2 From missionaries to ecumenical co-workers A case study from Mission 21 in Kalimantan, Indonesia Claudia Hoffmann Introduction Mission 21, based in Basel, Switzerland, emerged through the union of several missionary organisations – Basel Mission is the best known amongst them – and was officially founded on 1 January 2001. Mission 21 sees its key tasks today in reduction of poverty, health care, agriculture, fair trade, education, the advance­ ment of peace, the empowerment of women and gender equality. Coincidentally, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were formulated around the same time, in September 2000, at the United Nations headquarters in New York by world leaders, “committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets” (United Nations 2016). The aims and goals of Mission 21 are therefore very similar to the agenda of secular development agencies trying to achieve the MDGs. Despite this simi­ larity to secular development organisations, Mission 21 is very keen to show the continuity between their work nowadays and their initial history in the early 19th century. Although there have been several considerable frictions, particularly dur­ ing the second half of the 20th century, their profile did not substantially change. This mission organisation had to come across with changes, not only recently in the early 2000s, but also during the 1950s and in the 1960s Basel Mission had to deal with several frictions that affected their work and self-concept. This interesting time of transition to post-colonialism constitutes an underestimated period in the history of Christianity in the 20th century. During these years a paradigmatic shift occurs in Mission history: it is the time where the international missionary movement transformed, the ecumenical movement was differenti­ ated, and independent – later called contextual – theologies from the South joined forces (Heuser 2016). The decolonisation in the 1960s forced missionary agencies to define themselves in a new way. In almost every country in the world, local autonomous churches emerged. The relationship between these churches and the mission organisations in Europe and USA had to be redefined. During the World Mission conference in Bangkok at the turn of 1972/1973, a proposal was made for a temporary moratorium on sending missionaries and money from the North to Africa, Asia and Latin America (World Council of Churches 2016b). The morato­ rium was never really accepted yet had an important impact on the self-concept of From missionaries to ecumenical co-workers 31 mission organisations and also on the purpose and meaning of mission. Craig Ott and Stephen Strauss, both professors of intercultural studies and mission, stress in their mission book that “In the 1960s the ecumenical movement proclaimed, that the age of ‘missions’ was thus passed. The age of ‘mission’ had come . .” (Ott et al. 2010, pp. 218–219). Thus, the sending of missionaries to distant and so called “unreached” peoples should stop and every church should become a mis­ sion church in its own locale. The age of real ecumenism began. Instead of mis­ sionaries, fraternal co-workers1 were needed in the newly established churches in the South. In Basel Mission, the whole process of change in the understanding of mis­ sionaries began only in the 1970s yet much earlier than in other places: the self- identification of missionaries changed dramatically due to the eviction of all missionaries from China during the years after Mao Zedong’s seizure of power from 1949–1952 (Jenkins 1998, pp. 21–22). This experience was a shock for Basel Mission; they no longer felt welcome in the missionary territories. After the missionary seminary in Basel was closed in 1954, Basel Mission decided to send out missionaries only on demand of their partner churches.2 Basel Mission had to redefine itself. The notion of “development” and how evangelisation and diaconia are linked together played a significant role in this redefinition process. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the notion, implications and activities of development within Basel Mission/Mission 21, coming from a purely mission­ ary agency and heading to a faith-based development organisation.3 How did they change over time? Mission 21 sees its key tasks today as working in the areas of poverty reduction, health care, agriculture, fair trade, education, the advancement of peace, the empowerment of women and gender equality. Despite all the frictions described above, the emphasis on continuity between the work in the early days of Basel Mission and the work of Mission 21 today will be explained. I will answer these questions through a comparative analysis of two projects or programmes of Mission 21 in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The first project is the Farming Centre in Tumbang Lahang which was opened in 1955, right after the China disaster, and closed in 2011. The second project is called “Empowerment of Basic Groups” and was implemented in 2015, when the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were formulated. Furthermore, this contribution deals with the fact that mission organisations fit within the definition of “invisible NGOs” in the field of develop­ ment (Clarke 2006, p. 843). Exploring the project work of Mission 21 helps to show the “added value” of mission organisations in development work that is assumed by several researchers (James 2011; Clarke 2012b). The case illustrates that faith- based organisations (FBOs) can become “development entrepreneurs” (Koehrsen and Heuser 2019 in this volume) by assuming critical positions towards prevalent development concepts and suggesting alternative notions of development. Mission organisations as “invisible NGOs” Generally speaking, the role of mission organisations in development co-operation has been ignored. In development discourses they have long been regarded as 32 Claudia Hoffmann suspicious organisations by the development sector: mission organisations save souls and proselytise and are therefore not allowed into the development sector (Fountain 2015, pp. 89–90). However, in mainstream Christian teaching, mission is understood as “a continuation of Jesus’ mission of service rooted in ‘love’, which itself was entrusted to his disciples whom He had sent out to share His Good News”. The roots of mission seem to be quite clear however the practice of mission always has been very diverse, ranging from religious conversion through preaching and evangelisation “to serving the poor and the marginalised without being vocal in faith” (Clarke 2012a, p. 2). Furthermore, missionary organisa­ tions should be considered important forces in development co-operation due to their strong links to local communities. Community-focused models of devel­ opment have become increasingly important during the last decade. Missionary organisations could be attractive stakeholders: development service of missionary organisations is hold to be very efficient, because they are locally rooted and have national, international and ecumenical networks. Furthermore, mission organisa­ tions profit greatly from voluntary work. Volunteering is often understood as a part of the calling of practising Christians. Moreover, the work of missionary organisations often concentrates on areas which are difficult to access for the state. Finally, but no less importantly, mission organisations as religious organisations have better possibilities to work together with religious leaders. Religious leaders are often the most trusted people in developing countries (James 2011, p. 111). Through analysing the project work of Basel Mission/Mission 21 these statements will be accentuated later. Criticism related to religious character is an issue dealt with not only by mis­ sion organisations, but by any FBO. The critiques are not limited to the issue of proselytization. FBOs are also accused of acting alone and in isolation, not will­ ing to collaborate with other FBOs or secular organisations, and of contributing to tensions and conflicts (Heist and Cnaan 2016, pp. 11–13). Furthermore, it is not only mission organisations nor FBOs that have been a disputed topic in the development discourse: religion and spirituality on the whole have been long­ time neglected subjects. In the year 2000, spirituality was still considered taboo in development theory and practice. The sociologist Kurt Allen Ver Beek sees four possible reasons for this: a “fear of imposing foreign perspectives, a dichotomis­ ing Northern perspective, a fear of conflict, or the lack of precedent or models” (Beek 2000, p. 40). While Ver Beek emphasises the important role of spiritual­ ity in development issues, other authors stress the distinction between FBOs and NGOs and the importance and contribution of faith-based organisations to devel­ opment work (Ware et al. 2016). During the last 15 years, spirituality, religion and FBOs have played an increasingly important role in development discourse – contemporary development studies also deal with the impact of religion and spir­ ituality (Déneulin and Bano 2009). Many topics have been researched in this field, for instance, the impact of distinct religious beliefs on development (for the impact of Pentecostalism see Freeman 2012; for the impact of different religious beliefs Mtata 2013 or Faschingeder and Six 2007), and how FBOs seek to influence the debates at UN level (Haynes 2014). Historical and contemporary case studies From missionaries to ecumenical co-workers