Missions in Retrospect and Prospect

Many people are finding it hard to hold a balanced view of the missionary nature and task of the Church. Harsh criticism of the Church’s performance has come both from within the ranks and from outside observers. To the extent that criticism serves to force rethinking of methods and policies, it is to be welcomed and encouraged.

However, some Christians now seem thoroughly confused about mission and unable to respond intelligently to criticism. Reactions typically run toward one of two extremes: a defensive denial of the validity of the criticism (which closes off the possibility of serious reexamination) or a ready capitulation to the critics (with a de facto abandonment of serious missionary purpose).

What is needed is a middle ground of tough-mindedness from which we can face valid criticism squarely and still stand firm on the supreme calling and privilege of the Church, to be “ambassadors on Christ’s behalf.”

We do not stand with Zinzendorf and Carey at the beginning of the modern missionary movement; we are being seen against a broad historical canvas. Unless we face that history honestly, we shall not be freed of past compromises. This will continue to rob the Church of credibility and conviction in its witness.

The present uncertain vision of the Church’s mission no doubt reflects the wider loss of self-confidence that has afflicted the peoples of the West since 1945. Instead of rallying around the spirited slogan that challenged the Christian forces of a previous generation—“The evangelization of the world in this generation”—we have had to struggle against “Missionary, go home!” However, to try to repair the missionary’s bad image by withdrawing him is no solution at all. It is to answer one disobedience with another.

For more than twenty years, the most alert missionary statesmen have been interpreting the significant passage we are making from one era to another. However, one is impressed more by the paralysis of thought that has characterized many missions than by creative new departures. The traumatic closing of China in 1949 did bring on some profitable reflection and soul-searching. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that the lessons learned there had little influence on the practice of missions elsewhere.

In Retrospect

For those with eyes to see, the ethnocentrism that has long characterized the modern missionary movement has become intolerable. In 1910, the year of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, Western missions were already being called to order by the budding Indian Christian leader V. S. Azariah, who told the conference:

Through all the ages to come the Indian Church will rise up in gratitude to attest the heroism and self-denying labours of the missionary body. You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends [Edinburgh 1910, 1910, p. 111].

This plea, prophetic in its insight, was only dimly perceived by many. Edinburgh was a watershed moment. Although the Western church would still send many more missionaries around the world, Western domination would increasingly become a stumbling block.

Our parochialism was expressed through cultural attitudes. We saw it as intrinsic to missionary obedience to impart Western culture and standards as a part of the Gospel. The heart of the problem was that the missionary was intent on substituting one particularism for another, rather than introducing a new universal perspective against which each particularism must ultimately be judged and recreated. Our parochialism prevented us from seeing that the Western church had mistaken its own at-homeness in a particular world view for faithfulness, and that it was proceeding to call converts to this compromised Gospel. The corpus christianum was still acting powerfully to create after its own kind.

The guises of our ethnocentrism were many, but the one most resented by the rest of the world was the assumption of racial superiority. Not all missionaries were guilty, to be sure; but all were part of a common civilization, and the individual exception was not always visible.

Today there is a heightened awareness of ethnic, regional, and national differences, and pluralism is approvingly accepted. Unfortunately, this did not characterize the relations between Westerners and other peoples of the world in the past. And always, the Christian mission was the monopoly of the white western Christian.

An ally of ethnocentrism was the world-wide presence of Western political and economic power. Besides the obvious protection this gave missionaries, particularly in countries like China that were hostile to Christianity, this fact of Western hegemony had other implications. We can only speculate about the difference there might have been in the way missions developed if the development had come during a time when the West was politically and economically weak. Would the practice of missions have more clearly approximated the New Testament experience?

In any event, Western political and economic expansion went on apace with the spread of Christianity, and we can trace out the influence this had on mission concept and method. There have been at least four major stages in mission development. The first came during the era of Western trade expansion, starting around the opening of the sixteenth century. The missionary, like the trader, sought to establish enclaves from which he could carry on his witness. This frequently included forming a treaty or understanding with the ruler or governor of a territory. Some missionaries contracted to perform certain services for the governor in return for protection or privileges. This “trade” model faithfully reflected the power realities of that time.

The second stage produced a new model, the “colonial.” In the nineteenth century the European powers began their new scramble for territory, and colonialism came to full flower. Concurrently, missionary methods began reflecting a greater concern over territory, and mission fields were divided up among various missions. This system of “comity” was devised to ensure order and amicable relations among missions as well as to facilitate government control. However, it contributed to a more static view of church planting and encouraged a paternal attitude toward a region and its peoples.

The third phase paralleled the rise of nationalist movements. As the colonized peoples began to demand political independence, missions became concerned about the indigenous church, and schemes to encourage devolution were set in motion. This was the “nationalist” model. What seemed justified politically was also thought to be wise from the standpoint of the Church.

The fourth model derives from a theme that has prevailed since World War II, national development. The “development” model has emphasized the responsibility of the national church toward its society as well as extending the goals spelled out during the previous phase of concern with the indigenous church.

Although this generalization oversimplifies the situation, it also serves to make a point. We are always creatures of the times in which we live, but we ought to exercise much critical evaluation rather than bowing to what seems to be the inevitable.

As we look back on missionary experience, we are also struck by the prevalence of bureaucracy. The institutionalism that has come to play an increasingly large role in Western society, including the Church, has been transported abroad as a part of the missionary movement. This extended from the very personal level, where the missionary needed certain supporting structures for his own maintenance to the entire mission as well as the church that resulted.

Even to the casual observer, it was an impressive and complex mechanism. There has been no attempt to measure the full implications of this bureaucratization for either the mission agency or the emerging church. However, there is reason to believe that this example of “mission work” is so indelibly impressed on the newer churches that they are now hindered in seeing the true missionary vision for themselves. What impresses them instead is the tremendous amount of resources required thus far, which they know they do not possess.

A related problem has been the mission’s role of power and influence—made possible and protected through bureaucracy—in contrast to the relatively weak position of a new church made up of economically disadvantaged members. A bureaucracy tends to refrain from self-criticism, and to seek to protect its existence, and this has undoubtedly contributed to the tardiness with which missions have faced up to some basic problems.

The fourth observation about past missionary performance concerns the unsatisfactory understanding of the nature of the Church that has been all too characteristic. Some Protestants assumed the church should include the whole society. This led to difficulty when missionary efforts resulted in the conversion of only a small minority in the society. Another stream emphasized the individual relation to Christ at the expense of the corporate expression. This view makes more difficult the building of a sense of relationship among Christians in societies where group solidarity at various levels is primary. A third variety was those churches that formed a tightly knit cultural group whose religious experience was primarily existential rather than doctrinally articulated. While placing a high value on the reality of the church, they were not prepared to understand it apart from the ethnic context.

Other strains of experience might be identified, but the over-riding observation is that missions did not bring to their task as clear an articulation of the nature and mission of the Church as the situation and times required. Little wonder that there have been serious difficulties in resolving questions of mission-church relations, and that the proliferation of specialized mission agencies, good and necessary as many of these groups have been, has contributed to the confusion of how to relate all of this to the mission of the emerging church. The persistent problem of the professional, salaried ministry in the church situation of Asia, Africa, or Latin America might have taken a different turn had we been studying the nature and mission of the Church in the new context rather than transplanting old, culturally loaded models.

Yet despite the ethnocentrism, the too heavy psychological and physical dependence on Western political power, the burdensome bureaucracy, and the unclear understanding of the church, the Christian community was planted in countless corners of the world. Many of these Christians have been tested in the fire of political upheaval and have gained psychological and spiritual independence in the process.

As for the missionary image, there are growing signs that this epochal experience called the modern missionary movement is coming in for a reappraisal by secular historians as well as Christian scholars. The unexploited research resources present in mission and church archives promise to throw a new light on the relations that have developed between the West and the rest of the world since 1800. The courageous and prophetic role of missionaries like F. M. Zahn, who vigorously opposed the colonial policies of both Germany and Great Britain in Togoland, can well illumine the way for us in undertaking the tasks ahead of us. In the late 1800s Zahn was arguing:

If it can still be hoped to Christianize a complete people and to found congregations capable of handing Christianity on, it is a prerequisite for this task to give the natives an indigenous education, i.e., in their mother tongue. We should therefore offer the most strenuous resistance to the pressure of the colonial government to introduce teaching in a foreign language. We must always remain conscious of the fact that every time we give in to the government in this matter, we hammer a nail into the coffin of our best missionary hopes [quoted in H. deBrunner, A Church Between Colonial Powers, 1965, p. 112].

In Prospect

Any attempt to foresee the future shape of mission must first take into account the fact of the presence of churches around the world. If it is legitimate, as I feel it is, to speak of the church universal, we must also immediately speak of the mission universal. It is both a heresy and an act of paternalism to continue placing a dichotomy between a church—however fledging it may appear—and that church’s missionary calling. We have been ready to encourage the new church to evangelize locally but have been disappointed and frustrated when zeal began to flag and the preoccupation turned inward. Yet by our attitudes and actions we have encouraged such Christians to feel that they are not yet competent to see a greater vision.

Might it not be, furthermore, that if these younger churches, with their admittedly slimmer resources, seize the initiative and launch into mission, they will discover some of the answers that we Western churches have failed to learn in communicating the Gospel and building the Church?

In fact, this has already begun to happen. It is most clearly occurring among the so-called independent or indigenous churches, which have fewer inhibitions than the mission-founded churches and a growing sense of mission. Thus, for example, the Church of the Lord (Aladura), founded in Nigeria in 1929, spread throughout West Africa and then founded congregations in Great Britain several years ago. In November, 1971, the primate, E. O. A. Adejobi, presided at the formal opening of his church’s first congregation in New York City. This church’s vision is world-embracing.

All this suggests that a new perspective on the Church and its mission is demanded. We who have grown accustomed to controlling the initiative and resources must visualize and put into practice new ways of conducting ourselves. Otherwise we give the lie to all talk of brotherhood and the Lordship of Christ.

Another needed step in thinking about the future of mission is to become attuned to God’s kairos, the just right moment in his timetable. The Christian should be prepared to live with both a sense of urgency about doing God’s will and a relaxed confidence in His sovereignty. This enables us to take the long view and to wait until the right moment arrives.

Not only must we learn to live and move with God’s time; we also must come to terms with the times in which we live. The principle of adaptation laid down by the Apostle Paul is timeless. Becoming “all things to all men” will break the inflexible and require initiative that the weak do not have. Their calling is likely not to be to the frontiers, where faith meets unfaith and suppleness of spirit and courage are demanded.

The psychotherapist Rollo May reports in Love and Will that through his experiences with many people over the years he has learned that the neurotic and artist in a society are the ones who anticipate the dominant mood and concerns of the next decade. After the Second World War Dr. May and his colleagues noted that their patients showed considerable anxiety. By the sixties it was widely acknowledged that the United States had become an anxious society.

As Christians concerned to see the Church fulfill its missionary task, we must more fully discern the times. Experts in various disciplines seem to be more acute in their perceptions than we have been.

Therefore, we must discover in new dimensions that the Holy Spirit is the agent of mission. There is broad agreement that the role of the Spirit in mission has been largely ignored in the past. In the first place, the Holy Spirit is the source of transformation. The flexibility in structure required to meet the demands of the future will come only through the Spirit. Second, the Spirit gives true continuity. Recent discussions defending mission structures in relation to the Church seem to suggest that continuity rests with maintaining particular structures. The greater missionary faithfulness for which we earnestly pray will be assured only through submission to the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Holy Spirit represents to us universality, for he is universally present and active in loving all men and calling them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Not only must our missionary obedience be tested against that standard; our discipleship should give visibility to the “new thing” that this represents.

A perspective that has been just as much ignored as the Holy Spirit in our consideration of mission is the eschatological. By and large Western Christians during the past century have been largely unresponsive to this dimension of Christian faith, partly because their daily existence was more secure and easier than that of any other people in history, but also because of the self-confidence and optimism that growing Western power encouraged. The message carried to the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America was largely stripped of its eschatological significance through this process of acculturation in the West. This was happening at a time when many people in the world longed desperately for a message of hope. Their longing was met with a flat and uncomprehending stare from the West.

To live in hope and be missionaries of this good news about hope means that we ourselves already know what the ultimate outcome will be in God’s time and have begun participating in it. We do not proceed into an unknown with only the past as guide; we appropriate from that ultimate victory our instructions for the present task. The ethical is informed by the eschatological.

The German churchman Ernst Lange noted recently that “Christians are still living with a parochial conscience in an age of universal history.” There are those who face the complexities and imponderables of our times by setting their faces toward the past and marching toward it. If we have discovered the meaning of “Almighty Meekness”—to borrow Norman Grubb’s apt phrase—and are prepared to live accordingly, then our credentials are of the highest order for being missionaries to the dawning age of universal history.

Wilbert R. Shenk is secretary for overseas missions under the Mennonite Board of Missions, Elkhart, Indiana. He has an M.A. from the University of Oregon. He formerly was a teacher, field director, and fraternal worker in Indonesia under the Mennonite Central Committee.

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