Why Mission or How Mission

CHURCH MISSION   - why & how

The Church of Christ is based on a missionary Mandate: Go, Teach, Baptise.

Hence, the ‘why’ of mission has never been questioned but accepted as the “mission” of the Church of Christ, from its very inception. The Church is missionary ny nature. Bonum est diffusivum sui. (Good is self-diffusive).

If so, why is Christianity opposed down the centuries and particularly, today?

In India, a land of spiritual awakening, why is Christians hardly 2.1% of the population? In the world, ISIS has vowed to “kill” Christianity and Christians? WHY?

Are the issues Doctrinal, Moral, Political? Are the claims of Christianity to be One, Holy, Universal, Apostolic Church false? Why is the Church not only growing in numbers but being persecuted to decimation? Why?

Perhaps, we need to seek an answer not in the ‘Why Mission’ but rather the ‘How Mission’ Let us then review the historical development of the missionary activity of the Church.

A.             The early Christian Community saw itself as “Peter’s barque” on a mission of salvation, not only committed to the missionary mandate  but also firmly convinced that there is no salvation outside the Church of Christ.(Extra Ecclesiam, nulla salus). The Community on Peter’s barque lived in an hierarchical structure with Peter (Popes) at the summit with levels of various ranks. There were the Rulers, the “Clergy” and Subjects, the “Laity”.

In this model of Church that was maintained through centuries, the ‘Missionary’ was a person whose love for Christ and obedience to His Mandate made of him a ‘Rescuer’ of the Masses wallowing in the darkness of ignorance and idolatry.

The religious tenets and rituals in earlier State Religions (Roman Emperor worship), Household Gods,  Judaism and other  doctrines and forms of worship in the Oriental world (Hindu Scriptures, Buddhism) was reduced to the ignorance and idolatry category.

The attitude of the Christian missionary was one who stood on a platform of wealth, knowledge and holiness, entrusted with the compulsive task of “saving souls” with a sense of sympathy and condescension towards the ignorant masses.  Proselytism and conversion were missionary slogans and the period of the Crusades and later, Colonialism, the missionary activity of the Church could be described as aggressive spiritual membership and territorial aggrandisement, through conquests or incentives.

Thus, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania would say: When the Missionaries came to us, we had the land and they had the Bible. They taught us to join our hands and close our eyes in prayer. When we opened our eyes, they had our land  and we had their Bible; Since years missionaries have been accused of recruiting ‘rice christians’ in India or building ‘ container churches’ in Africa. Add to this the many complaints of missionaries being arrogant and domineering and often looking down on the local or natives. ( cfr. Missions on trial, by W.Buhlman; accounts from the Sudan)

B.             Vatican II (1960ff) changes the missionary model and begins with the definition of the Church, no more as Peter’s Barque but very simply as the “People of God” (LG, AG). The Church is no more an  hierarchical structure but a community of love and unity as Jesus wanted it to be.(“That they may be One, as the Father and I are..) Church Vocabulary talks now of Religious Freedom and inclusive openness to other Religions. The anxiety is not about Conversion, but Dialogue to promote inter-religious harmony.

C.             Partnership in Mission is the new approach and missionary activity is a two-way process of giving and receiving (sharing). In this context, a new missionary model emerges with the presence now of “Third World Missionaries, hailing from the former mission lands whose attitude is not of a Rescuer but a Partner in Mission.

D.            New Evangelization shifts focus from the Church, the ‘exclusive’ Saving Barque of Peter to the the ‘all inclusive’ Kingdom of God.

E.               Did Christ intend the Church to be the Kingdom of God?  He wanted His Disciples to be the “Salt, Light and Yeast” to build the Kingdom. The “One Shepherd, One Flock” refers to Jesus Christ the One Shepherd and the Kingdom a united Flock of all religions with the Church as the Salt, Light and Yeast bonding the Kingdom.

F.              The task of New Evangelization is to plant the conviction in all Religions, that a purposeful Dialogue is the only path to building the Kingdom of God.

“I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.

“The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with him. As John Paul II once said to the Bishops of Oceania: ‘All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion’… (Pope Francis)

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