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The World Evangelical Alliance’s Journal The World Evangelical Alliance’s Journal of Theology and Contemporary Application of Theology and Contemporary Application EVANGELICAL REVIEW OF THEOLOGY Volume OF THEOLOGY EVANGELICAL No.2, REVIEW 44, 2020 April EVANGELICAL Table of Contents Introducing the New, Free, On Becoming a Fellow Traveller in Mission REVIEW OF Electronic ERT Hans Christoph Baer page 99 page 141 Editor’s Introduction A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses page 100 the West: The Writings of René Girard THEOLOGY Jim Harries The Founding of the European Evangelical page 149 Alliance as a Counter-Movement to the World Evangelical Fellowship The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Frank Hinkelmann Problem of Corruption in Malawi page 101 Godwins Lwinga page 164 A Renaissance of Character and Virtue Marvin Oxenham The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in ERT is going electronic! page 115 St. Augustine’s De Trinitate P. V. Joseph See page 99 for important information on gaining free access to Don’t Give Up Hope: Continuing in page 175 Friendship with God amidst Acedia the new ERT and about current subscriptions. Chloe Lynch Book Reviews page 126 page 190

Volume 44 No. 2 April 2020 ABSTRACTS/INDEXING This journal is abstracted in Religious and Theological Abstracts, 121 South College Street (P.O. Box 215), Myerstown, PA 17067, USA, and in the Christian Periodical Index, P.O. Box 4, Cedarville, OH 45314, USA. It is also indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 300 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60606 USA, E-mail: [email protected], Web: www.atla.com/ MICROFORM This journal is available on Microform from UMI, 300 North Zeeb Road, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346, USA. Phone: (313)761-4700

Photocopying Licensing No part of the material in this journal may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, record- ing or otherwise without the prior permission of Paternoster Periodicals, except where a licence is held to make photocopies. Applications for such licences should be made to the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. It is illegal to take multiple copies of copyright material. Evangelical Review of Theology A Global Forum

Volume 44 • Number 2 • April 2020

Published by

General Editor Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, Germany

Executive Editor Dr Bruce Barron, USA

Assistant Editor Dr Thomas K. Johnson, Czech Republic

Book Review Editor Dr Peirong Lin, Singapore

Committee Executive Committee of the WEA Theological Commission Dr Rosalee V. Ewell, Brazil, Executive Director Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, Germany, Executive Chair Dr James O. Nkansah, Kenya, Vice-Chair

Editorial Policy The articles in the Evangelical Review of Theology (ERT) of the authors and reviewers and do not necessarily represent those of the reflect the opinions Editors or the Publisher.

The Editors welcome both unsolicited submissions and recommendations of original or previously published articles or book reviews for inclusion in ERT. Manuscripts, reviews, queries and other communications may be addressed to the Executive Editor at [email protected].

Printed and bound in Great Britain for Paternoster Periodicals by AlphaGraphics, 8-9 Vanguard Court, Preston Farm, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 3TR ERT (2020) 44:2, 99

Introducing the New, Free, Electronic ERT The next issue of the Evangelical Review of Theology (ERT) will be quite differ- hope you’ll be part of it. ent.Sometimes We have an opportunities opportunity cometo make in unexpected this a globally ways. influential In this case, journal the andchance we to remake ERT arose when AG Northeast, the UK-based publisher that has faithfullyWe had produced wanted to the expand journal our at electronic no cost to distributionthe World Evangelical of ERT and Alliance reduce thefor tensubscription years, indicated cost, but its we intention had no toway stop to publishingdo so without academic endangering journals. AG North-

So, as of our next issue (scheduled for August 2020, to give us an extra east’s modest profit margin. Now we can. 1. will be free. Subscribers will receive an e-mail con- monthElectronic of planning), distribution you will see a brand-new ERT in three major ways. taining either a link to each new issue or a pdf attachment. Back issues will be downloadable from a new ERT web page. (Libraries and others still wanting hard copies can receive them at a greatly reduced subscription charge. Contact us for details.) 2. The contents not purely academic. We will solicit biblically and theologically grounded submissions, from an willevangelical be broadened. perspective, We will on remain issues ofa theological current concern journal, to butthe global Christian community. We will seek well-reasoned articles aimed at edu- and many others have shown, world-changing Christian writing can still be catedaccessible Christians, to the masses.not just theologians. As Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, John Stott We will welcome insightful submissions on current controversies, as long as they are characterized by civility and respectfully acknowledge alternative views. We also hope to publish compelling articles on cutting-edge mission and discipling activities, especially among younger generations or where Chris- tians are a minority. 3. To whom will we send it? To everybody (we hope)! We will leverage the World Evangelical Alliance’s prominence to recruit submissions from leading Christian voices around the world. Accordingly, we are not bashful about recommending the new ERT. We hope that churches, Christian organizations, theological schools and others will send us lists of interested subscribers. Submit e-mail addresses to Johannes Otto at [email protected]. The larger our subscription base grows, the easier it will be to attract world-class submissions. We hope to hear from you with your subscription, submissions, and suggestions! Bruce Barron, Executive Editor ([email protected]) Thomas Schirrmacher, General Editor P.S. ERT subscribers for 2020 should have received communication from AG Northeast by now about a refund. If you have not received this information, please contact Bruce. ERT (2020) 44:2, 100 Editorial Introduction: Lots to Think About ofAs topicsthis journal that every prepares evangelical for a new Christian format (see interacting previous with page), the the modern old format world is shouldgoing out bear with in mind:a bang. our Seven own articles history by as first-rate evangelicals, thinkers character cover development, a wide range spiritual formation, mission effectiveness, cross-cultural communication, public engagement and God’s ultimate mission. Frank Hinkelmann, president of the European Evangelical Alliance and a superb historian, draws on deep archival work to examine the theological and cultural divisions between US, UK and European evangelicals in the 1950s and 1960s. His insights are valuable and timely as very different forces threaten to sow division among evangelicals today. We have two excellent contributions from the London School of Theology. Marvin Oxenham argues for a recovery of character and virtue in Christian thinking and particularly in theological education. (We also review Oxenham’s colourful book in this issue.) Chloe Lynch combines extensive study and personal experience to probe deeply into the problem of a heart that feels unable to maintain friendship with God, and she offers meaningful guidance for those who struggle in this way. Hans Baer, accomplished scholar and missionary to Thailand, provides a biblically grounded, highly readable account of both the good and bad in rela-

ERT readers know Jim Harries of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission well by tionship building and relief work on the mission field. - ing the iconoclastic Catholic scholar René Girard, Harries discovered amazing now, but this contribution differs significantly from his previous ones. On read which are detailed in this article. alignmentsGodwins betweenLwinga, a Girard’s Malawian major radio insights broadcaster and the and spiritual gifted scholar, life of Africa,deter- minedly challenges the general modern assumption that democracy improves society. While not overlooking the abuses of one-party rule, he points out that in Malawi, democracy has been accompanied by a notable increase in public corruption. He explains the problem, calls the church to involvement in solving it, and suggests that Bonhoeffer’s ethics can guide us to make a difference. P. V. Joseph, a theology professor in India, offered us an essay (from his recent book) on Augustine’s understanding of how the Trinity expresses God’s mission. I got an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ from one of our theological advisors within three hours. The only problem was how to condense Joseph’s wonderfully pre- cise writing to 8,000 words. This fascinating study will leave you marvelling at the depths of meaning present in God’s Trinity and at the genius of this foun-

I look forward to the soon-coming day when previously published issues ofdational ERT are figure available of the free early on church. a website, not only by subscription. These articles and many from previous issues are of lasting value and deserve to be read and ERT. —Bruce Barron, Executive Editor reread. Please join us in spreading the word about the new, free version of ERT (2020) 44:2, 101-114 The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance as a Counter-Movement to the World Evangelical Fellowship

Frank Hinkelmann

On 19 September 1952, representa- since the British EA’s beginnings in tives of several national Evangelical 1846, and the DEA can be taken as Alliances (EAs) from Europe met in representative of those EAs on the Hamburg, Germany. They came at the European continent that decided not invitation of the German Evangelical the EEA.1 the European Evangelical Alliance to joinMost the research WEF and on theinstead history founded of the Alliance(EEA). Why (DEA) was to officiallythe EEA constitutefounded? evangelical alliances has focused on either the nineteenth century or in- the World Evangelical Fellowship dividual countries.2 In addition, there Why(WEF), did which these had national been founded EAs not joinat a conference in the Netherlands in Au- gust 1951? 1 - This article traces the motives and ny is that many original sources on the DEA reasoning of several national EAs in have An been additional preserved reason on for both choosing sides Germa of the Europe in establishing the EEA, which Atlantic—in the DEA archives in Bad Blank- were predominantly theologically enburg, and on the WEF at the Billy Graham Center (hereafter BGC) archives, Wheaton, and partially culturally driven. I also IL. consider how the theological differ- 2 ences unfolded in the following years. Lindemann, Für Frömmigkeit in Freiheit: die Special attention is given to three Geschichte On the der nineteenth Evangelischen century, Allianz see Gerhardim Zeit- EAs: the National Association of Evan- alter des Liberalismus (1846–1879) (Munster, gelicals (NAE) in the USA, the British Zurich and Vienna: LIT-Verlag, 2011); Hans EA and the DEA. As we will see, the Hauzenberger, Einheit auf evangelischer NAE would become the driving force Grundlage: vom Werden und Wesen der Evan- for forming a new international body gelischen Allianz (Giessen and Zürich: Brun- representing evangelicals. The British nen/Gotthelf, 1986). On the EA in Great Brit- ain, see Ian Randall and Davis Hilborn, One EA had been the coordinating body of Body in Christ: The History and Significance the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) of the Evangelical Alliance (Carlisle: Pater-

Frank Hinkelmann (PhD, Free University Amsterdam) is president of Martin Bucer Seminary, Bonn, Germany, and serves as president of the European Evangelical Alliance as well as vice-chair of the World Evangelical Alliance’s International Council. He has published several books on the history of the Evangelical Alliance and evangelicalism, focusing on the German-speaking world. 102 Frank Hinkelmann

I. The Beginnings themes3 and some more popular Fest- In the closing chapter of a book com- have been some studies on specific schriften.4 However, to this date no missioned by the WEA on its hun- research has been done on the origin dredth anniversary in 1946, author John Ewing, then the WEA’s vice pres- and history of the EEA. The present ident, wondered about the future: Now the questions arise, can the analysing primary sources from the Alliance continue its usefulness? article fills this gap by evaluating and founding period of both the WEF and And is it likely to be needed un- EEA. der the changed conditions of this new time? That the conditions are changed admits no doubt. A hun- noster, 2004); J. B. A. Kessler, A Study of the dred years ago the Alliance stood Evangelical Alliance in Great Britain (Goes: alone as a uniting Christian fellow- Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, 1968). On Ger- ship. Since that time many other many: Erich Beyreuther, Der Weg der Evan- uniting movements have sprung gelischen Allianz in Deutschland (Wuppertal: up.5 Brockhaus, 1969) and Werner Beyer, (ed.), Einheit in Vielfalt: aus 150 Jahren Evangelis- Ewing expressed the view that the cher Allianz (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1995). WEA still had a promising future.6 On Austria: Frank Hinkelmann, Geschichte However, only a few years later re- der Evangelischen Allianz in Österreich: von ality showed a different picture. In a ihren Anfängen im 19. Jahrhundert bis in die document described as ‘Recordings Gegenwart, rev. and enlarged edition (Bonn: VKW, 2012). of the talks between the German com- 3 mittee of the Evangelical Alliance and Evangelischen Allianz in der Gründerzeit representatives of the Evangelical Al- und J. heute:Cochlovius, die Hauptbeschlüsse‘Das Selbstverständnis der Lon der- liances of Great Britain, Denmark, doner Gründungsversammlung 1846 im Ver- Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and gleich mit der Glaubensbasis der Evangelis- Austria during the spring meeting of chen Allianz von 1972’, Freikirchenforschung the German branch of the Evangelical 10 (2000): 157–66; Karl Heinz Voigt, Die Alliance at the Patmos Retreat Centre Evangelische Allianz als ökumenische Bewe- in Geisweid in Westfalen close to Sie- gung: freikirchliche Erfahrungen im 19. Jahr- 7 hundert (Stuttgart: Christliches Verlagshaus, gen from 3 to 5 May 1952’, General 1990); and Karl Heinz Voigt and Thomas Sir Arthur Smith of the British EA was Schirrmacher (eds.), Menschenrechte für Minderheiten in Deutschland und Europa: vom Einsatz für Religionsfreiheit durch die 5 Goodly Fellowship, 146. Evangelische Allianz und die Freikirchen im 6 Goodly Fellowship, 150. 19. Jahrhundert (Bonn: Verlag für Kultur und 7 Ewing, Niederschrift über das Wissenschaft, 2004). Gespräch Ewing, zwischen dem Deutschen Komitee 4 Goodly Fellowship: A Cen- der GermanEvangelischen original: Allianz in England, Däne- tenary Tribute to the Life and Work of the mark, Norwegen, Schweden, Schweiz und World’s John W.Evangelical Ewing, Alliance 1846–1946 Österreich anläßlich der Frühjahrssitzung (London and Edinburgh: Marshall, Morgan & des Deutschen Zweiges der Evangelischen Al- Scott, 1946); W. Harold Fuller, People of the lianz im Erholungsheim Patmos in Geisweid Mandate: The Story of the World Evangeli- in Westfalen b. Siegen vom 3.–5.3.1952, DEA cal Fellowship (Carlisle: WEF/Paternoster, archives. All translations from German into 1996). English are by the author. The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 103 quoted: ‘In recent years, in the UK the These comments highlight the Alliance only had the week of prayer. problems that the WEA was facing in We were only active on paper—that the years after World War II. Since the was all. When the Americans came EA’s beginnings in 1846, the British and looked for a World Alliance, they EA had always been the driving force 8 F. R. Cattell, General of the WEA; in many ways the British Secretary of the British EA, added, EA was the WEA, especially since the didn’t‘The British find any.’ Alliance did little if noth- EA added the attribute ‘World’ when ing except the week of prayer. The it became legally registered in 1912.12 NAE led us to a new drive.’9 Evangelical Christendom, the WEA’s The minutes of those meetings magazine (itself published by the concluded with this statement: ‘1. British EA), addressed this matter in The British acknowledge that the a special edition in fall 1949: British Alliance hasn’t been in recent It has been revealed that there is years what they ought to be. 2. A long- a feeling that the Alliance is too ing can be observed to shape the old much centred upon Britain and British Alliance in a more lively way.’10 that the words ‘British Organisa- Before this, in 1950, J. Elwin tion’, which appear on everything Wright, general director of the NAE, printed here, are misunderstood in some countries as meaning that perspective on the British EA to the the World Evangelical Alliance is a NAE’sreported board a of similarlyadministration: dissatisfied ‘British Organisation’. This tends It was very evident at Clarens [a to hold some back from closer co- conference in Switzerland] in 1948 operation with the parent body, that it [the British EA] was not, as and in some cases led to a national then constituted, at all adequate. organisation being formed with While it was 103 years old it did - Evangelical Alliance but adopting spect of the leading evangelicals, theanother same name aims in and order objects to keep as theits eithernot have in Europe the confidence or on the and Conti re- national identity. In actual fact the nent. The principal reasons were words should be interpreted as (1) an executive secretary who had meaning the ‘British Section’ of the served 45 years and was in his dot- World Evangelical Alliance.13 age; (2) his ignorance of the issues between modernism and evangelicalism of the present day; (3) the in his centenary tribute to the WEA. See Ew- ing, , 133. lack of any constructive program Goodly Fellowship , 129. which would challenge evangelical 12 Goodly Fellowship 11 13 Evangelical Christendom, special issue, interest. The NewEwing, Alliance (October-December 1949), BGC archives collection 338, II. Secretaries/ Directors, A. J. Elwin Wright, Box 12, Folder 8 Niederschrift, 3–4. 13, Switzerland, 1948–1958. See also Rich- 9 Niederschrift, 4. tlinien des gegenwaertigen Standes Evange-

10 Niederschrift, 4. lischer Zusammenarbeit und der Platz der 11 Evangelischen Welt-Allianz in der zukuenfti- Gooch, who became secretary of the British gen Entwicklung (n.d., DEA archives), 2. This EA in Wright 1904. Ewing was referring continued to to Henry praise Martyn Gooch document was most likely written for the 104 Frank Hinkelmann

In a ‘Memorandum on the Present thus emerged as a key player in the Position of Evangelical Co-Operation further development and renewal of and of the Place of the World’s Evan- the evangelical movement.16 The NAE gelical Alliance in Possible Future held to the classic evangelical beliefs Development’, German leaders ex- and to the authority of Scripture but pressed similar concern about the WEA’s lack of international effective- approach of fundamentalism. The so- ness: rejectedcalled ‘new the evangelicals’polemical and driving separatist this It should be clearly understood that at the present time the WEA Harold John Ockenga and Billy Gra- is not an internationally controlled effortham.17 included such key figures as organization, and there is no council or committee which has representatives of the different overseas (eds.), Return to Sender: American Evangeli- cal Missions to Europe in the 20th Century movements serving on it. The last (Munster: LIT-Verlag, 2019), 9–16. international conference was held 16 Revive Us Again: The in 1907. The organization in Great Reawakening of American Fundamentalism Britain is only responsible for the (New Joel York: Carpenter, Oxford University Press, 1997), work carried on in this country [i.e. 141ff., describes the founding of the NAE, the UK], with a friendly link, but no showing why it did not represent simply authority, over any of the overseas a continuation of the EA of the nineteenth organizations.14 century. See also Robert L. Kennedy, Turning Westward: Anglo-American Evangelicals and The document further noted that German Pietist Interactions through 1954 the WEA’s articles of association had (PhD dissertation, University of Aberdeen, been drawn up in 1912 and were sub- 1988), 338ff. stantially outdated. 17 Reforming Fun- It is clear that the British EA was no damentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New longer in a position to be an interna- Evangelicalism George M. (Grand Marsden, Rapids: Eerdmans, tional driving force. Instead, the NAE 1995); Derek J. Tidball, Who Are the Evan- in the United States, which had been gelicals? Tracing the Roots of Today’s Move- constituted in 1942, took the lead. ment (London: Marshall Pickering, 1994), 69–72; Garth M. Rosell, The Surprising Work of God: Harold Ockenga, Billy Graham, and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism (Grand Rap- II. Growing North American ids, Baker, 2008). On the NAE, see Denton Interest in Europe Lotz, ‘The Evangelization of the World in this Following the war, North American Generation’: The Resurgence of a Missionary Christians became increasingly inter- Idea among Conservative Evangelicals (PhD dissertation, Hamburg University, 1970); ested in cooperation with Christians Mark Ellingsen, 15 The Evangelical Movement: in Europe and beyond. The NAE Growth, Impact, Controversy (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988), 98–102. Ockenga coined the term ‘new evangelicals’; World Alliance gathering at Hildenborough see David M. Howard, The Dream That Would Hall, England in March 1950. Not Die: The Birth and Growth of the World 14 Richtlinien, 2. Evangelical Fellowship 1846–1986 (Exeter: 15 - Paternoster Press, 1986), 4. On Graham’s ican Evangelical Missions in Postwar Europe’ involvement in Europe, see Uta Andrea Bal- in John Hans Corrigan Krabbendam, and ‘Introduction:Frank Hinkelmann Amer bier, Billy Graham in West Germany: German The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 105

Besides the NAE, the International pecially in view of that organization’s Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), strong attacks on both the WCC and a group remaining in the fundamen- NAE. As a result, the NAE became the talist camp, reached out to Europe, main interlocutor between US and sending Francis Schaeffer as a mis- European evangelicals, but fears of its sionary.18 These entities were in effect purportedly fundamentalist position in competition with the WEA and the remained. more ecumenical World Council of Churches, formed in 1948, as interde- nominational organizations.19 III. The NAE Initiates the WEF As both the ICCC and NAE had A report in Evangelisches Allianzblatt, their roots in North American funda- the DEA’s magazine, in 1951 shed fur- mentalism, they initially encountered - reticence in Europe. In an April 1948 ence and some recent developments: letter to the chair of the German EA therAlready light on during the NAE’s the war growing the NAE influ be- in April 1948, British EA secretary gin to act far beyond the American Henry Martyn Gooch warned about continent as they got in touch with ‘American fundamentalists’ who had evangelical Christians in Central created ‘a lot of harm with their legal- and South America as well as with istic zeal’ and their literal interpreta- brothers and sisters in faith on the tion of Scripture.20 He also stated that - no American group was connected to donesia, in India and Ceylon, in Af- the WEA. missionrica, and fields other of places. the Far … East, After in theIn This fear of American fundamen- war was over, the NAE movement talism being exported to Europe re- also crossed over to Europe. … peatedly impacted relations between Automatically, the question North American and European evan- arises, whether or not it would gelicals throughout the period. It be appropriate and serving the helped to keep the ICCC isolated, es- purposes of God in the world in a much better way, when those two alliance movements, the Evangeli- Protestantism between Americanization and cal Alliance of 1846 and the NAE, Rechristianization, 1954–70 (2010), www. - zeithistorische-forschungen.de/16126041- ership in the British Evangelical Balbier-3-2010. joinAlliance forces. took The the brothers initiative in in lead this 18 regard.21 Europe: The Early Missionary Years’, in John Corrigan Markku and Ruotsila,Frank Hinkelmann ‘Francis Schaeffer (eds.), Re in- In August 1948, the NAE leader- turn to Sender: American Evangelical Mis- ship invited key international leaders sions to Europe in the 20th Century (Münster: to Clarens, Switzerland for a confer- LIT-Verlag, 2019), 17–31. ence under the heading, ‘In essentials, 19 Gesch. Vorst. Protokoll 18.+21.9.1948 in Weidenau (DEA archives) All four as groups having are invited listed in participation 21 Evangelisches Allianzblatt 54 (1951): 152– mention Schaeffer as an ICCC representative. ‘Weltweite evangelische Bruderschaft’, 20by the German EA. The minutes specifically British openness to the NAE after Gooch re- Zilz, 30 April 1948, DEA archives. tired,53. The as discussed last sentence below. reflects the greater H. R. Leusser on behalf of Gooch to W. 106 Frank Hinkelmann unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all the NAE wrote to Zils in August 1949, things, clarity.’22 Among the promi- ‘You will be pleased to hear … that the nent participants were Gooch, Martyn new Secretary General of the World Lloyd-Jones and J. Edwin Orr from the Evangelical Alliance in Great Britain, UK; René Pache and Gertrude Was- Mr Roy Cattell, is very different from serzug from Switzerland; and Billy Mr Gooch in his attitude.’25 Graham, Torrey Johnson, Bob Jones, General agreement was also Harold J. Ockenga and J. Elwin Wright reached at Clarens on adopting the from the US. Others, including the NAE’s statement of faith for possi- head of the DEA, received the invita- ble future cooperation. A follow-up tion too late and could not obtain per- conference was planned for 1949 in mission from the Allied forces in time Zurich but, after a postponement, to travel to Switzerland. took place on 7–10 March 1950 at The goal of the conference, with Hildenborough, England, with eigh- sixty participants from fourteen teen delegates from Austria, Belgium, countries, was to discuss how to Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, strengthen cooperation among evan- Greece, Holland, Italy, Norway, Por- 23 gelicals. In his report on the confer- tugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the ence, Wright stated, ‘In general, the United States.26 This time the WEA delegates were in accord on all impor- 24 (British EA) was the inviting party. tant issues which were considered’. Following the conference, the Austri- The only strong opposition came an delegate reported, ‘The conference from Gooch, who saw no need for decided on a co-operation between a new form of cooperation besides the Evangelical Alliance and the Na- the WEA. Gooch wrote to DEA chair tional Association of Evangelicals, as Wilhelm Zils in December 1948, ‘I it was recognised with satisfaction note from your letter that you raise that the statement of this association the question of the NAE Conference corresponds with the Alliance state- (proposed) in Zurich next year. Please 27 understand the British Organisation ment of faith’. is not taking part in such a Confer- The following recommendation ence.’ But a few months later, Gooch (amongst others) was agreed on at was forced to give up his position as 25 years, and in his absence the British 1948; Wright to Zils, 2 August 1949, both in WEAEA began general to takesecretary a more after positive forty-five at- the DEA Gooch archives. to Wilhelm Zils, 6 December titude towards the NAE. Wright of 26 Conference held at Hildenborough, England, 7th toReport 10th ofMarch the World 1950, Evangelical DEA archives Alliance. The 22 - ence, DEA archives. and Cattell, were also present, but not as del- 23 Welcome letter to the Clarens confer egates.joint secretaries of the British EA, H. W. Hall n.d. See also Wright’s report on the confer- 27 Bericht von der Kon- ence, J. BGC Elwin archives Wright collection to all invited 338, delegates, II. Secre- ferenz der Evangel. Weltallianz in Hildenbor- taries/Directors, G. Clyde Willis Taylor, Box ough Gertrud vom 7.–11. Hoffmann, März 1950, gegeben in Wien 27, Folder 5. a, 11. April 1950 in der Allianzgemeinschaft, 24 I. Bartensteingasse 14, Austrian EA archives archives, 2. in Pöchlarn. Wright’s report on the conference, BGC The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 107 the end of the conference: ing months were to be used to work The Conference agrees that there through open questions while the is a great need for Evangelical British EA agreed to manage admin- work and witness. This need is istration for the time being. The min- threefold: Personal, National, In- utes of the Interim Executive Commit- ternational. tee meeting of January 1951 showed Personal, because we believe that a constitutional conference had that the old evangelical message already been scheduled for August alone as given in the Holy Scripture of that year. Even the possible name can fully meet man’s deepest need. for a new future evangelical body was National, because while the discussed: voices of modernism and sacer- Some considerable discussion dotalism are constantly heard, we took place over this very impor- believe that evangelical truth is the tant question of the name. Drs Tay- most important factor on the for- lor and Wright, as a result of their mation of sound national character visit to many countries, had come and outlook, and should be given clearly to the conclusion that the fullest expression. name ‘Fellowship’ was what was International, because unity is really required, and would indi- strength, and it is essential that cate the type of organization which evangelical convictions be made was contemplated more clearly known in International matters. … than any other word. This would at This International Committee - will be formed of representatives dice and fears that many countries of the National Branches of the hadonce of remove another considerablesuper organization. preju World’s [sic] Evangelical Alliance, … This would thus make possible a of the National Association of name that was neither approach- Evangelicals, and of other Evan- ing ‘World Evangelical Alliance’ gelical groups. Each member will nor ‘The National Association of undertake to agree either with the Evangelicals’. Possibly‚ ‘Interna- 1846 Basis of Belief of the W.E.A. tional Fellowship of Evangelicals’ or to the Statement of Faith of the would be as good a title as any.29 N.A.E. The Committee will function - At the same time, a growing oppo- ly constituted International Body sition to such plans arose on the Eu- untilcan be the brought ultimate into objective being, butof a itful is ropean continent. The DEA not only clearly stated that this Committee stressed the independence of each is of advisory character, and will national EA branch, but also raised have no authority or control over issues with regard to the statement the action of any country, all of of faith. The Germans proposed to which remain autonomous.28 Also, a larger follow-up conference 29 Report of the was planned for 1952. The follow- Meeting of an Interim Executive Committee at Woudschoten, World Evangelical Holland, Alliance,January 1951, 2. BGC archives collection 338, II. Secretaries/Direc- 28 tors, J. Elwin Wright, Box 8, Folder 3, Cattell, Conference, 2. F. Roy, 1951–1955. Report of the World Evangelical Alliance 108 Frank Hinkelmann keep the EA’s 1846 statement of faith, On Tuesday, a motion was passed to whereas the British delegation was constitute the WEF.33 ‘It became clear much more open to agreeing to the that the Scandinavian branches of the NAE’s statement.30 World’s Evangelical Alliance, for rea- Interestingly, no further details are sons of their own internal organiza- recorded about the exact theological tions, were not in favour of such a fel- concerns of the Germans and other lowship, but wished the Evangelical European EAs concerning the pro- Alliance to continue as in the past.’34 posed NAE statement, beyond their However, delegates from fourteen reservations about the use of the term countries35 agreed to constitute the ‘infallible’ (discussed below). This WEF, while the national EAs were as- - sured that they will keep their inde- ing cultural issues and fears about pendence and national identity. This somelack of kind specificity of American hints takeoverthat underly con- decision was to be brought for rati- tributed to the division. Also, the EAs of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and statement of faith was unanimously Switzerland expressed their concern accepted:fication to ‘We each believe national in member. the Holy A about a new evangelical body that Scripture, as originally given by God, - divinely inspired, infallible, entirely al evangelicals together (as the WEA trustworthy; and the supreme au- hadwould understood no longer itself) just gather but would individu also thority in all matters of faith’.36 accept denominations, congregations A ‘continuing committee’ of eight and agencies into membership (as the NAE had done). All these national EAs remained in good standing with the tors, J. Elwin Wright, Box 8, Folder 3, Cattell, WCC and wanted to maintain that sta- F. Roy, 1951–1955. There are contradicting tus; moreover, they were not in favour dates given on the date of the conference. of any competition.31 While some sources say August 5-11, others On 5–11 August 1951, the planned say August 4-10 or August 4-11. The minutes say that the meeting started on Saturday conference took place in Woudscho- night, 4 August and ended on Friday, 11 Au- ten, the Netherlands, with about one gust 1951. hundred participants from twenty- 33 The Motions Passed at the Interna- one countries, of whom eighteen tional Conference Held at Woudschoten, Hol- were counted as voting members.32 land, See August 4-11, 1951, BGC archives collection 338, II. Secretaries/Directors, J. Elwin Wright, Box 2, Folder 3, General Council Min- 30 Report of utes; 1950-1967. Conference at Hamburg on Tuesday, 27th Feb- 34 Summary of the International Conference ruary World and Wednesday, Evangelical 28th Alliance, February 1951, at Woudschoten, Holland, Aug. 4–10, 1951, 1. DEA archives. 35 31 vote, 14 to 4. Those opposed were Denmark, Branches on the Continent’ (n.d.), BGC ar- France, The Norway motion and was Sweden. passed See by majorityThe Mo- chives See collection 'Extracts 338, from I. Historical Letters from Files, W.E.A. Box tions Passed at the International Conference 1, Folder 20, Woudschoten 1951. Held at Woudschoten, 1. 32 - 36 - national Conference of Evangelicals. Woud- tion, 1–2, BGC archives collection 338, His- schoten, For Holland—August the list of participants, 5–11, 1951’, see ‘Inter BGC torical World Files, Evangelical Box 1, Folder Fellowship 20, Woudschoten Constitu archives collection 338, II. Secretaries/Direc- 1951. The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 109 members was elected, and partici- DEA’s position. pants left Woudschoten with the ex- The remaining time at the confer- pectation that things would move ence was full of controversial discus- forward as agreed upon. The reports in Christian media on the conference over the WEF. Whereas the British were positive too.37 sionsdelegation regarding was thepositive NAE’s that influence they However, behind the scenes broader discomfort was percolating. The moderate position, Rev. Petersen of controversy centred on two issues: couldthe Danish influence EA concluded the NAE otherwise: to a more the use of the term ‘infallible’ to de- The NAE is predominantly made scribe Scripture in the statement of up of people who have detached faith, and a perceived anti-ecumenical themselves from other ecclesiasti- stance by the WEF. cal institutions and gone their own A meeting of European EAs was scheduled for Siegen, Germany on independent spirit of the NAE. The 3–5 March 1952. Five EAs were rep- way.British We will are also afraid have of no this power fiercely to resented: the UK, Germany, Denmark, control the NAE, even when they Sweden and Switzerland. During this conference, the board of the DEA held see their missionaries and their a separate meeting and reached the joinwork them as more to do evangelical so, because than they following conclusion: ours. The NAE might be good in The foundation for a ‘World Fel- the USA, but we don’t need them lowship’, as proposed in the consti- on the continent.39 tution of Woudschoten, doesn’t ap- In a memorandum published immedi- pear viable to us, because it is too ately after this conference, the British narrow and too legalistic. In addi- delegation tried to refute some of the tion, this can be gained only by the arguments against the NAE and to de- loss of those brethren who over fend the use of the word ‘infallible’:40 many decades have stood together with us in the World Alliance [i.e. The British hold strongly the view the Scandinavians].38 that the intention of the 1846 Basis and 1951 Statement of Faith were This decision was communicated to the delegates of the other countries, and those from Sweden, Denmark 39 Niederschrift vom 3.–5.3.1952, 5. and Switzerland agreed with the 40 Memoran- dum Prepared by the British Delegation Who Attended World the Evangelical German Conference Alliance, Held at 37 - Patmos, 3rd–6th March 1952, DEA archives. schaft’, 151–56. (Patmos was the name of the retreat centre 38 Niederschrift See ‘Weltweite über Evangelischedas Gespräch zwischen Bruder in Siegen that hosted the conference. Other dem Deutschen Komitee der Evangelischen Al- sources give the conference dates as 3–5 lianz und den Vertretern der Evangelischen March.) The British EA felt that those present Allianz in England, Dänemark, Norwegen, were not willing to distinguish between the Schweden, Schweiz und Österreich anläßlich NAE and the ICCC and their different position der Frühjahrssitzung des Deutschen Zweiges towards the WCC. Following the conference der Evangelischen Allianz im Erholungsheim in Germany, much correspondence went Patmos in Geisweid in Westfalen b. Siegen vom back and forth between the DEA and repre- 3.–5.3.1952, DEA archives. sentatives of the WEF. 110 Frank Hinkelmann

essentially the same. In the words IV. The Idea of a European of our Articles of Association, the defence and advancement of what Evangelical Alliance is commonly known as Evangeli- The pendulum was swinging. At the Siegen conference, the idea of an EEA cal Truth according to the text and 42 teachings of the Holy Scriptures Af- was (we believe) safeguarded in ter the four national delegations oth- - waser than mentioned the British for the arrived first time.at agree- cient for that date, and is now safe- informed the British ‘that the Ger- 1846guarded by thatby the Basis 1951 which Statement was suffi of mentman, Scandinavian on their position, and Swiss they jointlybreth- Faith. While we respect those who the World Evangelical Fellowship. We may think there is some basic dif- renwant have to remain no joyfulness in fellowship to affiliate with with the ference between 1846 and 1951, British brethren.’ At the completion of we are not able to agree. the three-day conference a decision We believe the intention of 1846 was taken to form a ‘European Com- was to safeguard what we in Great mittee of the Evangelical Alliance’. Britain know as the ‘Conservative This committee was asked to act as Evangelical’ position. The Evangel- the interim leadership of the EA in ical Alliance of Great Britain must Europe. Several names of possible humbly confess that a tendency to committee members were suggest- depart from this position in recent ed.43 years largely led to ineffectiveness. In a letter of 31 July 1952, Zils as Para. I. There is no intention in chair of the DEA invited fellow EAs this paragraph of requiring belief across Europe to a founding assembly in ‘a mechanical verbal inspiration’. of the EEA on 19 September 1952 in In the British view the word ‘infallible’ is redundant and therefore EAs of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, unnecessary. But it was accepted Hamburg.Germany, OfficialSwitzerland delegates and fromAustria the constituted the EEA. The British EA 41 and we therefore accept it. was invited but decided to send only Otherat Woudschoten participants byfrom a majority continental vote, Europe used catchwords like ‘narrow some weeks later.44 - and legalistic’, ‘fundamentalism’, ‘ver- an observer, agreeing to join the EEA bal inspiration’, ‘Judaistic eschatology’ The official con and ‘wrong theory of inspiration’ to 42 Niederschrift vom 3.–5.3.1952, 7. describe the WEF’s view of Scripture. 43 Niederschrift vom 3.–5.3.1952, 10, 12. In- terestingly, Friedrich Heitmüller of Hamburg expectation that members would sign and René Pache of Switzerland remained involved with the WEF and were even part Theythe statement further objectedof faith annually. to the WEF’s of its International Council for some time. Heitmüller was strongly disappointed with some of the positions on Scripture held by other German EA members, as illustrated in a letter to Zils of 25 August 1952, contained in the DEA archives. 41 Memoran- 44 Bericht über die Unterredung zwis- dum Prepared by the British Delegation. chen Pastor Zils, Berleburg, und Pastor Dol- World Evangelical Alliance, See The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 111 stitution of the EEA and a statement of faith were agreed on, and a board distributed by the DEA (probably in was elected. There was great unity on foundation.1952) stated: A leaflet published and - The European Evangelical Alliance sions were recorded. In spring 1953, acknowledges as a foundation of theEuropean way forward EAs from as France,no major the discus Neth- fellowship and for its work those erlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Finland nine points which were agreed on at the founding session of the the EEA and to attend a conference Evangelical Alliance in London, andplanned Yugoslavia for September were invited 1953 toin joinSie- 1846. It appropriates the three gen, Germany.45 declarations which were added by Meanwhile, the WEF also attracted the fathers of the Evangelical Alli- some followers in Europe. At a WEF ance to these nine points, in order General Committee meeting at Clar- to specify and mark the rights and ens, Switzerland on 28–30 July 1953, the boundaries of brotherhood in European participants came from the Alliance.47 Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany (Friedrich Heitmüller), Greece, Great to the ‘divine inspiration, authority, Britain, the Netherlands and Switzer- 46 The first of those nine points referred- land. ity—of Scripture. andNo sufficiency’—not further theological the discussions infallibil were recorded within the EEA ranks, V. Theological Accentuations except for a letter of protest from the The newly approved constitution British EA, threatening to leave the of the EEA stated very clearly in its EEA, due to an article published in the DEA’s magazine in spring 1953. original 1846 WEA basis of faith as its The British described the article as first paragraph that it was taking the ‘unsatisfactory in regard to the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture man, Cambridge, in Berleburg am 7. August and [references to] theological lib- 1952, DEA archives. The British EA also indicated that the difference between the eralism amongst certain theologians continental EAs and the British EA on their on the Continent and in Scandinavia, view of Scripture were more substantial than although references to such were all previously noted. However, a month later the outside of the ranks of the Evang. British EA agreed to send two delegates to Alliance’.48 This incident and some the committee meeting of the EEA. 45 - tersen, Denmark) to ‘our Evangelical Alliance 47 brethren Letter in fromFrance, the Holland, EEA Secretary Portugal, (B. Spain, Pe by the German EA (contained in the DEA ar- Italy, Finland and Yugoslavia’, 6 April 1953, chives) From without a leaflet any published further andbibliographical distributed DEA archives. information, probably published soon after 46 Minutes of the First Meeting of the the Patmos conference of 1952 to which it General Council Committee of the World refers. Evangelical See Fellowship Held at Clarens—28th 48 Protocol from the Meeting of the General to 30th July, 1953, 1, BGC archive collection Council of the European Evangelical Alliance 338, Secretaries/Directors, G. Clyde Willis in Connection with the first European Confer- Taylor, Box 25, Folder 9, Executive Meetings ence of the European Evangelical Alliance, in 1951–1955. the Vereinshaus ‘Hammerhütte’, Siegen, West- 112 Frank Hinkelmann talks given at a subsequent EA con- is not countenanced by our Presi- ference led to extensive correspond- dent, pastor Zils. … ence between evangelical leaders in We also think that there are Germany and Great Britain, but the some brethren in the Evangelical British EA remained a member of the Alliance of Europe who dislike the EEA. World Evangelical Fellowship Ba- sis of Belief. We sincerely hope this is not true, for the British Evan- VI. Moving On gelical Alliance would indeed have the WEF and EEA in the early 1950s who without mental reservation onIn viewthe appropriate of the major view dispute of Scripture, between difficultyaccepts the understanding Basis of Belief of anyone 1846 which contributed to the establish- in the language of the day, and yet ment of two separate evangelical bod- who is unable to subscribe to the ies, it seems surprising that during modern version as drawn up by the 50 the following years only a few further World Evangelical Fellowship. discussions on the view of Scripture The EEA representatives raised were recorded. Even at the EEA’s an- questions at this 1957 meeting about the WEF’s attitude towards the WCC was scarcely ever mentioned. Only atnual the general EEA General assemblies, Assembly the subjectin Co- The most important question about penhagen, Denmark in 1957 did the andScripture the NAE’s was ‘Doesinfluence not theon theWEF WEF. Ba- relationship between the WEF and sis lay down belief in ‘verbal inspira- EEA become a point of discussion, tion?’ The answer was as follows: probably in light of the WEF’s desire These words do not appear in to hold an international conference the Basis. The word INFALLIBLE in Europe, which the EEA opposed.49 No copy of the minutes seems to have is liable to be wrongly interpreted been preserved, but only a response causesas signifying difficulty ‘mechanical’ to some because view of it to questions raised at the assembly, inspiration. In actual fact the Brit- which the British EA addressed in de- ish delegation were NOT in favour tail. The British EA further stated: of adding this word to the Basis We also sense a danger of an un- because they considered it redundant and therefore unnecessary. We also thought it misleading. intruding in European Evangeli- caldue Alliance liberal outlook—a influence sometimesliberal and included. In all matters of doctrine modern tendency which we know However,there must by be majority some latitude vote it in was interpretation of details, but there ph., Germany, September 10th, 1953, 2, DEA can be no compromise regarding archives. See also Entwurf einer Erklärung the principle of belief that the Bible der englischen Vertreter bei der europäischen is (and does not merely contain) Konferenz in Siegen (n.d.), DEA archives. the Word of God and as such is en- 49 Memorandum for the European Evangelical Alliance This, signed is hinted by Arthur at in a Smith September and Gilbert 1957 50 Memorandum for the European Evangeli- Kirby and preserved in the DEA archives. cal Alliance.

The Founding of the European Evangelical Alliance 113

out of the question.52 However, the We do indeed believe, consist- EEA board did not follow this course entlytirely withreliable the and Bible’s sufficient. own claims, and continued talks with the WEF, that the Holy Spirit spoke through especially as the General Secretary of human authors so directly that the British EA, Gilbert Kirby, assumed their words were in a very real the role of WEF Secretary General in sense His words, but we do not 1962. The EEA board met with Kirby imagine that the process was a me- in September 1962, but positions had chanical one. not changed in any way by this point. The word INFALLIBLE does mean that we believe God ensured EEA side could be observed in 1964: that no mistakes appeared in the The firstbrethren change present of attitude here on theare Holy Scriptures as originally given of the opinion that under certain and that the Bible conveys with conditions a closer collaboration accuracy God’s message to man, would be possible; that is, both whether given in literal or symbol- 51 sides should not stop at the dif- ic form or by way of parable. ferent formulations of their ba- At the EEA’s October 1960 Gen- sis. We trust each other that both eral Assembly, held in England, the sides, both the WEF and the EEA, EEA–WEF relationship was again dis- will have basically the same un- cussed. Special attention was given broken position on Scripture. On to the NAE’s relationship with the this basis, it is conceivable that the ICCC. Because ICCC representatives (such as René Pache from Switzer- and represent the WEF’s concerns, land) had been present at the 1951 whichEEA will it recognizes join the worldwide as its own, WEF in Woudschoten meeting, the NAE was Europe.53 accused of cooperating with the ICCC. What led to this change of attitude EEA leaders seemed unwilling to be- is unclear. Perhaps the EEA was reas- lieve the WEF’s statement that it had sessing its understanding of Scripture broken off fellowship with the ICCC, in response to the growth of liberal theology on the European continent. McIntire had been attacking the NAE sinceeven thoughthe late leading 1940s, ICCC accusing figure itCarl of Several speeches given at EEA gen- having become too ecumenical. eral assemblies in the mid-1960s on the authority of Scripture hint at this Through the British EA, the WEF 54 reached out regularly to EEA mem- explanation. In 1965, the EEA board well. This invitation was consistently 52 Europäischer Rat der Evangelischen bers, inviting them to join the WEF as- Allianz: Sitzung des Präsidiums vom 10.–11. tive of the Swedish EA emphatically Juli 1962 See im Bapt. Theol. Seminary in Rüscch- demandedrejected, and that in the 1962 WEF a representabe told de- likon bei Zürich, DEA archives. 53 Rat der Europäischen Evangelischen Alli- anz: Sitzung des Präsidiums vom 17.–18. März finitively that a link with the EEA was 1964 im Bibel- und Erholungsheim in Männe- 51 Appendix B to Memorandum for the Eu- dorf/Zürich, 1, DEA archives. ropean Evangelical Alliance, October 1957, 1 54 - (emphasis in original), DEA archives. cerning the Truth of Holy Scripture’ and In 1965, Otto Rodenberg spoke on ‘Con 114 Frank Hinkelmann published a more detailed state- 1967, Germany and Denmark applied ment on its view of Scripture. Here for WEF membership, followed by are some relevant excerpts from that Switzerland in early 1968.57 The min- statement: utes of the WEF Council’s 1968 busi- We note with deep concern certain ness meeting in Lausanne stated the trends in modern theology which following: gain increasing acceptance. Essen- Since some of these [national Eu- tial Biblical truths are questioned, ropean EAs] have recently reaf- and the nature of the Gospel is misrepresented through irrelevant creeds, and the original statement Bible-criticism. … firmedof faith of their the World faith inEvangelical the historic Al- We accept the whole of Holy liance, and in addition have drawn Scripture as the divine revelation up a fresh and detailed statement inspired by the Holy Spirit, the of their position on the authority Word of God with absolute author- of scripture, … we have concluded ity determining the doctrine and that these are equivalent to our the conduct of the believer. constitutional statement of faith for purposes of membership. view which regards the Bible We recommend therefore the merelyTherefore as another we must historico-reli reject any- gious document, seeing in it only case of those European Alliances the testimonies of gifted men but ratificationwhich were members of this action of the inWorld the without binding or continuing im- Evangelical Alliance and not to be portance.55 taken as a precedent for others. At the EEA’s 1967 General As- Motion prevailed that state- 58 sembly in Vienna, M. Derham from London represented the WEF and In this way, an intra-evangelical con- explained conditions for a possible ment be ratified. merger of the WEF and EEA.56 In late flict that had persisted for nearly twenty years was finally resolved. Samuel Külling spoke on ‘Are We to Defend That Would Not Die, 36 and especially note “Fundamentalism”?’ 2, is mistaken in stating that Germany and 55 Our Posi- Switzerland were accepted as WEF members tion in Relation to the Holy Scriptures, revised in 1953. This mistake is probably because draft European of 1963, Evangelical DEA archives. Alliance, I have been Heitmüller (Germany) and Pache (Switzer- land) were giving reports at the conference. the text quoted by Howard, The Dream That 57 Europäische Evangelische Allianz: Rat- Wouldunable Not to locate Die, 88 a is final the same.copy in English, but stagung vom 17.–20. September 1968 in Lon- 56 Rat der Europäischen Evangelische Alli- don: Bericht des Präsidenten, DEA archives. anz: Ratstagung in Wien vom 19.–21. Septem- 58 The Dream That ber 1967 , 2, DEA archives. Howard, A Dream Would Not Die, 88. Quoted from Howard, ERT (2020) 44:2, 115-125 A Renaissance of Character and Virtue

Marvin Oxenham

In the history of mankind, there ment, the beautiful stained-glass win- have been seasons in which the ef- dow in the Chartres cathedral por- fects of the Fall seemed to have been trays the four evangelists as ordinary mitigated. The Venere of Venus by Bot- men sitting on the shoulders of the ticelli and the Vitruvian Man by Leon- Old Testament prophets and thereby ardo da Vinci remind us of one such seeing further by their understanding remarkable period, known as the Ital- of the Messiah. ian Renaissance, in which the redis- Postmodern individualism is often covery of the arts, science and clas- not friendly to the giants of the past, sical culture redressed the darkness but there are some traditions that we of barbarian ignorance, degradation evade only to our harm. The tradition and tyranny and reclaimed a place for of character and virtue is one such tradition that should be recovered. This article envisions a renais- When we speak of the tradition of humansance passingflourishing. through theological character and virtue, we are referring to an age-old conceptual framework society. We need one because we have that contends that human nature can educationslipped off and the the shoulders church toof benefitgiants 1 There and need to regain the lost tradition is nothing more important than vir- of character and virtue. tue,flourish it suggests, as it cultivates for living virtue. virtuously is what we are designed for and therein

I. The Tradition of Character happiness. and Virtue weThis find tradition, human purposeaccordingly, and claims deep In the twelfth century, Bernard de that the solution to social change is Chartres penned the words nanos gi- not found in structures or ideologies gantum humeris insidentes to indicate but in individuals. As the character that we are all dwarves and are meant of individuals improves, society will to be carried on the shoulders of gi- improve; hence, as Christoph Stück- ants. By those words, he was seeking to encourage educators in cathedral schools to build on the studies of the 1 great scholars who had come before soul in accordance with virtue’ (Aristotle, them. As an example of this senti- Nicomachean ‘Human happiness Ethics 1.7). is the activity of the

Marvin Oxenham (PhD, Kings College London) is programme leader in theological education at the Lon- don School of Theology. He is author of Character and Virtue in Theological Education (2019) and Direc- tor of the ICETE Academy within the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE). 116 Marvin Oxenham elberger says, ‘If we want virtue, we tensively about virtue, and Aristotle, must cultivate virtuous people.’ 2 in the Nicomachean Ethics, laid out The tradition we are looking at di- what would become one of the most agnoses ‘barbaric’ societies in terms pervasive ontological and teleological of their vices, such as the ‘seven visions of human nature. The Romans carried on this same untruthfulness, pride, greed, indif- tradition, mostly through Stoicism deadlyference sins’and acedia. of injustice, The therapy ignorance, for and the writings of Cicero, Seneca these vices is found in returning to and Marcus Aurelius. After the fall the virtues. These include the car- of the Roman Empire and the end of the golden classical era, the discourse temperance and courage; the founda- around character and virtue was kept dinaltional virtues virtues of of constancy prudence, and justice,humil- alive and developed by innumerable ity; the social virtues of compassion, other philosophers, educators and goodness, decency, diligence, civility, writers: gratitude and honesty; the intellec- According to Petrarch, ‘The tual virtues of attentiveness, curiosity humanities as a whole aim and open-mindedness; the personal • at creating a good man (vir virtues of dignity, humour, patience bonus), than which nothing and appreciation of beauty; and the more useful (utilius) can be theological virtues of faith, hope and imagined.’4 love. The tradition then claims that, Erasmus sought to revive as these virtues shape individuals, we Christian virtue in the light of will witness a social renaissance and • the religious corruption of his a healthier polis. time as the means to trans- This tradition runs deep and form both mind and charac- wide across history. If we look to ter. 5 the East, it is a prevailing theme in According to Comenius, a per- Confucianism,3 and in the West it as son who is well informed but a cornerstone of both Greek and Ro- • not morally formed is merely man classical culture. Plato wrote ex- a ‘useless encumbrance on the earth’.6

The primary goal of Locke’s 2 education plan was to create Tugend der Tugenden—Der christliche Bei- trag Christoph zu einer globalen Stückelberger, Tugend ‘Integrität: für Wirtschaft Die • a virtuous, well-bred and wise und Politik’, farewell lecture at the Univer- young man, and not to create sity of Basel, Department of Theology, 2 a scholar. November 2016, unpublished manuscript. C. S. Lewis makes a similar claim: ‘You cannot make men good by law: and without good 4 Defining the Humanities, 2nd men you cannot have a good society. That ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, is why we must go on to think of the sec- 1998), R. E. 3. Proctor, ond thing: of morality inside the individual.’ 5 Spirituality: A Brief His- Lewis, Mere Christianity (accessed at http:// tory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 109. www.samizdat.qc.ca/vc/pdfs/MereChristi- 6 Philip Sheldrake, - anity_CSL.pdf), 43. ten Theme of Comenius’s Didactics’, Journal 3 Ana- of EducationJan Habl, ‘Character and Christian Formation: Belief 15,A Forgot no. 2 clets is the idea of ren as the ‘perfect virtue’. (2011): 147. Central to Confucius’ teaching in the A Renaissance of Character and Virtue 117

Hume was a leader in eigh- to suppose that any form of teenth-century Enlightenment government will secure liber- • experiments around character ty and happiness without any education.7 form of virtue in the people is Marx believed that character a chimerical idea.’12 education and an emphasis on Alexis de Tocqueville, the • key virtues represented the famed student of nineteenth- key to social transformation.8 • century US democracy, stated, In The Idea of a University, ‘Liberty cannot be established John Cardinal Newman pri- without morality, nor morality • oritized the formation of stu- without faith.’13 dents as ‘gentlemen’ as more Montesquieu made it clear important than the cultivation that virtue was the essential of studies.9 • - Character education was cen- der in a democratic society: tral in Kant’s views on educa- ingredient‘When virtue for ceases, justice ambition and or • tion.10 enters those hearts that can For John Dewey, character ed- admit it and avarice enters ucation was a key democratic them all.’14 • function.11 A renewed discourse around James Madison, one of the virtue was also a key feature founders of American democ- • of the Italian Renaissance. • racy, stated, ‘Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we be considered ‘heroes of virtue’ and are in a wretched situation … Althoughworthy of notemulation, all these their figures writings may demonstrate the permeating nature of the theme of virtue in Western cul- 7 Character Education: ture. The Formation of Virtues and Dispositions in At least until early modernity, the 16–19 James Year Arthur Olds etwith al., Particular Reference tradition of character and virtue was to the Religious and Spiritual (Report to the also substantively embraced by early House of Lords, Canterbury Christ Church University and University of Bristol, 2006), 5. Christianity, subsumed theologically and kept alive as a core expression 8 Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclo- of the Christian faith. As we look to pedia Marcia of Philosophy Horniak,, https://plato.stanford. ‘Moral Character’, in edu/archives/fall2016/entries/moral-char- golden thread of character and virtue acter/. churchas a recurring history, theme in fact, in wethe findwork the of 9 Character and Vir- tue in Theological Education (Carlisle, UK: Langham See Marvin Global Oxenham, Library, 2019), 233. 12 The Death of 10 Educating for Character (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 4. Shalom: Essays on Christian Higher Education 13 James Davison Hunter, (Grand Nicholas Rapids: Eerdmans, Wolterstorff, 2004), Kindle loc. and Peter Euben, ‘Aim High: A Response to 2094. Stanley Tocqueville, Fish’, in Kiss quoted and Euben in Elizabeth (eds.), Debat Kiss- 11 ing Moral Education (Durham, NC and Lon- Toward Human Flourishing don: Duke University Press, 2010), 208. (Macon, Mark GA: L. MercerJones, PaulUniversity A. Lewis, Press, and 2013), Kelly 14 L’Esprit des lois, quoted in 18–19.E. Reffitt (eds.), Hunter, The Death of Character, 6. Montesquieu, 118 Marvin Oxenham many Christian thinkers and practi- Virtue is central both in Ben- tioners: edictine and Franciscan spir- 21 In 190 AD, Clement wrote • ituality. about the ‘paideia of God’ in Thomas Aquinas stated, ‘The • direct connection with the natural perfection of the hu- classical virtue tradition.15 • man person consists in acting Origen spoke of holding fast in accordance to virtue.’22 to perfection in virtues, per- Thomas a Kempis’ The Imita- • severing in acquiring and tion of Christ deals extensively preserving virtue, praying • with virtue and with the shap- for virtue from God, rever- ing of our character after the encing virtues, searching the character of God.23 Scriptures to ascertain what For Melanchthon, education the virtues are, seeking virtuous works, striving for virtue, • matter but about creating vir- training in virtue and working wastue to not live onlyout one’s about faith. subject24 out opportunities for virtue.16 In Pia Desideria, Spener pro- For the early desert fathers posed a reformation of educa- and mothers, controlling the • tion to include formation and • passions of vice and cultivat- not only information.25 From the sixteenth century on- union with God.17 ward, however, this tradition seems ingCassian’s virtue De was Institutis the first Coenobi step to- to have dwindled and eventually been orum and the Collationes were • space to examine fully the reasons training practices in the mon- generallyfor this shift lost. here, I do but not indubitably have sufficient the deeplyasteries. 18 influential in virtue combined forces of Romanticism and In his De Officiis, Ambrose Existentialism contributed to replac- placed the pagan approach to ing virtue with experience and senti- • virtue in a Christian context.19 ment. The Enlightenment also added Augustine wrote in City of God, to the demise of character and virtue, ‘Virtues in this life are cer- displacing wisdom and goodness • tainly its best and most useful with knowledge and reasonableness possessions.’20

newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm, 19. 15 Between Athens and 21 Character and Virtue, 213. Berlin: The Theological Education Debate 22 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo- (Eugene, David OR: H. Wipf Kelsey, and Stock, 2011), 11. logica See, Oxenham,www.documentacatholicaomnia. 16 Traditional Chris- eu/03d/1225-1274,_Thomas_Aquinas,_ tian Ethics, vol. 3 (Bloomington, IN: Westbow Summa_Theologiae_%5B1%5D,_EN.pdf, sec- Press, David 2014), W. 511.T. Brattston, tions 1–2.5.5. 17 Sayings of the Desert 23 Spirituality: A Brief History, Fathers (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publica- 65, 66. tions, Benedicta 1975), xxvi. Ward, 24 Sheldrake, Spirituality: A Brief History, 18 Character and Virtue, 213. 72. 19 Character and Virtue, 183. 25 Sheldrake, Spirituality: A Brief History, 20 See Oxenham,City of God, http://www. 96. See Oxenham, Sheldrake, Augustine, A Renaissance of Character and Virtue 119 and giving priority to logical and sci- On a more popular level, we have seen Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to The mind came before the heart, and individuals and organizations that entificsuccess capacity came from over whatmoral youcharacter. knew and could do rather than from who generosity, compassion and peace, you were. demonstrate the virtues of justice,- Developments in political and so- trayed the impact of virtues such cial Liberalism can also be cited as de- and many popular films have por bunking virtue frameworks in favour empathy. But probably the renewed of individual lifestyles and moving attentionas courage, to character justice, compassion and virtue andhas questions of good and evil from the - realm of fact to the realm of value. As cation.29 The work of scholars like beenKohlberg, most Lickona,evident in Berkowitz, the field of Carr,edu - - ative result, ‘value objective language’ ‘virtue and ethical language’ liv- ates the claim that the late twentieth 26 wasing became discarded an issue in favour of ‘authenticity’ of a subjec Arthur and Kristjánsson substanti and personal choice rather than con- constituted a revival phase for neo- formity to universals. Aristotelianand early twenty-first practices centuriesin character have The good news is that the long and virtue education.30 decline is now being countered by a But what about the church and renewed attention to character and theological education? Where do they virtue. In philosophy, for example, stand in all this? theories such as Alasdair MacIn- tyre’s virtue ethics, which revisits the Aristotelian moral heritage, are II. Virtue and the Church gaining renewed credibility. In social discourse as well, analysts are An examination of where the evan- recognizing that character education gelical church stands in terms of diminishes crime rates, increases the tradition of character and virtue mental well-being and impacts the la- must begin with a recognition that bour market.27 The corporate world is it too has generally lost track of this likewise admitting that non-virtuous business practices lead to disorder Values in Media’, in Christoph Stückelberger, Walter Fust and Obiora Ike (eds.), Global Eth- law, media and business are acknowl- ics for Leadership: Values and Virtues for Life andedging inefficiency, the importance and professions of virtue.28 like (Geneva: Globalethics.net, 2016), 393–400; Aliza Racelis, ‘Developing a Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Man- 26 Ethics of Authenticity agers’, Asian Journal of Business and Account- (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ing 6, no. 1 (2013): 16. 1992). Charles Taylor, 29 For a treatment of how character educa- 27 tion can be seen as a response to the ‘infer- Reynolds, Character Nation (London: Demos, nos’ of contemporary higher education, see 2015), Jonathan 9. Birdwell, Ralph Scott and Louis Marvin Oxenham, Higher Education in Liq- 28 The Lost Lawyer uid Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2012), (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 193–96. 1995), Anthony 5: ‘Prudence Kronman, is the lawyer’s central 30 - virtue’; Magali do Nascimento Cunha, ‘Global thors, see Oxenham, Character and Virtue. For references to the work of these au 120 Marvin Oxenham thread. The Protestant Reformation and therapeutic healing. Rarely do we contributed towards dislodging the language of virtue, for the cultiva- is linked to morality, and much less to tion of virtue was seen as an expres- findthe language an emphasis of character on discipleship and virtue. that sion of salvation by works and as a Speaking more broadly, it is fair to denial of the total depravity of man. say that explicit virtue discourse and Although much more can be said practice are not on the radar screen of about this heritage, it is not without much contemporary evangelicalism. consequence to us today that Luther The growing emphasis on ‘Christian considered Aristotle a buffoon, a ran- events’, worship-based spirituality cid philosopher and the worst enemy and practices of therapy and healing of grace, one whose works should be tend to crowd out the cultivation of excluded from university studies.31 virtue. In some contexts, virtue can Closer to the present, evangelicalism even be seen with suspicion, espe- has been described in terms of escap- cially as the moral pendulum swings ism, conversionism, otherworldliness from excessive legalism to uncritical and activism, and none of these fea- tolerance. Furthermore, goodness tures is a particularly fruitful ground has traditionally been less attractive for the development of character and to evangelicals than truth. Many are virtue. If one believes that the only things that truly count are evangelism over sound doctrine while the broad- and the afterlife, there is little place readyer realm to fightof good hard character and bloody is left battles un- for the transformation of character cultivated. and the renewal of society. Sadly, as during the times of the Re- Whatever the reasons may be, the naissance, religion can also offer more tradition of character of virtue in the problems than solutions. Churches evangelical tradition has been con- can be accomplices to the vices of spicuous by its absence. This dimin- society. They can generate scandals. ished focus can be seen by examining They can be known for their lack of a range of popular evangelical books love. They can abuse cheap grace on discipleship. They tend to frame and forget their mission to be the salt discipleship outcomes in terms of ser- and light of virtue in barbarian soci- vice and performance, understanding eties. Nowhere, in fact, can the need theology and Scripture, denomina- for virtue be seen more clearly than tional enculturation, mystical encoun- in the dynamics of ecclesial failure. ters with God, consecration, leader- Churches rarely fail due to poor the- ship abilities, enhanced relationships ology or practical incompetence; they die when leaders are not humble, and leaders burn out when church mem- 31 After Virtue (Lon- ber are not civil. Churches split when don: Duckworth, 2007), 165. For a more Alasdair MacIntyre, detailed treatment of Luther’s views of Ar- truthfulness becomes closed-mind- istotle, see Jared Wicks, ‘Luther and “This Damned, Conceited, Rascally Heathen” Aris- justiceedness. becomesChurches tyrannybecome andlukewarm when totle: An Encounter More Complicated Than when there is not enough temperance Many Think’, Pro Ecclesia (Berlin) 16, no. 1 or courage. Churches become clang- (Winter 2007): 90–104. ing cymbals when they miss out on the theological virtues of faith, hope A Renaissance of Character and Virtue 121 and love. 32 cal tradition of character and virtue. And yet, there is hope. Against The latter largely failed because it these grim generalizations, it may ap- was stunted by the realities of the Fall pear paradoxical, or perhaps emblem- atic, that virtuous character ranks of the ancient classical world was high on the wish list of every local and,worthy, although it did thenot renaissancehave the power project to translate its vision fully into reality. church members, the highest expec- In Christ, however, a renaissance tationschurch. of In aministry survey ofwere five associated thousand of character and virtue becomes pos- with the character of the minister.33 sible. Thanks to God’s divine power, The Lausanne Movement has called humans can receive everything they Christian leaders to the virtues of need to escape the vices and live a service, humility, integrity, purity and life of virtue (2 Pet 1:3–4). Through lack of greed,34 and N. T. Wright has the atoning work of Christ and the stressed the need for a ‘revolution- empowering work of the Holy Spirit, ary idea of virtue’.35 Deep down, we the church can bear the fruit of virtue know that the secret to vitality is not and become a community marked by better music, more events or more so- phisticated theology. What the church kind, good, faithful, gentle and tem- loving,perate individualsjoyful, peace-bearing, (Gal 5:22–23). patient, In- better preachers, but better women deed, no social institution is as suited andneeds men. is not just better scholars and as the church to produce virtue, and Together with this hope, our gos- communities of fruit-bearing, Spirit- pel proclaims that, thanks to the aton- transformed, sin-freed, gospel-em- ing work of Jesus, we can be freed powered individuals are the most ef- from the slavery of sin and enabled fective and productive agent of social to walk in righteousness (Rom 6). If renaissance (2 Pet 1:5, 8). we translate the well-known texts of Romans into the language of character and virtue, we can see that Chris- III. Virtue in Theological tians have the unique potential to Education shun vice and cultivate virtue. And Where, then, can we start? If soci- this is the key difference between the ety needs virtue, and if the church Christian gospel and the philosophi- is well-equipped to provide it, what forces can position the church to set off a new renaissance? I contend that 32 - theological education is a key player, acter Formation of Future Christian Leaders’, especially given its business of shap- Judy TenElshof, ‘Encouraging the Char Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society ing the church’s leaders. 42, no. 1 (1997): 83. But here we must start again with 33 contrition, for, not unsurprisingly, the Character Formation’, Theological Education, Supplement R. P. Meyer, 1 (1988): ‘Theological 96, 113. Education as story of theological education follows 34 a similar pattern to what we have Commitment’, https://www.lausanne.org/ seen in society and in the church. In content/ctc/ctcommitment, Lausanne Movement, ‘The IID–3. Cape Town the earliest forms of theological edu- 35 After You Believe (New York: cation, character and virtue thrived, Harper Collins, 2010), 25. in terms of both scholarly engage- N. T. Wright, 122 Marvin Oxenham ment and practical training of church be imagined as (1) academic achieve- leaders. As far back as the fourth cen- ment, (2) ministry competence, (3) tury, Chrysostom argued for giving at- spiritual formation38 and (4) char- tention to the cultivation of character acter and virtue education. Gener- amongst priests36 and Ambrose of ally speaking, the horse of academic Milan famously claimed that it was achievement is well fed and trained, useless to look for a spring (of good especially as theological institutions church leadership) in the mud (of im- pursue formal accreditation and gain pure character).37 Some of the earliest status in the secular contexts of high- ‘training’ programmes in the Chris- er education. The second horse is also tian tradition can be seen in the prac- healthy, as most theological schools tices of the desert fathers who laid out produce graduates that are skilled in pathways of struggle against vice as many areas. The third horse, spiritual the road to union with Christ—a for- formation, has an ambivalent role, mational emphasis that carried into - the monastic tradition and, to some es are often indeterminate and also degree, into the early universities. bothbecause because it normally its object operates and practic in the But like society and the church, extra-curricular realm. theological education lost this tradi- But the place occupied by the tion somewhere in modernity and, fourth horse is most worrying. It is of- while still holding on to the intellec- ten completely vacant or, at best, oc- tual virtues, generally laid aside the cupied by a limping, under-nourished broader vision of virtue and character. horse. This is disturbing because, as Theological education became mostly in the quadriga, this is the horse that about instruction (passing informa- holds the inner-left position and is tion from one mind to another) and crucial in anchoring the entire chariot as it thunders around the bends of the training (cultivating skills and com- Circus Maximus. Character and virtue petencies), and less about providing education does not appear explic- a holistic education intended to shape itly in most mission and vision state- students into becoming fully human. ments, strategic plans, programme To illustrate where theological outcomes, credit-bearing curricula or education is today, let us compare it pedagogical practices of theological to an ancient Roman quadriga. The colleges, and this should be a matter four horses pulling the chariot might of great concern. Two practical appeals can be made to redirect theological education to- 36 of priests, according to Chrysostom, ‘do not wards contributing to a renaissance all look Those to theresponsible one thing for which the appointment ought to be concerns a theological reformulation of character.’ See Richard John Neuhaus, of the character tradition. and Our virtue. generation The first is, Theologicalthe only object Education kept in and view, Moral the Formation excellence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 51, 52. 37 38 - [to be] the fountain providing the church tween spiritual formation and character with ‘Puritythe springs of character of good counsel enables and the the priest wa- education, For an see argument Marvin onOxenham, the difference ‘Why Not be ters of salvation.’ Ambrose, De Officiis, quoted Spiritual Formation’, in Oxenham, Character in Neuhaus, Theological Education, 51. and Virtue, 27–34. A Renaissance of Character and Virtue 123 by and large, illiterate in this regard, us that ‘adding virtue to our faith’ is and theological institutions are stra- a central undertaking for those who tegically poised to revitalize what we participate in the divine nature. This have lost. Doing this should not be dif- theological chal- - lenge, to develop a theology of char- fore the eyes of theologians and need firstacter appeal and virtue is then alongside a systematic onlyficult, be for uncovered. character and virtue are be theology, dogmatics, historical theology and practical theology, in dia- theme in the biblical theology of crea- logue with the tradition.40 tion,We fall, can, redemption in fact, easilyand consumma find this- The second appeal is that theologi- tion, as man was created for virtue, cal schools should explore and initi- has fallen from virtue, is redeemed ate formational practices that will not to virtue and is destined to virtue. only teach about character and virtue We can see virtue and vice in the but will also contribute to shaping stories of both Old and New Testa- virtuous character in their students ment, where heroes and villains are and graduates. There is nothing worse than information about char- put forth for mimesis of character. We acter and virtue that does not lead to have entire books in the Bible that are transformation. Rather, programme explicitly about virtue, vice and wise learning outcomes should be inten- living, such as Proverbs and James. tionally focused on impacting the The New Testament frequently uti- character of graduates, and pedagogi- lizes the consolidated classical device cal practices should be aligned with of ‘ethical lists’; it contains at least achieving these outcomes. This step fourteen lists of virtues (of which the will require courage and innovation, Beatitudes are the best-known) and and some curricula may need radical eight lists of vices. change, perhaps even at the expense Moreover, the recurring motif of of some forms of accreditation. It is virtue can be traced through virtu- beyond the scope of this article to ally all the New Testament epistles as enumerate these practices, but there they outline the realities of the Chris- exists a vast body of educational liter- tian faith. Explicit texts like Romans 6 ature related to character and virtue corroborate the recapitulation theory education, and theological education of the atonement,39 and 2 Peter 1 tells should commit to making use of it.41

here, lest we be misled. Character and 39 virtueOne education objection mustis not be a addressedmoralistic key term is anakephalaiosis (or recapitu- return to legalism or prescriptivism. lateo ), When meaning we speakthe restoration of recapitulation, of the image the of God. Athanasius spoke of recapitulation, as We are not inviting theological insti- did Hans Kung in On Being a Christian. This tutions to develop and enforce end- vision of the atonement portrays the saving work of Christ not only in terms of forensic forgiveness, but also in terms of the free- cal Faith (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013), 125. dom from sin to be righteous. The key term 40 dikaiosunē (righteousness) in Romans 6 was involved in this task include Stanley Hauer- also used by classical philosophers to speak was, ExamplesN. T. Wright of andcontemporary Miroslav Volf. theologians about virtue. See Gary Black, Jr., The Theology 41 of Dallas Willard: Discovering Protoevangeli- Oxenham, Character and Virtue, 261–370. For a detailed treatment of this issue, see 124 Marvin Oxenham less lists of prescriptive rules and remake choices in favour of moderation, quire strict obedience. The goal is not be emotionally attracted to living in moderation and feel bad when you virtue, but to shape character. One are not moderate. As this overarching toof defineAristotle’s and prescribemost useful goodness metaphors and character trait is fostered, the issue of indicates that it takes more than one alcohol consumption is effectively ad- sparrow to make spring, meaning that dressed not by rules but by virtue. only deeply habituated virtue will produce the desired character.42 In our zeal for what is good, we should IV. Renaissance in Theological avoid the pitfalls of Pharisaism. We Education should not be in the business of pre- Theological education has an im- scribing the occasions when we might mense capacity to serve the church pull a donkey out of a ditch; rather, we and society. But unless the tradition should aim to nurture individuals of of character and virtue is revitalised, character who will naturally choose it will fail to deliver its potential. The what is good. learning outcomes of theological As a practical example, consider programmes that involve developing the issue of alcohol consumption. This knowledge, understanding and com- can be a problem in society, in church petencies are important and should and in church leadership. How can a be retained, but we need to chart new theological school address this? The outcomes and supportive pedagogies wrong way would be to meticulously that will contribute to embedding vir- prescribe rules about how much alco- tue into the lives of graduates. We are hol can be consumed and about what seeking a transformation of character levels of inebriation are appropriate. and a renewed emphasis on outcomes The approach of character and virtue that have to do with being, alongside is to instead identify the virtue that those outcomes that relate to doing is at work, which in this case is the and knowing. virtue of moderation. Based on this As part of this undertaking, a new foundation, the educational empha- vision of quality and quality assurance sis shifts to helping students cultivate is needed in theological education. In the virtue of moderation in all as- secular higher education, quality en- pects of their lives until it becomes an compasses such aspects as enhancing embedded, ‘natural’ feature of their democracy and citizenship through character. participation, student-centredness, The assumption inherent in this redressing power structures, favour- approach is that if you are a moder- ing growth in competencies, contrib- ate person, you will make moder- uting to the economic well-being of ate choices, think in moderate ways, nation-states, helping humanity to make progress through knowledge and research, and favouring inter- 42 - sitional clusters concerned with praisewor- national comparability and mobility. Virtues can be defined as ‘stable dispo These are all good things, but a vision and distinctive spheres of human life’. James of quality seen through the missio dei Arthur,thy functioning Teaching in Character a number and of significantVirtue in has to do with being ‘conformed to the Schools (London: Routledge, 2017), 28. image of his Son’ (Rom 8:29) so that A Renaissance of Character and Virtue 125 our character becomes like that of - Jesus. God’s purpose is that, through tury, the philosopher Seneca was rep- the power of the gospel, the moral, isrimanding not new. Asfellow far back philosophers as the first whocen intellectual, civic, personal and theo- were falling into this trap, quibbling logical virtues that were embodied in over syllogisms and over matters of Jesus will also appear in us. That mis- no consequence: Do we knit our brows over this a theological institution, its accredita- sort of problem? Do we let our tionsion standards,should also the define criteria the qualityof its do of- beards grow long for this reason? nors and the vision of churches that Is this the matter which we teach rely on the school.43 with sour and pale faces? Would Amidst the Babylonian captivity you really know what philosophy of contemporary higher education, offers to humanity? Philosophy offers counsel. … Men are stretching keep its identity. In his recent book out imploring hands to you on all Fortheological the Life of education the World, must Miroslav fight Volf to sides; lives ruined and in danger critiques theological education, say- of ruin are begging for some as- ing that we have tried to ‘recast our sistance; men’s hopes, men’s re- discipline so as to acquire a legitimate sources, depend upon you. They ask that you deliver them.46 but instead we have dug a hole and Theologians and theological insti- pitchedhome in [ourselves] the great edifice to its ofbottom’. science,44 tutions can easily fall into pedantry, In doing so, Volf argues, we stutter offering no counsel, no deliverance to reply to the basic question of what and no relief from burdens. They theology can offer in response to the can even bring great harm to gradu- most important question of all: what ates. In no other discipline is the cost 45 of scholastic irrelevance so high. But The pitfall of scholastic irrelevance theological education can offer de- makes a flourishing life. liverance from vice and introduce its students to a rewarding life of vir- 43 tue. Given the exponential impact of and all those who deliver leadership train- training high-quality leaders for the ing programs, ‘We strongly to focus encourage more on spiritual seminaries, and church and the church’s unique ca- character formation, not only on imparting knowledge or grading performance, and we better place to instigate a new renais- part of comprehensive "whole person" lead- pacitysance of to benefitvirtue than society, in theretheological is no ershipheartily development.’ rejoice in those Lausanne that already Movement, do so as education. ‘The Cape Town Commitment’, IID–3. 44 For the Life of the World: Theology That 46 Makes Miroslav a Difference Volf and (Grand Matthew Rapids: Croasmun, Brazos the Philosopher’, Letters to Lucilius, XLVIII, Press, 2019), 4. https://www.docdroid.net/SpwJztN/ Seneca, ‘On Quibbling as Unworthy of 45 For the Life of the seneca-moral-letters-to-lucilius-v8. World, 45. pdf#page=154. Volf and Croasmun, ERT (2020) 44:2, 126-140 Don’t Give Up Hope: Continuing in Friendship with God amidst Acedia

Chloe Lynch

Both in my own life and in the lives of be no obvious reason for this change others whom I have served as pastor, in a long-established pattern of typi- there have been occasions where the cally evangelical spirituality—no sud- fundamentals of evangelical spiritual- den upheaval or loss, no great grief to ity have seemed lost for a season. The overwhelm the person’s heart. Yet it Bible may fall to one side, increasing- may nevertheless seem to such peo- ly unread, one’s once-vibrant prayer ple that everyone else is encountering life now stuttering. Devotional habits God more deeply than they are and, may become an uphill struggle, with over time, the hope that this will ever change may begin to ebb. e-mails an easier alternative than sit- As a pastor, I had no name for this socialting before media God and in reflexive the midst checking of one’s of condition until, in my academic work, heaviness. Passivity then reigns. I happened upon the concept of ace- For those who wish to avoid any dia, traditionally recognized in Ro- - man Catholicism as one of the seven cance of this spiritual weariness, pas- deadly sins. Although he was not the confrontationsivity is not the with only the option. deep Activity signifi - works similarly: plunging oneself into work operates as a powerful distrac- firstthe thirteenth to discuss century.acedia, ThomasHe conceived Aqui tion from this state of affairs. Indeed, nasacedia wrote as ansignificantly attack on onour this friendship topic in where such work is perceived as with God, characterizing it as sor- ‘ministry’, the illusion is even more row over our greatest good.1 That is, powerful, for the escape from God is reframed as service to him. In this state of spiritual weariness, 1 one does not necessarily stop believ- Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (2nd ed., trans. ing the gospel or give up one’s rela- Fathers In this of the discussion, English Dominican I draw upon Province), Thomas tionship with God entirely. Rather, www.newadvent.org/summa, and especially the task of engaging with God on any- upon II-II questions 28 and 35, as well as thing like a personal basis now feels his On Evil, ed. Brian Davies, trans. Richard apparently too onerous. There may Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), question 11.

Chloe Lynch (PhD, Middlesex University) is Lecturer in Practical Theology at London School of Theology, UK. Having spent a decade leading an evangelical church, she now serves her local Anglican church as a commissioned minister and is training as a spiritual director in the Carmelite tradition. Her most recent publication is Ecclesial Leadership as Friendship (2019). Don’t Give Up Hope 127 when acedia holds sway, what should relationship with God. Listlessness, or - the deep passivity and laziness which pation in God becomes instead only we have dubbed ‘sloth’, is a symptom besadness. joy in2 our ever-deepening partici - In presenting acedia in this way, peractivity are also;3 the latter two of Thomas differentiated between the ofthese acedia, constitute just as anrestlessness attempt to and escape hy symptoms of acedia, which he dis- acedia’s sorrow through busyness, cussed separately, and the thing it- - self. However, contemporary consid- ception of this sorrow as inescapable. erations have typically focused on whereasYet acedia passivity can be flows escaped, from result a per- the symptoms. In particular, Western believers have come to think of ace- deepening participation in friendship dia as a kind of listlessness. In fact, withing in God the whichrecovery is humanity’sof joy in the great ever-- we have focused on this symptom to est good. First, however, if this dan- such an extent that the language of gerous pattern of sin is to be evaded, ‘sloth’, which describes precisely this those offering pastoral counsel must listlessness and passivity, has all but be clear as to what acedia’s sorrow obliterated the concept of ‘acedia’ in concerns and what its source is. Only the popular understanding of sin. then can they begin to offer remedies As a result, when I introduce ace-

British evangelical theological col- that lead towards joy. dialege, to I first-yearsee a blankness undergraduates pass across at a I. Sorrowing over Friendship their faces. Though Protestant writers may have published on acedia in with God In describing acedia as sorrow over Catholic counterparts, evangelicalism spiritual good, Thomas understands academichas not been journals talking alongsideabout this theircon- this spiritual good as the divine good, cept at the local church level. Thus, the good to which all other spiritual my students (and even at least one goods are ultimately directed.4 Char- of my colleagues) have quite literally ity, this divine good, should entail never heard of the concept—until I mention sloth, at which point it is as if 5 Accord- the light has been turned on. rejoicing,ingly, to understand and thus acedia acedia’s is thesorrow, vice Thomas Aquinas did not confuse specificallywe also need opposed a clear understanding to it. of acedia’s symptoms with acedia itself. charity (the divine good over which He recognized that what we typi- acedia sorrows). cally mean by ‘sloth’ is actually only Thomas claims that charity can a manifestation of acedia. At its root, be understood as friendship with he said, acedia is more than this. It is sorrow in relation to what should in- 3 Summa, II-II 35.4 names ‘sluggishness about the commandments’ and stead be our deepest joy, namely our ‘wandering Thomas, after unlawful things’ as charac- 2 teristic of the ‘daughters’ of acedia. there may be some kinship. See Robert W. 4 Summa, II-II 35.1, 2; Thomas, On Daly, This ‘Before sadness Depression: is not depression, The Medieval though Vice Evil, 11.2. of Acedia’, Psychiatry 70, no. 1 (2007): 30–51. 5 Thomas, Summa, II-II 35.2.

Thomas, 128 Chloe Lynch

God, a gift given by God in Christ by (rather than only affective) in the which humanity may share in God’s context of the eschatological hope happiness. This is the end, Thomas of God and humanity living together. proposes, for which humanity was created. Such friendship, dependent - upon God’s self-communication to nally,This will of participating issue in the joy fully of innot God. simply9 humanity as its shared ground (the incliningThis union towards in charity the beloved is intended but, fito communicatio),6 is characterized by be humanity’s ultimate end or happi- mutuality of benevolence and affec- ness, its consummation being fulness - means actively seeking the good of bath rest.10 Joy, as the soul’s delight otherstion. The for firsttheir of own these, sake, benevolence, making the ofin joya good and presently the completeness possessed, of Sabis a other’s good one’s own. In the divine- fruit of charity11 and, in Jean-Charles human friendship which is charity, Nault’s words, ‘is at the terminus of God’s benevolence consists in his of- the movement of love’.12 Joy’s meas- fer to humanity of participating in ure in us depends on two things. his own goodness, a good which is - indeed ultimate for humanity. The termined by our measure of charity; loving response of mutuality towards second,First, our to degree the extent of present that we joy do is notde God by which humanity completes - this benevolence is to receive and pends also on hope. That hope refers co-operate with that gracious offer, a toyet thefully expectation participate inof charity,future joydivine de willing of God for ourselves, although fellowship, a hope for completion of not for our own sake but rather that our participation in the divine-human we should be for his sake, belonging friendship.13 to him and obeying him.7 present delight to the degree that we Charity’s mutuality is character- already participate Thus, in our friendship joy is both with a ized, second, by an affection whereby one shares oneself with others to the which we experience now as hope. extent of becoming ‘one heart’ with God and also a not-yet enjoyment them.8 This affective union by which that charity would effect.14 In its sor- each inclines towards the other, with- row,Acedia, acedia however, perceives opposes as evil the this good joy out thereby losing their difference, is directed towards an ever-deepening end where the union will be real 9 Summa, I-II 25.2, 28.1. 10 Summa, I-II 3.1; II-II 28.3, 35.3. 11 Thomas, Summa, I-II 31.3; II-II 28.4. 6 - 12 Thomas, The Noonday Devil: ships. On this shared ground, see Joseph Acedia, Thomas, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times, trans. Bobik, A shared ‘Aquinas ground on Communicatio,is required by allthe friend Foun- Michael Jean J. Charles-Nault, Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, dation of Friendship and Caritas’, Modern 2015), 70. Schoolman 64 (1988): 13–14. 13 Summa, II-II 28.1. 7 14 are drawn from several sections in Thomas’ love Thomas,for neighbour (Thomas, Summa, II-II Summa: The pointsII-II 23.1, discussed 27.1, 31.1. in this paragraph 23.5), Though acedia’s charity focus isoverflows charity’s inevitably divine good in 8 Friends of God: Virtues and Gifts in Aquinas (New York: Peter Lang, good. It is envy which opposes charity’s love 1991), Paul 32–33; J. Wadell, Thomas, Summa, II-II 27.2. ofrather neighbour than this (Thomas, overflow Summa, to the II-II neighbour’s 36.1). Don’t Give Up Hope 129 of the divine communicatio ‘as par- then, acedia constitutes a movement ticipated in by us’,15 and thus it cannot of the will, a sorrow described by delight in the presence of the beloved. Thomas as consenting in the ‘dislike, - horror and detestation of the Divine sent measure of one’s participation in good’ as we participate in it (rather God,Acedia saddened mars the by enjoyment its inchoate of the nature pre than of the divine good per se).18 In and even scorning the good one pos- the estimation of Rebecca Konyndyk sesses.16 It operates against this par- DeYoung, this more serious sorrow, ticipation with implications both for which is an aversion of the will, is the the acts of love which constitute one’s manifestation of sorrow in the intel- response to divine grace and for the lectual appetite. She contrasts this progressive inclination of one’s affec- with the sorrow manifested as a pas- tions towards God. sion in the sensitive appetite, going so How, then, should we understand far as to deny that sensitive sorrow the nature of the sorrow which about the divine good is sinful.19 It is, grounds acedia? To answer this ques- however, hard to agree with this last assertion. Although passions are not Thomas appears to identify varying intrinsically sinful, they are culpable degreestion, we of must acedia. first Without recognize question, that acedia can be a mortal sin which de- when directed either towards something evil or towards something good stroys the spiritual life that charity 20 effects. Nevertheless, Thomas also al- but in an immoderate way. Since lows that sins which are ‘mortal in the passion of sorrow with respect respect of their genus’ actually be- to participating in the divine good is come mortal only ‘when they attain to disordered, it is surely sinful even if their perfection’. Accordingly, acedia does not yet qualify for Thomas’ cat- can be (only) a venial sin when it is egory of mortal sin. Moreover, ace- ‘a mere beginning of sin in the sen- suality alone’. It is not mortal sin un- into mortal sin because although the til it reaches ‘the consent of reason’, will,dia asor venialrational sin appetite, may indeed has ‘politic flower something which occurs only when sovereignty’, it is not unconquerable; that is, the passions, when wrongly spirit.17 ordered, can operate to direct the theIn flesh its most has utterlyserious conquered(mortal) form, the will rather than the will disciplining

15 Summa, II-II 28.1; Thomas, On 18 Summa, II-II 35.3. Evil, 11.3. 19 16 Thomas, Summa, II-II 28.1, 35.1. Thomas tance Thomas, to the Demands of Love: Aquinas on suggests that acedia is an evil on a second the Vice Rebecca of Acedia Konyndyk’, The Thomist DeYoung, 68 (2004): ‘Resis- count Thomas, too: not only is it evil in itself, in its 183. This contrast is made more explicit on misconstrual of that which is good as though p. 185 and in note 41, where DeYoung gloss- it were evil, but it is also evil in its effect, es over Thomas’ admission that acedia ‘can for it oppresses people in such a way as to be prompted by movement of the sensitive draw them away from good deeds, perhaps appetite’ and claims that times of being bur- because they despair of the value of such dened with suffering, grief, physical weari- things. 17 Summa, II-II 35.3. 20 Summa, II-II 35.1. ness and lacking in joy are not acedia. Thomas, Thomas, 130 Chloe Lynch the passions.21 When this happens, entailed by the divine-human friend- sadness moves from what we might ship.25 On the other hand, in present- today perceive as emotion or feeling ing spiritual torpor, or sluggishness, into the realm of a wilful response of as a ‘daughter’ of acedia in II-II 35.4, dislike or detestation of one’s partici- Thomas could be construed as claim- pation in friendship with God. ing the second position, that an un- In any case, both kinds of sorrow willingness to engage charity’s work should be considered acedia and thus is acedia’s result and not its source.26 both call out for a remedy. Indeed, the To untangle this debate, though Summa makes clear that whereas the important, is not necessary here, for willed consent to this detestation is our concern is not to determine ace- found in domination of the spirit by dia’s source but to engage acedia’s venial sin— - that is, the ‘movement … in the sensu- tion which underpins acedia might theality flesh, alone’—is even acediacharacterized as by this remedies. The flesh-spirit opposi- 22 choacy of one’s participation in the One aspect of the diagnosis of ace- firstdivine-human manifest asfriendship sorrow over (Lysen) the inor diaflesh-spirit is not fully opposition. clear in the Summa. On as torpor concerning the acts that one hand, the source of acedia’s sad- constitute that participation (De- ness may be that the work of divine- Young). Yet, however this opposition human friendship is perceived as not pursued. On the other hand, the 25 oppressiveperceived oppressiveness to the flesh and of thereforethis spir- Nault characterizes this as ‘the second itual engagement could be the result - nessdefinition about ofwhat acedia’, ought concludingto gladden thatus most: the of acedia, not its source. DeYoung ar- two definitions ‘converge’ because ‘sad 23 - whereas Laura Lysen contends for the participation in the very life of God’ (first guessecond. strongly24 for the first position, paralyzesdefinition) activity is the …other [and] side affects of acedia’s the deepest sec Thomas’ statement in Summa II- motiveond definition force of as activity, something namely, that charity,‘crushes the or II 35.1 that acedia ‘implies a certain participation of the Holy Spirit’ (Nault, Noon- weariness of work’ (taedium oper- day Devil, 73–81). andi) can be construed as supporting 26 Summa (II-II 35.4 ad. 3) supports the second position, saying Lysen that contendssorrow on that account the of shirking burdensome work is not a vice, for only the the first position, provided that we sorrow of acedia, a sorrow on account of understand the specific work against the divine good, is vicious (‘Vicious Sorrow’, which the flesh is opposed as that 337). A counter-argument might be possible 21 Summa, I-II 9.2. here, however, in that the burdensome na- 22 Summa, II-II 35.3. ture of work is perhaps not the point of the 23 Thomas, comparison here. Rather, the point may be 24 Thomas, that sorrow must be in relation to the divine Roots DeYoung, of a “Spiritual” ‘Resistance’, Sin in 188–203. the Summa Theo- good and that weariness or sorrow over bur- logiae Laura’, Studies M. Lysen,in Christian ‘Vicious Ethics Sorrow: 30, no. The 3 densome work, which constitutes a seeking (2017): 336–41. Indeed, for Lysen, acedia’s of ‘undue rest in so far as it spurns the Divine source is its sorrow and the sorrow is spe- good’ (Thomas, Summa, II-II 35.4 ad. 3, emphasis mine), can be deemed to be the vice one’s participation in God (338–39). of acedia. cific: a sorrowing over the inchoate nature of Don’t Give Up Hope 131

such an extent that eventually our de- the other—i.e. sorrow to weariness sires and even our will come to accept firstor vice manifests, versa—and, each realityas spirit leads gives to this muddied perspective as truth. Yet as long as one of acedia’s daughters, succumbs to the sensitive appetite, despair, has not taken root, all is not wayacedia increasingly will worsen. to fleshWhether and theunwill will- - ingness to do the hard work of par- brace of acedia by ceasing to wrestle ticipating in the divine-human friend- againstlost. Until it, thus the willratifying confirms its complete its em ship, as it has already been given to surrender to despair, a remedy re- us in Christ, is the original source of mains. acedia’s sorrow or simply the subse- That remedy is despair’s opposite, quent ‘daughter’ of that sorrow will the hope on which we have already not matter when a person is caught in the midst of that sin.27 By then, the depends. As a passion, hope has the vicious cycle has already begun. What seen that the joy of charity in part- matters at that point is to remedy the row into a renewed expectation of thecapacity divine to good jolt as a personnot only from good sorbut resistance to participation in God’s also possible. For hope is capable of acediafriendship. by putting an end to the flesh’s undoing not only the sorrow over the goodness of one’s participation in the divine good (i.e. acedia), but also II. Learning to Continue in the conviction that one’s attainment Friendship’s Loving Gaze of that good is impossible (despair). Hope is, then, the precursor to chari- towards mortal sin, the will must be 29 For when one can hope both Toenabled reverse to movethe natural away fromflow itsof potenacedia- that one’s participation in the divine tial wilfully to despise God’s friend- ty’sgood joy. is actually good and that a ful- ship. Whereas sorrow can hinder or ness of participation is, in time, pos- even prevent the use of reason, such sible, one can then engage fruitfully that the capacity to seek rest in the de- in what Thomas presents as the ulti- sired good is reduced,28 the situation mate remedy for acedia: contempla- is not irretrievable. Yes, the passion of tion of spiritual goods in general and sorrow can muddy our perception to of the Incarnate One in particular.30 What, we might ask, is the responsibility of the person suffering 27 from acedia in engaging this remedy? with regard to the question of agential re- Though Lysen implies that DeYoung sponsibility This debate in acedia.is perhaps Daly most (‘Depression’, important frames acedia’s remedy in terms of 41–43) notes that the literature most clearly renewed effort in the responsibilities acedia’s rectification, ‘church and society of God’s friendship—and Lysen ex- generallyaccords significant deem[ing] … agency it within with the regard power toof the penitent … to make right his conduct and as being work and, therefore, diamet- character’. Whether the person with acedia plicitly rejects this proposed remedy could be held originally responsible for the inception and development of the malaise is 29 less clear. 30 Summa, I-II 38.4; II-II 20.4, 28 Summa, I-II 37.4, 39.1. 35.1. Lysen, ‘Vicious Sorrow’, 344–45. Thomas, Thomas, 132 Chloe Lynch rically opposed to resting in divine avoidably involves the vulnerability goodness31—the two perspectives that characterizes mutuality and the may not be so far apart in practice. In transformation that attends life lived fact, DeYoung’s emphasis on attend- with another, is, I think, what De- ing to the responsibilities of the di- Young intends by the ‘work’ of divine- vine-human friendship could be read human friendship.32 as a form of the same contemplation, Those who gaze on Jesus yet or resting in divine goodness, which choose not to respond in the vulnerable work of transformative reorien- holds up as acedia’s true remedy. Of tation of life—as well as those who do course,Thomas any identifies kind of and effort which or Lysenwork not gaze at all—risk giving primacy to by the person suffering from acedia can take on the frenzied restlessness might perceive works of responsive which is in fact a daughter of acedia fleshlove as over sowing spirit. to Inthe light spirit of and this, thus one rather than its remedy. Yet work is as protecting against the advance to- perhaps not always diametrically op- wards a willed acedia, and possibly posed to rest. More particularly, rest- even as reversing that movement. ing in divine goodness surely does not In that sense only, perhaps we could preclude a work that is responsive. describe effort as a kind of remedy Without a doubt, the divine-human for acedia—as long as we recognize friendship is indeed a gift and no that the remedy is a contemplation amount of work can earn our partici- of the already-given love to which our pation in it. Nevertheless, work which works of love can be only a response. is directed towards love, rather than - towards a restlessness which is an edying acedia. Thomas himself ap- escape from that love—a work which pearsWorks to indicate alone do that not evensuffice the in mostrem knows its nature not as initiating but loved—is not contrary to the rest in committedmovement of friends the sensitive of God mayappetite, find as a response to the one who first themselvesnotwithstanding subject any toeffort acedia they inmight the The kind of work which consists have been making to participate in 33 ofdivine responsive goodness human which participation is charity’s joy. in friendship with God. What matters, the unparalleled mutuality of friendship with God is itself an aspect of upon Love himself and second, where contemplation for, as we look upon abovethat gaze all, isis first interrupted, an unimpeded maintain gaze- him in all his goodness, we desire ing the capacity to continue an active increasing participation in him and waiting in hope for the darkness to be deeper relationship with him. It is made light again. true that the gaze upon him in which 32 inevitably, contemplation then also present this response as acedia’s remedy. inviteswe see hisus tolove participate for us comes in thatfirst lovebut, Instead, Moreover, she describes technically its absenceDeYoung as does true not of with our own acts of loving response. those with acedia (‘Resistance’, 197–200); This pattern of response, which un- implicitly, its presence characterizes the one who makes that response as participating in

31 33 Summa, II-II 35.1, 35.3. charity and overflowing in joy. Lysen, ‘Vicious Sorrow’, 343. Thomas, Don’t Give Up Hope 133

III. Practising Friendship’s radic. Fundamentally, it is ‘precogni- tive dispositions that orient [our] … Delight being-in-the-world’.36 These disposi- James Smith writes helpfully on the tions towards a particular good become embedded in two ways. First, love. Describing humanity as ‘beings that particular vision of the good subject of directing persons towards- is pictured in concrete ways which mately) intend the world in the mode 34 exceed simple cognitive processes: whoof love’, first he and suggests foremost that (and this ultilove images, narratives, icons and myths frame the human imagination, of- desire for a particular vision of the fering patterns of meaning by which is structured as desire, specifically- the world might make sense. Second, ther, since we are fundamentally af- habits are embedded through embod- goodfective that beings is human before flourishing.we are cognitive Fur ied practices. Just as there is a way beings, our desire draws us towards 35 of knowing which is affective and that good. In the Thomistic model embodied before it is cognitive, one that I am following in this paper, hu- which can train the body to engage in manity’s ultimate good is presented certain responses that do not require as friendship with God. Acedia, how- involvement of the conscious mind ever, represents sorrow in relation in acts of cognition, so also it is with to that good, an affective response by training the desire. Because practices which a person begins to turn from are not value-free but carry within that good and to call it ‘not good’. In them a particular telos or vision of seeking remedies to acedia, then, we the good, their embodiment as habits are seeking to understand how a per- will, over time, direct a practitioner son might more deeply receive God’s into deepened participation in the friendship, responding to it whole- good they symbolize.37 One example of such a practice away from it in sorrow. What, then, comes from the Carmelite tradition. heartedlydoes it take in to joy redirect rather thanone’s turningdesire, Teresa of Avila advocates a practice or gaze, towards our greatest good, of prayer called active recollection, namely the ever-deepening participa- involving a habit of exterior silence tion in friendship with God in Christ? in which a person withdraws his or Smith proposes that to direct de- her awareness of the external world sire towards a particular telos, we for a period in order to become pres- need particular dispositions or hab- ent to Christ, who is within the per- its. Habits ‘constitute the fulcrum of son by the Holy Spirit.38 This prayer our desire’ by predisposing us towards a certain end, he says. Whilst 36 Desiring the Kingdom, 56–57 and possibility, Smith presents conscious note 34. not denying reflexivity as a human- 37 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 57–68. 38 The Way of Perfection, self-reflection as secondary and spo trans. Smith, Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rod- 34 Desiring the Kingdom: riguez Teresa (Washington, of Avila, DC: ICS Publications, Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation 2000), 4.9; 28.6; 29.5. In adding the descrip- (Grand James Rapids: K. A. BakerSmith, Academic, 2009), 50. tor ‘active’ to ‘recollection’, I am differentiat- 35 Desiring the Kingdom, 52–55. ing the material in Way from that in Teresa’s

Smith, 134 Chloe Lynch practice does not necessarily involve of my daily life. reading texts or even speaking any What we practise not only predis- words of prayer, though such tools poses us to the end which those prac- can be useful as a preliminary to aid tices carry within them; it also leads in turning one’s heart towards the in- us to desire that same end at a cog- tended awareness of Christ.39 Instead, nitive level. Admittedly, life is rarely the practice of recollection consists as simple as being captured by one in the representation of Christ to overarching vision of the good. Smith one’s own heart, whether through notes that very often we hear instead an internal image of him or in a non- a number of ‘competing stories’ and visual way (i.e. through faith); it is not about thinking much but about loving stories that cognitively we might much.40 criticize’.can find 42 ourselves However, ‘quite for our taken purpos with- Over time, Teresa insists, this es, his basic point holds: when we practice directs its practitioners are distracted from the good that is into a habitual capacity for aware- friendship with God, an engagement ness of Christ.41 My own experience in practices which carry this vision of of practising active recollection has humanity’s good can be pursued as the route back from sorrow towards so, a daily habit of twenty minutes ofconfirmed waiting this:upon over God the in silencelast year has, or are always communal,43 to commit joy.(or remain Furthermore, committed) because to those practices com- practices more typical of an evangeli- munities or institutions which pursue calin conjunction spirituality, withserved other progressively devotional that same good will strengthen the to deepen my awareness of Christ and acedic person’s own efforts to redi- my responsiveness to him in the rest rect his or her desire. Accordingly, the reordering of love towards the telos of friendship with God requires The Interior Castle, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh participation in the community of his and Otilio Rodriguez (New York: Paulist, 1979). The former text presents recollection friends. as a practice we can initiate (hence ‘active’), Practices and the narratives which whereas the latter emphasizes the super- frame them, then, are fundamental natural aspect of recollection, in which the Spirit infuses our prayer such that God is the person must own—i.e. recognize and one initiating the ‘gentle drawing inward’ takein combatting responsibility acedia. for—the Yet, first, sorrow the when he chooses (Interior Castle, 4.3). Whilst of acedia as sin. Though sorrowing recollection in the latter sense is a divine over the incomplete nature of one’s gift, there is a sense in which practising recollection in the former sense predisposes a friendship with God might sound person towards an active receptivity to the like a godly sorrow, its sin consists in infused recollection that God initiates. That the underlying perception that what is, practice directs the practitioner into deep- God has given is too little. Until this ened participation in the good symbolized by sorrow is recognized as sin, repen- this form of silent prayer. 39 Way, 26.9–10. 40 Way, 26.1–3; 28.4; Interior Cas- 42 Desiring the Kingdom, 55 note 30. tle, 4.1.7. Teresa, 43 After Virtue, 3rd ed. 41 Teresa, Way, 29.8. (London: Smith, Bloomsbury Academic, 2007), 218. Alasdair MacIntyre, Teresa, Don’t Give Up Hope 135 tance, which is the only way to res- community that remembers for us the toration, cannot occur. It is perhaps things we have forgotten and believes for this reason that the Eastern tradi- with us the things we can barely be- tion perceives tears as one of the key lieve. Hope is found centrally amongst remedies for acedia. Evagrius claims, friends of the Friend, those who can ‘Sadness is burdensome and acedia recast for us the images and narra- is irresistible, but tears shed before tives by which we know our future God are stronger than both.’44 Thom- good and the goodness of our present as also recognizes the role of tears in share in it. These friends are the ones the assuaging of sorrow, calling them who, through their own practices of a way of dispersing one’s focus from the sorrow and thereby releasing and expectation of God’s goodness that lessening it.45 wehope, are both struggling tether us to to hold that on confident to and Accordingly, before the will can be also hope us into hopefulness. must repent of the sorrow as a sin- During seasons of my own acedia, turnedful disordering back to joy,of thosetheir withdesire acedia that a dearI have Christian seen this ladyprocess has, first-hand. by mak- has caused them to cease to pursue ing time to meet with me monthly, friendship with God. In connection repeatedly held me to the encounter with this repentance, there is (pro- with Jesus from which I would rather vided that hope remains) likely to be have run. In holding that space for me, some motivation to throw off the sad- and in sitting with me in the silences ness concerning one’s participation of a soul that could not remember in the good. This motivation will drive how to continue in friendship with active engagement in the practices by God, she has remembered for me the which the community of God’s friends things I had forgotten and believed for directs their hearts towards deep- me the things I could barely believe. ened friendship with him. Therefore, in one’s wrestling to friendship with God and with me, she practise delight in God, what matters hasQuite hoped simply, me in into the consistencyhopefulness of until her initially is the cultivation of hope. For I have again been able to remember, hope alone counters the despair born of acedia. It strengthens the soul to Hope is costly, however, for it con- gaze again upon Jesus and to practise stitutesbelieve anda willingness rejoice. to wait, a will- Paul Wadell’s view, ‘a shared virtue; ingness not to give up on the divine joyone inconnected his friendship. to friendship Such hope and comis, in- munity and … impossible without the tension between what is and what them’.46 The gathered church is the isgood not despite yet. It the means difficulty not ofbecoming living in ‘overwhelmed by the … waiting’, not coming ‘to abhor … [the good] on ac- 44 Exhortation to a Vir- count of the apparent slowness of its gin, 39, in Robert E. Sinkewicz (ed.), Evagrius coming’.47 Yet costly though it is, such of Pontus: Evagrius The of Greek Pontus, Ascetic Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 134. 45 Summa, I-II 38.2. ship (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 136. 46 Becoming Friends: Worship, 47 Justice, Thomas, and the Practice of Christian Friend- Reconsidering the Sin of Acedia’, Pro Eccle- Paul Wadell, Jeffrey A. Vogel, ‘The Speed of Sloth: 136 Chloe Lynch waiting in hope gives God the space which we can retell to ourselves the to be God. For friendship presumes story of the God who offers us friend- the freedom of agency, that each ship in his Son. We must intentionally party may act or not act without being subsumed by the will of the other. of time, searching for the wonder An unwillingness to wait for God, al- cultivatethat precipitates joy over adelight. consistent For periodwhere doubt and despair have prevailed, way and his time, would constitute what matters is that the imagina- lowingan attempt him toto fulfilcollapse his promise our relation in his- tion becomes captivated again—that ship with him in such a way that God wonder and delight are cultivated as becomes simply an extension of our both the hermeneutic by which peo- own selves.48 This would be an act of ple suffering from acedia experience true God-lessness, for it makes us the life50 and the necessary epistemologi- centre of our own reality and treats cal dislocation51 by which they may be the reality of God as existing only in relation to us. The picturing of the good by which Hope, then, must wait, ‘expos[ing] jolted from despair to hope. … itself to the action of the beloved’49 us from acedia’s sadness must ulti- and trusting that the eschatological wemately might occur finally in seethe enoughcontext toof shock wor- tension exerted upon the present ex- ship as an image-ining of the nar- perience of friendship with God will, ratives of the gospel along the lines one day, be resolved. There is no pas- already suggested. As we repeatedly sivity in this kind of contemplative engage the imagination with the nar- waiting, though. For, as we have seen, ratives of the gospel offer of friend- the assault against acedia’s sorrow ship with God, we make room for means actively directing our hearts wonder to take root and for delight to to the good in the ways that Smith be rekindled. Our preachers unpack has indicated for us. First, there must the biblical text, enunciating again be a deliberate and oft-repeated return to the images and narratives by us. We are reminded that this love’s thebeginning invitation never by a Goddepended who first on loves us sia 18, no. 1 (2009): 66. Stanford M. Lyman notes that acedia involves a suffering of 50 - ‘the inconveniences of time’, the question of cating Lives for Christian Wisdom’, Interna- ‘[w]hat to do while the chain of being is still tional Darin Journal H. Davis of Christianity and Paul J.and Wadell, Education ‘Edu becoming’. Lyman, The Seven Deadly Sins: 20, no. 2 (2016): 98–99. Society and Evil, rev. ed. (Lanham: General 51 Hall, 1989), 10. Once again, the challenge is declares, ‘among man’s greatest gifts’ be- to wait. cause The it ‘actscapacity upon for man wonder like ais, shock’, Josef Pieperbring- 48 - ing epistemological dislocation. ‘It does not end in doubt’, though it brings an awareness a friend Often to it collapse may be ‘one’s the distance neediness, comprised posses that one does ‘not … know fully, [and does] insiveness … difference’. or desire Chloe to control Lynch, [that] Ecclesial influences Lead- not … conceive absolutely’, because this not- ership as Friendship (Abingdon: Routledge, knowing is framed by the search to know 2019), 166. Neediness and desire to control more deeply rather than by resignation. Jo- God have certainly been prevalent in my own sef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, trans. experiences of acedia. Alexander Dru (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 49 1998), 101–8.

Vogel, ‘Speed of Sloth’, 68. Don’t Give Up Hope 137 and are encouraged to trust that the in the church’s liturgical practice, we God who gives it says also that what must not think that our formation to- we have received is very good. At the wards the good is ‘because of our ac- Lord’s Table, similarly, as the minister tive participation’. Rather, worship is holds bread and cup high and prays ‘something we do “pathically”… [and] that they might be to us the body and we do not grasp the mystery but are blood of Jesus, we see narratives of grasped by it.’52 This is exactly the divine friendship made concrete in point I am making here. Our practices the tangible stuff of grain and grape. of worship are always responsive in As we hold out our hands, empty and the context of a graced receiving, and with nothing to give, we see power- their part in forming us to the good of fully the grace of this story, a grace the gospel operates dialectically with divine grace, by the enabling power of with bread and cup in an echo of all the Spirit. bythat which Jesus anothergave and fills gives. our emptiness Not all evangelicals warmly em- In worship, we experience the nar- brace the practice of liturgy. Yet its ratives of divine friendship made con- formative gift is to guide the articu- crete in the friends of God alongside lation of our prayers and to offer a whom we worship. For in them in whom the Spirit dwells, we encounter in the context of its symbols and ritu- the living Christ who is made present definedals. It also space draws for our divine attention encounter to the to us in a special way in the midst of ek-static nature of life in God—that the church. Our worship shapes our we are called to relate in love towards others in the church and in the Smith’s factors mentioned above, the world.53 In its enactment of the gos- desirereframing in accordance of our imagination with the byfirst nar of- pel, the liturgy thus draws us into the ratives and images. But it does more than that. Smith’s second factor—the pole) while, in its invitation to a par- power of habitual practices to direct mysteryticular set of of God responses, (liturgy’s it draws objective us us towards the good—is also in play. into a personal appropriation of par- For worship involves not only the ticipation in the divine life (liturgy’s one who reveals his own worth but, 54 importantly, the one who delights in Together with God’s friends, then, insubjective worship pole). we respond to him in acts of prayer and song. When they are thatdelighting worth inare wonder-filled equally foundational response. offered, we eat the bread and drink Theto the practices church’s oflife this of worship. wonder-filled Spe- the cup, receiving these gifts into ourselves. When we hear the Word gospel as given to us but also about preached, worship means responding cifically,the gospel worship received is not by only us, abouta receiv the- ing expressed in the practices of re- 52 Liturgical Theology: The sponse. Church as Worshiping Community (Downers In discussing liturgy as ecclesial Grove: Simon IVP Academic, Chan, 2006), 97. practice, Simon Chan warns against 53 The Spirit of Worship: The misunderstanding the effect of our Liturgical Tradition (London: Darton, Long- active participation in worship. man Susan & Todd, J. White, 1999), 21–28. Whilst we must engage intentionally 54 Liturgical, 149.

Chan, 138 Chloe Lynch in a communal wrestling to see our the friendship of the community of lives reoriented around truth. As we gather, our Spirit-enabled practices were instructed to stay in their cells of sacrament and song, of prayer and tojoy. pray Those and who meditate suffered on fromScripture acedia in teaching, re-enact Jesus’ life and min- silence, rather than running to other istry55 and form our desire towards monasteries for distraction.57 Work, him. Particularly, as we practise love also, had its place,58 countering the towards one another in that place, extreme diligence in prayer which we thereby offer the response which could prove, in some cases, to be not constitutes the return of God’s friend- acedia’s remedy but a manifestation ship.56 In this way, we are drawn of restlessness or hyperactivity, one deeper into our participation in his of its daughters. Such disciplines of life and directed towards a wondering 59 delight in the face of the God who of- because the perseverance neces- fers the ultimate happiness of friend- sarystability in the were battle seen against as significant, acedia was ship with him. viewed as grounded in ‘the mundane By these practices, we willingly the quotidian tasks of everyday exist- our happiness in God. Even though enceroutine … returning of the daily day office,after day fulfilling to the habituate ourselves towards finding same place … and community’.60 For memories, we engage in the practices the challenge of those who would re- ofdelight delight and as joyif we may delighted, feel like and distant we sist acedia is to wait and then to wait trust that, though we cannot know how or when, the ‘as if’ will make room for the birth in us, again, of the 57 - wonder by which desire may be reor- fering from acedia from interacting with the dered to the good. community. Cassian Rather, did not the discourage instruction those to stay suf The ancient monastics knew the in one’s cell was to combat the tendency power of such practices of worship. monk’s fear that ‘he will never be well while They knew, too, that the key was heto succumbstays in that to flightplace, and,unless specifically, he leaves thehis perseverance in the ‘as if’, a daily re- cell (in which he is sure to die if he stops in it any longer)’! John Cassian, The Institutes, and a commitment to continue in ed. Kevin Knight, www.newadvent.org/fa- turn to the practices that lead to joy thers/3507.htm, 10:3. For further discussion of other early treatments of acedia, see An- 55 On Being Human: Es- drew Crislip, ‘The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of says in Theological Anthropology (Grand Rap- the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early ids: Eerdmans, Ray S. Anderson, 1982), 183. Christian Monasticism’, Harvard Theological 56 - Review 98, no. 2 (2005): 155–57. turned when returned for God’s sake. How- 58 Noonday Devil, 40. ever, ‘God’scharity friendshipas the return is onlyof this properly friendship re 59 Praktikos, 8, in implicates the neighbour.’ Hans S. Reinders, Sinkewicz, Nault, Evagrius, 102; Evagrius of Pontus, Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Dis- On the Evagrius Eight Thoughts of Pontus,, 6:5, 6:17–18 in Sinke- ability, Theological Anthropology, and Ethics wicz, Evagrius, 84. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 321–22. 60 Dangerous Passions, For my own fuller discussion of this point in Deadly Sins: Learning from the Psychology of Thomas Aquinas, see Lynch, Ecclesial Leader- Ancient Dennis Monks Okholm, (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2014), ship. 152. Don’t Give Up Hope 139 some more, even as they faithfully may tell of the sadness, the other part engage in worship practices by which they hope again to provoke their soul provoke the wonder which, though to the wonder which will shock them tellsit is ofa divinethe joy gift, and mustdoggedly nevertheless works to be actively received. In this wres- interruption of their contemplation tling, those with acedia can habitu- offrom God. sadness to joy and remove the ate themselves towards the good that In the context of a life of worship is God and practise the hard work of which, offered in the privacy of one’s calling the soul back to the discipline cell and in the community of believ- of delight. ers, perseveres and waits in the times and places which have been given, those with acedia thus seek to open IV. Hopeful Perseverance their heart to becoming directed to- amongst Friends wards God. Though ultimately it is The remedy for acedia is, when seen God who initiates this movement, yet from one perspective, a circular one. we must acquiesce in order to partici- For it demands that the acedic do pate in the happiness of God. For this what the acedic cannot do: delight in acquiescence to take form, however, his or her inclusion and friendship there must remain, as we have said, a with God. Whereas in giving pasto- spark of hope that this is still an end ral counsel I might once have glossed over this complication, my own ex- spark, these practices of worship will perience of acedia means that I now notworth represent rejoicing an over.intentional Without attempt that cannot. For I realize that although - of one’s soul to wonder; and without ther hollow warnings about trying suchto cultivate an intention, joy through there the can provoking be no joyharder may not be acedia’sto surrender true remedy, to listless nei- possibility of acedia’s cycle being bro- ness or restlessness nor exhortations ken. to delight instead of sorrow will have For hope, as Evagrius observes, is any long-lasting effect. Whether such what enables the soul actively to over- well-intended instructions are em- come its own resistance. He suggests braced for a time only or perhaps - soul enters into a dialogue with itself, sothat also just people as in suffering Psalm 42, from where acedia the rejected out of hand, words by them can imagine their soul as divided in selves,Instead, flung those at the with suffering acedia person need two. Along with the part that is expe- frompastoral a safe support distance, from will notothers suffice. who riencing sadness, Evagrius imagines a can, through genuine friendship, rep- second part of the soul which stands resent to them the love of the Friend - work of friendship with that Friend. partalongside of the the soul first into part the and, dialogue in speak of andFor strengthenthe practices them directed for the towardsdifficult wrestlinging encouragement, before God, can which draw theis itself first prayer.61 Though one part of the soul for a soul that struggles to practise delight are overwhelmingly difficult

61 Praktikos, 27, in Sinkewicz, Evagrius, 102.

Evagrius, 140 Chloe Lynch them ‘as if’. To return one’s gaze in us and our frustrations. Hope waits worship again and again upon Christ, - in pursuit of the continuity of con- som and the fruit is not on the vines. templation that Thomas prescribes evenStirring when up thethe figsoul tree one does last not time, blos it prods towards the disciplines of de- is no simple task in the face of near- light, trusting that one day practices inconstant the reclaiming failures ofto friendship’sabide and joy,en- will become dispositions and desire ticing temptations to distraction by will be directed again to its proper other, easier ends. It takes persever- end. Hope keeps the acedic person ance and it takes whole communi- amongst the friends of Christ, know- ties of friends who will hold up for us the vision of our future good and our to God is one undergirded and made present share in it, inviting us again ingpossible that in the the call community to respond where with God joy and again to its practice. and humanity meet. And, though it be or the cost, there is, as long as hope re- suffering person to gaze upon Christ mainsYet, susceptiblenotwithstanding to being the stirred difficulty up, flickering and fragile, hope brings the the possibility of a soul’s return. For that the soul will eventually respond hope sparks the potential for the soul just one more time, in the expectation- to stand actively against its own refer of friendship which God faithfully sistance. It enables willingness, how- wholeheartedlyholds out in Christ. and Hope in joy perseveres to the of ever minimal, to wait actively for God, because, cast down and in turmoil as permitting him the freedom intrinsic the soul may be, Psalm 42 is right: ‘I to friendship, a freedom in which he shall again praise him, my salvation is neither contained nor directed by and my God.’ ERT (2020) 44:2, 141-148 On Becoming a Fellow Traveller in Mission

Hans Christoph Baer

I. Moving from Outsiders to spheres of relationship: family, work- Fellow Travellers place, and church. After many years New missionaries may have precon- we have found that missionaries tend ceived ideas of how they want to be ofto turn consulting their mission mission community field settings, into viewed by people in the target cul- all three. This is disastrous for those ture. They may even have strategies who envision a ministry that touches to achieve the roles they would like the lives of people in the local com- to play: development worker, nurse 2 or doctor, teacher at a Bible seminary, Nowadays, the availability of so- English teacher, student worker, pio- cialmunity media and aggravates culture.' this problem by neer, church planter, disciple maker, making it harder to leave home. Mis- trainer of pastors and leaders, or sionaries may remain so connected to manager of a missional business. their home country that they do not They may have many years of train- connect deeply with locals. But to en- ing, but when they land in a foreign ter something new, you have to leave country and another culture, how the old. they introduce themselves to that cul- As we live among a new people ture is crucial. group, we may have an idea as to ‘When a newcomer arrives on a what roles we would like to play, and tribal scene he must somehow be re- the people may have their own ex- lated to the existing social structure pectations and ideas. The two can be so that people will know how to act toward him and how to expect him 1 be encouragers and fellow travellers, to act toward them.’ This may seem verybut the different. people We amongst may just whom want we to obvious, but as Judith and Sherwood live may want us to be patrons and Lingenfelter point out, ‘Most Ameri-

a source of financial resources. Such can Christians have three significant conflicts can put us at risk of failing 1 Culture and Human Val- 2 ues. Christian Intervention in Anthropological Teaching Cross-Culturally. An Incarnational Perspective Jacob A. (Pasadena,Loewen, CA: William Carey Li- Model Judith for E.Learning and Sherwood and Teaching G. Lingenfelter, (Grand brary, 1975), 435. Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 117.

Hans Christoph Baer (DMin, International Theological Seminary, Los Angeles) has worked with OMF among the Karen people of northern Thailand for more than 25 years. He is author of several books in German, English, Thai and Karen including Animistic World View and Its Implication on Teaching God’s Word (2016). 142 Hans Christoph Baer from the start, despite our best inten- ster’s LAMP method3 was a help. Still, tions. I found it hard as I did not progress Or we may think we could help as quickly as I would have liked. I said with money to improve our host people’s living conditions. In their sight, this makes us a patron. But do we thingsto my wife,which 'What needed are wechange doing (in here? my know what that means? The role may opinion).Is this all?' I Ihad had preparedmy ambitions. myself I saw for soon turn into expectations which we missionary service for many years. I thought I knew how a church should The most important thing in be- function. But here I was sitting on the comingcannot fulfil,a fellow and thentraveller what? is to learn porch as an old lady from another vil- the people’s language and culture so lage came to our house and talked to that we can communicate and interact us louder and louder but we did not sensibly with each other. Shortcuts understand. She pointed to her ears. are available, of course. For example, We knew she thought we were deaf. we could use translators or interact - only with people who speak our lan- ing a learner and starting in baby guage. But if we want to show interest shoes,Those frustrated years in theme village,at times, just butbe and respect towards a people group, they taught me many invaluable les- we show it best if we learn their way sons too. Looking back, I think, it was of life and use their language. good that I could not speak up much Language learning gives us the opportunity to ask for help. We are the time we became friends with peo- ones who need their help. We are pleduring in the my village. first years.We started During to host this not the ones who know everything; a Bible study group during the week. rather, we depend on other people - from the start. Only through inter- tians in walking to other villages on action with them can we learn their weekendsOnce a month to spread I joined the Karen gospel, Chris so I language and culture and come near got to know more and more villages to them. Jesus similarly taught the around us. In Sop Lahn village, we seventy-two whom he sent out to participated in selling a few essentials depend on the people to whom they at the same price as in the city, which went. They should not go with money was much cheaper than the nearby but with the gospel (Lk 10:4, 7). merchants’ prices. My wife, a nurse, In my personal experience, lan- could help many people by selling ba- guage learning time had its ups and sic medicines. That opened doors for downs. After having learned Thai us to visit the sick and we could pray for nearly two years, my wife and I for them together with Karen Chris- were sent into a remote Karen village tians. where only a few people could speak This was the time when we grew Thai and nobody understood English. into the role of fellow travellers. Ivan It was a tedious task to learn a lan- Illich expressed it accurately: ‘Lan- guage in a village where there was no running water nor electricity avail- 3 Language able, besides looking after three small Acquisition Made Practical (Colorado children. Tom and Elizabeth Brew- Springs, Tom CO: and Lingua Elizabeth House, Brewster, 1976). On Becoming a Fellow Traveller in Mission 143 guage learning is one of the few op- he started his ministry. Jesus knew his portunities an adult can have to know host culture so well that he frequently the deep experience of poverty, weak- used stories (parables) to teach his ness and being dependent on the be- fellow travellers very effectively. Then nevolence of other people. It needs he gave himself over completely to adequate patience, good observation, the courage to make mistakes and the Although his time of ministry seemed ability to laugh at yourself.’4 fulfillingshort, he theaccomplished plan of God it to the the Father. point Fred Lewis writes, ‘To learn the worldview of another people, and live according to their foreign-to-you thatbecame he couldobedient call out,to ‘Itdeath—even is finished’ worldview, leads to living uncomfort- (Jndeath 19:38). on a cross’ 'He humbled (Phil 2:8). himself and More important than anything else is an attitude of humility and the de- ablyabout just requires about a all missionary the time. …to Thelive - practicein weakness.’ of vulnerable5 While this mission is true, justwe ture, which also means looking for the have to ask how many missionaries siregood to traits adjust in one’sthat culture. life to the new cul are able to do this without breaking If we want to become fellow travel- or leaving. I would suggest that becoming a to talk and fellowship together. When fellow traveller is a long process. Be- lers,Karen we people have to from find differentcommon villagesground sides the ideal of living ‘according to meet each other, they usually talk their foreign-to-you worldview’, we about their common connections, have to consider how much a single their family, relatives and friends and person, couple or family can handle what they do to earn their livelihood. of this. One of our co-worker families I often felt like an outsider because I would have explained my family very quickly. A few years ago, I discov- wassurvive able and to adjust then to deeper grow andinto another a fruit- ered a theme I had overlooked even lessful ministry. so. We had Actually, to find a our long-term own way mis to- though many Karen talk about it: sion perspective helps, because you Karen quite strongly.6 Jesus’ coming into this world was theirin. I have dreams, discovered which many influence new manytraits havea long-term the time mission, to adjust and accordingly. very radi- about their culture and Here this isI cana theme join cal besides. He became a baby and I can talk about to anyone, whether entrusted himself to the hands of the listener is a devout Christian or a spirit priest. It opens up opportu- earthly life for thirty years, becoming nities to share the gospel and it has sinfula fellow humans. traveller After to the adjusting Jewish people, to this challenged me to give more attention to my own dreams. My wife, on the other hand, has 4 Ivan Illich, In den Flüssen nördlich der Zukunft. Letzte Gespräche über Religion und Gesellschaft mit David Cayley (Munich: C. H. 6 Dreams in the Beck, 2006), 24; my translation. Omkoi Karen Christian Context: An Anthropo- 5 logical See Research Hans Christoph Combined Baer, with a Theological Mission Ingredient’, Global Missiology, www. Study on Dreams (Nuremberg: VTR Publica- globalmissiology.org, Fred Lewis, ‘Worldview: April 2018. A Vulnerable tions, 2018). 144 Hans Christoph Baer learned a lot about natural medicine lish ourselves as fellow travellers has from the Karen, and she has also been the traditional view some Ka- translated a booklet about natural ren have of the white man. In their medicines in the tropics into the Ka- mythology, the white man is called ren language. Again, this has given their youngest brother. Many Karen us opportunities to appreciate what Christians have started to call us their the Karen already know and to learn youngest brother (pügöda) instead of from them as well as to pass on some foreigners (golawa). This has been a practical knowledge, such as how the great asset. We belong to their family. papaya in their garden can be used As such, we are allowed to share our for medicine in different ways. My thoughts but we are not telling people wife gave a seminar in a Karen village, what to do. I always thought this was a very good position to be in as a mis- They produced medicine with plants sionary. It sounds good, but I have to whichthat are the locally ladies available. enjoyed very much. As already noted, Jesus knew his into things, desiring to tell them what Jewish culture so well that he used admita good that solution I often should got my look own like. fingers stories from that culture in his teach- The Karen’s traditional poems, ing. The Karen culture is full of sto- called hta,7 are another indigenous ries, some of which are very similar to resource that can be used to tell the those in the Bible. For example, they gospel. A friend and long-time mis- have a tale analogous to the bibli- sionary, Keith Hale, has produced an cal story of the Fall. Mr. Dipae, one of evangelistic booklet which explains the early believers, was very gifted in the way to salvation through those comparing Karen stories and sayings hta. This tool is well-liked among the with biblical truth. He always used older people. these comparisons in a positive way, showing people the Bible was teach- in the culture that can be talked and ing things that the ancestors had been sharedIt is aabout, joy tolearning discover from resources each teaching already. I challenged Mr. Di- other. It is hard work, but it is also en- pae once to tell a traditional saying or a story that contradicted the biblical hopes and with what they can identify truth. He stopped for a moment and richingin their tolives. find It outis a aboutprivilege the when people’s we then answered, ‘I can’t do that; you start to belong to them in one capacity can.’ This answers is not surprising if or another. But we also need humility you know that one of the highest values among the Karen is harmony—a even scolded because we do not ful- value that we can link to the wonder- when we feel misjudged, ignored or ful Good News of reconciliation in- blessed that more than once we could stead of taking revenge. ‘Get rid of all filreconcile their expectations. with people Weafter have relation been- bitterness, rage and anger, brawling ships had turned sour. I have appreci- and slander, along with every form of ated it a lot that the Karen have given malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, 7 funerals or weddings, or they may be used to 4:31–32). put Thesea baby poemsto sleep. are Some chanted of the athta traditional tell about justWhat as in hasChrist also God helped forgave us you’to estab (Eph- God. New hta can also be made up. On Becoming a Fellow Traveller in Mission 145 us another chance after I had acted inappropriately in their eyes. When we were new in the village, We have never established a mis- givingone cold more morning financial a help. Karen mother with her almost-naked baby came to a Karen village or among the Thai our house, begging for clothes. But we sionand Karen station, in buta marketplace. rather just Over lived the in had to say that we were not distrib- uting clothes, and to please go to the has lived with the Karen in the Omkoi church elders. She was not very hap- years,district usually of Chiang just Mai one province. foreign family Since py and we asked ourselves whether the work grew so quickly, the Karen we had done the right thing. Later on, themselves had to take responsibility when we got to know people, we dis- for the groups of Christians among covered that this mother belonged to them. With our presence we have one of the richest families in the vil- been an encouragement to the Karen, lage. but also a temptation to depend on Another time, one of the educated us. The Karen appreciate that we have church workers was unhappy with learned their language and culture, us because we did not pay salaries. and that we eat what they eat and He told me that we could afford to sleep where they sleep. We try to use send our children to school in the city tools for teaching the Bible that are (which was a heartache to us) but we reproducible for them. They have be- would not help the Karen. He said he come aware that in Christ they have would not work with Western mis- received the same power that we missionaries anymore. So he moved out sionaries have. and went to work with another group One Sunday after church, we were that paid him a monthly salary. After called to a neighbour’s house because six months, he was back in our vil- a young man had suddenly fallen un- lage. He did not like how that group conscious despite having no sign of was directing him. The village church illness. So we started to pray. I prayed he came back to disciplined him for and the lad started to swing at me. three months, not giving him any role Then an elder prayed, and at that in the church during that time. point the young man sat up and asked Then the Karen leaders thought it what has happened. God had made would be a good idea to help evan- it very clear that he listens to the gelists who go out regularly with prayers of the new Karen believers. some reimbursement. They asked This was an encouragement to them. us whether we would help with half of that money. We agreed. But after one or two years, we realized that II. Handling Expectations of most of the evangelists got only what Money we paid, and not much if anything of The temptation for the Karen has what the churches had promised. A been that some thought we would new start was necessary. Nowadays, bring money with us to help them. we still help a little, but most of the At times, some of the Karen wanted support comes from the different vil- us to move out because they felt that lage churches. we were standing in the way of other Then the pressure came to help groups who came in later and were with building churches. When I was 146 Hans Christoph Baer walking with Karen Christians to trict town, thirty kilometres away or spread the gospel, one leader asked, ‘Why is it that you do not help? Look there. (Road improvements have cut at the other village where another athe three-hour travel time drive roughly when wein halffirst sincelived mission has built a nice church and we then.) have only a bamboo hut to meet in.’ I Establishing personal relation- responded, ‘The church in the other ships that are based on respect and village tells a lot about that mission equality is key. With those who see and their faith, and your church tells us only as givers of resources, this is a lot about your faith.’ Even though similar questions have been raised at called us stingy in an open meeting, times, none of the churches we have abecause difficult we goal would to reach. sell Onceparacetamol a Karen tablets instead of giving them away that group. One reason has been that free. It hurt. And yet we know that by workedwe had withbeen haveliving joined with handsthe people with selling things, we give the other per- and had become friends with them. son the feeling of partnership instead At times, however, we did compro- of dealing with him or her as a beggar. mise under pressure. For example, We have also set an example that we agreed with the churches that our it is okay for Christians to sell things. organization would pay for tiles for Some of the second-generation Karen the roofs of new churches. We have Christians have started businesses done this over many years and it has and we are friends with them. Nowa- worked out well. We remain part of days, some of them even help us from the work, helping in some measure as - the Karen do as well. Not too long ago I met a very dedi- timebut now to time. we praise The first the timeLord thisfor that!hap cated missionary from the organiza- pened,As Paul I wrote did not to findthe Philippians,it easy to accept ‘Not tion that helped to construct the nice that I am looking for a gift, but I am church building, and he asked me why looking for what may be credited to the Karen do not take up responsibil- your account. … They are a fragrant ity for their own work. I looked at him a bit puzzled, because I felt the Ka- pleasing to God’ (Phil 4:17–18). ren were taking responsibility quite offering, an acceptable sacrifice,- well in the work in which we were pectations. Who likes to disappoint involved. After a moment of silence, others?It is hardYet whennot to wefulfil look people’s at Jesus’ ex he said, ‘We will start to work more in ministry, we see that he did not ful- the way you do now. We will give out less money.’ one occasion he went to another vil- We praise the Lord that we have fillage all even the though people’s many expectations. wanted to Onbe had friends and relationships with healed by him (Mk 1:35–39). To the Karen people who have appreciated rich young man he gave the freedom our presence without expecting mon- to choose whether he would sell all ey. That has helped us navigate this and follow him (Mk 10:17–31). Je- sus loved him and yet he let him go. situations, we were willing to drive Many left Jesus when he taught God’s minefieldpeople to a of hospital, finances. but In we emergency declined word in a straightforward manner. to be the Landrover taxi to the dis- And then he asked his disciples, ‘You On Becoming a Fellow Traveller in Mission 147 do not want to leave, do you?’ (Jn fact they are not. But it is easier to 6:66–67). As missionaries, we are not - - ple but to do the will of the Father in find sponsors for orphans and chil calledheaven. to fulfil the wishes of the peo drenRecently in danger many of humanforeign trafficking workers thenhave justbeen straightforward thrown out of forChina. studies. How do the abandoned Chinese feel? Many III. Missionary Visions and feel left behind, alone, sad and angry. Local Cultures Another one expressed it in this way: Going on mission with a broad vi- ‘As I look back, I sometimes feel used. sion is a good thing. Often people are motivated for mission by a vision of possible for the foreigners to see their providing better healthcare or a bur- Maybedream comeI was justtrue. the I don’t tool thatwant made to feel it that way, but sometimes I wonder. I But when the vision and strategy are realize now that I wasn’t really part denspelled for theout victimsin concrete of sex formstrafficking. and of making decisions. I was the one plans before one has had long-term who ran all the errands and did what exposure to the target people group, I was told to. But maybe it isn’t so easy when you don’t understand the serious problems can arise. Here are 8 a few vivid examples. culture.’ No missionary would like to A foreign medical mission built a be the one this person describes, but hospital near Omkoi, because the Ka- ren told them that they would like to we undertake our work. have one. But it has never functioned it shouldIn contrast, cause usconsider to reflect how on Paul how as a hospital, because foreign doctors taught the new Christians. He encour- need to take an examination in the aged them to help the churches in Jerusalem and in Judea. He encour- approved to practise, and no doctor aged the use of local resources to help Thaiwho haslanguage passed first this before exam isthey available. can be others. We never hear Paul asking the Two groups have recently arrived sending church in Antioch to help him - or the newly established churches; ining. One is supporting an orphan- stead, he gave the new Christians the whoage (which work actually against humanis a hostel traffick with opportunity to express their gratitude only a few orphans) and the other is towards God and to the Christians in sponsoring children with the vision the place where the gospel originated. of helping them through their stud- Sometimes God gives us a vision ies. In actual fact, we have not had a to set us on our way, but the mission- - the area because the Karen highly val- ing or even abandoning the vision to problemue marriage with and human family. traffickingAnd it is even in arykeep must in step be open with to God. adjusting, Paul and chang his less of a problem in the traditional team were going to preach the gos- setting of mountain villages, where extended family members care for 8 each other. To me, it seems to be lack- Chinese Christians after Their Expat Col- ing in integrity to depict Karen kids as leagues ‘So, How Had Areto Leave’, They Now?5 July A 2019, Follow-Up https:// on though they are in danger of human www.chinasource.org/resource-library/chinasource-blog-posts/so-how-are-they-now.. trafficking or being orphans when in 148 Hans Christoph Baer pel in Bithynia, ‘but the Spirit of Jesus about it with the Karen—but then would not allow them to’ (Acts 16:7). you have to wait. If the idea is good in Then he had a vision of a man of Mac- the sight of the Karen, sometime later edonia begging him to come over to one of the leaders will air a similar or Macedonia (Acts 16:9). Paul and his the same idea, and then the time has team decided that this was God’s call come to act and support his idea.’ I and went off to preach the gospel in have seen that happen several times. Europe. About two years ago, I aired the idea In the same way, we have to stay that they should research the land rights of the place where a hostel and calling. Only when we become fellow Bible training centre are located. Just travellersflexible to with keep the in people step with we God’swant recently, they came up with sugges- to serve we will start to see things tions of how to make sure that the as they see them, and that will help unregistered land will not be taken over by someone. Had I done it all by step with them and with local circum- myself, they would have thought it is stances.us to adjust We needour vision to think so aboutas to be how in my responsibility, but now they have we can integrate our vision with their taken it on as their responsibility. vision, or God may ask us to abandon It is good to have a vision or bur- our vision to become part of a greater vision with the people we want to it, we would probably stay at home. serve. denBut itto is go essential to the mission to go with field. a Without servant One senior missionary advised me, ‘If you really think you have a becoming fellow travellers who know good idea how things should change attitudethe culture and and to spendlanguage the of first the years peo- or could be done better, you can talk ple group we are now part of. ERT (2020) 44:2, 149-163 A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West: The Writings of René Girard

Jim Harries

‘He spurned her. That’s why she Girard (1923–2015) was a French- killed him’, I was told at the fu- born scholar who spent nearly all of neral of a man in his fifties. But his academic life in the USA. He was ‘she’ lived many miles away. The a distinguished professor at Stan- dead man had been living with ford University until his retirement his other wife. How the ex-wife in 1996 and a member of the elite might have killed him didn’t L’Académie Française. In his vast work, come into question. She had good Girard, a practising Roman Catho- reason for despising him; he had lic, presents ‘a theory of astonishing died; she must have killed him. power and scope, [that helps one] to - see … Christianity … in an entirely able scholarly material on Africa is new light: no longer as a more or less rootedThe vastin Western majority thinking. of publicly That avail in- doubtful body of "beliefs" but instead 2 cludes publishing by African schol- as a breakthrough in understanding’. ars, who to achieve accreditation are Girard, in my view, stepped outside required to legitimize their academic of today’s dominant Western world- writing by building on Western edu- view. He achieved that feat through cation. close analysis and comparison be- The writing of the late French tween literatures, many of which scholar René Girard was different. predated contemporary modernism. As far as I know, Girard never visited Africa. Yet his work can greatly elu- cidate our understanding of African in itself it is hard to see this as a disrecom- people. In contrast, the West views mendation’, writes Chris Fleming, ‘Mimesis, Violence, and the Sacred: An Overview of the category in contemporary academia.1 Thought of René Girard’, in Scott Cowdell, Girard as fitting into no recognized Chris Fleming and Joel Hodge (eds.), Vio- lence, Desire, and the Sacred, vol. 2 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 10. 1 - 2 ods and in its conclusions—is largely out Part One’, podcast, 14 March 2015, https:// of step‘Girard’s with body current of work—both theoretical in trends its meth in www.davidcayley.com/podcasts?category= Paul Kennedy, ‘On Violence and Religion: the humanities and social sciences, and yet Ren%C3%A9+Girard.

Jim Harries (PhD, University of Birmingham, UK) is an extensively published author and a missionary in East Africa. Some of the content of this paper was presented at a conference entitled ‘Missionaries: aliens, providers, or fellow travellers?’ at All Nations Christian College, UK, 8–11 December 2019. 150 Jim Harries

Whereas real-life histories tend to parallel to that of God,3 Girard con- conceal what is nasty and cruel, writ- siders Satan to be strongly oriented ers of literature for whom attracting to encouraging people to satisfy their and holding an enthralled readership desire. Satan loves to convince people is more important than being politi- that ‘greed for whatever they desire’ cally correct can revel in it. will enable them to thrive and live Girard commonly uses the term contented happy lives.4 ‘scapegoat’, whereas a victim of public If people actually followed Satan’s disapproval is widely known in Africa guidance that involves satisfying as as a witch. In this article I use the lat- - ter term. man society would break down. Yet Contemporary scholarly writing Satan,many ofaccording one's desires to Girard, as possible, has come hu on Africa often ignores the promi- up with a mechanism to keep people nence of the Christian gospel on the convinced that satisfying their car- continent. Even those scholars who nal desires is the best way forward. recognize it struggle to express why Drawing on Matthew 12:26, Girard Christianity, a phenomenon long describes this mechanism as ‘Satan considered by Western academia to drives out Satan.’ be past its sell-by date, has been and Realizing our tendency to blame continues to be so enthusiastically others for our troubles and then to adopted by African people. Girard’s - writings give a very clear and highly sponsible for our misfortune suffers, pertinent explanation as to why this Girardrejoice explainsif someone how whom the demisewe hold of re a is happening. witch (i.e. scapegoat) brings a false, In this essay, I highlight Girard’s deceptive, yet convincing conviction amazing relevance to a proper un- to people that they are on the right derstanding of Africa by identifying track. After all, it is logical to think important ways in which Girard and that if so-and-so is causing my prob- Africa align. In each section, I dem- lem, and if so-and-so is killed, then my onstrate a key observation on human problem will end. The four gospels behaviour made by Girard; then I describe Jesus’ death for the people in make a connection to African life. this way. In each account, he is mur- Although for purposes of clarity I dered by a mob. Luke 23:13 tells us that the enmity between Herod and discovery was the other way around. I Pilate was dissipated as a result of the noticedbegin with interesting Girard, my things own about journey Afri of- death of Jesus. His death helped, even before his disciples had any wind of can life and only much later (in 2018) his resurrection, to restore a false discovered how pertinently Girard sense of peace and unity to these two speaks into those contexts. His in- men. sights have sharpened and helped me A false sense of peace, achievable to more effectively articulate my prior by the death of a witch, is used by understanding.

3 I See Satan Fall like Lightning I. The Identity of Satan (Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2001), 45. While denying him a real existence 4 René Girard,I See, 40.

Girard, A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 151

Satan to lead people to follow him well? Yet one may argue that the rather than God. Jesus blew this cover community in the story is more in- by rising from the dead. For Girard, clusive and harmonious than other the deception that someone’s death kinds of community.6 brings lasting peace and unity ‘cannot The fear of being lynched underlies 5 be revealed without Christ’. Once the Ubuntu, or the sense of shared com- deception is revealed, then true peace munity. It makes people ‘inclusive can come only through Christ. and harmonious’. The gospel is loved in Africa because it gives a way out of African Christianity, unlike in many this prison of fear into a potentially formsSatan of Western often has Christianity. a high profile Hence, in durable peace and unity, in which it can be hard for African people to grace and forgiveness are made foun- understand how the West can get by dational to life and God’s laws replace without witchcraft. They know that dread of the mob. Satan is widely keeping peace and unity in traditional known as the proponent of the old African communities requires the system, and God through Christ, who - willingly submitted to being mur- ing or even slaughtering of a witch. dered to save others from their sins, Theyperiodic realize, identification however, that of andthe peace chas is seen as providing a way out from it. and unity thus achieved are transient. They also realize the terror of this system—the danger that at any time II. How Satan Is against Satan a community can turn against and In human community, it is easy to proclaim the death sentence on one become suspicious that many differ- of its members. Kroesbergen, writing ent people are ‘against you’. Resolv- about Zambia, shared this account: ing one’s misfortune would then re- Once I asked a student to give an quire a kind of war of all against all.7 example of the great care for com- Part of the secret of Satan’s defence munity in Africa, and she told of his kingdom is that he manages about a shopkeeper who was sud- to get people to aggregate their sus- denly accused of being a witch. picions against a singular victim or Everybody in the village, even peo- group.8 This happened at Jesus’ cru- ple who never had had anything

together and, as one community, everybody,cifixion. Many9 came of to those that approvingposition only of theyto do lynched with this this shopkeeper, supposed joinedwitch. hisin the crucifixion, heat of the which moment. was Although basically Does this show a sense of commu- they might have had their suspicions nity? It is a very particular sense about all sorts of people, the mob’s of community. To me, it does not feel like a rosy kind of community. Should they not have included the 6 The Language of shopkeeper in the community as Faith in Southern Africa: Spirit World, Pow- er, Community, Hermen Kroesbergen, Holism (Cape Town: AOSIS, 2019), 176. 5 The One by Whom Scandal 7 I See, 8. Comes, trans. M. B. DeBevoise (East Lansing: 8 I See, 36. Michigan René Girard,State University Press, 2014), 60. 9 Girard, I See, 24–25. Girard, Girard, 152 Jim Harries reaction to Jesus drew them into its ours by a wide variety of people. The throes. Then, after the death of Christ, satisfaction derived from getting a they would have been more at peace victim, someone (evidently) unam- with others of whom they had been biguously opposed to the community, suspicious. In this way, by offering a can assuage their anger and subse- communal victim, Satan protects his quently restore relationships with domain from the very violence that others who may have been suspects. he himself creates.10 Once a lynching of this sort has begun, Girard explains that Satan was duped by the cross.11 Satan expected of expressing their anger; they know the murder of Jesus to have the out- othersthat acting may asquickly part of join a large in as moba means will come of every other witch hunt: peo- make them immune from subsequent ple would conclude that the peace conviction. and unity that arose after Jesus’ death proved that he really was guilty. When Jesus was found to be the sinless Son III. Identification with the of God who rose from the dead, that Victim blew Satan’s cover. From that point Despite being encouraged to ex- on, anyone familiar with what hap- plore what is unique about different pened to Jesus, and who believes samples of classic literature, Girard that he was resurrected and offers decided to explore what they had in eternal life, would realize the decep- common.12 He found the same theme tion underlying Satan’s trick of making people think that killing a witch that someone who had been victim- is the way to peace. Christians derive throughout:ized on the peoplebasis of feeling a very justified poorly a peace other than what the world grounded foundation of evidence gives (Jn 14:27) from the death and was actually guilty. ‘Girard’s most re- resurrection of Christ, which has ex- current example of myths is that of posed the mechanism that Satan had Oedipus.’13 Another example is the been using up to that time. ‘horrible miracle of Apollonius of A Kenyan colleague recently told Tyana’, in which the human victim, af- of being asked to plough a friend’s ter death, took the form of a Molosian dog.14 it is cool, my colleague sent his sons Having been raised as a Christian, field. Because oxen plough well when Girard felt that he knew a better way. moonlit night. His sons were attacked andwith almost cattle to killed the field by people at 4:00 who am onsus a- pected them of being cattle rustlers. It 12 Things Hidden since the seems that African people, when they Foundation of the World (London: Blooms- bury, René2016), Girard, 38. come across what they believe to be 13 a clear case of theft, unleash anger 2015)’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: that has arisen from the building up a Peer-Reviewed Gabriel Andrede, Academic ‘René Resource Girard, https:// (1923– of diverse suspicions of misdemean- www.iep.utm.edu/girard/#SH3d. 14 I See, 50. The fact that the victim turned into an animal presumably demon- 10 I See, 35. strated Girard, his having been other than a normal 11 I See, 150. human and thus clearly guilty. Girard, Girard, A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 153

Later he realized that one aspect of victim theme that is found through- the absolute uniqueness of the Bi- out the Bible. I believe this is one of ble, in relation to all non-biblical the mind-blowing themes that keep texts, arises from its identifying with African people attentive to Bible the victim. Time and time again, the teaching and preaching. It is amazing world’s myths and stories acquiesce to them that God has given a way out to the slaughtering of victims, consid- of the spiral of revenge, witch hunts ering the outcome of such slaughter and destruction under which they previously laboured. They constantly After the 2007 Kenyan election, re-emphasize this theme to maintain differentto be beneficial—except tribes blamed inone the another Bible. their stand against the alternative of for their ills. The old spirit of killing to hateful exclusion and killing. solve your problems returned. ‘Two months of bloodshed left over 1,000 dead and up to 500,000 internally dis- IV. The Role of Rituals placed persons in a country viewed Rituals, for Girard, are re-enactments as a bastion of economic and political of the killing of a witch and are in- stability in a volatile region.’15 Many— accurately, I believe—read this trag- (i.e. bringing peace and unity) that edy as an embarrassing lapse in faith thetended killing to originally recycle beneficial induced. 17 effects Peo- by Christians in Kenya. ple attend rituals to acquire relief Shamala, speaking of African com- from the rivalries caused by inappro- munities in Western Kenya, stated priate levels of mimetic desire18 or that ‘when an individual is absent envy, sometimes called ‘sin’.19 Should from a communal ceremony he or she … runs the risk of being suspected of wanting to destroy it’16 (i.e. being 17 considered a witch), which makes (Girard, Things, 19). Girard seems to be re- the person liable to lynching or ex- ferring ‘Rituals to all rituals. reproduce the mimetic crisis’ clusion. Many Westerners, including 18 even Western Christians, are amazed indicate that the desire to which he refers is a desire Girard to imitateuses the another. term ‘mimetic See James desire’ G. Wil to- at the spread of the gospel in Africa, liams, ‘Foreword’, in Girard, I See, x–xi. New- but they have an inadequate grasp ell says this even more strongly: mimetic of the penetrating nature of the pro- desire is ‘the surrender of one’s power to

Lloyd Newell, Desire in René Girard and Jesus 15 - (Lanham,choose the MD: objects Lexington of one’s Books, desire’. 2012), William 7. I ey, ‘Ballots to Bullets: Organised Political believe that the failure to identify desire as Violence Ben and Rawlence Kenya’s and Crisis Chris of Albin-Lack Govern- - ance’ (2008), https://www.hrw.org/ istic of the contemporary West, does not ex- report/2008/03/16/ballots-bullets/organ- tendmimetic, to African identified people, by Girardwho are as much character more ized-political-violence-and-kenyas-crisis- aware of how people desire possessions, governance. I was in Kenya at the time and capabilities, and even the desires of others. observed the process. 19 16 The Practice of Obuntu Girard calls ‘religion’, which is a means to Among the Abaluyia of Western Kenya: A Par- prevent Such people rituals from are killing at the each basis other of whatcom- adigm Lucas for Community Shamala, Building (Saabruecken, pletely. Christianity has clothed itself as a Germany: VDM Verlag, 2008), 135.

religion so that, like a Trojan horse, it can 154 Jim Harries rituals not work, then the problem is In the Luo tradition, if a woman not incorrect performance of the ritu- should walk out on her husband and al, but the failure of people attending then come back, a ritual including the slaughter of a sheep must be per- themselves. formed before she regains her normal theI ritualam constantly to have sufficiently amazed, in cleansed my day- status as a wife. The killing of that to-day life in Africa, by people’s love sheep substitutes for her own blood. for preachers. Once I was in a café In contrast, Jesus’ death on the cross where a news broadcast was on the both saves her from her own death television and no one seemed to no- and enables her to be forgiven with- tice it. When the programme changed to preaching, suddenly everyone was The faith in Christ that does away glued to the TV. without the the sacrificial dark tradition ritual. of fearful Amongst the rituals that remind us witch hunts also brings responsibility of and recycle the shed blood of sac- in its wake. Concluding that a witch is not responsible for someone’s pre- Christian preachers have a different dicament forces one to search for an rificerole from are theteachers. messages The latterof preachers. seek to alternative cause, what is in the West impart knowledge; preachers seek to known as ‘truth’. Such a notion of impart cleansing. In classic Pentecos- truth was not present in traditional tal preaching, they do this by enabling Africa.21 This is one reason why Chris- the congregation to enter emotionally tianity is so closely associated with into the Christ-event as guilty sinners, education in Africa: people are seek- thus encouraging repentance through ing wisdom on how to live together in their renewed acceptance of his death peace within the newfound freedom on our behalf. His having been cruci- given by God’s grace. - ing the next witch to be lynched. fied(Constant reduces fear the that risk non-complianceof their becom V. The Concealing of with a community would result in ‘Traditional’ Violence Myths explored by Girard often seem, debilitating to community function- on the surface, to outline a straight- one’sing that being its absence lynched has was come sufficiently to be forward overcoming of evil by good. associated with ‘prosperity’; hence a foundational underlying reason for The good is exaggerated, and what is the prosperity gospel’s prevalence in contrary is underplayed. According to Africa.)20 Girard, a careful reading reveals that this is a result of the universal practice of concealing violence that actu- 22 penetrate and demystify violence in other ally occurred. Healing, Girard sus- ‘religions’. See Gianni Vattimo and René Girard, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith. A Dialogue, ed. PierPaolo Antonello, rather an understatement. Kakwata, ‘Witch- trans. William McCuaig (New York: Columbia craft and Poverty in Africa: A Pastoral Per- University Press, 2010). spective’, Black Theology: An International 20 - Journal 16, no. 1 (2018), 22. sult of the oppressive forces of witchcraft’, 21 The Practice of Obuntu, 104. states ‘Certain Frederick people Kakwata, fall into in poverty what to as me a re is 22 The One, 31; Girard, I See, 68–69. Shamala, Girard, A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 155 pects, is traditionally always rooted in making the baby sick. Had God forgiven her, the baby might have survived. chasing of a witch. That the baby had to die to pay for the an Similarly,original sacrifice, I have long i.e. the been killing struck or mother’s sin was implicit but never by the difference between how my mentioned. African colleagues explain a series Ways in which African people can of events and how I would explain conceal the violence that underlies them. For example, healing can be their traditional ways of life became declared to have happened before it evident to me in 1992. During my is even symptomatic, presumably as time amongst the Kaonde people of a way of trying to avert a death that Zambia between 1988 and 1991, I would otherwise occur as a prereq- uisite for the healing. (Denying that how tensions in the local commu- Christian prayer has resulted in heal- becamenity were increasingly being resolved. mystified Although as to I ing can be tantamount to condemn- perceived that fear of witchcraft was ing a witch for bringing your malady. underlying these tensions, only when Hence, Christians must acknowledge I read an account of Kaonde beliefs healing by faith.) ‘Say you are healed written by an outsider, Melland, did I by faith, even if you don’t feel better’ grasp some details.24 In a subsequent is a common instruction to someone visit to Kaondeland, when I cau- being prayed for. The healing referred tiously probed these issues using the to here, however, is not so much bio- indigenous terms from the Kaonde logical healing, but a release from in- language that Melland had captured, ter-human tensions (which may well I regularly found people familiar with include the dead and those not yet them, and they always appeared a lit- born).23 tle embarrassed that such practices in Cases in which bloodshed was con- their community might be known by sidered necessary for healing may not outsiders. be described as such; the implicit action of killing is not made overt. For example, I recall an occasion when a VI. The Origin of Gods in boy born out of wedlock was sick. I Lynchings accompanied my African colleagues Girard claims to explain the origins of to pray for him, but I was surprised gods in popular mythology. For exam- when all attention and prayers were ple, drawing on the myth of Tiamat,25 focused on the mother. After drink- he suggests that the gods whom peo- ing tea together, we left. Later, I was told the baby was healed. Another day later, the baby had died. The fact 24 In Witch Bound Africa: An that our prayers were focused on the Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and mother made it clear that in my col- Their F. BeliefsH. Melland, (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, leagues’ understanding, her sin was 1923). 25 - mat and then uses her body to form the heav- 23 ens andAccording complete to this the myth, creation Marduk of the kills earth. Tia categories of emotional and physical heal- Joshua J. Mark, ‘Marduk’, Ancient History En- ing, whichI acknowledge are usually that treated I am here separately fusing the by cyclopedia (2016), https://www.ancient.eu/ Westerners but not by Africans. Marduk/. 156 Jim Harries ple draw on to sustain their lives rep- as a witch to become viewed as a resent the ongoing presence of witch- helpful ‘god’ after his or her death. es who were at one time lynched. Because these gods are born out of Those killed are accused of evil, yet the system of killing witches, faith the impact of their death is the bring- in ‘gods’ (miungu) is of a totally dif- ing of prosperity. As the community ferent order from the more recently members who had been responsible introduced alternative of faith in the - Christian God (Mwenyezi Mungu), lowing the act, they wonder whether who by allowing himself to be killed for the lynching perceive benefits fol- as a witch exposed the wiles of Satan, sulted if the one who died had been thus enabling true peace and unity.29 sucha mere benefits normal couldhuman. really They havebegin reto suspect that, to have that effect, the deceased must have been an excep- tional kind of human. This process VII. Violence Ubiquitous in leads to the acknowledgement, after Traditional Societies a lynching, that the departed has the The widespread practice of child status of a god, to whom people pray 30 runs in and who is named in future rituals so the face of contemporary romantic as to ensure their effectiveness.26 sacrificeunderstanding in archaic that culturesthey were inher- The fact that the Swahili term mi- ently peaceful and that violence has ungu can be used for ‘the people who been a product of modern times. The have died in a person’s clan’, i.e. de- ‘noble savage’ is now ‘mainstream’ 27 ceased ancestors, is pertinent here. in anthropology,31 Girard suggests. Miungu would normally be translated However, Girard cannot accept the into English as ‘gods’. Because the European romantic tradition.32 This singular, , implies an ancestor, mungu is itself a deep challenge to Western a translation of the Bible into Swahili scholarship, which likes to see vio- distinguishes between ‘god’ and ‘God’ lence as ‘accidental and … unforesee- by terming the latter as Mwenyezi Mungu.28 Gods (ancestors) are often able’ aberrations in human commu- considered malevolent in Africa, even if the person who has been trans- 29 The One, 55. Using the term as it formed into a god (the ancestor) was applies to Africa, I believe it is correct to say seen as good. that Girard,Jesus was accused of, and killed for, be- On this basis, I surmise, it would ing a witch (Girard, The One, 62). also be possible for a person lynched 30 Aeon, 2017, https://aeon.co/essays/the-roots-of- infanticide-run-deep-and-begin-with-pov Sandra Newman, ‘Infanticide’, - 26 - erty. ble, which comes from God; Girard, The One, 31 The One, 28. For Girard, anti-eth- 59. This is in contrast to the divine in the Bi nocentrism which refuses to use the label of 27 A Fifth Gospel: The Girard, Experience of Black Christian Values (Maryk- modern age’. René Girard, ‘Ethnocentrism’ noll, NY: Joseph Orbis, G. 1981), Healey, 146. (1992),primitive address ‘is the deliveredmost specific at the feature Colloquium of the 28 Biblia: Habari Njema on Violence and Religion, Stanford Univer- Kwa Watu Wote (Nairobi: Vyama vya Biblia sity, cornerstone-forum.org/?page_id=915.. Tanzania Vyama na vyaKenya, Biblia, 1995). 32 Things, 279, 303.

Girard, A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 157 nal living.33 For Girard, ‘non-violence thought that was not born out of [a] is [always] Christian.’34 founding murder.’37 Civilizations, in- This issue is still alive in Africa. cluding ancient Rome, were founded ‘There are many reasons [why many] in this way.38 The Bible is, for Girard, children are being accused of witch- replete with examples of founding craft in Nigeria’, claims Safechildafri- ca.35 Revelations of such accusations was founded by Cain after his murder have recently caused horror around murders.of Abel (Gen For 4:17). example, the first city the world. Underlying the notion that ‘Alfayo Odongo Mango’s memory a child may be a witch is the idea that killing or chasing away that child without doubt is the cornerstone of might be a means of solving problems became… dini ya sanctified Roho’ and his martyrdom- that people think the child is causing. tian denomination, founded in Kenya I do perceive a very different under- in 1934).39 This (achurch flourishing spread Chris after standing of children in Africa from the murder of twelve of its founders. that widely held in the West. Though I have frequently heard this story re- much loved, children can also be held counted in worship services at these at arm’s length in ways relatively un- - familiar in the West. mitment to the founding role of mur- Unlike the Western legal notion churches,der in human reflecting institutions. their ownGiven com this that someone is innocent unless prov- background, the link between Jesus’ en guilty, there is a strong tendency in Africa to treat people as guilty unless his name is profoundly experienced they prove their innocence.36 This un- crucifixionby African Christians.and believers’ salvation in derlies a preoccupation with cleansing and the assumption that people are thinking evil things about oth- IX. Mimetic Desire and Envy ers—for example, that they are har- For Girard, human beings are imitat- bouring envy. ing creatures who desire what others have. To distinguish what he means by desire from others’ more limited VIII. Human Civilizations Are understanding of the term, Girard Founded on Murder refers to mimetic desire. According to For Girard, ‘there is no human Girard, people do not so much desire things of themselves as they desire experiences, or even the desire itself, 33 I See, 11. that other people have. Something 34 The One, 93. 35 Girard, witchcraft?’ Girard, asks Safechildafrica, in ‘Defend- 37 Things, 113. ing Rights, ‘How Creating many children Futures’ are(2009), accused http:// of 38 www.safechildafrica.org/childwitches. ‘The Ancient Girard, History Encyclopedia (2018), https:// answer is that no one really knows, because www.ancient.eu/Romulus_and_Remus/. Brittany Garcia, ‘Romulus and Remus’, no one is counting.’ (I have not come across 39 - the identifying of children as witches in parts ongo Mango 1870–1934’, in Ogot, Re-intro- of Africa known to me.) ducing Bethwell Man into A. Ogot,the African ‘Reverend World: Alfayo Selected Od 36 The Language of Faith, Essays 1961–1980 (Kisumu: Anyange Press, 215. 1999), 128. Kroesbergen, 158 Jim Harries is desirable if someone else has it or This envy resembles Girard’s mimetic desire, and the foundational role of wife more desirable should he discov- envy in African society reinforces Gi- erwants that it.other A man men might are trying well findto take his rard’s observation that mimetic de- her from him.40 Parents often observe sire is at the root of the problems of young children leaving a pile of toys human living.44 lying on one side while desiring to ‘I do not need to be paid, I will do play with whatever toy another child this voluntarily’, African people have is using. If Girard is correct, then the occasionally assured me regarding their participation in a Bible teach- are constantly formed by their imita- ing programme. On every occasion, tiondesires of whatthat people others seek around to fulfil them in arelife that turned out to be a strategy to get desiring; ‘We always borrow [desire] inside the operations, on the assump- from others’, he says.41 - Many descriptions of African life, nancially. Subsequently, they mocked including those by Melland, Evans- metion for that having they thought would thenthat they benefit could fi Pritchard and later Mbiti,42 or would work for nothing! In Africa, witchcraft to be prominent. Choosing it seems that people’s propensity for English terms to translate African findcat- envy prevents true volunteerism.45 of the term ‘witchcraft’ has had the effect,egories as is alwaysfar as Westerndifficult. Thispeople choice are X. Rivalry Is Greatest between concerned, of ‘othering’ what is Afri- Those Who Are Closest can, into a category which Westerners did away with centuries ago, so that a ‘levelling’ effect on human popula- African people should ‘stop believing tions.Girard Contrary finds that to modern mimetic perceptions desire has in such superstitious nonsense’. My that individuals seek to satisfy their own experience of Africa has led to particular longings independently the conclusion that the powerhouse of what others have and do, if the behind so-called witchcraft is envy.43 model one imitates is always another person, then that imitation tends towards making one the same as that 40 I See, 10. person. Tensions between Cain and 41 The One, 7. Girard, Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his 42 In Witch-Bound Africa; E. E. Ev- brothers, and others recounted in the ans-Pritchard, Girard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among Melland, the Azande (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Bible and mythological accounts illus- 1976); John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African trate frequently how proximity gen- Religion, 2nd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland erates division and even violence as a Press, 1991), 19. Mbiti is at pains to point out that African religion isn’t all about magic, although witchcraft is clearly a prominent part 44 of it. The One, 129). 43 - 45 ‘Mimeticism isAfrican … pride, Friends anger and … envy,Mon- ment, and Christian Mission in Africa’, Mis- jealousy’,ey Matters: Girard Observations concedes from ( Africa (Dallas: siology: Jim AnHarries, International ‘Witchcraft, Review Envy, 40, Develop no. 2 SIL International, David Maranz, 2001), articulates numer- (2012), 201. I wrote this long before I came ous ways in which as a result friendship in across Girard. Africa is integrally linked to money. A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 159 result of rivalry.46 Girard explains how and unity. As a result, pagan cultures are also a source of abhorrence for the ‘obliteration of difference’ that oc- Christians, who know of a better whencurs is people tragic. 47desire For example, the same brothers object, way—i.e. peace and unity as an out- both desiring the same woman will, come of faith in Christ. as they seek to satisfy her, become Many African people today seem more similar to each other. very much aware of ways in which The resulting fear of ‘sameness’ traditional and pagan communities underlies strong taboos in many Af- maintain themselves through margin- 48 rican communities regarding twins. alizing and killing victims. This belief, These rules are intended to avoid set- which draws on the deep human de- ting up twins for violent clashes, as sire to see someone else suffer so that ‘primitive societies repress mimetic one can acquire prosperity, requires deep heartfelt faith in God to over- that might provoke it.’49 come it. Only such faith in God, an conflictIn this … instance, by prohibiting Girard, everythingthough he overt allegiance that seems to be de- had no personal experience of Africa, clining in the modern West, can coun- drew heavily on his reading of African societies.50 The presence of twin-re- ter the evil powerhouse of envy (for lated taboos amongst the Luo in Ken- Girard, mimetic desire) that easily en- ya is carefully articulated by Mboya.51 gulfs human hearts. This is the basis for much prayer in Africa, as believers battle in what might be termed the XI. The Identity of the ephemeral realm. ‘Powers’ There has been much discussion XII. Knowledge of Pagan about identity of the ‘powers’ described by Paul (Rom 8:38; Col 2:15). Myths Is Not Damaging to For Girard, the powers are rulers who Faith in Christ seek to apply the only pre-Christian Anthropologist James George Frazer, way of building a civilization: killing in his 1890 work The Golden Bough,52 or expelling people to maintain peace suggested that because other myths have stories of a ‘dying God’ that parallel Christ’s death on the cross, bibli- 25. Rivalry, for Girard, is 46 Things, cal stories are no different from other Girard, Girard, ‘Victims, Violence and Christianity’ myths. Girard radically counters this (editedthe main version source of of the human Martin conflict; D’Arcy see Lecture, René claim, contending that Frazer’s mo- Oxford, November 1997), The Month (April tivation for condemning the archaic 1998): 132. practice of accusing witches who 47 The One, 15; Girard, Things, 199. were then resurrected was to also 48 I See, 12. condemn, by implication, Christianity 49 Girard, Things, 16. 50 Girard, I See, 12. 51 Girard, Luo Kitgi gi Timbegi np 52 The Golden Bough: (1938; Girard, Nairobi: East African Standard Ltd. A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged from 1984; Paul Kisumu: Mboya, Anyange Press, 1997), 112– the 2ndJames and George 3rd editions, Frazer, ed. Robert Fraser 19. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 160 Jim Harries as no different.53 For Girard, knowl- phenomenal difference that Christ’s edge of myths will not threaten Chris- tians’ faith, if they recognize founda- both inside and outside church ser- tional differences in the Gospel, such sacrificevices, African made. Christian Time and believers time again, tes- as its orientation to favouring victims. tify to me that they are committed to The parallel in Africa today is that not going the route of the waganga African people’s close knowledge of (a term often translated into English their traditions is more likely to act as as ‘witch doctor’.) Waganga seek to an encouragement than a discourage- manipulate the power arising from ment to their becoming Christian. deaths of animals and people in favour of their clients. Such profuse denial of a route that many seem to still XIII. The ‘Rationality’ of the be following (seeking advice from Cross waganga) speaks volumes about the Girard explains with remarkable clar- ongoing attractiveness of witchcraft ity how Jesus’ death on the cross, by to those not convinced by the Gospel. which he avoided ‘participating in That the work of witch doctors en- the system of [witches]’,54 can save tails using the power released from men from their sins—without, in killing to bring healing is further his terms, reference to the need for demonstrated by the frequency with supernatural intervention.55 Only at which they demand animals to kill so the end of his perhaps most readable as to perform their craft. In addition, the maiming, chasing or killing of as- text, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, sumed protagonists of someone’s does Girard concede that the real- misfortune is almost constantly their ity he has met with is beyond human aim. understanding.56 Girard considers the redemptive value of the shed blood of Christ as very understandable yet at odds with much modern think- XIV. The Reality of the ing, which has set aside any redemp- Resurrection tive role for shed blood.57 For Girard, Girard considers the resurrection of Christ’s death on the cross duped Sa- Jesus to be ‘real’.59 Some might say tan, exposing his machinations and - enabling people who were previously ture60 of his investigation comes to deceived to overcome them.58 anthat end. this Girard is where himself the sees scientific the resur na- African people’s implicit appre- rection as marking the end of mythol- ciation of death as a means of healing ogy; once one has been exposed to the gives them a deep perception of the Gospel, it is impossible to believe the myth that the death of a witch will result in healing. 53 The One, 22. In the West, the resurrection of the 54 The One, 54. dead is often considered to require a 55 Girard, I See, 192. suspension of the rules of nature. Na- 56 Girard, I See, 193. 57 Girard, - es the Girard, role of religion’ (Girard, Things, 66). 59 I See, 136. 58 ‘In everyI See,instance 125. modern man minimis 60 I See, 141. Girard, Girard, Girard, A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 161 ture, so the logic goes, requires that 62 It death be permanent. In non-dualist also has many healthy implications Africa, nature and super-nature are forno purelythe whole objective life of knowledge.’African people, hardly distinct. The notion of the on- including their theology, ecclesiology going existence of a person who no and church practice. I am reminded of the graduation easy for African people to accept. Res- speech I once heard at the Kima Inter- urrectionlonger enjoys may bodilybe seen life as is incredible, relatively national School of Theology in Kenya. but not impossible. The African speaker denounced Many African people realize that the ‘gy’s’ (i.e. sociology, psychology, the Gospel has massive implications anthropology) on behalf of the lo- for their traditional beliefs in witch- cal context. He seemed to have an- craft. They are endeavouring to re- ticipated my subsequent discovery spond to that truth in a myriad of of Girard. ways. The frequency with which even Girard’s critique of modernism, small private schools in my home area coming as it does from outside the of Kenya are labelled ‘Christian’ dem- Western worldview, could help West- onstrates an awareness that events erners understand how they are per- central to the Gospel are responsible ceived by non-modern people such for today’s value of truth and knowl- as those in Africa. Although some of edge. Girard’s thinking was new, I think that to a large extent he was taking us back to what was before. He represents the XV. Conclusion: Girard’s school of comparative theology that was very active—and very strongly Challenge to Contemporary supportive of Christianity—until, as Scholarship Tomoko Masuzawa explains, it was The comprehensiveness of Girard’s without good reason discredited in thought has challenged contemporary the West: 61 scholarship, and he received much It seems to us today rather remark- opposition from people who sup- able that so many nineteenth-cen- port the status quo. Girard’s thinking tury authors of varying attitudes challenges the cohesiveness of many toward non-Christian religions modern disciplines, such as psychol- claimed—or, for the most part as- ogy, sociology, anthropology, psychia- sumed—that their enterprise of try, and certain branches of contem- comparing religions without bias porary theology: ‘If the social sciences was not only compatible with but were to be Christianised, they would in fact perfectly complementary to no longer be social sciences. They their own proudly unshakable con- would lead to an impossibility. There

62 The One, 72. He also stated, ‘Hu- is no way out from sacrifice. There is 61 Battling Girard, to the End: Conversation with Benoît collapse whenever what we have said con- Chantremanity , results trans. fromMary sacrifice.’Baker (East René Lansing: Girard, ‘All modes of contemporary thought will- Michigan State University Press, 2010), Kin- stood’ (Girard, Things, 54). dle edition. cerning the king and the god is finally under 162 Jim Harries

viction in the supremacy of Christi- the beginning of the colonial era, has anity. Nowadays we generally dis- come increasingly under attack. The credit this claim as naive at best, dominance of European languages disingenuous at worst. We hold on the continent has made it very dif- in disbelief the seriousness with which some of those comparativ- themselves clearly in formal contexts. ists with strong dogmatic views Taboosficult for on African racism peoplein the toWest express have pronounced that their surveys of making it impossible to express one- principle but in actuality—‘fair’, selfadded honestly to this about difficulty, the nature effectively and ‘sympathetic’,other religions and were—not ‘impartial’. just And in distinctiveness of contemporary Af- rican cultures. As a result, from the of taking these pronouncements perspective of the West, African ways seriously,since we findthere ourselves is little incapableincentive of life remain shrouded in mystery. today to reexamine the nineteenth- - century reasoning that might have cially and in other ways from a close made it feasible for those authors relationshipAfricans who with have the benefitted West (which finan is to advance such an argument in almost all prominent African people) earnest. But this may be our loss. have had to deny their own identities Surely our thorough lack of inter- and histories. Given his long devotion est in their logic is ultimately to the to extensive research that led him to detriment of our own historical advocate for radically unconventional understanding.63 paradigms, Girard’s legitimizing in I am not insisting that we need to Western thought of something that is agree with everything Girard says. far from Western64 offers a possible But by stepping outside recently way out of this impasse. dominant Western philosophical pre- The future development of African suppositions, Girard gives us insights societies and of the competence of that could be extremely helpful to our African people will be hindered by a understanding of Africa, and thus to continuing dependence on Western our relating to African people inside aid. Girard’s thinking offers a possible and outside the church. It is rare to foundation for scholarship, theology and Christian understanding that can who can operate outside dualistic be understood indigenously without foundationsfind a contemporary (i.e. denying Western the sacred-scholar secular distinction), yet be truly biblical and truly logical. This is where I 64 - believe Girard’s scholarship has great cult forMany them African to express people’s themselves lack of depthin a way in potential value. thatunderstanding is critical of the but West that alsomakes makes it very sense diffi to African self-understanding, since contemporary academia. Girard’s deep roots in Europe enabled him to maintain academic prominence despite his detractors. The fact 63 The Invention of that thinking comes from a Westerner, in World Religions: How European Universalism today’s world, legitimizes it. Murphy Hal- Was Preserved Tomoko Masuzawa,in the Language of Pluralism liburton, ‘Gandhi or Gramsci? The Use of (London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), Authoritative Sources in Anthropology’, An- 103–4. thropological Quarterly 77, no. 4 (2004): 794. A Foundation for African Theology That Bypasses the West 163

Western domination. At the moment, If you have been enticed to learn the only globally visible ‘way forward’ more about Girard, one good place to seems to be that everyone must be- start would be his 2001 publication come modern, Western and liberal. with the English title I See Satan Fall Girard’s thinking opens another door Like Lightning. If you prefer listening of possibility, to a unifying, comprehensive, intercultural union based on Kennedy (referenced in note 2 above) the grace of God in Jesus Christ. overare highly reading, useful. five broadcasts by Paul ERT (2020) 44:2, 164-174 The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Problem of Corruption in Malawi

Godwins Lwinga

Corruption in Malawi, in various sponsibility. Today, corruption is high forms, has become a curse, plague, because there are no strict tools to ‘cancer’ and the ‘AIDS of democracy’.1 regulate people’s morality. Malawians It is a scourge that ‘pervert[s] seem to have lost a sense of personal integrity’.2 To many, this situation responsibility.3 stands in stark contrast to the one- The prevailing form of corruption party state era before Malawi became a multi-party democracy in 1994. For in nature. Many scholars have argued example, Malawian commentator inthat contemporary the one-party Malawi system is in financial Malawi Rudo Tariro has stated that the one- was corrupt as well, because those party state did not tolerate nonsense in power committed atrocities. I do but encouraged hard work and re- not mean to exonerate Malawi’s one- party regime while vilifying the era of multi-party, democratic governance. Nor do I deny that corruption can be- 1 - come ‘an integrated part of the totali- velopment in Africa’, in Kempe Ronald Hope tarian domination’.4 However, there and Kempe B. C. Chikulo Ronald (eds.),Hope, ‘CorruptionCorruption and De- velopment in Africa (London: Palgrave Mac- is no evidence that the prior regime millan, 2000), 17. - 2 African Christian Ethics (Nairobi: Hippo Books, 2008), 165. I was also corrupt financially. The cur Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, - 3 cation’. This is a wider usage than the com- define ‘corruption’ broadly as ‘abuse of vo Binguism Rudo Tariro,to Save ‘Dzukathe Nation’, Malawi: Nyasa We Times Need, power for private gain’ generally applied by 8Kamuzuism, February 2016, a Bit https://www.nyasatimes. of Magufulification and suchmon definitionorganizations as ‘abuse as Transparency of public office Inter or- com/dzuka-malawi-we-need-kamuzuism- national, the International Monetary Fund abit-of-magufuli-and-binguism-to-save-nation/. 4 - and the World Bank. Their definition seems- ruption: Moral and Political Perspectives’, tionto target also onlyoccurs those amongst who havepeople been who officially do not Organization Jacob Dahl Rendtorff,and Management ‘The Concept 139, ofno. Cor 1 holdappointed government to public employment. office, whereas corrup (2010): 125.

Godwins Lwinga (MA, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit; MA, Mzuzu University) is a lecturer in Systematic Theology at Mzuzu University, Malawi and a PhD student at Evangelische Theologische Faculteit (EFT), Leuven, Belgium. He has over ten years of experience in Christian radio broadcasting. He wishes to thank his advisor, Steven van den Heuvel, for his invaluable comments on Bonhoeffer’s theology. The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 165 rent anti-corruption initiatives fail At the end of the British colonialist because they are mostly reactive and era in the late 1950s, Malawi became prosecutorial. a multi-party, democratic state. How- This article suggests proactive ap- ever, in 1964 the country reverted to proaches to corruption, and it calls one-party status and was ruled for the on the church to develop a robust next thirty years by President Hast- conception of responsibility for its ings Kamuzu Banda, an American- members. Although addressing cor- and Scottish-trained surgeon. Banda ruption should be a matter of concern emphasized ‘four cornerstones’ as for Christians anywhere, it should es- values for Malawi: unity, loyalty, obe- pecially be an ecclesiastical priority dience and discipline.8 After Banda’s rule ended, many church in Malawian society. Bonhoef- relics of Kamuzuism (the popular fer’sin Malawi, ethics givenof Stellvertretung the influence (orof thevi- term for Banda’s ideology), including carious, responsible action) can equip the ‘four cornerstones’, were removed Christians in Malawi and elsewhere from the public sphere.9 Some groups to address public corruption. have been less than enthusiastic about the transition. The Episcopal Confer- ence of Malawi, composed of Roman I. A Contrast between Two Catholic bishops, has described Ma- Political Eras Our world is a complex one with various challenges, which are often lawi’s democratization project (from described by means of the anagram nesburg: OSISA, 2017), 132. See also Thomas VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex Schirrmacher and David Schirrmacher, Cor- and Ambiguous).5 In this VUCA world, ruption: When Self-Interest Comes Before the corruption is a prominent vice, com- Common Good, ed. and rev. Thomas K. John- son, trans. Richard McClary (Bonn: Culture and Science Publishing, 2019), 22, 23; Kun- 6 with. Modern Malawi’s chronic cor- hiyop, African Christian Ethics, 164–73. 7 plex in nature and difficult to deal 8 Political Life: Malignant Loyalty—But No ruption fits the VUCA description. Regrets!’ Gwanda ed. Chakuamba,Felix Lombe (Lilongwe: ‘A Memoir Babeya of My 5 Publishers, 2016), 14–15. Jordaan, ‘The Metanarraphors We Lead and 9 - Mediate See By: Jacobus Insight (Kobus) from Cognitive Kok and Metaphor Barney dent for life, father and founder of the Malawi Theory in the Context of Mediation in a VUCA nation, ‘Kamuzuism’ and the fount described of unparalleled Banda as knowl presi- World’, in Jacobus (Kobus) Kok and Steven C. edge and wisdom for all people in Malawi. van den Heuvel, Leading in a VUCA World: In- See Reuben Chirambo, ‘Operation Bwezani’: tegrating Leadership, Discernment and Spir- The Army, Political Change, and Dr. Banda’s ituality (Cham: Springer, 2019), 1. Hegemony in Malawi’, Nordic Journal of Afri- 6 can Studies 13, no. 2 (2004): 148. Whether ‘The Complexity of Corruption: Nature and these claims are interpreted seriously or not, Ethical Reyes Suggestions’, C. Cuadrado Working and Jose Paper L. A.05/06, Arce, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empre- Christian ethics, which holds that mortals do sariales, Universidad de Navarra, 2014, 2. notthe ideologyhave unparalleled of Kamuzuism knowledge. does not Being fit into‘all- 7 - knowing’ is an attribute of God alone, but he rica (OSISA), Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption desires that mortals should have the wisdom Agencies Open in Society Southern Initiative Africa: forA Review Southern (Johan- Af to know him. 166 Godwins Lwinga the early 1990s to the present) as ‘a party, democratic era’.12 When he dis- change without transformation and a cusses the extent of corruption fol- democracy without democrats’.10 This lowing 1994, he cites numerous scan- view characterizes the apparent shal- dals as evidence that corruption has lowness of the democratic reforms, as indeed accelerated. Englund agrees evidenced by the failure of Malawi’s with Jere on this point.13 Further- leaders to be accountable and trans- more, Patrick Mogha (an Anti-Cor- parent. Harri Englund, a research fellow the implementation of decentraliza- at the Institute for Asian and African tionruption in Malawi Bureau during official) the multi-party, argues that Studies in Helsinki, Finland, argues democratic era ‘has opened new win- that in dispensing with the public val- dows for corruption opportunities’.14 ues articulated by the Banda regime, When the one-party state began Malawi made room for a lawless to govern in 1964, its ‘four corner- society. In direct opposition to the stones’ were put in place primarily to ‘four cornerstones’, cases of disunity, govern Banda’s Malawi Congress Par- disloyalty, disobedience and indisci- ty (MCP). Since there was no separa- tion between party and government became the order of the day.11 The business—or between church and plinedominant (reflected narrative in corrupt of the multi-parpractices)- state—eventually these cornerstones ty, democratic era emphasizes the became the foundation for govern- political atrocities that the one-party ment and the church as well.15 Until state committed, but even critics acknowledge that new problems have 12 Jere (a Malawian pastor, systematic Anti-corruption: An Assessment of the CCAP Livingstonia Qeko Jere, Synod ‘Public in RoleMalawi of thefrom Church a in theologian,arisen since 1994.lecturer For andexample, currently Qeko Keno- sis Perspective’, Verbum et Ecclesia 39, no. 1 post-doctoral researcher at North- (2018): 2. West University, South Africa) states 13 Democracy, 47 states that the ‘incidence of crime increased sharply’ in the continued to spread during the multi- multi-party Englund, era. that ‘corruption was amplified … and 14 between Decentralization and Corruption: 10 The PatrickCase of Mogha,Malawi’ ‘Assessment (Master’s thesis, of the NexusInter- (ECM), ‘Pastoral Letter’ (Lilongwe, 2013), national Anti-Corruption Academy, Laxen- www.ecmmw.org/new/wp-content/up Episcopal Conference of Malawi- burg, Austria, 2009), iv. loads/2013/12/PASTORAL-LETTER-Eng- 15 lish-No22.pdf, 7. Constitution of the Malawi Congress Party: 11 Rules Malawiand Regulations’ Congress (Blantyre: Party (MCP), Blantyre ‘The Print and Packaging, 1971), 27. The church, characterized Englund by has a statedhigh work that ethic, the ethical,under especially the Church of Central Africa Pres- thediligent, one-party obedient state and has loyal been public replaced officer, by byterian (CCAP), which is the country’s larg- est Presbyterian denomination, aligned itself state, who is more ‘business-minded’ than with the one-party state, putting itself in a anythingthe cunning else. public See Harri officer Englund of the multi-party(ed.), A De- mocracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture was a CCAP elder. See Kenneth R. Ross, ‘The in the New Malawi (Blantyre: CLAIM-Kach- Transitiondifficult position of Power to speakin Malawi against 1992–1994: it. Banda ere, 2001), 19, 46. The Role of the Christian Churches’, in God, The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 167

1994, the cornerstones effectively in- trast, many sectors today, especially the civil service, are riddled with ‘high default, every adult Malawian was a levels of corruption’,21 despite the fluencedmember allof thesectors party. of16 society, since by were expected to operate within the international anti-corruption proto- framework of the ‘four Publiccornerstones’ officers colscountry’s22 and ratificationthe enactment of a ofnumber national of and crime, especially in forms related anti-corruption frameworks such as to corruption, was unknown.17 Gov- the Corrupt Practices Act (CPA, 1995), ernment ‘exercised strict control over Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), and the civil service’.18 For this reason, National Anti-Corruption Strategy - (NACS). In 2018, the country ranked cient and effective, since civil servants thirty-second globally on Transparen- governmentexhibited a work service ethic delivery characterized was effi cy International’s Corruption Percep- by discipline and allegiance to their tion Index, indicating a high degree of vocation.19 corruption.23 Why should corruption have proliferated in Malawi’s multi- party, democratic era amidst a num- II. The Failure of Anti- ber of anti-corruption laws and initia- Corruption Initiatives tives? Several responses can be given. Gerhard Anders mentions that in his First, in 1994, as the country was research on Malawi, nearly no one he returning to multi-party governance, interviewed indicated any awareness the process lacked clear ethical struc- of corruption before 1994.20 In con- tures upon which to build a democratic state. The new leaders’ main agenda was to abolish anything that People and Power in Malawi: Democratiza- - tion in Theological Perspective (Mzuzu: Luviri ophy of governance. Accordingly, as Prints, 2018), 19–20. soonreflected as the the past—includingone-party state’s Banda’s philos 16 ‘four cornerstones’—was removed considered MCP, ‘Constitution’, fundamental 7. to A national mandatory develop party- from the public domain, evidence of mentcard system and security. was used for identification and bad governance and irresponsibility 24 17 Democracy, 12, 47. emerged. 18 Democracy, 45. 19 Englund, Conversations with Kamu- zu: The Englund, Life and Times of Dr. H. Kamuzu Ban- was seriously enforced to deter people from da, part Donal 1-11 Brody, (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer- wanton accumulation of wealth. sity Libraries, 2000), https://searchworks. 21 Democracy, 47. stanford.edu/view/4384086, 31; Englund, 22 - Democracy, 47. tions Englund, Convention against Corruption (UN- 20 CAC), These the African protocols Union include Convention the United on PreNa- Servants and Corruption in Malawi’, Bulletin venting Corruption and the Southern African de I’APAD Gerhard 23, Anders,no. 24 (2002): ‘Like Chameleons: 5. On this point, Civil Development Community Protocol against I am aware of the psychological mechanism Corruption. of ‘nostalgia’: people tend to remember and 23 Corruption adore the past especially if the present fails Perception Index 2018 (Berlin: Transparency International, Transparency 2019), International, www.transparency. one-party state, the only known anti-cor- org/cpi, 6. ruptionto fulfil tool their was high the expectations. Forfeiture Act During (1966). the It 24 Democracy, 19, 26, 46, 47; John

Englund, 168 Godwins Lwinga

In this ethical vacuum, weaknesses rial decisions in government-related in the government’s service delivery corruption cases.28 system became evident. The Episco- Third, the considerable rhetoric pal Conference of Malawi refers to expressed from political podiums ‘continued and systematic abuse and regarding corruption may actually be counter-productive.29 Most of the anti-corruption initiatives have been - heavily publicized by politicians. looting of public resources25 for selfish riment of national good’. The Open Since they are state-driven and state- party and personal benefit to the det Society Initiative for Southern Africa controlled, they are widely seen as (OSISA) describes the emergence of only tools for the political witch-hunt- ‘new corrupt elites that undermined ing of opponents. The anti-corruption democratic accountability and the initiatives have focused much on 26 meting out sanctions and not on the Second, Martin Ott, Kings Phiri source of corruption. Similarly, the andfight Nandiniagainst corruption’. Patel suggest that the ACB tends to treat the wound rather anti-corruption initiatives are fail- than the cause of the wound; meaning because of the ACB’s lack of empowerment to deal with corruption frequently act with impunity due to awhile, lack Malawianof commitment government at the officials high- as a way of life.27 Their observation est political level to punish ethical violations.30 This trend renders anti- when corruption becomes intricately corruption initiatives incidental and is significant here, in the sense that embedded in the cultural systems of causes them to stagnate.31 the people, it may not be easily over- Fourth, the ACB has failed to edu- come by textbook-based legal sys- cate Malawi’s people on all matters tems. Furthermore, the law that the of corruption, so people are generally ACB is empowered to apply has failed unaware of the anti-corruption laws to function effectively, due to the gov- and of public responsibilities under ernment’s vetoes of some prosecuto- these laws. On paper, the laws are clear, but we are dealing with a society where the literacy rate is still high Lwanda, Politics, Culture and Medicine in Malawi: Historical Continuities and Ruptures with Special Reference to HIV/AIDS (Zomba: 28 Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption, Kachere, 2005), 138–40; Z. Allan Ntata, Li- 3; Englund, Democracy, 46–47; Roberto Mar- cense to Loot: A Report on the Cashgate Cor- tinez OSISA,B. Kukutschka, Overview of Corruption ruption Scandal in Malawi (London: Middle in Malawi: Country Report—Malawi 2014 Temple, 2013), 1–67. (Berlin: Transparency International, 2014), 25 3. 26 - 29 rica, ECM,Effectiveness ‘Pastoral of Letter’, Anti-Corruption 8. Agencies Hybrid Administrative System and Public in Southern Open Society Africa: Initiative A Review for (Johannesburg: Southern Af Sector Lewis Reforms B. Dzimbiri, in Africa: ‘Cultural The Case Change, of Anti- the OSISA, 2017), 3. corruption Measures in Malawi’, African An- 27 thropologist 16, nos. 1 & 2 (2009): 56. Patel (eds.), Malawi’s Second Democratic 30 Elections: Martin Process, Ott, Kings Problems M. Phiri and andProspects Nandi 31 Democracy, 46; Jere, ‘Public (Zomba: Kachere, 2000), 17. Role Dzimbiri,of the Church’, ‘Cultural 2. Change’, 60. Englund, The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 169 and media coverage of government been better placed than any other activities is relatively limited. This de- institution to develop and promote feats NACS theory that public involve- proactive approaches that inculcate ment is the bedrock for supporting fundamental moral responsibility.35 anti-corruption drives.32 The church can use its resources to Effective public involvement re- equip people to function as salt and quires citizens’ willingness to report light in our VUCA world. The ethic of (through whistle-blowing) cases of responsibility advanced by Christian- corruption that they experience or ity should promote virtuous charac- witness. However, for this process ter and moral goodness among the to work, two conditions are neces- people. sary: an environment in which people feel it is safe for them to report corruption, and general knowledge III. Applying Bonhoeffer’s of anti-corruption laws. At the moment, neither of these two conditions Stellvertretung to Corruption The aim of any anti-corruption initia- are afraid to ‘blow the whistle’ due to tive should be to transform people’s concernsis fulfilled for in retaliation Malawi. Many or other people se- minds and hearts. From an ethical vere repercussions. perspective, committing a crime is Fifth, there is no systematic, de- inherently dependent on the condi- tailed theological discourse on cor- tion of the mind and heart, and it is ruption. Kenneth Ross observes that from the mind that the heart’s desires the church actually distanced itself 36 Jacob Dahl Rendtorff writes, from the political process after the ‘Any society that has a background 1993 referendum in which Malawians mentalityflow. and morality of individu- approved the re-introduction of multi- als based on a healthy skepticism to- party democracy.33 As a member of the Presbyterian Church, I have never … as well as proud refusal of being heard a sermon on corruption. Yet boughtwards bribery for social and services, a sense willof justice have the church has one of the most pre- the foundations for avoidance of cious resources available to address corruption: a large and faithful following.34 Historically, the church has tries/malawi-population/. 35 128. 32 36 Rendtorff, ‘The Concept of Corruption’,- Malawi Losing the Battle against ‘Cashgate’?” ogy, according to which ‘heart’ refers to ‘the Afro JosephBarometer J. Chunga Dispatch and 149 Jacob (2017): Mazalale, 5. “Is center Here of theI borrow person, Patrick the mind, Nullens’ will, terminol emotion, 33 conscience; the seat of all our emotional June 1993, Malawian approved multi-party and intellectual life’. See Patrick Nullens, Ross, ‘Transition of Power’, 39. On 14- ‘The Sentiments of the Heart and Protestant Ethics: A Constructive Dialogue between 1994.democracy in a referendum. The first demo Paul Ramsey and Max Scheler’, in Steven C. 34cratically elected president took office in van den Heuvel, Patrick Nullens and Angela Christian, 25 percent Muslim, and 7 percent Roothaan, Theological Ethics and Moral Value other Malawifaiths. See is approximately‘Malawi Population 68 percent 2019’, Phenomena: The Experience of Values (Abing- http://worldpopulationreview.com/coun- don, UK: Routledge, 2018), 33. 170 Godwins Lwinga corruption’.37 widely read and studied on both aca- Based on this understanding, we demic and non-academic levels since should pursue proactive strategies his death in a concentration camp that aim at changing the condition of shortly before the defeat of Nazi Ger- the mind and heart before corruption many in World War II.42 happens. For example, Jere has sug- Bonhoeffer’s great theological and gested a kenotic approach.38 Chris- - toph Stuckelberger also proposes a priate to engage with his work in a proactive approach to ensure that conversationethical significance on corruption. makes itBonhoef appro- ‘spiritual, ethical and institutional - bases are strengthened’.39 Spiritual tion, but he addressed the blatant cor- and ethical values are fundamental ruptionfer did not of powerdeal with present financial in the corrup Nazi in decision making. A person who has regime. He understood that power is solid values and puts them into prac- God-given and that, as such, leaders tice will behave properly and be able must use it to serve the people. He im- to deal with temptations to act cor- plored Christians to live for the cause ruptly.40 of Christ in all their actions. Living in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ethics of Christ and for Christ alone is abstract Stellvertretung (translated as vicari- if it is not translated into living for ous, responsible action), which can others. This is the essence of an ethic also be understood as standing in for of Stellvertretung. another person in a place where this The distressing events of the 1930s person cannot stand41 and thus calls and 1940s in Germany challenged Christians to a life of ‘self-less living’, Bonhoeffer’s Christian thought, life can effectively supplement exist- and conviction. What is the Chris- ing approaches. Bonhoeffer (1906– tian’s role amidst violence against 1945), a German theologian and Lu- ‘the Other’? What does Christianity theran pastor, concretely lived out really mean for us and who is Christ for us today? Bonhoeffer asked these life experiences of his time shaped his questions in light of the extreme suf- theologyunselfishness and ethics, towards which others. have been The fering he was witnessing. The answer he found was that true Christianity is about being ‘burdened with guilt’ 37 (suffering) for the sake of ‘the Other’ 38 who is suffering.43 For Bonhoeffer, a 39 Rendtorff, ‘Concept of Corruption’,Free-Corrup- 129. tion Jere,Churches ‘Public are Role Possible: of the Experiences,Church’, 1-10. Val- ues and Christoph Solutions Stuckelberger, (Geneva: Globethics.net, 42 - 2010), 17. fer, see Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoef- 40 fer: AFor Biography an excellent, rev. biographyed., edited ofby Bonhoef Victoria Connection between Corruption and Unethi- J. Barnett (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2000). Gintare Satiene and Rita Toleikiene,Social Re ‘A- Bethge was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s closest search 10, no. 2 (2007): 155–56. friend and correspondent. 41cal Behaviour of Public Officials’, 43 Ethics, vol. 6 of Whole of God’s Reality’: On the Agency of Bonhoeffer’s Works, ed. Clifford J. Green, Jesus Christopherin Bonhoeffer’s Holmes, Ethics’, ‘’The International Indivisible trans. Dietrich Reinhard Bonhoeffer, Krauss, Charles C. West and Journal of Systematic Theology 12, no. 3 Douglas W. Stott (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, (2010): 293. 2005), 233. The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 171 person is required to act on behalf of man beings.49 As such, there is no self- others.44 Someone who follows Christ aggrandizement in Stellvertretung. has to be able to bear the claim of the Bonhoeffer further explores the other person upon himself. ‘He/she question of the relationship between has to take the other person as an ob- free responsibility and obedience in ligation, even to allow the other per- Stellvertretung. For him, ‘One act of son to place on me the burden of their obedience is better than one hundred freedom.’45 Bonhoeffer came to see sermons.’50 How then do responsibil- true Christianity as a concrete faith ity and obedience play a role in Stell- based on praxis (‘doing’) and ‘self-less vertretung? His answer is that there living’. cannot be ‘self-less living’ without In Stellvertretung, praxis is under- obedience, for obedience is self-sur- stood as a concrete life of action, cen- render. Therefore, responsibility and tred on Christ and expressing solidar- obedience are interwoven, so that ity with those who are suffering. In ‘responsibility does not merely begin this understanding, one can bear the where obedience ends, but obedience suffering of others only through the is rendered in responsibility.’51 motivation of Christ. The experience Bonhoeffer’s Christocentric ethics of guilt comes when a person has an of Stellvertretung is timeless, rich and interest in the challenges faced by ‘the Other’. This guilt indicates that one is for understanding of interaction be- living a life of responsibility toward specific,tween religion, making politics him ‘a uniqueand culture’. source52 ‘the Other’, motivated by Jesus who Even though his ethics arose out of an vicariously took the guilt of all human extremely turbulent historical situa- beings upon himself. tion, geographically and contextually Further, in Stellvertretung, all life is far from modern Africa, it still has rel- a call to live for others, to do for oth- evance for Malawi today. How, then, 46 ers and to suffer for others. Stellver- is Stellvertretung applicable in light tretung is manifested in the principle of corruption? Stellvertretung can be of having a zeal or motivation to help displayed in themes such as self-less those who are in need. It is also a call living for ‘the Other’, bondage to God, for respecting what belongs to anoth- freedom of the individual life and the role of a disciple and citizen in a VUCA For Bonhoeffer, only self-less people world.53 Each of these concepts is dis- er,truly and live. thus47 In for other the exercise words, true of justice. living is possible ‘only in completely devot- 48 ing one’s own life to another person’. 49 Ethics, 260. It is the highest of values to serve hu- 50 Ethics, 286. 51 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 288. 52 Bonhoeffer, - 44 Bonhoeffer,Ethics , 257–58. effer, Bonhoeffer, Ethics, vii. 45 Clifford J. Green, editor’s note in Bonho 53 The Modern Theologians: An Introduction (worldly things such as the state) serves the David F. Ford and Rachael Muers (eds.), to Christian Theology Since 1918 (Oxford: ultimate In Bonhoeffer’s and realizes ethics, the ultimatethe penultimate (Christ, Blackwell, 2005), 49. the ultimate reality); see Stefan Heuser, ‘The 46 Ethics, 259. Cost of Citizenship: Disciple and Citizen in 47 Ethics, 236. Bonhoeffer’s Political Ethics’, Studies in Chris- 48 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 259. tian Ethics 18, no. 3 (2005): 49–69. Bonhoeffer, Bonhoeffer, 172 Godwins Lwinga cussed below. renunciation and love of enemies— Self-less living for ‘the Other’: Bon- all key qualities of a good life—are hoeffer’s argumentation makes it fundamental.55 Embracing these val- clear that any person who is vicari- ues would equip people to resist the ously responsible lives a self-less life temptation to indulge in any corrupt for the sake of ‘the Other’. An essential practice. part of being human is to live a self- Freedom of the individual life. For less life in relation to others.54 Such Bonhoeffer, the freedom of the indi- - vidual implies individual accountabil- grammes that serve the needs of ‘the ity.56 Instead of exalting themselves, aOther’ person and sacrificially certainly cannotengages plan in proevil individuals are conscious of their re- against ‘the Other’. In addition, Stell- lationship with ‘the Other’. At the end vertretung is a reminder to those in of the day, one has to give account to positions of power that they are there somebody. In Stellvertretung, the au- for the sake of ‘the Other’. If properly tonomous self does not exist; rather, motivated by this consideration, they the self exists only in relation to ‘the will not indulge in corrupt practices Other’. ‘For a Christian’, says William that make ‘the Other’ suffer. Corrup- Schweiker, ‘the empowerment of per- tion is a sign of self-aggrandizement, sons to be responsible agents in histo- which is the opposite of self-less liv- ry is to serve the purpose of respecting. ing and enhancing the integrity of life Bondage to God and to human- 57 Where the self has no ity. If all humanity would remember room to act on its own but always acts that they are bonded to ‘the Other’ beforein relationship God.' to others, there can be in God’s love, they would think twice little room for corruption. before indulging in corrupt practices. Disciple and citizen. A disciple is They would refrain from stealing an- someone whose heart is ruled by other person’s property because of Christ; a citizen is called to co-operate this bondedness. They would strive and help others in his or her life situ- for openness (transparency) because ations, or in the institutions where he the picture of ‘the Other’ would be 58 so vivid in their face. Without this or she works. Fighting corruption understanding, the picture and face must take place in the context of the realization that all Christians have of ‘the Other’ is blurred. Stellvertre- tung emphasizes the bondedness of responsibilities as both disciples and Christ to human beings and to God; citizens. A disciple is called (i.e. given as part of our response to Christ, we a vocation) and answers (responds) should be bonded to one another, to to Christ’s call by acting in a ‘self-less’ Christ and to God. In this bondedness, manner in service to others. In his self-denial, forgiveness, suffering, book Sanctorum Communio, Bonho-

54 55 Ethics, 241. and the Ethics of Responsibility: An Engage- 56 Ethics, 257–58. Bonhoeffer, ment Steven with Dietrich C. van den Bonhoeffer’, Heuvel, ‘Leadership in Patrick 57 Responsibility and Nullens and Steven van den Heuvel, The Chal- Christian Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- lenges of Moral Leadership (Leuven: Peeters, versity William Press, 1995), Schweiker, 31. 2016), 120. 58

Heuser, ‘Cost of Citizenship’, 68. The Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 173 effer urges Christians, as disciples of be transformed in terms of practical Christ, to ‘bear the burdens and suf- moral integrity’.62 William Schweik- ferings of the neighbour’.59 er argues for the development of a But what about our role as citi- theory of values applicable to Chris- zens? The challenge is that some- tians which ‘entails a transvaluation times people view their Christian of values’.63 For all this to happen, the beliefs as something private and out - of place in matters of political action. For Bonhoeffer, a citizen, by virtue of churchto non-Christians should have as thewell. kind That of would influ his or her submission to God’s natural enceenable in memberssociety which of society would toflow call over on law, is also called (given a vocation, the church for support when they Beruf, in his or her respective place- encounter temptations to indulge in ment) to be of service to fellow citi- corruption. zens.60 Because these callings apply to Practically, the church could un- everyone, I prefer to depart from the dertake approaches to corruption besides the existing state-driven initiatives. For example, it could make the conventionalauthority’ and definition instead to of refer corruption to it as as‘abuse ‘abuse of vocation of public’. office, power or programmes, church administrative Both as disciples and as citizens, subjectmeetings of andcorruption Bible studies. a priority Further in its- - more, lessons for children’s Sunday- derstanding of vocation which falls school classes and lay leaders could weshort can of fallaccountability, prey to a deficientintegrity and un incorporate topics on corruption. transparency.61 For example, a police Martin Ott also suggests a systema- - tized and ‘step by step’ establishment of a robust ethics of the ‘common officer has a vocation to serve hon good’ in the church to address private ourablyselling merchandise as a police officer, on a street much corlike- and public morality. At the moment, any public official or even a vendor this ethic is ‘diffused and scattered’.64 her vocation by taking advantage of The one-party era in Malawi, ner.his orIf theher policeposition officer for personal abuses his ben or- not be ignored, created an environ- also towards the calling of being a thoughment of itsaccountability serious deficiencies or even mustfear efit, that is abuse towards oneself and that pushed civil servants to perform like Malawi that is 68 percent Chris- with high quality. Through its ‘four policetian, corruption officer. Moreover, would not in abe country a ma- cornerstones’, it enforced the concern for others that Bonhoeffer argued we see the need for Christian ‘values to all should embrace voluntarily. The jor issue if Christian citizens would

59 Sanctorum Com- 62 Responsibility, 30. munio: A Theological Study of the Sociology 63 Responsibility, 30. The term of the Dietrich Church , Bonhoeffer,vol. 1 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer ‘transvaluation Schweiker, of values’ here should not Works, vol. 1, ed. Clifford J. Green (Minneapo- be understood Schweiker, in terms of Nietzsche’s con- lis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 179. ceptualization, which was based on his con- 60 Ethics, 257. tempt for Christianity and its moral system. 61 Corrup- 64 tion , Bonhoeffer,23. 143, 144. Schirrmacher and Schirrmacher, Ott, ‘Role of the Christian Churches’, 142, 174 Godwins Lwinga arrival of democracy has caused cor- tem. Even though a number of anti- corruption initiatives are present, than restraining it.65 Embracing the - ruption‘four cornerstones’ to flourish more and Bonhoeffer’sfreely rather ciently preventive or proactive; rath- ethic of Stellvertretung would help to theseer, they are are state-driven reactive, focusing and not mainly suffi combat corruption and restore sanity on prosecutions (and sometimes even undermining those prosecutions). value of removing an authoritarian Fighting corruption in Malawi re- dictatorin the financial from power sector. may The be positive great, quires a transvaluation of values by but so is the value of preventing cor- the church. We need conscious, on- ruption. going development of a robust conception of the ethic of Stellvertretung in the church and in public life. This IV. Conclusion radically self-less ethic would sup- Corruption has become an endemic plement existing legislation on cor- part of the social fabric in multi-party, democratic Malawi. This situation is and failing. Internalizing the central- at least partly explained by the unique ruption,ity to all whichlife of byvicarious, itself is responsibleinsufficient nature of Malawi’s transition from a action, which calls for self-less living, would control the desires of the mind one-party state to a multi-party sys- and heart, which are the main cata- lysts of corrupt practices. 65

Mogha, ‘Assessment of the Nexus’. ERT (2020) 44:2, 175-189 The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate

P. V. Joseph The concept of missio Dei, which I. The Trinity and Divine situates the source of mission in the nature of the triune God, is often Missions considered to have originated at the Theologically, for Augustine, mission International Missionary Confer- refers to the economic activity of the ence at Willingen, Germany in 1952. trinitarian sending in the New Testa- However, the idea is quite present in ment, by which the Father sends the Augustine’s monumental work on the Son and the Father and the Son to- Trinity, De Trinitate (hereafter DT).1 gether send the Holy Spirit (DT 4.29, The missio (sending) of God as a with the generation and procession of theme in Augustine’s trinitarian doc- 181–82).the Son and This the missionHoly Spirit. is The identified send- theologicaltrine. He sees category God’s isrevelation a significant and ing of the Son and the Spirit in mis- redemption as accomplished through sion is located in their being (filiation the sending of the Son and the Holy and spiration) from the Father. The Spirit in mission, who reveal the in- Father is never said to have been sent ner life of the Triune God in the gen- because unlike the Son and the Holy eration (generatio) of the Son and the Spirit, the Father ‘has not got anyone else to be from or proceed from’ (DT procession of the Spirit. Thus, mission 2 in Augustine’s trinitarian doctrine 4.28, 181). brings together the inner trinitarian Mission is the self-communication life of God and human reconciliation of the Father, his sending forth of the with God. In this paper, I explore the Son and the Holy Spirit in their visible relationship between missio and the manifestations in the world—the per- Trinity in Augustine’s thought. manent visible manifestation of the Son and the transitory visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit (DT 2.7–9, 101–8).3 - 1 De Trinitate (The Trinity), trans. Edmund Hill (New York: New City More specifically, God’s mis Press, Augustine, 1991). Citations in the text give the 2 book and paragraph number from Augus- Mediator in Augustine’s Understanding of tine, followed by the page number from Hill’s the SeeTrinity’, Linda Didaskalia Darwish, 13, ‘The no. Concept1 (2001): of 71. the translation. 3 De Trinitate’, in The

Palolil Varghese Joseph (PhD, Boston University) is professor See of Mary Theology T. Clark, and Mission ‘ at New Theologi- cal College, Dehradun, India. This is a condensed and revised version of a chapter of his book, An Indian Trinitarian Theology of Missio Dei: Insights from St. Augustine and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019). The article is published with permission from Wipf and Stock Publishers. 176 P. V. Joseph sion takes place only in the incarna- Hence, it is by the Father and the Son tion of the Son and the manifestation that the Son was sent because the Son of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—not is the Father’s Word’ (DT 2.9, 103). in earlier Old Testament theophanies. Moreover, the presence of the Fa- In the incarnation, the Son’s divine ther implies the presence of both the nature is united with human nature, Son and the Holy Spirit. Augustine and the inner trinitarian identity of asks: the Holy Spirit is revealed in the Spir- Is there anywhere he [the Father] it’s procession from the Father. The could be without his Word and his mission of God that occurred in the Wisdom, who stretches mightily incarnation and Pentecost is the cen- from end to end, and disposes all tral event in the economy of salvation things properly (Wis 8:1)? Nor for because it reveals the inner trinitar- that matter could he be anywhere ian life and God’s reconciliation of hu- without his Spirit. … [Therefore] 4 manity to God (DT 4.28–29, 181–83). both Son and Holy Spirit are sent to The equality of the persons of the where they already are. (DT 2.7–8, Godhead comes into sharp focus in 102)5 Augustine’s discussion of the divine The trinitarian mission is historically mission, where he refutes the con- demonstrated in the Father’s sending tention of his opponents that ‘the of the Son ‘in the fulness of time, made one who sends is greater than the one of woman’ (Gal 4:4). The Son was sent sent’ (DT 2.7, 101; emphasis added). from the Father into the world as at- The implication of such a claim, ac- tested in John 16:28: ‘I came from the cording to Augustine, is that because Father and have come into the world.’ the Father sends the Son, the Father Accordingly, mission is the ‘going is greater than the Son and both are forth [of the Son] from the Father greater than the Holy Spirit. and coming into this world’ (DT 2.7, Refuting the proposition that 102). For Augustine, this going forth sending implies inequality, Augustine of the Son must be seen in relation to seeks to demonstrate the inseparabil- the assertion that the Son ‘was in the ity and equality of the trinitarian per- world, and the world came into being sons. Inseparability entails that send- through him. … He came to what was ing (missio) is the activity of all three his own’ (Jn 1:10–11). Accordingly, persons of the Godhead. The sending the Son was sent to the world where of the Son is the activity of both the he already was. The same principle Father and the Son: ‘But God’s Word is applies to the Holy Spirit: ‘If God is his Son. So when the Father sent him everywhere, his Spirit is everywhere by word, what happened was that he too. So the Spirit also was sent to was sent by the Father and his Word. where he was already’ (DT 2.7, 102). The mission of the Son was not Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Ele- without the Holy Spirit, because the onore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cam- Son was born of the Holy Spirit (Mt bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1:18). Thus, the incarnation and the 93. virgin birth are indivisible works of 4 The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s De Trinitate (New York: Oxford University Luigi Gioia, Press, 2009), 34, 114–16. 5 Theological Epistemology, 162.

See Gioia, The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 177 the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father, is made visible in mis- (DT 2.8–9, 102–3).6 Since the Father sion in the incarnation. Although the who begot and the Son who was be- Son ‘appeared outwardly in created gotten are one, the one who sends bodily form’ (in creatura corporali), and the one who is sent are also one he always remains invisible ‘in uncre- along with the Holy Spirit (DT 4.29, ated spiritual form’ (intus in natura 181–82).7 spirituali) (DT 2.9–10, 106). The vis- This differentiated work of the ibility of the Son in the incarnation Trinity in divine mission, for Augus- was accompanied by the visibility of tine, presupposes unity in the sub- the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The Holy stance of the Godhead and hence the Spirit appeared in created guise like a equality of the Father, Son and Holy dove (Mt 3:16) at the baptism of Je- Spirit. sus and again appeared as tongues of The equality of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father stems calls these visible manifestations the from their inseparability and unity firemission at Pentecost (sending) (Acts of the2:3). Holy Augustine Spirit. Yet the substance of the Spirit, like the mission of the Son and the Holy that of the Son, is concealed, point- withinSpirit is the the Trinity,work of which all persons affirm of that the ing to the Spirit’s essential invisibility Godhead. The fact of their being sent and immutability (DT 2.10, 107). does not undermine the equality of However, there is a distinction be- the Son and the Holy Spirit; in fact, tween the manifestations of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit - did not manifest in a creaturely form itsion signifies constitutes the mission the sending of the forthTrinity. of as the Son did; there was no hypo- Morethe Son specifically, and the Holy the Spirittrinitarian by the mis Fa- static union. The Spirit did appear as ther. It is the manifestation in history a dove, a violent wind and tongues of of the second and the third persons of the Trinity. It was their going forth dove blessed, or the violent gust, or from the essential invisibility of the fire, but the ‘Spirit did not make the- triune God to historical manifesta- self and his person to be held in an tion. Accordingly, the Father remains theeverlasting fire; he union’,did not as join did them the Son to himwho invisible as the sender, who is never is eternally God and human (DT 2.11, said to have been sent, and the Son 107). Thus, while the visible manifes- and the Holy Spirit are manifest to the tation of the Son is permanent, the world in their being sent forth by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is Father (DT 3.3, 128–29; 4.32, 185). transient.

The Son, who was jointly invisible II. Incarnation, Pentecost and 6 The Mystery of Unity: Missio Dei A Commentary on Saint Augustine’s De Trini- See Malcolm Spicer, Augustine’s discussion of the divine sending ( ) and theophanies 7 missio upontate (Québec: the inseparability, National Library, equality 1993), and consub 26. - occupies most of the second and the stantiality For Augustine, of the Father, the oneness Son and of Holy God Spirit. rests third books of De Trinitate. He had Yet each person of the Trinity is differenti- - ated from each other. See DT 1.7. tological interpretation according already rejected the traditional Chris 178 P. V. Joseph to which the second person of the 1. The Missio Dei and Trinitarian Trinity appeared in the theophanies. Revelation Nevertheless, he believed in the trini- Although Augustine does not rule out tarian character of the theophanies, - and accordingly he understood these ophanies, for him the mission of God visions as a symbolic representation beginsthe trinitarian only in God’ssignificance self-revelation of the the in of the Trinity. the incarnation of the Son. He seeks to Augustine concludes that the the- establish this point in the latter part ophanies ‘were produced through of the fourth book of DT, having rebut- ted the claim that theophanies repre- the changeless God, and they did not sent the sending (mission) of the Son manifestthe changeable God as he creation is in himself, subject but toin (DT 4.26, 178–79; 2.8, 102–3).9 a symbolic manner as times and cir- The Son’s mission has opened up cumstances required’ (DT 2.32, 124).8 the possibility of human redemption ‘Whenever God was said to appear to as well as human knowledge of the our ancestors before our savior’s in- triune God. Despite God’s revelation carnation, the voices heard and the through the mission of the Son, hu- physical manifestation seen were the manity is incapable of perceiving it work of angels’ (DT 3.27, 146). due to sin: Having ruled out the appearance of the Trinity, particularly the mission [W]e were incapable of grasping of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the eternal things, and weighed down theophanies, Augustine returns to the by the accumulated dirt of our sins, mission of the Trinity as evidenced in which we had collected by our love the incarnation and at Pentecost. Two of temporal things, and which had themes are inseparably linked to each become almost a natural growth other in Augustine’s discourse on the on our mortal stock; so we needed mission of the Son: trinitarian revela- purifying. But we could only be tion and reconciliation (mediation). For Augustine, mission is essentially things by temporal means. (DT both revelatory and redemptive. No 4.24,purified 175) for adaptation to eternal revelation is conceivable without the According to Augustine, temporal mediation of the Son, and no human things have deluded us and rendered reconciliation with God is possible us incapable of contemplating eternal without revelation. Hence, the mis- things (the divine mysteries). Inter- sion of the Son is the mediation of rev- estingly, God has chosen to redeem us elation and reconciliation—revealing through temporality, in the mission God to humanity and reconciling hu- of the Son. This entry into the world manity to God (DT 4.11–12, 164–66). of human existence is an act of divine The next two sections examine these grace. We respond to this divine ini- two functions. tiative with faith in the work of Christ who, being the eternal Son of God,

8 Christ, Creation, and the Vision of God: Augustine’s Transformation 9 of EarlySee also Christian Kari Kloos, Theophany Interpretation of the Son’s mission is marked by 4.25 (178) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), 141–42. and The continues transition to the to end this of significant the fourth themebook. The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 179 became the Son of man. When our Son of God to have been sent. Eve- rything that has taken place in are enabled to contemplate eternal time in ‘originated’ matters which mindsthings have(DT been4.24, purified175). The by faith,contem we- have been produced from the eter- plation of God, according to Augus- nal and reduced back to the eter- tine, is the eternal reward of the new nal, and has been designed to elicit covenant.10 Faith itself is related to the realm order to contemplate the truth, has of temporality and is generated by eitherthe faith been we testimonymust be purified to this bymis in- grace. Our faith is then transformed sion or has been the actual mission into truth, ‘when we come to what we of the Son of God (testimonia mis- are promised as believers’, namely the sionis huius fuerunt aut ipsa missio eternal life which is to know the Fa- filii dei). (DT 4.25, 178)12 ther (Jn 17:3) (DT 4.24, 176).11 Know- The visibility of the Son in the incar- ing the Father involves knowing both nation, which marks the actual mis- the Son and the Holy Spirit, because the trinitarian persons are insepara- sion of God, and his visible nature and ble (DT 1.17–19, 80–83). actions are intended to generate faith Revelation is impossible unless that ‘may be consummated in the con- the eternal God enters into our cre- templation of eternity when we truly see that which the visible Christ rep- ated world and unites himself to our 13 mutable human condition. In the mis- resents’. sion of the Son, God has ‘provided us One of Augustine’s most central with a bridge to his eternity’ in order concerns in De Trinitate is to establish that we may ‘pass from being among the unity and equality of the Father, the things that originated to eternal the Son and the Holy Spirit from the things’ (DT 4.24, 177). Thus, in the authority of Scripture. For Augustine, incarnation as well as at Pentecost— the sending of the Son is compatible i.e. through the missions of the Son with his generation from the Father, and the Spirit—humanity is given a and thus it underlines the essential glimpse of the mystery of the Trin- unity and equality of the Father and the Son. ‘On this foundation’, writes theme in De Trinitate is marked by Lewis Ayres, ‘Augustine articulates ity.the Thefollowing transition remarkable to this passage significant to- the principle that one of the central wards the close of the fourth book: purposes of this sending is the reveal- There you have what the Son of ing of the Son and Word as Son and God has been sent for; indeed Word, that is a revealing of the Word there you have what it is for the as from the Father and as the Word with Father and Spirit.’14 The outward movement of the Son 10 Augustine: Later Works. The Library of Chris- tian Augustine,Classics, vol. ‘The 8 (Philadelphia: Spirit and the WestminLetter’, in- 12 Augustine and the ster Press, 1955), 223. Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University 11 Press, See 2010), also Lewis184. Ayres, and the Missio Dei 13 Augustine and the Trinity, 184. the Close See Edwardof the Twentieth W. Poitras, Century’, ‘St. Augustine Mission 14 Augustine and the Trinity, 185; Studies 16, no. 2 (1999):: A Reflection 36. on Mission at emphasis Ayres, added. Ayres, 180 P. V. Joseph and the Spirit into the world in visible economy according to a triadic forms results in the temporal mis- pattern. So the mystery of the Trin- sion of God. Augustine writes, ‘I went ity is of the essence of our redemp- forth from the Father, he [Jesus] says, tion.16 and came into this world (Jn 16:28). Mission reveals that in their being So that is what being sent [mitti] is, sent, the Son and the Spirit are known going forth from the Father and com- to be from and proceed from the Fa- ing into this world’ (DT 2.7, 102).15 However, the divine mission points to the Son his being from the Father, so the dimension of both the Son’s vis- ther.his being ‘And sentjust asmeans being his born being means known for ibility and invisibility. The Son who was timelessly begotten by the Father Holy Spirit his being the gift of God was sent in time in the world. His ap- tomeans be fromhis proceeding him. And just from as the for theFa- pearance in the corporeal world was ther, so his being sent means his being in created bodily form, and yet, being known to proceed from him’ (DT 4.29, timeless in his eternal and essential 182).17 While distinguishing mission (spiritual) being, the Son was always from the eternal generation and pro- ‘hidden from mortal eyes’ (DT 2.10, 106–7; 15.47, 438). not only with being sent, but with be- Mission, for Augustine, is the cession,ing known Augustine in the world. identifies18 mission economy of salvation that reveals the Augustine captures the trinitarian mystery of the inner trinitarian life, interiority and inseparability in mis- the eternal generation of the Son and sion as follows: the eternal procession of the Spirit. Since then it was a work of the Yet generation and procession them- Father and the Son that the Son selves are not mission; rather, mission, as noted earlier, is the coming - forth of the Son and the Spirit from shouldpropriately appear said in to the have flesh, been the sent, one the Father and their coming into the whoand theso appeared one who in did the not flesh to ishave ap world (DT 2.7, 102), at the incarna- done the sending. Thus events tion and at Pentecost, respectively. By which are put on outwardly in the revealing the inner life of God in this sight of our bodily eyes are aptly called missa because they stem dimension of the Trinity. Hill’s obser- from the inner designs [apparatus] vationway, mission is quite signifiespertinent the here: economic The divine missions in fact constitute the very form of the economy 16 De Trini- tate - of redemption. God is not consti- ture,’ EdmundRevue des Hill, Etudes ‘St. Augustine’s Augustiniennes 19 tuted a triad by the economy. … (1973):: The 285–86. Doctrinal Significance of Its Struc [God] is revealed as a triad by the 17 economy, because in fact the eter- that this passage is the culmination of Au- nal divine triad unfolds the saving gustine’s Hill, discussion in note 98 on on divine page 182,missions observes that he began in Book 2, showing that mission ‘reveal[s] the inner core of the trinitarian 15 mystery’. See also Ayres, Augustine and the Mutual Love of the Father and the Son’, Theo- Trinity, 185. logical See Studies David 51Coffey, (1990): ‘The 200. Holy Spirit as the 18 De Trinitate’, 282.

Hill, ‘St. Augustine’s The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 181

of our spiritual nature. (DT 2.9, the Son reveals in his mission is the 105–6) triune God. Therefore, the revelation The mission of the Son is grounded in of God in the incarnation is funda- his being from the Father and in his mentally a trinitarian revelation. being known or perceived to be from the Father. Therefore, 2. Missio Dei and Reconciliation the Son of God is not said to be sent According to Augustine, God’s revela- in the very fact that he is born of tion to humanity and human compre- the Father, but either in the fact hension of that revelation are both the work of God. Our inability to per- himself to this world; about this ceive God’s revelation is healed in the factthat hethe says, Word I wentmade forth flesh from showed the mediatorial work of the Son, which Father and came into this world reconciles humanity with God. (Jn 16:28). Or else he is sent in Augustine expounds this reconcil- the fact that he is perceived in iatory (mediatorial) mission of Christ time by someone’s mind. … That against the background of Plotin- he [the Son] is born means that he ian metaphysics of ‘the one and the is from eternity to eternity—he is many’. Many scholars have seen the the brightness of eternal light (Wis 7:26). But that he is sent means Augustine’s trinitarian doctrine, par- that he is known by somebody in influenceticularly in of his Plotinus’ doctrine philosophy of the unity onof time. (DT 4.28, 181)19 God.21 The fact that this mission of God takes The problem of the one and the place in our temporal world demon- many emerged as a prominent phil- strates that by God’s grace, humanity osophical challenge in the ancient is given the privilege of knowing God world, and it continues to defy sim- through temporal reality.20 The invis- ple solutions. It emerges from the ible, immutable and unknowable God assumption of an underlying unity is made known to us in grace through behind the universe and the diversity 22 the temporal missions of the Son and and multiplicity in the world. There the Holy Spirit. This mission of God, have been attempts to discover the accomplished in the incarnation of origin of the ‘many-ness’ in the world Christ and his redemptive work, is from a single universal principle (of- central to the revelation of the triune ten termed as ‘idea’, ‘mind’, or ‘God’) God and of eternity. The God whom behind everything, and thus to reconcile the many with the one (principle or reality). Augustine discovers the 19 origin of the multiplicity in the one eternal generation (begottenness) of the Son from Augustinethe Father distinguishesand ‘the human between experience the of the Son’s being sent in the mission of re- 21 - ian Theology of Augustine and His Debt to Scott A. Dunham, The Trinity and Creation in Plotinus’, See Thomas Harvard A. Theological Wassmer, Review‘The Trinitar 53, no. Augustine:demption’ asAn testified Ecological in the Analysis New Testament. (Albany: 4 (1960): 261–68. State University of New York Press, 2008), 22 - 146. hen, ‘The One and the Many’, Review of Meta- 20 Theological Epistemology, 80. physics See 21, Gareth no. 4 B.(1968): Matthews 630–55. and S. Marc Co

Gioia, 182 P. V. Joseph

God from whom are all things (DT are that he loves, in case we should 4.3, 154). The one and the many are take pride in our own worth, and resolved in the incarnation of Christ so bounce even further away from who mediated on behalf of humanity him and sink even more under our and reconciled them to the one God own strength. So he dealt with us in (DT 4.2–6, 153–59; 4.11, 164–65).23 such a way that we could progress Humanity, through sin, has fallen rather in his strength; he arranged into the many—into discord and divi- it so that the power of charity sion—and consequently moved away would be brought to perfection in from the one true God. The ultimate the weakness of humility. … So we salvation of disintegrated humanity needed to be persuaded how much lies in being restored to unity and to God loves us, and what sort of peo- God. This, Augustine believes, has ple he loves; how much in case we been accomplished through the me- despaired, what sort in case we 24 diation of Christ (DT 4.11, 164–65). grew proud. (DT 4.2, 153–54) The incarnation of Christ is also a revelation of human sinfulness. God’s Calling attention to Romans 5:8, Au- self-manifestation both brings in the gustine underscores the necessity of knowledge of the triune God and incarnation as the demonstration of displays our sinful situation. There- God’s love and grace towards human- fore, God’s mission in Christ takes place in the context of human sin and humanity (DT 4.2, 154). In the divine estrangement, and of our inability mission,ity and finally incarnation as God’s was redemption indispensa of- to know God. Without the incarna- ble for the hypostatic union of the di- tion, we would be unable to know vine and the human in Christ, so that God because of our sinful nature and he could reconcile humanity to God alienation from God (DT 4.2, 153).25 through his death. In the incarnation, Through the Son revealing to us the God’s mission presents a suffering triune God, we come to see our sin- - ful nature and the depth of God’s love fering humanity.26 and are thus led into God’s way of hu- GodThe who mission identifies of Christ’s himself mediation with suf mility. As Augustine explains: is itself a trinitarian work. Although First we had to be persuaded how Christ is the Son of man and the me- much God loved us, in case out of diator between God and humanity, sheer despair we lacked the cour- he is also the Son of God, equal to the age to reach up to him. Also we had Father and consubstantial with him. to be shown what sort of people we behalf of all who believe in him, as The object of the Son’s mediation on 23 John 17, is their ultimate oneness and 149); Spicer, The Mystery of Unity, 47. reconciliationreflected in his withhigh priestlythe triune prayer God. in 24 See Hill’s introduction to Book 4 (DT, the One in Augustine’s De Trinitate IV’, Au- gustinian See also Studies Isabelle 38, no. Bochet, 1 (2007): ‘The 42. Hymn to 26 25 Theological Epistemology, found in Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms 32–33; Maarten Wisse, Trinitarian Theology 64.11, A in clearer Nicene expression and Post-Nicene of this pointFathers is Beyond See Participation:also Gioia, Augustine’s De Trini- (hereafter NPNF), 1st Series, vol. 8 (Peabody, tate (London: T & T Clark, 2011), 136. MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 265–66. The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 183

Augustine writes: In Augustine’s view, as is evident This is what he means when he in the above passage, there is a par- says That they may be one as we are ticularity in this human reconciliation one and unity with the triune God which and Son are one not only by equali- points to the relationship between the ty of(Jn substance 17:22)—that but also just by as identity Father Church and the Trinity. Augustine’s of will, so these men, for whom the doctrine of the Trinity and his ecclesi- 29 Son is mediator with God, might be ology are profoundly intertwined. one not only by being of the same The Son who unites human nature to nature, but also by being bound himself in his incarnation is also the in the fellowship of the same love. one who, through his own mediatory Finally, he shows that he is the me- work, unites the Church with the tri- diator by whom we are reconciled une God. This unity is derived from to God, when he says, I in them and the Church’s union with Christ: ‘“The you in me, that they may be perfect into one (Jn 17:23). (DT 4.12, 165–66)27 andWord so wasthere made is made flesh, the andwhole dwelt Christ in [us.”Christus To that totus flesh], Head the Church and body.’ is joined,30 The apparent lack of oneness of the In the unity of the Son with the disciples, implied in the prayer, re- Father and the unity of the Son with - the Church, Christians are ‘fused ing wills and desires, and the unclean- somehow into one spirit in the fur- nessflects of divided their sins’ humanity, (DT 4.12, full 165). of ‘clash The nace of charity … bound in the fel- mediation of Christ offers hope for lowship of the same love’ (DT 4.12, humanity, alienated from the one true 166). Thus, one can say here that ‘the God, to become united with God in church shares in the life of the Trinity Christ in the Spirit of love. The ground through the Son’s giving of the Spirit of their oneness with God is the unity that exists eternally in the Trinity. Their oneness with each other is de- economy is fundamental to Augustine’s trini- rived from their oneness with the tri- tarian theology. See Hill, ‘St. Augustine’s De une God through Christ, and from the Trinitate’, 284–86. reconciliation with God accomplished 29 Augustine, the Trin- through his mediation. Therefore, hu- ity, and the Church: A Reading of the Anti- See Adam Ployd, man salvation through the mission Donatist Sermons (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2015). of the Son as the mediator cannot be 30 Homily 1 on the First Epistle thought of apart from the mystery of of John 1.2, in NPNF, 1st Series, 7:461. Chris- 28 the Trinity. tus totusAugustine,, according to Augustine, suggests that the head (Christ) and the body (Church) constitute one Christ. However, this does 27 Theological Epistemology, 89. not imply that Christ is not ‘complete with- Strangely enough, Augustine does not talk out the body, but that he was prepared to be about See the Gioia, Trinity in the fourth book until complete and entire together with us too, near the end, where he takes up the missions though even without us he is always com- of the Son and the Holy Spirit. See Bochet, plete and entire’. Augustine, Sermon 341.11, ‘Hymn to the One’, 41. in Sermons (341–400) on Various Subjects, 28 trans. Edmund Hill, ed. John E. Rotelle (New to Hill, the Trinity as a mystery of the divine York: New City, 1995), 26. Bochet, ‘Hymn to the One’, 42. According 184 P. V. Joseph to his own body’.31 The oneness of in the incarnation of the Son, the Holy the Trinity is extended to the Church Spirit’s essential spiritual being always remains invisible to mortal eyes. states: ‘This one true mediator, in rec- - in the Son’s sacrifice, as Augustine man) and assuming human form has peace, would remain one with him to a dimensionAlso, the Son’s of perpetuity, becoming and flesh hence (hu oncilingwhom he us offered to God it, by and his make sacrifice one ofin he is eternally God and human. Unlike himself those for whom he offered it, the incarnation, the manifestation and be himself who offered it one and of the Holy Spirit in corporeal form the same as what he offered’ (DT 4.19, was transitory and served merely as 171; emphasis added). our mortal senses of vision. The Spirit as a redeemed and reconciled com- a temporary signification adapted to munity,Through the theChurch sacrifice shares of thein Son,the to be united to them in eternal un- divine-humanity of the Son and, iondid as not humanity become was a dove united or fireeternally so as through him, in the triune God. There with divinity in the Son (DT 2.10–11, is ‘a new level of oneness in which the 107–8).34 many come together in the person of The sending of the Holy Spirit at Christ. … We are united to Christ and Pentecost, like the incarnation of the 32 in Christ, united to God.’ In ‘becom- Son, reveals the mystery of the trini- ing a partaker of our mortality he tarian life of God. The mission of the [Christ] made us partakers of his di- Holy Spirit emerges from the Spirit’s vinity’ (DT 4.4, 155). Thus, in Augus- coming forth (spiration) from the tine’s thought, one might say that the Father and the Son (DT 4.29, 182).35 Church has its existence in the Trini- 33 Although the procession of the Spirit ty. itself is not the mission of the Spirit, it is nevertheless an important aspect 3. Missio Dei and Pentecost in Augustine’s understanding of the The Holy Spirit was sent and mani- Spirit’s mission. fested in the world, similar to the Augustine’s views on the Holy Son albeit in a different manner. The Spirit’s procession must be viewed in manifestation of the Spirit was the the light of his emphasis on the unity Spirit’s coming forth from the hidden- of God, which was very central to his ness of God into visibility in the world battle against Arianism. Although he - noted distinctions within the three carnation. This sending of the Spirit persons of the Trinity, their unity was inoccurred some bodily at Pentecost, form, just ‘as as a in dove the inin of paramount importance to him. He particularly regarded the place of tongues’ (DT 3.3, 129; 2.10, 106–7). the Holy Spirit within the triunity of bodilyHowever, guise Augustine and as stresses fire in dividedthat as unity of the Godhead. Augustine re- fersGod to as the very Holy crucial Spirit in affirmingas the Spirit the 31 Augustine, the Trinity, and the Church, 3. 32 Ployd, 34 The Mystery of Unity, 26. 81–82. 35 Augustine and the Trin- 33 Darwish, ‘TheTheological Concept Epistemology of the Mediator’,, 91. ity, 185. See Spicer, See also Ayres, See Gioia, The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 185 of both the Father and the Son, the begot him timelessly in such a way communion and love of the Father that the life which the Father gave and the Son, and their unity. ‘[T]he the Son by begetting him is co-eter- Holy Spirit is something common to nal with the life of the Father who Father and Son, whatever it is, or is gave it, should also understand their very commonness or communion, consubstantial and coeternal. Call himself that the Holy Spirit should this friendship, if it helps, but a better proceedthat just from as the him, Father so he has gave it to in word for it is charity [love]’ (DT 6.7, the Son that the Holy Spirit should 210; 15.27, 421).36 proceed from him too, and in both Being the Spirit of the Father and cases timelessly; … to say that the the Son, and as their common gift, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father Son is something which the Son principally and also from the Son (DT has from the Father. If the Son has everything that he has from the Fa- this double procession of the Spirit ther, he clearly has from the Father 15:29, 422–23). Augustine affirms that the Holy Spirit should proceed De Trinitate. He argues that the gen- from him. (DT 15.47, 438) erationmore convincingly of the Son from in the the final Father book and of Augustine seems to base his argu- his consubstantiality with the Father ment for this double procession of necessitate the procession of the Holy the Holy Spirit on two key Johannine Spirit from the Son as well. In other texts: ‘whom [referring to the Holy words, the procession of the Spirit Spirit] I will send you from the Father’ from the Son is given to him by the Fa- (Jn 15:26) and ‘whom the Father will ther in his co-eternality and consub- send in my name’ (Jn 14:26). These stantiality with the Father: statements indicate to Augustine that And anyone who can understand (1) the Spirit is of both the Father that when the Son said, As the Fa- and the Son; and (2) the Father is the ther has life in himself, so he has origin (principium) of the Godhead. given the Son to have life in himself Here one must not ignore Augustine’s (Jn 5:26), he did not mean that the emphasis on the purpose of missions, Father gave life to the Son already which is to reveal the Father as the existing without life, but that he source of all (DT 4.29, 182; 15.27, 421). Yet we must also guard against misconstruing him as subordinating 36 the Son and Holy Spirit to the Father. love between the Father and the Son, fol- Augustine is fully convinced that the Augustine’s view of the Holy Spirit as lowed in the Western Church, has elicited three persons of the Godhead are strong criticism from the East. The Eastern Church has felt that in identifying the Holy united in love and that the Spirit is Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the consubstantial bond between the the Son, the West is depersonalizing the Holy Father and the Son (DT 15.37, 429).37 Spirit and upsetting the personal relationships within the Trinity. See Gerald Bray, ‘The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit in Evan- 37 De Trinitate 15.37, in gelical Theology Today: Do We Still Need It?’ NPNF, 1st Series, 3:219. Lewis Ayres, ‘Augus- Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society tine on See the Augustine, Triune Life of God’, in The Cam- 41, no. 3 (1998): 422–23. bridge Companion to Augustine, ed. David V. 186 P. V. Joseph

Delving a little more deeply into tine says, the Father’s eternal beget- Augustine’s thoughts can help us gain ting of the Son and by virtue of his a clearer picture of double proces- eternal begetting, the Father ‘gave to sion. The fact that the Spirit is of both the Son that the Holy Spirit should the Father and the Son, for Augustine, proceed from him’ as the Spirit pro- seems to convey the idea of proces- ceeds from the Father (DT 15.47, sion. Although the two Johannine 438). Therefore, the Father and the texts (14:26; 15:26) do not explicitly Son together are the one ‘origin of speak of double procession, they evi- the Holy Spirit (patrem et filium prin- dently refer to the Spirit’s procession cipium esse spiritus sancti); not two from the Father. Augustine comes origins [since the] Father and Son are one God’ (DT 5.15, 201).38 De Trinitate and asks, ‘So if the Holy Augustine draws further support backSpirit to proceeds John 15:26 from in theboth final the book Father of for the double procession of the Spirit and the Son, why did the Son say he from John 20:22: ‘He [Jesus] breathed proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26)?’ on them and said to them, “Receive (DT 15.48, 439; cf. 4.29, 182). He then the Holy Spirit.”’ He treats the mate- builds his case for double procession rial sign of Jesus breathing on the in a somewhat convoluted manner, apostles as ‘a convenient symbolic stating that it was characteristic of Je- demonstration that the Holy Spirit sus to attribute to the Father all that proceeds from the Son as well as from belonged to himself. For instance, Je- the Father’ (DT 4.29, 182). This post- sus said, ‘My teaching is not mine but resurrection action, for Augustine, his who sent me’ (Jn 7:16). Jesus cer- also demonstrates that the Holy Spirit tainly did not say that the Holy Spirit is a virtue that went out from the Son did not proceed from him. Therefore, (DT 15.45, 436). He seeks to ground according to Augustine, his claims for double procession in He (the Father) from whom the Scripture; however, his attempts to Son has it that he is God—for he extrapolate an immanent Trinity from is God from God—is of course also a corporeal sign, rather than drawing the one from whom he has it that it from the whole collection of bibli- the Holy Spirit proceeds from him cal data and especially from the New as well; and thus the Holy Spirit Testament, have not fared well with too has it from the Father that he modern biblical scholarship.39 should also proceed from the Son as he proceeds from the Father. (DT 15.48, 439) 38 the Spirit was important for Augustine, and Further, Augustine seeks to infer he wished The issue to give of it the further double consideration procession as of double procession in a nuanced man- indicated in DT 2.5 (100). However, towards ner from John 5:26: ‘As the Father has the end of De Trinitate, he admits that per- life in himself, so he has given the Son ceiving the mystery of the double procession to have life in himself.’ This is, Augus- of the Holy Spirit is beyond any human reasoning. He reconciles himself to the hope that the mystery of the procession will ultimately Meconi and Eleonore Stump, 2nd ed. (Cam- be revealed only in eternity (DT 15.45, 435). bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 39 76. Love’, 194–95. See Coffey, ‘The Holy Spirit as the Mutual The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 187

The mission of the Spirit is as- through the ministration of the Holy sumed to be emerging from the Spir- Spirit: ‘In order that faith might work it’s procession from the Father and through love, the charity [love] of God the Son. We have earlier referred to has been poured out into our hearts the Spirit’s indispensable role in the through the Holy Spirit which has incarnation and thereby in the Son’s been given to us (Rom 5.5). And he mission prior to Pentecost. In the ful- was given to us when Jesus was glo- ness of time, when God sent his Son, God did not send him without the 355). Holy Spirit. In fact, Mary ‘was found rified in his resurrection’ (DT 13.14, to be with the child of the Holy Spir- Holy Spirit as mutual love between it’ (Mt 1:18). Even prior to this, says theAugustine’s Father and the identification Son, and as the of con the- Augustine, Isaiah prophetically de- substantial bond between the Father scribed the Son as sent by the Spirit: and the Son, is a distinct manner of ‘And now the Lord, and his Spirit, has conceiving the mystery of the Trinity. sent me’ (Is 48:16) (DT 2.9, 103). He contends that ‘if the love by which However, the mission of the Holy the Father loves the Son, and the Son Spirit would take on a unique char- loves the Father, ineffably demon- acter at Pentecost, as the Spirit’s mis- strates the communion of both, what is more suitable than that He should the Son. Augustine says: be specially called love, who is the 40 sionAs was for whatawaiting the evangelistthe glorification says, The of Spirit common to both?’ Through Spirit was not yet given because Je- this love, redeemed humanity is sus was not yet glorified (Jn 7:39), united to one another in Christ and how are we to understand it, ex- through him to the Father. Further- cept as saying that there was going more, the unity within the Godhead is to be a kind of giving or sending of not only because of the equality of di- the Holy Spirit after Christ’s glo- vine substance; it also comes through their unity of will and through the been before? (DT 4.29, 182–83) mutual love that exists between the Father and the Son, which is the Holy Augustinerification such views as the there sending had never forth Spirit (DT 4.12, 166). of the Spirit at Pentecost as a distinct Augustine admits that his infer- and unique event in the economy of ence that the Holy Spirit is the mu- God. The manifestation of the Spirit tual love between the Father and the occurred in perceptible signs and lan- Son is not found in Scripture. Yet he guages, to indicate that the redemp- seeks to adduce an array of scriptural tion accomplished in the mission of passages (e.g. 1 Jn 4:13) in a rather the Son would be realized in the life of nuanced manner to substantiate nations and peoples through the mis- his claim. He concludes, ‘So the love sion of the Spirit, when they ‘believe which is from God and is God is dis- in Christ by the gift of the Holy Spirit’ tinctively the Holy Spirit; through him (DT 4.29, 183). The saving work accomplished through the Son is actualized in the life of believing humanity 40 De Trinitate 15.37, in NPNF, through the work of the Spirit. This 1st Series, 3:219. I have used Philip Schaff’s happens by faith that works through translation Augustine, here because I believe that it is love—and both of which come clearer than Hill’s. 188 P. V. Joseph the charity of God is poured out in our never be realized without God’s mis- hearts, and through it the whole triad sio. dwells in us’ (DT 15.32, 425; 15.27– 31, 421–424). Although the Spirit is of the same III. Conclusion equality of divine substance, it is Augustine seeks to drive home the through the Spirit that the Father and equality and inseparability within the the Son are united to and love each Godhead which necessitate that the other. The Holy Spirit is the ‘supreme Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be equally invisible. Since divine invisibility evidently presupposes that God andcharity it wouldconjoining seem Father a suitable and Sonname to is unknowable, how does God reveal sinceeach other it is andwritten subjoining God is uslove to them,(1 Jn himself to the world? Augustine seeks 4:8,16)’ (DT 7.6, 226). This unity of the answer to this question in the di- the Trinity that comes through ‘love vine mission, the incarnation of the in the Holy Spirit provides the content Son and the manifestation of the Holy of the metaphysical notion of unity of Spirit at Pentecost. Mission becomes essence or consubstantiality’.41 This the pivotal point of trinitarian revela- love of the Holy Spirit through which tion in the generation of the Son from the Father and the Son are eternally the Father and in the procession of united is translated through the mis- the Holy Spirit from the Father and sions of the Son and the Spirit into re- the Son. Mission is actualized visibly deemed humanity so that we are not in the sending of the Son and the Spir- only united with the Father, but also it so that the human race would be reconciled to each other.42 reconciled to God through the media- The Holy Spirit as love of the Father tion of the Son. Thus, God’s visibility and the Son demonstrates inner trini- in the economy of salvation becomes tarian relations at the deepest level. revelatory and reconciliatory to the God’s eternal plan to bring humanity extent that humanity is privileged to into that communion is accomplished know God and be saved. through his mission. The trinitarian Augustine locates missio as an ac- communion of the Father, the Son and tivity of the triune God in the inte- the Holy Spirit is replicated in God’s communion with us as the triune God the sending of the Son and the Holy abides in us and as we are given the riorSpirit filiation in the andeconomy procession of salvation. and in Holy Spirit, the spirit of love and unity (DT 15.31, 424). is the revelation of the triune God as Two crucial things emerge from Thewell as objective the reconciliation of this divine of humanity sending this discussion: only in the mission of to God. For Augustine, mission is the the Son and the Spirit can humanity inner-trinitarian work of the Father, have a glimpse of the inner trinitarian Son and Holy Spirit in a much wider life; and human communion with the sense—namely, God’s overarching triune God and with each other would plan of human redemption. Hence, mission belongs to the triune God who is both the initiator and author 41 Theological Epistemology, 130. of mission. It can be described as the 42 Theological Epistemology, 126. work of God the Father, through the Gioia, Gioia, The Trinity and Mission: Missio Dei in St. Augustine’s De Trinitate 189

Son, in the Holy Spirit. ifested in the incarnation of the Son, Recognizing mission as the work of the triune God comes down to a suf- the triune God calls into question the fering and hurting world. As Augus- contemporary perception of mission, tine says, the Son became human to which takes as its point of departure Missio Dei, the experiences, contexts and exis- suffer,for Augustine, to be smitten, takes place and finallyin response to be tential realities of suffering, margin- crucifiedto human and need die for as God’shuman. love and for alized and oppressed groups, rather ultimate union with God. Therefore, than the triune God who is the author the answer to the physical suffering of of mission.43 In the divine missio man- the oppressed and marginalized cannot be sought apart from the mission of the triune God. 43 Missio Dei’, 42. See Poitras, ‘St. Augustine and the 190 Book Reviews

Character and Virtue in due to Oxenham’s gift for clear prose). Theological Education: An Second, the epistolary structure gives Academic Epistolary Novel the book a sense of unfolding narrative as each chapter carries the conversation Marvin Oxenham forward. Third, the letters help to root Carlisle: ICETE/Langham Global the discussion in the nitty-gritty realities Library, 2019 of theological education—for example, Pb., 393 pp., index persuading a sceptical seminary board of the central place of character and vir- Reviewed by Patrick Mitchel, Director tue in the theological enterprise, or how of Learning, Irish Bible Institute, Dublin, to re-imagine teaching and assessment Ireland in that scenario. Fourth, the conversa- “It is AD 2019, and theological education tion with Siméon repeatedly opens up is suffering from Philistine domination. the importance of context. Oxenham has written before on the particular … This book argues that it is time to arm challenges facing higher education in our slings with the stones of virtue and the West within ‘liquid modernity’ and, character and reclaim portions of lost given his global experience, is acutely territory that are rightfully ours” (p. xv). aware of the dangers of uncritically So begins Marvin Oxenham’s creative, exporting a Western model of theologi- scholarly and passionate argument for a radical reimagining and restructuring of candidly acknowledges that he wished contemporary theological education. In hecal hadeducation more space to the to majority integrate world. learning He this review, I unpack each of those three from rich traditions of character and virtue in non-Western cultures. Regarding creativity, as the title hints, In terms of scholarship, Oxenham cov- thisadjectives is no neutral, in turn. detached academic ers a wide range of complex academic analysis. Oxenham develops his case in territory related to virtue, theology and higher education with the assurance of from a Christian educator in the West a well-travelled guide. There are many the form of a fictional correspondence world, who is working to re-envisage route. Some of these cover the difference to his friend Siméon in the majority and re-launch a ‘Theological Academy betweenfascinating spiritual conversations formation to enjoyand char- en for Character and Virtue’ in his context. acter and virtue education; a critique of Each chapter/epistle contributes to ar- loose assumptions of what constitutes ticulating Oxenham’s overall vision (Part Christian discipleship, accompanied by 1), theological and historical underpin- a case for more coherent integration nings of virtue (Part 2) and proposals of character and virtue within disci- for practice (Part 3). pleship paradigms; a critically astute This creative move is not without risk; apologetic for an Aristotelian framework to underpin character and virtue a one-sided conversation consisting education in theological schools; his ofit could‘letters’ feel that a bit are artificial primarily to haveacademic such ‘reading Romans backwards’ (à la Scot and theological argumentation rather McKnight’s recent book of that name, than personal epistles. But overall, but written independently of it) as ‘a the risk pays off at a number of levels. comparatively straightforward invita- First, the dialogical tone makes the tion to character and virtue’ (p. 211); book a pleasure to read (this is also the author’s familiarity with and critical Book Reviews 191 assessment of the virtues in the classical Joseph: A Story of Love, Hate, tradition; and a rich description of the Slavery, Power, and Forgiveness virtues themselves. In addition, as a fan of Stanley Hauerwas I appreciated John C. Lennox Oxenham’s frequent engagement with Wheaton, IL, USA: Crossway, 2019 and acknowledged indebtedness to this Pb., 232 pp., index Texan’s distinctively Christian approach Reviewed by Boris Paschke, Guest to virtue. Associate Professor of New Testament, Running throughout the book are Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, extensive footnotes, often in the form of Leuven, Belgium quotations or expanded discussion. I am According to its back cover, this book glad that the publisher did not eliminate belongs to the category of biblical stud- these footnotes, which constitute a rich resource for the reader who wishes to the spirituality or counselling shelf. In take a detour (or ten) along the way. aies, sermon-like but it would manner, actually John fit betterC. Lennox, on The passionate nature of Oxenham’s Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at treatise leaves perhaps the most lasting the University of Oxford, retells the bib- impression. His analysis of the death lical story of Joseph (Gen 37–50) while of character and virtue in theological inserting worthwhile pastoral advice education will likely be recognized by and application. ‘As we think our way into the narrative’, he writes, ‘it rapidly many churches. Oxenham clearly writes becomes a penetrating searchlight into withmost aof sincere us working desire in to that be offield—and service by the complex psychodramas of our own to fellow theological educators across a theological and geographical spec- are indicated in the book’s subtitle. trum who share his concern to restore Aslives’ Lennox (11). repeatedlyThe major areasstresses, of reflection the rel- character and virtue to the heart of their evance and literary beauty of the Joseph discipline. narrative can hardly be overestimated: This goal becomes especially evident in ‘The story of Joseph the son of Jacob has Part 3, which explores what actual im- a timeless quality’ (9). ‘He [Joseph] re- plementation of Oxenham’s vision might veals himself to them [his brothers] and look like at the level of criteria for hiring publicly forgives and embraces them in staff, community ethos, curriculum one of the most moving scenes in all of design, teaching virtue, module content, world literature’ (11). assessment and quality assurance. He Lennox convincingly demonstrates that contends that much of what he writes ‘there are deep pointers to the gospel is globally transferrable, yet is keen to of Jesus Christ embedded in the Joseph emphasize that his work is not a text- narrative’ (197). However, he states that book but an epistolary novel, designed his main focus is ‘to look at and learn to inspire and resource his peers in their from Joseph’s life in its own right’ (75). God-given calling to develop graduates Nevertheless, Lennox repeatedly loses of virtuous character who will serve Joseph out of sight. The book’s rela- God’s people with integrity. The book tively long Part 1 (13–69) is titled ‘The succeeds admirably in achieving that Broader Context in Genesis’ and sum- goal. At my institution, we will certainly marizes Genesis 1–36. At the beginning of Part 2 (71–220), Lennox remarks, ‘At team. be reflecting on this book together as a long last we reach the main objective of 192 Book Reviews this book, the story of Joseph’ (73). The discovered’ (117). However, the parallel recapitulating of this story, however, advice that Lennox gives in this context is often interrupted by other matters. is out of place: ‘Also, we should not for- This becomes particularly obvious in get that in the Greek and Roman world the chapter ‘The Nature of Forgiveness’ academics were all slaves (some of us (171–84). After referring to various are tempted to think we still are!)’ (116). more recent statements concerning, studies on, and examples of forgiveness from a historical perspective, and the (e.g. Corrie ten Boom’s moving encoun- secondThe first part part downplays of this statement the desperate is wrong ter with a former Ravensbrück concen- and agonizing situation of all those who tration camp prison guard), Lennox an- really have to live in slavery. nounces, ‘With all these things in mind The references to non-biblical primary we return to Joseph’ (181). The very sources are not indicated. Herodotus’ short remainder of the chapter (pages statement ‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile’ (105) comes from his Histories 2,5 Throughout the book, Lennox draws (literally ‘river’). ‘The sun god Ra was 181–84) finally discusses Joseph. valuable spiritual lessons from the self-created. An Egyptian text says: “He Joseph narrative. Particularly notewor- became, by himself”’ (110). The respec- thy in this regard are his thoughts on tive text is the Book of the Dead (chapter (1) the (often unfelt) presence of God in 17). ‘She [Joseph’s wife Asenath; cf. Gen the lives of believers (114; cf. the phrase 41:45] may even have been a convert ‘The was with Joseph’ in Gen 39:2, to Joseph’s God, as one Jewish tradition 21); (2) the imprisoned Joseph’s sensi- has it’ (159). The tradition in question tivityLord to the sadness of his fellow prison- is the ancient romantic novel Joseph and ers (139; cf. Gen 40:6–7); (3) the biblical Asenath (chapters 9–15). notion of ‘waiting on the Lord’ (144); Lennox’s documentation of more recent and (4) gratitude as the best remedy works is also incomplete at points. He against self-pity (183; cf. Gen 42:36). appropriately mentions the works of Lennox’s remarks on slavery require ‘the brilliant Jewish commentator Leon some additional discussion. He aptly Kass’ (80), British Egyptologist Kenneth stresses that ‘Joseph was a slave, but he Anderson Kitchen (96), and German Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann head steward of Potiphar’s house’ (117). (157). However, Lennox frequently Lennoxclearly enjoyed is correct considerable in concluding, freedom ‘That’s as refers to ‘some commentators’ (160), very different from the kind of slavery ‘scholars’ (19), or ‘other scholars’ (80) that Wilberforce abolished and should without mentioning their names, let not be confused with it’ (116). Further, alone their publications. Lennox is sensitive to the miserable situation of modern-day slaves: ‘We should The book concludes with an appendix … not forget the very disturbing fact that - there are still many slaves in the world tian History’ and general and Scripture on ‘Major Divisions of Ancient Egyp today, men, women, and children suffer- indices. ing … horrendous conditions of dehu- Despite some weaknesses, Lennox has manizing servitude similar to that which published a worthwhile pastoral inter- Wilberforce saw abolished in England. pretation of the story of Joseph. For all Their numbers run into millions, and those who teach this narrative in church they are to be found even in the most or school settings, the book can provide civilized of nations, where slave victims valuable ideas with regard to application of the biblical text. of human trafficking are regularly