Christian Mission and International Development

The debate about religions and global development is something that affects the image and impact of Christianity. It is troubling that social science research questions whether religion should be viewed as something that adds value to development projects at all (Dronen, 2014). Missions scholars and practitioners need to take a serious look at how we fit within developmental frameworks, whether we agree with them or not. 

Norwegian missions to Africa provide an interesting example of “movement from the margin to the margins” in the form of rural farmers who worked among the Zulu population of rural South Africa (Dronen, 2022, p. 258). It is telling that the same foreign missions intervention was less effective among “more developed” communities such as the Muslim Fulbe and Mboum communities of Cameroon. Then there are the Dii people of Cameroon who saw the Norwegian mission as “a helpful tool” because they could teach them French, the primary trade language. In the Dii case, the developmental part of mission resulted from “a joint venture between the missionaries and the local population” (Dronen, 2022, p. 258-260). Both missionary and local community brought distinct ideas of development to the table and the result was a hybrid neither group would have formed on their own. General analysis of the developmental results of these Norwegian missions in Africa are ambiguous. Some praise the Norwegians’ contribution to progress while others critique the harmful effects of importing Western, colonial socio-economic values (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1991, p. 199). 

The NGO-ification of development in the Global South refers to when the biblical vision of redemption is superseded by a secular vision of development (Gifford, 2007). If the developmental projects of Global South churches cannot be discerned as distinct from other charity organizations (Swart, 2003), this represents a loss of prophetic witness. A reorientation mode that focuses on the “relational element” of partnership seems profitable, seeing development as a “dynamic relationship between donor and receiver” (Swart, 2004, p. 410-412). I think this approach aligns wisely with Paulo Freire’s (1970) concept of development beginning with an awareness in which marginalized communities take full responsibility for their own empowerment. 

The idea that development should be seen as a “never-ending process” where individuals contribute to personal and societal transformation is a needed counterpoint to individualistic Western conceptions (Myers, 1999, p. 17). Cases in Cameroon where young converts to Christianity revolted against their families to live with missionaries can be articulates as positive examples of radical conversion. However, a message encouraging young people to abandon their kin and culture can also be judged as one more form of Western imperialism (Dronen, 2022, p. 265). This missions approach can be described as descending from Descartes’ vision of the individual’s quest for personal freedom (Klassen, 2015, p. 33). Or perhaps this thinking influenced by Weber’s concept of individual economic emancipation. Weber emphasized the individual’s right to the surplus they produced, idealizing a person’s entrepreneurial self-reliance. These Western ideas contrast starkly with African philosophies where the individual is defined by their “relationship with the other”. Instead of enthroning individual rights to freedom and property, much African philosophical tradition proposes that personhood and vulnerability are interconnected” (Dronen, 2022, p. 267). 

In contrast to the NGO-ification dilemma, some networks connect the Global North and the Global South in ways which preserve distinctly biblical principles of development. These networks foster economic security for their members by connecting associations of congregations with transnational business opportunities. This represents an effective combination of the African extended family network model with “individualist, capitalist, and marketplace markers” belonging to the Pentecostal-Charismatic discourse (Dronen, 2022, p. 269). 

Christian Mission and Social Action

Lap Yan Kung (2022) argues that advocacy is a key aspect of social action that can enrich Christian mission praxis. This working definition of social action is helpful: “a self-conscious human practice intended to transform social relationships, as well as a social structure to enhance human flourishing, where the agents experience self-realization”. And Kung (2022) describes three major components to social action: “intention, form, and consequence” (p. 276). Foucault rightly states that evaluating social action must recognize that power “circulates” and “functions in the form of a chain” never fully situated in one person’s hands (Gordon, 1980, p. 505). Kung (2022) rightly describes social action as an expression of “participatory citizenship which leads to the emergence of civil society” (p. 277). And social action is voluntary by nature, “a constructive force for building community, social cohesion, and social capital”. But the role of advocacy in God’s mission, the church’s participation in advocacy, and how this shapes it as a community divides opinion among Ecumenical Protestants and Evangelicals (Kung, 2022, p. 277, 274, 278). 

The relationship of creation and salvation to God’s mission is also relevant to social action. Robert Jenson (1999) describes creation and salvation as united in God’s mission: “God the Father is the sheer given of creation; God the Spirit is the perfecting freedom that animates creation; God the Son is the mediator of creation” (p. 25). But Kung (2022) rightly argues that “the unity of creation and salvation must be eschatological”. This does not amount to a denial of human enterprise and accomplishment but refers to the coming of God’s kingdom in the world (Kung, 2022 p. 279). Bevans and Schroeder (2011) are concerned with how the coming of the kingdom is articulated, presenting the concept of prophetic dialogue. Here justice is done in conversation rather than through one-way proclamations of judgment. 

I believe Gutierrez (1973) makes a helpful observation regarding how we articulate the kingdom message. Although socio-political liberation is distinct from liberation from sin, no hierarchy exists between the two (p. 176,177), no false dichotomy should be implied that is not found in Scripture. 

Unruh & Sider (2005) analyze different ways the relationship between Christian mission and social action has been understood. On the extreme social justice side, “the world is placed at the center of God’s activity, not the church”, while on the extreme culture wars side the church’s duty is to “identify and change those ungodly aspects of culture so that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven” Kung, 2022, p. 282). I find Unruh & Sider’s (2005) holistic model most attractive, in which “evangelism and social ministry are dynamically interconnected” (p. 134-146). I can agree with the Third Lausanne Congress affirmation of integral mission, which recognizes the brokenness of individuals, society, and creation, all of which lie within the scope of God’s love and mission (Kung, 2022, p. 281). I also identify with the Evangelical concept of transformational advocacy that promotes challenging “injustice and obstacles to human flourishing”. But this is done by “humbly engaging with people who can address the wrong” and trusting the Spirit of God to transform individuals and institutions. Religious liberty is an aspect of advocacy that the church cannot ignore because it a defense of human dignity. The Catholic principle of subsidiarity is also helpful, which suggests that “tasks and goals should be handled at the lowest, most local level capable of accomplishing them effectively”. This leads to a recognition and promotion of social action “so that people can exercise their freedom and learn to be responsible for managing and improving their lives”. This Catholic contribution to the discussion of civil rights and civil society represents helps form a Christian vision that promotes individual freedom and responsibility (Kung, 2022, p. 281, 285). 

Mission and Healing

Lakawa & Fitchett-Climenhaga (2022) observe that “the unnarratability and the unspeakability of trauma fundamentally disrupt our understanding of witness and its relationship with healing” (p. 293). As someone working in Christian reconciliation, I’m encouraged that this field has emerged as “one particularly prominent” area of thinking about healing. Lakawa & Fitchett-Climenhaga (2022) categorize three dimensions of reconciliation in mission studies, helping me situate my own research and service. This typology includes reconciliation as focused on “restoring fractured relationships”, reconciliation as “holistic (…) linking physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being”, and reconciliation as necessarily tangible and rooted in specific contexts. Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga (2022) give an encouraging description of how women in the Global South engage in healing mission. These women acted as “cultural brokers” who demonstrated respect for local concepts of the spirit world while using Christian healing practices. This is an example of healing mission that is “holistic, integrated, embodied, incarnated, and creatively transformative”. Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga (2022) describe a holistic non-Christian religious approach to life and death, “understood as wholeness and being in the right relationship with human and divine persons”. These women have attempted to take Christian teachings and practices and make them coherent to other worldviews, an inspiring and hopeful example (Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga, 2022, p. 294-8). 

Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga (2022) also explore the “belatedness of truth and the incomprehensibility of trauma” (p. 298), which challenges my concept of mission. Three problems related to trauma – temporality, memory, and difficulty of speech in the aftermath – demonstrate the need for alternative ways of engagement. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well is bodily, involving physical touch. Understanding between Jesus and the woman arriving belatedly, she “touches rather than talks”, “talking comes after touching”. The woman is a resilient witnesses because she breaks through the sickness that had isolated her. Jesus is a resilient witness because he responds “to the voice of her wound that speaks through her touch”. In this encounter, “speech is embodied and the truth is witnessed in its enigmatic wholeness – it is told yet remains a mystery”. The voice of the woman can inform the language and practice of mission, healing, and witness in its portrayal of the “complexity of healing in the context of trauma and its aftermath” (Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga, 2022, p. 299-303).

Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga (2022) promote the practice of poetic witnessing as a means for healing and reconciliation (p. 306). This model inspires me to reengage with my love of the arts and their possible usefulness for healing. The proposal that dance and other forms of art can be used to “decipher and encode the unspeakability of loss and wounds” and become a “symbolic rendering that reimagines the future and the promise of healing in the aftermath” is something that I want to experiment with. I can see how the arts may offer “ways to communicate woundedness and healing when trauma undermines speech and veils truth”. Seeing healing as a continuous, multifaceted process “mutually witnessed through embodied experience” via the poetic witnessing model represents an innovative form of healing mission aimed at addressing trauma (Lakawa & Fitchett-Clemenhaga, 2022, p. 306-7). 

References

Bevans, Stephen B. & Schroeder, Roger P. (2011). Prophetic Dialogue: Reflections on Christian Mission Today. Orbis. 

Comaroff, Jean & Comaroff, John. (1991). Of Revalation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press. 

Dronen, Tomas S. (2014). Nordic Perspectives on Involvement in Africa. In Dronen, Tomas S. (Ed.), Religion and Development. Peter Lang. 

Dronen, Tomas S. (2022). Christian Mission and International Development. In Dronen, Tomas S. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies. OUP Oxford.

Freire, Paulo. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum. 

Gifford, Paul. (2007). “The Future of Christianity”, Inaugural Lecture, SOAS, London, June 4th. 

Gordon, Colin. (1980). Power / Knowledge. In Gordon, Colin (Ed.), Harvester. 

Gutierrez, Gustavo. (1973). A Theology of Liberation. Orbis. 

Jenson, Robert W. (1999). Systematic Theology, vol. 2, Oxford University Press. 

Klassen, John. (2015). “The Ecumenical Movement and Development. The Role of Personhood”, Missionalia 1

Kung, Lap Y. (2022). Christian Mission and Social Action. In Kung, Lap Y. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies. OUP Oxford.

Lakawa, Septemmy E. & Fitchett-Climenhaga, Alison. (2022). Mission and Healing. In Lakawa, Septemmy E. & Fitchett-Climenhaga, Alison. (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies. OUP Oxford.

Myers, Bryant L. (1999). Walking With the Poor. (Publisher?)

Swart, Igntius. (2003). Church, Mission, and Development: Revisiting the Pragmatic Debate, Missionalia 3, p. 406

Unrue, Heidi R. & Sider, Ronald J. (2005). Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-based Social Ministry. Oxford University Press.