Asian reconstruction of the Christian mission
Author: Choan-Seng Song
Reflection by John Lee
PRÉCIS
Choan-Seng Song
proposes an Asian reconstruction of the Christian mission by presenting
biblical foundation. His fundamental principle of Christian mission is that
“Christian mission is the celebration of the resurrection which is our ultimate
hope of the coming future.” On this basis Christian mission can be the
celebration of life, and seeks to give witness to Christ’s presence in
solidarity with the rest of the humanity. In other words, Christian mission
should emphasize the positive meaning of life made manifest in the
resurrection; rather than on the effort to convert people to a particular
denomination or a particular theological point of view.
SONG’S SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS
For C. S. Song,
the essence of Christian mission, Christ’s mission in its core, consists in the
manifestation of healing through suffering. Song affirms that the biblical
concept of creation and liberation are fundamental basis of Christian mission.
By raising the question about the meaning of “God active in a different
cultural context,” Song states that culture is a comprehensive expression of
the creative dynamic and further claims that creation may be regarded as “God’s
culture in its totality.” This provides the basis of mission in which men enter
into meaningful intercultural experience, not to destroy the old creation but
to fulfill or competed it. Hence, he claims that Christian mission must have
Theology of Culture, which means, a theological perception and interpretation
of the spirituality of a particular culture in the light of the biblical faith
in God as the creator.
Song proposes
reconstruction of mission in a Christocentric theme, Christ as all in all: of
the cosmos, and all the religions and history of that cosmos. Song states that
there exists an intrinsic relation between creation and incarnation; God the
Creator becoming what he had created. The mission of enfleshment in Jesus
Christ is God becoming what He is not; and it is the spirit of the Christian
mission. This mission implies the mission of self-emptying, which is the
sacramental nature of Christian mission. Christ becomes the point of
affirmation, his mission the humanization of God and of our mission, his sacramental
presence authenticating the world’s struggle for justice. In the emptying of
Christ, in the context of the world, Christian mission becomes an enactment of
the last Supper, a sacramental reliving of the experience of the life and work
of Christ in the present day world.
In the cosmic
universalism of Christ, Song argues that Jesus should be released from
captivity to the so called Heilsgeschichte
and set in the process of history as the continuum of the work of creation. No
culture becomes more sacred than another even that which Christian may be led
to appreciate the history of their own nation. Therefore the mission of the
Church is to be identified with Christ as he discerns in Asian history and
culture “the hidden presence of the kingdom of God.”
Song emphasizes
“the quest for humanity” as the task of the mission of the church, and its
objectives as reconciliation by demolishing the walls of “morphological
fundamentalism.” This leads the mission not only to cross denominational
barriers but also to resolve the problem that isolates the church from the
world. On the very live issue of the dialogue with other faiths, while
rejecting the dogmatism which marked out Christianity in Asia as a militant
religion, Song is resistant towards any possible accusation of syncretism and
rejects the idea of Buddha, Brahma, Tao and Christ all being thrown into one
basket. Like Kraemer, he distinguishes between Christ and Christianity. Song
claims that Christian mission is to witness to Christ, for in him the particularities
of religion are overcome and through him all are united in the universal love
of God.
IMPLICATIONS
C. S. Song, is
concerned with theological foundations: while celebrating the end of the
foreign missions of the church in the West, he sees the doctrines of creation
and incarnation as fundamental. He asserts that God, as creator and redeemer,
transcends boundaries of race, culture and even religion and so cannot be
nationalized or encapsulated into a single tradition. He further claims that
the artificial distinction and the arbitrary separation of the Christian and
non-Christian lose their meaning by the secularization of the Christian
mission. His claim speaks a new perspective to the Western oriented missionary
enterprise and calls the biblical fundamentalist for their openness, however,
behind his claim, it appears to me that there still exists the strong assertion
of the superiority of Christianity; and it remains within the perspective of a
“giver” of the gospel, therefore a question arises whether it values the
perspective of Asian as “recipients” of the gospel.
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