The Missionary Message and the Religions

It is increasingly difficult to articulate a straightforward Christian theology of religions. Today, in a globalised world, religious traditions overlap, merge, attract, clash and influence each other at an ever faster rate. Of course, religions have always borrowed from each other. Syncretism is an ancient phenomenon. Yet the modern media and modern mobility seem to have sped up those processes everywhere. Whereas in the past Christian theologians wrote neat treatises about the Christian view of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etcetera, today such books have become rare. Those who audaciously venture on this path soon find out that they are oversimplifying reality and that they fail to do justice to today’s religious experience.

Mission and the religious marketplace

Fluidity is a word that characterises the way many people in the Western world handle religion today. They are much less attached to religious institutions than before. They feel free to shop around in the religious marketplace. They look for meaning in many different places. Their approach to religion is pragmatic and affective rather than intellectual: Does it work? Does it help me? Does it feel good? Does it touch my life?

In such a climate, Christian churches involved in mission may be tempted to join the competition on the religious marketplace, vying for the attention of the religious consumer. They may feel that they have to offer their “product” in a most attractive way, so as to have a greater market share than their rival religious institutions.

That, however, is not Christian mission in the way of Christ. The Gospels clearly show us that Christ refused to get entangled in religious competition. He would not be drawn into casuistic debates on which religious beliefs, rituals or habits were the best. He did not sell a product. Instead, he called people back to a straight, pure relationship with a loving and self-giving God – and to a self-sacrificial lifestyle that reflected that loving relationship.

The logic of Christ was rather the opposite of the logic of the marketplace. It was not about profit and increase at the expense of others, but rather about giving: giving others space, sometimes at great cost. “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7: 12) Paul, possibly the greatest missionary among Jesus’ followers, understood this reversed logic. “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6: 2) But the most candid expression of what it means to follow in Christ’s footsteps is perhaps John the Baptist’s saying: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3: 30)

Over-confident apologetics

In the light of Christ’s example, apologetics as it has been practised by Christians over the centuries may seem a compromise, a way of yielding to the logic of the market. And the great missionary conference of Edinburgh 1910 seems to have made that very mistake. Its spokesmen insisted on the absoluteness of Christianity as opposed to the relative significance of other faiths. Its reports expected the downfall of other faiths and the final victory of Christianity. Christianity was the only religion that could survive in the modern world, some representatives claimed and even such a formidable opponent as Islam would eventually give way: “The impact of the modern world upon Islam must sooner or later break up that age-long delusion.” (WMC, IV, 244)

Commission IV in particular set itself the task of reflecting on “the presentation of Christianity to the minds of the non-Christian peoples”. One may compare Commission IV to a marketing agency hired to evaluate the marketing strategy of a large commercial enterprise. These are the questions the commissioners set out to answer: What are the problems involved in presenting Christianity? How does that influence the minds of the missionaries? How does that reflect on our theology? And how can we so train our missionaries that they are better equipped to present Christianity? (WMC, IV, 1) As real trouble-shooters, they zoomed in on the more specific questions relating to their target groups. What elements, in other religions, keep people away from Christ? What elements, in other religions, prepare people for Christ? What elements of the Gospel “win” people over to Christianity? Incisive marketing research, or so it seems.

Edinburgh’s apologetic statements have indeed proven to be over-confident and one-dimensional. The ancient world religions have not given way so easily – even animism is in a stage of revival in today’s Western society. In relation to the world’s population, Christianity has not even grown over the past century! And, as I pointed out above, the separations between the religions are not as watertight as the Edinburgh conference assumed.

Religious osmosis

Yet I would not do justice to Commission IV if I were to interpret its report merely as a proposed improvement in marketing Christianity. For, in fact, the commissioners called for a deep sympathy between Christians and people of other faiths. They expressed great appreciation and admiration for certain strands in other faiths. Muslims, for instance, are commended for their profound resignation to the will of God and their persistent belief that God is merciful (127-8). Christians are called upon to have a “readiness to learn from others truth which we have not apprehended” (39). Other religions are considered valuable because, in that fair and open dialogical comparison that many at Edinburgh 1910 endorsed, they lead Christians back to the core of their own faith. In the words of the great Islam scholar William H. Temple Gairdner: “Christians who preach the Trinity must know the secret of the Trinitarian life… Islam then forces us to find the Trinity in our heart and it forces us to find the Trinity in the heart of God.” (135) In pointing out such connections and commonalities, the commissioners unearthed the deep ties that bind together religious believers from many traditions. Superficial marketplace-language is certainly unfit to capture these spiritual undercurrents in the world of religions on which Commission IV sought to shed light.

It is in light of these deep connections that Commission IV calls for a living Christian theology. The major conclusion of the 1910 study process was: know the religions and know your own faith. Knowledge is essential because the religions “without exception disclose elemental needs of the human soul which Christianity alone can satisfy” (267). If Christians are going to help satisfy those needs, they need to have a living faith supported by a living theology. “There is no question more urgent for any religious propaganda than the truth and the purity of its ideas, and, next to living faith, the great want of the age is a living theology.” (5) Although the words used here by Commission IV are hard to repeat at the beginning of the 21st century, they seem to hint at an apologetic approach that combines sympathy, honesty and conviction. In other words: Edinburgh 1910 had less aversion of religious osmosis than some of its militant language suggests.

Christian mission and religious life today

So the approach of Edinburgh’s Commission IV was apologetic, focusing on knowledge, with an openness to fluidity in religion. Is that somewhat intellectual approach still useful for Christian mission today, in a society where the sensory and the emotional guides so many in their religious life? I believe it is. In fact, I believe we have no alternative. Although Christians ought to commit themselves to creative communication of the Gospel that appeals to the senses and to emotional life, their underlying convictions should based on sound Christian thinking. Faith seeks understanding, in every age afresh. The deeper one’s dedication to basic Christian beliefs, the more open one can be in the encounter with people of other faiths. There is a paradox here: as believers grow in understanding, they are more prepared to explore that fluidity, those religious undercurrents, while they are also aware of the uniqueness of each faith.

Sympathetic as we are to the apologetic efforts of Commission IV, we cannot follow uncritically. In particular, the language of the absoluteness of Christianity should be left behind. “Absoluteness” is not a biblical, but a colonial category. In our days, it takes on a neo-colonial, capitalist tone. It belies the cross of Christ and the cross Christians have to carry. It understandably repels people and provokes resistance and suspicion against the Gospel, especially in an age of tolerance, individual freedom and unlimited choices. “Absoluteness” is meaningless in a world characterised by fluidity.

Abandoning the category of “absoluteness” does not mean we fall into the opposite trap of “relativism”, as if we had given up on truth altogether. In Christian mission and in interfaith dialogue the truth remains at the centre. Christians will always be concerned about the truth found in Christ and the communication of that truth. That does not mean that they put themselves forward as possessors of a truth revealed in clearly defined, timeless propositions. Rather, they humbly acknowledge that it is Christ’s truthfulness, his reliability and faithful love, that makes them believe in God’s truth in Christ. And the response of Jesus’ followers to his story is at the same time the missionary invitation: “What it demands is not so much understanding as surrender” (S. Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths, 18) Bishop Lesslie Newbigin has put it like this: “To be witnesses [of the new reality of Christ] does not mean to be possessors of all truth. It means to be placed on the path by following which we are led toward the truth.” (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 12)

Charity and bold confidence

The conclusions of the World Missionary Conference in 1910 and the memorial conference of Edinburgh 2010 are virtually similar when it comes to the missionary encounter with other faiths. Edinburgh 1910 recommended that missionaries combine humility, charity, sympathy and tolerance with commitment to the absoluteness and finality of Christ. Edinburgh 2010 replaces the language of absoluteness with the phrase “bold confidence in the gospel message” – a healthy corrective – and views this bold confidence as the basis of the encounter with people of other faiths. So these are the two poles of the ellipse of Christian mission: commitment to Christ and love for others, regardless of their religious convictions.   

The “Common Call” issued by the Edinburgh 2010 conference captures these elements powerfully: “Remembering Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and his resurrection for the world’s salvation, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are called to authentic dialogue, respectful engagement and humble witness among people of other faiths – and no faith – to the uniqueness of Christ. Our approach is marked with bold confidence in the gospel message; it builds friendship, seeks reconciliation and practises hospitality.” (Common Call, 2) So mission is faithfulness to Christ, and not marketing a religious product. Both Edinburgh 1910 and Edinburgh 2010 offer us this necessary reminder, as the fluidity of religious life tempts us to resort to clear-cut marketing strategies.

Literature:

Stephen Neill, Christian Faith and Other Faiths: The Christian Dialogue with other Religions, London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, London: SPCK, 1989.

World Missionary Conference, 1910, Report of Commission IV: The Missionary Message in Relation to the Non-Christian Religions, Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier/New York, Chicago, and Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1910.