Continuing Christian Mission
by D. Gander
The "great commission" of Jesus Christ is for believers to spread the good news of His salvation and God's kingdom to all nations, tongues, and peoples. Besides bringing the Word of God to all corners of the world by translation and distribution of the Bible and by literacy programs, Christians through the centuries have "healed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked" etc. in mission hospitals, food and clothing programs, and all kinds of other community projects in order to "let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven."
Christianity has become the most widely represented religion on Earth. In spite of historical abuses it does not call missionaries to arms and conversion "by the sword". It also doesn't call believers to entirely withdraw in complete personal detachment, as if we will have endless future reincarnations to help our neighbour as we grow spiritually. One of the strengths of the Christian walk, both personally and when shared with others, is the understanding of the immediacy and importance in this life of finding and polishing within us the "pearl of great value", who is Jesus Himself as Lord and the new life He brings in us (and to others through us) with the help of God's Holy Spirit.
Besides other religions, there are many pseudo-religious philosophies of life offered as alternative value systems. Most or all of these manmade ideologies are incompatible with the values and renewal centred in Christ.
Marxism is one example of an inadequate, manmade philosophy. In comparing atheistic marxism with the Christian faith one analyst observed that "the two represent wholly different understandings of the world, of the nature of man, and of human destiny, so different that if one is true the other must necessarily be false" (Stephen Neill, "A History of Christian Missions").
The same author examines the "materialism that seems inevitably to accompany industrial civilization." Even our beautiful (though fallen) world of nature becomes distant, and "the old familiar framework of family and neighbourhood and village is broken up. No Church has as yet succeeded, on any large scale, in holding its own in such a society, in making the Gospel seem relevant to it, or in finding the new vessels into which the wine of the Gospel can be poured."
With the help of secular media, materialistic humanism has championed abortion. Economic reasons are by far the most common excuse, in spite of the countless couples waiting eagerly to adopt children or trying medical intervention to improve fertility.
Today's lack of acknowledgment of God's gift of life ravaged by abortion and euthanasia, and His design in creating man and wo-man (ignored for example by radical feminists and activist homosexuals), makes secular humanism obviously so different from the way of Christ that one or the other "must necessarily be false".
Thankfully, the kingdom of God is not a democracy, because even though the media is far too left-wing to be considered representative of Canadians I suspect Jesus would have a tough time today winning majority support in a modern referendum.
God's will shall be done, as we ask in the Lord's Prayer, on Earth as it is in Heaven. This is quite literally just a matter of time. Today's Christian mission, besides offering practical support and prayer for those suffering by hunger, cold, loneliness, abortion and various whitewashed sins, continues to be the planting and reseeding of the Gospel of life, which leads to life everlasting.
The "great commission" of Jesus Christ is for believers to spread the good news of His salvation and God's kingdom to all nations, tongues, and peoples. Besides bringing the Word of God to all corners of the world by translation and distribution of the Bible and by literacy programs, Christians through the centuries have "healed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked" etc. in mission hospitals, food and clothing programs, and all kinds of other community projects in order to "let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven."
Christianity has become the most widely represented religion on Earth. In spite of historical abuses it does not call missionaries to arms and conversion "by the sword". It also doesn't call believers to entirely withdraw in complete personal detachment, as if we will have endless future reincarnations to help our neighbour as we grow spiritually. One of the strengths of the Christian walk, both personally and when shared with others, is the understanding of the immediacy and importance in this life of finding and polishing within us the "pearl of great value", who is Jesus Himself as Lord and the new life He brings in us (and to others through us) with the help of God's Holy Spirit.
Besides other religions, there are many pseudo-religious philosophies of life offered as alternative value systems. Most or all of these manmade ideologies are incompatible with the values and renewal centred in Christ.
Marxism is one example of an inadequate, manmade philosophy. In comparing atheistic marxism with the Christian faith one analyst observed that "the two represent wholly different understandings of the world, of the nature of man, and of human destiny, so different that if one is true the other must necessarily be false" (Stephen Neill, "A History of Christian Missions").
The same author examines the "materialism that seems inevitably to accompany industrial civilization." Even our beautiful (though fallen) world of nature becomes distant, and "the old familiar framework of family and neighbourhood and village is broken up. No Church has as yet succeeded, on any large scale, in holding its own in such a society, in making the Gospel seem relevant to it, or in finding the new vessels into which the wine of the Gospel can be poured."
With the help of secular media, materialistic humanism has championed abortion. Economic reasons are by far the most common excuse, in spite of the countless couples waiting eagerly to adopt children or trying medical intervention to improve fertility.
Today's lack of acknowledgment of God's gift of life ravaged by abortion and euthanasia, and His design in creating man and wo-man (ignored for example by radical feminists and activist homosexuals), makes secular humanism obviously so different from the way of Christ that one or the other "must necessarily be false".
Thankfully, the kingdom of God is not a democracy, because even though the media is far too left-wing to be considered representative of Canadians I suspect Jesus would have a tough time today winning majority support in a modern referendum.
God's will shall be done, as we ask in the Lord's Prayer, on Earth as it is in Heaven. This is quite literally just a matter of time. Today's Christian mission, besides offering practical support and prayer for those suffering by hunger, cold, loneliness, abortion and various whitewashed sins, continues to be the planting and reseeding of the Gospel of life, which leads to life everlasting.
