A Future and a Hope

Mission, Theological Education, and the Transformation of Post-Soviet Society

Searle, Cherenkov

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781498202534
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

After more than twenty years since the fall of the USSR, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society has entered a crucial phase in its historical development. Setting out a transformative vision of mission and theological education, this book makes an important contribution towards the renewal of the church in this fascinating--but deeply troubled--part of the world. After the violent and disruptive events that followed the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity and Freedom in 2013/14, the evangelical movement in post-Soviet society now has an unprecedented opportunity to become a shining example of a "church without walls." Searle and Cherenkov reflect on the political, social, cultural, and intellectual legacy of the Soviet Union and offer bold and innovative proposals on how the church can rediscover its prophetic voice by relinquishing its debilitating dependence on the state and, instead, expressing solidarity with the people in their legitimate aspirations for freedom and democracy. Notwithstanding the pessimism and lament expressed on many pages, the authors conclude on a positive note, predicting that the coming years will witness a flowering of evangelical ecumenism in action as Christian solidarity flourishes and overflows denominational boundaries and parochial interests.

1

Shifting Paradigms of Mission

From Evangelical Activism to Missio Dei

The Church in the FSU is entering a new era. The engine of development that drives large-scale changes is missiology. For too long, post-Soviet evangelicals neglected theology, including ecclesiology, focusing on “mission” in its most basic sense as “evangelism.” Before long, the needs of the mission dictated the need for missiology, and the questions of missiology came up against the need for a comprehensive theological analysis of the ties that bind Church and Kingdom, community and society, mission and education, and religion and culture. It is apparent that we are living in a time of transition. The contours of the future are still hazy; we look as through a glass darkly. Nevertheless, we can identify four stages of transition that the post-Soviet church is currently passing through and that dictate changes in its way of life and ministry.

First, we are experiencing a transition from a confessional understanding of the “mission of the Church” to a “missiology of the Kingdom.” Walter Sawatsky called this a turning away from “church-centered missiology” to “God-centered missiology” where “the mission is no longer limited to the established Church, rather it signifies shalom in the Kingdom.”21 There is a gradual recognition that mission is not to be equated with evangelistic activities or outreach programs, but is much more about the whole of life. Mission is not about inviting people to religious buildings to attend religious events organized by the church. Mission is much more a matter of engaging with the world and learning to listen to God’s heartbeat and discerning his purposes for particular communities in order encourage “more reflective and intelligent participation in those purposes.”22 The gospel calls us to be a missional people. As one Anglican document put it: it is not so much that the Church has a mission, but that the God of mission has a Church.23 Mission has a theocentric, rather than an ecclesiocentric, object and point of departure. If mission, according the missio Dei paradigm developed by Barth24 and Bosch25 and others, originates in the very nature of the Triune God, then mission becomes not so much an activity in which churches engage, but a divine imperative in which the Church participates. The Kingdom of God is the object of mission. The coming of that Kingdom “on earth as in heaven” (Matt 6:10), rather than mere church growth or numerical conversions, is regarded as the true aim of mission. Mission is not about attracting people to religious services, but is concerned with the wholesale transfiguration of the kingdoms of this world into the “Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Rev 11:15).

Second, the transition from a particular understanding of the mission as the “spiritual work” of a few people empowered by the Church to the idea of a holistic mission, covering all spheres of life and mobilizing all the people of the Church to participate in the missio Dei, which involves an uncompromising commitment to work tirelessly in the struggle for social justice. A reconsideration of the idea of the “priesthood of all believers” provides impetus to a theological understanding of the mission as a responsibility delegated to all the people of God.26 As Charles Spurgeon once quipped, “Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” Related to this is the expansion of the social base of the mission—from a ministry of professional missionaries to a movement of missional professionals. Ukraine has seen the creation of the Alliance of Christian Professional Associations.27 Special editions of the Desktop Gospel are being published. If before, mission boiled down to evangelism and the planting of new churches, today it inevitably involves campaigning for social justice, which is itself a gospel imperative.

The third trend that can be observed in connection with cultural and demographic processes is the call to revive, awaken, and reform existing church structures in order to equip the Church for mission and ministry in a changing world. The year 2013, which marked the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus,’ highlighted the issue of nominal Christianity. Around eighty percent of the European regions of the FSU regard themselves as belonging to the Christian tradition. Yet only a small percentage is practicing Christians. Prayer, Bible and congregational life remain the esoteric occupations of a dwindling minority of “spiritual” people. Society is transitioning towards post-Christendom, and in many regions the Church has become a museum, a relic of a bygone era.

Fourth, a shift is taking place from the usual short-term project thinking and naive exclusivity to a meaningful partnership between traditions and regions. Thus, Peter Penner calls for dialogue and a “truly biblical partnership” in implementing “God’s mission” between foreign and national movements, as well as between Evangelical and Orthodox Churches.28 The times demand not naive globalism or Westernism. The mission of the churches will be served not by fawning and borrowing, but by mutually enriching partnerships and the creative construction of localized missiologies.

These transitions mark a more profound shift in the missiological paradigm, which is still difficult to describe, but of a magnitude suggesting that it will result in a radical rethinking of the Church and its vocation. It is no accident that these processes coincide in time with the upcoming 500th anniversary of the European Reformation. According to some, post-Soviet evangelical Christians have skipped their Reformation29, and it is possible that this very time offers another opportunity to renew the Church and transform society.

The Missional Imperative of Compassion

We believe that in order to realize this kind of transformation, a paradigm shift in missional consciousness needs to take place at a number of levels. Firstly, the focus of evangelicals must move away from an exclusively introspective concern about “personal salvation” and a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Over the past few years, we have visited several Ukrainian evangelical churches and listened to hundreds of sermons. Almost without exception, the message was essentially inward looking and aimed at prompting people to repent of their sins, to believe in Jesus and be saved. The critical observation made by David Buttrick, although made in a different context, could apply just as well to the case of many Ukrainian evangelical church services: “Salvation in most Protestant sermons is a happening in the heart whereby individuals are restored to God’s good grace by means of a personal decision for Jesus, have psychological peace, and hope of some heavenly hereafter.”30 A false and, in our judgment, dangerous notion has crept into the preaching philosophies of many Ukrainian evangelicals. Some preachers, perhaps influenced by the teaching of certain expressions of North American fundamentalism, feel obliged to convict their hearers of sin in the hope that they will feel their guilt and turn to God in repentance. On one occasion I (Joshua) heard a Ukrainian evangelical pastor say during a sermon that, “The first and most important purpose of the gospel is to state the moral and spiritual depravity of human beings and to remind us that we all stand under the just condemnation of a righteous God.” Hearing these words, I was quite disturbed and perplexed at this flagrant misreading of the gospel of hope and the blasphemous misrepresentation of good news of Jesus, who was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) and who came “not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).

Moreover, it is very likely that many of the people sitting in this congregation (and countless others in Ukraine and throughout the FSU) may have had abortions, committed adultery, been divorced, taken drugs, been drunk, given or received bribes, viewed pornography or been involved in...