The title of this book intrigued me and was the reason I bought it. The fact that it was written by a group of Latin American scholars and theologians was a bonus--I always like to read non-American authors talking about the church. They give an angle I'm not accustomed to.
Like any edited volume with multiple authors, the quality is uneven. But a couple of the chapters were standout and worth the purchase price. ($14.50 at Fuller Seminary's online bookstore.)
The introduction by Rene Padilla had some good insights that set the tone for the idea of integral mission that the authors are expounding on. Here are a couple provocative statements from Padilla:
...The church is not an agent of "individual salvation" which brings into people's grasp the benefits of Christ's work, but rather a community of faith called to incarnate the testimony to his lordship over the whole of life.
Christian discipleship understood as a missionary lifestyle--the active participation in the realization of God's plan for human existence and the creation, revealed in Jesus Christ--to which the whole church and each of its members have been called, expresses in a word, the essence of the church's mission.
As John Perkins says, the church is called to "be the replacement to Jesus in a given community, doing what he would do, going where he would go and teaching what he would teach.
Samuel Escobar has some good challenges in chapter 4:
Those who put their faith in Christ's message and decide on a change of life and accept Christ as Lord and model also experience becoming a part of a community, belonging to a body, not living isolated in a private relationship with God... Middle class evangelicals generally have not experienced the full healing force of this sense of belonging. But the socially marginalized, especially those in larger cities, experience this life in the church as a consolation, a refuge, and a place of integration...
Chapters 5 Roldan borrowing some from Luther says Christians become priests through baptism and that when these priests take on their role they bring a revolution. Quoting Emil Brunner, "the Church exists for mission as fire exists for burning." I like that. Roldan also reminds, and I believe this is his most important contribution, that the "doctrine of the church begins, not with the church, but with the Kingdom of God. Apart from its relationship with the Kingdom of God, the church practically has no raison d'etre, because it is not an end in itself" (quoting Pannenberg.)
His passage on page 169 is worth reproducing in its entirety--I highlighted the whole thing.
When we speak of the Kingdom, we have to make it plain that we are speaking precisely of the Kingdom of God. Human beings cannot produce it--regardless of our good intentions and good will... We must emphasize, with Sobrino, that "the Kingdom of God can not be established by people. It will not come about through the planning of goals for the future. It is vitally important that it remains the kingdom of God, whose path through history has come to be understood in the majority of instances through the downfall of human pride." In addition to demolishing human pride beyond the frontiers of the church, it is also possible that the Kingdom of God may need to demolish the pride of Christians as well. There is always a tendency--very typical of human nature, or if we prefer Stanley Jones's neologism "human antinature"--that draws us, if we are not careful into feelings of pride: "We are the church of Jesus Christ; this makes us superior to unbelievers and to the world in general." Every tendency to identify the church with the Kingdom, as well as signalling a theological derailment, leads almost inevitably to pride and self sufficiency. To this end, and even though it might appear exaggerated to us, it is good to remember once again, with Pannenberg, the transitory nature of the church: "The church is necessary so long as the social and political life of man does not provide the ultimate human fulfillment that the Kingdom of God is to bring in human history." The Kingdom of God is eternal even though it is manifested in history. The church on the other hand, is an historical entity formed around Jesus of Nazareth to proclaim and embody the values of the Kingdom of God: fundementally love, peace and justice. Thus we could say that the church has no mission other than the missio Dei that is expressed paradigmatically in Jesus, the Christ. Along with the essential link between the church and the Kingdom, we have to establish the link between the church and the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth... The mission of the church is defined by the Kingdom of God and given exemplary reality in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
There are a few other notable sections in the book. Overall, a good book for concepts and ideas and some good anecdotal stories. Definitely not a "how to" guide for churches. More of a concept book.
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