THE NEW MISSIOLOGY: A CALL TO FREEDOM
By Rev. Dr. Richard H. Bliese


Introduction

I visited my African home twice in the 1990s (1993, 1995) in one of the most beautiful areas of central Africa, in Bukavu, Zaire (now the Congo). The whole trip was filled with deep ambiguities. There were feelings of joy about coming home to a place that my family had called home for four years from 1986 to 1990. There was also deep pain witnessing the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. On the one hand, I longed to see the city of Bukavu again, a city right on the border with Rwanda, known for its streets lined with flowering trees, and its magnificent views of Lake Kivu and Mount Kahuzi. On the other hand, Bukavu, at that time, was becoming known not only for its unrivaled beauty but its unparalleled violence, its Hutu refugees and its orphaned children from Rwanda.

I desired to visit old friends. Many of them, I was soon to discover, had been killed. Others had lost their former lightheartedness through acts of brutality. The whole world read daily reports in the early 1990s about the horrors of genocide. I saw the results first hand and heard the stories. Some of my old friends now lived in United Nation refugee camps. Others were trying to track down lost family members - mostly children. Most of my friends were just trying to survive. Rwanda had, until 1991, been a source of pride and stability in central Africa. Now is had become the poster child for chaos.

What had happened? Answers to that question vary. In short, most agree that a string of terrible events occurred: tribal prejudice led to political opportunism, led to open hate speech, led to open hate speech, led to public oppression, led to genocide. And what should be the church's response to such violence and oppression? That was the Pressing question of the time. Here too the list of responses was diverse. The church needed to repent, re­create communities, lead the laments, tell the truth, assists in rebuilding society, comfort the mourners, work for justice, aid the agencies, and promote reconciliation. In short, what was being demanded of the churches, in the face of violence and oppression, was to completely and thoroughly redefine their mission.

This is, therefore, my first thesis: Oppressed peoples always challenge the church to redefine and/or rediscover its mission. This was true for New Testament Christians, it was true for all epochs of mission history, and it is certainly true within the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India today [that claims that Dalit liberation per se has become the missionary objective of the church]. Many congregations in Rwanda were valiant in their attempts to address oppression both before and after the genocide. This must be repeatedly affirmed. But most, ironically, just went on with business as usual.

Since I've returned to the United States, I have found this same stubborn pattern in my own church. Few pastors adapt their ministries to respond to "the huge events;" that is, to wars, rumors of wars, growing poverty, economic hardships and neighborhoods racked with systemic injustice. Clergy desire stability, order and renewal. Once they experience these "spiritual" dynamics within [heir own church life, it becomes almost impossible for them to shift gears and redefine their mission in response to many of the difficult realities that surround them at home and abroad.

Clarifying the Issue:

But growing oppression is, in fact, one of the glocal (the local and global) realities of our present day, whether in Asia or North America, whether in North or South, whether in Third or First Worlds. Furthermore, there exists in response to this oppression, to use Gustavo Gutierrez' phrase, a growing "irruption of the poor." Why is there such an irruption? And why is it so widespread across the world? Stated simply, because the status quo of religious and civil responses to the poor and the oppressed have become so fundamentally inadequate, they are considered by most to be rotten at the root. The gap between rich and poor is widening - everywhere. And the poor, both Christian and non-Christian alike, are protesting their conditions in every way imaginable. It is this challenge, this "irruption," this changing posture of the poor that is forcing the church (as well as other religious communities) to rethink its mission mandates.

One basic theological question emerges loud and clearly in such an environment. This question is addressed to every religious community in religiously plural societies: How does (your) God think about the poor? Or, to put it more personally from the side of the subjects: "How does (your) God, think about us (me)?" The answer to this simple theological question has far ranging implications for how all Christians define their existence, their identities, and their mission. Is the church's mission only directed at conversions, baptisms and church expansion? On the other hand, is the church's mission really only directed at political liberation and social emancipation? What is the church's mission, for example, to the 200 million Dalits of India whose misery, writes Dr. K. Rajaratnam, "cannot be adequately described by any prose writer, any poet, any playwright, any essayist. It is beyond the pen of any of these writers. The suffering has been on for ages."[1]

I want to suggest in this paper that the global church has responded to the issues of oppression and poverty in the last fifty years with two powerful, but lastly, two inadequate gospels. These two gospels are 1. the gospel of liberation and, 2. the gospel of renewal. I will suggest that although both gospels have a basis in Scripture and in ecclesiastical practice, both fall far short of the Bible's more fundamental message to the poor, the gospel of freedom. It is upon this gospel of freedom, I would suggest, that the church needs to more firmly ground its ministry to Poor.

Section I: Moving beyond our Gospel-Duality in Mission

What I have suggested above is that the essential framework for Christ's church in dealing with oppression, in all its forms, is primarily a musicological one.[2] The church's first task, therefore, when confronted with oppression is to ask the musicological question: What is God doing in the world? Or, more specifically to our topic for this conference, how does God's mission function on behalf of the poor and oppressed? Or, even more specifically to our Indian context, what is God's mission to the Dalits?[3]

Recent ecumenical proposals call this starting point the missio Dei. The genius of the mission Dei, since its formulation after the Willingen Conference in 1952, is this: mission doesn't start with the church or the church's action in the world, but with an understanding of God and God's action toward the whole oikumene.

Consequently, there does seem to be a consensus developing in wider church circles that the theme of missio Dei should serve as a missiological core for all Christian traditions in their response to mission in general, and mission to the poor in particular. When a consensus is established among people of otherwise quite contrary views, however, it may indicate that the consensus is more one of appearance than substance. I believe that this is true about the mission Dei.

When Lutherans, for example, use the term missio Dei, [see, for example, the Lutheran World Federation Document on Mission], two divergent interpretations of the term come into play. Each interpretation leads to completely different views on mission. George Vicedom, in 1960 initially set the tone for Lutherans when he addressed the topic of mission Dei in what some have labeled the "classical" approach to mission. In his book by the English title, Mission of God,[4] written after the Willingen Conference, Vicedom emphasized that mission is God's work from the beginning to the end. God is the acting subject in mission. Mission is neither initiated by the church nor is it to serve the church. The church is a community in response to the missio Dei, bearing witness to God's activity in the world by its communication of the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed. Vicedom does not exclude the church from the mission of God, as latter Dutch theologians were tempted to do. In the mission of God, God is both the sender and the one being sent. This accounts for the Trinitarian structure of the mission Dei. From this content of mission, Vicedom argues that the purpose of mission is salvation. God's revelation is God's mission, and God's mission is always for the sake of salvation. The mission of the church, therefore, is a continuation of the redemptive act of God.

But as Norwegian musicologist, Tormod Engelsviken, has remarked,[5] Vicedom outlines not only a classical approach to the missio Dei, but he also opens the mission Dei to larger conceptualizations of mission. This "larger conceptualization" will be referred to as the "ecumenical" approach. Mission here begins to refer to all of God's activities, not just those restricted to the combination of Trinitarian perspectives, church and redemption. This reveals a basic problem that appears when the concept of mission Dei is combined with an understanding of the kingdom of God in general terms as the "rule of God." The differences in the understanding missio Dei, consequently, correspond with differences in understanding the kingdom of God. Here is the key. The kingdom of God is either understood as the reign of God over the whole of creation, including redemption, or the present and eternal salvation that God offers in Christ through the ministries of the church and received by faith. If "missio" is understood in the fonner "ecumenical" sense, the kingdom may be seen as universal, thus embracing salvific acts by all religions, and not restricting God's activity to the church. If it is understood in the latter "classical" sense, the kingdom is restricted to the church and salvation history, it is the realm where salvation is found through faith in Christ and participation in his church.

These two views of the kingdom of God, classical and ecumenical [also referred to as "narrow or special" missio Dei versus "broad or general" missio Dei ], are both used widely in Lutheran circles without any clear recognized consensus or orthodox position. What is true among Lutherans, I suggest, is true among Christians in general. We see this same duality in the ecumenical world, for example, when we place the juxtaposition the missionary ecclesiologies of Conrad Raiser and Leslie Newbigin.[6] According to Newbigin, i.e. according to the classical paradigm, the church is a unique body with a mandate for worldwide mission because it bears a universally valid message concerning Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. Newbigin's understanding of the redemptive work of the Triune God is both Christocentric and eschatological. The church is formed by Jesus Christ to bear the good news of Christ and continue the kingdom mission of Christ for the whole world.

Raiser believes that this kind of ecclesiology needs revision.[7] Raiser offers an alternative vision: the church in the emerging ecumenical paradigm is part of the broader worldwide community (oikoumene) with a mission to discern the Spirit's work in the world and to act as an agent of change.

The impetus for Raiser's ecclesiology is two-fold. There is, firstly, a frustration on numerous levels with an irrelevant, rigid, and self-centered church that doesn't respond to the world's problems [an attitude that has much in common with the "holy impatience" of the WCC Uppsala meeting in1968 and the Bangkok CWME meeting in 1973] and, secondly, there is an inadequacy in what he calls Christocentric­- Universalism"[8] for doing mission wjthin a religious plural world. Classical missiology, being built on this Christocentric-universalism, has often reflected a complacency, an introversion, and a structural rigidity in the face of inequality, religious plurality, and social evil. Newbigin wouldn't disagree with Raiser on this point. But whereas Raiser understands the church to exist as a eucharistic fellowship in the midst of the oikoumene as a picture of God's involvement in the world to create his household of life, Newbigin approached the church as the sign, instrument and foretaste of the kingdom of God. Newbigin does this in a way that is, for Raiser, too Christocentric and ecclesiocentric.

Bosch describes the debate between these two kinds of ecclesiologies - and their accompanying missiologies - as an "abiding tension" and "irreconcilable." Bosch writes: The new paradigm has led to an abiding tension between two views of the church, which appear to be fundamentally irreconcilable. At one end of the spectrum, the church perceives itself to be the sole bearer of a message of salvation on which it has a monopoly; at the other end, the church views itself at most, as an iJIustration - in word and deed - of God's involvement with the world. Where one chooses the first model, the church is seen as a partial realization of God's reign on earth, and mission as that activity through which individual converts are transferred from eternal death to life. Where one opts for the alternative perception, the church is, at best, only a pointer to the way God acts in respect of the world, and mission is viewed as a contribution toward the humanization of society...[9]

Bosch is correct in his analysis. There is a gap between the new and the old paradigms of mission. I will want to suggest in this paper that Raiser's position represents - in my own terminology - a gospel of liberation for life versus Newbigin' s gospel of personal and church renewal. Furthermore, I want to affirm that these dual gospels of liberation and renewal have their own validity, their own effectiveness, their own power and their own scriptural warrants. They are still essential for the church. But both remain, in Bosch's language, "in abiding tension" and "irreconciliable" with the other. The chief missiological question, therefore, must be how to unite these "dueling" gospels of liberation and renewal in ways that minister to the poor. Is there a mission theology that can deliver justice and doxology on the level of Mary "magnificat" in Luke chapter I? I will want to suggest that Paul's gospel of freedom can do just that.

Section II: Gospel Duality, Dueling Gospels and Schools of Mission

The first trend in modern mission, therefore, is the movement toward a common missiological dialogue that tries to bridge the gospel duality of liberation and renewal created in the 60s; that is, between humanization and salvation, life and faith, liberation and conversion, justice and evangelism, church­ centered and world-centered mission, The duality in mission continues to exist on both theological and grass roots (i.e. congregational) levels. The tension has even duplicated itself within a whole host of schools of mission that I have tried to outline below. What makes these "schools" or "models" interesting is that 1. Missiologists usually claim to belong to more than one school of thought, 2. Each school runsacross congregational, denominational and agency lines, 3. Each school brings out an important response to oppression but, 4. Each fails to provide an answer to the gospel dualities of liberation and renewal within mission theology. The schools will be referred to as, Evangelicalism, Liberalism, Orthodoxy, the New Diversity, Pragmatism and Pentecostalism.

(I) Evangelicalism (renewal) - Evangelicalism, broadly defined, is a distinct school with historical roots in European Pietism and Anglo-Saxon Methodism. This stream of mission elevates proclamation and witness to all those who do not claim loyalty to Jesus Christ as savior as central to mission. Conversion, church planting and "making disciples" are dominant themes that don't disregard social activism, but usually place it in a secondary position. Evangelism is viewed as the one unique churchly task within the missio Dei. Thus, the evangelical response to oppression is to "win" people to Christ one at a time. Transforming individuals is, finally, the key to transforming oppressive societies.

(2) Liberalism (liberation) - Liberalism's roots lie in modernity, the positive evaluation of human culture (imago Dei and the orders of creation), and a this-worldly comprehension of the kingdom of God (social gospel). The church is not only to "bring God" through proclamation and witness, but to recognize where God is already active in the world and actively participate in this activity. Mission can also move mutually across many cultures and religions. Liberalism's roots lie in its recognition that God's revelation cannot be limited to the church and that the kingdom of God has a this-worldly dimension. Thus the church must be open to revelation, truth and justice wherever it is found in seeing God's kingdom activity happening everywhere. In response to oppression, consequently, wherever the church sees acts of kindness, justice and social activism, that is the Spirit of God at work. The church needs to recognize these activities as God's own, and get on board.

(3) The New Diversity (liberation) - The New Diversity, like liberalism, takes an anthropological approach to mission. It does so, however, in reference to marginal over against dominant cultures. The "new diversity" includes voices all over the world (e.g. African-Americans, women, Native America, Dalit, Ming-Jung, etc.) that have not always been included at the center of society or theology. Liberation themes are common. fhe key feature is that mission is "caught" through communal praxis on the margins of society as a specific community seeks its own identity, its own liberation and its own mission from within a particular context. In response to oppression, these groups discover God's presence in their cooperate struggle for justice, identity and genuine community.

(4) Orthodoxy (renewal) - Mission is, as Kahler suggested, the mother of theology. Mission, consequently, demands a constant posture of "attending" to new voices. New mission trends have always forced churches into periodic reappraisals of their theological heritage in light of these trends. Most churches or denominations are usually not content with a generic, ecumenical missiology. Common mission trends and their own particular orthodoxy must be brought into harmony. Thus, orthodoxy asks how the missio Dei corresponds to a church's fundamental principles. Orthodoxies are usually built to create stability, establish order out of chaos and generate charity in response to oppression.

(5) Pragmatism (liberation or renewal) - Pragmatism, the marriage of theology and sociology, has always played a strong role within religious life. Whereas the study of history changed biblical studies, the linking of sociology and theology has particularly changed how churches do local and global. When a problem arises, fix it. Just do it! No church is unaffected by all the new techniques of how to do church effectively. In response to oppression, therefore, pragmatism becomes frustrated with theories, conferences and endless debates about how to respond to a crisis. Pragmatism doesn't wait for theories of liberation, social justice, evangelism or mission to lead the way. Theories often prevent action. Direct action takes precedence over theory.

(6) Pentecostalism (renewal) - Pentecostalism is the newest force in world mission. The Pentecostal experience of God in worship, "signs and wonders" as pointers to God's activities, a "second" experience with the Holy Spirit, millennial expectations and the dynamic power of prayer have influenced communities across the world. This movement is no longer restricted to certain "lower classes." The size of this movement is growing as well as its ability to articulate its theological legacy. In response to oppression, Pentecostals look for God's direct intervention to remedy the situation in terms of healing, signs and wonders (and, sometimes, prosperity). God must directly act as sign of God's power and dominion. The believer can only walk by faith.

The 60s represented an explosion in missiological thought as witnessed to by the aforementioned six schools. Churches began to think about mission in theological rather than in just practical terms. This was positive. The negative result was that most churches around the world found it more difficult to discover a common theological vocabulary from which to do mission in response to the world's growing problems. Everyone recognizes and laments the duality between liberation and renewal. Ecumenical, Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical documents all address this gospel-duality directly hoping that with bold pronouncements the missiological divorce between liberation and renewal will be miraculously healed.[10] But the inherent schism remains.

Do we need such a common foundation for mission? My contention is "yes." Without some common approach to missiological reflection (although not total agreement), Christians and congregations are left defenseless and divided as they try to respond to the demands of our present world context, especially in response to tough issues like poverty, oppression and mission among peoples of other religious traditions. This is the present state of affairs all over the world. Liberation theology in all its global forms calls for a new order of justice, a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, to be worked for by all peoples (and religions) of good will. That is God's mission. Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism, living in the same world of oppression, call for individual and congregational renewal sole gracia, sole fide, by grace through faith alone. Depending on where you are living in the world today, or in which parish setting, one or the other gospel thrives. The other gospel usually suffers. In Latin America, for example, many Roman Catholics have declared their solidarity for the poor for over forty years in order to bring about social change. But now the poor are declaring their solidarity with the renewal movements. Why?[11] The opposite is often true all across Africa? Churches are exploding with growth. But whereas churches dominate the landscape, and will soon dominate world Christianity, they have had little impact on the systemic problems running rampant through their societies.

The conclusion is clear. Both gospels of liberation and renewal are required to sustain, liberate and renew the poor. But how can both gospels be faithfully and effectively proclaimed together? This may indicate that the time has come for a new paradigm, a fresh challenge to established ecumenical opinion. I want to suggest that the employment of the missio Dei, consequently, is not helpful at present in providing the most needed theological ingredient in response to oppression and poverty, a way to reconcile the dual-gospels of liberation and renewal. What should replace the present dueling gospels? My proposal is a simple one: the gospel of freedom. Whereas mission theologies leave the church with dual-gospels (the gospel of renewal and the gospel of liberation) with dual religious ends (salvation and humanization) and, therefore, with two dual mission strategies (evangelism and the social justice), I want to suggest that it is possible to integrate these dual-gospels into one core gospel thereby transforming and deepening both. We will seek to show that the Bible shows us the way, and that the gospel of freedom responds to the deepest human desires today and always for humanization, community identity and a right relationship with God.

Section III: The Gospel of Freedom:

Analysis:

The central hermeneutical tool for analyzing the duality of our present missiological paradigms is "order." Whether the gospel-duality of God's "kingdom activity" is characterized as liberation or renewal, humanization or salvation, life or faith, or world or church, each of the resulting missiologies presents itself, at its core, as a "gospel of order" or, more correctly, the gospel of God's new order. It is true, of course, that each gospel understands God's "new order" differently. Yet, each would agree with the fundamental assertion that God is challenging the present world of sin (fallen order) through a new world order brought about by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. They only disagree on what this new order looks like, i.e. the vision of God's new creation. But each understands God's activity in Christ as God's way of establishing a "heavenly" order for the world, either along the lines of "justice and life" [i.e. liberation] on the one hand, or with "faith and church" [i.e. renewal] on the other. God's divine order is the key. Christ defeats sin, death and the devil according to these dual gospels in order to establish God's alternative order or reign.

Whether by liberation or renewal, it can be said that the work of each of these gospels is analogous to the situation surrounding a train wreck. All would agree that oppression and poverty proves that life, like a train, has been derailed. God's mission in Christ, according to these gospels, is to set life back up upon the tracks of God's reign.[12] The strength of this notion is, of course, that it is indeed a biblical picture Its weakness, I want to suggest, is that it is only a partial biblical picture of God's liberating and renewing activities in Christ.

Let me explain. Order, even divine order, can be a misleading picture concerning the biblical message for the result of God's good work of the gospel. Order is more a philosophical notion of salvation in both the west and the east, than a biblical one.[13] In the west, Greek philosophy is unaware of the comprehensive meaning of freedom in the Bible. Roman law is even more radically unfamiliar with it. To the extent that Christianity in the west integrated Greek philosophy and Roman law, it withdrew partially from its biblical sources. Western Christendom created and lived by the model of a fixed orderly society, living by rules and stable structures. Value was always placed on stability, invariability, order, and submission. Freedom could only be a source of disorder under such conditions, a flaw not only in society but also in the universe as a whole. Scholastic theology adapted many elements from Greek philosophy and Roman law. Protestant orthodoxies have done the same as they have adapted their theologies to their various contexts in Christendom. Both Protestants and Catholics exalt "divine order" as the highest theological value. Both hold that religious and civil action must be subjected to a universal order, a universal justice, a universal vision of God's reign. People contribute to God's order in the universe by their actions of obedience and their submission to God, to the Bible, to the Word of God, to state, to Pope, to ruler, to tribe, to family, to husband, and so forth.

Most western missiologies, consequently, have as their goal the lifting up of a clear vision of God's order for the universe, that is, God's preferred future for society, the world as a whole, for the human heart or for the church over-against the world. God's "new in-breaking kingdom" is the good news about a new order achieved through Christ that challenges the chaos in the world resulting from sin and evil, injustice and brokenness, poverty and oppression.

Prognosis:

By elevating God's good "kingdom order" for the universe as its core message, however, most missiologies never arrive at the center of the N.T.'s gospel proclamation.[14] In the NT the gospel is always a simple formula. It is clear that, for Paul, as he writes especially in the book of Galatians, the gospel proclaims more than order, even more than God's divine order. The gospel proclaims freedom. Paul announces a way of life characterized by slavery that is transformed into a life lived in freedom. This fundamental statement sheds light over everything in Christianity. Everything flows into freedom, and only that which builds freedom or flows out of freedom is Christian. "For you were called for freedom, brothers" (Gal. 5: 13). "For Freedom Christ has set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." (Gal 5: 1) Stated more exactly, God's freedom always emerges out of God's order and, it is freedom in Christ that transforms all orders and establishes a new creation.

Paul uses the word "freedom" in a very broad sense. That makes the scope of gospel freedom very radical. Freedom indicates the entire distance between historical, cultural and religious Judaism and the gospel of Jesus. Freedom is the feature that affects the entire way of being that characterizes a disciple of Jesus within their whole realm of life. Thus, freedom is the broadest of spiritual gifts and the widest of universal calls. The temptation, of course, is to reduce the scope of "freedom in Christ" to certain biblical practices now long obsolete, or to political ends or personal conversion. The N.T. makes such "gospel reductionism" difficult. Paul's sense of freedom, in contrast, is so broad that it changes everything - even all human relations - to the point where Paul can proclaim, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male or female; for all are one in Christ Jesus (Ga. 3:28).

According to the Bible, then, freedom and God's mission in Christ are connected. God's triune mission arises out of God's freedom in terms of creation, redemption and sanctification. Because of sin freedom is a gift that must be reacquired by Christ and received by faith (i.e. justification by grace through faith). It is also a call for how a disciple of Christ is to live in and for the world. Thus, freedom is at the core of all human existence, the center of God's mission in the world. God made human beings to be free and so that they might act freely. Human freedom comes from God's love. Love is the basis for freedom and, consequently, for a lot of disorder. This freedom is a gift of God. Even so, ironically, through freedom humans can block divine action. We can reject and frustrate God's love. Jesus words in John's Revelation that "I stand at the door and knock," imply, of course, that one is always free to shut the door.

The whole bible is actually a narrative commentary on the matter of freedom. The Bible tells the story about God showing that human freedom is due to God's love and grace in Christ. God needs human freedom in order to love and to be loved. The fact is that there is no human freedom if God is all-powerful. Consequently, wherever there is talk of God's order, God's law is implied. Wherever there is talk of God's gospel, freedom is promised. The one who confused things in the west was Aristotle. Aristotle's god was almighty, sovereign, unaffected, unchangeable, immovable, self-contained and, in his perfection, unable to love. God represented order itself. God was not really understood as being free.

Hindu religion, in like fashion, has a similar vision of God's nature and its resulting order. It was this dominant divine order that Dr. Ambedkar attacked because of its cult-centered rules and prescriptions. "There is no act of the Hindu which is not covered," wrote Ambedkar, "or ordained by religion.,,[15] Therefore Ambedkkar put in a lot of effort establishing norms for critiquing religious "orders." He subjected Hinduism's religious order to an elaborate critique on the basis of the threefold humanizing values of liberty, equality fraternity. He then used turned these same norms to critique Christian theology and practice. The reason for him was simple: He expected from religion not the way to go to heaven but the way to transform this world into a heaven.[16] He wrote, "I take religion to mean the propounding of an ideal scheme of divine governance, the aim and object of which is to make the social order in which men live a moral order.''[17]

Hence, since in both eastern and western traditions, God isn't really free, there is no way to ground human freedom. Human freedom can be conceived only as a defect, a lack of order, chaos. Freedom is therefore more imperfection than perfection. What then is the positive meaning of freedom? Can freedom make the social order in which we live a moral order? Compared with the perfect cosmic order of the stars, the earth, plants and animals - not to mention the perfect social orders that are theological justified by God's nature - human freedom looks like of sign of disorder, sin godlessness.

The opposition between law (i.e. God's order) and freedom is, in contrast, basic to the Paul's good news and is implicit in the entire New Testament. It is how Paul characterizes what's new and what's good about Jesus.[18] It lies at the center, therefore, of any new missiology, as the gospel should. No matter how much one might want to completely reconcile them, law and freedom need to be distinguished.. It is, however, the freedom in Christ that represents the newness in the NT message, not the installation of a new order. This newness is so scandalous that it continues to scandalize not just the world but even our own church systems. For how often is Paul's term of "slavery" in our own day actually associated as much with the church's own oppressive order as the world's. "For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." (Gal 5: 1) "So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir through God. (Gal 4: 7)

Faced with the newness of the NT. Gospel, church authorities and mission agencies over the course of history have often been, and still are, afraid. They are afraid of losing the security provided by the traditional systems, the Judaic, Greek, the Protestant, the cultural and/or the tribal systems. Scholastic theology itself obscured the newness of the NT. So too did my own tradition, Lutheran orthodoxy. Likewise, our own religious or cultural contexts can quickly obscure the implications of Paul's gospel of freedom. Our temptation is always to express Christianity within the framework of old systems: we make Christianity a prisoner of an order, a religious system, a cultural practice - old wineskins, in Paul's language, the law. This is natural because we all fear political and social anarchy, ethical relativism and ecclesiastical loss of control. We fear the gospel of freedom because we don't trust it. Where will it lead us? Although these fears can be justified at a certain level, they can also weaken the church's witness to the gospel.

Paul condemns the "slavery of the law." For him the gospel frees from every kind of slavery. The freedom of Jesus Christ is therefore a gift and a calling. It is first God's gift, and the Pauline name for the gift is the reign of God. Like every gift of God, it never reaches completion here on earth. It is furthermore a call, a promise never fulfilled until the return of Christ. Freedom starts out from within a fourfold biological, religious, cultural and political inheritance. This sets up the framework of human order. It is beginning within these "orderly" limits, however, that freedom begins its gracious conquests as gift and call. To accept the gift and the call to freedom is to respond positively to God's love, to make oneself able to be loved and to love in the real world of sin. pain and oppression. Response to God's love, which is the acceptance of the call to freedom, is what Paul calls "faith," John "love," and the synoptic gospels­"conversion. "

Hence, any missiology that is crafted in response to oppression today should return, I suggest, to the biblical gospel of freedom. Ironically, Paul's notion of freedom actually begins with divine order, the law. This is critical to grasp. It is for this reason that the gospel of freedom neither completely disregards the prophetic gospel of liberation nor the evangelistic thrust of church renewal. But any divine order, even a Christian one, is given by God, in the end, to serve the gospel of freedom. It is in regard to this gospel of freedom that the dualities of past missiologies - of social liberation and evangelism, of salvation and humanization - need to be re-framed and re-conceived if they are to have permanence and power in the face of ongoing oppression.

Section IV: A Case Study: Bonhoeffer and the Gospel of Freedom in Nazi Germany

The gospel of freedom, therefore, as preached by Paul in the N.T. provides a deeper basis for the church's response to the poor than either the gospel of liberation or renewal. The gospel of freedom both re-establishes our relationship to God and brings every order, human and divine, under the "lordship" of the crucified and risen one. In other words, the gospel of freedom transforms liberation and renewal by reconciling both upon the foundations of the cross of Christ. But does this gospel of freedom really work? Is it a vapid idealism that might lose its power in the face of worldly realities? Let me share one example from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to make the point.

Bonhoeffer wrote the 1933 essay, "The Church and the Jewish Question" for a discussion group of pastors. The essay was intended to address a major question at that time, namely, the rising demand for an Aryan Clause in the church and its potential effects on baptized non-Aryans, especially those who were pastors in congregations. These Christians were facing not only discrimination in society but also rejection by the German Christians. However, in the meantime, the boycott directed against Jewish merchants and the passage of the discriminatory laws of April 7, 1933 moved Bonhoeffer to write a completely new section. This new section dealt solely with the question of discrimination against the Jews without any reference to differentiating between the baptized and the nonbaptized Jew.

Bonhoeffer advocated, first, that the church admonish the state; second, that it help the victin regardless of their religious affiliation; and third, under the special conditions of a "status confession is," tl church should carefully consider the third "revolutionary option," of jamming the spokes in the wheel of the state. Bonhoeffer writes: "All this means that there are three possible ways in which the church can act toward the state: the first place, as has been said, it can ask the state whether its actions are legitimate and accordance with its character as state; i.e., it can throw the state back on its responsibiliti Second, it can aid the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to . Christian community. "Do good to all people." In both these courses of action, the church ser' the free state in its free way, and at times when laws are changed the church may in no w: withdraw itself from these two tasks. The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel,but tojam a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct political action, and is only possible and desirable when the church sees the state fail in its function of creating law and order, i.e. when it sees the state unrestrainedly bring about too much or too little law and order. In both these cases it must see the existence of the state, and with it its own existence, threatened. There would be too little law if any group of subjects were deprived of their rights, too much where the state intervened in the character of the church and its proclamation, e.g., in the forced exclusion of baptized Jews from our Christian congregations or in the prohibition of our mission to the Jews. Here the Christian church would find itself in status confessionis and here the state would be in the act of negating itself. A state which includes within itself a terrorized church has lost its most faithful servant. But even this third action of the church, which on occasion leads to conflict with the existing state, is only the paradoxical expression of its ultimate recognition of the state; indeed, the church itself knows itself to be called here to protect the state qua state from itself and to preserve it. In the Jewish problem the first two possibilities will be the compelling demands of the hour. The necessity of direct political action by the church is, on the other hand, to be decided at any time by an Evangelical Council and cannot therefore ever be casuistically decided beforehand [po 139; NRS, pp. 224-226]

What Bonhoeffer does here in response to an increasingly Nazified church is critical for grasping how a church armed with the gospel of freedom can function within an oppressive society. He distinguishes first between the church's ministry of order and its ministry of freedom. Bonhoeffer advocated, first, that the Church admonish the state to re-establish order and justice in society. Notice, the church isn't primarily responsible for order and justice in society, the state is. The church calls on the state, and all others to whom God has given the responsibility for societal order, to fulfill their God-given vocations. This is the church's prophetic role. [The church, and in fact, other religions, can also contribute to this orderly role for Bonhoeffer, but only in a secondary "alien" way.] Secondly, the church must help the victims or any social, cultural or religious "order" who suffer under that order. This is done without any questions concerning guilt, fairness or religious affiliation. The church knows that any order creates victims and sufferers. The church assists God's call for order by assisting the victims suffering under that order (e.g. the ministries of charity, Christian presence, and social development). Thirdly, the church's true calling is to preach and live the gospel of freedom. If the state or other authorities impinges on the church's call to proclaim and live out its freedom, the church then has the right to consider a third "revolutionary option," that is, jamming the spokes in the wheel of the state. The call to the revolutionary act of "jamming a spoke in the wheel" can be issued only when, according to Bonhoeffer, the state had failed in its duty either by the excess of law that leads to tyranny or by the neglect of law that leads to anarchy. In a way, Nazism had sinned in both directions in its laws denying basic human rights and in the anarchy of its criminal government. The church, he said, was approaching the point where it would be "be called to protect the state qua state from itself and to preserve it." Bonhoeffer's stunning insight here is that the state's call to maintain ajust order and the church's call to preach freedom are related. The negligence of one restricts the practice of the other.

What lies behind Bonheoffer's pronouncements therefore is an understanding of the gospel of freedom and how the church proclaims and lives out this freedom vis-a-vis a corrupt state. Bonhoeffer's whole life, not to mention his book Ethics, is nothing but a study on how disciples of Christ are to live out their freedom within a world dominated by oppressive political regimes and weak churches.

Section V: The Missiological Call to Freedom in India

So how might a missiology based on the gospel of freedom inform how the church does its ministry in India, especially with Dalit liberation as its focus.[19] The modest proposal of this paper is that the Indian churches should consider grounding their mission efforts not on the shallow waters of liberation and renewal but on the ocean depths of Paul's gospel of freedom. It would be my contention that most liberation movements globally today do not refer to Paul's gospel of freedom as their chief reference point. They choose texts from Exodus, Deuteronomy, the Prophets, the synoptic gospels, Acts and Revelations. But few draw their force from Romans and Galations. In fact, they often have fear "freedom" as a western "liberal" tradition rather than as a biblical concept. Nor, too do renewal movements dare point to this message of freedom for fear of loosing control of their converts. In fact, it is interesting to note how rarely Paul's gospel of freedom has been used throughout mission history as the guiding light for missionary endeavors.[20]

Based on this premise, therefore, let me cautiously venture four questions for further discussion and reflection.

Question I: Can Gutierrez's term "Irruption of the poor" be interpreted within the Indian context as a "double sign" for grasping the church's mission. Is it a sign both of God's special activity on behalf of the poor today (missio Del) and the limited effectiveness of the global church's response to the poor through the dual gospels of liberation and renewal?[21]

Question II: What would change, if anything, if the Church's mission for Dalit liberation were grounded on Paul's gospel of freedom? Does Paul's gospel provide in any way a different foundation for the church's mission than the 'Various other theologies of liberation or renewal presently being employed by the church?

Question III: What would it mean for Indian churches to become missionaries for, and therefore, communities of, freedom? How does a Christian community live out its witness when freedom is its main message, its chief gift, its very gospel call to itself and well as to others?

Question IV: What, if anything, might the Reformation's tradition of status confessionis contribute to the Indian church's conceptualization of its mission vis-a.-vis Dalits?

Conclusion:

The texts and biblical images we use to ground Christian mission are critical. In the past, the church has chosen texts like: the Exodus from Epypt (Exodus), the conquest of the promised land (Deuteronomy.), the Great Commission in Matthew 28, mission as abundance (John 10: 10), mission constrained by Jesus' love (2 Corinthians 5:14), The Macedonian cry for help (Acts 16: 9), Jesus' mission to the poor in Luke 4; mission in the power of the Spirit in Acts 2, and the apocalypic vision of Christ's return from revelation. All of these biblical texts assist us in discovering God's activity in the world. I believe, however, that the Lutheran contribution to mission theology in general, and to mission amidst oppression in particular, is the lifting up of Paul's gospel of freedom (Romans & Galations) as the heart of the gospel and, therefore, the centerpiece of any missional orthopraxis. Fixation on the gospel is the genius of the Lutheran Reformation. It could be, possibly, the one unique contribution by Lutherans to a new missiology for today.

A fixation on the "costly gospel of grace" was certainly Bonhoeffer's contribution to his church at a time when that church suffered bot} 1 from without and within. In the face of great social pressures, and the temptation to settle for "cheap grace," Bonhoeffer turned the church's attention back to costly grace, "the grace th_t is the treasure hidden in the field." It is for the sake of this gospel that a church will gladly go and sell all that it has. It is the pearl of great price for which a church will sell all his goods to buy it. It is the reign of Christ, for whose sake a church will pluck out all eyes that cause it to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ at which a church immediately leaves its nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel that must be sought again and again, the gift that must be asked for, the door at which a church must knock. Thank you for the great honor of being able to address you on this subject at such a critical moment in the life of the church and its mission.


End Notes:

[1] Dr. K. Rajaratnam, A New Agenda for the Church in India: Dalit Liberation (Chennai: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, Center for Research on New International Economic Order) 7.
[2] As opposed to primarily a political, ethical, social/moral or even, in an academic way, a theological problem.
[3] See Frontiers of Dalit Theology, edited by V. Devasahayam (Madras: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College & Research Institute, 1997); Towards of Theology of Human Development, edited by R. Gomez (Madras: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College & Rsearch Inistitute, 1998); Katti Padma Rao, Charvaka Darshan: Ancient Indian Dalit Philosophy (Madras: Gurukul Lutheran Theological College & Research Inistitute, 1997).
[4] George Vicedom, Mission of God (St. Louis: Concordia, 1964).
[5] Tonnod Engelsviken, "Missio Dei" - Understanding of the Theological concept in European Churches and Missiology (A paper given at the Mission Congress at Willingen, Gennany, August 19,2002) 10.
[6] See Michael W. Goheen "As the Father Has Sent Mem 1 am Sending You": JE. Lesslie Newbigin's Missionary Ecclesiology (Holland: Boekenhom) 218 f.
[7] Konrad Raiser, Ecumenism in Transition: A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement? (WCC Publications, 1991)
[8] Ibid., 36-51.
[9] David Bosch, Transforming Mission (New York: Orbis, 1991) 381.
[10] Steven Bevans and James Scherer, The New Evangelization J (Mary knoll: Orbis, 1985)
[11] For an analysis, see Jose Comblin, Called For Freedom: The Changing Context of Liberation Theology (Maryknoll: Orb is, 1998).
[12] Dwight Moody, the prominent 19th century evangelist from Chicago, used another metaphor for salvation. He described the whole world as a sinking ship. God had given him, in response, a life-boat to save as many drowning people as possible. This is, obviously, a more negative picture of God's commitment to the world than previous evangelical pictUres of salvation.
[13] I borrow this argument from Jose Comblin, Called for Freedom: The Changing Context of Liberation Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998).
[14] The oldest formulation of the gospel of freedom is that of St. Paul. The most vigorous expression of the Pauline gospel is found in Galations. In a sense, Galations condenses Paul's gospel in Romans. It does so, however, with greater clarity and with more impact.
[15] P. Arockiadoss, S. 1., The Significance of Dr. Ambedkar for Theologizing in India in Frontiers of Daht Theology (Madras: Gurukul, 1996) 302.
[16] P. Arockiadoss, ibid., 302.
[17] Ibid., 302.
[18] The wonderful formulation comes from Edward Schroeder.
[19]A. The gospel of freedom is, firstly, not who lis tic. The gospel of freedom affirms first the ministries of order in any society [and in the world at large] and that these ministries are not the primary responsibility of the church. The state has been given chief responsibility for this order. The church, and other religious communities do participate in establishing an orderly, just society, but they do so mainly through prophetic acts, helping the victims of the society and by determining ethical norms and values. B. The gospel of freedom is, secondly, very wholistic. What God has done for humanity in Christ Jesus touches every aspect of life because it frees us from slavery to orders, even God's orders. Freedom in Christ cannot be bound. It allows the Christian to live by faith not by the law. Through faith we become free from all, servant to everyone. C. The gospel of freedom does recognize moments of revolution by the church against the forces of order when these same forces prohibit freedom. These moments are rare, but they are crucial for Christian witness. When the gospel of freedom itself in under attack, churches need to learn how to confess their faith in dramatic, directly political ways. Churches need to study the tradition of status confessionis to further clarify this critical dimension of freedom.
[20] Bosch, p. 564.
[21] The term "poor" is not a sociological category for Christians. Poor is a biblical category, a term that represents injustice and demands redress. With the advent of God's reign, Jesus proclaims that our unjust world is being turned upside down. Thus, the "salvation" of the poor is part of the Christian gospel and assists in defining the contours of Christ's mission. No Christian can be against the poor or remain indifferent to the poor. Christians recognize that they, as gospel bearers, are responsible for the poor. The "double brotherhood," as Moltman called it, sees Christ's presence in both word and sacrament, and in the poor (Matt 24).
The term irruption of the poor has been used in Christian theological language to help to clarify a massive global protest about four things: 1. First, because the "poor are irrupting," it is a sign that something is wrong in the way they are being treated; the system, the "order" for dealing with the poor is not working. The tranquility about how society and religion have taken up their responsibilities vis-a-vis the poor must be broken. 2. Secondly, the very nature of the poor is changing. The poor are now being identified with categories previously not associated with them as such. Among the poor are now North American Indians, Latinos, blacks, indigenous peoples', Dalits, the Ming Jung, etc. 3. Unfortunately, the church has divided its message to the poor, thus weakening its impact. To some it has preached liberation. To others renewal. This duality hasn't given the poor the whole good news that God has won for all people in Christ. 4. The eyes of faith see in this "irruption" God's special activity today on behalf of the poor.

By Rev. Dr. Richard H. Bliese,
Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago