An inclusive approach to mission

John Stackhouse, you’re the man.  Thanks for your article “A Bigger  – and Smaller – View of Mission” as appears in the most recent issue of Books & Culture.   John introduces an inclusive, not exclusive, approach to the church’s mission.  This approach may cause a few evangelical missions committees to shudder and accuse him of heresy.  What this approach does is uproot and discard a binary, black-and-white understanding of the mystery of faith.

John states: 

Let’s begin, then, with two ways in which our view of mission should expand. First, Christians typically have believed that those who have not heard the name of Jesus are simply lost and destined for hell. Much of the energy of the great 19th-century missionary movement among Westerners, and much of the impetus of missions work around the world to this day, has come from the horror of a Niagara of souls pouring into a lost eternity for want of an evangelist.

We also need to acknowledge, however, a corresponding horror in the hearts of many—including many missions-minded Christians—about a God who allows whole nations and generations to plunge into a lost eternity simply because no one happened to reach them with the gospel. Does faithfulness to the Bible mean we must retain this picture?

I don’t think so. What we must retain is the Christian conviction that everyone needs salvation and that salvation comes only through the work of Jesus Christ. How the blessings of that work are applied by God to each person, however, is an issue on which Christians disagree. I would like to commend what is sometimes called an “inclusivist” position.

Earlier this week, I happened to have a couple of stimulating and passionate discussions about the mission of the church.  My position is summed up by this: the church exists to move people (not forgetting moving itself as well) from fragmentation to integration - recognizing that God is at work outside the church as well.  John’s article is longish, but worth a slow, reflective read.