Rethinking Mission

I am a child of evangelicalism, having swam (??) in its waters from earliest childhood. So sometimes, in speaking about mission, I find myself falling back into trite evangelical Christian cliches that have lost (or are on the verge of losing) their efficacy. Sharing the gospel, being a witness, knowing Jesus and making him known, etc, etc... all reflect the biblical truth, but all have also been over-played, like so much pop-radio ear candy, garnering attention for a moment only to fade away when the next wave comes along.

So it was refreshing this morning to read this angle on mission from Anglican scholar N.T. Wright:

If you are to shape your world in following Christ, it is not enough to say that being a Christian... is about high moral standards, using every opportunity to talk to people about Jesus, praying [for people]... All that is vital and necessary, but you are called to something much, much more. You are called, prayerfully, to discern where in your discipline the human project is showing signs of exile and humbly and boldly to act symbolically in ways that declare that the powers have been defeated, that the kingdom has come in Jesus the Jewish Messiah, that the new way of being human has been unveiled, and to be prepared to tell the story that explains what these symbols are all about. And in all this you are to declare, in symbol and praxis, in story and articulate answers to questions, that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not; that Jesus is Lord and Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche are not; that Jesus is Lord and neither modernity nor postmodernity is. When Paul spoke of the gospel, he was not talking primarily about a system of salvation but about the announcement, in symbol and word, that Jesus is the true Lord of the world, the true light of the world.