Visions of mission for new
millennium
By CATHY MAJTENYI
Special to the National Catholic
Reporter Chicago
What if the Holy Spirit was at the center of Christian missionary
theology and activity? What if churches of the North and South were to sit at
the same table as equal partners? What if the mission of the future was to seek
first the Kingdom of God?
Mission theologians from Africa, Asia, and North and South America
met here April 27-29 to debate these and other visions of what mission could be
like in the third millennium. Presentations at the World Mission Institute
2000s conference, What hope for people? The point of mission,
critiqued the Christian missionary theology and practice of the past and put
forth alternatives for the future. The conference was sponsored by the Chicago
Center for Global Ministries, a consortium of mission groups from different
denominations, and by the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a Catholic mission
society. It was held at the Lutheran School of Theology.
Speakers agreed that the churchs most important role in
mission is to bring the gospel and hope to people, especially those who are
marginalized, poor and suffering. Gospel values transform people from
within, Musimbi Kanyoro, general secretary of the Geneva-based World
Young Womens Christian Association and one of three major speakers, told
the gathering. Gospel values shake the values we hold dear and call us to
repentance. Gospel values look beyond the outward images into the intentions of
the heart.
But many times, the gospel is buried or lost in layers of church
structures and politics that may end up alienating the poor, argued liberation
theologian Fr. José Comblin. The formalist, ritual-minded,
intellectual nature of official Catholicism is far removed
from peoples realities and is aligned to elites in Latin America, said
Comblin, a Belgian-born theologian who has worked for nearly 40 years in Brazil
and Chile.
And the gospels have to be presented in ways that people can
understand, said Jose de Mesa, a Catholic theologian based in Manila. He
described how Christianity had been transported to Asia without
being transplanted.
Early evangelization efforts imposed a foreign, Western idea of
Jesus onto the population with little regard for the peoples culture,
ways of understanding and the injustices of colonialism, said de Mesa. A
message of salvation that is not rooted to the context of the people will sound
fake and not to be lived out, agreed Kanyoro.
Speakers shared their experiences and ideas of how the church can
change and is changing to become more effective in the lives of those to whom
it ministers.
De Mesa described how he uses the Asian Integrated Pastoral
Approach, adapted from South Africa, to help people in Asian countries reflect
on scripture. By using their own cultural resources and experiences,
communities define what they think of as salvation. They then think
of a meaningful title or name for Jesus. After discussion, scripture reading
and reflection, communities re-gauge their original image of
Jesus.
It is when people themselves appropriate the significance
and relevance of Jesus and express this in their own way that Jesus becomes
more real to them, said de Mesa. Kanyoro urged foreign church groups to
look beyond problem-solving and fulfilling Africans needs. A wider
perspective will help foreigners to recognize and draw upon Africans
resilience, resourcefulness and ways of doing things. Its not our
poverty that should define us, she said.
A partnership between foreign and local churches would
see a dialogue of equals between the two groups and encourage
African missionaries to minister to people in the West, said Kanyoro. The
church should also provide a safe place where people can talk to
each other and examine themselves, she said. This dialogue must challenge
people into new action, new policies, new ways of thinking.
Foreign missionaries must work in the context of the rest of
the church. They are part of the African church, she said.
The church should return to its preceding phase -- that of a
church committed to the liberation of the poor, said Comblin. He called
for invention, creativity and boldness in using scripture to bring
about social change and challenge the existing repressive power structures.
My hope is the Holy Spirit. I think the third millennium
will be the era of the Spirit, said Comblin. The Holy Spirit is
very active presently. But there is increasing conflict between the churches as
institutions and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the people.
A return to an earlier church would also mean making families a
priority in mission planning and activity, said de Mesa. The gospel was
originally received and transmitted in houses and households, which became the
structure of the early church, he said. As the nature of mission changes, new
people and groups that do not fall within official mission structures may
emerge. Maria Burke, co-director of the Catholic Missions Office of the Chicago
archdiocese, spoke of what she called rogue groups in the Catholic
church.
These include lay missionaries who are inspired by the founder of
a religious congregation, individuals who are not affiliated with a particular
congregation but who go as a lay missionary to a specific mission, and local
parishes that wish to partner with another parish somewhere else,
she said.
Anthony Gittins, missiology professor at Catholic Theological
Union, said he preferred to think of these rogue movements as new
life. New life tends to form at the edges and on the margins, he
said. In mission, this appears as a new life in the Spirit which is
cracking out or cracking up, old structures.
National Catholic Reporter, May 12,
2000
|