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Mission in the Spirit

Kirsteen Kim

Dr. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu is known in World Christianity especially for his sympathetic studies of African Pentecostalism. Many studies of Pentecostalism have explained it in purely sociological terms, or criticized it using Western theological categories. However, Asamoah-Gyadu offers cultural and theological explanations drawn from his expertise in African Traditional Religion and African spiritualities. His thick description helps to set issues of power encounter, prosperity, and other criticisms of African Christianity within a broader context of the reinvention of the church in Africa by Africans which takes as its paradigm the experience of the church at Pentecost. As such, Asamoah-Gyadu is able to present new theological insights from a vigorous part of world Christianity to the other parts.

In honor of Dr. Asamoah-Gyadu’s work and following its spirit, I will re-read the Pentecost narrative and the Book of Acts in a way which is informed by the study of mission and world Christianity. First, reflecting on Pentecost and its aftermath in Acts, I will offer a new model of the apostolicity of the church. Second, I will suggest that the interface of mission—sending to the ends of the earth—and world Christianity—described as from the ends of the earth—offers a new way of understanding the church’s catholicity. Both these moves contribute to a de-centering of Europe in world Christianity.

Mission in the Spirit: A New Approach to Apostolicity

Pentecost: From/to the Ends of the Earth

The annual report for 2013–2014 of the Evangelische Missionswerk in Deutschland (EMW), which brings together the Protestant churches and missions in Germany, took as its title for a study of world mission “From the Ends of the Earth.”84 It derived this title from the record of the diaspora Jews gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2:5). But as we know, the Pentecost event is more readily seen as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to his disciples: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The problem with that verse today, after more than five hundred years of Christendom, is that “To the ends of the earth” sounds suspiciously like the colonial paradigm of mission in which missionaries, along with adventurers and colonizers, went out from Europe as far as they could go. In a post-colonial world, some of the problems of this model have necessitated re-thinking it, together with its theological foundations. Much attention has already been given by David Bosch and others to the re-interpreting the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:18–20, but the same treatment needs to be given to the rest of the New Testament.85

The book of Acts is foundational for understanding the mission of the early church. Does “to the ends of the earth” imply that Luke shared the expansionist vision of the contemporary Roman emperors or the colonial vision of the modern West?86 I think not, for several reasons.87 First, we cannot accuse Luke of imperial attitudes. The mission of the apostles is described as “witnessing to Christ” (Acts 1:8). That is, it has the same self-sacrificing character as Jesus’ mission. The apostles are vulnerable—even Paul, the Roman citizen, gets imprisoned for the faith. The early Christians were Jews, an oppressed group within the empire, and not agents of any political power. Like Jesus, the apostles rejected the adulation of the people (Paul and Barnabas, Acts 14:8–17) and did not gain materially from their missions. The apostles condemned demons but not people (with the possible exception of Elymas, Acts 13:6–11). And, most strikingly of all, the apostles did not impose their Jewish culture on Gentile converts.

Second, although the spread of the gospel according to Luke is often thought of in terms of expanding concentric circles—from Jerusalem, to Judaea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth—and was used in colonial mission histories as a prototype of expansionist history,88 this image of expansion is a misperception. There are several reasons why; first, because the call to witness is in each of those locations; second, because they do not form concentric circles. Jerusalem may be central to Judaea but not to Samaria. These first three places represent the ministry of Jesus himself, and the progress of the gospel in Acts 2:1–8:25. “The ends of the earth” is clearly the new departure, the mission to the gentiles, which we read about from Acts 8:26 onwards, mostly in connection with Paul. However, it is clear that Paul is not the only missionary to the Gentiles—there were other missions like those of Philip (Acts 8:4–40; 21:8), Barnabas (Acts 15:36–40), and Apollos (Acts 18:24–28; 1 Cor 1:12; 3:4–6, 22). But even though they went to the Gentiles, there is no record in Acts of Paul or any other apostle reaching the end of the earth.

What we hear about in Acts is mostly about a spreading of the good news within the Roman Empire. Like most empires, it dispossessed and displaced individuals and whole communities. Persecutions—like those recorded in Acts 8; 11; and 18—caused Christian communities to break up, scatter or re-locate in a random fashion. As well as such involuntary movement, the empire also facilitated mobility for some, like Paul himself, his fellow tent-makers Priscilla and Aquila, and Lydia, the business woman (Acts 16).89 But in this period, Christianity was not the imperial power; it was subject to imperial whims. The spread of the early church was not one of relentless expansion and its limited growth was not by conquering territory. Third, expansion is a misnomer because it misses half of the story. As the EMW report points out, the direction of spread was not only outwards from Jerusalem; at Pentecost there is also a movement in the opposite direction.90 Moreover, later in Acts we read that Paul himself frequently returns to Jerusalem, sometimes bringing Gentiles with him (Acts 12:25; 15:4; 18:22; 21:17).

Luke may have an agenda to lay the ground for peace between Christianity and Rome, but—and this is the third reason why he cannot be charged with imperialism—Luke is at the same time subversive of Roman power. Luke’s narrative, with its message of “good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18), has equally provided a key foundation for liberation theology. Luke may admire elements of the Roman Empire; for example, as in the Christian community, within the empire Jew-Gentile distinctions are transcended; and in Acts, Paul calls on Roman justice and experiences Roman protection. But Luke is all the while claiming supremacy for the kingdom of God, which transcends and sometimes counters Rome because Jesus is revealed as “Lord” (e.g., Acts 9:1–28).

Finally, Luke’s narrative, which follows Paul around Asia Minor, into Greece, and on to Rome, does not imply a special place for the West in Christian history. It is true that Luke does not refer to Paul’s years in Arabia (Gal 1:17; 2 Cor 11:32–33) but he does mention the spread of the gospel to Africa—Ethiopia—by a native of that place (Acts 8:27–39), and this is the implication also of the reference to diaspora representatives in Acts 2. We are meant to assume that they took they gospel back with them and that this is therefore not only the best record of the Jewish diaspora in that period but also, plausibly, a record of the location of the first churches. They extended from Pontus in the north of Asia Minor south to Egypt, from Rome in the west to Elam, which is east of Arabia.

In this connection, it is important to note that the “Macedonian call” (Acts 16:9–10) is not described by Luke as a call into Europe—that is a later European interpolation. It is true that, after his circular journeys, Paul travels from Jerusalem to Rome. However, this is not primarily because it is west but because it is the heart of empire. There is no indication in Acts that Jerusalem, or Antioch, or any of the other centers mentioned are superseded by Rome as a Christian center. The witness in the other places continues. Arguably neither Jerusalem nor Rome nor anywhere else is the center for Luke, but only heaven, where Jesus is. The book begins with Jesus’ ascension to there (Acts 1:1–11) and the most exemplary witnesses in Acts—Stephen and Paul—both have visions of heaven (Acts 7:55; 9:3; 10:11, 16).91

It is often said that Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles would be better named “the Acts of the Holy Spirit.” It is true that the Holy Spirit initiates, guides and empowers the church’s mission in Acts.92 We could also say that the filling of the Holy Spirit is a prerequisite for all Christian witness—not only in the iconic case of the disciples at Pentecost but in every case. Following the first Pentecost there are repeated pentecosts in Acts. The believers in Jerusalem received the Holy Spirit a second time (4:31) but in most cases the reference is to the Spirit coming on different communities. After their baptism, the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit through the ministry of Peter and John (8:14–17). The Gentiles associated with the Roman centurion Cornelius received the Holy Spirit in the same way as the Jews had, which convinced Peter and the church in Jerusalem that the Gentiles had also gained the new life of salvation (10:44–48; 11:17–18) and contributed to their being counted as Christians on equal terms as Jews by the Jerusalem Council (15:8–9).93 The Holy Spirit came upon the Ephesians through Paul’s ministry with the same manifestations of power (19:1–7). The ending of Acts leaves open the possibility of continued manifestations of the Spirit’s power. Pentecostals—as their name implies—but also Pietist, Holiness, charismatic and other movements before them—expect such continued blessing and look for the signs of the Spirit described by Luke.94 They see themselves as undergoing the same experience as that of the early church. Luke’s somewhat idealized picture of the early church is directly informing the identity and practice of many newer churches today

We could take one example of a contemporary Pentecostal-charismatic movement to illustrate this. Protestant Christianity in Korea experienced a revival movement in 1903–1907, the period in which Pentecostalism emerged in the USA, and which has much in common with it and other similar movements in Wales, India, and other parts of the world around that time.95 Its effect in Korea was not to create separate Pentecostal churches but to strengthen and indigenize the existing Presbyterian and Methodist churches which were inclined to accommodate it. Because of its parallels with Acts, the revival was described as “the Korean Pentecost” and descriptions of the event are heavily influenced by the account in Acts, chapter 2. For the Koreans and the foreign missionaries who experienced it, this was a watershed moment in which the Koreans understood that they, having the Holy Spirit, were now an autonomous Korean church, and the missionaries came to believe that the Koreans believers really were Christians as much as they were because they manifested the Spirit in the same way.96

A New Approach to Apostolicity

All the autonomous churches in existence to this day, including European ones, have at some point been through such a moment, whether they express it in Pentecostal terms or not. At some point they were recognized as churches in their own right, endowed with the Spirit of God, and therefore able to determine their own futures. We read about such a moment in Acts in the history of the church of Antioch when the mixed community of Jews and Gentiles became a distinct community known as “Christians” (11:26). From this point on in the narrative, Antioch stands in mutual relationship with the Jerusalem church and it becomes an independent center of mission activity.97

It is difficult to determine historically if the original Jerusalem community descended directly from that first Pentecost is extant today. The different churches that exist all over the world, and which we encounter in our ecumenical and mission relations, each have a distinct origin that was after the first Pentecost. The logic of the Pentecostal narrative of the book of Acts is that all “there is no distinction” (Acts 15:9). If other churches also manifest the same signs of the Spirit, then they are Christian every bit as much as those who brought the message to them. They are “filled with the Spirit” and there are no half measures. So, whether it was two thousand years ago, two hundred years ago, twenty years ago, or two years ago makes no essential difference. Their apostolicity is confirmed by the evidence of their baptism in the Spirit. Pentecostals, like other free or independent churches claim apostolicity on the grounds of faithfulness to the apostles rather than the apostolic succession in the sense of a continuous historical line back to the apostles through a series of bishops. If they claim to be filled with the Spirit as we do, then, as Peter asked, what is to prevent us recognizing them as partners in the same mission, brothers and sisters in Christ? (Acts 10:44–48)

Luke’s application of the word “apostle” to individuals is notoriously slippery. At first, he seems to apply it only to the Twelve, who are eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry (1:21–22). But later, both Paul and Barnabas are (14:4, 14) are referred to as apostles. Furthermore, although Stephen and his fellows are appointed deacons in a way that seems to give them an inferior place to the original apostles, Luke gives two of these “Seven”—Stephen and Philip—great prominence in his narrative and it is clear that they combined the waiting on tables with the prayer and preaching that the Twelve apparently considered more important. Noting the prominence and unqualified praise of Stephen particularly, and considering the fact that the Lord Jesus gave considerable importance to waiting on tables, David Pao wonders if Luke is actually criticizing the Twelve here?98 At any rate, it is clear from the narrative that the apostolic function is carried out most fully like people like Stephen, Philip, Barnabas, and later Paul, who were filled with the Spirit of God, regardless of the credentials possessed by the Twelve. Apostolicity is Acts is defined by the evidence of the Spirit at work. Furthermore, the apostles were missionaries, those commissioned with a particular task, sent ones, and missionaries were apostles. Apostolicity then comes down to the question of who has the Spirit that was in Jesus Christ? Who truly manifests the “power from on high” that Jesus promised? (Luke 24:48)

The Indian liberation theologian Samuel Rayan SJ wrote about “mission in the Spirit.”99 Mission is not primarily about the task to be accomplished, the goals and the strategy to get there, it is about the call to be filled with the Spirit. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus as he announced his mission (Luke 4:18). Mission is not primarily an action but a spirituality, a way of being in Christ. Furthermore, the Spirit in whose power we do mission, and in which Jesus carried out his mission, is sent from the Father and at work in the whole creation. The Spirit in which Jesus was conceived, grew up, was baptized and performed wondrous deeds was already known to the people as the Spirit of God manifest in the prophets, even the Spirit of life itself (Nicene Creed). Since the work of the Spirit is much wider than our particular community, mission can be thought of as “finding out where the Holy Spirit is at work and joining in.”100 This is the gist of the current statement of the World Council of Churches on mission and evangelism, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. It concludes: “We understand that our task is not to bring God along but to witness to the God who is already there (Acts 17:23–28). Joining in with the Spirit, we are enabled to cross cultural and religious barriers to work together towards life.”101

World Christianity: A New Approach to Catholicity

World Christianity

The concept “world Christianity” owes its origins largely to the work of Andrew Walls, whose long career has taken him to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Princeton and Liverpool Hope universities, and to his disciples and colleagues, most notably the late Lamin Sanneh. However, it has been appropriated by others as well and serves several purposes. It is debated whether it is purely descriptive or somehow normative; whether it is an observation or a new paradigm.102

From Walls’s work, world Christianity is partly a neat way of explaining the statistical fact that, somewhere around the year 1970, the number of Christians in the global South began to exceed that in the global North. With this statistic in mind, many have treated world Christianity as a product of European colonialism as if Christianity was a European religion that went global only in the last few centuries. The study of world Christianity tends to be dominated by a historical approach that locates it in the post-colonial and globalization eras. However, Walls, together with Todd Johnson, points out that Christianity is Asian in origin, that its early spread was in multiple directions and that up until the year 923 AD, there were more Christians living south of the latitude of Jerusalem than above it.103

Statistics should not be allowed to determine understanding of Christian faith—there is much more to it than that. Moreover, the sources of such statistics could be questioned as well as the underlying assumptions about what defines a Christian. But the use of numbers is not forbidden in theology—Luke himself concludes the Pentecost story with a head-count (Acts 2:41, 47). They are certainly significant, among other measures of Christian-ness—such as social impact and cultural change—in the study of Christianity.104

Sometimes it is assumed that “world Christianity” represents a sociological alternative to ecumenical theology or church history, and for some theologians this is a reason for dismissing it. It is true that “world Christianity” is a sociological term and that the subject provides a way in which sociologists have been drawn into the study the church or churches. It is also true that the study of world Christianity involves treating Christianity as a social movement and that critical tools from social studies are applied. However, world Christianity is best thought of as a multi-disciplinary topic. Most of the leading figures—such as Walls, Sanneh, Dana L. Robert, Brian Stanley, or Klaus Koschorke—are historians who also take theology very seriously. So seriously in fact that a historian or sociologist might sometimes worry that theology is driving their historical interpretations. World Christianity is, and should be, primarily an empirical study. But empirical findings can and should challenge theological claims—explicit or implicit—that do not reflect ground realities; for example, any claim that a certain theology developed in in a particular time and place (Aquinas, Luther, Barth, etc.) is somehow normative for all Christians everywhere.

“World Christianity” is sometimes used to imply an approach to Christianity that focuses on developments outside the West, like the terms “world music,” “world film,” or “world religions.” Much of the study of world Christianity does indeed do this in that it redresses a balance and moves beyond colonial approaches. However, as a movement that continues to have significant centers of power in the West, world Christianity must also attend to these—especially Christianity in Europe and the USA—if it is do justice to the whole.

In many respects, world Christianity studies what is so often treated as a European religion in the same way as the other religions which are often referred to under the broad heading “world religion,” such as Islam, Buddhism, and so on. They are studied both in their countries of origin and also in their global spread and manifestations in different continents. Although, the term “world religion” is a contested and ideologically loaded one, it is not necessary to assert the parity of certain religions in order to apply religious studies methods. In any case, Christianity has a strong claim to be a truly world religion on empirical grounds because it is “locally rooted,” “globally widespread” and “interconnected.”105 The contemporary discipline of religious studies treats religions as the lived practices of people rather than as systems to live by. World Christianity tends to study Christianity this way as well, although theology is more recognized than in the discipline in general.

In the UK and North America, professorial chairs in “world Christianity” have rapidly replaced chairs in mission studies and ecumenics. In the case of mission studies or missiology, this is primarily because the colonial associations of mission have been difficult to overcome; second, because the paradigm shift to God’s mission (missio Dei) suggested to many that mission from one community to another should cease; and third, because in secular university settings mission appears as a narrowly church pursuit. Personally, I think this is short-sighted; first, because churches and their mission agendas are far from marginal to society, even in places of high secularization; and second, because now that most churches think of themselves as missional and globally missionary movements are on the increase, especially in and from the global South, it is all the more important to be doing mission studies. Similarly, with ecumenics, the growth in Christian diversity makes issues of unity all the more urgent and greatly increases the dialogue to include churches beyond Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. World Christianity challenges a view of church history that assumes that in the beginning there was one united church which was subsequently rent asunder by schisms. This view of the origins of Christian diversity, which has dominated the ecumenical movement, sees diversity negatively and suggests that a unity that heals these divisions should be the main priority in inter-church relations. Although it was considered necessary at various times and places to unify, regularize or codify Christian belief and practice in one place, region or within one jurisdiction, such uniformity was secondary and diversity was more normal.106 Moreover, there always existed churches beyond these jurisdictions. Through the ecumenical councils, limits to diversity were set but these still allowed for regional variations. Such variations have come down to the present day in the Orthodox and Catholic churches; many have probably been lost. Furthermore, the churches have continued to be founded in different regions and cultures.

A New Approach to Catholicity

All the above definitions of world Christianity are true to an extent but at the heart of the shift to world Christianity in mission theology lies a rediscovery of the nature of the church’s catholicity. World Christianity shifts interest away from understanding Christian diversity primarily in terms of doctrine and polity and toward spatial or geographical diversity, which was the primary sense in which the first councils of the church understood catholicity. No longer is the unity envisaged mainly a denominational one; it is also a cultural and regional one. The ecumenism of the colonial period which gave birth to the World Council of Churches tended to assume that overcoming the doctrinal and liturgical differences between the churches of Europe would unite Christians globally. Today, this is no longer the case and new expressions of catholicity are being sought, for example through the Global Christian Forum.

However it is treated, the study of world Christianity tends to de-center Europe. World Christianity approaches to history reinforce the fact that Europe rose to dominance late in Christian history and that the early spread of the faith was in all directions. Early Christianity was polycentric and the faith has always been expressed in diverse ways. Christianity has multiple histories and a number of orthodoxies.107 In the light of two thousand years of Christian history and with the rise of Christianity in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and other regions, the dominance of Europe begins to look like a one-thousand-year aberration, an accident of history, soon to be superseded. Not only does it critique Euro-centrism, the world Christianity approach relativizes all regions and theologies. It is not only the study of non-Western Christianity but should include the critical study of Christianity in the West as well.

One of the strands of Walls’s theory is that Christianity undergoes “serial expansion.” Use of this term is often misleading and misguided,108 but it does make the valid point that Christianity both waxes and wanes in different parts of the world at different times. There is no guarantee that Christian growth is inexorable. From a historical point of view, the prime example is the Middle East and North Africa, in which there were once strong Christian centers. Another is the suppression of Christianity under Communism and its subsequent revival in many areas. From a theological point of view, we have the New Testament warnings to churches by Paul and the writer of Revelation, and the metaphor of pruning being necessary for growth. So one reason for de-centering Europe is that its numerical decline suggests—although it does not necessarily imply—that European Christianity will become a less significant player in world Christianity in future.

The new catholicity must recognize that many of the newer churches are organized differently from the traditional churches of Europe, which are national churches with parish systems. They may be megachurches, or new denominations, which describe themselves as “international.” Or they may be “migrant churches”; that is, they are not yet settled or integrated into the local religious landscape.109 These are “Christians without borders” and “churches on the move”—arguably much like the churches of the book of Acts.110 In view of the historical diversity of world Christianity and the different contexts in which faith is practiced, the new catholicity will keep an open mind about models of church polity and the limits to Christian diversity, while encouraging a truly “global conversation” to discern the Holy Spirit.111

The study of world Christianity not only poses conceptual challenges for understanding the context of mission, but it also suggests a re-reading of the biblical narrative and a new appreciation of mission as “in the Spirit,” which contribute to new approaches to the church’s apostolicity and catholicity. Theology is always done in context; mission theology especially must respond to the changing landscape of mission and take into account the vision of partners whose theology and view of the world may be different from our own.

84. EMW, Von allen Enden der Erde. This chapter originates in the guest lecture which I gave at the invitation of the Evangelisches Missionswerk (EMW) to their General Assembly, in Breklum, Germany, October 8–10, 2014. I thank Dr. Michael Biehl and the EMW for their kind hospitality and also their framing of the topic which stimulated my thinking.

85. See Bosch, “Structure of Mission.”

86. See Burrus, “Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.”

87. Shillington, Study of Luke-Acts.

88. E.g., Latourette, History of the Expansion of Christianity.

89. For insight into the colonial and diaspora context of early Christian mission, see, inter alia, Wright, New Testament and the People of God; Schnelle, Apostle Paul; Wedderburn, History of the First Christians; Irvin and Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement; Harris, Mission in the Gospels.

90. EMW, Von allen Enden der Erde, 3.

91. E.g., Gooder, “Gospel of Luke.”

92. Bosch, Transforming Mission, 114.

93. The Jerusalem Council might be seen as drawing back from Peter’s conclusion and qualifying the status of Gentiles, but Gonzales points out that in Acts 15:9–11 Peter goes beyond what he claimed in chapter 10 and Gaventa argues that Acts 10:34–38 forms the climax of the first part of Acts and the Council’s intention is rather to protect the Gentiles from idolatry and polytheism. See Gonzales, Acts, 173; Gaventa, Acts, 163–82, 210–27.

94. See Yong, Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh, 83.

95. See Anderson, Introduction to Pentecostalism.

96. Kim and Kim, History of Korean Christianity, 93–106.

97. Gonzales, Acts, 142–43.

98. Pao, “Waiters or Preachers.”

99. Rayan, Holy Spirit. See also Kim, Mission in the Spirit.

100. Kim, Joining in with the Spirit; cf. Bevans, “Plenary Address.”

101. CWME, “Together Towards Life.”

102. For recent debate, see Cabrita et al., Relocating World Christianity.

103. Johnson and Ross, Atlas of Global Christianity, 48–51.

104. Kim and Kim, Christianity as a World Religion, 4–8.

105. Kim and Kim, Christianity as a World Religion.

106. For the case of liturgy, see Bradshaw, Origins of Christian Worship.

107. Perhaps the best example of a world Christianity approach to Christian history is Irvin and Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement.

108. See Kim, Joining in with the Spirit, 14–16.

109. See Kim and Kim, History of Korean Christianity, 280–82, 299–315. For an in-depth study of an African megachurch, see Gitau, Megachurch Christianity Reconsidered. For a study of African migrant churches, see Hanciles, Beyond Christendom.

110. Kim, “Christians without Borders.”

111. See Kim, Holy Spirit in the World. For theology of conversation, see Haers and Mey, Theology and Conversation.