[Originally published as ‘Transformation Mission Theology: Its History,
Theology and Hermeneutics,’ Transformation
2007 (Vol. 24, 4): 193-212]
Introduction
Since
an intentional mission theology of transformation was first articulated at a
consultation in Wheaton in 1983,[1]
several writings have appeared to express its convictions and practices. An examination of such articles in the
recently published collection edited by Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden, Mission as Transformation,[2]
leaves one reviewer, Haddon Willmer, wondering whether a rigorous and
consistent theology of transformation has emerged.[3] Willmer raises two concerns in particular:
the meaning of the term ‘transformation’ appears to be used too loosely and
needs clarification for a theology of mission, and the theology of
transformation needs to be articulated with regard to wider discussions in
theology and missions. These concerns
call for robust scholarship in mission history, theology and hermeneutics with
regard to a mission theology of transformation, and this article is an attempt
in this direction.
The
call for greater rigor in a theology of transformation for mission theology and
practice might be a need in the whole field of missiology too.[4]
As Chris Wright has recently stated, mission hermeneutics is still in its
infancy.[5] This article is intended to contribute
somewhat to the larger discussions in mission theology. Still, the topics offered here arise from an
examination of an Evangelical theology of transformation and probe more than
scrutinise this particular area of mission studies. In all, twelve overlapping areas of history,
theology and hermeneutics will be explored for a transformational mission
theology and practice. First, however,
some introductory remarks on the meaning of transformational mission theology
are required.
What is a Mission Theology of Transformation?
By
a theology of ‘transformation’ is meant an Evangelical mission theology that
embraces social transformation as equally a part of the Gospel as personal
transformation (repentance and conversion)—a holistic theology. Its focus is the whole Gospel for the whole
person in the whole community, a focus that calls for Biblically based
transformation of persons and communities.
This means that ‘mission’ is itself construed less in terms of
cross-cultural ministry and more in terms of what the mission of the Church
worldwide should be. Since a mission
theology of transformation is presented as an Evangelical theology, two
important aspects of ‘Evangelical’ should also be highlighted in this
definition: the theology grows out of the history of the Evangelical movement
and, while often quite pragmatic, it seeks Biblical warrant.
In
a recent ‘Transformation’ article by Vinay Samuel (2002) that sought to explore
the meaning of mission as transformation, the Kingdom of God was, surprisingly,
largely absent where it had been central in the Wheaton 1983 declaration.[6] The article offers a current but somewhat
occasional statement of transformation theology—there is no interaction with
other theologians in the essay. One
might see this as proof of Haddon Willmer’s claim that the theology needs more
rigor. But it could also be seen as an
expansion of a theology that is still being probed in Scripture, theology and
practice.
A
summary of Samuel’s 2002 article and comparisons to Wheaton 1983 might offer an
initial description of a theology of transformation for the purposes of this
essay.
Wheaton
1983 explored a theology of social transformation through the following topics:
Introduction
1. Christian
Social Involvement (sections 1-5)
2. Not
only Development, but Transformation (sections 6-13)
3. The
Stewardship of Creation (sections 14-18)
4. Culture
and Transformation (sections 19-25)
5. Social
Justice and Mercy (sections 26-31)
6. The
Local Church and Transformation (sections 32-40)
7. Christian
Aid Agencies and Transformation (sections 41-48)
8. The
Coming of the Kingdom and the Church's Mission (sections 49-53)
While
transformational theology is ‘holistic’ in the sense of being about spiritual and physical/social matters, Wheaton
1983 tends to hold various theological ideas holistically: an already/not yet
eschatology; sin/redemption; personal/social sin; personal/social
transformation and salvation; physical/spiritual; evangelism/social involvement;
Church/world; culture is both good and bad, needing transformation; the need
for both mercy and justice; love for
both the Church and the larger community; partnership in missions; and parity
between the purpose and means of raising funds.
Samuel
first describes missions as about the broader picture—a point that is also
‘holistic’ in the broad sense--about God and the world, an emphasis he believes
is captured in the phrase ‘missio Dei’. This description of mission is supported by a
reference to God’s purposes in creation, then to God’s working with all nations
(not just Israel), and thirdly to God’s entering history—the incarnation and
the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.
In Wheaton 1983, on the other hand, no mention of the incarnation as a
ground for the Church’s social action was suggested. Wheaton 1983, while not drawing attention to
any Trinitarian approach to its theology (as Samuel 2002 does in passing), did
work out theological points with attention to God the creator, Christ
(especially Lord of all), and the Holy Spirit.
Both Wheaton 1983 and Samuel understand the Spirit in terms of the
divine, personal, present, powerful, and transforming Spirit of God.
We affirm that transformation is, in the final analysis,
His work, but work in which He engages us. To this end He has given us His
Spirit, the Transformer par excellence, to enlighten us and be our Counsellor
On. 16:7), to impart His many gifts to us (Rom. 12; 1 Cor. 12), to equip us to
face and conquer the enemy (2 Cor. 10:3-5; Gal. 5:22-23). We are reminded that
our unconfessed sins and lack of love for others grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30;
Gal. 5:13-16) (Wheaton 1983, section 53).
Also,
both Wheaton 1983 and Samuel 2002 seek to find a thoroughly Biblical way of
speaking about missions—not one option among many, but a way of speaking about
missions that can be found in the Old Testament as well as in the New
Testament. There is here a commitment to
the unity of Scripture in Biblical mission theology.
In
Wheaton 1983, there were seventeen Old Testament texts referenced, with several
Old Testament theological ideas featured: monotheism, the image of God,
creation, Fall, God’s concern for the nations and universal mission, and
stewardship figure several times. But
the NT is given most attention. In
Samuel 2002, the focus of Biblical interpretation falls on Paul. Samuel identifies Rom. 8.19-21 as the best
way to describe transformational theology:
For the
creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for
the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of
the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free
from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. (New Revised Standard Version)
His
emphasis from this passage is that transformation is about persons and
therefore the people of God. An
encounter with Christ, he states, was and is transforming for individuals: it
entails a reorientation of individuals and relationships, a reconstitution of
identity, a new vision of the world, an empowerment, being reconstituted, and
being sent out in mission. In a word,
transformation of persons is about character transformation. Thus, for Samuel, transformation as a mission
theology involves the concern not only for the situation of the poor but also
about the development of the character of the poor—a transformation of persons.
In
discussing transformation in terms of persons, Samuel briefly discusses several
characteristics of personhood that are in view in a mission theology of
transformation: the physical; the communal (later, Samuel speaks of the
importance of building moral communities, which involves the Christian
community—the church); the self; roles; morality (e.g., faithfulness,
commitment, integrity); being ‘other regarding’ (love, interdependence,
sacrifice, compassion, acceptance, inclusion); ethical resistance (e.g., to
wrong, sin, violence); reconciliation and renewal (forgiving, reconstituting,
rebuilding, sharing differences, recognising one’s own constant need to be
cleansed, renewed, and reconciled); creativity, stewardship, and seizing the
opportunity; and prayer and worship.
Samuel
sums up such transformation of persons in Pauline terms: the goal of transformed
personhood is that Christ be formed in us.
He most likely has Rom. 8.29 and Gal. 4.19 in mind. In this theological move, transformation is
not just about the poor but about all people, since all need the transformation
that is found only in Christ Jesus.
1. Transformation and H. Richard
Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture
‘Transformation’
became a most agreeable term in theological circles in 1951 to describe the
preferred way to construe the relationship of Christ and culture, or the Church
and society. In this year, H. Richard
Niebuhr offered his five alternatives by which to construe the Church’s
relationship to society: Christ against culture, Christ and culture in paradox,
Christ transforming culture, Christ above culture, and Christ of culture. He believed that each alternative had a
Biblical basis and each had several examples in the history of the Church.[7] Yet he preferred the ‘Christ transforming
culture’ model above the others. It not
only gives the Gospel preference over culture but also sees culture in a
positive way and seeks to engage and transform it.
Perhaps
one reason why Niebuhr’s term ‘transformation’ became so popular is that it can
easily be used by others he intended to exclude. That is, the question quickly arises, ‘How
does one best transform society?’
Different cultures and contexts may have to answer this question
differently. But one might argue that
Niebuhr’s ‘Christ Against Culture’ model is actually a model of transformation,
as several in the Anabaptist tradition have recently done.[8] H. Richard Niebuhr’s brother, Reinhold
Niebuhr,[9]
had already argued that, given the fallen realities of our world, some middle
axiom of justice might be pursued in less than Christian ways (the use of
violence). Such an engagement of culture
accepts that change in a real world is a slow process and requires extreme
measures on the way to an ideal. Justice
is not love, but it is on the path to it.
This was not H. Richard Niebuhr’s idea of ‘Christ transforming culture,’
but Reinhold Niebuhr thought this the most realistic way in 1949 to think about
effecting social change. Thus
‘transformation’ offers a way of talking about the Church’s engagement of
society without offering any clarity as to how this is to be accomplished.
Chris
Sugden writes:[10]
Transformation has not really
been one theory or set of theories about poverty, explaining the causes of
poverty, why the world is as it is and helping us to bring change. It has been
used as a strategy – as a way of attending to the whole person in the whole of
their relationships. But it had no worked out theory. It has been more of a
narrative, a framework, a way of thinking about what Christians believe should
happen rather than what actually happens, explaining causality as a basis for
problem-solving action.
2.
Transformation and Twentieth Century
Evangelical History
Evangelicals
also came to use the term to correct theological errors in their own
circles. Thus, a theology of
transformation developed in reaction to a Fundamentalist abandoning of culture
as evil and about to be destroyed. This
view is consistent with the shift from a postmillenial eschatology in the early
1800’s, with its positive outlook towards culture, to a premillenial
eschatology in the late 1800’s. The
reaction to Fundamentalism came in the United States from the
‘Neo-Evangelicals’[11]
in the 1950’s and later. Carl F. H. Henry, for example, wrote the following in
his Aspects of Christian Social Ethics
in 1964:
‘In our country, as I see it,
Protestant forces seeking a better social order in America have mostly
neglected the method of evangelism
and the dynamic of supernatural regeneration
and sanctification. Instead, they have resorted to a series of
alternative forces—at first, moral propaganda and education, then legislation,
and more recently, nonviolent public demonstrations and even mob pressures
against existing laws. Now it is true
that the Church has a legitimate and necessary stake in education and
legislation as means of preserving
what is worth preserving in the present social order, but it must rely on
spiritual regeneration for the transformation
of society. The neglect of this latter
resource accounts mainly for the social impotence of contemporary Christianity.[12]
It
will be noted that Henry is looking for a way to speak of transformation: he
seems to believe that the term needs to be nuanced. He considers four types of transformation:
revolution, reform, revaluation, and regeneration. The problem with Protestant Liberalism is its
‘substitution of social betterment for spiritual redemption.’[13] In the ‘regeneration’ model, ‘Christian
leaders do not regard themselves primarily as social reformers.’[14] Social issues are not exalted above
theological ones. ‘The strength of the
strategy of regeneration lies in this:
in contrast to the other modern social philosophies, it flows from the
revelation of the Creator-Redeemer God.’[15]
Henry
emphasises the importance of the vertical dimension—the human–Divine
relationship—in social ethics. It is
therefore necessary to consider theological topics such as the following in a
regeneration transformational theology for society: ‘the will of God; man’s
fall; the revealed commandments; the law of love; the prophetic promise of a
Redeemer and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ; the need for personal holiness
and the gift of the Holy Spirit; the Church as a society of twice-born men and
women in union with Christ; the ultimate triumph of the right and the final
judgment of the wicked.’[16]
Regeneration
seeks not merely to re-educate but ‘to renew the whole [person] morally and
spiritually through a saving experience of Jesus Christ.[17] One must be ‘born again’ (Jn. 3.3).
3. Transformation and Our
Evangelical Heritage
Another
factor in the Evangelical move away from Fundamentalism was the rich history of
the Evangelical movement, something much broader than Fundamentalism. As Richard Lovelace points out in his
important historical assessment of Evangelicalism, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Fundamentalism is as much of an
aberration of Evangelical theology as is Liberalism. Lovelace identified five marks of a genuine
work of the Holy Spirit in revival: an exalting of Jesus Christ, an attack
against the kingdom of darkness, an honouring of the Scriptures, a promoting of
sound doctrine, and an outpouring of love toward God and humanity.[18] Looking back to New England’s Great Awakening
in the 1600’s, Lovelace notes that Jonathan Edwards’ reflections on the revival
(in his Religious Affections)
‘establishes the principle that a full-fledged revival will involve a balance
between personal concern for individuals and social concern.[19] For that matter, we might look even further
back to the Anabaptist Menno Simons, who, in his Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing (written in 1539) wrote:[20]
Behold, most beloved reader,
thus true faith or true knowledge begets love, and love begets obedience to the
commandments of God. Therefore Christ Jesus says, "He that believeth on
him is not condemned." Again at another place, "Verily, verily, I say
unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from
death into life," Jn. 5:24. For true evangelical faith is of such a nature
that it cannot lay dormant; but manifests itself in all righteousness and works
of love; it dies unto flesh and blood; destroys all forbidden lusts and
desires; cordially seeks, serves and fears God; clothes the naked; feeds the hungry;
consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the
oppressed; returns good for evil; serves those that injure it; prays for those
that persecute it; teaches, admonishes and reproves with the Word of the Lord;
seeks that which is lost; binds up that which is wounded; heals that which is
diseased and saves that which is sound. The persecution, suffering and anxiety
which befalls it for the sake of the truth of the Lord, is to it a glorious joy
and consolation.[21]
Simons
affirms in the first several sentences a doctrine of salvation by faith alone,
but he insists that this ‘evangelical faith is of such a nature that it cannot
lay dormant.’ It is a transforming
faith.
4. Transformation and A Broader
Christian Dialogue
A
theology of transformation also undoubtedly developed in appreciation for what
was positive in non-Evangelical circles.
As David Bosch points out, the Nairobi Assembly of the World Council of
Churches (1975) and Roman Catholicism’s 1974 Bishops' Synod and Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) publication
called for a holistic understanding of salvation:
Missionary literature, but also
missionary practice, emphasize that we should find a way beyond every schizophrenic position and minister to people in their
total need, that we should involve
individual as well as society, soul and
body, present and future in our
ministry of salvation.[22]
If
Carl Henry’s criticism of non-Evangelical models of transformation was that
they omitted the vertical dimension, holistic theological emphases from the
‘other side’ such as these undoubtedly goaded Evangelicals in the 1970’s to
make similar holistic statements. Chris
Sugden[23]
points out that there was a nine year period of Evangelical exploration of
holistic theology, beginning with the Lausanne Congress in 1974 and ending with
the Wheaton consultation in 1983 that produced the statement
‘Transformation—The Church in Response to Human Need’. The word
‘transformation’ found its way into the Lausanne Covenant: ‘The salvation we
claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social
responsibilities. Faith without works is dead’ (paragraph 5).[24]
‘Transformation,’ then, is taken to refer to a holistic theology: personal and
social, involving faith and works (the reference to James 2.26 is clear).
5. Transformation and Western
Contextual Issues
Linda
Smith suggests several reasons for the movement towards a holistic theology of
mission and development among Evangelicals.
Following Smith, particular global challenges in the 1970’s goaded
Evangelicals into social involvement. In
addition to the list she offers of world-wide crises,[25]
American Evangelicals also found the 1973 pro-abortion decision of the Supreme
Court and the notion during the 1976 bicentennial celebrations that the United
States was once a ‘Christian country’ to be reasons for greater social
engagement. 2 Chronicles 7:14[26]
became a key passage (even put to song) at this time, and the ‘healing of the
land’ was applied to America—a healing of the social crises of a nation edging
further and further away from its supposed Christian origins. This produced something new: a Fundamentalist
engagement of society (e.g., the Moral Majority or Pat Robertson’s 700 Club).
Perhaps
other (non-Fundamentalist) Evangelicals also saw that the civil rights struggle
actually produced some results consistent with a Christian worldview and that
the 1960’s counter-culture challenged some evils of American society that
really needed challenging. The Jesus
Movement was a Christian expression of a general counter-cultural
movement. Francis Schaeffer had already
been hard at work as an Evangelical engaging European culture and philosophy as
a missionary, and his works were being widely read by the 1970’s among educated
Evangelicals. Evangelicals like Arthur
Glasser and David du Plessis chose to engage non-Evangelicals in the World
Council of Churches. Greater global
awareness of needs especially reached Evangelicals through Ronald Sider’s 1977
book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger,[27]
as Smith points out. The ‘Evangelical
Left’ sought to follow Jesus counter-culturally but also by engaging culture
(e.g., cf. Sojourners).
6. Transformation and the
Non-Western World and Churches
Linda
Smith also notes that pressure for change from the Third World also led to
changes in theological convictions regarding a holistic Gospel in the West.[28] The Wheaton 1983 conference made a point of
having representatives from thirty countries.
At several points in the statement it is clear that participants in the
consultation felt that the Third World had much to offer the Western churches
and Western society.
Bryant
Myers also emphasises that a transformational theology is a holistic theology
in part because the non-Western world (not just the Christian world) is
holistic.[29] It does not make distinctions common in the
West, such as medical cures and supernatural healing or belief and action. Samuel Escobar concurs when he writes,[30]
…the missionary agenda in the Third World cannot avoid
the issues linked to Christian mission and social transformation—issues such as
human rights, the socio-political consequences of missionary action, the
ideological use of the Christian message for political aims, and the religious
sanction for contemporary forms of economic or cultural colonialism.
Moreover,
the more one identifies Christianity with a social order, the more one will
understand evangelism and conversion in terms of belief as opposed to
action. But where social practices are
so clearly as yet untransformed by the Gospel, the more one will be inclined to
expect that transformation will be both personal and social. Thus foreign missions and the non-Western
churches will tend to see the Gospel more holistically than churches in the
West with a Christendom mindset.
7. Transformation and Biblical
Interpretation: Biblical Theology, the Use of Scripture,
Narrative
Biblical Theology, and Analogical Reasoning
In
addition to these social pressures on the Evangelical churches, some
theological shifts took place in the 1970’s in Evangelical circles. Linda Smith offers four theological shifts to
consider. These are: (1) a renewed
acknowledgement of the humanity of Christ, (2) a holistic Gospel, (3) a new
understanding of the Kingdom of God, and (4) adopting a ‘Christ transforming
culture’ approach to the Church and society question. Theological issues are noted throughout this
essay. Here I will focus on the
interpretation of Scripture itself in several ways: Biblical theology, the use
of Scripture in mission theology, a narrative Biblical theology, and analogical
reasoning.
Developments
in the interpretation of Scripture proved significant for an Evangelical
holistic theology. Evangelicals came increasingly into a respectable role in
wider circles of Biblical scholarship, particularly in the area of exegesis and
hermeneutics. George Eldon Ladd’s
interpretation of the meaning of ‘Kingdom of God’ in 1951 became widely
influential—certainly so for Evangelicals.
It established the importance of the notion for Biblical theology,
rather than leaving it abandoned to a liberal, this-worldly interpretation of
the notion or seeing it as referring merely to spiritual or future
matters. Ladd insisted that by ‘Kingdom
of God’ Jesus had in mind the present and
future reign of God.[31]
Moreover,
John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus
was published in 1972. While Yoder
maintained a Mennonite perspective on Church and society, he argued that the
Church’s distinctiveness from society allowed it to play a greater role in transforming society. Distinctive did not mean separatist, and
distinctive practices in the Church could be exemplary for society.[32] He popularised the notion that Jesus’
understanding of the Kingdom of God was based on the Jubilee Year of Lev. 25 and
Dt. 15. Right or wrong (it is still
debated), this view made Jesus relevant for discussions of society and justice,
and it gave the Church a voice in the public square.[33]
These Biblical
theological views were important for the development of a mission as
transformation theology. We might also
examine how Scripture has been
interpreted, not just the conclusions reached in its interpretation. I would suggest that there are four
distinguishable ways to use Scripture for mission theology and ethics:
(1) to
specify actions, rules, and beliefs.
(2) to
generalise teaching so that it might
be applied in a variety of ways, such as establishing principles, goals,
virtues and values giving meaning to good actions, dispositions, and even
doctrinal systems.
(3) to
witness to the moral life of God's
people (Scripture here functions as parables, examples, narratives, paradigms).
(4) to
describe the world (in either literal
or symbolic ways) which we inhabit (God’s character and relation to His
creation, who we are and what our situation is, the meaning of life, a Biblical
metanarrative, etc.).
Examples of these four
uses for ethics and mission theology might include the following:
1. Specifying
Use:
Ethics: ‘You shall not murder’ (Ex. 20.13)
Missions: ‘Go therefore into all the world….’ (Mt.
28.18-20)
2. Generalising Use:
Ethics: Love of God and neighbour (Mt.
22.37-40)
Mission: Themes such as Love, Mercy, Justice,
Transformation, Doctrines
(of God, the Fall, salvation, etc.)
3. Witnessing Use:
Ethics: Biblical Stories,
parables
Missions: ‘For
the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that
one has
died for all; therefore all have died.
And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for
themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them’ (2 Cor. 5.14-15)
4. Description of the world:
Ethics: Human
condition: Fall
Character
of God: ‘The
LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but
visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children's
children, to the third and the fourth generation"’ (Ex. 34.6-7)
Missions: Human
condition: since all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3.23)
God’s
character: ‘But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us’ (Rom. 5.8)
‘[T]he
Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient
with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance’ (2 Pet.
3.9)
God’s
mission: ‘For God has
imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all’ (Rom. 11.32)
There
is another dimension to these four uses of Scripture: reading in context. One of the objections often voiced against
how interpreters of Scripture use the Bible at any one of these levels is that
texts are taken out of their contexts.
Christopher Wright argues that the Biblical text will be heard better if
heard to speak first within its original context. As Chris Wright says,
…a missional reading of … texts
is very definitely not a matter of (1) finding the ‘real’ meaning by objective
exegesis, and only then (2) cranking up some ‘missiological implications’ as a
homiletic supplement to the text itself.
Rather, it is to see how a text often has its origin in some issue, need, controversy or threat that the people
of God needed to address in the context of their mission. The text in itself is a product of mission in
action.[34]
One
might also use Scripture as a source for establishing theological doctrine,
from which in turn practical theologies, including mission theology and ethics,
are derived. This is similar to the
generalising use of Scripture noted above.
So, for example, John Stott argues for a social ethic using mostly
systematic theological categories:[35] the
doctrine of God (God the creator, God of all nations, God of justice), the
doctrine of human beings (created in God’s likeness, each as a body, soul and
social being—thus love for one’s neighbour will include concern for the whole
person), the doctrine of Christ (with particular emphasis on his incarnation),
the doctrine of salvation (note the connections between: salvation and the Kingdom of God, Jesus the Saviour and
Jesus the Lord, faith and love) and the doctrine of the Church
(called out of the world to be holy and called into the world to witness and
serve).
Bryant
Myers makes special use of a narrative use of Scripture in exploring mission as
transformation. He suggests that our
worldview is fundamentally shaped by stories, that we put together the events
of our lives as narratives, that communities are understood as narratives, and
that the Bible contains a basic narrative centred on Jesus as well as
additional narratives (creation, the Fall, liberation narratives--the
Patriarchs and Exodus, the prophets’ interpretation of Israel’s story, the
Church’s unfolding story, and the eschatological story). A narrative reading of the Scripture permits
Myers to work theologically with the following notions: relationships,
universal and cosmic interests, plot development, liberation and working with the
poor, holistic mission, transformational development, and a continuity between
the Biblical Story and the ongoing work of the Church (without identifying the
Kingdom with the Church). Thus ‘every
development program is a convergence of stories’, the development workers’
stories, which includes God’s story, and the communities’ stories.[36]
Christopher
Wright also takes a narrative approach to Biblical mission theology. This is also a way of maintaining
particularity in one’s theology: ‘In these biblical texts we encounter the
reality of this God, the reality of this story and the reality of this people.’[37
Wright
describes the relationship between these realities within the Biblical text and
our own situation in narrative terms.
(An analogical use of Scripture in practical theology will be discussed
further below.) The reality of God in
the Bible authorises responses of worship, ethics, and mission as our lives are
‘committed into’ the ‘grand story of God’s purpose for the nations and for
creation. Mission flows from the reality
of this God—the biblical God.’[38] Thus, ‘in reading these texts we are invited
to embrace a metanarrative, a grand narrative’ that answers the four worldview
questions of ‘Where are we?,’ ‘Who are we,?’ What’s gone wrong?,’ and ‘What is
the solution?’ (Wright has in view the
Old Testament texts here, but he states that the New Testament confirms
this. Indeed, in Jesus we meet the
particular God of the Old Testament narrative/s).[39]
Richard
Bauckham’s lectures on Biblical mission theology, coming a few years before
Wright, also took a narrative approach to the Bible and also saw in this a
movement from the particular to the universal.[40]
Christian communities or
individuals are always setting off from the particular as both the Bible and
our own situation defines it and following the biblical direction towards the
universal that is to be found not apart from but within other particulars. This is mission.[41]
Bauckham explores the
movement from the particular to the universal in three Old Testament narratives
that set up trajectories running throughout the Old Testament, and in one theme
running through both Testaments:
*The Story of Abraham, producing a
trajectory of blessing
*The Story of Israel, producing a
trajectory of God's self-revelation to the world
*The Story of David, producing a
trajectory of rule, i.e., God's kingdom over all creation
*The theme of 'to all by way of the
least'
This overarching theme
is stated as an alternative to ‘God is on the side of the poor,’ and it states
essentially the same thing as the Rom. 11.32 text used to illustrate the fourth
use of Scripture, above. Bauckham also
notes that the New Testament has a particular narrative that picks up each of
these particular Old Testament narratives, focuses them, and provides a way to
move from the particular to the universal.
This is the Story of Jesus. Thus
an intertextual reading of Scriptural narratives for a Biblical theology of
missions is important.[42]
A narrative
description of the relationship between the Biblical text and our contemporary
situation involves an analogical use of Scripture. Analogical reasoning requires a thick
description of the Biblical community’s relationship to God in the narratives
or metanarrative such that truly analogous relationships to the contemporary
community’s relationship with God in their present performance of the story can
be made. Manifest destiny in America or
the Dutch apartheid approach to settling South Africa were thought to be
analogous to Israel’s settlement of Canaan, but the particularities of Israel’s
story have not been well enough appreciated in these later performances of
Israel’s narrative—with disastrous effects.
Moreover, Jesus’ performance of Israel’s narrative, particularly of
Israel’s return from exile, transforms Old Testament narratives in a number of
ways important for contemporary missions.
Two examples are the loss of the significance of the land in the retold
story and the eschatological inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God. Also, the fulfilment of the demand for purity
in Jesus presents salvation through the sacrificial rather than the separatist
options in the Old Testament. The result
is that nationalism, ethnic privilege, and militarism (holy war in particular)
are ruled out in Christian performances of the Biblical narrative, whereas they
had been crucial elements of the Old Testament telling of the story. Thus both (1) a thick description of Biblical
and contemporary narratives and communities and (2) an appreciation for the
focusing of the Old Testament narrative in Jesus are crucial for analogous
reasoning in Biblical interpretation.
Following
Chris Wright, a third point needs to be made as well. Narrative analogical reasoning in the case of
the Bible entails (3) seeing our contemporary community’s narrative in the
light of the relationship between several Biblical narratives. For Wright, these include: (a) God’s
narrative, (b) humanity’s narrative, (c) Israel’s narrative, (d) Jesus’
narrative, and (e) the Church’s narrative.[43] A narrative reading of Scripture entails an
intertextual reading.
8. Transformation and the
Practice of Missions
The
discussion of narrative interpretations of Scripture, above, was linked to the
issue of particularity. Particularity in
mission theology also has to do with the practice of missions.
Chris
Sugden observes in two writings of Vinay Samuel since Wheaton 1983 a clarification and
insistence that transformation theology involves not only ministry among the
poor but every change that must take place on God’s vision for society.[44] This vision includes spiritual
transformation, the transformation of individuals, and the idea that God’s own
transforming power is at work, not just human good will and effort.[45]
Sugden
insists that:[46]
Transformation has not really been one theory or set of
theories about poverty, explaining the causes of poverty, why the world is as
it is and helping us to bring change. It has been used as a strategy – as a way
of attending to the whole person in the whole of their relationships. But it
had no worked out theory. It has been more of a narrative, a framework, a way
of thinking about what Christians believe should happen rather than what
actually happens, explaining causality as a basis for problem-solving action.
This
matter involves two significant points.
First, a holistic theology seeks transformation for all, not just the
poor, and in every way, not just in issues of poverty or social
marginalisation. Second, transformation
theology is not tied to any socio-political theory. These points, nevertheless, do not require
understanding transformation theology as so general that specific practices
cannot be identified as part of the theology.
Wheaton
1983 spelled out some very clear practices that the authors believed were
consistent with their transformational theology. They did so not simply because they thought
these practices could be drawn out of the convictions of such a theology but
also because they believed that the Bible can be used to identify not only
theology but also practices. Thus the
following practices, listed along with whatever Scriptural support was given,
were noted in the declaration (references to sections in the statement are
given in parentheses):
· Striving
to bring peace (13)
· Sharing
basic resources (13)
· Working
towards greater participation by people in decisions affecting their lives (13)
· Making
more possible in society the receiving from others and the giving of self (13)
· Growing
up into Christ [cf. Eph. 4.15] (13)
· As
the Body of Christ, seeking equality by sharing (2 Cor. 8.14-15) and so
eliminating dire poverty in the community (Acts 2.42-47) (16)
· Also
seeking the social redistribution of resources and the limitation of greed
(Acts 4:32-5: 11) (17)
· Opposition
to the monetary waste, that means not attending to the needy, that is going on
in the arms race (18)
· Mercy
and justice are to be pursued together, and so evangelism and responding to
human need and pressing for social transformation must go together (26; also
29, with reference to Is. 11: 1-5; Ps. 113:5-9)
· Willingness
to be persecuted and even die in our identification with the poor (reference to
2 Tim. 3.12) (28). Be willing to
confront those who hold power (Acts 4:5-22), and stand together with those who
suffer for the sake of justice (Heb. 13:3).
Extend love to the stranger (Mt. 5.43-48), not only through charity but
also through political and economic action.
· The
role of the local church in transformation is acknowledged (32). Widows,
prisoners, the poor and the strangers are people who are particularly the responsibility
of the local church (Gal. 6: 10). We should seek to minister to the poor in our
local area who are not members of the church (Js. 1:27; Rom 12:17) (35).
· Address
the wider issue of injustice by protesting (37), and by twinning churches that
can have true partnerships (38), pointing out each other’s failings, since
every local church always lives on the edge of compromise with its context
(Rom. 12:3-18) (39).
· Fund-raising
activities must be in accordance with the Gospel (43).
· Avoid
competition with others involved in the same ministry and a success mentality
that forgets God's special concern for the weak and unsuccessful (Gal. 2: 10;
Ps. 147:6) (44).
· Decisions
on ministry policy, including how resources are to be used, need to be made in
consultation with the people to be served (44).
· On
the one hand, be sure that donors know exactly what is being done with funds
raised (45). On the other, the
communities being served should have input and ownership in the work (46). Accountability systems should be agreed by
everyone without the views of one culture ruling the views of another (47).
· Renounce
every inconsistency and extravagance in our personal and institutional
lifestyle (48).
· A
repentant, revived and vigorous church will call people to true repentance and
faith and at the same time equip them to challenge the forces of evil and
injustice (2 Tim. 3:17) (52).
While
some of these practices are general, others are very specific. And some of the specific practices move
closely towards a particular socio-political or economic theory. But the mission theology of transformation
has intentionally avoided hooking its wagon to any social, political, or
economic theory in the social sciences.
It rather invites exploration in these areas along with theological
study while calling for clear practices that define transformational
churches. One might say that as
different groups undertake these practices in different ways, they will result
in different performances of the Gospel—some good and some bad.[47]
9. Transformation and Truth
Another
consideration in a theology of transformation involves our understanding of
truth. Paul Tillich (in a modernist era)
and David Tracy (in a postmodernist era) are known for advocating theological
mapping that involves taking coordinates from poles external to the Bible in
order to correlate (‘correlational theology’) different perspectives. Tracy suggests three public spheres from
which to site coordinates: society, the academy, and the Church.[48] The Church would engage the Bible, no doubt,
but the Church as a ‘public’ is clearly in charge of its documents, and the
Church is only one public. Moreover,
theology is understood as reflection upon a given tradition’s classic or
classics. In the Christian tradition,
states Tracy, the classic would be Jesus Christ (interestingly, this means that
one’s Christology, not the Bible, becomes the focus of theological
interpretation). Other religions reflect
on their classics too, and the public character of this reflection allows inter-faith
dialogue that is required in a pluralistic age.[49]
Similarly,
in development ethics, Nigel Dower suggests that a world ethic is needed:[50]
A world ethic…is an ethical
theory or approach which puts forward a set of norms and values to guide our relations
with the rest of the world. These norms
will have two components; a set of universal values applicable to all human
beings and a set of obligations and responsibilities which are global in scope
and link all human beings together.
Between them these universal values and global responsibilities
constitute the substantive normative content of a world ethic.
Evangelicals,
as orthodox Christians, agree that truth is universal and objective. It is unchanging because it is God’s
truth. A Christian would expect science
to agree with theology because all truth is God’s truth. Yet distinctions need to be made between a
theology of objective and universal truth and the limitations of humans in
accessing that truth. We are fallen creatures
who require divine revelation as to truth in some areas, can come to universal
understanding in areas of science, and yet acknowledge our limitations (we know
‘through a glass darkly’).
In
response to liberal, correlational theology, George Lindbeck (a postliberal who
distinguishes himself from Evangelicals) insists that 'it is the text … which
absorbs the world, rather than the world the text.'[51] Lindbeck offers an opposing account of
theology to David Tracy’s public spheres for theology. He sees the nature of doctrine as culturally,
linguistically bound, as intratextual, as meaningful within specific
communities with their specific narratives.
Unlike Rudolf Bultmann’s famous demythologisation of Christian beliefs
in order to discover some existential, universal truths about the human
condition—a program that appeals to Tracy—Lindbeck sees truth as inseparably
tied to the community’s cultural-linguistic understanding of life. While some Evangelicals are nervous about
what such an understanding of doctrine means for ‘truth’—is it therefore
relative? (the answer is, ‘Not necessarily’)—Lindbeck’s point needs to be
appreciated for what it is: an insistence on the priority and uniqueness of
Christian faith in interfaith dialogue.
He articulates a position closer to those Evangelicals who affirm
presuppositionalism than evidentialism.
The
question for this study, then, is how a theology of transformation will fit
into this discussion. ‘Transformation’
is a popular notion in all sorts of fields of study. It is, therefore, potentially a ‘public’
theology such that one can speak of ‘transformation’ in various religions,
leaving behind the particulars of these religions in search of a common notion
of transformation. Buddhism explores
individual and social transformation too: what is the difference for a
Christian, missional theology of transformation?
Wilfred
Cantwell Smith, for example, understands faith as a ‘global human quality’ such
that Christians are ‘saved through Christ’s death and resurrection,’ Buddhists
are ‘saved through the teachings of Buddha,’ Jews are ‘saved through that Torah
that Christians have made a point of misunderstanding,’ and Hindus are ‘saved,
inspired, encouraged, and made creative, through the poetry of the Gita.’[52] Similarly, ‘liberation’ can be taken to mean
liberation from social oppression, or some hierarchical power in society (men,
white people, colonial powers, heterosexual views), leaving behind the
particulars of a Biblical theology of liberation (or, in some cases, reading
against the Bible for such a theology).
Or, as Jürgen Moltmann now advocates, we need a mission theology of the
Spirit that affirms ‘life’ in every respect.
This involves a shift from a Christ-centred missiology that might
distinguish Christian dialogue from other faith dialogues, and an inter-faith
commitment to ‘life’ affirming activities (concerns for the environment, e.g.).[53]
Arthur
Glasser, an Evangelical who participated in WCC meetings and appreciated a
theology for missions that engaged social issues, nevertheless responded to
Wilfred C. Smith by insisting on greater specificity in theology. An oblique affirmation of Christ’s Lordship
may be (and is in the case of Smith) a way of dismissing the particularities of
Jesus’ teaching. But both Christ’s
Lordship and His teachings are part of the Great Commission.[54] Moreover, Glasser notes, Jesus’ own approach
to ‘dialogue’ was to engage in controversial dialogue, even with people in his
own ‘tradition’. He did not dialogue in
order to find vague points of agreement higher up the generalising scale. What lies at the heart of these differences
between Evangelicals and various statements in the World Council of Churches
since 1963, says Glasser, is a different understanding of ‘truth’. Up until
1963, the WCC affirmed the authority of Scripture in expressing the Christian
faith. Glasser writes,
By 1963, however, this position
began to erode, and soon a paradigm shift of major proportions had
emerged. At the Fourth World Conference
on Faith and Order at Montreal, Ernst Käsemann confessed in a plenary address
that he was unable to see any unified picture of the New Testament ecclesia emerging from the records of
its various witnesses. In a very real
sense this marked the end of the dominance of Barthian theology in the WCC and
the beginnings of a radical turn in its approach to Scripture. When the Faith and Order Commission met in
Bristol in 1967, the focus was on ‘The Significance of the Hermeneutical
Problem for the Ecumenical Movement.[55]
The
Bible was now seen as a variety of traditions and insights, some better than
others. This stress on biblical
diversity led to a crisis touching the Bible’s authority, with its witness
regarded as ‘only one element in a variegated complex of truth.’[56] Glasser insists that the issue for
Evangelicals is to recognise that differing views on truth are involved where
others think the issue is political—claims about the superiority of
Christianity over other religions.[57] He sees the challenge facing the church as a
challenge of a paradigm shift, not of constructive dialogue within a
paradigm. All Evangelicals can do is
hold firm to their commitment that the Bible is ‘the only infallible rule of
faith and practice.’[58] Glasser was quite right: the early 1980’s
mark the period when scholars were increasingly aware of a postmodern shift
taking place in various academic fields.[59]
Some
other considerations in this article might expand the options. Evangelicals might hold fast to the Bible’s
authority in teaching universal truth while also working out the implications
of the Christian tradition’s Biblical and historical narratives for mission
theology and practice. That is, while we
affirm that Biblical truth is God’s truth and therefore true for all, we
realise that our task is to live out this truth in our various contexts. What has been said about narrative theology
and will be said, below, about translation offer us something more than simply
holding fast to a conviction and allows us to offer an alternative form of
community in the world that should be winsome.
To this writer, Lindbeck offers the better alternative for speaking
about a hermeneutic of doctrine: it functions cultural-linguistically even if
we affirm in a theology of doctrine (possibly going beyond Lindbeck) that truth
is objective.
Thus
there will be different sorts of ‘transformation’ on offer in various cultures,
contexts, religions, and so forth.
Christian transformational theology begins within Scriptural narratives
and continues in the life of the Christian community. It offers not just one among many forms of
transformation but authentic
transformation. The practice of
Christian transformation should be the performance of transformation par excellence, one that shows all
alternatives to be amateur at best.
10. Transformation and Spiritual
Power
A
further consideration for a theology of transformation is the conviction that
transformation comes from God: it is spiritual and entails divine power. While pre-Fundamentalist Evangelicalism can
point to a proud history of social engagement, the rise of Pentecostalism
within Fundamentalism needs to be considered as a contribution to a holistic
Gospel. This may sound surprising, since
Pentecostalism could be construed as Dispensationalist, Fundamentalist and all
about spiritual gifts that lead people into private spiritual experiences. I myself know well one American Pentecostal
missionary who was removed from ministry in his denomination for awhile because
he dared to concern himself with issues of justice in Apartheid South
Africa. This anti-Evangelicalism is
indeed an option among Pentecostals (and a knee-jerk reaction to liberation
theology), but Pentecostalism is a much more complex phenomenon.
There
are, to be sure, parallels to Pentecostalism’s emphasis on spiritual power in
ministry within Fundamentalism. This
tended to be seen and accepted more in mission contexts, however. For example, despite the Dispensationalism
and Fundamentalism of a number of (not all) missionaries with the Soudan
Interior Mission (formed in 1893), stories of divine power in ministry through
its history are as much a part of the mission’s history as they are in
Pentecostal circles.[60] Thus, perhaps it would be better to say that
stories from the ‘mission field’ and the gradual inclusion of Pentecostals into
Evangelical circles meant that more holistic theology was on offer within the
ranks of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism in the West.
Pentecostalism’s
very rise among the blue collar class meant that any social activism was not
that of privileged Christians having to come up with a motivation to reach out
to the poor—many Pentecostals were already the poor. In the words of Stanley Hauerwas—not spoken
about Pentecostals[61]--
For the Church to be, rather than to have, a social
ethic means we must recapture the social significance of common behavior such
as acts of kindness, friendship, and the formation of families.
The
social status of Pentecostals and their community practices meant that they did
not need to develop a social ethic to reach out to the other but simply needed
robust internal community practices to be actively engaging the poor. As Doug Peterson writes,
Contrary to the traditional
critique that Pentecostals do not adequately demonstrate a social conscience,
typically congregations provide social welfare services to needy families, the
sick, the abused and the aged….
Planning, projection of programmes, decision-making, allocation of
resources, i.e., many roles appropriate to associational life, are part of the
members’ participation in a Pentecostal community.’[62]
He continues:
…Pentecostals have formed
themselves into voluntary associations that produce the following strategic
features of a social organization. They
enjoy the immediate benefits of a surrogate extended family or community,
including acceptance and a proprietary interest in a legally constituted,
property-owning collectivity. Moreover,
the congregation enhances the further development of the initiates by encouraging
and validating an intense subjective experience and morally reinforcing their
values, beliefs and conduct. In a
society where status and networks could be largely ascribed, the adherent is
presented with the opportunity for personal growth, peer recognition and
extended influence, as well as the acquisition of skills that have broad
application outside the church community.[63]
A
robust Christian community is not only the characteristic of Pentecostals, to
be sure. It probably is an essential
characteristic of all baptistic churches, but even then it is not exclusively
baptistic. However, Pentecostalism did
contribute something unique to the twentieth century Church. It was
a movement that had a more holistic theology in the area of
miracles. Evangelicals who believed that
Jesus healed the sick often enough did not expect that people might be healed
today, but Pentecostals taught that the Jesus of the Gospels and the Church of
Acts presented the paradigm for the Church and missions today.
The
Pentecostals were also largely drawn from the Holiness Movement, with its
emphasis on sanctification, and so they believed that theology and the Church
were far more than a matter of certain beliefs and a certain kind of
worship. The emphasis came down rather
on the power of God to transform all of life: belief, worship, ethics, home and
family, body and soul. Thus, while a
more liberal theology would gravitate towards inclusion, equality and freedom
of people as the means of social transformation, a Pentecostal and Charismatic
version of transformation would expect radical and supernatural
change--restoration. An example in our
day might be how homosexuality is viewed.
Instead of including the homosexual in Christian community to show
Christian love, the Pentecostals and Charismatics would argue that God can
change the vilest sinner of any sort because His love transforms. Walter Wink, for example, accepts that Paul
spoke against homosexuality in Rom. 1, but he argues that this was because Paul
assumed that people were ‘straight’: he did not know (according to Wink and
much of the pro-homosexual force) that there was a homosexual orientation that
people form early in life. Wink’s
argument is that we can now excuse Paul’s ignorance about the way things are.[64] For Pentecostals, Charismatics and, indeed,
Evangelicals, God’s transforming power regularly changes the way things
are. Pentecostal emphasis on miraculous,
supernatural transformation is qualitatively the same as the emphasis among
other Evangelicals on regeneration (as Carl Henry argued, above), even if it is
quantitatively greater.
Finally,
Pentecostals believed that the Church was, more than anything, to focus on
missions, based on Acts 1.8 especially.
They were called to take the good news of the power of God to transform
lives in every way to the ends of the earth—and they expected to see it
happen. The gradual inclusion of
Pentecostals into Evangelicalism was undoubtedly a factor in the development of
a theology of spiritual and physical transformation.
At
this point, it is appropriate to explore the theology of transformation that
emerges in the excellent work of Bryant Myers in Walking With the Poor.[65] Here we have a fairly recent (1999)
Evangelical perspective of transformational development. In the six points that follow, the first five
clearly emphasise that transformation is first and foremost a work of God. A theology of transformation entails:
(1) a holistic worldview:
holding the spiritual and material together not only in ministry but in our
very understanding of the world as beyond scientific explanation and human
activity, finding a place for spiritual power and encounter in our outlook on
life;
(2) transformational development:
development work with a goal beyond giving material aid, seeking to see
material, social and spiritual transformation (thus the twin goals of
transformational development are a changed people--a people with a new identity
defined by life in the Kingdom of God (they are children of God and their ‘true
vocation [is] as faithful and productive stewards of gifts from God for the
well-being of all’ [p. 14]--and just and peaceful relationships;
(3) Christian witness:
a witness to the good news of a relationship with Christ which goes beyond oral
proclamation (evangelism), involving witness by life, word, deed, and signs (of
God’s reign; ch. 8 focuses on this issue);
(4) personal and social
evil/personal and social gospel: sin and salvation are not only
applicable to the individual, they are also social, addressing economics,
politics, culture, and the church as an institution (e.g., poverty is seen as
‘a system of disempowerment [in society] which creates oppressive relationships
[which involves holding the wrong values in relationships] and whose
fundamental causes are spiritual’ such that the poor lack freedom to grow);[66]
(5) revelation:
revelation from God rather than our own observation through the social sciences
must also be a part of development work, thus prayer, fasting, meditation and
so forth are important alongside proper training in the social sciences for the
development worker;
(6) a narrative approach to (a)
Biblical reading and (b) sociological encounter: (a)
a Biblical understanding of Scripture should primarily be a narrative reading
of the Biblical story/stories, and (b) in development work the narratives of
development workers and the communities with which they work involve both an
encounter and convergence of stories.
An
Evangelical understanding of spiritual powers seems especially important for a
theology of transformation. Walter Wink
is a particularly popular proponent of taking spiritual powers seriously, and
his trilogy on this topic has reached a very wide audience. This audience includes evangelicals: Bryant
Myers cites Wink in particular for the point that there is social evil (point
4, above). But Evangelicals need to take
a close look at Wink’s work.
Wink
extends the notion of 'angels of the nations', a popular area of speculation
among some Charismatics, to explain the spirit of a nation, giving examples of
nations which simply lost the will to fight, and the character and vocation of
nations.[67] He positively cites Origen's speculation that
the Powers may be converted, resulting in the conversion of whole towns and
nations, surmising that the man from Macedonia in Paul's vision is one such
example.[68] But Wink's most surprising move comes when he
argues the truth of henotheism over against monotheism. For Wink, the 'gods' really exist:
Aphrodite's existence, e.g., explains the power of sexuality over our lives.[69] He writes,[70]
...Satan,
the demons, and the gods manifest themselves primarily in the human psyche, and
the angels of the churches and nations are encountered in the interiority of
corporate systems, the elements of the world [e.g., physical elements of the
universe, like the atom, basic elements of religious life, like rites,
festivals, dietary regulations, doctrines, etc. they are the 'building blocks
of physical, social, and spiritual reality' (cf. p. 132), not spiritual beings
but forces nonetheless] encompass us about at every level of existence.
A
final group for Wink's new pantheon of spiritual beings is the angels of
nature. Wink finds a little evidence for
these in Scripture: the angels of water (Rev. 16.5), the winds (Rev. 7.1),
angel standing in the sun (Rev. 19.17), and wind and fire (Heb. 1.7). Wink espouses a New Age theology at this
point: '...every plant participates
in a group spirit or group soul that oversees its development.’[71] He later suggests that[72]
The angels of
nature invite us to reappraise our entire attitude toward the universe. We need the modern equivalent of the Native
Americans' reverence for nature, he avers.
We must find ways to move beyond observing nature to experience ourselves
as a part of the nature being observed; to go beyond admiring its beauty to the
experience of entering its beauty and being caught up in the ecstasy of
nature's epiphany of God.
Given all this,
I would rather direct the reader to Stephen C. Mott’s Biblical Ethics and Social Change.[73] Mott outlines his understanding of social
evil in the first part of this work (the second part explores the means open to
Christians to bring about social change).
Three of Mott’s points (the first two are Biblical) might be noted here:
1. Evil has a social and political
character beyond isolated actions. There
is structural evil, seen first by the fact that the world (not just isolated
actions) is an evil place (1 Cor. 5.10; Eph. 2.1-2; see
also Jn. 15.18-19; 16.33; Js. 4.4-8).
2. Structural, social evil is also
demonstrated in that there are evil supernatural powers‑‑the world government
is evil (Eph. 2.2; 6.11-12; Rom. 8.38; Gal. 4.3, 9; Col. 2.8, 20;
see also Col. 1.16; 2.10, 15; Lk. 4.5-7; 1 Pt. 5.9
3. Structural evil is also evident
in the complex nature of society that is beyond the individual’s control:
a.
We inherit the life of the past. The
formal elements of society are much older than the individuals who constitute
it.
b.
Society continues with little dependence on conscious individual decision making
or responsibility.
c.
Society consists of complex problems for which there seem to be no solu.
While
Pentecostal and Charismatic theology comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes
(and not all commendable), the willingness to take seriously both the spiritual
powers that face the Church and the manifest power of God in the Church’s
mission in the world did offer another dimension to a theology of
transformation for Evangelicals at large.
11. Transformation and Culture
Another
consideration involves our understanding of transformation and culture. This sort of an understanding of social evil
does not applaud contextualisation in missions without the Gospel being a
transformative power for society in every way.
The Wheaton 1983 consultation regularly noted that sin and evil are
present in the world such that there is no place for a theology of culture that
does not seek transformation (cf. IV.21).
More
recently, in the writings of Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh, the notion of the
Gospel’s engagement of culture has used the concept of ‘translation’ in a way
that might evade romantic ideas about native cultures or positivist notions
about human (especially Western) progress. Both argue for two forces at work in
the history of missions. Sanneh accepts
that missions has been imperialistic, but his thesis is that it has more often
been committed to expressing faith in the vernacular. There have, in the history of Christian
mission, been two forces at work: one relativizes the cultural expression of the
missionary and the other destigmatizes the receptor culture.[74] Walls’ description of the two forces are
phrased positively where Sanneh’s are phrased negatively. Walls
calls them an ‘indigenizing’ principle and a ‘Pilgrim’ principle.[75] When one ‘relativizes’ (Sanneh) one’s own
culture one is acknowledging a ‘Pilgrim’ principle (Walls) that no Christian is
fully at home in any culture. When one
destigmatizes (Sanneh) the receptor culture one is, positively, open to
indigenizing Christian life and faith in other cultures (Walls). Thus a missional theology of translation
looks both ways: just as the Gospel can take on new form in a new culture, this
translation also expands the foreign translator’s understanding of the Gospel
in his or her own culture.
As
positive as these views of culture are—the Gospel can take form in any
culture!--they involve a notion of the transformation of culture. As Walls
states, translation involves ‘transformation,’ and here we again see the power
of a missional hermeneutic that involves transformation. Walls says,[76]
Not only does God in Christ take people as they are: He
takes them in order to transform them into what He wants them to be. Along with the indigenizing principle, which
makes his faith a place to feel at home, the Christian inherits the pilgrim
principle, which whispers to him that he has no abiding city and warns him that
to be faithful to Christ will put him out of step with his society; for that
society never existed, in East or West, ancient time or modern, which could
absorb the word of Christ painlessly into its system…. [Change
comes] not from the adoption of a new culture, but from the
transformation of the mind towards that of Christ.
This
point is the same as Vinay Samuel’s (2002) statement that transformation is
about persons. Paul’s understanding of
transformation is also first and foremost a transformation of persons: not
being conformed to the world (a social statement) means being transformed by
the renewing of the mind (a transformation of individuals) (Rom. 12.2). Samuel draws attention to being conformed to
the image of God’s Son (Rom. 8.29), Christ being formed in believers (Gal.
4.19). These statements seem to include
both an individual and corporate (but Christian) transformation.
Walls
articulates his view of translation in terms of the theological doctrine of the
incarnation. In a chapter (ch. 3)
entitled ‘the Translation Principle in Christian History’, Walls states, with
reference to John 1.14, that ‘there is a history of translation of the bible
because there was a translation of the Word into flesh.’[77] So, ‘incarnation is translation’; it is ‘the
translation of God into humanity, whereby the sense and meaning of God was
transferred, was effected under very culture-specific conditions .’[78] Walls continues:[79]
The implications of this broaden if we take the
Johannine symbol of the Word made flesh along with the Pauline symbol of the
Second Adam, the Ephesian theme of the multi-ethnic New Humanity which reaches
its full stature in Christ, and with Paul’s concern for Christ to be formed in
the newly founded Gentile churches. It
appears that Christ, God’s translated speech, is re-translated from the
Palestinian Jewish original. … Christ can become visible within the very things
which constitute nationality. The first
divine act of translation into humanity thus gives rise to a constant
succession of new translations.
And
yet this involves a transformation of receptor cultures:
… [F]urther, as Christian faith
is about translation, it is about conversion….
[C]onversion implies the use of existing structures, the ‘turning’ of
those structures to new directions, the application of new material and
standards to a system of thought and conduct already in place and
functioning. It is not about
substitution, the replacement of something old by something new, but about
transformation, the turning of the already existing to new account.[80]
12. Transformation as an
Evangelical Project in Missions
Finally,
a theology of transformation is itself an Evangelical project in missions. The first issue of the Oxford Centre for
Mission Studies’ journal, Transformation,
was published in 1984. The editorial of
the first issue identified the concern of the journal as a project: to continue
to work out what a theology of transformation for Evangelicals[81]
might mean in Biblical interpretation, theology and practice. The first two sentences of this editorial of
the journal (1984) stated that
A far-reaching transformation is
occurring among evangelical Christians worldwide. Social ethics is back on the
agenda. After a time of neglect in the early and middle decades of the
twentieth century, evangelicals are returning to the holistic tradition of
Wesley, Wilberforce, Finney and Kuyper.[82]
The
authors of this editorial, Tokunboh Adeyemo (from Ghana), Vinay Samuel (from
India), and Ronald Sider (from the United States), envisioned that the journal
would be dedicated ‘to conservation of all that meets biblical standards of
truth, righteousness, justice and shalom. And to transformation of all that
does not.’[83] The vision for the future articles of the
journal was further captured in these words:[84]
The task now is to work out
thoroughly biblical approaches to the host of complex social issues that
confront us today. That requires both a sophisticated knowledge of the social
sciences and an uncompromising commitment to biblical authority. If
evangelicals can boldly propose relevant, biblical solutions to our world's
difficult dilemmas, we might transform not just the evangelical community but
also global society.
Subsequent
engagement with issues of development (e.g., micro-enterprise development),
engaging the public square in ethics (e.g., homosexuality), communication
(e.g., Christian journalism), politics, leadership, etc. have characterised
academic and practical work at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (sometimes
at considerable cost), and a host of further issues have been considered in the
twenty-two years of the journal Transformation.
Not
only the journal, but the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (the study centre
of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians, or INFEMIT)
is itself a part of this project of transformation. In 2003, the Board of OCMS approved the
following statement about the nature of the study centre.[85] This statement resonates with the discussion
of transformation theology offered above.
Vision: The global church
engaged in effective holistic mission especially among the poor and
marginalised.
Mission: To equip
leaders, nurture scholars and enable institutions for ministry particularly in
the Two-Thirds world churches.
The objects
of the Association (i.e. of OCMS) shall be conducted in accordance with
Historic Biblical Christianity and in particular in the spirit of the following
commitments:-
Biblical truth
is God’s truth for obedience and mission. While our primary theological
commitments are expressed in the historic creeds and confessions of the
churches and denominations in which we are already engaged in mission, we
affirm our partnership in obedience to God, in membership in the Church and in
mission to the world in the following terms.
As those
called by the grace of God the Father, redeemed through the death and
resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ and indwelt by his Holy Spirit to be
partners in God’s mission, we make our commitments with reference to the
personal, religious, political and socio – economic realities of our contexts.
We are committed
to Jesus Christ Our Lord, God’s supreme revelation, the Word made flesh in
history, and are committed to obey God’ s written and authoritative Word, the
Bible.
We seek
to discover, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, its meaning for our
obedience today in each of our contexts by engaging the Bible with our contexts
and seeking insights form each contextual expression of the Gospel to challenge
our own insights.
We are committed
to the wholistic [sic] mission of Jesus Christ, which is to establish God’s
Kingdom of right personal, religious, political and socio-economic
relationships with him.
We seek
to discern and participate in the work of God in Christ in history to bring in
his kingdom by proclaiming the good news of God’s judgement on human rebellion,
of the reconciliation of people with God and their neighbours, and of the
restoration of all things in Jesus Christ, and by calling people to repent and
believe in Jesus Christ and experience new birth in him through the Holy
Spirit.
We affirm
God’s identification with poor, powerless, alienated and oppressed people.
We recognize
that we ourselves are part of such situations and accept our complicity in this
evil. Yet we seek to achieve justice with the victims of injustice and make all
aware that God’ s judgement on such oppression.
We affirm
the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all demonic powers of evil which possess
persons and pervades structures, societies and the created order.
We seek
to indemnify and engage with issues where the humanity of men and women is
defaced by evil, in order that the reality [of] new men and women in Christ may
emerge.
We affirm
our hope in Jesus Christ’ s promise of a triumphal return to fulfil the Kingdom
by a total transformation of the created order.
We seek
the power of the Holy Spirit to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in
expectation of his final victory. We seek to take a prophetic stance against
dominating and dehumanising power by exercising and encouraging servant
leadership among people of God.
We affirm
our continuity with the body of Christ throughout history worldwide and are
committed to its local and national expressions in our contexts.
We seek
to enable churches to incarnate the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in their own
contexts. We seek to affirm and develop the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to
all members of the Body of Christ, and to build partnerships where by the
Spirit’s gifts may be mutually given and received for enrichment and correction
across boundaries and forces that divide the unity of Christ’s mission.
These
affirmations lack the term ‘Evangelical’ and seek to identify the vision and
ministry of the centre with historic Christianity. While this writer regrets not emphasising
that through the years this has been an Evangelical
project, one must appreciate the insistence here that what is affirmed is
nothing other than historic, orthodox Christianity.
Conclusion
This
essay has explored twelve issues related to a mission theology of
transformation—historical, theological, and hermeneutical issues. The complexity of these issues suggests that
the theology is not a simple statement that missions should be holistic,
engaging all of human life. A complex
theology can go wrong as various pressures are exerted on it, but it can also
support a powerful and robust missionary movement for Evangelicalism.
Andrew Kirk
writes that a theology of mission
tests theory and practice
against the apostolic Gospel and history read eschatologically (i.e. from the
perspective of the full realisation of God's rule on earth). The testing is carried out in the midst of
the attempt to implement the new order of relationships, structures and
attitudes which spell out life in the kingdom in detail. It is also measured against all known
alternatives, be they religious, secular or ideological. Needless to say, theology of mission is a
continuous task, as it seeks to point the Christian community in the right
direction in its response to the mission to which it has been called.[86]
Evangelical
advocates of a mission theology of transformation are engaged in precisely
these concerns. As an historically
located, theologically engaged, and Biblically focused community of mission
theologians and practitioners, theologians pursuing a theology of
transformation are, as Kirk states, engaged in ‘a continuous task’ pointing
‘the Christian community in the right direction in its response to mission’.
* This article originally appeared
as Rollin G. Grams, ‘Transformation Mission Theology: Its History, Theology and
Hermeneutics,’ Transformation 2007
(Vol. 24, 4): 193-212.
The consultation’s statement was entitled ‘Transformation—The Church in
Response to Human Need’. It may be found
in Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden, The
Church in Response to Human Need (Wipf and Stock Pub., 2003). The consultation was chaired by Vinay Samuel. The following mission scholars and
practitioners drafted the statement: Arthur Williamson, Andrew Kirk, Tito
Paredes, Paul Schrotenboer, David Bosch and Max Chigwida and Rene Padilla (who
led the committee).
I have offered a recent contribution to missional hermeneutics. Cf. Rollin G. Grams, ‘Paul Among the Mission Theologians.’ Missionalia
33.3 (2005), pp. 459-479.
Carl F. H. Henry, Aspects of Christian
Social Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964). The quotation comes from a republication of
pp. 15-25 of this work in J. Philip Wogaman and Douglas M. Strong, eds., Readings in Christian Ethics: A Historical
Sourcebook (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996), p. 369f.
The Complete Writings of Menno Simons
(Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1956), 307.
This
quotation and the translated text of ‘The Reason Menno Simon Does Not Cease Teaching
and Writing,’ written by Menno Simons, can be found at http://e-menno.org/menno/menno093.htm (accessed 30 November, 2006).
Chris Sugden, ‘Transformational Development,’ p.
71. Rene Padilla offers a longer
discussion of the history of Evangelicals coming to accept social action as
part of the mission of the Church on the Micah Network conference (Oxford,
2001); cf.: http://www.micahchallenge.org/global/christians_poverty_and_justice/983e99.html?printer_friendly=true&. Padilla’s longer history
includes the Wheaton Congress on the World Mission of the Church (1966), the
World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin in 1966, the Thanksgiving
Workshop on Evangelicals and Social Concern
(Chicago, 1973), which produced the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical
Social Concern, the International Congress on World Evangelization (Lausanne
1974), the International Consultation on ‘Gospel and Culture’ (Willowbank,
1978), the All India Conference on Evangelical Social Action (1979), which
produced the Madras Declaration on Evangelical Social Action, the Second Latin
American Congress on Evangelism (Lima, Peru, 1979), the International
Consultation on ‘Simple Lifestyle’ (Hoddesdon, England, 1980), the Consultation
on World Evangelization (COWE, Pattaya, Thailand, 1980), the International Consultation
on the Relationship of Evangelism and Social Responsibility (CRESR) in Grand
Rapids, Michigan (1982), and the Consultation on the Church in Response to
Human Need (Wheaton, Illinois, 1983), which produced the Wheaton Statement.
Bryant Myers, Walking With the Poor:
Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Press, 1999).
Yoder further demonstrated that H. Richard Niebuhr was wrong to see Anabaptist
ecclesiology as non-transformational.
Cf. Glen H.Stassen, D. M. Yeager, and John Howard Yoder, Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of
Christ and Culture (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996).
Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission:
Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Carlisle: Paternoster Press and
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003).
I have argued for an intertextual reading of Isaiah and Matthew in mission
theology. See Rollin G. Grams,
'Narrative Dynamics in Isaiah's and Matthew's Mission Theology.' Transformation
21.4 (Oct., 2004): 238-255.
See the Preface to Mission as
Transformation, eds. Vinay Samuel
and Chris Sugden (Oxford: Regnum, 2000).
Chris Sugden, ‘Transformational Development: Current state of understanding and
practice,’ Transformation 20/2 (April
2003): 71-77, here p. 73.
Nigel Dower, What is Development? A
Philosopher's Answer (Glasgow: Centre for Development Studies, University
of Glasgow, 1988), p. 2.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Toward a World
Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1981), p. 168. As quoted by
Arthur F. Glasser, ‘A Pradigm shift?
Evangelicals and Interreligious Dialogue,’ in Contemporary Theologies of Mission, eds. Arthur f. Glasser and
Donald A. McGavran (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983), p. 219
(205-219).
Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of
Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), p. 11.
Douglas Petersen, Not By Might Nor By
Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America. (Oxford: Regnum, 1996), p. 120.
Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement
in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Press and Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996).
Sadly, the word ‘Evangelical’ was dropped in the journal’s subtitle in the
January-March issue of 2001 and since, a year before I became involved as the
associate editor.
