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I've taken the excursion into evangelicalism in my last two posts because the problem I identified towards the end of the last, is common to all aspects of mission. Perhaps evangelism is most prone to making absolute truth claims as it is a means of proclamation of the Word of God. There are dangers associated with being right and this is something we all need to acknowledge.
Whilst all Christians bear witness to the cross and resurrection, there is no single evangelical message, but many traditions who all carry an element of the truth only known fully to God.
I am not advocating relativism. I'm not arguing evangelists or others involved in mission should in any way water down their message. Our witness is distinctive in all its varieties and no point is served by watering it down.
Perhaps I can best approach the problem by returning to the theme of mission and unity. It is quite difficult to get hold of why unity is essential to mission. I can make this claim but many independent churches, who brook no contradiction to their message and so do not seek to collaborate or perhaps even recognise other Christians, can point to their evident success. 'You say unity is essential to mission, well we don't water down our message through collaboration with other (so-called) Christians and look at how fast our church is growing'.
I might argue radical atheists point to divisions between the churches (especially divisions which led to war) and so if we were united, their argument would be baseless. Unfortunately, this argument doesn't stack up.
Let's look at it another way. Absolute truth claims cause disunity. A casual exploration of blog posts about ecumenism will reveal how many Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians reject ecumenism on the grounds their own version of the faith is the right one. Given there are several absolute claims, it is difficult to see how anyone unfamiliar with the Christian faith is meant to choose between them. Of course, they don't choose. They encounter one tradition and join it, discovering the others later.
The major traditions are catholic. I've written about this before and it is important to understand how each tradition has its own version of catholicity to offer to the others. Catholicity happens when a tradition no longer finds it needs to be absolute. Catholicity enables each tradition to put down its own roots, whilst at the same time being open to stimuli from other traditions. The rooted tradition deepens the faith of its followers but is not closed to being enriched thorugh encounters with others. This allows an element of accountability, as traditions both support and challenge each other.
Mission is not a competition between traditions. The Edinburgh 1910 conference delegates recognised the need to rationalise the competition taking place between traditions in the mission field.
Diversity happens when the Christian faith is incarnated in particular times and places. (The map shows worldwide distribution of Catholic (yellow), protestant and Anglican (purple) and Orthodox (cyan) churches.) We can choose to proclaim our own tradition as the one true version or we can see our tradition as one version of the same faith amongst many others. If faith is genuine, it will always grow into something new because the Christian faith is not words on paper but many living traditions.
This leads me to think mission and unity belong together but there is a third element we rarely seem to consider. I'll describe it in my next post.
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