Post-Christendom and the challenge of mission in affluent societies

by Jonathan Blakeborough

It is widely agreed that Western Christendom, the centuries-long alliance of church and state, with the resultant symbiosis of church and society, is finally coming to an end. There also appears to be an emerging consensus among missiologists that Christendom has bequeathed a difficult legacy for future mission in Western societies for the following reasons. Firstly, Christendom is leaving in its wake a folk-memory of Christian control that causes many Westerners to resist and to perceive Christianity with either boredom or revulsion. Under Christendom, the church’s position was fundamentally transformed from one of marginality and persecution to one of receiving imperial favour.

Sadly, within much of the contemporary church there is an enduring imperialistic mindset whose features include the persistence of triumphalistic theology and language, the preference for authoritative pronouncements, and the partiality for respectability and hierarchical church government, together with the assumptions that large congregations should exercise influence on local power structures and that Christianity should be accorded centrality and privileges. Thus, the Mennonite missiologist Wilbert Shenk is clear that the church of Christendom has never been able to shake off its image of being implicated in the power structures of society, and the masses have looked elsewhere for succour. Churches with a message counter to the values of the establishment are rare.

Secondly, the church is viewed with suspicion because of its partiality for top-down methods in mission. This tendency has been particularly in evidence where evangelistic ‘campaigns’ are concerned, with much of the language and methods of evangelism hailing from the revivalist ‘crusades’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Moreover, the persistence of forms of evangelism which promote highly individualistic views of salvation has also led people to assume that too often the gospel is presented as a reaffirmation of establishment values and that evangelism is little more than an invitation to add a religious veneer to life.

Thirdly, while evangelism has become a largely specialised ministry to be carried out by so-called experts or via accredited programmes or courses, after centuries where it has been assumed that society was Christian by diktat, congregations themselves remain firmly maintenance rather than mission-orientated. Furthermore, academic theology appears to be largely oblivious to mission as a proper theological theme. Thus, David Bosch argues that both mission and missiology remain peripheral in the West.

However, although the church in the West may be ill-prepared to undertake mission in the potentially hostile context in which it now finds itself, Anabaptist missiologists, together with other commentators from within the wider church, offer the following as a way forward. What is needed is a paradigm shift in which mission becomes the central agenda of the whole church, and the model of mission established by Jesus must now be seen to be the prototype for all faithful mission. If Jesus’ lordship was characterised by servanthood and humility, rejecting both the conventional trappings of power and the recourse to violence, then the fundamental missionary stance must be that of the servant and peacemaker, yet with bold humility.

Moreover, Jesus’ incarnation is also the model for an authentic whole-life approach to mission. Both words and deeds must point to Jesus’ lordship, yet should not be seen as discrete elements, since in Jesus’ ministry both his teaching and action pointed to the kingdom. In our networked society, the emphasis needs to be on churches concentrating on equipping members to live authentic and attractive Christian lives and to share their faith by engaging with people in their own context. Indeed in post-Christendom, where interest in spirituality does not readily translate into churchgoing, such an incarnational approach is essential in place of the traditional approach that expects ‘seekers’ to come to church services.

However, it needs to be recognised that not only is the West a post-Christendom context characterised by at best scepticism towards the church and its message, it is also, despite the current economic crisis, the centre of the modern, affluent world. It remains a relatively open society where the son of an African student can be elected the president of the most powerful nation. Even the poorest Western citizen may aspire to share in the wealth and power of the establishment elite. Or rather, the phenomenon of media and sporting celebrities, people famous for being famous, or wealthy and famous for being able to score goals, further the illusion that ‘rags to riches’ is a possibility for all. Thus, many Westerners, even the most marginalised, are still listening to those in power.

In such a context, a renewed church of servant peacemakers will almost certainly struggle to challenge the West’s culture of ‘military consumerism’ and its role in the maintenance of an unjust world order. Christians, therefore, will have to make some deliberate, conscious choices, as Jesus did. Thus, Stutzmann suggests that Jesus consciously located himself amongst the majority of ordinary people, yet focussed his ministry upon those within the majority who hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Likewise, contemporary incarnational mission within the affluent post-Christendom West needs to take place from amongst the ‘common people’, but focussed on those who are searching for what we believe to be the kingdom, even if they are unable to name it as such.

Select Bibliography

David J. Bosch, Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture
(Leominster: Gracewing, 1995)
Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004)
Wilbert R. Shenk, Write the Vision (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International and Leominster: Gracewing, 1995)
Linford Stutzmann, With Jesus in the World: Mission in Modern, Affluent Societies
(Scottdale and Waterloo: Herald Press, 1992)