David Bosch Quotes

If the Church is ‘in Christ,’ she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence.

Evidently, then, a not-so-subtle shift had occurred in the original love motive; compassion and solidarity had been replaced by pity and condescension.

16. Because of this, evangelism cannot be divorced from the preaching and practicing of justice. This is the flaw in the view according to which evangelism is given absolute priority over social involvement, or where evangelism is separated from justice, even if it is maintained that, together with social justice, it constitutes “mission.

The mission of the Christian community in Acts is a mission of salvation, as was the work of Jesus (cf Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:273). Salvation involves the reversal of all the evil consequences of sin, against both God and neighbor. It does not have only a “vertical” dimension.

Scripture without experience was empty, and experience without Scripture blind

In spite of its theological importance, however, the church is always and only a preliminary community, en route to its self-surrender unto the kingdom of God. Paul never develops an ecclesiology which can be divorced from christology and eschatology (Beker 1980:303f; 1984:67). The church is a community of hope which groans and labors for the redemption of the world and for its own consummation (cf Beker 1984:69). It is only the beginning of the new age.

If rich Christians today would only practice solidarity with poor Christians—let alone the billions of poor people who are not Christians—this in itself would be a powerful missionary testimony and a modern-day fulfillment of Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth.

Strictly speaking one ought to say that the Church is always in a state of crisis and that its greatest shortcoming is that it is only occasionally aware of it.... This ought to be the case because of the abiding tension between the church's essential nature and its empirical condition.... That there were so many centuries of crisis-free existence for the Church was therefore an abnormality... And if the atmosphere of crisislessness still lingers on in many parts of the West, this is simply the result of a dangerous delusion. Let us also know that to encounter crisis is to encounter the possibility of truly being the Church. David Bosch, Transforming Mission

…we do not have all the answers and are prepared to live within the framework of penultimate knowledge, that we regard our involvement in dialogue and mission as an adventure, are prepared to take risks, and are anticipating surprises as the Spirit guides us into fuller understanding. This is not opting for agnosticism, but for humility. It is, however, a bold humility—or a humble boldness. We know only in part, but we do know. And we believe that the faith we profess is both true and just, and should be proclaimed. We do this, however, not as judges or lawyers, but as witnesses; not as soldiers, but as envoys of peace; not as high-pressure salespersons, but as ambassadors of the Servant Lord.

Fifth, then, the emphasis is on doing theology. The universal claim of the hermeneutic of language has to be challenged by a hermeneutic of the deed, since doing is more important than knowing or speaking. In the Scriptures it is the doers who are blessed (cf Míguez Bonino 1975:27–41). There is, in fact, “no knowledge except in action itself, in the process of transforming the world through participation in history” (:88). Last, these priorities are

It is, however, above everything else, idolatry that Paul deems reprehensible. Idols are fabrications of the perverted human mind (cf Rom 1:23, 25), and yet, in spite of the fact that they are human creations, they take control of people, who are “led astray to dumb idols” (1 Cor 12:2) and are “in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods,” slaves of “weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal 4:9f). Their being in bondage to idols is therefore due not to ignorance (as the Stoics would argue) but to willfulness.

All along, however—and this is the fifth characteristic of the Enlightenment—it was contended that scientific knowledge was factual, value-free, and neutral. What makes a belief true, says Bertrand Russell (1970:75), “is a fact, and this fact does not…in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief” (:75). A belief is true when there is a corresponding fact and false when there is no such corresponding fact (:78f). Facts have a life of their own, independent of the observer. They are “objectively” true.

Even so, little separation between the soteriological and the humanitarian motifs was in evidence during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The missionaries persisted in the pre-Enlightenment tradition of the indissoluble unity of “evangelization” and “humanization” (cf van der Linde 1973), of “service to the soul” and “service to the body” (Nergaard 1988:34–40), of proclaiming the gospel and spreading a “beneficent civilization” (Rennstich 1982a, 1982b). For Blumhardt of the Basel Mission this clearly included “reparation for injustice committed by Europeans, so that to some extent the thousand bleeding wounds could be healed which were caused by the Europeans since centuries through their most dirty greediness and most cruel deceitfulness” (quoted by Rennstich 1982a:95; cf 1982b:546). And Henry Venn, famous General Secretary of the British CMS, urged missionaries to take their stand between the oppressor and the oppressed, between the tyranny of the system and the morally and physically threatened masses of the people to whom they went (cf Rennstich 1982b:545).

The death and resurrection of Christ mark the incursion of the future new age into the present old age (cf de Boer 1989:187, note 17; Duff 1989:285-289). This event signifies the inauguration and the anticipation of the coming triumph of God, the overture to it, and its guarantee. It is a decisive sign, which determines the character of all future signs and indeed of the Christian hope itself. Paul can therefore designate Christ as the “first fruits” of the final resurrection of the dead, or the “first-born among many brethren” (1 Cor 15:20, 23; Rom 8:29). The resurrection of Christ necessarily points to the future glory of God and its completion.

Under the influence of the Greek spirit ideas and principles were considered to be prior to and more important than their “application.” Such an application was both a second and a secondary step and served to confirm and legitimize the idea or principle, which was understood to be both suprahistorical and supracultural. Churches arrogated to themselves the right to determine what the “objective” truth of the Bible was and to direct the application of this timeless truth to the everyday life of believers. With the advent of the Enlightenment this approach received a new lease of life. In the Kantian paradigm, for instance, “pure” or “theoretical” reason was superior to “practical reason.

If monks had only been ascetic and eccentric in their behavior, however, they would not have won the devotion and admiration of the people in the way they did. Thus, secondly, their exemplary lifestyle made a profound impact, particularly on the peasants. Their conduct was epitomized in the words of the Celtic monk Columban (543–615), “He who says he believes in Christ ought to walk as Christ walked, poor and humble and always preaching the truth” (quoted in Baker 1970:28). The monks were poor, and they worked incredibly hard; they plowed, hedged, drained morasses, cleared away forests, did carpentry, thatched, and built roads and bridges. “They found a swamp, a moor, a thicket, a rock, and they made an Eden in the wilderness” (Newman 1970:398). Even secular historians acknowledge that the agricultural restoration of the largest part of Europe has to be attributed to them (:399). Through their disciplined and tireless labor they turned the tide of barbarism in Western Europe and brought back into cultivation the lands which had been deserted and depopulated in the age of the invasions. More important, through their sanctifying work and poverty they lifted the hearts of the poor and neglected peasants and inspired them while at the same time revolutionizing the order of social values which had dominated the empire's slave-owning society (cf Dawson 1950:56f).

when looking at the literature currently available, there seems to be much discussion on practical contemporary issues such as the sharing of resources or personnel, but very little on the history of Global/World relationships. Partnership is only mentioned in brief passages in David Bosch’s Transforming Mission or Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder’s Constants in Context. In J. Andrew Kirk’s What is Mission? an entire chapter is dedicated to this subject (chapter 10— “Sharing in Partnership”); however, only a few paragraphs are dedicated to how partnership has been understood historically. To date, the most complete study on this topic has been done by Lothar Bauerochse in his book Learning to Live Together: Interchurch Partnerships as Ecumenical Communities of Learning. Although Bauerochse’s main focus involves case studies on the relationships between German Protestant churches and their African partners, the first section entails an historical analysis of the term “partnership.” In his analysis, Bauerochse states that “the term partnership is a term of the colonial era . . . It is a formula of the former ‘rulers,’ who with it wished to both signal a relinquishment of power and also to secure their influence in the future. Therefore, the term can also serve both in colonial policy and mission policy to justify continuing rights of the white minority.”5 This understanding then serves as the lens through which he interprets the partnership discourse, reminding the reader that although the term was meant to connote an eventual leveling of power dynamics in relationships, it was also used by those with power to “secure their influence in the future.” This analysis is largely true. As we will see in chapter three, when the term partnership was introduced into the colonial debate, it was closely aligned with the concept of trusteeship. Later, as will be discussed in chapter six, the term partnership was also used in the late colonial period by the British as a way to maintain their colonies while offering the hope of freedom in the future; a step forward from trusteeship, but short of autonomy and independence. During colonial times, once the term partnership was introduced into ecumenical discussions, many arguments identical to those used by colonial powers for the retention of their colonies were used by church and missionary leaders to deny autonomy to the younger churches. Later, when looking at partnership in the post-World War

Rather, Paul's whole argument is that the attractive lifestyle of the small Christian communities gives credibility to the missionary outreach in which he and his fellow-workers are involved. The primary responsibility of “ordinary” Christians is not to go out and preach, but to support the mission project through their appealing conduct and by making “outsides” feel welcome in their midst.

It is today widely acknowledged that Paul was the first Christian theologian precisely because he was the first Christian missionary (Hengel 1983b:53; cf Dahl 1977a:70; Russell 1988), that his “theology of mission is practically synonymous with the totality of (his) awesome reflections on Christian life” (Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:161) and “practically coextensive with his entire Christian vision” (:165) so that “there is something wrong in the very distinction between Paul's mission and his theology” (Dahl 1977a:70; cf Hahn 1965:97).

Several scholars have argued that we should not use the word “conversion” with reference to Paul's Damascus road experience. Their reasons are essentially twofold. First, conversion suggests a changing of religions, and Paul clearly did not change his; what we call Christianity was in Paul's time a sect within Judaism (cf Stendahl 1976:7; Beker 1980:144; Gaventa 1986:18). Second, it is unwarranted to portray Paul, as still happens, as tormented and guilt-ridden because of his sins, as experiencing an inner conflict which eventually led to his conversion. In a now classic essay, first published in Swedish in 1960, Stendahl has persuasively argued that such a “psychological” interpretation of what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus reflects a typical modern understanding of the event (Stendahl 1976:78-96; cf 7-23). The phenomenon of the “introspective conscience,” of penetrating self-examination coupled with a yearning to acquire certainty of salvation, is a typically Western one, says Stendahl. It would be totally anachronistic to assume that Paul shared this trait. Truth to tell, it was not until Augustine that such religious introspection really began to manifest itself.

For the last several centuries it has been customary to read Paul through the eyes of Luther, as it were, and to universalize the typical Western conversion experience by not only reading it back into the New Testament, but also declaring it mandatory for all new converts to the Christian faith. Such an experience is not what interests Paul, however. Neither is it what he expects of the people to whom he proclaims the gospel (cf also Krass 1978:7072; Beker 1980:6-8; Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:169-171).

Paul underwent a radical change in values, self-definition, and commitments. “Where in the orthodoxy of the Torah was there room for a crucified Christ?” asks Meyer (1986:162), and he answers, “Nowhere.” Paul experienced a fundamental revision of his perception of Jesus of Nazareth and of the salvific value of the Law; and in spite of the many and important elements of his worldview that remained essentially unaltered (to which I shall return) it is preferable to use the term “conversion” (or, at least, “transformation”) for what happened to him, as Gaventa demonstrates in a very thorough analysis of the evidence (1986:17-51; cf Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:168). It was indeed a primordial experience and one that Paul understood to be paradigmatic of that of every Christian (Gaventa 1986:38). So even Peter, Paul, and John, who had lived as righteous Jews, had to experience something else in order to be members of the people of God; they had to have faith in Christ (Sanders 1983:172).

If it is true that Paul is not the initiator of the Christian mission to Gentiles, it is equally true that he had no intention of breaking with the Jerusalem leadership. His relationship with Jewish Christianity is often misconstrued, says Beker, who adds: (Liberal scholarship) portrayed Paul as the lonely genius who, after the apostolic council in Jerusalem and his quarrel with Peter and Barnabas in Antioch…breaks entirely with Jerusalem. He is described as one who turns his back on Judaism and Jewish Christianity and is intent on making Christianity an entirely Gentile religion based on a law-free gospel (1980: 331). On several occasions Paul, in fact, clearly reveals his passionate desire to remain in full fellowship with the Jerusalem church, particularly as represented by the three “pillars” (Gal 2:9); in 1 Corinthians 15:11 he even claims that he is preaching the same gospel they preach (cf Haas 1971:46-51; Dahl 1977a:71f; Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:164). Paul is not the “second founder” of Christianity, the person who turned the religion of Jesus into the religion about Christ. He did not invent the gospel about Jesus as the Christ—he inherited it (cf Beker 1980:341).

It is today widely held that Paul's teaching on the Law cannot be understood solely within the framework of Luther's attempts to oppose a works-oriented Roman Catholicism with the precept of justification by faith alone. Paul is now often seen as having had a far more positive attitude toward Jews and Judaism in general and toward the Law in particular.

The Law has provided the Jews with a “charter of national privilege” (N. T. Wright, quoted by Moo 1987:294; cf also Beker 1980:335f, 344; Zeller 1982:177f). It is this inherently divisive quality of the Law that Paul rejects.

This is another way of saying what has been said above: no orthodox Jew could see the Law the way Paul sees it, unless he looked at it from Paul's perspective. And Paul was granted this perspective when he met the risen Christ.24 He did not receive it through any human intervention, nor was he taught it; it came to him as a “revelation” (Gal 1:12-17). That event convinced him that it was through Jesus, crucified and risen, that God was offering salvation to all.

In the gospel the hosting of Jesus was equivalent to the hosting of salvation (Lk 19:9) (cf LaVerdiere and Thompson 1976:592). It is not essentially different in Acts, since salvation is in his name only. Salvation is liberation from all bondage as well as new life in Christ. The missionaries witness as people who know that life and death depend on their testimony. Therefore, in spite of all appreciation they may have for the religious life of Gentiles (cf Acts 17:22f), they continue to insist on repentance and conversion. Their urgency certainly has to do with the way they view those “outside Christ”: to turn one's back on one's past is tantamount to turning from “darkness to light” (Acts 22:18; cf also the title of Gaventa 1986). Much is at stake and the witnesses cannot possibly be indifferent about the destiny of others. They therefore do not offer the invitation to join their community in a spirit of “take it or leave it” (cf Zingg 1973:209; Kremer 1982:162). Even so, personal conversion is not a goal in itself. To interpret the work of the church as the “winning of souls” is to make conversion into a final product, which flatly contradicts Luke's understanding of the purpose of mission (Gaventa 1986:150-152). Conversion does not pertain merely to an individual's act of conviction and commitment; it moves the individual believer into the community of believers and involves a real—even a radical—change in the life of the believer, which carries with it moral responsibilities that distinguish Christians from “outsiders” while at the same time stressing their obligation to those “outsiders” (cf Malherbe 1987:49).

5. With Scheffler (1988:57-108), one could say that, for Luke, salvation actually had six dimensions: economic, social, political, physical, psychological, and spiritual. Luke seemed to pay special attention to the first of these. We may thus detect a major element in Luke's missionary paradigm in what he writes about the new relationship between rich and poor. There are, at this point, parallels between Matthew and Luke; the difference is that, whereas Matthew emphasized justice in general, Luke seemed to have a peculiar interest in eco nomic justice.

He did this in the teeth of the ideological defense mechanisms of the privileged, who only too frequently convince themselves that Jesus was more interested in the “correct attitude” toward wealth than in its possession and use. These mechanisms then allow free range to the privileged's unsatiable urge to move upward, socially and economically, and to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle devoid of an ethic that exalts values like self-sacrifice, restraint, and solidarity. But where self-centered sentiments reign supreme, the rich cannot claim to be involved in mission and cannot be in continuity with the Lukan Jesus and church.

Our missionary involvement may be very successful in other respects, but if we fail here, we stand guilty before the Lord of mission. Peace-making, I therefore suggest, is a major ingredient of Luke's missionary paradigm. The message that there is no room for vengeance in the heart of the follower of Jesus permeates both the gospel and Acts. It culminates in the account of Jesus praying for his crucifiers (Lk 23:34), which is echoed in the prayer of the dying Stephen (Acts 7:60).

Luke's church may be said to have a bipolar orientation, “inward” and “outward” (cf Flender 1967:166; LaVerdiere and Thompson 1976:590). First, it is a community which devotes itself “to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). Teaching refers not so much (as it does in Matthew) to the contents of Jesus’ preaching as to the resurrection event; fellowship refers to the new community in which barriers have been overcome; the breaking of bread refers to the eucharistic life of the community and is experienced as continuing the meals with Jesus reported in the gospel; and the prayer life of Jesus, a prominent feature in Luke's gospel, is extended into the church. All this is accomplished in the power of the Spirit: “The Church is the place where the exalted one manifests his presence and where the Holy Spirit creates anew” (Flender 1967:166).

Early in Acts, Luke reports the arrest of Peter and John and their questioning by the rulers. Luke characterizes their defense as “bold.” As a matter of fact, in Acts boldness (parresia) almost always manifests itself in the context of adversity (cf Gaventa 1982:417-420). When the believers gather together after Peter and John have been threatened by the Sanhedrin, they do not pray that their adversaries be struck down (as John and James did with reference to the Samaritans who had refused them hospitality—cf Lk 9:54); instead, they pray for boldness (Acts 4:27-30; cf Gaventa 1982:418).

William Frazier suggests that, on this point, Luke's writings have a significance far beyond the first-century church (1987:46). He refers, in this regard, to the Roman Catholic ritual that usually crowns the sending ceremony of missionary communities, where the new missionaries are equipped with cross or crucifix. Frazier continues: Somewhere beneath the layers of meaning that have attached themselves to this practice from the days of Francis Xavier to our own is the simple truth enunciated by Justin and Tertullian: the way faithful Christians die is the most contagious aspect of what being a Christian means. The missionary cross or crucifix is no mere ornament depicting Christianity in general. Rather, it is a vigorous commentary on what gives the gospel its universal appeal. Those who receive it possess not only a symbol of their mission but a handbook on how to carry it out (1987:46).

Samaritans were worse than Gentiles (cf Hengel 1983b:56). This attitude was due, to a large degree, to the Samaritan defilement of the Jewish temple and the killing of a company of Jewish pilgrims by Samaritans (for details, cf Ford 1984:83-86).

Luke's entire understanding of the Christian mission: it is the fulfillment of scriptural promises; it only becomes possible after the death and resurrection of the Messiah of Israel; its central thrust is the message of repentance and forgiveness; it is intended for “all nations”; it is to begin “from Jerusalem”; it is to be executed by “witnesses”; and it will be accomplished in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke relates three instances of Jesus having been invited to meals in the houses of Pharisees. He omits controversial passages (such as Mk 7:1-20), which might have been experienced as unpleasant by Jews. He does not apply the parable of the tenants to the chief priests and the Pharisees, as Matthew does. In his passion narrative the crowd does not cry out, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Mt 27:25); instead, Luke mentions that “a great multitude of the people” mourned and lamented over Jesus (23:27). Only Luke has the Crucified pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (23:34), and it is highly unlikely that he intends to suggest that Jesus is praying only for his Roman executioners. Actually, Luke frequently emphasizes that the Jewish authorities did what they did out of ignorance (cf Acts 3:17; 13:27).

He is, for instance, the only evangelist who has John the Baptist spell out in practical terms what it means to “bear fruits that befit repentance” (3:8), and he does this in terms of economic relations (3:10-14).

He is, for instance, the only evangelist who has John the Baptist spell out in practical terms what it means to “bear fruits that befit repentance” (3:8), and he does this in terms of economic relations (3:10-14). The term ptochos (“poor”) occurs ten times in Luke, compared to five times each in Mark and Matthew.4 Not only the word ptochos, but also other terms referring to want and need abound in Luke. The same is true of terms referring to wealth, such as plousios (“rich”) and hyparchonta (“possessions”) (cf Bergquist 1986:4f). “If we did not have Luke,” comments Schottroff and Stegemann (1986:67), “we would probably have lost an important, if not the most important, part of the earliest Christian tradition and its intense preoccupation with the figure and message of Jesus as the hope of the poor.” Mazamisa (1987:99) summarizes, [Luke's] concern is with the social issues he writes about: with the demons and evil forces in first century society which deprived women, men and children of dignity and selfhood, of sight and voice and bread, and sought to control their lives for private gain; with the people's own selfishness and servility; and with the promises and possibilities of the poor and the outcasts.

Plousios (“rich”) is, like ptochos, a comprehensive term. The rich are primarily those who are greedy, who exploit the poor, who are so bent on making money that they do not even allow themselves the time to accept an invitation to a banquet (Lk 14:18f), who do not notice the Lazarus at their gate (16:20), who conduct a hedonistic lifestyle but are nonetheless (or, rather, because of this) choked by cares about those very riches (8:I4). They are, at the same time, slaves and worshipers of Mammon (cf D'Sa 1988:172-175).

So Luke “wants the rich and respected to be reconciled to the message and way of life of Jesus and the disciples; he wants to motivate them to a conversion that is in keeping with the social message of Jesus” (Schottroff and Stegemann 1986:91; cf D'Sa 1988:175-177).

The problems facing the wealthy in the post-Easter community are thus obviously not different from those facing the rich who encountered Jesus. Zacchaeus and Barnabas become paradigms of what Luke expects of wealthy Christians.

The attitude the wealthy should adopt toward the destitute is explicated in more detail in other Lukan sayings. Particularly illuminating is the Lukan redaction of some material from Q, included in Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain (6:30-35a), and which differs at decisive points from the Matthean redaction: Give to everyone who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men should do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them…And if you lend to those from who you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. The whole passage is shot through with references to what the conduct of the rich ought to be toward the poor (cf Albertz 1983:202f; Schottroff and Stegemann 1986:112-116). What is particularly remarkable is that the Matthean love of enemies is now interpreted as love toward those who do not repay their debts!

From the parable of the good Samaritan we know that the neighbor is the one in need who makes a demand on me and whom I dare not leave by the roadside. In economic terms, it means that the rich members of Luke's community are challenged to give up a significant portion of their wealth, and also to perform specific unpleasant actions, such as the issuing of risky loans and the cancelling of debts. All this is, of course, also Jubilee language—the idea of the Jubilee indeed permeates Luke's gospel.

Luke's “ethic of economics” also finds expression in the idea of almsgiving. Apart from Matthew 6:1-4 the term eleemosyne (almsgiving) occurs in the New Testament only in the Lukan writings (Lk 11:41; 12:33; Acts 3:2, 3, 10; 9:36; 10:2, 4, 31; 24:17). In addition, whereas almsgiving was, at the time, usually understood as charity directed to fellow-believers, whether Jews or Christians, Luke understands it as also directed to outsiders (cf Schottroff and Stegemann 1986:109).

These circumstances have prompted B. Violet and particularly Joachim Jeremias to suggest that the key to the entire enigma of interpreting the Nazareth episode should be looked for in the dramatic way in which the reading from Isaiah 61 is terminated just before the reference to the day of vengeance and the portrayal of the hoped-for reversal—for which the entire congregation must have been waiting. Jesus does the unimaginable by omitting this (cf Jeremias 1958:4146).

The same happens in Luke 7:22f (par Mt 11:5f). In his reply to John the Baptist Jesus again, as he did in 4:18f, “splices” different passages from Isaiah (in this case Is 35:5f, 29:18f, and 61:1). All three of these passages contain, in one form or another, references to divine vengeance (35:4; 29:20; 61:2), but again Jesus omits any references to it. This can hardly be unintentional, moreso because of the added remark, “And blessed is he who takes no offense at me” (Lk 7:23). In other words: Blessed is everyone who does not take offense at the fact that the era of salvation differs from what he or she has expected, that God's compassion on the poor, the outcast and the stranger—even on Israel's enemies—has superseded divine vengeance!

Today, of course, charity is a bad word in many circles and often seen as the very antithesis of justice. In the Old Testament and Judaism it was different (:116), as it still is in Islam. Almsgiving is not something that subverts justice and structural change; rather, it is an expression of justice and stands in its service. In the Old Testament the two concepts are often synonyms. Almsgiving (eleemosyne) is, furthermore, an expression of having mercy (eleos).

Both the poor and the rich need salvation. At the same time, each person has his or her specific sinfulness and enslavement. The patterns of enslavement differ, which means that the specific sinfulness of the rich is different from that of the poor. Therefore, in Luke's gospel, the rich are tested on the ground of their wealth, whereas others are tested on loyalty toward their family, their people, their culture, and their work (Lk 9:59-61) (Nissen 1984:175). This means that the poor are sinners like everyone else, because ultimately sinfulness is rooted in the human heart.

In their being converted to God, rich and poor are converted toward each other.

Seen from this perspective, Luke-Acts becomes a paean of praise to the incomparable grace of God, lavished upon sinners. The thrust of this can only be grasped, and then only partially, if we see it against the background of the understanding of God at the time: omnipotent, terrifying, and inscrutable. He is not to be understood as a pleasant and innocuous God, who is always prepared to forgive even more than people are prone to sin (in the sense of Voltaire's contemptuous remark, “Pardonner, c'est son métier,” “to forgive is, after all, his profession”; cf Schweizer 1971;146). It is precisely as the omnipotent and inscrutable that he forgives—for the sake of Jesus. The initiative, throughout, remains God's (cf Wilckens 1963:183). And it manifests itself in ways that make no sense to the human mind. The prodigal son becomes the recipient of unfathomable and undeserved kindness; sinners are not only sought and accepted but receive honor, responsibility, and authority (Ford 1484:77). God answers the prayer of the tax-collector, not—as Jesus’ listeners have anticipated—that of the Pharisee. Salvation comes to a chief tax-collector, of all people, but only after Jesus has taken the initiative and invited himself to the house of Zacchaeus. A Samaritan—the most unlikely candidate imaginable-—performs an extraordinary deed of compassion. A contemptible criminal receives pardon and the promise of paradise in the hour of death, without any possibility of making restitution for his wicked deeds. The crucifiers of the innocent man from Nazareth hear him pray for forgiveness for what they are doing to him. And in Acts despised Samaritans and idol-worshiping Gentiles receive pardon and are incorporated into Israel, with whom they form the one people of God. What Jeremias said with reference to Jesus’ word that the tax-collector, rather than the Pharisee, went home “justified” (Lk 18:14), can be said about all the examples referred to above: “Such a conclusion must have utterly overwhelmed (Jesus’) hearers. It was beyond the capacity of any of them to imagine. What fault had the Pharisee committed, and what had the publican done by way of reparation?” (quoted in Ford 1984:75). The Jesus Luke introduces to his readers is somebody who brings the outsider, the stranger, and the enemy home and gives him and her, to the chagrin of the “righteous,” a place of honor at the banquet in the reign of God.

Luke writes his two-volume work in the wake of the devastation of the Jewish War, in which the political hopes of the Zealots were crushed; many of his readers lived in a war-torn country, occupied by foreign troops who often took advantage of the population; violence and banditry have been their meat and drink for many a year (cf Ford 1984:1-12). They have, in a real sense, reaped the whirlwind. And now Luke presents them with a challenge: Jesus and his powerful message of nonviolent resistance and, above all; of loving one's enemy in word and deed. The peace that comes with Jesus is not won through weapons, but through love, forgiveness, and acceptance of one's enemies into the covenant community (:136). “Everyone who believes in him” is welcome—this is the astonishing discovery that Peter makes in his encounter with Cornelius (Acts 10:43). The Lukan Jesus turns his back on the in-group exegesis of his contemporaries by challenging their “ethic of election” (cf Nissen 1984:75f). From the Nazareth episode onward, Luke has his eye on the Christian church, where there is room for rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, even oppressor and oppressed (cf Schottroff and Stegemann 1986:37; Sundermeier 1986:72)—which does not, of course, suggest that conditions should remain what they are. This may also help to explain the fact

In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul employs another term in an attempt to give expression to the “debt” he has: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor 5:11). Green interprets correctly, “This…is not the craven fear of the underdog, but the loving fear of the friend and trusted servant who dreads disappointing his beloved Mastef” (1970:245). Here also is to be found the reason why Paul dreads the possibility that “after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:27).

The suggestion therefore is that, simply because of their unique status as God's children, their conduct should be exceptional. However, and this is the second point, very frequently Paul says that an exemplary demeanor is required for the sake of the Christian witness toward outsiders. It is true, of course, that Paul often portrays non-members of the community in rather negative terms. I have already referred to some of the expressions he uses in this regard. Other terms include “unrighteous,” “nonbelievers,” and “those…who obey wickedness.” And yet, it is not words like these, or others such as “adversaries” or “sinners,” which become technical terms for non-Christians. There are, says van Swigchem, really only two such technical terms in the Pauline letters: hoi loipoi (“the others”) and hoi exo (“outsiders”). Both of these carry a milder connotation than some of the other more emotive expressions Paul sporadically uses (1955:57-59, 72)10 and are remarkably free from condemnation.

The Pauline churches, however, are manifestly different. They are characterized by a missionary drive which sees in the outsider a potential insider (:105-107). Their “exemplary existence” (Lippert 1968:164) is a powerful magnet that draws outsiders toward the church.

Involvement in the structures of this world and attempts to change them and make them conform, if only to a very limited degree, to the “blueprint” of God's reign, make sense precisely because of our hope for a fundamentally new future.

This explains the vehemence of Paul's reaction to Peter when the latter refused to eat with Gentiles converts (Gal 2:11-21). To object to sharing the table of the Lord with fellow-believers is a denial of one's being justified by faith (cf Räisäinen 1983:259). Where this happens, people are trusting in some form of justification by works. The reconciliation with God is in jeopardy if Christians are not reconciled to each other but continue to separate at meals. The unity of the church—no, the church itself—is called in question when groups of Christians segregate themselves on the basis of such dubious distinctives as race, ethnicity, sex, or social status. God in Christ has accepted us unconditionally; we have to do likewise with regard to one another.

The church has an eschatological horizon and is, as proleptic manifestation of God's reign, the beachhead of the new creation, the vanguard of God's new world, and the sign of the dawning new age in the midst of the old (cf Beker 1980:313; 1984:41). At the same time it is precisely as these small and weak Pauline communities gather in worship to celebrate the victory already won and to pray for the coming of their Lord (“Marana tha !”), that they become aware of the terrible contradiction between what they believe on the one hand and what they empirically see and experience on the other, and also of the tension in which they live, the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” “Christ the first fruits” has already risen from the dead (1 Cor 15:23) and the believers have been given the Spirit as “guarantee” of what is to come (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), but there does not seem to be much apart from these “first fruits” and “pledge.” Like Abraham, they believe in hope against hope (Rom 4:18) and accept in faith the Spirit's witness that they are children and heirs of God and therefore fellow heirs with Christ—provided, says Paul, “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17). God will triumph, notwithstanding our weakness and suffering, but also in the midst of and because of and through our weakness and suffering (cf Beker 1980:364f). Faith is able to bear the tension between the confession of God's ultimate triumph, and the empirical reality of this world, for it knows that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37) and that “in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (8:28). Nowhere has Paul portrayed this unbearable (and precisely for this reason bearable!) tension more profoundly than in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Our Christian life in this world thus involves an inescapable tension, oscillating between joy and agony. Whereas, on the one hand, suffering and weakness become all the more intolerable and our agonizing, because of the terrifying “not yet,” intensifies, we can, on the other hand, already “rejoice in our sufferings” (Rom 5:2). This means that our life in this world must be cruciform; Paul bears on his body “the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17; cf Col 1:24), he carries “in the body the death of Jesus,” and while he lives he is “always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:10f) (cf also Beker 1980:145f, 366f; 1984:120).

The primary concern of Paul's preaching is not, however, the “wrath to come” (cf Legrand 1988:163). He never dwells in any detail on this. God's wrath is, rather, the dark foil for the positive message he proclaims: salvation through Christ and the imminent triumph of God. His gospel is good news, addressed to people who have willfully sinned, who are without excuse, and who deserve God's judgment (Rom 1:20, 23, 25; 2:1f, 5-10), but to whom God in his kindness is providing an opportunity for repentance (Rom 2:4) (cf Malherbe 1987:32).8

1 Corinthians: I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (9:19-23). These verses really say more about Paul's sense of responsibility than about his missionary methods.

To be reconciled to God, to be justified, to be transformed in the here and now, is not something that happens to isolated individuals, however. Incorporation into the Christ-event moves the individual believer into the community of believers.

David Bosch, speaking of this shift in the church, said, “Its white-hot convictions, poured into the hearts of the first adherents, cooled down and became crystallized codes, solidified institutions and petrified dogmas. The prophet became a priest of the establishment, charisma became office, and love became routine. The horizon was no longer the world but the boundaries of the local parish.

The emphasis on the subjective dimension of salvation could promote the idea of the worth of the individual—a most important gain over against the Middle Ages in which the individual was often sacrificed for the sake of the whole. At the same time an overemphasis on the individual could estrange him or her from the group and destroy awareness of the fact that a human being is by definition a being-in-community.

biblicism has remained a permanent danger for Protestant theology. The real foundation of faith is then no longer the Christian message, nor the proclaimed Christ himself, but the infallible biblical word. Just as many Catholics believe less in God than in “their” church and “their” pope, many Protestants believe in “their” Bible. The apotheosis of the church corresponds to the apotheosis of the Bible!

The assumption here is that the “great missionary century” (the nineteenth) had a correct understanding of mission; this definition is imposed on the Reformers, who then have to be judged guilty for not having subscribed to it (Holl 1928; Holsten 1953; cf also Gensichen 1960 and 1961, and Scherer 1987). Would it not be more appropriate, asks Holsten (1953:1f), to summons the nineteenth-century missionary enterprise—victim of Humanism, Pietism, and Enlightenment, and child of the modern mind—before the tribunal of the Reformation and then declare it guilty of perverting the missionary idea?

In the contemporary Greek world it was Greek philosophy rather than Greek religion which nurtured morality (cf Malherbe 1986). The Greek gods were frequently represented as amoral if not immoral in their conduct. Strictly speaking, ethics was not regarded as a part of religion; the gods did not insist on a total break with the past or on a renunciation of all that was wrong (cf Green 1970: 144f). By contrast, the high moral standards of the Christian faith, like those of Judaism, were clearly to be attributed to religious influences, and many non-Christians noticed this. Christians were expected to belong, body and soul, to Christ, and this was to show in their conduct (:146). In the general mood of the time such demeanor could not but be noticeable.

The many parallels between pagan religions and Christianity were, in a real sense, a great help to the church in its mission and defense of the faith. The message about God in human form, about salvific sacrifices, the victory of resurrection, and new life, fell on ears that did not find it entirely unfamiliar. It was easy to regard Christianity as the fulfillment of other religions. For the early Christian faith it was not its dissimilarity with the religions of the environment that was the problem, but its similarity (cf von Soden 1974:26).

Justin and Clement adopted a friendly attitude toward the best in paganism and regarded Greek philosophy as a “schoolmaster” leading pagans to Christ.

It has been argued that no mass movement into the Christian faith has developed in a culture that was stable and rich in content, but always only in societies which have lost their nerve and were disintegrating. This was true not only of the Greco-Roman world in the fourth and subsequent centuries, but also elsewhere.

E. A. Thompson has advocated the view that the success of the Christian mission among the Goths was to be ascribed not so much to the excellent mission work of Ulfilas, but rather to the devastating effect the Goths’ encounter with the Roman Empire had on their traditional way of life. He also contends that, apart from the Suevi, no German tribe remained faithful to its traditional religion for longer than one generation after it had invaded the Roman Empire; thus a major reason for the Germans’ conversion to Christianity, sociologically speaking, was the disruption of social conditions caused by their migrations (references to Thompson in Frend 1974:40).

The God of the Old Testament and primitive Christianity came to be identified with the general idea of God of Greek metaphysics; God is referred to as Supreme Being, substance, principle, unmoved mover. Ontology (God's being) became more important than history (God's deeds) (cf van der Aalst 1974:110f). It became more important to reflect on what God is in himself than to consider the relationship in which people stand to God. Behind all of this lies the notion that the abstract idea is more real than the historical.

The Holy Spirit became the “spirit of truth” or the “spirit of wisdom,” where one's primary interest was in the Spirit's original being rather than activity in history (:124f). God's revelation was no longer understood as God's self-communication in events, but as the communication of truths about the being of God in three hypostases and the one person of Christ in two natures. The various church councils were intent on producing definitive statements of faith; their formulations were conclusive and final rather than references to the ineffable.

The proclamation of the reign of God does not introduce a new creed or cult but is the announcement of an event in history, an event to which people are challenged to respond by repenting and believing.

In the coming of Jesus and in raising him from the dead, God's eschatological act has already been inaugurated. It is, however, as yet incomplete. Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation signify just the beginning of the universal fulfillment still to come, of which the Spirit is a pledge. Only another future intervention by God will wipe out the contradictions of the present.

The Apologists, in particular, had to combat a rabid fatalism and they did this by insisting very strongly on free will, repentance, reward, and punishment (cf Lampe 1957: 32).

Tragically, from the Orthodox point of view, we only too often convert people not to this one church, the body of Christ, but to our own denomination, at the same time imparting to them the “poison of division” (Nissiotis 1968:198).

Looking back, from our vantage-point today, on this entire development, we may wish to condemn it unconditionally. How could the Christian church have allowed itself to become so compromised over against the state? We might, however, do well to take note of Lesslie Newbigin's thoughts on the subject: Much has been written about the harm done to the cause of the gospel when Constantine accepted baptism, and it is not difficult to expatiate on this theme. But could any other choice have been made? When the ancient classical world…ran out of spiritual fuel and turned to the church as the one society that could hold a disintegrating world together, should the church have refused the appeal and washed its hands of responsibility for the political order?…It is easy to see with hindsight how quickly the church fell into the temptation of worldly power. It is easy to point…to the glaring contradiction between the Jesus of the Gospels and his followers occupying the seats of power and wealth. And yet we have to ask, would God's purpose…have been better served if the church had refused all political responsibility? (1986:100f).

In light of this, it is really impossible to regard the crusades of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries as “missionary wars,” even if many ordinary Christians saw them in this light.

The new word, “mission,” is historically linked indissolubly with the colonial era and with the idea of a magisterial commissioning. The term presupposes an established church in Europe which dispatched delegates to convert overseas peoples and was as such an attendant phenomenon of European expansion. The church was understood as a legal institution which had the right to entrust its “mission” to secular powers and to a corps of “specialists”—priests or religious. “Mission” meant the activities by which the Western ecclesiastical system was extended into the rest of the world. The “missionary” was irrevocably tied to an institution in Europe, from which he or she derived the mandate and power to confer salvation on those who accept certain tenets of the faith.

During the entire preceding period mission was the responsibility of bishops or, more generally, a task taken upon themselves by monastic communities (to which I shall return)—one did not become a missionary on the basis of ecclesiastical authorization but “under the urge of the Holy Spirit,” or (as Francis of Assisi formulated it in chapter 12 of his Rule) “on the basis of divine inspiration.” All this had now changed, first by granting Spain and Portugal the right of patronage, secondly by the creation of Propaganda Fide. “The privilege of evangelizing the newly-discovered lands (became) the exclusive monopoly of the Roman See” (Geffré 1982:479). The

The point is that medieval Christians responded to the challenges they faced in the only way that made sense to them. The interiorization and the ecclesiasticization of salvation, as we identified these processes in Augustine, became vehicles of authentic evangelization and avenues along which the gospel entered Europe and made sense to the European mind. In similar manner the missionary wars, direct or indirect, and the entire project of Western colonization of the rest of the world were—in spite of all the horrors that went with them and even if we, today, find them totally incomprehensible and indefensible—expressions of a genuine concern for others, as Christians understood their responsibility in those years.

Pelagius, who was active in Rome at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, took a decidedly optimistic view of human nature and of the human capacity to attain perfection. While God gets the ultimate credit for having made us so that we are capable of doing what we should, “we have the power of accomplishing every good thing by action, speech and thought.” Humanity did not need redemption, only inspiration. This meant that Pelagius did not regard Christ as Savior who died for the sins of humankind, but as master and model whom we are called to emulate.

To this Augustine responded with the doctrines of original sin and of predestination. The image of God, impaired by human sin and weakness, could not—as Clement, Origen, and other Greek theologians had taught—be restored by means of a drawn-out, upward pedagogical process culminating in theosis; rather, the terrible reality of total human depravity demanded a radical conversion experience and an encounter with the irresistible grace of God in Christ.

There is, however, also a more negative side to his stance: authority and holiness were regarded as adhering in the institutional church whether or not these moral and theological qualities were in evidence.

monasticism possessed extraordinary resilience and recuperative power. Ninety-nine out of a hundred monasteries could be burnt down and the monks killed or driven out, writes Dawson, and yet the whole tradition could be reconstituted from the one survivor, and the desolate sites could be repeopled by fresh supplies of monks who would take up again the broken tradition, following the same rule, singing the same liturgy, reading the same books and thinking the same thoughts as their predecessors (1950:72; cf Newman 1970:410f).

The monks knew that things took time, that instant gratification and a quick-fix mentality were an illusion, and that an effort begun in one generation had to be carried on by generations yet to come, for theirs was a “spirituality of the long haul” and not of instant success (Henry 1987:279f). Coupled with this was their refusal to write off the world as a lost cause or to propose neat, no-loose-ends answers to the problems of life, but rather to rebuild promptly, patiently, and cheerfully, “as if it were by some law of nature that the restoration came” (Newman 1970:411).6

Benedict (480–547) also put a greater emphasis on the Christian life as being in the service of magnifying God's name. Manual labor was as much religious ministry as prayer, and everything came under the heading U.I.O.G.D.: Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus (“That in all things God may be glorified”).

To please God alone” (soli Deo placere) was the ardent desire of this remarkable man, who lived in God velut naturaliter, “as it were naturally” (:214, 215). The “ascent to God” evolved in twelve successive “degrees of humility” (on these, cf Heufelder 1983:51–150), and the purpose of his Rule (as formulated by Benedict himself in chapter 7) was to help the monk arrive at that love of God which, being perfect, casts out fear; whereby he shall begin to keep, without labor, and as it were naturally and by custom, all those precepts which he had hitherto observed through fear: no longer through dread of hell, but for the love of Christ, and of a good habit and a delight in virtue.

Augustine had rediscovered Paul for the fifth century; Luther rediscovered him for the sixteenth.

We may not reduce Luther's entire theology to this one “discovery.” In the years 1513 to 1519 he made a whole series of theological breakthroughs. Still, his reinterpretation of Romans 1:16f remained foundational and the cornerstone or focus of his entire life and theology (:175). He could never again stop marvelling at the fact that God had accepted him, poor and wretched human being that he was, mercifully and gratuitously. The last words he scribbled on his deathbed were, “We are only beggars; that is true.

It would be erroneous to argue that the Reformation broke with the medieval Catholic paradigm in every respect. Some elements of Protestantism were in fact a continuation, even if in a new form, of what typified the Catholic model also.

For Thomas Aquinas theology was still scientia argumentativa (“reasoned science”); for Luther this was an impossible approach. God was no longer to be regarded as God in himself (Gott an sich); he was God for me, for us, the God who, for the sake of Christ, had justified us by grace (cf Beinert 1983:207f; Pfürtner 1984:174f).

Luther's personal history and his existential question, “Where do I find a merciful God?,” played a role in this, as much as the fact that in the late Middle Ages the individual was beginning to emerge from the collective. The Reformation “theologized” this development; the question about salvation became the personal question of the individual. This emphasis would never again disappear; in a thousand different forms believers would insist on the personal and subjective experience of a new birth by the Holy Spirit, as well as on the responsibility of the individual over against the group (Pfürtner 1984:181f).

On the whole, then, there can be little doubt that at least Luther and Calvin as well as some of their younger colleagues (such as Bucer) propounded an essentially missionary theology. It is also noteworthy that they broke completely with any idea of using force in Christianizing people.

The Reformers, on the whole, did not deny that the Catholic Church still displayed vestiges of the true church; this becomes evident, for instance, in the fact that they accepted the validity of baptism by Catholic priests. Their concern was the reformation of the church, not its replacement. The Anabaptists, by comparison, pushed aside with consistent logic every other manifestation of Christianity to date; the entire world, including Catholic and Protestant church leaders and rulers, consisted exclusively of pagans (Schäufele 1966:97).

Each confession understood the church in terms of what it believed its own adherents possessed and the others lacked, so Catholics prided themselves in the unity and visibility of their church, Protestants in their doctrinal impeccability.

The Protestant preoccupation with right doctrine soon meant that every group which seceded from the main body had to validate its action by maintaining that it alone, and none of the others, adhered strictly to the “right preaching of the gospel.” The Reformational descriptions of the church thus ended up accentuating differences rather than similarities. Christians were taught to look divisively at other Christians.

The first theologian of the era of Lutheran orthodoxy who grappled with the issue of mission was Philip Nicolai (1556-1608) (cf Hess 1962:passim). He is indeed exceptionally important for our theme, not least since, as a transitional figure, his theology reveals the differences between earlier and later orthodoxy. His views on mission—which, in a more extreme form, were to become typical of orthodoxy—were developed especially in his Commentarius de regno Christi, published in 1597.

opposition to Rome the Reformers emphasized that all initiative unto salvation lay with God alone. This conviction lies at the root of Luther's teaching on justification through faith, by grace, and of Calvin's doctrine of predestination. Luther and Calvin did not, however, interpret the emphasis on God's initiative in any rigid way; God's action did not militate against human responsibility, which was upheld very forcefully. Orthodoxy tended to give up the creative tension between the two and to put all the emphasis on God's sovereignty and initiative.

It was Nicolai's positive and optimistic disposition which enabled him to judge the Roman Catholic overseas missionary enterprise as benevolently as he did. Any traces of optimism were, however, soon expunged from orthodoxy. It was almost as if pastors and theologians feared that the world might improve.

The situation in the church became so lamentable, particularly in the eyes of Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714), that the focus was no longer on the conviction that Christ and his reign would be triumphant, but on the fearful question whether Christ, when he returned, would find any faith on earth. This question destroyed all possibility of joyfully witnessing to Christ (cf Beyreuther 1961:38).