Prompt: grace and love, a landscape, HDR, UHD, 64K
The complete title of the 4th chapter of Engel's and Dyrness' book is Missions in a Postmodern World: A Gracious Revolution. Such a title puzzles me. I am not sure if this is just a play of words or there is really substance in this kind of revolution.
Typically, grace is contrary to force and violence. Revolution on the other hand justifies the use of force to overthrow an existing system. To combine these two words into one, I am wondering which will gain the upper hand.
Will the word "revolution" in the title obliterates the meaning of grace? How about using grace as an adjective to describe revolution? Doesn't such connection transform the meaning of revolution?
Nevertheless, the authors clearly describe their intent in the chapter was to launch "a gracious revolution in our thinking about world missions - not an angry, destructive revolution, but a loving revolution" (p. 84).
I speculate that revolutionaries who will stumble upon this quote will shake their heads not only with the idea of "gracious" revolution, but also of "loving" revolution. In what way are we to understand expressions like these?
However, it is clear that the meaning of the term is contrary to anything destructive or anything motivated by anger and thereby such an idea is really strange for we have not seen anything like this in nature.
Furthermore, another hint to understand this phrase is to interpret it in relation to the prevailing mindset of missionaries about mission. Here, we find a clearer direction to follow the authors' thoughts.
Managerial Missiology
Both Engel and Dyrness expressed their dissatisfaction with what they call as "managerial missiology" with its preoccupation with measurable objectives and numerical growth (p. 86). For them, such a model in mission is faulty and leading to unhappy results in the postmodern era due to its modernist presuppositions. As a replacement to this outmoded model, the authors are convinced that the challenges we face in the postmodern time calls for a retrieval of Jesus strategy, which they describe as the "Galilean model" (p. 95).
The Galilean Model
The model demonstrated by Jesus in the eyes of Engel and Dyrness contains four important factors:
The priority of God's initiative
A vision of the reign of Christ as motivation
"Mutual sharing from multiple centers of influence" (p. 89), and
Partnership and collaboration
Responding to God's Initiative
The first factor implies sensitivity to the prior work of God. Discernment is the most important quality a missionary must posses. With this quality, one can see that the nature of his missionary work is simply a response to what God has already been doing in the field. This approach is contrary to what missionaries do following the managerial model.
Holistic Kingdom of Christ
The second factor directs our mind to the holistic character of God's kingdom. As such, the current debate about the relationship between evangelism and social concern should not exist. Among the three relationships identified between these two activities ( consequence, bridge, and partnership), partnership does justice to the holistic idea of Christ's reign.
Multiple Centers of Influence
I find the third factor very interesting. Except from the diverse qualities of Christ's reign and its implication to theology and missiology, it is under this discussion that the authors gave us a clearer picture of what they mean by the Galilean model:
. . . Galilee at the time of Jesus was largely the home of the despised and the rejected. Jesus made his base among the poor and oppressed by establishing a messianic community with a radical ministry that challenged the very roots of the corrupt power structure in Jerusalem (p. 95).
And then the author relates this idea to the practice in mission:
Missions, therefore, requires a fundamental association and identification with the most marginalized, because the essence of the good news is liberation, justice and shalom.
This third factor reminds me of the importance of grassroot movement where ordinary people plays a significant role in social change. Moreover, here we encounter again the themes of liberation and power structures. Given the qualification of the kind of revolution in the mind of the authors, their idea of liberation is very far from the concept of liberation in Latin America.
Partnership and Collaboration
Finally, partnership and collaboration. Considering this factor, the authors criticize the Reformation for its "division, lack of unity and even internal hostility" (p. 96). To my mind, this factor speaks more of the changing roles between pioneering missionaries and the local leaders.
Concluding the fourth chapter, the authors repeated their call for a decisive break from modernity and return to the gracious revolution demonstrated by Jesus in the Galilean model. In the last chapter, the authors reiterated again this call to liberation from modernity and provided us with eight foundational principles as an agenda for the realization of this gracious revolution.
Grace and peace!
Source: Engel, James F. & William A. Dyrness. 2000. Changing the Mind of Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong? Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
Note: Yesterday, I removed three books from my bibliography for after a close scrutiny, I realized that the ideas presented in those books are not needed in my research. And so instead of 11, the number of my reference is now down to 8. The current book is the fifth and so I have three more books to read with the remaining 20 days until the deadline. How I wish that by next week, I can start my synthesis.