Introduction.
It is quite a challenge to attempt to get into the subject as proposed in this title. In my situation, coming from one of the corners of the world, a presentation on this wide issue certainly involves many obvious limitations. Therefore one of the standpoints of this contribution has to connect with our own experience and understanding, in and from Latin America, which may run the risk of not being accurate in its approach.
A personal word: it is interesting how oneself can be a sort of combination of social dimensions of Christian theological education. I was raised in a Christian home in a context of extreme poverty, in southern Chile. My grandparents and parents came from the coal mining zone in the town of Lota, near the city of Concepcion, a place that is regarded as the having the poorest of the poverty in our country. What was exploitation and worker abuse for decades in the last century in that town, my non-Christian grandfather used to transform for us into great storytelling about life, with much innocence and little resentment. When, after 50 years of a working life, my grandfather finally applied for retirement, he, right there, at the Company office was told that he had never had records of monthly retirement payments at all, despite the fact that he was actually charged for it in his monthly wages his entire working life. So, without legal defense, too poor to defy the Company, he finally was denied his right to retirement. He died twenty years later without justice. In this hard context of human injustice the preaching of the Gospel extended quickly in this geographical area. Among the newly converted people were my 20 year old parents who later became church and community leaders. Standing from Christian faith, they served their people their whole life, and taught their children, myself in the middle of five, the love of God and the hope of the Kingdom. It happens that Maria, my mother, was the second graduate of the Women's Theological Institute in 1945. No doubt that theological, church and family education played a huge role in transforming our family life and hope. We, as their five children, received university and Christian education which formed us in a combination of church piety and social service. Life continues on and now our own children are growing in this environment of Christian faith and social commitment.
In order to clarify words, allow me to refer to the concept of 'social dimensions' as areas involved in all fields and disciplines where human realities and needs are expressed. This concept goes beyond the traditional connotation of Third World poverty as stigmatized. Poverty is one of those polysemic words that include many meanings and touch different areas such as economic, educational, social, emotional, spiritual and so on, that an explanation of its use is needed. Certainly there is poverty in the so-called Third World, as well as in what is called First World. There is neediness in the life of an upper class family from an industrialized country where abuse and individualism destroy quality of life everyday. There is also deprivation for a teenage generation of a country where educational options are few. There is also desperate poverty in an extreme where we find the infamous shame of starvation in so many places in this present world.
Hopeless human needs in the world touch deeply lives of those whose sensibility matters more than indifference. Social injustice, war, extreme poverty, infirmities, corruption, unemployment, malnutrition, drug and alcohol abuse, drug dealers, violation of human right and dignity of the people, prostitution, pollution and ecological disaster, illiteracy, denial of education, women abuse, AIDS, to name only some needs.
Human needs are not the only concern of social involvement. There are also fields of knowledge, culture and human relationship that are part of this challenge too. I mean that social impact also has to do with the whole influence of our faith in philosophy, anthropology, politics or art, as well as communications, aesthetics, or sociological research. One example of this form of impact is the translation of the Bible into languages that exist without a grammar, where the mere translation has helped to keep the language stronger and more alive.
Many of us serving in Theological Education ask whether our theology, mission, curriculum, methodology, programs and mentoring are well connected with the needs of the real world. Do our institutions fulfill their mission still in a social strike1, or focus generational training into an integral concept of our Christian mission? Are our graduate students prepared enough to face these never ending challenges in our social contexts?
Theological education is placed in the mission of the Christian church, and church meaning the whole body of believers in Christ. Then, one of the key issues to touch, first of all, is what the mission of the Christian church is in the present world. Once we have cleared our bases on mission, we can afterward approach social dimensions of theological education more adequately.
It is interesting to contrast the heavy volumes of theology of the early decades of the past Century in which mission of the Church was not an issue at all. One example is the reformed 'Systematic theology' authored by L. Berkhof, first published in 1938, which does not refer to the mission of the Church in any way, and only mentions in one short paragraph, out of a one thousand page book, that preaching is the form of 'training the Church to be the mother of all believers'. One can see the contrast if comparing this to the massive amount of books that have been written in the last two decades about the mission of the Church.
Beginning in the early 20th Century, reformed theologian J. Gresham Machen, deceased in 1937, wrote in 1912: 'Christianity has to saturate not only all nations, but also all human thinking. It cannot feel indifference before any subject of human importance. The Kingdom of God has to be promoted, nor only to bring every human being for Christ, but also to win the human being as a whole.'2 In this writing Dr. Machen criticizes theological faculties because they have become mere centers of religious emotions, instead of places where students are truly educated to develop the deep conviction of the mature ones, not the thoughtless faith of childhood, in a world that urges the Christian church to present the complete and true Gospel of Jesus Christ. He affirms that the Church is dying for lack of thoughtfulness, and not for excess of it; it is fading because she, the Church, is not impacting all aspects of social reality with the power of God, and also because it is not training its leaders to produce true transformation in society. There is a great need to find great leaders to fulfill the mission of the Church to impact our world. Machen says: 'The hope of finding such men and women is the only real hope in the life of any theological institution.'3
Spanish writer Dr. José Grau wrote in 1972 a one-sentence definition of what mission is. He said: 'Mission is to deliver the whole Gospel, to the whole human person, through the whole Church, to whole world.'
This view of the Christian mission, focusing in all areas of culture, soon became strong in Church statements, denominational orientations, conferences and congresses of the past Century. One of those was the Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization.
Dr. Samuel Escobar, a Peruvian missiologist went up to the platform of Lausanne Congress in 1974 with these his first words:
'Let us try to imagine that the whole world population is concentrated in a town of one hundred inhabitants. In this town 67 people out of the 100 are poor. The other 33 enjoy different degrees of well being. From this population, only seven are North American. The other 93 see how the North Americans spend 50% of all money, eat one seventh of all food and use one half of all bathrooms. These seven have ten times medical attention than the rest. According the time passes, these seven get richer, and the 93 poorer.4
This author states that Christians have had two traditional attitudes when confronted by social challenges in society; one is to support uncritically the establishment of western nations and the second is a spiritualized indifference. On the contrary, the true mission of the Christian church is 'to serve the needy people not as a matter of preference, nor something we do because we want. The church has to serve the world because service is a sign of the new life in the Gospel of Christ.'5
Escobar introduces three situations in the world as a way to identify challenges for the Christian church in being faithful to God's call. The first situation is related to societies where Christians are a small minority, in which faithfulness means to live the whole Gospel with integrity to signalize the difference with the common life style of the people. A second situation is presented in societies where Christianity has a long tradition of social influence, where it appears that the church has been much influenced by worldly living, instead of the goal of the Gospel that is the church transforming society. The challenge for Christians living in this sort of context seems very much associated with going back to their Christian roots in order to be faithful disciples of Christ. A third situation would be those contexts where anti-Christianism is a dominant power, where an ideology or religion is official. We can see this milieu in totalitarian, violent or fundamentalist regimes in the world today. In these places Christians have to suffer persecution to continue the communication of the Good News and to be creative in ways to survive in community. The call of God for Christians living in these so different conditions is always the same: to keep faithful to Him, and to do the mission.
The whole Lausanne Congress was shaped by this concept. The Lausanne Covenant and many other conferences resulting from this congress gave worldwide affirmation that mission and evangelization are not separated, and that certainly Christian mission includes social transformation.6
In 1979 Puerto Rican missiologist Dr. Orlando Costas, who died
late in 1987, wrote 'The integrity of Mission'7. In this book
Costas addressed what is mission and its implications. He states
that mission is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, in obedient
discipleship, that mobilizes the believers with sacrificial commitment
towards an integral growth that helps to liberate people in order
to live Christianity in celebration until consummation of times
arrive. For growing with integrity in Church life he defines three
dimensions: width (statistical), depth (maturity), and height
(impact). Our Christian ministries need to put strong accent in
this tri-dimensional growth. So, the mission of the Church should
stress an expansion in numbers, as well as in profundity of Christian
life, and also in the size of the influence its presence brings
to the community where the ministry is fulfilled.
Dr. René Padilla, an Ecuadorian-Argentinean theologian,
wrote in 1986 in his famous 'Misión integral'
that 'Christian mission is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ
as Lord and Savior of all, and through whose work human beings
are liberated both from guilt and from the power of sin, and are
thus integrated to the purpose of God of placing all things under
Christ's authority.'8
This author stresses that mission and evangelization
go hand to hand, involving the whole call to repentance. This
message of repentance is key to point to social dimensions of
the Christian faith. He says that repentance is much more than
merely a private and individual issue, it concerns the total reorientation
of life in the world, in the midst of humankind, including personal,
communitarian and even structural changes as a result of true
repentance. Evangelization and mission cannot be the supplying
of purely spiritual benefits obtained for us through Jesus with
results of social quietism. The true Christian mission take repentance
seriously because it takes the sin in the world seriously. Not
to take women and men out of the world, but exactly the contrary,
to place them in the world with a living message of hope and transformation.
When Padilla is asked about the huge social challenges in our
world and what the Christian church can do, he answers that
'the church as the community of disciples is not called to solve all social upheaval, but to be faithful to God with what she has. The Church has to be a reconciliation community breaking all barriers that fragment the world; has to be a fellowship of personal authenticity in which all people can be healed and accepted; and also has to be a society of giving and service. Our greatest need is to live a more biblical Gospel and to build a more biblical church'9
Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana, or Latin American Theological Fraternity, FTL, organized in 1969, 1979, 1992 and 2000 the four Latin American congresses on Evangelization, called CLADE. They have been remarkably insightful and educational for professor, pastors and leaders, women and men, in the generational formation of people committed to the Kingdom of God in mission and service to the world with an integral base. The Protestant and Evangelical world in Latin America have no doubt been shaped by the strong influence of FTL over these three last decades. So, in a way, one cannot say that Lausanne or other movements influenced FTL, rather than the opposite, in its theology of mission.
In Roman Catholicism, the impact of liberation theology as a strong movement of return to biblical foundations, based on communitarian way of expressing the Gospel (base-communities) and service together with prophetic kerugma at the evil of the times, cannot be forgotten. Many have seen this movement as a natural result of Vatican II, however it has been under heavy criticism on the side of the more traditional hierarchy. Besides the preferential option for the poor, the Roman Catholic Church has shown changes in liturgy, pastoral action, and development that comprise nowadays very much the more missional side of this Church.
Theological education cannot be seen just as an institution, but as a process that takes place in many different avenues, not only in Faculties or seminaries. As someone has put it: theological education begins at home, it deepens in church, it is articulated in an institution and it is proved in community. Then, our first concern should be how could we interconnect these places where we educate in order to fulfill our whole formational task.
It is not my intention to list social fields and needs where T.E. should play a significant role. Actually, in all fields and needs this role should be well performed. Perhaps a sound contribution would be the presentation of few principles to keep in mind when we see the challenges of the social agenda for T.E. To briefly explain these principles, let me say that T.E. should be mission centered, evangelical and ecumenical, and resistant and proactive.
1. Mission centered.
If T.E. is understood as a holistic process, where the integral mission of the Church is crucial, then it should include family, church, institution and community, as levels in which this process is accomplished. T.E. must never be apart from these levels. An institutionalized instruction that does not matter for the family or church background of the students, will only teach courses without forming people. Dr. René Padilla wrote that 'we could avoid much trouble if the seminarie could focus its task taking into account that T.E. exists because of the Church and as her servant. T.E. is no more than a tool to fulfill the goals of the Church. When this is not clear, T.E. misses its purpose, and it constitutes itself just as a training for mere ecclesial officers.'10 It is interesting to note that in our context those theological institutions that with the years have become centers of education apart from their original churches or denominations, have soon disappeared.
If the mission of the Church is basic foundation for T.E. so social fields of knowledge and human needs are certainly part of it. As in Jesus' life, our challenges are right here, around us, in our communities. We ought to face social challenges in two ways: influence and service. We must influence all fields of social knowledge with Christian cosmovision. This is one social dimension of T.E. We also have to serve in every area of social distress in the present world. This is another dimension of T.E.
If T.E. is built in the tract of mission, the whole theological institution serves in missions, and students, personnel and faculty are involved in it. A professor can teach in the classroom what is then neglected in life, as well as any other member of a theological institution. Therefore, the best way to teach involvement in social aspects of culture and society, to do humanitarian service or to make a contribution to influence any social field, is to get involved together with the students. Certainly, students do not judge only lectures at the classroom, but also family, church and communitarian commitment of faculty.
2. Evangelical and ecumenical
In this world of pluralism and secularism, our T.E. process
should be strongly oriented towards being radically evangelical
and firmly ecumenical. By evangelical we mean faithful to the
Evangel, the Gospel of Christ. Present pluralism is a test to
challenge our openness to diversity in our evermore heterogeneous
world. Though for many pluralism is interpreted to mean the blocking
of all forms of proclamation, we should stress faithfulness in
preaching the Gospel with respect for others and dignity for oneself.
By ecumenical we mean that our ministry has in perspective the
whole catholic Church11,
with all her gifts and potential in the world. Ecumenical ministry
is seen here in the better sense of inclusiveness of all true
believers in Christ. A process of T.E. that rejects other traditions,
serves behind closed doors and in isolation from other Christians
is condemned to be unsuccessful. This certainly means we must
be cooperative in ministry, in the spirit of oneness and unity
in Christ. So many programs in our institutions as well as in
church can express this spirit of cooperation.
3. Resistant and proactive
T.E. also has to take seriously the challenges of the present globalized world. Many Christians are accepting globalization enthusiastically without any sort of critical spirit. Francois Houtart s.j. has written that Christianity has to commit its future into the building of new resistances against globalization, or worldlization of social capitalist relationships. He maintains that it is necessary to create a culture of resistance among all sectors of society with consciousness of the huge injustices globalization establishes in our societies.12 Sharing the same concerns, Dr. Rene Padilla warns about the dangers of being naive to the consequences of the internationalization of the western culture, as a massive adoption of values of a way of life characterized by individualism, hedonism, materialism and consumerism. These dangers are in turning our living faith into free market rules, making a new gospel (with small letter) as a consumer product and the Christian faith as a private religious experience.13
Proactiveness should also be part how we see the social dimensions of T.E. The understanding of being proactive goes through dynamic initiatives that answer realities and needs surrounding the process. Normally our institutions are known as guardians of tradition. However, in this changing and always dynamic world we should also be ready to openness to new focuses, renewing of institutional elements of T.E. and moreover all sort of creativity in order to be faithful to our role as theological educators. Being proactive necessarily demands an attitude of readiness to transformation since everything in T.E. is in permanent movement. Both resistance and proactiveness will show the true health in doing our T.E. ministry.
Conclusion
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said there are two ways that Christians elude social responsibility: one is to evade the world, changing the Gospel into a content of spiritualism and religious life strange to the realities of the world. The other way is to secularize our ministry, 'with a disposition to cultivate the rights of God on the earth, but at the same time fleeing from a sound relationship with Him'.
Theological education is a process that is being accomplished in the context of the whole mission of the Christian church, which unavoidably includes social realities and human needs.
An experience to finish these words: a government of a Latin American country asked a team of professionals including some theological education professors to join a consultant commission to shape the national law against all types of discrimination. There were two Evangelical seminaries involved, one of them argued that it was much too busy with internal activities and quit the membership in the commission. The other remained faithful until the end of that process, including a leading participation of one professor in the final national program to limit discrimination. One institution gained credibility and respect, the other is still busy with domestic calendars.
Josué Fonseca is Licensee in Social Work in the University
in Chile and earned a M.Div. degree in Canada. He serves in Chile
as Academic Dean of the BTS, and is current President of ASIT.
END NOTES
1 C. Lalive D'Apinay, El Refugio de las Masas, 1968, an study of the Pentecostal behavior that brought this idea of 'social strike' as rejection of social involvement of the Christian church.
2 J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and culture, Madrid: FELIRE, 1980. Translated by Francis Schaeffer
4 Samuel Escobar, Evangelization and human search for justice, Lausanne Conference for World Evangelization, July 1974. Escobar is quoting Schipper and Smedes, Who in the world, Eerdmans, 1972. Printed in Spanish as 'Evangelio y realidad social', Lima, Perú: Editorial Presencia, page 79.
6 'We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all men. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men from every kind of oppression. Because mankind is made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, color, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbor and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead.' Lausanne Covenant
7 Costas, Orlando, The integrity of mission, Miami: CELEP, 1979, 160 pages.
8 Padilla, René, Misión integral, Grand Rapids: Eerdsmann, 1986, page 10.
10 René Padilla, Discipulado y misión, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Kairos, 1997, pag.113. Translation is mine.
11 Dr Justo Gonzalez has written the recent book 'La historia tambien tiene su historia', or 'History has also its story', published by our Theological association ASIT, in which he goes back to the true concept of 'catholic' meaning the inclusiveness of all parts. From the Greek 'kata olos' 'according to all'. He states that 'catholic' may be used in two meanings: one is universal, that is one because it extends to all parts with the same, thus catholic points to uniformity; second, is universal because includes all views of the different parts, so catholic in this sense focus in inclusion and acceptance of diversity. So, for catholic we better mean this second connotation.
12 Francois Houtart, Globalization of the resistance, towards a globalized civil society, paper presented at the World Alternative Forum, University of Louvain, Belgium, March 2001. See also: Market and religion, ADEI: San José, Costa Rica, 2001, 192 pages.
13 Rene Padilla, Discipulado y misión,
page 220
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