Gospel without boundaries

A few months ago I went to South America, and I was partly stunned and also admired the ingenuity of Jesuit missionaries in fusing traditional Incan religion with Catholicism. Throughout the whole trip, I thought about what is acceptable in spreading Christianity, where the line should be drawn in mixing “pagan” religious customs with Christianity. (I am well aware that our own brand of “Christianity” is already a mixture of multiple pagan traditions, just that most of us don’t even realize it.)

We often set boundaries on what is or is not acceptable in Christians. Last night during the missions class, the example the teacher shared was about a polygamist in Africa. He was not accepted in church because he was a polygamist. He refused to disobey Jesus (by divorcing his wives) to become a member of the church. His argument was that polygamy was not explicitly forbidden by Jesus, but divorce was.

Rather than the boundaries we have presumed, we should do it by a “centred” approach, not looking at things through the actions themselves, but by the purpose of the actions, or where the direction of the action is centred. (I seemed to explain it inadequately without the diagram from the lecture notes.)

The Spirit safeguards the universalism in God, where Jesus represents the uniqueness of God. And the work of the Spirit precedes evangelism.

Salvation analogy exist in many cultures, they may represent revelation of God in some of the traditional customs or folklore, an example the teacher used was a tribe that was waiting for their "saviour" which was just like the missionaries who came.

Mission is not only to evangelize, but also to know God better, in the ways through which He reveals himself.

We should open our minds to observe and listen, and recognize the local traditions/customs that direct people towards Christ’s particularity. The church can also broaden its knowledge on God in the process, and we can recognize the universality in revelation.

Apart from people from another culture, she also talked about different people in our own community.

If there were no young people in church, we would have done a lot to recruit more, but then how come we don’t ask why there are no/few disabled people in our church? Is it really because there are none in our district? Or because of the physical constraints that they cannot come?

The concept of the disabled God has been proposed, Jesus still carried the marks from the crucifixion after resurrection. Hence, despite the impairment, the disabled are still made in God’s image. The cause of their suffering may be due to isolation or exclusion rather than the physical disability itself. Rather than healing the physical problem, the church should heal their social dysfunction. (She gave an example of a charismatic church that had no idea what to do about a disabled kid, after failing to "heal" her after repeated prayers.)

And we are interdependent with the disabled, they are not subjects of our assistance/pity alone.

Apart from the physically disabled, what about ex-drug addicts, and those suffering from mental illness?

Recognise our calling in our own community, and do not just focus in spreading the Gospel in our own social circle.

(Since this is derived from my notes, so may be a bit brief and difficult to understand... hmm...)