Mission in Context

Explorations Inspired by J. Andrew Kirk

John Corrie, Cathy Ross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317095491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Cristianesimo

Stimulated by Andrew Kirk's mission theology, this book brings fresh theological reflection to a wide range of mission issues. A formidable group of international missiologists are drawn together to explore current reflections on a wide range of issues including: poverty and injustice, environmentalism, secularism, the place of scripture in a pluralist culture, science and faith, liberation theology, oppression and reconciliation, and much more. Kirk's influence and reputation is international, and extends to South America, USA, Eastern Europe, Africa and SE Asia. Latin American mission has been especially enriched by Kirk's innovative thinking on revolutionary politics, contextualisation and holistic mission. This is an indispensable resource of up-to-date missiological reflections for all involved in mission at every level.

PART 1 J. Andrew Kirk: His Life and Work

1 Missiologist and Theologian

DOI: 10.4324/9781315595610-1

Test all things …

1 Thess 5:21

Introduction and Context

I first came across Andrew’s work when I read Theology Encounters Revolution (1980) as a university student in Aotearoa/NZ in the 1980s. I remember thinking that this was rather radical. Nearly 20 years later I was using What is Mission? Theological Explorations (1999) as a core text in the mission classes I was teaching at the Bible College of NZ (now Laidlaw College). Students appreciated Andrew’s clear style, his broad approach to missiology and the range of issues tackled in this book. They also found it more accessible than Bosch! I was aware that it was the first time I had read anything, at that stage, by any theologian on care for the environment. Now it seems such an obvious part of the missiological agenda but 13 years ago it was not.¹ I think this prescience, as well as the range of topics that Andrew has covered in his work over the years, highlights a key factor about Andrew’s writings – that he is extraordinarily eclectic but no dilettante. His research is solid and his reflection not only profound but also provocative at times. His attitude as a scholar is indeed to ‘test all things’.

¹ However, I recently heard of a senior person in a large mission society express that they are not primarily an environmental organisation but a mission society trying to do the right thing. This encapsulates the dilemma around creation care as an essential part of mission.

All his writings emerge from his engagement with the variety of contexts he has been in over the years. This is entirely right and appropriate for a missiologist as missiology must engage with the current context. Andrew has defined it as follows:

The theology of mission is a disciplined study which deals with questions that arise when people of faith seek to understand and fulfil God’s purposes in the world, as these are demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is a critical reflection on attitudes and actions adopted by Christians in pursuit of the missionary mandate. Its task is to validate, correct and establish on better foundations the entire practice of mission.²

² J. Andrew Kirk, What is Mission? Theological Explorations (London: DLT, 1999), p. 21.

Andrew has indeed grappled with many questions in order to help Christians engage more faithfully with the missio Dei in our own contexts. His diverse experiences and range of contexts have enabled him to offer us many insights over the years. Andrew believes that ‘the essential message of the Gospel as defined by the apostolic preaching of the events and significance of Jesus Christ is trans-cultural and trans-historical’.³ However, the context will shape the agenda and ask the questions but it will not necessarily offer the right responses. This is where the hard work for the missiologist comes in. The Gospel must not be absorbed by the context but rather challenge the context as the Gospel is the ultimate and the context is the penultimate. Here Andrew is rightly insisting on critiquing an uncritical acceptance of context shaping everything.

³ Interview with Andrew Kirk, CMS offices, Oxford, 28 July 2010.

However, as the Gospel becomes embedded in different contexts and begins to shape the ultimate context and framework for the mission of the church, so it may also bring out new meanings, or ‘the surplus of meaning in the Gospel’⁴ as well as implications of the Gospel that either have not been previously understood or have been obscured or forgotten in other contexts. This is exciting and demanding work for missiologists as the struggle to be faithful to both Gospel and context continues and will have serious implications for how we express and live out the Gospel in our various contexts. A good example of this is the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11). It is only with recent feminist scholarship that we have begun to query the role of the man in this whole episode and begun to see that the fault does not lie with the woman alone.

⁴ Website: Ibid.

Ultimately ‘the way of discipleship … will be shaped to some extent by the demands of the context’.⁵ This is a vital point for Christians to grasp. Our discipleship can only be rooted in and worked out within our contexts. If we understand discipleship as ‘ensuring that people are being informed [as well as] transformed’ then the context becomes the crucible for our discipleship.⁶ It is precisely from this crucible that Andrew’s missiology has been forged. Moreover, it is precisely this attentiveness to context that makes Andrew a good missiologist and, at the same time, it is his firm grasp of the Gospel which makes him an authentic evangelical.

⁵ Website: Ibid. ⁶ S. Cherry, Barefoot Disciple, Walking the Way of Passionate Humility (London: Continuum, 2011), p. 12.

Apologetics

Andrew was very influenced by the L’Abri movement and Francis Schaeffer’s approach to apologetics in the 1970s which he believes still has much to teach us today. He appreciated the multi-faceted approach that Schaeffer exhibited and that in his approach he began with people – the human being – rather than philosophy. During his three-month stay at L’Abri in 1971 he saw students from Lausanne University invited back to the L’Abri community for meals and conversation and so apologetics began right there – around the meal table in the context of hospitality and relationship. Andrew found this far more convincing and real than the didactic approach to apologetics conducted in the classroom. He was impressed by the way Schaeffer used contemporary art, literature and drama to read the signs of the times – an approach that still bears fruit today. He was particularly struck by ‘the community’s living integration of intellectual life with pastoral concern, prayer, evangelism, social commitment, and the ability to communicate the Gospel to a generation completely alienated from all God-talk’.⁷ This certainly resonates with the current conversation in Britain on the role of community in mission. The Church Mission Society (with whom Andrew is closely linked), one of the oldest mission societies in Britain, has recently reframed itself as a Community of Mission Service and asks its members to commit to seven promises as part of being in this community.⁸ CMS believes that its mission of making disciples, resourcing leaders and transforming communities is best carried out from within the context of missional community. A recent edition of the Church Times profiled community by looking at the growing movement of ‘new monasticism’, communities built for prayer, hospitality and mission.⁹ There is certainly a resurgence of interest in the role and place of community and how it impacts such diverse things as theological training,¹⁰ worship, lifestyle and creation care.

⁷ J. Andrew Kirk, ‘My Pilgrimage in Mission’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 28/2 (April 2004), p. 70. ⁸ ‘Simply stated, the promises say: I want my life to be about mission; I believe God is still working in this world; Mission isn’t someone else’s job, it’s mine; I want to live for Jesus every day; I realise I need fuel for my journey; I want to help my local Christian community keep mission a priority; I want to regularly renew my mind and spirit’. www.cms-uk.org/GetInvolved/Membership/tabid/222/language/en-GB/Default.aspx (accessed 29 March 2011). ⁹ Website: www.churchtimes.co.uk/index.asp?id=108684, Church Times, 25 March 2011. ¹⁰ See, for example, CMS’s Pioneer Leadership Training, http://pioneer.cms-uk.org or World Christian Discipleship Programme offering vocational formation in community, based in Pittsburgh, USA, www.worldmissioninitiative.org/wcd.

Andrew believes that Schaeffer was well aware of this back in the 1950s when L’Abri was founded. A welcoming community is a superb context from which to practise apologetics because it is done in the context of relationship and with a compassion for people. Andrew has drawn several things in particular from Schaeffer’s approach. The first is the importance of the doctrine of the imago Dei – that all humans are created to live in relationship with God and will only find their full humanity and full human flourishing in that relationship. It also tells us that each human being is precious and to be highly valued. Furthermore, it in this context of relationship and welcome that true listening can begin. Paul Tillich describes this beautifully:

In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening … All things and all men [sic], so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen, they want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. They want justice from us. But we can give it to them only through love which listens … Listening love is the first step to justice in person-to-person encounters.¹¹

¹¹ Tillich, quoted in Max Warren, Partnership: The Study of an Idea (London: SCM, 1956), p. 14.

Good listening requires humility, vulnerability, availability, receptivity and patience. The practice of good listening honours the imago Dei to be found in the other and does justice to our apologetics.

Second, a Christian framework for apologetics provides coherence for both theory and practice. Andrew believes that we cannot live consistently on the basis of non-Christian beliefs and that all people who choose to interpret their lives through a different grid will ultimately experience some inconsistency. Part of the aim of apologetics is to enable people to see and own this inconsistency as well as to explore some of these contradictions.

Third, Andrew was influenced by what Schaeffer called the split between the upper and lower stories of human experience which foreshadows Newbigin’s work and his analysis of the public and private split within Western Christianity.

Andrew has subsequently written extensively on epistemology and sees the nature and content of truth as a vital issue for mission. He acknowledges that this interest was prompted by Schaeffer and Newbigin and from 1992 to 1997 he was the Coordinator for the topic of epistemology in a Pew-funded project entitled ‘Towards a Missiology of Western Culture’. He believes that the nature and content of truth are especially important in the interfaith arena. He considers whether different truths can be complementary and if knowledge is indeed justified true belief; then he asks, ‘to what extent can I be certain that my beliefs are valid and on what grounds can I give a warrant for this[?]’.¹² Andrew began to write in this area at the beginning of this millennium and has also moved into analysing postmodernity – a subject he was charged with researching for the recent Edinburgh 2010 conference.¹³ The third Study Commission on ‘Mission and Postmodernities’ was co-chaired by Andrew.¹⁴ Andrew reminded participants of the counter-cultural force of the gospel and that the gospel ‘has its own criteria for deciding the nature and extent of its contextual relevance; passing cultural trends or fashions should never determine its ultimate validity and cogency’.¹⁵ This is an ongoing area of research and interest for Andrew as in his recent writings he has been exploring the value of the epistemological model of inference to the best explanation. He claims:

¹² Interview. ¹³ See for example, ‘Following Modernity and Postmodernity: A Missiological Investigation’, Mission Studies, XVII/1, 34 (2000) and The Future of Reason, Science and Faith: Following Modernity and Postmodernity (Aldershot: Ashgate, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I: J. ANDREW KIRK: HIS LIFE AND WORK
• PART II: WHAT IS MISSION?
• PART III: TRUTH IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD
• PART IV: CULTURE, EDUCATION AND RELIGION
• Index