Sorry for the lack of blogging the last few weeks and reading / commenting on others blogs: my bloglines have 500 unread posts, so I think I will have to do something radical!
So here is number 7 of mission and development, reproducing a paper from Steve de Gruchy that looks at integrating evangelism and social justice. So often in the evangelical stream of the Christian Church social justice or development has been seen as a secondary task of the church at best, or sometimes not something the church should be involved with that distracts us from our ‘mission’. As de Gruchy argues here, both are integral to our mission…
Participation in the missio Dei is spiritual work
The influence of Greek philosophy and Enlightenment rationality has divided the world into the so-called spiritual and physical realms. For a number of reasons that need not detain us now, the Church has absorbed this dualism, and promoted the idea that the proper work of the Church is ’spiritual work’, meaning prayer, worship, preaching, and evangelism; whereas work in the fields of ecology, economics, and politics is ‘physical work’ and therefore not its responsibility. This is perhaps the most debilitating mindset that faces the Church when it seeks to be engaged in development. Yet it is clear that this perception restricts the missio Dei to a sphere determined by human philosophy, limits our understanding of God’s work, and therefore undermines the full work of the Church.
On the contrary we assert that, because God is at work within history through the Holy Spirit, all God’s work is by definition spiritual work. Rather than being defined by human philosophical categories, the missio Dei is God’s definition of what constitutes ’spiritual work’. As we have seen, the missio Dei is about shalom, about life in all its fullness - and therefore when the Church participates in the missio Dei - when it seeks life in the world, in areas that humans define as economics, ecology, culture, and politics, it is engaged in spiritual work. When it turns away from the fullness of life, when it absconds from participating in the missio Dei, then the life and witness of the Church is being shaped not by God, but by the ‘flesh’ - and it is no longer involved in ’spiritual work’. Ironically then, matters such as prayer and worship if they are not in tune with the missio Dei, can be called un-spiritual.
My Comment: I really agree with de Gruchy that we have had a very dualistic view of spiritual and unspiritual activity - and I think he brings a great message here: whenever we participate in God’s mission we are engaged in spiritual work, whether that be prayer or caring for our environment, telling people about Jesus or working for justice in our communities.
He proactively then moves towards to corollary of this: if we do things that aren’t in line with God’s mission, even if they are activities that church is often associated with, are in fact unspiritual. My initial reaction was to go “no; you can’t say that“! But then the story of the goats and the sheep that Jesus tells in Matthews gospel comes to mind: “Depart from me … for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink…”
This story illustrates how close the poor are to the heart of Jesus. I still think de Gruchy goes too far, but it is a healthy kick up the pants not to get stuck in our holy huddles and prayer meetings.
What do you think?
Previous posts: Mission and Development - Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Tags: Development, Gospel, Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Missio Dei, Mission, Missional Church, Social Development
Agree with de Gruchy regarding the dualism. Again, Wright says quite a bit about this. He talks about the “woes” that have affected contemporary christianity: actually I forget the list but it something like: enlightenment, romanticism and existentialism.
I am also reminded of Driscoll when he said that Christians who go to church and sing songs etc but don’t give financially to God’s kingdom are not worshipping, because in the OT we see that sacrifice is the heart of worship. He says that having a spiritual experience is not worship. Similar kind of statement… a hard word.
I am not sure what is is, but there is something about what “de Gruchy” is saying that I don’t like. One thing: how Christo-centric is his view of mission? I am not sure where Jesus fits its to his thinking. Not sure that he gets much of a mention. After all, its his mission that we are on: he is Lord of the world until he hands it back to the Father.
Regarding prayer meetings, I assume you are referring to the practise of praying about stuff, but never doing anything, against the idea of participating in the mission of God and surrounding everything you do in prayer?
Thanks alastair.
I think you are right with the last paragraph … that is what is being criticised I think, and there is some truth in what de Gruchy is saying, but i do wonder if he is going a bit far…
On de Gruchy, you may be right, that he doesn’t mention Jesus much here, although the third one (i think) was about Jesus inaugurating the Kingdom. What i like about it, is what he is seeking to do: he intergrates mission and develepment with some good theology. It isn’t a manefesto for life, or a systematic theology. So i think you are right: he is light on Jesus, the cross, and a number of other topics.
i often have wondered about faith/works divide and how a helpful correction caused a breakout of dualism
increasingly i think the two are meshed in the same way the trinity is
Yes I agree - thanks Paul.