Far Eastern Bible College | Burning Bush

THE BURNING BUSH

Volume 9 Number 1, January 2003

MISSION OR MISSIONS?

Edward Paauwe

"Ed, would you be able to help edit Biblical Missions?" The question came from our Mission Board President. I had graduated from Bob Jones University in 1965 and from Faith Theological Seminary in May 1969 and in September of 1969 my wife and I were appointed as missionaries to Singapore under The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, with headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After doing our deputation, we left for the mission field in April 1970 and came back for our first furlough in March 1972. It was in that year that the question came from our Mission Board President.

We were spending most of our furlough time in the Philadelphia area, and I was pleased and honored to be able to serve the Lord and help our Mission Board in this way. One of my responsibilities was to type all articles for Biblical Missions, our monthly missions magazine, and get them ready for the printer. One day, our Mission Board President gave me his editorial to type, in which he referred to the International Review of Mission. I was somewhat familiar with that publication, as I had seen it as a Seminary student in about 1967 or 1968. However, I remembered the name of that publication as the International Review of Missions, and so I put an "s" after "Mission" in what our Mission Board President had written.

Our Mission Board President was very gracious. He did not call me into his office to tell me that I had made a big mistake in changing Mission to Missions. As a matter of fact, I do not recall him saying anything directly to me about it at all. However, he did make it clear by telling the whole office staff, which of course included me, that the name of the publication had been changed from the International Review of Missions to the International Review of Mission. This had happened in 1969, and with my graduation from Seminary in that year and our going to the mission field in 1970, I had somehow missed that change. While the office staff probably did not know the President was referring to my gaffe, I sure was embarrassed and I learned something very important that day. I can assure you I never forgot and never made the same mistake again.

After I started to write this paper, I decided to read the above-mentioned editorial again. I was embarrassed to discover that I had changed "Mission" to "Missions" no less than three times, twice in the name of the publication the International Review of Mission and once in the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission and Evangelism.¹

Mission or Missions?

You may wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, in English, doesn’t the addition of an "s" simply change a word from singular to plural? While it is true that the plural of mission is missions, the meaning of the words mission and missions is different. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language says that the English word "mission" is derived from the Latin "missio, a sending, sending away."²"Mission" is among other things "a sending out or being sent out with authority to perform a special duty … the special duty or function on which someone is sent as a messenger or representative … the special task or purpose for which a person is apparently destined in life; calling: as, he considered it his mission to educate the ignorant."³ The key word is the word "special." Mission is a special duty, a special function, or a special task. As such mission refers to one specific task that a person wants to accomplish.

"Missions" on the other hand is defined as "organized missionary work, especially for spreading Christianity."⁴ Or, as Dr Irwin Steele, former missionary to Latin America, explains, "Someone has given the following definition: ‘Christian missions is the proclamation of the Gospel to the unconverted in all the world, according to the command of Christ.’"⁵ It would seem that "someone" was Robert Hall Glover who said, "‘Christian Missions’ is the Proclamation of the Gospel to the Unconverted Everywhere According to the Command of Christ."⁶

C Gordon Olson says, "Missions is the whole task, endeavor, and program of the Church of Jesus Christ to reach out across geographical and/or cultural boundaries by sending missionaries to evangelize people who have never heard or who have little opportunity to hear the saving gospel."⁷A more detailed definition is given by George Peters:

Missions is a specialized term. By it I mean the sending forth of authorized persons beyond the borders of the New Testament church and her immediate gospel influence to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in gospel-destitute areas, to win converts from other faiths or non-faiths to Jesus Christ, and to establish functioning, multiplying local congregations who will bear the fruit of Christianity in that community and to that country.⁸

To summarize, missions is reaching the lost, wherever they may be, with the saving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to build the new believers up in the faith. To distinguish between mission and missions, we can say that mission refers to a specific task, while missions refers to the overall task of evangelism, church planting, and the nurturing of believers.

It should be pointed out that today the word "mission" is not used to refer to a specific task. Rather, as Olson says,

Several decades ago ecumenical writers began to substitute the term "mission" for "missions" with the evident intention of broadening the focus to include things which had not previously been included, such as social-action programs and the "social gospel." In the intervening years many evangelicals have been undiscriminating in following this terminology. I will not do so since I am convinced that there is an essential difference between the terms.⁹

Olson clearly sees a distinction between the words "mission" and "missions". Peters does as well: "Much is being said today of mission and missions. … They are not synonyms."¹⁰ Interestingly, as far back as 1971, even Peter Wagner called attention to the importance of the change from "missions" to "mission". He said, "The phrase the church is mission is more dangerous than it might first appear. It reflects a subtile [sic] but widespread shift in emphasis from making disciples as the top-priority missionary goal to simply doing good works in the world."¹¹ And more than forty years ago, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin already indicated that subtle, crucial differences were implied in the use of the word "mission" as opposed to "missions":

When we speak of "the mission of the church" we mean everything that the Church is sent into the world to do—preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, caring for the poor, teaching the children, improving international and interracial relations, attacking injustice—all of this and more can rightly be included in the phrase "the Mission of the Church."

But within this totality there is a narrower concern which we usually speak of as "missions." Let us, without being too refined, describe the narrower concern by saying: it is the concern that in the places where there are no Christians there should be Christians.¹²

Dr William R LeRoy, former missionary to São Paulo, Brazil (now retired), said that when the apparently insignificant letter "s" in the title of The International Review of Mission was dropped in April of 1969,

it symbolized not only the triumph of secular theology as the guiding norm of the ecumenical movement, but also represents a historic and a gigantic step forward in adopting revolutionary concepts in their effort to reinterpret the very nature and mission of the Church. This action was also taken to bring the International Review of Missions, now, International Review of Mission, into line with the thinking of the Mexico meeting of 1963 of the Commission of World Mission and Evangelism, the Geneva Conference of Church and Society of the WCC in 1966, and the Uppsala meeting of the WCC in 1968.¹³

In other words, the change from "missions" to "mission" is not only deliberate, but it also indicates a major shift in theology. It is unfortunate that many Christians are not aware of the distinction between "missions" and "mission" and use the terms interchangeably. May God help these Christians to see the difference between these terms so that they will use them properly.

A Look at History

It is necessary to go back into Church History to see how this change came about. The early Church believed in a strict verbal inspiration of the Bible and held it as the final authority. This view was held, with very few exceptions, until the seventeenth century, when there was a tendency to eliminate the human element in the writing of the Bible. In the eighteenth century, rationalism denied the infallibility of the Scriptures and inserted the existence of errors in the Word of God. In the nineteenth century, Schleiermacher excluded the supernatural element in inspiration. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries all previous views held from the first through the nineteenth century are held in all kinds of variations. Today there are basically four attitudes towards the Bible. While this may be an oversimplification, because there are so many variations of each view, it will nevertheless give us a good idea of the attitude people today have towards the Bible.

The Liberals believe that the Bible contains the Word of God, or that it may contain it. The Neo-Orthodox hold that those parts of the Bible which speak to your heart become the Word of God to you. The Neo-Evangelical view is that the Bible is the Word of God, but it’s really not important. Love is the most important thing. It should be added that of late some Neo-Evangelicals have moved to a "limited inerrancy" view. They believe that "the Bible is infallible and inerrant in matters concerning salvation, but that its writers were subject to the worldview of their time and so, in matters of science and history, may have made some errors."¹⁴Other Neo-Evangelicals have adopted a theistic evolution view of the creation of the world. Fundamentalists believe that the Bible is the inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God, the only and infallible rule for faith and practice. Fundamentalists would agree with the words of Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield when he said, "Inspiration is that extraordinary, supernatural influence exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our Sacred Books, by which their words were rendered also the words of God, and, therefore, perfectly infallible."¹⁵

It will now be necessary to look at a number of different church and missionary conferences, as well as congresses on evangelism, to see how the gradual change from "missions" to "mission" occurred. This will also show that the understanding of salvation has changed among liberal and neo-orthodox circles from the vertical to the horizontal—from a consideration of man’s relationship to God to man’s relationship with his fellow man. It should be noted that Harvey T Hoekstra, who wrote The World Council of Churches and the Demise of Evangelism, is actually "a minister whose church has been a member of the World Council of Churches [WCC] from its inception."¹⁶ He states, "I intend to remain a part of this church within the Council. As an ‘insider’ then I am primarily addressing my colleagues in the churches that make up the membership of the World Council."¹⁷ Part of the historical material that follows is taken from Hoekstra’s book. It is the opinion of this writer that using material written by an "insider" will give a fair representation of the views expressed by the World Council of Churches, even though Hoekstra generally speaks very favorably of missions within the WCC context. For instance, commenting on the 1963 meeting in Mexico, he says, "Basically, the consensus at Mexico City was in the tradition of … the classical view of missions."¹⁸ Fundamentalists cannot agree with that. But while we cannot agree with many of Hoekstra’s observations and conclusions, his reports of what happened at the various conferences are very helpful and enlightening.

New York — 1900

In 1885 A T Pierson suggested

that a world conference on missions be gathered to help "evangelize the world in this generation." In 1900, a conference convened at Carnegie Hall in New York with over 200,000 people attending the various sessions during a 10 day period. Officially, there were 1,666 participants representing some 400 agencies.¹⁹

Edinburgh — 1910

"The modern ecumenical mood is usually traced back to Edinburgh, 1910, where delegates of the missionary community came together to share their joint concerns for the evangelization of the world."²⁰ Three movements came out of the Edinburgh conference. First of all, there was the Faith and Order movement (1920); secondly, there was the Life and Work movement (1930). As Hoekstra says, "These two streams eventually merged to form the World Council of Churches (1948)."²¹ The third movement that came out of the Edinburgh conference was the International Missionary Council (IMC) (1921). In 1961 "the IMC was integrated into the WCC and became known as the Division of World Mission and Evangelism."²²

Doran says regarding the Edinburgh conference, "In order to accommodate the various groups participating, a deliberate move toward minimizing doctrine was made by the committee so that conflict would be avoided."²³

Jerusalem — 1928

"The Jerusalem, 1928, conference dealt with the threat of secularism. In a world where mission and church leaders were perhaps tempted to join with other religions in a common effort to stem the tide of secularism, the IMC clearly affirmed:

Our message is Jesus Christ. He is the revelation of what God is, and of what man through Him may become … He made known to us God as our Father, in Him we find God incarnate, the final, yet ever unfolding, revelation of the God in whom we live and move and have our being (IMC 1928:402).²⁴

Madras — 1938

This meeting "wrestled with the relationship of the Christian message to the messages of the non-Christian world."²⁵ Doran observes that the Jerusalem and Madras conferences "advanced the issue of social involvement in missions and began to articulate a ‘Larger Evangelism,’ i.e., a view of evangelism that encompassed more than personal salvation. This view laid the foundation upon which much of the later developments would build."²⁶

Whitby — 1947

At Whitby, the Christian way of life "was seen as in social competition with secularism. The social superiority of Christianity became a motive for evangelism."²⁷

Amsterdam — 1948

This was a significant year because both the World Council of Churches and the International Council of Christian Churches were established in the same month. The WCC was thoroughly ecumenical and the ICCC staunchly fundamental. In the 53 years since then, the WCC has moved further left, while the ICCC still stands "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:9). Olson says regarding the WCC, "Although the founding documents of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam seemed evangelical on the surface, in the ensuing years the liberal and neo-orthodox viewpoint became dominant."²⁸Olson also points out that since the time of its inauguration, "the World Council of Churches has had the organizational unity of Christendom as its major goal, and evangelical doctrine, evangelism, and missions have been minimized and repressed."²⁹

Willingen — 1952

Hoekstra says that, "It was at the Willingen meeting in 1952 that new theological winds began to blow more strongly."³⁰ This is a significant admission. In his discussion of the conferences mentioned so far, Hoekstra has not indicated any problems at all. But now he says that new theological winds are beginning to blow more strongly. In other words, they have been blowing before, but now it is becoming more obvious. "The Willingen conference," says Hoekstra, "was the crack in the door that opened the way for the classical-biblical interpretation of mission to be supplanted by ‘New Mission.’"³¹ What is "New Mission"? Hoekstra explains, "By this term I mean that understanding of mission that lifts up humanization as its goal—and the ultimate objective of which is to bring about a new socio-economic-political world order having a ‘just, sustainable and participatory society.’"³² And the back cover of Hoekstra’s book explains: "Though founded upon a passion for the three billion ‘unreached peoples,’ the WCC, through years of coffee, communism, and compromise, has washed away the Great Commission in favor of a new jargon. Now ‘New Mission’ redefines missionary as Marxist."³³ That is quite a revelation: a book written by a member of the WCC admits that the WCC redefines missionary as Marxist!

Evanston — 1954

This was the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches. We shall not comment further on this Assembly, except to say that the new theological winds that had begun to blow more strongly at Willingen, were becoming stronger yet.

Ghana — 1957

"At Ghana the assurance was given that the IMC would be able to do more for ‘missions and evangelism’ from within the WCC than by remaining outside."³⁴ As a result,

the IMC voted to recommend to its constituent members that it be integrated into the World Council of Churches, though it was not until 1961 (at New Delhi) that the decision became final and the IMC officially became the Division of World Mission and Evangelism within the World Council of Churches.³⁵

However, Stephen Neill "believed that integration [of the IMC into the WCC] was a thinly disguised way for the WCC to liquidate the troublesome IMC."³⁶ Neill rejected integration because "the present attitude of the World Council, however masked by polite phrases, is that the IMC is simply an anachronistic nuisance and the sooner it is liquidated by becoming a part of the World Council, the better.…"³⁷ Subsequent events have shown that Neill’s view was correct. It is clear that:

at Ghana world mission began to be interpreted differently. On the one hand the concept of mission was being broadened until it included, at least in theory, the whole life of all Christians everywhere—i.e., "everything is Mission." On the other hand, the concept was limited to a more specific task defined in terms of evangelism, or proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to non-Christians, particularly to those of non-Christian religious traditions. At Ghana there was already a degree of polarization between these two positions.³⁸

New Delhi — 1961

The Third Assembly of the WCC met in New Delhi in 1961. "This denotes the historic moment when the IMC was integrated into the WCC and became known as the Division of World Mission and Evangelism."³⁹ While some "hailed it as an act that would place the missionary and evangelistic task at the center of everything the WCC would now undertake", others "feared that … the missionary obligation would be submerged and obscured by the many other things churches must also do together."⁴⁰

Subsequent events have shown that those who opposed integration were correct. Hoekstra states:

Not only have most mission agencies and boards been structured out of existence in WCC member churches, but even the need for a Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (within the WCC) has been discussed, on more than one occasion, by the WCC staff.⁴¹

Mexico City — 1963

"Mexico City is remembered particularly for the slogan ‘Mission in Six Continents.’ … The whole world is a mission field."⁴² Hoekstra explains that,

Many subjects touched on at Mexico City became central issues in succeeding years in the WCC’s quest for reconceptualization of Mission. These included: (1) Dialogue: the encounter with people of other living faiths and ideologies; the relation of dialogue to proclamation and conversion; the ethics of dialogue. (2) The structure of the missionary congregation: the renewal of the church to give a credible witness to the Gospel. (3) Urban and Industrial Mission: how to bear witness to the Gospel in a world of cities. (4) The proclamation of the Gospel and the social dimension of the Gospel: "holistic evangelism" of Bangkok 1973. (5) Service and Justice: the churches’ response to human tragedy, hunger, poverty, earthquake and fire. (6) Secular man and the kind of salvation God intends.⁴³

Uppsala — 1968

At this Assembly of the World Council of Churches, it becomes increasingly clear that the new theological winds that Hoekstra said had begun to blow more strongly at Willingen, have now turned into a storm, if not a hurricane. Norman Goodall, in his report on Uppsala, wrote:

Because the world is always changing, it is always necessary to evaluate missionary principles. … We suggest the following criteria for such evaluation:

do they place the church alongside the poor, the defenseless, the abused, the forgotten, the bored?

do they allow Christians to enter the concerns of others to accept their issues and their structures as vehicles of involvement?

are they the best situations for discerning with other men the signs of the times, and for moving with history towards the coming of the new humanity?⁴⁴

Reading this, it is no wonder that only a few short years later, "the WCC called its member churches to an all-out effort to struggle against injustice and create a more humane social order. WCC leaders felt a different set of missionary priorities was needed for today’s revolutionary, often violent, and increasingly secularized society."⁴⁵ This different set of priorities is clearly seen in the following quote from Hoekstra:

The Uppsala Assembly cannot be thanked for what it failed to say. In its intense emphasis on the horizontal relationships, the vertical dimension and the power of the Gospel to change those who hear and believe into new people in Christ was scarcely mentioned. The challenge to repentance and new birth into the Kingdom of God through belief in Jesus Christ for people everywhere was notably absent. Pity and compassion for the millions upon millions who have never validly heard of Jesus Christ, God’s only appointed Savior, was a missing element. Nowhere mentioned was the intent of God that through the proclamation of the Gospel his salvation could reach to the ends of the earth. The great unfinished missionary and evangelistic task of the churches appeared to be deliberately omitted.⁴⁶

The change from "missions" to "mission" is becoming increasingly clear and will become even clearer when we consider Bangkok.

Bangkok — 1973

The Bangkok Conference was ten years in preparation. It was originally planned for 1969 or 1970. But the CWME [Commission on World Mission and Evangelism] leaders were not ready; nor was the time ripe for their desired objectives. For the goal of Bangkok was to complete the process that would involve the whole WCC in a common effort: to implement the horizontal understandings of New Mission as laid out in Uppsala; to re-orient and redirect the missionary movement (emphasis added).⁴⁷

That the Bangkok Conference was judged to have been a success can be seen from the words of Emilio Castro (who was to become the new director of the CWME) at the close of the meeting: "The missionary era has ended and the era of world mission has just begun."⁴⁸

In a sense we might say that truer words were never spoken. As far as the WCC was concerned, the era of missions, i.e. of winning the lost to Christ, had ended. The era of mission, of seeing salvation on a purely horizontal level, had begun.

The theme of the Bangkok Conference was "Salvation Today." Hoekstra says that, "the discussion papers written by the WCC staff, and which formed the basis for Bangkok planning, indicate that salvation was to be defined very largely in secular terms and that the churches would be summoned to enter the struggle for liberation leading to a new society."⁴⁹ Emilio Castro, Director of CWME, put it this way after the Conference:

We discerned in Bangkok that the theological schizophrenia that separates relation with God from relations with our neighbours disappears in this wonderful knowledge of a liberating God whose Spirit works through different agents of liberation, but works fundamentally through his Church to convey to mankind the secret of his love and to offer the possibility of a conscious decision to incorporate ourselves into his divine mission of salvation and liberation.⁵⁰

Salvation then is seen in liberation. It is not seen in man’s relationship with God, but in his relationship with his fellow man. The WCC is now embracing "the new, horizontal understanding of mission—the salvation God intended as described by New Mission."⁵¹ Keep in mind, as mentioned earlier, that "‘New Mission’ redefines missionary as Marxist."⁵² Truly, mission is far removed from the Bible’s teachings on missions.

Nairobi — 1975

This Assembly of the World Council of Churches was held in the Kenyatta Conference Centre in downtown Nairobi, November 23 — December 10, 1975. Interestingly, the International Council of Christian Churches held its Ninth World Congress at the same venue, July 16-27, 1975, in direct opposition to the WCC. The following "Statement on World Council of Churches," which clearly explains some of the WCC views, was adopted unanimously at the ICCC Congress:

Whereas the position of the World Council of Churches on most of the issues facing the churches and the world in general is now well defined and well known, it becomes the duty of Bible-believing Christians everywhere, and those represented in the International Council of Christian Churches with its 202 denominations, to speak out strongly in the terms of the Scriptures themselves.

The WCC’s drive for a one-world church; their representation of salvation as social gospel, which is not a gospel; their promotion of Marxist-Christian dialogue; their inclusion of the Communist-controlled churches in their membership, their financial support of certain liberation movements which have actually produced Communist states; their actual misleading of certain governments and falsely accusing others, have alienated and disrupted. It is imperative that a clear, clean-cut break be made with this agency in every section of the world.

The providences of God have brought the ICCC and the WCC into a historical, dramatic, international, and African confrontation with their assembly, November 23 — December 10, scheduled to be held in the same country, city, and Kenyatta Conference Centre, and has in itself generated national and international discussion and provocation.

In the light of these circumstances, this Ninth Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches calls upon all of God’s people who are in any way affiliated with the World Council of Churches to immediately separate themselves from the WCC and to discontinue all financial and material support of any kind, all of which they have been and are now using to promote the above causes against those churches and groups throughout the world which maintain the historic Christian faith and are militant against what they believe are the works of the Devil. The obligations placed upon God’s people from Scripture cannot be avoided. "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" (Eph. 5:11). "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. 6:17, 18).⁵³

The ICCC, in a Statement on Moratorium on Missions, referred directly to "mission". The pertinent part of the Statement reads as follows:

Because many WCC leaders now have the concept of "mission" (horizontal relationship — unity with men) rather than "missions" (vertical relationship with God through Christ — unity with God), they want to stop missionaries from entering other countries, especially missionaries who will stress the vertical relationship with God in Christ rather than exclusively the horizontal.⁵⁴

Melbourne — 1980

Rev Dr K C Quek, who at that time was Recording and Executive Secretary of the International Council of Christian Churches, attended the Melbourne Conference of the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism in May 1980. He wrote an extensive (six pages single-spaced) report of the proceedings. The following section of his report deals with the subject under our consideration, i.e. mission and missions. The title of the subheading in Dr Quek’s report is "Soul Saving Mission [sic] and Evangelism Completely Absent":

… throughout the CWME Conference there was a complete silence on the Biblical purpose of missions and evangelism according to the Great Commission of our Lord in Matthew 28. To the World Council, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ is no longer necessary, since to them "all paths lead to God"; "there is light and truth in other religions"; since "Jesus is the life of the world." Nor is evangelizing or soul-winning welcome, for instance, to the South Pacific, where cannibalism gave place formerly to Christian civilization through faithful preaching by faithful missionaries. Said a delegate representing that region in his address to the plenary session, which was followed up by a written statement at the suggestion of the chairman, "We are concerned that the Pacific region has been seen and used by many churches as a classroom for missions. We resent this strongly and wish to make it clear to the churches in this conference that we do not want to be exploited by the churches through their missionary programs. The proliferation of missionary activities in the Pacific by the independent missionary organizations is increasingly seen by the Pacific people as a threat to their cultures, their communities and their lives. … We solicit the support of this Conference … to help us correct the attitude of churches regarding missionary expansion in the Pacific….

Thus, instead of being asked to promote missions and evangelism, the World Council’s Commission of Mission and Evangelism was called upon to discourage and even prohibit the very activities which that commission was originally set up to promote and co-ordinate. Is there anything more paradoxical and ridiculous?⁵⁵

Mission or Missions

After introducing the subject of "Mission or Missions", we considered the two terms "mission" and "missions". We looked at the definitions and the differences between them. We observed that "ecumenical writers began to substitute the term ‘mission’ for ‘missions’"⁵⁶ and that the two terms are not synonymous but different. We then looked at history to see how these various changes came about. In the historical discussion we briefly considered eighty years of liberal and modernist development from the New York missionary conference in 1900 to the Melbourne CWME Conference in 1980. There have, of course, been developments after 1980, but this should be sufficient to see the gradual, but very definite, change from missions to mission. We have seen that "Salvation Today" is seen in the horizontal rather than the vertical dimension.

The International Council of Christian Churches dealt with the subject of mission at some length during its Eighth World Congress. Dr William R LeRoy brought a lengthy and highly technical message entitled "Mission Versus Missions." He concluded his message by saying:

We have seen in this message that the word "mission" may mean a number of things from the ecumenical standpoint such as: response-mission is the response of the "Christian" community to the Gospel; Dialogue — on the basis of a shared humanity one seeks the true meaning of life; Translation — God’s revelation in Jesus Christ was a process of translation into the terms which men could understand; Service — expressed in the Servant Jesus Christ; Presence — by being present in different situations without preaching within them; Fulfillment — not personal salvation which is a form of selfishness, but the consummation and reconciliation of all creation in Christ; Community — activity in which all share and help one another; Ecumenism — the religious, racial and political unification of the world community.

The Bible teaches us that God will have the last word in this gigantic conflict of the ages between the force of righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, truth and error, heaven and hell. Let us be sure that we are on His side and that we are safe in the arms of Jesus through acceptance of Christ as our own personal Saviour from sin. Let us be sure that we keep ourselves unspotted from the world, the flesh and the devil in these days of great moral decadence. Let us be sure that we belong to, and support a Bible believing church which is completely separate from false theologies and doctrines and from compromising alliances of any kind with the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches in America, or with any of its related regional councils, alliances, or confederation of churches in any of the many nations of the world represented in this great assembly today.

May God give us churches that will support the cause of truly biblical missions around the world by the proclamation of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the sinning [sic] of the lost to Christ, by the planting of self supporting and self propagating churches that will preach and defend the Faith, of His Spirit, bold in His power, yet humble in His grace; militant in His Truth and for His Truth. May God save our nations, our churches, our families, our children and our own souls for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.⁵⁷

The ICCC also prepared a statement about mission and missions. Although it is fairly lengthy, it fits in with our subject and, therefore, we reproduce it here in full:

STATEMENT ON MISSIONS, NOT MISSION

This statement was adopted unanimously by the delegates attending the Eighth World Congress of the ICCC, June 13-24, 1973, in Cape May, N. J., USA.

INTRODUCTION

Never in the history of the Christian Church has there been a greater need for the proper understanding and application of a truly Biblical imperative of missions in a divided world. It therefore behooves this Eighth Plenary Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches to reaffirm our Biblical position on the meaning of missions and related concepts in the light of the radical crisis in missions brought on by the WCC.

SALVATION

The word SALVATION as presented in the Holy Scriptures is an all-inclusive term which includes the great redemptive acts and processes of God on behalf of those who believe in Christ. We speak of such terms as justification, redemption, sanctification, and glorification (Rom. 1:16).

Being a lost sinner before a holy God, man’s basic problem becomes one of being freed from the guilt and penalty of his sin. Salvation in the Bible, therefore, is dealt with in three basic tenses: (1) PAST TENSE (justification) — having been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin (Luke 7:50; 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Cor. 2:15; Eph. 2:5, 8; 2 Tim. 1:9); (2) PRESENT TENSE (sanctification) — being saved from the habit and dominion of sin (Rom. 6:14; Phil. 2:12, 13; 2 Thess. 2:13; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 3:18); (3) FUTURE TENSE (glorification) — at which time believers will be completely conformed to that moral perfection in Christ (Rom. 13:11; 1 Pet. 1:5; 1 John 3:2).

This salvation is received by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as He is presented in the context of His historical death and resurrection as our sin-bearer and Saviour. It is a free gift of God wholly without works (Eph. 2:8).

There is no Biblical basis for the concept of salvation as proclaimed by the WCC at Uppsala and Bangkok. Salvation has been put in the context of a purely horizontal perspective by the WCC. For them salvation has become "humanization" and social revolution, while the vertical dimensions of salvation and Biblical faith are completely neglected.

The "new man" in Christ Jesus is not some new or improved human nature obtained by human struggle, social activism, or participation with God in the revolutionary secular events of history as implied by WCC pronouncements. It is rather a supernaturally implanted spiritual nature which is received by faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In secular and ecumenical theology today, salvation has been transferred from the vertical or theological, to the horizontal or historical plane. We are told we must "participate" with God in the humanization of society. According to this concept, man becomes a Christian, first by going into the world, and second by participating with God in the struggle for human dignity through social and political emancipation. But the Bible teaches us that man becomes a Christian by coming to Christ through repentance and faith. Following this, he goes into the world to bear witness of his faith.

Secular theology, which is the basis of the ecumenical concept of MISSION, represents an aberration of Biblical doctrine and a serious departure from the Christian faith. It destroys all distinctions between the vertical (spiritual) and the horizontal (temporal) spheres of Christian truth. The Church, therefore, loses its identity as a separate institution and becomes fused with the world community on the earthly plane. The entire secular or horizontal plane, therefore, becomes sacred. In this way, God, as an abstract term, becomes identified with the natural processes of history. The great political struggles of history thereby become God’s efforts to liberate His people from social and political oppression.

LIBERATION

The word LIBERATION is not translated in the English Bible as such even though it is related to the words "liberty" and "freedom" in Galatians 4:5; 5:13; and Romans 8:21. But in these verses the thought is clearly spiritual and theological liberty, and not political. Being related to the word "redemption," it means to set free by paying a price. In the context of Scripture, this refers to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as being the price paid to set us free from the penalty of our sins. Ecumenical theology today is completely contrary to the concept presented in Holy Scripture. This false theology views the Biblical dimension of salvation as POLITICAL LIBERATION, and not a true concern for the restoration of God’s "shalom" on the earth.

MISSIONS

The Biblical concept of missions is related to the proclamation of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Its objective is winning the lost to Christ and planting self-supporting and self-propagating churches that will teach, preach, and defend the Faith, for the glory of God. The word "missions" also bears with it the theological concepts of supernaturally revealed Bible Christianity as it concerns God, Christ, the Bible, miracles, salvation, and eternal life.

MISSION

What, then, is meant by "mission" today in the ecumenical church? "Mission," in the singular form, is ONE, they say, for the whole church. It is the main cause of the ecumenical movement. The gospel of reconciliation as they understand it is not easily preached by a divided Church. Since "mission" is the mission of the ONE God, they hold that the Christian response requires that it is the ONE Church which participates in ONE mission for ONE world.

We must fully reject the ecumenical concept of mission as stated in the Uppsala report and similarly expressed at Bangkok as the "total activity of the Church oriented towards the world." In this definition there is an abandonment of the traditional theocentric dimension of missions. In its place salvation is substituted in a social or ethical way as "liberation" for the whole man and his social situation.

"Mission," they say, implies the total responsibility of the Church for the world. In order for the Church to become the "Church for others," it must radically change its structure. It must become a "go-structure," rather than a "come-structure," which is oriented toward action in the world and the establishment of the "New Humanity" among men.

We affirm that the true purpose or mission of the Church is NOT to save people FOR this present world, but to save them FROM corruption and future destruction of this world. Ecumenical leaders today look only to this present world of sin and misery for their salvation. True Christians rest their hope of eternal salvation in the Christ of Scripture, and in the promise of a New Heaven and Earth wherein dwelleth true righteousness and justice (Rev. 21:22).

HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL DIMENSIONS

One of the questions before us is not whether the horizontal dimension of the Gospel should accompany the vertical dimension. Fundamental Christianity has always been in the foreground in showing the love of Christ. Throughout the entire history of the modern-day missionary movement, true Bible believers have expressed their love of Christ through many forms of social concern. But the question before us is: What is the essence of the Gospel that we are to preach? Is it vertical or horizontal, theological or sociological, KERYGMA or DIAKONIA? According to 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 we find that the essential nature of the Gospel is theological or doctrinal, and it is not sociological or political.

Another question that we must ask is: What is the nature of the horizontal dimension of the Christian duty that we are to perform? Is it to promote social revolution through Marxism? Is it to show a kind of humanitarianism towards others (many non-Christians appear to show more humanitarianism than even we)? Or is it our duty to demonstrate a special kind of social concern called DIAKONIA (service) in the New Testament? This implies a manifestation of Christian love for others. It must be inspired by the love of Christ and done for the glory of God. True Scriptural "diakonia" can only be accomplished by the presence of the grace of God in the heart of a born-again Christian.

Again we ask the question — Is the horizontal dimension an end in itself as interpreted by secular theology, or is it a means to an end which is the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the glory of God? We affirm that the horizontal dimension of Christian duty is not equal to, nor superior to, the vertical dimension. It is a necessary consequence of our spiritual experience in Christ through the vertical relationship.

THEISM AND MISSIONS

To affirm faith in the traditional concept of missions implies acceptance of supernaturally revealed Christianity. The acceptance of the traditional concept of missions raises, in the minds of secular theologians, the problem of the very existence of God, whose personal existence many no longer accept. This is so, because missions has been equated historically with supernatural Christian theism.

We affirm our sincere faith in the personal existence of the sovereign, triune God of the Bible. We accept the revelation of His will for all men as presented in the infallible and inerrant content of Holy Scripture. We acknowledge the fact of sin and the judgment to come, and we declare it to be the duty of the true Church to proclaim the substitutionary death of Christ to every living soul upon the face of the earth. Our authority to proclaim this message rests upon the commandment of the resurrected Christ (Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:18-20).

It is true that the ecumenical theology of "mission" is highly Christocentric; but it is without deity, and thus it is not the Christology of Scripture. Christ becomes only a point of reference as the human ideal for the New Humanity. This New Humanity becomes synonymous with a purely secular and socialistic society.

By the use of the term DIALOGUE, ecumenical theology teaches that we are to share "our common humanity" and its "dignity." We are further to express our common concern for that humility [sic]. In dialogue, the Christian must be willing to listen and to change. It is the way of openness to others and of personal encounter. In dialogue the Christian and non-Christian seek to find meaning in life on the basis of their shared humanity. This dialogue is to be carried on not only with other so-called "living faiths," but also with Marxism and other ideologies.

We affirm that the very existence of dialogue in the ecumenical context as a means to promote the mission of the Church represents a serious compromise of the Christian’s position. It is a denial of the exclusiveness, supremacy, and uniqueness of the Christian faith. Moreover, the ultimate and permanent cause for Biblical missions must rest directly upon the conviction that the Gospel is true, and that there is no other Gospel (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Logic dictates that if one proposition is true, its contrary part is false; and if one is false, its contrary part is true.

The concept of ecumenical dialogue as a substitute for preaching the Gospel is based upon the Marxian-Hegelian-Evolutionary principle of arriving at truth through the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In every synthesis there are the seeds of antithesis. Thus truth becomes something relative, never absolute, and always in the state of constant flux and evolutionary change. This principle, which presupposes theological universalism, has become the driving wedge to promote religious syncretism and the religious and political unification of the world community. We reject all forms of ecumenical universalism.

SECULARIZATION

There is today a new missionary concept based on the theology of secularization. It is included in the ecumenical use of the term "mission." It encourages the presupposition of the "death of God theology": humanity itself can deal with its own history, without God’s transcendental intervention and without any direct reference to Him.

The most revealing feature of secular theology is its express attempt to substitute man for God. This over-focus on the human situation seems to be the crucial turning point in the development of the ecumenical movement. This position in actuality is a turning away from God as the absolute Reference Point for all religious thought and service. Without reference to God at the beginning and end of all Christian affirmations, man’s salvation becomes self-salvation; and man puts himself ultimately in the place of God.

CHRISTIAN LOVE

We cannot love our brother or neighbor Biblically until we first learn to love God through His Son Jesus Christ. The first table of the law directs our relationship toward God, and the second table of the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," directs the true horizontal relation of the Christian.

In vain these ecumenical leaders seek to fulfill a false interpretation of the Second Commandment in the strength of the flesh through carnal means and pagan philosophies, while neglecting the more essential matters of the First Commandment, such as love, obedience, repentance, and faith toward God through Jesus Christ.

CONCLUSION

We affirm that the most relevant message today for contemporary man is the eternal and infallible Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as revealed in the pages of Holy Scripture. It deals with man’s deepest needs and offers the only divinely given solution to those needs in the person and work of our Saviour Jesus Christ. We affirm that we cannot have a better society until we have better men. We cannot have better men until we deal with the sinful heart of man. It is the sinful heart of man which produces the moral corruption and social iniquities of our day. Man is desperately in need of divine regeneration. To seek to bypass the reality of sin and the need for Biblical conversion as implied in the ecumenical theology of mission will only result in complete spiritual bankruptcy. Moral failure, increased social injustice, oppression for all of mankind, and eternal separation from God can be the only fruits of ecumenical theology.

We call upon all Bible-believing churches around the world to repudiate the secular and ecumenical theology of mission as promoted by the World Council of Churches and its related agencies in the world today. We further call upon them to separate themselves from the same and with renewed dedication to preach faithfully the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the "power of God unto SALVATION to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1:16).

We give thanks to God for every local church or denomination which is no longer dependent upon others as a "receiving church," but through self-development, responsibility, and leadership, has become a "sending church." These younger churches are now not only taking the Gospel to their own people, but also are sending their own missionaries to other nations of the world. Thus, the true Church multiplies itself, and the purpose of truly Biblical missions is being fulfilled until Jesus comes.⁵⁸

We are grateful to the ICCC for adopting such an excellent and helpful statement on "Missions, not Mission" and to Dr. William R. Le Roy for preparing and delivering such a powerful and detailed message on "Mission Versus Missions".

Conclusion

The Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the earth" (Matt 28:18-20). These verses are commonly known as the Great Commission, or, sometimes, as the Unfinished Commission. These verses have challenged believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for 2,000 years to be involved in missions. It is only in the last 100 years that there has been a gradual change from missions to mission, contrary to the clear teachings of the Bible as explained in the ICCC papers.

Interestingly, Hoekstra, who, as was mentioned before, is an "insider," i.e. a minister in a church that is a member of the WCC and who intends to remain a minister in that church, gave an excellent definition of missions (although he called it mission). He writes about "classical-biblical mission … by which I [Hoekstra] mean that complex of activities whose chief purpose is to make Jesus Christ known as Lord and Savior and to persuade men to become his disciples and responsible members of his Church."⁵⁹ He adds, "This classical understanding of mission involves evangelism."⁶⁰ I say this is interesting because a member of a WCC church admits that the classical-biblical view of missions involves exactly what fundamentalists have always believed and continue to believe about missions, based on the Great Commission.

In Matt 28:18-20, the Lord Jesus Christ told His followers that after having gone into all the world they should do three things: make disciples, baptize these converts and teach them. That is at the very heart of missions, which is sometimes put in the words: evangelism, church planting and the training of the believers.

The true mission (i.e. the special duty or task) of missions (i.e. spreading Christianity) is first of all to reach the lost, wherever they may be, with the saving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once some of these lost people have come to faith in Christ, they should be baptized and a local Bible-believing church should be organized for them. Then these believers should be taught, at a Bible school of some kind, all things that Jesus had commanded, so that they can become leaders in these churches thus established. As the Apostle Paul put it, "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Tim 2:2). It is only when these things are done that we see truly Biblical Missions. Let us remember that missions is our mission and that we should do all we can to advance the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ around the world, for His glory. Amen.

Notes

¹Lynn Gray Gordon, "South Asian, Yes! Liberation, No!," Biblical Missions, (December 1972): 2, 10 and (January 1973): 3, 20.

² David B Guralnik and Joseph H Friend, Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1964), 942.

³Ibid.

⁴ Guralnik, 942.

⁵ Irwin Steele, "Biblical Missionaries," Biblical Missions (June-July 1978): 8.

⁶ Robert Hall Glover, The Progress of World-Wide Missions (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939), 21.

⁷ C Gordon Olson, What in the World Is God Doing? (Cedar Knolls, New Jersey: Global Gospel Publishers, 1994), 13.

⁸ George W Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody, 1972), 11, quoted in C Gordon Olson, What in the World Is God Doing? (Cedar Knolls, New Jersey: Global Gospel Publishers, 1994), 13.

⁹ Olson, 13.

¹⁰ Peters, 11, quoted in Olson, 13.

¹¹ Peter Wagner, Frontiers in Missionary Strategy (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971) quoted in Harvey T Hoekstra, The World Council of Churches and the Demise of Evangelism (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1979), 28.

¹² Lesslie Newbigin, "Mission and Missions" Christianity Today, (August 1, 1960): 23, quoted in Harvey T Hoekstra, The World Council of Churches and the Demise of Evangelism (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1979), 27, 28.

¹³ William R LeRoy, "Mission Versus Missions", a message delivered at the Eighth World Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches, Cape May, New Jersey, June 13-24, 1973, The Christian News Encyclopedia, vol. II, ed Herman Otten, (Washington, Missouri: Missourian Publishing Co, 1982), 1331.

¹⁴David L Smith, A Handbook of Contemporary Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 64.

¹⁵ Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. Samuel G Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 1948), 420.

¹⁶ Hoekstra, Harvey T. The World Council of Churches and the Demise of Evangelism (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1979), 11.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸Ibid., 59.

¹⁹ David M Doran, "The Mission of the Church," unpublished lecture notes for the course Current Biblical and Theological Issues, Bob Jones University and Seminary, Summer 2001, 127.

²⁰Hoekstra, 19.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid, 49.

²³ Doran, 127, 128.

²⁴Hoekstra, 32.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Doran, 129.

²⁷ Ibid, 130.

²⁸ Olson, 159.

²⁹ Ibid, 152.

³⁰ Hoekstra, 34.

³¹Hoekstra, 35.

³²Ibid, 12.

³³ Ibid, back cover.

³⁴ Ibid, 35.

³⁵Hoekstra, 36.

³⁶ Ibid, 37.

³⁷ Karsten Nissen, "Mission and Unity," International Review of Mission 63 (1974): 546.

³⁸Hoekstra, 47.

³⁹ Ibid, 49.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Hoekstra, 50.

⁴² Ibid, 55.

⁴³ Ibid, 61.

⁴⁴ Norman Goodall, The Uppsala Report 1968, official report of the Fourth Assembly of the WCC (Geneva: WCC, 1968), 32, quoted in Hoekstra, 64.

⁴⁵ Hoekstra, 64.

⁴⁶Ibid, 81, 82.

⁴⁷ Ibid, 89.

⁴⁸Hoekstra, 90.

⁴⁹ Ibid, 93.

⁵⁰ Emilio Castro, "Bangkok, the New Opportunity", International Review of Mission 62 (1973): 139.

⁵¹ Hoekstra, 109.

⁵² Ibid, back cover.

⁵³ ICCC, The Reports and Messages of the Ninth World Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches (Collingswood, New Jersey: ICCC Office, 1975), 31.

⁵⁴ Ibid, 34.

⁵⁵ ICCC, The Reports and Messages of the Eleventh World Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches (Collingswood, New Jersey: ICCC Office, 1983), 131.

⁵⁶Olson, 13.

⁵⁷ LeRoy, 1332, 1333.

⁵⁸ ICCC, The Reports and Messages of the Eleventh World Congress of the International Council of Christian Churches (Collingswood, New Jersey: ICCC Office, 1983), 52-55.

⁵⁹Hoekstra, 12.

⁶⁰ Ibid.

Rev Edward Pauuwe is the general secretary of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, USA.

Top / Back