From Busan to Arusha,and beyond

A new World Council of Churches (WCC) mission statement was presented to the member churches of the WCC at the assembly in 2013 in Busan, South Korea. The document, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL), was said to be pneumatological. From God’s mission, missio Dei, there was a shift toward the mission of the Spirit, missio Spiritus. The ecumenical world was introduced to a new mission concept: “mission from the margins,” according to which the Holy Spirit was empowering those in the margins. Five years later, in 2018, in Arusha, Tanzania, the WCC Conference on World Mission and Evangelism officially adopted a short mission document entitled “The Arusha Call to Discipleship” and another document, “The Arusha Conference Report.” The conference was said to have been influenced and inspired by TTL. However, in the conference documentation, the missio Spiritus seems to have been left aside. Thus, it would seem that in recent ecumenical missiology, there has been a shift from pneumatology toward Christology as the basis of individual and communal Christian life. In light of this, this article intends to compare the WCC mission documents of 2013 and 2018 and to show that there has been a shift toward the “Christ-connected way of life” of the disciple and how this Christ-connected discipleship is vulnerable and wounded, as it connects with the concept of kenosis.     

Human Agency in the Missio Dei and the Problem of Discipleship

At the heart of this article is an inquiry into the relationship between human and divine agency in the doctrine of the missio Dei and a critique of the turn to the language of discipleship in looking to articulate this agency. Taking the World Council of Churches’ Commission of World Mission and Evangelism's two recent documents, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL) and the “Arusha Call to Discipleship,” as a case study, this article will seek to articulate an account of human participation in the missio Dei which maintains the emphasis on spirituality in TTL. Through a close reading of TTL and the Arusha Call, the article will demonstrate that the introduction of discipleship language has not solved the issue of agency but rather has changed the account of agency and, as a result, the missiology. By turning to accounts of faithful participation from qualitative research into British Methodism, to John V. Taylor's Go-between God, and to Pope Francis’ Evangelii gaudium, I will suggest that a better account of human agency in the missio Dei can be developed by emphasizing the pneumatology of TTL and by turning to language of attentiveness, accompaniment, and discernment.     

Transforming Discipleship

The nature of oikoumene has constantly challenged a Christendom‐oriented lineal understanding of mission. The environment of doing theology of mission has changed from the denominational to the ecumenical era, from the Eurocentric to the global context, and from the mechanistic domination of the world to the age of ecological worldwide community; and the paradigm of mission has changed from evangelization to shalom, from missio ecclesiae to missio Dei, and from monologue to dialogue. Critically thinking of the dominant milieu of the people which challenges the church to transform her way of participation in the world, the church must discern the socio‐political and religio‐cultural biographies of the people as the most important language of people‐ and life‐centric missio Dei. The primary missiological question should be, then, not what God is doing with the church, but rather what God is doing with the people and creation. In the course of answering this question, the church may discern where the Spirit is at work and how to respond to it. The following article is an attempt to seek a Korean way of imitatio missionis Christi in terms of finding a contextualized spirituality and a strategy of a transforming discipleship.     

Missio Dei Trinitatis and Missio Ecclesiae: A Public Theological Perspective

In this article I address the mission of the triune God (missio Dei trinitatis) and the mission of the church (missio ecclesiae) that participates in the mission of God the Trinity, particularly from the perspective of public theology. First, I investigate that the concept of the missio Dei trinitatis so expanded our understanding of mission that the church‐centred view of mission was replaced by the public mission taking place in the midst of the world. Second, from the public theological perspective I argue for the need of the diakonia mission in order to realize the reign of God in the world. Third, I insist that the mission of the church participating in the mission of the triune God ought to appropriate the post‐colonial hermeneutics of suspicion and develop a post‐post‐colonial public mission theology for the sake of a mature democratic civil society. Fourth, I suggest that the mission of the church participating in God's mission should develop a transcultural‐indigenous public hermeneutics of mission in such a way as to encourage different stories through transcultural‐indigenous interpretations of the biblical narrative.     

Chapter Five of Evangelii Gaudium: Spirit‐Filled Evangelizers

This contribution examines the opening section of Chapter Five of Evangelii Gaudium, arguing that in it Francis sheds light on the mystagogy of discipleship in contemporary times. After providing a brief synopsis of these reasons for a renewed missionary impulse using the idea of the “why, who, and how” of mission as a framework, the author argues that the contribution of the section to the church's mission is its eloquent articulation of a deep spirituality of mission arising from the human condition, both at the personal and communal level. Positing that three features of this spirituality of mission – holistic, anthropological, and Christological – constitute some of the most important points of this section, the article concludes that Evangelii Gaudium is a passionate exhortation toward imbibing a keen sensibility of the humanum to deepen and open Christian faith in proclaiming a gospel of joy and hope and, in the process, bring wholeness to people and the world. It is about missio homini that is rooted in missio Christi and, therefore, leads to missio Dei.     

Evangelism as Discipleship

This article gives attention to the challenges that the missional and conversational relationship of the church poses in the intercourse between evangelism, discipleship, theological education and leadership formation in its ministry and mission. This multi‐faceted and complex process brings together competing interests with different agendas that, in a number of contexts, have resulted in mis‐evangelization. This has called into question issues about human dignity and respect and the need for reciprocity to inform all missional response of the churches. The article argues that an appropriate model of theological education is needed to equip leaders for effective witness to the gospel. This necessitates the recruitment and mentoring of emerging leaders who have had a life‐changing encounter with the life‐giving Spirit of Jesus that controls their identity, vocation and witness. Some experiences of formal and informal theological education and formation within the Anglo‐Caribbean context were identified that disconnected and disorientated leaders from the Church's missional task of bearing effective witness to the gospel. This article calls for an overhaul of seminary‐ and university‐based theological education careerism, because they serve as an encumbrance to nurturing effective contextual witness of churches. The article argues that if Jesus calls and makes us into his disciples, then faithfulness in discipleship necessitates that (1) authentic evangelism must be grounded in humility and respect for all, (2) leadership formation must be infectiously relational, and (3) the gospel must be communicated through genuine interpersonal and community‐affirming relationships. The article ends with an invitation to all churches to embrace a missional model of witnessing that invests in living with, learning from and sharing with people in communities depending on the Spirit of God in Christ to lead and bear fruit in God's time.     

Rewriting the flesh of the world for the new human: Merleau-Ponty,Fanon, and Wynter on the ethics of futurity

This article reads Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the “flesh of the world” alongside the ontology that seems to undergird Frantz Fanon's sociodiagnostics as well as his theory of sociogeny. It argues that reading Fanonian sociogeny in terms of the ambiguity and intercorporeality of the flesh of the world renders the ethical and political imperatives of Fanon's decolonial project all the more pressing, since the “new human” is prefigured—if not totally determined—in the national consciousness obtained by “les damnés” through the decolonization process. It then examines how Sylvia Wynter's Fanonian call to (re)fashion the future of humanness through (re)conceptualizing “being human as praxis,” also seems to rely on this ontology of the flesh of the world. Bringing these arguments together, the article suggests that the conceptual content of the new human can be found in the liberation struggles of les damnés across what Wynter calls the “poverty archipelagos” wrought by colonial humanism. Hence, the “new skin” for which Fanon calls is fashioned through forming international solidarity with les damnés, with the conceptual content of the new humanism emerging sociogenically—and autopoetically—from those struggles themselves.     

Toward Epistemic Decolonial Turn in Missio‐Formation in African Christianity

This article is framed with the World Council of Churches' (WCC) mission statement Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, which seems to be reviving academic interests in missio‐formation as an interdisciplinary field study. The mission statement, which is framed in a postcolonial missional discourse, seems to show interest in how missio‐formation as academic discipline can expose the intersectionality of questions of power, politics, and culture in Africa. The matters of agency, subjectivity, pedagogy, and rhetoric are perceived as central to the envisaged public missio‐formation discourse. Hence, this article argues that the nature of the mission statement must also be comprehended as means for decolonizing missio‐formation paradigm in Africa within a decolonial framework which gives critical attention to how missions have functioned as a colonialist mechanism for colonializing African Christian minds and subjectivity.     

Missionary Discipleship as the Innovation of the Church in Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium

Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium talks about discipleship in a framework of mission and evangelization. Rather than concentrating on the discipleship as such, it uses as a lens the spiritual commitment of conversion to missionary discipleship, challenging all Christians and the whole Church, including institutional structures, to this conversion. In common with the World Council of Churches’ document Together towards Life, Evangelii Gaudium emphasizes a need for Christians to focus on the heart of the Gospel, the love of the trinitarian God, in order to find trustful, dynamic, and transformative mission for the “changing landscapes” of today's global and local phenomena. This article deals with the concept of missionary discipleship in Evangelii Gaudium. To this end it discusses discipleship and its underlying structure of continual conversion as it is represented in both Evangelii Gaudium and the WCC's mission document Together towards Life.     

Self and society in the claims of individualism

The paper argues that an assessment of individualism requires distinguishing five individualistic claims about the self and society: 1) Philosophical Individualism holds that individuals are distinct from society in their reality and capacity for knowledge; 2) The dignity of the individual is a moral belief about the status of human beings; 3) The ideal of individuality is a value belief about the value of diversity; 4) Moral individualism is a comprehensive moral theory based upon philosophical individualism; 5) Political liberalism is a theory of social justice based on construing human dignity in terms of equal liberty. It is argued that philosophical individualism should be rejected and, hence, moral individualism, that individuality is desirable but not obligatory, and that political liberalism, if it can avoid a tendency toward favoring individualistic conceptions of the good, is necessary for dignity in a modern society.     

Is Neo‐Republicanism Bad for Women?

The republican revival in political philosophy, political theory, and legal theory has produced an impressive range of novel interpretations of the historical figures of the republican tradition. It has also given rise to a variety of contemporary neo‐republican theories that build on its historical themes. Although there have been some feminist discussions of its historical representatives, neo‐republicanism has not generated a great deal of enthusiasm among feminists. The present paper examines Phillip Pettit's theory of freedom as nondomination in order to assess its potential usefulness for those with feminist goals. It defends Pettit's account of interpersonal domination from certain feminist objections, but argues that his account of state domination needs to be amended if it is fully to protect the interests of women and other groups.     

Two Second‐Personal Conceptions of the Dignity of Persons

In spite of the burgeoning philosophical literature on human dignity, Stephen Darwall's second‐personal account of the dignity of persons has not received the attention it deserves. This article investigates Darwall's account and argues that it faces a dilemma, for it succumbs either to a problem of antecedence or to the wrong kind of reasons problem. But this need not mean one should reject a second‐personal account. Instead, I argue that an alternative second‐personal conception, one I will call relational, promises to solve the dilemma by avoiding both the problem of antecedence and the wrong kind of reasons problem. More generally, distinguishing these two second‐personal conceptions of the dignity of persons is important to enrich the available philosophical accounts of human dignity.     

Together towards Life

Which are the convincing ways of evangelism in the secular, multicultural countries of western Europe? Does the new mission affirmation Together towards Life offer relevant contributions to this debate? This article explores recent developments in western Europe. It starts by reviewing the secular nature of these countries and then explains how migration has tested the secularization thesis. The transformation of western European cultures from secular toward secular/multi‐religious reopens the debate on secularism and religion. The article also reflects on the question of what the central ideas in the new mission affirmation – the affirmation of life, the power of the Holy Spirit, mission from the margins, and authentic evangelism as discipleship – may mean in these changing secular cultures. The author concludes that discipleship, provided it is authentic, may help to move beyond the apparent contradictions between secularism and religion and may help to find new ways of bringing forth the good news.     

A Catholic Missiological and Ecumenical Appreciation of Together towards Life

The new mission statement Together towards Life does not so much propose new teachings about mission as point out pertinent reminders and reconfirmations of some of our beliefs and convictions about God's mission (missio Dei) in and for the world. The author suggests that among the many challenges expressed in the statement, three merit special attention: (1) the proposal to shift the mission concept from “mission to the margins” to “mission from the margins”; (2) the necessity to underline the intrinsic link between humanity and creation; and (3) the temptation to consider “mission” as at the service of the interests and aggrandizement of individual churches instead of the contrary. He concludes that this statement is an invitation to walk “together towards life” for the benefit of both humanity and the whole of God's creation, and that the urgent challenge is to forge concrete means to make this dream a reality, even in the face of paying the “cost of discipleship.”     

Ijtihad and innovation in neo‐modernist Islamic thought in Indonesia

This article briefly explores three models of ijtihad followed in contemporary Islam: text‐based, eclectic and context‐based ijtihad, and attempts to sketch the features of the environment within which each model functions. The key aim of the article, however, is to examine the context‐based model of ijtihad which is utilized by the neo‐Modernist Muslims in Indonesia, to identify a number of their major concerns and to highlight the nature of the reform agenda the neo‐Modernists are pursuing. Though this agenda may be seen by many Muslims to be problematic and even dangerous, it is gaining ground in Indonesia, particularly within the younger generation who have had the opportunity of combining traditional Islamic scholarship with modern Western education. The article examines these issues of interest on the basis of interviews conducted during 1995 in Jakarta with two leading Muslim intellectuals: Nurcholish Majid, the leading neo‐Modernist thinker, and Abdurrahman Wahid, the leader of the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama.     

Post‐Secularism,Secular Theology,and the Names of the Real

This article disputes the common view of religious and secular as oppositional terms. Our contemporary world is post‐secularist, because secularism is a modern ideology that imagines a strict separation of the religious and the political, where religion becomes a purely private affair. This situation is compromised by the “return” of religion in political terms. Constructively, following Jacques Lacan, we can say that secular theology concerns the Real; and with François Laruelle, we can think about a non‐theology that complements what he calls non‐philosophy. Finally, I speculate on three names of the Real: energy, capital, and nomos.     

Redeeming the penultimate: discipleship and Church in the thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are striking parallels between the theologies of discipleship advanced by the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard and the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's notion of ‘costly grace’ closely resembles Kierkegaard's critique of the misuse of the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. After the publication of Cost of Discipleship, however, Bonhoeffer's view of discipleship moves in a different direction from that of Kierkegaard. Whereas Kierkegaard takes discipleship to mean that the Christian must be in irrevocable conflict with the world, Bonhoeffer sees discipleship as living in the world and cultivating a ‘worldly holiness’. This article tracks the reasons why their initially similar theologies of discipleship result in Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer developing different understandings of Christian discipleship and church. The discussion is organised around the distinction Bonhoeffer makes in his Ethics between the ‘ultimate’ and the ‘penultimate’. Kierkegaard emphasises the ultimate to such an extent that the penultimate is virtually eliminated and the Christian disciple is called upon to live in a state of constant eschatological opposition to the world. For Bonhoeffer on the other hand the penultimate is not to be condemned but to be transformed in the light of the ultimate. The article argues that the differing notions of discipleship advanced by Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer arise from the different political contexts in which they were living and writing. Whereas Kierkegaard's historical situation prompted him to affirm the ultimate by confronting his contemporaries with New Testament Christianity's radical opposition to the world, Bonhoeffer's resistance to the Nazi régime prompted him to reflect on how the ultimate can be integrated into the penultimate and how the Christian disciple can engage with the world without being of the world.     

The Church in the Contemporary Ecumenical‐Missional Moment: Together towards Life in Dialogue with The Cape Town Commitment and Evangelii Gaudium

The doctrine of the church has always been important to developments in mission and ecumenism – a fact that has been true since the birth of the modern ecumenical movement and is no less so today. This article compares three recent documents – the WCC's Together towards Life (2013), the Lausanne Movement's Cape Town Commitment (2011), and Pope Francis' exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2014) – in light of the rise of a prominent new way of expressing the role of the church in the mission of Christ (missio Dei). This theological development has significantly impacted mission and ecumenical thinking and practice in recent decades, requiring us to consider the church's relationship to mission in a new and important way. The article reveals various aspects of missio Dei theology at work in all three of these documents, and finally looks at the visionary leadership of Pope Francis in calling the Catholic Church to a joyful expression of the gospel of Christ through both words and deeds. EG does not so much address the doctrine of the church as it assumes it. Its concern is far more pastoral: “How do we more effectively and powerfully communicate the gospel in our time?”     

The contemporary development of a Neo‐Confucian epistemology

Until recently epistemology in the Western sense was never a central issue in Chinese philosophy. Contemporary Chinese neo‐Confucian philosophers, however, realize that in order to reconstruct some of the important traditional philosophical insights and make them meaningful in the present time, certain methodological and epistemological considerations are indispensable. The present paper undertakes to examine some of these efforts. Since most neo‐Confucian philosophers today have been influenced by Hsiung Shih‐li, in one way or another, his epistemological theory is presented first. Then the further development of a neo‐Confucian epistemological system in Mou Tsung‐san's thought is discussed. Hsiung Shih‐li has made an important distinction between what he calls the hsing‐ehih and the liang‐chih. The former may be translated as the original wisdom and is what we rely upon to grasp ontological reality; the latter may be translated as the measuring wisdom and includes both our commonsensical and scientific ways of understanding which postulate a real, external world. A dialectical relation holds between the two. Mou Tsung‐san further develops a comprehensive epistemological system which confirms the basic insights of Hsiung Shih‐li. He has attempted a synthesis of the philosophical insights which he learns from Kant in the West and the Confucian tradition in China.     

Self‐Creation? On the Dignity of Human Beings

It was not through biotechnological possibilities that human beings first discovered “self‐creation” as a question. Rather, the question fits into the horizon of the primordial human desire to be like God. Against this hamartiological insight, a soteriological expectation related to technology has arisen. The latter expectation must be rejected, but not in all respects. Rather, one has to stress the inventive and constructive aspect of the dignity to rule, which is implied in human linguistic reason (λογοσ). There are, however, boundaries to be perceived and to be set. This becomes evident when embryo‐consuming research is at stake. In this context, the main question is: Wherein lies human “dignity”? This is the same question as: wherein lies the “being‐as‐person”? The author sees the fewest difficulties in attributing personhood to the beginning of life, which occurs with the fusion of ovum and sperm. This attribution is not justified by the material substrate as such. Rather, it is the result of intertwining the element, namely the lump of cells, and the word of institution, which “speaks together” the lump of cells and the person: This lump of cells is a person. Human beings are honored and enabled to use this instituting word, a φυσ?ι, because according to Gen 2:7 and 19f, God granted unto human beings linguistic reason (λογοσ), and thus the power to define. In this intertwining of element and instituting word lies the human dignity, which is undeservedly conferred on humans as a categorical gift. This absolute gratuity implies the unconditional acknowledgment of the dignity and the personhood of human beings—before one can speak of any characteristics or abilities. Psalm 8 underscores the elementary human dependency on unconditional acknowledgment as an inviolable person, an acknowledgment preceding all human characteristics and achievements. The psalm further intertwines this acknowledgment and the commission to rule, which is conferred on human beings, as an insoluble unity. What at first appear to be opposites is in fact a synopsis and inseparable connection of creaturely human determinations that correspond to God's simultaneously being the almighty creator and the compassionate, merciful father. By using “dignity” and “person” as critical terms of negotiation, theology can engage in a conversation with the societal and political public. In rejecting the dominant determination of the “person” as an autonomous, self‐determinately active, individual rational being, theology finds an ally in juridical thinking, which also acknowledges the dignity even of persons unable to act. Two consequences are to be drawn concerning biotechnology: perceiving the remaining dependency, vulnerability and vanity of human beings forces us to abandon illusions of “self‐creation” and immortality. Second, priorities are required that determine the goals and limits of research—especially in protecting the personal dignity of embryos—in the light of our accountability before God the creator and judge.