Since the times of the inquisition, and those horrid scenes of “missionaries” sent to foreign lands to convert or kill the native population, the Church has been complicit in not only racism, but genocide. We still see this prejudice exhibited against foreigners today.
“Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the ‘civilized men’ care.
“Oh, this ‘noble’ culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights…
“I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them; let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic ‘gifts.’ and everything else we have done…We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all…
“If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be ‘Christian’ — then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity — yours and mine — has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.
“And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night…”[1]
Apt for today in a nation that by its lack of outrage, baptizes such practices as extreme rendition, torture, and the dehumanizing treatment of detainees in a “war” against ideas.
Indeed I have been noticing recently how much politics has come to resemble religion. Indeed while each side employs the righteousness of its cause, we live in a country where we believe “you are either with us or against us” anyone not locking step is part of the “axis of evil.”
We have fundamentally misunderstood the mission, to be about saving souls at any cost, when the goal of the mission has always been to transform lives; to make disciples who live the life of Christ, who transforms the hearts of men.
In John 20:21 Jesus says “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” For us, the mission is a continuation of Jesus ministry on earth. Mission
“Jesus told us that the field is the world (Matthew 13:38 ) but we have divided the field into two parts, home and foreign. In the popular mind, a missionary is a person who is called by God to preach the Gospel in a foreign country.”[3]
Many of us feel that the mission field is a good place to send someone who feels called to be in ministry, but couldn’t make it here in the states, either for lack of qualification or more precisely skill in preaching. But if the Great Commission was spoken to Christ’s followers, then it is a sufficient call for all believers to participate in some way. Further, if it is a universal call, then it is also a call to our brothers and sisters overseas, who read this passage and yet have not the means to travel “abroad”. Mission
Leslie Newbigin declared that the mission of the church is to be none other than the mission of Christ and the apostles. The mission concerns the ends of the earth and the ends of the world. The home base for missions is everywhere, and every local group of Christians is called to participate. The mission task is both at home and at the ends of the earth[4]
There are many problems with the traditional Western approach to missions. Often, when it has focused on anything beyond “saving souls,” the aim has been to reproduce American Christianity and American Values. This has been the great fault of the missionary movement, allowing these methods to be co-opted for the spread of capitalism and democracy around the world. Many missionary organizations continue to use archaic and outdated models of missions mixing the message of the gospel with a practice that was based on the colonization and taming of savage lands. For as President McKinley once wrote:
“There is nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for who Christ also died.”
Many times the error in Western thinking has been the underestimation of the native element of Christianity within a country. We have an air of superiority, acting as though a primitive lifestyle or lack of modern conveniences is proof of the mental capacity of a three year old. Even still much of the resources that are contributed to both missionaries and NGOs is spent on the support of the western administrators who expect a comparably high standard of living.
Likewise we are in error of eagerly trying to fulfill the “Great Commission”, without working on the Greatest Commandment first. Instead we “evangelize” by coercing the needy, enabling the weak, and preying upon the emotionally unstable. Our evangelistic method is to “pick the low hanging fruit.” The institutional church rewards those who report growth in numbers by any means, while hanging those who seek honest learners out to dry. For the Biblical model shows us that those who followed Jesus were called “disciples” (learners) rather than “converts” (29 times in Acts)[5]
It is the heresy of Charles Finney and D.L Moody that we have embraced the “saving of souls” at any cost, while ignoring the transformation of lives.[6] We are all called to be ministers of grace to the world through our lives, and that ministry IS mission.
[1] Albert Schweitzer, 1906
[2] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission Mission
[3] Herbert J. Kane, Understanding Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans 1998) p.17
[4] James M. Phillips and Robert T. Coote, Toward the Twenty-first Century in Christian Mission (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 1998) p.197
[5] John L. Amstutz, “Foursquare Missions: Doing More with Less,”
(Pneuma, The Journal of the Society for Pentacostal Studies, Vol 16, Num 1, Spring 1994 pp.63-80) p.71
[6] For more on this, read “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna.
AnteChurch: confession of a young theologian, Copyright © 2010 by J.D.M. Jinno. All rights reserved. The Author grants the right for an individual to print one complete copy of this work for personal use only. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever (including but not limited to appearance on websites other than http://www.antechurch.com) without written permission except in the case of brief quotations. You may link to http://www.antechurch.com. For more information contact the author at antechurch @ gmail.com
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