When we look back at the history of Christian tradition we recognize that there had been pivotal moments in the life of the church that have affected the way the Christian community had understood and explicated its faith. They have left positive and negative impacts on its life.

I give these as examples of how at different moments of the church’s life both internal and external developments have challenged it to rethink and reformulate its beliefs and practices in search of relevance within its own life or in response to the realities in which it lived.

It is important to point out that not everyone recognize, admit, or accept the new realities that

call for radical changes. Therefore all these moments of history are marked by controversies and deep disagreements. Often only in hindsight that we recognize that some of the movements and persons that call the churches to change and to rethink had been spokespersons for the mood and challenges that were at the doorsteps of the church.

Are we in such a nodal point in the history of the life of the church? Are we being challenged to radically rethink some of our assumptions and premises on which we have built our theologies and the practices? Are we in another moment in the history of Christianity when the church is being challenged to enter yet another phase of the life of the church, especially in terms of its doctrines and teachings? Alas! There is no agreement, and today there are movements within most denominations that seek to resist such thinking and even begin to build fortresses to protect the ‘received’ understanding of the church and its teachings.

Perhaps there would also be disagreements over which are the forces that are challenging the churches in our day.

• Some may say that the challenge of Feminist/Womanist critique would radically change the life and theology of the churches.
• Others may hold that the divisive debates over human sexuality would radically change the way the churches arrive at ethical and moral decisions.
• Still others may claim that we have entered a postmodern, postcolonial phase of human history and that would undermine in the long term the foundations of our theological enterprise.

It is not my intention to examine these claims. Rather I would like to highlight one other reality, which in my own understanding would radically and decisively change the history of Christian theology and practice, namely, the challenge of religious pluralism.

I am convinced that our new experience of religious pluralism, our encounters with neighbours of other religious traditions, our increased understanding and appreciation of other ways of being and believing etc., attended by postcolonial and postmodern thinking, would radically change the Christian thinking in the course of this century. What I hope to do in this lecture is to isolate one of the areas of Christian theology and practice as an area that needs radical rethinking in the light of our new awareness of religious plurality: The Christian understanding of Mission and Evangelism.

Quite unfortunately the growth and development of the church in early periods have left their marks on our concepts of mission and evangelism. Three factors needs to be born in mind.

First, the nascent church right at the beginning was in a polemical situation with the Jewish community out of which it was emerging as a separate tradition. The question whether Jesus was the expected Jewish Messiah divided the Christians and the Jewish people. Exclusive verses like “ I am the way the truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me,” “There is no pother name by which you should be saved” etc. are part of the rhetoric against the Jewish community.

The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity gave power and imperial status to Christianity making it intolerant of all other religious traditions.

In the 16th – 20th Century Christianity was brought to the third world countries alongside Colonial expansion. Here too the colonial power status made Christians insensitive to other religious traditions.

In fact, the mission and understanding required all peoples to abandon their faiths and embrace the Christian faith.

1910 World Mission Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland had the goal of “Evangelization of the world in this generation.”

Except in situations where Christianity was enforced with the sword, as in Latin America, Europe etc. the hope of evangelizing the whole community has been a failure.

China, India and many other countries in Asia did not respond to the Gospel in the way the missions hoped for. Yet the missionary movement would not look at their understanding of mission.

Today we are faced with yet another reality of parallel missions, where others look upon the “Christian” nations as their mission fields.

These realities call for a radical re-thinking of the meaning and practice of mission.

Few years back I was invited to speak on the future of mission in a mission conference. My suggestions on the future of missions became subject of much controversy, because I advocated four major “shifts” in our understanding of mission:

From a majority to minority, pointing out that the Jewish understanding of mission, which Jesus also shared, had little to do with making everyone becoming Jewish. God has called us out, the Jewish people believed, to be a light unto the nations; to live out God’s righteousness among the nations. God is the God of all nations, and intends to bring God’s purpose for the world to fulfillment. However, God has called us to be co-workers in this task by witnessing to God’s justice and righteousness.

Second shift, therefore has to be from an exclusive to an inclusive understanding of mission. This is based on the belief that our mission is only a part of the Mission of God (missio Dei). God’s mission in the world is not limited to the Christians. God uses and calls to service all whom God would use to bring about God’s purposes. Our mission needs to be part of this wider mission of God.

Third had to do with moving from a doctrinal to a spiritual understanding of mission. Too often we believe that mission has to do with accepting certain beliefs about Jesus Christ and what we believe God to have done in Christ. In reality Jesus himself spoke about internal transformation that resulted in spiritual fruits. Mission does not mean that we make believers, but people who have put on the “whole nature of Christ.” My Hindu friend Anatanand Rambachan spoke of Jesus as having all the authentic marks of Hindu spirituality, and that in our attempt to present the uniqueness and finality of Christ we forget to incorporate in our lives and in others the authentic marks of spirituality. “It is not everyone who says ‘Lord,’ ‘Lord’ that shall enter the kingdom of God,” Jesus warned, “but everyone who does the will of God.” “You shall know them by their fruits; a good tree cannot bear bad fruits,” Jesus claimed.

What does this mean? It points to the need to a fourth shift in our understanding of mission:

From conversion to healing. It is this idea that I would like to explore in some detail in this presentation.

The word ‘conversion’ has many meanings depending on the way it is used.

It can certainly mean an inner transformation that enable people to bear the spiritual fruits. This idea of conversion is related to ideas of repentance, or turning one’s life around, and entering a spirituality of loving God and one’s neighbor.

Conversion can also have the positive meaning of change of allegiance by which one moves away from self-centeredness to God-centeredness.

However,

the word conversion, especially in the classical missionary context has come to mean converting people from one religion to the other, of dragging people from one community to another; of increasing our numbers at the expense of other traditions.

In actual practice it has also led to a negative approach to other religious traditions. In the mission field, conversion is called for because there is no knowledge of God without coming to know God in Jesus Christ. Conversion is needed because God’s salvation is offered in our faith tradition than in others.

The theology of religions that is inherent in this understanding has come under much criticism.

Our increased knowledge and relationships with peoples of other traditions has undermined this approach.

Today we speak about dialogue as an encounter of commitments; we no longer dare to stand in judgment on the spiritual life of others. In fact many Christians have come to a positive understanding of other religious traditions as other “spiritual paths.”

It is in this context that a move from Conversion to Healing in our understanding of mission would be useful.

It is important to recognize that Jesus was primarily a teacher and a healer. As a teacher, he was calling on people to the discipleship to the Reign of God. This did not mean that they abandoned Judaism, but respond to the challenge of loving God and of loving one’s neighbor as oneself. The classical missiological notion of calling people away from their religion was not part of his teachings.

But people flocked to him primarily because he was a healer. This aspect of Jesus has been neglected mainly because we have come to understand healing primarily as an act that brings about physical wholeness.

No doubt, physical healing was a significant part Jesus’ ministry. But a closer look at his teachings would show that the word ‘healing’ has much deeper meaning and application. I would like to lift up four dimensions of healing from Jesus’ life and teachings.

1. Healing of relationships: At the heart of Jesus teaching is the call to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself. This needs no elaboration. Putting our relationships right is at the heart of all healing.

2.Healing our physical and mental infirmities: Jesus spent considerable part of his ministry healing people and “casting out demons,” perhaps a reference to those who are psychologically or mentally disturbed.

3. Healing as the pronouncement of liberty and release to the “captives” (Lk.4) and those marginalized others as sinners and outcastes. Jesus brought hope and new life to those at the margins, and challenged those who relegate peoples to the margins. In other words, Jesus was committed to social healing that sought to bring wholeness to the society.

4. Healing of one’s spiritual life, where Jesus challenged people to move away from their confidence and trust in Mammon to God. “You cannot have two masters;” “Those who are rich cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

1. This is more faithful to Jesus own understanding of mission. Much of the Christian understanding of “world mission” is fashioned on a misreading of Paul’s missionary journeys and his eagerness to create communities of faith and witness awaiting the impending Parousia – the end of the ages, which he expected to happen in his own lifetime. A close study would show that Paul would show that while he went around creating communities of faith, he does not call upon his congregations to engage in evangelism or world mission. Paul also was a faithful Jew in this area, because he too believed that it is God who would establish God’s shalom on the earth, and we are witnesses to God’s intension to heal the world.
2. Second, mission as healing would not be at odds with other religious communities. The need to be healed cuts across all religious and ideological barriers. So we do not become adversaries of other religious traditions, but those who are interested in bringing about healing in a broken world.
3. Third, the concept of healing speaks directly to the situation of the world we live in. There is so much brokenness at the individual, social, political and international levels, that “making Christians out of other traditions” looks both foolish and irrelevant. The violence, war, conflicts, enmities and alienation are the ills of the world. All of them call for healing and reconciliation rather than classical missionary activities. In fact peace among and between religious traditions has become the most important need in our day.
4. Finally, all the eschatological visions of the Bible speak about peace, reconciliation and end of all enmity as the final goal that God holds for the world. The visions of the last days are not one where everyone had become Jews or Christians but where nations do not take up sword against each other, and God’s own shalom has been accompanied by God making God’s own home among God’s people.

We live in a world that is so desperately in need of healing, reconciliation, and peace that it is only spiritual blindness that can see our mission as winning people to our own brand of religion. Mission is too important and too urgent to be relegated to such notions that came out of Christianity as the religion of the powerful. Rather, we need to look at mission as Jesus did. It was a mission of establishing God’s reign in human life by bringing about reconciliation and peace through relentless effort to heal and world. We cannot do otherwise.