| Popis: |
The nature of oikoumene has constantly challenged a Christendom-oriented lineal understanding of mission. The environment of doing theology of mission has changed from the denominational to the ecumenical era, from the Eurocentric to the global context, and from the mechanistic domination of the world to the age of ecological worldwide community; and the paradigm of mission has changed from evangelisation to shalom, from missio ecclesiae to missio Dei, and from monologue to dialogue. Critically thinking of the dominant milieu of the people which challenges the church to transform her way of participation in the world, the church must discern the socio-political and religio-cultural biographies of the people as the most important language of people- and life-centric missio Dei. The primary missio logical question should be, then, not what God is doing with the church, but rather what God is doing with the people and creation. In the course of answering this question, the church may discern where the Spirit is at work and how to respond to it. The following article is an attempt to seek a Korean way of imitatio missionis Christi in terms of finding a contextualized spirituality and a strategy of a transforming discipleship. Transforming the missiological paradigm The nature of the oikoumene as the household of life in the whole inhabited earth has been constantly revealed and characterized as a religio-culturally and socioecologically interdependent pluralist communion of life, and it has challenged a Christendom-oriented lineal understanding of mission. As a result, paradigm of mission has been shifted from evangelization to shalom--the whole gospel, the whole world, the whole church, from missio ecclesiae to missio Dei, and from monologue to dialogue. Consequendy, the environment of doing theology of mission today has been radically changed, given the transition from the denominational age to the ecumenical age, from the Eurocentric age to the age of humanity as a whole, and from the mechanistic domination of the world to the age of ecological worldwide community. (1) In a religio-culturally and socio-ecologically interdependent pluralist society, one may have been struggling with an identity crisis which initiates a creative tension and opportunity to rethink and transform one's own hermeneutical and practical horizon in doing theology of mission. Since paradigms are not conceptual entities floating in some Platonic heaven, but entire constellations of beliefs, values, and practices shared by a given community, the individual and collective identity crisis as an ongoing self-negation and self-reflection may provide various motives for paradigm shift in spirituality and strategy of transforming the given community. I myself, culturally as a Korean, religiously as a Christian minister of a particular denomination, and socio-ecologically as a people-oriented and life-centric thinker, am living with an ongoing identity crisis which has troubled me to the point where I cannot submissively cross my arms in the face of certain allegedly Christian attitudes and traditions. On the one hand, I am incapable of remaining impassive vis-a-vis several billion human beings in the South who suffer under the yoke of a social system whose only purpose seems to be to fatten the bank accounts of a minority. On the other hand, neither am I capable of hearing the absolute and superior gospel claim to other realities. Here I speak of the ugliness of the dominant milieu of the people, an ugliness of surroundings and of human relations that frequently becomes internalized into their very persons. The people and their society suffer the han, meaning a historically accumulated consciousness of anger, sorrow, resistance, etc., both of physical oppression and of spiritual debasement. I cannot be romantic about the senseless suffering inflicted upon people all over the world. As human history has shown, religion has been the "sigh of the oppressed creature," the "heart of a heartless world," the "spirit of a spiritless situation"--the "opium of the people. … |
