TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT GOD

Abstract

EBERHARD J[ddot{U}]NGEL [**] THE TASK FOR THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM [*] I. AN ECCLESIOLOGICAL GAP If church had a heart, a living, beating heart, its pulse would be largely regulated by mission and evangelism, and any deficiencies in church's missionary activity would immediately lead to serious cardio-vascular disturbances. If we are concerned for a church life with a healthily functioning circulatory system, we are bound to be concerned with mission and evangelism. To a large extent, missionary work as such has become special preserve of a certain type of piety. Nothing against very committed groups working in this field, and nothing against genuinely charismatic preachers! But if mission and evangelism are not, or do not once again become, affair of whole church, then there is something wrong with church's heartbeat. If Christianity could breathe, if it could pause and take a deep breath, it would learn that breathing is a two-fold benefit. It would experience both having to breathe in and being able to breathe out as a blessing without which it could not live. As it breathes in church turns inward on itself, as it breathes out it reaches out beyond itself. The Bible often speaks of God's Spirit as a wind or breath of air that can be breathed and with which church must be filled if it is to live in Spirit. The church must fill itself inwardly with this breath of Spirit so that it can constantly build itself up afresh as church. It does this in a special way in its liturgical worship, where it is gathered around God's Word and table of Lord, collected and concentrated in itself. But if assembly of believers among whom gospel is preached in its purity and holy sacraments are administered according to Gospel, [1] were to try to keep to themselves Spirit of God given t hem through Word of God and sacrament, [2] if they tried to take possession of Spirit, as it were, they would literally suffocate on this diving gift. For there are two benefits to breathing. If church wants to stay alive it must also be able to breathe out. It must go beyond itself if it wants to remain Christ's church. It cannot exist as church moved by his Spirit unless it is or once again becomes a missionary, evangelizing church. In fact, mission and evangelism should come as naturally to Christian church as breathing. In fact, where even two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, those two or three should be deeply and passionately concerned that soon four or five or more people will gather in his name. For tremendous event in which we have our origin and which makes us Christians, demands to be taken out beyond ourselves. What Friedrich Nietzsche said about death of God being allegedly greatest event of modem times, is actually true of One who died for all humankind and for their justification rose again from dead. This tremendous event is still on its way, still [3] A Christian is different from other people, marked out for world to see by fact that he or she has to point to and attest reality that crucified and risen Christ is still on his way, still wandering. In fact, this event which changed history of world should be on every tongue. Should be... Whether because it became all too quickly accustomed to rediscovered gospel, or to pure preaching of gospel and sacraments celebrated according to gospel, classical Protestant doctrine of church was misled at time of Reformation, and still more so thereafter, into drawing a dividing line between church and world and defining church in such a way that the existence of church as such, and that of its members seemed to be the ultimate goal of ways of God. [4] How could they, if they took New Testament seriously, how could they, even in theory, in defining church, overlook fact that gospel which constituted it was not for church alone but for whole world, and that consequently church which exists as creature of gospel cannot be an end in itself, but has to go out into world to tell that world which is (still) separate from it about God and God's world? …