Question Time

20/08/2021 3:20:22 PM | Geoff Maddock

There are many questions we can ask about mission and our place in it, but do we ever question mission itself? Is it justifiable today?

It’s reasonable to have mixed feelings about an enterprise with such a mixed legacy. The history of mission is undeniably intermingled with colonialism and the harm associated with that. It’s right to acknowledge the brutality of some mission endeavours and to recognise mission efforts were often accompanied by cultural dominance, economic cruelty and military conquest.

These coercive practices have no place in God’s mission. But where does that leave mission in this century?

As we consider this question, we hold in tension the importance of reflecting, confessing and lamenting with the conviction that there is good reason for hope-fuelled mission in the decades to come. But this conviction rightly leads us to another question.

What Kind of Mission?
When we talk about God’s relationship with the world, certain scriptures leap to mind, but one in particular captures the Christian imagination. John 3:16.

For God so loved the world...
This truth is the doorway every missional idea and practice must pass through. It also contains the means of God’s loving mission – the incarnation.

... that he gave his only Son…
God’s non-coercive, bodily love for the world is the fountainhead for all we hope to do in mission. It is simultaneously the motivation and the method. To escape the mistakes of the past and freshly align ourselves with a biblical missiology, we need to embrace God’s unqualified affection for the whole world as shown to us in the ways of Jesus.

Many of our past mistakes in mission are tethered to a dualistic worldview that dismisses God’s care and concern for bodily life while focussing on the afterlife. The flipside of this is that we privilege physical matters and ignore the spiritual realities of God’s world.

As we consider mission in the 21st century, we are compelled to return to this crucial question: How can we be ambassadors for the whole Gospel to the whole world? At the very least, this requires an embodied commitment to God’s love across the street and around the world.

Evangelism or Social Justice?
Jesus was questioned about why He wasted so much time enjoying food and friends. The religious people of His day seemed to be concerned Jesus wasn’t prioritising the right things. Some today also assume we should either prioritise ‘evangelism’ or ‘social justice’.

In the second half of the 20th century, evangelicals had a vigorous debate about what was more important for mission – evangelism or social justice. Into this debate stepped a humble scholar, a pastor by the name of Rene Padilla. He argued there was no need to choose, in fact, by choosing one over the other we were doomed to failure. He said that evangelism and social justice were like two wings of an aeroplane…we need both!

As we reflect on mission, seeking God’s leading and drawing on scripture, we return to the world-embracing love of Jesus. And in embodying this love, we cannot dismember the good news in order to accommodate our unbiblical dualism and must recognise that mission is as much for neighbouring nations as it is for our actual neighbours.
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