Unity and Mission: Two Foci of the Church
Adrian Helleman, Department of Religious Studies, University of Jos
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:20-21; all biblical passages are taken from the NIV).
When Jesus prayed for unity among all believers, he was not thinking in the first place about the multiplicity of Christian denominations that we experience today. If he had, he might have prayed even more earnestly. If Jesus would drive down almost any main road in most of the cities and towns of this country, he would see signs for churches every hundred meters or so. While he might possibly be impressed with the number of churches, he would not be pleased with all the divisions among them. As many people have observed, such divisions in the Church are a scandal as well as an impediment to the mission of the Church. Karl Barth (1957:675) wrote:
There is no doubt that to the extent that Christendom does consist of actually different and opposing Churches, to that extent it denies practically what it confesses theoretically—the unity and singularity of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Holy Spirit. There may be good grounds for the rise of these divisions. There may be serious obstacles to their removal. There may be many things that can be said by way of interpretation and mitigation. But this does not alter the fact that every division as such is a deep riddle, a scandal.
Yet not everyone agrees that it is a scandal or an impediment. For many people today the unity of the Church is not an important topic, even if they do confess their faith, in the words of the Nicene Creed, in “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Church unity is something they rarely think about. Moreover, as some people see it, ecumenism seems to be virtually dead. Indeed, since the collapse of communism the ecumenical movement has largely ground to a halt. I assure you that ecumenism is not dead, but now is not the appropriate moment to explain what has happened. Instead, I want to direct our attention to the intimate connection there is between the unity and the mission of the church. These are two indispensable foci of the church.
The word ecumenical is very significant in this context, since it is one that can be used to describe both the unity and the mission of the Church, as was recognized already in 1951 by the World Council of Churches (quoted in Kinnamon 1997:5):
It is important to insist that this word [ecumenical], which comes from the Greek word for the whole inhabited world, is properly used to describe everything that relates to the whole task of the whole Church to bring the Gospel to the whole world. It therefore covers equally the missionary movement and the movement toward unity, and must not be used to describe the latter in contradistinction to the former. We believe that a real service will be rendered to true thinking on these subjects in the Churches if we so use this word that it covers both Unity and Mission in the context of the whole world.
The twentieth century was the age of ecumenism as well as mission. In fact, the modern ecumenical movement was born on the mission field when many missionaries discovered that the divisions of the Church posed a handicap to the work of spreading the gospel of Christ. The perpetuation of these divisions is a denial of the unity of the Church and makes mission more difficult. Both unity and mission are integral to the Church. This truth was rediscovered early in the twentieth century at the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. It was evident as well when the International Missionary Conference was integrated with the World Council of Churches at New Delhi in 1961. A similar relationship between mission and ecumenism can be noticed in the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council.
In this article I will begin by examining what the Bible teaches on the unity of the Church. Next, I will discuss the mission of the Church from the perspective of Church history. Then I will look at the intimate relationship between these two foci of the Church. Finally, I will draw some implications of this for the Church in Africa.
Let me briefly explain the image I am using. I view the Church as an ellipse, which has two foci, by definition. Both unity and mission are essential to the Church, but one should not say that either of them has priority. As we shall see in the section on the relationship between unity and mission, unity without mission is meaningless; and, similarly, mission without unity results in failure. Both unity and mission belong to the essence of the Church. The esse or essence of the Church, and not just its bene esse or well being, is at stake when either of these is lacking or is not fully developed.
In addition, I want to explain that by capitalizing the term “Church” I am not referring to a particular denomination, in which case I would have prefaced “Church” with another word, so that it becomes a proper name, but rather to the “one holy catholic and apostolic Church” of the Nicene Creed: the unblemished Body of Christ. This Body transcends every denomination, even though every denomination and indeed every local church, no matter how the latter term is understood, scattered all over the world is a manifestation of it.
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don't need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don't need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
The lack of unity stems from a lack of love, according to Galatians 5:14-15: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Unity is never automatic, however; it must be worked at, as Paul writes to the Ephesians (4:1-6):
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
In Ephesians 5:21-33, Paul explains how to achieve unity in marriage, which is analogous to the unity of the Church. If this is the secret for achieving unity in marriage, will it not also work in the case of the church?
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
In 1 John 2:7-11, the writer explains why love is so important in all human relationships, including the Church:
Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
This brief survey of biblical passages dealing with unity has ignored the Old Testament, yet this does not mean that there are no references there to this topic. On the contrary, there are numerous passages that I could use. Prophets as Isaiah and Amos speak directly to the issue of both unity and mission and their relationship to each other. From the New Testament it is clear that the Church is a reality that has already been born, while in the Old Testament the Church was only intimated.
In the post-apostolic period, the early Church Fathers sought to maintain this unity in spite of the distances that separated congregations and the cultures in which they found themselves. Early Christians considered themselves united through their allegiance to the gospel as preserved in the canon. When heresies threatened unity, Church leaders met in ecumenical councils to settle disputes. Despite such attempts, numerous divisions arose and schism occurred. The “Great Schism” of the Eastern and Western churches in 1054 formalized the divisions between them, which related not only to doctrine and church polity but also to language and theological method. All efforts to reunite these two major segments of the Church have until now been unsuccessful. The animosities of more than a millennium are difficult to eradicate.
The Western churches, in turn, split during the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. This split opened the door to a proliferation of denominations and sects that continues to the present. It is a sad fact that every Protestant, Anglican, or Independent church that exists today is the product of schism. Schism begets schism. Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and other ancient churches have had their own schisms, thus they should not feel superior. This is the sad legacy that the modern ecumenical movement is trying to rectify.
This movement began, as mentioned already, at the International Missionary Conference in 1910 in Edinburgh, where a thousand delegates caught a vision for the unity of the Church. This conference was led John R. Mott, who it is said has done more to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ than any person since the apostle Paul. At the end of this conference this modern ecumenical pioneer asked the delegates about this gathering (quoted in Kinnamon 1997:10-11):
Has it not widened us all? Has it not deepened us all? Has it not humbled us increasingly as we have discovered that the greatest hindrance to the expansion of Christianity lies in ourselves? Has it not tried us as though by fire? Gathered together from different nations and races and communions, have we not come to realize our oneness in Christ?
Answers to these questions came in the form of three streams that flowed from this conference: Life and Work, which advocated a common Christian response to the victims of war, poverty and oppression; Faith and Order, which promoted theological dialogue; and the International Missionary Council, which emphasized cooperative mission and evangelism. All three streams united eventually in the World Council of Churches (WCC). From the beginning the ecumenical movement was multifaceted.
Organic unity has never been the aim of the WCC. Instead, as its name makes very clear, it is a council of Christian churches. The disillusionment of people with the ecumenical movement stems partly from the failure to achieve organic unity, but this represents only one facet of what it is trying to achieve. Most evangelicals are wary of the conciliar form of ecumenism. They question the attempt to unify churches on the basis of a federation model and prefer to accent the spiritual unity that Christians enjoy already and on the basis of which they can cooperate, especially in evangelism. Since unity is multifaceted, it might be wiser to move beyond debating the issue of organic versus spiritual unity. The truth lies somewhere in between. Organic unity, if this means that all existing denominations must unite, is clearly impossible; while to restrict unity to spiritual unity is comparable to eating a candy with the paper wrapper left on, or to change the metaphor slightly, it is like a couple that want to live together but who have no desire of making their relationship legal.
Let us now move on to the mission of the Church.
In order to understand the mission of the Church as we find it in the Bible, it is useful, perhaps, to look at the missionary texts and themes that motivated the Church throughout each phase of her history. We will discover that every age emphasized a different “missionary text,” which should hardly surprise us, since each of us would emphasize different texts and themes in our missiological thinking, depending on the tradition that has shaped our thought.
The New Testament is a missionary document. Matthew and Luke emphasize the “Great Commission.” Yet there are differences that can be noted between these two authors. Matthew’s “Great Commission” (Mt 28: 18-20) summarizes the essence of mission by using three terms: make disciples, baptize, and teach. As David Bosch (1991:57) points out, however, this pericope needs to be understood in the context of the entire gospel of Matthew, otherwise we will do violence to this text that has been utilized in providing a biblical basis for mission, especially in Protestant churches in the last two centuries. Therefore, each of the terms must be interpreted in the light of Matthew’s entire gospel, which sees Christians as a missionary community, a people who find their true identity when they are involved in mission (:83). The meaning of the three terms of this crucial missionary text is too rich to describe in only a few words, and thus I will not even try to do so now.
Luke too has a “Great Commission” (Lk 24:46-49) that provides the key to Luke’s understanding of mission. And thus it sheds light on other passages in both the gospel and the book of Acts. One of these passages is Luke 4:16-21, which in recent years has become fundamental for understanding both Christ’s mission and that of the Church, especially in conciliar and liberation theology circles (Bosch 1991:84). The first words of Jesus’ public ministry are ones of forgiveness and healing for both the rich and the poor, and not words of wrath and destruction. The Nazareth pericope thus lays the basis for Luke’s gospel and is a prelude to Acts (:112).
Paul’s understanding of mission is equally important in the New Testament. Mission is integral to his theology. But the missionary dimension of his theology, as expressed in a flurry of monographs on his missionary methods in the last century, has not always been recognized (Bosch 1991:123f). The apocalyptic element in his thought has not always been properly appreciated either. For Paul the Church is a community of believers, a place where they can celebrate their new life in the present and anticipate what is still to come. Bosch explains (:144, cf 169): “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.” Leslie Newbigin suggests that the essential character of the Church’s mission is expressed most clearly in 2 Cor 4:7-10, which “ought to be seen as the classic definition of mission” (quoted in Bosch 1991:145):
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
This passage clearly characterizes mission as an eschatological event, since the tension between suffering and glory can be sustained only within the horizon of an expectation of the end. For Paul the Church is an interim eschatological community into which believers are incorporated through baptism into Christ; thus it is a unity. And yet it is involved with the world and is missionary (:167f). It is exclusive, but it is not sectarian; moreover, it is not a means of hastening the parousia. Paul can only proclaim the lordship of Christ, he cannot inaugurate it (:145). Yet the Church is not the ultimate aim of mission. Paul’s understanding of mission is cosmic, involving the redemption of all of creation by Christ, who is the savior of the world (:178).
John 3:16 is the clearest expression of the Patristic understanding of mission (Bosch 1991:339). And it is still that of the Eastern Orthodox Churches today (:208). The love of God, which manifests itself in kenosis, is the starting point of mission not only for Christ but also for his emissaries, who because they are motivated by love go to those outside the Christian fold. Eastern Orthodox theology is more Johannine than Pauline; Christ did not come to take away human sin but to restore the likeness of God (but not the image, contra Bosch). Theosis, or union with God, is the term that Orthodox theology uses to express the restoration of the likeness of God and the transformation of the old person into a new creature who can enjoy the new, eternal life. The whole creation is in the process of becoming ekklesia, the Church (:209). Mission is church-centered. The Church is the aim of mission, and central to this missiology is celebration of the liturgy, which is the major manifestation of the Church’s missionary activity (:207). It follows, therefore, that unity and mission belong inextricably together. This has led some Orthodox theologians to assert that unity is the goal of mission, because there is only one body of Christ, the Church. And therefore we must seek to convert people to this one Church and not to our own denomination (:208). Even from this abbreviated presentation of the Orthodox view, it should be apparent how naturally unity and mission are connected for the Orthodox churches as the heirs of the Patristic understanding of mission.
During the medieval period, from about 600 to 1500 AD, the Roman Catholic Church emphasized Luke 14:23: “Go to the roads and country lanes and make them come in so that my house may be full.” This mentality was operative, implicitly or explicitly, ever since Augustine, who argued that the Donatists should be compelled to return to the Catholic fold. It dominated missionary thinking for many centuries, and elements of it persisted well into the twentieth century. If there is no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church, as Cyprian’s famous dictum implies, then it would be to the advantage of people everywhere if they could be made to join this body (:236f). The roots of European colonialism lie in the medieval just war theory and the Crusade mentality. Colonialism gave birth to an unparalleled era of mission. The right to have colonies carried with it a duty to Christianize those who were being colonized. Ignatius of Loyola was the first to use “mission” in this sense. The Latin word missio was previously used in the doctrine of the Trinity to denote the sending of the Son by the Father, and of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son (:226ff).
Before the colonial period, monasticism was the primary agent of medieval mission (:231). Pope Gregory the Great, a Benedictine monk, first conceived the idea of “foreign mission” when he sent a monk named Augustine from Italy to convert the pagan English. Although few endorsed the idea of converting people by force, many of these missionaries, as emissaries of the pope, sought to incorporate new converts into the only Church that guaranteed salvation (:235f). Mission presupposed ecclesial unity during the medieval period. Except for minor schisms, that Church remained united, until the Great Schism of 1054. Then two Churches arose: a Western and an Eastern one, which both experienced further schisms in the centuries that followed.
The Protestant Reformation broke the ecclesial unity of the Western Church. Romans 1:16f was the focus of Luther’s life and theology, and it is the “missionary text” of the Protestant theological paradigm in its many forms, according to Bosch (:240). He adds that, in spite of claims by scholars, Luther and Calvin propounded an essentially missionary theology and that they clearly broke completely with any idea of using force in order to Christianize people (:245). There were many reasons why there was little missionary outreach in the first two centuries after the Reformation, but these were largely practical not theological. Theologians were divided on the continuing validity of the “Great Commission,” although the majority insisted that it had been fulfilled by the apostles and was no longer binding on the Church (:247ff). The breakthrough came with the Pietists, Bosch explains: “Pietism ushered in the age of ecumenism in mission in that it aimed at a Christian fellowship that transcended the boundaries of nations and confessions”; he cites, in particular, the Moravian brethren (:255). The influence of the “Second Reformation” in the Netherlands and Puritanism in the British and the American colonies were also important. The ultimate goal for mission was the glory of God (:256ff). In spite of a renewed interest in mission, the emphasis of the Reformation on the priesthood of all believers, has contributed to the multiplying of separate churches. Schism is the “running amuck,” as Bosch phrases it, of this principle (:243). Much of this period, in summary, can be characterized by little mission and even less unity.
The Enlightenment profoundly influenced Protestantism, although the Roman Catholic Church was able to withstand its influence more effectively and waited until the Second Vatican Council to respond (:262). The influence of the Enlightenment upon Protestant theology especially can hardly be exaggerated; it shaped modern thought, including missiology, to such an extent that it now impossible to remove this influence entirely. It has affected not only advocates of the Social Gospel but also evangelicals; thus fundamentalists as well as liberals were influenced by it. Many evangelicals, unfortunately, remain largely oblivious of the extent of the influence of the Enlightenment on their own thought.
The rise of missionary societies was a product of the Reformation principle of the office of believer wedded to the optimistic view of the world and humanity that the Enlightenment generated. Whether these societies were denominational or not is unimportant, since denominations, if they are conceived of as voluntary organizations, are not decisively different from such societies. In fact, the absence of an established church has produced a bewildering variety of denominations, especially in the United States. Leslie Newbigin concludes: “denominationalism is the religious aspect of secularization. It is the form that religion takes in a culture controlled by the ideology of the Enlightenment. It is the social form in which the privatization of religion is expressed” (quoted in Bosch 1991:329). While the Enlightenment is not the only reason for denominationalism and missionary societies, it is certainly a major one (:327ff).
In spite of this multiplicity of denominations, a remarkable ecumenical spirit prevailed in the United States for many decades after becoming independent; this is attributable largely to the Awakenings, which were by their very nature ecumenical. But by the middle of the nineteenth century ecumenicity was on the decline. In order to counteract the influence of rationalism and liberalism, confessionalism was revived in the churches. Some of the major nondenominational missionary societies, such as the American Board and the London Missionary Society became “denominational.” Mission that had been understood in the heyday of the nondenominational societies predominantly as the conversion of individuals reverted to the medieval paradigm of the planting of churches. This has led to the planting of confessional churches on the mission field. For these younger churches, Rufus Anderson of the American Board and Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society developed the new slogan of “self-governing,” “self-supporting,” and “self-propagating” (Bosch 1991:329ff). Implicit in this slogan is the idea that Western churches that achieved this long ago, represented the standard by which the younger churches could be measured (:450). In this way the confessional churches established “territories” for themselves. What was unfortunate was that the Church pointed to itself, rather than to God. Even though the pendulum eventually swung in an ecumenical direction again with the rise of “faith missions,’ the operative principle in all missions, ecumenical or evangelical, during this period was Western democracy and the free enterprise system. It assumed, however, that the traffic was in one direction only, from the West to the East or the South. Here one party did all the giving, while the other only received; one group, at least in its own eyes, was privileged and the other was disadvantaged (:332ff).
Several biblical texts stand out during this time: Acts 16:9—the Macedonian call, Matthew 24:14—a text popular with pre-millennialists, and John 10:10—the text of the Social Gospel. “The Great Commission” was widely used, but never as the only or exclusive motive for mission. By the end of the nineteenth century the emphasis was on obedience. Bosch here even quotes Abraham Kuyper, who emphasized that all mission is obedience to God’s command (Bosch 1991:341).
The Enlightenment influenced missionary thinking extensively, as is evident in the following themes: the primacy of reason—it was assumed that Westerners were more rational than other peoples; the separation between subject-object—which can be seen in the objectification of the Bible and the Christian faith; the infatuation with progress—Western Christians were confident in their ability to solve every problem through the planting of Western churches all over the world; the distinction between facts and values—some people emphasized the realities of this world, while others had other-worldly concerns and stressed the salvation of souls; and the idea of the emancipated, autonomous individual, which Bosch identifies with the rapid growth of Arminianism in churches in the United States (:342f).
The rise of Postmodernism has not ended the influence of the Enlightenment, which continues until the present moment. Most of us in this room this evening are still more modern than postmodern in our thinking. The influence of post-modernity is already being felt in the mission of the Church. Mission is changing radically in our time, as Bosch observes, when he describes elements of an emerging ecumenical missionary paradigm (:368-510). Post-modernity is breaking the stranglehold of the Enlightenment and permitting the Church to re-examine the biblical roots of both unity and mission. For too long we have looked at these topics through the eyes of modernity. But we must be careful not to let Postmodernism shape our thinking too much. That would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Although you and I may be postmodern, that does not mean that we are Postmodernists.
Before we examine the relationship of unity and mission more closely, I want to mention yet what has been described as the most momentous event in the history of the ecumenical movement: the Second Vatican Council. The Roman Catholic Church entered the twentieth century during Vatican II, where it confronted both modernity and post-modernity at the same time. Especially the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) clearly expressed the mood of the Council. In the opening paragraph it explains that “the restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principle concerns of the Second Vatican Council,” and it teaches that division among Christians “openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature” (Flannery 1975: 452). In the new ecclesiology, the Church is seen as essentially missionary. In the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (Lumen Gentium), the Church is described as the mystery of God’s presence in the world. This comment is necessary in order to bring us up to date on developments in the Roman Catholic Church that parallel, belatedly, the developments in Protestant churches that we have just surveyed. Vatican II, moreover, reflects a convergence of Catholic and Protestant views on the missionary nature of the Church. “Since God is a missionary God,” in Bosch’s words, “God’s people are a missionary people” (:372).
Mission in unity implies that mission will never come to end. Previously it was believed that the world would one day be evangelized completely, but now we live in an age when the former “sending” countries are becoming mission fields. This means that the distinction between “sending” and “receiving” churches is no longer valid, if it ever was. The old era of dependence is over, or ought to be; what is needed today is not independence, but interdependence. The churches spread all over the globe need each other, if they truly want to witness together.
This means too that we must protest the proliferation of new denominations. This Protestant virus, which most people today assume is natural, must be eradicated. We must teach everyone that the Church is not a voluntary organization that people can join or leave, as long as it meets their needs, but it is the ekklesia, the community that God has called together from all over the world. To put it more strongly, the unity of the Church is so essential to its nature that we must confess the loss of this unity is a major sin and not just a minor irritation. Unity is not merely an optional extra for the Church, and neither is mission. Unity is a given in Christ, but it is, at the same time, a command, just as mission is a command. We must become one in order to be able to witnesses effectively to the world what God is doing in Christ.
This means, in turn, that mission in unity is not intended merely to serve the Church but also all of humanity. The Church must manifest the rule of Christ over the entire creation. The Church is a sign of the kingdom of God, yet it must never identify itself with that kingdom, which is still not fully a reality. The Church is not the goal, but the kingdom of God. Everything must be directed to that end. Both unity and mission will be completed one day in that perfect kingdom.
I can already hear protests that the relationship of unity and mission as I have portrayed it is a pipe dream. Mission in unity can never be achieved Africa, with its multiplicity of denominations. I do not accept that response nor will it deter me from continuing to argue for this position. My position is biblical, and that should be sufficient. The contemporary understanding of this relationship is new only in the sense that has not been heard for a long time. In section two there were at least anticipations of it. These voices were muted, especially in the modern period as a result of the Enlightenment, but since Edinburgh they can be heard more and more clearly again. In Africa we can implement mission in unity more easily, perhaps, than in the West, since we have not been influenced as extensively by modernism.
The fear of syncretism, as noted earlier, is legitimate, but misdirected. There are African theologians, unfortunately, who in their attempt to contextualize theology are guilty of syncretism. But this is not necessarily due to their view of Christ or the authority of Scripture, but to their over-emphasis of traditional African culture. The problem lies in their theological method. We may criticize these theologians, but we must be careful not to label other churches as “false” without evidence. On this issue, compare the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) and the Association of Evangelicals in Africa (AEA), which ought to work together to promote mission.
Mission in unity means that we must take a stand against the proliferation of churches in Africa. The rise of so many Independent and Pentecostal churches today is not only the result of a Protestant virus, it is often due to the desire of individuals to establish their own churches. Their motivation, unfortunately, is more often greed rather than the glory of God. The proliferation of such churches is a scandal.
Instead of this proliferation, let us model forms of church unity by means of which the churches can express their unity in Christ without fear of being swallowed up in a large amorphous mass, as organic unity seems to imply. This unity should go beyond even TEKAN or similar organizations. We might seek to emulate the idea of Oscar Cullmann, who advocated a form of church unity that respects the different traditions and allows them to become one without losing their individuality. This must be our goal in Africa, where denominational traditions are not as strong as in other parts of the world. We have the opportunity to show the world that not only is the Church growing faster than elsewhere but we are also growing together more quickly.
African churches can be very thankful that the old colonial attitude to mission has died out and that a new phase of interdependency has dawned. Mission in unity will involve not only the churches here in Africa but also churches spread all over the globe. Mission is the task of the whole Body of Christ. No longer should we seek to plant “daughter” churches, which identify themselves with our own denominations, but we should promote the growth of the whole Church of Christ and the expansion of the kingdom of God. Then and only then will we truly be engaged in mission in unity. May God enable the Church in Africa to model this and make it a reality! Please pray with me that all of us may become one, so that the whole world may believe in Christ.
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