DEBATES ON THE
What follows reflects ongoing study and debate on
the church's mission from the 1960's through the 1980s, that is, since the
creation of many new nations which formerly were colonies and the renewal of
Catholicism in Vatican II. The outline
is drawn from discussion in the World Council of Churches [WCC], which now
includes the Orthodox churches and in which Roman Catholics are involved even
though they are not members, and also in the Lutheran World Federation
[LWF]. See especially as an introduction
to the debates Herbert Neve, ed., Sources
for Change. "Missional ecclesiology," with
its explicit incorporation of recent trinitarian insights, has developed since
these debates raised so many questions.
I.
Introduction: The Traditional View of
A. Mission in this view involves bringing others to faith and into the church and its life and mission.
B.
C. Catholics and Protestants have generally proceeded along these lines, believing that God gives the church its mission and the Holy Spirit works through the church and individual Christians. This view was at the heart of the modern missionary movement (1800-1970).
D. Typical efforts to improve this approach to mission involve:
1. Activating the possibilities present in the institutions (e.g., congregational evangelism programs, new forms of cooperation, better training, media, etc.)
2. Thinking is done from the inside out: "how can we reach others with 'our' gospel?"
3. The direction often is from the clergy to the laity, with leaders delegating tasks to members, or "older" established churches directing "younger" churches.
4. The goal is seen as bringing people to Christ by bringing them into the church.
E. AGAINST THIS TRADITIONAL VIEW, ecumenical studies on the renewal of the church and mission, led by the WCC, have proposed:
1. The true task of mission is to change the world in a more comprehensive way than only bringing people into the church.
2. The method for mission should relate the church's contribution to the world's needs—the slogan being "The world sets the agenda."
3. The structure of mission must be formed anew in response to the question, "What does God want done in God's world?"
4. The direction is not from within to outside, but both ways: What is the world like, for which the mission is intended? and, What form should the mission take for this world?
5. Church structures and forms of ministry are to be determined by the world's needs and the resulting needs of the mission.
II. The Main Issues According to the Ecumenical Alternative (WCC)
A. Does the mission belong to God (missio Dei) or to the church? The WCC studies say that mission is only properly thought of as part of the doctrine of God, not of the doctrine of the church. Mission is not a function of the church; the church is a function of mission! The church is mission; it does not have a mission.
Some CONSEQUENCES of this understanding involve:
1. A high value is placed on the world and on history; God is acting there and not only or even primarily in the church.
2. The church is secondary, although still necessary.
3. The crucified Christ is taken as the paradigm for the church, which also is to surrender itself for the world.
B.
1. The traditional way of thinking had the order as God-church-world. The new way sees the order as God-world-church.
2. God's missionary activity is aimed at the world and the church is to fit into this God-world framework. The church exists for the world.
3. Implications:
· Neither God nor mission is focused on the church.
· God's activity is not primarily for or limited to the church
·
· Church structures should not be considered to be permanent or unchanging.
C. A new theological understanding of the relationship between church and world:
1. WCC says the church has a "perceptive headstart" over the world, since the church knows of God's mission. The church is to point out God's salvation to the rest of the world. The basic relationship between the church and the world is one of solidarity, not hostility.
2. Creation is the chief dogmatic category and salvation is to bring wholeness to the creation. The church's role is to bear witness by living as those who have been reconciled-- so that others will know that the world has been saved.
D. The church's responsibilities in mission:
1. God's mission is the transformation of the world; the church is to participate constructively and critically in world events.
2. The church is to affirm Christ's Lordship of the world by pointing out where in the world God is at work. The church does not bring Christ to the world; rather, it discovers him already there.
3. God is said to be at work wherever godly activities are happening: peace, justice, wholeness, liberation, humanization.
4. The mission of the church is to take part in movements already going on in the world; it needs to discover "where the action is."
E. What is the GOAL of mission, according to the WCC alternative?
1. The goal is not the expansion of the church but shalom for the world.
2. The church does not bring or give peace but finds it and forms it with others.
F. Implications for the church/congregation:
1. The church as an institution which is necessary for salvation is rejected.
2. The emphasis should be on new forms of church and ministry as called for by the mission. Form follows function.
3. Because history is always changing, there can be no single normative structure for the church/congregation; the church must be flexible, varied, and contextual.
4. The local congregation may be one option, but it is neither necessary nor normative.
III. A Lutheran Evaluation and Response (from the LWF)
A. Criterion for judgment: agreement with the gospel
B. The world is rightly taken as a point of departure.
1. The order God-world-church is a right and necessary order, since salvation is for the world and for the restoration of the whole creation.
2. The church is healthy and faithful when it exists for the world.
C. However, the biblical concept of "world" needs to be taken more seriously.
1. What the church owes the world depends on what is meant by "world."
2. In whose power is the world? Is it correct to say, as the WCC studies often do, that because of Christ all persons are already saved (but just don't know it)?
3. According to the Bible, the world and each individual person is also sinful and will be judged.
4. According to the N.T., one must be "in Christ" to be saved. Faith comes by hearing.
D. What, then, is the church's specific relation to God’s mission?
1. Only God's saving acts are part of God's mission; not all of God's actions in the world (e.g., creating, providing, judging) have to do with salvation.
2. God acts in a saving way only through the gospel. The order God-church-world is a necessary addition to the WCC proposal.
3. Passing on the gospel is the chief theological reason for the church's existence.
E. Church and World
1. Faith leads to works; the gospel frees for service. The church, to be true to its message, must be in the world both in its proclamation of the gospel and in its members' callings.
2. The WCC alternative view of mission downplays personal faith and salvation. Yet Lutheran (and others') inactivity in caring for the world must make us cautious in criticizing this position. There are good reasons for their critique of the old view.
3. There is no shalom for the wicked. The mission must give priority to grace in Christ over this-worldly shalom. Also, biblically-speaking, there may be shalom without present worldly well being.
F. The church is both the tool (WCC) and the goal (traditional view) of mission.
1. Making believers should not be ignored.
2. The WCC critique and proposal should remind Christians to be sure that the church is such that all sorts of persons are able to be part of the body of believers.
3. "Solidarity" does not erase all boundaries between church and world. Not all things (all actions, all means to ends) are permitted to a Christian.
G. The church does not have the task of proving the presence of Christ in world events.
(Cf. Luke 17:20 – the kingdom is not coming with signs to be observed.)
1. There is a constant danger of identifying Christ with movements we like.
2. The church should remove illusions about "messianic" movements and call for objectivity, sobriety, and reasonable thinking about events in the present age.
3. We should not try to find Christ in events, but rather we should know that God is always already at work in all things through creation and the law. Also, we should remember that all things are affected by sin.
IV. Conclusions
A. The WCC alternative does little justice to the inner life of congregations and the needs of
persons involved in mission for nurture, study, worship, and fellowship. The WCC criticisms may be in part a reaction against the inflexibility of European church structures.
B. The WCC study has an inadequate anthropology—both in terms of neglecting the individual aspects of human life and in not taking into account the depth of human sin.
C. The local congregation's primary purpose was never mission, but nurture (and in this it reflected the situation of "Christendom"). The challenge which emerges clearly in the WCC study is the failure of the congregation to take seriously its responsibility for mission and for missionary structures. The extent to which this is not only a matter of ignorance or inadequate attention to theology and governance but a manifestation of sinful preoccupation with itself is something churches must take very seriously.
In addition to the book mentioned on page l (above), see also several books by Colin Williams as well as the extensive literature on the idea of missio Dei (mission of God); see also the Appendix to this paper on the following pages.
Appendix
on missio Dei
Notes
from David Bosch, Transforming
Already in 1932, Karl Barth became one of the first theologians to articulate mission as an activity of God, in contrast to being an activity of the church or of individual Christians and mission societies. Soon the use of the word “mission” also took on eschatological connotations, by which God will bring about a new heaven and a new earth at the end of time. By the time of Willingen Conference (1952) mission was clearly understood as being derived from the nature of God—and hence from the Trinity—rather than from ecclesiology or soteriology. [It should be noted that this new thinking took several decades to permeate the life of the churches and their mission activities. MK] A key insight, even though it seems obvious in retrospect, was to focus on the literal meaning of mission, “sending,” and realize that God is the sender. And if this is the case, then the sending of the Son to become incarnate, taking the form of a servant and being crucified, became an important guard against triumphalism on the part of Western Christian mission. [Given the history of linking missionary activity with colonialism, this was a very important point.]
If the mission belongs to God, the church is seen as an instrument for God’s mission. The church may have “missions” (plural), but the overall “mission” (singular) is God’s. This means that the church is not only to plant new churches or seek more members or save more souls, since God’s mission is larger than that—it concerns God’s reign over all the world, the ongoing struggle with the powers of evil and darkness, and the eschatological fulfillment. This tended to add all sorts of world-transformational aspects to mission, both in thinking of the goal of mission and in including God’s activities in ordinary history and not only through the church under the category of missio Dei. God is now said to be at work already in the world ahead of the church. It should be noted that this was a change from the earlier understandings (of Barth and others), away from the emphasis on God’s mission as primarily bringing reconciliation or salvation. In fact, as God’s mission came to be understood as being far larger than the church’s missions, it was even suggested that mission excluded the church’s involvement. The movement in this direction was led by the Dutch South African theologian, Johannes Hoekendijk, whereby the church was said not even to have a role in articulating what God was up to in secular history, since (it was claimed) the world was already reconciled to God ever since the resurrection of Jesus. The result for this movement was a focus on God’s mission that was primarily political.
This development made many people suspicious of the term and the concept missio Dei, since it now could be understood in mutually exclusive ways. Bosch says, nevertheless, that we must hang on to the central insight that mission belongs to and proceeds from God and that it is always for the sake of the world, which God loves. This, he reminds us, was a crucial breakthrough and therefore we must not revert to a narrow, ecclesiocentric view of mission. Instead, we must define God’s work, and therefore God’s mission, more clearly and more theologically—beginning from the trinitarian understandings which have their origin in Christian reflection on the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This will mean that the church’s missions focus both on the good news of the gospel and on the implications of this for Christian participation in the world with respect to injustice, oppression, poverty, discrimination, disease, and violence. Further, mission is not only God’s “Yes” to the world; it also includes God’s “No” to the world’s corruption and the political, social, and economic systems that oppose God’s purposes and by which religion often is seduced. (The last few sentences include materials from pp. 10-11 in Bosch’s book).
The following is drawn from Bosch, pp. 511-19.
One of the tasks of missiology (the theology of mission) is defining the term “mission.” As the term was developed during the twentieth century it went from kerygma (proclamation) to kerygma and koinonia (community), to adding to these diakonia (service), then also martyria (witness); however, whichever one of these is made primary tends to lead to mission being understood in different ways. Instead, Bosch proposes six major “salvific events” portrayed in the N.T. as interconnected guidelines for speaking faithfully of mission.
1. The Incarnation of Jesus and the gospel’s portrayal of his actual historical life and teachings as the one sent by God the Father and born a first-century Jew.
2. The Cross, on which Christ died for our sins, as the key to understanding God’s nature and purposes as well as a model for the church’s life of service.
3. The Resurrection as the beginning of the future fulfillment, the promise of the missionary message, and the newness in which the church is to live in contradiction to the forces of death and destruction. The reason for hope.
4. The Ascension as the enthronement of the crucified and risen Christ—whereby he already reigns as King of the whole cosmos. This means that the church may not opt out of history and society but must serve God’s will in all areas of life.
5. Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit as the Spirit of witness, the power of Christ’s mission in which the church is involved and whose koinonia it is to embody to the world.
6. The Parousia, the primacy of the future, when God will be all-in-all, and God’s ultimate reign of justice, peace, and love will come to the whole world. A promise that, finally, the mission does not depend on our success or lack of it, but on God’s faithfulness.
This might be summed up by saying that for the church “mission is the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus.” (p. 519)
Prepared
by