In some modern circles, it has become fashionable to maintain that the missionary task of the church is completed. Once upon a time, it is reckoned, the Great Commission of Jesus Christ commanded our collective attention, demanded our personal involvement, and sent us into the world in sweeping adventures of service and sacrifice. But that was then. We have learned since to relegate the entire uncomfortable enterprise to an era of jungles and pith helmets – or better still, sandals and togas and Paul.
Many factors contribute to the fashion. In some modern circles, an explicitly missionary task has come to seem somewhat fanatical. A Christian service task, or compassion task, or dialogue task… maybe. But a Christian missionary task – as in, “inviting the lost to surrender their lives to the Savior” – well, this has seemed over-the-top.
In modern circles, we have come to conclude that there are no “lost”; it was a delusion to suppose that ever there were. It has become fashionable to determine that “all roads lead to heaven,” whatever they may be called. Hindus know the way. Buddhists and Muslims, too. What is the purpose of “reaching the lost,” if there are none in the end? The project seems presumptuous and unkind.
Others may have personal reasons to relegate the missionary task to an era gone by: they hope to escape its edgy call in the present. It is easier by far to contemplate a great-great-missionary-aunt, with her hair in a bun and a Bible under her arm, serving the natives long ago and far away – than to imagine a task that might leap up to face you today. This is precisely why we tend to romanticize the missionary task in this way – straw huts and campfires, and so on. There are no straw huts in my neighborhood, and probably none in yours. If that’s where Christian mission happens, we are off the hook.
This is the sort of reasoning that led to the call for a “moratorium on missions,” first heard in the 1970s and repeated in some circles ever since. The moratorium never really got under way, but the call itself contributed to a contemporary redefinition of the missionary project. Many of our modern friends understand “missions” (if they allow the concept at all) as interchurch aid, or interfaith dialogue, or maybe international relief and development. But the traditional Christian mission – announcing the gospel of Jesus Christ and inviting the world to believe it – this moratorium persists, in many modern circles.
This, as I say, is the fashion. I think it pretty easy to reply.
For one thing, it should be noted, the Great Commission of Jesus Christ was issued in an imperative, ongoing construction. New Testament languages had ways of talking about “one-off” tasks, without reference to their chronology or duration. They also had ways of talking about ongoing tasks. This is the kind of language Jesus employs in the Great Commission. The famous first verb – often translated “go” – is precisely this sort of verb. It is actually a participle, not a one-off imperative (Matthew 28:19; cf. Mark 16:15). It would be better to translate, “as you are going about,” make disciples, and so on. Disciple-making is to characterize our entire lives – as we are going about, building our families, pursuing our careers, living out our lives, and so on. We will discover the “lost” everywhere, in need of the gospel as ever before.
And as for the “all roads” thing, we do well to remember that Jesus himself was less sanguine about the lost and the singular road to heaven. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” he said. “No one goes to the Father except through me.” “No one else can save us,” Peter went on to say. “Indeed, we can be saved only by the power of the one named Jesus and not by any other person” (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, GW). There is simply no alternative from a Biblical point of view, however our modern sensibilities may protest.
So the Commission remains operational and the spiritually needy remain at hand: the missionary task has not concluded with our great-great-aunt, long ago. Mission is fundamental to the entire Christian experience in the world: if we are called to Jesus Christ, we are enlisted in his mission. A few years ago, Lutheran theologian James Scherer put the issue simply: “Either it is a missionary church, or it is not the church of Jesus Christ.”
Where there is church, the missionary task goes on.
Other posts in this The Task Remaining series: