Western and Christian: What's a Mission to Do?

There comes times in the life of a mission where they must ask the question, "Are we promoting Western ideals or are we preaching the Gospel?" There are ways in which the Gospel does transform culture, and thanks be to God for that! But at the same time there are cultural aspects of life where the Church needs to say- this is cultural.

This was experienced in the Chinese Mission of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the 20th century. But it only came AFTER a number of years of work in the field. In 1884 the RP Church began plans to work in China; and it was not until 1921 when the attitude towards Chinese culture changed. The early years of the RP Mission were met with frustration that the Chinese did not want to conform to American ways of life in work or in the home.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ not only changes those being ministered to; but also those who are ministering.

"In twenty years the mission had learned that many Chinese methods were very good methods for them, well adapted to their way of life and to the physical conditions under which they lived. It was not the main purpose of this mission to teach a Western way of life; the purpose was to teach the Chinese that they, like all other humans, were sinners and that their only hope of love, joy, and peace, here or hereafter, lay in acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord of their lives. When they accepted him and his salvation, followed his guidance and his principles, it mattered little what tools the carpenters used or what utensils the women used in cooking. When Christianity permeated their lives their social attitudes changed radically, such as the position of girls and women, their idolatry, ancestor worship, polygamous marriage, dishonesty and deceit in business, even the cleanliness of their surroundings. So long as Christians lived Christ the mission felt that they should lead their lives in their own Chinese way." Hoi Moon, 163.

Disciples of All Nations? Colonization or Indigenous Churches?

When the Lord Jesus Christ gave the Great Commission at the end of his ministry, he charged the Apostles with "making disciples of all nations". It is interesting that he chose the word nations, instead of world. The word nation is "ethnos" which means ethnicities, people groups, cultures, or nations. He could have chose the word "cosmos" which would be a generic, "Make disciples of all the world." But Jesus chose "ethnos". He wanted disciples to be made of the ethos; not just in the cosmos.

This is significant in my own ecclesiastical context because at our last Synod, our global missions agency reported that the mission work in Southern Sudan has been released from the oversight of the RPCNA and has been organized as the RPCSS (Reformed Presbyterian Church of Southern Sudan). They are part of the Reformed Presbyterian global community; but they are an indigenous church. They are not a church that is colonized; but one that was made out of discipling the ethnos of the Dinka. Praise God!

Of course, this creating an indigenous presbytery (RPCSS) was not without controversy. We have a precedence of keeping oversight for much longer. We have a presbytery of the RPCNA in Japan, which is the result of missionary endeavor. Why not follow that same model in Sudan? WIth much love and respect for my brothers in Japan, the model that Jesus gave us was disciples of all ethnos; not disciples in all cosmos.

As early as 1919 the RPCNA was wrestling with the questions of colonization versus indigenous churches. The Foreign Mission Board reported to Synod in 1919, "In recent years there has been a growing conviction that the Chinese have been, to their hurt, allowed to think that Christianity is the foreigner's religion and not their own; that the foreign religion should be supported from without, and that they, at most, are to favor it with the patronage of accepting it, and helping to spread it merely as paid employees of a foreign organization. The missionaries have been gravely and prayerfully studying this problem." (Report of Synod, 1919).

May the Lord continue to have His Church wrestle with the issues of culture and church planting. And may the Church truly understand how Jesus wants indigenous churches made up of all the ethnos of the cosmos.

Lord, build your Church!