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Dr
Konrad Raiser, WCC I. In 1982, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches adopted a statement Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation. This statement responded to a request of the Fifth Assembly of the WCC in Nairobi (1975) to prepare a policy statement on mission and evangelism for the WCC. A long process of discussion and reflection followed, and the statement finally adopted incorporated the insights gained at the World Mission Conference in Melbourne (1980) under the theme Your Kingdom Come. The statement opens with the call to mission and the call to proclamation and witness as basic dimensions of the ecumenical movement. It then presents seven ecumenical convictions which touch the different fields of ecumenical missionary activity. Ten years later, when preparations began for the most recent Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Salvador de Bahia (1996), attempts were made to update this statement with the expectation that a fresh affirmation should be endorsed by the mission conference. In the course of the ensuing discussion, it became more and more clear that the basic affirmations made in 1982 were still valid, even without an explicit effort at updating. At the same time, however, there was a growing awareness that the context in which the churches were trying to respond to their missionary vocation had changed and that this continuing process of change was creating new uncertainties and conflicts. It was therefore felt that any new statement or affirmation should be preceded by an effort to analyse the context of mission today and to identify the contemporary trends. The draft outline for a new statement, which is at present being revised in the light of comments and reactions received at the Eighth Assembly of the WCC in Harare (1998), identifies four contemporary trends, i.e. the process of globalization, the spread of the values of post-modernity, the signs of growing fragmentation and fundamental changes in the religious field, including the Christian churches. Most of these changes have been in the making for some time, but it would seem that the historical turning point of the year 1989/90, which led to the collapse of the communist system and the disappearance of the bipolar system of the Cold War, has unleashed a dynamic, the consequences of which we are only beginning to discover. For the purposes of this lecture, I will concentrate on two interrelated trends, i.e. the process of globalization and the manifestation of religious plurality. I shall begin by looking more closely at the process of globalization. There is no accepted definition of globalization, and even the question since when globalization has begun to manifest itself elicits different responses. In a very general way, globalization refers to the process of increasingly closer integration of societies, economies, political systems, cultures and media of communication into one worldwide framework. The immediate precursors of the present manifestations of globalization have been the formation of multinational business corporations and the transnationalization of economic and financial activity. In that sense, globalization as it has begun to develop after the collapse of the communist bloc and the dismantling of the systems of state socialism, can be interpreted as the extension of the previous systems of transnational business and finance to all parts of the world. Globalization, therefore, is being interpreted as the result of the final victory of global capitalism. However, this interpretation already reflects to some extent a polemic perspective and does not penetrate far enough into a true understanding of the nature of the historic process which we are witnessing today. At least three specific features should be mentioned which justify the use of the new term globalization to characterize the present process as a distinct historical moment. These factors are the growing consciousness of the ecological threats in the sense of human responsibility for preserving the earth and all forms of life; the electronic revolution which has radically transformed the ways of production, the means of communication and the linkage between financial markets; and finally the end of the Cold War with its political, economic, social, ideological and military bipolarity which has been replaced by a confusing manifestation of plurality. It is true that the most dynamic and aggressive forms of globalization are represented by the neoliberal strategies of extending the global markets and trying to abolish any regulations on the national or international levels, which interfere with the free play of market forces. The global system of production, trade and finance has become a powerful unifying force which has weakened the sovereignty of nation states as well as the structures of international order which are based on the principle of national sovereignty. By its advocates, this form of globalization is being promoted as the fulfilment of the modern dream of unlimited progress. However, in reality globalization has led to "a growing dichotomy between rich and poor, between global uniformity and local pluriformity — and a merciless attack on the ‘integrity of creation’" (Hoedemaker). However, globalization is not only an economic, but also a cultural, political, ethical and ecological problem. In particular the electronic revolution, which is a decisive factor for the accelerated process of globalization, has deeply affected the human condition far beyond its economic and financial applications. As Robert Schreiter has pointed out, "globalization radically compresses the experience of space and time and thus changes the attachment of people to a particular territory and creates a sense of immediate neighbourhood irrespective of distances. The world is being experienced as a field of forces in constant movement without direction or a firm point of reference. Not only do national and territorial boundaries lose their significance, but the understanding of history based on the linear conception of time is being shattered". What this brief analysis has stated in theoretical terms is an increasingly dramatic reality in the form of the constant movement of people as refugees, migrants or displaced persons. Hitherto homogeneous cultural spaces are being opened up and drawn into a seemingly inescapable experience of plurality in all parts of the world. While there is the fear that globalization will lead to the imposition of a unified culture based on the western values of consumerism, there is also growing evidence of the resistance of local communities defending their own culture or of migrants and indigenous communities trying to recover their cultural values and to mark their distinctive difference from the dominant environment. In many instances, this reaffirmation of cultural identities over against the forces of globalization is accompanied by a resurgence of religion as manifested in particular by the growth of Muslim fundamentalism. Similar phenomena can be observed in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and not least in Christianity itself. It would therefore seem that the accelerated process of globalization and the manifestation of religious plurality or the reaffirmation of religious and cultural identities are intimately related. What is being described as a situation of plurality, is in fact the source of increasingly competitive struggles and even violent conflicts. Religion, contrary to the expectations of the theory of secularization, is returning to the public space. We begin to realize that there is no culture without a religious dimension. The reaffirmation of a particular culture and collective identity of a people very often draws on religious legitimation. Religious loyalties are being mobilized for defending communal interests and thus contribute to the further fragmentation of societies and larger communities. Under the conditions of the global market, religions are also being exposed to the dynamics of competition which leads to a further increase of religious plurality with a great diversity of new religious movements challenging the dominance of traditional religions and their influence on the culture of a given people. The process of globalization has stimulated a wide-ranging discussion about the foundations and the shape of a new world order which would be able to provide peace and security and promote sustainable development. In particular the United Nations have sponsored a whole series of summit conferences exploring the contours of a new world order. These discussions have shown that controlling the destabilizing and potentially destructive consequences of both globalization and religious plurality is more than a quest for an appropriate political strategy. It raises questions regarding the fundamental moral and ethical norms and values which could hold together an increasingly interdependent world community. The Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng has responded to this need with his project of a global ethic which draws on a core of ethical affirmations to be found in all the main religious traditions. The 1993 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago has supported this proposal with its Declaration Toward a Global Ethic. On the other hand, there are those who are convinced that there is no way to escape from or to transcend the instabilities of this age of globalization and religious plurality. In particular the American political scientist Samuel Huntington has developed the thesis that the former ideological and political confrontation of the period of the Cold War will now be replaced by a "clash of civilizations", i.e. of large cultural groupings which usually have a religious tradition as their integrating centre. While Huntington’s analysis has been challenged both on empirical and theoretical grounds, it serves to underline the fact that in a globalizing world the plurality of religions and cultures is not without conflict and therefore needs conscious attention in the effort to shape a new world order. It is clear that such trends do affect the ecumenical understanding of mission and evangelism. The Harare Assembly of the WCC has invited the churches to respond to the challenge of globalization. In its analysis, it sees a basic conflict between the vision of globalization, which aims at an oikoumene of domination, and the Christian vision of the oikoumene, which aims at a sustainable community of life for all. Dialogue and solidarity are the central marks of an alternative culture of life. This vision marks the parameters for the missionary objectives of the WCC at the present time. II. How can mission and evangelism contribute to the building of an alternative culture of dialogue and solidarity which can respond to the culture of competition and domination? The call for a new culture of peace and non-violence, of sharing and solidarity, of dialogue and compassion has been pronounced frequently in recent times. The United Nations has even declared the decade from 2001-2010 as an international decade for a Culture of Peace. Cultures are the ensembles of norms and values, rituals and symbolic representations, rule and habits, by which peoples and communities orient themselves in their world and can make sense of their existence. Cultures are dynamic realities which are being transmitted, maintained and changed in the processes of learning in community from generation to generation. At the same time, cultures interpenetrate one another, creating new cultural forms and changing or reorienting cultural identities. The term culture here refers to the need for changing mentalities and habits and for establishing a new system of values and norms which could undergird a more sustainable order of world community. Ecumenical discussion on mission and evangelism over the last decade has given particular attention to the interaction of gospel and culture, and especially to the processes of inculturation of the gospel in the diversity of human cultures. In the course of this discussion, much emphasis has been placed on the need for missionary proclamation to recognize and respect the cultural identity of a given community, affirming that culture is the human voice which responds to the voice of Christ through the gospel. In the encounter, the gospel affirms whatever is life-sustaining and enhancing in each given culture, but also challenges cultures where they become oppressive and deny the fullness of life for all. In this encounter, again and again, the gospel has become a dynamic force transforming a culture in order to open the space for the fullness of life. At the same time, the discussion has focused on the question how the oneness of the church can be maintained as it responds in its missionary activity to the diversity of human cultures. The previous analysis of the dynamics of globalization and religious plurality places this discussion in a new context. It challenges ecumenical reflection about mission and evangelism to consider the manifestations of globalization and religious plurality, not only as a threat to particular cultural and religious identities, which must be resisted, but as a new global cultural context which, in the light of the gospel, should be analysed, challenged and transformed. It is this critical and transforming dynamic of the gospel which can become an energizing source of the search for a new culture of dialogue and solidarity. In formulating the topic for this lecture, I have tried to capture this dynamic of Christian mission in an age of globalization and religious plurality with the phrase "opening space...". This metaphor responds to one of the essential features of a globalized world, i.e. its closed character. For the first time in human history, the world is being experienced as a closed and inescapably interdependent system. There are no frontiers any more and no empty spaces into which people can move to find safety and a basis for their existence. At the same time, existing boundaries of nation states lose their significance and the forces of globalization open up hitherto protected and relatively homogeneous cultures. All societies are being drawn into the dynamics of the global market with the consequence of increasing fragmentation and marginalization. Those who cannot compete and participate in this closed system are being excluded as expendable. The powerful advocates of globalization affirm that there is no alternative to this dominant system and some have even gone as far as proclaiming the "end of history" (F. Fukuyama). In fact, the understanding of history is based on the contingent, open-ended character of the future, on the possibility of radical change and the emergence of a new reality. Globalization therefore not only affects the experience of space, but also of time. The globalized system suggests a virtual simultaneity of all contexts, thus denying the value of particular histories and of memory. It is against this background that the metaphor of "opening space..." takes on its particular meaning. The closed space and the disappearance of history as the sense of both past and future become symbols of death. All life unfolds in a particular space and time. All life needs growth and an ecological space within which it is being sustained. Culture marks the context of space and time within which a living community can maintain itself. The globalized culture weakens and potentially destroys those living spaces and the horizons of time and history within which distinct cultures have existed. There is no way back into the previous existence of secluded cultural communities. The interaction and interpenetration of cultures has become an inescapable feature of the process of globalization. The central question therefore is how, within this global "field of forces in constant movement without direction or a firm point of reference" (R. Schreiter), spaces for a culture of life for all can be opened up. I believe that an essential clue can be gained from the meaning of oikoumene in the sense of the whole inhabited earth or rather the earth as the inhabitable space created by God for all life to unfold. The term oikoumene is derived from the root oikos, meaning house or household. Our term ecology which is derived from the same root, still points to the fact that all life needs a distinct space in order to sustain itself. This space must be protected and yet open at the same time for those vital interactions with neighbouring life processes to take place. To regard the earth as an inhabitable space expands our understanding of oikoumene beyond the concern only for the life of the human community to the vision of an earth community, i.e. the sustainable interaction of all life processes. God has created the earth as "good", as inhabitable and has entrusted the human community with the mandate to care for this delicate web of life. The biblical vision has its own perspective of global reality, not as a closed system under the domination of the anonymous laws of the market, but as an open space of vulnerable freedom under the promise to be gathered up into communion with God. This final alternative which is being envisaged as the reign of God or as the new creation is the source and reference point for all alternative projects of culture and community. To speak of the project of "opening space for a culture of dialogue and solidarity" points to an alternative to the present trends of globalization and competitive religious plurality. Over against the culture of domination, solidarity emphasizes the mutual dependency which characterizes the intricate web of life. What is true for life processes among animals, plants and other living organisms is even more true for the sustainability of human community. Solidarity therefore is more than a moral imperative: it points to that basic feature of mutuality in all human cultures which the project for a global ethic has identified in the golden rule. In the situation of competitive and conflictual religious plurality, the emphasis on building a culture of dialogue points to the need to transform plurality into the relationship of neighbours who have to work out ways of living together. Both dialogue and solidarity are cultural achievements, i.e. manifestations of the human effort to keep the earth inhabitable, to create spaces for sustainable community. A culture of dialogue and solidarity builds on the fact of growing interdependence and thus is not simply an expression of resistance against the process of globalization or a retreat into preserving inherited cultural identities. Rather, it accepts the contemporary reality of intercultural and interreligious encounter and seeks to transform the threatening experience of globalization into the creative challenge to build an earth community where life can grow. III. The sub-title of this lecture promises an exposition of "the missionary objectives of the WCC...". This sub-title was formulated prior to the Eighth Assembly of the WCC at Harare on the assumption that the assembly would help to clarify the missionary objectives. While important discussions have indeed taken place on the challenges facing the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement in terms of mission and evangelism, they have not yet crystallized in a clear and fresh mandate for the period ahead. The report of the Programme Guidelines Committee identifies a number of important areas, like gospel and cultures, mission and evangelism in secularized contemporary societies, and health and healing as well as the need to follow up and implement many of the suggestions which emerged from the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Salvador de Bahia (1996). A number of areas for mission study and programmatic activity are mentioned, and at the end the report urges that the WCC must directly engage each member church around questions like: "How do we as churches engage together in mission and evangelism in the midst of a highly pluralistic world? ... How do we offer together our resources, witness and action for the sake of the world’s very future? ...". And the Message of the assembly adds the affirmation: "The mission to which God calls the church in the service of God’s reign, cannot be separated from the call to be one. In Harare we saw once again the immensity of the mission in which God invites us to share. In this mission we who are reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross are challenged to work for reconciliation and peace with justice among those torn apart by violence and war". While the assembly documents themselves do not provide a conclusive answer to the question about the missionary objectives of the WCC, the draft outline for a new statement on mission and evangelism ends with a section on "mission paradigms for our times". This section is structured around six imperatives for mission and evangelism. It calls the churches: — to participate in God’s mission for fullness of life; — to life in community; — to incarnate the gospel within each culture; — to witness and dialogue; — to proclaim the truth of the gospel; — to witness in unity. These six imperatives respond to the trends which have been in the centre of our previous reflection, in particular the dynamic of globalization and religious plurality. The church is indeed called to participate in God’s mission for fullness of life which means to offer "concrete and alternative paradigms to the consumerist ideology of globalization. To the temptation of domination, it must set limits and use its power to say ‘no more’; to the temptation of possession and ownership, the ascesis of the early Christians who refrained from eating and shared their food and belongings with the needy and dispossessed; to the temptation of power, the prophetic voice; to the temptation of proclaiming a truncated and partial message tailored to the preferences and expectations of people of our time, the accurate and whole message of the gospel — ‘the whole church (challenged) to take the whole gospel to the whole world’". This alternative can only be offered and sustained through life in community. "In a situation of pervasive individualism which is affecting the very fabric of human society in general and of Christian community in particular, the church is called to proclaim God’s will and intention for the world. Created in the image of the triune God... human beings are by nature relational. The relational dimension of human life is a given, ontological reality. Any authentic anthropology, therefore, must be relational and communitarian.... The members of a community are different, have different gifts, functions, strengths and weaknesses.... The community therefore requires diversity and otherness.... The Salvador Conference highlighted the importance that the gospel places on the different identities that constitute community. Such identities, be they national, cultural, historical or religious, are affirmed by the gospel so long as they lead in the direction of relationship and communion. Identities which attempt to further their own interests at the expense of others — demonstrated, for example, in xenophobia, ‘ethnic cleansing’, racism, religious intolerance and fanaticism — thus disrupting and destroying the koinonia, are denied and refuted by the same gospel". These affirmations about the fullness of life in community naturally lead to reflections about culture and identity. The outline refers to the discussion at Salvador about gospel and culture when it says: "The gospel will affirm some aspects of a culture while challenging, critiquing and transforming others. Through such processes, cultures may be transfigured and become bearers of the gospel. At the same time, cultures nourish, eliminate, enrich and challenge the understanding and articulation of the gospel. The gospel challenges aspects of cultures which produce or perpetuate injustice, suppress human rights or hinder a sustainable relationship towards creation. There is now need to go beyond certain inculturation theologies. Cultural and ethnic identity is a gift of God, but it must not be used to reject and oppress other identities. Identity should be defined not in opposition to, in competition with, or in fear of others, but rather as complementary". These references to passages from the outline of a new statement on mission and evangelism move in the same direction which has been suggested in this lecture with the formulation "opening space for a culture of dialogue and solidarity". They use a different language, but they confirm the basic missionary thrust towards building a new culture which can nourish and sustain life in community. The biblical tradition is full of eschatological images which can inspire the missionary witness and praxis of the churches. Related to our concern about opening spaces for an alternative culture, I am thinking in particular of the image of the heavenly Jerusalem, a city with open walls and without a temple, for it will be the "home of God among mortals" (Rv 21:3). I think also of the vision of a new heaven and a new earth which concludes the book of Isaiah. This is the vision of a community that offers space, for "they shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat, for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands" (Is 65:21-22). These visions indeed open space and time for the fullness of life. They suggest that such space must be safe and protected, a symbol of reconciliation and violence overcome. They point to a space that is sacred and can offer sanctuary for those who are lost or excluded, who are without a home or without hope in the future. It must finally be a space which is sustainable in its relationship with the created world, caring for the regeneration of all life. In such a space, a culture of dialogue and solidarity can grow and become the source of energy transforming the dominant culture of globalization and competitive plurality. This vision of an alternative culture of human community in church and society may appear utopian, since it stands against the imposition of the values and norms of a globalizing world. It is rooted in the confidence that there is an alternative to the unlimited competition, to growth at any cost instead of sufficiency, to use instead of regeneration, to individualism instead of community. The strength and integrity of the ecumenical movement lie in the worldwide network of relationships which can sustain the intention of the churches in each place to be truly the church, to form lively and sustainable communities, to build supportive neighbourhoods, to provide sanctuary and space to those who are lost or excluded. By giving expression to such a vision through their worship and life, their mission and evangelism, the churches can offer new meaning to those who feel lost or abandoned and anticipate that wholeness which is God’s eschatological promise. With such a vision, the churches can, by God’s grace, truly become communities of hope in a world in need of firm foundations. The Message of the Harare Assembly at the end quotes from a statement of this ecumenical vision which had been prepared before the assembly to inspire its reflections. I want to conclude this lecture by repeating a few passages from this Vision Statement: "We
long for the visible oneness of the body of Christ, affirming the
gifts of all young and old, |