$4.95 

UPON 

THE EARTH 
by D. T. NILES 

What is the nature of the Church's 
mission to the world? Where does the 

justification for it lie? Who has the re- 
sponsibility to curry it out? These are 
among the questions raised and an- 
swered in this book by the well-known 

Asian church leader, Dr. Daniel T, 
Niks, 

In these pages, Dr. Miles offers his 
readers the most thorough rethinking 
of the Christian mission that has been 
done in recent years, Upon the Earth 
is addressed to all Christians, and seeks 
to raise with them questions of far- 
reaching importance about the total 
mission of the Church, It is also a call 
to every Christian to face the mission- 
ary implications of his faith. 

In the first, five chapters. Dr. Niles 
deals with the Christian faith in gen- 
eralj and raises inescapable questions 
that must be faced by Christian clisci- 
pleship in the secular world. In the 
(continued on back flap) 

Jacket design by The Dillons 



2,31 Nbi.ni 

Upon the earth 



05-00770 



231 Nt>9ii 

$ikSO 
Upon the earth 







APR 

UPON THE EARTH 

nn 



i'4 1964 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 
Studies in the Gospel and the World 



Advisory Board 

HBNDRJK KRAEMKR 

Driebergen, Holland 

late Director of Ecumenical Institute 9 Geneva 

VICTOR E. W. HAYWARD 

Research Secretary 

World Council of Churches Commission 
on World Mission and Evangelism^ London 

HERBERT 0. JACKSON 

Director 

Missionary Research Library 
New Tork 

IX T. N1LES 

Gemrai Secretary 
East Asia Christian Conference 

Ceylon 

PAUL MINEAR 

Director 

World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission 
Geneva 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION 

Studies in the Gospel and the World 



UPON THE 
EARTH 



The mission of God and 

the missionary enterprise 

of the churches 



D. T. NILES 



McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC, 

NEW YOUIC TORONTO LONDON 



COPYRIGHT 1962 H. T. NH.fcS 



Library of Congress 
Catalog Card Number : 62- 15292, 
46560 



PRINTED IN ORKAT BRITAIN 



Contents 

FOREWORD by Bishop Lesslie Newbigin 7 

PREFACE 9 

INTRODUCTION 21 
Part I THE FAITH 

I. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 45 

a, THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 

WORLD 62 

3. THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 80 

4. MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 99 

5. THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE ISO 

Part // THE ENTERPRISE 

1. THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 139 

2. THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 1JO 

3. THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 194 

Part HITHE ENCOUNTER 

1. THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS 

FRONTIER 227 

2. THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR 

FRONTIER 2547 

The quotations from the Bible are taken from the Revised Standard 

Version except where otherwise stated 



3 O ; .' n 



u l know that my Redeemer lives, and at 
last he will stand upon the earth" 

(Job ij): 25), 

C 'I came to cast fire upon the earth" 

(Luke ta: 49), 

"On earth as it is in heaven 15 

(Matthew 6: 10), 



Foreword 

A BOOK by D. T. Niles needs no introduction, but because he 
has asked me to write one I do so with great pleasure. There 
arc three reasons why this book is important and deserves to be 
read and pondered by many. 

The first is that it is a book about the greatest of all subjects- 
the mission of Christ and His people. Jesus said "I came to cast 
fire upon the earth". To be a Christian is to be part of that fire 
to burn for His sake and to share in setting the world on fire. 
Sometimes it seems as if the fire were burning low, or as if it 
were just one of the flickering flames that only make enough 
light to cast up big and menacing shadows. Here is a book that 
will not only talk about the fire; it is a book which is part of the 
fire and will pray God help to make it blaze. 

Secondly,* this book is part of a unique effort of co-operative 
thought by Christians of many nations and many churches. We 
have become rather accustomed to "Agreed Statements 9 ' pro- 
duced by international conferences. They have an important 
part to play in the development of Christian thinking, but they 
have severe limitations. They are apt to conceal more than they 
reveal. And they are often dull reading! The Department of 
Missionary Studies had wrestled long with the problems of 
ecumenical missionary study before it reached the plan of 
which this book is one of the fruits. The plan is described in 
detail in Dr Niks' introduction. It involved the active partici- 
pation of a great number of people In five continents and the 
writing of two books, one by Dr J, Blauw of the Netherlands 1 
and the other, the present work of Dr Niles. The writing of this 
book, illuminated and stimulated by the thinking of a truly 
world-wide company of Christians, is both the closing of one 
stage of the discussion and the invitation to a new stage. All 
who have been involved in this discussion hope that the publica- 
tion of this book will stimulate a wider circle of Christian people 

1 The Missionary N&tun ofthf Church* igSa. 



UPON THE EARTH 

to think, to ask questions, and to seek to carry into the day-to- 
day work of churches and missions boards the insights to which 
we have been led in these studies. 

Thirdly, this book is important because of the man who has 
written it. When the study plan on e< The Word of God and the 
Church's Missionary Obedience" was developed, there was 
never any doubt about who should be asked to write this book. 
D. T. Niles combines in a unique manner the insights and 
experiences that were needed for the job. He is both a theo- 
logian and an evangelist. There are theologians who can write 
about evangelism but have not the gift of so presenting Christ 
to men that they find in Him their Saviour. And there are 
effective evangelists whose theology is an easy target for 
attack. Niles is an evangelist who is also a profound thinker, a 
theologian who can commend his Saviour effectively to others. 
Moreover, he is at home at both ends of the foreign missionary 
operation as it is normally understood. He knows the "feel" 
both of older and of younger churches from inside and he can 
speak with authority to both. And, finally, his ministry is both 
local and ecumenical. Perhaps this is his most important quali- 
fication to speak to us at this moment. Those who see and hear 
him only in the context of great ecumenical conferences and 
discussion may not guess that he has maintained at the same 
time throughout his ministry the strongest and deepest local 
ties, as evangelist, teacher, pastor, counsellor, in his own 
Church and in the community where he was born and lives. 
What he says in an ecumenical setting has been tested again 
and again in the ordinary responsibilities of a local congrega- 
tion. He knows what he is talking about and he has earned the 
right, as few men have, to be heard. 

For every reason, therefore, this book deserves to be read 
and pondered. I venture to say that most readers will need to 
read many of its paragraphs more than once not because they 
are obscure but because they are deep. The effort will be 
rewarded. All of us who have been involved in this study are 
grateful for this book. 

LESSLIE NEWBIGIN, Bishop 

8 



Preface 



THIS book Is addressed to all who bear the name of Christ. It 
seeks to raise with them questions about a subject of elementary 
but far-reaching importance: a subject, therefore, on which 
books have been written since the earliest days of the Church. 

What is the nature of the Church's mission to the world ? 

Where does the justification for this mission lie? 

Whose is the responsibility to carry out this mission ? 

Why are "missions'* from land to land an essential feature of 
the Church's missionary obedience? 

Which are the factors that contribute to a sense of missionary 
urgency ? 

Whence arises the necessity to maintain "missions" as an 
identifiable part of the Church's activity ? 

Whither will an adequate missionary strategy lead "mis- 
sions" to-day? 

The immediate need for the writing of this book was the 
awareness, on the one hand, that many reasons demanded a 
major re-appraisal of the "foreign missionary enterprise of 
the Churches, if not of the Church's evangelistic mission itself; 
while, on the other hand, it was quite obvious that such a re- 
appraisal done by experts for experts would not meet the need 
where it had to be met. 

If there is a loss of confidence in "mission", that loss does not 
primarily arise because the methods of the missionary enter- 
prise seem outdated or even perverse. It stems from a loss of 
conviction about the Christian faith itself. That is why this 
book is addressed to the members of the churches in general and 
not simply to missionary administrators or advocates, "Mis- 
sions" must be recognized as one of the real implications of 
Christian discipleship as such. 

The phrase "foreign missions" has practically gone out of 



UPON THE EARTH 

use, but "missions" remain, and It is essential to know what 
they signify in terms of the totality of the faith. Only so can 
criteria be set up by which the forms of missionary administra- 
tion and the modes of missionary endeavour may be judged and 
moulded. There are many things about "missions" which 
demand discussion and revision, but no such discussion can be 
fruitful, or such revision effective, except as "missions" are seen 
in relation to the total mission of the Church and that, in turn, 
in relation to the total mission of God. "Missions" must cease 
to be a speciality, and be seen instead as an integral part of 
churchly obedience, 

This means that the ordinary Christian and every Christian 
has so to face the missionary implications of his faith as to 
recognize that a description of the mission of the Church is ? in 
a true sense, but a description of the Church's day-to-day life. 
Too often a discussion of "missions" is made to depend too 
exclusively on a discussion of the nature of the Church, This is 
inadequate, since the Church's life can be understood only in 
relation to the world to which it is sent and in which it is set. 
The Church is the home of the Christian; it is the world which 
is the home of all men* So that true perspective demands that 
the discussion take place in terms of the inclusive reality within 
which the Church's mission to the world is contained and its 
nature and limitations determined the Kingdom of God 

God*s work in the world and the pressure of His grace upon 
persons are both the context of and the provocation for the 
Churches mission and the "missions" of the Churches, 

The first five chapters of this book deal with the Christian 
faith in general, and seek to raise the questions which Christian 
discipleship must face. In the second half of the book are raised 
the specific issues concerning "missions". This sequence is in* 
evitable in order to maintain the integral relation between 
missionary obedience as such and Christian obedience as a 
whole. All Christians must face the question "Why not be a 
missionary?" because to be a Christian is to be a member of a 
missionary community and to become a participant in the 
activity of a missionary God* The apostolic privilege belongs to 

to 



PREFACE 

all who are Christ's, and each has to decide in what form and 
what measure to share in the Church's missionary task and 
destiny. So that no responsible answer to the question "Why 
not be a missionary?" is possible except as it is rooted in an 
obedient answer to the more primary question cc Why not be a 
Christian?" If the missionary is a symbol of the Christian faith 
it is because all Christians share in the Church's missionary 
task and the missionary enterprise belongs to the very nature of 
the Gospel. 

It has already been said that this book is not by an expert for 
experts. It is intended to be read by anyone who bears the name 
of Christ and who seeks to understand in some measure what 
that involves both in privilege and in responsibility. To such a 
reader a word of advice may not be out of place. He will prob- 
ably find it best to omit, in the first instance, a reading of the 
Introduction and go directly from the Preface to Part i and 
then on to Part 3. The Introduction will need to be read before 
tackling Part 2. In this part questions are dealt with which may 
not be of immediate interest to many., but which nevertheless an 
increasing number must give their minds to if the mission of the 
Church and the missionary enterprise of the Churches is not to 
become an esoteric affair. 

Three chapters of this book are based very largely on my own 
writing elsewhere. The chapter on "the Self-hood of a church" 
is based on my John R, Mott memorial lecture delivered at the 
E.A.C,C. assembly in Kualalumpur and published, along with 
the other lectures there delivered, by the British S.C.M. Press 
under the title A Decisive Hour for the Christian Mission. The 
chapter on "the World of Religions" is based on one of my 
Lyman Beecher lectures which were published by Harper and 
Brothers and the Lutterworth Press under the title The Preacher's 
Task and the Stone of Stumbling. And the chapter on "the West- 
ern! ty of the Base" draws largely on ray contribution to a 
symposium published by William Collins entitled Twentieth 
Century Christianity* Acknowledgment is here made to these 
publishers for their kind permission to use this material. 

It will be found that throughout the book the term "younger 



UPON THE EARTH 

churches 19 is used. This has become the accepted term to desig- 
nate those churches which are the result of the modern mission- 
ary enterprise of the Churches of the West. Clumsy, and some- 
times misleading, as this term may be, 1 could not think of 
another which would be more suitable, 

One last word, and that is about the title of this book. Two 
considerations have led to the choice of this title, Upon the 
Earth, First, the central thesis of these chapters is that the earth 
is the true correlate of the Gospel and that, therefore, the goals 
and problems of this earthly life in all their complexity are the 
true addressees of the missionary endeavour. "Thy Name be 
hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done- On earth, 1 " 
Secondly, the earth is the scene not only of Christ's coming in 
the flesh but it will also be the object of His coming in glory, 
Salvation will be the culmination of His plan for all humanity, 
indeed of all creation, and not simply the collecting together of 
saved souls. The symbol of the end of redemption is an eternal 
city where men will find themselves restored to one another as 
well as to God, 

"I came/ 5 said Jesus, "to east fire upon the earth," That fire 
must become a conflagration. That is what the mission of the 
Church is about. "My redeemer lives/' said Job, "and at last he 
will stand upon the earth," Those words express the Church's 
confidence too. Like Job, the Church is facing in all lands a 
time of severe testing and there are many false comforters. 
Everywhere the Church needs to lay claim to the faith by 
which it lives and which it asserts in the face of its own wretch- 
edness* 

"The earth is enough and the air is enough 
For our wonder and our war .," 1 



George: May I introduce myself? My name is George Jefleries. 

I work in Hongkong as a missionary, and I am just return- 
ing from my furlough in England* I suppose you joined the 
ship at Marseilles ? 

1 G. K. Chesterton, The Housa of Christmas* Bums and Gates Ltd, 

12 



PREFACE 

William: That's right, thank you. Fm William Arkwright, and 

1 am going out to India to teach in a Christian College. 

I am coming from the States, and this is my first journey 

abroad. 
George: We have another companion at this table Sundar 

Priyanath. He seems to be late this morning. No, here he 

comes. Sundar, we have an addition at our table. Let me 

introduce William Arkwright to you. 
Sundar; Good morning, 
George : William is from America and is going to India to teach 

in a college there. 
William: I am going to Lucknow. I have just finished my course 

in Union Theological Seminary at New York. 
George: Sundar is returning to India after attending the Peace 

Congress in Prague. 
William: That is interesting. When I was at Union we had a 

visit there from a group of communist students in Russia. 

It was a very revealing discussion that we had with them. 
Sundar: What do you mean by "revealing" ? 
William : Let me put it this way. It was disconcerting to find 

that the Russians were more sure of the future success 

of communism than we were concerning the Christian 

hope. 
Sundar: How was that? What became of the Christian certainty 

concerning the end ? 
William : Somehow, we never did manage to talk out of this 

certainty. In fact, the whole conversation with the Rus- 
sians was in their idiom. We were all the time trying to 

meet their case from their point of view, 
George: But isn't that right? Must we not seek to state the 

Christian message in the language of the hearer ? 
Sundar: Yes. But we always get into a quandary when we seek 

to set out the Christian message as an answer to the 

questions people ask, 
Sola: Excuse me, friends, but can I join in this conversation? 

I overheard you from the next table and I am so interested 

in what you are talking about* My name is Bola Idolo 



UPON THK EARTH 

from Kenya. I am returning from a course of law studies 
In Germany, I get off at Port Said, to attend a student 
conference there. 

Sundar: Yes, join us by all means. I was answering a question 
about how to state the Christian message* Is it not true 
that, when we have formulated the problems and decided 
the terms in which the problems must be handled, we have 
already distorted the relevance of the Christian faith to 
human life? It seems to me that the first Christian task is 
to allow the Christian faith itself to question the human 
questions. 

Bola: How right you are. I am sure you have heard about our 
problems in Kenya and about the crucial importance for 
the whole political and economic future of Kenya of seeing 
a way through the vexed questions of land tenure and food 
production. All discussions had practically arrived at a 
stalemate, when the Christian Council of Kenya sum- 
moned a conference of African and European farmers to 
discuss these questions under Christian auspices. The 
decisive difference was made by these auspices; the 
Christian faith determined the form in which the old 
questions were to be faced, and because the form of the 
questions was changed a way forward was cleared for the 
finding of answers. 

William : But how do you face the problem of misunderstand* 
ing? The World Council of Churches organizes a con- 
sultation in South Africa on the question of race,, and the 
consultation succeeds in re-stating the question within a 
Christian context: immediately the politicians begin to 
pressurize the churches. Church leaders in my country 
plead for "open" politics but have to face the opposition of 
those who would make the cold war the determinant in the 
political decisions of our government. The Church in 
Germany decides to hold its Kirchentag in Berlin and the 
East German government calls it political provocation. 
The issue boils down to this: that men are prepared to 
listen to the Christian message if it answers their questions f 



PREFACE 



and are glad to set It aside If it does not; but that they get 
angry when Christianity begins to question them. 

Sundar: You can also get a situation in which the Church in a 
particular place can itself refuse to be questioned* In 
Ceylon, for instance, there has been for the last five years a 
growing estrangement between the Sinhalese and the 
Tamils centering in a controversy about the policy of the 
government to make Sinhalese the only official language 
of the country. As far as I have been able to follow the 
developments, while the Church in Ceylon, which has in 
its membership both Sinhalese and Tamils,, has repeatedly 
called for conference and consultation to resolve the 
conflict, It has not itself discussed the issues and pro- 
nounced upon them. 

Sola: Our minister told us that the word "salvation" in the 
Bible has the root meaning of "spaciousness 5 '. This must 
mean that in Jesus Christ life will be rid of every narrowing 
and restrictive circumstance. Somehow that is not the 
picture which the actual life of the Christian community in 
Africa suggests. The Gospel Is proclaimed for the salvation 
of souls and not of life itself! As the saying goes : Why 
scratch where it does not itch ? The Christian Church must 
deal with "where it does itch". 

Sundar: That there is a Christian message Is simply the result of 
the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ and that, by 
the resurrection, He remains man. So Is determined the 
very structure and destiny of human history, Man's situa- 
tion in the world Is the result of Jesus being part of it. Men 
speak about man's existential situation; they forget, or 
prefer not to see, that this existential situation is given by 
the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. The initial task of Christian 
witness is to uncover this fact and make It explicit. 

William: The Incarnation is certainly the decisive event, but 
the life of Christian witness begins in a meeting with the 
risen Lord. Our Christmas is always Christmas after 
Easter. 

George: I work as a missionary In Hongkong. Somehow, in that 



UPON THE EARTH 

tumultuous city, we don't seem to be able, by our preach- 
ing, to do what you say we ought to do* 

Sola: Just preaching is not enough. The questions, that need to 
be raised, need to be raised by the Christian community 
and the way it lives. There is a very real sense in which 
the uniqueness of tlxe Christian Gospel is tied up with the 
uniqueness of the Christian community. If the Christian 
Church in the lands of Africa does not, by its very pres- 
ence, cause men to ask the right questions about God and 
man and human life, then the preaching of the Gospel is 
bound to remain an affair on the outside* 

Sundar; Yes, and where the language of a country is one that is 
rooted in a non-Christian culture, this business of the 
questions being raised by the life and ways of the Christian 
community is of special importance* 

Sola: Some people speak glibly of Christ being the answer to 
the problems of men. Christ is not the answer. The answer 
is that which Christ provideda Church, a body of people 
set in the world as His Body, living His risen life and 
continuing in the world the ministry of His incarnation* 
**To brother all the souls of men"; that would give to life 
true spaciousness. 

William: Let me back-track a bit. Why did we not, at Union, 
in our conversation with the communists, give evidence of 
the fighting certainty of our faith ? Do you think it was 
because in our minds we had identified, almost uncon 
sciously, our hope for the future with the successful prose- 
cution of the Church's missionary enterprise? If so, that is 
where we went wrong, for "successful missions** is no more 
a category that we are able to apply to the future* To put it 
bluntly, it no longer seems possible to think in terms of a 
progressive conversion of the world. And, because this is 
so, we tend to lose our nerve, 

George: Modern missions arose in a Christendom situation in 
the West and, without reflection, assumed that the end of 
missions will be a Christendom situation throughout the 
world. This kind of thinking is not possible any more. Both 

16 



PREFACE 

facts and theology demand that we re-state the case for 
missions in terms of God's total mission towards the world 
as a whole. The Church . . . 

Sundar: Please excuse me for interrupting, but you remind me 
of a point that Dr Devanandan used to make in his lectures 
on Hinduism. He used to say that in the many forms of 
renewal which we find in Hinduism to-day, we must learn 
to perceive the creative hand of the living Spirit as He is 
engaged in bringing into being the new creation. The 
crucial issue in all evangelistic work is so to claim for God 
in Christ everything which is truly His, that those who 
have received His gifts will also receive Him and become 
His disciples. 

William: Principal Hwang of Taiwan, in a lecture which I 
heard him deliver in New York, spoke of that verse in the 
book of Job where God is said to work "on the left hand". 
I am not sure that the actual verse he referred to carries the 
meaning he intended, but his point was clear. He was 
emphasizing the mission of God as a vaster concept than 
the mission of the Church. "There is only one mission," 
he said, "the mission of God. The Church is in this 
mission." The Church carries forward the purpose of the 
incarnation, but the incarnate Lord cannot be limited by 
the Church, The Church's life and witness is held within 
His vast enterprise. 

George: This way of talking about the world and God's work in 
the world is not always easy to understand. We are told 
that the world lies in the evil one, we are also told that God 
loved the world* This means that we cannot attribute 
everything that happens to God. We must be prepared to 
reckon also with the demonic. It is true enough that God 
is bringing into being the new creation, but it is still too 
early to discern between wheat and tares. 

William: Cannot we say that we are puzzled, in seeking to 
understand what happens as the result of the missionary 
thrust, not only because we cannot distinguish now between 
wheat and tares, not only because the proclamation of the 



UTO 



UPON THE EARTH 

Christ Itself arouses the anti-Christ, but also because 
there is taking place in the world a double preparation? 
In the book of Revelation we read of the Bride as well as 
of the guests at the wedding banquet, we read of the river 
of life as well as of the nations for whose healing it flows. 

Sundar: A person viewing the missionary task is as it were stand- 
ing at a cross-roads where three roads meet and cross. The 
sign board of the first road readsAll men, the whole 
world, the whole creation, all things. The sign board of the 
second road reads Each man, he who believes, he that 
is chosen. The sign board of the third road reads the 
part shall consecrate the whole. The significance of the 
junction is that here these three roads meet. 

Bola: That is why emphasis must fall on the Christian Church. 
Not only is the mission of the Church within God's 
mission, it is also the inner structure of that mission, It is 
impossible to speak of the new creation in a general way 
without recognizing that the Christian community is itself 
God's new creation. 

Sundar: True, but too often it is only theologically true. In 
actual fact the Christian community in place after place, 
and in situation after situation, bears feeble witness to the 
truth of the new creation. Take the Church's missionary 
enterprise itself as an example. Is not the significance of the 
mission of the Church blurred because what men see are 
the missions of the Churches ? There is no task more neces- 
sary right now than that of re-defining the missions of the 
Churches in terms of the mission of the Church, We speak 
so easily about our time as the ecumenical era. We must 
make clear what this involves for the mission of the Church 
both in theological definition and in actual missionary 
administration* 

William: A more basic need is to justify the Christian concep- 
tion of time in terms of a scientific world-view. The 
Christian mission has no justification apart from the faith 
that the end of time has begun, but it is this very faith 
which people find difficult to grasp, 

18 



PREFACE 

Sola: This connection between the developments of human 
history and the mission of the Church, this connection 
between the being of the Church and God's design for the 
new creation, this connection between the preaching of the 
Gospel for the salvation of men and the power of the 
Gospel for the transformation of the earth here, it seems 
to me, lie the issues which need to be made clear. 

George : I am a missionary. Somehow I believe that the mission- 
ary task itself, by the way it is performed and by the 
motives which sustain it, will set forward its own explana- 
tion. Paul talks about the incalculable wealth of Christ, 
the picture in his mind being that of a rich country stretch- 
ing to the far horizons waiting to be explored. The whole 
Christ for the whole world yes, but also the whole world 
in order that the riches of the whole Christ may become 
man's inheritance. 



Introduction 

THERE Is a history behind the writing of this book. The 
issues with which it deals came to prominence at the 
Willingcn meeting (1952) of the International Mission- 
ary Council (I.M.C.), and the decision to have these issues 
systematically discussed was made at the subsequent meeting in 
Ghana (1958). The method adopted to discuss them was to call 
a series of consultations on them in which theologians, mission- 
aries, missionary administrators and local church leaders took 
part. These consultations, officially called by the I.M.C., were 
held in New York, Geneva, Bangalore, Singapore, Hongkong, 
Brazzaville, Accra, Salisbury and Marangu; and unofficial 
consultations convened locally were held at Johannesburg, San 
Jose, and Ghristchurch. 

These consultations were asked to address themselves to the 
question which was formulated in the following way: "What 
does it mean in theological terms and in practice in this 
ecumenical era for the Church to discharge its mission to all the 
nations?" As part of the preparative material for these con- 
sultations, Dr J. Blauw of the Netherlands Missionary Council 
was asked to write a book setting forth, in the light of the most 
recent biblical scholarship, the teaching of the Bible concern- 
ing the theological basis and meaning of the Church's mission, 
This book has now been published under the title The Missionary 
Mature of the Church, The World Council of Churches and the 
International Missionary Council also convened a consultation 
of theologians in Bossey in July 1961 to which the first draft of 
the present book was submitted for discussion and comment. 
In addition to making their comments on the draft, the Com- 
mission produced its own statement, which has been published 
by the World Council of Churches under the title The Missionary 
Task of the Church Theological Reflections, 
Important, however, as all these consultations have been, 



UPON THK EARTH 

and important as Is the attempt to reflect theologically on the 
Church's mission, it is essential to remember that theology does 
not itself provide the justification for missions* It rather eluci- 
dates the justification which already exists in the Church and 
which has been driving Christians to be missionaries for cen- 
turies* In other words, we are involved in this study in a theo- 
logical interpretation of the Church's actual missionary exist- 
ence. To neglect this dimension of historical positivism in the 
discussion is to fall a prey to an attitude of theological criticism 
which is unfair to the actualities of the mission as it is and as it 
has been, "The missionary enterprise/* says Wilhelm Ander- 
sen, "has not come into being through conscious theological 
reflection on the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ, but 
through the descent upon certain men or groups of men --we 
cannot express it otherwise of a compulsion of the Holy Spirit 
to undertake the proclamation of the Gospel overseas." 1 

Coupled, however, with this warning concerning the nature 
of this inquiry must go also another warning which points in the 
opposite direction. It is one thing* in a theological reflection on 
the Church's mission, to take account of the actual missionary 
enterprise; it is another thing to feel bound by the theological 
categories in which that enterprise was conceived and executed. 
There is truth in a contention of Professor Hoekendijk that, if 
there is one change above all else which is necessary in mission- 
ary thinking, it is to replace a Church-centred orientation of 
missions by a Kingdom-centred one. Speaking of this Church- 
centred orientation, which he sees as dominant since the 
Jerusalem meeting (1928) of the LM.CL, he say$; 

Its whole horizon is completely filled by the Church. The 

missionary now hardly leaves the ecclesiastical sphere. He tries to 
define his whole surrounding world in ecclcsiological categories* 

The world has almost ceased to be the world and is now con- 
ceived of as a sort of ecclesiastical training ground. The Kingdom 
is either confined within the bounds of the Church or else it has 
become something like an eschatological lightning on the far 
horizon** 

1 Touxtrdt & TJwfogy of Mission, S.C.M. Frew, p. 13* 

8 Intmwtwnal R$vim if Missions (LRM^) July 195$, p* 3134. 

22 



INTRODUCTION 

Commenting on this thought of Professor Hoekendijk, Dr Max 

Warren says : 

By laying this continual stress upon the Church and its estab- 
lishing everywhere as the C end' J of the missionaiy enterprise, we 
have manoeuvred ourselves into a position where the survival of 
the Church as we have created it has become scarcely less import- 
ant than its previous establishment. 1 

"The Church as we have created it" that is the nub of the 
problem. Only in the perspective of the Kingdom of God do we 
really see the Church as God has created it, and are set free to 
serve that Kingdom as members of that Church. 

QUESTIONNAIRE 

In the several consultations which were held, a basic quest- 
ionnaire of ten questions was used with slight variations. This 
helped to reveal the actual issues which people were wrestling 
with who were concerned with the subject of "missions", and 
the significant experiences and convictions from which guid- 
ance could be drawn for the providing of answers. The quest- 
ionnaire used was as follows : 

(1) What is the connection between God's sovereignty, the 
Lordship of Christ over the world, and the mission of the 
Church to all the nations ? 

In view of the biblical assertion that it is Christ who is the 
Word of God to man, and that it is God who draws man to 
Himself through the Holy Spirit, what is the place of our 
witness ? 

(2) How does the obligation to mission evidence itself in the 
life of the individual Christian ? With what authority does he 
engage in the missionary task and how does he receive the sense 
of urgency? 

How is the missionary vocation to be understood ? Who is a 
missionary? How can the terms "evangelist", "witness", 
"missionary" be distinguished? 

1 In a paper presented at a Conference held at Toronto, Oct. 17-18, 1958. 

23 



UPON THE EARTH 

(3) Is the missionary character of Israel in the Old Testa- 
ment inherent in its existence as the chosen people? If so, how 
was it defined and challenged? 

How did the Apostolic, Church conceive and discharge its 
universal mission? How are the churches of Asia, Africa and 
Latin America to participate in the world mission of the 
Church? 

(4) What is the nature and validity of the Christian claim 
that there is salvation in "none other Name"? Is there salva- 
tion outside the Christian Church? 

What is the relation of the mission of the Church to the 
Kingdom of God? What is the nature of the encounter between 
Christianity and other religions? Is this encounter actually 
taking place with Islam in Africa, with Hinduism in India, 
with Buddhism in Burma, and so on ? 

(5) Is the missionary movement of the Church, specifically 
involving the crossing of national and cultural frontiers, an 
essential part of the Church's life; or does the Church in one 
land receive missionaries from another as a temporary measure 
until it is able to do without them ? 

Are "missions" which cross national and cultural frontiers a 
theological necessity or a historical contingency? Is there a 
relation between the eschatological and the geographical char- 
acter of the Christian mission the ends of the earth and the 
end of time? 

(6) What is the meaning of the term "nation 5 *? In what 
sense, if any 9 can a church be a national church? Is the object 
of missions the formation of churches among the several 
nations? What does it mean in theological terms and in prac- 
tice, in this ecumenical era, for the Church to discharge its 
mission to all the nations? Must missions be totally recast in 
ecumenical terms ? How ? 

Relate the movement towards world organized confession- 
alum to the movement towards Church Union in different 
countries. Does disunity among the Churches hinder the 
mission of the Church? In what way are the separatist churches 
in Africa important? Have we anything to learn from them ? 

24 



INTRODUCTION 

(7) How can the whole organized missionary and evange- 
listic activity of the Church be carried out so that it does not 
hinder but stimulates the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in 
the daily life of Christian communities and persons ? 

What type of laymen does a spontaneously missionary church 
pre-suppose ? 

(8) When is the life of the Church an obstacle to mission? 
How can we distinguish between the essential character of 
Christian community and particular cultural patterns of 
Church life and structure ? 

When Christians are so unlike their Master, how can we call 
people to join their fellowship? 

(9) What effect has the emergence of autonomous churches 
had on missionary initiative and responsibility? What effect 
should it have? Does the missionary obligation require for its 
fulfilment work directly among non-Christians, or is it equally 
fulfilled by fostering a missionary spirit in other churches, and 
by participating in their life ? 

Review the present relationships in your area between 
churches and mission boards in their bearing upon the mission- 
ary task of the Church as a whole. 

(10) Do the Churches in their missionary outreach offer a 
total Christian world-view; or do Christians in your area, in 
times of stress and perplexity, in fact if not in intention, fall 
back upon the world- view of their traditional culture ? Is the 
actual impact of Christianity in your area experienced chiefly 
as a new law or as gospel ? 

There is not only a Christian Gospel to be proclaimed but a 
Christian wisdom to be taught. How may "missions" dis- 
charge this responsibility ? 



SUMMARY OF CONSULTATIONS 

What were some of the things said in the course of discussing 
these questions? There were certain common factors which 
were felt in all the consultations to be of such crucial importance 



UPON THE EARTH 

that It would be a fair summary to group what was said under 
those headings. To enumerate them* they were : 

(a) Criticism concerning missionary foreignncss 

(b) Questions about missionary justification 

(c) Issues relating to missionary unity 

(d) Problems of missionary frustration 

(e) The spread of the sectarian spirit 

(f) The voice of the African revolution 

(g) The challenge of resurgent religions 

Missionary foreignness. Here was a criticism of missions as it 

stemmed from the birth of new nations in so called mission 
lands. The form in which Christians in China often stated these 
criticisms was felt, in many of these consultations, to be a 

pointed way of expressing thoughts held more generally in 
most churches of Asia and Africa. 

This Chinese criticism can be fairly summarized in five 
propositions. The Gospel preached was socially reactionary, 
concentrating the issue on individual salvation, so that social 
and political behaviour became a mere consequence of personal 
dedication to Christ. The Church had a class character, was 
socially conservative and represented a cultural imperialism; 
the results of which were that Christians became denational- 
ized and the ways of life of the missionary community became 
the pattern for the local church. The policy that the Church 
should be above politics bred in large measure political ir- 
responsibility. Foreign missionaries were agents not only of 
foreign churches but also of foreign governments. The foreign 
missionary had too much influence in, if not control of, the 
Chinese church. An illuminating illustration of this last criti- 
cism is given by Dr Charles West who was a missionary in China* 

One of the critical tasks [he says] of mission is to develop a 
brotherhood with the Christians in the land to which the mission 
goes in the handling of money which comes from abroad. This 
proceeded in many missions, at any rate the ones that I knew 
about, by way of appointing a Chinese treasurer for the mission. 
Yet, our Chinese brethren always knew that we could get access 

26 



INTRODUCTION 

to money or could Influence the process by which money came. 
Our dominance continued no matter what the external arrange- 
ments were. 1 

Of course, this is but one example of what is meant by control. 
In oriental lands the forms of courtesy which have to be 
observed towards guests make this assumption of power only 
too easy. 

An example of the fact that this Chinese criticism voices a 
more generally held point of view in the lands of the younger 
churches is a statement drawn up by a Sinhalese Baptist 
Minister explaining the Buddhist attitude to Christianity in 
Ceylon, He says ; 

There has been a psychological aversion to Christianity on the 
part of the Buddhist public on the ground that it is a foreign 
religion., couched in alien paraphernalia, introduced to this 
country by foreign missionaries. It is also regarded as a powerful 
ally of Western Culture and of Western Imperialism. To say the 
least, there is a great deal in our attitude, conscious and uncon- 
scious, in our worship, in the terms we use and in our religious 
practices, which lends colour to these criticisms. Another motive 
behind the resurgence of Buddhism is concerned with the sup- 
posed danger which the impact of Christianity has on our 
national culture. This impact, according to our critics, is so strong 
and harmful, that if the Christian Church is allowed to continue 
its way any longer, there might be a sort of cultural disintegration 
in our land. This fear is seriously entertained by many. 2 

Missionary justification. All these five propositions seem to add 
up to only one: the Church which the missionaries founded in 
China was not truly Chinese. The issue here is not whether this 
criticism is fully justified but that it is made, and that it is high- 
lighted by the form in which "missions" are generally criticized 
also in the West to-day. 

There are those who look at China, for instance, and say, 
Missions are not useful anyway. All forms of Christian service 

1 From a speech delivered at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey (1959). 
* From a paper submitted by the Rev. S. J. de S. Weerasinghe to the United 
Bible Society (1961), 



UPON THE EARTH 

are only ameliorative; while the issues of personal religion seem 
to make so little difference to national development. The real 
needs of the nations of Asia and Africa and Latin America are 
hardly touched by missions. There are others in the West who 
raise the question in a more elementary form. "Why missions 
anyhow ! Are not all religions adequate to serve human needs, 
and cannot the weaknesses of the various religions be met by 
religious collaboration?" Professor Toynbee is the latest guru of 
those who take this line. At the consultation in New York, I 
asked a mission board executive what effect support for missions 
had on the convictions of the home-church with respect to the 
person of Christ. His answer was, "A belief in the relative 
uniqueness of Jesus Christ is sufficient to support missions. That 
is as far as the missionary understanding of many missions- 
supporters goes." 

To many, in the Churches of the West, it seems as if, in any 
case, the day of missions is over. Some take the line, "The 
younger churches do not need our help any more. Look at the 
quality of those from the younger churches whom we have 
met." Others take the line, "The missionary frontier is every- 
where, the geographical frontier has not special importance, to 
become a missionary to another land can be an escape from 
immediate responsibility to one's own." "After all, a basic 
factor in the present situation is the failure of nerve among 
Christians in the West regarding the worth of their own achieve- 
ments in social and personal life. A great deal must happen in 
the West before the religion which underlies its culture can be 
exported with confidence." To quote Bishop Newbigin: 

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the fact that, at 
the moment when the scientific culture which was formed within 
the western Christian tradition has achieved world-wide expan- 
sion and dominance, its unity with the supernatural faith in 
which it was begotten has disintegrated. The typical and domin- 
ant scientific man of the West is to a large extent alienated from 
die Christian tradition* 1 

1 From an address given to the North American Advisory Committee of the 
I.M.C. (Nov. 14, 1958). 

28 



INTRODUCTION 

And then there are those- many of them young people in the 
Universities who feel the compulsion to live on the frontier 
between a situation in which the Church recognizably exists 
and an adjacent situation in which the Church does not: but 
who are seeking to find ways of getting to this frontier without 
becoming involved or implicated in the machinery of missions. 

Consequent on the conference convened by the World 
Student Christian Federation at Strasbourg (1960) on the Life 
and Mission of the Church, there appeared two statements, one 
issued by the Federation itself and the other written by the 
General Secretary of the International Missionary Council. 
Two paragraphs, one from each statement, are given as illum- 
inating the attitude to missions of Christian students to-day. 

Most of us were impressed by the sharpness of the present 
student and youth reaction against institutionalism, not only in 
Missionary Societies and Churches but also in Student Christian 
Movements and in the Federation itself. It was more than clear 
from the reaction of the majority of participants in Strasbourg 
that their criticisms, sometimes so violent that they were quite 
unfair, proceeded not from any lack of concern for, and sense of 
membership in, the Church, but from a genuine desire to see its 
mission carried on more faithfully and effectively. For them the 
rigidity of organizations and institutions is one of the major 
obstacles, if not the greatest, to the missionary enterprise of the 
Church. 

There is a quite shattering degree of unanimity that the tradi- 
tional missionary pattern cannot provide the pattern of obedience 
for our day. This is not argued; it is assumed. I think we have to 
take it that the present generation of students derives its "image" 
of foreign missions not from what is put out by mission boards, but 
by what is told them by the Asian and African students who sit 
beside them in the lecture room and the laboratory. Any pattern 
of missionary effort which captures this generation of students will 
have to be marked by at least the following features : freedom 
from connection with Colonialism; facing real "frontiers"; 
standing where the other man stands; unity. The question of unity 
is one that is felt deeply. My impression is that this group of 
students feels the scandal of our divisions more deeply than I had 
thought. 

29 



UPON THE EARTH 

This questioning about missions by Christians in the West as 
well as by Christians in the so-called "mission-lands", however, 
is seen as a crisis only when there is added to it the radical 
questioning which the development of the ecumenical move- 
ment produces. Commenting on the questions, first drawn up 
for use in the consultations, Dr Keith Bridston, the secretary of 
the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of 
Churches, remarked: 

The existential question seems to me to be the quite practical 
one arising out of the fact that the ecumenical movement seems to 
be making past motives, mores, and moorings of the missionary 
movement anachronous. The more this study can be directed to 
the direct institutional organizational crisis in the missionary 
movement which is a real crisis in the post-war circle of younger 
missionaries, the more it will be listened to. 

Dr Kraemer puts the issue thus: 

The great new fact in the total Christian world situation since 
the second world war is undoubtedly the ecumenical movement, 
and its intimate association with the apostolic calling and out- 
reach of the Church. It is of paramount significance that it has 
with one stroke paved the way for full participation by the younger 
churches in the ecumenical encounter and conversations and that 
it has confronted missions with the previously Ignored and evaded 
fact that missions are by nature and calling ecumenical, that it is the 
Church of Christ which must be planted and expanded, and not 
the Reformed Church, or the Lutheran Church, or the Methodist 
Church, etc. In other words, the era of "confessional" missions is 
ended. This is an agonizing issue for Western Christians, but also 
for some of the younger churches. 1 

One problem very evident at the Willingen meeting of the 
I.M.C. was the tension between the view that the entire purpose 
of the Church was mission and the view that the Church has a 
mission but that its own existence was a prior reality possessing 
its own validity. Does it not seem that the sharpness of this 
tension is simply because of the dividedness of the Church ? As 
long as the prior existence of the Church is a divided existence, 

1 History's Lessons for Tomorrows Muswn y W.S.C.F., p. 205, 

30 



INTRODUCTION 

so long will it be necessary to insist on the reality of this prior 
existence for the wrong reasons. The Church's mission is one 
mission to an undivided world, so that it will be only as the 
Church's unity in mission is recovered that the prior existence 
of the Church itself can be persuasively demonstrated. 

Missionary unity. Thus is raised the whole nexus of problems 
concerning the need to establish and maintain the Church's 
unity in mission through the missions of divided Churches. 
These problems are not all of the same kind, but they belong 
together as expressing the same concern. 

How may the missions of divided Churches maintain that 
posture of self-questioning which will keep them open to the 
possibilities of obedience to the demands of the Church's unity 
in mission ? At a time when the powerful Churches of the West 
are using their resources to organize confessional loyalties on a 
world scale, what must the younger churches do to strengthen 
in their own lands their fellowship across denominational lines, 
and to help the older churches to overcome the temptations 
that are incident to any organization of power? What is the 
theological validity of those non-ecclesiastical parts of the 
Church (Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., W.S.C.F., independent mission- 
ary societies, etc.) which, because of their desire for mission, 
feel that it is better not to be a "church" ? Missionary Societies 
once independent have been brought into close relationship 
with separate churches: how is this development to be safe- 
guarded from strengthening denominationalism ? Can mission 
programmes of separate Churches be merged before the 
Churches themselves are prepared to unite ? What is the best 
way of helping the younger churches to take a more effective 
and substantial part in the world mission of the Church? 

The fact that already there are more than one hundred Asian 
missionaries, sent by their churches, working in lands other 
than their own, has made this last question of practical urgency. 
The following alternative possibilities are under serious exami- 
nation: that a denomination like the Methodist Missionary 
Society, for instance, which belongs to the Methodist Church in 

3 1 



UPON THE EARTH 



Great Britain, become the missionary society of all the Method- 
ist Churches historically related to the British Methodist 
Church; that each autonomous church in the world establish 
its own missionary society and that these societies help one 
another primarily within but also across denominational lines 
with personnel and finance; that missionary endeavour be 
organized at the world confessional level; that in the lands of 
the younger churches, missionary procedures and policies be of 
an interdenominational character from the very beginning, 
organized either on a national or regional basis. 

The simple problem is that the demands of the world mission 
and the essential unity of the task are becoming too great for 
divided Christendom, with the result that there is, on the one 
hand, an awakened zest in the search for churchly unity which 
can be local in its manifestation and therefore powerful at the 
place of need; while, on the other hand, there is the attempt to 
set up bureaucratic procedures which will minimize the effects 
of the Church's disunity and give it the possibility of unity in 
action even though it falls short of unity in its life of Word,, 
Fellowship and Sacrament. 

Missionary frustration. Into all this questioning about 
missions and their future there is introduced an element of 
tragedy when one considers the problems that torment the 
actual missionaries on the spot. These problems need to be 
stated both from the point of view of the missionaries as well as 
from the point of view of missionary administrators. (I asked 
the executives of four long-established missionary societies- 
one in Great Britain, one on the continent in Europe, and two 
in the U.S. A, what their main problem was in missionary 
administration to-day, and each of them said for they were 
interviewed separately "the frustrations experienced by the 
missionaries we have sent".) Among the situations in which the 
missionaries find themselves under frustrating pressure the 
following are often mentioned. 

The relationship between "church" and "mission" is not 
everywhere sufficiently clarified, so that the missionary finds 

3* 



INTRODUCTION 

himself in a state of insecurity, not knowing where authority 
resides. Missionaries in many lands find themselves assigned to 
tasks which give them little scope to fulfil their evangelistic 
calling. "To-day the gravest embarrassment of the missionary 
societies," says Dr Warren, "lies in the actual unwillingness of 
the younger churches to set them free to perform the tasks for 
which they properly exist the pioneering of those new fron- 
tiers, not necessarily geographical, which have not yet been 
marked with a cross," 1 Then there is the fact that many 
missionaries suffer from an unresolved and to them unresolvable 
tensiona tension between their awareness that by their very 
presence they seem to be impeding the growth of local leader- 
ship and initiative, and their conviction that they are needed 
where they are even if the church which they have come to 
serve is passive towards them. Also, the missionary finds himself 
faced with a task which by its very nature is an impossible one, 
and he finds himself inadequately prepared both theologically 
and spiritually to support its impossibility. On the one hand, 
the task is to identify himself with the people among whom he 
has come to live; and, on the other hand, it is to remain what he 
is so that he can truly give himself* "To denationalize a mission- 
ary," says Dr Warren, "which is what a good deal of current 
talk about identification virtually involves, may be to reduce 
his ability to serve to the very minimum." 2 Commenting on this 
statement Count van Randwijck observes, "Missionaries are 
expected to put off their old nature, including all its typically 
Western sins. Anything going beyond this is unbiblical 
romanticism." 3 

The issue about "identification" is related also to the fact 
that, in the countries of the West, the Gospel has been so 
domesticated within their culture that the missionary too 
obviously sees an Asian or African culture as alien to the 
GospeL How is he, except as he himself attempts "identifica- 
tion", to help the people among whom he works to respond to 

1 Quoted in Ghana Assembly Report, I.M.G.* p, 94, 

1 lM.M. t Oct. 1953, pp. 389-390, 

Ghana Assembly Report, LM,G., p. 86. 

UT 33 C 



UPON THE EARTH 

the Gospel in their own cultural idiom? And, finally, to all 
these problems are added the purely external problems which 
missionaries have to face the education of their children, the 
political attitudes of the countries to which they go to the 
countries from which they come, the adjustment of their living 
standards to the living standards of their national colleagues, 
the imaginativeness or lack of it in the pastoral care they 
receive from the churches which they have come to serve, and 
so on. 

All these problems faced by missionaries are the problems 
also of missionary administration, though some further ques- 
tions need articulation from the point of view of missionary 
administrators themselves. The central problem of missionary 
administration., as it revealed itself in the various consultations 
that preceded the writing of this book, was that of "partner- 
ship" between sending and receiving Church. Not only was the 
problem that the Whitby formula "partnership in obedience" 1 
did not envisage partnership in the lands of the sending 
Churches, but also that the true partners at both ends hap- 
pened to be minorities. The missionary administrators in the 
sending Churches represent an understanding of and an attitude 
to "foreign" missions which is much in advance of the general 
convictions of their own people. Also, in the receiving Churches, 
there is a church-conscious vigorous minority who are the 
necessary partners of the missionaries but who do not share 
the common attitude of complete openness to "foreign" mis- 
sions which is still the characteristic of most Christian people 
in the receiving lands. 

Another issue, basic to the concept of partnership, is that, 
with the emergence of autonomous churches, it is necessary to 
devise new procedures by which true partnership in decision- 
making can be maintained between sending and receiving 
churches. When a missionary Church is reduced to the bare 
function of recruiting-agent of personnel and finance to support 
another Church, then the heart of the missionary connection 
has been betrayed. 

1 I.M.G. Assembly held at Whitby, Canada, 1947, 

34 



INTRODUCTION 

The sectarian spirit A good way of obtaining perspective on 
these vexed questions concerning the relation between 
"Church" and "mission" is to look at the far more critical 
problems raised by the increase of sectarian missions. These 
missions remain uninhibited by the growth of the younger 
churches. They are simply concerned with converting people to 
Christ and gathering them together into worshipping communi- 
ties. The up-building of a Church in a land, so that that Church 
can be the Church for the nation, is a concept that sectarian 
missions reject as not even worthy of consideration. The Church 
remains invisible and does not, therefore, give any trouble. 

And yet, those Churches within the ecumenical movement 
which engage in mission must face the questions raised by those 
aspects of sectarian missions to which their strength belongs. 
In the words of R. K. Orchard, "we must be aware of the 
contrast which is often drawn (no doubt too crudely but with 
an uncomfortably sharp point) between the 'conservative 
evangelical' missions and their direct and uninhibited line in 
evangelism and the 'church 5 missions with their preoccupation 
with inter-church relations and their lost directness in 
mission." 1 Where, as in Latin America for instance, the estab- 
lished church is itself seen as an evangelistic problem, the 
question is complicated further still. 

Bishop Newbigin tells the story of how, during his visit in 
Latin America, he went to see the work among the Jungle 
Tribes. He asked in a village, "How many Christians are there 
here?" The answer was, "Well, I know So-and-so is a child of 
God, and I think So-and-so is, but I am not quite sure about the 
others." The only visible form of the Church was a series of 
precious but fragile personal relationships with a single mission- 
ary. This individualistic emphasis certainly has its strength. On 
a continent where sinful human nature and cheap grace are 
both taken for granted, it has produced a striking testimony to 
the power of the Gospel to lift the moral life of people. But, at 
the same time, it has thrown out of focus the nature of the 
Church as the community of faith. At an informal meeting in 

1 From a paper prepared by him for private circulation (1958). 

35 



UPON THE EARTH 



Buenos Aires someone told a story of a Roman Catholic who 
was astonished to learn that evangelicals believed in God. When 
the laughter had died down, Bishop Barbieri said: "I do not 
think this is simply a laughing matter. We have to ask, why It is 
that people can have such fantastic ideas about our beliefs? Is 
it because we have concentrated so much on the things which, 
against the Roman Catholic, we deny; rather than on the 
things which, with them, we confess ?" 

The sectarian attitude has its consequence in the area of 
Christian co-operation also. It prevents the recognition that at 
the heart of co-operative organizations between Churches there 
should always be the element of mutual encounter between 
them on the level of faith. Where Christian co-operation is 
mainly conceived as co-operation in certain common,, non- 
controversial tasks, or for representing the evangelical case to 
Governments, or for withstanding Roman pressure, then the 
essence of the ecumenical movement has been missed* The issue 
here is not simply one concerning Christian unity. It is the issue 
concerning the life of the Christian community in the world. 
Even a vital individual Christian experience cannot be sus- 
tained apart from active participation in the Church's mission 
to the world in its several needs. A very able and sympathetic 
Roman Catholic, who conducts missions all over Chile, made 
the remark that he was constantly meeting people who had 
been converted from a nominal Roman Catholicism to a living 
Pentecostalism, but were now completely lost to any kind of 
Christian faith at all. 

There is only one adequate answer to sectarianism, both in its 
strength and in its weakness, and that is realized ecumenism. 
The Church is not only One, the Church is not only divided, but 
the Church is also a gift where its unity is given to God's people 
amidst their divisions. This given unity must receive appro- 
priate forms. It must also be put at the service of the Church's 
mission there to find and to give evidence of its true nature* As 
far as the autonomous Churches in '"mission" lands are con- 
cerned, the endemic problem is that in so many places so little 
is happening on the evangelistic frontiers. An autonomous 

36 



INTRODUCTION 

Church has the authority to order its own life, but there must 
be some way provided for a due disobedience to that authority 
where the Church is not true to its mission. A broad-based 
evangelism alone, because the evangelizing activity is a mani- 
festation of the Church under judgment, can prove an ade- 
quate solvent of the actual condition of a Church and a suffi- 
cient power for its renewal. 

The voice of Africa. The general line taken in the consulta- 
tions which has been outlined so far holds true for the consulta- 
tions held in Africa as well. But it is appropriate, for the purpose 
of this introduction, to give independent expression to the 
African accent. The African revolution not only challenges 
many missionary policies and procedures as they apply to 
Africa but it makes urgent the need for drastic changes in the 
life and thought of the people of those lands from which mission- 
aries to Africa come. 

To read the record of the African consultations was to 
receive certain very strong impressions. The first and strongest 
impression was the vigorous repudiation of any remaining 
apartheid between "mission" and "church". Wherever there 
was any tendency for the mission to remain a separate organiza- 
tion, or for missionaries to think and act as a group apart from 
the Church, this was deeply and rightly resented. In several 
places some of the missionaries, generally the younger ones, said 
in effect: "We are temporary people, who are here to give some 
special contribution which we have, and when we have given 
that we should leave. We are just the scaffolding; you are the 
real African church." The answer always was: "This is a com- 
pletely false idea. The only proper way for you to think of your- 
selves is as part of the one Church. We do not want an African 
church, we want a Christian church in Africa, and we want you 
to be part of it." Separatist sects have arisen in Africa partly or 
mainly because the churches under mission control did not give 
proper authority to African leadership. But those who remain 
in the "established" churches are those who have faced this issue 
and seen a vision of the Church which is truly supra-racial. 

37 



UPON THE EARTH 

Hence the vehemence with which they repudiate the idea 
implicit in the term " African Church 3 \ 

Many of the African leaders appealed for missionaries who 
would really commit themselves for life to the Church in 
Africa. What was repeatedly said can be put in the words: 
"Send us missionaries who will live with us, work with us, die 
with us, and lay their bones here in Africa. We do not want 
missionaries who come to shake hands and say goodbye." In 
more than one place it was asked: "Why must missionaries go 
to their former homeland to retire? Why do they not retire 
here?" A question which hit very hard, especially in the Congo, 
arose from the fact that many missionaries left during the 1960 
troubles. The question was asked, "Who is the authority who 
has told them that they are not wanted?" By implication the 
question was whether missionaries come and go with the 
colonial power. 

Yet this demand for identification was emphatically not 
defined in terms of living conditions etc. Mr Sithole, the well- 
known political leader and author of the book African National- 
ism, said in one of the discussions: "There are two ideas of 
identification; one is what I may call anthropological identifi- 
cation; the other is identification in Christ. It is the latter we 
are concerned with." The idea of missionaries deliberately 
going to live in the slum quarters of an African city was 
vehemently resented. At one consultation there was a vigorous 
debate following upon a speech of Bishop Trevor Huddleston 
in which he spoke of the Good Samaritan who "went where he 
was", and said that we must go down into the ditch where men 
are and stand beside them. The reply was that there is no good 
going and standing in a ditch; the only reason for going there is 
to pull the man out and lift him up on to the back of the donkey. 
This (in Africa) was interpreted to mean that you give him a 
decent salary and a good house. The idea that you do any good 
by going yourself to live in a bad house didn't evoke any assent* 

In certain places the idea of "Africanization" was strongly 
rejected. Clearly it was felt by some to be a sort of reversed 
paternalism. Once more the white man thinks he knows what is 

38 



INTRODUCTION 

best for other people. It was strongly said that no African wants 
to feel that he has been put into a position of authority because 
he is an African; he wants to feel that he has been put there 
because he is the best man for the job. 

There was deep awareness of the danger hinted at in some 
places, but explicitly pointed out by one of the ablest of the 
Kikuyu leaders, that the present emphasis on specialist and 
technical aid, as a big part of missionary work, may lead to a 
new sort of colonialism and destroy the possibility of real 
mutuality and equality. It means stressing again the things in 
which the white man is strong, and under-emphasizing the 
things in which the white man is weak. Essentially the 
missionary must come as a bearer of the Gospel. When he does 
that, he will be both a giver and a receiver. He will not be 
handing something down to the Church; he will be sharing in 
its deepest life. And, if he is primarily a bearer of the Gospel, 
then all his other gifts will find their proper place. 

On the subject of the foreign missionary task of the African 
churches the response was patchy, but fairly encouraging. What 
was impressive was the fact that the first bearers of the Gospel 
in many parts of Africa were not the white missionaries, but 
African Christians whose very names have been almost for- 
gotten. All efforts should be made to recover the facts before it 
was too late and to see that these stories were properly written 
up so that they could become part of the mental background of 
all African Christians, and others too. This is a vital part of that 
re-minting of the word "missionary" which is so badly needed. 

All these points summarizing the discussion in Africa about 
the relation between church and mission are important, but in 
a sense what is more important is the emotional power with 
which they are charged when they are seen in the light of the 
over-all questions which Africa is asking. Is Christianity in the 
West translatable into political terms in Africa? How can 
Africa's search for Negritude find its answer and its limitation 
in the Gospel? Can the black African be trusted to be just to 
the white who also is an African ? 



39 



UPON THE EARTH 

Resurgent religions. All these challenges faced by the mission- 
ary enterprise are challenges incident to the development of the 
enterprise itself. With these must be reckoned the challenges 
posed by the great religions of the world in encounter with 
which the Church's mission must be fulfilled. In their own 
estimation, these religions have to-day passed beyond the stage 
of meeting the judgment of the Christian Gospel; they are 
engaged in claiming for themselves a uniqueness and univers- 
ality with which the Christian evangelist must come to terms, 
Christianity is certainly not to-day, if it ever was, the only 
missionary religion. For the Church's mission the basic question 
always remains: What is the essential significance of the particu- 
larity of Jesus Christ ? 

In meeting this thrust of the religions, however, the demand 
upon the Church is not simply that it should be aware of the 
nature of the uniqueness of its own faith. That is paramount. 
But it is fruitless unless there goes with it the willingness and the 
ability to see all men in Christ, even men in their religions, so 
that seeing them thus one may converse with them about their 
Saviour. Let three illustrations emphasize this truth and point 
out its implications. 

In his book Sandals at the Mosque, the Rev. Kenneth Cragg 
pleads for the Christian presence amid Islam and "for a theo- 
logy which is on the frontiers of religions in their mutual 
existence." 1 His thesis is well summed up in his own words. 

The call of the minaret to Muslim prayer becomes a call for the 
Christian to exacting tasks. If we respond to him with his own 

seriousness we shall not silence or suppress the meanings we have 
learned in Christ to the very things for which he pleads or for 
which he speaks. How shall we take the meanings of Christ into 
the summons from the mosque? For mission is grounded in 
relevance and the bearer of relevance is never the alien. 2 

Dr Charles West comes at the problem from quite a different 
angle. 

1 Sandals at the Mosque, Oxford University Press, p. an. 

8 The Call of the Minaut, Oxford University Press, ix, * 83- 185. 

40 



INTRODUCTION 

A religion [he says] remains as religious system a closed alterna- 
tive to the acceptance of God in Christ; so that the point of 
contact between the Gospel and men of other faiths is the free 
word of God lived in the Christian community. Since, however, 
the non-Christian is in the tragic situation of being confronted 
with the historical and secularizing consequences of the coming of 
Christ before he has heard about the Lord who makes life in such 
conditions hopeful and creative, it is the ministry of the Christian 
to help his non-Christian neighbour step by step to define the 
outlines of a secular culture with its human goals and limits. 1 

The missionary encounter takes place within the world of 
other faiths into which the Christian must enter and be present, 
it takes place within the secular world with its common human 
problems, it also takes place in Christ as Christian and non- 
Christian meet in Him who makes all things new. 

All new creation [writes Dr P. D. Devanandan] can only be 
from God. The fulfilment of God's design for His whole creation is 
already the active ingredient in the renewal that is taking place in 
the hearts and minds of men of all faiths as well as of no faith. This 
means that there is a new task awaiting the Christian Church. 
The time has come to reckon with men and not simply talk about 
religious systems. 2 

CONCLUSION 

Even a cursory reading of this introduction must show how 
wide is the ground to be covered in this study and how immedi- 
ate are the questions which have to be dealt with. But, as far 
as this book itself is concerned, it will be found that it does not 
deal in any detail with the many issues which have been indi- 
cated. Indeed, to do so would need a series of books, and such 
books there are. The purpose of this book is simply to outline a 
general framework of thought within which these issues can be 
seen in their relation to one another, and so help to overcome 
for Christians in general that specialization of treatment of 
these issues which leaves so many of them on the outside. 

1 From an address delivered at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey (1961). 
a From an, article issued by the Information Department of the W.G.G. 
(Aug. 14, 1961), 

41 



UPON THE EARTH 

It must be remembered that the study project of which this 
book is one result has also included the writing of Dr Blauw's 
book entitled The Missionary Nature of the Church^ to which refer- 
ence has already been made. Dr Blauw's book is the more 
important of the two. It is most suited for recalling those facts 
which must ultimately determine policy. The present book 
will serve its purpose if it helps to create in the Churches those 
convictions about the Christian faith, and to undergird for 
Christians that personal commitment to discipleship, which 
will make compelling the various challenges that are implicit 
in the missionary enterprise in our day and generation. 



Part i THE FAITH 

1. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

2. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 

WORLD 

3. THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

4. MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

5. THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 



Jesus Christ is the Deed of God. Every action of God, 
anywhere performed, is in Him and unto Him. He 
works in the power of the Holy Spirit who is God continu- 
ously active in the world. He will consummate God's 
design. 

The Holy Spirit creates and indwells the Church, setting 
it between the times as the promise and herald of the end. 
The end has begun and will be fulfilled. The end is the 
glory of God completely manifest in and through His 
whole creation. 

The modes, therefore, in which men seek satisfactions for 
their needs, and the forms in which they ask their questions 
about life's meaning., contain a double challenge. On the 
one hand, they cannot determine either the Church's 
message or ministry, but decide only what the Church 
must do to make its message heard and its ministry per- 
suasive. On the other hand, they constantly interrogate 
the Church and preserve it from secular irrelevance. 

The message itself, its delivery and its demonstration, are 
given by the Christ and sustained by the Spirit. 

Thus the way in which Christian faith is anchored in the 
Triune God is also the way in which the Christian Church 
is invested with its mission. In God's action the Church's 
mission finds its authority, and in His activity its com- 
pulsion. 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

Wherever I go, God makes my life a constant pageant 
of triumph in Christ. (2 Cor. 2: 14, Moffatt) 

PAUL can never forget that first victory of Christ in his 
life when, on the Damascus road, he was met and sub- 
dued. Christ had said to him then, "Saul, it hurts you 
to kick against the goads" (Acts 26: 14). When an ox was yoked 
to the plough, a cross-piece with little spears on it was set in 
position behind so that, should the ox refuse to obey but kick, 
it would be reminded that it was already yoked. So it was with 
Paul. At a time of which he did not know, Jesus had claimed 
him as His own, and set His yoke upon him. Grace had found 
him even when he did not know that he had been found. And 
now, his Lord was telling him, "Saul, you are mine. Why not 
bear my yoke gladly ? Why hurt yourself kicking against the 
goads?" 

When the Lord's word came to Jeremiah, it brought him too 
the same message: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew 
you, and before you were born I consecrated you ; I appointed 
you a prophet to the nations" (Jer. i: 5). Jeremiah had not 
known, but he was already God's. God had set His yoke upon 
him. 

Simon and Andrew had gone to the sea to fish, but actually 
they had gone to meet Jesus He had decided that (Mk. i : 
16-17). The woman of Samaria came to draw water but she 
found Jesus He made the appointment (John 4:7). Matthew 
went to his office only to be faced with a new claim, "Follow 
Me" (Matt. 9: 9). Jesus had arrived. 



45 



THE FAITH 



The Previousness of Jesus 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ begins with God's incursion into 
human history. He came. So also the Gospel begins for every 
man. He comes. And when He comes many, if not all, of the 
fixed points of one's life get jolted out of position. Where there 
was conviction,, there arises doubt; where there was desire, 
there is a feeling of satiety; a new restlessness creeps into one's 
life; one's needs and ambitions either become obsessive or lose 
their force; life becomes haunted by mystery. Into this situation 
the Gospel is proclaimed; those who know Jesus speak about 
Him; and their witness brings conviction to a man here or a 
woman there that what is being described, that the person 
being proclaimed, is the key to their own mystery, the source 
of the unidentified voice that for so long has been heard in their 
lives. And then happens, what happened to Saul, the act of 
surrender: "Lord, who are you?'* 

This previousness of Jesus in the lives of men and women is 
the fact of central importance in understanding how He min- 
isters to persons. He comes, He arrives at His own time, in 
His own way, by His own initiative. That man was made in the 
image of God (Gen, i ; 27) is not simply a once-for-all event It 
is the promise that God will be with each man whom He has 
made, so that each man may have the image-relation fulfilled 
in his life, so that each man may live the life of response to God. 
The "Imago Dei' 3 is God's foundation-covenant with man. 

What a joyful thing it is that God's image in man is man's 
unbreakable relationship with God, For otherwise men will be 
bound by what they themselves are, each man will be at his 
own mercy, and no one may reap except what he sows. But now, 
by God's grace it is open to men to reap what God has sown* 
The grain of wheat has fallen into the ground and died and 
borne much fruit (John 12: 24), and that fruit is for men freely 
given, lavishly bestowed, and no one is left out. * 6 So wide/* said 
Charles Wesley speaking of God's grace, "so wide it never 
passed by one, or it had passed by me." 1 

1 Charles Wesley, Methodist Hymn Book, 77, 

4 6 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

Jesus and a Man's Meeds 

When this fact of the previousness of Jesus is understood, there 
is understood also a second fact which characterizes His min- 
istry to persons, the way in which He ministers to them in their 
needs. When Jesus meets men, He meets them in their several 
situations; He comes to them as they are, and, whether He 
satisfies their immediate needs or not, they find Him satisfying. 
To have met Christ is to be able to say, "Thou, O Christ, art 
all I want, more than all in Thee I find." 1 Indeed, it is to be 
able to say even more than that. Paul could say, " Whatever 
gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I 
count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of 
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3: 7, 8). 

This does not tnean that Jesus, in His ministry to men, is not 
interested in their needs. It was He who taught us to pray, 
"Give us this day our daily bread." He who cares for the 
sparrows cares for us (Lk. 12: 6), He who clothes the grass will 
clothe us, He who decks the lilies will fill our lives with glad- 
ness. Our anxiety need not be about these things (Matt. 6: 25). 
To be ministered to by Him is to be relieved of this anxiety, it is 
to learn to tell Him our needs and then turn our minds to the 
doing of His will: and, in the doing of it, find also that our 
immediate and material needs begin to re-arrange themselves 
in our lives. Iron filings set in a magnetic field take up new 
positions. 

But what can we really expect will happen about our im- 
mediate and material needs? Are they only marginal to His 
interest in us ? By no means ! He is the God who answers prayer, 
who does for us above all that we can ask or think (Eph. 3 : 20). 
He who gave His Son, will He not with His Son give us all 
things? (Rom. 8: 32). The point is not that He will not meet 
our needs, but that, even though He cares, some of our needs 
go unmet and for so long. Why this should be so we rarely 
understand, except that we always find that it is precisely in 
that kind of situation that He makes Himself abundantly real 

1 Charles Wesley, Methodist Hymn Book, 1 10. 

47 



THE FAITH 

to us. So we repeat without qualification the binding truth 
already enunciated, that whether Jesus meets men's immedi- 
ate needs or not. He satisfies them with Himself. It cannot be 
otherwise. God must satisfy or He cannot be God. 

Job sought an answer to the problem of his suffering. He 
received no answer. But, poignant as his question was, he was 
content simply with a vision of God. u l had heard of thee," he 
says, "by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee; 
therefore I repent" (Job 42: 5-6). 

Habakkuk pleads with God for the blessing of Israel. They 
were His people and heir to His promises. But, in the last 
analysis, Habakkuk is satisfied with God alone. 

Though the fig tree do not blossom, 

nor fruit be on the vines, 
the produce of the olive fail 

and the fields yield no food, 
the flock be cut off from the fold 

and there be no herd in the stalls, 
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, 

I will joy in the God of my salvation. 
(Hab. 3 ; 17-18.) 

The psalmist is bewildered by his own suffering and sorrow 
in contrast to the prosperity of the wicked, but his bewilderment 
vanishes when he enters the sanctuary of God. Sorrow remains, 
but God remains also. "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" he 
sings, "there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee, 
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my 
heart and my portion for ever" (Ps. 73: 17, 25, 26). 

Paul is stricken with some ailment of the body. He identifies 
it as caused by Satan. He prays that it be removed. It is not, 
and he learns to be satisfied with God's grace alone (2 Cor, 
12 : 7). Paul is anxious to visit the church at Thessalonica* The 
devil, he says, has prevented this visit so far. But, his desire not 
realized, he is yet content to leave his plans in the hands of Ms 
Lord (i Thess. 2: 18). 

That is what it always adds up to when one's needs and 
desires go unfulfilled, whatever be believed as the reasons for 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

such unfulfilment. God is enough. If need be, God by Himself, 
without any of His gifts or blessings, is enough. In fact, even 
with His blessings, if He Himself is not given and received no 
want is truly met. 

Thy gifts alone cannot suffice, 

Unless Thyself be given ; 
Thy presence makes my paradise, 

And where Thou art is heaven. 1 

To be brought to this conviction, to be led into this experi- 
ence, to be secured in this state of mind : that is the primary 
ministry of Christ to persons. To have been ministered to by 
Christ is to have found Christ and to have rejoiced in Him. 

There is an incident recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 
(16: 19-34) "which not only illustrates fully the point we have 
been seeking to make but also leads us to the next point in our 
thinking. Paul and Silas have gone to Philippi. At the end of 
their day's work they find themselves in prison. The jailer has 
been charged to take special care of them, so that he puts them 
into the inner prison and fastens their feet in the stocks. In the 
middle of the night, the jailer wakes from his sleep in a panic. 
He finds the prison doors open. He concludes that the prisoners 
have escaped. What has happened he does not know. What 
explanation will he give to the magistrates in the morning ? He 
will certainly lose his job, he may even lose his life. It would be 
more honourable to commit suicide. He draws his sword. But 
Paul calls to him and says, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all 
here." The jailer rushes to Paul and asks him the question that 
is uppermost on his mind, "Sirs, what must I do to be safe?" 
to be safe in the morning when the magistrates come. Paul says 
to him, "I do not know, but I can tell you what will keep you 
safe whatever the magistrates do and whatever the morning 
brings. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be safe, you and 
your whole household, Jesus can keep your wife and children 
safe even if you should lose your job or perhaps your life itself." 
Safe, whatever happens that is salvation. But you must 
believe. 

1 Charles Wesley, Methodist Hymn Book, 560. 

tPTE 49 



THE FAITH 

Jesus and a Man's Faith 

When does the Christian life begin? When did it begin for 
any of us? It began when, in the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, 
He claimed us as His own (Rom. i : 6) ; when He set out after 
us who had wandered into the far country (Lk. 15: 4. *3); 
when He put His yoke upon us even without our knowing it 
(Matt. 1 1 : 29) ; when He loved us while we were yet in sin 
(Rom. 5:8). That is when our Christian life began. That is how 
it begins for any man. But, because it begins thus, it remains a 
source of strife and of rebellion and restlessness until men 
believe. God invades a man's life, and he must either contend or 
surrender. 

Believe, and you will be safe. There is no other way to be 
safe either with God or from God. Jesus keeps God safe for men 
when life's sorrows and perplexities would rob them of their 
sense of His presence. Jesus also keeps men safe in God's 
presence when their sins become unbearable in the light of His 
holiness and their worthlessness strikes terror into them as they 
draw nigh to Him (Heb. 12: 22-24). 

Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
Wandering from the fold of God; 

He, to rescue me from danger, 
Interposed His precious blood. 1 

When God seems far away; when our eyes, dim with tears., 
are unable to see His face; or when our souls burdened with 
sin shrink from Him; then it is that we realize what Christ is 
able to do for us. We hold to Christ and, when the crisis is past, 
realize that in holding to Him we were all the time holding to 
God. In sober truth Jesus is Emmanuel God with us (Matt. 
1:23). 

But how is this experience brought about ? How do men come 
to belief? The straightest way of answering this question is to 
ask, how did it happen at all that there arose a religion called 
Christianity? Jesus had lived and died, but so had many 

1 Robert Robinson, Methodist Hymn Book, 417* 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

prophets before Him, and they were all part of the tradition of 
the Jewish faith. A new religion came to be centred around 
Jesus only because He not merely lived and died but also rose 
again from the dead. The apostles preached the Resurrection 
(Acts i : 22). That was the distinguishing mark of all that they 
said. So that it is obvious that if the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
is not the central truth in a man's religion, that religion is not 
Christianity. 

Some years ago, I was conducting a series of evangelistic 
meetings at Point Pedro, a small town in Ceylon. The chairman 
of the meeting, on the first night, was a Hindu friend of mine 
who had studied in the same school as I. I made the point that 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the differentiating truth of the 
Christian message. When I had finished the chairman said: 
"I too studied in the same school as Niles, but in my scripture 
class I never learnt that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was all 
that important. He may have risen from the dead, but the 
important thing for us is what He taught." Was the chairman 
of that meeting right? Or, were the early disciples right in 
insisting that Christian discipleship began when a person 
believed not simply that Jesus was risen from the dead, but 
believed in the risen Jesus. To believe is to belong, and one 
cannot belong to a dead person. To belong is to be accepted, 
and the heart of the Christian faith is the affirmation that 
Christian discipleship begins with this transaction. 

To believe is simply to meet the risen Christ and acknowledge 
Him as Lord : and, because He is risen, He can be met. When 
He was in the flesh, He was bound by space, time and mortality. 
Now that He is risen, He is free from these limitations. It is the 
resurrection that crowns the incarnation and fulfills the prom- 
ise of Emmanuel God with us. 

Have you met Him ? If you have, then you know how you 
came to recognize and accept His hand upon your shoulder, 
His yoke upon your neck, His goad behind your feet, His call 
within your heart. You know yourself as His possession and 
Him as possessor. Any other form of the Christian religion is to 
treat Jesus and His teachings as man's possession. To do this is 

5* 



THE FAITH 

to think of Jesus simply as helping men in their religious life, as 
providing for men means whereby they can attain to God or, at 
the lowest level, as securing for them God's blessings in and for 
this material life. To be possessed by Christ, on the other hand, 
is to find oneself delivered from religious preoccupations and 
involved in the secular life, because that is the life in which He, 
the risen Lord, is involved. He must reign (i Cor. 15: 25) until 
all enemies are subdued and those who are His must be agents 
of His rule. Obedience constitutes the direction of Christian 
striving. As for the beatific vision, He will give it as His final 
gift. Now we are the children of God, bound by His purposes, 
engaged in His work: at the end we shall see Him and be like 
Him (i John 3:2). 

A few days before I wrote this chapter, I attended a seminar 
on Hindu practices conducted by a Hindu. We were a group of 
Hindus and Christians at the seminar, "Man must realize 
God/ 5 the leader said, and proceeded to show how all religions 
provided helps towards this realization. "Different persons/' he 
said, "according to their spiritual attainments and mental 
aptitudes, find different things helpful Christianity is simply 
one religion among many to those engaged in the religious 
search." But,, is the religious search what Christianity is 
about ? 

Jesus and a Man's Obedience 

To put it crudely, the heart of Christianity is not concern for 
the soul but concern for the world; not forms of life in the world, 
whether in terms of religious practice or moral behaviour or 
responsible citizenship, in order to attain to God; but a way of 
life in the world consequent on being possessed by Him* The 
end-event of the Christian life is not simply salvation of the 
person but a new heaven and a new earth (Rev, 21 : i), each 
person's salvation being his share in this new creation (Rom. 
8: s>o). Into this sharing Christ invites those who believe in 
Him. That was why He laid hands on them. That was why He 
led them to faith. To be the people of God is to be His people 

5* 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

in the world and for It, until that world is fully obedient to its 
Lord. "We have received grace and apostleship," said Paul, 
"to bring about obedience ... among all the nations" (Rom. 
1:5). The great commission as recorded in Matthew's Gospel 
is rooted in Christ's authority in heaven and on earth; and its 
intent is to disciple the nations, teaching them to observe His 
commands (Matt, 28: 18-19). 

My life is a pageant of His triumph, He invaded my life, He 
made me surrender it, and now I find myself committed to His 
obedience. This obedience too is a pageant of His triumph, for 
not only has it no substance apart from the establishment and 
extension of His rule in the world, but its very possibility is the 
consequence of His constant victory in my life victory over 
my sin and faithlessness, over my doubt and blindness, over 
my sloth and waywardness. The triumph is His, therefore the 
obedience is mine. 

What happens when we meet the risen Jesus that it results in 
such a life of obedience ? What is the effect of His ministry to 
us as persons when we meet Him ? He Himself has given us the 
answer. "I am come," He said, "not to be ministered unto but 
to minister and to give my life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10: 
45). Behind that word "ransom" is the whole content of the 
Jewish sacrificial system. On the day of Atonement, the goat 
that was led out into the wilderness (Lev. 16: 2 if.) was the 
one that had been made SIN on behalf of the people. Jesus 
was made SIN on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). When God became 
man, it was not accomplished in one event. 

He did not abhor the virgin's womb, 

He became human flesh, 

He was baptized with the baptism of sinners. 

He was friend of all men. 

He was numbered with the transgressors. 

He was forsaken on the cross. 

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani 

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? 

God has arrived, at last at the place of sinful man. 

53 



THE FAITH 



The Incarnation was complete. Henceforth, men could partake 
in this life lived for them and, partaking in it, find freedom from 
their sin. The vine had been planted in the earth and the 
branches could abide in the vine (John 15: 5). The Lamb of 
God was slain and His blood would cleanse from all sin (i John 

i:?)- 
Jesus was not only the offering that, on the day of Atone- 

ment, carried the sins of the people; He was also the sacrifice 
sealing the covenant, and sacramentally effecting the mingling 
of the life of man with the life of God. (Blood was the symbol of 
life to the Jew, so that when he offered blood he was offering 
life and not death.) "This cup," said Jesus, "which is poured 
out for you is the new covenant in my blood/' "This bread is 
my body broken for you" (LL 22: 19-20). 

The risen Christ whom men meet is the crucified Christ. 
When they come to Him, He ministers to them with His cruci- 
fixion, "It is necessary/ 9 He said, "for the Son of man to be 
crucified" (ML 8: 31). It was necessary for man. There is now 
for man a place to which he can go to meet God by God's 
appointment, a place where every disguise is left behind, 
(Matt 20: lyf.) and man can come to God as man truly is. "On 
the cross," said Paul writing to the Golossians, "Jesus stripped 
every principality and power of its disguise and so triumphed 
over them" (Col. 2: 15). Similarly does Christ triumph over us 
when we come to Him. In His presence we stand naked. Our 
respectability is filthy rags, the ways in which we have rational- 
ized our sins are arrant hypocrisy, our goodness is dross and not 
gold ; but in our nakedness we are accepted. We learn to say, 
not simply, "Forgive me my sins" ; but "God, be merciful to 
me a sinner" (Lk. 18: 13); and, even as we pray, we find our- 
selves pardoned and received; and, as the sign and seal of our 
pardon, engaged in His service, 

Repent and believe; that is the demand. To believe is to meet 
the risen and crucified Christ, and by that meeting to belong to 
Him. To repent is to have one's mind set at cross-purposes with 
one's sinfulness. The full import of the demand for repentance 
is often missed because the word "sin" has lost in common 

54 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

speech its reference to God. In my language Tamil the 
word that is used for sin means anything that reduces a man to 
a pitiable position. In the Bible, sin is what brings God to a 
pitiable position. It affronts His honour, rejects His love, 
spurns His gifts and, at the end, crucifies His Son. To repent is 
to change direction. It is not simply a question of confessing 
one's sins to God when sins have been committed, but so to be 
anxious about God that one dare not hurt Him. Love for Him 
falls athwart one's desire to sin and saves one from sinning. 

Jesus and a Marts Freedom 

There is, however, one more term in the demand. Repent, 
believe and be baptized (Acts 2 : 38) . Baptism is into the name 
of Jesus, and that means the whole community who bear and 
witness to His name. Christ's ministry to persons includes the 
way in which He takes them and makes them responsible 
members of a community where respect for each man's person- 
ality is a rule without exception, and where the autonomy of 
every person is denied without qualification. In surrendering 
myself to Him, I find myself unable to maintain a dignity and 
freedom that is my own. Only in Him am I able to be free, only 
in Him am I able to maintain my position as a person. When 
I reflect upon this situation I find one consequence of it which 
revolutionizes my whole being. I find that the natural societies 
to which I belong cease to have any absolute authority over 
me. Nation, state, race, tribe, family I can say of them all, 
"I now know no man after the flesh" (2 Cor. 5: 16). How true 
the claim of Jesus is: "If the Son makes you free, you will be 
free indeed" (John 8: 36) but only with the freedom of one 
who is baptized, of one who bears the mark of Jesus (Gal. 6: 
17), of one whose life is the life of a whole people, of one whose 
tasks are the tasks of the King! 

Let me explain what it means to be set free by Jesus by using, 
as an illustration, the practice of astrology in my own country, 
although to many this may be of only exotic interest. It is 
common practice in Ceylon to have the horoscope cast of 

55 



THE FAITH 

children when they are born. People also go to the astrologer, 
from time to time, to ask him what the future holds for them. 
About two or three years ago, a professor of Law in one of the 
Western universities came to my town in Ceylon to consult an 
astrologer. He had been recommended to this astrologer by a 
lawyer friend of his from Ceylon. The astrologer looked at his 
palm, was given his date of birth, and he went into his study to 
make some calculations. Then he came out holding in his hand 
an old manuscript selected from the bundle of manuscripts that 
formed his library. He read from this manuscript. It said that 
his consultant was a lawyer, a professor in a university, and so 
on and so forth. You have no brothers or sisters, the astrologer 
read, since your mother fell seriously ill at your -birth and could 
not have any more children* It was all there,, all the major 
details of his life. "And, will I become head of the faculty of Law 
in my university?" he asked; to which the astrologer replied, 
"According to what is written here, not for another six years, 1 ' 
That six years is not yet over, but those who know the cir- 
cumstances say that it looks as if this prediction will come 
true, 

My purpose in giving this story is not to discuss astrology. It 
is to share the conviction that the bondage to which we are 
born is more far-reaching than we imagine. A causal universe 
must also be in large measure a pre-determined one. So that, 
in speaking of the freedom with which Christ sets men Free, we 
are speaking of something that concerns the very core of man's 
being, the very substance of his life. The proclamation of the 
Gospel is that in this causal universe God is directly present, 
and that, in the last analysis, man's life, however conditioned, 
is open to God's immediate control. A causal universe can also 
be an open one. It is neither arbitrary nor mechanical, it is 
responsive to the purposeful activity of God, and also of men. 
Such is our world. Angels go up and down the ladder set 
between it and God (Gen. 28: 12). God Himself came clown 
that ladder to be man among men. Prayer guards this open 
door between heaven and earth (Rev. 4: i). It holds the 
promise that men may be free. Man has to choose between the 

56 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

bondage of his humanity and the freedom of his sonship, and 
that is the ultimate choice. So to choose and so to be chosen is 
the sign of Christ triumphant. 

Jesus and a Man's Holiness 

In the text with which we began, Paul uses the word "p a g~ 
eant". Here is a word that puts emphasis on two facts. There is 
the fact of that which is done ; there is also the fact that what is 
done, is done to be seen. A pageant is no pageant without an 
audience. In another place, Paul expresses a similar idea. He 
speaks of the apostles as having become "a spectacle to the 
world" (i Cor. 4:9). This conception of the Christian life as a 
spectacle to be watched, as a pageant to be seen, is integral to 
the truth that the Christian life is the life of Christ as it is lived 
in His disciples. It is part of His ministry that they, to whom He 
ministers, become evidence to others that He is Lord (2 Cor. 3 : 
3). To keep this evidence clear, to make it persuasive and com- 
pelling that is the Christian concern for the holy life. It is an 
essential part of Christ's ministry to us that He wakens this 
concern in us, preparing for us "good works" (Eph. 2: 10) that 
we may walk in them. 

Christ ministers to men by making Himself their minister. 
He comes to them where they are and meets them in their need. 
They meet Him who is risen from the dead and in that meeting 
are conquered by Him. They meet Him who was crucified for 
them and claim in Him their ransom. They find faith and 
repentance in His name, and into His name are baptized, 
becoming members of His Church. Here their lives are in- 
vested with a purpose and claimed for His obedience. It is an 
obedience to be manifested by the holy life which it will beget, 
and by which in turn it will be begotten. 

It is no accident that the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews 
(12: 1-13) makes the Christian's call to holiness a part of his 
call to run the race of faith. "Surrounded as we are," he says, 
u by those who have run this race before us, let us rim our lap 
of the race freeing ourselves from those obstacles which prevent 

57 



THE FAITH 

us from running, and stripping ourselves of those sins which 
make us stumble." But how do we do this? "God Himself will 
do it for you/ 5 he says, "because God will discipline you with 
His chastening and teach you holiness." "Don't lose heart/ 5 he 
admonishes, "if this chastening is unpleasant at the time, for 
when it is over you will see that it has produced in you the 
fruit of real goodness. Therefore, take a fresh grip on life and 
brace your trembling limbs. Don 5 t wander away from the path 
but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot 
recovers strength and does not collapse. 5 ' 

This positive purpose and content of holiness, however, has 
been unfortunately forgotten in a great deal of modern discus- 
sion about it. It has become associated in the minds of many 
with a whole series of negatives. "The modern puritan, 55 said 
G. K. Chesterton, "has the vandalism of his forebears without 
their passion." But, worse than this, holy living means to many 
people simply a mode of life in which the secular is guarded 
within strict limits by the sacred. I shall never forget, sitting in 
one of the commissions of the General Committee of the World 
Student Christian Federation held at Tutzing, in which com- 
mission "the call to holy living" was being discussed, when a 
Japanese girl exclaimed in dismay: "Please, I don't want to 
be holy." 

Part of the problem here is not only that holiness seems to 
consist of too many negatives, but also that its positives are 
often claimed to have general application. Irrespective of the 
spiritual and moral needs of the person concerned, or of the 
circumstances in which he has to bear his witness, the same 
prescription for the holy life is offered. For much of this pre- 
scription the reason adduced is the injunction of Paul that the 
weaker brother should not be made to stumble. Why not teach 
the weaker brother not to stumble where he need not and 
should not! (i Cor. 8: 13.) The disciplines of holy living must 
be relevant to each case, and serve the particular need of a 
particular person or a particular situation. 

I cannot resist the temptation to use here a story that I heard 
only recently. The story may be well known, but let me use it 

58 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

because it is so apt, A man was visiting a friend. That evening, 
when the friend returned from his office, his visiting friend saw 
him greet his wife with a kiss and say to her, "It has been a 
lovely day, darling." After dinner he kissed his wife again and 
said, "It has been a wonderful meal, dear." In the morning, as 
both friends left together for the city, the wife was kissed again: 
"Goodbye". On the way to the city the visitor said to his 
friend, "Do you do this kissing always?" The answer was "Yes 
I have done it all these twenty years that we have been 
married and it is the secret of our happiness." That evening, 
the man who had gone to visit his friend came to a decision : he 
would do the same. And so, when he got home from his office, 
he took his wife into his arms and kissed her. The wife broke 
down in wild sobbing. "What is the matter, dear?" he asked: 
to which she replied, "Everything has gone wrong to-day. Our 
son has got the measles, our servant has run away, the milk is 
spilt and the meat is burnt, and now you come home drunk." 

No the same prescription will not do. Indeed, holy living 
cannot be prescribed for at all. It is neither a moral endeavour 
nor a religious discipline. And, still less is it that form of piety 
of which the late Rev. W. R. Maltby, President of the British 
Methodist Conference, remarked that it was as if one "oozed 
synthetic unction". Holy living is simply the natural conco- 
mitant of a witnessing life. 

In the very passage from which our opening text is taken, 
Paul gives his explanation of what it is. "We Christians have the 
unmistakable scent of Christ," he says, "discernible alike to 
those who are being saved and to those who are heading for 
death. To the latter it seems like the very smell of doom, to the 
former it has the fresh fragrance of life itself" 1 (2 Cor. 2 : 15-16). 

Certainly, there is a discipline the discipline of the soldier 
who will not partake in civilian pursuits (2 Tim. 2:4), the 
discipline of the athlete who keeps his body under control 
(i Cor. 9: 25), the discipline of the man who is in such earnest 
that he is prepared to pluck out his eye or cut off his hand 

1 J, B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, Geoffrey Bles, London; 
The Macmillan Company, New York. 

59 



THE FAITH 

rather than with eye and hand be cast into hell (Matt. 18: 

8-9)- 

This pageant of the holy life the world must see. This fra- 
grance of the divine country the world must smell. We may not 
claim that Christ is having His way with us until we become 
part of that pageant, until we waft to those who associate with 
us the scent of that land where we habitually ought to dwell. 

Conclusion 

Let me close this chapter with a story. In a village called 
Kiran in a remote part of the eastern province of Ceylon, a 
man was stabbed to death some two years ago. He left behind a 
widow and four little children. The result of sorrow and shock 
was that the two youngest ones fell quite seriously ill. The 
mother was distraught. At about that time, the Ashram in 
Jaffna extended its work to Kiran and built there a Christian 
temple. A worker took up his residence there. This mother, a 
Hindu, began visiting the Christian temple. She would bring 
her two little children with her. She wept before God. She 
sought His aid. The children slowly recovered, and the mother 
came to the Ashram Sevak and asked for baptism. The Sevak 
put her off saying, "Wait for some time more/ 3 After a few 
months, she insisted on being baptized, and her two younger 
children. The older two had by that time begun to attend a 
Hindu school and were in its hostel. The mother and her two 
children were baptized. Soon, the older children were in 
trouble, for they refused to apply holy ash to their foreheads as 
was the custom in their school. They were under instruction 
from their mother not to do so. The headmaster of the school 
sent for the mother. "Have you become a Christian?" he asked. 
She said "Yes". "Why did you do that?" To which she replied, 
"Jesus met me in my need. He healed my children." "And, how 
much money did the Christians give you to change your 
faith?" "Nothing," she said. "They too are poor at the Ash- 
ram. I earn a little, selling home-made food, and with what 
little I earn I support myself and my children and also, from 

60 



THE MINISTRY OF JESUS TO PERSONS 

time to time, give some money to the Ashram." The head- 
master excused the two boys from wearing holy ash. Now, on 
every Friday, there is a large group from the village who come 
to the Ashram temple for prayer. This woman brings them. 
They are all Hindus, but her faith has been infectious and her 
witness persuasive. 

A Christian temple is built in a remote village. It becomes 
the method of the previousness of Christ in a woman's life. 
Sorrow and need bring her to her meeting with Jesus. His hand 
upon her life gives it a new direction and purpose. By His 
mercy she is ministered to by Hindu and Christian. She is set 
free from the bondage of her circumstance and made glad by 
her passion to bring others to Him. She takes her place among 
those who bear the name of Jesus, and finds her satisfaction in 
ministering to the saints. The aroma of her life is known in her 
village. 

If you are then risen with Christ, reach out for the highest gifts 
of heaven, where your Master reigns in power. Give your heart to 
the heavenly things, not to the passing things of earth. For, as far 
as this world is concerned, you are already dead, and your true 
life is a hidden one in Christ. One day, Christ, the secret centre of 
our lives, will show himself openly, and you will all share in that 
magnificent d6nouement. (Col, 3: 1-4; J. B. Phillips.) 



61 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE 
WORLD 

"Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" 
And they said, "No" (Acts 19: 2). 

COME" "Come and see": that was the Lord's first 
invitation to His disciples (John i : 39). "Go**- "Go and 
preach": that was His last command to them (Mark 
15: 1 6). This reversal of direction is a constitutive part of the 
Christian life. 

The story, which the gospels tell, begins with Bethlehem when 
God in Jesus came to dwell with men* But that story comes to 
a definite end where the gospel writer says, "He parted from 
them" (Luke 24: 51). He himself had said to them a lew hours 
before His death, "It is to your advantage that I go away, for 
if I do not go away the Counsellor will not come to you; but if 
I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7), Mary of Magdala, 
when she met her risen Lord, clung to His feet. He said to her, 
"Mary, do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the 
Father" (John 20: 17). Of course, the story continues; but with 
the coming of the Holy Spirit, it moves out of the villages of 
Galilee and towns of Judaea into the highways of life. It is with 
this movement that we are concerned in this chapter. 

When Paul came to Ephesus, he found some disciples there, 
They had been baptized into the baptism of John, but they had 
not even heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them again 
into the name of the Lord Jesus, "and when he had laid hands 
upon them, they received the Holy Spirit and spoke with 
tongues and prophesied*' (Acts 19: 1-6)* 

Peter and John came to Samaria. There were some disciples 
there who had already been baptized into the name of the Lord 
Jesus. But they had not received the Holy Spirit. Peter and 

62 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

John laid their hands upon them and prayed for them that they 
might receive the Holy Spirit, and they received Him. (Acts 
8 : 15). 

Nicodemus came to Jesus to talk with Him about the signs 
He did (John 3 : if.), and the way in which God was with 
Him. Jesus said to Nicodernus, "You cannot see the signs of the 
Kingdom, you cannot see them as signs, unless you are born 
anew. This birth is by water and the Spirit. John baptizes with 
water, I baptize with the Spirit," 

Jesus said to His disciples (Acts i : 4, 8), "Depart not from 
Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father. Before many 
days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And when the 
Spirit has come upon you, you shall be my witnesses in 
Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the end of 
the earth." 

The Experience of the Spirit 

What do these incidents add up to? Is it not clear that they 
show the absolute importance of the coming of the Holy Spirit 
into the lives of Christ's disciples, and that it is by the Spirit 
alone that men see and understand the signs of the Kingdom 
of God in the life and ministry of Jesus, as well as find power 
and authority to proclaim these signs to the world ? On the day 
of Pentecost, the disciples spoke with tongues (Acts 2:3). The 
Gospel became a Gospel for all the nations. Whenever the Holy 
Spirit comes into the life of a person now, nothing less takes place. 
He is swept into that movement which would take the Gospel to 
the uttermost parts of the earth. It is said that, when the apostles 
laid their hands on those who believed, with prayer for the Holy 
Spirit, the Spirit came: so He comes even now when the mission 
of the Church claims a person, lays its hand upon him, and he 
surrenders to that claim. 

The Christian faith is more than a Jesus religion. It is con- 
cerned with the consequence to men of who Jesus is. 

Jesus is ascended on high. He sits at the right hand of the 
Father. His Kingdom is exercised upon earth. He must rule 
till all God's enemies are subdued. 

63 



THE FAITH 

Jesus is risen from the dead. He is alive on earth. He is 
constantly seeking the lost, upholding the faint-hearted, 
strengthening the weak, spreading His love abroad in the 
hearts and lives of men. 

The Holy Spirit is come to lead those who believe to 
participation in power in this on-going ministry of Christ. 
He is come also to prepare believing response to Christ 
among those who have not as yet accepted Him. 

It is said that, when God made the heavens and the earth, 
the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters 
(Gen. 1:2). Because of that movement of the Spiri^ chaos 
responded to the creating Word of God. When the angel 
brought his announcement to Mary (Lk. i : 35), it is said that 
the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Most High 
overshadowed her. That was how Mary brought forth Jesus. 

That is how it always is. It is the Spirit in our hearts that 
teaches us to say "Abba! Father!" (Rom. 8: 15.) It is when the 
Holy Spirit comes that we even learn to pray as we ought 
(Rom. 8: 26). "Grieve not the Holy Spirit' 9 (Eph. 4; 30) is 
Paul's warning. The Holy Spirit has come. He is preparing a 
response to the Gospel, here, there and everywhere; and He is 
seeking to lead the Church in its mission into those places and 
to those persons whom He has so prepared. The Holy Spirit 
guided the first Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15: 6f.) to fashion a 
policy that would meet the kind of preparation among the 
Gentiles which He had already effected. The Holy Spirit would 
not allow Paul and Silas to go to Bithynia (Acts 16: 6, 7) but 
took them instead to Troas where Paul received the call to take 
the Gospel to Europe, Paul went, on his last visit to Jerusalem, 
bound in the Spirit, not knowing what should befall him there 
(Acts 20: 22). What happened to him there took him ultimately 
to Rome, the centre of the empire. 

The fact is that the possibility of Christian obedience is 
bound up with the experience of the Holy Spirit. He directs the 
campaign in which the Christian is a participant, so that with- 
out Him the Christian life simply becomes a religious exercise. 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

The issue is never only, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?"; 
it is also, "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" 

To avoid serious misunderstanding let it be insisted that the 
way in which the distinction is here made between Jesus Christ 
and the Holy Spirit should not lead anyone to theorize about 
distinctions within the Godhead, as if man can understand or 
explain what the life of God is like. The distinction is drawn 
only because it is an important distinction when we are con- 
sidering God's work of salvation. When God dealt with human 
history that was how He dealt with it, so that it becomes 
determinative for us and our obedience. However, it affords no 
basis on which altars can be set up to three gods. There is only 
one God about whom, when men approach Him, they find that 
their obedience has three decisive moments in it. I accept Jesus 
Christ. I receive the Holy Spirit. I am a son of the Father. But, 
when Jesus Christ is accepted, we find that He and the Father 
are one (John 10: 30). When the Spirit is received, we know 
that the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3: 17). When we seek to live 
as children of the Father, we see that it is only Jesus who is able 
to establish us in this relation (John 14: 6), and that it is only 
the Spirit who is able to maintain us therein (Rom, 8: 27). 
There is one God in three persons, not an identity of the three 
but a unity of them, a unity which reflects itself in the Christian 
experience. 

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it wills, 
and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know whence it 
comes or whither it goes ; so it is with everyone who is born of 
the Spirit" (John 3:8). An electric fan can circulate the warm 
air in a room. Many church activities and even some evange- 
listic missions achieve little more. It is a different matter when 
one is able to go out where the breezes blow and feel the breeze 
on one's face. To receive the Holy Spirit, one must stand where 
the Spirit blows. There, where God is so obviously at work, is 
the place to be caught by the Spirit of God. To come into close 
association with a person alive in the Spirit is to come where one 
may catch contagion. The symbol of the Spirit is not only wind 
but fire. Some men are so aflame with the Spirit that to draw 

UTE 65 E 



THE FAITH 

near to them is to be where the sparks fall. A Christian congre- 
gation is a failure if, in its midst, the Spirit does not break out 
into flame and fire; if, there, those who do not have the 
Spirit do not receive Him. Jesus said, "If you, who are evil, 
know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more 
will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask 
him? 3 * (Lk. n : 13). To any other prayer God's answer may be 
"No"; but, to the prayer for the Holy Spirit, God's answer is 
always "Yes". 

When our Lord said to His disciples, "Wait for the Spirit", 
this, then, was what He asked them to wait for. They needed 
the Holy Spirit in order that in their own lives they may be 
filled with the presence of Jesus Christ. They needed the Holy 
Spirit in order that they may be led to follow their Master in 
His continuing ministry in the world. And they needed the 
Holy Spirit so that each may find the locus of his own obedi- 
ence. "When the Spirit comes," said Jesus (John 14: 26), "He 
will bring to your remembrance the things I have taught, He 
will take what is Mine and declare it to you, He will make 
Me glorious in you" (John 16: 14). 

The Launching of the Mission 

But when our Lord said, "Wait for the Spirit", He meant 
also, "Wait until the mission of God is launched in the world". 
In their different ways, Christmas and Pentecost both celebrate 
the coming of God to become part of human history; to be 
involved in it. The coming of God in Jesus Christ determined 
what man's history shall be. The coming of God in the Holy 
Spirit regulates the tides of this history. 

I was discussing this point with a friend of mine when I was 
preparing this chapter. He was a person greatly influenced in 
his thinking by the writing of the mystics of all religions. He said 
to me, "It is generally thought that the postulate of a personal 
God is a concession to the religious instinct. In your thinking 
you seem to make God even time-bound." My answer was 
"Yes: but probably not in the sense in which you mean it, God 

66 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

is time-bound until time itself will be redeemed and set free. 
He entered into time, and that entrance is the basis of our hope 
in cosmic redemption." "But the incarnation," my friend 
countered, "was only for the purpose of revealing God," I said, 
"No. By the incarnation certainly, God is revealed, but the 
incarnation is not just a revelation. It is what it means the 
entrance of God into human life in order to be part of it. The 
Avatars of Hinduism are not incarnations in this sense. They 
are revelations. They are interventions in human affairs and in 
human lives. Jesus is God incarnate. That is why the Christian 
faith announces not only an incarnation but a resurrection a 
continuous participation of God incarnate in the movement of 
human history. That is also why the Christian faith announces 
an end-event when this action of God entering into time will 
have reached fulfilment, and time itself is no more because 
death is swallowed up in victory" (i Cor. 15: 54). "All this is 
dogma," my friend said. "What is the experiential proof?" 
"The experiential proof," I replied, "lies in receiving the Holy 
Spirit. God's entrance into history is a double entrance. He 
becomes part of it in Jesus Christ. He makes this part embrace 
the whole through the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the content 
of the Gospel the good news of what God has done. The Holy 
Spirit is the missionary of the Gospel. It is He who makes the 
Gospel explosive in men's lives and in human affairs." 

"Until Jesus was glorified," says John (7: 39), "the mission 
of the Holy Spirit could not be launched." But when Jesus was 
glorified, the Spirit came. He came to lead men to see the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4: 6). Acceptance of 
the Christian witness must be prepared for by the Holy Spirit 
in the lives of men. Apart from that preparation, they will 
neither understand nor believe. Ask any convert and he will tell 
you that he is unable to explain how he came to believe. 
C. S. Lewis gives to the story of his conversion the title Surprised 
by Joy. It is always a surprise when one suddenly sees life 
according to a new pattern, when, within the soul, one's know- 
ledge of Jesus catches fire and becomes a living awareness, 
when the will accepts the mastery of Christ and is satisfied. 

67 



THE FAITH 

What of Unbelief? 

But what of unbelief? No consideration of the work of the 
Holy Spirit can avoid this question. In the teaching of Jesus 
there are two emphases which determine the perspective in 
which this question must be viewed. He spoke of those who 
were known as believers but whom the Lord would not 
acknowledge (Matt, 7: 23). He also spoke of those who were 
known as having said "No", but who turned out to be those 
who had done "Yes" (Matt. 21: 28-30). The elder son who 
stayed with his father finally stayed outside the home,, while the 
younger son who left his father finally found his place within the 
home (Lk. 15: 11-32). "The men of Nineveh will arise at the 
judgment with this generation and condemn it" (Lk. 11 : 32). 
"Many that are first will be last, and the last first" (ML 10:31). 

The second emphasis in the teaching of Jesus on this question 
is that on the Holy Spirit as the author of true discipleship. The 
scribes and the Pharisees persistently rejected Jesus and 
opposed His work, but His judgment upon them is pronounced 
precisely at the point where they attributed His work to the 
devil (Matt. 12: 24; Mk. 3: 30). "A word against the Son of 
Man," He says, "will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against 
the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven" (Matt 12: 32). Unbelief 
is a refusal to say "Yes" to Jesus Christ, but such refusal may 
be based on a rejection of Jesus Christ because of who He is* It 
is this rejection which is the sin against the Holy Spirit, for by 
the Holy Spirit Jesus has been made known and yet rejected* 

Any reflection, then, on unbelief as one meets it in the course 
of one's Christian ministry of witness must be a reflection in the 
shadow of the last judgment which will be an event of many 
surprises. It will also be a reflection on the work of the Holy 
Spirit as He witnesses to Jesus Christ and draws men to Him, 
In His last discourse in the upper room, Jesus speaks of the 
work of the Holy Spirit as that of convincing the world of sin 
because they do not believe in Him, of righteousness because of 
His death, and of judgment because by His triumph the ruler 
of this world is judged (John 16: 8-n). Here becomes evident 

68 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

the inextricable link between the person and work of the Holy 
Spirit and the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Holy 
Spirit works as it were by applying Jesus Christ to the souls and 
consciences of men. Who can say where and in whom this work 
is being performed ? 

How does He work? He works through the ministry of the 
Church, which ministry He surrounds with His previousness 
and impregnates with His presence. 

The life and mission of the Church is the result of the coming 
of the Holy Spirit into the world. Because of Him, the Church is 
engaged in the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. By the Holy 
Spirit alone is the announcement born that Jesus Christ has 
come in the flesh (i John 4:2). He thrusts the Church out to 
make this proclamation. He empowers the Church to make it 
under all circumstances. He effects in the Church a demonstra- 
tion of it, He gives to men the gifts of repentance and faith by 
which they accept the Lord who is proclaimed and confess 
Him. 

But here precisely is the problem that not all who hear 
demonstrably believe, so that the question is raised: What of 
unbelief? An answer, to be true to the New Testament, must 
say two things, the one said under the shadow of the last judg- 
ment and the other said in the light of the warning about sin 
against the Holy Spirit, 

Can we put into words what needs to be said in the shadow of 
the last judgment? At least one instance can be given, that 
which it is necessary to say when the question of belief and 
unbelief is discussed with respect to the uniqueness and par- 
ticularity of the Christian Gospel and its relation to other 
faiths. This discussion always runs into difficulty precisely 
because the relationship being discussed is never a static one. 
The Holy Spirit is at work. He is eliciting response in the hearts 
and minds of men to the working of God upon their lives. Their 
lives are lived within their faiths, sometimes as those who 
accept them and sometimes as those who do not. Into this 
situation, the Holy Spirit brings the witness of the Church to 
the Lordship and Saviourhood of Christ. This witness evokes 

69 



THE FAITH 



the response of faith. It sometimes meets with rejection. It often- 
times results in raising questions in the minds of the hearers and 
leaving those questions there. The Holy Spirit takes all these 
ways in which people respond to the Gospel, and uses them in 
His own ministry of leading them to confess Jesus as Lord ; or 
even where that confession is absent, of making Christ's Lord- 
ship a felt pressure upon their lives. The whole business is too 
complex for neat answers. We cannot meet a dynamic situation 
with rigid orthodoxies; we can only recognize it through lives 
of sensitive obedience. It cannot be otherwise since the mission 
of the Church is a mission within the mission of the Holy 
Spirit. 

But just because this is so, the other word is of equal impor- 
tance; that it is the Gospel proclaimed which causes the double 
movement of faith and unbelief. Mark sets forward the story 
of Jesus in this very form, a story culminating in the Cross. In 
John this double movement centres in the figure of Judas. u So, 
after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was 
night" (John 13: 30). In the light of the Gospel, unbelief is the 
terrible tragedy of sin. 

Is there, then, nothing more to say? There is, because the 
world's hatred, which the Gospel precipitates, itself creates the 
suffering Church which is for the world's redemption ; and the 
corning of the Holy Spirit will bring to bear His own witness to 
Christ on the Church's witness to Him (John 15: 18-27). Also 
there is more to say because the world's hatred is not a surprise 
to God (John 15 : 19) ; it was known in His great wisdom always. 

The classic discussion in the New Testament of the problem 
;>f unbelief is that by Paul in his letter to the Romans concerning 
Jhe unbelief of Israel (Rom, 9: 11). At the very outset of his 
argument Paul moves away from the unbeliever as his starting 
Doint Not all Israel were faithless, there were those who 
Delieved (Rom. 9: 27). Besides, this faith was possible to all 
Because all heard the good tidings (Rom. 10: 18). Why, then, 
lid they not believe? The answer has to be in terms of the 
ictual consequences which their unbelief produced. Because of 
;he unbelief of Israel the Gospel went to the Gentiles and, by 

70 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

their acceptance of it, became manifest as God's offer of free 
salvation to all men (Rom. 11: 32). So it became clear that 
Israel's unbelief itself was held within the wisdom and design 
of God (Rom. 9: 18), while the promise implicit in the faith of 
those in Israel who believed has also been fulfilled (Rom. 1 1 : 

33)- 

The inner significance of this argument of Paul becomes 
luminous when we read what he has to say in the previous 
chapter. "The hope is/ 5 he writes (Rom. 8: 21, 14, n, 19), 
"that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from 
the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that 
magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of 
God. They are God's sons who follow the leading of God's 
Spirit. Within them lives the Spirit that raised Jesus from the 
dead, bringing to their whole being new strength and vitality. 
The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the 
sons of God coming into their own." A direct connection is here 
made between the liberty of the sons of God those who are in 
Christ and the liberation of the whole cosmos. Faith and Hope 
jump from the redeemed community to the redemption of all 
things, a jump which is possible only because the in-between 
situation of belief and unbelief is comprehended within the 
mystery of God's plan of salvation. 

The Holy Spirit is the agent of the New Creation, the new 
heavens and the new earth, which He creates in Christ. And, 
because this is so, the Church comes to see its own meaning as 
the community of the Holy Spirit, becomes aware of the 
encompassing ministry of the Holy Spirit by which its own 
ministry is sustained, and understands the task of its own up- 
building in relation to the great work of salvation. 

In speaking about salvation, the thrust of the Christian hope 
is to include "all": it is in speaking about the Church that the 
selective principle applies. A direct consequence of the Church's 
mission, when men find faith in Christ, is that the mission itself 
is strengthened. The mission is intended to produce mission- 
aries, the evangel must produce evangelists. Bishop Azariah 
introduced the practice in his diocese of people confirmed 

71 



THE FAITH 

placing their hands on their heads and saying, "Woe to me if I 
do not preach the Gospel" (i Cor. 9: 16). That is what the con- 
firmation service is about: prayer for the Holy Spirit that one 
may live the witnessing life. But it is just here that the selective 
principle applies (John 15: 2). The army of Gideon had to be 
reduced, the vine needs to be pruned, the confessed and con- 
fessing people of God in the world will necessarily be a remnant. 
It is of the Church that it is true that "many are called but few 
are chosen" (Matt. 22: 14). 

In the work of the Holy Spirit, then, there is the quality not 
only of comprehension but also of selection, not only of wide- 
ness but also of narrowness: a contradictoriness which ought to 
be no surprise for anyone whose faith is grounded in the Bible. 
For, as the Bible makes plain, the work of God is always char- 
acterized by universality of intention as well as particularity of 
method. Israel is for the nations, the Church is for the world. 
When the Gospel is proclaimed there are the few, who are led 
by the Spirit to faith, who become members of the community 
whose task it is to proclaim the Gospel. When the Gospel is 
proclaimed it becomes also within the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit the power of God for the salvation of the world. 

There is only one Saviour, Jesus Christ (i Tim. 2:5), and all 
who are saved will be saved by Him. There is only one end- 
event towards which all things move, their re-creation in Jesus 
Christ (Eph. i : 10). There is only one finale to the story of man 
(Rev. 21 : 23, 26), and that will be its fulfilment in the eternal 
city where God and His Christ are the light by which men will 
walk and into which the treasures of the nations will be 
gathered. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world is to recall 
the world to its moorings, to re-establish it on its true founda- 
tion, to make actual the once-for-allness-for-all-men of what 
God has done for man in Jesus Christ. "The Holy Spirit is My 
witness," said Jesus (John 15: 26). "He will claim on My 
behalf all truth that belongs to Me (John 12: 13-15)* He will 
own on My behalf the light wheresoever the light may be, I am 
the Truth, I am the Lightthe light that enlightens every 
tnan" (John 14: 6; 8: 12; i: 9). 

72 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

This argument must now be concluded, and yet no way of 
concluding it seems to be wholly satisfactory. Paul concludes his 
argument with a shout of praise: "O the depth of the riches and 
wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Rom. 1 1 : 33) : God has un- 
limited resources of grace and mercy. He also remains wholly 
free so that no one has rights over Him. His people have no 
claims on Him above those of others. But this is only one half of 
the conclusion of the argument. The other half lies in the fact 
that this shout of praise is the shout of the people of God, those 
who have found their sonship in Jesus Christ. They witness to 
the fact that for all men God has provided a place of reconcili- 
ation, a mercy seat, a visible Saviour and a visible company 
which is the saved and saving community. 

Let our Lord's own parable concerning the last judgment say 
the last word. The sheep and the goats are separated (Matt. 25 : 
40), So, at the last, will God's judgment separate men. And the 
judgment turns on the question, Had they accepted Him? But, 
as the parable makes clear, the form in which He had presented 
Himself to them for their acceptance was the form of one des- 
pised and rejected of men. There is no salvation except in Jesus 
Christ, but who shall decide how and in what guise Jesus comes 
to men and claims their acceptance ! 

The Nature of the Church's Mission 

There we must leave it, and turn to a search for an under- 
standing of the nature of our own obedience, of the meaning 
and significance of the mission of the Church. First of all, the 
Church's mission is to be the people of God. Redeemed by 
Christ and raised from death in Him by the Holy Spirit, the 
Christian community exists as the result and the demonstration 
of the facts of the Gospel. "You are the light of the world," 
Jesus said (Matt. 5: 14). The Christian community cannot 
escape this responsibility. In the night, it has to be the moon 
reflecting the light of the sun. In the day, it has to be the mirror 
in which men can see themselves. Its task is to make plain the 
way of life, to reveal life and to direct it. The proclamation of 

73 



THE FAITH 

the Christian Gospel must arise from a demonstration of what it 
means. The Christian must be a witness of what he proclaims,, 
he must be an evidence of it. "We are/' says James, "the first 
specimens of His new creation' 5 (Jas. i : 18). It is true that the 
treasure will always remain in earthen vessels (2 Cor, 4: 7), but 
the treasure will be there. There will be proof that the door of 
heaven has been opened and that God has come among men, 
"If a man loves me," said Jesus, "he will keep my word, and 
my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make 
our home with him." Emmanuel is the promise "God with 
us" (John 14: 23), To us who believe in Jesus Christ, it is the 
promise of God's presence and companionship; to those who do 
not yet believe in Jesus Christ, it is the promise that the pres- 
ence of God will be mediated to them. God has made us priests 
(Rev. i : 6) ; we are no priests unless we mediate God to the 
world. 

"Men are not so foolish," said Jesus (Matt 5: 15), "as to 
light a lamp and put it under a bushel. Neither is God less wise. 
When He lights a lamp He puts it where it will give light to the 
whole house." The sanctuary is the place where the lamp is lit, 
where it is filled with oil, where its wicks are trimmed. It should 
never become the place where the lamp is left. The lamp is 
meant for the world outside. It is not a sanctuary lamp but a 
street light that the Church represents. An ecumenical confer- 
ence, called by the World Council Youth Department and held 
in Berlin in May 1 960, was reported on in the Ecumenical Press 
Service. 1 The report says that there was a session at the Confer- 
ence when the participants were asked to write press articles on 
"Peace" arising out of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, One 
conference member is said to have remarked, "I should prefer 
to write a book on systematic theology. It is easier." Of course 
it is. Systematic theology is an exercise within the precincts 
of the temple. Press articles demand converse with wayfarers on 
the road. 

The Church, it is commonly said, is a divine society. It is. 
But its divine nature lies in the actuality of its mission as the 

1 E.P.S. No. 19, 20 May, 1960* 

74 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

herald and carrier of the divine. The divine nature of the 
Church is in its dynamics. It is, and remains wherever it is, the 
place where men find God ; whether they find Him as One who 
is troublesome or satisfying, as effecting their obedience or 
causing their rebellion. 

Secondly, the Church's mission is to be the people of God 
everywhere in every situation, in every land and nation, in all 
areas of life. The Church anywhere represents the gathering of 
the first-fruits (Rev. 14: 4, 15) which is the promise of the final 
harvest. That there be first-fruits everywhere, that in every city 
of earth there be a colony of heaven (PhiL 3 : 20) : that is the 
task of the Holy Spirit through the mission of the Church. The 
unfinished task of evangelism is the task of bringing the Gospel 
to those who have not heard it, of building the Christian com- 
munity within a people among whom such a community does 
not exist, of maintaining the Christian witness amidst current 
problems and tensions in all areas of human relationships, of 
exerting the pressure of the Christian way of life on those who 
do not yet accept it. 

There is a sense in which, until all men are confessing 
Christians and all life is lived in the Christian obedience, the 
task of evangelism is not over. But the task to which the Church 
is committed is not so much the finishing of it as the beginning 
of it. It is the beginning that is yet unfinished. When the leaven 
is hid in the meal (Lk, 13:21), the beginning of the task is over. 
But there are so many situations in which the leaven is not yet 
so hid. Where the seed is sown (Mk. 4: 26), the beginning of the 
task is over. But there are hundreds of thousands of villages in 
Africa and Asia alone where the seed has not yet been sown. 
Where the city is built (Matt, 5: 14), the beginning of the task 
is over. But there are many places in which the Christian city 
has not yet been built. "The gospel must first be preached 
throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations ; 
and then the end will come" (Matt. 24: 14). The end cannot 
come where the beginning is not over. To be the people of God 
everywhere, that is the mission. To go to the ends of the earth, 
that is the task. As we think of it cannot we hear the word of 

75 



THE FAITH 

the Lord that came to Israel long ago (Dent. 2:3): "You have 
compassed this mountain long enough. Go north"? 

For a whole generation they had lived on the slopes of that 
mountain. It was their home. They had left Egypt, a crowd; 
here on this mountain they had been welded into a nation. Why 
could they not continue to live here? They could not, because 
they were a pilgrim people. The promised land lay north of 
where they were. They had to strike their tents and set off 
again on the march. 

This mission of the Church is to be the people of God. It is 
to be the people of God everywhere. It is also to be the people 
of God on a journey. A Church at rest is no Church. I was 
present one day at a discussion conducted by Dr Nolde on some 
aspect of international affairs. During question time he was 
asked, "And for what solution are you prepared to settle?" 
His answer was, "Tor none." "The Christian community/ 5 he 
said, "cannot settle for any answer. We shall press for the best 
possible compromise in the present situation, but we shall also 
press for a complete change in the situation itself." This is a 
good illustration of what it means for the Church to be a pilgrim 
people. 

A pilgrim people is bound to have a set of values which are 
different from those held by people who have settled down. It 
will tend to accumulate less luggage, it will not be over- 
concerned with creature comforts, it will enjoy its food pro- 
vided for the journey. When I was studying in the Theological 
College at Bangalore, I was to go one day with three of my 
friends to visit the waterfalls at Shimoga. We had planned to 
leave early in the morning. Sandwiches for the trip were pre- 
pared, and we had our thermos-flasks filled with coffee. 
Unfortunately for us, at the very last moment, the picnic had 
to be called off. We decided to eat the sandwiches and have the 
coffee for breakfast. I can still recall how flat those sandwiches 
tasted and how insipid the coffee. On the picnic they would 
have been wonderful, on the breakfast table they were 
awful. 

The sacraments of the Church, the worship of the congrega- 

76 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

lion, the study of God's word,, the practices of religion in the 
home and in one's personal life all these are food for the 
journey. So many neglect them because they do not need them. 
Theirs is a sedentary life, and all this food is unnecessary. And 
even what food they take they do not relish. A beautiful cloth 
and flowers on the breakfast table will not make much differ- 
ence. Even "Music while we eat" is quite irrelevant. The sand- 
wiches are for the road. Get up and get out. Go north. 

This challenge to the Church to take to the road implies also 
another consequence. It means that the Church can never be 
satisfied with its forms of obedience. What the Church is to-day 
in our several countries is the result of the obedience of our 
fathers in the faith. But their obedience cannot necessarily be 
ours. In one of the discussions in the Negotiating Committee for 
Church Union in Ceylon, a suggestion was made by one of the 
Anglican representatives that a paragraph be included in the 
Scheme of Union expressing repentance for the past sin of 
division. "I shall never repent/* said a Congregationalist, 'Tor 
the action of the pilgrim fathers." We don't have to. It is not 
necessary for the past to have been wrong in order to make 
repentance now necessary. Repentance is our essential response 
to new tasks and new commands. There is no entail on the 
Church's past. A great deal has to be left behind. That is what 
it means to be a pilgrim people, that is what is involved in 
being called to take to the road. 

In the Gospel narrative the challenge of Jesus, that those who 
would follow Him must take up the cross and follow Him 
(Mk. 8: 27-37), appears before there is any mention of the 
cross on which He himself must die. What meaning then could 
it have conveyed to those who heard Him? It would have only 
suggested to them that they must be prepared to die at the 
hands of the Romans, a likelihood contingent on Jesus leading 
an insurrection. Explaining this difficulty, Dr Findlay quotes a 
traveller familiar with Bedouin life as saying that in the 
Aramaic the word "cross" simply meant something sticking up 
from the ground and that it was used generally to describe a 
tent-peg. Even now, this traveller remarked, the Bedouin 

77 



THE FAITH 

sheikh when he orders a move, says to the women of his harem 
"take up the cross and follow me 93 , 1 

Peter has confessed Jesus as the Christ, Christ has said that 
He must suffer and die and rise again. Peter has protested that 
this cannot be and been rebuked by the Master. Then Jesus 
says to them all, disciples and multitude: "You cannot follow 
me by staying where you are. You must break camp. You think 
that your security lies in the well trodden paths of yesterday. 
I tell you that it lies only in following Me along the unknown 
paths of to-morrow and sharing there both my passion and 
my victory. If you seek to save your life you will lose it. And 
what will it profit you if by staying behind you gain the whole 
world and lose your own soul?" 

It is said of Abraham that he obeyed not knowing whither 
he went (Heb. n : 8). The unknown is the pilgrim's goal and 
obedience, it is also his hope and his heritage. And what a 
magnificent thing the unknown will be when finally the pil- 
grim arrives ! A city with foundations, whose builder and maker 
is God! And, all along the way, what an exhilarating experi- 
ence to find that, while one leaves behind that which one has 
made his home whether spiritually or materially and takes 
to the road with fear; God provides safety for the journey, 
sustenance for the road and a foretaste of one's inheritance. 
"In His hands," sang the psalmist (Ps. 16: n), whatever those 
hands will dispense, "are joys for evermore/ 5 

"It is not enough," I heard Dr Hoekendijk say at a confer- 
ence, "to speak of the Church as engaged in a mission. It is 
essential to realize that the Church is a mission/* To use a 
phrase of Bishop Newbigin, "the Church is an expedition." 
And, because it is an expedition it creates consequences for 
other people, for those in whose midst this expedition has been 
launched. These consequences, too, are part of the Church's 
task in the world. 

The consequence for others of having a pilgrim people in 
their midst Is that such a people will exert a peculiar pressure 
on the forms of common life* Theirs will be a worldliness that is 

1 J. A. Findlay, A Portrait of Peter, Hodder & Stoughton, p, 130, 

7 8 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE WORLD 

holy. They will live the common life as those who are soon to 
leave it behind. Also, they will cause even those who are not on 
the pilgrimage to serve it. The Church loses one of its greatest 
opportunities of fulfilling its mission when the Christian com- 
munity seeks to be self-contained. This is an insistent tempta- 
tion for the small Christian groups that are scattered throughout 
the large lands of Asia and Africa. A pilgrim people must 
maintain their differentia as pilgrims, but they must belong to 
the society among whom their journey is set. This common 
association is of the heart of the business. 

By far the greater part of the Church's mission is to bring to 
bear on people the pressure of the Christ. So will their living be 
influenced by Him even when they are not Christians by 
commitment* In the Western world, there is a Christian national 
past in the lives of the nations on which such pressure can 
depend; in the lands of the younger churches such pressure 
must depend on the normality of the relationship between 
Christians and their fellow citizens in all walks of life. The 
Christian community has always to be a witnessing community, 
but its intention to convert to Jesus Christ is never a condition- 
ing factor in its relationships. It qualifies but does not condi- 
tion: and, because it qualifies, the Church becomes in human 
affairs the instrument of the inescapability of the Christ. 

So be sure you do not refuse to hear the Voice of God ! He has 
made a promise, saying: "Yet once more will I make to tremble 
not the earth only, but also the heaven". This means that in this 
final "shaking" all that is impermanent will be removed, and only 
the unshakable things will remain. Since then we have been given 
a kingdom that is "unshakable", let us serve God with thankful- 
ness in the ways which please him, but always with reverence and 
holy fear. ... Our God is a burning Fire (Heb. 12: 25-29; J. B. 
Phillips). 



79 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS 
FULFILLED 

Our Father, Thy name be hallowed, Thy kingdom come, 
Thy will be done (Matt. 6: 9-10). 

WILL this prayer, which is the constant prayer of the 
Church, find fulfilment ? Will the time come when 
His name, by which every family in heaven and on 
earth is named (Eph. 3: 15), is honoured among them; when 
His children will rejoice to hear His name and keep it sacred? 
Will the Father's Kingdom come, the Kingdom of glory, when 
all strife with sin shall be over and the rule of Christ shall have 
accomplished its purpose? (i Cor. 15: 24, 25.) Will the Father's 
will be done on earth as it is done in heaven; will His design for 
His whole creation (CoL i : 20) be achieved? 

The New Testament answer to these questions is an unequi- 
vocal < Yes": a confidence derived from its determining faith 
that to the end God will be God, and that at the end God's 
purpose will triumph because it is God's, "The Son of God, 
Jesus Christ, is not Yes and No; but in Him it is always Yes. 
All the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Cor, i ; 19, 
20). "You shall know that I am the Lord," says God to Israel 
in exile (Ezek, u: 10). That is always God's final message to 
men -His word of warning to them in their self-confidence, His 
word of hope to them in their despair. 

The hope to which the Gospel witnesses is not the result of 
any realistic calculation of present trends, nor of any prognosis 
based on an assessment of the problems that lie ahead; rather it 
is a hope offered as a hope to live by, a certainty in the future 
on which one can count and by which one can guide one's life. 
Peter, writing to his fellow Christians under pressure to deny 

80 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

their faith, proclaims to them "a salvation ready to be revealed 
in the last time" (i Pet. i : 3-5). It is a salvation to depend on,, 
a hope to be sustained by. "We have been born anew/' he 
announces, "to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance kept in heaven for 
you." This kept inheritance is what the hope is about. 

The Promised Inheritance 

The Old Testament story is controlled by this fact of an 
inheritance. 

God had promised an inheritance to Abraham. Once the 
promise was made, the inheritance was sure. It was there. 
For many years Abraham had no children, but an heir was 
certain because there was the inheritance. 

The people of Israel were in bondage, but they would be 
free because their inheritance was waiting for them. For 
many years they wandered in the wilderness, but they would 
come at last and possess the promised land because it was 
promised* 

Israel's faithlessness to God had brought them into exile. 
They lived in exile for many years. But they would return to 
their inheritance again because that inheritance was theirs. 

In the New Testament, too, it is the inheritance that is always 
determinative. "Faith," says the writer to the Hebrews (i i : if.), 
"is the title deed of our inheritance." It is that which has con- 
trolled through the generations the pilgrimage of faith. What is 
this inheritance ? It is a new creation, a complete renewal of all 
that God has made ; 

We wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteous- 
ness dwells (2 Pet. 3: 13). And he who sat upon the throne said, 
Behold, I make all things new (Rev. 21 : 5). 

It is the restoration in man of God's image, the offer to man 
even now of his new nature to be; 

It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that 
when he appears we shall be like him (i John 3:2). 

OTE 8 1 F 



THE FAITH 

You have put on the new nature which is being renewed in 
knowledge after the image of its Creator (CoL 3: 10). 

It is the reconstitution in Christ of the broken peace of the 
world, God's plan is 

a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things 
in heaven and things on earth (Eph. i : 10). 

For in him all things were created and in him all things hold 
together (CoL i: 16, 17). 

This inheritance is also the eternal city, man's final dwelling 
place, in which death shall have been conquered and man's 
fellowship with God reclaimed. 

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of 
heaven from God; and I heard a great voice from the throne 
saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. And death 
shall be no longer (Rev. 21 : 2-4), 

It is the return of the risen Christ, triumphant, to His union 
with His bride, the Church; and to the completion of the 
salvation of the world which He has wrought. 

Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may 
have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming 
( i John 2: 28). 

The Spirit and the Bride say, Come, And let him who hears 
say, Come. Surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus ! 
(Rev. 22: 17, 20). 

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God 
and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for 
all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time (i Tim. 

2:5,6). 

This promise of the end which will certainly happen, how- 
ever, is not left hanging in the air as a kind of deus-ex-machina 
event to give a happy ending to a tangled drama. The end 
promised is already begun. "You are those/* says Paul, **on 
whom the end of the ages has come" (i Cor. 10: i r) so that we 
wait for its fulfilment with confidence. When our Lord began His 
ministry in Galilee, He announced a Kingdom that had arrived. 
"It has come near," He said, "it has come within reach. Stretch 

82 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

out your hand and touch it" (Mk. i : 15). The coming of the 
Kingdom was the coming of the King. 

It is always difficult to present convincingly the message of 
the Christian hope but the task is made needlessly difficult by 
clinging to the language of apocalypticism when the New Testa- 
ment itself points the way to Christocentric eschatology. Christ 
has come and, therefore, while we do not know when the end 
will be, we do know that the end is now. Now is the day of 
salvation. Everywhere, the preaching and the hearing of the 
Gospel is the sign of the eschatological presence. The presence 
of the work of anti-christ and of false christs also bears the same 
witness (Mk. 13: 9-23). 

This King who has come, the Gospel announces, was born by 
the Spirit. It is essential to see how closely the Gospel inter- 
twines the action of the Son with the activity of the Spirit if one 
is not to miss the richness of the biblical teaching on the 
Kingdom. The Spirit came on Jesus when He was baptized. 
The Spirit led Him into the wilderness to think through the 
meaning of His mission. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him 
as He began His ministry. He came to men in the power of the 
Spirit. And, when He had completed His mission by His death 
on the cross, the Spirit raised Him from the dead. Now, from 
His Kingdom on high, He has sent the Spirit into the world, 
that in the Spirit He may continue His work in the world until 
it is over, the Spirit Himself fulfilling in the world the ministry 
He began through the Christ. In the daring phrase of Paul, 
"the Lord is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3: 17), so that past event, 
present experience and future hope hold together as that one 
act of salvation by which human life is upheld. 

The Gospel announces a new creation already in Christ the 
new creation has begun (2 Cor. 5: 17) He is the new Man in 
whom all things will be renewed (Col. 3: 10), in whom those 
who believe have the first-fruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8: 23). 
The Gospel promises the restoration in man of God's image 
already in the face of Christ the glory of God has been revealed 
(2 Cor. 3 : 18), so that we beholding that glory may be changed 
into His likeness. The Gospel declares the hope of a healed 

83 



THE FAITH 

humanity already Christ has broken down the middle wall of 
partition between those who were far and those who were nigh 
(Eph. 2: 14). The Gospel proclaims the certainty of eternal 
life (i Cor. 15: 55, 56) already death has been conquered by 
Christ, and the saints are already with Him in glory (i Thess. 
3: 13). 

"Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of 
this world be cast out": those arc the words of Jesus (John 12: 
31), And, because He has said, "Now", we are able to jsay 
"Already". The end is certain because the end has begun; it is 
certain also because from this beginning the end is increasingly 
thrusting itself into every crevice of life. "Sealed with the prom- 
ised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance" the 
Holy Spirit works "until we acquire possession of it, to the 
praise of his glory" (Eph. i: 13, 14). 

It is obvious, is it not, that if this be the teaching of the New 
Testament on the end-event as it has happened and as it will be 
completed, then the consequence of this truth for the mission of 
the Church and the obedience of the Christian is tremendous ? 
Let us see what these consequences are* 

A Mission with Compulsive Urgency 

Throughout its history the mission of the Church has never 
commended itself as simply a good thing to undertake. When- 
ever and wherever it has been felt, it has been felt as an urgent 
necessity. Why? 

Firstly, because the mission of the Church arises from the 
work of the Holy Spirit, so that he who is swept into this work 
finds himself in the power of another. We do not need to sustain 
ourselves by our conviction about the mission of the Church. 
To engage in that mission is to be sustained by the mission 
itself. Urgency belongs to the mission, so that the Church's 
sense of urgency is only derivative. When on D-day the allied 
forces landed on the French shore, every Frenchman became 
involved in an urgent undertaking. The urgency of the mission 
is simply due to the invasion of the Christ, 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

Secondly, the mission arises from the fact that because Jesus 
has died for all men, all men have died (2 Cor. 5: 14), and they 
will remain dead until they are raised by the Holy Spirit to 
participation in the risen life of Christ. The mission of the 
Church is to proclaim this resurrection its necessity and possi- 
bility and to be the locus where the risen life of Christ can be 
found and experienced. The Gospel is not lest men die but 
because they are dead. It is a proclamation which answers the 
question: "Son of man. Can these bones live?" (Ezek. 37: 3.) 
Such a proclamation is necessarily urgent. "If you believe in 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ," said an unbeliever to a 
Christian, "shout it out from the house tops." 

Thirdly, the mission is to men whose response is being pre- 
pared by the Holy Spirit. That preparation demands that it be 
availed of. "In season and out of season," said Paul (2 Tim. 4: 
2); which means all the time and as widely as possible. Let it 
not happen that I was the neighbour to someone who was ready 
for the Gospel and that I passed him by. Since the essential 
ministry is the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the risen Christ, 
the Christian mission has necessarily to be performed with 
watchful urgency. Oftentimes the disciple does not know where 
the Lord is waiting for him, so that Christ's disciples have to 
spread themselves and be everywhere. 

Fourthly, the mission is to make the pressure of Jesus Christ 
on the lives of men and of the world inescapable and insistent. 
This calls for strategy in the performance of that mission. 
Strategy means an over-all design, plans that must be carried 
out, decisions that must be obeyed. The mission is the mission of 
the Church, so that each individual Christian and every sepa- 
rate group find themselves under urgent command not to let 
down their fellows. 

And lastly, the mission is also God's method of saving those 
who have believed. The disciple is saved as he participates in 
the operation of the Gospel. "The word of the cross" (our 
witness to it and our proclamation of it) says Paul, "is the 
power of God to us who are being saved" (i Cor. i: 18). 
"Being saved" that is the correct tense in which to express the 

85 



THE FAITH 

Christian's experience of salvation. The movement of the 
Gospel is a continuous one, and what happens to the believer 
happens within this movement. No wonder Paul said, C< 1 will 
explode if I do not preach the Gospel 5 ' (i Cor. 9: 16). 

A Mission within the Working of the Spirit 

The important thing to recognize here is the fact that that 
which determines the Church's mission remains independent 
of it. The Bridegroom comes and so the virgins go to meet him 
(Matt. 25: if.). Some go prepared for any emergency, others 
do not; but the coming of the Bridegroom takes no account of 
the situation of these virgins. The Master returns at an hour on 
which He decides. The servants may be awake or asleep 
(Mk. 13: 35), they may have done their duty or neglected it; 
when the Master comes He will deal with it all. The supper is 
ready and will not go to waste. If those who are invited will not 
come, others will be brought to the supper (Lk. 14: i6f.). The 
supper will be held nevertheless. 

This means that those engaged in the mission must be pre- 
pared to encounter in their work the results of God's free initia- 
tive, the previousness of Jesus Christ in every situation, the all- 
encompassing work of the Holy Spirit within which the mission 
of the Church is set. 'The fruit of the Spirit" wherever it may 
be found cc is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness^ goodness, 
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5; 22). Paul uses 
the singular "fruit" because all these fruits are from the same 
tree, they also belong together. Wherever, then, by His fruit we 
see that the Spirit is at work, there we must press the claims 
of the Gospel with strong confidence. "No one speaking by the 
Spirit of God ever says 'Jesus be cursed! 9 and no one can say 
'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (i Cor. 12; 3)* The 
working of the Spirit is often evident in people's lives before 
they confess "Jesus as Lord". Indeed, it is because this is so that 
the Church's mission to proclaim Jesus as Lord becomes a 
pressing one. Only in Jesus is the fruit of the Spirit secure, to 
Him alone the glory of that fruit belongs, in His service it must 

86 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

be used. To accept Him as Lord is to put Him in possession of 
that which is His (John i: n). Often the question is asked, 
"Are you saved? 55 The question that rather needs to be asked 
is, "Do you know that Jesus Christ is your Saviour?* 5 It was 
His vineyard that the Son came to claim (Mk. 12: 6). It was a 
usurper that the Strong Man came to dispossess (Mk. 3: 27). 
It was at His feast that the Master challenged the right of the 
guest to appear without the wedding garment (Matt. 22: 12). 
But, in speaking of the mission of the Church as fulfilled 
within the larger context of the work of the Spirit, it is not 
enough to see this mission as required by the fruit of the Spirit. 
It is essential, too, to see this mission as determined by the gifts 
of the Spirit. These gifts decide not only the special tasks of each 
recipient but also the ways in which all of them must work 
together. The gifts are the gifts of the one Spirit for the one task. 
When the disciples sought to forbid a man who was casting out 
devils in the name of Jesus because he did not belong to the 
disciples' band, Jesus said to them, "Do not forbid him, for he 
that is not against us is for us" (Lk. 9: 49, 50). The common 
task determines a shared discipleship. To stay separate or to 
make separate is either to deny that the gifts are of the Spirit, 
or to claim that once we have received a gift we can treat that 
gift as ours. 

A Mission with a Call to Unity 

A third consequence, then, which the nature of the Kingdom 
imposes on the Church's obedience is a call to unity that can- 
not be neglected. This call to unity is a call to be true to the 
wholeness of the Gospel and of the task. According to the testi- 
mony of the Acts of the Apostles there were three primary 
elements in the ministry of the early Church. They preached 
the Gospel, healed the sick and cast out devils. It will not do, 
therefore, for us to say, we do preach the Gospel, we run 
hospitals and devils don't exist. The ministry of healing that 
Jesus entrusted to His Church does include the work done in 
hospitals, but it is infinitely more. It is that ministry of the 
Church (Jas. 5 : 14, 15) by which those who are sick are brought 

87 



THE FAITH 

into conscious participation in the healing life of Christ. Hal 
Leipcr, facing death because there was nothing more that 
doctors could do for him, wrote this in his last letter to his 
friends: c My conviction that spiritual healing through prayer 
and worship is a given part of our obedient ministry, lay and 
clerical, has grown. It is as right in the Church as is preaching 
and teaching. It does not find validation in success any more 
than baptizing or preaching." 1 The exorcist ministry that Jesus 
commands is of equal importance. It is certainly part of that 
ministry to rid the minds of men of the fear of devils. It is also 
part of that ministry to deal with the demonic elements in 
human life. But it is a necessary part of it also that devils be 
cast out exactly as Jesus cast them out in His day (Matt, 17: 
20-21). The power that comes by fasting and prayer and the 
word of command pronounced in the name of Jesus is still 
normative experience for the Church, It is recorded (Acts 4: 
sgf.) that the first disciples prayed saying, "Lord, grant to thy 
servants to speak thy word with all boldness, while thou 
stretchest out thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders are 
performed through the name of thy holy servant Jesus'*: and 
that when they had prayed, the place in which they were 
gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the 
Holy Spirit. Obedience to the wholeness of the Gospel is the 
Church's way to spiritual power. 

The call to unity is also a call to shared discipleship. The 
point is often made, in discussing Church Union, that different 
Churches are custodians of different gifts, and seek to bear 
witness to different truths. This contention would be pure non- 
sense if it were not for the ecumenical movement which has 
broken down the isolation of the Churches and has given to 
them the possibility of being together. Truths separated from 
one another became distorted and even false. Indeed, those 
who have worked on actual Church Union negotiations will 
testify how they saw for the first time the tremendous potency 
of a truth they had known and held dear for a long time only 
when that truth was seen in relation to some other truth that 

1 From a copy of his letter sent to his friends, after his death, by his father, 

88 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

someone else from another Church was expounding. The 
present growing conviction about the ministry of the laity is a 
case in point. As long as the doctrine of the priesthood of all 
believers was a battle cry it remained comparatively barren of 
results. But now that it has come to be seen in relation to the 
doctrine of the Church and its sacraments, the doctrine of the 
world and its salvation, the doctrine of work and of vocation, 
it has become one of the most powerful truths in the Church. 
Unity is a condition of power, unity is also a condition of 
truth. 

Unity is a condition of integrity too. I studied in the United 
Theological College at Bangalore in India. We were Methodists, 
Presbyterians, Congregationalists, some Lutherans and mem- 
bers of the Mar Thoma Church. Whenever the teaching of the 
New Testament on the Church was given to us, each one of us 
assumed that this teaching was about our Church. I never 
realized the significance of this unconscious dishonesty until I 
became a member of the Church Union Negotiating Com- 
mittee in Ceylon. It was there that all of us discovered that we 
did not have a theological understanding of our Churches in 
their separation. We certainly could get by in our discussions 
by using such categories as "the marks of churchliness", "the 
validity of orders'*, ce vestigiae ecclesiae" etc., but we all knew 
that, as long as those who bore the name of Christ could not 
belong to the same household, there was a loss of integrity. 
That the churches are the Church is the gift of His sovereign 
grace, but shall we sin that grace may abound? (Rom. 6: i.) 

A Mission with Consequences for Personal 
Discipleship 

Man's inheritance as God has provided it, the New Testa- 
ment affirms, is a joint inheritance. We are joint heirs with 
Jesus Christ (Rom. 8: 17), we share our inheritance with the 
saints (Eph. i: 18), we are joint heirs of God's grace (i Pet. 
3:7). The joint-family system in the countries of Asia gives the 
exact feel of these phrases. The property belongs to the whole 

89 



THE FAITH 

family, it cannot be partitioned, no member of the family can 
control or enjoy his share separately: the whole belongs to all 
and anyone who decides to break the unity of the family must 
forego his part of the inheritance. 

This inheritance belongs, in the first place, to creation as a 
whole. "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole 
creation," is what we read in the ending to Mark's Gospel 
(16: 15). "That men are brought into the life of the sons of God 
must mean that all creation is delivered from bondage, 55 says 
Paul (Rom. 8: 21). "Cultivate the earth and subdue it** 
(Gen. i : 28) was God's first command to man. His demand 
now is that men so live and work in whatever occupation or 
profession they may be as to make effective God's will in His 
creation. Personal religion is only thus far and no further. 
Christian discipleship involves the disciple in responsible 
living in the world. 

Man's inheritance belongs also to mankind as a whole. As in 
Christ there is and will be a new creation, so also in Christ 
there is and will be one new man (Eph. 2: 15), one reconciled 
humanity. Someone has said, "Do not send anyone to hell, for 
in the end you will need him to enter heaven with you." The 
mission of the Church to reclaim all men for Christ is the simple 
outcome of this truth. Will all men be reclaimed ? That is not 
our side of the problem. Our side of the problem is that so 
much depends on us who are disciples of Jesus Christ. Again, it 
must be said that personal religion is only thus far and no 
further. Christian discipleship involves the disciple in finding 
men for Christ. 

What is true in terms of all creation, what is true in terms of 
man, is also true in terms of the Church itself. The Church is 
One and there is only one inheritance. Writing to the Corinth- 
ians, Paul says, "Ghloe's people inform me that you are 
quarrelling. By 'quarrelling* I mean that each of you has his 
party cry, *I belong to Paul*, 'And I to Apollos*, *And I to 
Cephas', *And I to Christ', Has Christ been parcelled out?" 
(i Cor. i: i if., Moffatt). A new creation, a new man, a new 
household : there is no escape from the discipline of joint owner- 
go 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

ship and joint inheritance into an exclusive reliance on personal 
religion. How important it is, then, for us to realize that 
precisely what has happened to us as persons is what has made 
us messengers of the Kingdom! Reconciled, we have been 
made agents of His reconciliation (2 Cor. 5: 18, 19); saved, we 
have been called to be heralds of His salvation ( i John i : i -4) ; 
loved, we are the first-fruits of His love to all mankind (Rev. 
14:4). 

God and man, the Gospel and the world, the Holy Spirit and 
the new creation: these are the true correlatives as we have 
them in the Christian faith. They determine the axis of the 
Christian life and set the context of Christian discipleship. In 
one of Charles Wesley's hymns there is a striking verse in which 
the full circle of the Christian commitment is traced. 

That I Thy mercy may proclaim. 
That all mankind Thy truth may see, 

Hallow Thy great and glorious name, 
And perfect holiness in me. 1 

Thy mercy, Thy truth, Thy name for all mankind and I, 
both to proclaim it and to be perfected in holiness ! 

Paul puts the matter into one sentence: "Christ in you bring- 
ing with him the hope of all the glorious things to come" 
(Col. i : 27, J. B. Phillips). "In you" that is what everything 
depends on. " Christ in you" He in whom the full nature of 
God chose to live (CoL i : 19). And, because Christ is in you, 
"Yours is the hope of all the glorious things to come." What are 
they ? They are the maturing of your own character as Christ- 
ians; the fulfilment of the Church's mission in the creation of 
the new man of God's design ; and the accomplishment of that 
great reconciliation which God has planned in Christ of every- 
thing on earth and in heaven by virtue of the sacrifice of the 
cross (CoL i; 20). "So naturally," says Paul following up his 
great affirmation, "we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we 
meet, and teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, 

1 Charles Wesley, Methodist Hymn Book, 562. 

9* 



THE FAITH 

so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full 
maturity in Christ. This is what I am working at all the time, 
with all the strength that God gives me 55 (CoL i : 28-295 J. B. 
Phillips), 

A Mission in the Certitude of Hope 

But, will everyone be saved? How may the certitude of 
Christian hope be expressed in relation to the Church's 
mission ? That God will accomplish His great design purposed 
in creation and redemption and sought by Him through the 
countless years is certain because God is God (Rev, 11: 15); 
and yet, because man is man, the haunting question remains, 
Will each man attain to his inheritance, will all men find 
eternal life ? 

There are those who insist that no genuine and urgent con- 
viction about the mission of the Church is possible unless one is 
able to say positively: Some will be saved and others will be 
damned, and they will be damned who, having had the oppor- 
tunity in this life to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and 
Saviour, nevertheless reject Him (John 3: 18). It is certainly 
true that those who are able to state the matter in this way do 
have a sense of urgency about their evangelistic and missionary 
responsibility; but the issue must nevertheless be pressed as to 
whether the whole drift of the teaching of the New Testament 
allows for so simple and simplified a conviction. Surely there 
are a series of exclamation marks which the New Testament 
puts in the face of too categorical an answer to the question 
raised ! First, is there any real substance in the claim that God's 
great design for His whole creation will be fulfilled unless that 
claim includes the assertion that it will be fulfilled for each 
person? (Lk. 15: 4,) Second, where in the New Testament is 
the span of this earthly life set out as the measure of the limits 
of God's grace? Third, who shall say that the evangelistic 
presentation of Jesus Christ will necessarily be for anyone, who 
hears that presentation, the moment of his decision for Jesus 
Christ? Does not the Master offer Himself for acceptance by 
some of His children (Matt. 25: 3 if.) in ways and forms that 

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THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

are of His own choosing and which may not ever carry the 
label "Christian" ? 

The New Testament will allow no diminution of the fact that 
there is only one Saviour Jesus Christ (Acts 4: 12) ; nor will it 
allow any compromise of the fact that salvation is by faith in 
Him (Rom. i : 16) ; but it foils all attempts to enclose these facts 
in tightly-thought systems of belief (John i : 4, 9) or to 
make them at home within the boundaries of the visible 
Church. 

This theological situation has led some to make an attempt 
to get round this problem by making the sovereignty of God 
the sole maxim by which the work of God's salvation is ex- 
plained. God's purposes must find fulfilment since God is God 
and cannot fail. Also it is impossible to assert on the New 
Testament evidence that all men will somehow be saved. So 
that the conclusion is irresistible that God's purpose cannot be 
to save all men. God has chosen whom He will save and Jesus 
died for this elect only. This position is certainly consistent as a 
theological proposition, but it sets out a theology which blas- 
phemes the name and nature of the Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. It is never permissible to use the doctrine of the sover- 
eignty of God as a premise from which logical deductions can 
be made. Every time that Paul exclaims in his epistles "God 
forbid !" he is dealing with a logical deduction from the doctrine 
of the sovereignty of God which is logically correct but theo- 
logically false. Like the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of 
the sovereignty of God is always a conclusion at which the 
believer arrives and never a starting point for theological specu- 
tion. When William Carey first mooted the idea of preaching 
the Gospel to the people of India, he was met with the rejoinder, 
"Young man, if God wants to convert the heathen He will. 
You sit down." That may have been good logic, but it was 
atrocious theology. Both the doctrines of the Trinity and of the 
sovereignty of God are doctrines which signalize the end and 
limitation of human reason in its thinking about God. They are 
resource for faith and not data for reason. 

But cannot this question about "all or some" be settled by 

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THE FAITH 

reference to the obvious teaching in the Gospels contained in 
those sayings of Jesus where He speaks of "the few" the few 
who will find the straight and narrow path (Matt. 7: 14), the 
few who will be chosen out of the many who are called (Matt. 
20; 1 6) ? In these sayings, and many others like them, our Lord 
is speaking about the movement of the Kingdom which He has 
come to inaugurate and the few who, at all times, will yield to 
its pressure and share in the tasks. The words "salvation" and 
"eternal life" have also this meaning of participation in the life 
and activity of God in Christ in the world (Mk. 10: 21). 

"This is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17: 3). "The 
servant docs not know what his master is doing; but I have 
called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I 
have made known to you. You are my friends if you do what I 
command you" (John 15: 15). "Good Teacher, what must I do 
to inherit eternal life?" "Go, sell what you have and give to the 
poor; and come follow me" (Mk. 10; 17, 21), 

In this sense "salvation" is actually the experience of the 
few. But the question still remains concerning the final end of 
all (John 10 : 16). Will all finally arrive in the Father's King- 
dom? 

The seer of Patmos makes the following announcement as 

part of his closing vision: 

He who is seated upon the throne said, "See, I am making all 
things new!" Then he said to me, "It is done! I am Alpha and 
Omega, the Beginning and the End, I will give to the thirsty 
water without price from the Fountain of Life. The victorious 
shall inherit these things, and I will be God to him and he will be 
son to Me. But as for the cowards, the faithless and the corrupt, 
the murderers, the traffickers in sex and sorcery, the worshippers 
of idols and all liars their inheritance is in the Lake which burns 
with fire and sulphur, which is the Second Death" (Rev. 21: 
5 ;J.B. Phillips). 

This announcement says no more and no less than that there 
will be no change in God's demands of men even at the last. 
No man need go astray or waste his opportunities for godly 

94 



THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

decision by hoping that at the end there will be a sentimental 
letting down of standards on the part of God. 

Twice in the Gospels it is recorded that Jesus was asked the 
specific question with which we are dealing here, and His 
answers on both these occasions provide all that we can know 
or need to know. At the end of His conversation with the rich 
young ruler, Jesus said, "How hard it is for those who have 
riches to enter the kingdom of God!" Whereupon those who 
heard Him said, "Then who can be saved?" (Lk. 18: 18-27). 
Wealth gives to a man the possibility of meticulous observance 
of the law, it also provides him with the means of serving God. 
If, then, the wealthy will find it hard, who is going to be saved ? 
Jesus answers, "Salvation is God's possibility and not man's." 
On the other occasion (Lk. 13: 23f.) Jesus was on His way to 
Jerusalem and someone said to Him, "Lord, will those who are 
saved be few?" Jesus answered, "Few or many, you strive to 
enter by the narrow door, and enter while there is still time, for 
once the door is shut it will not be opened for you again." 
Salvation is indeed God's possibility, but it also remains man's 
responsibility; and there is no way of so fusing these two truths 
together as either to minimize man's responsibility or limit 
God's possibility. With God all things are possible, but for man 
damnation remains a possibility also. 

The Imperative 

If, then, the theological hiatus here revealed cannot be 
eliminated, it is necessary to challenge the position that no 
genuine and urgent conviction about the mission of the Church 
is possible unless one is able to say positively, "Some will be 
saved and others will be damned." In fact, as one reads the 
Acts of the Apostles, it becomes abundantly clear that the early 
Church derived its sense of missionary imperative from this 
very theological hiatus. It was certain that God was on the 
march fulfilling His design for the world and for men and that, 
therefore, the Church had to be on the march too. It was itself 
part of God's design, so that urgent mission was part of its very 

95 



THE FAITH 



nature. On the other hand, sin was everywhere holding men as 
thralls so that the task was urgent of setting them free. The 
Acts of the Apostles is the story of men who felt the pressure of a 
victory that was certain as well as of a combat that was critical. 
They never seem to have been plagued by the question, "How 
can the combat be critical if victory is certain?" May it be that 
we, for whom this question has become so important, find it so 
because we are neither certain of the victory nor are involved 
to the death in the combat? (2 Pet. 3:4; Heb. 12:4.) May it 
not also be that somehow we have got ourselves into a position 
in which we feel the need to convince ourselves that the task to 
which we are called is indeed urgent, when our real need should 
be to be so committed to the task that we are unable to escape 
its compulsion. 

The New Testament does not allow us to say either Yes or 
No to the question: "Will all men be saved?" and by preventing 
us from doing this it forces on us the question; "Will you fulfil 
your share of the task to which God has called you in the 
Church the task of making Jesus known and loved, confessed 
and obeyed, by all men in every area of life ?" When God speaks 
to be obeyed, it is His word that is decisive and we must find it 
so. We must learn to accept what God says because it is God 
who says it. To expect God to furnish us with other reasons for 
obeying Him is to seek to take up a position with respect to God 
that He cannot allow. When Jesus said to Matthew "Follow 
me" (Lk. 5: 27-28) He gave Matthew no reasons. There was no 
attempt to tell Matthew: if you remain in your present job 
these are the consequences, if you follow me these other conse- 
quences will ensue, so that you can see that following me is the 
better and wiser course. No; when Jesus speaks, His word stands 
alone on its own authority. 

Is it not obvious, if the Church is an expedition and if I 
am a member of the Church, that then I am myself part of the 
expedition? The expedition is not a task I undertake, it is some- 
thing I become : and when I become it, I find that I am part of 
a movement which is both urgent and compelling. The point 
I am trying to make can be summarized thus : the imperative 

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THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS FULFILLED 

of the Church's mission arises from three facts the certainty 
of God's victory, the crucialness of man's predicament, and the 
completeness of the Christian's commitment to his Lord. All 
three belong together, each generating its own type of urgency 
and authority, and at different moments of his obedience the 
Christian will find one or other of them that which is com- 
pulsive. 

There is a final point to be made in seeking to state the 
eschatological truth in connection with the Church's mission. 
It is that one must not succumb to the temptation of believing 
that at the end Jesus will come in such a way as to extort faith 
or stampede men into belief. It is "the same Jesus" (Acts i : 11) 
who will come who walked the streets of Palestine in the flesh 
and accepted the humiliation of the Cross, So that when He 
comes He will be as patient of men's freedom and as careful of 
men's personal dignity as when He sojourned among them. It is 
true that, when He comes in glory, all men will know who He is, 
for He will come unveiled. 

He is coming in the clouds 

and every eye shall see him, 

even those who pierced him, 

and his coming will mean bitter sorrow 

to every tribe upon the earth. 

(Rev. i: 7; J. B. Phillips.) 

And yet, whether this sorrow will be repentance or remorse, 
that final event will not by itself decide. Faith will still have to 
be free and God's grace will still have to be patient. But, can it 
be that anyone will reject Him even at this last? That is a 
speculation to which the New Testament does not lend itself. 
It simply says, He will come, and therefore let each man get 
ready to meet Him. No one can escape that meeting where 
finally each man will be judged by his Saviour. 

So arose for the New Testament Church, and so arises for us 
the prayer which undergirds the Church's task and sets the 
direction for its mission: "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly" 
(Rev. 22: 20). 

UTE 97 O 



THE FAITH 

Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing 
abuse for him. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the 
city which is to come. Through him then let us continually offer 
up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknow- 
ledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you 
have (Heb. 13: 13-16), 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, 
you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes ( i Cor. 
ii : 26). 

;c 

UNTIL he conies" that is the terminus ad quern (the 
goal); "the Lord's death" that is the terminus a quo 
(the source) : and between these two events lies the 
total ministry of the Church to the world. The verb translated 
6 'proclaim" is translated by a word in the Tamil Bible which 
means, "to make public". It underlines the truth that the life 
and activity of the Church concerns Jesus and the world. The 
Church's task is to make Him public: to publish His name, to 
set Him out in the market place, to destroy any attempt by any 
one to make Him a private possession. He is every man's heri- 
tage, each man's treasure, the Master and Owner of all. 

This relation of Christ to the world is established through 
His death. At the heart of the Church's life are the two sacra- 
ments of holy baptism and holy communion. Through baptism 
in the name of Jesus the believer dies to sin and is raised to 
eternal life. The death of Jesus becomes death effective for him, 
so that the risen life of Jesus becomes effective for him also 
(Rorn. 6: 2-4). He dies into Christ and, therefore, lives with 
Him. In holy communion the believer partakes in the risen life 
of Christ. The bread and the wine are for him Christ's living 
body (John 6: 52-56). So that, in partaking of Christ, he finds 
himself participating in Christ's continuing ministry in the 
world, the ministry of making His death the effective source of 
all men's salvation. 

In baptism the believer dies once, and once for all, and his 
life henceforth is life in Christ; in holy communion the believer 

99 



THE FAITH 

lives continually by the life of Christ, his privilege thenceforth 
being to die for his Saviour. The Lord's death cannot become 
public in any other way except by the sacrifice and self-denial 
of those who belong to Him. Writing to the Colossians, Paul 
says, "though it is true that I am suffering on behalf of you 
who have heard the Gospel, yet I am far from sorry about it. 
Indeed, I am glad, because it gives me a chance to complete in 
iny own sufferings something of the untold pains which Christ 
suffers on behalf of his Body, the Church" (Col. i: 24, J. B. 
Phillips). 

In his second letter to the Corinthians (4: 12), Paul makes 
quite explicit the nature of this ministry of death, " Always 
carrying in the body the death of Jesus," he says, "so that the 
life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we 
live we are always being given up to death for Jesus 3 sake, so 
that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So 
death is at work in us, but life in you." 

The Practice of Death 

The characteristic of the Church's life is this practice of 
death. It is a practice which informs its religious worship, 
controls its secular life, sustains its servant ministry and inspires 
its Gospel proclamation. It characterizes also its whole temporal 
history, so delivering it from static institutionalism that it is kept 
responsive to the descent of the Spirit. 

All Christian worship is worship in the name of Christ, and 
at its heart is thanksgiving for the salvation He has wrought. 
Remembrance and commemoration of Christ's death and 
passion belong not only to the service of holy communion but to 
all the services of the Church. Amnesia, it has been said, is the 
basic ailment of many Christians. They need anamnesis. There 
is an illuminating feature about the forms of the various types of 
building used in worship. The Hindu temple is built in the 
form of a man. The outer court raised on pillars and open on 
all sides is the human body, the inner court with its wide spaces 
is the human mind,, the shrine room is the human soul. Man 



100 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

moves within himself into himself and there finds the presence 
of God. The Muslim mosque too is built in the form of a man. 
The central dome is man's head and the minarets are his hands 
upraised in prayer. Man comes to God through an act of adora- 
tion and submission. The Buddhist dagoba too is built in the 
form of a man. Its figure is that of a man in the posture of 
meditation: legs crossed, the body erect and the head held 
straight and unmoving. The approach to reality is by way of 
inner withdrawal from the world. The Christian church too is 
built in the form of a man, a man stretched out upon a cross. 
Man's access to God is through one who died for him. 

This contrast can be made sharper by reference to the Hindu 
doctrine of grace. The Hindu witnesses to the truth that it is 
grace which makes worship possible. "It is by God's grace/' 
the Hindu says, "that man worships God." But this grace is 
God's normal relation to man. It is grace that is not costly to 
God. God remains outside the human predicament even when 
He is gracious. Man's sin does not press upon the life of God. 
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is grace that was costly 
(Phil. 2: 6-8). Its symbols are a stable, a cross, and a borrowed 
tomb. To repeat again, a death is at the heart of Christian 
worship and, without it, worship is no witness to Him who died, 
a witness borne until He comes. The joy of that coming too is 
part of Christian worship. It is as when the streaks of early 
dawn mingle with the shadows as people meet for worship in 
the dusk of the morning. Christian worship witnesses to the 
boundary between night and day. Such worship is part of the 
mission of the Church. To plant it in every community is the 
goal of its missionary enterprise. 

Death also lies athwart the secular life of the Church. 
Christians are a people sharing a common life in the world, 
which life finds expression in secular as well as religious forms. 
There are the Church's institutions set up as means of service 
hospitals, schools, orphanages, etc., there are the Church's 
organs of administration such as conferences, synods, councils, 
and parish meetings ; there are the Church's expressions of its 
community life ashrams, convents, monasteries, community 

101 



THE FAITH 

centres and so on; there are the instruments forged for the ful- 
filment of its mission theological colleges, lay academies,, 
literature agencies, missionary societies and several more; and 
finally there is the secular power and influence wielded by the 
Church through its administrators, men of learning and letters 
and the very weight of its common life. In and through all 
these forms the devil is constantly busy suggesting to the 
Church Fall down and worship me and the kingdoms of the 
world will be yours (Matt. 4: 8-9). 

None of the forms of life and expression that have been men- 
tioned are for their own sake but for the sake of the spread of 
the Gospel; and yet the devil constantly suggests that they must 
themselves be safeguarded for their own importance. The 
Church is under constant temptation to make its service insti- 
tutions (Lk. 22: 25) expressions of the Church's patronage of 
the world rather than of its true servanthood. There is the 
besetting sin of seeking to administer the Church's affairs with- 
out patient listening to the voice of the Spirit which may speak 
either through a majority or a minority (Acts 15: 12), perhaps 
even through one lone person. Expressions of community life 
within the Church are specially exposed to a holier-than-thou 
infection (Phil. 3:2), while the very instruments intended to 
lift up the Christ become means of self-advertisement (Phil. I : 
15). The experience of the Cross ought to mark the secular life 
of the Church; but how can this happen as long as Christians, 
as bearers of the Gospel, are not at the mercy of the world but 
are able to protect themselves against those whom they would 
win for Christ? Jesus was crucified because those who rejected 
Him had the power to crucify Him: the Church in many a 
given situation is too powerful to be crucified. 

The servant ministry of the Church is its true vocation. Those 
who serve are not necessarily servants. Jesus called them bene- 
factors. Men in authority can serve most efficiently, but no one 
can reject their service or reject them. Those who represent the 
Master must not expect to enjoy this advantage. The servant is 
not greater than his Lord (John 15: 20). Jesus who was Son 
became servant by emptying Himself (Phil. 2 : 7). So must it be 

102 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

with His disciples whom God must empty and make His 
servants. 

What can we, who belong to Christ and bear His name, 
expect ? We must expect to be taken by Him and mixed by Him 
in that aspect of the world's life in which He wants us to be 
leaven (Lk. 13: 21). Once the leaven is mixed with the dough 
it has no other function except to lose its identity. We must 
expect to be taken by Him and scattered into earth's remotest 
places, there to grow along with the tares until the harvest is 
reaped (Matt. 13: 24-38). The seed that is scattered means the 
children of the Kingdom. Too often the seed remains too long 
growing in seed-plots. Of how many Christians in the West is it 
not true that the clubs and societies of which they are members 
are exclusively for Christians and often under the aegis of the 
Church ! Of how many Christians in the East is it not true that 
their secular life is lived within Christian institutions or walled 
within mission compounds ! We must expect also to be taken by 
our Lord and set upon lampstands from which we can radiate 
the most light (Matt. 5 : 15). When men light lamps they do not 
hide them. God does not do otherwise. He too will set the lamps 
He lights where they can be set to most advantage. But these 
places of advantage are also the places where the winds blow. 
A sudden gust of wind and the lamp may go out; but that is part 
of the lamp's adventure. Always facing death in order that it 
may communicate life that is the Church's unavoidable role. 

So also is death a characteristic of the Church's proclama- 
tion of the Gospel. Somehow we Christians often give the 
impression to others that the Gospel is a bludgeon in our hands 
with which to beat them into acceptance of our faith, or that it 
is a kind of badge which not only distinguishes us from others 
but confers on us a distinction. Somehow we find it difficult to 
communicate the fact that we ourselves are captives of the 
Gospel, and that our evangelism is a showing forth of our 
captor-Lord. Many reject the Gospel because the challenge 
which the preacher presents seems to them to say: Come and 
stand where I stand, come and belong to what I belong to, come 
and believe what I believe. The preacher has to find a way of 

103 



THE FAITH 

leaving the hearer with his Lord, without obtruding himself 
between them. If the preacher remains in the picture then the 
situation is not one of evangelism but of prosely tism. 

I have found that for me the most effective safeguard against 
this obtrusion of the preacher is to keep always in the fore- 
ground of my thought the fact that all those to whom I am 
privileged to speak about my Lord are already one with me 
within His saving ministry. I believe Him and confess Him, 
they do not: and yet the essential facts of the Gospel remain 
true for them as for me. 

God made us. 

God loves us. 

Jesus died for us. 

Our trespasses are not counted. 

When we die we shall go to Him who will be our Judge. 

These affirmations are true of all men and for all men whether 
they know them or not, like them or not, accept them or not. I 
am able to speak with men who do not yet bear the name of 
Christ, as those with whom I am one because the wall of parti- 
tion between us has already been removed (Eph. 2: 14). Faith 
in Christ they have yet to find; but already they belong with 
me within the saving facts of the Gospel. Allow this conviction 
to dominate one's thought, and one will find oneself delivered 
from standing in front of one's hearers. One learns thereby to 
stand alongside them and point them to their Saviour. This 
"standing-alongside", where the hearer does not need to look at 
the speaker, is the practice of death which every preacher must 
learn. 

And finally, as we have said, this practice of death belongs to 
the nature of the Church in its temporal history. God's ark 
must eternally dwell in a tent because God is a God who moves. 
To build for the ark a house of cedar (2 Sam. 7: 2f.) is to turn 
the historical moment after the moment is past into a mummy ; 
it is to attempt to turn the place of revelation into an idol when 
the living God Himself has moved on and now beckons from 

104 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

afar. Dr George MacLeod in his John Knox lecture (1959) 
vividly illustrates what this means in terms of Church history. 

A right reading of history [he says] is not an accumulation of 
differing strands. The everlasting Spirit seems to descend with the 
same message on a differing key to attune with the differing 
environments of the changing epochs. Regrettably, it appears 
never to have been true in history that the Church has grasped 
some new insight, directly communicated from above. Rather has 
the secular order so pressured the laziness of God's elect that they 
have been forced to come to terms with it and so most painfully 
have found again the Living God. 

Pressured by the tragedy of the decaying environment, St 
Martin of Tours was wearied of an Empire that had grown old 
and institutional. Martin's fellowship houses were the chrys- 
alis of the priesthood of all believers emergent in its ancient 
colours. Five centuries later the Church became institutional in 
its turn. The Gothic revival was the next organism : in the superb 
words of Chesterton "Up shot the Gothic like a flight of arrows" 
only, towards some five hundred years later again, to become the 
static scandal that was the Roman Church before its counter- 
reformation. Pressured again by the evils of its time, God's lazy 
elect once more were stirred by a new descent of the Spirit which 
issued in the Reformation. Of our own day it is true to say that the 
elaborate design of the reformers has simply faded out. Our key, 
once more, will emerge by coming level with our environment. 
Once more it is our environment that pressures us. 1 

A moment dies, the Church has moved from organism to 
institutionalism : the practice of death means awaiting again a 
new descent of the Spirit, ready to leave behind and to move on. 

An Indivisible Inheritance 

"The Lord's death" that is the first determinant of the life 
and mission of the Church. But in the text quoted, at the begin- 
ning of this chapter, three determinants are mentioned: the 
Lord's death, the Lord's coming again, the time until. What is 
the meaning of the second determinant for the life of the 
Church? 

1 John Knox and Today, John Knox Press, pp. 8-10. 

105 



THE FAITH 

When the Lord comes in glory it will be finally to fulfil the 
Father's plan for His whole creation. This plan comprehends 
all that God has made. So that the Church in its task in the 
world has but one way open to it and that is to teach all men 
how they may inherit together that which is their indivisible 
heritage. The rightful insistence on the necessity of personal 
conversion and commitment to Jesus Christ has in large mea- 
sure given rise to the impression that salvation is an individual 
matter. "I believe and am saved." In terms of the New Testa- 
ment perspective this is a distortion. The truth is that when I 
believe, I find myself involved in God's work of salvation. My 
own salvation is part of that work. Grace and apostleship 
(Rom. i : 5) are received together, grace becoming more fully 
one's experience as the apostolic privilege is exercised and its 
responsibility discharged. To put the matter crudely but 
simply: salvation in Christ, which is God's will for all man- 
kind, cannot be given to me as a separate and separable por- 
tion. Rather, salvation can be for me only a call to follow Jesus 
in His saving ministry. "Follow me" was what He Himself said 
to everyone whom He called and those who sought Him. This 
experience of following Him is the experience of salvation. 

The phrase that Paul uses, to describe the Christian experi- 
ence, is the phrase "in Christ". Christ is not a person in the 
past tense only. He is present Lord, and the Lord who is to 
come. To be "in Christ", therefore, is to live by all that He has 
done, to be involved in all that He is doing, and to prepare for 
all that He will do. In John's epistle this truth is stated quite 
vividly. "You know," he says, "that the Spirit teaches you in 
everything. Remember that his teaching urges you to live *in 
Christ'. So that if he were suddenly to reveal himself we should 
still know exactly where we stand, and should not have to 
shrink away from his Presence." (i John 2 : 27; J. B. Phillips). 

To repeat again, salvation is mankind's indivisible inheritance 
in Christ, this quality of indivisibility determining in every way 
both each man's experience of salvation and his mode of 
obtaining it. "Let us give thanks to the Father," says Paul 
(Col. i: 12-14), "who has qualified us to share in the inheri- 

106 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

tance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domin- 
ion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved 
Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." 
Redemption is in Christ. It is an abiding experience. This Christ 
is the King of a Kingdom, a Kingdom which has been estab- 
lished and which is being accomplished. In this work of Christ 
the King those who are redeemed share their inheritance with 
the saints in light. It is this light which enlightens every man. 
He is the light of the world (John i : 9; 8: i). 

What are the consequences of this indivisibility of man's 
inheritance in Christ ? First of all, it means that the Gospel is 
not truly proclaimed where the proclamation does not make the 
Kingdom of God the explicit context within which an indi- 
vidual is invited to accept the Gospel. Since there is no other 
name given by which men can be saved except the name of 
Jesus Christ (Acts 4: 12), no man should be invited to accept 
Jesus Christ without, at the same time and in the same act, 
accepting the world for which Jesus died and to which Jesus 
belongs as its Lord and Saviour. If there were many ways of 
obtaining salvation, it would be possible for a man to choose a 
way on which he can go alone or only with those whom he 
chooses. But, since there is only one way, all humanity is bound 
together by this circumstance. They belong together on the 
road of salvation. There are many Christians for whom the 
natural way of speaking about the issue of salvation is to say 
that one is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as personal Saviour 
and that thereafter one lives responsibly in the world. It does 
not seem to me to be a mere quibble to insist that the primary 
act must involve the awareness that one does not really accept 
Jesus as personal Saviour unless that acceptance is informed 
from the beginning as to who He is. He is Lord of the world and 
Lord of the Church and any one who accepts Him accepts Him 
only to the extent that he accepts to be implicated in the exer- 
cise of Christ's double Lordship. The issue is always what the 
acceptance of Jesus Christ as one's personal Saviour means. 

A second consequence of the indivisible nature of the salva- 
tion which God offers to men in Christ is that such a salvation 

107 



THE FAITH 

is truly proclaimed only when its indivisibility is effectively 
demonstrated. Where it is not manifest that Christians share an 
indivisible gift in Christ, their proclamation of the Gospel is 
already mutilated. The basic issue here is not only that of the 
unity of the Church. It is even more pointedly the issue of the 
unity of each congregation. Sunday worship in most churches 
to-day, in East and West, is not the activity of a family. Dis- 
crete individuals gather together in one place to worship God. 
This has its own validity, but a worshipping congregation must 
possess a community life which is both secular as well as reli- 
gious. It is this need that is driving Christians to create what 
have come to be called "para-parishes" where the secular 
sharing of common life, whether in terms of a common occupa- 
tion or a common neighbourhood, provides the basis for 
congregational unity. 

The Evangelism Department of the World Council of 
Churches, in one of its monthly letters, puts the matter thus: 

This question of the witness to the Gospel of the corporate life 
of a congregation becomes acute when it faces the prospect of 
opening its doors to the outsider. The outsider is already fre- 
quently a sharer in group life in the secular world a labcmr union 
or a work group or a teen-age gang, or a neighbourhood athletic 
club. There he finds the reward of fellowship ; he is known by 
name, is accorded the dignity of being permitted to speak and to 
be listened to. Ultimately, to be sure, none of these fellowships 
may satisfy his deepest needs. Rootlessness, and the fate of the 
wanderer, and suffering the loss of personal freedom in subjection 
to the power structure of a technological society, hover in the 
background. But every congregation is called upon to become a 
fellowship so clearly witnessing to Christian brotherhood that it 
can witness as from community to community. Surveys of evangelism 
in area after area report the despair of many an evangelizing 
effort directed to the outsider as this confronts the problem of 
introducing the convert to life within a local congregation . . . 

The consideration of this need to place the corporate life and 
structures of the churches under the judgment of the call to 
proclaim the Gospel can give rise to many questionings. Can 
renewal of the fellowship life within church walls take place 
unless a congregation becomes an agency of witness to the world 

108 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

outside church walls ? What has the fellowship of Christians in a 
congregation to offer by way of witness that can differentiate it 
from community life in the secular world? Is it true that the 
Church will rediscover itself only in small groups? Have the 
churches in our time, overwhelmed by the complexities of our era 
of social change, lost the sense of expectancy and the courage to 
endure the pain of renewal ? Are we building walls of protection 
against the world within which we can indulge in nostalgia for 
a vanishing "Christian culture"? 1 

The issue is plain (is it not ?) and can be put directly by asking 
whether there is not but one way of entering into an indivisible 
inheritance the way of love. The full impact of the New Testa- 
ment insistence upon love is lost when love is looked upon 
primarily as a virtue to be cultivated, a commandment to be 
obeyed. Love is the very method of inheritance. It is the way 
by which one enters into and abides in the world-embracing 
love of God. "The man who loves his brother lives and moves in 
the light." u We know that we have crossed the frontier from 
death to life because we do love our brothers" (i John 2: 10; 
3 : 14; J. B. Phillips). In these verses John is saying: Love is the 
way by which one enters into and lives in the light. It is the 
way by which one passes from the sphere of death into the 
sphere of life. It is the way by which one conies to the know- 
ledge that this transition from darkness to light, from death to 
life, has taken place in one's life. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians (8: 1-13) Paul writes at 
length on a comparatively trivial problem can a Christian 
eat food offered to idols? In his letter to the Romans (14: sf.) 
he deals equally at length with the question of eating meat. 
There are similar questions dealt with in all the letters in the 
New Testament, Why? Because trivial differences become 
major irritations when people have to live closely together. As 
long as Christians can erect effective barriers between them- 
selves so that the area of their common life, their life in fellow- 
ship, is reduced to controllable proportions, so long the differ- 
ences will not matter. But differences, even on small things, do 
1 Monthly letter, June-Nov. 1960. 

109 



THE FAITH 

matter where people have to live together. The writers of the 
New Testament accepted this living-together as one household 
as their major premise, and so dealt with the problems which 
this living-together raised: we, in our day, in our several 
churches, denominations and congregations have made our 
differences sufficient reason for not-living-together. And then 
we are caught in the situation that these differences cease to 
matter. Those who have participated in Church Union 
negotiations know the meaning of this as far as organic union 
between Churches is concerned. They know that several of the 
questions raised by persistent differences cannot be answered 
until the differences are within a united Church. 

Again and again in all discussion about the Church's renewal, 
conversation finally comes to the question: what new patterns 
of life, new structures of fellowship and witness, are necessary 
for the Church as it faces its task in the world to-day ? It is a 
question posed by the inescapable fact that the Church and 
the Churches cannot live their life or fulfil their mission without 
effectively expressing the Church's solidarity with the world as 
well as the fellowship within which fellow Christians are bound. 
In both these spheres there is necessity for common action and 
also for common life; for programmes of work that involve co- 
operation and collaboration, as well as for social structures 
within which there can be real belonging to one another. 

In this area there arises too the need to re-formulate for 
practical purposes the relation between Law and Gospel. 
Christian solidarity demands a common Christian way of 
behaviour, those standardized Christian reactions to the 
recurrent situations of life which put a stamp of conduct on the 
community and set it free for its special tasks. There must be 
those habits of the Christian life on which the freedom and 
individuality of the Christian can rest. The danger of legalism 
is avoided not by avoiding Law but by offering one's obedience 
to it as one's grateful response to grace. The danger of uniform- 
ity is avoided not by individualism but by accepting the discip- 
line of a common life as rightly belonging to the calling of a 
Christian soldier. The theological issue concerning Law and 

no 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

Gospel is met when Law is recognized as preceding the Gospel 
in the matter of Christian nurture, as contradicted by the 
Gospel in the matter of Christian conversion, and as flowing 
from the Gospel in the matter of Christian witness. 

Church and World 

Man's inheritance in God is indivisible. This throws light on 
the nature of the Christian life as it is lived within the Church, 
but it also has its consequence for the relation between the 
Church and the world. While the Church is the instrument of 
God's mercy and judgment with respect to the world; the 
world, in its turn, is the instrument of God's mercy and judg- 
ment with respect to the Church. An illustration of this is seen 
in what is happening in Ceylon to-day. For nearly twenty years 
now the schools run by the Churches have been a source of 
controversy both within the Churches and within the commun- 
ity at large. The Churches failed to make up their minds as to 
what to do, while all the time clinging to the hope that nothing 
would happen to change the status quo, a situation in which 
the schools were a source of secular power and influence for 
the Church. I was in Europe when the last general elections in 
Ceylon took place, and I remember being asked which party 
in Ceylon, I thought, would win. I was out of touch with 
political trends in the country but still I replied to the question, 
I said, "In my view the schools have become a source of 
embarrassment to the Churches and a source of spiritual temp- 
tation. The party which has announced that it will take over all 
schools and make all education state controlled is the Sri Lanka 
Freedom Party. I have a feeling, therefore, that for the sake of 
the Church this party will win." My intention in giving this 
illustration is not to discuss the Tightness or wrongness of my 
view of Ceylon politics or of the schools issue. Rather, it is to 
give a very concrete illustration of the point which I am making 
that the Lord does use the world to lead the Church into 
discerning and doing His will, and that we can expect this to be 
so. 

in 



THE FAITH 

This double relation of Church and world was one of the 
most significant insights of the Jewish people, and through 
them has become an essential element in the Christian under- 
standing of history. Two passages from the prophecies of Micah 
may be quoted as examples of this teaching. The prophet 
bewails the sin of Israel and announces to her that the Lord will 
use the nations to execute His plans against her : 

The Eternal declares, 
I plan something, plan a fate 
from which you cannot shake you free, 
nor rid you of its crushing weight: 
so evil is the time. 
Then shall you be taunted, 
as this dirge is chanted : 
Undone! we are undone! 
the soil of our folk is parcelled out, 
past all restoring; 

our captors are dividing up our fields. 
(Micah 2: 3-4; Moffatt.) 

And then turning to the Church, the prophet cries : 

Arise and thresh 
O daughter of Zion, 
For I will make you horns of iron, 
hoofs as hard as bronze, 
to trample many a people down, 
consecrating their spoils to the Eternal, 
their wealth to the Lord of all the earth. 
(Micah 4: 13.) 

In both these prophecies, the Church and the world are set 
out as instruments of God's judgment with respect to each 
other: the teaching in the Bible is equally clear that they are 
also instruments each to the other of God's mercy. Cyrus of 
Persia was God's instrument of mercy to Israel (Is. 44: 28), 
Jonah was God's herald of mercy to Nineveh. To quote Micah 
again, it is by this double movement that God's will shall 
finally be accomplished and the nations come to share in the 
glory of Zion. 

112 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

It shall come to pass 

that the mountain of the house of the Lord 

shall be established . . . 

and peoples shall flow to it. 

Many nations shall come, and say: 

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, 

to the house of the God of Jacob; 

that he may teach us his ways 

and we may walk in his paths . . * 

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 

and their spears into pruning hooks; 

nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 

neither shall they learn war any more. 

(Micah 4: 1-3.) 

The Church and the World when the Lord comes in glory 
He will bring to its fulness His dealing with both of them. Per- 
haps one should also add, not only both of them but of all His 
creation. The Bible reference is to God's salvation of His whole 
creation (Col. i : 15-20), and even if thisjreference up to now 
lacked any warmth of meaning, it should be so no more. Outer 
space has become part of man's world and man has taken his 
first step into space. Our expectation of the great consummation 
must, therefore,[necessarily make us wonder whether God, who 
was made flesh for us and amongst us, would not*also have de- 
vised for all parts of His creation their own appropriate visitation. 

Nor, in our little day, 

May His devices with the heavens be guessed; 
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way, 
Or His bestowals there, be manifest. 

But in the eternities 

Doubtless we shall compare together, hear 
A million alien Gospels, in what guise 
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. 

O be prepared, my soul, 

To read the inconceivable, to scan 

The infinite forms of God those stars unroll 

When, in our turn, we show to them a MAN. 1 

1 From Christ in the Universe, by Alice Meynell; Burns and Oates Ltd. 
UTE 



THE FAITH 

The Time Between 

The Church lives by making public "the Lord's death", the 
Church's faith and mission are conditioned by what the Lord 
will accomplish when He comes again, the realm which the 
Church is to occupy is the realm between His death and His 
coming. It is here that the peculiarity and uniqueness of the 
Church and the Gospel which it proclaims become most 
evident. The life and mission of the Church are within "time", 
and the events of time are primarily what that life and mission 
are about. Time is time-between. It is between the now and the 
not yet. Christ has come, He will come again. God's Kingdom 
has been established, it will be consummated. The Son has 
begun to reign, He will hand His realm over to the Father. The 
Holy Spirit has been poured out, He will come upon all flesh. 
The Church has been gathered, it must gather the nations. We 
have become the children of God, we have yet to become like 
Him. 

This time-between is the sphere of the Church's task. Its 
concern is to see that during this time God's will is done on 
earth as it is done in heaven. The perspective of the Old Testa- 
ment was limited by death. After death there was Sheol, a 
state of shadowy existence of the soul. In Sheol the praise of 
God was silent (Ps. 30: 9). Therefore, this life on earth was 
seen to be real life. It was here that God's will was done, that 
God's name was praised, that God wrought out His purposes, 
that God and man lived together. The history of the world, its 
nations and its peoples: the history of men, their life in family 
and community that was the very stuff of Jewish faith. But 
since Jesus overcame death, the way was open to two alterna- 
tive developments. There was the possibility of glimpsing the 
truth that human history would be gathered up into the 
accomplished reign of God, there was also the possibility of 
denying any but instrumental meaning to historical develop- 
ment and of thinking that salvation was the salvation of indi- 
viduals, so that man's life on earth simply constituted the 
opportunity for obtaining that salvation. 

114 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

New Testament faith fixed itself firmly on the first alterna- 
tive. It was able to do this because its Scriptures were the books 
of the Old Testament. It saw and knew Jesus as the Messiah. 
But right from New Testament times has come the choice of 
the second alternative. Among its many elements the Gnostic 
heresy also contained this element of making salvation an indi- 
vidual matter, of treating this world as unreal because it was 
temporal. This Gnostic tendency against which the early 
Church so consistently strove has, however, become the chief 
climate of opinion in large sections of the Christian Church 
to-day. In them the individual soul and its salvation has become 
the matrix of thought, the life on earth is the process within 
which personal sanctification has to be obtained, and heaven, 
after death, is the goal of religious striving. 

In the ecumenical document published by the Evangelism 
Department of the World Council of Churches, entitled A theo- 
logical reflection on the work of Evangelism, there occurs the 
following paragraph: 

When it describes the mighty deeds of God, the New Testament 
uses political, juridical, sociological and other secular terms. 
Kingdom of God, Son of David, King of the Jews; Redemption, 
Faith, Forgiveness; Healing, Freedom, Service all such words 
by which the person and work of Jesus Christ are described are 
secular words. This secular terminology of the New Testament is 
not only a form of speech. For the coming of Jesus Christ in the 
flesh and in the power of the Spirit is a "secular" event. It is an 
event in the world and for the world. For many, however, the 
language and message of the Bible have become merely "reli- 
gious". It is the task of evangelism to discover and to proclaim 
the Gospel in its specific, concrete, unique and secular sense. 1 

"Christianity is a secular movement and not a religion/ 5 
were the words with which Dr Hoekendijk opened his speech at 
the Strasbourg Conference of the World Student Christian 
Federation. "We must," he said, "de-sacralize Christianity and 
the Church." What did he mean? He meant that Christianity 
was becoming too exclusively concerned with the private 

1 P. 13- 



THE FAITH 

solaces of personal religion, it was losing its momentum as a 
movement launched by the visit to the world of its Messiah- 
King. At a recent consultation held in India between Hindu 
and Christian scholars, one of the Hindus remarked that if ever 
he felt compelled to take history seriously, he would then have 
to become a Christian. How easily many Christians manage to 
empty history of its meaning except as the stage for the drama 
of their own lives ! 

There is in one of the Psalms a rather quaint reference to the 

birds. 

Even the sparrow finds a home, 
and the swallow a nest for herself, 
where she may lay her young, 
at thy altars, O Lord of hosts. 

(Ps. 84: 3.) 

One can almost hear the birds, as they discussed the temple, its 
altars, and its eaves, saying to one another, "What kind people 
these human beings are ! How well they have built for us places 
to live in and to bear our young!" Can it be that our conversa- 
tions about the great deeds of God are not very different ? It is 
true that for our wounded spirits the temple of our God does 
afford a home, but the temple itself was not built for this 
purpose. 

The third determinant, then, of the life and mission of the 
Church which is "the time-until" must be taken so completely 
seriously that this life and mission are not subverted into any- 
thing less than the working out of God's election of His Church 
within His total purpose for the world. The Scriptures make 
plain that the time until the end is the time during which God's 
election of Jesus Christ, as the new man, explodes in power and 
fills the very crevices of human history with His wrath and 
grace. The Church is the agent of this explosion. 

When Jesus was baptized (Matt. 3:17) the declaration was 
made, "This is my beloved Son"; a fulfilment of the prophecy 
which declares, "Behold mine elect, in whom my soul delights" 
(Is. 42: i). But in His death this chosen one was rejected. The 
bystanders at the Cross (Lk. 23: 35) cried out, "If you are the 

u6 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

chosen one, come down." If there was any reply from the 
Cross, it was the cry: "My God, my God, why have you for- 
saken me ?" (Matt. 27 : 46). Yes here is the new man in whom 
all men find their destiny. He is before them all; He is the 
"pre" of their destination. In Christ's experience of being 
forsaken, men are elected for rejection, just as in His coven- 
anted love which took Him to the Cross they are elected for 
salvation. "God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he 
may have mercy upon all" (Rom. 1 1 : 32). 

The Church's task, therefore, is to declare this mercy and to 
make it operative by entering fully into the life of the world 
and there experiencing the mercy of God as God brings men to 
repentance and faith; or as God works out His purpose with an 
Esau, a Pharaoh or a Judas (Rom. 9: 13, 17, 18; Acts i: 16). 
Just as the Scriptures reveal, whether in the Old Testament or 
in the New, a chosen people implicated in the life of the nations 
around them and by that very implication becoming God's 
signature in the world, so it must be always. To be the Church- 
until is to be the Church in the world and for it. To be sev- 
ered from Christ is to have fallen from grace (Gal. 5:4); but 
the time-until is the time in Christ, the time to announce that 
God does not will that any should perish but that all should 
come to repentance (2 Pet. 3: 9). It is true that the Church has 
consistently made this announcement, but it has often gone 
unheeded because Christians have behaved towards others as 
if those others had already perished. To preserve the patience 
and hope, that belong to the time-until, together with the sense 
of urgency that belongs to the nature of the Gospel : that is the 
crux of the matter. 

Faith and Obedience 

In bringing this chapter to a close, let us tie together two 
truths which in the course of the argument may have seemed to 
stray apart. These are, on the one hand, the intrinsic import- 
ance of personal faith in Jesus Christ, and, on the other hand, 
the equally important acknowledgment that obedience to Jesus 

117 



THE FAITH 

Christ finds its substance in the relation of His Gospel to the 
world. Three passages from Scripture must suffice for this 
purpose. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter, speaking to the Jews after 
the healing of the lame man at the temple gate, says to them 
(3: 19): "Repent, and turn again, that your sins may be 
blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence 
of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for 
you." The challenge to repentance is a challenge to personal 
decision, but the consequence of such decision is announced to 
be the gift of the Holy Spirit and their involvement in the 
coming of the Messiah. 

In his first epistle, Peter writes (2: 9), "You are a chosen 
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that 
you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out 
of darkness into his marvellous light." The words used here 
race, priesthood, nation, people stress the corporate existence 
of those who bear the name of Christ. Their life and function is 
a life and function together, to declare the deeds of God by 
which "light" has become man's inheritance. But before such 
declaration can be made, one must be able to say: "He called 
me out of darkness into his marvellous light," The personal 
situation is decisive. Howard Thurman, commenting on this 
use of "light" to describe the Christian experience and voca- 
tion, alludes to a common practice among desert dwellers. "It 
is the custom of the desert dweller," he says, "to leave a lighted 
lantern by the road side at night to cheer the weary traveller. 
Beside the lantern there is a note which gives detailed directions 
as to where his cottage may be found so that, if there is distress 
or need, the stranger may find help." 1 Each lamp must be lit, 
each called out of darkness into light; and all along the way 
many lamps must be set singly and together fulfilling the 
Christian mission. 

In his letter to the Romans (8: 38-39), Paul concludes his 
magnificent statement about man's heritage in Christ with 
almost a hymn of confidence. "I am sure," he says, "that 

1 Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart, Harper and Brothers, p. 90. 

118 



MEANWHILE, THE CHURCH 

nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in 
Christ Jesus our Lord/ 5 That is faith's true standing ground. 
But his experience is wrought in a contest that faith must wage 
on every battle front. "Death and life man's existential 
alternatives; angels and principalities his cosmic neighbour- 
hood; things present and things to come the march of 
temporal events; powers those who hold and wield authority; 
star ascending or descending whatever providence has 
decreed; nor anything else in all creation." 

The battle that is being fought is a tremendous and all- 
inclusive one, and man is both the fighter as well as the cause 
of the fight. He is the ultimate object of God's concern and the 
central hope of God's design. No wonder Scripture exclaims in 
thankful surprise, "What is man?", and to this question raised 
in the Old Testament the New Testament gives answer in the 
confident faith of the Gospel. 

What is man, that God is mindful of him? 

or the son of man, that God cares for him ? 

For a little while he has been put lower than the angels, 

and yet God has crowned him with glory and honour, 

putting all things under his feet. 

But, as it is, 

we do not yet see all things controlled by man. 

What we do see is Jesus (Heb. 2: 6-9). 



119 



5 

THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

These men who have turned the world upside down 
have come here also (Acts 17: 6) . 

SOME years ago a Christian lady, a Protestant, came to 
me with this problem. She was married and for many 
years had had no children. She said that she had gone on 
pilgrimage to Madhu, to the Roman Catholic shrine there, and 
had besought Mary for a child, but to no avail. Then she went 
to Kataragama, to which shrine Hindus go, and made vows 
there and received a child. She wanted to know what to do. 
Should she not now change her faith and become a Hindu? 
I said to her, "Ammah, if having or not having children is to 
decide the issue, it does not really matter what you do. You can 
choose to belong to any religion you like." 

A member of my church recently bought a new car. He him- 
self was just learning to drive. As he left his house to go and take 
delivery of the car he broke a coconut (a Hindu practice sup- 
posed to ensure a good augury) ; having taken delivery of the 
car he went and lit two candles in St Antony's Church, and 
when he got home he asked his mother to pray that God would 
guard him from all accidents. It is immaterial to this illustra- 
tion that his car met with an accident within the week. What is 
material is the fact that, in terms of his over-ruling anxiety, this 
person found no difficulty in mixing up the various religions* 

Syncretism is a denial of the Kingship of Christ (Phil. 3: 19), 
but His Kingship is easily denied when His Kingdom ceases to 
be the goal of one's search, the object of one's devotion (Matt. 
6: 33). Whether one is going to be a syncretist or not simply 
depends on what one is looking for. This driving desire, of 
course, need not always be some form of material wealth or 

120 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

security. Dr Visser 't Hooft has said that "syncretism is the 
secret religion of many intellectuals in the West." 1 This is 
because their over-ruling concern is for a synopsis of intellectual 
systems, for a way of holding together various philosophies of 
life and truth. A quality of a true thinker is his intellectual 
humility, but in the realm of religion this humility can prevent 
one from committing one's life to personal discipleship to Jesus 
Christ. A syncretist can be committed to great causes but, 
within the inner citadel, the God he worships is a God he has 
chosen and not a God who has chosen him. Professor Toynbee 
has this to say about Christianity: 

We ought to purge our Christianity of the traditional Christian 
belief that Christianity is unique. This is not just a Western belief; 
it is intrinsic to Christianity itself. ... It is a congenial feature 
which is part of Christianity's and also part of Islam's heritage 
from Judaism. Just as the vision of God as being love is a heritage 
from Judaism, so is the other vision of God as being a jealous 
god, the god of my tribe as against the Gentiles outside my tribe 
or my church or whatever my community may be. 2 

To know that one is possessed is to be aware of the jealousy of 
the possessor (Deut. 4: 24); where this jealousy can be purged 
the relationship has been made different also. The question is 
not one about God's relation to others but about God's relation 
to oneself. 

The Christian Commitment 

Paul and Silas were in trouble in Thessalonica because they 
proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ. It is a proclamation whose 
climate of thought is as far removed as can be from desire for 
babies, or anxiety about security, or humility in thought. It is 
concerned with a truth that leads to its own consequences for 
the person who believes it. It refuses to be compromised with 
any other truth. It in itself and not the believer decides the 

1 From a speech reported in E.P.S. of Nov. 4, 1960. 

2 Arnold Toynbee, Christianity among the Religions of the World, Scribners, pp. 95- 
97. (For a discussion of this position of Toynbee see the article by Charles W. 
Forman in Religion in Life, Vol. xxvi, no. 3, 1958; also Hendrik Kraemer, Why 
Christianity of All Religions? Lutterworth and Westminster Press.) 

121 



THE FAITH 

issues. No form of syncretism ever turned the world upside 
down, nor will it serve if one's mission is to overturn the world 
(Jer. i : 10). Jesus is King that will do it; that alone will do it 
(Acts 4: 9). For, as in the day of Paul and Silas, Jesus immedi- 
ately challenges every other rule. The cry of the Jews to the 
city authorities in Thessalonica was: These men are acting 
against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, 
Jesus. The cry of the Jews in the courtyard of Pilate was : We 
have no king but Caesar (John 19: 15). That is the issue. It is 
true that the Jews, whether in Jerusalem or Thessalonica, were 
not men who felt any loyalty to Caesar: but their protest was 
nevertheless profound because they recognized the exclusive- 
ness of the claims which Jesus made. To accept His Kingship 
would threaten so many things that they valued as primary. If 
Dagon was to be protected, the ark of God must not be taken 
into his temple (i Sam. 5: 1-4), 

The contrary truth, however, is also of equal significance 
the truth that Dagon was overthrown because the people of 
God had been defeated and their ark captured. The obedience 
of the Christian disciple is rendered under two possibilities 
(Rev. ii : 10). It may be crowned with success so marked that 
the world protests at its violence. Ahab could not bear Elijah, 
the troubler of Israel (i Kings 18: 17) : the men of Thessalonica 
could not bear Paul and Silas, turning the world upside down. 
But the Christian disciple may never forget the other possi- 
bility: that his obedience may be crowned with failure, and that 
the world may seek to make his faith captive. Through the 
centuries, as much has been wrought by the Church from its 
prisons (Phil, i : 12) as has been wrought from its positions of 
power and influence. The essential need is that at no time must 
the Christian seek to protect himself from the possibility of 
defeat, the experience of capture, the price of the Cross. At all 
times and in all circumstances the Christian is a witness to the 
servant-presence of his Lord. Just as preoccupation with one's 
personal anxieties can blunt the distinctive relation between the 
Christian Gospel and the world, so also can a preoccupation 
with the success of causes that one espouses. Christian obedience 

122 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

is rooted in commitment to a person, a commitment which 
must be kept exposed to the possibilities of success as well as 
failure in the causes which that obedience serves. 

The Rev. R. K. Orchard, speaking to a group of would-be 
missionaries, had this to say: 

Our commitment is basically to a person, not to "causes". It is 
not e.g. to the cause of spreading Christianity throughout the 
world. It is commitment to Jesus Christ so that he may be known 
by men everywhere; and that is not the same thing. I think the 
promotion experts amongst us need to take heed of this danger of 
commitment to causes. You know how it is ; I am exhorted on all 
hands that, as a Christian, I am required to be concerned with 
foreign missions, the population explosion and the world's food 
problem, the refugees, the victims of rapid social change, the race 
problem, the young delinquents, the slaughter on the roads, the 
sufferers from typhoons and drought. I can't deny it theoretic- 
ally : yet it is not really surprising if I treat this welter of exhorta- 
tion as I treat advertisements which tell me that I must buy this, 
that I'm beyond the pale if I don't use that, that I can't sustain 
the pace of modern life if I don't use somebody's night cap; 
namely, by saying to advertisers and promoters of Christian 
causes alike Clear off, all of you, I don't believe any of you. 
May it not be that the promotion boys should ask themselves. Are 
we in fact evoking commitment, or are we in fact producing the 
spectator attitude? 1 

The spectator attitude to which Mr Orchard refers is simply 
the reverse side of the coin of which the one side is syncretism. 
It can be avoided only if it is clearly recognized that Christian 
commitment involves both a choice of causes that one seeks to 
serve as well as an acknowledgment all the time that there can 
be no direct identification of any man's causes with God's 
cause. 

The Life of the World 

If, then, the obedience of the Christian disciple is primarily 
an expression of his personal commitment to Jesus Christ within 

1 From an address delivered in Nov. 1959 at the Annual Meeting of Carey 
Hall, Birmingham. 

123 



THE FAITH 

the impact of the Gospel on the world, what would its determin- 
ing marks be ? They would be would they not ? those caused 
by the marks of the life of the world itself. 

A first mark of the life of the world is the way in which the 
processes of life create the marginal person. The broken 
hearted, the captive, the blind, the bruised, the indebted 
(Is. 61: 1-2): these find themselves increasingly denied their 
dignity as persons and treated as of no account in the world. 
Was it mere chance that our Lord announced the purpose of 
His coming in His sermon at Nazareth (Lk. 4: 18-19) in the 
words of the prophet who saw and proclaimed God's act of 
deliverance in terms of what it would mean to precisely these 
persons? Good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight 
to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, the year of jubilee to all. 
In His parable of judgment (Matt. 25: 3 if.) the Master makes 
everything turn on service rendered to the marginal person. 
The true test of Christian discipleship is the presence of that 
love which gives itself in consideration for those who are not 
protected by others nor are able to protect themselves (Matt. 5 : 
47). The extra which Jesus demanded He defined as those acts 
of kindness which its recipients could not repay. No wonder the 
main New Testament emphasis falls on the need of men for the 
Gospel rather than on the obligation of the disciple to evange- 
lize. An evangelism uninformed by specific knowledge of men's 
needs may result, and often does, in converting men to Jesus 
Christ but leaving them still captive in society. Christian 
discipleship is marked by warfare against the sin of the 
world. 

The sin of the world is lodged in social structures. The issue 
of Good Friday was not the issue of Jesus against certain 
persons, but the issue of Jesus against the principalities and 
powers as they were represented in the Roman Governor, the 
temple priests, the people's Sanhedrin, the orthodoxy of reli- 
gion, the passion of nationalism, the insecurity of power. The 
various religions teach the way to forgiveness of sins. The 
Incarnation and the Cross were not necessary if private and 
personal sin were all that had to be dealt with. The Cross was 

124 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

necessary because sin itself had to be overthrown (John i : 29). 
Christian discipleship must demonstrate this difference. 

A second mark of the life of the world is that it is furrowed. 
Life is not simply an undifferentiated expanse; it is cut up by 
many ploughs family, class, tribe, race, community, occupa- 
tion, language, government these and many varieties of these 
qualify life. The seed of the Christian Gospel needs to be sown 
into these furrows (Matt. 13: 38). The sons of the Kingdom 
must belong to all these areas of life. Hence the missionary mark 
of Christian discipleship. The disciple is concerned that the 
seed fall into every furrow so that, where in any furrow the 
seed has not yet been sown, there he feels the missionary calling 
to be compulsive. The first controversy in the Church was about 
circumcision (Acts 15: i). Should they first become like us? 
The answer was, No. When Paul spoke of himself as a mission- 
ary to the Gentiles (Gal. i: 8), he was announcing that God 
had called him to cross that frontier between Jew and Gentile 
so that he might belong to the Gentiles. How well Paul suc- 
ceeded is evident from the fact that he had to give proof later 
that he was still a loyal Jew (Acts 21:1 7-24) . 

But the Christian's existence within the furrow is not for its 
own sake nor is it enough to be the Christian presence there. 
Ultimately the word of the Gospel has to be spoken in order 
that there may be gathered around it those who would bear 
the name of Christ. Witness by word to Jesus Christ is an 
inescapable part of Christian obedience. The Kingdom of 
heaven, said Jesus (Matt. 13: 52), is like a householder who 
brings out of his treasure things new and old. The Christian 
faith is twenty centuries old but the disciple's witness is new. 
It comes new-minted from his experience with his Lord. But, 
it is often asked, why must this witness necessarily be in words ? 
Are not deeds enough? The answer surely is that the word of 
witness is the climactic deed. It is not enough to make love; one 
must get to the point of saying, "I love you. Will you marry 
me ?" I once saw a drawing of a boy and a girl sitting on a rock 
facing the sea. The boy had courted the girl for many months 
but had been too shy to ask the question. She was determined 

125 



THE FAITH 

this time to help him out. Suddenly she turned to him and said, 
"John I read somewhere that the size of a woman's waist is 
normally the same as the length of a man's arm. Is it true?" 
John thought for a moment before he replied, "Mary, you wait 
here and I will run up and get a string and we will soon find 
out." He lost his girl. Making love is not enough. One must say, 
"I love you." Kind deeds are not enough. One must say, "I 
forgive you." To be a Christian within that particular furrow is 
not enough; one must perform the duties and obligations of 
being an ambassador (Eph. 6: 20). One's credentials from his 
king must be presented, the word on behalf of one's king must 
be spoken. 

The missionary mark of Christian discipleship is that the 
disciple becomes the means whereby God's word of address 
reaches persons. If men are to live by the words which proceed 
from the mouth of God (Matt. 4: 4), those words must first be 
spoken. Men must be identified and addressed even as the 
woman, who touched the hem of the garment of Jesus (Mk. 5: 
30), was called out by Him and named before the crowd. 

God does not speak to man in the anonymity of categories, 
whether social, political, or religious. When the Gospel is pro- 
claimed, man is called by his name out of his anonymity and 
stands before God as the person he truly is. In other words, when 
the Gospel is addressed, whether to a Muslim or a Christian or a 
Communist or any other category of man (whatever the furrow 
be in which he dwells or by which he is known), it cuts through 
both what he pretends to be and what he imagines. It speaks to 
his true condition. 1 

A third mark of the life of the world is that it is in constant 
change and that from all sides claims are made and pressure 
exercised to control and direct this change. The task of the 
Christian disciple in this situation is to speak convincingly to 
men about the truth that the course of human history cannot 
simply be bent in any direction that man wills. A piece of wood 
cannot be cut or planed except in conformity with its grain; to 

1 A Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism, published by the World 
Council of Churches, p. 7. 

126 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

do otherwise would only produce splinters (Matt. 12 : 30). Life 
too has an ingrained direction. He who seeks to go against the 
grain will only cause scattering even if his intention is to gather. 
Thus., because, on all hands, men and societies of men are seek- 
ing to direct life's changes, and because life itself bears its own 
witness concerning the direction in which it is set, the Christian 
must find his opportunity to enable men to establish their true 
relation to Jesus Christ, He is the gatherer without whom men 
can only scatter. Or, since it is He in whom all things are to be 
gathered, they, who scatter, scatter Him. A variant rendering 
of the Gospel text reads as follows ; "He who does not gather 
with me scatters me." 

The Christian responsibility, then, in this regard can be put 
succinctly as follows: All men must be persuaded to say "Yes" 
to Jesus Christ (Acts 17: 30-31). Those who say "Yes" must be 
enabled to do "Yes" so that they may be convincing witnesses 
(i John i : 6). But since there will always be those (Matt. 21 : 
29) who do "Yes" but say "No" (whatever the reasons be for 
saying "No"), those who bear the name of Christ have a special 
responsibility towards them to lead them to say "Yes" and to 
work with them in the "Yes" they do. And, because there are 
those who neither say "Yes" nor do "Yes" (Jude 23), Christian 
obedience must be directed towards making Christ inescapable 
for them. The Church by its witness of word, its service of 
need, and its fellowship of life must so commend Christ that 
He is desired. 

The crux of the matter is that the Christian faith has a prim- 
ary reference to man's earthly life. It is not a matter simply of 
rightly understanding life but of living it, so that the missionary 
task goes beyond the task of teaching truths. "The crucial 
claims of the Gospel have to do with matter, not with ideas." 1 
It is a question of so burying the seed in the soil that it dies and 
grows and bears fruit. 

And yet, when men ask for Jesus, how often is the Jesus who 
is presented not the living grain but polished rice. He has been 

1 Charles W. Forman, in an address delivered at a consultation of the Canadian 
Council of Churches, Feb. 18-20, 1959. 

127 



THE FAITH 

husked and cleaned and made ready for the table, but He will 
not grow. His multiple reference to all of earthly life has been 
removed and He has been reduced to the dimensions of man's 
religious needs. 

Meeting Jesus 

Let us put the question this way: men must meet the living 
Jesus how will they meet Him? When, at the end of an 
evangelistic mission, the plea is made calling on men to accept 
Jesus Christ, what precisely are they expected to do ? Christ has 
been offered to them in the preached word. Are they now to 
say, "We accept what has been preached' ' ? 

When the Greeks came to Philip and said, "Sir, we would see 
Jesus" (John 12: 21) the disciples took the Greeks into the 
Master's presence. What is the answer to-day to that question? 
Does not everything hinge on this, that when men ask 
to see Jesus, the Christian disciple must be able to say, 
Here He is. 

There are six ways in which Jesus guaranteed His presence 
in the world, so that those who seek to declare the Gospel must 
be able to lead men to any one of these six. The foundation 
fact, on which the experience of the presence of Christ is based, 
is the fact of His resurrection. He is alive on earth and comes to 
meet those who would meet Him (John 20: 16), and when He 
comes He makes Himself known. He made Himself known to 
Mary by the love in His voice, to the two disciples at Emmaus 
by His gesture of blessing (Lk. 24: 31), to Simon Peter at the 
lakeside by the grace of His providence (John 21: 12), to 
Thomas amidst his doubts by the proof of His body (John 20 : 
27). To those who would see Jesus, therefore, we can always 
say, "Wait for Him and He will come to you," except that no 
one will be persuaded by what we say unless they recognize us 
as those who have met Jesus. 

Consequent on the fact of the resurrection is the promise of 
Jesus that where two or three are gathered in His name there 
He would be in the midst of them (Matt 18: 20). So that it 
ought to be possible, when men ask to see Jesus, to invite them 

128 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

to join with us in some doing of His will. It is not necessary that 
someone should bear the name of Christ before he can meet 
with others in that name. How often men have found Jesus 
precisely because they were engaged in doing His will, and 
because among those with whom they worked were men and 
women who knew His presence. In the private room of Mahat- 
ma Gandhi there was only one picture on the wall. It was the 
picture of Christ with the inscription "He is our peace". Within 
a week of Gandhiji's death that picture was removed, but it had 
told its story. It had witnessed to the fulfilment of the promise 
that Christ is where His servants are. Of course, the primary 
activity in which men can engage together in Christ's name is 
the activity of prayer, and it must be always remembered that 
many a person who does not bear that name will nevertheless 
be found to be willing to join in Christian prayer when invited 
to do so. In one way or another, an answer to the quest for the 
presence of Jesus is to find a means of gathering round His 
name. 

The presence of Christ is guaranteed also in the experience 
of membership of His body the Church (Rom. 12: 5) and 
especially in participation in its sacraments. To be baptized is 
to be baptized into His death and to be raised with Him into 
new life (i Cor. 12: 13). To receive the bread and wine in the 
Holy Communion is to feed on Him in one's soul. No answer 
to the request "We want to see Jesus" is complete until that 
answer includes the demand, "Repent, and be baptized" 
(Acts 2 : 38). To belong to the Church and to share in its life is 
itself a way of meeting Jesus and living with Him. Within the 
Church there are no permissible barriers between man and 
man, so that love of the brethren becomes an inescapable situa- 
tion. In finding and exercising that love is the presence of Jesus 
known. The deepest tragedy for the world is that Christians 
themselves have erected barriers against one another in the 
Church, thereby reducing the necessity of loving one another, 
of living by the love of Christ. God made the world, man 
erected the fences. How the soul yearns to affirm the faith 
which can sing: 

UTE 129 



THE FAITH 

Love, like death, hath all destroyed. 
Rendered all distinctions void ; 
Names and sects and parties fall: 
Thou, O Christ, art all in all. 1 

A missionary friend of mine coming to Ceylon from the U.S.A. 
told a story of how in one of the ports of call she had to fill up a 
form in which she was asked what her religion was. She put 
down "Christian". The Japanese officer to whom she handed 
her card looked at it and exclaimed, "Yes, Madam, Christian 
but what damnation?" 

There is a fifth way in which Christ has promised to mediate 
His presence to men. He said, "When the Holy Spirit comes He 
will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16: 14). 
This promise is true both within the Church and without. All 
truth comes from Christ and belongs to Christ. So that with 
every advance in true knowledge men become more exposed to 
the truth as it is in Christ. Often the first answer to be given to 
anyone who wants to meet Jesus is to ask him to face the impli- 
cations of the truth which he already knows (Acts 8: 30). A 
tried way of doing this in the realm of religious encounter is in 
a fellowship of conversation where Christians not only speak of 
Him whom they know but also, and more resolutely, listen to 
others as they bear witness to the truth as they know it. Dr 
Stanley Jones, who practised this method in India with great 
effect, used to say: "In these conversations, when others sought 
to express their judgment of Christianity, they often began by 
contending that Christianity was not true; soon they said 
Christianity was not new; but ultimately the challenge lay in 
their exclamation Christianity is not you." By all means let 
us talk about the truth but let us always remember that, in the 
last analysis, the talk will veer round to a conversation about 
us. It is not when we are talking to people about Jesus but when 
people come to us to talk about Him that there comes to fulfil- 
ment for them the experience of the presence of Christ. But how 
tardily they come to us ! We have spoken to them about Jesus 
Christ, but we have not convinced them that we know Him and 

1 Charles Wesley, Methodist Hymn Book> 720. 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

can Introduce them into His presence. There was a man going 
around disposing of his collection of pearls (Matt. 13: 46). 
Everybody talked about him and so gave him the opportunity 
to speak to them about the pearl of great price. 

Lastly, Jesus promised His presence in the marginal person. 
"I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was a stranger. I was in prison" 
(Matt. 25: 40). Many have met Jesus in the person in need. 
They had not known, but they had received Him and served 
Him. The task of Christian witness is to name Him whom they 
have served. It was not only the Athenians who worshipped an 
Unknown god (Acts 17: 23), nor would it be only to men 
like them that Jesus would say, "It was I." 

The presence of Christ needs to be known in all these six 
ways, though diiferent persons may begin or progress differ- 
ently. The mark of Christian discipleship is to be able to accom- 
pany the seeker to that place where he will find, and then so 
continue to help him that he may find Jesus in all those ways in 
which Jesus gives Himself. 

The Religious Life 

The burden of this chapter has been the obedience of the 
Christian disciple, and the drive of its argument has been to 
show that this obedience is truly itself only as it meets the world 
in those ways by which the life of the world is characterized. 
Let me conclude the argument by showing what a different 
thing Christian obedience would be should it consider religious 
satisfaction as such to be its goaL Indeed there are many, both 
within the Christian Church and without, for whom the 
concerns of the Church's mission and of evangelism appear only 
to have a tangential relation to the real concerns of the religious 
life. They would hold that the intrinsic nature of the religious 
life was something apart, something so sui generis that it must be 
sharply distinguished from concerns and activities which may 
be associated with it but neither qualify it nor necessarily 
belong to it. 

What is the religious life and what does it signify ? 

131 



THE FAITH 



There are three aspects of the religious life which can be 
distinguished. First of all, there is that aspect of religion which 
is concerned with a person's earthly life, his material and 
physical needs, his joys and sorrows, his ambitions and dis- 
appointments, his hopes and desires for himself and his family 
and his friends. In this area religion can mean either those 
practices of prayer and religious discipline by which the divine 
aid is sought and received, or those practices of renunciation and 
asceticism by which the pressure of the earthly is reduced and 
destroyed, or those practices which lie in the realm of the 
magical and the occult by which the power of the person over 
his surroundings and circumstances is increased. With respect 
to all these there is real similarity between the practices and 
prescriptions found in all religions, and all religions possess 
testimony about their efficacy. The Christian should not find 
this situation hard to understand because he knows that God 
sends His rain both on the just and the unjust, and makes His 
sun to shine both on the good and the evil (Matt. 5: 45). God's 
care for all His children in their real need is a real care, and it is 
exercised independently of men's so-called religious practices. 
The criterion of truth as regards religious practice, which is 
concerned with man's earthly life and its need, is not the 
criterion of so-called success but rather what that form of 
practice does to the human spirit in its relation to God. Does it 
enable a person to use the gifts of God for God's glory ? Does it 
enable a person to keep faith in God when the gift asked for is 
not given? Does it teach a person to value God more than His 
gifts ? Does it train a person to grow in discernment about the 
gifts that he must ask ? 

Secondly, there is that aspect of religion which is at the other 
end of the scale, where it is the very transitoriness of life that has 
become oppressive, and where transcendence over this earthly 
life is the main concern. In forms of religion where this is the 
climate, the main drive is to overcome the manifoldness of life. 
The One has become the many, and the religious urge is for the 
many to know themselves as the One. When the self transcends 
itself and overcomes all separation, then the religious goal has 

132 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

been attained. "Meditation" is the key word in this area of 
religion, and the transcendental mystic experience is the highest 
good. Once this experience is obtained, one may either with- 
draw from the life of the world into a life of contemplation, or 
live out one's earthly life displaying in one's work and relation- 
ships the graces that belong to the saints. In this form of reli- 
gion too, all religions possess equally effective witnesses. When 
Paul speaks of being caught up to the third heaven and there 
witnessing what no words can describe (2. Cor. 12: 2), he is 
speaking of an experience which is similar to that of transcend- 
ental mystics in all religions. No Christian should find it hard to 
believe that God who made man in His own image presents 
Himself to man's inner vision when He is sought after with 
persistence and diligence. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God (Matt. 5:8). "Ask," said Jesus. "Ask, and it will 
be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be 
opened to you. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts 
to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" (Lk. 11:9, 13.) 

There is a third aspect of religion in which the focus of 
attention is not this earthly life at all, neither its needs and 
problems nor its manifoldness. Neither the world nor the soul 
occupy the centre of the stage. Rather, the stage is occupied by 
God, and one feels intensely one's separation from Him. It is in 
this area that the problem of sin becomes acute. The religious 
life, therefore, becomes the quest for fellowship with God or for 
union with Him. This involves the removal of every barrier 
between man and God. Man must cease from his preoccupa- 
tions with this life, and this is best done by practising habits of 
religion which will make God one's preoccupation. Man must 
overcome his divided interests between God and the world; 
this is achieved by practices of religious devotion which will fill 
the mind with thoughts of God and awaken in the soul an 
exclusive love of Him. Man must turn away from his sin and be 
forgiven; this is attained by casting oneself upon God's gracious 
mercy and by living the good life in the strength which He 
provides. And when every barrier is removed, the religious 

133 



THE FAITH 

quest comes to its consummation in the enjoyment of the 
Divine. Here again in all religions there is similar evidence 
about man's wrestling with sin. There are indeed tremendous 
differences between the religions as to what constitutes sin: but 
all of them know the meaning of guilt and all of them carry 
evidence of men who found release from this sense of guilt each 
in his own way and according to his own faith. 

All these three aspects of religion have religious validity and 
there is witness for this from men in every religion. At their 
base, the institutional forms of all religions are directed towards 
the same concerns; and the mystics among them, in the last 
analysis, speak the same language. In other words, simply and 
purely as a religion, Christianity is just one religion among 
many. 

The Christian Difference 

A difference arises, however, when the total life of man is 
seen to be the centre of the divine concern. Should God Himself 
become man, then that Man's life will necessarily become 
determinative for all men. That is why the three aspects of 
religion, which we have already mentioned, cannot possess a 
validity in themselves within Christian faith and life. Their 
truth and rightness become questions not of whether they meet 
the religious needs of men but of what their place is in the life 
that the God-man, Jesus Christ, has lived on earth and the life 
He continues to live to-day. The mission of the Church, in 
proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel, is the sign and 
sacrament of Christ's continuing life in the world. Within that 
sign and sacrament is the guarantee that God, through the 
Holy Spirit, will finally accomplish His purpose in creation 
and bring to its consummation the total history of man. This 
means that the Christian must bring into subjection to Christ 
all expressions and experiences even of his religious life. 

When the disciples asked our Lord to teach them to pray, the 
first thing He taught them was to replace the religious "I" with 
the secular "we". "Our Father 55 it is the cry of man in associ- 
ation with fellow-man seeking to share together their indivisible 



THE OBEDIENCE OF THE DISCIPLE 

Inheritance as children. The prayer then goes on to ask for 
those things that belong to the heart of discipleship "Thy 
name be hallowed. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. On 
earth." Whence does this prayer arise? It arises from the fact of 
the Christ. The name of God has been revealed, the Kingdom 
of God has arrived, the Messiah doing God's will is abroad upon 
the earth : it is the pressure of this Messianic event on the lives 
of men which gives to Christianity its specific quality. So there 
follow the petitions for those needs of body and soul without 
which discipleship cannot be sustained: food, forgiveness, 
shelter and deliverance. These last four petitions are Christianly 
made only when they are made after praying for the first three : 
that is where the heart of the matter is. To be a Christian is to 
be in Christ, and this means to be involved in Christ's continu- 
ing work and presence upon the earth. 

It was not Paul's idiosyncrasy which made him a missionary. 
When he tells us that he prayed that the thorn in his flesh be 
removed (2 Cor. 12 : 8), he is telling us of an experience of his in 
the problems of earthly life. "I know," he says, "how to be 
abased and how to abound" (Phil. 4: 12). He has also an 
experience to speak about in the realm of mystic achievement. 
"I know a man in Christ" (2 Cor. 12: 2f.)> he says speaking 
humbly in the third person, "who was caught up to the third 
heaven whether in the body or out of the body I do not know 
and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not 
utter." As for the souPs inner wrestling with sin, Paul knew its 
poignancy. "Wretched man that I am/' he cries, "who will 
deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7: 24). But all 
these meant nothing to Paul, except that they were part of a life 
lived in obedience to the Gospel, a Gospel which demanded 
that it be proclaimed, that it be shared, that it be demonstrated. 
The satisfactions of the religious man belong also to the Christ- 
ian life, but in the Christian life they are not religious satis- 
factions. They are signs of Christ's presence with His disciples, 
tokens of His grace, encouragements on the way, instruments 
for the doing of His will. The only Christian satisfaction is to 
have Jesus proclaimed, loved and obeyed. Christian obedience 



THE FAITH 

has only one set of co-ordinates : Christ and the world ; once 
this obedience is moved out of this reference it may retain its 
religious quality but it ceases to be specifically Christian. In the 
realm of religion, syncretism is the reasonable relation between 
the religions; it is in the realm of the Kingship of Christ and the 
Kingdom of God that Christian obedience receives its distinc- 
tive quality. 

Not the mystic but the missionary is the symbol of Christian 
discipleship, while the burden of Christian religious living is so 
to live within this area of common existence with men of all 
religions that in it may become luminous the true Christian 
differentia the presence in the world of the Risen Christ, the 
ministry through the Church of the Holy Spirit, the proof in the 
lives of Christian men and women that they represent that 
event which will mark the consummation of God's redemptive 
purpose for the world because it has already happened to them. 

"I do not consider myself to have 'arrived 3 spiritually," says 
Paul. "But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that 
purpose for which Christ grasped me" (Phil. 3: isf.; J. B. 
Phillips) . That finally is the foundation of Christian obedience : 
the faith that each man's life with all its achievements, religious 
and otherwise, will be subject to judgment; the knowledge that 
in the life of the community of believers the acknowledged 
reign of God has already begun; the certain hope that Christ at 
the end will return as Judge and Saviour and the promise 
proved in the experience of the Holy Spirit that God's Kingdom 
will perfectly come. 

You are God's "chosen generation", his "royal priesthood", 
his "peculiar people". It is for you now to demonstrate the good- 
ness of him who has called you out of darkness into his amazing 
Light. Be ready at any time to give a quiet and reverent answer 
to any man who wants a reason for the hope that you have within 
you. If you are reproached for being Christ's followers, that is a 
great privilege, for you can be sure that God's Spirit of glory, 
unseen by you, is resting upon you. All power is his for ever and 
ever ? Amen (i Pet. 2: 9; 3: 15; 4: 14; 5: n; J. B. Phillips). 



Part 1 1 
THE ENTERPRISE 

1. THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

2. THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

3. THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 



The mission of the Church is to prepare for the coming of 
the Kingdom. The objective of the missionary enterprise 
is to plant and strengthen churches in all lands and all 
areas of life. The Christian task includes the necessity of 
ensuring and increasing the momentum of the enterprise 
itself. 

The world in which the mission of the Church is set and 
the "nations" among whom the Church is to be and to 
witness are themselves objects of God's governance and 
design. Missionary policy and procedures, therefore., must 
take serious account of the tides and movements of secular 
history. 

No less binding is the action of God within and among the 
Churches. The ecumenical movement is God's call to the 
Churches to rediscover their essential togetherness and to 
seek nourishment from one another as they enter into their 
several tasks. 

The Christian mission to-day demands also that the 
Churches give heed to the significance of the "No" which 
has been scrawled across their denominational separate- 
ness by the plea of men and of nations to be shown the way 
of reconciliation and of peace. 

Indeed, the summons of the hour is for all Churches to ask 
their Lord to teach them a humbler way of maintaining 
their loyalty to truth as they see it a way which will 
neither obscure the sufficiency of the reconciliation 
wrought on Calvary nor exempt Christians from those 
consequences which must follow the love of the brethren. 



I 

THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

f I 1HE two realities which, in a consideration of the 

X missionary enterprise, determine the nature of its prob- 
lems and the ways in which we must seek their solutions 
are the realities of c 'church 95 and c 'mission 5 \ The consequence 
of mission is the establishing and upbuilding of churches. The 
purpose of churches is the prosecution and expansion of the 
mission. To look, therefore, at the questions which need to be 
dealt with first from the point of view of the Church and then 
from the point of view of the mission would be what would 
best serve the purpose of this inquiry. The crucial question 
from the point of view of the Church is that concerning its 
self-hood, and from the point of view of the mission that 
concerning its integrity. 

The Discovery of Self 

"What is being done to promote self-support, self-govern- 
ment and self-propagation?" This question is central in the 
order and form of business of every "overseas" Synod of the 
Methodist Church. The mission had founded the church, and 
now the church had to become itself. The theological assump- 
tions and practical procedures that lie behind this way of think- 
ing are straightforward enough, but they hardly touch the core 
of the problem. 

Some years ago the Ceylon Government launched a big 
colonization and irrigation scheme in the eastern part of the 
country. The question was soon raised about a Christian church 
in the new living area. Many hoped that the Churches would 
be able to devise some way of maintaining the congregational 
unity of the worshipping community in this place, without 

139 



THE ENTERPRISE 



prejudice to the convictions of the Churches regarding com- 
munion and intercommunion. Negotiations had hardly begun 
towards this end, when a wealthy layman in one Church offered 
money for a separate church building of his denomination in 
this place, and a separate congregational life for the members of 
that denomination. The wish of this layman became fact, and 
now there are two denominational churches in this place with 
the Y.M.C.A. as the symbol of their unity. The point of this 
illustration is not that the decision that was made was right or 
wrong but that the self-hood of a church does not depend so 
much on any of its qualifications as on its own awareness of 
what its self-hood really is. 

A church or a Christian community does not make decisions 
in a theological vacuum. Church decisions are concrete, and 
their body is of the stuff of this world: so that the self-hood of a 
church cannot be defined by simply speaking of the freedom of 
that church to order its own life. It is a mistake to think of a 
church's self-hood as consisting in being self-governing, self- 
supporting and self-propagating. These are qualities that 
belong to the self, but the real need is for a church first of all to 
find itself, exactly as individuals do, by living face to face with 
its Creator. God said, "Let us make man in our own image" 
(Gen. i : 26). That image-relation is finally fulfilled in the new 
creation. The image of the divine "we" is in the human "we" 
created and gathered together in Jesus Christ. "For those 
whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image 
of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many 
brethren" (Rom. 8: 29). 

Thinking about the discovery of the self, my mind went back 
to my two boys when they were babies. They would say: "Baby 
wants ball," or I would say, "Does baby want milk?" Baby was 
an object that could be pointed out. On behalf of this object a 
request could be made. I would say, "Show Baby", and my son 
would point to himself. Then suddenly, because it was sudden, 
Baby spoke and he said, "I want sweets," and my wife said, 
"You must eat your rice now." The self was the same but it had 
ceased to be an object to itself. It was no more the self to which 

140 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

relationships were established, rather it established its own 
relationships. "Baby" had become "I", "It 55 had become 
"You". Most of the churches founded by missionary societies 
found their self-hood in very much the same way. For many 
decades they were objects. They spoke about themselves and 
were spoken to in the third person. They were dots on a map of 
the mission field. Then suddenly church spoke to church. The 
forms of address became "I" and "You". The churches became 
themselves. 

We are speaking about a church and its self-hood, and we are 
saying that the self-hood of a church is rooted in its experience 
of address. The essence of this experience will naturally lie in 
the way in which a church hears itself addressed by its Lord 
and knows itself as speaking to Him. 

But what do we mean by "a" church? In the New Testa- 
ment we read of "a" church in three senses. There is first of all 
a church that gathers in a place for worship. "The church in 
the house of Prisca and Aquila" (Rom. 16: 5) is simply a 
worshipping congregation that habitually meets for worship in 
that house. Secondly, there is a church in a place. There is a 
church in Corinth (i Cor. i: 2), in Jerusalem, in Rome. Here 
the church is defined by its location. Corinth, Jerusalem and 
Rome are the result of geography and history, and the Christ- 
ian community in each of them is a church for them. Thirdly, 
there is a church where its members share a common life. The 
church in Caesar's household (PhiL 4: 22) is a church defined 
by the common occupation of its members. In each of these 
three modes of being a church must be itself. 

Worshipping Community 

A church gathered together in worship, speaking to its Lord 
and being spoken to by Him; that is the basis of a church's self- 
hood. In the experience of a church this is never absent from 
the beginning, and on it all growth in self-hood depends. But 
growth there must be : for increasingly each worshipping group 
must learn to offer its worship in forms most natural to itself. 



THE ENTERPRISE 

Out of the stuff of common life must be fashioned the instru- 
ments of worship whether music or architecture, whether 
themes of prayer or modes of instruction. This is an area of 
thought and experiment in which there has been a great deal 
of clarifying discussion. Worship must be Christian it must be 
worship of the Triune God: worship must be indigenous it 
must be the natural expression in worship of the culture and 
common life of the group concerned; worship must be catholic 
it must be worship with all the saints and all the company of 
heaven; worship must be missionary it must proclaim the 
Lord's death until He come. In such worship each church must 
find and be itself. 

A Mission to a Place 

More controversial questions are involved in the subject of a 
church and its self-hood when we think of a church not as 
defined by its worshipping activity but as defined by its loca- 
tion. In his speech at Galyeteto in Hungary, at the meeting of 
the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, 
Bishop Ting spoke of the church in China as having found 
itself. 1 His point was that China had found itself and that the 
church in China had discovered that it was the church for 
China. In what many Chinese call "the Colonial stage of the 
church/ 3 the church's evangelistic attitude was that of Noah's 
Ark. Individuals had to be converted and brought in. Now the 
church saw that its task was vastly more; that it was to be a city 
on a hill that had been raised (Matt, 5 : 14), to be the leaven in 
the meal that had been mixed (Lk. 13: 21). The currents of 
geography and history give character and name to the location : 
but by that character and name the church there also is defined. 
That is its self. 

Indeed, it should be part of a church's concern that the 
nation which it is set to serve should live in freedom. The self- 
hood of a nation is witnessed to by the authenticity of its 

1 K. H. Ting is a bishop of the Chung Hua Sheng Kimg Hui (the Anglican 
Church in China). 

142 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

culture, its sense of self-conscious destiny, and the freedom with 
which it is able to share in the concert of the nations. That a 
nation attains this self-hood is part of the requirement for a 
church's full discharge of its mission in and to that nation. 
According to the teaching of Scripture it is the nations that will 
be gathered unto Zion (Is. 2:2; Rev. 21 : 26), Unto Israel will 
come the people of the earth (Is. 54: 1-3). It is also the teaching 
of Scripture that this gathering of the nations will be through a 
body of messengers drawn from them (Is. 66: 18-21; Matt. 28: 
19; Rom. 1:5). Whereas, in the Old Covenant the people of 
God were Israel and the others were the nations, in the New 
Covenant the people of God are to be found in every nation and 
for them. That is how the Church's mission is established and 
prosecuted. 

God pursues mankind, the whole of mankind [says Dr Stauffer] 
with the Gospel of Christ. But the peoples of the world take 
offence at the Gospel, all the peoples without exception ! and even 
more than this : each people takes offence in its own peculiar way, 
and has its own grounds for rejecting the word of the Cross, its 
own reasons for holding back. So each people must find its own 
specific way through its peculiar hindrance. Every people says its 
own peculiar "no" to Jesus Christ, crucifies him afresh in its own 
way and so comes by its own road to that point of extinction 
where all self-glory is at an end, and Jesus Christ is the ultima 
ratio. But it is along this road that the inexhaustibility of the 
Gospel comes to light. For the universality of the Gospel finds its 
historical expression in the fact that it has something specific to 
say to each particular people and to its particular questions. So 
we can say about the operation of the Gospel among the various 
peoples of the world just what had to be said about its operation 
in the various epochs of history. It serves the same final purpose: 
the unfolding of the mystery of Christ to the glory of God the 
Father. 1 

Dr Freytag, who was Professor of Missions in the University 
of Hamburg, during his last visit to China warned the Church 
there about the ambivalent nature of all human history and the 
forces that go to make it. Commenting on this warning a 

1 E, Stauffer, New Testament Theology, Eng. trans, S.G.M. Press, 1955, p. 195. 

I 43 



THE ENTERPRISE 

Chinese Christian leader says, 'The members of the Chinese 
church, after facing many problems and difficulties, are full of 
faith. They realize that in this new stage in history, in this new 
social environment, the Chinese church has a special mission, 
and a special opportunity and a special message. We are like 
a poet, whose spirit has been deeply moved, and who is search- 
ing for suitable words and rhythms to express his musical idea. 
We are right in the middle of the fierce fires of creation. 5 ' 1 

A church must first find itself as the church for the nation 
before it can warn itself of the dangers of its task. A church 
must become a missionary church, its mission addressed to that 
locus in the world where it has been set before it can rightly 
understand the complexity of its missionary vocation. All over 
East Asia and Africa that is the experience through which the 
churches are passing now. They have been worshipping com- 
munities from the beginning. They have been evangelizing 
centres for many decades. It is now that they are discovering 
the true dimension of their missionary task. We often say, "The 
Church is mission," but we do not always recognize that when 
we speak in this way we are also at the same time talking of the 
church in its location. 

Let me cite two examples to illustrate the dynamic of this 
discovery by a church of its self-hood. The nations of the West 
expanded their empires and their influence all over Africa and 
Asia in the last two hundred years. The churches of these 
nations matched this expansion with tremendous missionary 
endeavour. The inner significance of this congruence is not that 
the missionary enterprise was an instrument of imperialism, but 
that even in their imperial outposts the nations of the West 
were the locus of their churches. The mission of a church to the 
world is primarily and in the first instance its mission to its 
world. The task of mission is to possess the promised land, to 
extend the boundaries of the church to the boundaries of its 
location. 

A first consequence of the attainment of self-hood in the 

1 From "Chinese Christian papers", edited by David Paton (cyclostyled for 
limited distribution). 

144 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

churches of Asia is the Church Union movement. The Church 
in Ceylon cannot be many selves, neither can the evangelistic 
task in Ceylon any longer side-step the main historical currents 
and geographical pressures which give to Ceylon its peculiar 
character. As we seek to fashion a united Church in Ceylon we 
find ourselves in a strange way wrestling also with the realities 
of its missionary task. These realities are the realities of the 
country to whom the mission is. 

Let me take these two examples a little further* The mission- 
ary movement kas its own peculiar function at this time in the 
history of Western empires. It was a true expression of missionary 
concern when churches of the United States asked that China be 
admitted into the United Nations, or when the Student Christ- 
ian Movement of France condemned the Algerian war, or when 
Christian voices were raised in Britain for a closer scrutiny of 
what was happening in Africa and why. On the other hand, it is 
also a denial of the missionary perspective, when world 
denominationalism enters into competition with the movement 
for church unity. Confessions and denominations are the out- 
come of the Church's struggle for renewal throughout its long 
history. They provide the context within which the churches, 
as worshipping communities, must find increasing growth in 
their apprehension of the Gospel, their expression of worship, 
and their ordering of church life. But the true context for the 
Church Union movement is not denominations but nations, 
not the Church as such but the Church for the world. Denom- 
inations and confessions have only a tangential relation to the 
missionary nature of the church. 

Christians in Secular Engagement 

We said that "a" church is either a worshipping community, 
or a church in a place or a group of Christians engaged in a 
common secular occupation. A church must find its self-hood 
also in this third form in which it exists. Is there not here a true 
parallel between the nature of the self when we are talking 
about persons and the nature of the self when we are talking 

UTE 145 K 



THE ENTERPRISE 

about churches ? There is the self in its essence the self face to 
face with God : there is the self in its situation located and 
entrusted with mission: there is also the self in its penetration 
growing according to the multiplicity of its interests and the 
variety and depth of its friendships. In this third expression of a 
church's growth we are speaking, to use a phrase of Bishop 
Wickham's, about the "secular engagement" of the Church. 
This is a task which is distinguishable from the missionary task. 
Leaven leavens the meal, but salt simply flavours or preserves 
from decay. It does not change anything into salt. The task of 
mission is the task of leaven, the task of secular engagement is 
the task of salt (Matt. 5: 13). In the doing of this task the 
churches have still a long way to go and for the doing of it the 
churches have still many lessons to learn. Speaking of this 
aspect of the Church's self and task, and how it is being dis- 
charged to-day, Bishop Wickham says: "There is a failure to 
understand the signs of the times, a failure of vision and percep- 
tion, stemming from theological error that narrows the claims 
of God and the concern of the Church from the dimension of the 
Kingdom to the dimension of 'religion'." He pleads for a 
method and machinery whereby "awakened Christians can be 
nurtured and held together in a new order of serious-minded 
laymen, for a creation of a web of personal relationships the 
continuity of which is maintained by personal contact over a 
large area and within large institutions." 1 

As is readily evident this aspect of the self-hood of a church is 
directly related to the church's life as the life of a people rather 
than of an institution or organization. A church lives its life as 
the laos the people of God within the world in all its various 
occupations: and its secular engagement must be illuminated 
by a true concern for the secular. The essential liturgy of the 
Church is the normal day-to-day work of the people of God. A 
Christian lawyer must live out his profession within the Christ- 
ian perspective of justice, a Christian agriculturist must be 
concerned with obedience to the command of God that man 

1 E. R. Wickham, Church and People in an Industrial City, Lutterworth Press, 1957, 
p. 245. 

146 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

cultivate and conserve the earth, a Christian politician needs to 
remember that all principality and power is under the sovereign 
rule of Christ and that human history is history until He come. 
However, these are not individual tasks, they are the tasks of 
the Church, of the churches as they exist within the various 
occupations and professions. How significant, therefore, it also 
is that in God's providence, when the churches are waking to 
their responsibility in secular engagement, there should also be 
present in every country Christian men and women from other 
countries engaged in so many walks of life. The togetherness of 
the churches in all their tasks has always been God's great gift 
to His Church. 

A further possibility is also indicated by this task of secular 
engagement. It is the possibility of voluntary service institutions 
organized and staffed by Christians and adherents of other 
religions together. In Ceylon, for instance, as the result of the 
communal riots in May 1958, there came into existence in a 
place called Dharmapuram a new colony of families displaced 
from their original homes. These people needed immediately a 
dispensary, a school, and a community centre. Practically all of 
them were Hindus. The churches wanted to serve in this situa- 
tion. Would it not have been the wisest way for Christians and 
Hindus to join together to provide a dispensary, a school, and a 
community centre? Do we not mean by the Church's secular 
engagement not only the task of Christians in the secular world 
but also the necessity of Christians fully participating in the 
creation and maintenance of secular organs of community life? 
At least speaking of Ceylon, I can say that not syncretism but 
ghettoism is our chief temptation. It seems normal to remain 
disengaged and to seek the security that comes from such 
disengagement. 

As Dr Kraemer has said, laymen are to-day the "frozen 
credits" of the Church; they must become "liquid cash" to 
spend and to be spent. 

In 1 940 [he says] when we had to undertake the task of the 
renewal of the Church in Holland, how did we set about it? We 
told them that the renewal of the Church revolved around one 

147 



THE ENTERPRISE 

fundamental thing you have to become what you are and, 
because you do not know what you are, you do not become any- 
thing. So we presented a picture of what the Church is in Jesus 
Christ, and at every meeting various people would say, "Now I 
understand. Tell us what we are to do and we will do it." The 
result is a church to-day in which the spiritual membership is 
really alive to what the Church has to be, this new life being 
expressed in an enormous amount of approaches and activities 
and penetrations into the de-Christianized world about which 
nobody dreamed in I94O. 1 

"Penetration" that is the key word, and by it Christian 
strategy must be determined. 

This task of secular engagement has also another implication. 
It means that the service institutions of the Church should be a 
true expression of the Church's life as the life of a laos a people. 
Let me explain. During the pioneer stage of missions, a church 
on the so-called "mission field" together with all the diverse 
operations of school, hospital, press and orphanage is adminis- 
tratively an integral part of the total mission. Then comes 
devolution. The younger church assumes control over its own 
life in all its parts; and soon the discovery is made that the 
service institutions of the church which at the "mission" stage 
were part of the mission have now become buttresses of the 
church. 

Let me again illustrate from the life of the church in Ceylon. 
A developed school system was a feature of church life here. 
During the "mission" stage, schools and pastorates were 
equally parts of and dependent on the "mission". Then the 
pastorates became largely dependent on the schools for their 
finance, their leadership, their influence in the general com- 
munity, and their evangelistic outreach. What was disturbing 
was not this dependence but the way in which this dependence 
was made the foundation of the Church's organized life. (In 
the case of Christian hospitals, the anomaly of their position is 
even more disturbing. They do not have the financial means to 
serve the poor; but by serving the not-so-poor they are able to 

1 From an address at a meeting of the National Council of Churches of the 
U.S.A. held at Buck Hill Falls in 1957. 

148 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

be buttresses of the local church.) What is needed is for these 
service institutions to be untwined from the central ecclesi- 
astical organs of the church so that they may have their own 
independent life, so that they may become expressions of the 
lay-life of the Church, of the life of the Church as it exists not 
only for the world but as part of it. (In Ceylon, government 
action in taking control of most of the schools can prove to be a 
way to this opportunity.) The younger churches can see what 
this means by looking at the churches in the West and noticing 
how plural in administrative structure these churches are. The 
several expressions of the life of these churches are governed by 
independent trusts, self-governing societies, communities each 
with its own constitution and order of life and so on. What a 
contrast to the situation in most of the younger churches where 
all activities and forms of life schools, colleges, hospitals, 
churches, missions are all organized under one hierarchy of 
power. Just as the freedom of a nation depends on there being 
a plurality of centres of power and authority, so also it is for a 
church. A pyramidal administrative structure covering all 
forms of the church's life with final authority resident at the 
apex of the pyramid will in reality soon become a mausoleum. 
It is a matter for gratitude that the developments of the 
welfare state and the socialist state in many of the lands of the 
"younger" churches are increasingly demanding that the 
service institutions of the churches should express also in their 
method of administration the autonomy of Christian service. 
But it is at the same time a matter for grief that on the whole 
the churches accept this development with great hesitation and 
only under governmental pressure. It is time, it is past time, for 
the "younger" churches to work out the full consequence of 
their having become churches, of their having ceased to be part 
of a "foreign mission". It is time, it is past time also, for these 
churches to realize that institutional buttresses do not rightfully 
belong to the life of a church. Dr Hogg asks, "Can we not 
expect the miraculous powers of the Kingdom to be available 
for the King's messengers?" 1 The answer is, "Certainly we 

1 A. G. Hogg, The Christian Message to the Hindu, S.G.M. Press, 1947, p. 65. 



THE ENTERPRISE 



can.' 5 But we can expect this only as we recognize that we can- 
not live by faith except in the situation of faith. Peter said to his 
Lord, "Bid me jump from the boat into the sea" (Matt. 14: 28). 
Our churches must seek the same command and, when it is 
given, obey. Once in the sea, amidst the swirling waters, the 
churches, with Peter, will be saved by their Lord. 

Hitherto our discussion has had for its starting point the 
nature of a church as it is defined by its worshipping life, by its 
call to mission, and by its task of secular engagement. It is 
necessary now to broaden this discussion and seek to under- 
stand what it means for a church to be itself in relation to other 
churches. Paul prayed "that with all the saints we might 
apprehend the love of God" (Eph. 3: 18). This relationship 
"with all the saints" is not an option that a church can exercise 
if and when it will: it is an obligation which every church must 
accept and by God's grace discharge. Some years ago I went 
to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Jaffna to ask for his participa- 
tion in a theological conference. "Why don't you leave us 
alone?" he said. "You know that we shall not arrive at any 
agreement." My answer was, "Bishop, we cannot leave you 
alone. We are fellow Christians." He came. 

What are the Basic Relationships between the Churches ? 

The Relationship of "Conversation" 

"When we were children of disobedience," says Paul., "we 
had our conversation therein. But now God has raised us up 
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus" (Eph. 2: 3-6). "There is one body and one Spirit, one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, 
who is above all and through all and in all" (Eph. 4: 4-6). This 
means that the reality which we see in one another as churches 
is the reality of God's operation in each, and the reality of each 
church's response to that operation. Hence arises the need to 
understand another as part of one's understanding of oneself. 
One of the tasks that the Churches were summoned to by the 
Faith and Order Conference at Lund was the task of under- 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

standing their separate histories as part of one history. To arrive 
at this understanding conversation is our main instrument. To 
know ourselves as belonging to and engaged in the same realm 
of discourse, to speak remembering that when one church 
speaks to another it is but entering into a conversation already 
going on between that other and its Lord, to listen realizing 
that in listening to another church one is but listening to one's 
own Lord as He speaks through that church that is the 
relationship of conversation into which we are called. No 
church may stand outside this conversation or be allowed for 
long to stand out. Speaking as from within the fellowship of the 
World Council of Churches, for instance, it is of paramount 
importance for our conversation within the Council that our 
conversation should also be with the Church of Rome, the 
Orthodox Church of Russia, the Church in China, the Pente- 
costal Churches throughout the world and so on. Not every 
part of this conversation is on the same level of intimacy or 
understanding, but no partner to this conversation may relapse 
or be allowed to relapse into silence. 

Also, a new feature of this relationship in conversation is the 
creation of fellowships such as the East Asia Christian Confer- 
ence and the All Africa Church Conference. For decades we in 
Asia or in Africa have known one another as cousins, children 
of brothers in the West: but it is only now that we have grown 
up that we are finding one another attractive. Whatever the 
sociological or physiological judgment may be on the wisdom of 
cousins marrying one another, it is theologically the right way 
for churches. We are witnesses together. 

The Relationship of " Belonging" 

A second relationship that exists between churches is one 
beyond the relationship of "conversation". It is the relationship 
of e 'belonging". There are two primary forms of this belonging 
that we must notice. There is the form in which churches of the 
same denomination or confession belong together in one family 
with a growing family life, and there is the form in which, in the 



THE ENTERPRISE 

missionary movement, churches belong to one another in a 
permanent relationship of help sought and help given. Of 
special importance for churches in Asia, Africa and Latin 
America is this relationship within the missionary movement. 
After all, the very concept of a church's self-hood has been 
articulated as expressing a qualification of the missionary 
connection. 

When a church in the West sends out missionaries to work in 
so-called "mission lands' 3 their work develops through three 
stages. There is the pioneer stage in which the missionary- 
sending church or society is in full control. Then, with the 
establishing of the Church on the "mission-field", there takes 
place little by little a devolution of authority whereby the 
church that has been established assumes control over its own 
life. And then comes the stage of expansion: when the church 
that has been established accepts responsibility for being the 
church in the land and among the people where it has been 
established. The pioneer stage, with the "mission" in full con- 
trol, is over practically everywhere or ought to be, and almost 
everywhere the churches are at the end of the second stage too. 
The question is, what should now characterize the continuing 
relation between the younger churches and the various mission- 
ary-sending churches or societies with which these churches 
have had their missionary connection ? 

It is futile to answer this question with broad generalizations. 
It is necessary to deal with specific details if the answer is to be 
at all helpful. Let me divide these detailed matters into three 
groups. First, there are the questions which belong to the pass- 
ing phase of the missionary connection. Secondly, there are the 
questions which belong to the new phase that is emerging. 
Thirdly, there are the questions which are implicit in the re- 
definition that must be given of missions to-day. 

The Passing Phase 

The questions that arise under this heading are primarily 
questions concerning personal relationships. 

152 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

There are the personal questions affecting missionaries. Here, 
ways must be found of fully trusting a younger church to look 
after the missionaries sent to it. So-called "Field secretaries" 
appointed by mission boards should not be needed to perform 
this function. Of course, this means also that the younger 
church must learn to accept all the responsibilities that go with 
asking for and receiving missionaries. 

A special problem will be the difficulty caused by the 
reduction of the number of missionaries which is a necessary 
aspect of the stage of devolution. Here the need is to see that 
there are in any case a sufficient number of missionaries so that 
their point of view on all questions is effectually heard and they 
themselves have a feeling of social and emotional security. 

It is my own conviction that in fact more than half the 
problems in this area lie in the inadequate concern which we in 
the younger churches show about the personal problems of the 
missionaries among us. In an earlier day missionaries when 
they came were looked after by their older brethren. To-day 
they must be looked after by us. Let me quote from a letter of 
a missionary friend to me which puts this question in its real 
seriousness. He writes : 

Where do we missionaries belong? Is ..., London, supposed to 
be our first loyalty ? We are often told that it is and that it must 
take precedence over every other type of belonging. Surely, if 
Christ is Lord, and Lord everywhere, the Missionary Society 
which sent me must be prepared to let me go. Then, there is the 
other side to this problem that even my Indian friends expect me 
to belong outside this country. If I need a holiday, if I get cancer, 
now it is the Missionary Society which compels me to have a 
holiday, or flies me to England to be cured or die there. My 
Indian friends are not responsible for me. Is it not time that 
Bishop Azariah's request at the Edinburgh conference of 1910 
"Give us Love" was made again and this time by us foreign 
missionaries to Indians ? You cannot separate love from responsi- 
bility, and responsibility is in London. 

In a report on the place of the missionary in the African 
Church, issued by a commission appointed by the Copperbelt 

153 



THE ENTERPRISE 

District Church Council, an incident is mentioned in which the 
first African President of the Synod of the United Church of 
Central Africa in Rhodesia was evicted from a mission house in 
order to make room for a missionary's wife and children. This 
is an excellent example of the double point the separateness 
which the missionaries maintain and the lack of responsibility 
for the missionary which is the attitude of the local church. 

Another need which must be met which belongs to the 
present missionary situation is the need to give to the younger 
churches an inside knowledge of the missionary operation. The 
point is that there are so few of us who belong to the younger 
churches who have an inside and understanding knowledge of 
the problems that belong to the life and activities of a mission 
board as it seeks to recruit missionaries, as it seeks to interpret 
missions to its home constituency, and as it seeks to administer 
its funds with a sense of full responsibility. If a "relationship of 
knowledge", to use a phrase of Count van Randwijck's, is to be 
the relationship between missionary society and the younger 
church, then younger church participation in the missionary 
operation is essential at the two ends of that operation. Ack- 
nowledgment must be made here of the fact that, already on 
some mission boards in the West, representatives of the younger 
churches are being employed and put in positions of executive 
responsibility. 

It should be possible too at this stage of missions to follow in 
general the block-grant system with respect to financial 
support, 1 The block-grant (i.e. financial help given with the 
receiving church having the right to use it at its discretion) 
represents a relationship of mutual trust between churches that 
have had a long association together. In Inter-Church Aid, the 
needs of one church which are presented to another are 
presented in detail and that other church decides whether it 
will meet these needs or not. The procedure is all right as an 
expression of simple helpfulness to designated projects, but 
where it is a question of a permanent relationship between 

1 A qualification of this position with respect to Institutions will be found in 
the next chapter. 

154 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

church and church financial policies must be fully adult. When 
my boys were children they got some pocket money, for the 
rest they had to make their pink list and submit it to me. 1 But 
my wife got a block-grant on which the home was run. Her 
pink list simply contained extras. 

Another very simple point that needs to be observed is that 
money sent to a younger church should not be distributed 
through missionaries. Financial support should be a direct 
church to church operation. 

The final point I would make as a point to be remembered 
in this passing phase of the missionary connection concerns the 
ways of life of the missionaries themselves. Missionaries are of 
three kinds. There are those like C. F. Andrews or Murray 
Rogers in India who learn to live like the people they have 
come to serve. Such people are naturally few, but they are 
immensely important. Then, there are those who are the large 
majority, who live in their adopted lands very much as they 
would live in their own countries. And then there are those who 
adopt the ways of life of the people among whom they have 
come to live, but who are constantly conscious of having done 
so. It is this third group who are a real botheration. But my plea 
here is with regard to the second group. It is essential that there 
should not exist between them and their national colleagues too 
obtrusive a difference in standards of life. 2 Two things are 
necessary: that missionaries belonging to different churches and 
different countries, but who work in the same land, should 
learn to adopt more or less the same standards of living; and 
that where for any reason a missionary society needs to give 
higher pay than the standard adopted demands, then it should 
be stipulated that only a part of that pay should be spent in the 
country to which the missionary has come. 

An important question, in this connection, which has 
emerged in the last few years because of the increasing number 

1 The Department of Inter-Church Aid of the World Council of Churches 
types out the lists of needs of the churches in the various regions on different 
coloured paper. The colour used for Asia is pink. Hence the use of the term "pink 
list". 

2 A discussion of experiments along this line made by several missionaries will 
be found in the book Adventures in Simpler Living, by Daniel Fleming, I.M.C. 

155 



THE ENTERPRISE 

of representatives of "younger" churches who are going out ai 
missionaries to other lands is the question of the standard o 
their financial support. Since most of these missionaries art 
being sent through the established mission boards of the West 
and also since in the churches to which they go they have tc 
work alongside missionaries from the West, they are on an equa 
footing with their western colleagues with respect to their scale 
of pay. It is inevitable that this situation should give rise to 2 
profound concern. Equalitarianism is a doubtful method o 
maintaining equality. It is essential to devise a method b} 
which the missionary calling and career make the same 
demands, both in terms of spiritual commitment and materia 
adjustment, to whosoever from wheresoever decides to be 2 
missionary. 

The Emerging Phase 

Here the issues are issues of inter-church relationships. 

It should increasingly become true that the missionary con- 
nection is a connection between churches and not simply 2 
connection between a mission board and a church. Such a 
change would mean not only a change in relation between a 
mission board or missionary society and the church or churches 
in its homeland to which it is related; it would also mean a 
growing area of life and decision in which two churches 
missionarily connected increasingly belong together. 

Let us take as an example the Methodist Church in Ceylon 
and the Methodist Church in Britain. The Ceylon Church 
Union proposals are considered by the Church in Britain, bul 
the Report on conversations between the Church of England 
and the Methodist Church in Britain are not considered by the 
Methodist Church in Ceylon. The Methodist Church in 
Britain appoints a commission to study and draft a statement 
on "the Missionary Obligation of the Church", but in this 
study the churches which have a missionary connection with 
the Methodist Church in Britain are not partners. Or, where 
rules are being framed as the basis of church discipline is there 
not need for a much closer consultation between those who have 

156 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

been declared to be partners in obedience ? (May I, in an aside, 
comment here that one of the subjects which is an obvious 
omission among the concerns of the W.C.G. is this subject of the 
nature and standards of church discipline.) The inherent weak- 
ness of the Whitby formulation about "partnership in obedi- 
ence" was that this partnership was conceived as finding 
expression only at one end of the missionary connection. It is not 
enough to say that partnership at the other end of this connection 
is ensured by an increasing family life among the churches of the 
same denomination. World denominationalisms are concerned 
with getting all the eggs of the same kind into one basket. What 
is here being pleaded for is for poaching two eggs in the same 
pan at the same time, so that at least the white of the eggs may 
mix together. The making of omelettes only the church union 
movement can achieve. 

If partnership is to mean not simply a relation of mutual 
helpfulness between two partners, but an actual growth into 
interdependence, then a qualification is immediately necessary 
of the concept of independent self-hood of the younger churches 
themselves. It will not do simply to say that on all matters 
affecting them the younger churches must have complete 
autonomy of decision, the missionary-sending churches or 
societies being free either to support the younger churches in 
carrying out these decisions or to leave them to carry out these 
decisions on their own as far as they can. True inter-dependence 
must rule out both the assertion of and the withdrawal into 
independence. The maturing of the missionary connection 
must mean that there is a true belonging-together for the sake of 
the mission. Independent self-hood for the younger church is 
Dead Sea fruit where that self-hood is attained by a neglect or 
even a relative neglect of their missionary obligation. 

To put into concrete terms what such inter-dependence 
within the missionary connection would mean, it will be 
necessary to fashion organs and procedures of partnership 
whereby there is achieved not simply joint consultation but 
joint decision on all matters concerning the mission of the 
church, i.e., on the discharge of the church's obligation to be the 

157 



THE ENTERPRISE 



church for the people among whom it is set. It will also be neces- 
sary for missionaries to be prepared to serve on the frontier of the 
mission without possessing the freedom or the authority which 
their missionary forebears working on the frontier had and 
exercised. And it will be necessary for the younger churches to 
realize that even now in so many ways it is true that the 
"foreigner" is one who has the greater chance of success at the 
"frontier". His very presence is a witness to why he is there. 

This accent on partnership points the way also to a solution 
of the much discussed question what term shall we use? It is 
suggested that the term "fraternal worker" be substituted for 
the term "missionary", because to speak of missionaries recalls 
to many minds outworn methods of administration and quest- 
ionable connections with empires. Others find in the word 
"fraternal worker" an idea "rooted not in the Gospel but in the 
wrestling of men on the political plane to find ways of mutual 
help between nations, while assuming the final reality of 
political frontiers." 1 The essential fact is that when a mission- 
ary is given he is given, so that in the church to which he goes he 
is just a member. He does not need a distinctive label, be it 
"missionary" or "fraternal worker". As Bishop Stephen Neill 
argues in his book Creative Tension, what is needed is to use the 
word missionary generally to point to a missionary's distinctive 
vocation but, in the church, simply to know him by the work 
it has been given him to do, whether as pastor or evangelist, 
teacher or doctor. 

Are missionaries from the West wanted in Asia or Africa ? In 
an article by Professor Schultz which appeared in the Review 
of the National Christian Council of India three things are said 
in answer to this question: "That missionaries are needed; 
that missionaries are invited; that, even though invited, 
missionaries are on the whole not wanted." 2 A different light is 
thrown on this complex situation by the comment of a mission- 
ary who worked in Indonesia who said that there missionaries 

1 From an article on "The Missionary and the Church'% by William Stewart, 
in Indian JV.C.C. Review ', Feb. 1961. 

2 Vol. LXXVI No. 5 (May 1956). 

I 5 8 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

were both needed and wanted but not invited. The Copperbelt 
Report, already quoted, pleads that "an agreeable way of 
requesting for missionaries must be found because there seems 
to be quite a clear understanding by the overseas sending 
missionary societies that missionaries are invited by the 
Church." The plea here, according to the evidence summar- 
ized in the Report, is for ensuring that an invitation given 
should in honesty express the mind of the inviting church and 
not simply the mind of the missionaries who dominate the 
councils of that church. 

This present position is one between a passing and an emerg- 
ing phase in the history of missions. A truer situation can arise 
only when attention has been paid to the specific questions 
which have been mentioned as questions belonging to these two 
phases. In the meanwhile it is enough that missionaries are 
needed. As for their not being wanted, or not invited, it is 
inevitable that this should mean for the present generation of 
missionaries some sense of disappointment and even unreality; 
but it is inescapable that part of the cost of the mistakes made 
in the past should be borne by the present. It is not possible to 
inherit the glory of the past without also paying for its mistakes. 
That many of these mistakes had a relative justification in their 
time is of relevance for a historical understanding of the course 
of missions, but it has no moral relevance. Mistakes always 
produce consequences, and there is only one way out of them, 
the way of repentance and amendment of life. 

But this having been said, it is also necessary to say that one 
main reason why there is a sense of disappointment, and even 
unreality, felt by missionaries is the absence in a general way of 
a conviction about "mission". This is true first of all in the 
younger churches. There is in these churches a conviction 
about the necessity of preaching the Gospel across the bound- 
ary between belief and unbelief, but there is very little passion 
or expectancy about seeing that boundary crossed. "We need 
to evangelize but we do not believe that they need to be 
evangelized." This loss of conviction about mission is present, 
however, not only in the younger churches. It is present also in 

159 



THE ENTERPRISE 



the older churches and even among missionaries. Dr Max 
Warren speaks about the embarrassment to missionary societies 
caused by the unwillingness of the younger churches to set 
missionaries free to work on the missionary frontier. It is 
equally true that large numbers of missionaries are much more 
anxious to work in established church institutions. (The frustra- 
tion of a missionary with a research degree teaching in a high 
school is not a missionary frustration but a human one.) Both 
in the lands of the younger and the older churches the mission- 
ary conviction needs new power before it can sustain the strains 
involved in the missionary connection. It is a matter for grati- 
tude that the Division of World Mission and Evangelism of the 
W.C.C. is putting so much thought and consultation into pro- 
viding a theological underpinning for the missionary conviction 
which is adequate for to-day. Why must we evangelize ? and why 
must they be evangelized? are two questions demanding an 
immediate and convincing answer in terms relevant both to 
the world of religions and the world of nations. 

The emerging phase of missions needs also a new financial 
policy. As immediately as possible the essential structure of 
church and congregational life in the younger churches must 
become financially fully self-supporting. A block-grant made 
towards the financial maintenance of this structure must be so 
applied as to strengthen this structure rather than support it. 
Then only can the block-grant cease, whenever and for what- 
ever reason it has to cease, without causing damage. This policy 
of self-support has also to be followed in the case of ecumenical 
agencies. There may be some justification for pleading that 
organizations like the National Christian Council or the East 
Asia Christian Conference or the All Africa Church Confer- 
ence should not be allowed to become burdensome on 
struggling churches, but it is equally true that they must be 
made fully dependent for their continuance on the faithfulness 
of the churches in their support. Self-support may not be pos- 
sible, but when there is not even faithful support it is arguable 
whether the organization concerned should be carried on with 
money from outside. In this whole area missionary societies and 

160 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

other agencies must pursue a rigorous policy even when short- 
sighted self-interest prompts requests for support which those 
who ask must learn to do without. Speaking as an Asian I would 
risk the comment that we are not averse to riding in rickshaws 
when we may just as well walk; but it is still true that we want 
to be rid of rickshaws. 

Already on theological and ecclesiological grounds we have 
pleaded for the administrative independence of the service 
institutions of the churches. This independence is also financ- 
ially sound policy. Grants can be made to these institutions 
according to their need, but the institutions themselves will 
depend for their continuity and efficiency not on subsidies 
received but on having become an organic part of the life of the 
total community which they serve. It is this organic relation 
with the community,, so necessary for their life, which they are 
unable to establish without administrative independence. To 
put it baldly, the service institutions of the church must be 
parts of the world and not of the church. 

Missions Redefined 

It is already clear that in talking about missions to-day we 
are talking about a missionary connection which has now 
become an inter-church connection. The task of missionary 
policy is to strengthen and make adult this inter-church con- 
nection, to make it a partnership at both ends and to keep it 
true to its task in mission. This, however, cannot be done unless 
there is real conviction about the importance and significance 
of preserving the missionary connection. At the Oxford Con- 
sultation of the LM.C. held in 1958 three qualities were 
mentioned as belonging to and constituting the missionary 
essence of this connection : 

(i) the relation between the partners must be a permanent 

relationship of knowledge, 
(ii) the financial commitments of the one partner to the 

other are, in the main, long term commitments, 
(iii) while the missionary differentia lies in crossing the 



UTE 



THE ENTERPRISE 

boundary between belief and unbelief, something that is 
characteristic of missions is lost where the crossing of a 
geographical boundary is held to be of no qualifying 
significance. 

It seems to me that all these three points are of real and 
crucial importance. First of all, what are some of the things that 
are involved in a permanent relationship of knowledge? The 
main implication surely is that not only are two partners com- 

itted to one another; but also the missionary call itself is 
heard, at least by most of the missionaries concerned, as a call 
to become part of another people. A generation ago when a 
missionary offered to come to one of the mission lands, his offer 
was to live in it for a substantial part of his working life, to 
accept its people as his people in Christ, to serve them in His 
name and to belong to them. To-day, this form of the mission- 
ary calling is under question. Indeed, the very use of the term 
"fraternal worker", intended as it was to avoid difficulties aris- 
ing from the use of the word "missionary", has distracted 
attention from the nature of the missionary calling and centred 
it upon the conditions of partnership. That this shift has taken 
place no less in those churches where the word "missionary" is 
still in use is a sign of the acuteness of the issue. What is needed 
is the clear recognition that behind and beyond all questions of 
partnership is the given fact that the Lord is calling and sending 
missionaries from one land to another. The problems which 
arise are the result of & fait accompli. God poses the problem as 
to what we shall do with the missionaries He sends. 

Some years ago I was talking to a missionary lady in Ceylon 
about this problem. She listened to me for some time and 
replied, "All that you are saying is that some of us missionaries 
are queer people. Don't you see that if we were not queer we 
would not have been missionaries at all ?" There is a funda- 
mental sense in which the challenge to the younger churches 
to-day is to welcome and use the missionaries whom the Lord 
sends. It was true that when the younger churches were in the 
process of growing up they had to talk a great deal about the 

162 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

kind of missionaries they wanted; but now they have grown up 
and ought to be able to use all kinds, befriend all kinds and deal 
with all kinds. The only thing we in the younger churches ask 
from our missionary brethren is that we be treated as adults. If 
you think differently from us on any question, speak and make 
your point; if you feel that we need rebuke, rebuke and don't 
pull your punches; we are not children. Let us agree on an 
adult relationship. The reverse of this is equally true. Nothing 
is more disconcerting for us in the younger churches than to 
have around us missionaries whom we must treat tenderly 
because they get emotionally upset so easily, or find the weather 
too trying, or get "frustrated 55 that blessed word which is now 
used to describe the mental condition in which a missionary is 
either because his wife insists on a "fridge 55 for the house, or 
because his national colleague does not have a sense of humour. 
Certainly there are cases where the sources of frustration lie 
deeper, where a missionary asks to be used missionarily and is 
not, or where a missionary finds himself out of sympathy with 
decisions which he has to carry out. But the issue is still that 
mutual understanding is lacking and that not only do mission- 
aries need to be understood but also to understand. 

Count van Randwijck pleads for the creation of a group in the 
younger churches who will be to the younger churches whatever 
missionary societies are to the older. He says : 

The creation in the younger churches of specialist agencies and 
specialists for missions might be a normal development analogous 
to the history of the missionary movement in the churches of the 
West. There was no reason why a re-adjustment of this kind should 
necessarily entail a loss of mission-mindedness among younger 
church leaders. But by creating special missionary agencies the 
younger churches might perhaps further mutual understanding 
between those who, both in younger and in older churches, are 
under instructions first of all to be responsible for the missionary 
cause. 1 

This suggestion is worth pursuing. But a more radical need is 
to find a way of overcoming the main difficulty which long term 

1 I.M.G. Oxford Consultation, 1958: Report, p. 44. 

163 



THE ENTERPRISE 

missionaries have to face, that of the education of their children. 
Is it unthinkable that there would be a response to a call for 
celibate missionaries ? In any case it is absolutely certain that as 
long as the discussion about "missions" is dominated by dis- 
cussions about the usefulness or otherwise of short term mission- 
aries so long "missions" cannot recover their true dignity. At 
the heart of "missions" is the call of God saying, "Go from your 
country to the land that I will show you 5 ' (Gen. 12: i). It is not 
simply a missionary society but the missionary himself or her- 
self who is called to a permanent relationship. There can be no 
other way by which identification is achieved. The sacrifice 
involved in such identification has been and will always be the 
glory of "missions". 

Speaking of parish priests in industrial areas, Bishop Wick- 
ham pleads: "No missionary policy in the parishes would have 
any chance of success without a halt to the present rapid move- 
ment of the clergy." I too can speak about this from my own 
experience and observation as a Methodist minister. We are 
proud to be an itinerant ministry but the result is that we have 
become a professional class who are rarely called upon to pay 
the price of identification. Here is our call and the measure of 
our obedience, whether missionary or local pastor, that unless 
we are identified with the people we serve and identification 
takes time we shall be able to render only professional service. 

The second quality of the missionary connection is that of 
long term financial commitments. Here the contrast is with the 
Inter-Church Aid pattern of giving which is year by year. But 
more is involved in this contrast than just this difference. The 
financial commitments of missionary societies are based on long 
term policies which are related to missionary strategy. 

A word at this point about these policies will not be out of 
place. There are two things which missionary societies are doing 
increasingly as part of their financial policy but which need a 
greater thoroughness of execution. There is their support of 
union ventures where several denominations working in the 
same place come together to run a theological college or some 
similar institution. But not all missionary societies or denomina- 

164 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

tional agencies accept the priority of these ventures. In a paper 
to a Student Christian Movement Conference in New Zealand, 
the Rev. Alan Brash gave two examples of such contrary policy. 
"Recently/ 3 he writes, "a mission of a very respectable Church 
in the West offered an equivalent of $75,000 to a poverty- 
stricken Church in an Asian land to build a Theological 
College, provided the Western Church still retained the owner- 
ship, and provided every teacher in the College signed a profes- 
sion of faith dictated from the West every year." Again, "In one 
Asian country a western group came out to build a Christian 
Radio Station. They found a good one already in existence and 
as a group they approved it. But the folk back home wanted one 
with their label on it, so now there is a competing station in 
opposition to the first, all in the name of Christ!" 

Through various conferences of missionary societies common 
policies are agreed upon; but again and again it becomes clear 
that this common consultation among mission boards is not 
geared to a common consultation among their related younger 
churches. Student work is a notorious example of this lack of 
co-ordination. Sometimes missionary societies are willing to 
support a unified strategy in student work in a particular 
country but the churches in that country desire to go separately, 
and sometimes it is the other way round. There is need every- 
where and at all levels to insist that the making-more-visible 
of the Church's unity should control missionary financial 
policy. 

With regard to the Inter-Church Aid pattern of financial 
support, it has seemed to me that the real potential of this 
operation for the future, as far as the lands of the younger 
churches are concerned, lies in the help that it can bring to the 
lay-life of the Church. As Christian laymen engage in forms of 
Christian service and witness which are organized inde- 
pendently of ecclesiastical control, i.e. control by the official 
courts of the churches, such forms will need support and 
strengthening particularly in their initial stages. At present, in 
large measure, the Inter-Church Aid operation is not dissimilar 
to the missionary operation. Both run through official channels. 

165 



THE ENTERPRISE 

Hence the necessity of clearing the lines lest these trains running 
on the same rails collide. Inter-Church Aid must look forward 
to laying down new rails to new stations and the names of these 
stations will often have to be not the names of Churches or of 
Christian Councils or of projects run by them. The fact will 
also have to be faced that not all forms of Christian witness 
which can be helped financially from outside to great advantage 
will ask for that help. The Ashram in Ceylon is a case in point. 1 
In other words the Inter- Church Aid operation will have to 
develop its own relationship of knowledge. It must also take 
greater initiative in helping experiments that are both unofficial 
and have not yet even proved themselves. 

The third quality of the missionary connection is concerned 
with the boundary to be crossed. As we have already said, 
missions of an earlier time did cross geographical boundaries 
but most of them operated within the area of political influence 
of their countries of origin. Now, however, with conscious and 
aggressive nationhood everywhere missions face the real chal- 
lenge of "foreignness". Yes, with churches everywhere, "the 
home base" of the missionary enterprise is everywhere in the 
world. But what is of equal significance is that to-day, when 
churches cross their geographical boundaries, they not only 
meet with sister-churches with whom they will engage in 
mission, but they also find themselves in an alien land and an 
alien culture which is defiantly free and consciously itself. A 
missionary from another country working in China to-day will 
be truly engaged in a foreign mission: nor will this be less true 
should a missionary go from Indonesia to Holland. 

In fact, the necessity of the foreign missionary is a universal 
necessity. As Dr James Matthews said at the I.M.C. consulta- 
tion, Oxford 1958, "Because we have come to terms with our 
own society, the total word of God has to be declared to us by 
another." "A missionary," said the Rev. R. K. Orchard at the 
same consultation, "may reach the world outside through 

1 The Ghrista Seva Ashram in Jaffna, Ceylon, was founded twenty years ago. 
It is an attempt at a Protestant adaptation of the monastic life within a Hindu 
environment. 

1 66 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

another church or be sent to the e non-church j but he is not sent 
to another church. A church must be involved beyond its own 
culture; there should be witness to the Toreignness' of the 
people of God as a whole in the world." To be foreign that is 
part of the nature of every church, and by no other function 
does a church so fully realize or exhibit this foreignness as by 
being missionary beyond its borders. The missionary enterprise 
is an enterprise of the churches but it constitutes the ambassa- 
dorial service of the Kingdom. 

The Relationship of Oneness 

We have spoken about churches in their relationship of 
"conversation". We have spoken about them in their relation- 
ship of "belonging". We must speak about them now in their 
relationship of "oneness". The Church is one and it is within 
this oneness that the churches have their life and being. The 
missionary movement realized and expressed this oneness of the 
Church in mission. The missionary movement was the result of 
the conviction that all churches had as their common and 
primary responsibility the task of taking the Gospel wherever it 
was not known or believed. And in this common task the 
churches sought and found one another. To-day we speak 
about the ecumenical era and by that we mean that the 
churches have come to recognize that their oneness is the basis 
of their whole being. They do not just come together to perform 
a common task; in their togetherness is the very dynamic for 
this task. 

The discipline of love and understanding involved in the 
search to make the Church's unity more visible is the very 
discipline which will imbue the churches with power to prose- 
cute their mission. The evangelizing community is the fellow- 
ship of the Holy Spirit; and by this fellowship of the Holy 
Spirit we mean nothing else and nothing less than the churches 
in their oneness. An equal truth is that the Holy Spirit at work 
in the world is what makes the very mission of the Church 
possible. Were not the Holy Spirit besieging every soul, were 

167 



THE ENTERPRISE 

not the Holy Spirit controlling the currents of history, were not 
the Holy Spirit gathering the nations nothing which the 
churches can do would make any difference. All history, that of 
the Church and that of the world, is set towards this end. A 
world in travail to find its peace, a church in travail to find its 
unity: these are the two explosive realities whose dynamic 
produces and supports the ecumenical movement and gives 
meaning and direction to its missionary concern. 

It has been said that "missions" have as their double per- 
spective the "ends of the earth 53 and "the end of time". We have 
seen what it can mean to speak of the "ends of the earth" as a 
quality of missions. What does it mean to speak of the "end of 
time"? 

First, that we do not know when that end is and that there- 
fore missions are charged with urgency. To-day is the day of 
salvation (2 Cor. 6: 2). It is morning now. The night comes 
when no man can work (John 9:4). Secondly, this experience 
of the significance of the "now" as the arrabon of the "not yet" 
sets for the mission of the Church its double goal (Eph. 1:4). 
When time is over, the nations will be gathered into Zion; 
therefore must the Gospel be first preached as a witness among 
the nations before the end comes. When time is over the 
Church will be ready as a bride for her bridegroom (Matt. 24: 
14)3 therefore even now must the bride be engaged in her wed- 
ding preparations (Rev. 21 : 2). To speak of the "end of time" 
as part of the perspective of mission is to be committed to a 
strategy of mission that accepts the visible unity of churches 
as one of its goals, and the penetration of every nation 
in its national and cultural life by the Gospel as its main 
endeavour. 

The World Council of Churches 

The self-hood of a church is its self-hood as a worshipping 
community. It is its self-hood as the church in and for a place. 
It is its self-hood in the width of its secular engagement. This 
self-hood grows in relationship with other selves: in the rela- 

168 



THE SELF-HOOD OF A CHURCH 

tionship of "conversation", in the relationship of "belonging", 
and/n the relationship of "oneness". 

The World Council of Churches integrated with the Inter- 
national Missionary Council is the most significant expression 
of this growth of the churches together into self-hood. It is the 
instrument of the resolve to be churches together in the World. 
It is to be the means by which the churches enter into a mean- 
ingful participation in the missionary task of the Church. Here 
must be devised the procedures by which the churches shall 
ensure that they listen to one another, here must be devised the 
organs through which the churches shall help one another. And 
what is true for the World Council of Churches is true in their 
own measure for the various regional developments within the 
ecumenical movement. The way forward is certainly beset with 
many difficulties. But whatever the temptations and the trials 
on the way, they are truly blessed whose temptations are where 
the Holy Spirit has led them. It is written of our Master that 
"He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by 
the devil" (Matt. 4: i). 



169 



2 

THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 



and wherever I see a missionary I am 
aware t " lat " am seeing a person who is away from 
Y Y home because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The 
missionary reminds me that I too, in my own homeland, am a 
sojourner (Ps. 39: 12), and that the Gospel which took him 
away from his country is a Gospel which can never become 
domesticated in my own. The Christian faith will always 
remain a faith which must arrive from outside because it is 
pegged down in history to one place and one time, and even 
there it was rejected and cast out. "Born of the Virgin Mary, 
crucified under Pontius Pilate" there is no escape from the 
geographical and historical particularity which belongs to the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The missionary is also evidence that the event in which God 
visited the world at a particular time and place is an increasing 
event. As with a rocket thrown into the sky at a fireworks dis- 
play, the first burst only signals a beginning; there will be many 
bursts to follow, and at every burst the night will be sprayed 
with stars. The missionary is the result of the continuing explo- 
sion of the Gospel. Often the missionary is spoken of as a person 
who takes Jesus Christ to other lands and peoples ; in reality he 
is someone whom Jesus takes and gives as His gift of love to 
those to whom He goes. 

Jesus called God's vast enterprise "the Kingdom of God 5 '. 
Of this Kingdom He spoke to His disciples during the forty days 
between His resurrection and ascension (Acts i : 3), and to this 
Kingdom He consecrated their purpose and endeavour. The 
missionary movement is the on-going result of this consecra- 
tion: it prepares the visit of the King, it announces His arrival, 
it becomes the chariot in which He arrives. 

Many have said that the unresolved question which charac- 

170 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

terized the thinking of the Willingen assembly of the I.M.C. 
was concerning the relation between salvation-history and 
secular-history and how this relation determined the nature of 
the Church's mission to the world. A practical illustration of 
the importance of this question is that a missionary society 
secretary explaining how missionary policy should be made 
uses it as his determining consideration. "The method to 
apply," he writes, "is to take the history of our time seriously, 
to have in some fashion a prophetic interpretation of history, 
and to plan accordingly." 1 In other words, the Church's obedi- 
ence in mission is to be conceived in terms of what the Lord is 
doing in history, and both have to be seen in relation to the 
coming of that Kingdom which is what history is about. 

The significance of the current word "ecumenical" is that it 
points to this truth. When at the Ghana assembly of the I.M.C. 
the study was projected of which this book is one result, the 
question for study was formulated as follows: "What does it 
mean in theological terms and in practice in this ecumenical 
era for the Church to discharge its mission to the world?" The 
use of the phrase "ecumenical era" testifies to the fact that the 
whole world is now one world; and that the Church's task is 
directed towards it. This is the accepted use of the word 
oikoumene. It designates the whole and that part of the whole 
which gives it distinction. The Greeks used the word to mean 
the whole inhabited world, and also the civilized and civilizing 
world of the Hellenes. In the New Testament the oikoumene is 
the whole world and the kingdoms therein (Lk. 4: 5). God 
made it and rules over it (i Cor. 10 : 26), and to it the Gospel of 
His Kingdom is proclaimed (Matt. 24: 14). In the words of 
Gregory of Nyssa, "The foundation of the Church is as it were 
the foundation of an oikoumene" The Gospel is proclaimed by it 
and, by that proclamation, the whole oikoumene receives its 
significance. In the Roman empire the unity of the oikoumene 
was said to be in the emperor, in the one world of to-day there 
can be no unity apart from its Lord, Jesus Christ. 

1 M. A. G. Warren; from a paper presented at a Conference held in Toronto, 
Oct. 17-18, 1958. 

171 



THE ENTERPRISE 

To speak, then, of the Church's mission in this ecumenical 
era is to affirm the faith that this mission is addressed to this 
world, and that this world with its history affords the context 
within which questions about the mission should be considered. 

In the ensuing discussion on the integrity of the mission, 
therefore, it is necessary constantly to be aware of the tempta- 
tion to treat the many questions concerning the missionary 
enterprise as a set of problems to be solved; and to think that, 
when they are solved to the satisfaction of those concerned, 
that in itself is enough. Nothing would have been gained if 
answers which were allowed to satisfy those engaged in the 
discussion did not meet the requirements of the mission itself. 
Indeed, the Gospel being what it is, it is to be expected that 
we shall find it impossible to maintain the integrity of the 
mission without the mission remaining a problem all the time. 
This is all the more clear now that secular history has destroyed 
the original expectation which lay behind modern missions 
that by them the world would become progressively Christian. 

It will be found that a number of the issues raised here have 
been raised also in the previous chapter, but this overlapping is 
deliberate. It is when a problem is looked at from the point of 
view of the Church as well as from the point of view of the 
mission that it becomes possible to see the true way forward. 

There are five facets to this total discussion which may be 
distinguished and treated separately. They are : 

(1) the place and role of Christian people, 

(2) the place and role of Christian institutions, 

(3) the place and role of financial assistance, 

(4) the place and role of the ecumenical relation, 

(5) the place and role of the missionary involvement. 

The Place and Role of Christian People 

The Rev. Douglas Thompson, General Secretary of the 
Methodist Missionary Society, writing on the expansion of 
Methodist missions, sets forward two facts as explaining this 
expansion. 

172 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

One key to the riddle of expansion [he says] is the word 
"spontaneity". Our ancestors knew this and there is a wealth of 
meaning in their watch- word, "What hath God wrought". They 
were constantly awe-struck and amazed by the expansion of the 
movement and never quite caught their breath except perhaps 
when they sang, "See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a 
spark of grace", which they probably did to keep their courage up 
when frightened by grace. Indeed the fire was out of human con- 
trol, and never was in ecclesiastical control at any time. The 
second principle of expansion appears to be that the Believer 
opened the door, the Preachers then entered it and both expanded 
and consolidated the gains. A correspondence between Dr Coke 
and a gentleman in Moldai, Bengal, is typical. The gentleman 
urged Coke to establish a Mission in the hill country of Bengal. 
Coke in his answer wrote: "Somebody informed me that you have 
a little company or Society of Christians consisting of sixteen or 
eighteen at Moldai. The full confirmation of this would give me 
great pleasure. Who knows but you may be a little leaven to 
leaven a great lump ; the little hand rising out of the sea, that will 
in time water the whole land" (Arminian Magazine, 1792). The 
astute mind of Coke saw that were it the case that a lay-founded 
group already existed under "the Gentleman of Bengal", his own 
condition for testing whether the work was of God would have 
been fulfilled. 1 

What is true of Methodism has been true everywhere. Many 
a Church in Africa began with the work and witness of a lay 
believer. The Tamil Christian plantation-coolie has taken the 
Gospel with him into all the lands where he has gone. After the 
last war, when the Japanese occupation was ended, in so many 
of the lands of East Asia the returning missionaries found 
strengthened and spreading Churches which were the result of 
the faithfulness of ordinary Christians. Whatever missionary 
work may be going on in any place, the integrity of the mission 
is lost where the Christian community in that place is itself not 
missionary. To use a phrase of Chris toph Blumhardt "the 
sheep is for the wool". 

One of the directions in which one must look for a strength- 
ening of the missionary cause is that of a renewed dedication 

1 Friends of Reunion Bulletin, January 1961, pp. 20-22. 

173 



THE ENTERPRISE 

among the laity to the apostolic privilege of Christian witness. 
There are many things happening which are part of this 
renewal. There is first of all the quest to understand the signifi- 
cance of the secular. This includes an understanding not only of 
the secular nature of the Church but of the secular nature of 
the World. A layman is a person for whom in the world as well 
as in the Church things exist as things. They have their own 
validity and do not need to be justified by their relation to the 
religious. Then, there is the theological concern to discover the 
full implications of being a layman., a member of the people of 
God. Together with this goes the determination to understand 
the nature and function of the ordained ministry as something 
provided to maintain the lay character of the Christian com- 
munity. From this arises the hope of so de-professionalizing the 
ordained ministry by disentangling the threefold functions of 
prophet, priest and pastor, that these functions will not neces- 
sarily be bound up together in one person, but will be seen as 
the functions of the Church which the Church fulfils through 
different persons and in several ways. 

A second direction in which one must look for the strength- 
ening of the missionary cause is that of a development in un- 
official initiative in forwarding the Christian mission. One of 
the weaknesses, particularly among the younger churches, is to 
be too dependent on action by the official courts of the Church. 
In this connection, such organizations as the Y.M.C.A., 
Y.W.C.A., and the W.S.C.F. have an important part to play. 
A sign that this development is well on its way can be seen in 
the increasing number of Christian community houses or 
ashrams which are springing up in all parts of the world ; the 
several ways in which Christian students are participating in 
the work of Christian witness as for instance in the sit-in 
demonstration in the southern states of the U.S.A., or the 
strong participation of Christian students in the recent student 
demonstrations both in Korea and Japan; and, what perhaps is 
most significant, the impatient desire of so many Christian 
students in universities to give at least the first years of their 
young manhood and womanhood to manifesting the Christian 

174 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

presence on some frontiers of the Church's advance. The 
following quotation from a letter of a young Australian couple 
written towards the end of a short missionary term is typical: 

We are enquiring as to avenues of service as viewed by the 
Church, as within its world mission strategy particularly as 
envisaged by W.C.C. and E.A.C.C. We do not feel inclined to 
man a dying mission enterprise somewhere where there happens 
to be a vacancy pegs to fill a vacant hole. We feel that most of 
the medical mission enterprises belong to the past and it is better 
that they be handed over to governments. This means that the 
Church's role will be more and more to advise where Christian 
laymen (doctors and others) should seek employment by 
governments or other agencies in order to be strategically 
placed to undergird needy churches. This applies to foreigners 
and to indigenous Christian lay leaders alike on all frontiers and 
there are frontiers everywhere in Africa, Asia and the Pacific 
to-day. The frustrations of work here are such that one always 
wonders whether it is worth while. In the end the only answer is 
that it is worth while because we have done it for Christ's sake. 
For the government's sake, and even for the sake of the people 
around us whom we seek to serve, the question is only answerable 
with a hesitant query at best. But we are willing to do for Christ 
and for the Church things which for government's sake or even 
for the sake of fellow men we would perhaps not undertake. 

Arising from discussion at Student Christian Conferences 
held in 1960, both in Europe and in the U.S.A., a plan for 
* 'frontier internships" in mission was presented both to the 
Administrative Committee of the I.M.C. at St Andrews and to 
the General Committee of the World Student Christian Federa- 
tion meeting at Salonika, and was accepted by them. 

The proposal called for small ecumenical teams of carefully 
selected people to engage in Christian witness of study and action 
in a particular frontier for two to three years. Sharing a common 
discipline and a subsistence standard of living, the team would 
seek to reach out and witness to their total local environment. The 
interns would try to share their understanding of the Mission of 
the Church with church members by participating in the life of 
local congregations. An experienced person in each situation 
would counsel the team and help them relate their work to the 

175 



THE ENTERPRISE 

on-going work of the Church. The initiative to begin such a 
project would be, however, the responsibility of the churches or 
National Christian Councils. Pilot projects and interns would be 
sought in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as in North 
America and Europe so that the internship program will be 
genuinely ecumenical, international, and reciprocal among the 
churches. 1 

There is a third direction in which one must look for a 
strengthening of the missionary cause, and that is through the 
programmes of stewardship and evangelism which are seeking 
to renew the congregational life of Christian people. We think 
we are owners of all that we possess; we find that when we are 
converted to God in Christ we have also been changed from 
owners into tenants. The inevitability and significance of this 
change of status must be driven home as part of every evange- 
listic message. It is futile to speak about being saved by the 
Cross, when at no point of one's life has the Cross been allowed 
to fall athwart natural ambitions and desires. The Cross that 
saves must be planted within the life of the person to be saved. 
The evangelistic message must crash home with specific 
obligations. 

A popular measure that is being adopted everywhere in order 
to renew the life of the churches is to invite a missioner to 
conduct a mission. Useful and effective as this may be, there is 
one fact which must be remembered. A Christian community 
that seeks to conduct a campaign of mass evangelism needs to 
be already involved in service to the world in the situation in 
which it is set. Where a Christian community is an ingrown one 
then a programme of mass evangelism will only distort the 
Gospel in the eyes of those outside. Mass evangelism rarely 
turns an ingrown Christian community into an outgoing one. 

I have a feeling that there will be many who will read these 
paragraphs and say, "What a perfect grasp of the obvious!" 
Why not? for however obvious it may be, still the root of much 
missionary weakness lies in the life of Christian congregations. 
These congregations go on and increase in their several activi- 
1 Quoted from World Mission the I.M.G. newsletter October 1960. 

176 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

ties. They are prosperous churches only this proves nothing. 
Sodom and Gomorrah would have gone on in peace and pros- 
perity had there been only ten righteous men among them. 

The Place and Role of Christian Institutions 

Christian institutions as an integral part of a Church struc- 
ture is a phenomenon peculiar to the younger churches in Asia, 
Africa and Latin America. These schools, colleges, hospitals, 
agricultural institutes and the like were conceived as part of the 
Church's mission and had three objectives: the nurture of the 
Christian community., the service of the world, and the com- 
mendation of the Gospel. But the problem to-day is that two 
developments have taken place which have created an ambigu- 
ity as to what a Christian institution really is and what it is 
meant to do. 

The first development is what has been variously called 
devolution or integration. When action was taken to recognize 
the fact that "the mission" had become "the Church", most 
missionary societies followed one of two policies. There were 
those who separated the congregations and everything that 
belonged to congregational life from the institutions. The 
former were called "the Church" and the latter "the mission". 
This meant that a doubtful apologia had to be put forward to 
justify the institutions as mission, and there was evolved the 
category of what came to be called "indirect evangelism". This 
became a source of perplexity to colleagues who were not 
Christians who worked in these institutions, to mission sup- 
porters in the sending churches, to the skilled workers who had 
to vindicate their work in terms other than their skills, and to 
missionary evangelists who were made to feel that it was not 
enough to be evangelists unless they were also engaged in some 
form of service. In a trenchant article on this subject, William 
Stewart, the principal of Serampore College, has this to say: 

May it not be that it is the very hand of God which is forcing us 
to re- think a policy which held a fallacy in the very heart of it ? 
He is telling us by our sheer failure that we have been confusing 

UTE *77 M 



THE ENTERPRISE 

the fruit of the Gospel with the means of proclaiming it. Service in 
Christ's name is the fruit of the Spirit. We have been offering men 
"all these things" in the faith that somehow or other the Kingdom 
would be added to them. So the hand of God is laid upon it all to 
overturn this unreal structure, to warn us that not by this means 
will men be brought to salvation. This service is altogether not the 
Gospel of God and was never meant to be used as a means to an 
end. There is indeed something intolerably arrogant about the 
very thought that we can plan or execute a piece of work which 
by its own quality will demonstrate the Gospel. It is a thought 
from which we recoil with dismay when we realize the implica- 
tions of it, and this all the more so when we remember the pitiful 
failures of our work, spoilt so often by selfishness, pettiness and 
jealousies, which sometimes men of other faiths must come and 
help us mend. 1 

But why did it happen that institutions came to be called 
"the mission"? Because they were dependent on funds and 
trained personnel from abroad. The churches had to be self- 
supporting. But just here arose the problem that inasmuch as 
the institutions were the channels for funds, the missionaries 
were felt by the local churches to have retired upwards rather 
than sideways to use the colourful phrase of John Taylor 
remaining still in the position of power. It also produced the 
unfortunate consequence that young missionaries with excellent 
academic qualifications but of spiritual and personal immatur- 
ity had to be put into positions of authority in these institutions. 
"The worst thing about this practice is that it is bad for the 
missionaries themselves," was the comment of a young African 
in a consultation on this subject. "A young missionary," says 
Charles West, "coming out at the age of twenty-five or twenty- 
six,, having been trained in one of the Western seminaries, had 
a body of knowledge which gave him a theological authority 
which did not correspond to his insights into the situation, to his 
wisdom or to anything else about him. Here was a false relation- 
ship already in the realm of expounding Christian doctrine." 2 

1 Quoted from an article in the Scottish Journal of Theology, March 1953, pp. 47- 
48. 

2 Quoted from a speech delivered at a course for missionaries and pastors held 
at Bossey, July 1-15, 1959. 

178 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

But this policy of splitting up the Christian work into "the 
Church" and "the mission" was not the only policy followed. 
There was also the policy of devolving the whole work on "the 
Church" and of supporting "the Church" as such with mission- 
ary funds and personnel. (Indeed, even where the original 
action was to split up "Church" and "mission", this was soon 
followed by a process of integration where both were brought 
together.) The mischief caused by this form of devolution or 
integration was to transfer to the Church the administrative 
procedures and set of mind which characterized the original 
mission. The service institutions which were part of the mission 
became the buttresses of the Church and an expression of its 
secular power and influence. 

Radical action is now needed to deliver the younger churches 
from this situation. The action must be radical enough both to 
preserve the usefulness and Christian distinctiveness of these 
service institutions as well as to lift their burden from the local 
church. "The national church," writes a Christian leader from 
Pakistan, "is handicapped financially and otherwise to run 
these white elephants, and the missions are running them at a 
very high premium of finances and personnel." 1 The action 
must be radical enough also to remove every excuse for the 
missionary to sit loose to the local church. There was no point 
at which African voices were more unanimous or more persist- 
ent than this one: that missionaries were too much "apart" 
from the church and in many instances were even the centre of 
exclusive white congregations. "Sunday is 'apartheid 3 day in 
Africa" was the comment of a young African Christian in a 
student group discussing this question. A true solution of this 
issue about Christian institutions must also point the way to a 
true integration of "mission" and "church". There must be no 
need to complain, a complaint still too common in Africa 
particularly, that so many missionaries, because they work in 
institutions, do not learn the language of the people and that 
often they do not even seem interested in the life the people live. 

1 Inayat Masih, from a paper presented at a Conference held at Nasrapur, 
Oct. 13-20, 1960. 

179 



THE ENTERPRISE 

The only kind of radical action adequate to this situation is 
action that will deal directly with the institutions themselves 
their place, their support and their control : and, within this new 
framework, find solutions for the other consequential problems. 
Missionary administrators have recently proposed what have 
been called "area consultations for joint action in mission", in 
which consultations full account will be taken of the nature 
and forms of the total Christian enterprise in an area in 
order to map out for that area future lines of Christian 
advance. 

This approach will mean a series of strategy consultations, 
held area by area, in which all denominations working in the 
area collaborate both the leaders of the churches as well as 
leaders of mission boards related to these churches being 
present so that common decisions might be arrived at as to 
which were the institutions that need to be strengthened to 
serve as training institutions ; which were the institutions, and 
what was the programme needed, for the nurture of the 
Christian Church and the life of its community; and which 
were the institutions and what were the programmes that were 
expressions of the service of the Church to the world. 

Agreement must then be arrived at with respect to the sup- 
port of these institutions, (i) With regard to the support of 
training institutions theological, medical, teacher training and 
so on arrangements must be made for increasing co-operation 
among the various denominations, (ii) With regard to those 
institutions and programmes that are concerned with Christian 
nurture such as centrally located schools, colleges, hostels, and 
all activities in the realm of religious education these must be 
farmed out for support among the various denominations, 
(iii) With regard to all service institutions, these must become 
the care of Christian groups who are willing to support and 
engage in that service. These groups can seek support from 
mission boards and foundations following procedures similar to 
those at present employed in the Department of Inter-Church 
Aid of the World Council of Churches. 

The thought behind the suggestion made above with respect 

1 80 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

to service institutions is that these institutions should now be 
devolved completely on the Christian community and not 
wedged into the administrative machinery of the Church, If the 
Christian community concerned is not willing to undertake to 
run a particular service institution, let that institution be closed 
down; and let every Christian group which puts its shoulder 
behind any project be free to develop that project in the way it 
wants. Centralized control and direction cannot be the method 
of healthy growth for the life of Christians in society. 

If this pluralism in the life of the Church is to be achieved, 
this sprouting here and there of Christian community life in 
the service of the world, it is essential to maintain certain 
principles. First of all, Christian service institutions must be 
guarded against becoming means of secular power for the 
Church. Secondly, an institution may be useful without being 
an expression of Christian diakonia. Such an institution must be 
turned over to the general community and not carry the dis- 
tinctive label Christian. Thirdly, the role of Christian service 
and the forms it must take must be thought through in relation 
to the social goals of government policy and the provisions of 
the Welfare State. 

The essential consideration always must be that the mission 
of the Church is not obscured. There must be no doubt in any- 
body's mind, even the mind of the outside observer, as to what 
the Church is for. All occasion for people to think that the value 
of the Church is instrumental to the realization of human hopes 
and needs must be removed. The instrumental functions of the 
Church must somehow point to its real nature as the sign and 
guarantee of God's presence among men. 

The Place and Role of Financial Assistance 

Not only is it true that the mode of financial assistance given 
to Christian institutions must not destroy their integrity as 
expressions of the Church's mission, but it is also true that the 
whole scheme of financial assistance from abroad as it is given to 
the younger churches must be subject to certain common 

181 



THE ENTERPRISE 

principles and policies which are relevant to the present 
situation. 

It has already been argued that service institutions conducted 
by the Christian community must by nature and execution 
remain autonomous and dependent directly on the faithfulness 
of the Christian community concerned. Help from outside can 
then be solicited on a project basis. It may be contended that 
this is a backward step from the present practice of block- 
grants where the receiving Church itself decides how to spend 
the money it receives. But such an argument would be based on 
a determination to maintain the present relationship between 
the Church and Christian service institutions. It is against the 
maintenance of this relationship that we are pleading. What is 
necessary is so to set free these institutions that there is also 
restored to missionary societies their freedom with respect to 
them. It is unthinkable that missionary societies and mission 
boards should become passive agencies recruiting personnel and 
raising funds at the behest of the receiving churches. The 
project method of asking and receiving will ensure partnership 
in decision-making. 

But, on the other hand, if this project method of asking and 
receiving is to be fruitful, the operation must have about it a 
very great deal of decision by discretion. When individuals and 
groups are engaged in all kinds of Christian activity all over the 
place, it is neither possible nor desirable to set up official 
channels through which all requests must go or be granted. A 
major part of this operation of help must take place through 
official channels, but there must be an increasing possibility for 
the exercise of individual discretion. A small gift here and a 
small gift there may make all the difference. Decision by dis- 
cretion may have to be restricted to small gifts, but provision 
must be made for such decision. Already the Division of 
World Mission and Evangelism of the W.C.C. has provided for 
the operation of a discretionary fund by its Divisional Secre- 
tary, and there is a similar discretionary fund at the disposal 
of the Department of Inter-Church Aid of the W.C.C, 

There are two other factors which are relevant to this discus- 

182 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

sion which are crucial enough to be listed here. The first factor 
concerns the autonomy of the Church., and the second concerns 
its dividedness. 

It must always be remembered that a church is a church 
from the very beginning and that, therefore, from the very 
beginning it must be itself. There should be no question of a 
church being granted autonomy. What is possible and neces- 
sary will be for churches to agree among themselves as to how 
they may help one another. If this be so, will it not then be true 
that the one way for a church to grow in autonomy will be by 
complete self-support with respect to the financial cost of its 
workers ? 

There is no plea here for self-support as a principle. The plea 
is that a church must make financial provision for its workers 
out of its own life. To-day, in South India, there is a great deal 
of discussion about an unpaid ordained ministry and a perman- 
ent diaconate. This discussion would have taken place a 
hundred years ago if mission funds had not then been available 
to pay church workers. It may be objected that even if this 
were so it is impossible for a church to retrace its steps. That is 
only partially true. Indeed, the continuation of the present 
arrangements for the ordained ministry in so many of the 
younger churches is the result of the cushioning effect of 
mission grants. Let every church devise its own leadership and 
pastoral structure. Theological and liturgical truth can be 
enshrined within different financial arrangements. So will there 
be ensured true growth and organic increase. At present, in so 
many ways, the availability of funds from outside is making 
possible the erection of pandals 1 which have no relation to the 
main house; but where the ordained ministry itself is such a 
pandal, the integrity of the mission is seriously compromised. 

It may be that the point is here made in too sweeping a 
fashion, and that there is a case for some subsidies towards 
workers' salaries in order to ensure for the churches concerned 
workers with higher professional training. But, true as this may 
be, the general effect of past financial policy has been to 

1 An ad hoc structure of wooden poles and thatch. 

183 



THE ENTERPRISE 

superimpose on the younger churches a professional class 
of church workers cut to a pattern that has become the 
accepted pattern in the West. Pentecostal Churches in Asia, 
Africa and Latin America have shown that this is not at all 
necessary. 

The second factor, which is that of the Church's dividedness, 
has many consequences. There is a disparity of resources 
between various countries, and the effect of this disparity is 
heightened by denominational differences. The result is the 
need for agreed policies, pooled resources and common action. 
Already, in this chapter, the plea has been made for area-by- 
area strategy consultations. The present practice of supporting 
training institutions on an inter-denominational basis has been 
also recognized. To these must be added the possibility of 
increasing the number of specified areas in which financial 
support is given through centralized funds. Theological educa- 
tion is one area in which this method of working is being used. 
Christian literature is a second such area. Student work in the 
universities is a third area in which centralized funds can make 
a big difference. More and more of such areas can and ought to 
be defined. 

The advantages of this method of support are that resources 
are available on a scale large enough to produce significant 
effects within a defined area of action and to stimulate related 
action by other bodies ; that there is freedom to apply resources 
irrespective of the sources from which they come; that it pro- 
vides for action on the basis of thorough investigation and 
competent judgment; that resources are available in advance of 
commitment, so that prompt and decisive action is possible; 
and that centralized funds will themselves create on the local 
and national levels greater co-ordination and collaboration. 

The important thing to remember is that effectiveness would 
be jeopardized if the funds were disproportionately large or 
small in relation to the task, if the objectives were either not 
clearly defined or defined too narrowly, if provision was not 
made for qualified staff and competent planning, if support was 
uncertain or subject to restrictive conditions, if the governing 

184 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

body was inadequate, or if rate of action was not controlled. It 
must also be remembered that while hitherto the objectives of 
centralized funds have been defined in functional terms, a pur- 
pose could also be defined in terms of an area. A fund for 
Church-related purposes within an area will be a useful means 
of equalizing resources. 

In this connection specific mention should be made of the 
various studies undertaken by the World Council of Churches 
on situations of rapid social change, especially in Africa, Asia 
and Latin America. These studies have shown that there are in 
these three continents Christian tasks clamouring to be per- 
formed for which the Christian communities in those continents 
are hardly prepared. On the one hand these Christian com- 
munities over the years have had to struggle for their own 
existence with the result that their own vision has been nar- 
rowed. Henry Makulu, writing from Bossey after a few months' 
experience there, lists what he has learnt at Bossey and then 
comments: "Perhaps these things are not new. They have been 
said over and over again. But for Christians from young coun- 
tries these are discoveries of some importance, for then we can 
begin to see why, as Christians, we have not been so effective in 
our witness in our various communities namely that we have 
tried to maintain insular positions while living in a dynamic 
world." 1 On the other hand, granted the vision, these Christian 
communities still remain weak in numbers and resources. In 
other words, the tasks to be performed call for the resources of 
the whole Church. But just here is the problem. As an African 
leader remarked at one of the consultations, "The tasks are 
introducing on the missionary scene methods of operation 
through Inter-Church Aid, centralized missionary funds, 
World Confessional Organizations, all of which emphasize the 
Western Churches in their strength. The missionary need is for 
the service of the Western Churches in their weakness." Can a 
way be found whereby the strength of the Western Churches is 
made available without that strength becoming an embarrass- 
ment? 

1 Quoted from Bossey Mews, Dec. 1960. 

185 



THE ENTERPRISE 

The Place and Role of the Ecumenical Relation 

The underlying concern in re- thinking the patterns of finan- 
cial assistance between Churches was that this assistance should 
be controlled by policies which are consciously intended to 
strengthen the Church in mission. Another area where patterns 
of action and administration need to be re-thought is that of 
the relationship between Churches in the ecumenical movement, 

The World Council of Churches. In the next chapter will be 
found a strong plea that the World Council of Churches should 
not allow itself to become either in name or substance a con- 
federation of confessions. It must remain a Council of Churches. 
This must naturally mean a Council of Churches in mission. If 
this is to find effective expression, the next stage of advance, 
now that the World Council of Churches and the International 
Missionary Council have been integrated, would seem to 
require an answer at least in stages to the following question ; 
How can the World Council of Churches help its member 
churches, in the fullness of their programmes, to find natural and 
effective places in a truly ecumenical pattern of relationships at 
this time of mutual inter-dependence of all Christians around 
the world ? 

The fact to be remembered is that a member church is not 
only that church in its ecclesiastical structure but also in its 
constituent agencies: its mission board, its evangelism depart- 
ment, its committee for social action and so on. It is too easy and 
too schematic an answer to say that the departments of the 
World Council must be the points of relation of similar depart- 
ments and divisions in the Churches. What is needed is for the 
divisions and departments of the World Council to express the 
World Council and not simply its constituent churches, but for 
this expression to be in effective relations with the relevant 
constituent agencies of the churches. The World Council is 
more than a forum of the churches. It is more than a reflection 
of the churches and their concerns. It is in itself a form of their 
realized unity. This form must become discernible above the 
programmes and activities of its various divisions. 

1 86 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

In connection with this mention of the World Council, 
attention must be drawn also to another issue. We have already 
spoken about the many questions raised by the relation of 
financial assistance between churches. There is a popular 
fallacy that these questions can be circumvented by shooting 
money through the World Council. It will be a major problem 
for the World Council in the coming years to deal with this 
misunderstanding. There is no simple answer to the problems of 
money-pressure where money is given or received. 

Regional Developments. The East Asia Christian Conference 
(E.A.C.C.) is not a regional Council of the World Council of 
Churches. It is the association in a region of the Churches and 
National Christian Councils in that region. This regional inde- 
pendence is essential if the World Council of Churches is to 
remain truly a World Council of Churches and not become 
even covertly a Council of Councils. It is important also for the 
regional development itself because not only is it unnecessary 
to apply on the regional level the conditions for membership 
concerning the autonomy of churches which are imposed by the 
World Council, but also the churches in the region will be able 
to establish their relations to one another without having to 
contend with the problems incident on the world nature of the 
World Council. Thus, for instance, in the E.A.C.C., even in 
spite of the fact that its secretaries are also the East Asia 
Secretariat of the W.C.C., there is a growing cordiality 
between the churches which are conservative-evangelical and 
those which are not. Developments similar to the E.A.C.C. are 
taking place in Latin America, the Caribbean Area, Africa, the 
Near East and in the islands of the Pacific. 

These developments can help the churches in mission in 
different ways. They can be used to stimulate missionary rela- 
tionship between the churches in the region and between the 
regions. They can initiate the strategy consultations which are 
needed, whether on functional or regional lines, in order to 
correlate to maximum advantage the strength of the churches 
and all agencies of those churches which are ready to partici- 
pate in a total Christian thrust. They can build up a programme 

187 



THE ENTERPRISE 

of their own for their several regions, which programme can 
then be supported by churches in other regions. In the E.A.C.C. 
there is an accepted principle that it must raise from within its 
own area a quarter of the finance needed for its programme and 
the whole finance needed for its statutory meetings. A quarter is 
a small proportion, but at least it represents a controlling 
principle. Regional developments offer also the possibility of 
bringing together in a region those subsidiary agencies of 
churches or National Councils which are concerned with the 
same things. Mass communication,, Christian literature, indus- 
trial evangelism, Christian home and family life, are cases in 
point. 

The Bilateral Relation. The missionary movement during the 
last century adopted the principle of comity as the best working 
arrangement to overcome the handicaps set up by the fact of 
divided churches. Children of divorced parents were thus saved 
undue hardship. But now the parents are in process of reconcili- 
ation, while the children are seeking ways of living a common 
life. Besides, comity arrangements themselves are breaking 
down as members of established congregations move across 
comity lines. It is also absurd, with the growing strength of the 
missionary movement, to hold up missionary advance in any 
area on the grounds of comity. It is meaningless for a church 
or a missionary society to talk of cc my pagans" whom someone 
else cannot approach with the Gospel. In this situation there is 
need for greater flexibility in inter-church relations. While the 
principles of comity ought still to be maintained in order to 
prevent rivalries, procedures of co-operation must be worked 
out to increase effectiveness. 

A significant change will be to modify the old bilateral rela- 
tionship between a church in the West and a younger church. 
It is wasteful to seek to replace these bilateral relationships with 
multilateral ones. What would be more useful would be to con- 
tain these bilateral relationships within multilateral ones. Experi- 
ence in the Church of South India (C.S.I.) can point the way 
as to how this can be done. Let the American Congregation- 
alists support the work in Madurai, for instance, but let that 

1 88 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

support go hand in hand with two other developments. By 
arrangement with the G.S.I, as a whole, more than one mission- 
ary society can be related to the Madurai diocese, while by 
similar arrangement the American Congregationalists support 
work in another part of the C.S.I, to which they were not 
originally related. It is too neat a solution to say, let all support 
go to the C.S.I. as such and let the C.S.I, distribute this support 
in its own way. A way forward is necessary which will not 
betray past responsibilities or sever past connections of affection- 
ate concern. There are not united churches everywhere, but 
everywhere ways must be found of acting as if the churches 
were united. 

The establishment of multilateral relationships will also have 
another consequence. It will mean that when a" younger church 
is able more adequately to raise its own resources, the natural 
result will not always be to reduce "mission grant". To put it 
concretely, whei* the Methodist Church in Ceylon is able to 
raise more money, why not send part of that money to support 
Christian work in Burma rather than have the Methodist 
Missionary Society in London reduce its grant to Ceylon and 
increase its grant to Burma ? A multiplication of the channels 
of help between all churches everywhere is what is needed. 
Otherwise, the tendency will be to create three types of 
churches those which only receive, those which only give, and 
those which are able to look after themselves. 

Outside the Church Relation. The strengthening of the Christ- 
ian task through mutual support takes place also in the work of 
such bodies as the Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., and the W.S.C.F. In 
these organizations, help given and received is seen directly as a 
sharing within a world community. It is true enough that in the 
Y.M.C.A., for instance, the International Committee in 
America still hesitates to accept the procedural implications of 
this fact: but all in all the programmes of mutual assistance in 
these world lay organizations strengthen the pattern of mission- 
ary endeavour by pointing to the centre rather than to the 
discrete units on the circumference. 

Another form of missionary outreach is the increasing 

189 



THE ENTERPRISE 

number of Christian men and women going from one country 
to another employed by private or governmental agencies. 
These Christians go from one world to another, but as in the 
normal missionary operation they are not sent by the church 
here to the church there. It would be of immense benefit were 
ways found to support this world-to-world movement with a 
church-to-church relation, 

The Place and Role of the Missionary Involvement 

There is only one issue which I want to discuss under this 
heading the necessity of preparing plans for a full participa- 
tion in the future of the younger churches in the missionary 
movement. The theological and ecclesiological necessity for 
this participation have been stressed elsewhere. What is here 
intended is to discuss procedures. Already there are four types 
of action which can be used to point the way. 

(i) The United Church of the Philippines has set up its own 
mission board whose function is both to send and to receive 
missionaries. This mission board receives support from mission 
boards of the churches of the West whose historic relations are 
with the churches that form the United Church of the Philip- 
pines. There are missionaries from this Church in the Philip- 
pines working in several Asian countries, (ii) The Methodist 
Church in Ceylon has sent three missionaries to Africa. They were 
sent through the Methodist Missionary Society in London. The 
Methodist Church in Ceylon sends an annual gift to the Society 
in London towards the support of these missionaries, (iii) The 
Mar Thoma Syrian Church (this is not a younger church) has 
developed its own missionary arm, and more than a hundred 
Mar Thoma missionaries are working outside the milieu of this 
church. This work is fully supported by the Mar Thoma Church 
itself, (iv) The East Asia Christian Conference is helping to find 
missionaries who can be sent to meet known needs. When the 
missionary sending and receiving churches have made all the 
arrangements, the Conference helps with finance to meet the 
expenses of travel and other small incidentals. 

190 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

All these four ways of action can be brought together into a 
single pattern. The primary need is to encourage every church 
to set up its own mission board which will be responsible both 
for the sending and the receiving of missionaries. On the 
receiving side two points should be stressed. First of all, greater 
attention must be paid to missionary training in the countries 
to which the missionaries come. Missionaries need to learn not 
only the language of the country but also its customs and 
manners, its political and religious history and the social and 
economic goals towards which it is set. Secondly, the time has 
come to change the policy whereby missionaries were employed 
only in tangential tasks. In every church, workers are needed to 
shepherd congregations, to direct departments, to man insti- 
tutions and to pioneer across new frontiers. In all these four 
areas missionaries and nationals from the countries concerned 
must work together. The policy under which missionaries, for 
instance, were not put as pastors in charge of congregations is 
an invidious policy. In a healthy relationship the missionary 
community will be spread out over the whole church in all its 
life. It should not be their tasks which define them as mission- 
aries but their vocation. On the sending side the existence of a 
mission board in every church will give that church a perman- 
ent sense of responsibility towards the task of missions. It will 
also give that church freedom to decide about the conditions of 
service of the missionaries it sends. Where a Central Board is 
responsible for sending missionaries recruited from different 
countries, problems of relative right and wrong arise which can 
be very troublesome. 

But, if all that has been said in this book about the importance 
and implication of the Unity of the Church has even some truth 
in it; and if the claim which has been made that the location of 
a church is of intrinsic significance for its life has even a partial 
justification; then it will not do for the younger churches to 
reproduce the simple denominational pattern of the older 
churches in their missionary outreach. Two things can be done. 
First, the various mission boards in a country can so help one 
another and work together that every missionary who goes can 

191 



THE ENTERPRISE 

go as from the church in that country. Secondly, while each 
mission board receives primary support from a mission board in 
the West to which it is historically related, it should also be 
helped according to the measure of its missionary operation 
through such an organization as, for instance, the E.A.C.C. 
In specified areas of co-operative work, the National Christian 
Council of the country can act either as a missionary sending or 
receiving organ as the case may be. 

As the younger churches increasingly take seriously their 
missionary involvement, it is essential that they should also 
recognize the importance of linking their missionary publicity 
with their own spiritual needs. Indeed, this will be true for all 
missionary-sending churches. Too much missionary publicity is 
pitched at a level where the slogans are this is an on-going 
enterprise, we are responsible for it, it must go on, it must main- 
tain its own identifiability out there, we have to keep faith with 
what we have begun. Missionary advocacy must be aimed 
directly at the revival and renewal of the sending church. 

Is this the time? 

One last word, and that must be to refer to all the problems 
and upheavals which are now so characteristic of the lands in 
which the younger churches are. Is this the time for missionary 
advance ? 

Dr Kenneth Latourette, calling for a modern missionary 
advance on the part of the churches of the West, makes this plea: 

In the Thirty Years' War, from 1618 to 1648, Germany and 
Bohemia and Moravia (what we now call Czechoslovakia) were 
the battle field of a general European struggle. At the end of the 
war they were prostrate. Protestantism was all but stamped out 
in Bohemia and Moravia. Only a few hidden remnants had 
survived. The Protestant Churches of Germany were formal and 
appeared to be dying of dry rot. Yet within the German Protestant 
Churches a few faithful souls formed themselves into inner circles 
for self-dedication, prayer and evangelism. A small band of 
persecuted refugees from Moravia took refuge on the estates of 
Count Zinzendorf, one of the leaders of that German movement. 

192 



THE INTEGRITY OF THE MISSION 

Led by Zinzendorf the little group sent out missionaries to every 
continent and from the Arctic to the Tropics. It was through 
contact with them that John Wesley had the profound experience 
of Christ which gave birth to Methodism- 

Moreover, it was in a period of revolution and world war that 
many of the strongest missionary societies came into being. From 
1789 to 1815 Europe and with it much of the world were upset 
by the French Revolution and the wars which came out of it. Yet, 
undismayed by these world-shaking events, inconspicuous groups 
of Christians led by obscure men laid plans for giving the Gospel 
to all the earth. In 1 792 the French Revolution was approaching 
its acme of violence. Yet in that very year, just across the English 
Channel, the cobbler-preacher, William Carey, induced a few of 
his fellow ministers to form the Baptist Missionary Society. The 
following year, the year of the Reign of Terror in France, Carey 
went to India. In 1799, when Napoleon was returning to France 
from his effort to break Britain's communications with India, the 
Evangelicals of the Church of England organized the Church 
Missionary Society for Africa and the East. In 1 804, not far from 
the time when Napoleon was giving to England its greatest threat 
of invasion between the Spanish Armada and Hitler, men of faith 
formed the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1812, while 
American ports were being blockaded by the British, Adoniram 
Judson sailed for India. At the time all these movements were 
small. They attracted almost no public attention. Yet they and 
the others associated with them have grown to world-wide 
proportions. 1 

We live in comparable times and face a comparable chal- 
lenge. We know, however, that the times by themselves will 
not produce the advance or the impetus to it. It is written of the 
disciples in the garden of Gethsemane that they were "asleep 
because of sorrow" (Lk. 22: 45). How strong that temptation 
always is during times of stress. And yet, how near the disciples 
were to the hour of victory. 

1 Leaflet issued by the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, 



UTE 



193 



3 

THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 



A CONSIDERATION of the nature, procedures and 
A-\ practices of the missionary enterprise has to take 
JL JLaccount of the movement towards self-hood in the 
churches of its founding. It has to take account too of the 
necessity to ensure and increase the momentum of the enterprise 
itself. But, in addition to these two factors, it must reckon also 
with the situation that, while the great missionary era of the last 
one hundred and fifty years has seen the Church planted 
in every continent and country, in terms of present realities 
Christianity is still a Western religion. 

Speaking at the 1961 Kirchentag held in Berlin, Professor 
G. G. Baeta of Ghana, President of the International Mission- 
ary Council, declared : 

The idea of one part of the world evangelizing another will not 
bear scrutiny. Missions are not a movement from the haves to the 
have-nots, from the educated to the illiterate. They are a move- 
ment from the fellowship of faith all over the world to all who 
stand outside this fellowship, whoever and wherever they may 
be. 

That is well said, but another voice from Africa spoke truly also 
when it laid emphasis on tasks to be performed in the West as 
strategic to the performance of the total task. Dr John Karefa- 
Smart, minister of foreign affairs of Sierra Leone, speaking to 
the 1961 General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church 
in the U.S.A., put it thus: 

To-day, with a single exception (the new nation of Somalia) 
the Christian Church is to be found, sometimes firmly established 
and sometimes with a mere foothold, in every one of the thirty 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

nations on the African continent. At the recent Monrovia Confer- 
ence of the Heads of States and governments, in Africa and 
Malagasy, ten out of twenty national leaders were Christians. 
But were I to stop here, I would not be doing my duty. I must ask 
further : What is your continuing Christian responsibility for the 
direction of the Revolution in Africa ? 

Our African nations, singly and collectively, are called to play 
a more positive role contributing to the realization of world 
peace. But we can fulfil such a positive purpose only if we can 
influence you, our Christian brothers in Europe and America, to 
make effective in your own national policies the same revolution- 
ary ideas which your missionaries so freely shared with us. 

The challenging word here is the word "only". The task is 
one, the base for the task is one also; but unless in the West, 
both in the life of the Churches and the nations, the Christian 
Gospel becomes more compelling the whole task will be 
immeasurably weakened. The next crucial struggle in the 
mission of the Church is not in Africa or Asia but in Europe and 
North America, and derivatively wherever the white man is in 
a position of dominance in Africa. 

Wherever there is a Church, there is a home base for mission; 
wherever there is the world in its unbelief or other belief, there 
is the need for missionaries; and yet in terms of the over-all 
picture to-morrow's tasks demand that we take seriously the 
present Westernity of the missionary base. 

First of all, Christianity is a Western religion because the large 
majority of those in the world who bear the name of Christ live in 
Western lands. (I am not including in this statement any refer- 
ence to the great Christian Church in Russia.) It may be 
contended that this is not of much importance, since such a 
large number of those who do bear the name of Christ in the 
West attach so little significance to it. But that is precisely what 
spells the task for to-morrow. 

Let me explain what I mean by using three illustrations. 
Some years ago a young American, going to teach English in 
one of the high schools in Ceylon, met me in Europe on his way 
to Ceylon and asked me whether there was anything I could 
tell him which would help him in his stay and work in Ceylon. 

195 



THE ENTERPRISE 

I said to him, "There is one thing you must remember that 
you will always be judged as a Christian missionary." He looked 
startled, "But, I am not a missionary/' he said. "I am simply 
going to teach English." I said to him, "That makes no differ- 
ence. You will be judged as a missionary. You in the West who 
bear the name of Christ can discount responsibility for it in 
your own countries, but abroad that is the Name by which you 
will be judged." 

I was reading the speech made in 1959 in the political com- 
mittee of the U.N.O. by Dr G. P. Malalasekera, one of the 
Ceylon representatives in the U.N.O., a leading Buddhist, 
when he spoke on the racial policies of South Africa. There is 
more than a hint in his speech that, judged by its history, 
Christianity has bred more racial intolerance than any other 
religion. He calls attention to the fact that the white South 
Africans are Christians and that the policy of their government 
is based "on the doctrine that the white races, as heirs to 
Western Christian civilization, are in duty bound to maintain 
that civilization inviolate." With scarcely concealed irony he 
remarks, "In the belief that it is a Christian duty to preserve the 
categories of God's creation and to prevent its diversity from 
degenerating into a mongrel chaos, the government follows a 
policy of apartheid." The Negro, the Bantu, the Jew, the 
peoples of colonial lands, all bear witness to the way in which 
Christian nations have behaved. There is little point in arguing 
that there are no Christian nations. Theologically that is true : 
but in terms of the task of Christian witness it is not true. It is 
not only a fact that the Westerner abroad, if he bears the name 
of Christ, will be judged as a Christian; it is also true that those 
who are not Christians will judge Christianity by those who 
bear that Name anywhere. 

About two years ago I shared in a consultation of Y.M.C.A, 
secretaries in New York in which earnest consideration was 
given to the Christian witness of the Y.M.C.A. in all countries 
where it was at work. At the close of the meeting one of the 
secretaries present offered to drive me back home. On the way 
he said to me, "I offered to drive you back because I wanted to 

196 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

talk to you. It is true that I am a Y.M.C.A. secretary, it is also 
true that I have been baptized, but I do not believe in most of 
the things you believe as a Christian. Would you say that I am 
a Christian or not?" My answer was, "What do you say? Do 
you say, when people ask you what your religion is, that you 
are a Christian?" He said "Yes". "Then," I said, "that settles 
the matter for me. If you say you are a Christian then you are a 
Christian. I think your belief about what it means to be a 
Christian is wrong. But you are a Christian nevertheless." To 
be a Christian in name, to be willing to be known as a Christian, 
that is in itself a solemn decision. There is too much glib talk 
about "nominal" Christians as if there could be any other kind, 
and there is too much easy rejection of one's fellow Christians 
because their beliefs are heretical or their lives sinful. Sin and 
heresy must be held within the controversies and discipline of 
the Christian fellowship, for where the fellowship itself is 
denied, the controversies and discipline are futile. 

Jesus Christ is the light of the world (John 8: 12). But every 
time a Christian bears testimony to this fact, he is aware of 
Jesus pointing to him and saying, "You are the light of the 
world" (Matt. 5: 14). We must never point to ourselves nor 
can we escape from the situation that He is constantly pointing 
to us. It is a common experience in India or Ceylon, when an 
evangelistic team visits a village, that in the meeting that is 
organized the small Christian community in the village will be 
sitting in the middle while the Hindus and Muslims will be 
standing all around. And, in that situation, the evangelist is 
aware that whereas he is pointing to Christ, his listeners are 
looking at that small group sitting in front of them. The message 
will carry no conviction unless it is being proved in the lives of 
those who bear the Name that is being declared. This village 
situation is the world situation too, and for good or ill it is still 
the Christians of Western lands who are sitting in the middle. 

It is one of the tasks of to-morrow to accept this fact and 
make it good. There is no way for the peoples of the West to 
contract out of this situation. It is a responsibility they must 
bear whether they like it or not. 

197 



THE ENTERPRISE 



Speaking as a fellow Christian from Asia, one is struck by the 
many movements in the life of the Churches of the West which 
bear witness to the concern that Christ be honoured by those 
who bear His name both by word and life. One is specially 
struck by the ingenuity and purposefulness with which,, in place 
after place, the attempt is being made to take and plant the 
Christian presence in areas of life which have for long remained 
outside the Christian community. The worship of the Churches 
is being deepened, and there is tremendous intellectual drive to 
think through to a Christian wisdom that will give direction to 
human living in the kind of world in which man finds himself 
to-day. 

But there are at least three questions which an Asian Christ- 
ian is tempted to ask. 

(i) Can mass revivalism play any major part in recalling the 
Christian West to its vocation? It is often forgotten that when 
people are invited to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and 
Saviour, Jesus Christ as such is never available for acceptance. 
He can be accepted by accepting to belong to the community 
that bears His name, He can be accepted by dedication to do 
some particular deed which is His will for the person concerned, 
He can be accepted by accepting the teaching about Him and 
His Gospel which is being presented ... Mass revivalism, when 
it neglects to see this situation in which preacher and hearer 
stand, can result in producing a merely religious revival with 
little relation to the actual tasks in which the Lord is engaged 
to-day and where only He can be met and obeyed. 

(ii) What is the consequence of discontinuing so completely 
the quest for the Jesus of history? Nothing is more striking to a 
person whose normal habitat is the world of Hindu thought and 
life, when he visits the West, than the* assumption which he 
finds so pervasive in theological circles in the West that the 
Jesus of history is unknown and unknowable. That Jesus lived 
and died and still lives is not doubted: but apart from this 
nothing is certain except that the early Church preached 
certain things about Him. As to whether this teaching is true, 
this can be judged, it is claimed, only in terms of its relevance 

198 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

for life to-day and in terms of its verifiability in personal 
experience. This attitude is so completely Hindu that one is 
staggered by its consequence for Christians living amidst 
Hindus, if Christians there should come to hold this position. 

(iii) Why is "topical" preaching such a feature of the Christ- 
ian pulpit in the West and particularly in the U.S.A.? My 
reason for raising this question is not to argue about the relative 
Tightness of "topical" preaching, or to discuss the different ways 
in which "topical" preaching can be done. I want rather to ask 
this kind of question suppose someone in a congregation kept 
a record of the sermons preached to that congregation Sunday 
by Sunday, and then at the end of a whole year wrote a sum- 
mary of the Christian faith on the basis of those sermons alone, 
what would that summary be like? Most Christians, among 
those who attend public worship, live on the basis of the faith 
they learn on Sunday mornings. The preacher has no right to 
waste a Sunday morning talking C tit-bits". 

There is a second reason for saying that Christianity is a 
Western religion. It is a Western religion because Western culture and 
civilization have their roots in the Christian faith. Let me list just 
three examples of the kind of climate of thought and conviction 
which is so pervasive in the West but which has no meaning 
apart from the Christian faith from which it has flowered. 

(i) There are many varieties of opinion about the nature 
and procedures of "democracy", but underlying all these there 
is a common conviction which can be articulated. "Government 
must be by the free consent of the governed." This conviction 
has no foundation except that free consent is what God awaits 
from man. Democracy is an attempt on the part of men to deal 
with one another in a way that is consonant with the way in 
which God deals with them. This way of God with men is the 
way of God in Jesus Christ. 

(ii) Since the practice of democracy usually is that of govern- 
ment by the majority it is essential for the health of the whole to 
keep inviolate the absolute importance of the individual. But 
this belief in the absolute importance of the individual has no 
basis in fact apart from the Christian proclamation that each 

J99 



THE ENTERPRISE 

man is God's immediate creation. Biological and historical 
processes belong to the realm of secondary causation. God is 
"final" cause His purpose determines you and me. 

(iii) But we are not simply units in a heap, we are members 
of a race or a nation with a common life and sense of common 
mission and destiny. The history of the nineteenth century is 
simply the result of the working out of the sense of * 'nation- 
hood" of the peoples of the West. But has "nationhood" any 
validity except that God recognizes nations and peoples? 
Where men bind themselves together God does deal with them 
together. It is the "peoples", the "nations",, the human "group- 
ings", which must be brought into subjection to the Gospel. 

Now, let me ask, can these convictions be sustained in the 
West apart from the Christian faith ? One can already discern 
how these convictions are being emptied of content and conse- 
quence simply because they are held as political convictions and 
not as religious ones. Is government by consent for Portugal 
only or also for Angola? Is it for the U.S.A. only or also for 
Taiwan (Formosa) ? In South Africa, is the absolute importance 
of the individual an unqualified truth or is it qualified by 
colour? A competitive society with minimum government 
control may be the best guarantee of individual freedom, but 
how are the weak to be protected in a competitive society? Is 
"nationhood" of equal legitimacy in the Rhodesias as in 
Britain ? Can civil rights in a nation be defended if they belong 
to white citizens alone ? This kind of question can be multiplied. 
Political questions must be answered in terms of political 
realities. But once the religious roots of political convictions are 
cut there is lost the religious compulsion which must control 
political thought. An Australian steward on a boat once said to 
me, when he discovered that I was going to Australia to conduct 
missions, "Oh, I don't believe in Christianity but I believe in 
our civilization and for that Christianity is important." 

The churches of the West face a tremendous task for to- 
morrow. They must find ways of recalling their several nations 
and the communities among them to allegiance to the faith 
>vhich so far has shaped their destiny. This has to mean two 

899 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

things the revival of Christian belief itself, and witness to that 
belief in the ways in which the nation behaves as a whole. When 
the Church of Scotland in its Assembly discussed Nyasaland, it 
was performing an evangelistic task of the greatest significance. 
When Bishop Bell of Chichester protested in the House of Lords 
against obliteration bombing, he was witnessing to his Lord. 
When the Student Christian Movement of France protests 
against the war in Algeria it is pointing to the one humanity in 
Christ. A great deal in the future depends on the churches of 
the West discovering the political dimension of their evangelistic 
witness. In fact, a great deal depends on the nations of the 
West discovering the Christian dimension of their political 
tasks. What is the lesson to be learnt from the tenderness of the 
British Government towards Portugal during the recent events 
in Angola, or from the emergence of the John Birch society in 
the U.S.A.? In purely political terms, the West is simply 
engaged in a holding operation; it can play a decisive role in 
shaping future events only if it dares to be Christian. The 
governments and nations of the West must some time be 
brought to listen to the witness of the churches in their midst. 
Paul speaks of "bringing about obedience to the faith among the 
nations" (Rom. 1:5): that obedience depends on so being 
"under" the word that one "hears". 1 

Another factor which calls for serious attention in any con- 
sideration of the relation between Western culture and the 
Christian faith is the rapid spread to all parts of the world of 
elements of this culture in a disintegrated form. The basis of all 
old cultures is the family unit, whether it be the immediate or 
the extended family; and this family unit has been preserved by 
suitable patterns of marriage and property arrangement. Under 
the pressure of technological developments this type of culture 
is breaking down all over Asia and Africa. Into this situation are 
being injected those ideas which spring from the breakdown of 
a family-based culture in the West. 

It has been said that while the churches of the West in the 

1 The New Testament word translated "obedience" literally means "to hear 
", 

01 



THE ENTERPRISE 

nineteenth century launched the missionary movement to lands 
overseas they lost the working classes at home. The truth is, 
however, that they never had the working classes in spite of the 
successes of the evangelical revival. The characteristic of the 
churches of the West previous to the Industrial Revolution was 
that they were home based. But "with the advent of the Indus- 
trial Revolution a new group of people entered the social 
scheme who had no relevance to this pattern of church life. 
Although the church could adjust its message which was 
dominated by the virtues of rural life to the family life of 
merchants and manufacturers, it found that it had little or 
nothing to say to the city proletariat." 1 Ralph Morton remarks, 
"The idea that the family is the basic unit of Christian social 
living has ceased to be true of the middle class, even as it was 
never true of the working class. And with that change the con- 
gregation has lost its root in the common life of men." 2 

The problem then is this : that there is a double need in the 
West which must be met if a missionary outreach by the 
churches of the West is to be powerful enough to serve the dis- 
integrating social situation in the lands of Asia and Africa. The 
churches of the West must, on the one hand, help to restore 
again the integrity of the family; while, on the other hand, they 
find new ways of structuring congregational life so that the 
masses of men who have become "anonymous, identical, 
replaceable units of society" may find in the family of God a 
community which is relevant to their way of life and culture. 
At the moment the situation, by and large, is that the churches 
of the West do not yet possess the word to speak to the rapidly 
changing society in the lands of the younger churches and that 
the word they do speak is Christian in form only and not in 
power. The polygamy issue in Africa is a case in point. Most 
Christian churches in Africa insist on divorce as a pre-condition 
before a polygamist can be baptized, but the issue is not clear 
as to which is the way of building Christian family life in Africa. 

1 Letty M. Russel in the Union Theological Seminary Quarterly Review, Nov* 
1960. 
8 Ralph Morton, Household of Faith, lona Community, 1951, p. 75. 

202 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

Must the Church begin with divorce or with polygamy if those 
are the two alternatives ? and what of the situation in which lack 
of economic progress and education poses an even more poig- 
nant question? During the All- Africa Lutheran Conference 
held at Marangu in 1955 the Hon. Mrs E. M. Marealle, wife 
of the paramount chief of the Chagga tribe, put the issue in 
these words: 

There was one advantage in this system of taking many wives 
and that was that the girls who reached the right age could always 
be assured of a husband. These days we think the system of marry- 
ing many wives is a bad thing but the towns are now full of young 
women who have no education with which to help themselves by 
way of work and not enough young men who are prepared to 
marry them. Many of our older people are often asking us if we 
think this is a good thing; we cannot reply easily because it is a 
choice between many wives or many prostitutes. 1 

The point I am making is not that we need greater discernment 
on how to handle the polygamy issue in Africa, nor that we 
must somehow maintain the sanctities of family life. Rather, 
my plea is that the churches of the West have a radical discov- 
ery to make in their homelands, the discovery of how to pre- 
serve the family unit within a Christian congregational life 
which itself is based not on the family but on the social unities 
of modern men. Until this discovery is made in the West where 
Christianity is still the dominant religion, the missionary enter- 
prise must remain seriously handicapped. 

A third reason why Christianity is a Western religion is 
because in money and personnel the resources of the Christian enterprise 
are still largely in the West. How to put these resources at the 
wisdom of the whole Church throughout the world is one of the 
tasks for to-morrow. In this connection the first and over-riding 
consideration must be that of evangelism. Dr Donald Mc- 
Gavran in his book How Churches Grow has the following 
paragraph : 

Immediately after the I.M.C. Conference at Willingen in 
1952, Dr R. Pierce Beaver penned the following sentence which 

1 Quoted from the CLM.S. News Letter of Feb. 1961. 

203 



THE ENTERPRISE 

the Division of Foreign Mission published: 'The delegates at 
Willingen say, as they reviewed the situation of the Church 
around the world to-day, that the missionary enterprise is in great 
measure a colossal system of inter-church aid, with relatively little 
pioneer evangelistic advance." This terrific assessment frightened 
no one. "The colossal system of inter-church aid" passes for good 
missions whether the younger churches grow or not. If we are 
aiding them, that is good mission policy. The "no-growth" situa- 
tion is accepted without remorse. 1 

The point here must be well taken. "Missions" must prima- 
rily be driven by the hope and prayer that God will so use them 
as to bring into being churches where there are none and an 
increase in membership of the churches that are. At the moment 
the largest use of the resources of the churches of the West in 
many countries is towards maintaining and deepening and 
broadening the life of the "younger" churches but not towards 
their expansion. "Expansion 5 ' is the primary category with 
which to define the unfinished evangelistic task. The point is 
often made, and seems to me convincing, that wherever the 
churches are expanding they are doing so because evangelism 
has become a people's movement. Part of the problem of "the 
established missions" is that their help in terms of personnel 
and resources is too institutionally channelled so that it does 
not meet the situation of spontaneous advance. Together with 
this goes the problem of releasing men and money for new 
projects which can stimulate and undergird evangelism as a 
people's movement: the establishment of Christian commun- 
ities ashrams., monasteries, institutes, the training of the laity 
for Christian witness in daily life, frontier groups who will be 
the Christian presence where at the moment there is none, 
mobile evangelistic teams, and so on. 

Indeed, it may not be an overstatement to say that the execu- 
tion of the Church's mission as a people's movement will depend 
in large measure on an immediate investment of men and 
money into that field of work in which at present it is sought to 
mobilize and train the laity to be the Church on the frontier, 

1 Donald McGavran, How Churches Grow, World Dominion Press, p. 1 1. 

204 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

This mode of understanding the nature of the Church's mission 
is relatively recent and, therefore, needs a concentration of 
thought and study to bring out its chief implications. Let me use 
a passage from the writing of Hans Ruedi Weber, who was 
Director of the Laity department of the World Council of 
Churches, to set out the main idea. Writing on the Christian 
witness in Asia he develops his thesis as follows : 

The tiny Christian minority living as a "diaspora", a commun- 
ity scattered, in the midst of Asia is set there in order to make the 
choice between Christ and an ti- Christ inescapable for the new 
Asian nations. How are these weak churches going to fulfil this 
mission ? They cannot even support and continue all the mission- 
ary activities and missionary institutions which were started by 
Western missionary societies. But many Western missionaries who 
had the exasperating privilege of working in modern Asia have 
made a great discovery (and this discovery is now being made by 
many of the Asian churches themselves) : when through outer 
and inner circumstances they had to cut down or even stop their 
well-meant missionary activities, they saw that their mere pres- 
ence (if it was really a Christian presence) had meaning and was 
perhaps more important than all their activities. They discovered 
that in the life and mission of the Church the Christian dimension, 
with its spontaneous "radiation 53 , is equally or perhaps even more 
important than the Christian intention with all its deliberate 
Christian activities. 

This distinction between the dimension and the intention has 
been blurred in the Western Christendom situation. To be a 
Christian came almost exclusively to mean a set of intentional 
activities: going to church on Sundays, helping in organized 
evangelistic activities and joining in planned Christian service. 
The mere existence of a Christian community in the midst of a 
society lost its power and force of "radiation". The Church was 
no longer a sign, but an interest and often a pressure-group. 
Where this happens the specially trained and full-time employed 
church worker comes into the forefront. He is the specialist and 
will soon be regarded as the functionary to whom the Church has 
delegated its ministry and mission. And the laity will at most be 
the active "hands of such functionaries". This conception of the 
Church, which is reduced to intentional Christian activities and 
the work of church functionaries and their helpers, has been 

205 



THE ENTERPRISE 

exported to Asia and Africa. Many impressive missionary insti- 
tutions and the whole variety of centralized missionary activities 
have been built up often at the expense of the all-important 
growth into maturity of individual Christians and local congre- 
gations outside the mission station or the church centre. 

As soon as the primary importance of this dimension in the life 
and mission of the Church is seen, the laity come into the fore- 
front. It is in and through their costly choices and decisions in 
their daily life and work that the Church grows into maturity and 
fulfils its essential mission. Those set apart for a special ministry in 
the Church are now no longer considered as the functionaries of 
the Church. They are recognized as those who are given to the 
Church in order to discern the gifts of grace bestowed on each 
member of God's people, in order to harmonize these gifts of 
grace and let them flourish so that the whole people is directed 
towards the work of service 1 (Eph. 4: 11-12). 

To draw out the implication of this thesis, let me give one 
example. One of the crucial areas of life in which the Christian 
presence is of the utmost importance both for the present and 
the future is the university in which Christian students are a 
minority as well as a diaspora. Here, if anywhere, is the need to 
maintain the diaspora status and use the diaspora strategy of 
the Christian community. How right Weber is in his main 
protest can be seen, however, in the calculated development of 
denominational policies in Christian student work which 
instead of seeking unitedly to besiege the University world on 
behalf of Christ, seek rather to fragment the Christian witness in 
the university on behalf of the Churches. (The climate of a 
competitive society in the U.S.A. has helped this development 
of autonomous denominational student movements. But just 
when, in the U.S.A., the tide is turning in the direction of 
greater unity in Christian student work, Britain announces the 
formation of the first British Confessional Student Christian 
organization. An Anglican Student Federation has been formed. 
One had hoped that the University world would prove the first 
area of life where Christians would have found the name of 
Christ enough and not felt any necessity to add other names 

1 Quoted from the Laity Bulletin of the W.C.C., No. 8. 

206 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

whether Anglican or Lutheran or Methodist etc. to distinguish 
them.) The university ceases to be important for its own sake, 
and so the Christian students become important as members of 
their several churches. Not the Christian mission but Christian 
nurture becomes the over-riding category of student work, and 
the minority and diaspora situation of the Christian community 
is redressed by gathering together the separate clans and draw- 
ing circles around them. Here again the Westernity of the base 
puts the major responsibility on the churches of the West for 
strong leadership in the right direction. 

To emphasize the idea of the mission as a people's movement, 
however, is not to forget that it is the Church which is on the 
move. And yet, here again the implication of emphasizing this 
churchliness is to emphasize the nature of the Church's mission 
to the world. The Church is part of the Gospel and a demon- 
stration of it. In it is experienced already as foretaste the 
climactic fulfilment of God's Kingdom. In this realm, the 
consequence therefore for missionary policy is the compulsion 
to demonstrate the nature of the reconciliation which the 
Church proclaims in mission. To be a people's movement in the 
true sense, the mission must be the mission of one people. The 
search to make visible the unity of the Church is not motivated 
by a desire for evangelistic efficiency. It is the consequence of 
realizing that the Church deprives the world of living by the 
reconciliation wrought in Christ where the Church itself does 
not live by that reconciliation. The Church as "mission" may 
convert, but where the call to unity is not heeded the Church 
refuses its mission to be the place where the new humanity is 
fashioned and the new creation is begun. The cosmic dimension 
of the Gospel must not be separated from the personal. Obedi- 
ence must include both. 

If the Church's mission is reconciliation, in every sense of the 
term, it is clear that it must first be reconciled within itself and 
regain the unity it has lost. It is clear also that the Church will not 
become reconciled within itself unless it starts by listening and by 
letting itself be questioned. The world does not question us; it 
condemns us, or at least scorns us. We must also listen to this 

207 



THE ENTERPRISE 

message of contempt, for it confirms our own inner certainty that 
we cannot speak of reconciliation as long as all Christians are 
not reconciled within the Church itself. 1 

The practical consequence of this demand for reconciliation, 
with respect to the task of missions, is the need to pay urgent 
attention to the questions concerning the inter-nationalizing as 
well as the inter-denommationalizing of missions which are 
discussed on all sides to-day. The coming together of the Inter- 
national Missionary Council and the World Council of 
Churches must provide the right context within which to work 
out the solutions to all these questions. 

The importance of the denominational question, however, is 
not only forced into the foreground by the financial and person- 
nel potential of the churches of the West. It is intrinsic to their 
very development. This is the fourth reason why Christian- 
ity is a Western religion. The ecclesiastical forms of the Christian 
faith as found in the world to-day are largely the result of the history 
of the churches of the West. A task for to-morrow is to break the 
entail on this heritage and so to set free the Church in its 
mission that it can discover what it means to be the Church. 

Let me express myself once again as an Asian Christian. As 
I work with my fellow Christians in the West I am struck by- 
certain attitudes which so many adopt without question. It is 
assumed that it is right to give organizational expression to 
theological variations. Great play is made of loyalty to truth, 
but what is meant is that such loyalty demands separate and 
separated households of faith. Often, in the West, I have been 
reminded of one of our late Ceylonese ministers the Rev, 
R. C. P. Welch who told a story of the man who was cured by 
Jesus with the application of "earth and spittle" (Mk 8: 23) 
setting up a faith-healing Church in which he contended that 
that was the true way of faith healing, and of the other man 
whom Jesus cured purely by the spoken word (Mk. 10: 52) set- 
ting up another Church to witness to the unaided form of faith 
healing because that was the truth. I have also wondered 

1 Pierre Burgelin, Unity and Mission of the Church, John Knox Press, p. 13, 

208 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

whether truths are true in isolation. Thus, for instance, can the 
teaching about the historic episcopate as an essential guarantee 
of the Church's continuity in time be true unless it is also true 
that only one guarantee is needed for the Church to remain, 
always and everywhere, the Church the guarantee of the 
Lord's presence ? If these two truths are held by two different 
denominations, do they not both become at least distorted? 
Within the World Council of Churches, all truths are in con- 
versation with one another. That conversation helps to keep 
each true. Truths can be served loyally only as they are brought 
together for truth is one and He is Christ. 

Heresy [says Pierre Burgelin] is firstly a case of spiritual soli- 
tude. It is the role of the living community, the role of church 
tradition which is a dialogue with the Church of the past, to draw 
us out of that solitude. No single person can claim to be in posses- 
sion of every aspect of the Truth. That is why the mission of the 
Church is inseparable from unity. The unity of the Church is no 
unanimity. Neither the living Church nor its tradition are unani- 
mous. The Church is one in its inner dialogue when every member 
is prepared to let the others question him, when differences and 
oppositions are examined together, when its members at least 
agree to look together for the signs whereby the Truth may be 
recognized. 1 

Reconciliation is by the Cross. The Cross would not be neces- 
sary if the basis of unity were complete agreement and not 
dialogue. 

The importance of stressing this aspect of the Westernity of 
the Christian base lies in the fact that unless the churches of the 
West achieve a break-through on this front, the Church Union 
achievements in the lands of the younger churches cannot by 
themselves arrest the growth of the sectarian spirit or its mani- 
festations. It is said that the main causes, humanly speaking, 
which lie behind the separatist and messianic movements in 
Africa are: the impression that division does not matter, an 
impression which the established churches and missions them- 
selves conveyed; the personality cult which the missionaries 

1 Op. dt* t pp. 9-10. 



UTE 



209 



THE ENTERPRISE 

seemed to practise; and the lack of opportunity within the 
established churches and missions for the development of indi- 
genous African leadership. In Asia, the strength of sectarianism 
lies in the fact that it provides an easy way out of the confes- 
sional situation. Daisuke Kitagawa, analysing the causes for 
the No-Church movement in Japan, expresses the view that 
confessional differences which inevitably present themselves in 
a doctrinaire form give an impetus to the belief that Christianity 
is primarily a matter of intellectual assent to intellectualized 
propositions. If this were so, it would be an easy step from this 
misunderstanding to the further position that Christianity can 
be accepted and practised without the hindrance of confes- 
sional organizations, which after all are not in themselves an 
intellectual necessity. The No- Church movement was an 
attempt to recover an untrammelled Christianity where the 
intellect and the spirit were free. 

Once Christianity was reduced to one form of an intellectual 
system or another, confessional difference becomes a factor of 
crucial importance. Protestantism in Japan has been infected by 
denominational competition much for this reason. This explains 
why Japanese Lutherans outdo Lutherans in Europe in their strict 
adherence to Lutheranism, and Japanese Presbyterians outdo 
both all types of the Reformed in Europe and all types of Pres- 
byterians in America in their adherence to what they had been 
taught as the central tenet of Presbyterianism; and one can go 
down the line from Anglicans and Congregationalists to Baptists 
and Pentecostals. Even those groups which in the West are 
regarded as non or anti-intellectual, present their respective 
versions of Christianity in intellectualized (though not neces- 
sarily intellectual), formulae, either in terms of dogma or in terms 
of moral law; and the difference between their teaching and those 
of other denominations is magnified chiefly to justify their own 
existence. This intellectualization of the Christian Gospel is at the 
very bottom of the failure of the modern Protestant missionary 
movements in Japan insofar as they were carried out by the 
missionary societies and boards of the West and inherited by the 
mission-supported Japanese churches. It is against this historical 
background that one must assess the meaning of the Mukyo- 
kaishugi Christianity in Japan. Mukyokaishugi, which may best 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

be translated as No-churckism, is, therefore, not an "ism" against 
the Church like a spiritual anarchism or isolationism. It is a revolt 
against "churchism" and does not advocate "no-churchism". It is 
neither an organization nor a system, and much less a sect or a 
denomination. It is a movement to do away with all denomina- 
tionalism. 1 

The No-Church movement in Japan can be paralleled in the 
other countries of Asia by the growth of the pentecostal type of 
churches and societies, of which the best illustration is in Latin 
America. Here the established churches and missions are 
making a desperate attempt to maintain confessional distinc- 
tions which carry so little conviction to those in the country for 
whom the reformed faith has brought deliverance from an un- 
reformed Catholicism. When I was in South America, how 
often did I hear the comment, "If only these missionaries would 
leave us alone; we could then come together as Christians!" 
The underlying hope was not in terms of Church Union as 
normally understood, but in terms of a sectarian denial of the 
importance of confessional differences. 

It seems to me that the strength and direction for meeting 
this situation must come in the first place from the churches of 
the West. It would be a tragedy if the theological insights which 
lie behind and beneath the various confessions were brushed 
aside as of no account. Un-denominationalism is a blind man's 
way out of the problem. What is needed is a swifter attempt to 
hold together in one universe of discourse the various confes- 
sional positions and a greater resolve to express at the local 
level the maximum amount of churchly unity. Ways must be 
explored of building local congregational unity without pre- 
judging or compromising theological issues. There are already 
in many places signs of this kind of experimentation com- 
munity churches, shared church buildings, ministers ordained 
both episcopally and non-episcopally, one congregation with 
more than one community roll, shared communion, etc. There 
is need to press on with all this because here at least is the 

1 Quoted from a paper on "No-Church Christianity in Japan", by Daisuke 
Kitagawa, published by the I.M.C. as its Occasional Paper No. 8. 

211 



THE ENTERPRISE 

dictum true that "we shall not know what we do not do 55 . (A 
student Christmas letter sent out from East Germany in 
December 1960 pleading for the maintenance and strengthen- 
ing of the unity of the Christian student community in the 
whole of Germany carried this caption: "Here we shall not 
know what we do not do.") 

Defining this goal of churchly unity at the local level, the 
Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches 
made the following statement; 

The unity which is both God's will and His gift to His Church 
is one which brings all in each place who confess Christ Jesus as 
Lord into a fully committed fellowship with one another through 
one baptism into Him, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching 
the one Gospel and breaking the one bread, and having a corpor- 
ate life reaching out in witness and service to all; which at the 
same time unites them with the whole Christian fellowship in all 
places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are 
acknowledged by all, and that all can act and speak together as 
occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls the Church, 1 

The promise in this approach is that while this unity is by its 
very nature visible, it does not imply a single centralized 
ecclesiastical institution. 

It is a matter for great thanksgiving that all this is not just a 
matter of wishful dreaming. In the words of Archbishop Fisher: 

Through the centuries the churches have allowed themselves 
to be drawn overmuch into what St Paul called philosophy and 
vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the elemental spirits 
of the universe, and not according to Christ. But there is blowing 
through the churches a great wind of fellowship in Christ, a wind 
of the Holy Spirit. In many parts of the world a resurrection is at 
work. There is in the ecumenical movement an authentic voice of 
the Holy Spirit to the churches of the world. 2 

But having said all this, there is need to say also that there 
is taking place in the churches of the West another development 
which is a cause of real concern for many in the younger 

1 Minutes of the Faith and Order Commission (1960), p. 1 13. 
a Quoted from his sermon preached at the Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem 
and reported in the E.P.S. of Dec 2, 1960. 



THE WESTERN1TY OF THE BASE 

churches. The problem can be put this way: In the West the 
organizational defences of separated traditions are themselves 
objects of loyalty and veneration. With us, in the younger 
churches, it is largely still not so. It is essential that we find one 
another before we become like our fellow Christians in the 
West. But just here where we need most help, we are alarmed 
by the recrudescence in the West of denominationalism. 
Confessionalisms, organized in world organizations, are for us 
in the younger churches not merely an obstacle but a tempta- 
tion. God in His mercy led us to the point where in our lands 
both secular and sacred history showed us that denomination- 
alism is not viable. The Church in its dividedness is not the 
Church but the world. World Confessionalism is an attempt to 
make denominationalism viable again. 

I know that leaders of World Confessional movements deny 
this vigorously. The issue is not one about their intentions but 
about the results of what they are doing. In a staff memoran- 
dum of the I.M.C, there occurs the following sentence, "While 
centralized administration of the Lutheran missions in a 
country (e.g. Tanganyika) fosters the sharing of resources 
within the confessional group, it intensifies confessional con- 
sciousness at possible cost to inter-confessional co-operation." 1 
The hard truth is that in spite of their genuine interest and 
participation in the ecumenical movement, the churches of the 
West are still uncertain about the implications of the ecumen- 
ical summons. 

A fifth reason, therefore, must be added to underline the 
importance of recognizing the Westernity of the base of the 
Christian enterprise, and that is the decisive role of the churches 
of the West in determining the shape of things to come. Already, in 
other connections, tentative mention has been made of the 
development of world confessionalism; but even at the risk of 
being misunderstood one feels compelled to attempt a concise 
statement of how the confessional development looks to at least 
one member of a younger church. 

1 Quoted from memorandum on Disparity of Resources and Related Issues 
I.M.C., April 1960. 

213 



THE ENTERPRISE 

An over-all impression which one carries as a result of con- 
tinuous contact with the churches of the West is that these 
churches are being asked to move in two opposite directions. 
Those within these churches who are related to missionary 
societies and mission boards and the operations of the mission- 
ary movement are seeking to lead their churches into a recogni- 
tion of the significance of the lands and nations in which the 
Church exists; while, on the other hand, many of those carrying 
responsibility for the internal life of these churches seem to be 
primarily conscious of the world distribution of their particular 
denomination or confession, and anxious to lead their churches 
in the direction of strengthening denominational ties. This is 
naturally an over-simplification and an over-statement, but at 
least it makes the contrast clear. The reason why this contrast 
so often remains hidden is that among both groups mentioned 
there are those who are equally committed to the ecumenical 
movement and are therefore concerned that denominational 
participation in the ecumenical movement should be as strong 
as possible. 

A good example of the double direction in which it is sought 
to lead the churches of the West can be given by quoting a 
letter from the Rev. G. E. Hickman Johnson, the General 
Secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society at that time, 
which appeared in the Methodist Recorder of October 7, 1954, 

In the account by the Rev. E. Benson Perkins of the meeting of 
the Methodist World Executive, he said two major concerns came 
before that Executive. The first of them was, Methodist schemes 
of Church Union. The Rev. Wilfred Wade raised the question 
"whether the right way forward is to create national Churches or 
to consider a unity at international and inter-racial levels. ... It 
may be that confessional unions provide the way forward, or 
something along that line." It is on this point that I would venture 
to comment. 

The question raised by Mr Wade, whose preference for a con- 
fessional unions" appeared to receive considerable support in the 
Executive, was raised in the General Committee of the Wesleyan 
Methodist Missionary Society in the early days of the discussion 
on Church Union in South India. I remember clearly a forceful 

214 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

speech made somewhere about 1929-30 by the late Dr F. Luke 
Wiseman whose capacious mind put before the Committee a 
vital choice the choice now discussed afresh at the World 
Executive : are we out to set up united Churches in our overseas 
areas, he asked, or should we leave any such unions to other 
Churches and ourselves stand for the spread of world Methodism? 
He set forth the arguments for each cause. 

No one could have made the choice clearer than did the 
speaker, and yet with its eyes wide open, and with an almost 
unanimous vote, the W.M.M.S. General Committee declared its 
belief that it was God's will for His Church in India to become 
united. 

The question, and its attendant argument, were repeated in the 
following Conference. Finally, after many years of discussion the 
union was, I think, unanimously blessed by Conference, With 
both hands Methodism gave all she had to give in South India 
people, land, buildings to the Church of South India, together 
with a continued supply of missionaries and funds : surely one of 
the noblest acts our Church has ever performed, and one which 
the work and experience of the Church of South India have com- 
pletely justified since its inauguration in 1947. 

The point I would raise here is that the issue raised by Mr Wade 
at the World Methodist Executive at Evanston was faithfully 
faced a quarter of a century ago and was settled for British 
Methodism. It is surely a little late in the day to raise it afresh, 
seven years after so considerable a union as that in South India 
has taken place and with schemes for similar unions now nearing 
completion both in North India and Ceylon, and discussions 
along such lines also afoot in some West African areas. 

On this whole issue the churches of the West must make up 
their minds as to what they want. Do they want to retain their 
position of leadership within denominational families for in 
such families the younger churches will always remain weaker 
partners or do they want to put their strength at the disposal 
of the younger churches in the common tasks which these 
younger churches face in the lands in which they are set? As far 
as the younger churches themselves are concerned the develop- 
ment of such organs as the East Asia Christian Conference and 
the All Africa Church Conference is an indication of the direc- 
tion in which they have decided to move. 

215 



THE ENTERPRISE 

Almost as an aside it is perhaps necessary to interject a para- 
graph here to register the fact that the various confessional 
movements are also not all of one kind. The Presbyterian 
World Alliance, for instance, seeks to make its contribution by 
maintaining and expounding the historic presbyterian emphases 
in Christian theology; while, on the other hand, in a body like 
the World Lutheran Federation financial and organizational 
power are at the service of confessional difference. In the 
Methodist Church both in America and Britain, there are those 
who would like to construct a world Methodist administrative 
structure; whilst the Missionary Societies of these churches are 
committed to policies set in the opposite direction. Anglicanism 
is committed to the policy of national or regional Church Union, 
but almost everywhere maintains its confessional character by 
dragging its feet when it comes to local co-operation and 
united witness with other churches in immediate tasks. Con- 
gregationalism in its many forms is busy in all parts of the world 
disappearing into various united Churches while the Baptists 
maintain on the one hand their general aloofness from Church 
Union movements and on the other remain flexible for co-opera- 
tion because of their congregational polity. It is rarely an issue 
of what these confessional organizations intend, it is always 
a question of what their effects are simply because they 
are world organizations with administrative power and 
financial strength. 

It is conceivable that the characterizations given in the above 
paragraph are too superficial to be fair or even helpful, but an 
attempt had to be made to indicate how crucial it is to discern 
what the appropriate form should be of witnessing to confession- 
ally-held differences within the ecumenical and church union 
movements. The tides of history in Asia, Africa and Latin 
America have changed the situation for the churches of the 
West, It would be foolish for them to commit themselves to a 
policy intended to arrest or neutralize this change. A railway 
guard got so used to having his meals in the train, that even at 
home his wife had to keep on shaking the table while he was 
eating his dinner. 

216 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

The churches of the West must, in the development of 
organized world confessionalisms, face not only the issues raised 
by the church union movement but also the issues raised by the 
increasing programme of Inter-Church Aid. Within the mis- 
sionary connection churches belonging to the same confessional 
family help one another, but the department of Inter-Church 
Aid of the World Council of Churches has raised the question as 
to the most appropriate form of Christian witness when the 
need to be met has no denominational or confessional rele- 
vance. Suppose there is a famine in Malaya and aid is to be 
channelled through denominational lines. The Methodists in 
Malaya related to American Methodism can get substantial 
help. The Anglicans related to British Anglicanism will not be 
so advantageously placed. The powerful Lutheran Church in 
America will have little obligation to do anything ... and so on. 
To say that all this can be ironed out is futile pleading. The fact 
is that the problem of need must not be distorted by the 
denominational imbalance in the resources of the Churches. In 
other words both the missionary connection and the confes- 
sional family connection need to be held within limits where 
the meeting of need is the point in question. 

The same principle applies in other realms. Just as a common 
need can afford a principle of unity so also can a common life. 
A student community in a university is one community. The 
Student Christian Movement was an attempt to bring to this 
one community the one Gospel of Christ. To-day the various 
churches in the West are seeking to reverse this situation by 
fragmenting the student community along denominational 
lines. The positive gains of confessional student movements 
could have been achieved without this negative result. Another 
example can be given in the field of Christian institutions of 
many kinds. There is no reason why a Christian hospital has to 
be a Methodist hospital or a Christian High School has to be 
an Anglican one. Confessional differences must take seriously 
all forms of secular unity. Otherwise the churches may be in 
disobedience to the Lord of the world. 

I do not want to give the impression that world confessional 

217 



THE ENTERPRISE 

organizations are in the main an unfortunate development. It is 
my conviction that, in a suitable form, they are necessary at the 
present time to ensure that past gains and the treasures of the 
several churches are conserved in all future developments 
within the ecumenical movement. They are necessary also to 
put at the service of the ecumenical movement the acquired 
experience and strength of the various confessional families. 
There is too the dependence of churches on their confessional 
heritage as they grow into mature self-hood. But the protest 
which is being voiced here is against the kind of con-federalism 
which these confessional developments envisage as the form 
which the ecumenical movement must take. The ecumenical 
movement, including the church union movement, must be a 
movement out of one centre which is the Church and not out of 
many centres which are the churches. It must grow from the 
given forms of unity already experienced in the Church and 
not from the differences which divide the churches* In the 
words of Nikos Nissiotis, "To be together as Churches to-day 
implies an open continuous invitation of the Holy Spirit to 
realize both eternally in time and historically in the history of 
the Church, the event of the one and undivided Church towards 
which and from which all actions must be re-examined and re- 
adjusted. We all of us have to re-plant our new roots which are 
the old ones of our common baptism in the Holy Spirit." 1 The 
World Council of Churches is only a Council and must remain 
a Council, being the hedge which gives protection to the tree as 
it grows. The activities of the Council, however, must concern 
the tree and not the hedge. The hedge should absorb only 
minimum time and money. 

The one centre, the given forms of unity already experienced 
in the Church and in the churches, the forms of secular unity 
provided by the world; these constitute the base for future 
advance. It is this base, in all its three aspects, which is threat- 
ened by world structures of confessional allegiance. In the 
Lutheran World Federation, a discussion is being conducted on 

1 Nikos Nissiotis is Assistant Director of the Ecumenical Institute, The quotation 
is from Bossey News> Dec. 1 960. 

218 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

the ecclesiological significance of the Federation. The basis of 
the discussion is an article by Dr Peter Brunner which appeared 
in the Lutheran World of December, 1960. His plea is for the 
creation of a World Lutheran Church. In urging this plea, he 

says: 

According to Lutheran doctrine, the only legitimate divisions 
between churches are those which are caused by the Gospel itself 
and therefore are based upon a difference between false and true 
doctrine. There is only one means that has been given to us to 
overcome such divisions and that is responsible doctrinal discus- 
sion. Such doctrinal discussion can be carried on at any rate in 
its decisive stage only between "church" and "church". A 
commission of theologians appointed by the World Federation 
could, it is true, prepare such a doctrinal discussion, but it could 
not carry it out. Is any individual Lutheran church in a position 
to carry out such a discussion by itself alone? As long as the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church appears in the form of individual 
autonomous churches, but as a church has no common organ 
through which it can speak, it will be able to co-operate in the 
solution of the ecumenical task only in a very limited way when 
this task enters its decisive stage. 1 

Here we have the crux of the matter. The issues and experi- 
ences both of unity and disunity among Christians must be 
dehydrated until they become matters of doctrine only, so that 
theological professors may decide if and when divided Christ- 
ians should unite ! What chance is there that the Batak Church, 
for instance, will find its unity with the other Churches in 
Indonesia, if the pressures of God on Indonesian life are treated 
as secondary ? Does the One Gospel become a living power by 
embodying it in one doctrinal and ecclesiological form? Will 
not the one centre be replaced by competing world centres if 
confessions repeat the pattern of Rome? 

Suppose [says Peter Brunner] that the course of the council 
which the Pope has announced should make it necessary for the 
Lutheran Church as such to address a message to all Christians 
in the world and especially to the Roman Catholic Church. Who 
would do this ? The Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation 

1 P. 25. 

219 



THE ENTERPRISE 

dare not by any means think of itself as a church synod. An 
"ecumenical council" of the Evangelical Lutheran Church does 
not exist. In such a case could the Evangelical Lutheran Church 
be content with the fact that it can raise its voice only through the 
agency of individual churches? 1 

This argument is valid only if the message to be issued is to have 
some legal binding force on Lutherans throughout the world. 
Has not the World Council of Churches often issued messages to 
all Christians and to all men ? 

The confusion which causes all these questions arises because 
the importance of formulated doctrine is given precedence over 
Christian obedience to the truth. Truth is always present only 
in solution, dissolved in the concrete processes of human living, 
Jesus is the Truth: He cannot be formulated but only obeyed 
as He makes His will known in the tasks and circumstances of 
life. The work for increasing the experience and forms of 
Christian unity is work to mix the solutions in which Truth is 
found. Truth in oil and Truth in water may not mix, Truth in 
acid and Truth in alkali may mix, Truth in some other base 
may only make a colloidal solution: but oil or water, acid or 
alkali, or any other base these are the secular unities which 
the world provides. 

The Easternity of the Base 

In spite of its title, however, this chapter cannot conclude by 
merely discussing the questions incident to the dominant role 
which the churches of the West have to play in the future of the 
Christian enterprise. The Westernity of the base of this enter- 
prise has to be taken seriously, but it is nevertheless true that 
the tasks of to-morrow will be determined also by the truth that 
there is an Easternity to the base as well. 

The word "East" has three common usages. There is the 
geographical east which lies between the Suez Canal and New 
Zealand, there is the political east which lies to the east of the 
"curtains" which divide the nations, there is also the ecclesi- 

1 Ibid. 

2S2O 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

astical east represented by the Eastern Orthodox Churches. 
Christianity is an Eastern religion in all these three senses. 

Let us say a word about each of these three in the reverse 
order. Christianity is an Eastern religion in the ecclesiastical 
sense. This means that there is an Eastern Church which in its 
history has withstood the vicissitudes of time. Neither Turkish 
domination of yesterday nor Communist dominion of to-day 
has destroyed this Church. Its strength has been in its worship- 
ping life so securely fixed on the "glory" that shall be. A church 
which constantly celebrates the resurrection of the Lord and 
ardently longs for His return in triumph has a witness to bear 
to-morrow as it has borne that witness yesterday. 

But if this witness is to bear its richest fruit for all Christians, 
the Eastern Churches must break away from their isolation. It is 
a source of great joy that the first steps have been taken for a 
closer collaboration between the Orthodox Church of Russia 
and the other churches in the World Council of Churches. It is 
a necessary task to lay at rest the kind of questionings that still 
plague the Church of Greece as it seeks to break its isolation. It 
is important also that the World Council of Churches multiply 
its contacts with the Church of Rome so that ecumenical con- 
versation can be truly tri-partite. But the problem of isolation 
for the Eastern Churches is not simply a problem of increasing 
contacts and conversation. It is essentially the problem of 
isolating "the glory of God" in worship from the meaning of the 
cross and resurrection in daily life. Protestantism in all its 
forms of expression in the countries where the Eastern Ortho- 
dox predominate poses the challenge of individual conversion 
in a form that cannot be side-stepped. Proselytism can and 
ought to be controlled, but when that is done, the issue still 
remains Have you met Jesus Christ ? Have you received the 
Holy Spirit? To these questions each individual must make 
answer; the Church cannot answer on his behalf. 

Christianity is also an Eastern religion in the political sense. 
In the countries which are politically East, the Christian 
Church has found weapons of warfare which are blunt in the 
West. The simple fact of going to church, the act of having 

221 



THE ENTERPRISE 

one's baby baptized, a Bible text on a bill-board, acceptance of 
imprisonment and even death these are potent means of 
witness. The Church exists in its elemental forms, and when the 
forces of secular life identify the atom which is the Church and 
seek to smash it they find a release of energy which is as un- 
expected as it is alarming. 

It is one of the urgent tasks of to-morrow that brotherhood 
be strengthened between the churches of the politically East 
and the politically West. The first requirement is that each 
party ceases to rejoice in the blunders that are made "politic- 
ally" by the nations on the other side. Where wrong is com- 
mitted, the temptation must be avoided of saying, "Didn't we 
say so?" Nothing is gained by proving that we were right in 
saying that they were bad. More consistent prayer for one 
another alone will sweeten again the channels of communica- 
tion and conversation. 

And lastly, Christianity is an Eastern religion in the geo- 
graphical sense. The missions of the West have become the 
Churches of Asia and Africa. The missionaries from the West 
have become colleagues in the younger churches. "Your" has 
become "our". But the task remains. There is the unfinished 
evangelistic task. There is the task of addressing Eastern cul- 
tures with a relevant and a pungent theology. There is the task 
of making the Church in Eastern lands congruous with its 
background. There is the task of giving regional expression to 
the ecumenical idea. 

New thrusts have been made with respect to each of these 
tasks. "Missions" have largely disappeared in Asia as separate 
administrative structures. Soon this must happen in Africa and 
in Latin America too. Procedures and policies now make 
certain that missionaries from one country to another are not 
only sent but received, not only offered but asked for. Evange- 
listic advance is everywhere being planned and undertaken. 
Indigenous theological thinking is receiving great impetus. 
Indigenization of the Church is an accepted goal everywhere. 
There are from the churches of Asia more than one hundred 
missionaries working in lands other than their own. The East 



222 



THE WESTERNITY OF THE BASE 

Asia Christian Conference is in being, and similar bodies are 
in process of formation in Africa and Latin America. 

Everywhere, both in East and West, the Church is set amidst 
revolutionary happenings. This is a period in which through 
His activity in the world the Lord is speaking to His Church. 
The Churches are under pressure to assess their past and to 
prepare for the future. Can we not hear the sound of a going in 
the tops of the mulberry trees? (2 Sam. 5: 24.) 



223 



Part in 
THE ENCOUNTER 



1. THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS 

FRONTIER 

2. THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR 

FRONTIER 



UTE 



Jesus Christ is the life of the world and the light of men. 
All light received by men anywhere is from Him and by 
Him; so that light wherever it may be found is always set 
towards Him. 

The purpose of the Gospel is to make men free to walk by 
the light that is in Jesus Christ. It leads them to repentance 
that they may eschew the works of darkness* It calls them 
to faith that they may surrender their lives of piety. It bids 
them live as disciples of Jesus Christ that they may find 
release from themselves in His service. 

The Gospel relates men securely to this world and chal- 
lenges them to live in it as Christ's fellows, 

It is this world in its manifoldness that Jesus loved and 
came to save. He became part of it in an incarnate life and 
remains part of it through His risen presence. As ascended 
Lord He is Lord of its history and when He conies in 
glory He will bring that history to its culmination. 

This world, then, in all its variety of peoples and nations, 
and men in their several cultures and religions, are the 
subject and object of the Church's mission. This mission 
is in order that all things may come to a head in Jesus 
Christ. 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS 
THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

THERE is a natural home to which each man belongs. 
Indeed, a man may belong to many such homes a 
home being defined in terms of neighbourhood or 
family, of occupation or social class, of culture or religion, of 
race, tribe or nation. The Gospel must become present in each 
home, and everywhere also make its pressure felt against the 
boundaries which separate home from home, for there is but 
one household of faith. 

The world of religions and the world of nations are two of the 
insistent realities which condition the homes in which men live. 
Into these two worlds, interpenetrating one another, the 
missionary must enter with the Gospel. What happens when he 
does so ? 

A Summary of Answers Given 

The relation between Christianity and other religions is a 
question with a long history behind it; and yet, in spite of this 
subject being so essential to an understanding of the Church's 
task, the argument concerning it has resulted in many and 
varied answers. There have been five distinct points of view on 
this subject which have found vigorous expression in recent 
theological debate. 

i . It has been held that the attitude of Christian mission 
should be that Christianity must supplant the other religions 
because they are of purely human origin (John 14: 6). The 
primary method of those who advocate this attitude is that of 
polemic. 

An important variant of this attitude and consequent 
method is that the Christian witness does not need to and, 
indeed, cannot express a judgment on other religions. Christi- 
anity and these religions are of two different kinds. So, what is 

227 



THE ENCOUNTER 

permissible and effective is to set Christianity over against 
other religions, making the demand that those of other religions 
give them up and embrace Christianity instead. To challenge 
those of other faiths with a presentation of the Christian 
Gospel is the one responsibility of the evangelist. 

2. A second point of view which is urged is that Christianity 
is the fulfilment of other religions (Acts 17: 23). There is in 
these religions a real yearning for God which is itself a partial 
response to His approach, and this yearning is truly met by 
Christ, Indeed, since this yearning for God in these religions is 
not only something inherent in the religious consciousness but 
is also the inspiration of the very teachings of these religions, 
these teachings find their full meaning and significance in and 
are truly construed as pointers to Jesus Christ. 

Our little systems have their day: 
They have their day and cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 1 

The method of approach, which this attitude would support, 
is one grounded in the study of comparative religion. It is a 
method which seeks to isolate truths from a whole body of 
belief and show that these truths point to the truth in Jesus 
Christ, 

3. A third attitude of Christian witness which is set forward 
is that there is in all religions the possibility of "faith" between 
God and man (Lk. 7: 9) a possibility which is realized by 
many persons yet that in Christianity this possibility has 
become a free gift to all men. In Jesus, a transformation of 
man's religious situation has taken place. Let a man meet 
Jesus, and Jesus becomes indispensable to him. 

Those who share this attitude would insist that the primary 
method which Christian witness must follow is the method of 
conversation. The man who has "faith" but who is not a 
Christian has something to say which the Christian must listen 
to, not only in order to understand that "faith" but also to 

1 Alfred Tennyson, In Mmoriam. 

228 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

acknowledge it. The Christian Gospel must then be addressed 
to that faith in order that that faith may be made secure in the 
Gospel. 

4. A fourth position which is maintained is that in Jesus all 
religions are brought to judgment, and that He remains the 
judge of all religions including Christianity. Religion is man's 
response to God's action on man's behalf. The only way of 
receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ, however, is by radical 
repentance; for there is no theological continuity between the 
religious life and the life of faith which is rooted in the Gospel 

(Phil. 3: 7). 

The consequence of this attitude in missionary practice and 
evangelistic preaching is a dialectic approach to other religions. 
On the one hand, the messenger of the Gospel stands alongside 
his hearers Christianity and other religions being set side by 
side; and, on the other hand, he stands facing his hearers as the 
emissary of the Gospel to them. The Christian is in the world, 
the Gospel is over against it, 

5. A fifth point of view would hold that the motive of Christ- 
ian witness should be not one of seeking to make Christians of 
adherents of other religions, but of so presenting Jesus Christ to 
them that He Himself will become for them the point of 
reconception with respect to their own religions (John 1:9). 
Thus, it is held, in course of time there will emerge a new 
religion in which all religions, including Christianity, will be 
comprehended. 

In this process Christianity has to give as well as to receive, 
so that the true method of approach is that of co-operation. 
Worshipping and working together, Christians and those who 
are not Christians will help one another to a fuller under- 
standing and a more comprehensive acceptance of all that it 
means when one says "I believe in God". 

Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow-light, 
Each looks upon one tint and calls it heaven; 
Thou art the fulness of our partial sight; 
We are not perfect till we find the seven. 1 
* George Matheson, T.M.C.A. Hymnal 86. 

229 



THE ENCOUNTER 

The wide difference in point of view and conviction., which 
the above summary must disclose, naturally raises the question 
as to whether those who partake in this discussion are suffi- 
ciently agreed on what the discussion should be about or on the 
frame of thought within which the debate should take place. It 
is to this question that we shall address ourselves, in the hope 
that a reflection on the general terms of the discussion may 
uncover where some of the inherent difficulties lie, and also 
shed light on why Christians, who are equally committed to 
the Church's task of proclaiming the Gospel, find themselves in 
such sharp disagreement. 

As has already been hinted, the conviction which lies behind 
the argument of this chapter is that any conversation about 
Christianity and other religions must be conducted as a discus- 
sion about the address of the Gospel to men in their several 
homes. Therefore, though beginning with a summary of 
answers already given, there is no intention to continue the 
debate on the old terms. The hope rather is so to open up the 
whole question that future discussion of it will move away from 
the world of religions as such and become lodged in that reality 
of human life in which God's sovereign mercy and man's 
blundering faith are in mutual relation, informing that life in 
all its parts and affecting its every activity. 

The Christian Component in the Discussion 

To begin then at the point at which the discussion of this 
subject has arrived, the first essential is to define more closely 
the two components or factors whose relation is the subject of 
examination. First of all, what is the Christian factor? Is 
it the Christian Faith, or the Christian Religion, that is, 
Christianity, or the Christian Church or the Christian Gospel ? 
If it is granted that the uniqueness which is affirmed about the 
Christian factor lies in Jesus Christ Himself (John i : 18), who 
He is, what He has done, and what He is continuing to do, 
then we have a criterion with which to judge the adequacy and 
correctness of the term that we use. 

230 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

If we speak about the Christian Faith, we are speaking about 
the body of Christian doctrine, belief, and practice. Obviously, 
this includes and is dependent on our affirmation about Jesus 
Christ; but it is our faith, that is, the faith as formulated by and 
enshrined within the life of the Church. This means that the 
term "Christian Faith" is a term which is centripetal by 
nature and, therefore, will cause confusion if the attempt is 
made to establish a relation between it and the world outside it. 

If we speak about the Christian Religion, that is, Christian- 
ity, we are speaking about a historical phenomenon. We are 
speaking, on the one hand, about a body of people who through 
the centuries have maintained an identifiable continuity and, 
on the other hand, about their faith and life. This life has been 
lived in the world and has been subject to the influences and 
pressures of the world, so that in smaller or greater measure at 
different times of its history it has been conditioned by the 
world. In other words, the term "Christianity 5 * partakes so 
much of "the world" that it is too inclusive a term to use in this 
discussion. 

If we speak about the Christian Church, we are speaking 
about the Body which professes the Christian Faith and whose 
life constitutes the stream which is Christianity. This Church 
lives in the world and is related to it, but this relationship is 
not the relationship of two things which exist side by side so 
that an objective definition or description can be given of the 
relation between them. Rather, it is part of the nature of the 
Church to relate itself to the world in a particular way, so that 
if we take "the Christian Church" as the first term in our 
discussion we shall be led not so much to discuss the relation 
between the Church and something else as to discuss the 
nature of the Church itself in its relationships. In other words, 
to use the term "the Christian Church" for one component in 
this discussion is to destroy the integrity of the other component. 

If we speak about the Christian Gospel, the emphasis falls 
on that action of God in Jesus Christ which has caused the 
Church, and set it in the world, and given to it its mission. The 
term "the Christian Gospel" emphasizes the fact that the rela- 

231 



THE ENCOUNTER 

tion around which the discussion centres is a relation which is 
caused by the Gospel itself when it is addressed to all those 
who are claimed by it* Thus, for example, when we speak 
about "the relation between the Christian Gospel and Hindu- 
ism" we are actually speaking about the relation caused by the 
Christian Gospel between itself and Hinduism when it is 
proclaimed. In other words, we may not conduct the discussion 
by first defining and describing each component term and then 
seeking to define or describe the relation between them. We 
must, rather, seek to find out directly how the relation itself is 
set up and why; and what, therefore, its nature is. 

In order to designate the Christian component in this dis- 
cussion, therefore, the term "the Christian Gospel" or "the 
Christian Message" is the one which lights up the true situa- 
tion. It focuses attention on the Gospel proclaimed, it also wit- 
nesses to the connection between the Gospel and the proclaim- 
ing community. It is the peculiarity of the Christian community 
which points to the peculiarity of the Gospel. Christians used to 
speak of themselves as a third race a teriiumgens. They realized 
how peculiar they were and ought to be. Were this only foolish- 
ness or arrogance, no question need arise about the Gospel and 
its relation to the religions; but, rooted as it is in the teaching of 
the New Testament, the question is truly raised. It is made 
clear too that the discussion of it is not to be in the area of 
comparative religions or comparative religious psychology but 
in that of evangelism and missionary responsibility. 

That "the Christian Message" is the right term to choose for 
this discussion is seen also in that it does justice to the other 
terms to which it is preferred. It affirms that there is a Message 
the Gospel that, in Jesus Christ, God has acted on man's 
behalf and demands man's response; that there is a Messenger 
the Church which the Gospel brings into being, and the 
Body within which the Gospel is continuously experienced; 
that there is a Story the story of the Christian religion, which 
is the story of the Church's witness to and life in the Gospel; 
and that there is a Faith the normative testimony by the 
historical Church to the eternal Gospel. 

232 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

All this means that the discussion is not about the relation 
between the religion, or the religious life, of Christians and that 
of those who are not Christians ; nor is it about the relation 
between the religious beliefs of Christians and the beliefs of 
those who are not Christians ; rather, it is about the operation 
of the Gospel itself among those who are Christians and among 
those who are not. It is when the Gospel is preached that the 
relation which we are seeking to understand is set up. Indeed, 
that is why this subject is so immediately relevant to a con- 
sideration of the missionary task. Something happens when the 
Gospel is proclaimed, and an understanding of what happens is 
essential for an understanding of the nature of the proclamation. 

The Non-Christian Component in the Discussion 

If, then, our submission is right, that the subject of our dis- 
cussion is the relation which is created when the Gospel is 
proclaimed, the simplest way of defining the non- Christian 
component or factor In our discussion is to ask, "What is the 
object to which the Gospel is addressed?" The answer surely is 
"the world". It is the world which God loved and which Jesus 
died to save ; it is the world over which He rules and which, at 
the end, He will judge. This world, nevertheless, has not fully 
accepted His rule nor does it rejoice in it. Countless millions of 
people in this world do not yet know Jesus as their Saviour. To 
this world the Gospel is addressed. 

But this world lives, and in its life exhibits much truth, 
beauty, and goodness ; in it is found faith toward God and love 
toward man; it is very much a religious world. It is also a world 
which will not, and thinks that it need not, accept the Gospel of 
God in Jesus Christ. Indeed, it is this contrariness in the nature 
of the world which constitutes the chief problem in our discus- 
sion. Because of it there is created the double relation both of 
judgment and of kinship which the Christian message estab- 
lishes between itself and its addressee. Because of it there arises 
also the Gospel's universal demand for repentance. All must 
repent and no one is exempted. Whether Nicodemus (John 3 : 



THE ENCOUNTER 

1-15) or Mary of Magdala (Lk* 8: 2), whether religious teacher 
or wayside sinner (Lk. 7: 36-48), both need repentance and 
both can repent. Whether Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9) or Elymas 
the sorcerer (Acts 13: 8-12), servant of God or servant of the 
devil, both must become blind before they can sec. How import- 
ant it is, therefore, so to define the non-Christian component in 
our discussion that we make clear its double nature both as 
being open to and contrary to the Christian message. 

In the history of the discussion we are speaking about, the 
non-Christian factor has been variously defined as non- 
Christian faith, non-Christian religions, a non-Christian world. 

When Jesus said of the Roman centurion, "Truly, I say to 
you, not even in Israel have I found such faith" (Matt 8: 10), 
he was speaking about a fact to which Christians who have 
lived with followers of other religions can bear testimony. 
Again and again, when the Gospel is proclaimed, it is pro- 
claimed to persons who already have this kind of faith, so that 
it is a legitimate and essential question to ask "What relation 
does the Gospel, when it is proclaimed, establish between itself 
and such faith?" But it would be foolish to assume that the 
answer to this question holds the key to an understanding of 
the relation between the Christian Gospel and the non- 
Christian world; for the nature of the non-Christian world is not 
determined by the presence in it of persons of faith; it is deter- 
mined rather by those complete systems of life and belief which 
are able to sustain themselves without accepting the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ and, therefore, cannot accept it without being 
subverted by it. 

It is these complete systems of life and belief which we speak 
about when we speak about non-Christian religions. But the 
Gospel is not addressed to these religions either; it is addressed 
to the world of whose life and thought these religions are a 
part. The world is made up of the world of nature and of 
persons in all their manifold relationships. This world the 
Gospel claims for itself and calls to repentance. Thus, our dis- 
cussion cannot be about the Christian Gospel and non-Christ- 
ian religions; it has to be about the Christian message in a non- 
234 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

Christian world. The importance, however, of remembering 
the part these religious systems play in the world cannot be 
overstressed. From it arises the pressing need to study each of 
these religious traditions and the specific forms of faith which 
condition each man's response to the Gospel. 

And yet, the basic truth remains that it is man whom the 
Gospel addresses. William Ernest Hocking is reported as having 
asked C. F. Andrews, "How do you preach the gospel to a 
Hindu?" to which Andrews replied, "I don't. I preach the 
gospel to a man." That is a profound answer. The Christian 
message is not addressed to other religions, it is not about other 
religions : the Christian message is about the world. It tells the 
world a truth about itself God loved it and loves it still; and, 
in telling that truth, the Gospel bears witness to a relation 
between itself and the world. It is this relation which is the 
subject of our discussion. 

Also, it is well to remember that the world is non- Christian 
only in a temporal and, in fact, a temporary sense (Rev. 1 1 : 
15). It is already in God's purpose a world for which Jesus 
died and over which He rules (Matt. 28: 18). When a Buddhist, 
for instance, denies meaning to human history, he is simply 
bearing evidence to the fact that it has no meaning apart from 
Christ. Standing apart from Christ, the Buddhist is unable to 
see life's meaning. The truth, however, is that the human story 
has already been seized by Christ and will be comprehended 
by Him. Of course there are many who have not accepted Him 
as their Lord and Saviour, and refuse so to accept Him still; 
but even they are within the rule and saving work of Christ. 
In Charles Wesley's words : 

The world He suffered to redeem; 
For all He hath the atonement made; 
For those that will not come to Him 
The ransom of His life was paid. 1 

In the final analysis, then, the "relation" which we are seek- 
ing to understand is a relation established by Jesus Himself. 

1 Methodist Hymn Book, 75. 

235 



THE ENCOUNTER 



There is the Gospel to be proclaimed and there are those whom 
the Gospel claims; and from both these facts arises the question 
which we seek to answer: "What is the nature of the existence 
of the Christian message in a non-Christian world?" 

When the Gospel is Proclaimed 

The commission under which the Church acts when it 
proclaims the Gospel is summed up in the words with which 
Matthew's gospel closes: "All authority in heaven and on 
earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of 
all nations 5 ' (Matt. 28: 18-19). Those to whom the Church is 
sent with its message are already those over whom Jesus has 
been set as Lord. They are His. They are those other sheep 
about whom He spoke when He said, "I have other sheep, that 
are not of this fold; I must bring them also" (John 10; 16), 
They are His sheep. He already has them. He must bring them 
into His fold. When the Gospel is proclaimed, it is to this 
activity of the Christ that that proclamation bears witness, and 
it is with this activity that it seeks to co-operate. 

God is busy with man. He made man in His own image. He 
made man in such a way that man lives by "imaging" God. 
This also means, therefore, that God is always "toward" man, 
seeking to evoke man's glad response. It is not necessary for us 
to define or describe the ways in which God's busy-ness with 
man has been exercised; it is enough to know that that busy- 
ness has been there. The story of the Old Testament is abundant 
proof that God was busy all the time not only with Israel but 
with all peoples. When the Gospel declares that God loved the 
world, it is this truth that it is declaring. The Gospel is for all 
men with each of whom and all of whom God is still busy. His 
Christ is seeking them to bring them into His fold (Lk. 15: 4). 
The Christian witness does not grasp the true inwardness of his 
work where he does not see that God is previous to him in the 
life of the person whom he is seeking to win for the Gospel, and 
also previous to him in whatever area of life he is seeking to 
make the Gospel effective. 

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THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

What happens,, then, when the Gospel is proclaimed ? That is 
the question for which we are seeking an answer, an answer 
which we may now proceed to outline. 

The activity of God in the world. His busy-ness, can be set 
out within four different frames of thought. 

1 . There is God in His activity to win men to live in fellow- 
ship with Him. 

2. There is God in His activity to reveal to men His true 
nature and purpose. 

3. There is God in His activity to create for Himself a people 
who will be His instrument in the world. 

4. And there is God in His activity to bring to pass His 
Kingdom into which will be gathered all the treasures of the 
nations. 

It is on this fourfold activity of God that the Church's com- 
mission to proclaim the Gospel depends. We preach the Gospel 
not simply as those under command to do so, but as those who, 
being in Christ, find ourselves involved and implicated in His 
continuing ministry to and in the world. God is at work and 
we work with Him, and the consequence of what we do is sub- 
ordinate to the consequence of what He does. Our work is an 
offering to Him (Gen. 4: 4-5), His work is what fulfils His 
purposes. 

God in His Activity of Salvation 

Let us look, then, at the first activity of God which we men- 
tioned- His activity to win men to live in fellowship with Him. 
Here the basic truth which we must affirm at the outset is one 
we have mentioned already; the truth that God is always busy 
with every man, because each man is made in God's image. 
While it is true that men call themselves Hindus or Muslims or 
Buddhists or Christians and that each of these religions has 
identifiable and defined beliefs, it is nevertheless also true that 
the religion of one man is not exactly like the religion of another 
man. There is a true sense in which each man's religion can be 
more or can be less than his religious system. Whether men are 

237 



THE ENCOUNTER 

engaged in flight from God or search for God or acceptance of 
God (and all men are involved in all these three attitudes at the 
same time), they are, in all these things, reacting to the action 
of God upon them in His work of salvation. No man's religion 
and no religious system is purely a product of man. To say that 
they are, is to deny that man is made in God's image. 

It is true that God's image in man has been distorted by sin, 
but the image is still there. A mirror may be a broken mirror, 
but as long as one stands in front of the mirror it will reflect 
one's image a broken and distorted image, certainly; but one's 
image nevertheless. Our reflection of God's image is there as 
long as God has not forsaken us (Rom. i : 24, 26, 28), We can 
only break the mirror. We cannot get rid of God's busy-ness 
with us. 

The Incarnation is the climax and fulfilment of this continued 
busy-ness of God with man. Jesus is not merely the fulfilment 
of God's work with Israel, He is the fulfilment of God's work 
with humanity. The Word became flesh. God became man* 
Jesus is more than Jew. So, with respect to Christ, too, our 
affirmation has to be a universal affirmation. He became a man 
like all men. He is busy with all men. He loves all men. He died 
for all men. He seeks all men. He rules over all men. He is judge 
of all men. Hence the Christian message is proclaimed to all 
men. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that 
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal 
life" (Johns: 16). 

But what of those who already have "faith" to whom this 
declaration is made? Are there not those who have not con- 
sciously accepted God in Christ, but who nevertheless in some 
measure respond truly to God's action on them ? Are there not 
those who, being outside the Christian faith, still do the truth ? 
(John 3:21). The answer must be "yes". 

But it is necessary to go on and affirm that even they are in 
need of the challenge of the Gospel and that their faith can be 
both a preparation and a hindrance to finding faith in Jesus 
Christ. The relation between Christian faith and non-Christian 
faith (both words being used in the singular) is not a relation 

238 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

that can be systematized. The work of the Holy Spirit in each 
soul cannot be described in the same way. There are those who, 
because of their previous faith, find themselves prepared to 
accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They also find that, once 
they have accepted His Lordship, their previous faith under- 
goes a radical transformation. There are others who, because of 
their faith, find themselves hindered from accepting the Lord- 
ship of Jesus Christ, but who find that, once the Holy Spirit has 
led them to accept Christ's Lordship, then their original faith 
is not something they need to throw away. It becomes part of 
the soil in which their faith in Christ grows and blossoms. 

In other words, the actual living process of men finding faith 
in Jesus Christ is not a process that can be described according 
to one pattern. The attempt to do this is, very often, simply the 
result of those who are already Christians attempting to find out 
a way in which, when they study other religions, the knowledge 
of these religions relates itself to their Christian faith. Some 
Christians find that they can move from their Christian faith 
to an understanding of other religions without being conscious 
of a break in thought; there are others who find themselves un- 
able to avoid this break, while there are still others who find it 
completely impossible to establish any relation between their 
Christian faith and their understanding of other religions. May 
it not be that the whole discussion about the relation between 
Christianity and other religions has been vitiated by the fact 
that we have been talking, not so much about what happens 
when the Christian Gospel is proclaimed to adherents of other 
religions, as about what happens when we who are of the 
Christian faith study other religions ? 

God in His Activity of Revelation 

In speaking about God in His activity of salvation, we spoke 
primarily of the effect of that activity on all men. But there is 
also a central story of this activity. He, who had not left Himself 
without witness among any people at any time (Acts 14: 17), 
nevertheless made this witness to Himself the central concern of 

239 



THE ENCOUNTER 

His dealings with a particular people. He made the Jews the 
bearers of His revelation. The demand of God on the Jewish 
people was that they should be faithful to Him. In the indict- 
ment of the nations which Amos drew up, it was only with 
respect to Judah and Israel that the judgment turned on what 
God had done for them. The other nations were to be punished 
because their wrongdoing was a denial of their belonging to 
God (Amos 1-2). The words in which Isaiah accused his people 
of infidelity stated the central concern of God in His activity 
of revelation. "The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's 
crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not under- 
stand" (Is. 1:3). 

This activity of God in revelation, which we trace through 
the Bible story, is certainly also His activity in salvation; but 
here it is distinguished as revelation because its intention was 
not only to save but also to raise a people who would be the 
messengers of this salvation. They would know God as Saviour. 
They would recognize His saving works. They would proclaim 
this good news of God's salvation. Through His dealings with 
the Jews, it was all mankind that God sought to save, and it 
was for this purpose that He demanded of the Jews that they 
understand and acknowledge Him as Saviour and themselves 
as His people. The sorrows that fell upon them were for the 
healing of the nations (Rev. 22 : 2) ; the light lit upon Zion was 
in order that the nations might come to it (Rev. 21 : 23-26). 

This revelation reached its fulfilment in Jesus Christ. cc ln 
many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the 
prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" 
(Heb. i: 1-2). The story of revelation finds its culmination in 
Jesus, and through Jesus it becomes effective and meaningful 
for all men. The purpose of God in His dealings with the Jews 
is completed in Jesus, who was a Jew, so that by the obedience 
of Jesus that purpose proceeds to its realization in the life of all 
mankind. 

The instrument in history by which this fulfilment of God's 
revelation in Jesus Christ is witnessed to in the world is the 
Church. The Church is created by that revelation; its life is 

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THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

what response to that revelation makes possible. The Church 
is continuous with Israel, it is the object and bearer of God's 
revelation. Thus arises the demand of the Gospel that men 
accept it and become witnesses to it. It was this demand that 
the early Church made of the Jews, and if the demand was 
made of the Jews, how much more decisively it is made of the 
Gentiles. 

In other words, the form in which the question is put to men 
by God's activity in revelation is determined by the fact that 
God not only seeks to save but also seeks participants in His 
work of salvation. What is set before men is a demand made 
within the here and now of their earthly life. What must they 
do who, whatever their previous faith, find faith in Jesus Christ ? 
The answer is that they must repent and be baptized (Acts 2 : 
38). They must become members of the Christian community. 
Baptism is the sign of the essential discontinuity between life 
outside conscious acceptance of Jesus as Lord and inside His 
Body which is the Church, Outside Jesus, they may have been 
religious men, but now they have become something quite 
different. They have become messengers of the Gospel. Their 
essential occupation has changed. 

There has been in India, for some time now, a group that 
calls itself "the fellowship of the friends of Jesus". It is a group 
that has sought to express its faith in Jesus Christ without 
breaking away from the Hindu community. Some of its mem- 
bers, like the late Mr O. Kandasamy Chetty, have borne signifi- 
cant witness to Jesus Christ as Lord. But the effect of this group 
has been to blur the nature of the demand which Jesus makes on 
men. God in His activity of revelation is asking for a people 
who will be His, who will come out of the world and be separ- 
ate, who will be the sign and symbol and evidence of what God 
has done for man in Jesus Christ. Any attempt to treat the 
story of Jesus simply as a part of the general story of how God 
has been busy with men results in making that story pointless. 
The significance of Jesus is bound up with His claim that all 
men must answer the question as to who He is (John 17:3). 

The Christian message in a non-Christian world, therefore, 



UTE 



241 



THE ENCOUNTER 



not only poses the problem of man's response to God's will to 
redeem him, it also presents the issue of man's response to 
God's desire to use him. In Jesus, God's plan and purpose for 
the world have been revealed, and God is asking for fellow 
workers with Jesus. The first qualification of such a worker is 
that he must be known as belonging to Jesus Christ and to no 
one else (Acts 19: 15). It is an inescapable part of the task of 
Christian witness to make this call for fellow workers known 
and have it accepted. It can, of course, be argued that God can 
use any man to fulfil His purposes; but the point here is that 
Christian submission to God's use is also the method and 
measure of one's participation in the experience of salvation. 
When Paul claimed that for him to live was Christ (Phil, 1:21), 
he was witnessing to the truth that participation in the life of 
Christ which is salvation was by way of living obedience to 
Him. 

Thus, while a consideration of the questions raised by the 
nature of God's activity in salvation leads to answers which 
cannot be tied up into neat formulae, a consideration of the 
questions raised by the nature of God's activity in revelation 
demands a simple and unequivocal answer, "The times of 
ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men 
everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he 
will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has 
appointed" (Acts 17: 30-31). 

God in His Activity of Mission 

It is already evident that the connection between God in His 
activity of salvation and God in His activity of revelation lies in 
the fact that God has raised up for Himself a people whose 
primary obligation is their mission to the world. One of the 
essential distinctions between the Christian faith and other 
faiths is that the Christian faith can be proclaimed. The other 
faiths can only be taught. The Christian evangelist announces 
that something has happened which is of both immediate and 
ultimate significance for each man and all men. The adherents 

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THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

of other religions, on the other hand, expound the teachings of 
their own religions as the true interpretation of the meaning 
and responsibilities of life. The Christian evangelist is primar- 
ily concerned with evoking obedience to Jesus Christ. The 
teachers of other religions are concerned with winning accept- 
ance for the truths they teach. 

This fact that the Christian faith is something to be pro- 
claimed is so important that its significance may be pointed out 
also in another way. So often we have heard Christians say, for 
instance, "The Hindus believe in rebirth, Christians believe in 
the resurrection/' and this is said as if what each believes is 
what will happen to him. The Christian faith proclaims certain 
things as true and as true independently of human belief in 
them. "Jesus is man's Saviour" is the core of the preacher's 
proclamation and it remains proclamation. It is announced. 
It is true in itself. It is a truth about Him. 

At first we spoke about the relation between Christian and 
non-Christian faith in terms of God in His activity of salvation, 
and we saw that that relation had to be expressed dialectically 
in terms of continuity and of discontinuity. Then we spoke 
about the relation between the Christian and non- Christian 
communities in terms of God in His activity of revelation, and 
we saw that that relation had to be expressed in terms of the 
distinctiveness and newness of the Christian community as the 
bearer of God's revelation. Now we speak of the relation 
between the message which the Christian community proclaims 
and the beliefs which the others hold. Here we see that there is 
true and essential discontinuity. The Christian message cannot 
be grafted upon other beliefs or added to them. There is only 
one way in which the Christian message can be accepted and 
that is by a radical conversion to it, so radical that the New 
Testament speaks of it as a new birth, the coming into being of 
a new creation, a dying and a living again (John 3:351 Pet. 
1:352 Cor, 5:17; Rom. 6 : 5-8) . The mission of the Church 
and the task of the missionary are directed to this end. There is 
no connection between one's obedience to Jesus Christ and 
any other attitude of mind or spirit which preceded it. 

243 



THE ENCOUNTER 

Psychologically, of course, there is always a connection, but 
religiously the man in Christ is a new man. 

When Nicodemus came to Jesus he began his conversation 
with the acknowledgment that Jesus came from God, "No one 
can look at the things you are doing/' he said, "without seeing 
that God is with you." The answer of Jesus was to deny that 
Nicodemus even saw what was happening. "No one, 53 says 
Jesus, "can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again." 
For the only way to see is to see from within; and only they are 
within who have been born of water and of the Spirit, John 
baptized with water demanding repentance, Jesus baptized 
with the Spirit demanding obedience; Nicodemus must repent 

and obey (John 3:1-15)- 

The Christian message, in the last analysis, is concerned with 
creating messengers, participants in God's mission, so that the 
discussion as to what happens when the Christian message is set 
in a non-Christian world has to be pushed beyond the area of 
such a question as "Who will be saved ?" into the area where 
the determining question is "What does God require?' 5 It is 
essential for the discussion that we do not forget that in order to 
be a Christian one has to partake in the Church's mission, and 
that the only way to believe in the Gospel is to witness to it. 
I was "set apart for the Gospel," says Paul (Rom. i: i). He 
knew a "break" which had taken place in his life. That "break" 
always exists between what Christian obedience demands and 
what is demanded by every other kind of religious attitude and 
conviction, 

God in His Activity of Fulfilment 

God's work of salvation, God's work of revelation, God's call 
to mission the natural climax of all this is God's final act of 
fulfilment. The activity of God will find its fulfilment when He 
brings all things under the headship of Christ (Eph. i : 21-23). 
The activity of Christ will find its fulfilment when He has sub- 
dued all who contest His rule (i Cor. 15: 24-25), The mission 
of the Church will find its fulfilment when it has grown to its 



THE WORLD OF RELIGIONS THE RELIGIOUS FRONTIER 

full maturity in love (Eph. 4: 14-16). The ministry of the Holy 
Spirit will find its fulfilment when the witness of the Church to 
Christ is done (Acts 5 : 32). In other words, the world at present 
is in the process of fulfilment so that, when we look at the 
process and precisely because we are looking at the process, it is 
impossible to describe it in any simple way. We see both the 
scaffolding and the building, both the work being done and the 
fruit of it. The very intricacy of the process lends truth to all the 
various types of assertions made about those relations which are 
the result of the Christian message being active in a non- 
Christian world. Professor Hocking defined the old missionary 
attitude to other religions as one that sought "radical displace- 
ment". A modern version of this attitude he described as that 
of "aloofness". He himself expressed great sympathy with the 
attitude of those who saw the Christian faith as the fulfilment 
of hopes entertained in other faiths, so that they believed 
comprehension and not displacement to be the goal of Christian 
evangelism. We can claim supremacy, they would say, for the 
Christian faith, but no monopoly; we can claim that it is 
absolute, but not exhaustive; we can claim that it is final, but 
not complete. 

This reading of the process is legitimate within a discussion 
that is concerned with the process, but it becomes illegitimate 
when it is presented as an assessment of the nature of the 
Christian faith itself and its Gospel. That is why, in this whole 
discussion, there can be no way of arriving at agreed positions. 
The discussion can never be left within any one of the areas we 
have sought to define. These areas interpenetrate one another. 
If they did not, the discussion would be futile anyway; and, 
because they do, those involved in the discussion must necessar- 
ily speak about different things. 

"The light shines in the darkness" (John i : 15) : this is a 
process within which it is impossible by strict definition to 
separate out the darkness from the light. "The light has come" 
(John 3 : 19) : this is an event which is both unique and alone, 
both final and complete. "The Life was the light of men" 
(John 1:4): this is an activity which is particular in its origin 



THE ENCOUNTER 

but universal in its presence. "We have beheld his glory" 
(John i : 14) : this is the experience which sets at the heart of 
Christian obedience the task of Christian witness. 

In a discussion about the Christian message in a non- 
Christian world we must speak about all these things. We shall 
not, therefore, always agree in what we say. But we shall have 
helped to make clear why we are engaged in this discussion at 
all. We have been entrusted with a mission. 



246 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS 

THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

WE can hear the Gospel and obey it only in relation 
to the geographical, linguistic., social and general 
cultural realities which comprise our own world. 
At the secular frontier, question and answer are both shaped 
and reshaped by the situation in which human beings are 
found. Christ manifests Himself as Lord, but the attestations to 
that Lordship must be in the many languages of mankind. 

"What do we find in the Old Testament? The temple of 
Yahweh is modelled upon Canaanite temple types and is built 
at the direction of a Phoenician architect. Kingship in Israel is 
an institutional latecomer, borrowed from Israel's neighbours. 
Yahweh is declared to be the giver of fertility to the soil. Sexual 
imagery is taken over from the religious traditions of the 
Canaanites. The forms of prophetic address are extremely close 
to modes employed in ancient Near Eastern religions. The situ- 
ation is no different in the New Testament where the materials 
of Jewish sects and of Gnostic or pre-Gnostic speculation are 
freely used. Nor is the situation any different to-day." 1 

The demand always is to take the world of nations and their 
cultures seriously, to set the Gospel in their midst in freedom, and 
to press into the service of the Gospel all varieties of cultural and 
religious forms. This also means greater boldness in rejecting 
those traditional forms which do not help in proclaiming the 
Gospel, 1 

Let another quotation underline and explicate the plea here 
made* 

The Church is sent because Christ came. The Gospel as such 
has no native country. He who goes out humbly with Christ in the 
world of all races will perpetually discover the multiple, but con- 

1 Professor Walter Harrelson, at the Bossey Consultation, July 1961. 

247 



THE ENCOUNTER 

slant, relevance of what he takes. It is the ruling conviction of the 
ecumenical movement within contemporary Christianity that it 
takes a whole world to understand a whole Christ. Those who take 
are not vulgarly universalizing their own culture: they are con- 
veying that by the apprehension of which both they and their 
hearers learn. If the claims of the Gospel are valid, it could not be 
otherwise. For those who take only themselves may not expect to 
do more than teach. They who take Christ are in a state of 
perpetual discovery. The discoveries they make are through the 
discoveries they enable. 1 

The missionary call and the missionary task receive their 
substance from the rich variety in human living. The world of 
mankind in its differences is what the Gospel is meant to 
redeem and reconcile. In the tenth chapter of Genesis there 
are enumerated over seventy groups including the ancestors of 
the Hebrews: and the chapter closes with the affirmation:- - 
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their 
genealogies, in their nations; and from these the nations spread 
abroad on the earth after the flood 53 (Gen. 10: 32). 

"In their lands, each with his own language, by their fami- 
lies, in their nations" (Gen. 10: 5) here are those particulari- 
ties of mankind from which arise the varieties of social, political, 
cultural and religious peculiarities which are the stuff" of 
history. With this history God is concerned., and over it God 
will triumph. The differentiations between men constitute the 
cause of their strife and their strivings. Because of their differ- 
ences they gave up building the city of man in which all men 
could dwell (Gen. 1 1 : 8). But, at the end, these very differences 
will become part of the glory of the city of God. "I looked, and 
behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from 
every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues., standing 
before the throne and before the Larnb" (Rev. 7:9). 

The Words Used 

The words used in the Hebrew which are translated inter- 
changeably by "nations", "peoples", "heathen", and "Gen- 

1 Kenneth Cragg, The Call of the Minarct 9 Oxford University Press, p, 183. 

248 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

tiles" denote either relationship based on kinship, or political 
and social factors, or occupation of one land. These same 
meanings attach to the Greek equivalents. But whatever the 
word used, whether in the original or the translation, only the 
context will show which of two ideas is intended. 

Sometimes what is intended is to mark a certain group or 
groups as "not-Israel", "not-the Church"* 

May God be gracious to us (Israel) and bless us, that thy way 
may be known among all nations (Ps. 67: 1-2). 

Ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the 
robe of a Jew, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that 
God is with you (Zech. 8: 23). 

In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do 
(Matt. 6:7). 

Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times 
of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Lk. 21 : 24). 

At one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircum- 
cision, were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 
2; 11-12). 

But this differentiation between Israel and the nations or 
Gentiles is not what is always intended. Sometimes, by the use 
of the word "nations", the purpose is simply to speak of all 
men including Israel or the Church in the several forms of their 
communal life. 

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, 
when he separated the sons of men. ... (Deut 32: 8) ["sons of 
men'* is here a parallel expression to the word "nations"]. 

My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations 
(Mk, u : 17). 

There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every 
nation under heaven (Acts 2: 5). 

You shall be to me a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation 
(Ex. 19: 6; i Pet. 2: 9) [the word "nation" being used to desig- 
nate Israel itself]. 

The actual words used, therefore, do not give any clue as to 
their precise meaning. The meaning is dependent on the theo- 
logical context within which the words are used. 

249 



THE ENCOUNTER 

In the Old Testament 

In the Old Testament treatment of the theme of the nations, 
emphasis falls on three facts. 

(1) It is God's concern for the salvation of the nations which 
underlies His call of Abraham. "I will make of you a great 
nation ... you will be a blessing; and by you all the families of 
the earth will bless themselves" (Gen. 12 : 2, 3). "The mountain 
of the house of the Lord shall be established and all the nations 
shall flow to if 9 (Is. 2:2). 

(2) It is out of the nations that Israel is formed. When God 
separated the sons of men and made them "peoples' 9 . He made 
also a people peculiar to Himself (Deut. 32: 8-9). Israel, there- 
fore, is not a nation like other nations existing alongside them. 
Rather, Israel is a nation within and out of the nations and 
therefore addressed to them. It is significant that in Luke's 
gospel the genealogy of Jesus is traced back to Adam (Lk. 3; 
23 f.) so that witness is borne to the fact that Israel, of which He 
is the fulfilment, is descended from the whole human race. To 
refer to but a few texts to show how Israel is formed out of the 
nations, there are in its ancestry Arameans, Hittites and Amor- 
ites, Egyptians, Kenites and a mixed multitude (Deut. 26: 5; 
Ezek, 16:3; Gen. 4i:5o;Judg. i: 16; Ex. 12:38). 

(3) The God who chose Israel out of the nations and gave it 
a distinctive history remained also and always the God of the 
nations too. The same God who brought Israel from Egypt, 
brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir 
(Atnos 9: 7). He is concerned with the life of the nations, for He 
is their judge (Amos i : 32: 3). He uses them to carry out His 
will, for He is their God (Jer. 20: 4; 42: 12; Is. 10:5). 

This threefold emphasis naturally results in a conception of 
Israel's life and mission which gives quality not only to the 
history of Israel as such but to the history of the world also. 
First of all, Israel lives as a mission. When the Messiah fulfils 
Israel's destiny "His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and 

250 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

from the River to the ends of the earth" (Zech. 9: 10). "He will 
not fail or be discouraged till he has established justice in the 
earth; and the coastlands wait for his law" (Is. 42 : 4). Secondly, 
because of what Israel is, it becomes the goal of the pilgrimage 
of the nations. "The Lord will arise upon Israel and His glory 
will be seen upon her. And nations shall come to her light and 
kings to the brightness of her rising" (Is. 60: 2, 3). "Of Zion it 
shall be said. This one and that one were born in her; Egypt 
and Babylon, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia for the Most 
High himself will establish her" (Ps. 87: 4, 5). Thirdly, Israel 
becomes addressed to the nations as God's word to them. 
Israel makes heard among men God's plea to them; "Turn to 
me and be saved, all the ends of the earth ! For I am God, and 
there is no other" (Is. 45: 22). Israel makes actual among men 
God's sovereignty over them. "Kings shall see and arise; 
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the 
Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen 
you" (Is. 49: 7). Israel makes available for men God's presence 
among them. "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make 
for all peoples a feast. And he will destroy on this mountain the 
veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for 
ever, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all 
the earth" (Is. 25: 6-8). 

Such a conception of Israel's life and mission demanded on 
the one hand that it guard its identity in the world, and on the 
other hand that it serve the world towards which its mission was 
set. Ezra and the priests, who composed the book of Leviticus, 
are the representatives of the movement which was concerned 
with maintaining the identity of Israel; while the writer of the 
book of Jonah is the last spokesman in the Old Testament for 
the obligation of Israel towards the nations of the world. "I am 
the Lord your God, who have separated you from the peoples. 
You shall be holy to me, you should be mine" (Lev. 20: 24, 26). 
"The word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying, Arise, go to 
Nineveh" (Jonah i ; i, 2). 



251 



THE ENCOUNTER 

In the New Testament 

As we pass from the Old Testament to the New, there takes 
place a basic change of perspective. Whereas in the Old 
Testament the life and mission of Israel is under the pressure of 
an obligation to be discharged, in the New Testament the life 
and mission of the Church is under the pressure of a movement 
that has been launched. The Messiah of Israel's promise has 
come, round Him the new Israel has been constituted, and the 
obligations of the Old Testament people of God have become 
the very means of life of the New Testament Church. 

God's call of Abraham is matched by the mission of Jesus to 
the house of Israel. In the first instance, it is to Israel that Jesus 
addresses Himself in order that they may fulfil their calling to 
be the house of prayer for all the nations (Mk. i 1 : 17)* Indeed, 
there was a sense in which Jesus came to Israel only (Matt, 15; 
24). He came that in Him, as a Jew, His people may fulfil their 
obedience and therefore be restored to their mission to the 
world (Matt. 10: 6). Jesus was that mustard seed, that little 
remnant of faith in Israel, which when planted would grow 
into a tree. In Him was the promise that Israel would yet 
become that blessing by which the nations would bless them- 
selves, that Israel would yet grow into the tree in which the 
birds of the air would nest (Matt. 13: 31). 

When, at the end, the nations are gathered together by God 
(Matt. 25: 32), it is around Jesus Christ that this gathering will 
take place. He is the holy mountain (Heb. 12: 22), the new 
temple (John 2: 21), the true Israel (John 15: i). The churches 
everywhere are the promise and prolepsis of this gathering of 
the nations, and precisely in being already a gathering from 
among the nations they are the first-fruits for God in all the 
world. Tenants gave the first-fruits of their land to the landlord 
as a token that the whole land belonged to him, so was the 
Church the first-fruits offered in every nation by that nation. 
Paul speaks of the Christian community in Achaia as the first- 
fruits there (Rom. 16: 5). So also does Luke emphasize, in his 
description of what happened on the day of Pentecost, that 

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THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

among those who believed were devout Jews from every nation 
under heaven. The prophecy of Joel was that in the last days 
God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2: 28-32). 
Peter, in claiming the fulfilment of this prophecy, was claiming 
that the little band of Christ's disciples on whom the Spirit 
came was the first-fruits of all humanity, even of all flesh. "If 
the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; 
and if the root is holy, so are the branches" (Rom. 1 1 : 16). 

An example of the strength of this conviction that the 
Church is the fact and the promise of the gathering together of 
the nations (Acts 2 : 5) is seen in the way in which Paul speaks 
of those to whom he takes the Gospel. We often tell those to 
whom we take the Gospel that Christ belongs to them; Paul 
told them that they belonged to the saints. The wall of parti- 
tion was broken, so that men of all nations had equal access 
within the household of God (Eph. 2 : 14). In this household all 
were fellow heirs, and all received the one Spirit from their 
common Father (Eph. 2: 18). This purpose of God is the 
mystery of history. Once it was hidden, but it is now disclosed 
to the nations (Rom. 16: 26) so that it is known among them 
how great the riches are of the glory of this mystery (Col. i : 26). 

This relation ofpars-pro-toto, the part for the whole, between 
the Church and the nations is the sign too of the fact that the 
Lord of the Church is the Lord of the nations also. The great 
commission as found in Matthew's gospel rests on the declara- 
tion, U A11 authority in heaven and on earth has been given to 
me" (Matt. 28: 18), so that the Church goes to the nations 
under and as an expression of that authority. Jesus sends 
because He has authority to send. Wherever we go, we go to 
where He wields authority already. Whatever we do, we do in 
the name of His authority. And, having rendered our obedi- 
ence, we leave the consequences of it to His authority to dispose 
as He will. The mission of the Church is part of the exercise of 
Christ's Lordship over the world. 

Thus are the Old Testament emphases in its treatment of the 
theme of the nations carried forward into the New Testament, 
and thus also are postulated in the New Testament the same 

253 



THE ENCOUNTER 

consequences for the life of the Church as are the consequences 
in the Old Testament for the life of Israel, only more so. 

The Church too lives as a mission, "that repentance and 
forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations 
(Lk. 24: 47) until the Kingdom of the world has become the 
Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev. 1 1 : 15). So does 
also the Church become the goal of the pilgrimage of the 
nations, "that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God 
might now be made known" (Eph. 3: 10), that wisdom of 
many colours by which the nations arc led to become members 
of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus 
(Eph. 3:6). Wherefore, the Church finds itself not only gath- 
ered from among the nations but set amidst them to bring to 
them the word of the Gospel which they must hear before the 
end is accomplished (Mk. 13: 10). 

The Church makes heard among men God's plea to them. 
"Fear God and give him glory, ye who dwell on earth, of every 
nation and tribe and tongue and people, for the hour of his 
judgment has come" (Rev. 14: 6-7). The Church makes actual 
among men God's sovereignty over them, "Do not be anxious/ 9 
said Jesus, "when you are dragged before governors and kings 
for my sake to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles, for 
what you are to say will be given to you in that hour" (Matt, 
10: 1 8, 19). As the seer of Patmos saw it (Rev. 11 : 1-8), God 
will be with His witnesses so that the rage of the nations will 
come to nought. The Church makes available for men God's 
presence among them. As it is written, "I saw the holy city, 
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, and I 
heard a great voice saying, 'Behold, the dwelling of God is with 
men'!" (Rev. 21: 2, 3). 

In the final vision with which the Bible closes, God*s will for 
the nations is seen as fully complete. The prophet had written, 
"Your gates shall be open continually; day and night they 
shall not be shut; that men may bring to you the wealth of the 
nations, with their kings led in procession" (Is. 60: it). In the 
book of Revelation this prophecy is seen as having been ful- 
filled "In the city, the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is 

254 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

the Lamb. By Its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of 
the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never 
be shut they shall bring into it the glory and the honour of the 
nations" (Rev. 21 : 22-26). 

In the Here and Now 

It is inevitable that in a concise treatment of the subject of 
the world of nations in the Bible, many of the subtle nuances of 
the theme are missed; but the main lines, as they affect a dis- 
cussion of the life and mission of the Church, are clear. The 
various types of community, which characterize human life, 
shift and change under the pressures of history: governments 
rise and fall, peoples coalesce into nation-states, nation-states 
split up into separate nations : for none of these processes or 
results should any theological validity be claimed. But in every 
u here and now" God shows His concern for the groupings in 
which men live and to which they belong, and He treats these 
groupings as units of human life to be challenged by His word, 
judged by His law, and invited to His bounty. It is because of 
this truth that the missionary purpose has to be addressed to 
the ^nations" and not simply to men, for it is aimed at the life 
of the world and not merely to the interior life of the soul. 

The biblical concern for the nations is thus seen, in the first 
instance, as a concern to cross with the Gospel every secular 
frontier between man and man whether it be the frontier of 
race or class, caste or culture, tribe or language, nation or 
country. And, in the second instance, it is seen as the concern 
to create within each secular frontier such a testimony to the 
Gospel as will claim the life within that frontier to a service of 
it. The significance of nation-states in missionary strategy 
to-day is not a significance derived from the Bible as such. It is 
a significance attaching to nation-states in the "here and now" 
of the twentieth century. If Scripture is right in what it says, 
God Is as interested in the forms that human community takes 
in the twentieth century as He was in the forms it took in the 
centuries in which the Bible was written. 

255 



THE ENCOUNTER 

There is no escaping the fact that to-day, in the lands of the 
younger churches., there is a pressure to see the Church estab- 
lished in each nation-state as a church that is nation-wide and 
as, thereforCj the means by which that nation can participate in 
God's total will for His Church in the world. Nor is there any 
escaping the fact that many influences in the older churches 
desire to arrest this development. Where caution is expressed 
against attempting to identify "the nations" in the Bible with 
the modern nation-states, that caution must be heeded; for it 
is so easy to slip from a concern to build a church for the nation 
into a desire to build a church of the nation. But where the 
caution expressed is the result of apprehension in the churches 
of the West at the probable consequences for their life of the 
birth of united churches in Asia and Africa, that caution is 
unfortunate. It is unfortunate too that as long as there were 
only Western nations to reckon with, nations were not Christ- 
ianly suspect, but that they have become suspect now because 
new nations have come to birth which are free of Western 
dominance. The missionary movement of the Church must 
reckon with nationhood in the world. Indeed, God's concern is 
not only with men as persons but also with them as nations, 
with those secular qualities of man's life which go to make up 
the life of the world. "God loved the world" and not just people, 
the Gospel is for the redemption of the world and not just for 
the salvation of souls. 

Let two quotations suffice to underline the significance of the 
truth here stated. The first quotation is from a speech of John 
R. Mott delivered at the Edinburgh Conference of 1910, while 
the second quotation is from the Constitution Canons and 
Rules of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon* 1 

A programme literally world-wide in its scope is indispensable 
to enrich and complete the Church. Jesus Christ must have all the 
races and all the nations through which to make known fully His 
excellences and to communicate adequately His power. 

The Church, when so organized in a great region having such 

1 The C.LP.B.C. is the province in these countries of the Anglican Church. 
(The Constitution, p. 18.) 

256 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

a natural, political or historical unity of its own, is in these 
Declarations called C a regional Church 55 . Such a Church has a 
life of its own with a character, conditions and needs peculiar to 
itself, and it also has in its measure the liberty which belongs to 
the Church of Christ to order its own life in continual dependence 
on the Spirit of God. The liberty of a regional Church has 
enabled, and may in any place enable, the God-given genius of 
great nations to find its appropriate expression in the worship and 
the work of the Church, and so the riches of the nations have been 
carried into the City of God. 



In the Ministry of Jesus 

Before proceeding with this argument, however. It is essential 
to make sure once again that the integral relation of the mission- 
ary enterprise in its specialized sense to the total dimension 
which belongs to the mission of the Church is never forgotten. 
For if it is, the consequence will be also to forget the true rela- 
tion of the mission of the Church to the coming of the Kingdom. 
The missionary enterprise must result in the founding and 
strengthening of churches, but its concern is with preparation 
for the coming of the King. 

The gospels of Matthew and Luke introduce the person of 
Jesus by tracing His genealogy. Matthew calls Him the son of 
David, the son of Abraham (Matt, i: i), while Luke shows 
Him as descended from Adam (Lk. 3: 38). This threefold 
reference characterized His ministry. It was, first of all, to all 
men (Acts 10: 38) in their several needs. Secondly, its challenge 
was particularly directed to the children of Abraham (John 8: 
31-59), recalling them to a sense of their true mission under 
God. While, thirdly, its strategy was to select and train a band 
of disciples who would announce and demonstrate the truth 
that God's Kingdom had arrived (Mk. 3: 14). The missionary 
enterprise of the Church too carries forward this same three- 
fold reference. It is addressed to all men within all their forms 
of human relationships and in all their needs. It is incessantly 
concerned with the renewal and revival of the Church and with 
its extension. It is characterized by its obligation to manifest 

cm 257 R 



THE ENCOUNTER 

the Church in the world as a priestly Kingdom by whose life 
God is mediated to men and men are presented to God, 

Another feature of the Gospel story is that in it the mission of 
Jesus is set out in three stages. At first, it is a mission to the lost 
house of Israel (Matt. 10: 6). Immediately prior to the cruci- 
fixion it becomes a mission to the nations (LL 10: i). And after 
the resurrection, it is a mission to all the world (Acts i : 8) . 
Paul adds a fourth stage, after the Ascension, that of the 
Church's mission to the cosmic powers. Israel, the nations, the 
world, the powers of the cosmos (Eph. 3: 10) these categories 
are another way of looking at the missionary outreach of the 
Church. 

Israel still remains a special and specialized concern, God's 
purpose for Israel is that "by the mercy shown to the Gentiles, 
they also may receive mercy" (Rom. 11:3). That the churches 
among the Gentiles commend the mercy of God which they 
have received to the children of Israel must always remain a 
perpetual obligation. No wonder Paul looked upon the contri- 
bution of Gentile Christians to the Church in Jerusalem as a 
symboioLa prmanent relationship! (Rom. 15: 21). This con- 
centration of Jesus, in His ministry, on the house of Israel throws 
light also on the nature of His mission. Were He concerned only 
with spreading a teaching, He would not have needed to restrict 
Himself for any continuous period to a specific group. "The 
great charm of promulgating codes of conduct or sketching 
plans for the social, political, and economic transformation of 
human, life is that you need set no limits to the area within 
which the writ of your new code shall run, and the administra- 
tion of your new plan operate. But if the enterprise is a ministry 
operating through personal encounter between those who give 
and those who receive the service : then it can only be effective 
in the place where its servants are." 1 Christ's strategy of 
restriction was necessary in order to create within Israel a 
community which would be the bearer of His mission. "I will 
make you fishers of men" (Mk. i : 17) was what He told His 
first disciples. They were to be engaged in catching men and 
1 T. W. Manson, Jesus and the Non-Jttws* Athlone Press, p. 15. 

258 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

not simply in teaching them. The very word for disciple which 
is used in the Gospels is a word which means "an apprentice at 
a trade" in contra-distinction to "a pupil in a school". 

The second category of nations defines men in their particu- 
larities. The steel workers of Sheffield are a nation in the 
biblical sense, so also are the scheduled castes of India, so also 
are the citizens of the several nations in the world. A mission to 
a nation is a mission not simply to the persons who compose it, 
but to that which belongs to its nationality. When in Ceylon, 
for instance, the Buddhists and Hindus accuse their fellow 
citizens who are Christians of being denationalized, they are 
saying in effect that the Christian mission to Ceylon has not 
been a mission to its nationality. Or, when the cement workers 
of Kastel in Germany set up their own parish, on an occupa- 
tional rather than a neighbourhood basis, they are saying that 
that is the way they know of maintaining their nationality in 
the Gospel. 

As for the mission to the world, the missionary obedience 
required must be spelled out in terms of geographical reference. 
The Gospel must push out from land to land. As John R. Mott 
put it, "The missionary activities of the Church are the circula- 
tion of its blood, which would lose its vital power if it never 
flowed to the extremities .,." 1 Paul's missionary life had this 
quality of always wanting to go still further. At Caesarea his eye 
is on Rome (Acts 25: it), when preparing to go to Rome his 
eye is on Spain (Rom. 15: 24). 

And finally, there is the purpose of God that through the 
Church His manifold wisdom might be made known to the 
principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 3: 10). 
The mission of the Church is set within the processes of human 
history, but it is itself more than a historical development. It is 
part of the eternal purpose of God by which all creation is 
encompassed, and the intangibles which impinge upon this 
earthly life of man are made to serve that purpose. 
1 Quoted from the speech at Edinburgh referred to on p. 256. 



259 



THE ENCOUNTER 



The Missionary Calling 

Within this total calling of the Church, what does it mean to 
speak specifically of the missionary enterprise ? Can the word 
"missionary" be so defined as to carry a determinate meaning? 

Before an answer is attempted, an explanation is necessary 
as to why these questions about a definition of the word "mis- 
sionary" should be raised so late in the argument of this book. 
If there was one thing which the consultations on "missions** 
revealed, it was that, while there was a great deal of hesitation 
in setting down a definition,, there was pretty general agreement 
as to what the discussion was about. In other words, a discus- 
sion of substance was never inhibited by the absence of an 
agreed definition. This meant that the way to seek a definition 
was to come to it after a discussion of substance. The necessity 
of a definition on the other hand, however much such a 
definition may be open to criticism, is to ensure that at least 
we have a pointer to the real nature of the missionary calling 
as a distinct and distinguishable vocation within the mission 
of the Church. 

It is said that Confucius created a new idea of society by 
what he called the process of rectifying names. Socrates wrought 
his intellectual revolution by seeking definitions. It may be that 
the missionary enterprise too needs a vigorous scrutiny of the 
terms that it uses and the precise meaning of those terms. There 
is too much tendency to speak of everything that belongs to the 
task of the Church as mission and therefore to designate almost 
anything as missionary. A clarification of the problems that 
belong to "missions" must include a greater preciseness of 
language. 

It is true enough that since the Gospel is for the world, a 
going from New York to Sierra Leone with the Gospel cannot 
be theologically different from taking the Gospel within New 
York to East Harlem. There has been too much theological 
romanticism connected with the simple act of a missionary 
going across the seas. But the fact still remains that, within this 
one world, there are many frontiers which demarcate the 

260 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

different ways In which men live and belong to one another, so 
that to cross these frontiers with the Gospel becomes a specific 
calling. "Foreign 9 ' mission may not be a separate theological 
category but it does denote an identifiable task. 

In terms then of the meaning of the word "nation" and its 
significance, the first quality of the missionary calling is its direct 
reference to a secular frontier. The phrase Christian witness 
suggests immediately the distinction between the person wit- 
nessing and those to whom the witness is borne. The one sees 
what to the others must be pointed out. They are gathered 
around an object the Gospel and conversation is taking 
place concerning It. There Is a second phrase, Christian evangelist, 
which is close In meaning to the phrase Christian witness, but 
which points to a different distinction. In the work of evange- 
lism it is man and the Gospel which are distinguished from one 
another. God acts and the evangelist is concerned with man's 
true response to God's action, both his own response and the 
response of his fellows. The evangelist stands alongside those 
to whom he Is the evangelist so that together they may appre- 
hend and be apprehended by God's action to save in Jesus 
Christ. The distinction which the phrase Christian missionary 
suggests Is the distinction between a "here" and a "there". The 
missionary belongs to a world secularly defined which is his 
world. There are those who belong to other worlds. He goes 
across. Why does he go across ? Because he is sent, because he is 
invited, because he is needed. On that other side, he is going to 
be a Christian witness, he Is also going to be a Christian evange- 
list. Is there anything else he is going to be? Yes, he is also 
going to be a Christian missionary because he will maintain the 
address of his vocation which Is the secularity of that area oflife 
to which he has gone. What will this mean ? It will mean a 
concern that In that area of life there will be a Christian com- 
munity which is Indigenous. The secularity peculiar to that 
community must become the home of the Gospel, 

God made the world, and man must learn to receive the 
world at God's hands. Those who seek to make the world and 
man's life in it autonomous, de-secularize it as surely as those 

261 



THE ENCOUNTER 

who seek to charge the world with spirituality. In making the 
world secular, the Gospel both subordinates the world to its 
Creator and destroys every religious pretension with which the 
secular in any area of life has armed itself. The idols of primi- 
tive tribes must go if the cultures of those tribes are to be 
exorcized. So also must all other cultures be made really secular 
that in them God alone may be worshipped. To make secular is 
to obtain vacant possession of every home of man that in it God 
and God alone may dwell. 

The whole posture of the missionary, therefore, is to have eye 
and ear directed to this work of Christ by which He takes 
possession of men's homes. The missionary too has come to join 
others in their home that in it Christ may find His dwelling 
place* "Let me join you" is the missionary request; it is not 
"Will you join me?" Of course, the extent of freedom to 
proclaim the Gospel in any particular situation may vary, but 
the missionary cause is served when the opportunity to be 
present as a Christian is offered and taken. The Roman 
Catholic Church was asked in one place in India whether it 
would send nuns to serve in a leprosy hospital on the distinct 
understanding that they would not talk about Christ to the 
patients. The Church accepted the offer. The Danish mission 
was offered the opportunity of founding a hospital in Southern 
Arabia on the same understanding and the opportunity was 
taken. "Destroy this temple/ 3 said Jesus, "and I will raise up 
My Body in its place" (John 2: 19). This Body must become 
present in every home of man, and every other temple in it 
must go. 

Paul expressed his missionary motive as that of presenting a 
Church to Christ at His coming in every nation and place; he 
fulfilled his missionary career in the constant awareness of 
following Christ into every place* Speaking of Paul the mission- 
ary, Karl Earth says : 

He is eye and ear in a state which expressions such as inspira- 
tion, alarm, or stirring or overwhelming emotion^ do not satis- 
factorily describe. He is actually thrown out of his course by seeing 
and hearing what I for my part do not see or hear. And if ever I 

262 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

come to fear lest mine Is a case of self-hallucination, one glance at 
the secular events of those times, one glance at the widening 
circle of ripples in the pool of history, tells me of a certainty that a 
stone of unusual weight must have been dropped into deep water 
somewhere tells me that, among all the hundreds of peripatetic 
preachers and miracle-workers from the Near East who in that 
day must have gone along the same Appian Way into imperial 
Rome, it was this one Paul, seeing and hearing what he did, who 
was the cause, if not of all, yet of the most important develop- 
ments ia that city's future. 1 

The determining fact, then, in the missionary calling is that a 
missionary goes to a place to belong there, and also to represent 
there the arrival of the Christ. So that, however much he may 
be identified with the Church in the place to which he has come, 
and however fully he may have shared in that Church's 
identification with its world, the missionary will always remain 
a person who has come from " there to here". He will be a true 
representation of the nature of the Gospel which comes from 
God to man, but remains among men a pointer to God. 
Missions testify to the distance of the Gospel from organized 
human society as well as to its essential relation to mankind. 

Thus we see how in the missionary enterprise itself are sym- 
bolized some of the basic Christian affirmations. The physical 
act of travel from one country to another testifies both to the 
fact that God has acted for man's salvation in. one time and 
place, as well as to the fact that this Gospel is for all men. 
There is testimony too to the ex-centric pattern of God's 
working. Jerusalem was the centre of Israel but the Messiah 
came from Nazareth, the cross of man's redemption was 
planted outside the city gates, the King of God's kingdom was 
proclaimed by an inscription on a cross. The missionary comes 
and remains as a sign of this ex-centricity. Looked at rightly, is 
not the Church itself ex-centric to the world? At least the world 
looks upon the Church as quite circumferential. 

And lastly, what is most important of all, the missionary 

1 KarlBarth, Tfe Word of God and the Word of Man (English translation, 1928), 

pp. Saf* 

263 



THE ENCOUNTER 

repeats in human terms the incarnation, which is the essence of 
God's way with men. 

He did not send technical assistance to our backward world ; 
Gabriel and a company of experts with their know-how. 

Instead, He came Himself* 

He hungered in the wilderness, He was stripped naked on a cross 
But hungering with us He became our bread, 
And suffering for us He became our joy, 1 

He came Himself that is what it means to be a missionary, 
and it carries with it the further implication that he who comes, 
comes to mediate his Lord. 

For me 'twas not the truth you taught, 
To you so clear,, to me so dim, 
But when you came you brought 

A sense of Him. 

And through your eyes He beckoned me, 
And through your heart His love was shed, 
Till I lost sight of you and saw 

The Christ instead, 2 

And yet, all who come from one country to another, all who 
cross a secular frontier^ are not missionaries. Are they ? I was 
often told in the United States of America that 1 was a mission- 
ary to them from Asia. I always denied that this was so, I was 
too conscious of the fact that I had no intention of "belonging" 
to the American people, "Call me a fraternal worker^ if you 
like/' I used to say, "but don't call me a missionary." Some- 
times the issues are confused by raising the question about long- 
term and short-term missionaries. The length of the term will 
not determine whether a person is fulfilling a missionary calling 
or not. That depends on the nature of the calling Itself, The 
question simply is, what is the significance to one's calling of the 
secularity of the secular frontier which one has crossed ? 

To speak of a missionary is to speak in terms of the world ; to 
speak of a fraternal worker is to speak in terms of the Church; 

1 Edith Pierce; quoted isa The Kingdom Overwas, Dec. 1960. 
8 Author unknown. 

264 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

to speak of long- terms or short-terms is simply to speak in terms 

of tasks. 



The Earthly Reference of the Task 

It is at this point that the insistence on the earthly reference 
of God's salvation in Christ becomes luminous. To speak about 
God saving the world is to speak about God's saving activity 
within the structures of human society. That means the prim- 
acy of the Church in every "nation" as the strategy of God for 
His saving work in that nation. 

The universalism of the Christian mission [says R. K. Orchard] 
is not the universalism of an internationalism which grows by 
abstracting men from out of their national settings, but rather the 
universalism which, enabling men to see the true centre of their 
living, Jesus Christ, from within their national setting, exposes 
their national life to the judgment and mercy of that one central 
word which is God's act in Christ, so that the possibility is opened 
of the nations bringing their glory and honour to the one city of 
God. If this is anywhere near the truth, it calls for some radical 
rethinking of the place of churches in national life, and of what 
functions are properly assigned to international Christian bodies 
and what should not be so assigned. 1 

The direct concern, then, of the missionary enterprise is the 
planting of the Church in every nation and with its growth and 
expansion in numbers as well as in obedience. Indeed, the 
missionary has no greater responsibility to the church which has 
received him than to help it to maintain its own missionary 
passion. The word "missionary" is used here in distinction to 
the word "evangelistic". It is not enough to maintain evange- 
listic fervour; it is essential to be missionary, which means to 
carry the Gospel across secular frontiers. That such frontiers 
exist within every nation-state is only too true, so that in order 
to be a missionary one does not have to go from one country to 
another. And yet, because this very frontier of the nation-state 

1 Quoted from an address delivered in Nov. 1959 at the Annual Meeting of 
Carey Hall, Birmingham. 

265 



THE ENCOUNTER 

is something so significant to-day, the missionary enterprise is 
not ill-defined when that frontier is used as part of that 
definition. 

Certainly., there is a church already in practically every 
country, so that it is right to speak of a missionary being sent by 
a church and being received by a church this sending and 
receiving are essential but, in the legitimate attention that is 
given to the questions involved in this sending and receiving, 
there must be no detraction from the truth that a missionary is 
primarily a person sent to a world and not to a church and that 
therefore, in an ultimate sense, he is not so much a person sent 
by a church as by its Lord. 

Somehow in the procedures of missionary administration a 
way must be found of remembering the subsidiary nature of the 
church to church connection within the missionary relation. 
The primary connection in the missionary relation is that 
between the Lord who sends and the world to which He sends* 
When a church accepts its calling to be a mission to the world, 
that acceptance results in its sons and daughters going into the 
world both in its geographical extension as well as in its 
national particularities. So also must it be that when a church 
accepts its situation in the world it is responsive to receiving 
missionaries from other churches situated elsewhere. There is 
strength both in giving and in receiving. The "y im ff cr " 
churches display the strength that belongs to churches which 
have received, the "older" churches display the strength that 
belongs to churches which have given. The time has arrived for 
the converse also to become true. To send and to receive are 
equal obligations of every church. They are also permanent 
obligations, for it is a false position to maintain that mission- 
aries go where they are needed and withdraw whea that need is 
met. The need which the missionary enterprise meets, both its 
sending and its receiving, is not a need that is ever met; it is the 
need for a church to be a mission. The missionary is as integral 
to the being of the Church as is the witness or the evangelist. 
All three together identify the Church as the Church in 
mission. 

266 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

The Challenge of One World 

There is one further element to be taken into account in this 
discussion,, and that is the fact of the emergence to-day of a 
common way of life among all men in spite of and within the 
particularities of their nationhood. The development and 
spread of scientific technology into the remotest villages of 
every continent are producing a mental attitude which makes 
every man claim the whole world as his habitation. "The 
Hindu workman," says Lesslie Newbigin, "in a modern factory 
will smear the sign of his god upon the latest giant machine 
imported from America or Russia, and not feel any sense of 
incongruity in doing so. 3 ' 1 The giant machine represents the 
one world, the local god represents the many nations. The 
missionary enterprise of the churches has the inescapable 
obligation to bind this one world together with the one Gospel 
and so substitute for the many gods the One God who is the 
God of all the nations as well. 

This means that the missionary enterprise should not only be 
characterized by its concern to cross every secular frontier, but 
that it should also possess and exhibit a unity of movement such 
as is demanded by a world rapidly becoming one. The reality 
of the ecumenical movement is the measure of the decision of 
the churches to accept this obligation. Only as churches 
together engaged in a common mission can. the churches in their 
missionary enterprise bear witness to what the Lord is doing in 
His world. The instruments forged by the World Council of 
Churches and the International Missionary Council and the 
decision now to merge these two organizations portend a 
development in the missionary obedience of the Church which 
is in itself part of that obedience. No definition of a missionary 
can be satisfactory which describes only his movement and his 
task; it must also say who he is. And no description of who he is 
can be allowed to pass which does not envisage him as com- 
mitted to the ecumenical vision and strategy. This is part of the 

1 Quoted from his address to the North American Advisory Committee of the 

LM.Cl.Nov. 14, xgsB* 

267 



THE ENCOUNTER 

specific correlation which exists between the missionary calling 
and the working out of God's purposes among the nations, 

There are two sides to this ecumenical vision and strategy. 
There is, on the one hand, the side represented by the organs of 
the churches and, on the other hand, the side represented by 
secular movements. Both must be taken equally seriously. 
God's design is one humanity. A secular side of this design is being 
realized in the work of the United Nations Organization and its 
several agencies. God's design is a new creation* A secular side of 
this design is being fulfilled through scientific research, in- 
creased technical efficiency, the application of atomic power for 
peaceful purposes, and similar developments, God's design for 
man is abundant life. A secular side of this design is the goal of 
such organizations as the World Health Organization, the 
Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Bank. 
God's design for man is life in community characterized by freedom 
and justice, and the wealth of human association, A secular side 
of this design is the concerns of the Security Council and of the 
World Court, and the various programmes of U.N.EJS.C.O. 
The missionary enterprise is not an enterprise apart from or 
even alongside these secular movements. It is essentially also a 
secular movement which gives to these other movements their 
true place and perspective in the working out of God's total 
design. The missionary enterprise and the ecumenical move- 
ment must provide the means of interlocking man's eternal 
destiny and his present life, of interweaving the life of the 
people of God which is the Church with the lives of men as men 
which is the World. Let four illustrations suffice to show how 
this obligation can be and is being fulfilled, 

(i) The Division of Inter-Church Aid and Refugee 
Service of the World Council of Churches has rejected all 
qualifications of need in terms of Christian denominations or 
the political complexion of nations. Need is human whether it 
is among Christians or Muslims, Armenians or Baptists, 
Congolese or Chinese; and human need must be met in purely 
human terms without religious strings attached. 

(ii) The Commission of the Churches on International 

268 



THE WORLD OF NATIONS THE SECULAR FRONTIER 

Affairs brings the churches into true political participation in 
current events without embroiling them in party or national 
politics. It also points the way in which a church in any 
country can act as part of the Church on political questions 
while taking equally seriously its life and commitment within 
and to that country. 

(iii) Missionary Societies are engaged in a policy of re- 
appraisal and re-statement which will make the missionary 
operation more truly congruent with the secular realities of the 
world. Since missionaries go to "nations", the life of these 
nations is a prime consideration in the development of mission- 
ary policies. Also, since the world is one world there is the need 
for greater central operations such as are coming into being 
through the Theological Education Fund, and the Projects 
Fund of the Division of World Mission and Evangelism. 

(iv) The whole ecumenical movement has developed a 
system of consultations and conferences and studies, as an 
essential feature of its life, thereby emphasizing the fact that 
only common thought can undergird a common obedience, and 
that only as the churches are aware of their secular relation to 
the religions and ideologies which are part of the cultures in 
which they are set, can they bear effective witness within 
them. 

The Promise and the Command 

The world the world of religions and of nations that then 
is what the missionary movement is concerned with, and it is 
emasculated where it is thought of in smaller terms. The 
missionary represents everywhere the claims of the King and 
witnesses everywhere to the thrust of the Kingdom. In every 
situation, and in terms relevant to each, he fulfils his duty as 
Christ's ambassador calling upon men on behalf of Christ, 
"Be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5: 20). 

The promise of Jesus to the Church was that the gates of hell 
will not prevail against it (Matt. 16: 18), but neither can those 
gates be battered down unless they are stormed. A church 

269 



THE ENCOUNTER 

which has become a besieged fortress to be defended, or even a 
recognized community with a millet existence, is in no position 
to inherit or experience this promise of Christ. However threat- 
ened its life, the Church lives by its mission. It is itself only as 
its doors are open to the world and its precincts resound to the 
tread of many feet as they go out or come m y whoever they be, 

Throw open the doors! 

I will act have the house of prayer, the church of Christ, 

The sanctuary, turned into a fortress . , . 

The Church shall be open, even to our enemies. 

Open the door! 1 

"The first day of the week, the doors being shut where the 
disciples were, Jesus came and stood among them and said to 

them, Teace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I 
send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and 
said to them,, "Receive the Holy Spirit 5 , 95 (John 20: 19*22). 

1 Thomas & Becket in Murder in the Cattwdral, by T. S. Eliot, Faber and Faber 
Ltd., London; Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., New York, 



(continued from front flap) 
next three chapters, he discusses vari- 
ous specific and practical issues con- 
cerning churches and missions today. 
Then, in two final chapters, he writes 
of barriers arising between Christian- 
ity and other great faiths, and of the 
secular frontiers that missionaries must 
cross for the sake of the Gospel. 

Upon the Earth is filled with careful 
thinking at root level. Its arguments 
and judgments have been thoroughly 
examined through long and searching 
debates among Dr. Niles and his asso- 
ciates in the Department of Missionary 
Studies of the World Council of 
Churches. The book is also a passion- 
ately written one, for Dr. Niles is as 
much the evangelist as he is the theo- 
logian. At home at both ends of the 
foreign missionary enterprise, and a 
familiar figure in academic circles or 
at the great conferences of the Church, 
he has retained the very special gift of 
presenting Jesus Christ to others in a 
moving and effective way. 

(Upon the Earth is the second book to ap- 
pear within the series called Foundations of 
the Christian Mission: Studies in the Gospel 
and the World, The first volume was The 
Missionary Nature of the Church by Johan- 
nes Blauw.) 




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