discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 170
170 New Contexts for Mission
on contextual witness among Hindus and endeavors to promote “the birthing
of Christ-centered movements within Hindu cultures and communities.” 9
Sadly, sectors of some religions are extremely fundamentalist in the sense
of rigidly emphasizing what are considered their defining or founding principles.
Such religious fundamentalists see themselves as aliens in the midst of depraved
cultures. Their resulting combativeness produces considerable social instability.
The appeal of religious fundamentalism, says Phill Butler, “fuels
Islamic, Hindu, and right-wing nationalists in such diverse places as France,
Italy, Russia, Afghanistan, Algeria, North India, and Indonesia.” 10 Finding ways
to evangelize these ardent fundamentalists poses a tremendous challenge.
Lostness of “Heathen”
One question that often comes up is: What happens to those who die
without ever having heard of Jesus? Sometimes that question does not get serious
consideration. For example, recently one Internet blog site seemed to scorn
the question with these words, “Are the heathen lost? This is the question of
the college campuses, the skeptic and the agnostic. This is the question of those
who wish to deflect making a personal commitment to Christ. This is the
question of those who like to play mental gymnastics with God.”
If the author of that paragraph was saying one should not even reflect on
the fate of the unevangelized, he was wrong. The question of people’s eternal
fate deserves a thoughtful answer. Since what one believes about people’s eternal
destiny will shape a philosophy and strategy of mission, it does matter
which of the following positions Christians take on the salvation of people of
other religious ideologies:
1. Restrictivism (also called particularism or ecclesiocentrism)
Restrictivism says that all the unevangelized are tragically damned because
they are part of the sinful human race (1 John 5:11-12; John 14:6; Acts 4:12;
Romans 1:20-21; 1 Corinthians 3:11; Zechariah 10:2; and Psalm 16:4). This
position resonates with the biblical worldview that sees one ramification of the
solidarity of the human race as being that all humans are sinners because of the
sin of Adam and Eve.
2. Universalism
Many liberal Christians are universalists who believe that everyone, including
the unevangelized, will be saved. They do not see how God, who is ultimate
goodness, could allow anyone to be eternally separated from Him (Luke
3:6; Isaiah 40:5; John 12:32; Romans 5:18; 1 Corinthians 15:22-28; Philippians
2:9-11).
3. Religious Instrumentalism
Religious instrumentalism holds that non-Christian religions can have a