Authors Richard Bauckham in Bible and Mission and Leslie Newbigin in The Open Secret discuss the concept of mission and how it should be understood correctly by Christians today. While Bauckham initially explains the idea of metanarrative and universalist cultures, and how overemphasizing them challenges the way Christians do mission today; Newbigin, instead, associates missions with the very ministry of Jesus and his baptism by John the Baptist.
Both authors agree that mission is God’s work as he uses mission as a means of not only proclaiming the Gospel but also bringing justice to the entire world. Bauckham writes:
This book’s proposal of a hermeneutic for the kingdom of God involves, as I have already suggested, a focus on one prominent aspect of the narrative shape of the biblical story: its movement from the particular to the universal (…) God is also given its identity in this movement from the particular to the universal, an identity whose God-given dynamic we commonly sum up in the word ‘mission.’ (Bauckham 2003, 12-13).
Despite their basic agreement about the fact that mission is a movement started by God and that the church plays a significant role in the whole process, Bauckham and Newbigin approach missions in singular ways, sometimes even in opposite directions.
Their Differences
For the Bauckham, the church’s mission should not be understood as static but ongoing since people are always reinterpreting biblical stories in their own cultures. Thus, Bauckham states:
We are always figuratively starting again from Jerusalem on our way to the ends of the earth. We are always starting again from Jesus who is the one human for all others, and we are always starting again from Pentecost, the event that gives both to the new community on its way to the new future. (Bauckham 2003, 21)
For the Newbigin, instead, holds that doing “the Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the entire world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all” (Newbigin 1995, 17).
The major difference between these two approaches stems primarily from the diversity of theological frameworks used in both works. Newbigin is very close to the reformed tradition in form and thinking in his book. For instance, he emphasizes God’s work while the church is doing the mission that Jesus has commanded it to do . Bauckham, however, although he recognizes God’s central role in mission, he places the Church in the middle between being slightly an agent in the missional work or the Church is the product of it (cf. Bauckham 2003, 15).
On the one side, Baulkham analyzes the church’s mission in the late twentieth century considering modernity discourses. He has written a very thought-provoking work about the Christian mission and how Christians can overcome cultural issues while they are spreading the Gospel. On the other side, Newbigin, with a very solid Reformed framework, emphasizes the doctrine of election to lead his discussions about the church’s mission as an integral part of the kingdom of God. Thus, when speaking of mission, it is almost necessary the notion of election and how God is in control of the entire process. And this is so because this framework is needed in order to understand the kingdom of God’s purpose and its adequate expansion in the world (cf. Newbigin 1995, 68).
The Significance of Their Approach
The importance of Newbigin’s proposal is to make Christians aware of the real meaning of the mission of the Triune God and the centrality of the Kingdom of God. Throughout his enriching theological thoughts, he challenges the traditional way most Christians have done missions. A key regarding Newbigin is that he explains clearly that the Church’s mission is a task started by God and that Jesus’s work was introducing the Kingdom of God to us. It is for this reason that he says, “Jesus is introduced as the one who announces the coming of the reign of God, the one who is acknowledged as the Son of God and is anointed by the Spirit of God.” (Newbigin 1995, 21). It is through Jesus Christ that we know that the Kingdom of God was near and God’s will, so that we can participate in His Kingdom. Newbigin writes it this way: “Jesus is thus not the initiator or founder of the kingdom. It is God’s kingdom. Jesus is the one who is sent as herald and bearer of the kingdom.” (Newbigin 1995, 22) So that when we connect with God the Father, we are also taking part in his mission on earth. The church’s purpose is to serve Christians as a means of communion through the Holy Spirit, and the way we do it is through missions. Newbigin’s focus on this subject is not only according to the Reformed tradition but also strongly biblical.
The importance of Baulkham’s approach is that he identifies a series of drawbacks that Christians will have to face and overcome while carrying out missions in a postmodern world. Although he recognizes God is who starts missions, he also overemphasizes the role of human beings and the cultural issues that could arise, as he states, “Jesus’ disciples are to be a center of attraction to which others will come.” (Bauckham 2003, 73) It seems most Christians usually focus on the verb ‘going’ than ‘preach’ when they discuss missions. The word ‘going’ is not the main action (verb) in Jesus’s words, but preaching; in other words, the sharing of the Good News with people in order to invite them to participate in God’s plan for humanity.
Similarities in Newbigin and Baulkham’s Views
Despite their differences, Newbigin and Baulkham’s approaches nourish the church in a good way since we all should understand that doing missions is not a fixed church program that some people need to follow. Doing missions is not about going abroad and preaching the Gospel to other countries. That’s good, but it is not everything! Jesus’s words in Mark 15:16-18, 9 (NIV) has only two commands ‘go’ and ‘preach,’ and most Western countries have considered missions only when selected people (missionaries) go to a specific place and preach the Word of God. The emphasis in this verse is not on ‘going’ but ‘preaching,’ as we noticed it here.
[Jesus] said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
Thus, going on missions is about inviting all people to come to the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, so that missions is something that is (and should be) engrained in the life of every Christian. Every Christian has the responsibility of sharing the gospel with others through words and deeds.
Concluding Remarks
It grabs my attention that the work done in Antioch by the Apostle Paul and others nurtured the Gentile mission. Antioch was the place where the followers of Jesus were called ‘Christians’ for the first time. Paul and Barnabas began their first missionary journey along with John Mark in this city. It was this mystery, now revealed, of including people from all the nations of the world into the Church that led Paul to affirm that there was no distinction between Jew and Gentile since Jesus destroyed the dividing wall of hostility on the cross as Ephesians 2:14-18 (NIV) states,
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
This thinking deeply shaped the theological vision of the early Church and its mission for spreading the Gospel to all nations. They understood that sharing or preaching the Gospel was a way to participate in God’s plan of consolidating His kingdom in just one group, the Church of Christ.
Paul then developed an inclusive theology of missions and election where Judaism and the Christian faith meet. It was in this process that the Apostle Paul defended the supremacy of faith in Christ and the value of the Scriptures for everyone against the exclusivity of the Gospel only for the Jewish. Jesus’ sacrifice let people belong to the kingdom of God: He not only announced His Father’s kingdom but also opened the door in order for people could enter.
It is noteworthy to focus on the fact that Newbigin offers very good insights about missions for today’s church, and connects such a topic to the doctrine of election, as he states,
[We] have found in the biblical teaching about election the clue to the problem of the relation between the cosmic universality of the kingdom of God which we proclaim and the particularity of the history with which we are concerned: Israel among the nations, Jesus among all the religious leaders of the world history, Christianity among all the religions (Newbigin 1995, 77).
On the pragmatic level, Christians do missions to tell others about the Good News, but not in order to convince people with human reasoning only, but with the power of the Holy Spirit.