Missional Theology

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Missional Theology (Engl. Missional theology ) is a predominantly English-speaking world in the developed form of Christian theology , which sees it as the first reason and ultimate purpose of the mission theology. A fundamental part of this theology is the concept Missio Dei , which God understands as actually and preliminary missionary effective vis-à-vis the missionary community and thereby moves Jesus Christ into the focus of theological reflection. In contrast to mission theology , missional theology represents a plural, but independent systematic-theological draft, while mission theology provides more descriptive and practical theological knowledge. Missional theology was primarily developed by Protestant theologians, but is in lively exchange with the knowledge and reflections of Catholic theology.

The term "missional" was not used systematically before 1998. The content-related preparation and development of this concept took place before that. Missional theology borrows many of its fundamental convictions from the theology of Karl Barth , who first worked as a Reformed pastor and then as a professor of systematic theology in Switzerland and Germany. The German theologian and mission director Karl Hartenstein is also an important figure for early missional theology. Later, however, missional theology was practiced and further developed almost exclusively in the Anglo-Saxon world by the theologian Lesslie Newbigin and the missiologists David Jacobus Bosch or Darrell Likens Guder . In the German-speaking area, the missionary movement and its theology find fewer followers and hardly any reception. Exceptions are Protestant theologians such as Peter Aschoff , Tobias Faix , Johannes Reimer , Bernhard Ott and the theological training center Institute for Community Building and World Mission .

Theological foundations

Missional theology shares many convictions with Karl Barth's theology. First of all, their Christocentrism is unmistakable . Jesus Christ as the one word of God stands as a living God in the center of the theological reflection. In him the missionary mandate of the Christian community is manifest and in him the calling of God's people in the Israelite time can also be understood: everything before and after his time is testimony to him and understandable from him. Darrell Likens Guder emphasizes that this is also the fundamental questioning of all human missionary endeavors through Jesus Christ: Through faith in him, this endeavor becomes pure witness service, which can never be autonomous, self-effective action.

Darrell Likens Guder preaches in Princeton, New Jersey

Another theological view that agrees with Barth is that the salvation event in Jesus Christ represents the revelation of "essentially gracious God". Missional theology and missionary Christian community proclaim God's “yes” to people and only afterwards and included in this yes, God's “no” to their sins. Humans have no influence on their salvation and God's already reconciled relationship with them.

From this follows, as the last basic theological constant, a so-called “Christological universalism”. Eberhard Jüngel formulated this pointedly following Barth. Missional theology is independent from Jüngel's theology, but with him it emphasizes God's “yes” to people in Jesus Christ and therein God's originally intended humanity, which, due to its divine power, makes godlessness impossible for people. As disciples of God's humanity emphasize, missional theology emphasizes the incarnational and cosmopolitan nature of the church. Despite these content overlaps, Jüngel cannot be regarded as a source of ideas or as a co-developer and advocate of missional theology.

program

Missio Dei

The concept of Missio Dei implies that mission is primarily God's mission. God is understood as acting in a missionary manner and so the mission of the Christian community has grown directly from his being and acting. According to the classical Protestant view, God's missionary nature is shown in the fact that the father sends the son and father and son together send the spirit. So traditionally God is understood in a movement towards the world, which the Christian community in turn follows. She acts missionary by being part of God's mission.

The cover of David Jacobus Bosch's book Transforming Mission

Two dimensions of the mission of the Christian community

The concept of Missio Dei gives rise to two dimensions of the mission of the Christian community, which give missional theology its fundamental character. First, speaking of God in the sense of “teach them” from Mt 28,20  LUT . In this first sense, mission is both the trigger and the supporting foundation of the theology and actions of the Christian community. Secondly, mission means the awareness of the mission, as expressed in the biblical phrase "As the Father sent me, so I send you" ( Jn 20:21  LUT ). These two meanings of mission 1. represent a reflection on the commission and at the same time they explain 2. the framework conditions beyond which today's theological reflection, according to missional theology, cannot go.

Church as a community of witnesses

Missional theology understands the church as a community of witnesses. It was the fundamental insight of the young, religious and socialist committed Karl Barth towards contemporary theology, but also towards the religious socialism of the time, that here “everything was always done without God. God should always be good enough to carry out and crown what people began of their own accord. ”From this insight, Barth developed his early theology of crisis and the World Mission Council also represented between its two important meetings in Tambaram between 1938 and 1952 and Willingen the insight that it is not the church itself, but the triune God who behaves in a missionary manner. Karl Barth was demonstrably the most important source of ideas, and so a missional theology today with Karl Barth is convinced that the Christian community can only have its real being as a community of witnesses. As such, it has its supporting foundation only in God. God is understood as the one who precedes, guides and strengthens. Josef Hromádka expressed this with the words “the Church is where her Lord is”.

The end of Christianity

The formula “end of christendom”, which was mainly coined by Darrell Likens Guder and David Jacobus Bosch, means that the privilege of Christianity in the western world , which has existed since Emperor Constantine and was intensified again by Emperor Charlemagne, is currently at a low point or even in many places has come to a preliminary end. Darrell Likens Guder sees nothing dramatic in this development. Rather, it is the end of a constellation that, from his point of view of the nature of Christianity, is rather strange. It cannot be rejected, but from Guder’s point of view it does not represent any tragedy, it will ultimately be dissolved. What cannot be resolved from the theological point of view is the sustaining and comforting relationship of the pilgrim church to God. Darrell Likens Guder draws on the example of the Latin American base churches, in which there was a lack of institutional structures and material goods and in which the message of the Gospel was still authentically proclaimed and lived under its sign. The example of the base communities shows that a look at churches and communities outside the embossed with "Christendom" conditions for reflection on their own missional action is worthwhile.

method

Missional Hermeneutics

In their missional theology, Darrell Likens Guder and David Jacobus Bosch call for the Bible to be placed at the center of the life of the Christian community. The Bible, but primarily the New Testament, should then be read from their point of view as a document of missionary life. For them, the mission is, as Martin Kähler once said, “the mother of theology” and the New Testament is the testimony of the church in the making, which is forced through its encounter with the world to reflect the content of its faith - among other things in the written form of the Gospels and letters etc. - to reflect. According to Bosch, this missionary understanding of the biblical scriptures should guide their exegesis and hermeneutics. If this view is adhered to, according to Bosch, the Bible can once again become the direction of the congregation in its endeavors for Christian truth and honesty.

Mission history

In addition to the Bible, the history of the life of the Christian community must also be understood as missionary. Hans Küng as well as David Jacobus Bosch and Darrell Likens Guder divide the history of the church into six different changing epochs or paradigms, which represent different ways of the church to interpret its own mission. These paradigms are:

  1. the apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity,
  2. the Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period,
  3. the medieval paradigm of the Roman Catholic Church
  4. the Protestant paradigm,
  5. the paradigm of modern enlightenment ,
  6. the emerging ecumenical paradigm.

From the reflection of the paradigm sequence, according to Bosch, the shaping of the church and the implementation of its mission through the changing times should become recognizable. If this succeeds, this knowledge should allow theology and the Christian community today a clearer view of their own character and needs. Reppenhagen explains for the present day that a paradigm is needed that brings about a “radical discontinuity with one's own culture”, since the gospel must always be given a new obedience and a new bond.

Reflection on the environment of the mission

Missional theology, after remembering its mission, also has the task of analyzing its own environment. Only after a consideration and analysis of the living conditions of the Christian community can it be an effective witness of the Christian message, because otherwise it will not meet its addressees with their needs or false certainties. In this perspective, missional theology must become interdisciplinary and, for example, incorporate good and correct knowledge, for example from liberation theology, contextual theology or religious socialism.

practice

Reflecting on missional theology does not automatically lead to better and more successful missionary work. Nevertheless, according to Darrell Likens Guder, three steps can be named as examples, which are necessary and expedient in any case.

  1. Darrell Likens Guder always emphasizes the importance of biblical instruction. The Bible should be understood as an instrument of the Holy Spirit that enables the church to be continually instructed in his spirit.
  2. Jesus Christ is the center of Christian life. Missional theology demands constant concentration on him and the gospel message that is inextricably linked with him. On the one hand, it must always be the foundation of prayer, preaching and catechesis, as well as the rest of the everyday life of the community. On the other hand, the focus on Jesus Christ is the task of missional theology to leave the borders of the Christian community and to live in the service and witness of other people.
  3. For missional theology, the Christian community is not a sanctuary for people. It is not a service provider for people's religious needs. Rather, missional theology guides every Christian to a clear understanding and awareness of his or her calling. Missional theology is first of all a theology that turns in the direction of the congregation, which only calls for the congregation to be sent out in the second step.

criticism

Missional theology is weak when it comes to appropriating salvation. Baptism is hardly ever mentioned in the texts of missional theologians.

literature

  • David Jacobus Bosch : Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (American Society of Missiology series, 16). Orbis, Maryknoll, NY, 1991, 2011, ISBN 978-1-570759482 .
    • German: Mission im Wandel: Paradigm Shift in Mission Theology . Brunnenverlag, Giessen 2012, ISBN 978-3-7655-9561-5
  • John G. Flett: The Witness of God: the Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth and the Nature of Christian Community . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids (Michigan), 2010, ISBN 978-0-802864413 .
  • Darrell Likens Guder: Be My Witnesses: The Church's Mission, Message, and Messengers . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1985, ISBN 0802800513
  • Darrell Likens Guder, Lois Barrett et al. (Eds.): Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1998, ISBN 0802843506 .
  • Darrell Likens Guder: Mission Possible: Barth's missionary ecclesiology as integration between church doctrine and practice . In: Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie, Issue 58, Volume 29, Number 1, 2013, pp. 11–33.
  • Darrell Likens Guder: Mining Barth's Dogmatics for a Missional Ecclesiology . In: Guenter Thomas, Rinse H. Reeling Brouwer, Bruce McCormack (eds.): Dogmatics After Barth: Facing Challenges in Church, Society and the Academy . Self-published, print: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-1-479179763 ; Pp. 133-141.
  • Justus Geilhufe: Missional Theology. A program for a linguistic, upright church . In: Christ und Sozialist No. 4/14, 2014, pp. 9-13.
  • Justus Geilhufe: Liberation from the tyranny of church structures. The idea of ​​inculturation of the FreshX movement from a mission theological perspective . In: ichthys 33/1 (2017), pp. 15-25.
  • Justus Geilhufe: The election of the human being as the shaping of church action. The mixed economy church concept put to the test . In: ichthys 33/2 (2017), pp. 161–172.
  • Justus Geilhufe: Criticism and excess. Missional theology and missionary church between tradition and new beginnings . In: Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 69 (2018), pp. 305-313.
  • Stanley Hauerwas : Christians are foreign citizens. How we become what we are again: Adventurers of the discipleship in a post-Christian society. Fontis, Basel 2016, ISBN 978-3-03848-075-4 .
  • Andreas Loos and Stefan Schweyer : Everything okay? Talking about salvation with missional theology . Brunnen , Giessen 2017, ISBN 978-3-7655-9017-7 .
  • Lesslie Newbigin : Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1986; ISBN 0802801765 .
    • German: "A folly for the Greeks": the gospel and our western culture . Translated by Gerhard Koslowsky. Aussaat-Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1989; ISBN 3-7615-4667-X .
  • Lesslie Newbigin: The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1989; ISBN 0-8028-0426-8 . WCC, Geneva, 1989, ISBN 2-8254-0971-5 .
  • Lesslie Newbigin: The Open Secret: Introduction to a Theology of Mission . Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1995, ISBN 0802808298 .
  • Martin Reppenhagen: On the way to a missional church. The discussion about a "Missional Church" in the USA . Neukirchener Theologie, Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7887-2508-2 .
  • Martin Reppenhagen: Mission in connection with Christ. Lesslie Newbigins mission-theological approach In: Theological contributions 28.2 / 1997, pp. 79–94.
  • Ruedi Röthenmund: The Gospel and our Culture - An investigation of the relevance potential of the Gospel in the context of German-speaking Switzerland . Master's thesis submitted as part of the conditions for obtaining a Master of Arts in Theology awarded by the University of Wales, Trinity St. David in partnership with the Bienenberg Theological Seminar and the Aarau Theological-Diaconal Seminar. Seon, Switzerland, November 10, 2012.
  • Heinrich Christian Rust: Spirit of God - Source of Life: Basics of a missional pneumatology . Neufeld Verlag, Schwarzenfeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-86256-032-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Guder: Missional Church ; P. 4.
  2. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 546.
  3. ↑ a b c d Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 399.
  4. ↑ http://www.igw.edu/ch/missional.php
  5. ^ Guder: Missional Church ; P. 5.
  6. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 10f.
  7. ↑ Eberhard Jüngel: Extra Christum nulla salus - as a principle of natural theology. In: Eberhard Jüngel: Correspondences: God - Truth - Human. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1980; ISBN 3-459-01303-6 ; P. 180.
  8. ↑ Röthenmund: The Gospel and our culture ; P. 3
  9. ^ Guder: Missional Church ; P. 4f.
  10. ^ Eberhard Busch: Karl Barth's curriculum vitae . Munich: Kaiser, 1975; ISBN 3-459-01022-3 ; P. 95.
  11. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 400.
  12. ^ Wieland Zademach: J. Hromadka - Life between East and West . In: Christ und Sozialist No. 4/09, 2009, p. 37.
  13. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 15.
  14. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 16.
  15. ↑ a b Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 185.
  16. ↑ Hans Küng: The Church . Freiburg 1967, p. 25.
  17. ^ Reppenhagen: On the way to a missional church ; P. 118
  18. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 377.
  19. ↑ Röthenmund: The Gospel and our culture ; P. 3
  20. ^ Bosch: Transforming Mission ; P. 410, 458.
  21. ↑ a b c Darrell Guder Interview: “How to get Missional” on YouTube , accessed on April 14, 2014.
  22. ↑ Missional Theology: “In the line of flight from God's saving actions”. In: idea . July 17, 2014, accessed May 7, 2018 .