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Christian
Mission in a World of Options #1
Christian Mission in a New World
A Different World
by R. Todd Bouldin
Christian
mission is done in the world, but many of us are waking up and finding
that the world has changed drastically from the world of our childhoods.
Many of us grew up in a southern Bible Belt culture in which most of
our neighbors shared our world view. Most of our neighbors claimed to
be Christian, even if they only attended church on Easter. Christian
prayers were heard at high school football games. The Bible was respected
and revered as an authority for belief and life. Marriage was between
a man and a woman, and families stayed in close proximity and shared
the same values. There were only two brands of soda: Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Evangelism was seen as an attempt to bring the “erring” members of denominations into the safety of the “true church.” Mission largely took place to in “Christian” cultures such as Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean where missions were basically understood as an attempt to convert the Catholics. Most of us probably had to move to California before we knew a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim or an atheist … perhaps many of us still do not.
But we are certain that the world we are living in now is no longer the world we knew then. We detect a sea change in our cultural, political and religious landscapes that is being driven at least partially by what many philosophers believe is a major philosophical shift from modernism to postmodernism. Just today we have watched our U.S. Senate debate same-sex marriage, and the ban on same-sex marriage failed. Who would have ever thought we would be having the debate twenty years ago? Our Supreme Court recently considered a case, which it overturned on a technicality, in which an atheist argued that the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was a violation of the separation of church and state. Pop culture figures embrace Jewish mysticism while not disavowing their Christian traditions. A young person today is raised in a global environment in which global news, fashion, music and religions become realistic options. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Kaballah, or an eclectic blend are all options easily within reach on the Internet or at the temple just down the street. This means that we, and particularly our children, are living in a culture that no longer shares common faith or values.
This change in our world view means that we must revisit our ideas of mission in this new world. We have a lot more in common with Baptists and Catholics now than we do with our Muslim or Buddhist neighbors – perhaps that does not change our mission, but it certainly presents new questions. What happens to Christian identity and mission when the world no longer shares our assumptions nor even a belief in our God. Most of all, how do we view our mission when our world is presented with a buffet of religious choices?
World view shifts take place throughout human history, and they are not simply the fabrications of philosophers and historians. For example, the printing press and the Reformation drastically changed culture and even the church as we entered the modern era. Now many people believe we are experiencing a new cultural shift that is not altogether clear yet – scholars have labeled this shift “postmodernism” but what it shall be is not clear – we can only describe what is. “Post” means “after” – and that’s really all that can be said: we are emerging toward a period “after” modernism, but we still retain much of modernism as we make that shift. Let’s look at this chart and see if we can notice these trends.
[Emerging Church chart]
A. What are the most significant epistemological trends that have affected the way the church viewed mission throughout the centuries?
Modernism: Faith can be systematized. Belief is propositional. Therefore, the nature of mission is primarily proclamation and a calling of people to right belief. No mystery, no transcendence.
Postmodernism: Emphasis on mystery, spirituality, experience and transcendence. Community valued over individualism. Nonlinear thinking.
Listen to this description from Dan Thomlinson from his book 'The Post-Evangelical:' The postmodern world is a world which understands itself through biological rather than mechanistic models; a world where people see themselves as belonging to the environment rather than over it or apart from it. A world distrustful of institutions, hierarchies, centralized bureaucracies, and male dominated organizations. It is a world which networks and local grassroots activities take precedence over large scale structures and grand designs; a world hungry for spirituality yet dismissive of systemized religion. It is a world in which image and reality are so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to drawn the line between the two.
B. What examples from our culture or your own life can you think of that demonstrate the shift from modernism to postmodernism? Do you see examples of this in the differences between you and your children or grandchildren?
Illustration: Pop and country music (Garth Brooks, Madonna “Music” cover); sexuality (continuum of gender orientation).
C. What are the dangers for Christian mission inherent in the postmodern shift? What are the possibilities for Christian mission?
D. A New Frontier: America As a Mission Field.
I recently had a debate with one of our members about whether America is a Christian country. It is true that historically America was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs and principles. However, our country is no longer Judeo-Christian – in some places like New York and California, non-Christian religions may even be more prevalent in some contexts. America is now a post-Christian nation for the most part, and in some cases Christian mission is even more difficult here because there are preconceived notions about Christianity which have developed into contempt for certain expressions of Christianity.
Diana Eck, professor of Comparative Religion at Harvard, has written a book called 'A New Religious America: How a Christian Country Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation.' Ms Eck says in her introduction: “The United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world . . . . Members of the world’s religions live not just on the other side of the world but in our neighborhoods; Hindu children go to school with Jewish children; Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs work side-by-side with Protestants and Catholics.”
She goes on to write in her book: The new religious diversity is now a Main Street phenomenon, yet many Americans and most Christian leaders remain unaware of the profound change taking place at every level of our society, from local school boards to Congress, and in small-town Nebraska as well as New York City. Islamic centers and mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples, and meditation centers can be found in virtually every major American metropolitan area. There are Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in Salt Lake City, Utah, Toledo, Ohio, and Jackson, Mississippi. Buddhism has become an American religion, as communities widely separated in Asia are now neighbors in Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago. There are now Muslims worshiping in a U-haul dealership in Pawtucket, Rhode Island; a gymnasium in Oklahoma City; and a former mattress room in Northridge, California. Hindu temples are housed in Queens, a former YMCA in New Jersey and a former Methodist church in Minneapolis.
We now live in a nation that offers ever more accessible religious choices, and all those choices are perceived as equal. As Madonna says in her song “Love Profusion”
There are too many questions
There is not one solution
There is no resurrection
There is so much confusion
Tom Clegg and Warren Bird state in their book 'Lost in America' that “the unchurched population in the United States is so extensive that, if it were a nation, it would be the fifth most populated nation on the planet after China, the former Soviet Union, India, and Brazil. Thus, our unchurched population is the largest mission field in the English-speaking world and the fifth largest globally.”
At least six religions other than Christianity have a presence in Camarillo alone.
E. What are the implications of those statistics for Christian mission?
1. We must see ourselves as missionaries in our culture, dream missionary dreams, and pray missionary dreams.
2. Our culture no longer shares our biblical or Christian world view.
3. We will have to begin again with the basics.
4. We must distinguish belief in Christ from the preconceived ways Christianity is perceived. Humility rather than defensiveness.
F. Is our world any different than the world of first century Christianity?
The good news: Christian faith can take root and grow in a pluralistic world! It did before, and it can again!
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