Mission and Theology

Some ramblings.

1) Mission without theology is mere humanism.

2) Theology without mission is dead.

3) Theology is the mother of mission.

4) Theology is mission.

5) Mission without theology is waste of time.

The Pope on Spiritual Despair

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair.

From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity."

It was up to a new generation of Christians to build "a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deadens our souls and poisons our relationships"

And there we get to the core of our societal disease. Our pursuit of self-gratification, including promiscuous and uncommitted sex, has left us dissatisfied, resentful, unhappy, ill at ease, anxious and afraid.

Read More

Technology Idolatry

Science and technology get a lot of attention because of the new gadgets they spin out. I love science, because it displays God's wisdom (Proverbs 8:22-31). I love technology, because it shows what great gifts God has given to us, and what great human capacity God has given us to exercise dominion (Genesis 1:28-30). But I see hopes placed in science and technology that they cannot fulfill. Science, it is said, will solve the problems of world hunger. It will bring world peace. And more and better technology will solve the problems introduced by lesser technology.

Well, sometimes; and in some ways. Maybe science will find an efficient way to harness nuclear fusion to produce clean power—or maybe not. But we can be awash in technology and still be hate-filled or lonely. You can have 200 friends on Facebook and have no one who really knows you, no one who loves you.

Sometimes science only increases the problem. If, instead of seeing the wisdom of God in it, you listen to the propaganda of scientism, it will solemnly assure you that you inhabit a faceless, lonely, materialistic universe that is heading only toward ultimate death. And the gadgets of technology become Band-Aids to cover spiritual wounds and empty hearts. One more electronic game or one more DVD movie or one more pop song holds back the slide into boredom and depression. We search for one entertainment after another to keep back the dread of facing the hollow inside.

Read More

Henri Nouwen on Social Justice

"When our protests against war, segregation and social injustice do not reach beyond the level of a reaction, then our indignation becomes self-righteous, our hope for a better world degenerates into a desire for quick results and our generosity is soon exhausted by disappointments. Only when our mind has descended into our heart can we expect a lasting response to well up from our innermost self.

... If any criticism can be made of the sixties (peace protest movement), it is not that protest was meaningless but that it was not deep enough, in the sense that it was not rooted in the solitude of the heart. When only our minds and hands work together we quickly become dependent on the results of our own action and tend to give up when they do not materialize.

In the solitude of the heart we can truly listen to the pains of the world because there we can recognize them not as strange and unfamiliar pains but as pains that are indeed our own. That we can see that what is most universal is most personal and that indeed nothing human is strange to us.

There we can feel that the cruel reality of history is indeed the reality of the human heart, our own included, and that to protest asks, first of all, for a confession of our own participation in the human condition. There we can indeed response.

... because out of an inner solidarity with our fellow humans the first attempts to alleviate these pains can come forth. It is this inner solidarity which prevents self-righteousness and makes compassion possible." -- Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out