In Asia, where religious and cultural diversity is the norm and Christian communities are often minorities in disadvantaged situations, it is important to reconsider traditional models of mission and evangelism. Tensions exist when finding common ground with people of other faiths while upholding convictions about the exclusive claims of Christ and Christianity. This article explores the possibility of negotiating these tensions without succumbing to a watered-down version of Christian mission or seeking a lowest common denominator approach to mutuality with the religious other.¹

Mutuality is achieved when different groups or communities share common feelings, actions, and even purpose. Mutual respect, according to the article “Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World,” published by the World Council of Churches (WCC), is key to fulfilling “Christ’s commission appropriately within inter-religious contexts.”² This statement resonates with Jonathan Tan’s proposal for mission in Asia. Tan notes, borrowing from William R. Burrow, that there is a need to shift from missio ad gentes (mission to the nations) [cf. Matthew 28:19] to missio inter gentes³ (mission among the nations). A move towards mutuality and cooperation in mission involves not just those within the global church but those outside the church, as well. This is especially pertinent and helpful for missions when envisioned in an increasingly pluralistic, globalized, and cosmopolitan world.

John Wimber offers an insight into a different facet of mission and evangelism in particular. He notes—evangelism is being “thrust into the middle of a battle with Satan: It is a tug-of-war, and the prize is the souls of men and women.”⁴ This perspective parallels Matthew Bates’s assertion that salvation can be best described as the human response to “Christ’s gift . . . by giving allegiance to Jesus as Lord.”⁵ Besides highlighting the particularity of the Gospel and consequently the required response, these positions highlight the conflict inherent in mission.

There are two key insights that may be inferred from these positions. First, because of the socio-political reality of postcolonialism, pluralism, and globalization, positions tending towards a more conciliatory attitude and mutuality like the WCC’s and Tan’s offer practical ways forward wherein pluralism is embraced “not as a dilemma to be eradicated, but as a distinctive character of being Asian and Christian.” Mission and evangelism, when envisioned from this framework, include bringing the Good News to all areas of society through collaboration within the church and with non-Christians.⁶ Such approaches emphasize the universal aspects of evangelism. This is reflected in Tan’s referencing Amos Yong: “Yong argues for a retrieval of the forgotten universalism of the Luke-Acts narratives of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ‘on all flesh’ (Acts 2:17).”⁷ The second position, as seen in Bates and Wimber, highlights the particularity of the Gospel, emphasizing the role of uniqueness and otherness in evangelism.

Both positions have one thing in common: They see the Gospel and its proclamation encompassing all areas of existence. Hence, they necessitate attention to communal and socio-political dimensions. However, because of their emphasis on contrasting characteristics of the Gospel and evangelism (the universal and the particular), their resultant approaches to communities and socio-political realities can be starkly different.

This article will present the two positions, which broadly emphasize mutuality and the exclusive claims of Christianity as foundational to mission. Following this, the article will seek to understand the two positions from within the life of the church as a potential way forward.

Mission as Encounter Between Peoples

Tan proposes four ways to move from missio ad gentes to missio inter gentes—toward greater mutuality. First, Tan calls for the need to move away from a “sending-receiving church model toward a World Christianity model.”⁸ This stance calls for greater mutuality in mission within the global church. Second, he roots orthodoxy in “the missio Dei [the universal mission of God] that seeks to usher in the universality of God’s reign in pluralistic Asia.”⁹ This rooting sees the pluralism of Asia and the universalism of the missio Dei as points of contact for mission. The particularity of Jesus is retained, but it is understood through the pluralistic setting of Asia. Third, Tan proposes mission be initiated by “orthopathos that illumines divine empathy and solidarity with the pathos of the suffering and brokenness in the daily life experiences of the Asian peoples.”¹⁰ This calls for mission sharing in the pain and suffering of those even beyond the church and participating in their everyday lives based on God’s initiative. Finally, Tan calls for mission empowered by “orthopraxis . . . to engage the religious pluralism of Asia in a spirit of interreligious hospitality.”¹¹ Thus, mutuality in mission is described in terms of mutual hospitality, empathizing with the other and living with the other. While Tan’s proposal is presented specifically for an Asian context, it clearly has global relevance, with pluralism and pluri-religiosity increasingly becoming the norm.

Evangelism in Mission as Encounter

Calling for a new turn in mission theology, Tan calls for it to be rooted “in koinonia, interdependence, and solidarity, whereby all nations are both senders and recipients at the same time.”¹² He pushes this idea further by borrowing from Yong again—using the examples of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, and Peter and Cornelius, to show that the idea of mutuality extends beyond a blurring of lines between sender and receiver within the global church. Tan opens up the possibility of mutuality and conversion on both sides in mission—just as Jesus and Peter were not the same after their encounter with the Samaritan woman and Cornelius, respectively.¹³ Yong notes that such encounters open the evangelizer to “the many surprises that the Spirit brings in our encounter with others who are different”¹⁴ and later brings in the phrase “mutual conversion”¹⁵ to illustrate the potential such interaction has for changing both the evangelizer and evangelized.

Tan sees orthopathos as “the bridge that integrates the orthodoxy of the gospel message and the orthopraxis of human action.”¹⁶ Yong’s perspective (derived from Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen) locates orthopathos within a theology of suffering “that manifests the suffering love of God for a dying world.”¹⁷ In this model of mission, the evangelizer—driven by God’s love for people—is oriented towards the needs of others and is willing to suffer for them. Tan, borrowing from Samuel Solivan, further explains orthopathos in action and notes that it places Christians within the suffering of communities and gives them “a direct involvement with, and first hand existential participation in, the experience of pathos.”¹⁸ Orthopathos finds historical resonance in the mission of St. Patrick to the Celts as narrated by George Hunter III. He notes that Patrick’s mission to the Celts “included social dimensions. To our knowledge, he was the first public European leader to speak and crusade against slavery.”¹⁹ This led to “people know[ing] that the Christians understand them, they infer that maybe Christianity’s High God understands them too.”²⁰

Mission and evangelism, when seen from this perspective, have a strong socio-political dimension that begins with deep empathy for people. The evangelizer through orthopathos suffers with and for the people and engages in alleviating their suffering. Thus, the Gospel addresses the suffering of the people, bringing an immediate material tangibility to the Good News. Salvation through Jesus Christ and the eschatological hope in him that are traditional characteristics of evangelism are still the source of ultimate hope and alleviation of suffering. However, evangelism in this model begins by addressing the immediate suffering through empathy, social action, and advocacy—these being common ground that connects people. This approach is seen in Tan’s example of missio inter gentes in Malaysia where he notes that mission requires Christians to “practice holistic life witness to the Gospel that seeks to break down the barriers of hostility and division among Muslims and Christians, as well as build mutual trust and friendship in a spirit of hospitality.”²¹ Thus, evangelism begins by addressing and proclaiming the Good News (as reconciliation) in the tangible reality of conflict between Muslims and Christians.

There is great merit to Tan’s position, and it provides a useful corrective to overly spiritualized and exclusively teleological modes of mission and evangelism. However, the positioning of orthopathos as the bridge between orthodoxy and orthopraxy seems to suggest that a dichotomy exists between the latter two. Further, this position sees orthopraxy as human action and orthodoxy as the content of the Gospel message. This may lead to a fractured view of the Gospel, seemingly suggesting the possibility of neatly separating the divine message and human action. Hospitality and mutuality, as suggested in this model, are helpful for mission and evangelism. However, it may be asked—on what is this mutuality established? Tan’s acceptance of the givenness of pluralism suggests that this is a crucial framework for his model of mission.

Salvation by Allegiance Alone

Matthew Bates’s characterization of salvation as allegiance alone poses a challenge to the givenness of pluralism and its validity as a framework for mission. He calls for a re-centering of the Gospel, noting, “Jesus’s enthronement” is the “true climax of the Gospel.”²² As a result, he calls for a redefining of the word pistis as “allegiance to Jesus as king”²³ instead of the more common “faith” or “belief.” He avoids a purely teleological interpretation of his position by stating that salvation is not “about attainment of heaven but about embodied participation in the new creation.”²⁴ Bates seeks to re-center the Gospel by emphasizing the centrality of Christ enthroned as Lord and salvation being attained through the pledging of allegiance to the enthroned Lord. While Bates does state the need for “embodied participation” pointing towards the here-and-now dimension of the Gospel, he firmly anchors the Gospel on the enthronement of Jesus Christ as King. Compared to Tan’s position, Bates takes a more particularistic approach to the Gospel wherein exclusive allegiance to the particular person of Christ enthroned is critical to the Gospel and salvation.

Envisioning Mission and Evangelism through “Salvation by Allegiance Alone”

Bates writes, the Gospel is “about the enthronement of Jesus the atoning king as he brings these wider stories to a climax.”²⁵ Within this reign, he calls the present age “the church age” and defines it as “Christ’s dynamic rule as he serves as king of heaven and earth at the right hand of God the Father while his enemies are being subdued.”²⁶ Thus, mission and evangelism in this present age is ultimately to call people to allegiance to the enthroned king—Jesus—through the proclamation of his reign. Bates seeks to clarify any misunderstandings that could interpret his position as being purely eschatological and spiritual when he writes, “we don’t go to heaven; God brings his heavenly abode down to earth.”²⁷

There are key points of difference between Bates’s and Tan’s proposals because of their different starting points. Mission and evangelism from Bates’s position engages with socio-political dimensions in a more prophetic and truth-telling role. The evangelizer speaks the truth of the reign of Jesus into all areas of life and calls people to allegiance. Tan’s proposal, because of its emphasis on mutuality results in evangelism being understood as working with the religious other due to shared humanity within the context of pluralism and the truth of the universality of God’s reign.

Bates makes an important connection between discipleship and evangelism when he writes, “Evangelism programs are only accurate and compelling when they are not merely an invitation to forgiveness but an invitation to full-orbed discipleship.”²⁸ When understood within the meta-narrative of Christ enthroned and evangelism as a call toward allegiance, discipleship becomes the reorienting of the convert to the reality realized in Jesus Christ—a new creation with Christ as king. Thus, in Bates’s proposal, conversion toward the Christian faith becomes the primary goal for mission and evangelism, rather than the possibility of a mutual conversion. This fixes the end goal as allegiance to Jesus enthroned and the conversion to this Jesus through evangelism and discipleship in a community that is shaped by this reality. This resonates with J.I. Packer’s definition of evangelism as—“to present Christ Jesus himself, the living Savior and the reigning Lord.”²⁹ Thus, it is the desire to bring all creation, including socio-political institutions, to pledge allegiance to Jesus that drives socio-political engagement in mission and evangelism.

Considering the Church as a Potential Bridge

Rick Richardson notes that the goal of evangelism (from the perspective of God in mission) ought to have a community rather than an individualized orientation. This should in turn lead to “witnessing communities” rather than “witnessing individuals”³⁰ This makes explicit the two key aspects of evangelism, considering the previous sections. First, conversion as a goal of evangelism is not just about an individual’s change in allegiance, but is complete only when the convert bears witness. This connects with the need for discipleship in a community along with evangelism, such that it orients people to bear witness. Second, this conversion and witnessing have a community-oriented character, revealing the need for an ecclesial vision in understanding evangelism.

Wimber’s comments clarify another piece of the picture—“When the kingdom of God comes into direct contact with the kingdom of the world (when Jesus meets Satan), there is conflict.”³¹ However, this is not a conflict directly with the religious other, but between Satan and Jesus. Even though Bates calls for absolute allegiance and this leads to a more particularistic position compared to Tan’s, there is a possibility for orthopathos for the other since the battle is not with fellow humans directly.

However, orthopathos in Tan’s proposal is arrived at with pluralism as the primary framework. Bryan Stone’s comments help reveal the non-absolute nature of pluralism—“pluralisms are works of social imagination, they render possible some ways of thinking and acting while other ways remain impossible—or rather unimaginable.”³² Thus, pluralism is not a given, even for Asian contexts, but one social imagination among many. Stone notes the granting of power to “prevailing political, social, intellectual, and economic frameworks”³³ such that they “impose conditions on the Christian social imagination and thereby to constrict it.”³⁴ Taking pluralism as the primary framework or the norm can allow it to dictate the social imagination within which Christian mission and evangelism are framed.

Seen with these perspectives, Bates’s position may be understood as an alternate social imagination, resisting other attempts of social imagination to dictate the terms. This imagination would be founded on the enthronement of Jesus as King—salvation being absolute allegiance to this King. Polycarp’s martyrdom narrative gives us a glimpse into this alternate social imagination within a context where a version of pluralism was the norm. Faced with mortal danger, Polycarp was both able to offer hospitality to his captors as well as boldly declare and bear witness to his exclusive allegiance to Jesus instead of Caesar.³⁵ Polycarp did this while within a community that lived and oriented itself with the social imagination of Christ enthroned—the church.

Thus, the church as the primary ground for our social imagination may allow for the two seemingly disparate positions to be held together. In an ecclesial vision, the church provides the primary social imagination—“the church is the logically prior reality from within which Christians understand both the personal and the social.”³⁶ Such an envisioning of mission and evangelism may allow for the two positions to be held together, both in terms of personal faith and social engagement.

Holding Mutuality and “Allegiance to Christ Alone” Together

An ecclesial vision for mission and evangelism may further be understood through Hunter’s descriptions of St. Patrick’s Celtic mission communities: “The wall did not signify an enclosure to keep out the world; the area signified the ‘alternative’ way of life.”³⁷ There are two points of note here. A wall existed. Therefore, there was a differentiation between those who were part of the community and those who were not. Similarly, the church retains its distinctness from the world. However, the wall was not a barrier, instead, it functioned as a marker of an “alternate way of life”—an alternate social imagination. Life inside the wall was visible to the outside. People were free to enter and people from within the community went out to reach others—explicit proclamation and openness. Thus, there was a sense of mutuality and hospitality. However, this mutuality and hospitality were framed within the alternate reality of the community—the church.

J.H. Yoder notes that “salvation must be personal . . . . But it is always a community reality to be reconciled . . . it is always a called-out community; it is always a suffering and witnessing community.” This perspective provides a glimpse into ecclesial community accounts for the personal aspects of salvation, while also living in a manner that the personal aspects are fully realized in a witnessing community.³⁸ Yoder contrasts such a community with “theocratic pacifists. . . who thought that they could make the world loving, because Christians have to be loving”³⁹ and “the spiritualistic, nonresistant, withdrawn ones have thought that because you cannot make the world be loving you will just take care of your own boys.”⁴⁰ Instead, the church is imagined as a “new society.”⁴¹ This vision of the church as a new society, contrasted with spiritualists and theocratic pacifists, has the potential to reconcile Bates’s and Tan’s positions.

Thus, the church does engage in mission and evangelism with a message of love and reconciliation, engaging society at large. However, this is primarily understood through the enthronement of Jesus as King and the reconciliation of the world through and under his rule—not through pluralism. There is mutuality and hospitality in mission, not merely due to shared humanity with the other, but because of orthopathos originating from God. The church invites the world to the table, to mutually pledge allegiance to Jesus enthroned and to live by the social imagination of the new creation in him. Without this orientation, mutuality runs the risk of becoming purely humanistic. This is done with the church willingly sharing in the suffering of the other and bringing reconciliation, but with Christ enthroned and his kingdom as its foundation.

Finally, orthodoxy and orthopraxy involved in mission and evangelism are tightly anchored on the particularity of the resurrected Jesus who reigns and has ushered in the new creation of which he is the first fruit (1 Corinthians 15:23). Orthodoxy and orthopraxy originating in the common source of Jesus are not dichotomous aspects of mission and evangelism that need to be bridged through orthopathos. Instead, all three originated and find validity in the person of Jesus with the church as a community that pledges allegiance to him and all that comes from him.

The church thus becomes the community of faith that believes and lives out the reality of Christ enthroned, and bears witness to it in an unbelieving world. Mission and evangelism become public declarations and witness to the good news of the enthronement of Jesus by a believing community to an unbelieving world. Mutuality and hospitality in inter-religious dialogue as part of evangelism become invitations to experience and become part of an alternate social imagination—a better way of life.

It must be clarified that the church needs to remain open to the possibility of correction and repentance through this process. The church is a community that seeks to be continually shaped by the reality of Christ enthroned. However, it does so in the already-but-not-yet reality of the present. Hence, while there is a clear difference between belief and unbelief in mission and evangelism, the walls that separate the believer and unbeliever are differentiators, not barriers.

Conclusion: Exclusive Allegiance and Mutuality through the Church

Bates’s emphasis on Christ enthroned and salvation as exclusive allegiance to him is essential to the Gospel. However, this message is best realized and made effective in the ecclesial community that has this as its primary social imagination. Such a community can indeed operate in mutuality as suggested by Tan. However, it does so not by primarily strategizing for effectiveness in the context it inhabits, but it becomes effective by being oriented through the social imagination it inhabits. This is a social imagination of Jesus enthroned, who calls all to allegiance, but also one of God incarnate, who takes on the suffering of people. The missio Dei brings this social imagination into existence. God chose to suffer with the people and be with them—orthopathos; heal them and speak against socio-political evils—orthopraxis; and offer life eternal to all—orthodoxy (the Gospel). He did this as a man among other men—missio inter gentes.

Matthias Gergan serves as Program Coordinator for the ThM/PhD in Theological Studies offered by the Asia Graduate School of Theology in collaboration with the International Graduate School of Leadership. He also serves as Project Editor for Non-Commentary Books for Asia Theological Association (ATA) Publications. His current research interests are World Christianity, the church in Asia, and the development of theological studies in Asia. Matthias is from a mixed Ladakhi and Lepcha heritage from the Indian Himalayan region. He currently lives in Dehradun in Uttarakhand with his wife Menguphrenuo, mother, and son. His most recent article is “Faith Seeking Understanding in the Indian Himalayan Region” in Insights Journal.