses on serving others (rather than on being served), and looks for ways to establish justice in the daily paths of life. A Christlike church culture always has its eyes on people because the mission of the church is all about God’s redemptive love for people” (23).

In examining the two cultures, Barringer and McKnight offer a way to diagnose churches. This diagnostic tool is not designed to demolish churches. Rather, it intends to tear down and cut out anything unhealthy so that the people of God can live in and into God’s good, abundant life.

A tov culture develops as the people of God are transformed by the good news of God’s kingdom. When Jesus begins His earthly ministry, He not only proclaims good news to the poor but also sits with the poor (Luke 4:16–21). He opens the eyes of the blind, literally and spiritually. He says it is the year of the Lord’s favor, and so it was. It still is. Jesus’s kingdom is here, and now is the day to embrace and share His tov.