IAMS Executive Director Klaus Schaefer of Hamburg, Germany (r) confers with former IAMS president Frans Verstraelen, missiologist at the University of Zimbabwe in harare.
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the real worlds that are out there? Is it actually crossing those real worlds with the real Gospel? My "conversion" at Bill's hand soon got me to gatherings of Bill's missiological colleagues, even though what I got paid for in those days was systematic theology, i.e., doctrine and ethics. Before long I was a dues-paying member of the American Society for Missiology and its global counterpart, the International Association for Mission Studies. The real missiologists are still mystified why someone in systematics would join their club. My standard answer: Crossings is a mission movement, focusing on the laity as Christ's sent-ones for the care and redemption of the world.
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How you articulate Christian mission is always linked to your picture of how people get saved. Even though it wasn't listed on the conference program, that became more and more the agenda. To that I had a few things to say, something you've heard more than once in these newsletters. Why Jesus? What's Jesus necessary for? If you want to hear more of the same, read on. ehs O is for Only, as in the Gospel's claim: Only Jesus |
| From ASM and IAMS friends I've learned that "missions is a mindset" -- more caught than taught perhaps -- a specific picture, a vision, an image of what Christ and his church are up to. In today's patently pluralist world there is no consensus about that missions mindset -- not even among the mission-minded. We saw that at IAMS's 10-day study conference in Buenos Aires. |
IAMS Executive Director Klaus Schaefer of Hamburg, Germany (r) confers with former IAMS president Frans Verstraelen, missiologist at the University of Zimbabwe in harare. |
What then is this "only?" Among the 140 participants from 40 countries at IAMS 1996 there was no consensus on the only-ness of Jesus. But that was no surprise. In the mix were Christians from the entire ecumenical spectrum -- African Independent Churches to Syrian Orthodox, conservative evangelicals to mainline protestants to Roman Catholics. Sprinkled into that mix was pentecostal salt-and-pepper inside and outside the names just mentioned.
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The conference zeroed in on today's global economy which links everybody's pocketbook (full or empty) to everybody else's in the whole world. "Economies in Conflict -- God or Mammon," we called it. All participants were clearly "for" God and "against" Mammon. No problem there. It was in the details that debate arose. Not only details about today's world economy and appropriate faith-responses, but also details about God's own "economy" with people. How and with what "goods and services" does God deal with us, especially with us as sinners? What, if any, new dealings with new goods and new service (to the same old sinners) did God initiate as Jesus came into the market place? Years ago Bob wrote an essay on interpreting the Bible, where he crafted this bon mot: "Biblical hermeneutics is at no point separable from Biblical soteriology." In nickel words: How you read the Bible is always linked to how you think people get saved. That axiom applies to missiology too -- as we saw at IAMS 1996, Buenos Aires.
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My answer to the question Why Jesus? got mixed reviews. Some Asian IAMS colleagues, who are clear minorities in cultures overwhelmingly shaped by other religions, urged us to see Buddhists and Hindus of good will as not really needing "our" Jesus. Why? Because their ancient religious heritage had on its own given them a passion for peace and justice. These good people were already at work making God's kingdom a concrete reality in their own contexts. The task for Christian missions then is not conversion, but collaboration -- to join them in creating a larger society of peace, justice and economic equity. Isn't that what our Gospel is all about? Without denying any of the moral and ethical resources of other world religions (which the Bible doesn't deny either) my presentation claimed that the Christian Gospel addresses a different malady amongst us mortals. That malady is something other than humankind's moral and ethical laxity (or even perversity).
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