Thread by @jarrodmckenna

**about to God-bother warning**

The term “Mission” is very loaded. I’ve been thinking about the experience of contemplative prayer for a decade, and the healing-nonviolent-power of Christ that is experienced in prayer, and how this power transfigures, disarms and decolonises any consideration of “mission”.

The term “mission” in Australia is quickly associated with “Missions” and “missionaries”, calling to mind the very complicated and complex realities of colonisation, dislocation, denial (and demonisation) of culture, relocation, place and (coercive) power.

I’m aware in many Christian circles “mission” is a framing narrative to understand the Gospel. There is energy, focus, purpose tied to the term. Yet we must confess imperialism, invasion and genocide are also associated.

The shadow side of such energy & clarity is a certainty that can leave behind following Jesus (sharing in Christ’s example & teachings) for theories about Jesus. Or in preacher parlance, “making believers not disciples. Fans not followers.” Then ‘just add Settler Colonialism’.

Yet in framing the discussion in such ways we need to be careful as not further affirm that Christianity is owned by European (or American) definitions. Part of decolonising Christianity is naming it was African and Middle Eastern before it was ever European, or “Western”.

We must name that White Supremacy has a sick theology at it’s heart ever since a Papal Bull gave justification for enslavement, extraction and extinction of Indigenous Peoples in the 15th century. But this history does not own and cannot be allow to silence other Christianities.

So Jesus’ hot take, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

So if “mission” includes killing people, stealing land, destroying culture, it’s *not* the work of God.

It’s the work of the devil.

Heads up if you are reading this thread and aren’t much into theology:

devil = bad.

Doing the work of the devil (killing people, stealing land, destroying culture) is working *against* the will of God.

It’s anti-Jesus.
It’s anti-Christ.
It’s anti-human.

The theologies of European entitlement that justify violence, war, land theft, the myth of “Terra Nullius”, the “Doctrine of Discovery”, “Manifest Destiny”, genocide, enslavement and death must be name unequivocally as satanic.

Yet there are many assumptions people make but about the spread of Christianity and talk of mission that aren’t grounded much in history.

Unsurprisingly, Christianity (or anything really), spread by the sword is barely convincing and is hardly conversional. Despite popular stereotypes, Islam didn’t go deep in Indonesia (the largest Muslim population in the world) because it was “spread by the sword”.

Indonesia became a Muslim nation not by imperialism or clever missionary engagement. It was ordinary people, moving there and practicing their faith; prayer, giving to the poor, integrity in business and that was appealing.

This is also true of anywhere Christianity went deep. It wasn’t “crusades”, or “revivals”, or political domination or missionary schemes but faithful lives of captivating compassion, humble service and enticing integrity.

I’m fascinated how talk of revival draws a crowd, while Jesus’ talk of the “renewal of all things” doesn’t have the traction ...FOR CHRISTIANS!!!

It’s surprising we need to state the obvious but when Christianity has been spread as imperialism, playing chaplain to colonisation, it’s been spread thin as theories lacking Christ-like content. And ask any colonised Peoples, it shows.

“So Jarrod, if it wasn’t nonviolent it wasn’t real Christianity?” I think we must confess it as Christianity. I’m seeking to name how much Christianity has sidelined putting Christ’s teaching and example into practice as a secondary consideration for “super saints.”

...This has already gone too long for Twitter. Land this thing, preacher! What I’m saying is “mission” must be repented of and abandoned (or as least transfigured) for the decolonising power discipleship: putting Christ’s healing-nonviolent example and teaching into practice.

(Im aware this is twitter and my talk of nonviolence might be read as privileged. Or in my family it might be read as an attack on those who took up arms to resist colonialism or on the otherside bring up talk of the Holocaust. It is simply my experience in prayer & practice.)

This will take more than changing our language. But changing our language might help us confess the the idolatrous marriage of empire, economic exploitation and colonialism that has occupied so many forms of Christianity.

I find it fascinating that the prophetic and Peace Churches: Black Church tradition, Quakers, Anabaptists etc. use the language of WITNESS. It might not at first have the clarity & power as “mission” but maybe that’s because it points to a different kind of power.

Before, you say, “What like the Jehovah’s Witnesses?” Just pause for a second and consider these pacifists who wake you early on Saturday who were sent to the gas chambers with Jews and Queer people cos they were a threat to Hitler. Where were others who confessed Jesus as Lord?

Despite “Witness” being a major theme in the New Testament, it doesn’t have the same appeal as “mission”.

(By the way, name Bible verses with the word “mission” in it. It’s cool, I’ll wait.)

Witness for many is too indirect. It is about seeing, not possessing. Just as “Contemplation” doesn’t mean to think, but to see. It points beyond oneself, not to oneself. “Greenpeace” use the language of “witness” to name their activism as embodied testimony to what is true.

ok. I’m finished.

But worst case scenario of the “witness paradigm”, Christians will follow Jesus’ example and teachings.

...and I think we know the worse case of the “mission paradigm” all too well.

Thoughts?