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[From Prophecy and passion: Essays in honour of Athol Gill,
ed. David Neville.
Adelaide: Australian Theological Forum, 2002. 328–345.]
Anabaptist Perspectives for Mission
Ross Langmead
I write as a Christian with Anabaptist leanings and hope to outline some of the major missiological contributions of Anabaptist perspectives. I owe my awareness of the Anabaptist tradition to studying under Athol Gill. It was not that he kept referring to the
Anabaptists but that his passion was for the Gospel accounts of Jesus and what they mean for discipleship, community and mission today; this passion led him to own the Anabaptist strands in Baptist history and to re-appropriate them in the cause of discipleship. In considering Anabaptist distinctives in mission it becomes clear how much they have influenced the radical evangelical movement of the last quarter of the twentieth century, in which Athol Gill played such a significant role.
It is difficult to characterise Anabaptism because of its great variety. But for the purposes of a brief overview there are certain missiological emphases which are clear.
These emphases follow from the central characteristics of the Anabaptist movement in the sixteenth century, which rejected both Catholicism and Protestantism and insisted that church membership belongs only to adults who choose baptism as believers. As well as being ‘believers’ churches’ Anabaptist groups challenged state control and monopoly of religion and became known (generally, though not without exception) for
- the ‘centrality of the Bible,
- an apolitical stance,
- nonresistance to evil and refusal to take part in military operations,
- a stress on ethics defined in terms of discipleship or following the example of Jesus, and
- a visible church preserved through systematic discipline’.[1]
Such features were not universal. The excesses of the violent Anabaptist minority in the sixteenth century, such as the apocalyptically inspired massacre in Münster in 1535, are well known.[2]
Recent historical studies have shown that a wide variety of Anabaptist groups existed in the two decades before about 1540, from pacifist to militant, from politically engaged to withdrawn, and positioned on nearly all points of the theological spectrum on many major doctrines.[3]
Nevertheless there was an underlying unity that became clearer in time. Walter Klaassen argues that we can identify some themes held in common after the movement had crystallised by about 1540, namely
- salvation involving both divine and human cooperation,
- the baptism and ‘priesthood’ of all believers, and
- a view of Christianity as gathered congregational community rather than a clericalised and territorially-based church.[4]
Over time Anabaptism has become a tradition in which the church seeks to be different from the world, separate and living out its new life in discipleship under the authority of Jesus as seen in the New Testament. It has particularly valued a communal approach and has held high the vocation of peacemaking, most often through pacifism.5
In 1944 the Anabaptism tradition was sharpened further by Mennonite historian Harold Bender in his paper, The Anabaptist vision, which saw the essence of Christianity in terms of
- discipleship,
- the church as a voluntary committed community, and
- the ethic of love and
- non-resistance.[5]
The Anabaptist vision has inspired a generation of Mennonites to try to live a ‘life patterned after the teaching and example of Christ’, to use Bender’s words.[6]
As this brief summary of Anabaptism shows, it is remarkable for taking seriously the expectation that Christians should live in a quite different way from those around them. Mission flows from aspiring to live as Christ lived.
Early Anabaptism and recent Mennonite missiology provide the richest material for analysis. In their enthusiasm for evangelism the early Anabaptists foreshadowed the modern Protestant missionary movement by over two hundred years. For a variety of reasons, however, such as persecution and the growth of separatist and exclusivist theology, the Anabaptists soon lost their missionary zeal and settled down to try and remain faithful and pure, becoming known as the ‘quiet in the land’.8 Modern Mennonite missiology has recovered the missionary vision somewhat, and is vigorously interpreting the best of early Anabaptist approaches to mission for Christians today. Several major missiological emphases stand out in examining Anabaptist thought. They can be gathered under the six headings of ‘kingdom theology’, mission as discipleship, a cruciform mission, peacemaking, mission from the margins, and mission in community.
1. The multi-dimensional commonwealth of God
The most fundamental Anabaptist emphasis with missiological implications is that Christian mission is about co-operating with God in the ushering in of a new order.9 The centre of Jesus’ preaching was how close the kingly reign of God is. This mysterious reality starts from the small and grows in surprising ways and is an upside-down kingdom. It is ‘God’s new order of justice, peace, and covenant community’.10 The church does not build the kingdom but is witness to the kingdom-bringing work of God amongst us.11
The ‘kingdom of God’ is not a realm but the dynamic presence of God, or God-come-in-strength.12 In its New Testament use it seems to refer both to God’s saving presence and our enjoyment of a new set of relationships in God’s creation. In other words, first it’s a new reign and, as a result, it’s a new order.13 It is both ‘God present’ and the fruit of God present. For this reason, and because monarchical relationships are for many of us anachronistic these days, we could translate the term as ‘the Commonwealth of God’. Because we are transformed in obedience to God we enjoy life in God’s commonwealth.
8 S F Pannebecker, ‘Missions, Foreign Mennonite’, in The Mennonite encyclopedia, Vol. 3, eds. Harold S Bender and C Henry Smith (Scottdale, PA:
Mennonite Publishing House, 1957), 712.
9 For a brief outline of sixteenth-century Anabaptist kingdom theology see RobertFriedmann, ‘The doctrine of the two worlds’, in The recovery of the Anabaptist vision, ed. Guy F Hershberger (Scottdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1957), 105-118.
10 John Driver, ‘The kingdom of God: Goal of messianic mission’, in The transfiguration of mission: Biblical, theological and historical foundations, ed.
Wilbert R Shenk (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993), 83-105.
11 Driver, ‘The kingdom of God’, 100.
12 Bruce Chilton, ‘God in strength’, in The kingdom of God in the teachings of
Jesus, ed. Bruce Chilton (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 121-132.
What this vision means is that only a holistic view of mission will do. The evangelical preoccupation throughout most of the last century with evangelism in an individualistic setting will not do. The ecumenical tendency at times in recent decades to see the gospel mainly in social and political terms will not do. Even the attempt to treat ‘word’ and ‘deed’ as two distinguishable aspects of mission and then try to keep them in balance will not do.14 All types of Christian mission — evangelism, caring for our neighbours, community development, justice seeking, peacemaking, social action, living in a welcoming community, environmental action, praying in hope for God’s kingdom to come, and so on — are facets of the one jewel. They are each only a part of our response to the transforming grace of God. A new order is a whole new order and God’s mission should always stretch us as we try to keep the whole vision in view.
Another implication of the kingdom-view (while only implicit in most Anabaptist writing) is that our mission begins with God’s action and a cosmic view of God’s mission. If the Commonwealth of God is a new set of relationships, they extend not only to our relationship to God and our relationships with each other but to our relationships to other creatures and to the environment itself. An ecological framework insists that nothing is fully transformed until everything is fully transformed. That surely is part of the meaning of the cryptic passage in Romans 8 about the creation groaning to be set free from bondage (Rom 8:18-25). Christopher Marshall sums it up: ‘The gospel embraces personal renewal, social renewal and ecological renewal’.15
According to Jürgen Moltmann, ‘embodiment is the end of all God’s works’.16 That is, incarnation is part of the divine dynamic, found in God’s presence in creation, in history, pre-eminently in the person of Jesus Christ and also in the life of the church. All this puts mission in a large and mysterious context. In a sense our task is only to respond to God’s Spirit within us and point to God at work.
13 Christopher Marshall, Kingdom come: The kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Auckland: Impetus, 1993), 43-44.
14 Wilbert R Shenk, Changing frontiers in mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999), 2829.
15 Marshall, Kingdom come, 102.
16 Jürgen Moltmann, God in creation: An ecological doctrine of creation (London:
SCM, 1985), 244-245.
Contemporary Anabaptist writers are impressive in the way they keep this multi-dimensional kingdom perspective on mission. Two examples are The transfiguration of mission, edited by Wilbert Shenk (1993),17 and Christopher Marshall’s study of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus, called Kingdom come.18
2. Mission as discipleship
For Anabaptists the Christian life involves a full-bodied discipleship. Anabaptists all insist that the church is the gathered community of those who freely choose to respond to the call of Jesus to follow him and then are baptised. Mission and discipleship are one.19 That is, mission is a natural dimension of the lives of ordinary believers in the course of following Jesus. Every Christian is a missionary in the sense that we are all called to live out the gospel and to bear witness to its power in our lives.
Among the early Anabaptists there was no organised missionary program, only the spontaneous and effective expression of the Christian message by educated and uneducated alike, in spoken word and in daily life.20 Harold Bender, endeavouring to encapsulate the Anabaptist vision, said that the key phrase of the Anabaptists was not ‘faith in Christ’ but ‘following Christ’.21 Denny Weaver writes:
17 Wilbert R Shenk, ed. The transfiguration of mission: Biblical, theological and historical foundations (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993).
18 Christopher Marshall, Kingdom come: The kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Auckland: Impetus, 1993).
19 Harry Huebner, ‘Discipleship’, in The Mennonite encyclopedia, Vol. 5, eds.
Cornelius J Dyck and Dennis D Martin (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990), 238; Neal Blough, ‘Messianic mission and ethics: Discipleship and the good news’, in The transfiguration of mission: Biblical, theological and historical foundations, ed.
Wilbert R Shenk (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993), 179.
20 J D Graber, ‘Anabaptism expressed in missions and social service’, in The recovery of the Anabaptist vision, ed. Guy F Hershberger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1957), 152, 154, 161-163.
21 Bender, The Anabaptist vision, 21.
Discipleship is an assumption that one who accepts Jesus Christ will use Jesus’ life and teachings as the norm within which to shape the Christian life. While those assumptions seem obvious, they are not the assumptions of the majority Christian theological tradition.22
This is an incarnational approach to mission, with a strong emphasis on embodying Christ in daily life. The main strategy for mission is to live differently, that is, to point to the new order in all dimensions of life.
We may well blanch at this. Even though we may be committed to growing more Christlike day by day, and although we may believe that the life of the church must present a clear alternative to the world, on the surface this form of incarnational mission seems impossible. Our objection might be summed up in the question: ‘What does it mean to be incarnational when we are not the Messiah?’23
Indeed, Anabaptist writers sometimes seem too simplistic. For example, Lawrence Burkholder, writing in the 1950s, argued that ‘Christianity is the concrete and realistic “imitation” of Christ’s life and work in the context of the kingdom of God’.24 What does he mean by “imitating Christ”? Is Christ merely our example? If so, we may as well give up, because our human sinfulness, our alienation from God, means we simply can’t do it.
Generally, however, we find that grace is important to Anabaptists too, in dialectical counter-balance.25 It is life-changing grace, or the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, which enables and empowers Christians to live changed lives.26 Complementing ‘following Christ’, concepts such as ‘participating in Christ’27 and ‘solidarity in Christ’ figure in both sixteenth-century and contemporary Anabaptist writers.28
22 J Denny Weaver, ‘Which way for Mennonite theology?’, Gospel Herald, 23 Jan 1996, 3.
23 Jude Tiersma, ‘What does it mean to be incarnational when we are not the
Messiah?’, in God so loves the city: Seeking a theology for urban mission, eds.
Charles Van Engen and Jude Tiersma (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1994), 7-25. 24 J Lawrence Burkholder, ‘The Anabaptist vision of discipleship’, in The recovery of the Anabaptist vision, ed. Guy F Hershberger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1957), 137.
25 Alvin J Beachy, The concept of grace in the Radical Reformation (Nieuwkoop, Holland: B. de Graaf, 1977).
26 Roelf S Kuitse, ‘Holy Spirit: Source of messianic mission’, in The transfiguration of mission: Biblical, theological and historical foundations, ed.
Wilbert R Shenk (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993), 106-129.
27 John Howard Yoder, The politics of Jesus: Vicit agnus noster, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 113.
28 J Denny Weaver, ‘Discipleship redefined: Four sixteenth century Anabaptists’,The Mennonite Quarterly Review 54 (1980): 256.
As well as trying to follow Jesus, there is an emphasis on letting go and letting the risen Christ shape our lives. The work of the Spirit is central in Anabaptist discipleship and mission. Incarnational mission involves both following Jesus and being shaped by the risen Christ.29
What does discipleship mean in practice, then? ‘Following Jesus’ isn’t straightforward. Obviously not all Christians are supposed to become carpenters or wear sandals or become itinerant preachers. And our context in the twenty-first century involves many new issues such as nuclear weapons, biotechnology, vast environmental destruction, postmodern ways of thinking and the hectic pace of life in the post-industrial world, none of which are found in the times in which Jesus lived. How do disciples become living signs to the Commonwealth of God?
Anabaptists are prepared to name some radical principles. As John Howard Yoder pointed out in The politics of Jesus, we are called to
- forgive others,
- love our enemies,
- suffer for the cause if necessary and generally live in a revolutionary new set of relationships in which the first are last and outsiders become insiders.30
It is truly an upside–down kingdom31 and an alternative society.
Anabaptists generally argue that Jesus’ teaching calls us to a non-violent stance, a non-hierarchical perspective on status and power, the practice of Christian discipleship as a voluntary and serious commitment, and Christian community as a clear alternative to the ways of the world.
Burkholder, writing in 1993, observes that modern ideas of discipleship are becoming diluted:
Mennonites continue to talk about discipleship and Anabaptism almost ad nauseum, but much of it is loose talk. For Mennonite discipleship language is no longer backed up in the communal consciousness by the gold standard of Jesus’ sayings as rigorous, sacrificial, ‘upside down’, extraordinary, impractical Sermon on the Mount presuppositions. Discipleship language these days generally refers to something between the extraordinariness of Jesus’ ethic and the everyday reasonableness of civil righteousness.32
29 Ross Langmead, ‘The Word made flesh: Towards an incarnational missiology’,Thesis (DTheol), Melbourne College of Divinity, 1997, 57-65, 76-94.
30 Yoder, The politics of Jesus, 115-126.
31 Donald B Kraybill, The upside-down kingdom, 2nd ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990).
He invokes Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s view of discipleship as involving ‘costly grace’, combining a sense of overwhelming gratitude to God with a daily and concrete commitment to at least respond to the ‘perfectionistic ethic’ of Jesus, who refused to qualify either his demands or his radical grace.33
This raises many questions. While the old social order lasts, will Christians with this approach be confined to being a ginger group on the edge of society? Will they be a small group, more critical than affirming of culture, vulnerable, servant-like and uncomfortable with conventional power? Perhaps Anabaptist mission will tend to attract passionate and uncompromising idealists. Given the impossible demands Jesus seems to place on those who listen to him, most Christians just water them down, whereas Anabaptists are likely to at least have a go. Do we need to be careful, remembering that the higher the standards we set, the greater the fall when we fail? How do we find the path between, on the one hand, overwhelming idealism, which crushes and tends to legalism and, on the other hand, a too-easy rationalisation of Jesus’ demands, which lets us off the hook at every turn? There are no easy answers.
One Anabaptist approach to mission, that of providing a withdrawn alternative community, is inadequate to my mind. This was the dominant Anabaptist vision in the sixteenth century. The Schleitheim Confession of 1527 declared that Anabaptists will have nothing to do with the wicked world. It saw reality as consisting of two opposite realms of light and darkness, Christ and the devil, discipleship and unbelief; the two opposites are to have no part of each other.34
Most Anabaptists today back away from attempts at complete withdrawal. They recognise that the Schleitheim Confession reflected a strongly dualistic view of reality which unconvincingly placed all ‘light’ within the Anabaptist communities and all ‘darkness’ in ‘the world’. Both the church and the world are much more ambiguous than this. In particular, the world is not as dark as this vision suggests. It is still the cosmos and the humanity that God created, entered and cares about.
32 J Lawrence Burkholder, ‘The limits of perfection: Autobiographical reflections’,in The limits of perfection: A conversation with J Lawrence Burkholder, eds. Rodney J Sawatsky and Scott Holland (Waterloo, Ontario: Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, 1993), 42.
33 Burkholder, ‘The limits of perfection’, 39-40.
34 John Howard Yoder, ed. The Schleitheim Confession (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1973), 11-12.
Nevertheless, exploring the alternative community is still the distinctive Anabaptist contribution to the debate about how the church should engage in mission in the world. On the spectrum between attempts at complete withdrawal and a form of Christendom where church and state live in symbiosis, the Anabaptists today are still closer to withdrawal, even though they spell out ways in which ‘the alternative community’ directly and indirectly transforms the wider community.
Denny Weaver, for example, argues for a ‘socially active alternative community’.35 He asks, ‘Is Christian social responsibility expressed primarily through the institutions of society or through the church?’ and ‘Does the church permeate society or function as a visible alternative to it?’. In both cases he opts for aiming to provide a clear alternative.36 But this alternative is one whose efforts may intersect with the attempts of governments and secular organisations to create a just and compassionate society. Indeed some Christians may work through social institutions. But the church’s mission is primarily to be the church and act in ways that point to a new order, not compromising with the old order.37
This important debate on the nature of discipleship and the social dimension of mission continues amongst Anabaptists and other scholars.38 I place myself on the ‘more socially engaged’ wing of the spectrum, along with others who accept the label of ‘radical evangelicals’. My assessment is that Athol Gill would have agreed, given that he urged Christians to incarnate the liberating power of Jesus Christ in the economic, political and cultural processes of society, including education, employment, the media, trade, urban planning and human rights.39
35 J Denny Weaver, ‘The socially active community: An alternative ecclesiology’,in The limits of perfection: A conversation with J Lawrence Burkholder, eds. Rodney Sawatsky and Scott Holland (Waterloo, Ontario: Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, 1993), 71-94.
36 Weaver, ‘The socially active community’, 76-77.
37 Weaver, ‘The socially active community’, 80.
38 See the excellent set of essays in Rodney Sawatsky and Scott Holland, eds., The limits of perfection: A conversation with J Lawrence Burkholder (Waterloo, Ontario: Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies, 1993). Also Stanley A
Hauerwas and William H Willimon, Resident aliens: Life in the Christian colony (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989); and José Míguez Bonino, ‘On discipleship, justice and power’, in Freedom and discipleship: Liberation theology in Anabaptist perspective, ed. Daniel S Schipani (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989), 131-138.
Whatever views Anabaptists hold on discipleship as living out a social alternative, there is consensus that mission is discipleship of a full-bodied nature. One of the most important contributions of the discipleship tradition, of which Anabaptism is a major strand, is its radical linkage of faith and action. The call to follow Jesus continually points beyond us, challenging us and our world. Discipleship does not need to be called ‘radical discipleship’ because there is no other type.
3. Mission shaped by the cross
Precisely because it takes seriously the call to follow Jesus the Anabaptist tradition is a theology of the cross. Because it sees the path of discipleship as cruciform, Anabaptist missiology calls Christians to face issues of suffering, cost and possible death on the path to new life and the experience of resurrection. The Anabaptist experience of persecution and martyrdom in the sixteenth century certainly stamped the movement with a clear understanding of the cost of discipleship, and Mennonite peacemaking today sometimes involves similar dangers and costs.
Mission in this mould finds the resurrection-centred approach which is common amongst Western Christians today lacking in depth and substance. A cross-shaped missiology is not comfortable with a style of mission that emphasises victory, strength, conquest and strategies that centre on power.
Some churches engage in mission primarily through inviting others to join them in praise and ecstatic worship. Those who see mission as praise are right, of course, to want to share the joy and power of the risen Christ and to celebrate experiences of spiritual victory. A missiology of the cross, however, insists that Christian joy be well anchored in the reality of the unfinished task of mission and a yearning for the fullness of the Commonwealth of God. It wants to say that as long as anyone remains lost, hungry and in despair, we should look forward in mission rather than dwell on the partial victories we experience here and now. On this view, it is not that the resurrection is limited but that its promise for the future is even greater than we have experienced so far.
39 Athol Gill, The fringes of freedom: Following Jesus, living together, working for justice (Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1990), 169-171.
Furthermore, the resurrection is God’s ‘Yes’ to the sacrificial, world-challenging life and consequent death of Jesus. The risen Christ affirms, in a way we do not fully understand, that the secret to transformed life lies in Jesus’ self-giving and obedience to God’s purposes. The cross was the symbol of all that Jesus stood for and all the resistance the world was able to offer to his radical challenge.
John Howard Yoder expressed this insight well. He reminds Christians that discipleship is a call to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Mk 8:34). He argues that only at one point is Jesus our example, and that is in his cross.40 But what does that actually mean today? Yoder embraces the socio-political dimensions of a ‘kingdom theology’ and argues that the cross must be, for us as it was for Jesus, the price of social nonconformity. It is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the order to come. It is not unpredictable suffering. It is not primarily our inward wrestling with sin, as Luther thought. It is the end of a freely chosen path after counting the cost.41 Suffering is not to be embraced but it is to be faced.
This emphasis on incarnational mission as profoundly shaped by the cross is shared by Anabaptists with others such as Bonhoeffer, Moltmann and the Latin American liberation theologians, all of whom remind us of the costly nature of this path. The more our theology leads us to engage with the suffering of those around us the more it has to face the significance of the cross.
A missiology of the cross does not deny the importance of the resurrection. The resurrection is central in all Christian faith as our hope and our power. But as Thorwald Lorenzen often says, the resurrection is the resurrection of the crucified Christ.42 The path to the resurrection is through the cross. The Anabaptists remind us that our experience as disciples, even though suffused with resurrection presence and joy, will generally be a costly and demanding commitment, as God’s gracious rule is not yet fully present. While the poor remain poor and the lost remain lost, disciples can expect suffering and rejection, and mission always takes the shape of Jesus: that of the cross.
40 Yoder, The politics of Jesus, 95.
41 Yoder, The politics of Jesus, 96.
42 Thorwald Lorenzen, Resurrection and discipleship: Interpretive models, biblical reflections, theological consequences (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 239-320.
4. Peacemaking
Apart from a few exceptions in the earliest days, Anabaptists have always seen the call to renounce violence as a direct consequence of following the way of the cross. 43 Jesus’ arrest and death flowed from his decision at every major point in his life to live and teach the way of suffering servanthood rather than to take up the sword.44 To follow Jesus, then, means to embrace the way of nonviolence and love for enemies.
Taking shape variously as non-resistance, pacifism or nonviolent resistance, the call to peacemaking is one of the more distinctive features of the Anabaptist approach to mission, a featured shared with the other historic peace churches (the Brethren and Quakers).45
In the sixteenth century non-resistance grew out of a simple response to Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek and love our enemies (Mt 5:38-45). It developed in a context where violence was used against the Anabaptists and so was closely linked to costly discipleship and the theology of the cross. Non-retaliation was also seen as a powerful witness to the transforming love of Jesus.46
From then until the middle of the twentieth century traditional non-resistance was influenced by Anabaptism’s strong dualism between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the devil.47 It focused more on the purity of the church than on reforming the world. Sadly, it was a feature of withdrawal rather than a dimension of active mission.
Amongsr Mennonites in the last fifty years, however, peacemaking has turned outwards and largely changed from passive non-resistance to active non-violent resistance. The whole direction of Jesus’ life and teaching is now seen as politically radical and nonviolent in nature.48 The biblical concept of shalom is now seen to be central to the mission of God.49
43 Ronald J Sider, Christ and violence (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1979), 16.
44 Sider, Christ and violence, 23.
45 John R Burkholder, ‘Peace’, in The Mennonite encyclopedia, Vol. 5, eds.
Cornelius J Dyck and Dennis D Martin (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990), 681. 46 Roland H Bainton, Christian attitudes to war and peace: A historical survey and critical re-evaluation (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1960), 153. 47 John Howard Yoder, Christian attitudes to war, peace, and revolution: A companion to Bainton (Elkhart, IN: Goshen Biblical Seminary, 1983), 193.
48 Yoder, The politics of Jesus.
49 Perry Yoder, Shalom: The Bible's word for salvation, justice and peace (London: Spire, 1989); Perry B Yoder and Willard M Swartley, eds., The meaning of peace: Biblical studies (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992).
It is now clearly understood that peace involves justice and a positive sense of well-being. The pre-eminence of Christ over all cosmic powers is asserted in such a way that our mission for peace calls all of society to renounce violence and hatred. While acknowledging the separation of church and state, the Anabaptist mission for peace engages in reconciling activities and a prophetic peace witness to secular institutions.50
As a result, there has been a flowering of Mennonite peacemaking activities such as conflict mediation, victim-offender reconciliation, peace education, peace rallies, symbolic action in international conflicts, non-violence training, civil disobedience and non-violent direct action.
The clear emphasis on peacemaking is one of the most valuable distinctives of Anabaptist mission. It is clearly integrated with other emphases, particularly being a sign of God’s new order, following Jesus and walking the way of the cross. Non-violence is just one facet of love. ‘Peacemaking’ is another term for the Christian ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20), which in turn is our co-operation in God’s reconciling mission.
5. Mission from the margins
There is a consensus amongst contemporary Anabaptists that solidarity with the poor follows from the incarnation. Apart from liberation theology I doubt that any Christian tradition is clearer on this issue. In Jesus God expresses solidarity with humankind, but particularly with the voiceless and the powerless.
Jesus’ own social location and his economic and social teachings are part of our understanding of who he is and what our mission is. John Driver reminds us that Galilee was on the margins of Judaism and that Jesus gravitated toward the disenfranchised, such as the Samaritans, the poor, prostitutes, publicans, lepers, foreigners, women and children. Driver says, as do many writers, that our mission ought to be shaped by Jesus’ mission.51 Ronald Sider takes his own Mennonite brothers and sisters to task for being materialistic. He says, ‘Liberation theology rightly wants to know if the wealthy Mennonite church in North America and Western Europe has any intention of living what the Bible teaches about the poor’.52
50 Burkholder, ‘Peace’, 682.
51 John Driver, ‘Messianic evangelization’, in The transfiguration of mission:
Biblical, theological and historical foundations, ed. Wilbert Shenk (Scottdale, PA:
Herald, 1993), 216.
The early Anabaptists didn’t theologise too much about heading to the margins because that’s where they found themselves anyway. Mostly poor (though some were educated), they read the Bible through the eyes of the poor and saw a Jesus who challenged the powers and included the outcast. More importantly, the way they expressed their alternative community, following the teachings of Jesus, led to the inclusion of the poor: They practised the priesthood of all believers; they rejected social hierarchies and titles; they shared goods; and they expected to see Christ in the hungry and homeless. Unfortunately, the early Anabaptists drew a sharp line between their own fellowships and the world outside, and soon (perhaps due to persecution) their care for the poor settled back into extending only as far as their own people.
What does it mean to engage in mission from the margins? To narrow the question, let me particularly address middle class readers in the affluent West. (The responses of those who find themselves already on the margins would differ.) I find Linford Stutzman’s suggestions (in With Jesus in the World) helpful here.53 He argues that in affluent societies we find the establishment at one end of the spectrum and the marginalised at the other. The middle class in between can either aspire to gain more power and status or can turn its face toward those with less. Social action often arises from the marginalised end of the middle class, from those who have resources but use them for the poor.54 To be effective such activists must be in proximity to the poor, however that happens. Stutzman says that’s exactly where Jesus located himself for his mission, critiquing the establishment with some power and yet mixing easily with the poorest of the poor.55 He issues a challenge to all Christian communities when he writes:
The fact is that churches which consistently proclaim and live out the gospel message, visibly demonstrating the radical hope of the coming kingdom after the manner of Jesus and the early church, are the exception. Churches with a message counter to the tired values of the establishment in modern affluent societies are rare. Churches which are in society in the way Jesus was in his are a tiny minority indeed.56
52 Ronald J Sider, ‘Mennonites and the poor: Toward an Anabaptist theology ofliberation’, in Freedom and discipleship: Liberation theology in Anabaptist perspective, ed. Daniel S Schipani (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989), 85.
53 Linford Stutzman, With Jesus in the world: Mission in modern, affluent societies (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1992).
54 Stutzman, With Jesus in the world, 45-57.
55 Stutzman, With Jesus in the world, 57.
There are many tensions involved in mission from the margins. They centre around the extent to which we are prepared to engage in mission with few resources, from ‘weakness’ rather than ‘strength’. And they uncover our own desire for comfort and standing.
It may be impossible for middle class Christians to genuinely ‘identify with’ the poor, because we (I include myself) are not really poor no matter what we do. Perhaps we can do what Stutzman calls us to do, that is, to live at the lower end of the middle class spectrum. But does he expect all Christians to heed his call, including executives, parliamentarians and others trying to move in so-called ‘high places’? We have generally avoided a literal interpretation of Jesus’ call to the rich young man to give away all his possessions; must we take Stutzman literally and completely turn our back on middle class and upper middle class existence, with all of its trappings, such as travel, education, communication devices, high technology, holidays, physical comfort, sports and entertainment? For example, is it ever right to fly around the world to achieve things, or should we stay at home? How can we ever move beyond charity to social action if we don’t learn the systems of the powerful?
Anabaptists today, like other Christians, differ on these questions. A constructive way forward may be for Christians at various social locations to stay in active dialogue with each other. Those who live in low-income urban areas, staff soup kitchens or sit with the psychiatrically ill are vitally important to those who speak to parliamentary breakfasts or devise social policy in the World Bank. The converse is also true.
Another way forward is to see discipleship as consisting of a downward journey as well as an inward journey and an outward journey. The downward journey means a step at a time towards simplicity or generosity, the giving away of time, power, possessions and resources. It is a step at a time towards the poor, a step outside our comfort zone, whatever that may be.
56 Stutzman, With Jesus in the world, 95.
6. Mission in community
Anabaptists see the church as a covenant community living as a sign in the midst of the world. Mission is essentially communal. It is not that I partially embody the risen Christ in my life, but that we partially embody the risen Christ in our life together. We aspire to living in an alternative society here in the midst of wider society as a sign of God’s presence in strength, or the Commonwealth of God.
The Anabaptists again set the bar rather high for discipleship. We noted their call to follow Jesus in all aspects of daily life, their view of mission as cross-shaped, a commitment to overcoming violence, and a call to engage in mission from the margins. And now it’s creating and sustaining a counterculture. Larry Miller writes provocatively when he says:
Is it unreasonable to believe that only churches with this particular identity — alternative, voluntary, missionary, pacifist microsocieties — can be instruments of Messiah’s transfigured mission? … Only churches which are alternative societies, transformed in relation to existing society because they are already conformed to Messiah’s vision of the future, can demonstrate the nature of life in the coming kingdom.57
We can only hope that lesser Christian communities manage to point to the new order as well.
Community means many things, of course. The Anabaptist tradition is known for its communal shape, sometimes forming self-sufficient rural communities with communally-owned possessions and a common purse. Today Christians form all sorts of committed and semi-committed groups and call them communities. Geographical community is not the only sort that thrives in our society, as people meet at work, or from across a city, or even online. But if we take our physical body and the natural rhythms of daily life seriously, then local community will still remain the primary type for the church. We could define community as that gift of unity of spirit that God gives to all sorts of groups of people who commit themselves to some sort of common life. It’s not easy in an individualistic and busy Western lifestyle. Every step from ‘me’ to ‘us’ is hard-won in such a culture.
57 Larry Miller, ‘The church as messianic society: Creation and instrument of transfigured mission’, in The transfiguration of mission: Biblical, theological and historical foundations, ed. Wilbert R Shenk (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993), 149150.
What does this call to community mean for mission? First, on a personal note, a supportive and lively community is great because I enjoy it, at least most of the time. It is part of the vision for the Commonwealth of God that we experience a new life together, encapsulated in the symbol of an open banquet, sharing the good life with others. We can only share in mission what we experience as good news. It’s good news that others care how we’re feeling, that others share the burdens of the day, that we can do together what we couldn’t achieve on our own, and that we celebrate, laugh and cry together. To have all these things is rare in our society and to be treasured. Community fuels our mission because it is a sign of what God calls all people to. It sustains us for the long haul and teaches us our strengths and weaknesses.
Secondly, the practice of community that is open at the edges is probably the most effective form of evangelism. People who won’t go to a church service will come to a barbecue. Sharing possessions, minding children, helping to paint the house, praying for each other — all these things are signs of a new set of relationships and are signs of the Commonwealth of God.
Thirdly, only in community can we express the various facets of mission. As Paul said in a slightly different way (1 Cor 12), some are bass players and some cook great pasta. Some can sit with people all night and others can organise a camp. Some are great with the disadvantaged and others great theologians. We all do a bit of each but we need each other. Only together can we pursue incarnational mission, because some are the eyes and others are the hands.
Fourthly, community is the cauldron where we learn what the new order means in day to day life. Community can be ugly, as we fight, freeze people out, play our power games or fail to carry our part of the burden. The forgiveness we experience overflows and is offered in mission to others. In community we learn to include people we would naturally exclude. This is where we learn to be more vulnerable, and learn to get past conflict to reconciliation.
7. Conclusion
The Anabaptist perspectives on mission I’ve discussed point in one direction, that of living out a clear alternative to the ways of the world, engaging in the world but marching to a different drum.
On the one hand it seems radical and difficult as we ‘try’ to follow Jesus. On the other hand it often amounts to ‘not trying’ but rather experiencing the risen Christ in life together; mission is just the overflow of our enjoyment of God’s gracious reign, even though it is only partial. Athol Gill used to say that the grace of the gospel call is always greater than its demand.
Anabaptist mission leads to all sorts of expressions. There are Anabaptists doing development work in poor countries and others in church planting and evangelism. There are many who express their alternative values inz conventional occupations, in conflict resolution work or in new approaches to victim-offender relations. Anabaptist churches are known for their peacemaking and their distinctive contributions to international relations.
The central shape of Anabaptist mission, however, seems to be discipleship in community. It is a vision of the daily expression of a different life together, one which is missional in character.
There are many forms of mission which are not emphasised in this approach, such as mass media evangelism, large evangelistic rallies and influencing society from positions of power. While there is merit in these types of mission, the distinctly Anabaptist contribution is to remind us that it is Jesus whom we follow. We are called to engage in mission in Christ’s way.
Jesus embodied a person-to-person style of communication. He showed a lack of interest in writing books and organising a religion. He lived with a strong sense that there is a reality other than the world around us which pervades this world and claims our total allegiance. This sense of God’s reign is both mystical and very practical, both personally transforming and socially revolutionary. Jesus calls us to an almost impossible and yet wonderful alternative existence which doesn’t graft too well onto the vine of our existing society but, at the same time, begins here and now where we are. This is the overall vision of Anabaptist approaches to Christian mission.
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[1] J Denny Weaver, Becoming Anabaptist: The origin and significance of sixteenthcentury Anabaptism (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1987), 23.
[2] Guy F Hershberger, ‘Introduction’, in The recovery of the Anabaptist vision, ed. Guy F Hershberger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1957), 1.
[3] See, for example, James Stayer, Werner Packull and Klaus Deppermann, ‘From monogenesis to polygenesis: The historical discussion of Anabaptist origins’, The Mennonite Quarterly Review 49 (1975): 83-121; Walter Klaassen, ‘Sixteenthcentury Anabaptism: A vision valid for the twentieth century?’, The Conrad Grebel Review 7 (1989): 242; and John Howard Yoder, ‘Orientation in midstream: A response to the responses’, in Freedom and discipleship: Liberation theology in Anabaptist perspective, ed. Daniel S Schipani (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1989), 162.
[4] Walter Klaassen, ‘Anabaptism’, in The Mennonite encyclopedia, Vol. 5, eds.
Cornelius J Dyck and Dennis D Martin (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990), 24. 5 Calvin Redekop, ‘The community of scholars and the essence of Anabaptism’, The Mennonite Quarterly Review 67 (1993): 436-437.
[5] Harold S Bender, The Anabaptist vision (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1944), 13.
[6] Bender, The Anabaptist vision, 16.
Korean Anabaptist Fellowship born in California
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Hun Yu and Kyong-Jung Kim during the Korean Anabaptist Fellowship gathering in Upland, Calif., Nov. 19-21, 2009. Kim is from the Korean Anabaptist Center in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Hannah Heinzekehr
Hannah Heinzekehr
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
UPLAND, Calif. (Mennonite Mission Network) – From the seeds of shared stories, the Korean Anabaptist Fellowship was born. From November 19-21, 2009, Korean Anabaptist pastors and leaders met together to share stories and ideas from their ministry.
“The most valuable part of this gathering was having the opportunity to meet and to hear the story of each Korean leader who confesses that they are Anabaptist. It is interesting to hear how they try to live out the Anabaptist confession in a Korean context,” said Hyung-Jin Kim, a student at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
The idea for this gathering was developed by Hyun Hur, pastor of Church for Others in Temple City, Calif. Hur wanted to provide a space where congregational leaders who identify as Anabaptists could come together to fellowship and build supportive relationships. Korean Anabaptist leaders often feel like they are working alone within a strong Reformed Christian context within Korean communities, or among Anabaptist communities that don’t understand Korean culture and background.
“This meeting was important in order to contextualize Anabaptist faith and practice in Korean Christianity, which is so strongly oriented to Reformed theology and tradition,” said James Rhee, pastor of Stephens City (Va.) Korean Mennonite Church.
Leaders came from the United States, South Korea and Canada and were hosted by Mountain View Mennonite Church in Upland, Calif. This was the first official international meeting of Korean Anabaptists.
Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, Mennonite Church USA’s Intercultural Relations team and Mennonite Church Canada Witness provided funds to help subsidize travel and meeting costs. Kuaying Teng, denominational minister for Asian ministries and a Mennonite Mission Network staff member, helped Hur contact Korean leaders connected with Mennonite Mission Network.
The first day of the gathering was spent getting to know each other and watching and discussing several documentary films about North Korea. During the following days, leaders took turns telling stories and sharing Anabaptist resources that have been translated into Korean, like congregational liturgical resources from each ministry and Palmer Becker’s Missio Dei booklet, “What is an Anabaptist Christian?”
Leaders also discussed challenges and needs their churches and organizations are facing.
“While the number of Korean Anabaptist churches is growing and its network is expanding, we need to have more clear communication structures, because all of us come from different backgrounds with faith practices. It is most important to hold to the unity of the body of Christ,” said Kyong-Jung Kim, administrator of the Korean Anabaptist Center in Seoul.
At the end of the gathering, the group named themselves the Korean Anabaptist Fellowship and made plans to gather together again with the Korea Anabaptist Fellowship in Canada (KAFC) at the June 29 – July 3, 2010 Mennonite Church Canada assembly in Calgary, Alberta. The KAFC has met annually in conjunction with the Mennonite Church Canada assembly since 2007. The combined group plans to gather annually and to stay in touch throughout the year via e-mail.
“Together we celebrated the birth of people who seek to follow Jesus in the Anabaptist way of faith and practice and also in the Korean context,” said Kim. “We promised to hold each other in solidarity.”
Korea Anabaptist Center
KOREA ANABAPTIST CENTER
Partner overview
Korea Anabaptist Center is a resource center that provides education and training in the Anabaptist/Mennonite faith tradition.
The Korea Anabaptist Center works with individuals, groups and churches to actively participate in the mission of God by cultivating biblical discipleship, peace and Christian community. The center works at developing and providing resources, education, training and relationships in the Anabaptist/Mennonite faith tradition. Related programs include peace and conflict education and implementation, language education, and Korea Anabaptist Publishing.
The vision for the ministry of the Korea Anabaptist Center was first suggested by the leaders of the Jesus Village Church and of Abba Shalom Koinonia community in Kangwon province, South Korea. Interest in this vision has grown and is shared by many, including graduates of the former Mennonite Vocational School, a Mennonite Central Committee project following the Korean War. Since 1996, Mennonite Mission Network, Mennonite Church Canada Witness and Mennonite Central Committee have cooperated in sending workers to serve with center and Jesus Village Church. The center marked its official beginning in November 2001 and is continuing to build its ministry and relationships in partnership with brothers and sisters from Korea and North America.
Connected mission workers
Jae Young Lee and Karen Spicher
South Korea
South Korean Mennonite partners help pave the way of peace
South Korean Mennonite partners help pave the way of peace
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(L-R) Front: Su Yeon Park, Yoon Seo Park, Kyoko Okumoto; Middle: Yun Joo Seol, Bohyun Lee, Jin Joo Park, Meri Joyce; Back: Rod Suderman, Oyunsuren Damdinsuren, Chien-Fu Chen, Atsuhiro Katano, Jae Young Lee, Jungki Seo, Kathy Matsui, restaurant staff, Sri Mayasandra. Photo contributed by Jin Song Lee.
DeVonna R. Allison
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
ELKHART, Ind. (Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Church Canada)—Though Jae Young Lee doesn’t think the recent North Korean shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island will lead to full-scale war, as Peace Program Coordinator for the Korea Anabaptist Center (KAC) he is alarmed by what is happening in both North and South Korea.
“I think it is seriously time for all of us—Koreans and others [in the international community]—to realize we need to create a concrete and peaceful resolution to our deadlock situation,” Lee said.
The Korean peninsula is a land sharply divided. Though an armistice signed in 1953 ended the military battles of the three-year Korean War, it essentially produced a 57-year stand-off between North and South Korea that continues to this day. Periodically this uneasy cease-fire erupts in violence. On Nov. 23, 2010, North and South Korea traded salvos over Yeonpyeong Island in the disputed West Sea/Yellow Sea, in the first artillery exchange on the territory of the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War. It was a clash that displaced 1,000 people, left at least four dead and many wounded.
Karen Spicher, a Mennonite Mission Network worker who serves as a communications administrator with Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), lives just south of the capital city of Seoul and teaches English at Connexus, KAC’s language institute. She said the shelling on Yeonpyeong Island brought a strong response from South Korean students.
“People seem more afraid than before, in response to previous incidents,” Spicher said. One of her students, a recently-married young woman, immediately texted her husband upon learning of the shelling, telling him she wanted to leave Korea.
“There are many different opinions in this country about peace-building efforts,” Spicher said, “but right now the media are raising a voice for retaliation and the need for increased defense. So thoughts of peace-making are far from most people’s minds.”
Due to this legacy of conflict, it is appropriate that South Korea is to be home to the newly formed NARPI, an outreach project of Korea Anabaptist Center, a partner of Mennonite Church Canada, Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Central Committee.
Inspired by attending Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, Lee and fellow Canadian Mennonite Bible College graduate (now Canadian Mennonite University), Kyong Jung Kim, along with Tim Froese of Mennonite Church Canada, founded the Korea Anabaptist Center in Seoul in 2001. Nine years of work with conflict transformation, restorative justice, and peace education in Seoul helped KAC organizers recognize the potential for an expanded regional program. The result is the NARPI, which began organizing in 2009.
With NARPI’s creation, local peace leaders hope to encourage regional collaborative efforts that will highlight the way of non-violence. Northeast Asia is an area of the world long-fraught with deep cultural and political divisions. And while other peace-making organizations do exist in China, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Far East Russia, inter-agency communication is limited, which hinders cohesive efforts at peace-building.
In 2009 NARPI organizers developed a network of about 200 organizations and individuals in Northeast Asia who are interested in collaborating on cooperative peace efforts. In 2010 a NARPI steering committee from the six countries worked to organize their first summer training programs. Meetings in Seoul and on the Peace Boat (on its voyage from Yokohama to Hong Kong), resulted in plans for the first summer peace building program, which is to be held in August, 2011. Also in 2010, Mennonite Mission Network helped NARPI obtain a grant from the Schowalter Foundation, a Mennonite philanthropic organization, which will be used for workshops, material development and administration.
John Lapp, MMN’s Asia director, says Mission Network will do all it can to support NARPI’s call for peace and dialogue.
“The longstanding conflict between North Korea and South Korea highlights the fact that tensions continue to fester in this prosperous region,” Lapp said. “A Mission Network partner, the Korea Anabaptist Center, and its new project, NARPI, are leading the way toward creatively responding to situations like the November 23 artillery exchange. We pray that such endeavors will gain traction and contribute to a peaceful settlement of this and other regional conflicts in Asia.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, (574) 523-3024 or (866) 866-2872 ext. 23024.
A small booklet with an outsized influence
A small booklet with an outsized influence
Elder Zheng Shaojie, the leader of the church in Nanle County, China, a former Mennonite mission area, with Palmer Becker (left). Photo by James Krabill. Download full-resolution image.
Wil LaVeist
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Palmer Becker’s short-term mission trips abroad have been like conducting a traveling mini-seminary. The author of Mennonite Mission Network’s What Is an Anabaptist Christian? (Missio Dei Number 18) last year held workshops in India based on the booklet, which has been translated into Hindi and a dozen other languages.
Becker was asked by the Rev. Jai Prakash Masih, a Mennonite pastor and translator, to offer a series of pastoral and leadership training seminars in India Sept. 12-21, 2012.
Masih, a graduate of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind., who pastors an Asian church in Lombard, Ill., did the Hindi translation and published about 1,000 copies in India. It was the most recent of the workshops he has held on different topics in at least seven countries since 2007.
Masih accompanied Becker and they both spoke at three synods in the central part of the country: Bihar Mennonite Mandli in Jharkhand state, Bharatiya General Conference Mennonite Church, and the Mennonite Church in India in Chattisgarh state.
The trip was organized by Mennonite Christian Service Fellowship of India. About 30 church leaders—men and some women—attended each workshop, in which Becker emphasized the three core principles of Anabaptism as described in the booklet:
• Jesus is the center of our faith.
• Community is the center of our lives.
• Reconciliation is the center of our work.
In each mission trip, Becker stresses that Anabaptists believe in following Jesus in daily life, studying and interpreting Scripture with other believers from an ethical, Christ-centered approach, structuring the church for community, and that forgiveness from God and forgiveness and peace among each other is essential for community.
“Much of the distinctive way in which we hold these beliefs was new to the pastors,” Becker says of the Indian Christians and those he has taught in other countries. “There are always many expressions of appreciation for helping them understand what it means to be an Anabaptist Christian.”
In rural areas of India and other countries, Christian leaders may have the passion, but not necessarily education beyond high school, much less seminary training. While his seminars have been well-received, Becker senses an urgent need in Asia for establishing practical pastoral training programs based close to the churches.
Becker first developed the outline of what would become What Is an Anabaptist Christian? while preparing to address the Anabaptist Vision and Discipleship Series conference at Hesston (Kan.) College in 2002. The lecture was received enthusiastically, which led to the booklet’s publication in 2008, he said.
“When they read the book, missionaries or local people working with people of Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Ethiopian, Hindi, Filipino and Arab backgrounds have said, ‘This is what my people need!’ ” Becker says. “They have arranged for the translation and publication of the booklet and then invited me personally to introduce the concepts.”
The booklet and a leader’s guide are downloadable and are being studied by many Sunday school classes and small groups in North America. In 2010, Becker taught the concepts from the booklet at churches in China and churches and universities in Korea.
He has also taught other topics, such as Anabaptist identity, pastoral care and counseling, and leadership and discipleship, which he taught earlier in the Hesston College Pastoral Ministries Program and this year at Meserete Kristos College in Ethiopia. After the India workshops, Becker visited Vietnam and Hong Kong, where he taught on discipleship and experiencing God in daily life.
“Mennonites worldwide are seeking to find and clarify their identity,” Becker says. “Most published materials have been addressed more to those in academia than to the common lay person. What Is an Anabaptist Christian? is brief and written in a style that seems to be understandable at a lay level.”
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.
10 texts that shape my view of mission
RESOURCES / CHURCH-VITALITY / DISCIPLESHIP /
10 texts that shape my view of mission
By Joe Sawatzky
Monday, April 8, 2019
Titus Presler, a missionary theologian, has proffered a definition of mission as “ministry in the dimension of difference.” Since mission in the Christian sense pertains to the person of Christ, we might modify this definition of mission as the process of crossing barriers of human difference, whether of race, class, or religion, in witness to Jesus Christ. To these we might add key statements from Mennonite Mission Network, which combine the element of cross-cultural witness with the quality and scope of that witness. As to quality, “Mennonite Mission Network exists to lead, mobilize, and equip the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world.” Missio Dei #22, our most comprehensive statement on mission, defines holistic witness as “hold[ing] together evangelism, witness and personal transformation with peace, justice, and social transformation” (p. 26). Finally, for emphasis to the scope of mission—“in a broken world”—we may add the phrase from our vision statement—“We envision every congregation and all parts of the church being fully engaged in God’s mission—across the street, all through the marketplaces, and around the world.” Yet whether the frontier is local, regional, national, or international, mission implies movement—the sending of disciples to make disciples, and find fellowship, across the dividing lines of human existence.
While these statements have undoubtedly shaped my view of mission, they themselves are rooted in more foundational texts, the scriptures that ground our faith and life in Christ. Here are ten texts to which I return to renew my call to mission.
Ephesians 2:11–22
Christ’s mission was to create in himself “one new humanity in place of the two.” “He came preaching peace” to Jew and Gentile alike; estranged peoples come together through faith in him.
Isaiah 2:2–4/Micah 4:1–4
The nations stream to the abode of Israel’s God to learn God’s ways. The nations abandon violence and become a people of God’s peace.
Genesis 12:1–9
From the ruins of Babel (Gn 11), God begins to gather a community across cultures—not through forced conformity but through the humble obedient faith of a family by which “all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Luke 4:16–30
In line with Israel’s prophets, Jesus declares his ministry as mission—“anointed” and “sent” to “bring good news to the poor”, not of Israel alone, but of the nations.
Revelation 5 & 7
John sees the means and the ends of mission: the Lamb who gave his life for people from “every tribe and language and people and nation” has “made them to be a kingdom and priests”, united in the service and worship of God.
1 Corinthians 11:17–34
Paul implores an ethnically and economically diverse congregation to remember its foundation and unity: Jesus who served others calls disciples who serve one another (“wait for one another”).
Acts 11:19–26
Disciples in Antioch receive a new name, Christians, because Jews from Jerusalem dared to proclaim their Messiah, Jesus, to the nations. This intercultural church, born in mission, breeds mission, sending Barnabas, Saul, and others as witnesses to the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the Roman world (Acts 13ff.).
John 20:19–29
In the same peace and forgiving Spirit that the Father sent Jesus does Jesus send disciples into the world that God so loves.
John 4:1–42
Jesus engages a woman of enemy territory in conversation, relativizes the barriers between cultures, and discloses his identity as the Christ. The Samaritan woman becomes the gospel’s first evangelist, she whose testimony stirred others’ faith in Jesus, just as another woman, Mary Magdalene, became the first person to announce the good news of Jesus’ resurrection (Jn 20:1-18).
Matthew 5:14–17
After exhorting disciples to let their light shine so that others may glorify God, Jesus describes his mission as fulfillment, not abolishment, of culture. While this does not mean that religions, cultures, and societies have not sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23)—otherwise, Jesus would not have needed to come—it does mean that mission in the name of Christ blesses that which speaks of the righteousness of God in every culture.
My personal awakening to God's work
My personal awakening to God's work
Lakshmishri Balasobramanian and her mother, Rekha, greet Irene Weaver during her centennial birthday celebration.
By Paula Killough
Thursday, November 2, 2017
In 2006, when I came to Elkhart, Indiana, the "M" word—mission— was certainly not part of my vocabulary. Mission, in my view, was the method used to accomplish the goals of colonialism—cultural genocide, coercive baptisms to Christianity, wealth, and resource extraction.
I vividly remember reading an issue of Mennonite Mission Network's Beyond magazine in 2004 on Christian-Muslim dialogue. There were three vignettes of agency encounters with Muslim people. Unfortunately, these "friend-making" conversion stories just reinforced my negative views of mission as coercive and disingenuous.
Then I encountered Galatians 1:11-12 as a primary sermon text, and was transformed. I realized I had missed the point of the Beyond stories. My frustration that our Christian mission workers must have had an agenda all along, got in the way of me being able to accept that the "revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ" is so powerful and infectious that it makes its way into the hearts and lives of people of all kinds. My liberal assumptions, I came to realize, created walls, not bridges.
God chose to perform the Pentecost miracle in Jerusalem in a specific way. Scripture does not say that everyone was able to understand one and the same language. Rather, each person heard God's words through the Galileans in their own language (Acts 2:6). This happened to me. Galatians 1 got through to me.
Hearing God's word, God's message for us in our own language … that is often the challenge. Even the word "mission" is a loaded word, carrying very rich and fruitful images for some, and fraught with all the negativity of colonialism for others. As my colleague James Krabill would say, "People of all cultures are hungry for the Bread of Life, but many choke on the Western-cultural wrapper we place it in."
Several stories have been central to my expanding view of this "M" word. Of the six stories I shared in a recent Missio Dei booklet, I have chosen three here as illustrative of my journey.
Irene Weaver "getting out of the way" of the church in India
Irene Weaver was born into a missionary compound setting in India in 1910—just 11 years into the first overseas mission endeavor of North American Mennonites. In 1935, married to Edwin Weaver, the mission agency asked the couple to accept a post back in India. Irene soon overheard an Indian woman say that "living in a White person's house must be what it would be like in heaven."
"Those words burned shame into my soul," Weaver admitted. "I began to question many things. I decided my strategy of work in a foreign country would be different from anything I had experienced before." The Weavers began to realize that Western mission had encumbered Mennonites in India with colonial structures that hampered their capacity to fully be God's people.
In later years, when the Weavers were invited to undertake new ministries in northern India and West Africa, they made a commitment to practice an "incarnational" approach to mission, respectful of local cultural values and patterns, and wary of introducing unsustainable Western structures and institutions.
Reflecting back on the early India experience, Irene noted, "When the church in India finally shook off our trappings, when we were out of the way, then they could take charge of things."
Lavish hospitality at Jubilee House
According to Luke's account of Jesus' ministry, sharing a meal defines hospitality. But as Luke tells it, the emphasis is more on being a gracious recipient than on being a host. I learned about acts of extravagant hospitality in Elkhart, Indiana, through Jubilee House—a Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) unit cosponsored by two congregations, Fellowship of Hope and my own Prairie Street Mennonite Church. For a number of years, the Jubilee House unit hosted a weekly gathering to share fellowship and food with neighbors, church members, friends from the community, and family members.
Southcentral Elkhart, where the MVS unit is located, is a culturally diverse and socio-economically challenged community. But as one MVS volunteer astutely observed, "In God's abundance, everyone has something to contribute, whether telling a good story or helping with dishes. This reminds me of what the kingdom of God looks like, feels like, and how it moves."
Indigenous expressions of the Christian faith in the Argentine Chaco
Mennonite missionaries were deeply engaged with the Toba people in the Argentine Chaco already in the 1940s. Initially, these efforts did not go well as missionaries, operating in the dominant culture theology and practice of the day, established a walled compound … and received natural resistance from the Toba/Qom people. The Mennonite workers, discouraged with their lack of progress, decided to seek counsel in 1954 from United Bible Society staff. The advice they received: Abandon traditional missionary blueprints and approaches, and focus on learning from and interacting with Toba/Qom people, indigenous church leaders, their culture, and locally-generated goals and vision.
This alternative style of mission is best summarized as walking as Jesus walked—with others who are seeking the life of Christ, prioritizing the integrity of groups and individuals, and with weakness and vulnerability instead of attitudes of superiority.
In 2016, Mennonite workers and local believers completed the translation of the Bible in the Qom language. Juan Victorica, a Qom leader who led the translation celebration, shared how in the past, people told the Qom that "being a Christian was making yourself like the people of European descent and leaving behind the Qom language. The Qom have now reclaimed their cultural identity in Christian expression." Victorica added that, "Now I know God is a Qom God!"
Conclusion
How will the church and the world view our efforts at faithfulness 50 or 100 years from now? Will we be charged with new forms of cultural insensitivity? What are we yet guilty of today?
Of these things I am certain:
• God continues to speak. May we continue to listen … with sensitivity and faithfulness.
• God's presence of healing and hope carry the global church through all the challenges of daily life.
• We continue to be called by God to establish global ministry connections.
We worship an active and loving global God who has sated the hunger for the Bread of Life in partnership with the church, but, also, all too often, in spite of it. Our historic encounters with people "outside" our worldview of Christianity include the genocide of the Crusades, the oppression and imperialism of mission-allied colonialism, and the decimation of North American indigenous peoples in order to replace them with "Christian" settlers, including Mennonites. As a church, we must name these behaviors and repent of them.
In the midst of these destructive social, political, and church movements, we celebrate the Christians whose witness was to listen to "the other" and whose mission—in addition to sharing the gospel—was to stand with people in their context.
We celebrate God's wonderful ability to use our words and actions, limited, flawed, and sometimes harmful though they may be. May God continue to reconcile all things and set things right with the world!
New Missio Dei explores Afghanistan through the eyes of mission workers
New Missio Dei explores Afghanistan through the eyes of mission workers
Cover of Missio Dei #21.
Mennonite Mission Network staff
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Sheryl and Steve Martin watched Afghanistan move from a strong country with a thriving economy, to a restrictive, militia-controlled police state, to a post 9/11 war-torn disaster. They captured their experiences during this turbulent time in their journal, excerpts of which appear in the new offering from the Missio Dei series, For God so loved Afghanistan.
The Martins, who now live in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, moved to Afghanistan in 1991 as workers for a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network. Sheryl served as a nurse and a midwife, and Steve was the finance director for the consortium of faith-based agencies for whom the Martins worked. The Martins raised three children during their tenure with Mennonite Mission Network, even as the country became more dangerous for foreigners.
Sheryl and Steve quickly developed an affinity for the country’s towering peaks and hospitable people. In one of their first journal entries, they describe being invited to a neighbor’s house for tea one afternoon. They eagerly accepted the invitation, and as the afternoon moved toward dinner, the hosts invited the Martins to stay, apologizing for serving only soup. Failing to sense any social cues as to when it was polite to leave, the Martins stayed until it was clear they had worn out their welcome.
In the following journal entry, two days later, Sheryl, describes learning the “three times” rule—an invited guest is supposed to politely refuse an invitation two times before accepting. “Our neighbors were not offended, however, by our misunderstanding of the cultural cues,” Sheryl wrote.
The Martins recorded the many emotions they experienced while watching the country lurch from one dysfunctional regime to another. They despaired over feeling powerless to make life easier for their Afghan friends and neighbors. They felt torn between their “passport” country and their “host” country after the Twin Towers were demolished in the attacks of 9/11. They were saddened at comparing the life of their own daughter, born into a stable American family, with that of a neighbor named Sima, whose parents were killed by rocket fire when Sima was only 40 days old.
But through it all, they were sustained by glimpses of hope. Sheryl shares instances when she witnessed friendship and cooperation between members of warring factions in an entry titled “Personal Encounters.”
A poor Hazara worker and a highly respected Pashtun teacher walk home together to protect each other.
Two female co-workers walk arm-in-arm, vowing friendship even as males in their differing ethnic groups plot against each other.
A young Uzbek man falls in love with a young Pashtun woman, and they plead for three years with their families for acceptance. Their persistence and love for each other wins and they are finally happily married.
Two wealthy, elite young men find a friend in an older, working-class man, and the three, from different ethnic groups, drink tea and chat together for hours.
In the most dramatic moment, Steve describes his conflicting feelings in deciding whether to evacuate his family when the city where they were living erupted in violence. As they were praying for clarity, a friend named Ali came to their door.
“Ali had come to bring us counsel,” Steve wrote. “’I have never given you direct advice,’ he said. ‘But this time I feel compelled to do so. My family and I are packing up and leaving while we can get out of the city … I may never see you again, but please take your family and leave … it is not safe for you to stay.’ That is the last I ever saw of Ali as he departed from our home, leaving us all with heavy hearts at this sudden turn of events.”
Sheryl and Steve then had to find a safe way out of the city.
In the foreword, John F. Lapp, Mission Network’s director for Asia and the Middle East, expresses his gratitude for the work the Martins did.
“We at Mennonite Mission Network still remember them for their extraordinary ability to roll with the changes, for their choice to start a family in a dangerous and unstable place, and for their sensitive handling of uncertain and arbitrary government relationships,” he wrote. “Above all, the Martins tried to be where God was at work in Afghanistan, seeking to do their part in bringing healing and hope in this challenging context.”
A PDF of this issue, and all offerings from the Missio Dei series, are available for download at the Mennonite Mission Network site. Print copies can be ordered from Menno Media.
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For immediate release.
Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.
Solidarity and hope are the goals of Nanjing, China
Solidarity and hope are the goals of Nanjing, China
The Nanjing Peace Memorial in Nanjing, China. Photo by Mike Sherrill.
By Mike Sherrill
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
NANJING, China (Mennonite Mission Network) — By 9 a.m., the August sun hanging over Nanjing, China, had long baked away any morning chill. As part of the group of almost 30 participants from the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), a Mennonite Mission Network partner based in South Korea, we were invited to participate in the annual televised ceremony commemorating the Japanese surrender in 1945.
We joined about 70 other guests in laying white carnations on a memorial stone to express lament and respect for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. The ceremony included brief addresses from other countries, including a contingent from Japan who expressed their remorse and longing for peace each year. We filed out along a 30-foot length of newsprint on which we could leave signed messages of peace and solidarity.
This was the beginning of a full-day experience at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (in Mandarin: Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders). Beijing (north capital) serves as the current capital of China. It is the country’s largest city and a hub of global exchange. Nanjing (south capital), less than four hours south by high-speed rail, was the former center of rule for many dynasties, and holds insights into the heart of China. Indeed, contemporary Chinese-Japanese relations cannot be properly understood without a visit to the historical museums of this city.
Nanjing fell to Japanese forces on Dec. 13, 1937. Although often referenced as an event of World War II, the massacre actually occurred during the Second Sino-Japanese War. From that date, for a six-week span, Japanese soldiers killed 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers.
The horror included looting, burning, torture, and the rape of more than 20,000 women. The atrocities committed against women extend much further than the Nanjing Massacre period. In 2015, a museum telling the horrifying story of the “comfort women” opened on the site of the Li Ji Alley Military Brothel. It was one of 40 such brothels in Nanjing. Estimates show that between 1937 and 1945, more than 200,000 women from China and surrounding countries were “enlisted” by the Japanese military.
As painful as it is to recount these stories, these museums stand as a remembrance to the victims and serve as a lament with details often not shared in textbooks outside of China.
The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, however, intentionally points beyond lament toward a future hope of healing and peace. In the courtyard a memorial symbolizes the longing for peace in the world, and in particular, with Japan. Well-known Japanese leaders, including former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, have visited the museum, and pictures are displayed of these visits. A broader survey of Nanjing reveals that this museum is only one part of an inspired vision to reshape Nanjing into an International City of Peace.
In 2017, Nanjing University established an Institute for Peace Studies, the first of its kind in China, directed by Dr. Liu Cheng, UNESCO chair for Peace Studies and NARPI partner. In addition to offering courses in peace studies, the institute promotes peace education in primary and secondary schools, holds international seminars, and hosts many training courses.
Those courses include the 2019 NARPI Summer Peacebuilding Training led by Mission Network husband-wife team, Jae Young Lee and Karen Spicher. More than 100 youth from across East Asia attended the two-week training. I was deeply encouraged to witness the blossoming of mutual understanding and appreciation among these future leaders in pursuit of peace.
Part of our debriefing after the day at the Memorial Hall was a panel discussion with four survivors of the Nanjing Massacre. Three of them were toddlers at the time, but one was a 10-year-old. Now 92, he recalled his experience in vivid detail.
The entire room was riveted by his passionate testimony. In closing, he declared that although he hates what happened, he does not hate the Japanese. He urged the assembled youth to leave hate behind and to pursue peace in the world in order to build a shared future for all humanity.
Out of the ashes of despair, suffering and sorrow, Nanjing is taking strides to be named among the International Cities of Peace® reaching out to the world with a powerful message of solidarity and hope.
The Upside-Down Kingdom y Donald B. Kraybill, Lisa Sharon
The Upside-Down Kingdom: Anniversary Edition Kindle Edition
by Donald B. Kraybill (Author), Lisa Sharon Harper (Foreword)
4.8 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
Length: 320 pages Word Wise: Enabled Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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The Upside-Down Kingdom calls readers to imagine and embody the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Since its publication in 1978, The Upside-Down Kingdom won the National Religious Book Award and has become the most trusted resource on radical Christian discipleship.
In this completely updated anniversary edition, author Donald B. Kraybill asks: What does it mean to follow the Christ who traded victory and power for hanging out with the poor and forgiving his enemies?
How did a man in first-century Palestine threaten the established order, and what does that mean for us today?
Jesus turned expectations upside down. The kingdom of God is still full of surprises. Are you ready?
Editorial Reviews
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"This anniversary edition of Donald B. Kraybill's profound vision of the kingdom of God could not have come at a more timely moment."--Lisa Sharon Harper
"Reviews "
"A paradigm-shifting introduction to the life-disrupting message of Jesus of Nazareth."--Bruxy Cavey "
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"I dare you to read this book. It could very well turn your world upside down!"--Gregory A Boyd "
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"The Upside-Down Kingdom is a must-read."--Drew G. I. Hart "
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"Brilliantly combines a biblical scholar's grasp of the Scriptures, a sociologist's understanding of culture, and a master teacher's gift for clarity."--Peter Dula "
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"What a gift to another generation of Jesus' followers!"--Malinda Elizabeth Berry
"Reviews "
"I hope 'upside-down-ness' will touch generations of leaders to come."--John Paul Lederach "
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If you only read one book about Jesus and God's kingdom . . . this should be it." --Sara Wenger Shenk
"Readable, challenging, inspirational, and eminently practical." --Stuart Murray
"Reviews "
"Challenges us to translate the upside-down kingdom into our lives today." --Reta Halteman Finger "
From the Inside Flap
"Donald B. Kraybill works through an extensive list of Jesus' teaching against violence and concludes that 'the message of Jesus is clear. The use of violence, whether physical or emotional, is not God's way. Jesus shows us how to absorb suffering, not inflict it.'
"Jesus' call to love the enemy slices through the issues with simplicity and clarity. . . . Jesus calls us to faithfulness; to faithfully embody God's loving forgiveness."
-DreamSeeker
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Biography
Donald B. Kraybill, Ph.D., is senior fellow at the Young Center of Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa. Among his many publications, he has authored, coauthored, or edited eight books on Amish society. The Riddle of Amish Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)is his flagship book that explains why the Amish are thriving. Amish Grace and The Amish Way (both by Jossey-Bass) explore Amish forgiveness and spirituality. His Concise Encyclopedia of Amish, Brethren, Hutterites and Mennonites is the only book that provides an overview of some 200 Anabaptist groups in North America. Kraybill's The Upside-Down Kingdom, which won the Religious Book of the Year Award, in print for more that thirty years, it is still widely read. His books have been translated into more than half a dozen languages. The Young Center, where he is based, is the premiere national institute for Amish studies. Kraybill's commentary on Amish life has been featured in dozens of broadcast and print media including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian (London), The Australian, Newsweek, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, NPR, and BBC Radio to name a few.
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Arthur Sido
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book with a few cautionsReviewed in the United States on October 1, 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
It took me a while but I finally finished Donald Kraybill's The Upside-Down Kingdom. Kraybill is Distinguished College Professor, and Senior Fellow of Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, which is a pretty impressive title, at least for its length, and one of the foremost experts on Anabaptism and especially the Amish in the world. The Upside-Down Kingdom (UPK for short) is not a book on Anabaptism per se but rather a look at the way that Christ's Kingdom is in every respect the exact opposite of what the world values. Up is down, great is least.
UPK is a fascinating book and challenging to boot. Some of the background information that Kraybill shares is absolutely incredible and really fleshes out portions of Scripture. He does a great job of drawing out from Scripture some crucial points regarding status, power, wealth, etc. that we take for granted and showing the reader where we have strayed far from the intent of Scripture.
It is a pretty devastating indictment of our traditional church culture in the West and should make any open-minded Christian ask some serious questions and take a deep introspective look. There are a few slow points but the book as a whole flows beautifully and reads easily while still be meaty.
That isn't to say that I don't have concerns. I do with every book but UPK has some issues that are especially concerning.
First Kraybill seems pretty comfortable with traditional church structures. He certainly has criticisms of them but he seems to miss in places that the very traditions we cling to in many ways hamper living as citizens of the Upside-Down Kingdom. He also takes great liberties in assigning motivations and emotions, especially to Christ, that are absent from the text. What Jesus, the eternal God, is thinking in a situation is not a topic I am comfortable making definitive statements about.
My bigger concern has to do with how Christ is represented and how His cross is understood. The language about the deity of Christ and the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is a bit sloppy and imprecise. Someone could read this book and perhaps get the impression that God is the Father is God and that Jesus is something less than God. His treatment of the cross is even more troubling. Statements like this for example...
"...Jesus demolished the entire sacrificial system when he announced full forgiveness, direct from God - any time, any place without a bloody sacrifice." (The Upside-Down Kingdom, pg. 248)
Kraybill seems to be saying that the sacrificial system was overturned symbolically and finally when Jesus overturned the money changers tables in the temple and that the cross is primarily the result of the social unrest caused by a life of radical service. The problem is that this is doesn't match Scripture which tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22) and that Jesus brought peace between man and God by His shed blood on the cross (Col 1:20). So there are certainly some places where red flags popped up in an otherwise outstanding book.
So in summary I would absolutely recommend The Upside-Down Kingdom to most Christians but I would add a note of caution.
Read with your eyes (and Scriptures!) wide open and be discerning in places where Kraybill starts to stray from orthodox teachings. I would caution a newer believer who is not solidly grounded in the Bible to be very cautious here. Perhaps read in the context of a study group UPK would work but I would be concerned that a new believer would miss some of the red flags I saw. I don't want to give the impression that this is not an outstanding book because it absolutely is and one I highly recommend.
Just read with caution, which is good advice for any book!
9 people found this helpful
Willys Wrencher
4.0 out of 5 stars Living like Jesus ChristReviewed in the United States on May 3, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
"The Upside-Down Kingdom" by Donald B. Kraybill is an excellent book challenging all Christians
Mr. Kraybill, a sociologist and Christian of Anabaptist/Mennonite background, correctly and lovingly challenges Christians to abandon the philosophies of this world in order to accurately represent the Kingdom of God on earth.
The Upside-Down Kingdom shows that the Kingdom of God really is opposed to any worldly system of thinking or government. To win, you must lose. To live, you must die. To gain, you must live. Every one of Christ's commands are the direct opposite of those taught by the leading thinkers of the world. If Christians are to impact their generation for the Kingdom of God we must start living like true ambassadors of the Kingdom.
I give this book four starts because I thought it was slightly repetitive at points and not quite as conservative in some of its views as I would have liked. The main instance of this is when the author contrasts the Greek definitions of "love" in a way that I think stretches sound exegesis. This is common in modern evangelicalism but is really not as significant as Mr. Kraybill would have us believe. However, this book is still a great, easy read and will certainly challenge those who want to live like Jesus did.
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Gabbarta
5.0 out of 5 stars The Upside-Down Kingdom
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2011
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
In order for us to have a clear understanding the theology of Kingdom we have to know who Jesus are without any cultural, theological, spiritual, or philosophical assumptions, or what the author calls detours around Jesus. We have to know Him from his own story and words. Therefore, Kraybill's the theology of Kingdom is based on the story of Jesus Christ and centered on His ministry. He provides a biblical framework for understanding the kingdom.
The author calls the Kingdom that Jesus preached the upside down kingdom of radically different principles and values, because its realization stands in contrast to the common ways of this world. The king of this Kingdom is God (the author uses Jesus sometimes), and its principle are Jubilees, Sabbath and Shalom that were insinuated in Jesus' words and message, and their main goal is to elevate men and women from the social, political, religious monarchal, economical labels or boxes to the level of siblings in the Kingdom. However, these principles contradict with the principles of the world. He explains that the political and religious power plays had drastic effects on the economic life of the majority poor. Therefore, Jesus himself has to face the three spheres of social power: politics, economics and religion.
The author believes that Jesus teaching on kingdom is personal and realistic, and it is not to be lived aggregately but collectively. By personal, I mean that God rules in believer's heart and relationships to elevate them to a new status. By realistic I mean it could be applied to our live wherever and whenever human live. We can envision this in the church as assembly of people who are citizens of the Kingdom, and who adopt the idea and the values of the Kingdom in any culture they reside in. Because believers are, like any other human beings, social, they need a social structure to meet their needs and the needs of others. The church is the social structure that the values and culture of the Kingdom are practiced and passed on to others. Therefore, church as a "social vehicle" of the Kingdom culture uses its "servant structure" to accomplish Kingdom's mission, which is church's work. Its mission is to be the prophetic voice in the world against social discrimination, political oppression, religious scandals, and economic injustice according to God's purpose and will.
In another level, the author criticizes the institutional church. He believes that Kingdom of God is above any place, nation, and culture. However, as the author get to the end of this point, he ultimately realized that we need to periodically evaluate the rule and purpose of its activities.
Being from an Anabaptists background, the author articulates very well the Kingdom children's respond to the violent. Responding to violent with violent will naturally produce greater loss for both parties. A quick peak to the history, we will find that violent never solved problems. When we do not respond violently, we might think it is weakness, but according to Jesus Teaching it is power. Responding to violent with love serves many purposes.
Firstly, we do not give the perpetrator what he or she intended by acting violently.
Secondly, we teach the aggressor a lesson that some of them might not be familiar with.
Thirdly, we are showing our ultimate obedience to our Master who commanded us to love our enemy.
The author bases his argument on the principle of non-reciprocal love (agape). Agape is a love that does not expect something in return. It is like God's love for us.
What Kraybill makes it clear is that the kingdom is not compromising to culture, powers or convenience; rather, its main goal is to transform them. The only way to that is through what he calls them the triple symbols, basin, cross, and tomb. The symbol of basin represents what is known recently by the servanthood leadership. Serving others without any regards to sex, nation, religion, and ethnicity is the core of the Kraybill's Kingdom Theology. This is not an easy task, because it will lead to the cross. But because we trust God, and we are accomplishing Kingdom's mission, the final word is for God. When the church adopts the triple symbol concept, its journey toward accomplishing its mission is not going to be a comfortable one.
Looking at the political climate during the time, we will realize that the Jewish people were in desperately waiting for a king to liberate them from Romans. In the wilderness, Jesus had faced that temptation. He did not accept political authority that was offered to Him by the tempter. Instead, He chose to be a revolutionary. He was a revolutionary not in the Zealous type of rebel that used violence, but in violating Pharisees' laws and regulations that were above God's law, criticizing the false political tranquility of the Romans, and condemning the right-wing Sadducees lucrative temple operation. Serving others out of love was His policy.
The second sphere that Jesus faced was religious power. The religious practice grew stale, empty, and lucrative. Jesus was tempted to reveal His Messianic secret to influence people to make a new movement or create a new religion. He might have struggled with this thought during His mission. Instead, again He preferred the role of the servant Savior.
The third sphere was the economic power. Again and again Jesus preached against economic injustice that trampled the poor to benefit the rich. Jesus was tempted to use His power to feed the hunger and end the economic unjust. Instead, He chose to be the bread of life for all nations. His life, His way, and His teaching will form a new foundation of living.
I read the book entirely, and I, without any doubt, can say that it is one of the most transforming books that I have read in English. It presents a universal theology of the Kingdom that could be applied to different contexts and understood in any given situation. The strengths of the Kraybill's theology of Kingdom is that it is a biblical theology, which could be applied to any church in any place in the world within their current context. Just as he provides context for the reader, he allows for contextual interpretation for those that wish to apply what they have learned from the text. And this might be the genius of this book. It never imposes context but rather exposes it. Moreover, the author incorporates his sociological education to bring to life in a very articulated and easy to understand language the historical, political, and social culture of the New Testament.
My criticism of this book is that Kraybill seems to be ambivalent in his argument about the church. In one hand, he sees it as a servant structure for the Kingdom's mission. In the other hand, he does not seem happy with concept of the church. I believe that all human being's effort will fall short in living the faith. However, I also believe, that the church with all its shortcomings will remain the beloved bride of Christ. We cannot disvalue the rich meanings of the symbols of the church. At the same time, I agree with the author that we have to evaluate the meaning and purpose of these symbols periodically. The author also seems to accommodating from time to time for those who may yearn for personalized version of the Gospel of the kingdom and find this kind of interpretation repelling.
The author theology fits best into the Anabaptist perspective of Church, State, and Public Justice. By taking Jesus words to heart, the church can become the prophetic voice in the community. Jesus called his disciples light and the salt of the world. Its mission is to add Kingdom's value and speak God's truth by loving the other and caring the community. The church already has a great deal of influence on people and communities' values. It is not expecting to benefit from this task financially, nor try to gain power over people whom she is serving. Rather to transform them to the image of Jesus. It is not going to be an accomplishable task. However, it is going to be an earthly time process. The test will show how faithful she will remain to her Master, "but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved."
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