Together towards Life and the Mission Studies Curriculum

Abstract

It was a great privilege as vice-moderator of the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (WCC-CWME) from 2007–2013 to be asked to chair the drafting group for the planned new policy statement on mission and evangelism, and I hope I may be allowed a few moments to reminisce about that experience. During the previous CWME, preparing the statement and getting it through the relevant processes became our main work. The first stage was to determine our priorities for the document. Since we could not cover all the many facets of mission, we had to select what we could agree were the priorities for mission in today's landscape. Looking back at the only previous statement from 1982, “Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation,” it was clear that the global landscape had altered significantly.2 The year 1982 came before the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization, before 9/11 and the so-called “clash of civilisations,”3 and in many other respects it seemed a long time ago. In the light of this, our mission priorities needed rethinking. Once we had decided these at the commission meeting in Bangalore in 2008 – marginalization, evangelism, ecclesiology, and mission spirituality – we divided into groups to work on them. Each group held consultations to inform its writing. I was privileged to contribute to a meeting in Manila in July 2011 to discuss mission and pneumatology, another on church and mission in Geneva in May 2011, and a third on mission spirituality in Jamaica that same month. Our joint conference with the Faith and Order Commission in Hungary in 2009 supported the work on ecclesiology, the Edinburgh 2010 project and conference helped to frame our ideas ecumenically, and several other WCC initiatives also fed into our work. It was daunting to receive the first reports from the groups and to try and work out how to put them together as a coherent whole. What is more, each part needed to be approved by the rest of the 25-member commission and the discussions threw up fascinating theological and missiological issues at every turn. Finally, one weekend in Geneva in 2011, the moderator Bishop George Varghese mor Coorilos, secretary Revd Dr Jooseop Keum, and I finalized the introduction and conclusion – initially drafted by Dr Keum – and then the complete draft document could be circulated for the commission's approval. The pre-assembly conference on mission and evangelism in Manila in March 2012 was the most exciting part of the process for me. The draft document was examined and tested by 250 mission practitioners and scholars over five days. In the wonderful atmosphere created by the Philippine Council of Churches, the new statement met with general affirmation and the scrutiny bore fruit in many constructive suggestions that were implemented by a further revision group led by Revd Dr Kenneth Ross. Then at the end of August that year it was my privilege to present the document to the WCC central committee meeting in Crete, and it was to my great relief that I heard it was accepted as official WCC policy. Finally, at the WCC general assembly in Busan in South Korea in 2013, I moderated the plenary on mission – the first for 21 years – at which the message of Together towards Life was introduced to the churches. I believe the success of this document owes a great deal to the forethought of Revd Jacques Matthey, the former commission secretary, to the careful steering and energetic leadership of Dr Jooseop Keum, and to the moderation of Bishop Mor Coorilos. It has been a great honour to contribute. What is the significance of Together towards Life for missiological education? I believe we should see its significance in three main ways: in its novel pneumatological approach, in the ecumenical consensus it represents, and in its use of the world Christianity paradigm. The decision to frame the document in a theology of the Holy Spirit was a crucial one, as I shall show. This step emerged out of earlier work of the CWME, especially in relation to the conference on mission and evangelism held in Athens in 2005, which took the theme, “Come, Holy Spirit, heal and reconcile!” This title was intended as a reminder that “mission does not belong to us, but is the mission of God, who is present and active as Holy Spirit in church and world.” Remembering that “in Jesus Christ, God has laid the basis for full reconciliation and healing,” the conference called on God the Spirit “to heal, reconcile and empower us so that, as individuals and communities, we may become and share signs of peace, forgiveness, justice and unity, and renounce hatred, violence, injustice, and divisions.”4 The Athens conference was in part an attempt to revive the theme of the Holy Spirit following the very difficult experience of the WCC general assembly in Canberra in 1991. The Canberra assembly had taken the theme, “Come, Holy Spirit, renew the whole creation.” It was the first time the council had chosen a pneumatological topic. This step was supported by the Orthodox churches, some of whose theologians had long complained about Western neglect of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Whereas the Western church tends to associate the Holy Spirit first with love, the Orthodox – following the Nicene Creed – describe the Spirit primarily as “the Giver of Life” and were eager to communicate this understanding.5 However, in the event the treatment of the topic was divisive. In particular, the Orthodox representatives strongly objected to the presentation of a Korean theologian Chung Hyun Kyung, who, at the opening plenary, presented a Korean women's liberation theology in the form of a shamanist exorcism.6 Although Chung was making some powerful points about the Spirit's solidarity with the suffering and the Spirit's liberating role that challenges human power structures, these were obscured for many by her provocative style and weak Christology. The charge of “syncretism” was levelled against her. This was one of the reasons Orthodox representatives called on the council to set theological criteria that would define the limits of diversity, and suggested that unless this question was addressed they would consider withdrawing from it.7 Others were particularly uncomfortable with Chung's reference to other “spirits,” either because they simply did not share the concept of a spirit-world or because they understood other spirits as necessarily evil. However, Orthodox theologians and many others, especially from outside the West, did not have a problem with recognizing that theology of the Holy Spirit implies there are other spirits. What they disputed was the nature of the relationship between the Spirit and those spirits.8 Understandably, the topic of pneumatology was dropped in WCC circles for the time being. However, the papers in preparation for the assembly, other presentations there, and the responses afterwards were very fertile.9 They revealed a new appreciation of the spirit-world background to New Testament theology, of the scope of the work of the Spirit, and of the transforming work of the Spirit. In particular, they revealed the potential of discourse of “Spirit and spirits” for mission theology especially. At Canberra the representatives of almost all strands of Christian tradition applied “Spirit and spirits” to the full range of ecumenical concerns: to social, economic, and political movements and forces, both destructive and constructive. Spirits were also connected with matters of the human heart, giftedness, morality, and evangelism. Under the influence of the Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation project, attention was drawn to the forces or spirits of creation. The spirit-language was also applied to unity, dialogue, and reconciliation.10 When, 14 years later, the conference on mission and evangelism in Athens dared to broach the topic again, it was with greater caution. My own plenary presentation there was intended to make many of the same points as Chung – especially about the liberating power of the Spirit who may speak from unexpected sources – but in a way that could be less easily challenged on theological grounds.11 Discussion at Athens was also helped by the fact that in the intervening period, pneumatology, spirituality, and even discussion of spirits had become more common across traditions and around the world. In my view this was due in large part to the growth of Pentecostal and charismatic theology.12 At any rate, after the opening plenary, I and the other plenary presenter, Dr Wonsuk Ma, himself a Pentecostal, were invited to respond to questions in a “synaxis.” When he closed the session after two hours of lively interventions, Dr Christoffer Grundmann expressed amazement that in all that time no one had used the word “syncretism” once! In many ways, the climate was right to approach time-worn topics from a fresh, pneumatological perspective, which seemed to capture the moment and had the potential to reach across the churches from Orthodox to Pentecostal, from Catholic to Quaker. The theology of the Holy Spirit that frames Together towards Life is in contrast to the first WCC statement on mission and evangelism, the ecumenical affirmation of 1982. This relied heavily on the theme of the kingdom of God to express its theology of mission, as had the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh more than a century ago. There is a certain parallelism in scripture between “kingdom” and “Spirit.” Both in the Old Testament and the New, “The Spirit is connected with politics, history, rule and order, with freedom, justice and a new society,” and therefore functions, like “kingdom,” to describe God's “kingly rule” in history. So that “whilst in the synoptic gospels Jesus repeatedly speaks of ‘the kingdom,’ the word ‘Spirit’ as a reference to God scarcely occurs a dozen times there. Conversely, the word ‘kingdom’ only occurs ten times in Paul but the word ‘Spirit’ more than one hundred times.”13 John, like Paul, prefers “Spirit,” whom he also describes as “Paraclete,” and reference to “kingdom” occurs in only three verses in his gospel. Of the synoptic gospels, Luke has a more developed pneumatology than Matthew or Mark, and in Luke's sequel to his gospel, the book of Acts, the Spirit takes centre stage as “the guiding and driving force of mission.”14 The restoration of the kingdom for which the disciples were looking (Acts 1:6) is answered by the promise of the Holy Spirit, “power from on high” (1:8; Luke 24:49). Several New Testament verses point to the parallelism between kingdom and Spirit: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Matt. 12:28); “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (John 3:5); and “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me … to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour” (Luke 4:18–19). Whereas the doctrine of the Trinity, and therefore pneumatology, is often separated from Jesus' preaching of the kingdom as a later ecclesiastical development, Jürgen Moltmann showed how the two hang together in a trinitarian doctrine of the kingdom.15 In summary, “The Spirit is the one who makes the kingdom of God, the kingdom of love and justice, real in Jesus' life, and in the life of his followers. The Spirit is the Spirit of this kingdom (John 3:3–5).”16 Both kingship and anointing with the Spirit are signs of Jesus' messiah-ship. Both Spirit and kingdom are manifestations of divine power, and their appearing signifies God's eschatological reign. Both are therefore used as foundations for Christian mission, and to encourage contemporary Christian involvement in social and political issues. The reasons for preferring either Spirit or kingdom are interesting to contemplate.17 However, in the context of the early 21st century, the CWME had no doubt that pneumatology was the more appropriate metaphor to use to describe mission. Not only does the pneumatological language have widespread appeal, but Together towards Life is a consensus document. It was developed by a group – the CWME members and invited partners – working from scratch but drawing on other ecumenical documents. The CWME includes not only WCC member churches and mission bodies – Protestant and Orthodox – but also, as full members, Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal bodies. So this document arises out of ecumenical co-working. Moreover, it was refined in several stages – first by the commission as a whole, then by the wider constituency of the mission conference, and finally by the central committee. Considering the length and originality of the document, to reach agreement is a remarkable achievement. As it turns out, Together towards Life was produced at a fruitful moment when other major global Christian bodies were reflecting on mission and evangelism. We are now in the unique position of being able to compare three documents published within three years of each other: the Cape Town Commitment of the Lausanne Movement, an Evangelical organization for world evangelization, in early 2011;18 Together towards Life in early 2013; and Pope Francis' Evangelii Gaudium in late 2013, which draws on the proceedings of the 2012 synod of bishops as well as other sources.19 The three documents show quite a remarkable amount of common ground. However, in any comparison, I believe certain characteristics of Together towards Life will stand out. The most distinctive feature of Together towards Life is its pneumatological approach, but it is different in other respects also. The Cape Town Commitment is a clear statement of evangelical commitment and its outworking in “integral mission”: “the whole Church taking the whole gospel to the whole world.”20 However, it is divided into two parts: a confession of faith and a call to action – a dichotomy that I am glad that Together towards Life has avoided. The theological part of the Cape Town Commitment is well crafted and uplifting. It shows how mission arises from and is motivated by the love of God and how meditation on gospel truths has important consequences for ministry. The process by which this theological section emerged is not transparent but it appears to be drafted by largely the same hand. This provenance has the advantage that it is clearly structured and the language and ideas flow in an inspiring way. However, it makes the use of “we” somewhat less credible. The mission themes are largely the same as Together towards Life but, as might be expected from this quarter, there is relatively greater emphasis on biblical authority and more explicit attention to the work of Christ. The second section, the call to action, is more recognizably traceable to different groups within the Lausanne Movement. It surveys the changing landscape, as does Together towards Life, and identifies many of the same issues. Like Together towards Life, it tends to see the problems from an ideological standpoint. Although, where Together towards Life stresses the role of globalizing forces, the Cape Town Commitment sees the world more in terms of separate people groups. Much of the mission theology is in common – witness, peace-making, loving, discernment, humility, partnership – but Cape Town Commitment gives greater attention to proclamation, truth, and personal righteousness than to the social justice that is so central to Together towards Life. It concludes with a prayer for “a reformation of biblical discipleship and a revolution of Christ-like love.” Evangelii Gaudium, produced in Pope Francis' first year of office, like the Lausanne document uses the term “evangelization” in a broad sense similar to mission.21 Throughout the text, the first pope from outside Europe in 1300 years draws attention to the global nature of the church and affirms “cultural diversity” (para. 117), as does Together towards Life. In contrast to narrower views that may limit evangelization to proclamation, Pope Francis describes evangelization as the “missionary impulse” that will focus the church outward rather than on its own survival (para. 27). In common with Together towards Life and Cape Town Commitment, he declares that mission is integral to being church: “missionary outreach” to all who do not know Christ, wherever they are, is “paradigmatic for all the Church's activity” and, quoting his fellow Latin American bishops, he calls for a general move to a “missionary pastoral ministry” (para. 15; italics original). In contrast to both the other documents, Pope Francis emphasizes that “realities are greater than ideas” and puts ideology aside in favour of practice (para. 233). He focuses throughout the document on the role of the church in mission and envisages “a Church whose doors are open,” that “goes forth with joy” and that is engaged with the world, even if that means it is “bruised, hurting and dirty” (paras. 46, 24, 49). While he affirms preaching and instruction as essential parts of evangelization, in his discernment of the context he begins not with secularization and pluralism, which is more the concern of Cape Town Commitment, but – like Together towards Life – with economic injustice, oppression, and exclusion. He draws attention to the harm globalization from the West has done to other parts of the world, and he contrasts this with Jesus' teaching of the growth of the kingdom of God, with its inclusion of the poor and insistence on peace and social dialogue. Nevertheless, and in contradiction to both the other documents, Pope Francis is positive about the West as “an evangelized culture” (para. 68), which continues to have much to offer to other continents. There is much food for thought here – I have only scratched the surface. Although Together towards Life itself included Catholic and evangelical contributions, it is to be hoped that students of mission will study not only Together towards Life but these other documents as well to discover the mission priorities of other global Christian bodies and assess to what extent mission and evangelism can be done together by the whole church. A third significant aspect of Together towards Life is the context of World Christianity that shapes it. From the beginning, Together towards Life shows awareness of the “shift of the centre of gravity” of Christianity over the last century especially, to which Andrew Walls first drew attention.22 The World Christianity paradigm has many facets: it is a significant statistical observation; it legitimizes the use of sociological method in mission; it treats Christianity as a world religion and allows for religious studies approaches; it makes the study of Christian mission more acceptable in secular and post-colonial contexts; and it is a way of de-centring Europe, which has been overly dominant in the study of theology and church history. But at the heart of the shift to world Christianity in mission studies lies a rediscovery of the nature of the church's catholicity. World Christianity shifts interest away from understanding Christian diversity primarily in terms of doctrine and polity and toward spatial or geographical diversity, which was the primary sense in which the first councils of the church understood catholicity. No longer is the unity envisaged mainly as a denominational one, it is also a cultural and regional one. The ecumenism of the colonial period that gave birth to the WCC tended to assume that overcoming the doctrinal and liturgical differences between the churches of Europe would unite Christians globally. Today, this is no longer the case, and new expressions of catholicity are being sought from different regions of the world, for example through the Global Christian Forum. The new catholicity must also recognize that many of the newer churches are organized differently from the traditional churches of Europe, which are national churches with parish systems. The newer churches may describe themselves as “international” and they may exist primarily as local congregations. Or they may be “migrant churches”; that is, they are not yet settled or integrated into the local religious landscape. These are Christians without borders and churches on the move – arguably much like the churches of the book of Acts (see below). In view of the historical diversity of World Christianity and the different contexts in which faith is practised, Together towards Life keeps an open mind about models of church polity and the limits to Christian diversity, while encouraging a truly global conversation to discern the Holy Spirit. I would like to share with you my own development of a mission studies curriculum that shares some of these same characteristics as Together towards Life. It is detailed in my book, Joining in with the Spirit: Connecting World Church and Local Mission.23 The origins of this book lie in the mission programme that I coordinated at the United College of the Ascension, Selly Oak, the core of which was a ten-week introduction to mission studies. The college was ecumenical in that it was run by USPG – an Anglican mission agency of Anglo-Catholic heritage (now known as US) – and the Methodist Church. It had the advantage that students were drawn from many different countries to the extent that European students usually found themselves in a minority in the classroom. We also taught ordinands and clergy undergoing continuing education (who came for some “world church” experience), mission and development executives, and clergy and church workers arriving to minister in Britain. In this context, I insisted that, although each local church is missional, the missio Dei is global and churches are part of a world wide web. Therefore mission studies cannot be done apart from the context of World Christianity, which at the College of the Ascension was represented in the classroom. I further argued that mission studies, by its nature, must take an interdisciplinary approach. From my study of mission, I identified five core dialogue partners of mission studies: (1) biblical and systematic theology; (2) ecclesiology and church history; (3) cultural anthropology and cultural studies; (4) political theologies (including liberation theology and development); and (5) religions, spiritualities, and ideologies. We then structured the programme to include all five areas – in two five-week blocks. Mission was treated from a global perspective and different weeks focused on different geographical regions.24 I later developed this programme into the book and shaped it particularly to support the British churches in their post-colonial context of needing to re-work the relationship between home and abroad. Whereas this has earlier been configured as “local church and world mission,” I turned this round as “local mission and world church.” From my study of the Holy Spirit in Asian contexts,25 I was convinced that a pneumatological approach had something to offer in my home country and so I used characteristics of the Holy Spirit as the theological framework for the book. Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury is quoted as saying, Christian mission is “finding out where the Holy Spirit is at work and joining in.” This book explores what following the Archbishop's definition and starting with the Holy Spirit might mean for the theology and practice of Christian mission. In particular, it attempts to show how the unbound nature and unpredictability of the Spirit's presence and activity (John 3:8) cuts across human expectations and confounds our sense of geography. The most striking example of this in recent history took place in the last century when European Christians found their mission to bring all the other peoples of the world into their churches resulted instead in what we call “world Christianity,” in which Europe becomes a relatively small part of a much larger movement. The realisation that Christianity is not (and never was) a European religion, and that the Spirit is moving in ways far beyond our control, poses the new challenge in mission that will be the main subject of this book: How does our local experience of the Spirit connect with the Spirit's global work? And conversely, what is the relationship of what we sometimes call “the world church” to ministry and mission in Britain? The Spirit which binds us together is the missionary Spirit, the Spirit sent into the world. This is the theological basis of the missionary nature of the church. … God's mission is greater than any church, and it is in this wider movement of the Spirit that all the churches in the world participate. It is within the greater purposes of God that we find our unity. The missio Dei is not confined to any locality; it spills over, crosses boundaries and is carried across the world by the wind of the Spirit. It does not have a single origin or one direction but comes and goes as the Spirit wills. However it is one movement because the Spirit witnesses to a unique person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified and raised, who reveals the Father in heaven, source of all things. We have yet to realise that the cosmic Christ is manifested in the unity of local churches in the mission of the Spirit. When we do, we will connect world church with local mission. We will be able to join with the Spirit who moves over the earth sustaining our world and our life – the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who is given to bring about good news in the whole creation. One Spirit: Mission beyond global and local Seeing ourselves from outside Colonial mission and the legacy of empire Global mission or local mission? Christianity as a world religion The Holy Spirit in the world: Biblical and theological perspectives Rethinking mission Mission as a Trinitarian activity The church in the power of the Spirit The Holy Spirit as “the chief agent of mission” Discernment as the first act of mission Discerning the Spirit: Among peoples and cultures Spirit and cultures Translating the Word Rooting the gospel in culture Transforming society Inculturation Cultural formation of identity Fresh expressions in British culture Movements of the Spirit: The multidirectional spread of Christianity The evangelisation of the Greco-Roman Empire: Apostles and martyrs The Byzantine mission: Priests and witnesses The spread of the Oriental Orthodox churches: Merchants and sages The Christianisation of Western Europe: Saints and seers Medieval Roman Catholic missions: Monks and soldiers Protestant missions: Preachers and teachers The evangelisation of Africa and black Christianity: Slaves and prophets Mission from everywhere to everywhere Empowerment of the Spirit: Struggles for justice, freedom and well-being The movement for liberation in Latin America Liberation theologies worldwide Postcolonial theologies Black theologies Feminist theology Spiritual conflict Political theology Spirit-uality: Christian witness in a multi-faith context Thinking about religions Encountering Indian multi-faith experience Catholic theology of religions Ecumenical theology of dialogue Evangelism and dialogue Rethinking Christian witness among other faiths Wisdom of the Spirit: Mission in scientific and secular society Faith and modernity Revival religion in the USA Fundamentalism From religion to spirituality Post-modernity and religious plurality Public faith in the West Secular and spiritual wisdom Spiritual growth: Mission and development The Bible and African life The Spirit of life and healing The international development agenda Mission and development Defining development Development as community growth Creation and ecology in mission Spiritual visions: Reconciliation and mission spirituality Spiritual visions in North-East Asia Korean dreams of reunification Reconciliation as means and end of mission Mission spirituality The mission of the Spirit: Connecting world church and local mission Ecumenism and churches together Together with migrant churches The new catholicity: worldwide fellowship of the Spirit Together in mission – local and global Joining in with the Spirit was first published in 2009 so it was from this perspective of “joining in with the Spirit” and “connecting world church and local mission” that I was participating in the project of the new mission statement. Through the Together towards Life process, I came to appreciate some key contributions of the four main themes of the document to contemporary mission thinking. Each of these is related to the document's pneumatological grounding and more-or-less corresponds to one of the main four sections of the statement. The Holy Spirit's life-giving nature is the most prominent feature of Together towards Life. The structure of the Nicene Creed makes it clear that we cannot reduce the life of the Spirit to some kind of “purely spiritual” life that is separated from biological and natural life. The Spirit is the life-giver because the Spirit is co-creator with the Father and the Son. The life of the church is set within the triune God's creative activity to bring life to the world. In our preparation of the text, and at the conference in Manila, we spent some time reflecting on how the Spirit is related scripturally to each of the elements of creation: wind, water, fire, and earth itself. The Holy Spirit experienced in the New Testament is this same life-giving power of the universe. In the first century, Jesus understood himself as a partaker of the same spirit and subject to the same (spiritual) forces. Luke begins his gospel with insight into the spiritual world of contemporary Judaism.26 Zechariah, a priest, is burning incense in the sanctuary while the people are outside at prayer when he sees a vision of the angel Gabriel who annou