Through the years I have known and conversed with many well-known mission scholars who focus on social justice and political theology. I share their passion for exposing oppression, especially when sleazy politicians manipulate Christian supporters. We need to unmask the “powers” at work in the Church!
Where we part ways is how quickly some of them write off a movement of ordinary people who simply open a Bible in their own language, invite neighbors to study, and watch new house churches emerge in the process.
Look at how Jesus starts in Mark. After announcing the arrival of the gospel of the Kingdom, he walks up to fishermen and says, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people” (Mk 1:17). That’s it. A little later Jesus sends the Twelve out two by two, long before they fully understand what they are doing, and tells them to rely on God for the basics (Mk 6:7-13). By Mark 9 and 10 they are still tripping up over his true Messianic identity, yet Jesus never stops the movement. If Christ trusted new, immature disciples to learn and grow as they went, why do contemporary critics imply that new believers demonstrate racial reconciliation and economic justice before sharing the good news?
The irony hits even harder when you consider the cost these new believers already pay, especially in Muslim contexts. Some are functionally illiterate. Many live under suspicious neighbors or hostile authorities. A few have been beaten or killed for nothing more than saying, “I follow Jesus, and I want to read God’s Word with my family.” Declaring their theology “too thin” behind the safety of a Christian institution is, at best, tone-deaf.
Cross-cultural witness is not colonial by default. In many regions today, semi-trained missionaries are themselves from the Majority World, crossing borders that other Majority World mission scholars barely notice. Criticizing them because their approach feels “simplistic” risks another sort of colonialism - the kind that polices missiology from afar and never takes the same risks on the ground.
Do these young movements need to grow into a deep concern for justice, reconciliation, and public theology? Absolutely. That growth comes after birth, not before. It is unrealistic to expect a young church planting movement to show the theological depth and social engagement of one that has matured and institutionalized over decades.
We do not need to shrink the disciple-making net. We need to widen the table so that justice advocates, missiologists, movement catalysts, theologians, and brand-new disciples of Jesus in least-reached peoples all find space to contribute. Each group exposes a blind spot the others cannot see. When a scholar unmasks oppressive systems, vulnerable churches benefit. When relatively young believers share Christ across a language barrier in a nearby town (e.g. Acts 11:20), scholars gain a living case study for fresh insights into mission.
So to my political theology friends: keep naming the powers, but do not dismiss ordinary believers who risk everything for a faith in Jesus they are still learning to articulate. And to those catalyzing movements in new places: keep crossing cultures with bold humility, but keep listening to prophetic voices that remind us the Kingdom is for the whole person and the whole community.
The motus Dei is a large enough puzzle for us all. Let us stop measuring whose piece matters more and start fitting our pieces together.
2 comments:
When African churches were criticized by Western theologians in the 70s for not yet developing any substantial theology, theologian John Mbiti replied with an African proverb: cattle are born with ears; their horns grow later. The same goes for movements.
Thank you. The table is indeed growing. And speaking as an observed and friend of a number of movement leaders, more hands on social justice and crossing of racial lines is happening in movements than in any local church I know, and I know some excellent ones. Movements have few resources but spend them mostly on spreading the good news, serving the weakest and neediest people around them, and exercising the love and power of God through prayer and healing ministries. We see the poor helping the very poor, and the very poor helping the starving, homeless and dying virtually every week of the year. Three are ways the broader church can help the growing house church movements by a praying for the maturing of saints or aiding local bible translations. But we don't have much to say to them in matters of caring for the poor, loving those who persecute them, or sacrificeing for the sake of the lost. Listening and imitating them would help many others at the table become more like the Master.
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