mission & evangelism:
International Review of Mission
IRM
April 2003 - Editorial - by Jacques Matthey
MISSION IN SECULAR AND POSTMODERN CONTEXTS II
TURANGAWAEWAE, CIDADANIA AND A RENEWED RELIGIOUS COMPETENCE: THREE MAJOR PILLARS FOR MISSION IN POSTMODERN SOCIETY
This second issue of IRM on mission in postmodern contexts, or the relation between gospel and culture in secularized societies, should be studied together with the previous (January 2003) issue. which contains not only a first selection of papers and case studies presented at the Breklum consultation in June 2002, but also the important reports of the groups’ discussions. The present issue carries most of the other contributions to the consultation, as well as some papers received by the Review, and which can contribute to the debate1.
Let me begin by asking whether Turangawaewae is part of the mission strategy of your church. It should be. Read the paper which summarizes the results of Alan Jamieson's study in Aotearoa New Zealand of Christians who left their Pentecostal, charismatic or evangelical churches (in his text, EPC churches) after years of faithful participation and involvement. Portraits of ecclesiastical realities in postmodern or secular societies often show people leaving the so-called mainline churches. Usually, there is a presupposition that this does not happen in the more “convinced” communities. Alan Jamieson’s research challenges such a simplistic view. He discovered that most people who left their EPC church continued their faith journey, but in “churchless” surroundings. Whatever their personal stories, most of these very committed persons expressed an urgent need for a Turangawaewae, a Maori term for a place of belonging. In other words, these people sought a safe space, which would be a place to share, and in which to be validated and to stand. Alan Jamieson summarizes the relevance and functions of what he calls the flexible “post-church groups” formed by such church leavers under five categories. It is worth reading those pages and comparing them with the characteristics of postmodern faith attitudes as presented in the report of group 2 in the January issue.
Missiological studies on the relation between the gospel and secular or postmodern contexts owe much to the dynamism of the networks that in North America and the UK took up the challenges raised by the late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. Whereas papers from the British scene appeared in the January IRM, this issue begins with a summary presentation on the work of “The Gospel and our Culture Network” (GOCN) in North America written by its coordinator, Professor George Hunsberger. In addition to Hunsberger’s general overview, Mark Branson shows in a documented case study how an apparently irrelevant small American Methodist church became a lively missional community. Branson's paper is not meant as the model to be followed throughout the world. It proves, however, that this GOCN network of theologians and missiologists developed theory and practice in parallel. Chris Erdman was inspired by the debates at Breklum to share his thoughts and experiences on mission in such a context, in parallel to an interpretation of a major passage from the prophet Jeremiah.
The church situation in Sweden is, of course, very different from that in the USA. Hilda Lind shares the challenge which the majority Lutheran church in Sweden faces in a society that, in recent decades, has moved rapidly in the direction of what one can call postmodernity. Parallel to that, the church experienced recently a major change of status; the Church of Sweden is no longer a state church. Lind's paper reflects how both developments affect the church's understanding of mission.
With regard to a social or cultural understanding of recent developments, the Breklum papers and debates showed how fluid is our perception of reality. The progressive disappearance of the structural and, hopefully soon, also the ideological aspects of Christendom seem evident, but it is not easy to define clearly the new shape and role of religion in societies modelled by modernity and its latest developments. It is not even clear whether we should even speak of “post-modernity”. The consultation also indicates how different the developments in so-called “secular societies” can be when comparing the USA with Sweden or East Germany. The picture becomes even more complex when we widen the perspective to include other continents. For future developments, it may well mean that each context will produce its peculiar form of secularization and/or postmodernity. For example, Jayakiran Sebastian, in his paper, carefully distinguishes the conditions and meaning of the secularization debate in India from that in Europe. This leads him to affirm, “Any mission paradigm that does not take seriously the view that secularization is a religious construct can only be an emaciated paradigm”. In India, says Sebastian, there is no such thing as “believing without belonging”, and he makes three fascinating proposals for the revision of our understanding of missio Dei, christology and pneumatology. He asks, for example, whether we should not reflect on a mission of humankind to God instead of the mission of God to humankind, or what it means to affirm of the spirit that "is prepared not only to blow where it wills, but blow from where it wills".
Jan Nieder-Heitmann presents at some length an analysis of the history of Reformed Afrikaner Christians and churches in South Africa, and the particular form of Christendom which apartheid represented as a civil religion. The apartheid system was a bulwark against ideas inherited from the Enlightenment, but it was also a typically “modern” construct. Now, most Afrikaners are tempted to adopt the principle of the dichotomy between public affairs and private faith. “Modernity in this sense is rapidly becoming the only plausible structure for Afrikaners”. Modern Afrikaner Reformed Christians “now indeed also have to run the proverbial gauntlet between a failed Christianity and a false privatization.” The emergence of a renewed missional church for the “still racially separated Dutch Reformed family of churches” would imply, as a first step, acceptance of the Belhar Confession and the unification of these churches.
In his reflector’s report, Wilbert Shenk accurately summarizes one of the main challenges for churches in secularized societies: people born between 1964 and 1981 are “open to the spiritual, but allergic to the institutional”. Because these people associate “church” with “institution”, for missional communities to adapt to that form of culture would imply no special church building, no paid professional staff, and no big programmes. That this represents a major challenge for almost any church shaped by the age of modernity seems evident.
Other important consequences drawn by Wilbert Shenk relate to theology and ecclesiology. “The virtually inviolable dichotomy in the West between theology and theology of mission continues to sabotage theological validity”, he writes. People in the West need to rediscover the intimate and essential link between “the ecclesial and the missional”. Most Christians in Asia, Africa and Latin America never lost that link because their churches are minorities and have an awareness of the meaning of the gospel in their particular context.
It was a privilege to be able to count on the wisdom and creativity of Jyoti Sahi from India, whose reputation as an artist and theologically articulate person has crossed many frontiers. His reflector’s report contains rather challenging perspectives on inculturation and public/collective or private identity. Sahi raises the sharp question of the association of a post-Reformation & Counter-Reformation understanding and practice of mission with the national and violent ideologies which are characteristic of modernity. That issue must remain part of the missiological agenda on healing and reconciliation. However, there is more. Sahi goes so far as to suggest that globalization might be received as a blessing by those who today experience nothing but alienation, and therefore have nothing more to lose, and who strive for a new place in society. Through his provocative thoughts, Jyoti Sahi threw a stone of “counter-culture” into the pool of our consultation.
Repent from excessive self-secularization
In
general, I would suggest that cultural developments towards late or post-modernity
challenge Western mainline churches in particular to abandon their intellectual
fascination with the Enlightenment, and repent from excessive self-secularization.
They need to regain the religious competence they should never have lost.
Mission deals primarily with God’s relation with humankind and creation,
and centers on Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and the Spirit’s
motivating and healing power. It seems that people in secularized contexts
search for competence in those who deal with religious questions, while
often not thinking they will find it in churches. To be in mission is
not to live, speak and act like a socially active non-governmental organization
that also, from time to time, includes worship in its activities. Nor
is it to continue as a heavy institution, covering a territory, which
continues “business as usual” (i.e. constantly reorganizing
itself), in the hope that people will come back to parishes of which they
have never felt themselves members. I long for churches which correspond
to the following characteristics:
I have formulated these characteristics in my own words. Nevertheless, I feel that several contributions to and around the Breklum consultation would support the basic thesis that what is at stake is the capacity of churches today to appear less as organized institutions, and more as clear religious identities linked to a holistic practice of mission.
The lively story of Mark Charles’ witness and work in the streets of East Belfast among young people is a case in point. It can be read as the fascinating story it is. It can also be interpreted as a parable of missionary approach. Mark and his companions began work by walking through the streets over a period of several weeks, with the necessary humility and patience to wait for somebody to approach them. "Getting close to people and letting people get close so that God can be shared."
Yong-gi Hong, Pentecostal scholar and newly appointed senior executive for the mission work of the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Korea, shows the ambivalence of the Korean mega-churches in that they seem to adapt fully to modernity in their institutional life (what he calls their “Mcdonaldization”), but at the same time maintain a resistance against modern rationality through their important charismatic dynamism. The survival and faithfulness of these mega-churches will depend on them achieving the right balance between these trends. Essential for their success is the churches' capacity to offer meaning and generate commitment, what Hong describes as their “authority”. Hong affirms that churches in which transcendence is pushed to the periphery, and that do not offer meaningful spiritual experiences will eventually pass away. “If church leaders did not provide ways for Christians to have an access to the sacred (divine power), Korean churches would likely not grow in a modern social context”.
Written from a different perspective, another of the illuminating contributions from the continents of the South, this time by Ari Knebelkamp (Brazil), insists on a somewhat similar requirement. Writing as a Lutheran, Knebelkamp says, “Our theology has forgotten that joy is one of life’s greatest gifts. We have difficulties depicting Jesus Christ as someone in whom joy is to be found and experienced. This is the Jesus of blessings, of miracles, of healing, of the resurrection of new life, and of sharing. This is the Jesus who is the interested companion. The movement of people to the Pentecostal churches in Brazil and in other countries cannot simply be explained on the grounds of poverty; it must also be understood in terms of the intensity of the enjoyment that is on offer.”
The late professor Ion Bria, one of the most articulate Orthodox ecumenists, indirectly echoed this when he wrote, some years ago, from the perspective of his own tradition: “Easter is not merely about its philosophical and emotional abstractions, but it is a matter of deep existential experience. The basic purpose of mission is to set the people in a condition of openness and freedom in which the revelation of the Risen Christ can take place. Orthodox spirituality, in its paschal orientation, is intended precisely to enable the faithful to open their hearts and lives for such a touching visitation of the risen Lord.”
Neither Ion Bria nor Ari Knebelkamp would, of course, understand this as a way to escape one’s own mission, or the church’s mission in society. Many years ago, Professor Bria coined the now famous expression of the “liturgy after the liturgy”, and Ari Knebelkamp insists in his paper on what he calls cidadania, the fact that people are conscious of their standing and rights as residents of the city. He writes, “Every human being is of inalienable value and has cultural, social and political dignity”. It is an essential part of the mission of the church to reawaken and strengthen this self-confidence among people who society writes off. This is because, as Knebelkamp says, “Compassion defines the way in which God works in the world”.
Jacques MATTHEY
NOTE
1. For various reasons, it has not been possible to include all contributions in this and the previous issue of IRM. The range of persons, countries and denominations who were in dialogue at Breklum was larger than what appears in this publication. The schedules of some authors did not allow them to revise their papers or put their oral presentations in written form. While all had been invited and encouraged to do so, several sent their apologies. The editor regrets that among the papers not published are valuable contributions by women, the inclusion of which would have corrected the imbalance of the publication with regard to gender representation. Chris Erdman did not present his paper in Breklum but was a participant, and later sent his text as a contribution to the issue. Yong-gi Hong was not present at the consultation, neither was Ion Bria. The inclusion of their papers is the editor’s choice.
There is a particular reason for publishing the paper written by Professor Ion Bria in 1998. This much-loved and appreciated former WCC colleague died unexpectedly and very suddenly last year, leaving an impressive theological legacy. Ion Bria dedicated an important part of his life and work to addressing misunderstandings and important conflicts between cultures of the East and West in Europe, and between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. He succeeded in bridging some of the trenches in order to allow for cross-fertilisation. To publish his article as an opus posthumous is a humble way for IRM to say “Thank you” to God and to Father Bria for the richness of his contribution to mission and ecumenism.