CONCEPTS OF MISSION - Orbis Books

Mission in Contemporary Missiology 33
for-us,” which amounts to his being a symbol of a God who is benevolent
toward all humanity, especially the oppressed. This Christological position
stands in the tradition of the great prophets of Israel in their efforts to
denounce injustice and institute a truly just society. In this view Christ is distinguished
by his solidarity with others in the face of worldly powers. As
such, there is little to criticize and much to praise in retrieving this man-forothers
and prophetic dimension. Indeed there is much to praise. But orthodoxy,
tutored by the early Trinitarian councils and creeds, asks, “Is this all
the Scriptures and tradition record”
Some authors arrive at completely secular and radical conclusions: God
and transcendence are eliminated in favor of a unidimensional, “horizontal”
Christian atheology. The message of Christ in this case is to be interpreted
only when we have the human being as the background. Christ was a free
man, who preached liberation and who liberates humankind. Thus, the figure
of Christ is reduced to a model in the struggle for liberation, for work in
favor of others—and these are the new focus for mission. Other authors
more theological in approach see in Christ the normative means but not the
constitutive element of salvation. It seems fair to say, too, that in this understanding
salvation is viewed primarily in this-worldly, historical, and
sociopolitical liberationist terms, not as an eschatological event in which we
participate now but anticipate the fullness thereof at the parousia.
To evaluate such trends in Christology, we need to begin by looking at
the mission of Christ in the New Testament. There he is portrayed as the
definitive missionary who was sent by the Father for the salvation of all and
who has communicated this mission to the church. From the moment of its
inception, the church kept in mind this view, as one sees in texts such as
“There is no salvation in any other name” (Acts 4:12), and no other mediator
“between God and humankind” (1 Tim 2:4-6). Furthermore, in very clear
terms, Christ describes himself as the life, the truth, and the way (John 10:6).
As we said above, John Paul II in Redemptoris Missio points out the inadequacies
of such theories in contemporary Christology and affirms that Jesus
the Christ is the foundation of the church’s internal life and of all her activities,
and Jesus is the reason for its most essential activity, the mission ad
gentes (RM 4). Furthermore, since salvation is possible only in and through
Christ in whom God revealed himself, and since he is the Word, he is also the
unique, universal, and absolute savior (RM 5-6). Thus, Christ must be proclaimed
to those who do not yet know him (RM 9-11). John Paul II’s insistence
on the uniqueness of Christ, however, as mediator does not exclude
other “participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees”; but
these “acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and
they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his” (RM 5).
Christ is the only mediator between God and humanity; all the other great
founders of religions can be considered mediators only in relationship with
and in the power of Christ (LG 62; RM 5; DI 13-15).