The missionary enterprise of the church has always had challenges to meet and difficulties to over come, but relatively seldom has the traditional concept of mission itself been directly challenged from within the church. No, I am not thinking of the perennial struggles the church has within itself to maintain missionary consciousness and the flow of resources to missions, or even to combat the ever-present tendencies to turn the structures and re sources of mission into a church maintenance system. The challenge I am thinking of is more abstract and resistant.
About 30 years ago W. Cantwell Smith suggested that Christianity was facing its third great challenge. He identified the first as its encounter with Greek philosophy; the second as the encounter with the Age of Reason and Science; and the third as just beginning, the encounter with other world religions.1 A half century earlier the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh (1910), with ringing optimism, had declared the world more open to the gospel than it had been at almost any time previously, and the other religions moribund and ready to die. The world religions were regarded somewhat as darkness that would disappear before the light of education and the gospel. Now, 80 years later, the "heathen" are no longer "over there," they are here. The non-Christian religions themselves have undergone a process of revitalization in reaction to Christianity and Western culture. Some branches of these religions are bubbling over with fundamentalistic zeal and evangelistic fervor.
Pluralism in the West
Religious pluralism exerts profound legal and religious consequences. In some Western countries where religion is taught in public schools, it is now required that all religions be given equal time and that Christianity be taught simply as one of, and on an equal footing with, the great religions of the world. Christian hymns may not be sung at assembly, as was the custom in my high school days, not even carols at Christmastime; and Christian communities are keenly aware of this loss.
Furthermore, some of these world religious communities hold such high ethical and social standards that maintenance of values in some Christian communities appears contemptibly weak and shabby. In the seeming absence of Christian conviction, world religions are converting from within the Christian fold. In the light of religious pluralism and the failure to win significantly large cohorts to Christianity, it would seem, alas, that the prediction of Cantwell Smith is a more nearly accurate reflection of the contemporary situation than the Edinburgh pronouncement.
It is not surprising, then, that within the past 20 years there has risen a new theological sub-discipline, "the theology of religions," that is coming to dominate missiological thinking. In fact, it appears to be the hottest subject on the evangelical theological agenda. Books dealing directly with Christianity's relationship to other religions and missiological approach to peoples of other faiths are coming off the presses at an astounding rate. And, given the state of the debate, this challenge is likely to be a major missions issue for some time to come.
On one side of the debate are scholars who favor religious pluralism and sup port a "wider ecumenism" of religions. On the other side are evangelicals with the greatest mission enthusiasm since the days of the Student Volunteer movement a century ago. These evangelicals are moved by a vibrant eschatological fervency, partly coupled with ideas regarding the beginning of the third Christian millennium and the possibility of a world with a Christian presence in every unreached people group by the end of this millennium. Thus two opposing currents of thought, each of which is profoundly missionary, are now in open confrontation.
This article will set forth the major reasons for the rise of this "wider ecumenism" movement, examine leading positions in the evangelical stance, and make some suggestions regarding a possible Adventist posture.
Christianity and other religions
How should Christianity relate to other religions? Generally answers take one of four perspectives: exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, and relativism.
Exclusivists maintain that the central claims of Christianity are uniquely true and that the claims of other religions are to be rejected when these are in conflict with Christianity and its major tenets. One such uniquely true claim is that Jesus is the only Lord and Saviour of human kind. This is generally the position of American evangelicals.
Inclusivists affirm the uniqueness of Jesus Christ on the one hand and on the other the possibility of God's saving activity in other religions. They seek to avoid minimizing the truth claims of the gospel, but allow that God may also work in other ways and in other religions.
Pluralists, in contradistinction to both exclusivists and inclusivists, are prepared to abandon the claims of Christianity to exclusive truth or uniqueness in favor of a willingness to recognize truth and the saving activity of God in all religions, with Christ being one of the great figures God has used to call people to faithfulness. Christianity is thus one form of religious expression among other equally valid responses to the divine reality.
Relativists tend to be agnostic. They recognize no exclusive truth, and as such are diametrically opposed to pluralists, who accept the truth claims of religion and advocate a certain kind of missionary activity.
Our concern in this article is primarily on a dialogue between exclusivism and pluralism.
Why pluralism?
Several factors are responsible for the rise of pluralistic position. First, reflections on theological positions have raised questions on uniqueness. Such positions include the concept of endless punishment without any hope of deliverance for those who have not heard the gospel; understandings of the function and scope of general revelation and special revelation and of the relationship between the two; functions of the Holy Spirit in the missionary process; and concepts of salvation and universalism.
Second, insights from the social sciences and history of religions have undercut claims of Christian uniqueness. Parallels in the development of religious experience in humankind and the discovery of cultural shaping of religion have had a relativizing influence. Is religious affiliation practically determined by where one is born? It seems so. The vast number of adherents of the major world religions that are resistant to Christianity cause pluralists to ask whether Christianity constitutes God's only way of salvation. Ethical questions come up as well: What is one to make of the justice of a God who ordains that people can be saved only in a way that excludes the majority from salvation? Are two thirds of the children of earth God's orphans?
Third, the demographic pluralism in our Western cities has had a bearing on the debate. It was easy to think of adherents of other religions as being misguided or benighted when they lived at a distance. But now that they are neighbors with a level of religious commitment and moral standard that is a challenge to our own decadence, a new way of thinking about these religions is virtually forced upon us. In the face of these and other similar considerations, pluralists have sought to legitimate a broader understanding of the missionary task of the church, and in all fairness it must be admitted that the issues they raise are weighty and challenging.
Exclusivism and its responses
Three major considerations lie at the heart of the exclusive position maintained by American evangelicals. First, exclusivism affirms that there is salvation in "no other name" than that of Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12 is the key text, and of course this affirmation is in harmony with the general understanding of the gospel. What is distinctive about the exclusive position is not so much the stress placed on the positive affirmation of this text as the weight given to its unstated obverse that those who have never had an opportunity to hear the gospel have no hope of salvation and are eternally lost.2
Second, exclusivism emphasizes the concept of the heathen going to a Christless grave. It is not so much the grave now, as endless punishment, from which there is no hope of deliverance. The key text cited is Matthew 25:46. This doctrine of endless punishment for finite sins or for not having heard the gospel constitutes a powerful motivation to mission for some evangelicals and provides pluralists a ground for criticism that approaches ridicule.
Third, exclusivism affirms that general revelation, while a source of some knowledge of God, does not constitute saving knowledge. Exclusivists hold that special revelation alone conveys the knowledge that leads to salvation. This is specifically affirmed in the Lausanne Covenant: "But we deny that this [general revelation] can save." 3
These issues are outlined rather starkly here, and in fairness it must be stated that not all exclusivists adhere to all of these points.
Global Mission and all of this
There is, of course, a close connection between methods of salvation and missionary motivation. Motivation is also affected by understandings of the doom pronounced upon those who either reject or have not heard the message. And certainly the fear on the part of the evangelicals is warranted: that if the above doctrinal points are undercut, there will be a corresponding reduction in the sense of necessity and urgency of the missionary task.
Nevertheless, it needs to be asked: Has not the evangelical exclusivist approach perhaps narrowed too much the theological foundations of mission? Is there anything that can be learned from the pluralist approach?
Is it possible to affirm the uniqueness of Jesus Christ that there is salvation in no other name without turning Acts 4:12 into a universally binding, negative statement? Peter does not state, as do some exclusivists, that all who have not heard the name of Christ will be lost. We are to proclaim the uniqueness and saving power of Jesus Christ; but it is God's prerogative, and not a human responsibility, to judge who will be in the kingdom.4
If the doctrine of everlasting punishment provides mission motivation for some exclusivists, is it not enough to affirm the final judgment by a God who rewards all justly, without falling back on the horrors of unending punishment? Otherwise, it would seem that the responsibility for mission has been narrowed too much to a negative incentive.
The debate regarding possible saving dimensions of general revelation is too complex to discuss in a few lines. On the basis of Romans 1:18-23, many argue that general revelation is adequate to constitute a basis for judgment, but not for salvation. But justice requires that persons be condemned only for failing to do what they know is right and are able to do. If, then, general revelation provides a basis for damnation, then it should also provide the basis for salvation.
Wesley showed us long ago a more balanced view. He taught that the heathen will be judged according to the light they have.5 In a sermon entitled "The General Spread of the Gospel," he asked whether a lack of means will frustrate God's purposes and answered: "No: were there no other means, he 'can take them by his Spirit' (as he did Ezekiel) [Eze. 3:12], or by 'his angel,' as he did Philip, [Acts 8:26] and set them down where soever it pleaseth him.... He will give his Son 'the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.' " 6
Some contemporary evangelicals do make a case for a broader function of general revelation than is typical of exclusivists. Some of them fall back on an intuitive sense of a divine being and moral worth. Others argue the case exegetically and rationally. Still others build on the functions of the Holy Spirit, as did Wesley. For example, Donald McGavran allows that God, should He so choose, "can bring those who know nothing of Jesus Christ back into fellowship with Himself. But the means by which He might do this . . . remains hidden." 7 J. Herbert Kane takes a similar position: "Throughout history there may have been the odd person who got to heaven without the full light of the gospel. In that case, God is the sole Judge." 8 John Stott hints at this possibility, but prefers to remain "agnostic" regarding what has not been revealed.9
Ellen White, taking a stance similar to that of Wesley, writes more openly than do the above evangelicals on two points: First, that the Holy Spirit may work directly on the heart of those who have not heard the gospel; and second, that God will judge them according to the light they have (i.e., general revelation): "Among the heathen are those who worship God ignorantly, those to whom the light is never brought by human instrumentality, yet they will not perish. Though ignorant of the written law of God, they have heard His voice speaking to them in nature, and have done the things that the law required. Their works are evidence that the Holy Spirit has touched their hearts, and they are recognized as the children of God." 10 "God's test of the heathen, who have not the light, and of those living where the knowledge of truth and light has been abundant, is altogether different. He accepts from those in heathen lands a phase of righteousness which does not satisfy Him when offered by those of Christian lands. He does not require much where much has not been bestowed." 11
Clark Pinnock takes an even broader view, verging perhaps on an inclusivist position. But even so, he succeeds in showing that an evangelical need not be locked into the extremes of the exclusivist position to maintain a powerful sense of commitment to, and motivation for, mission. 12
Toward an Adventist posture
While not intimately involved in this debate, we Adventists are influenced by the kinds of doubts about mission that are becoming a part of the wider public consciousness. We too face the challenge of maintaining missionary responsibility and motivation. We are also forced to clarify our theological foundations of mission and the uniqueness of Christianity amid world religions.
From what we have seen so far, it seems to me that a moderate exclusivist position is most compatible with the Adventist sense of identity and mission.
Along with other evangelicals, Adventists believe that sin has corrupted human nature, and that we are all doomed to perish were it not for the intervention and mercy of God. We also believe that human beings have no power within them selves to achieve salvation. Salvation is a wonderful and undeserved gift of God's grace, mediated only through Jesus Christ. Regardless of the avenue through which the knowledge of Jesus Christ comes to the believer, whether through the unusual providence of the Holy Spirit or a missionary agent, salvation is only through Jesus Christ. Finally, Adventists recognize that it is not given to us to judge who will be in the kingdom; God is the sole and sovereign judge.
With these fundamentals, the missionary spirit among us should be vitalized in a gracious spirit of love as we set about the renewed task of Global Mission.
1. W. Cantwell Smith, The Faith of Other Men (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 122, 123.
2. This is implied in the Lausanne Covenant, par. 3 (J. D. Douglas, ed., Let the Earth Hear His Voice [Minneapolis: World Wide Publications, 1975], pp. 3, 4), and is directly affirmed by Harold Lindsell: "Man may not be regenerated either because he has never heard the gospel... or because he has refused to avail himself.... Whichever it may be, the end is the same. He is permanently separated from God. Heaven and hell, then, are the competing options which the unredeemed man faces." ("Fundamentals for a Philosophy of the Christian Mission," in The Theology of the Christian Mission, ed. Gerald H. Anderson [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1961], p. 246).
3. Lausanne Covenant, par. 3.
4. This is the position John Wesley took. Of the heathen, Wesley wrote, "Yet it is not our part to pass sentence upon them, but to leave them to their own Master." Sermon 106, "On Faith," in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1986), vol. 3, p. 495.
5. Ibid., Sermon 106, sect. 1, par. 4, p. 494.
6. Outler, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), vol. 2, p. 497.
7. "Contemporary Evangelical Theology of Mission," in Contemporary Theologies of Mission, ed. Arthur F. Glasser and Donald A. McGavran (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), p. 105.
8. J. Herbert Kane, Understanding Christian Mission (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1974), p. 137.
9. David L. Edwards, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), p. 327.
10. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898), p. 638.
11. Manuscript 130, 1899, as quoted in The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1956), vol. 5, p.1121. See also Education (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1903), pp. 29,262, 263; Prophets and Kings (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1917), pp. 376-378; and Christ's Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1941), p. 385.
12. Clark Pinnock, who has previously written several essays on various aspects of this debate, has recently published a book on the subject, in which the issues involved are discussed with admirable clarity: A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1992).
