The Church as a globalizing agent[10]

“Glob­al­iz­a­tion and the Mis­sion of the Church stand out as a uniquely pen­et­rat­ing theo­lo­gic­al con­tri­bu­tion to ques­tions sur­round­ing the role of the Church in terms of val­ues that speak to the twenty first cen­tury con­text” (Gasper LoBi­ondo). In the world char­ac­ter­ized by Sans Fron­ti­eres, Plur­al­ism, Fun­da­ment­al­ism, Empire and Power Shift, the Church finds her­self ask­ing many exist­en­tial ques­tions like where are God’s people cur­rently at work in the world? Who are the con­tem­por­ary mis­sion­ar­ies? Who are our neigh­bours and how do we reach them?  What is going on in our world and how should it affect the way we share the Gos­pel with the vari­ous cul­tures? What com­pels us to mis­sion? We should note that the church is and always has been a glob­al­iz­ing force in the world, a force as sig­ni­fic­ant as glob­al cap­it­al­ism and geo-polit­ic­al power. The church has incred­ible resources, organ­iz­a­tions, man­power and insti­tu­tion­al appar­at­us and in dif­fer­ent moments in her his­tory she has played sig­ni­fic­ant roles in the mak­ing of his­tory. Con­sider for instance the recent explo­sion of domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al mis­sion and human­it­ari­an organ­iz­a­tions. While Chris­ti­an mis­sion­ary boards and agen­cies have exis­ted for a long time, mod­ern para-church, human­it­ari­an and mis­sion networks/organizations have mush­roomed in past and recent years. Organ­iz­a­tions such as Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ, Youth with a Mis­sion, World Vis­ion, Focus on the Fam­ily, Com­pas­sion Inter­na­tion­al, the Fuller School of World Mis­sion and the Chris­ti­an Broad­casters Net­work are some of the largest and most vis­ible of Afric­an, Asi­an, European and Amer­ic­an Evan­gel­ic­al and mis­sion­ary organ­iz­a­tions. There can be no doubt that Chris­ti­an mono­the­ism and its fruit (mis­sion­ary move­ments, acts of char­ity and con­cern for the wel­fare of the entire cre­ation), have been a primary driver of glob­al­iz­a­tion through­out his­tory.  From its incep­tion in the mis­sion­ary man­date of Jesus (cf. Matt 28:18–20), Chris­tian­ity has had a glob­al dimen­sion to its mis­sion. Chris­tian­ity is not a spec­tat­or to glob­al­iz­a­tion but one of its agents, one of the forces at work which have exten­ded inter­con­nec­tion between peoples, shared ideas and pro­moted social, polit­ic­al and cul­tur­al links.

Glob­al­iz­a­tion is not lim­ited to the polit­ic­al or eco­nom­ic spheres. There are mul­tiple dis­cip­lines that are glob­al­ized and that are still glob­al­iz­ing, and that exert influ­ence on the world­view of cul­tures and soci­et­ies around the world.  Reli­gion, although not always included as a major play­er in glob­al­iz­a­tion dis­cus­sions, is in fact one area of glob­al soci­ety that has great influ­ence on the world­view of any giv­en cul­ture. A large chal­lenge for the Church is how to integ­rate the influ­ence of the Gos­pel with the oth­er influ­ence car­ri­ers in the glob­al­iz­a­tion pro­cess. If this can be achieved, then, the Gos­pel will have a great­er impact on soci­ety than it has in recent his­tory. This would be a hol­ist­ic mis­sion.[11]

Mission

In his post-resur­rec­tion com­mand, Jesus said to the Elev­en dis­ciples “all author­ity (exousia) in heav­en and on earth has been giv­en to me. Go there­fore and make dis­ciples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Fath­er and of the Son and of the Holy Spir­it, and teach­ing them to obey all that I have com­manded you. Behold, I am with you always, until the end of age” (Matt 28:18–20). This is the best prac­tic­al defin­i­tion-descrip­tion of mis­sion giv­en by Jesus. From the found­a­tion of the total and uni­ver­sal author­ity of the Resur­rec­ted, springs the imper­at­ive of mis­sion to the Gen­tiles. The imper­at­ive “make dis­ciples” encloses the sense and the scope of the mis­sion. In con­trast to the Rabbi who led people to the Torah, Jesus makes him­self the centre of the dis­ciple­ship and as the scope of the mis­sion of the dis­ciples. The expres­sion “all the Gen­tiles” (panta ta ethnē) delin­eates the bound­ary of the mis­sion, which in the light of the Paschal mys­tery, is no more lim­ited only to the Israel­ites (cf. instead Matt 10:5b‑6), but is now exten­ded to the entire uni­verse. By com­mand­ing them to extend their mis­sion to all nations, Jesus enlarged the geo­graphy of the mis­sion. In such glob­al­ised epoch, how did the dis­ciples propag­ate the Gos­pel – the mes­sage of salvation?

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles is the fruit of the mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies of the apostles. In oth­er words, it is an accur­ate doc­u­ment­a­tion of the mis­sion­ary activ­it­ies of the Twelve dis­ciples in a glob­al­ised con­text of the time, giv­en Jesus com­mand to extend the Gos­pel to all eth­nic groups. In this unique doc­u­ment­a­tion, Luke shows how the Gos­pel spread rap­idly from Jer­u­s­alem to the whole Roman Empire, and from its Jew­ish root to the Gen­tile world. One among the pur­poses of Acts of the Apostles is to demon­strate the unstop­pable pro­gress of the Gos­pel. Such pro­gress is both geo­graph­ic­al and eth­nic. That is, it is glob­al with­in its con­text. The author seeks to show how the Mes­sage was propag­ated in a glob­al­ised con­text. His over­rid­ing pur­pose is to demon­strate that the advance of the church is the work of God and the ful­fil­ment of his plan to bring sal­va­tion to the ends of the earth. The church, which com­prised Jews and Gen­tiles, empowered and guided by the Holy Spir­it, rep­res­ents the people of God in the present age. In this evan­gel­ic­al expan­sion, the Twelve, Paul and oth­ers, made use of the then glob­al lan­guages and oppor­tun­it­ies. How?

The Global nature of Acts 2

On this day, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spir­it, and they began to speak in oth­er tongues/languages (glōs­sais) as the Spir­it enabled them (Acts 2:4). …each one heard them speak­ing in his own lan­guage (Acts 2:6). The people wondered and ques­tioned …how is it that each one of us hears them in our own nat­ive lan­guage – dialektos? (Acts 2:8). Again, they said …we hear them speak­ing in our own tongues/languages (glōs­sais) about the great deeds God has done (Acts 2:11). What happened in Acts 2 is not a form of abracadabra or hocus-pocus. It was a ful­fil­ment of Jesus’ prom­ise to the apostles as recor­ded in Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8. How should the apostles bear wit­ness in the con­text of glob­al­ized Jer­u­s­alem? The mir­acle in Acts 2 does not con­sist in the fact that the apostles mes­mer­ized their audi­ence by speak­ing in for­eign lan­guages or that they uttered inde­cipher­able expres­sions. On the con­trary, the mir­acle con­sists in the fact that as they spoke, people of vari­ous tongues (lan­guages) and from vari­ous nations who gathered in Jer­u­s­alem under­stood them clearly in their own nat­ive lan­guages (dia­lects). That is, they received the word of God in their own lan­guages. This was the mir­acle. The mir­acle of the pro­clam­a­tion and spread­ing of the Gos­pel mes­sage, the mes­sage of sal­va­tion. The apostles did not speak in order to dis­play their capa­city to impress the people, or to make them­selves cen­ter of atten­tion and attrac­tion. What was at the cen­ter was not their capa­city to speak lan­guages they nev­er stud­ied, but the fear­less pro­clam­a­tion of the Word of God to all, and the Holy Spir­it made it pos­sible that they do that in lan­guages they nev­er stud­ied, but which were under­stood by those who spoke those lan­guages and dia­lects. The com­mand to pro­claim the Gos­pel to all nations is clearly exhib­ited in this event.

There­fore, the book of Acts does not recount primar­ily the suc­cess of the “enthu­si­ast­ic” mani­fest­a­tions but the suc­cess of the mes­sage of the Gos­pel stim­u­lated and accom­pan­ied by the Holy Spir­it. Giv­en the glob­al­ised nature of Jer­u­s­alem, the Holy Spir­it empowered the apostles to make known to the many nations, the mes­sage of sal­va­tion. What happened in Acts 2 is not glos­so­lalia but speak­ing in oth­er tongues, where by tongues is meant lan­guages. While glos­so­lalia is speak­ing in tongues in the sense of an ecstat­ic or incom­pre­hens­ible speech, the incid­ent of Acts 2 is quite dif­fer­ent. We can also say that the apostles spoke in tongues where by tongues, is meant lan­guages, the lan­guages of those present. In this sense, the Holy Spir­it devised a meth­od for pro­claim­ing the Gos­pel in the then glob­al­ized world. As the text says, those present under­stood the lan­guages the apostles spoke. This is quite dif­fer­ent from the present day emo­tion­al hys­teria of the Cha­ris­mat­ics and the Pente­cost­als, which does not in any way bring about sol­id and mature faith. The des­cent of the Power from on high dis­pelled the apostles’ fear, and instilled in them the spir­it of cour­age and the zeal to announce the deeds of God. Let us not for­get that the only reas­on for the gift of the Holy Spir­it on these apostles was to pro­claim without fear or favour the great deeds God has done in and through Jesus the Christ (Acts 2:11). Glob­al­isa­tion or any oth­er phe­nomen­on, should not hamper this mandate.

Mission and ICT

Our cen­tury is char­ac­ter­ized by the mass media or means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion, and we can­not do without these means. The devel­op­ment of the inform­a­tion tech­no­logy gave the people great­er and faster access to inform­a­tion. Rap­id flow of inform­a­tion allowed great­er aware­ness of people on vari­ous ideas, cul­tures, tech­no­lo­gies and events that affect the glob­al com­munity. ICT includes a wide range of hard­ware and soft­ware, and sup­port­ive know­ledge and ideas. With­in few years, the truly ignor­ant will no longer be those without aca­dem­ic cer­ti­fic­ates, but the ICT illit­er­ates. Wheth­er we like it or not, wheth­er we believe it or not, wheth­er we accept it or not, ICT has deeply con­di­tioned, is con­di­tion­ing and in fact, will con­tin­ue to con­di­tion our exist­ence, includ­ing the spread­ing of the Gos­pel. Even the Church accepts and acknow­ledges that these means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion (the inter­net, the press, radio, tele­vi­sion and oth­ers), “…influ­ence not merely single indi­vidu­als but the very masses and even the whole of human soci­ety.”[12]

In this case, what do we do? ICT is a new form of the Greek “Areo­pagus” (a hill in Athens where the supreme tribunal met) in our world. What is this Areo­pagus? After pro­claim­ing the Word of God in many places, Paul went to the city of Athens, where he vis­ited the Areo­pagus^[13] and pro­claimed the Good News in lan­guage appro­pri­ate to and under­stand­able in those sur­round­ings.^[14] The means of social com­mu­nic­a­tion have become so import­ant as to be for many the chief means of inform­a­tion and edu­ca­tion, of guid­ance and inspir­a­tion in their beha­viour as indi­vidu­als, fam­il­ies and with­in soci­ety at large. In par­tic­u­lar, the young­er gen­er­a­tion is grow­ing up in a world con­di­tioned by the mass media. ICT is a “new cul­ture” which involves new ways of com­mu­nic­at­ing, with new lan­guages, new tech­niques and a new psy­cho­logy. Every mis­sion­ary is sup­posed to be at home with these new lan­guages and tech­niques of communication.

Social Networking[15]

The theme of mis­sion and mis­sion in the con­text of glob­al­iz­a­tion can­not be con­cluded without ref­er­ence to the social net­work­ing sites and applic­a­tions. Again, it might even be an over­sight for a ser­i­ous and com­mit­ted mis­sion­ary to ignore this glob­al and ever-grow­ing ways of com­mu­nic­a­tion. Gran­ted there are pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive sides of these sites and applic­a­tions, but we can­not because of the neg­at­ive use or effect, ignore the immense con­tri­bu­tions of these sources to the pro­clam­a­tion and dif­fu­sion of the Gos­pel. Wis­dom and dis­cern­ment is all that are required on the part of those concerned.

Top social networking sites

Below are the graphs of the top social net­work­ing sites in the world as at the time of writ­ing this paper. As could be observed, Face­book is lead­ing the pack with a huge mar­gin in front of You­tube. Then there is anoth­er gap of sim­il­ar size to Ins­tagram on the third place.

  Again, we can also use the visu­al size to explain fur­ther the immens­ity of these social net­work­ing sites. On the visu­al graph, we find the three large circles dom­in­at­ing the rest. Only Twit­ter and Red­dit seem to come close to the top three. How­ever, in Rus­sia VK has a huge pen­et­ra­tion, dom­in­at­ing the Rus­si­an speak­ing world as Face­book does glob­ally. The work of evan­gel­iz­a­tion can­not ignore these avenues.

Top social networking applications

With the grow­ing pop­ular­ity of mobile social net­work­ing, it is also import­ant to glance at the list of some glob­al lead­ing social applic­a­tions. These applic­a­tions are in fierce com­pet­i­tion with the main social sites already giv­en above. The pic­ture here is a bit dif­fer­ent if we look at the brand names. What­s­App and Mes­sen­ger are in a close race for the top pos­i­tion. Both applic­a­tions are owned by Face­book. Hence, the com­pet­i­tion may not be as fierce as between com­pletely sep­ar­ate com­pan­ies. Then, there is a lot of Asi­an applic­a­tions and then on the sixth spot is Ins­tagram, also owned by Facebook.

These sites and applic­a­tions are of Amer­ic­an, European and Asi­an ori­gins. Where is Africa? Where is the Church in Africa? Where is the Church in Niger­ia? Where is the Church in Igbo land? Where is the Church in Owerri Eccle­si­ast­ic­al Province? The West­ern and Asi­an Churches have cus­tom­ized applic­a­tions and soft­ware for use in the Church. How many of these applic­a­tions and soft­ware do we have in Africa, in Niger­ia, in Igbo­land and in our Province? Next page