CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
The Question of Authority
I HAVE already suggested that one of the important factors in the present situation is that the Western peoples, who have been responsible for the major part of the missionary outreach of the past three centuries, are no longer accepted as leaders by the rest of the world. When one reads the missionary literature of fifty years ago one is struck by the calm assurance of the superiority of the white man's culture, the confidence that it was only a matter of time before the whole world would receive its blessings, and the unconscious identification of the gospel with the good elements in that culture. In this atmosphere even the vehement rejection of the gospel - for example, by Muslims and by the higher castes of Hinduism - could not easily shake the assurance of the missionary and the church that sent him.
Today the situation is different. The question "What right do you have to preach to us?" is one that is asked with a confidence and a vehemence unusual fifty years ago. To this question it is useless to answer by quoting the Great Commission or other texts of Scripture. Why should a Hindu accept the authority of the Christian Scriptures? It is useless to point to the achievements of Christianity in human history, the record is too ambiguous for that. Nor is it enough to speak of being constrained by love, for what has to be shown is that it is truly a work of love to call men and women out of their traditional allegiances, and to invite them to accept - with all the cost involved - the yoke of obedience to Christ.
Indeed, it is not only the adherents of other faiths who press the question. From within the Christian church voices are raised to question the whole enterprise of missions, if missions are understood to involve calling people of other faiths to conversion. It is easy to identify these questions.
Why not join with the sincere adherents of all religions in seeking the fullness of the truth to which they all aspire`?
Why not join with all people of goodwill in tackling the real human problems of hunger, oppression, sickness, and alienation, instead of seeking more adherents for your religious group?
Is your enterprise not an offense against the unity of mankind? Is not the just unity of all peoples a matter of such urgency that to propagate something so divisive as religion is almost a crime against humanity? In the presence of such tragedies as we witness in Northern Ireland and Lebanon, what right have you to engage in a program that is more likely to promote division than unity?
The first step in responding to these questions is to ask the counterquestion that uncovers the hidden assumptions behind the question. What grounds have you for thinking you will come nearer to a solution of the world's problems by combining the insights of all the religions? What makes you think it is religion that provides the clue to the human needs?
What is your program for tackling the problems of poverty and oppression`? Are you not the victim of an illusion if you imagine that a program for creating economic justice on a world scale will unite mankind? Is it not precisely in the conflict of ideologies that use words like "justice" and "freedom" as their slogans that the most murderous conflicts are generated?
What is your program for the unity of humankind? Around what center and in what organized form do you propose to unite mankind? If you can produce your program I can tell you whether it is less likely or more likely than the enterprise of Christian missions to promote division.
The point of countering questions is that they force us to recognize that the questions themselves imply certain commitments about the way in which the whole human situation can be understood and in which we can seek to respond to it. The Christian mission rests upon one such commitment. It is in fact the practical working out of that commitment. It is futile to try to establish its validity by appealing to some other commitment - that is, by claiming that it ministers to human unity, to development, or to liberation. This must be said sharply at the present moment in view of the uncritical way in which missions in the last three decades have been promoted in terms of their contribution to world development. I shall have much to say later about the necessary involvement of missions in world development. but only after I have affirmed my belief about the nature of the authority of the mission. The question of authority is not to be answered by trying to demonstrate the usefulness of missions for some purpose that can be accepted apart from the ultimate commitment upon which the missionary enterprise rests.
The question of authority was raised at the very outset of the mission, in the ministry of Jesus himself. Men noted that he spoke "as one who had authority," but there was something perplexing about the authority, for it was "not as their scribes" (Matt. 7:29). The authority of the scribes was a derived authority. It consisted in their knowledge of and ability to handle the primary authority -- that of the revealed Torah. The authority of Jesus was of a different kind: he spoke as one who himself had authority. What was this authority'' During the tense week of the passion the question was put to him directly: "By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?" (Mark 1 1:28). The questioners were seeking something that would either link Jesus with an authority they already recognized or discredit him by showing that there was no such link. The questions could not be answered in the terms they were seeking. The authority of Jesus is not a derived authority, it is the authority of God himself present in the midst of human history. So Jesus puts the counterquestion that will test their capacity to recognize that authority: "Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men'?" The baptism of John was the event that marked "the beginning of the gospel" (Mark 1:1-4) because it was the event in which Jesus recognized the call of this Father. The scribes are unable to recognize this authority because it would involve a commitment incompatible with the commitments they have made. Their question therefore cannot be answered. Because the authority of Jesus is ultimate, the recognition of it involves a commitment that replaces all other commitments.
In the same way the apostles at the beginning of their mission are challenged with the question "By what power, or by what name did you do this?" The only possible answer is "In the name of Jesus" (Acts 4:7-10). They can only refer to "the name of Jesus," and by that name they refer to an ultimate authority and to their own final commitment to that authority. The authority of Jesus cannot be validated by reference to some other authority that is already accepted. The naming of this name calls for nothing less than a fresh and radical decision about one's ultimate commitment.
To meet the question "By what authority?" with the answer In the name of Jesus" is obviously to invite the counterquestion "Who is Jesus?" The answering of the question is the work of Christian witness through all the centuries and all the cultures until the day comes when all nations confess him Lord. In the following chapters we shall be concerned with the beginnings of the answer. Very specially we shall be looking at the reasons for which the simple formula "In the name of Jesus" had to be expanded into the formula "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." But some further reflections will he in order regarding my answer to the question "By what authority?"
I . My answer to this question is a personal commitment. I am - in Pascal's famous phrase - wagering my life on the faith that Jesus is the ultimate authority. My answer is a confession: I believe. It is a personal commitment to a faith that cannot be demonstrated on grounds established from the point of view of another commitment. In saying "I believe" in this way, the Christian is placing himself in a position like that of the scientist who affirms his belief in the truth of a statement in physics. All statements that claim to speak the truth about realities external to the speaker are affirmations of faith to which the speaker commits himself. These statements are not passively received in the mind of the speaker, like the production of a picture on a photographic film by the light from an external object falling on it. Instead, they are the results of the continuing effort of the community of scientists seeking to grasp more fully the meaning of all the objects perceived by means of larger and larger generalizations about their mutual relations. They are the fruit of a continuing and passionate endeavor in which the scientific community is sustained by a faith in the validity of its methods. The Christian commitment is distinguished in that it is a commitment to a belief about the meaning of the whole of human experience in its entirety -- namely, the belief that this meaning is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. incarnate. crucified, risen, and destined to reign over all things. I make this commitment as part of and in dependence on the community of those who have lived by this faith from its beginning. The mission in which I participate is the continuing action of this community in living out this faith in wider and wider areas of experience.
2. The confession I am making is that Jesus is the supreme authority or, using the language of the New Testament, that "Jesus is Lord." This confession implies a claim regarding the entire public life of mankind and the whole created world. It is a claim that by following the Clue that is given in the story that constitutes the gospel, the believing community will be led to a true understanding of all that is and to a right practical relation to it. Like the claim of the scientist with respect to his discoveries, it is a claim that the truth of what is believed will he confirmed in new discoveries that cannot be specified in advance.
The community that confesses that Jesus is Lord has been, from the very beginning, a movement launched into the public life of mankind. The Greco-Roman world in which the New Testament was written was full of societies offering to those who wished to join a way of personal salvation through religious teaching and practice. There were several commonly used Greek words for such societies.1 At no time did the church use any of these names for itself. It was not, and could not be, a society offering personal salvation for those who cared to avail themselves of its teaching and practice. It was from the beginning a movement claiming the allegiance of all peoples, and it used for itself with almost total consistency the name ecclesia --- the assembly of all citizens called to deal with the public affairs of the city. The distinctive thing about this assembly was that it was called by a more august authority than the town clerk: it was the ecclesia theou, the assembly called by God, and therefore requiring the attendance of all. The church could have escaped persecution by the Roman Empire if it had been content to be treated as a cultus privatus - one of the many forms of personal religion. But it was not. Its affirmation that "Jesus is Lord" implied a public, universal claim that was bound eventually to clash with the cultus publicus of the empire. The confession "Jesus is Lord" implies a commitment to make good that confession in relation to the whole life of the world - its philosophy, its culture, and its politics no less than the personal lives of its people.
The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all.
3. One more point has to be made, and it is essential. I would be distorting the truth if I simply spoke of this confession as being mine alone. I make this confession only because I have been laid hold of by Another and commissioned to do so. It is not primarily or essentially my decision. By ways that are mysterious to me, that I can only faintly trace, I have been laid hold of by one greater than I and led into a place where 1 must make this confession and where I find no way of making sense of my own life or of the life of the world except through being an obedient disciple of Jesus. I have therefore to say with Paul, "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission" (I Cor. 9:16-17). The origin of my confession is not in me. It is committed to me. I am simply the messenger entrusted with this responsibility to deliver the message. "You did not choose me," says Jesus to his apostles, "I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit" (John 15:16).
It has often been said that the chief temptation besetting AngloSaxon theology is Pelagianism, a way of thinking that places great stress on our responsibility for right action. The great opponent of the British Pelagius was Augustine of Hippo, who laid immense stress on the fact that our salvation is from beginning to end the work of God, his choosing and calling. For no one who reads the Bible can be in doubt about the fact that it is God who chooses whom he will and calls them to his service. This doctrine of divine election has fallen into disrepute because those who were so chosen and called (the "elect") so often saw themselves as exclusive beneficiaries of God's choice, rather than as trustees on behalf of all the nations. But this disastrous misunderstanding, so manifest in the story of Israel and in the life of the church in all generations. cannot negate the fundamental truth of the doctrine of election. It is God who chooses, calls, and sends. When I am questioned about my right to preach Jesus as Lord among the nations, I can only reply that I am a simple servant of one whom God has chosen and sent for the sake of all - Jesus Christ.
This necessary emphasis on the fact that the mission is God's and not ours can be misunderstood. The World Missionary Conference at Willingen in 1952 laid great stress upon this. Following that meeting there was much use of the phrase missio Dei (God's mission) in the missionary writing -- especially of the 1960s. But this phrase was sometimes used in such a way as to marginalize the role of the church. If God is indeed the true missionary, it was said, our business is not to promote the mission of the church, but to get out into the world, find out "what God is doing in the world," and join forces with him. And "what God is doing" was generally thought to be in the secular rather than in the religious sectors of human life. The effect, of course, was to look for what seemed to be the rising powers and to identify Christian missionary responsibility with support for a range of political and cultural developments, sometimes bizarre indeed. Even Chairman Mao's "little red book" became almost a new bible.
It will be the business of the following chapters to spell out the meaning of the phrase "the mission is God's." Here the important point is that we be clear about the authority. Every proposal to seek authorization elsewhere than in the gospel itself must lead us astray. The only proper response to the question "By what authority?" is the announcement of the gospel itself.