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Reformed World Introduction Jet den Hollander

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What does a secretaryslave in first century Corinth discover when he visits the citizens meeting of God? What happens to him as these citizens chant Maranatha, remember their Lord in bread and wine, translate Pauls admonitions into solidarity and protest action, and struggle with what it means to live and die with Christ in the complexity of a cosmopolitan, bustling harbour town in the Roman empire? In his classic story, Conflict in Corinth, reprinted here in abridged form, Walter Hollenweger takes us back to our roots. Notwithstanding a distance of 20 centuries, the scenes look strangely familiar: quarrels over the interpretation of the text; differences of class, race and gender; clashes of culture, temperament and musical taste. But there is also the search for identity, the need for community, the longing for a world that is radically different from the present. And then there is the Spirit who has empowered a diverse group of believers to become body of Christ in Corinth. What does Conflict in Corinth say about mission in unity? Like all good narrative, the story is open to many interpretations, and questions and answers depend on the reader as much as the writer. But two things may be noted. On the one hand, Chloe the exprostitute and Gaius the city administrator find each other in their common commitment to solidarity action. Mission engagement generates (comm)unity, though at times the opposite happens too. On the other hand, (comm)unity is required if the body is to function optimally, for how Paul reminds the believers can any member of the body carry out its mission if it is not integrally connected to the others. Revisiting eschatology As Bert Hoedemaker reminds us, however, mission and unity are not innocent words. In his contribution to this issue, he reviews the ecumenical learning process of the twentieth century in order to trace its effect on our contemporary understanding of mission and unity and the relationship between them. Given the present impasse in which much ecumenical and missiological thinking and practice finds itself, Hoedemaker suggests a thorough rethinking of the missionunity connection in the context of

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Reformed World 159 fullness for all requires a thorough rethinking of mission, a new practice of mission, and an urgent attack on all that keeps our myriad divisions alive.1 Years of research have made clear that in the Reformed family disunity is particularly prominent, and that some specific Reformed features, when overemphasized, can easily contribute to further splits.2 One of the current MIU programmes is an inquiry with Reformed theologians and theological colleges worldwide into which aspects of Reformed ecclesiologies and missiologies (for there are many semper reformanda!) have been found to be helpful or to be a hindrance in maintaining the unity of the church in particular contexts. Other MIU programmes aim to assist groups of Reformed churches in Bolivia, Korea, the Netherlands, Southern Africa, Uganda and the USA, for example to develop new models of working together in mission. Included in this issue is the Common Statement of the Southern Africa Association of Reformed Churches which resulted from SAARCs recent consultation on mission in unity. Increasingly we realize that our search for mission in unity as Reformed churches is an integral part of a larger process, which has as its horizon the unity of all humankind, the oikoumene reconciled in God. The story from Corinth takes us in more ways than one back to our roots, and may provide us with new inspiration to be body of Christ in the place where we are, united in mission. It is not only our past, however, but also the beckoning perspective of the future we envisage the new world already inaugurated in Christ that inspires us to search for new expressions of mission in unity. If we really expect a world where all will live and work in true interdependence, in reconciled diversity, then we cannot but begin to practise that future today. The Mission in Unity Project hopes, in modest ways, to stimulate such practising of Gods future today.3 You are warmly invited to respond to the articles that follow, thus contributing to the ongoing exploration of these issues. Jet den Hollander of the Uniting Churches in the Netherlands is the executive secretary of the Mission in Unity Project 19992002.
1 That all may have life in fullness is the theme of the 24th WARC general council, to be held in Ghana in 2004. 2 See the reports of the various mission in unity consultations published in the John Knox Series, cited below, p.198. 3 A phrase used in the 1980s by Fred Kaan in relation to the Council for World Missions practice of partnership in mission.

postmodernism, pluralism and globalization, in which revisiting eschatology is crucial. This kind of rethinking is going on at present all over the world. In certain contexts it is intensified under the acute pressure of crisis. Thus Andr Karamaga reflects on Rwanda after the genocide and the subsequent violence, and how step by step the churches there develop new insights into what the new missional challenges are and how these can be approached crossdenominationally. Likewise, old divisions in Indonesia have become so explosive that Karel Phil Erari believes that a new understanding of unity between Reformed churches, yes, but also between Reformed and Lutherans, Protestants and Catholics, and Christians and Muslims is urgently needed if there is to be peace. More gradual processes of profound change also demand a reinterpretation of the old key concepts of the Christian faith. In her article, Claudia WhrischOblau describes elements of the exciting adventure she is involved with in the Rhineland. Prompted by the changing demography of Germany, the oldestablished Landeskirchen (territorial churches) and the newer immigrant churches are beginning to see themselves, one another, and their context and mission with new eyes. A whole range of missiological questions is involved: why mainline churches often seem more interested in the other who is far away than in the other who is living on their doorstep; lingering colonial perspectives and attitudes; and whether established churches are interested only in developing bilateral relations with individual immigrant churches, or whether they will be ready to become one of the many partners in a multilateral framework where all the churches, immigrant and established, relate on an equal basis. In Germany, as in Rwanda and Indonesia, new frontiers are being crossed with regard to who do I consider as my partner in mission and whose partner do I need to be. What is important is that the rethinking required should not occur in a vacuum, but in the context of doing things together, where reflection and action inform each other in a continuous process of reinvention. The Mission in Unity Project 19992002 It is in the context of this worldwide search for new expressions of mission in unity that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has joined with the John Knox International Reformed Centre to set up the Mission in Unity Project 19992002. The project is meant to be a catalyst, a helping hand for those churches and communities which believe that life in its

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Reformed World Conflict in Corinth 1 Walter J Hollenweger

Reformed World 161 The sect of the Christians On this particular evening the meeting of the Christians took place in the house of the wellknown Gaius.5 He was a friend of Erastus,6 the Chairman of the Department of Public Works in Corinth.7 Tertius worked under him, and I knew him as he was also a member of the board of directors of my bank. I also knew that the former chairman of the synagogue, Crispus,8 another client of our bank (of course I am not at liberty to say anything on the nature of his dealing with our bank) was an important member of the Christian sect. As we walked and talked I was surprised to hear Tertius always refer to the Christians as the citizens meeting of God. I had never before heard anybody use this oldfashioned expression (which I had only come across in history books) for a religious society. I asked him why they used such a strange expression as a name for their society. He did not know. That is how we are called, he said, and added that he was quite sure that they were not just another religious society among the many in Corinth, but the new people of God, the latterday saints, the citizenry of God. Well, well, I thought, like everybody else they do their best to sell themselves. When we arrived at the house of Gaius there were already about twenty to thirty people there, mostly welloff people from Corinth, either secretaryslaves or house uppermiddlemanagement positions like me or free uppermiddleclass civil servants, and artisans. Of course Crispus, the former chairman of the synagogue, was there too, and Erastus. The latter greeted me with special attention which, I have to admit, flattered me. He said that he was happy to see me there and offered me some wine, grapes and nuts. On the whole there was a very relaxed atmosphere, very different from official receptions in Corinth. Each new arrival brought some fruit, bread, cheese, olives or flowers. Everything was put on a big table. I was a little embarrassed because I had not brought anything. More and more people gathered in the courtyard. After dusk some dock workers also came along. I knew that they had arrived even before I saw
Rom 16.23; 1 Cor 1.14; Theissen, p.251. Rom 16.23; on Erastus in detail, Theissen, pp.237246; J Cadbury, Erastus of Corinth, JBL 50, 1931, pp.4258; P Landvogt, Epigraphische Untersuchungen ber den Oikonomos. Ein Beitrag zum hellenistischen Beamtenwesen. Diss. Strasbourg, 1908. 7 Theissen (pp.237241) discusses in detail the translation and function of an oikonomos tes poleos. 8 Acts 18.8; 1 Cor 1.14; Haenchen, Die Apostelgeschichte (Gttingen, 1959), p.472; Theissen, p.236f (lit.).
6 5

I am a secretaryslave at the great Corinthian Bank of Trade and Commerce. We have branches in Patrae and Athens and also in Rome, Alexandria and Marseilles.2 Our bank was founded about fifty years ago when the famous Isthmic Games were reintroduced.3 We have a foreign exchange department for the many visitors who come to the great sports events and we also arrange credit for the heavy metal industry and occasionally for the provincial administration of Achaia. One of my acquaintances is a secretaryslave with the provincial administration. His name is Tertius.4 We met at the classes where we went to learn the Greek and Roman trade and commercial terms. For our work we both have to know not only the Greek but also the Roman trade language. It was Tertius who invited me to a religious service held by a sect called the Christians. I was interested in this sect which I knew only from hearsay, and I therefore took advantage of the opportunity of going with him. I would not have had the courage to go on my own. One afternoon after the offices had closed, Tertius called for me at the bank. The last client had just left the building. I filed away the coins, letters of credit and books under the supervision of the head slave, and then Tertius and I set out together. Today, he said, we are having a particularly important meeting. The Corinthian Christians sent a letter to the founder of our congregation, a man by the name of Paul, and today we intend to read and discuss part of his reply.
This is an abridged version of the story Conflict in Corinth, originally published in Walter J Hollenweger, Conflict in Corinth & Memoirs of an Old Man (New York: Paulist Press, 1982). Permission to print a shortened version in this issue of Reformed World was given by Walter J Hollenweger. 2 G Theissen, Soziale Schichtung in der korinthischen Gemeinde. Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie des hellenistischen Urchristentums (ZNW 65, 1974), pp.232272; JAD Larsen, Roman Greece, in An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome IV, ed. T Frank (Baltimore 1938), p.472. Plutarch (mor.831A). 3 To be exact, between 7BC and 3AD (Theissen, Soziale Schichtung, p.263); our story suggests the latter date. 4 Rom 16.22.
1

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Reformed World 163 Chloe stood up and spoke violently and with closed eyes. She had covered her hair with a veil which glowed red in the light of the torches. She looked to me like an oracle priestess of ancient Greece. I did not understand what she was saying. It sounded to me as if she were speaking in a foreign tongue for the foreign workers. But when she had stopped speaking, one of the foreigners spoke in broken, but clearly understandable, Greek. It was obvious that he was interpreting Chloe. As far as I can remember he said, Before me, all are equal, Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, man and woman. Honour him or her as a saint of God. In Gods people there are only saints; nobody is more saintly than anybody else! Thus speaks the Lord. As soon as the interpretation was over a general discussion broke out. The foreigners and slaves who were gathered on the opposite side of the court gesticulated and sometimes shouted something over to our side, but I could not make out what they were saying. I could only understand those who were standing next to me. These were a group of more affluent Christians. They said, We wonder how long Crispus and Gaius will put up with the noise of Chloes people. Do we have to listen Sunday after Sunday to this hoi polloi? Not to speak of the fact that their understanding of the Christian faith is a bit too rudimentary. It is true they do not expect that the Christians will deliver them from slavery in society, but they want to be treated as equals in the worship service that seems pretty clear from their behaviour. Sometimes one gets the impression that they are even proud of their spiritual and material misery. I watched Erastus leave the court of the villa and saw him return carrying a scroll under his arm. As he had greeted me so warmly at the beginning of the meeting, I was encouraged to ask him what this was all about. Well, you see, he said, Christians are basically different from other religious societies in Corinth. The Christians do not hold separate religious services for slaves and freemen, which would make it awkward for the better educated slaves who would not know to which group they really belonged. He mentioned this on purpose as he knew that I was one of these. I asked, But does this mixture of cultures and social status not create a number of financial and psychological problems? It certainly does, he replied, as you can see for yourself in this meeting. And what you have heard is not the only controversy in the Christian community. You surely know that I as Chairman of the Department of Public Works in Corinth have to attend many banquets and receptions, festivities where the meat which is served comes from the temples here in Corinth, and which

them because of the typical smell of fish and salt water. After eight oclock a clique of unskilled workers arrived all of them slaves, as was obvious from their behaviour some of them from Upper Egypt and other distant parts of the Roman Empire. They did not speak Greek or Latin among themselves but some barbaric dialect. Erastus greeted them too and poured wine for them, just as he had for everybody else. But there was not sufficient wine to go around. They were obviously very thirsty! Crispus and Gaius now stood behind a table on which there were a number of flat breads and a large cup. Opposite me, on the other side of the courtyard among the slaves and foreign workers, a somewhat exotic woman had attracted my attention. She had short dark hair and wore a purple gown. As far as I could see in the dim light of the torches which had now been lit, she played on a small hand drum, a kind of tambourine. The dock workers rose and beat time with their feet. They repeated one word over and over again in strong, syncopated rhythms, mixed with simple archaic harmonies. The word was Maranatha.9 They emphasized the last two syllables: Maranatha. When they stopped singing and shouting, Crispus took one of the flat breads, held it up, and, after giving thanks to God, broke it and said: This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me. I nudged Tertius because I thought that this was rather a bad joke. But to my astonishment his eyes were closed. He was praying and was unaware of what was happening around him. The bread was broken into pieces and handed around. After a short while Crispus held up the cup and said: This cup is the new covenant in my blood. When you drink it, do it in remembrance of me. For each time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.10 Red Chloe prophesies The cup was passed around and the woman in the purple gown I now learned that her name was Chloe11 played the hand drum, and led by the foreign workers the Christians sang Maranatha, Maranatha.
9

1 Cor 16.22; H Conzelmann, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (Gttingen, 1963),

p.360. 1 Cor 11.2326. 1 Cor 1.11; this interpretation of hoi Chloes is based on Theissen, p.255, who describes them as representatives of the lower strata of society. According to Theissen the formula hoi Chloes excludes relatives and sons almost certainly.
11 10

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Reformed World 165 hallelujah! Jesus is Lord! Halle, halle, hallelujah! Jesus is Lord! And finally everybody, not only the slaves, joined in the shout, Jesus is Lord! You are right, Erastus continued, but listen to how he goes on: whether slaves or free men and now there was a hush, for the Christians born as free men or those who had been given freedom by their slavemasters stood in superior silence we have been immersed into one Holy Spirit.13 Amen, hallelujah, the meeting responded. But now Chloe stood up again. And the women has he forgotten the women? Erastus looked at his manuscript. I do not find that he mentions the women. Another woman, Phoebe from the port of Cenchreae,14 rose to her feet. She spoke softly and slowly. It is not necessary to mention women. We are here. We take part in the service. We are immersed into one Holy Spirit. Nobody can deny that. Some of the men around me sighed deeply. But they did not speak. Erastus continued, A body is not one single organ, but many. Suppose the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, it belongs to the body nonetheless. Suppose the ear were to say, Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, it still belongs to the body. If the body were all eye, how could it hear? If the body were all ear, how could it smell? But, in fact, God appointed each limb and organ to its own place in the body as he chose. If each organ had the same function, how could the body function as a whole? That is why there are many different organs, but one body.15 During these somewhat difficult sentences I noticed that the dock workers and the slaves on the lefthand side of the court had let their attention wander. I wondered whether they knew enough Greek to follow this reading. Some of them began to walk around and to look on the tables for something to eat. They found a few grapes and were content to sit in a corner and eat them. On the other side of the court attention grew. Some nodded their heads in agreement or murmured softly, Yes, thats right! Titus Justus, whom I

has been offered ceremonially to idols.12 You are certainly aware that I would have to resign from my job if I did not take part in these banquets. However, I am of the opinion that for a Christian everything is allowed, including attending business banquets where political compromises are made. Tertius interrupted Erastus. It is not only the meat which has been offered to the idols that Chloe protests about. She says she knows that the Corinthian courtesans go to these banquets business and political courtesans. Prostitutes who are used to win certain contracts you mean? I asked. From my work in the bank I knew that such things went on. No comment, Erastus said. He added, One is expected to drink a toast with these courtesans but otherwise one has no further obligations. The topic was obviously embarrassing for him, but he mentioned in passing, You must not take too seriously the criticisms which Chloe throws at us. This somewhat exalted womens lib apostle has no family to help her feel important and wanted, only her followers, the foreign dock workers and slaves, to boost her ego. This was obviously a sign to end the conversation. Erastus now went forward with the scroll and rolled it out. A Christian stood on either side of him holding a torch. Gaius introduced him. Just as Paul wrote a letter to the Romans while he was here in Corinth you surely remember how he worked day and night so he has written a long reply to us from Ephesus. For many Sundays we have already read parts of this reply, and we come today, so it seems to me, to one of the most important and instructive passages. Please read, Erastus. The meeting of Gods citizens The two torchbearers drew nearer to Erastus and there was absolute silence in the courtyard. Erastus began, For Christ is like a single body with its many limbs and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body. For indeed we were all brought into the one body by baptism in the one Spirit, whether we are Jews and here he looked at Crispus or Greeks he stopped as if he wanted to say, as I am whether slaves and when he uttered this word Chloes people and the dock workers threw their hands in the air and shouted in a mighty chorus, Hallelujah, Kyrios Jesous! Then the shout took the form of a fugue or a hymn. Halle, halle
12

13 14

1 Cor 10.

1 Cor 12.12f. Rom 16.1. 15 1 Cor 12.1420.

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Reformed World 167 forward, and when he took the scroll from Gaius hands everyone applauded. He asked to be shown the passage where the reading should continue. At first he read with hesitation, but the more he read the clearer and more distinct his voice became. His face shone in the awareness that he could communicate something important and helpful. He read, But God and he emphasized the word God but God has put the various parts of the body together, giving special honour to the humbler parts, so that there might be no split in the body and that the parts might care for each other.19 When he said this, Erastus went to the slave who had interrupted him, sat next to him on the floor and engaged in a long conversation which of course I could not hear. Tertius continued, If one organ suffers, they all suffer together. If one flourishes, they all rejoice together. Now you are Christs body and each of you a limb or organ of it.20 Tertius rolled up the scroll. The community sang a Jewish psalm, in Greek translation of course. They stood together for a while and talked. I asked Tertius for permission to copy the passage which had been read to us. While I was writing I felt somebodys eyes on me. When I turned around I discovered Chloe. You are right to copy this passage of our apostle Paul. His letters are tremendous. When he was with us he was not much of a public speaker. But his letters, they get right under the skin.21 I realized that she could read, for she followed my writing with her eyes. You are astonished, she continued, that a woman who is generally seen in the company of slaves and dock workers can read. I would have liked to read publicly when Tertius was asked to continue the reading. But that would have stirred up even more hostility against what some call the womens regiment. That is why I kept quiet. I stood up and looked at the woman. Something about her appeared to me to be both familiar and strange. Where had I met that perfume, that hair style, that eye shadow? I asked myself. Then it dawned on me. Her appearance bore a striking resemblance to the courtesans who enhanced the symposia of the directors of the bank. I did not want to mention this, for a

recognized by his Jewish prayer bands, whispered something. He said, Too many philosophical quotations, Livius and Plato.16 Well, do not forget, he also quotes Josephus, the Jewish writer, his neighbour whispered in reply. Erastus criticized Erastus continued, The eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you, nor the head to the feet, I do not need you. Quite the contrary: those organs of the body which seem to be weaker than others are indispensable and here I noted how one of the dock workers stopped chewing and spat out the grape which he had just put into his mouth and those which we regard as less honourable are treated with special honour. To our unseemly parts is given a more than ordinary respect. The respectable parts do not need it.17 Amen, shouted the slave who had just spat out the grape. If that be true then Erastus had better give the money he donated towards the paving of the main street in Corinth18 to us, the slaves, for the respectable ones do not need it, but we, the weaker ones, we could make good use of it. Erastus stopped. It hurt him that his political life, in which, as he had told me, compromises were necessary, was discussed in church. He did not defend himself, but asked Gaius to take over the chairmanship of the meeting. No, not Gaius, the same slave shouted. Why could it not be one of us for a change? Very well, Gaius replied. Which of you can read, for we want to continue our reading of Pauls letter? It turned out that none of the dock workers or slaves could read. Only Phoebe from Cenchreae, in whom they obviously had confidence, and we the bettereducated slaves could read. That is how my friend Tertius came to be asked to continue the reading. I could see that he trembled nervously when they chose him. But he went

Livius II 32; Plato, State, 46cd; Josephus, Bell.Jud. 4/VIII/406; Conzelmann, p.248; A Bittlinger, Gifts and Graces: A commentary on 1 Corinthians 1214 (London, 1967), pp.54ff. 17 1 Cor 12.2124. 18 Compare the reconstruction by Kent of an Erastus inscription (praenomen nomen) Erastus pro aedilit (at) e s(ua) p(ecunia) stravit (Erastus paid for the laying of this pavement out of his own pocket in recognition of his election to the office of an aedil). JK Kent, The Inscriptions 19261950. Corinth. Result of Excavations VIII, 3 (Princeton, 1966), pp.1819, no.232. Discussion of the literature in Theissen, p.242.

16

19 20

1 Cor 12.12f 1 Cor 12.27. 21 2 Cor 10.10.

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Reformed World 169 Does Paul not say that if one organ or limb suffers, all suffer? And Jason suffers. Do we not suffer with him? Do you know that he has been unjustly accused of rioting? It is surely clear to the gentlemen and brothers from the city administration here present and she looked at Gaius and Erastus, but glanced also briefly at Tertius that if the accusation can be upheld in court, his crucifixion is inevitable. A week ago Tertius read from Pauls letter, God has put the various parts of the body together, giving special honour to the humbler parts, so that there might be no split in the body and that all the parts might care for each other.23 Jason is in serious trouble. Do we not care about him? Chloe sat down. Meanwhile Gaius had listened with great attention. Chloe is right, he said. We must send a delegation to the proconsul. And it seems to me that you, Erastus, should lead that delegation. We have to inform the proconsul that we consider that to convict Christians of rioting is politically unwise and unjust and that we would not hesitate to appeal to Rome against the ruling of the courts in Corinth in order to stop what we consider this miscarriage of justice. True, love endures all things, believes all things, hopes all things,24 but that does not mean that we accept without comment criminal breach of justice. Paul also says that love does not enjoy injustice but rejoices with truth.25 I thought to myself: But suppose Christians were accused of undermining society because the very form of their worship service questions existing law and order? Would it not be a just accusation, because in their services foreigners, slaves and women are considered equal or almost equal. This could be seen as a kind of spiritual revolution. Their belief in a coming kingdom of God which will be inaugurated by the last trumpet surely relativizes and questions the existing holy Roman Empire. Nobody in his right mind can question these facts. It is possible that Jason is justly accused according to Roman law. And if he is crucified according to the law, what will Erastus, Gaius and Chloe do then? I could not answer my question. In the meantime the excitement had died down. Red Chloe and her people seemed to agree to Gaius proposal. The torchbearers approached Erastus and he began to read again: If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays

courtesan at a Christian religious meeting that was a little out of place, it seemed to me. She seemed to guess my thoughts and said, Yes, sir, I was a courtesan, or, if you prefer, a welleducated and wellpaid prostitute, whom the businessmen of Corinth used to influence their clients. That is what I was. Then I became a Christian and gave up my profession. This body of prostitution has become a temple of the Holy Spirit. How then do you now earn your living? I asked, somewhat too curiously perhaps. I keep a local inn for dock workers and slaves. That way I can just make a living. I did not want to ask further questions and so I took my leave. Living with conflicts I arrived late at Gaius house the following Sunday. Because of the riots in the port and the risk that some of the ships might be set on fire, we had to complete some urgent insurance transactions. I could not leave the bank at the usual time and arrived only about half past seven. When I entered his villa, I heard strange singing. It seemed as if the whole citizens meeting of the Christians was singing in ten or twenty parts. I could not understand the words, but I soon realized that this must be the singing in tongues which I had heard mentioned several times in Pauls writings. Although everyone sang his own melody so to speak, the harmonies fitted together. It was as if the Christians were building a temple of sounds, a social acoustic sanctuary under whose roof they could feel at home. The distribution of wine and bread followed the pattern of the previous Sundays. I do not need to repeat this. But when Erastus, the Chairman of the Department of Public Works in Corinth, went forward with the scroll from which he intended to read and when the two torchbearers took their positions at either side of him, Chloe who else? rose to her feet and protested. With respect, brothers and sisters, she said, how can you just carry on with the reading from the learned texts of our brother Paul after all that has happened in our city during this week? Do you not know that Jason,22 whom we baptized last Sunday in the name of Jesus, and who was baptized with us together into one body, as Paul says this same Jason is in prison?
22

23 24

Rom 16.21.

1 Cor 12.24. 1 Cor 13.7. 25 1 Cor 13.6.

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Reformed World 171 the whole body, not just with the head. Do you really think that my back does not think when the whip is dancing on it, or when I carry the heavy bags on the docks? Because we think with the whole of our bodies, speaking in tongues helps us to grow up in thinking. Why cant you ever understand this? We cant afford the luxury of limiting thinking to reading and writing. It is bad enough that for ten weeks already we have had to listen to Pauls letter. Do you not want to hear the rest of the letter? Erastus asked. Sure we want to hear it, Quartus replied. We want to know what Paul has to say. But we shall always protest when we disagree. That is right, Erastus said. That is part of the body, part of thinking in the body, as you say, that conflicts are not suppressed. However, Paul is concerned not only with Christians but with the world as a whole. He thinks that our service must make a newcomer so understand his own innermost being that he will fall on his face, worship God and recognize that God is in fact in our midst.29 I found this argument a little strange. I had never felt like falling on my face and declaring that God was in our midst. This did not bother me, but I still found it strange that they believed that their crucified Jesus was both in their midst and that he would come again. To my way of understanding, these were two very obvious contradictions. On the other hand I was not disturbed by the singing in tongues and the emotional outbreaks from Chloe. On the contrary, the human, sometimes almost primitive spontaneity of the Christian worship, and their direct way of dealing with each other, impressed me. Shall I become a Christian? We said goodbye and I returned alone through the night streets of Corinth. I live in a small room in a villa belonging to one of the directors of the bank where I am employed. There I keep the few things which belong to me a second tunic, sandals, parchment, a bed and a lamp. Every day I go to the office in the bank. I am responsible for checking transactions and general bookkeeping, and I have to make sure that letters of credit and coins are always correctly filed and put away, especially in the evening when the bank is closed. In uncertain times, as has been the case this week, I have to work overtime. Once or twice a year on the great public holidays we close
Limited, 1974). 29 1 Cor 14.2425.

but my mind remains barren. What then? I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind. To sing with the spirit, Erastus looked up from his manuscript and added, refers to that which we did at the beginning of our meeting when all sang together in tongues in many harmonies. To sing with the mind refers to that which we did last Sunday, when we sang the hymn which we all know, And yet abideth According to Paul both have their place in the service. I continue: If you sing with the Spirit how shall the one who is sitting on the seat of the idiot, the uninitiated and all looked over to me how shall he understand what you pray? You may go through a wonderful religious experience but it is of no help to the other man.26 We do not sing and pray for the others, said Quartus, one of the two slaves who had been baptized the previous Sunday. He had been taken into custody on a charge of alleged rioting and he had been scourged, but then released with a warning to mend his ways. We sing and pray for us, he said. There are certain things which we have to do for our own benefit as almost everything that we do is for others for instance, being punished and scourged for others. His hand touched his back and his face looked halfcomical, halfsad. Always carrying bags for the rich people, always working for others. At least in the worship service we would like to do something for ourselves. There we sing for us, and speak in tongues for us. Amen, amen, shouted the slaves on the lefthand side of the gathering. Erastus continued, Paul is not against speaking in tongues. The next sentence shows this very clearly. He writes: Thank God, I speak more in tongues than all of you, but in the congregation I would rather speak five intelligible words for the benefit of others as well as myself, than thousands of words in tongues. Do not be childish, my friends. Be as innocent of evil as babes, but at least be grown up in your thinking.27 Paul is unjust and he does not understand us, Quartus interrupted again. Certainly, we should be grown up in our thinking. But we do not think as the scribes like Erastus, Gaius, Tertius and Paul think. We are Christians without books. You think with a pen in your hand. You think in sentences and arguments. We think in images and visions.28 We think with
26 27

1 Cor 14.1517. 1 Cor 14.1820. 28 WJ Hollenweger, Pentecost between Black and White (Belfast: Christian Journals

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Reformed World 173 Mission, unity and eschaton: a triadic relation Bert Hoedemaker

the bank for a whole day. The Corinthians drink so much that it is advisable to close and see that the bank is securely locked up. I am a slave and my master is a director of the Corinthian Bank of Trade and Commerce. He treats me well. I have enough to eat and a small room. When I need anything I can go to him. Only I do not know where I belong. I do not belong to the free businessmen, the officers, the scientists, and the bankers, nor do I belong to the slaves and the dock workers who so they say think not merely with the head but with the whole body. Perhaps, if I am lucky, I will be given my freedom one day. It happens sometimes, but it depends on the good will of ones master. And so I ask myself whether or not the citizens meeting of the Christians is the right place for me. I cannot be a whole human being all on my own. I need Chloes people and also Erastus and Gaius and my friend Tertius. But being a Christian has great disadvantages. Christians run the risk of being regarded as nonconformist or even hostile to the state. That is because so many of the Christians are slaves. Numerically slaves are in the majority. But they do not have as much influence as the minority of free and affluent Christians. Membership in the body of the Christians means a tremendous increase in prestige for the slaves. But as I have already said, to be a Christian has disadvantages. One could easily be identified with Chloes people, and if one is arrested and convicted of conspiracy it does not really matter whether one is guilty or not. A just conviction or a miscarriage of justice produces the same result. One is dead. What shall I do? Is there any good reason for becoming a Christian? Do I need any reason for becoming a Christian?
Prof. Dr Walter J Hollenweger is emeritus professor of mission at Birmingham University in England and a worldrenowned scholar on Pentecostalism; he is currently a pastor of the Swiss Reformed church.

This short essay is an attempt to deal with the relation between mission and unity in the perspective of the ecumenical learning process that has affected the use of these terms so profoundly since the beginning of the twentieth century. Its point of departure is that it might be profitable to recall some aspects of this learning process, particularly those aspects that help us to link the Christian keywords mission and unity to the vision of the coming kingdom of God. Its aim is to consider how the MIUapproach to mission as credible and efficient witness of churches that are themselves reasonably united, and its focus on the overcoming of church disunity for the sake of mission, might be enriched by an eschatological emphasis. That mission and unity belong together has not always been self evident. In fact, it is not until halfway through the twentieth century that we come across a way of speaking about mission that is decidedly church centred, and a way of speaking about church that is decidedly missionary. We will briefly analyse two impulses that led to this new ecumenical consensus, and then raise the question as to how the various factors that contributed to it look from the point of view of the present experience of a world that is marked by pluralism and globalization. Finally we will consider what all this might imply for a contemporary approach to the missionunity connection. The unity impulse from the missionary movement Urged on by a spirituality of conquest, the modern missionary movement saw the world as one large field ready to be won and cultivated in the name of Christ. This sense of unity oversimplified as it may have been was one of its strengths; and it originated not from a strong church consciousness but from a marriage between grassroots Christian revivals and a typically modern perspective on the unity of humankind. It could not leave the divided state of Christendom unaffected: the new accessibility of the ends of the earth had to lead to a rediscovery of the church and of the importance of the search for its unity. This is indeed what happened: through a series of comity arrangements on the mission fields, and through a series of regional and worldwide mission conferences meant to produce structures for efficient consultation, particularly the famous Edinburgh

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Reformed World 175 an understanding of world Christianity as the paradigm of a world society in the perspective of the kingdom of God; and this became the logic of the integration of mission and church, and of missionary movement and ecumenical movement. There was also a more theological side to this impulse. Twentieth century theology made an effort to recover original aspects of biblical eschatology and to redefine its relation to modern culture. Dialectical theologians in particular sought to define the eschaton as the limit of human existence, as the point where the sovereign God touches human history in judgment and challenge. In connection with an approach to biblical theology that emphasized the history of salvation, this led to a positioning of mission between the times: mission was not to be seen as an extension of church or Christianity but rather as an announcement of the coming kingdom. Both mission and church were seen as embedded in divine action, and this is precisely what the concept of Missio Dei intended to express. The divine plan of salvation is realized in the gathering of the people of God (church) and the establishing of signs of the coming kingdom (mission). Missio Dei sees mission as part of an encompassing, overarching action of God in which world and kingdom are held together. The strong connection between church and mission that was the result of all this found expression in a variety of diverging theological approaches, but these agreed basically that mission belonged to the nature of the church, and that church and mission could no longer be conceived apart from each other. It remains important to see that this strong connection is linked to a specific understanding of eschatology and modernity. To put it briefly: modernity came to be conceived as a rival system, an alternative paradigm, that could only be kept in rapport with the eschaton through the presence of a witnessing church. It was this broad vision of the eschatological coherence of church, world and mission that became the foundation of the christocentric universalism that characterized the ecumenical movement in its heyday. At the same time it should be noted that this development gave the ecumenical movement, as it came to visibility in the World Council of Churches, a definite church focus that eventually led to a certain loss of eschatological vision. The ecumenical connection between church and mission may have had a strong eschatological component, yet it also strengthened the tendency to reverse the perspective. In the reversed perspective, church unity is no longer regarded as a manifestation of a

1910, the movement became a major driving force behind the new ecumenical movement. It remains important to see what this unity impulse is and what it is not. Even though the origins of the church unity movement can be traced indirectly to the missionary movement one of the main architects of Faith and Order, Charles Brent, came from the mission field the missionary conferences were not interested in ecclesial consensus. They aimed rather at practical cooperation and consultation without theological discussion. They did develop a church focus, but it was a different one from the church focus developed in Faith and Order. Faith and Order rediscovered the church as tradition and community; for the missionary movement the churches remained strategic units in a worldwide project. The strength of the missionary unity impulse was its eschatology. The modern missionary vision brought God, world and church together into one dynamic: it saw the coming of the kingdom expressed in the going of the missionaries to the ends of the earth, and it saw the gathering of the first fruits of the pagan world as the sign of the consummation of history. Of course, to the extent that this implied the unsophisticated projection of images of faith on a world naively conceived as a field of darkness waiting for light, this eschatology is no longer convincing in our day. On the other hand, the connection of Christian eschatology with the modern experience of history and with the messianic hopes raised by the modern age even though this connection is also under fire in a postmodern age remains significant. At least it helps us to hear some of the overtones in the early ecumenical link between mission and unity. Understanding church and mission in the perspective of Missio Dei The second major impulse that led to a close linking of mission and unity in ecumenical discourse is related to the effort to create a worldwide network of churches called to become centres of witness, each in its own context. In the course of the first half of the twentieth century, ecumenical communication among churches became the framework for the understanding of mission. In this perspective, the nonChristian world could no longer be defined in an undifferentiated way as pagan: the first world war had placed the world on the agenda as a problem of peace and justice; there was the selfaffirmation of other religions; the emergence of a secular world civilization and economic inequality; nazism and communism raised the issue of neopagan ideologies. All this called for

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Reformed World 177 preceding or overarching conception of unity. Pluralism of traditions, of religions, of cultures is basic, it multiplies itself, there is no hidden or final unity in view, except those unities that are onesidedly imposed by one particular tradition, religion or culture. This leads to the second point: pluralism is not just an interesting mosaic of differences; it has an underside of violence, alienation and hostility; it is the endproduct of an extremely bloody history, both within Christianity and among the religions and cultures of the world. It is full of unreconciled memories. The confident modern vision of an ultimate unity of humankind has become highly problematic. In its outward appearance, the final stage of globalization that we seem to have reached promises precisely that: a unity of humankind. The new technology of traffic and communication is its finishing touch. The world is no longer made up of contexts that can be understood independently from each other; on the contrary, contexts have become deterritorialized, hyperdifferentiated and hybridized (Schreiter). Globalization presents itself as the secular realized eschaton of humankind: it promises universal and lasting salvation. Behind this faade, however, we observe the new dichotomies between rich and poor, the elite and the marginalized, and we observe the social Darwinism, the contempt for democracy, and the colonization of the primary relations of life. And we also observe the struggle of individuals and groups to create new cultural identities on the borderlines that have become insignificant in the process of globalization and in the gaps that this process has caused. In other words, globalization and a new, disorderly pluralism seem to go together. Although itself a product of modernity, globalization undermines the modern consciousness of clear identities and missions, and in that respect it also signals the failure of the modern visions of unity which had been so important for the genesis of the ecumenical movement. Effects on the understanding of mission and unity The contemporary pressures of postmodern suspicion, pluralism, and globalization make it possible, in retrospect, to assess the degree to which ecumenical thinking on mission and unity has been captive to the project of modernity from the beginning of the twentieth century. The resulting uncertainty with regard to traditional ecumenical convictions manifests itself, of course, in a crisis of the ecumenical movement as a whole, but it specifically touches the selfunderstanding of churches that seek to remain faithful to the ecumenical consensus regarding the connection between

broader vision; on the contrary, the socalled wider issues (mission, social action) are now regarded as further items added to the agenda of church unity. Along this line, mission is understood as something that the church does among other things, rather than as a pluriform worldwide movement in which the church rediscovers and receives its identity. The Missio Dei concept turned out to be not strong enough to counter this tendency: its effect was not to link the church more strongly to the legacy of the missionary movement, but rather to give theological legitimation to the ecumenical emphasis on the church. Assaults on the selfconfidence of modernity Most current conceptions of the relation of mission and unity are construed out of the two impulses described above, and it must be added most of them are also characterized by loss of eschatological vision. Meanwhile, the contemporary experience of the world is radically different from the experience that was dominant at the time of the impulses. Neither eschatology nor modernity can be dealt with in quite the same way as half a century ago. Inevitably, therefore, we will have to reconsider conceptions of the relation of mission and unity that are linked, however implicitly and unconsciously, to these older approaches. In the second half of the twentieth century, many varieties of third world theology developed that explicitly questioned the prevalence of western ways of thinking and the selfconfidence of modern western culture in ecumenical theology. By claiming attention for local cultural and religious traditions as legitimate sources for theological reflection, these theologies in fact undermine the modern desire for a rational ordering of reality from a given centre, with a new emphasis on pluralism. Even Missio Dei thinking becomes suspect from this point of view: it is exposed as an attempt to order a complex world with the aid of abstract categories and to lift church and mission above the complexities of a plural and ambiguous human history. At the same time, various postmodern trends, both in western culture as a whole and more specifically in western theology, strengthen this attack on modern ordering by encouraging distrust and suspicion with regard to grand narratives and by taking new experiences of pluralism as points of departure. The postmodern treatment of pluralism is, of course, a serious challenge to any ecumenical conception of mission and unity. Two points can be made about this. First: pluralism can no longer be made subordinate to a

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Reformed World 179 Saving the ecumenical heritage All three reactions sketched above break more or less openly with the learning process of the twentieth century ecumenical movement. Or, more precisely, they implicitly understand this learning process to lead away from the peculiar combination of modern and eschatological thinking that has, in various ways, characterized the movement up to and including the Missio Dei consensus. According to this implicit understanding, the new pluralism both within world Christianity and in the world of cultures and religions as a whole and the postmodern experience of the world call for a new ecumenical theology: one from which the (Enlightenment) notion of the unity of humankind has disappeared, and in which a narrower focus on the church or on individual spirituality has become determinative. The question is, of course, whether this is all there is; whether it is really impossible to stay close to the ecumenical heritage with regard to mission and unity and still do justice to the challenges of postmodernism, pluralism and globalization. As long as churches or denominational families make use of the key words mission and unity in the hope of constructing a significant identity and a coherent world view on the basis of those key words, a possibility to do just that seems at least to be presupposed. It is worthwhile to explore it. Such an exploration will have to deal with two major questions. First, on what conditions can the vision of a unity of humankind be maintained? And second, what do these conditions imply for the understanding of mission? We will go briefly into each of these questions. Unity of humankind as reconciled diversity The eschatology that is an inalienable part of the Christian faith speaks of the coming of God, of a final unambiguous divine selfrevelation, of a judgment, of a final separation of good and evil, and of the redemption of the faithful. On the level of the individual it speaks of resurrection and eternal life; on the cosmic level it speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. All this has its foundation in the givenness of Christ, in his life, death and resurrection. The (derivatively socalled) eschatology of modernity offers a perspective of universal understanding, of a humankind beyond pluralism, at least beyond a pluralism that keeps generating misunderstanding and violence. This perspective is not annihilated by postmodernism, pluralism and globalization; it is, rather, implied with new urgency in the counter experiences of unreconciled memories and continuing destructive

mission and unity. Generally speaking, we can discern three reactions to the new challenges. Our sketch of these reactions is restricted to the Protestant churches, but analogies can easily be traced in other parts of Christianity. The first reaction is prevalent among the older churches in the western world; it consists of a loss of missionary selfconfidence, and of a tendency to redefine missionary work in the direction of projects of interchurch aid or serving presence. This reaction is characterized by identity problems, not so much in relation to faith as such but in relation to the selfevident superiority of our faith. The other traditionally the object of mission has come too close, has become too much like myself. The influence of postmodernism, pluralism, and globalization in the daily lives of people does not diminish the concern for other human beings or the desire to participate in a faithful community, but it does weaken the strong sense of conviction associated with heavy words such as mission and unity in earlier times. The second reaction consists in the stubborn persistence in the truth of the given tradition and in the missionary calling to persuade others of this truth. We can call this fundamentalism in a general sense, in that it refuses to accept the premises of both modernity and postmodernity and sustains an eschatology according to which the modern world as a whole will be brought to judgment. Fundamentalism, however, is not premodern; rather, it proposes an alternative modernity. It is an effort to attack modernity with its own weapons and to conquer it in the name of an idealized religious tradition. It seeks to emulate rather than to repudiate the project of modernity. Fundamentalism, of course, has been alive ever since the beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement; in the present situation of pluralism and globalization it obviously acquires a new strong appeal. The third reaction widespread particularly in the third world is the spiritualization of the missionchurcheschaton triad, prevalent in Pentecostal movements (but not only there). This reaction, in a sense, individualizes eschatology: it replaces the traditional ecumenical Missio Dei coherence with an emphasis on the powerful witness of persons touched by the Holy Spirit. It saves mission at the expense of unity and eschatology. Outwardly, it has the capacity to accommodate to the requirements of pluralism and globalization; inwardly, it offers experiences that transcend the limitations of those requirements. In that way, therefore, it becomes a profoundly significant alternative to more traditional understandings of the missionunity connection.

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Reformed World 181 awareness of the historical place and role of the Christian tradition in the present world of pluralism and conflict, and an acceptance of the relativity of that tradition. That is not the same thing as relativism. Acceptance of relativity corresponds, rather, to the notion of internal eschatological criticism which is present in the New Testament, and which becomes visible in Jesus selfrelativizing references to the coming kingdom of God as well as in the distinctions between provisional, partial believing and final, complete seeing. Missionary thinking will illuminate the givenness of Christ from the point of view of an eschaton that engages all traditions, including the Christian tradition, in a permanent process of mutual learning, and in that way links them to ultimate unity and truth. For the Christian, of course, there is no eschatological faith without Christ; but precisely this eschatological faith highlighted, emphasized and strengthened by the challenges of the contemporary experience of the world precludes final answers to the question of his significance. Jesus Christ has entered into the history of a community, which is an ongoing history of remembering, interpreting, expecting and witnessing and as such also a history of engaging in a pilgrimage, together with others, towards Christ. Understood in this way, mission in the sense of making Christ known to the world is not incompatible with keeping alive the vision of an ultimate reconciled diversity in a process of learning with and from others. It is not incompatible, for instance, with the establishment of a conspiracy of wisdom, in which various cultural and religious traditions pool their resources for communication and reconciliation, and remind each other of a higher destiny of the world and of human beings than the one presented by globalization. For Christian theology, an argument for eschatology, pilgrimage and dialogue is an argument for an emphasis on the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the connecting link between the unity of humankind and the world of today, between the redeemed communion of the human family and the many unredeemed and unreconciled communities including churches and denominations in which humankind lives. Mission is the effort to make this connection visible and understandable. Relating mission and unity to each other Our glance at the learning process of the ecumenical movement has made clear that mission and unity are not innocent words. Using these words in an ecclesial or theological context means almost by definition, being drawn into a field that is already occupied by a host of meanings,

alienation, and in the disappointments generated by the misleading faade of new global unities. Combination of the two eschatologies has been attempted in various ways in modern Christianity, and, as indicated above, it has to a large extent created and determined the ecumenical movement. But it remains a precarious enterprise. The term unity of humankind in ecumenical discourse clearly a fruit of this enterprise has become associated with the project of modernity and as such has come under suspicion; it has been used and still can be used to disguise attempts to unify the world on the basis of a particular ideology. In addition, from a Christian theological point of view the term unity of humankind is often associated with the assumption that humankind can redeem itself, that the attainment of unity and reconciliation is an immanent historical process. Does it account adequately for the biblical notions of judgment and separation? The notion that comes to mind here originally generated in the church unity discussion is reconciled diversity. It takes the insight seriously that final and decisive unity is unthinkable apart from a reality transcending perspective that always implies judgment. Unity of humankind should be understood to unite not only humankind in its present state, but humankind including its complex histories of alienation, misunderstanding, hostility, violence. Pluralism of traditions, cultures and religions contains these complex histories in itself. Unity, reconciliation, the redemption of pluralism in this broad sense can, therefore, only be conceived as an eschatological event that encompasses the whole world and all history; in other words: as a divine initiative. Faith in the unity of humankind is only realistic so the Christian would argue if it takes the form of surrender to the perspective of judgment and forgiveness. And in that sense so the ecumenical movement would teach us it is still indispensable for an adequate understanding of the mission and unity of the church. Mission: a pilgrimage of learning and discovery Mission in the context of the unity of humankind will no longer place a major emphasis on the conquest of the world by the Christian world view, nor on determined witness over against the rival systems even though these elements will continue to play a certain role. Rather, it will seek to deal constructively with pluralism, practising and encouraging communication in the perspective of ultimate unity, and restructuring its own tradition and message in that light. That will require an honest

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Reformed World 183 Facing the challenges in Rwanda An interview with Andr Karamaga

discussions and references; and being challenged to choose a position in that field. More specifically, it implies a critical look at the church focus, that is, the tendency to deal with mission and unity as items in a programme of ecclesial action or selfconstitution. Using the words mission and unity in the sense in which they have been charged by a long ecumenical history means precisely that one is taken out of the limited framework of ecclesial or denominational organization; one is challenged to deal with the issues of ecclesial or denominational identity in the wider context of a learning process towards reconciled diversity that involves the whole of humankind. This implies first of all that one avoids ecclesial shortcuts in the definition of missionary work, and instead begins to reflect on what is actually done or intended or implied when a community of Christians reaches out towards others. How does the faith in which the community lives relate to the ways in which the community experiences the world? How does it articulate a vision that can establish such a relation? These profoundly missionary questions impinge upon the identity of a community, rather than the other way around. In this perspective, the unity of a given community is not something that precedes missionary activity, so that one could say a firmly established unity enhances the efficiency of missionary work; rather, unity is given as communities get involved in the learning process of mission, in which they rediscover Jesus Christ as the coming one and learn to appreciate pluralism as a promise. Unity means relating the faith and action of a community to the unity of humankind.

Jet den Hollander: Dr Karamaga, your country and church have gone through horrific experiences in recent decades, culminating in the 1994 genocide. Around the world we still cry with you for the victims, for the perpetrators and for ourselves, because through what happened in Rwanda we were confronted with ourselves again. Last year the World Alliance of Reformed Churches together with the John Knox International Reformed Centre set up the Mission in Unity Project to accompany churches which are searching for new expressions of mission in unity. Does a project such as this have any relevance in the current Rwandan situation? Do words like mission and unity, already heavy with historical overtones, make sense for people inside and outside of the churches in Rwanda? AK: I would say: yes and no. No, in the sense that we certainly cannot talk of mission and unity in any easy manner anymore. In a situation where disunity among people exploded to this terrible extent, unity is not a something that seems very real or realistic. And the churches saw themselves as churches with a mission, but ended up being part of the drama, both as victims and as perpetrators. And yet, people do talk of unity again, and the churches are trying to rediscover their mission. Rwanda is known and seen as a broken society within the wider African context. The main challenge, not just for the church but for all actors in society, is how to heal this brokenness, how to deal with the loss of self confidence, the number of orphans and widows, the amount of hatred. JdH: How has your own church approached this challenge since 1994? AK: We were very aware that the churches, including the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda, were part of society, and therefore were broken themselves. The facts are, firstly, that among those who have killed were also church members. Second, the churches have historically played a role in dividing the society into Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. It is well known that before the colonization of Rwanda at the end of the 18th century, the three groups were social groups rather than ethnic groups. In the past you were a Tutsi if you had cattle, and a Hutu if you were in agriculture. And so if you changed from herding to farming, you changed from Tutsi to Hutu. But then the myths were brought in that they come from different parts of the

Prof. Dr Bert Hoedemaker is emeritus professor of Ecumenics and Mission at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and a minister of the Uniting Churches in the Netherlands. He has written extensively on mission in the context of secularization and globalization.

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Reformed World 185 need to find our common voice as churches, and be clear as to what is good and what is evil; what brings life and what leads to death. Then, apart from speaking out together, we also try to witness in common action. We cannot address, as just one denomination, the enormous problems of orphans, widows and widowers, rape victims, prisoners. We need to work cross denominationally, and here and there we are making some progress. JdH: What would you say are major stumbling blocks in this process? AK: One is that after 1995 many new churches came into being. There was a mushrooming of new Christian movements. Some churches were started in the refugee camps, and when the refugees came back they continued that particular brand of church. Some NGOs which came to help after the crisis also started new churches. Others who had lived in exile abroad returned to Rwanda with the denomination that they had been attending there. So, on the one hand we drew together in the Protestant council and tried to develop a common mission, but on the other hand, unity is not easy with this mushrooming of new groups. It will require a lot of prayer and struggle to learn to operate in a united way, especially as disunity is often a matter of human weaknesses: power games, personality conflicts, ethnic tensions and so on. Of course, when I talk of unity, I dont mean uniformity. We are not created in series but as individuals and that diversity needs to have space. But I am convinced that the gospel perspective of mission is to have a common vision, directed to common action. We know that as Christians we are going in the same direction and can go hand in hand even if we are different. Besides, we have limited resources so we need to steward these faithfully and make the most of what we have. But another stumbling block in this process of working together and pooling our resources is that we havent fully recognized that our denominational divisions are in many cases the result of sinful processes. And for us in Africa these divisions are very serious at this time, because they reinforce the many other divisions we have inherited: ethnic, tribal, divisions because of the colonial languages, the presence of different religions, and several other things that carve up our societies. In Rwanda tribalization has been developed to the extent that being Hutu or Tutsi was more important than being Rwandan or being Christian. So we need to work on our identity, whereby our Christian identity takes into account our identity as African, as Rwandan, as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa, but is stronger than just our tribal identity.

region, and so on. So what was very much a social classification was turned into a tribal classification in order to divide and rule, and the churches have been part of that process. And a third painful fact is that during the three months of the genocide the church on the whole was not heard; she was silent. All of this means that today as churches we approach our mission from a position of weakness, brokenness and humility. The crisis has shown the superficiality of our conversion, our weakness in that sense. We did not have the spiritual resources to fight effectively the evil in our midst. The crisis has also meant that many members and pastors lost their lives. And this is true for all churches: all were implicated and all were victims. Therefore the first thing was for us to confess our failure. We got together with all the Protestant churches and drew up a common statement. What made the statement credible was that a) it was common and b) it was a confession. JdH: How did people respond to this confession? AK: We found that that confession was a very important element in the process of starting again, for all of us inside and outside the churches. I was surprised when I went back to Rwanda in 1995, that people were indeed still going to the churches. That was of course a big question: will they continue to go to church? But the churches were full, though of course there are church buildings which hold such bad memories for people they cannot go back there. As you know, many of the killings actually took place in churches. But we began our witness with a confession, which was important for the victims, and also for the perpetrators of the crimes. And we realized that people were still expecting the church to play a specific role, namely to be so to speak the glue in the midst of all these divisions and to build bridges between the different parts of that broken society. JdH: Following the joint statement, has it been possible to continue working together as churches? AK: Yes, we have tried to do mission in unity, and for me that has been very important. We need to speak with one voice in the face of the evil that needs to be challenged. We need to distinguish between what is good and what is bad, and this needs to be crossdenominational. For all of us there is the challenge of Deuteronomy 30.19: I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live. We

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Reformed World 187 Together on the way in Germany Claudia WhrischOblau

It is such divisions which need to be addressed by the church, but by a uniting church rather than a church which just mirrors the divisions of the wider society. So, mission in unity in my view is vital. When we dream of African unity, of healing the scars, of breaking the barriers and rebuilding our nation, then we need to practice mission in unity, as Protestant churches and as Christians generally. And we hope to share with others in the Reformed family worldwide how we in Rwanda are struggling to make this vision come true, just as we hope to learn from the wider family how mission in unity takes shape elsewhere.
Prof. Dr Andr Karamaga is the president of the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda and one of the three vicepresidents of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

The African pastors were sitting down with the general secretary of the Association for Missionary Services, a large umbrella organization for churches and groups in Germany who are involved in evangelism. Cant you see that we are like manna from heaven? one of the African pastors asked the German. God has sent us here to help you evangelize Germany. Why dont you make use of us? The young Korean German woman came to see me at my office. She had been born and brought up in Germany, but then gone back to Korea for a while. There, she had married a young theological graduate. Now she has returned to Germany with him: he was invited to serve as pastor of a Korean congregation in Essen. We have to break out of our isolation, she said about her congregation. We know that we have a calling to reach out and witness to the gospel, not just to Koreans, but also to Germans. So she came to offer German churches their help: We have a good choir we could go into old peoples homes and other places to sing. We also have several retired nurses who are still fit and would like to volunteer their services where they would be needed. These are just two examples of the reverse mission movement that has been reaching Germany from both African and Asian countries. African and Asian missionaries are coming to Germany in ever growing numbers, preaching the gospel and establishing churches. They were not invited by the German churches. Neither did they ask for the German churches permission to start their work here. They did not feel the need for this: they have been called by the Holy Spirit to do this work, that is enough. For a long time, this mission movement was not noticed by the German churches. After all, the evangelism work of the immigrant pastors and evangelists was not very visible. Mostly, they gathered congregations of their own nationality and language background, with the odd German member or two. Only very recently have German churches started to take notice. In May 2000, the United Evangelical Mission organized a conference under the theme From reverse mission to common mission. The conference brought

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Reformed World 189 Haus set up an afterschool programme. Children and youth can do their homework at the church under supervision and get help if needed. But the church also wanted to reach out to the parents and failed, as most Tamil refugees speak little or no German. Now the Tamil congregation has taken over the outreach to the Tamil parents: no more language problems! The cooperation of the four congregations at the WeigleHaus is quite unusual. After all, the German congregations are mainline evangelical (if with a strong evangelistic impulse), while both the African and the Tamil congregations are neoPentecostal. The differences in theology and style are acknowledged and talked about on all levels. This way, understanding slowly grows while each church keeps its characteristics. Occasionally, all four congregations have a joint worship service. All congregations love them and would like to have them on a regular basis, but the pastors and church workers are not quite ready for this yet: Such services just take too much time to plan and prepare, sighs one German church worker who nevertheless admits that she loves the intercultural contact with the Africans and the Tamils. This summer, a black church worker from the African congregation, who is currently undergoing theological training at a seminary in Belgium, did a monthlong internship at the WeigleHaus. Together with the churchs fulltime street worker, he established contacts with immigrant children and youth hanging out on street corners and game parlours. When he suggested running a drumming workshop, the response was enthusiastic. Street kids who had never responded to the German street worker came in droves and just loved every minute of the sessions. Now, the WeigleHaus is thinking of establishing a longer term united in mission team of immigrant and German street workers for this kind of outreach. 2. The Evangelical churches in Oberhausen have long had partnership relations with churches in South Africa and Tanzania. They are known throughout the region for their tireless antiracism work and their long term support of the WCC Programme to Combat Racism. Therefore, when African congregations started to come into existence in the early 1990s, the churches in Oberhausen opened their buildings and their hearts. The Markuskirche is one of them. Within the congregation, an interest in Africa has long existed. The congregation even has its own marimba group, consisting of Germans of all ages. So when Victory Christians Ministries, a church of mainly Nigerian refugees, asked for a room to meet, they were given a warm welcome. The Nigerians use the church for their

together missionaries from Africa and Asia and church workers from Germany who wanted to explore ways of doing mission together. But many German churches remain very critical of the reverse missionary movement. Rather than receiving it as a godsend, they react with dismay. The reason for this can be plain racism (Why should our country be evangelized by blacks?) as well as theological rejection (Why should we be evangelized by Pentecostals?). Difficulties also arise from the very different concepts about what the mission of the church is, about how evangelism should be conducted, or whether it is needed at all! How is mission in unity possible in such a situation? I believe that a practical approach is needed first, and that theological dialogue should follow practical cooperation rather than precede it. Black Pentecostal and white mainline churches have fundamentally different ways of doing theology and fundamentally different hermeneutical paradigms. Dialogue without common praxis will just lead to misunderstanding. But where common experiences are the basis of theological dialogue, new insights can be won. Some German churches have started out on this difficult path. Two examples from the Ruhr area 1. The blue and white square building sitting between the highway and the railway tracks does not look like a church at all. But the WeigleHaus in Essen, named after its founding pastor, is a church, albeit a rather unusual one. Founded as an inner city youth ministry more than 100 years ago, it has long since developed into a congregation of sorts, or, in the words of its current pastor: into one church with four congregations. First, there is the normal Sunday morning congregation, consisting mostly of young adults and older people. Then there is the youth congregation that meets on Sunday nights. A few years ago, an African congregation asked for rooms at the WeigleHaus. It was not just given a place; it has become part of the whole setup. And when the German pastor learned that a Tamil congregation was coming into existence, he specifically invited it to meet at the WeigleHaus, too. There was a reason for this: the WeigleHaus has long been active in both social and evangelistic outreach to young people in Essens inner city. Many of the youth living in the vicinity of the church are the children of Tamil refugees who have sought asylum in Germany. To help them cope with their schoolwork and improve their language abilities, the Weigle

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Reformed World 191 To come back to the scene at the beginning: when the African pastors offered their help in evangelizing Germany, the German pastor did not know how to react. There are multiple stumbling blocks to a mission in unity between immigrant and indigenous churches. To name just a few: The German Landeskirchen, the former state churches, are still strongly influenced by an understanding that they are the church in Germany. They define what a church should look like and how it should work. (This attitude has, until quite recently, also made life difficult for the so called free churches, like Baptists or Methodists which are small minority churches in Germany where about 90% of all Christians are still members of the main Catholic or Protestant Church.) As former state churches and present peoples churches (Volkskirchen), they have actually become ethnic German churches that are only now beginning to realize that Germany is becoming more multicultural, and that a peoples church should reflect this. This coincides with the fact that German society has until recently denied the fact that Germany is a country of immigration. Hence, to be able to embark on a mission in unity with immigrant churches, the German Landeskirchen have to recognize their own relativity. This is not easy at a time when the churches are undergoing a deep financial crisis and struggling with dwindling membership numbers. Racism is structurally inherent in German society, and the churches are not free of it. Of course, any accusation of racism is immediately denied by the churches. Nevertheless, immigrant Christians often face it in their contact with German congregations: while Korean churches usually have little difficulty in renting church facilities for their own services, African or Tamil congregations often find all doors closed in their faces. German church workers worry about noise, dirt, and generally seem to distrust people with darker skin. Antifree church prejudice is a big problem. German churches have a hard time understanding why the African church using their rooms has no mother church in Ghana that one could get in contact with. A church that does not belong to a denomination that is organized along institutional patterns can only be a sect. There is generally very little knowledge and understanding of nonmainline churches, their organization and their theology. AntiPentecostal prejudice adds to this. Especially among the theologically trained, there seems to be an almost neurotic fear of

worship services on Sunday afternoons, for their revivals and for their monthly night prayers. Their other activities take place at one of the two church centres, where there is always room for a Bible or prayer group or a committee meeting. Even a small office was found within one church centre which the Nigerian pastor has been using. While both congregations remain independent after all, the Germans are mainline Protestant and the Nigerians neoPentecostal there is a sense that they are growing together. Joint Sunday services take place regularly. When they feature the German marimba group, the church is really rocking! There are common festivals, meals and even soccer games. Both the black and the white church are very active in local antiracism work. Just recently, they jointly participated in the organization of a big rally at the Oberhausen city centre. But their common mission does not just end with political statements: when a woman from the black congregation was, together with her three small children, threatened by deportation, the churches jointly organized a church asylum which has now already lasted five months. Tolerance as a first step These two examples the WeigleHaus in Essen and the Markuskirche in Oberhausen have in common that churches started out doing something together. This way, trust and community were built before difficult theological issues were tackled. But this approach also needs a lot of tolerance on both sides, and the willingness to accept the other church as a sister church, a member in the body of Christ, even if it expresses its faith in a totally foreign way. The mainline churches had to realize that Pentecostals are not a sect, even if they drive out demons during their night prayers. Conversely, the Pentecostal churches had to learn that mainline churches are not necessarily dead, even if nobody there speaks in tongues. Such tolerance also means that both churches abstain from crude attempts to convert the other church to its own theology and practices, while at the same time they acknowledge that their contact and cooperation will eventually change them both in ways they may not foresee yet. Such tolerance is no liberal laissezfaire. It is based on the knowledge that it is Jesus Christ himself who builds his church through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is formed by the understanding that each church is a corpus mixtum, that each falls short of its calling in certain ways, but that the Spirit nevertheless works in them in unexpected ways.

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Reformed World 193 a shared background and culture as individuals set up new churches and steal members from existing congregations. Churches and church leaders who feel threatened by such competition are usually not open to cooperation, especially as closer contact with German churches can, in the case of conflict with other immigrant churches or church leaders, lead to rumours about how that particular church or leader has been bought by the Germans. It is clear that to achieve mission in unity among immigrant and indigenous churches in Germany, these stumbling blocks need to be rolled away one by one. It is also clear that this is far from easy, and cannot be done quickly. Programme for cooperation This is where the Programme for Cooperation between German and Immigrant Congregations comes in. It was set up in 1998 by the United Evangelical Mission1 for its German region, which roughly encompasses the German states of North RhineWestphalia and Hesse as well as some parts of Lower Saxony, RhinelandPalatinate and the Saar area. The first step was a period of research about the presence of immigrant churches, the second step, some publicity work about the reverse missionary movement to Germany. Now the groundwork has been laid to go a step further. Within the programme, we have started to create opportunities for immigrant and German pastors and church workers to meet, to listen to each other and to learn from each other. Seminars and study days are being prepared by an international, open working group which also identifies the topics that need to be treated. Seminars that were held recently or are being planned include topics such as Reading the Bible through the Eyes of Another,2 The Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal movement, Evangelism in Germany and Overcoming Racism within the Church. Within these seminars, we have started to develop a culture of speaking from ones own experience without assuming that ones own view must be shared by all, of listening very carefully to try and understand what the other is saying, and of going back to the biblical text. After all, the Bible is the one thing we
The United Evangelical Mission is an international partnership of churches in Germany, Africa and Asia. 2 Actually, this particular title sounded rather offputting to Pentecostals. The Bible has to be read with spiritual eyes, and there are no other. Pentecostal participation in this seminar was therefore almost nonexistent.
1

emotion in a worship service. Strange manifestations of the Holy Spirit, trances, speaking in tongues etc. are usually perceived as induced by manipulation and rejected without any closer understanding. At the same time, Pentecostal pastors are assumed to be without any proper theological training, and therefore not taken seriously. Hence, while an African choir might be invited occasionally to add some colour to a special German Sunday service but is then only allowed to sing two songs! there is very little willingness to let an African Pentecostal pastor preach. But stumbling blocks to mission in unity do not exist only on the German side. They can also be found within the immigrant churches. Among them are: Lack of German language ability. This is a big problem especially for immigrant pastors. While members of the congregation usually learn at least some German once they have found a job, the pastors work is usually confined to his own constituency, meaning that there are few chances to pick up German. Formal language courses are expensive and take time. And Englishspeaking immigrants realize that many Germans understand and speak English well enough, so there is less need for them to learn the language than there is for French or Koreanspeaking immigrants, for example. Lack of understanding of the German churches and society. Mission needs contextualization, and that means that immigrant missionaries need to learn about and understand the context in which they operate. Cooperation in mission is difficult if there is little knowledge of the situation in which one operates. Antimainline prejudice. Many Pentecostals fear cooperation with mainline churches because they are afraid that they will be controlled (this fear is not totally unfounded!). They perceive mainline churches as more or less dead how can they have the Holy Spirit if there are no manifestations of that? and individual believers as lukewarm at best. Many Pentecostal immigrant Christians are afraid that the power of the Spirit they see manifested in their own church will weaken if they adapt even a little bit to the ways of a mainline church. They sometimes antagonize German churches with crass attempts at converting them to the true faith. Competition and antagonism among immigrant churches and church leaders. Unity often remains elusive even among immigrant churches of

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Reformed World 195 The Crisis in Indonesia New context for the mission and witness of the church Karel Phil Erari

really have in common, so it makes a good basis to develop contact, cooperation, community and, in the end, unity. With the programme we are having the same experience as those churches which started to work together: cooperation is easier if a concrete, limited project is in view, and trust grows where concrete projects are realized together. The Pentecostal/mainline team of six people who prepared the seminar on the Holy Spirit and the Pentecostal movement started off with a session where everybody was trying to convince everybody else that they were reading the Bible in the wrong way. Only after the plan for a seminar seemed totally in tatters did the group pull together again, spend a whole day in intensive discussion, and come up with a timetable and a curriculum for the seminar which was highly appreciated by both mainline and Pentecostal Christians present. But without the aim of preparing a seminar together, the discussion within the preparatory group might well have led to so much friction that no understanding would have come out of it. Mission in unity coming together as the colourful, multicultural body of Christ in Germany this is the vision that is shared by a slowly growing number of Christians in both indigenous German and immigrant churches. Many steps will still be necessary until this vision becomes reality. But as the Chinese proverb says: Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. We have started to walk together on the way.
Rev. Claudia WhrischOblau of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland coordinates the programme Cooperation between German and Immigrant Churches of the United Evangelical Mission. Her experiences as a migrant comprise more than a dozen years of living and working in different parts of Asia.

Indonesia today is in crisis. This crisis can be seen in the unpredictability of our sociopolitical life and especially in the religious tensions which have led to violence in several areas. This is ironic, when we consider that for three decades Indonesia has presented itself as a model of religious harmony. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim society. About 87 per cent of the population of 200 million is Muslim. Christians, including Roman Catholics, number roughly 10 per cent. The Christian population is, however, unevenly distributed across the islands and island groups, with the highest concentrations in Nusengattara Timor, North Sulawesi, the Malukus, North Sumatra and West Kalimantan. Constitutionally, the Republic of Indonesia is founded on the Pancasila, the five principles, which include belief in God, humanity, national unity, consultative democracy and social justice. It is neither a Muslim nor a secular state. Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism are officially recognized. Other religions are not forbidden. A government ministerial office oversees the religious life of the country. The constitution provides for religious freedom for members of the first five of the six officially recognized religions; and the government generally respects these provisions, although there are some restrictions on certain types of religious activity, including that of unrecognized religions. A few groups are banned explicitly, including the Jehovahs Witnesses, whose adherents may experience difficulties in civil matters like marriage. Citizens who are members of religions other than the six officially recognized may be obliged to register as Catholics, Protestants, Muslims etc., in order to obtain national cards or for other civil purposes. During President Suhartos New Order, the government issued regulations concerning religious practice which contain restrictions on churches operating freely in Muslim strongholds like Aceh, South Sumatra, Madura island and some other parts of the country. In order to erect a church building, there are certain procedures to follow and conditions to meet, including having the approval of 100 Muslim families in the neighbourhood. Many congregations have never been able to gain access to

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Reformed World 197 Churches seeking peace and unity In the context of the current movement of political reform, churches in Indonesia are challenged to carry out their mission with new approaches and new themes. The churches should become healing communities and work towards building peace. We should commit ourselves to church unity and to addressing social crises as an integral part of our mission. We should seek new grounds for dialogue with people of other faiths. We are called to combat conflict in the society by embracing our Muslim friends who are seeking peace and the unity of the nation. The Research and Development Board of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (CCI) has appealed to Muslim and Christian scholars to make a joint declaration seeking peace and justice. In September, an annual seminar on religious issues affirmed the urgency of reconciliation. It proposed that reconciliation should become a church programme; the need for sharing on common goals and the threat to national unity might provide entry points for such efforts. At its 13th general assembly in March 2000, the CCI called upon the churches to work for Christian unity in Indonesia by the year 2005. The majority of CCI member churches are Reformed (28) or Lutheran (10); they are striving for unity with other Protestant groups and with Roman Catholics. The assembly recommended establishing a joint secretariat for Protestants and Catholics. The unity of the churches will be a new platform for reconciliation among the churches and make a strong moral contribution to mission for peace and reconciliation in Indonesia. As part of the decade to overcome violence sponsored by the World Council of Churches, Indonesian churches are preparing various programmes to help Christians initiate activities within the congregations and in Christian educational institutions and enterprises to demonstrate justice and peace as a genuine Christian presence in the society. This interreligious and intercommunal crisis must come to an end; and the Christians of Indonesia are called to be a part of the movement for peace for all.
Karel Phil Erari of the Evangelical Christian Church in Irian Jaya is a member of the WARC executive committee.

get approval, with the result that many Christians are obliged to worship in private homes on Sundays. Religious intolerance has led to violence in several regions. Over the past three decades, more than 800 church buildings have been attacked and destroyed: 450 during the Suharto government (19651998), 80 during BJ Habibies presidency (19981999), and more than 300 during the first year of the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). Migration is a significant factor in the recent wave of interreligious strife in the Malukus, or former Dutch Spice Islands. Migrants, predominantly Muslims from Sulawesi, changed the demography of the islands, previously mainly Christian. The violence was sparked by a petty dispute on an Ambon bus in January 1999. This led to a wave of religious killings. The contagion spread to the islands of Sulawesi and Lombok and on to other regions. At least 4,000 people in the Malukus and in Sulawesi have lost their lives, with the victims divided roughly equally between Muslims and Christians. A total of 400,000 people are internally displaced in these regions. A handful of mosques were attacked, while 280 churches were burnt and destroyed. There were no reports that any perpetrators were punished. Many Christians were forced to convert to Islam. The Joint Committee on the East Timor Crisis has extended its mandate to cover other areas in Indonesia and we are now addressing the situation in the city of Ambon and the neighbouring islands. Christian communities are continually attacked by Muslim Jihad militias backed by partisan elements in the Indonesian military (the TNI) and the government. Houses and churches are targeted for arson and people killed while praying in church. A nurse in Hatiwe Besar was recently raped and brutally murdered while on duty in a government clinic to assist the injured people from her village; Betty died from inhuman treatment while giving humanitarian service. On Halmahera, a young pastor called Risamasu is reported to have been assassinated in a local district office. Fifty Christian children on Halmahera were killed after Sunday school and their bodies dumped offshore at Tobelo, in the north of Maluku. Two days later, Christian youth leaders organized a counterattack and killed 100 Muslims. This interreligious conflict in the Maluku islands presents an enormous challenge to the mission of the church in Indonesia. People no longer see religion as an institution of peace and justice; it is more like a monster. Muslims hate their Christian relatives, and Christians are afraid to associate with their Muslim friends.

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Reformed World 199 many of our churches are incomplete as women are denied their place as equal partners in ministry and mission; in many instances, our young people are not taken seriously as the church of today. Moreover, we recognize that, through all of this, it is often our children who suffer most. These realities challenge us to reclaim our heritage, both African and Reformed, which affirm that God intends abundant life for all and indeed invites us to share in Gods mission as demonstrated in Jesus Christ, especially to those who are impoverished, marginalized, and denied full humanity. Invitation to our churches In the light of our discussions at this consultation, we invite our churches to endorse our common confession, affirmations and commitment. We confess: That our tradition and the churches we represent have not fully engaged in mission in Christs way; That we have often failed to acknowledge and act on Jesus preferential option for the poor; That we are guilty of the sins of disunity and have failed to overcome the status quo of Reformed divisions; That there has been a lack of Christlike charity to one another and to believers of other traditions. We affirm: That Christ calls us to be one in his name and to form one confessing and witnessing communion; That our tradition challenges us, and our realities force us, to work and witness together in order to implement programmes that transform and contextualize: 1. the ways in which we train and employ our women, men and young people for ministry and mission; 2. the style and content of our worship; 3. the ways in which we prophetically respond to the needs of the societies in which we live.

We, 71 delegates representing 19 churches of the Reformed tradition in Southern Africa, greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. From October 19 to 22 2000 we met in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, under the auspices of the Southern Africa Alliance of Reformed Churches (SAARC), to reflect on our understanding and practice of mission in unity as it has been, and as our present times demand. Celebration We began by recognizing and celebrating the times when the Church has played a significant role in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Over the centuries the gospel of abundant life in Christ has flourished and taken deep root in our countries. We are grateful for the manifold ministries carried out by Reformed churches, including evangelism, health work, education and the promotion of social justice. We give thanks for the role churches have played in processes of political liberation of Southern Africa during recent decades. And we rejoice with the former Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of South Africa as they recently overcame past divisions and formed the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. Challenges But we recognize that Christs mission is not yet complete. we met at a time when: the effects of apartheid in South Africa are still deeply felt; the scars of genocide in Rwanda have not yet healed; civil wars continue in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo; unresolved land issues are leading to division and death and are crippling the economy in Zimbabwe; economic injustice goes hand in hand with ecological degradation; and political instability and the pandemic of HIV/AIDS are devastating the lives of millions. A time also when: many of our people have lost the hope and meaning which faith in God brings;

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Reformed World 201 possible, also in cooperation with the wider Reformed and ecumenical family; To urge the SAARC Executive Committee and Secretary to monitor the implementation of common projects addressing these issues.
Kempton Park, South Africa, October 22 2000

We commit ourselves: To make known in word and deed, and in ways appropriate to our time and contexts, the good news of Jesus Christ; To redress the past wrongs our work and witness have brought about, and where possible, make restitution and reparation; To give fuller expression to the oneness given in Christ as locally, nationally and as the Southern Africa region of the Reformed family of churches, we urgently seek to heal our divisions; To reshape and strengthen our churches critical engagement with state structures and civil society in order to bring about: 1. economic justice and the eradication of poverty in the light of increasing trade globalization and the mounting debt burden of the South; 2. responsible stewardship and redemption of the environment; 3. wholeness for individuals and communities affected by AIDS, violated by sexual and other forms of abuse, displaced by war, political repression and dispossession of their land, and disempowered by the uneven access to modern technology. Ways forward As participants we have identified the following issues requiring urgent reflection and action: 1. HIV/AIDS confessional, educational, pastoral and medical programmes; 2. Poverty reduction, job creation and redistribution of wealth; 3. Gender issues and partnership of women and men; 4. Youth ministry; 5. Evangelization; 6. Theological education new models, focus areas and target groups; 7. Reconciliation. We undertake: To develop in our own communities or areas of work, as we are able, projects which address one or more of these issues; To consider for further action in particular the projects for mission action that were developed by the interdenominational country groups during the consultation; To urge the relevant bodies in our churches to take up these issues in conjunction with other member churches of SAARC, and wherever

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How can Reformed churches credibly communicate God's gift of reconciliation in Christ? How can they overcome their present divisions and strengthen their common witness in today's world? The 22nd WARC general council (Seoul, 1989) called on member churches to engage in a movement towards a more visible expression of their unity. The 23rd general council (Debrecen, 1997) reiterated this call, agreeing unanimously that mission in unity should be a priority for the Alliance. The present mission in unity project (1999-2002) grew out of a series of international consultations organized over the ten years from 1988 to 1998 under the aegis of the John Knox International Reformed Centre in Geneva. On the basis of a proposal submitted by the last consultation in this series (April 1998), the Alliance agreed with the John Knox Centre to set up a joint project, initially for a trial period of three years. Several reports on earlier consultations published in the John Knox Series serve as points of reference for the project: Mission and Unity: The Reformed family and its mandate, John Knox Series No.6 (Geneva: CIRJK,1989); Mission in Unity: Towards deeper communion between Reformed churches worldwide, John Knox Series No.8 (Geneva: CIRJK,1993); Mission in Unity: Ethnicity, migration and the unity of the church, John Knox Series No.9 (Geneva: CIRJK,1995); And the Net was not Torn: Report from a consultation on mission in unity, John Knox Series No.10 (Geneva: CIRJK,1998). An indispensable tool is the recent publication edited by Jean-Jacques Bauswein and Lukas Vischer, The Reformed Family Worldwide, A survey of Reformed churches, theological schools and international organizations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). The executive secretary of the project is Jet den Hollander of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, who took up the post in September 1999. She has previously worked for the Council for World Mission in London and, more recently, in Jamaica. The project is guided by an advisory committee of eleven members, on which the Alliance and the John Knox Centre are both represented. The project office is located at the John Knox International Reformed Centre, 27 chemin des Crts-de-Pregny, 1218 Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland; tel: +41 22 920 3385; fax: +41 22 747 0099, email: miuproject@iprolink.ch.

Authors den Hollander, Jet Erari, Karel Phil Hoedemaker, Bert Introduction ........................................................ 157 The crisis in Indonesia ........................................ 195 Mission, unity and echaton: A triadic relation.... 173

Hollenweger, Walter J Conflict in Corinth .............................................. 160 Hutanuwatr, Pracha Globalization from a Buddhist perspective .......... 89

International PentecostalReformed dialogue Word and Spirit, church and world .................... 130 Karamaga, Andr Facing the challenges in Rwanda: An interview ....................................................... 183 Postcrisis agenda for Korea and global civil society ......................................... 80 The crisis of the Thai economy and the IMF ........ 69 Introduction .................................................. 49, 101 Dialogues and conversations .............................. 106 Introduction ............................................................ 1

Lee, ChanKeun

Petprasert, Narong Ramonn, Praic Schaeffer, Jill Schaeffer, Jill

Sebastian, J Jayakiran Returning to the sources of life: Baptism and eucharist in Reformed perspective ............... 119 Whrisch-Oblau, Claudia Together on the way in Germany ....................... 187

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Bible studies (Togo) .................................................................. 27 Conflict in Corinth Walter J Hollenweger ............................. 160 Dialogues and conversations Jill Schaeffer........................................... 106 The Caribbean workshop .................................................................. 32 The crisis in Indonesia Karel Phil Erari....................................... 195 The consequences of economic globalization ............................................. 50 The crisis of the Thai economy and the IMF Narong Petprasert ..................................... 69 Facing the challenges in Rwanda: An interview with Andr Karamaga ................................................... 183 Georges Lombard prize .................................................................. 48 Globalization from a Buddhist perspective Pracha Hutanuwatr ................................... 89 Introduction Jet den Hollander.................................... 157 Introduction Praic Ramonn................................ 49, 101 Introduction Jill Schaeffer............................................... 1 The Mission in Unity Project 19992002.................................................. 202 Mission, unity and eschaton: A triadic relation Bert Hoedemaker.................................... 173 Postcrisis agenda for Korea and global civil society Lee ChanKeun ........................................ 80 Returning to the sources of life: Baptism and eucharist in Reformed perspective J. Jayakiran Sebastian ............................. 119 Southern Africa Mission in Unity Consultation 2000: Common statement ................................................................ 198 Together on the Way in Germany Claudia Whrisch-Oblau ........................ 187 The Togo workshop .................................................................... 9 Word and Spirit, church and world Final report of the international PentecostalReformed dialogue ...... 130