THE STUDY OF MINISTRY
A comprehensive survey of theory and best practice
EDITED BY MARTYN PERCY WITH IAN S. MARKHAM, EMMA PERCY AND FRANCESCA PO First published in Great Britain in 2019 Contents Society forPromoting Christian Knowledge 36 Causton Street London SWlP 4ST www.spck.org.uk List of contributors ix Copyright© Martyn Percy, Ian S. Markham, Emma Percy and Francesca Po 2019 1 The authors of the individual chapters included in this work have asserted their right under the Introduction: The history ai:iddevelopment of ministry Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifiedas such. Martyn Percy
All rights reserved. No part of thisbook may be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informationstorage Partl and retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe publisher. UNDERSTANDING MINISTRY
SPCK does not necessarily endorse the individual views contained in its publications. 1 The developing philosophy of ministry 15 John Fitzmaurice The author and publisher have made every effortto ensure that the external website and email addresses included in this book are correct and up to date at the timeof going to press. The author 2 Hermeneutics of ministry 28 and publisher are not responsible forthe content, quality or continuing accessibility of the sites. Ian Tomlinson . British LibraryCataloguing-in-Publication Data 41 A catalogue record forthis book is available fromthe British Library 3 Anthropologyof ministry Abby Day ISBN 978-0-281-08136-3 eBook ISBN 978-0-281-07301-6 4 Sociology of ministry 56 Douglas Davies Typesetby Manila Typesetting Company First printed in Great Britain by TJ International 5 Congregational studies and ministry 70 Subsequently digitallyreprinted in Great Britain David Gortner eBook by Manila Typesetting Company 6 Psychology of ministry 89 Produced on paper fromsustainable forests Fraser Watts 7 Ministry in fiction 102 Catherine Wilcox 8 Ministry in television and film 114 Joshua Rey and Jolyon Mitchell
Part2 MODELS, METHODS AND RESOURCES 9 Global and ecumenical models of ministry 135 Ian S. Markham
10 Clerical and lay models of ministry 147 Andrew Todd List of contributors Contents 11 Non-parochial formsof ministry 161 24 Pentecostal-style ministries 355 Chris Swift Benjamin McNair Scott 12 A collaboratively shaped ministry forthe coming Church 17 4 25 Anglicantheologies of ministry 372 Stephen Pickard Tess Kuin Lawton 13 Psychotherapy and ministry 190 26 The parish church 388 Robert Roberts and RyanWest Alan Billings 14 Leadership studies and ministry 204 2 7 Contested Church: mission-shaped, emerging and disputed 403 Keith Lamdin Justin Lewis-Anthony 15 Digital media forministry: key concepts and core 28 New ministries - new ministers 420 convictions 217 Tom Keighley Kyle Oliver and Lisa Kimball 29 Critical paradigms of ministry 432 16 Digital media forministry: portraits, practices and John Fitzmaurice potential 233 Kyle Oliver and Lisa Kimball Parts ISSUES IN CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Part3 MINISTRY IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION 30 The challenge of preaching 449 Ruthanna Hooke 17 Scripture and ministry 253 31 Ministry among other faithtraditions 463 Hywel Clifford Bonnie Evans-Hills 18 Liturgy and ministry 269 32 Discrimination and ministry 475 James Farwell Ian S. Markham and Allison St Louis 19 Missiology and ministry 279 33 Gender and ministry 490 Robert Heaney Emma Percy 20 Ethics and ministry: witness or solidarity? 292 34 Missionary wives and women's distinctive contributions Robin Gill to mission 500 21 Politics and ministry 304 Cathy Ross Susanna Snyder 35 The dynamics of power in churches 514 22 An ecumenical theology of ministry 323 Martyn Percy Robin Greenwood 36 Safeguarding in the Church of England 527 Part4 Rupert Bursell STYLES OF CHRISTIAN MINISTRY 3 7 Ministerial stresses and strains 537 23 Roman Catholic pastoral theology 341 Amanda Bloor Tom Hughson Contents 38 Conflict,reconciliation and healing 549 SarahHills 39 Spirituality, health and ministry 560 Mark Cobb 40 Chaplaincy and healthcare 574 Mark Newitt and SallyRoss 41 Ministers and employment law 587 Norman Doe 42 Canon law in global Anglicanism 599 Norman Doe 43 Money and ministry 612 Barney Hawkins
Conclusion: Interdisciplinary methods - the role of the minister and the study of ministry 623 Francesca Po and David Gortner Afterword:The futureshapes of ministry 639 MartynPercy
Selected bibliography 643 Further reading: Bibliographical sources for the formation, presence and engagement of ministry 667 James Woodward Copyright acknowledgements 681 Index of names 683 Index of subjects 691 19 Missiology and ministry
ROBERT HEANEY
Missiology Missiology is a cross-disciplinary field of study focused on the practice 3:11d theologizing of those who believe that what they say and what they do is, in some sense, a response to or participation in a divine 'sentness'. Missiologists may study the history of missionary migration in different eras. Missiologists may propose theological theses for Christian mission. Missiologists may examine the linguistic issues at stake in the various con textualizations of theology across cultures. Missiologists may be involved in analysing and strategizing for church growth. Missiologists may com pare the outreach of distinct religions and cultures. Missiologists may engage with critical theories in a bid to uncover injustice and/or estab fishmore just mission structures and practices. The guild of missiologists includes, therefore, scholars, practitioners and activists influencedby and contributing to diverse fieldssuch as history, anthropology, sociology, psy chology, linguistics, biblical studies, religious studies, theological studies, ethics and critical theory. The sentness ( missio) of mission may be understood in distinct and interrelated ways expressed in terms of calling, vocation, evangelization, inculturation, contextualization, humanization, development, prophecy, liberation, decolonization and/ or dialogue. This sentness is Christian because it draws froma theological reservoir of images and commitments including eternal processions, divine missions, revelation, redemption, salvation, grace, incarnation, kingdom of God and mission of God that coalesces in the person of Jesus Christ. Justifying a particular point of departure for the study of mission might be seen as an impossible task given the inherent plurality of the subject matter, the mal}ydisciplines that contribute to the field, and the diversity of theological and ecumenical sources drawn upon. The present volume, however, deals with ministry. That is to say, whatever else is in view here the focus is better Cnristian
279 Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry practice. Beginning with missionary practice this chapter will set out the missions but on the voluntary society within a British empire.4 Six criti importance of a critical and constructive approach to mission that might cisms are often made of the modern missionary movement. Paternalistic nourish ministry. missionary interest overlapped with colonial interest. Missionaries justi A critical approach to the practice of Christian mission does not ignore fied imperialism, promoted acculturation, practised racism, disparaged experience, missionary malpractice, or criticisms from recipients of mis traditional practice and exacerbated societal divisions. 5 sionary endeavours. On the contrary, a critical missiology directly exam Gayatri Spivak describes British expansion in India as 'giving ines malpractice and critique. If, as will be seen, mission theology cannot Christianity with one hand and ensuring military superiority with the be abandoned without abandoning the very message of the gospel then other'.6 The first criticism of Christian mission is that missionary inter a critical approach to missiology cannot end in deconstruction. A con est often overlapped with colonial interest and that this compromised structive move must also be made. Consequently, this chapter will begin to the gospel. Crucial to such a criticism is that the nature and means of outline a particular approach to missiology and how that approach might imperial expansion influenced understandings of Christian mission as an resource ministry. expansionist endeavour relying on the agency of Europeans and European colonizers. R. S. Sugirtharajah argues that in British missionary circles it was this broader imperial expansion that set the scene for a rediscovery A critical turn: missionary practice in the eighteenth century of the 'unfashionable' text of Matthew 28.19.7 The field of missiology, the practice of missionaries and Christian the The missionary Johannes Rehmann would do more than discern a divine ologies of mission are contested and, at times, controversial. There is no expansionist commission. In the light of 30 years spent working in the shortage of literature criticizing the practice of foreign missionaries as they absence of European political governance, he reflectedin 1856 that 'where migrated fromp owerful imperial centres to places far beyond the imperial the power of a Christian nation ceased to be felt, there is also the bound metropoles. The relationships missionaries benefited from or brokered ary, set by Providence, to missionary labour'. 8 with those in political power are central to the criticisms of mission prac The first criticism takes for granted that imperialism is a sin and thus tice, at least since Christianity moved from a Jewish to a Greco-Roman treats with suspicion relationships between missionary and imperial milieu.1 Since Christianity's expansion in relation to the Roman Empire, ist practice. Such an assessment of imperialism is contested. The second Christian mission would often mean a movement 'from the superior to e::riticismpoints to the explicit theological justification for empire and its the inferior'.2 At the close of the fifteenth century the so-called Age of missional benefitsthat some missionaries and Christian leaders provided. Discovery was as much an age of European colonization and Christian A.ppeal is made to providence as causing, or allowing, colonial expansion, expansionism as it was an age of subjugation and slavery. The Christian thusproviding opportunity formoral renascence. Both themes are present nations of Spain and Portugal extended programmes of colonization while in the writings of Bishop Charles Blomfield as he argues for the estab at the same time purporting to expand programmes of christianization.3 lishment of a colonial bishoprics fund. In 1840, as Bishop of London, he Yet, perhaps even more castigated than these eras of mission is the perioc\ claims that such a fundwould of the modern missionary movement. The movement emerges in the after cause the reformedEpiscopal Church to be recognised, by all the nations of math of the Enlightenment and centres not on government-sponsored the earth, as the stronghold of pure religion, and the legitimate dispenser
1 It should be noted that this criticism may depend upon undervaluing the equally import 4 Bosch, Transforming, 280. ant story of the eastern migration of Christianity. If this is the case, instead of simply crit 5 See Robert S. Heaney, From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of icizing 'western' mission, the criticism also adds to a Eurocentric narrative frame. See the John S. Mbiti and Jesse N. K. Mugambi (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), 31-61. Introduction in Peter C. Phan, ed., Christianities in Asia (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 6 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the 2011), 1-6. Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 216. 7 2 David Bosch, TransformingMission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Heaney, Historical,214. Orbis Books, 1991), 193. 8 Cited by Robert W. Strayer, The Making of Missionary Communities in East Africa:Anglicans 3 Bosch, Transforming, 190-4, 226-30. and Africansin Colonial Kenya, 1875-1935 (London: Heinemann, 1978), 33.
280 281
Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry practice. Beginning with missionary practice this chapter will set out the missions but on the voluntary society within a British empire. Six criti importance of a critical and constructive approach to mission that might cisms are often made of the modern missionary movement. Paternalistic4 nourish ministry. missionary interest overlapped with colonial interest. Missionaries justi A critical approach to the practice of Christian mission does not ignore fied imperialism, promoted acculturation, practised racism, disparaged experience, missionary malpractice, or criticisms from recipients�of mis tr:aditionalpractice and exacerbated societal divisions. 5 sionary endeavours. On the contrary, a critical missiology directly exam Gayatri Spivak describes British expansion in India as 'giving ines malpractice and critique. If, as will be seen, mission theology cannot Christianity with one hand and ensuring military superiority with the be abandoned without abandoning the very message of the gospel then other'.6 The first criticism of Christian mission is that missionary inter a critical approach to missiology cannot end in deconstruction. A con-: est often overlapped with colonial interest and that this compromised structive move must also be made. Consequently, this chapter will begin to the gospel. Crucial to such a criticism is that the nature and means of outline a particular approach to missiology and how that approach might imperial expansion influencedunderstandings of Christian mission as an resource ministry. expansionistendeavour relying on the agency of Europeans and European colonizers. R. S. Sugirtharajah argues that in British missionary circles it A critical turn: missionary practice was this broader imperial expansion that set the scene for a rediscovery in. the eighteenth century of the 'unfashionable' text of Matthew 28.19.7 The field of missiology, the practice of missionaries and Christian tht The missionary Johannes Rehmann would do more than discern a divine ologies of mission are contested and, at times, controversial. There is ho e;xpansionist commission. In the light of 30 years spent working in the shortage of literature criticizing the practice of foreignmissionarie s as the)i absence of European political governance, he reflectedin 1856 that 'where migrated from powerfuli mperial centres to places far beyond the impei:l'i_ the power of a Christian nation ceased to be felt, there is also the bound metropoles. The relationships missionaries benefited from or brokere� ary, set by Providence, to missionary labour'. 8 with those in political power are central to the criticisms of mission prao The first criticism takes for granted that imperialism is a sin and thus tice, at least since Christianity moved from a Jewish to a Greco-Roma{\ �eats with suspicion relationships between missionary and imperial milieu.1 Since Christianity's expansion in relation to the Roman EmpirJ, ist practice. Such an assessment of imperialism is contested. The second Christian mission would often mean a movement 'from the superior to t�iticism points to the explicit theological justification forempire and its the inferior'. 2 At the close of the fifteenth century the so-called Age off �ssional benefitsthat some missionaries and Christian leaders provided. Discovery was as much an age of European colonization and Christia.i Appeal is made to providence as causing, or allowing, colonial expansion, expansionism as it was an age of subjugation and slavery. The Christia&, thus providing opportunity formoral renascence. Both themes are present nations of Spain and Portugalex tended programmes of colonization whil� in the writings of Bishop Charles Blomfield as he argues for the estab at the same time purporting to expand programmes of christianization.! lishment of a colonial bishoprics fund. In 1840, as Bishop of London, he Yet, perhaps even more castigated than these eras of mission is the peri�M claims that such a fundwould of the modern missionary movement.The movement emerges in the afte .. cause the reformed Episcopal Church to be recognised, by all the nations of math of the Enlightenment and centres not on government-sponsor�cl 1 the earth, as the stronghold of pure religion, and the legitimate dispenser
1 It should be noted that this criticism may depend upon undervaluing the equally impoi;G 4 Bosch, Transforming,280. ant story of the eastern migration of Christianity. If this is the case, instead of simply cri · 5 See Robert S. Heaney, From Historical to Critical Post-Colonial Theology: The Contribution of icizing 'western' mission, the criticism also adds to a Eurocentric narrative frame. See the John S. Mbiti and Jesse N. K.Mugambi (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), 31-61. Introduction in Peter C. Phan, ed., Christianities in Asia (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackw'ell � Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the 2011), 1-6. I Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 216. 2 214. David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll,1�t 1 Heaney, Historicat Orbis Books, 1991), 193. 8 Cited by Robert W. Strayer, The Making of Missionary Communities in East Africa:Anglicans 3 Bosch, Transforming, 190-4, 226-30. and Africansin Colonial Kenya, 1875-1935 (London: Heinemann, 1978), 33.
280 281 Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry of its means of grace: and will be a chosen instrument in the hands of God mores, was the end aimed for and often resulted in the imposition of a for purifying and restoring the other branches of Christ's Holy Catholic 'consciousness that negates and denies the lived reality-hence the iden 9 church. tity and value -of indigenous people'.15 The imposition of, for example, In the first edition of The Colonial Church Chronicle (1847), colonialism individualism, dualism and futurismwas seen by missionaries as the intro 16 is considered the means through which British Christianity can-univer duction of a Christian and biblical worldview. Fourth, racism, predicated upon practices of e:x1>ansionism, militates salize its values and Anglicanism can demonstrate its catholicity.10 A hun dred years later, when it appeared that an imperial Christian America against claims for the beneficence or benignity of mission. 'Lightness' was replacing an imperial Christian Britain, the general secretary of the and 'darkness' and 'lightness' in preferenceto 'darkness' could functionin Church Missionary Society would propose a 'theology of imperialism'. nineteenth-century missionary literature as signifiers not only for the Max Warren justified empire in terms of providence, vocation, order and nature of sin but also for the nature of some races purportedly sunk 17 18 greater good.11 deeper into sin than others. Whiteness is given 'formative power'. The It is the case that tension did at times exist between colonialists and history of the modern missionary movement is, it seems, replete with missionaries, and sometimes missionaries opposed colonial lifestyles stories of local theological leadership being suppressed and displaced.It is and policies. Despite this, Elizabeth Isichei writes, 'It has been suggested such racism that provokes, fromespecially the late nineteenth century, the emergence of locally or independently initiated churches as one potent, that both mission and imperialism rest on the same postulate: the super 19 iority of one's own culture to that of the other.' 12 A third criticism, there practical and grounded response. Such initiatives are concerned not only fore, of mission practice is that missionaries often imposed foreign with theological voice but also with the theological importance of place, cultures on converts. This could take place through Western missionary land and geography. They signify,in part, a more holistic participation in endeavour internationally but it could also take place on the 'home mis God's mission, resisting practice that 'imagines Christian identity floating 20 sion field'.The 1819 Civilization Fund Act in the USA made fundsavail- above land, landscape, animals, place, and space'. able to missionaries for the purpose of educating Native peoples in 'the All mission depends upon dialogue. The explicit proclamation of the habits of civilization'.13 These funds made such missionaries the 'de facto gospel of Jesus Christ by evangelists in places where the Church does not arm of the US government's civilization project throughout the nine exist depends upon pre-Christian traditions and philosophy. Yet, a fifth teenth century'.14 The policy to 'civilize' by providing both 'the Bible and criticism of the modern missionary movement is that it often resulted in the plough' would eventually lead to the forcible removal of children to llie disparagement of traditional belief and practice.A twentieth-century residential schools. Proselytization, through education into European · ssionary to Kenya reflectedthat 'the spiritual beliefs of the African' were 'superstition rather than religion: She adjudged God in African thought o be 'a power which must be propitiated' and that 'Fear ...is the motive 21 9 Rowan Strong, Anglicanism and the British Empire c.1700-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University !inspiring all their spiritual beliefs.' John S. Mbiti identifies a 'bulldozer Press, 2007), 200. entality' among many missionaries who assumed that Africantraditions 10 N.a., 'Extension of the Reformed Catholic Church', Colonial Church Chronicle (July 1847 - June 1848), 3-5. 11 M.A. C. Warren, Caesar the Beloved Enemy: ThreeStudies in the Relation of Church and State (London: SCM Press, 1955). See Robert S. Heaney, 'Coloniality and Theological Method in as Hawk and Twiss, 'Good', 57. 16 Africa: Journal ofAnglican Studies7:1 (2009): 55-65. Heaney, Historical,48-50. 12 Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa:From Antiquity to the Present (London: 7 Myra Rutherdale, Women and the White Man's God (Vancouver: University of British SPCK, 1995), 92. Columbia Press, 2002), 29. 13 L. Daniel Hawk and Richard L. Twiss, 'From Good: "The Only Good Indian Is a Dead 18 Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (New Indian" to Better: "Kill the Indian and Save the Man" to Best: "Old Things Pass Away and All Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 290. Things Become White!": An American Hermeneutic of Colonization', in Kay Higuera Smith, 'i9i Robert Edgar, 'New Religious Movements', in Norman Etherington, ed., Missions and Empire Jayachitra Lalitha and L. Daniel Hawk, eds, Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations: Global (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2005), 216--37. Awakenings in Theologyand Praxis(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2014), 47-60 at 47-8. Jennings, Christian, 293. 1 14 Hawk and Twiss, 'Good', 52. � Cited in Heaney, Historical,44.
282 283 Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry were demonic and needed to be 'swept aside'.22 Given this, pre-Christian A constructive (re)turn: the missio Dei theology and practice was seen to be a great danger and standing in opposition to theChristian gospel.Tr aditional pre-Christian thought and T?is chapter has considered mission 'frombelow', beginning not with the practice was a danger to the purity of the gospel and the integrity of an Bible, theology or a narrative of historical westward expansion, but with 25 emerging Church. key criticisms of modern practice. The purpose of this section is to con sider the importance of a shift to mission of God ( missio Dei) language Evangelization often results in an explicit distinction between those _ who are part of the body of Christ and those who are not.A sixthcriticism as one broad theological response to criticisms of modern mission and of missionary practice is, therefore,that it provokes or exacerbates societal to begin to assess to what extent such an emphasis might resource a the divisions. In some contexts this did not only mean an apparent disparity ology of mission that is participationist, contextualist and ecumenical. between those who had access to divine blessing and those who did not.It As willbe seen presently, a participationist approach has implications for could also mean converts gaining more access to education and promotion understandings of human agency, and contextualization means a more within colonial structures.23 Further societal division was evidenced with expansive view of the work of the Spirit of Christ in the world which, in the importation not only of the Church of Christ but also of denomina turn, leads to a capacious ecumenism. tions. Indeed, denominations sometimes negotiated together over access The mid-twentieth century was a turbulent time formuch of the world. to certain areas and peoples, creating, quite literally, a denominational That turbulence, especially in the wake of two world wars, had Christians tribalism. By the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, in the face of in bo� the Global North and the Global South questioning the vaunted rationalism and liberalism, denominationalism was often an embedded expansion of European and American 'progress'. Reflecting this reaction against expansionism, the 1952 International Missionary Council sought reality in foreignmissionary strategy, so much so that particular theologi _ cal emphases within church traditions hardened and cooperation abated.24 to stress the primary agency of God in mission. Summingup the signifi Criticism of missionaries and Christian mission past and present can cance of this meeting David Bosch writes, 'There is church because there is not and must not be avoided. Equally, the recognition of criticism and mission, not vice versa ...To participate in mission is to participate in the mov ent of God's love toward peo le, since God is fountainof sending malpractice cannot result in mission isolationism or reductionism. For �:n _ � � even in the face of colonialism, imperialism, acculturation, racism, subju love. While the term has been at times adopted with vague definitions missio Dei gation and division, manyhave joyfullywelcomed Jesus Christ.Not a Jesus �d ��recise implications, at its best theology declares that of empire but a Jesus despised by empire.Not a Jesus dependent on foreign miss10n 1s at the heart of a Christian vision of God. In other words, mission culture but a Jesus present in the particularity of land, language and cul. �oes no� belong primarily to a theology of the Church, humanity or salva tio ; neither does it belong primarily in the realm of pastoral, practical or ture. Not a white Jesus but a black Jesus. Even at this juncture, therefore, � _ one might already see that a constructive turn will include mission the political theology.Rather, to speak of mission is to speak of God. Mission ology that stresses participation over expansion ( contra solonialism. and is thus not a consequent of the doctrine of God. It is part of the doctrine imperialism), contextualization over assimilation (contra acculturation of God. This emphasis, though beginning with conciliar Protestants, has and subjugation) and ecumenism over confessionalism ( contra racism and spread to influence Roman Catholic and Orthodox thinking, as well as divisiveness). the broader constituencies of world Protestantism. Famously, the Second Ad Gentes, �ati�a� Council document, declared that, 'The pilgrim Church 1s miss10nary by her very nature' because 'it is fromthe mission of the Son �d themission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance 22 John S. Mbiti, 'ConfessingChrist in a Multi-Faith Context, with TwoExamples fromAfrica', Metanoia 4:3-4 (1994): 138-45. 23 See Jane Tschurenev, 'Incorporation and Differentiation:Popular Education and the Imperial Civilizing Mission in Early Nineteenth Century India', in Carey A. Watt and Michael Mann,, eds, Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to � Development (London: Anthem Press, 2011), 93-124. 25 See Heaney, Historical, 200-18. 24 Bosch, Transforming, 329-34. 26 Bosch, Transforming, 390. 284 285 Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry with the decree of God the Father'.27 Missio Dei theology, or at least the sought to displace in the mid-twentieth century. That is to say, an incul adoption of the term, has become an important way for post-colonial turated emphasis promotes a bloated sense of human agency because of Christians to talk about mission. a 'secularization' or 'horizontalization' of mission.29 In contrast, an insti While the language of the missio Dei has been widely accepted and tutionalist approach defines mission in relation to God's work of new widely used, it has also caused controversy. Two distinct understandings, oreation in and through the Church. The call of mission is, first, for the referred to here as inculturationist and institutionalist, resource distinct Church to demonstrate in its life the overflowing grace of God. This grace, understandings of ministry. To develop a theology of the missio Dei with an second, overflowsinto the surrounding context through the commissioned emphasis on inculturation is to take a position that emphasizes God's work anddispersed congregation. in all cultures. God is at work among all people in all places at all times. The Lesslie Newbigin highlights the danger of polarized notions of the missio mission of God is present in allcultures and the Spirit of God is at work in ]Jeiwhen he definesas monstrosities both an 'unchurchly mission' and an all religions. The mission is God's. It is not dependent upon the work, pres 'unmissionary Church'. 30 An inculturated approach, focused on the work ence or even distinct existence of the Church. To the extent that the Church of the Spirit of God beyond the Church, can tend towards an 'unchurchly is a discrete bodyit is 'a pointer' to how God reaches out to the world, and mission'. An institutionalist approach, emphasizing mission as a second one agent for the 'humanization' of society. A call to repentance and con or secondary move of the Church, can tend towards an 'unmissionary version could be seen as evidence of imperialistic proselytism. Indeed, in Church'. The Church's identity and the Church's work cannot be separated. its most radical form it is believed that the existence of an institutionally a'he Church is the community that has rhet the risen Christ. The Church organized Church can stand in the way of the mission of God. Such a view, is the reconciled community of God. The Church is the new creation made present in ecumenical conversations especiallyin the 1960s, saw mission no risible in history. The Church is the communitarian embodiment of God's longer as pointing the world to the true God through Christ and Church mission in God's world. Thus, God's community, striving and straining but pointing people to true humanity throughprocesses of humanization towards ecumenical unity, in declaring the risen Christ, working for rec (forexample, healthcare, welfare, politics and education).28 ' onciliation and bringing new life to the world, is being the Church. The An institutionalist emphasis sees the Church as central to the mission of Church is outward-turning life and love, or it is not God's community.31 God. It is God's sovereign choice to make a people that experience and te; et, as the Church remains central, so the Lord remains sovereign. Thus, tifyto re-creation through the work of Christ. This community becomes filleconcept and practice of ecumenism is expanded beyond tradition and and makes visible, in history, the new creation .of God. Its most radical lenomination to the work of God in God's world (oikoumene). formcan be stated plainly: outside the Church there is no salvation. Thus John the Baptist warned his hearers, 'Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Christian ministry must include the development of the Church as theo 1 o not begin to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor"; for logically bounded and guarded fromworldly influencesthat would poJ.tut.e tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham' her testimony and integrity. The primary movement in mission is, then, frmke 3.8 NRsv). The same Spirit that brings to birth the Church is the from God to the Church. If there is movement beyond the Church it is &me Spirit that judges the Church and the same Spirit that is at work through the institution extending itself outwards into the world in wel , · ,awing all people to Christ even where there is apparently no church coming the children of the world into the shelter of the Church throug , resence. Mission is not, then, contingent upon the needs or resources of God's grace received in word and sacrament. While the kingdom of G� · 8'!particular community or culture, nor is it exhausted by the final reali and the Church are not necessarily coterminous, it is difficult to conceiy ation of God's reign. On the contrary, the Church is contingent upon its of one without the other. From this perspective it is argued that an incul ,'tness to the risen Christ, and mission is God's eternal nature, forever turated approach ultimately embeds the very thing missio Dei theolo� t Bosch, Transforming, 392. 27 Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes (On the Mission Activity of the Church}:
Colossians 1.20). In the congregation, this doxological and eschatologica'l "' � Marilyn McCord Adams, 'Prayer as the "Lifeline of Theology , Anglican Theological Review 98:2 (2016): 271-83 at 275. 32 See Flett, Witness,287-90. i!5 For one important model see Cathy Ross and Stephen Bevans, eds, Mission on the Road to 33 Flett, Witness,297-8. Emmaus: Constants, Context and Prophetic Dialogue (London: SCM Press, 2015).
288 289 Robert Heaney Missiology and ministry theologizing that equips believers to understand the significanceof culture not only as it exists in historical and contemporary mission practice, but is needed alongside practical means to 'read' cultural phenomena. Cross-: also in historical and contemporary theology: cultural voices, texts and partnerships beyond the formativeand dominant missiology acts as a gadfly in the house of theology, creating unrest and cultures and voices of a given congregation become part of how_believers resisting complacency, opposing every ecclesiastical impulse to self- understand and practise formation.36 In terms of the formationprocess for • preservation, every desire to stay what we are, every inclination toward pro full-timeand/or ordained ministers, such intercultural theology becomes vincialism and parochialism, every fragmentationof humanity into regional necessary to sustain any claims that the theology in, for example, degree or ideological blocs, every exploitation of some sectors of humanity by the programmes is critical and that students actually understand the reconcil.J powerful, every religious, ideological, or cultural imperialism, and every ing mission to which the Church is called. exaltation of the self-sufficiencyof the individual over other people or other The mission of God in Christ reconciles God's creation to God's seli. parts of creation. 38 The Church is the reconciled and reconciling body of Christ (Romans 5.; Wet, the critical turn in missiology is not an end in itself. It is done in the 2 Corinthians 5.19). The call of the Church is to witness to God's recon �rvice of a renewal of mission that begins with a refreshed vision of God. ciliation.While reconciliation is an act of God, the Church is called to this �od is missionary, thereforethe Church of God is missionary. 39 Mission is mission as the embodiment of God's reconciliation. Indeed, the message e mode of the Church's existence. The Church's life is a life that is joined and practice of reconciliation, in a world of seemingly insatiable brutak fto the life of Christ. As God in God's being is eternal, outward-moving ity, may be the most compelling way of expressing the mission of God. qve, so the Church, joined to God in the life of Christ, exists in outward, At personal, cultural and political levels the Church is called into recon \boundary-crossing movement to the world. Ministry, defined missiolog 37 . ciling practices. Such reconciling practices, whether within families 011 cally, is the reception and proclamation of that profoundest of all mes communities, between oppressors and oppressed, across violent politic� ages: God is love. divides, is complicated not least because the Church has been complicit in violence and has not always been a just arbiter. Reconciling practices an� therefore,as much about 'inreach' as they are about outreach. Reconcilinm practices are about the Church witnessing to God's reconciliation in tlie ways it laments for its own failuresand in the ways it struggles to be morei just in its dealings. This also occurs through the ways in which the Churcl humbly reaches out to the wider society in providing particular phil0 sophical and religious analyses of conflict, space for difficult conversatiollS! and models forgood disagreement, all undergirded by a prophetic- impuls� that because God willspeace it is possible. In conclusion, mission is not accidental to the Church's existence. IHt is understood or practised in such terms, the Church's ministry is in dafi.llr ger of being determined by the fortunesand vicissitudes of history. If itJis! understood or practised in such terms, ministerial practice becomes m� practice. A critical approach to mission seeks to identifysuch malpracti�
36 For some resources see, for example, Gerald 0. West, ed., Reading Other-Wise: Soci'al· Engaged Biblical Scholars Reading with Their Local Communities (Atlanta, GA: Society, o Biblical Literature, Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theolo (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997). 37 Stephen B. Bevans and2007); Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission fi,11: Today (New York: Orbis Books, 390-4.
2006), 290 291