Embracing global Christianity: a missiological challenge

Currents in Theology and Mission, April, 2006 by H.S. Wilson

Challenge of the time

What reform is the Christian community mostly in need of today? In this essay I focus on the need for Christians to reclaim and live out their global belonging for the sake of affirming and sharing the richness of God's creative presence among humanity and the whole of creation.

Like everyone else, Christians are not just imitative beings. Our distinct trait as humans is that we are reflective beings. Reflective insight will help the community reexamine the historical determinants of social reality and move beyond routine and habitual acts to conceive a new sense of being global Christians. (1)

The new millennium started with a significant gathering of religious leaders of the world. This event did not get much publicity in Christian circles. For the first time the United Nations summoned a religious and spiritual leaders meeting in New York City just before the millennium Assembly of the heads of states and governments from September 6-8, 2000. The so-called Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders took place August 28-31, 2000. More than 1,000 religious and spiritual leaders from around the globe were present for this gathering. It was a recognition by the world political leadership that people belonging to historic faith traditions have a significant role to play in global peace and justice. Religious bodies are, to use Peter Berger's term, "mediating institutions" between peoples and communities who make a difference in the affairs of the world.

At the end of the Summit the participants unanimously adopted a "Commitment of Global Peace," affirming their role in peace and justice in the world in cooperation with the United Nations stating: "[W]e declare our commitment and determination: To collaborate with the United Nations and all men and women of goodwill locally, regionally, and globally in the pursuit of peace in all its dimensions." (2)

In some sense the outcome of the Summit actualized what United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has envisaged about the religious and spiritual dimension of the work in the United Nations.

The United Nations is a tapestry, not only of suits and saris but of
clerics' collars, nuns' habits and lamas' robes; of miters, skullcaps,
and yarmulkes.... There is a basic affinity between the teachings of
the great religions of the world and the values of the Charter of the
United Nations. (3)

The Summit also was an acknowledgment of the global resurgence of religions in the post-Cold War environment and the role they are playing in shaping the lives of people and communities locally and globally. In Bringing Religion into International Relations, Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler state that the resurgence of religions especially outside the West is compelling scholars to give serious consideration to religions in the international relations theories and recognize their social and political influence:

Religion is rarely included in most major theories of international
relations and when it is addressed, it is usually through viewing it as
a subcategory of some topic that is considered more important such as
institutions, terrorism, society or civilizations. In the few cases
where it is addressed directly, "religion tends to be characterized as
fundamentalist, extreme, radical or militant" rather than as a normal
element of political process. (4)

The changed world situation makes the inclusion of religion as a variable in future research on international politics unavoidable.

The prevalence of globalization calls Christians, especially in countries like the U.S.A., to focus on the world church, engage in Christianity as a global fellowship, and promote it locally. Parochialism is a strong tendency among almost all Protestant denominations and groups. Ethnic, linguistic, and cultural territoriality is a common constraint among historic Christian communities. There is always a great temptation for a Christian community to get too focused on the local and regional affairs and thereby miss its larger belonging and commitment.

A new way of being a global Christian community is possible today through the growing strength of Christianity in the non-Western world, the migration of a section of these Christians to the Western hemisphere, and the easy interconnectedness made possible through the modern phenomenon of globalization.

Emergence of Christian vitality in the south

In 1974 Walbert Buhlmann (for some time a Swiss missionary of the Capuchin Order in then Tanganyika, now Tanzania) published Coming of the Third Church: An Analysis of the Present and Future of the Church. He coined the term "Third Church" on the analogy of Third World to refer to Christian communities in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. In the introduction to the book he noted:

There is far too much talk about crisis in the Church, far too little
about the opportunities we are offered. In the course of history, if it
were not so, the Church would not have survived. The outstanding
opportunity of the present time is the coming of a Church which I would
like to call the "Third Church", that is to say, the Church of the south
as distinct from the Churches of east and west. This coming is an
epoch-making event within the one Church of Christ. (5)