Transcending the Modern Mission Tradition

Michael W Stroope

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781913363376
• eBook ISBN: 9781913363383
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

The urgent task of our day is to reimagine the church's witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet, a mere attempt to rehabilitate or revise the modern mission tradition will not do. Mission as a rhetorical and conceptual framework is the problem. The ethos and spirit of modernity with its ideas of progress, individualism, commodification, and conquest are hardwired into mission, and thus, this modern mental model undermines faithful witness and service. Now is the time to transcend the modern mission tradition – to become pilgrim witnesses.

Part I

JUSTIFYING MISSION

1. Partisans and Apologists

Christian missions are as old as Christianity itself. The missionary idea, indeed, is much older.

Gustav Warneck

Mission is what the Bible is all about; we could as meaningfully talk of the missional basis of the Bible as of the biblical basis of mission.

Christopher Wright

The claims for mission by Gustav Warneck and Christopher Wright are quite grand. Others go further, maintaining that mission stretches back to the beginnings of Christianity and even into divine purposes, while yet others argue that many of the biblical claims for mission are fanciful assertions without a shred of biblical evidence, and they exist only as created myths.

“Mission” and “missionary” are not biblical language but religious terminology, and yet, many within the church assume that both words can be found throughout the pages of the Bible, although the majority of translators throughout the history of the church have not employed either word in their translations of the Old or New Testaments.

Activists and Defenders

Interpreters who endorse the use of mission and missionary can be divided into Partisans and Apologists. Partisans are activists for mission. They read and apply Scripture in order to promote mission endeavors. They proclaim “mission” and “missionary” as biblical without qualifying statements or accompanying evidence leaving the impression that Jesus and Paul speak of “mission” and “missionary,” and thus both words are in the Bible to be literally seen and understood. Their concern is to justify missionary work and supply ample motivation for Christians to join the “mission cause.” Rarely is the basis from which they make their plea critically examined. This same partisan reading of Scripture can be found among a few within academic circles, where “mission” and “missionary” are often depicted as biblical without critical assessment and argument.

The chief aim of the Partisan is to construct a biblical foundation for both the idea and activity of mission. While this may be viewed as acceptable and necessary, the problem arises when these interpreters assume the meaning of mission as legitimate and coherent, or when scholars fail to acknowledge that “mission” is an interpretative rather than a biblical category. Such an unexamined practice opens the door for Partisans to interpret Scripture from wherever they wish within mission’s wide range of meanings or to read into Scripture modern assumptions concerning mission, with a host of fraught assumptions.

Apologists on the other hand recognize the obvious absence of mission in Scripture and seek to establish justification for the term. They address the absence of mission and validate their use of this language by different means.

Biblical Foundation for Mission

The most common method by which Partisans and some Apologists justify mission is through a biblical foundation by collecting texts from here and there, without regard for history and context. Christopher Wright argues that in doing this “we have already decided what we want to prove, that our missionary practice is biblical, and our collection of texts simply ratifies our preconception” (36). But to place, for example, the Abraham narrative alongside other “mission texts” from Scripture disregards the significance of Gen 12:1-3 in the development of Israel’s understanding of Yahweh and ignores the richness of the historical setting of the passage. The foundationalist approach accentuates mission at the expense of the historical and contextual phenomena. The result is the neglect and misuse of rich biblical narratives.

Second, a biblical foundation of mission approach is problematic because of its direction. Missionaries and mission promoters tend to read back into the Bible aspects of the missionary enterprise in which they are involved today. In the end, the Bible becomes a utility for mission. Such an approach is not only problematic because it fails to situate the text in relation to its historical contexts, but it also treats the Bible as a source book to justify contemporary mission strategies rather than divine revelation. In order to assert that mission exists in Scripture, one has to locate intents, actions, methods, and structures of mission preaching, mission teams, and missionaries within Scripture. Constructing a basis for mission practices minimizes the Bible as revelation of who God is and as a record of divine activity in the world. The Bible becomes a manual for how to go about a human endeavor. The primary purpose of Scripture is not to provide a foundation for human cause and activity, but to witness to the fact that God often opposes human striving and activity rather than approving them.

In the end, the biblical foundation argument can become a kind of litmus test for who is really Christian or orthodox and who is not. If mission is the core, as old as Scripture, and what the Bible is all about, then it is reasonable to assume that the person or group that is less than enthusiastic about mission is in some measure less committed as a Christian.

Missional Hermeneutic

Many who write about the intersection of mission and Scripture have shifted from a foundationalist approach to reading the Bible with a missional hermeneutic, interpreting the whole of Scripture through the lens of “mission” rather than selected texts. Mission becomes the door of access into Scripture’s meaning.

The chief advocates for a missional hermeneutic build their case on a generalized, comprehensive definition of mission. For example, Michael Barram views mission as before and above all else located in the missio Dei, and thus, encompasses all of creation and all of God’s activity within the created order. Thus, such a hermeneutic is suitable to interpret all of Scripture (42-43, 58). Christopher Wright in a similar manner sees mission simply depicting God as active and purposeful in all history and creation (37). Wright tries to distance this generalized understanding of mission from modern mission and the missionary, and yet divine intention becomes specific missionary actions. In the end, Wright’s use of comprehensive, encompassing language of mission conflates divine and human activity.

Given the recent rhetorical history of the language of “mission” that is traced in later chapters, the idea of a missional hermeneutic is yet another modern addition to Christian history and thought. Therefore, the need for a missional hermeneutic is questionable, as it represents an imposition of foreign notions on the sacred texts being interpreted.

Christopher Wright insists that rather than creating a bias, “a missional hermeneutic of the whole Bible” subsumes other hermeneutics and offers a way to read the Bible’s “coherent story with a universal claim” amidst so many particular stories and claims. Wright argues that mission is uniquely qualified, because it integrates and provides coherence and wholeness to Scripture, allowing the interpreter “to identify some of the underlying themes that are woven all through the Bible’s grand narrative” (17-18). Wright’s attempt to provide a comprehensive framework to the biblical narrative is certainly worthwhile and needed, and yet, is mission the necessary, or best, “hermeneutical map” for this task?

While far better than a biblical foundation for mission, a missional hermeneutic is suspect in its own way, saying, in effect, “I have a prejudiced starting point. I am reading Scripture from a prior understanding that anticipates a certain outcome.” The fact that one admits a hermeneutical starting point does not make that particular hermeneutical approach legitimate. Part of the process of exegesis is to identify and inspect the lenses through which we read the text. While one’s own personal bias or prejudice cannot be avoided, the text is paramount and the interpreter should stand before it humbly and pray, that through scholarly methods and questions God’s word will be heard afresh. In order to do this, one must admit and avoid biases, not add more.

The chief criticism of a missional hermeneutic is that it qualifies activities, institutions, and attitudes as mission and missionary. Read through the hermeneutical lens of mission, preaching becomes missionary preaching, work becomes missionary work, method becomes missionary method, activity becomes missionary activity, and experience becomes missionary experience. Once the whole of Scripture passes through the filter of a missional hermeneutic, every piece looks like mission and this leads to distortion. The biblical language of covenant, love, blessing, and election are deemed inadequate, and in need of a qualifying “missional” adjective.

Mission Themes

In an attempt to rescue mission from the tendencies of establishing a biblical foundation or a missional hermeneutic, some have identified missionary themes across Scripture. Through these, interpreters highlight “mission intent” or “mission consciousness” within Scripture, often acknowledging that themes or motifs appear within certain books of the Bible. This approach is quite different from a foundationalist approach, as it offers “mission” as a frame of reference that guides the reading both the Old and New Testaments, but it is only slightly different from a missional hermeneutic. As such, this method is a bit more modest in its claims.

Some claim that the Bible actually begins with the theme of missions in the Book of Genesis and maintains that driving passion throughout the entire Old Testament and on into the New Testament. Others identify the “missionary impulse” or “missionary thrust” in the prophets, Gospels, and Epistles, and read the New Testament with the intent of locating a missionary dimension and intention in all kinds of activity, maintaining that these are true to the “missionary idea,” because they are accompanied by “missionary praxis,” identified specifically as going and witnessing.

Yet in each of these three methods, whether constructing a foundation, employing a missional hermeneutic, or focusing on mission themes, each dodges the linguistic conflation and the historical contingencies of the language of “mission.”

The approach of the Apologists is to trace the route that leads from the biblical languages to the English term “mission.” Such a lexical trail begins with the Greek apostellein and pempein, and then moves to the Latin missio, and finally arrives at “mission.” The quest is to establish a biblical pedigree for mission through linguistic genealogy. Some create an even longer trail beginning with the Hebrew term salah (to send), and then move to Greek, Latin, and the modern equivalent. For these interpreters, mission originates from the Hebrew concept of sending, especially in the divine sending of messengers (prophets and angels). Whether the trail begins with the Hebrew or the Greek, the principal aim is to justify mission by way of its biblical lineage.

One interpreter who justifies mission via a lexical trail is Lucien Cerfaux. He makes the assumption that there is a direct connection between apostolate and missionary, and thus, mission must be the pattern for all people at all times. By extension, he then asserts that Paul is a “missionary” with “missionary destination” and an “apostolic mission” (3). Once a lexical trail is established, the interpreter is able by extension to connect mission language to a host of concepts and ideas. In other words, the effort to link apostolos and apostellein to mission language does not stop with evidence of a trail but turns into a matter of wider interpretation. Persons, activities, institutions, and locations are designated as “missionary” based on an established trail.

Apostellein, the verb form, is found 135 times in the New Testament and conveys the idea of sending out or sending forth. This verb carries both a general and specified meaning. In its general sense, apostellein refers to a wide range of sending of persons and objects: Herod sends those who kill male children (Matt 2:16), demons beg to be sent into swine (Matt 8:31), a message or word is sent forth (Matt 14:35), and workers are sent into the vineyard (Matt 20:2). These instances are ordinary and commonplace kinds of sending.

However, the more prevalent use of apostellein refers to the sending of an envoy, ambassador, or representative, and thus, “sending implies a commission bound up with the person of the one sent.” In secular Greek, this representative kind of sending is from a monarch, king, or another authority, and thus the sending carries with it deputation. In the New Testament, we see this type of sending applied to a variety of people and situations: the twelve disciples, the seventy-two, the Son, John the Baptist, and many others. In this use, the sending is for a definite purpose or intent, and the one sent thus carries with them authorization of the one who sends. In most New Testament instances of the verb, the authorization or authority is divine in origin and not from another human being.

The noun form apostole occurs only four times. Translators have rendered the term with consistency as “apostolate” and “apostolic ministry” or “the ministry which an apostle performs.” An apostolate has less to do with an office and more with being charged with a message; in other words, the conveying of this message is the chief function of the apostle.

Apostolos is more frequent (79 times) and specifies one who has been sent, a messenger. The one sent is under assignment to represent another and responsible to the sender. In its primary New Testament use, apostolos denotes one who is sent with authority to bear the gospel message, and Christ himself is referred to as apostolos (Heb 3:1).

Translators of Greek to Latin and Greek to English rarely render apostellein, apostello, apostole, and apostolos as “mission” and “missionary.” In Latin translations, apostolos has infrequently been translated into corresponding Latin words (mittere, missi). Instead, the Greek has been used as loan words (e.g. apostolus), especially for ecclesiastical references. In the case of Greek to modern English translations and paraphrases versions of Scripture, translators have seldom rendered the Greek as “mission” and “missionary.” When they have done so, these are interpretative concepts and not literal translations of the Greek. The claim of lexical trail for “mission” as a biblical word is built on equivalence and not literal translation, and as proof for mission it claims too much.

Second, the lexical trail as an approach falls prey to the “root fallacy.” A word may be related semantically or historically but not share the same meaning with the root from which it evolves. In order for mission to be argued from apostello, the distinct semantic values of the two words, apostello and “mission,” must be overlooked. Wholesale translation of apostello to “mission” disregards the wide uses, ranging contexts, and variant meanings of the root term. With the lexical trail, the basic assumption made by the Apologist is that in “‘sending,’ there is the idea of mission,” (DuBose:11) and thus, the meaning of mission is within the biblical term and a connection can in most cases, if not always, be inferred and established.

Third, the lexical trail approach underappreciates the extent to which the various forms of apostellein and pempein differ in use and meaning across the Gospels ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Prologue
• Introduction
• I. Justifying Mission
• II. Innovating Mission
• III. Revising Mission
• Epilogue: Toward Pilgrim Witness
• Selected Works
• Back Cover