Post Modern Missions Motivation

Tonight was my church’s annual meeting and afterward a group of us went out for dinner. Toward the end of the meal, I asked my pastor if he had been reading anything of interest. He told me that he had read the first chapter of a book that I had noticed in his library and had made comment on. The book in question is a perspectives book on the issue of Exclusivism/Inclusivism, titled “What about those who have never heard?” I made comment on this book because it represents an issue that has caused me a lot of debate and study. For about a year, it kept me from being licensed with the C&MA. (Anyone who knew me during that time remembers that it was a trial for me—and trial in the interrogation/court sense wouldn’t be a misinterpretation.) The issue in and of itself is worthy of its own series of blogs or perhaps its own theology class…and we won’t attempt that here.

As we began to discuss the topic a bit, my pastor made a comment on the issue in regards to its impact on mission’s motivation. “Risking your life in missions so that someone can have a little bit better life, when they would be going to heaven anyway. What motivation is that?” (Complete paraphrase, and I hope a fair one. He clarified that he was talking about a major shift in thinking from how he was raised.) I am a bit embarrassed about my over-zealous response. As I said, this is an issue I’ve had to talk about quite a bit, and it was a bit unfair to go overboard on an unsuspecting pastor, late in the evening. I responded that I felt one (or I) could find quite compelling reasons for missions in this context. That I was afraid that doing missions solely so that people don’t go to hell bordered on Gnosticism. That doing missions for the sake of discipleship, not shallow evangelistic efforts, was healthier and honored our relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit in this life—and meant that this life meant something. Our conversation was interrupted at this point and never resumed.

But it left me thinking about the motivation to be missional in Christian faith, especially as it relates to the generation divide. I have entertained this conversation with a couple of people, all of whom are my senior, and who have all taken generally the same view, i.e. if you remove the risk of hell, you cut the motivation and urgency out from under the missions movement. This has never made sense to me, but my rebuttals to this assertion have never seemed to make an impact either. Tonight I realized for the first time that this probably has a great deal to do with the generational gap. Being a young person who has had a long-term calling to missions, but who is, nevertheless, steeped in the thinking of my generation, the question of “what motivates me towards missions?” is especially relevant. And further, the question, “what will motivate my generation to be missional?” is also of grave concern to me. (To clarify, by missions, I mean the intentional relocation from one’s culture to another which has less access to the Church, in order to live out the gospel among that people.) The following is just a quick attempt to outline some of my thoughts.

First, I should give a brief synopsis of my belief regarding those who have never heard the gospel, since that is what started this whole topic. I am open to the possibility that God has a means of applying His grace—provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—to people who have never heard the gospel, other than the means which we know, i.e. believing in the historical person of Jesus Christ and praying directly to Him to receive the grace He provided for us through His death. What this does NOT mean: 1. “Everyone gets into heaven.” I am not a universalist (perhaps my God is?). If God chooses to use another method of applying His grace to the lives of some, it is certainly a minority, otherwise He would have informed us of this method. As it is, the only method we know with certainty is the one I have mentioned above. 2. “The historical person of Jesus is unimportant.” I affirm the ancient Christian doctrine of the peculiarity of Christ and acknowledge that no one could do for us what He did. 3. “The death of Jesus is unimportant.” Without Christ’s death and resurrection, we are all hopeless, without a means of being reconciled to God. For us to be reconciled to God, Jesus had to come into specific history and place as the fully-God, fully-Man person, die, and be resurrected. I am simply saying that God might choose to apply this grace to people who haven’t had access to the same historical knowledge we have had. To be honest, most people in my generation probably are unaware of the spectrum of beliefs in the exlusivism/inclusivism debates, but I have a hunch that most passionate, well-thought out Christians my age would have similar beliefs, simply because we share the same generational thinking.

Now the whole concept of missions motivation for a post-modern generation is a bit of an oxymoron in the first place. Post-modern ideals don’t really endorse the idea of telling someone their way is “wrong” (is there such a thing?) and that yours is “right.” There are no absolutes, so going to another culture to convert people is a scandalous idea. Whether a young person has been raised safely in the Church, with a solid Christian worldview, or not, the post-modern ideas get on you. Two points here: 1.) We can either rebut the whole post-modern system (good luck) or we can look within and past post-modernity to communicate the necessity and the motivation for missions. 2.) Hell, for post-moderns (hereafter PM’s), is an uncomfortable thought and won’t be a source of motivation. Hell, a place of absolute separation from an absolute God, because you did things that were absolutely wrong and did not receive the only and absolute means of reconciliation with God. Far too absolute an idea for PM’s to feel comfortable with, let alone be motivated by, even if they do acknowledge a belief in it. Let me expound:

Christian moderns have less issue giving an answer to the question, “who is going to heaven? Hell?” Post-modern Christians (hereafter PMC’s) squirm when asked this question. They may both believe in heaven and hell, and that your relationship with God is the deciding factor in your eternal destiny. But here is the difference. Moderns believe they know things with certainty. Post-moderns, not so much. Moderns have a clear cut standard for who makes the cut, so to speak. Post-moderns believe everything is a bit less clear cut. A PMC will likely believe that people who have rejected the Christian message will spend eternity separated from God, but will likely be hesitant to be forced into saying so. The issue is not one of the PMC’s being more gracious than their modern fathers, nor is the issue, I think, one of moderns having the correct doctrine and PMC’s having poor doctrine. (There is potential for both to have terrible doctrine…each generation must guard their lives and doctrine carefully.) So when asked this question, PMC’s will probably give an answer like this, “I’m not God, I don’t get to decide for other people. I can, however, tell you that I believe the way I know with certainty that I am going to heaven is by my relationship with Christ.” The reference is personal because PM’s are all into things that are personally true. Again, a PMC believes in some absolute truths. That is not the issue, but they choose to communicate in such a way for two reasons. 1.) It is culturally taboo to say that one knows with certainty truth about another person. This leads to the second point: 2.) PMC’s must either decide to communicate truth in the way their modern father’s expect—bold proclamations of absolute truth, despite cultural taboos (which is, as said above, to rebut the whole postmodern system)—or to communicate truth in a way that is accessible to their generation. (No small feat, which requires an in-depth understanding of the thinking and communication of the postmodern generation, and perhaps, as NT Wright suggests, looking past postmodernity for a different way of knowing.) For better or worse, most PMC’s choose to communicate truth from a personal standpoint because it makes connections with other people in their generation. Broad, absolute statements do not. All of that to say, talking about masses of people going to hell will not motivate a PMC to missions. It makes no connection with their method of knowing truth.

So, since some of the traditional methods will not motivate the postmodern generation to be missional, what will? I would like to make three suggestions. The first method is letting love replace knowledge as the source of motivation. For the reasons mentioned above, cold, hard facts only make postmoderns squirm, not motivate them. If we can disciple people to develop a heart of love for people they have never met, then we have successful motivation. PMC’s feel much more comfortable sharing truth in loving, personal relationships. The second method is developing a full understanding of what living the gospel in all its fullness is. There is a huge resurgence of social conscience/justice among young evangelicals. I believe this is part of living out the gospel in its fullness; part of being active in the Kingdom of God here on earth. We cannot swing the pendulum toward a purely social gospel, but holding together an understanding of ministering to people’s physical and spiritual needs, will bring about a great deal of motivation for PMC’s. Lastly, PMC’s have been brought up in a global community. They will be naturally motivated to transact with people of other cultures. Teaching PMC’s to form strong cross-cultural relationships and to communicate successfully in such relationships, will hinge natural motivation with successful missions methods.

I am not an expert in modern vs. postmodern thinking, so feel free to comment. I do believe that this is an issue that will need to be explored more in-depth, as it will be crucial to the missions movement in the West.