Is Jesus the Son of Allah? Three Models for Christian Mission

Is Jesus the Son of Allah? Graham Kings Kneeling alone on the soft carpet To the Ultimate Submitter, of a Mombasa mosque, Jesus the Messiah. Chandeliers above, galleries around, Stereo system stacked high in the corner, He does not change his God, The quiet question came to me-- for God is One,' Is Jesus the Son of Allah? But discovers in the Son That God is strangely, inconceivably great, The question is not about Jesus, but Allah: because He became so conceivably small; The Arabic for God is more than a name That God, in the end, is mercifully just but is He the same since He has absorbed the evil of all. as our God and Father? We may, perhaps, then whisper In Southern Sudan that Jesus is the Son of Allah: a Christian will answer, militantly, "No": But in this naked act of naming, In Pakistan the active Word transforms the Name. a Christian may answer, philosophically, "Yes": In Saudi Arabia Prostrate upon the carpet of a Mombasa mosque, a Muslim will answer, immediately, "No": Softly to Jesus, Son of Allah, I prayed; So does it depend where we stand-or kneel? Then rose again to slip outside and join my wife and daughters, El Shaddai of Abraham who were waiting in the shade. Is revealed as Yahweh to Moses, But not as Ba'al to Elijah: What of Almighty Allah? Graham Kings, Vice Principal of St. Andrew's Institute The crucial clue may lead us to for Mission and Evangelism, Kerugoya, Kenya, is a CMS A Muslim now submitting missionary. Three Models for Christian Mission James M. Phillips issiology has often felt uncertain about the nature and italism," or Ernst Troeltsch employed to differentiate "churches" M definition of models for Christian mission. It is some and "sects.:" and H. Richard Niebuhr developed to discern times assumed that there is only one appropriate model, which, relationships between "Christ" and "culture.i" The "ideal despite defects, is the dominant model throughout the biblical types" to which these writers referred rarely existed in the real period and the history of the Christian church. At the same time, world in a pure state, but were almost always found in combi mission literature employs a number of conflicting models of mis nations with different types. Such a warning pertains here, as sion, without necessarily making clear how these models should well. The three models for mission are not the only models that operate, how they relate to one another, what kinds of leadership have been used, but they represent to some extent the combi they require, or how their results are to be evaluated. This article nation of numerous models found in the history of missions. presents three major models for Christian mission and traces their Those readers who conclude that the following analysis is over origins in the Old Testament period, their modification in New simplified have the writer's complete understanding. He only Testament times, and their development in church history. asks their indulgence of his use of broad brush strokes in order The methodology that will be used here is that of discerning to make these models of mission a bit clearer. "ideal types." This is not unlike the methodology Max Weber The three models are Sinai, with its recollection of the people used' to relate "the Protestant ethic" to "the spirit of cap- of God gathered at Mount Sinai with Moses the lawgiver as their leader; Zion, with its concept of Israel centered on Mount Zion in Jerusalem under its kings and priests; and Judgment, with its promise of the coming Lord who will intervene with finality in James M. Phillips has been Associate Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center since 1983. After short-term missionary service in Korea (1949-1952), he human history, both for condemnation and salvation. These three taught church historyas a Presbyterian fraternal worker at Tokyo Union Theo models originate in the Old Testament, and it is with their ap logical Seminary inJapan (1959-1975), andasavisitingproiessor at SanFrancisco pearances there, in approximately chronological order, that we Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union (1975-1982). begin. 18 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH SUMMER At the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, SCHOOL keycourses are taught only by SCHEDULE the primary professor ... even for 1990 in the summer! SESSION 1 • JUNE 18-29 MB500/520 Anthropology (core), Charles Kraft MH522 The Church in Hostile Environments, Peter Kuzmic and Arthur Glasser ML560 Implementing Change in Christian Organizations, Bobby Clinton MT521 Pauline Theology and the Mission Church, Dean Gilliland Special Inter-Session • July 2-6 MR595 Theology of Jewish Liturgy, Stuart Dauermann SESSION 2 • JULY 9-20 MC500/520 Foundations of Church Growth (core), Peter Wagner ML543 Curriculum Design, Eddie Elliston (July 12-18) ML595 Career Dynamics, Bobby Clinton (July 12-19) MM595a Chinese Pastors and Acculturation, Che-Bln Tan and Hoover Wong (July 9-13, credit option available) MM595b American Communities, Understanding Your Chinese Neighbors, Che-Bin Tan and Hoover Wong (July 16-20, credit option available) MR520 Phenomenology and Institution of Folk Religions (elective core), Paul Hiebert SESSION 3 • JULY 23·AUGUST 3 MB530 Language/Culture Learning and Mission, Elizabeth Brewster (July 20-August 3) ML 500/520 Foundations of Leadership (elective core), Eddie Elliston MR550 Introduction to Islam, Dudley Woodberry MR533 Modern Jewish History, Literature and Thought, George Giaclmakus SESSION 4· AUGUST 6-17 MB576 Incarnation and Mission Among the World's Urban Poor, Elizabeth Brewster MH520 Historical Development of the Christian Mission (elective core), Paul Pierson MM560 Women in Cross-Cultural Ministry,Evelyn Jensen MR551 Muslim Evangelism, Dudley Woodberry SESSION 5 • AUGUST 20-31 MR555 Folk Islam, Dudley Woodberry MT520 Biblical Theology of Mission (core) Charles Van Engen SESSION 6 • SEPTEMBER 4-14 MR554 Muslim Church Planting, Warren Chastain Write or phone the Office of Admissions The School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, California 91182 1 (800) 234-2222 Ext. 5400 We welcome students of any race, sex, color, national orethnic origin. The Models in the Old Testament context as well. New peoples may enter in covenant relationships by these means, with implications for new identity and empow The first model of mission is here designated as Sinai, recalling erment. Even if newcomers reject the covenant, the Sinai model the gathering of the Hebrew people at Mt. Sinai, the mountain still maintains the self-understanding of its original adherents. of God, under the leadership of Moses the lawgiver (Exod. 19:16 In sum, Sinai is a model of mission for a people embarked oncross 25). It is not the mountain itself that is the crucial feature but cultural encounters. Under charismatic leadership and adhering to rather the history of liberation from slavery in Egypt that has led a body of laws and regulations, the people enter into contact with up to it, the covenant and laws that were enacted upon it, and strangers of other backgrounds and seek to maintain their own the unending results that have flowed from it. identity in these new circumstances while trying to induce at least Sinai is where the Hebrew people were given an identity as some of the strangers to enter into covenanted community with those who had escaped from slavery in Egypt and now knew them. themselves as the people of God, living in covenant obedience Having gone through the experience of Sinai, the Hebrews conquered the land of Canaan and settled there. At length, King David captured the city of Jerusalem from the [ebusites, made it his capital, and brought the- ark of the covenant there after its long wilderness wanderings (2 Sam. 6:1-23). The stage was set for the second model of mission to arise. With the Hebrew people settled in their own land, with their own king from the house of David living in the royal palace in Jerusalem, with his son Solomon, who would build the Temple nearby on Mt. Zion, the model of Zionbegins. In contrast to Sinai, where the law was given, Zion is the mountain where the Temple is to be found." This Mount Zion becomes the new focus of Hebrew religion (Ps. 97:6-9). The Lord Himself is no longer des ignated as "the one of Sinai," but the one "who dwells on Mount Zion" (Isa. 8:18). The consequences of these changes are profound. In addition to the covenant of Sinai, there is now a new covenant with the house of David, saying that it shall always rule and the worship of the Lord will always take place in the Temple (2 Kings 8:19). Zion is a cosmic mountain. It is where God dwells; where heaven and earth meet at the center of the world; where "effective decrees are issued"; the moral and physical capital of the uni verse, of crucial importance for all nations." The time of the Sinai type charismatic leader has passed, and now, to use Max Weber's categories, leadership in both political and religious realms be comes bureaucratized, and both are situated on Zion. 6 Both Isaiah and Micah declared that it was to Zion that all nations would come and from there the word of the Lord would go out to all the world (Isa. 2:2-4; Mic. 4:1-2). Zion, then, is a model of mission for people who have established SINAI: Theofficial emblem of the Society for the Propagation themselves in their own promised land. They possess their own re of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG, Anglican, founded 1701) shows a British warship landing in foreign parts with ligious shrine and governmental center, as well as a society with a vested clergyman on deck holding forth a copy of the social hierarchies led by specialized leaders.

Load more