The mission of the Church in front of the antivalores of society
Introduction
The Church is, by its nature, missionary, since it prolongs the mission of Christ, who was sent by God the Father under the influence of the Holy Spirit and before ascending to heaven, he gave his apostles the great task of announcing the gospel to theWhole world: "And he said: ID all over the world and preach the gospel to every creature". (Mar 16:15 RV1960). (Boff, 1981). It is useful to refer to the word mission, this comes from the Latin verb "mittere" which means sending. Hence the word mission is linked to "shipping", "delegation". Thus, the Church has this same shipment in all time, the Church is all depositary of the good news that must be announced. This announcement is vital in these current times, where values seem to vanish, under the influence of a hedonistic and consumerist social discourse, where the perishable and ephemeral prevails, on the eternal. The Church must continue the sending of promoting the values of the kingdom, letting faith as an incipient mustard seed grow in the heart of men and the earth is flooded with evangelical values. These values of peace, justice, freedom, fraternity and love are expression of the kingdom of God among their children and only they can give the human being a transcendent and meaningful life.
Developing
Leonardo Boff (1981) states:
The message of Christ entails a critical-liberating function against repressive, already religious situations, already political. He did not come to found a new religion, but to bring a new man. That is why Jesus Christ and his mission can never be framed within religious canons. It transcends the sacred and the profane, the secular and the religious. That is why the Church cannot identify with Jesus Christ or the Kingdom of God. She herself falls under the eschatological reserve, that is, it is not a term or end in itself, but the instrument and the sacrament of the kingdom. She fits the function of carrying out the liberating cause of Christ, not only in the personal sphere, calling for conversion, but also in the public sphere, urging it to a permanent transformation, for a growth in which it is not stratification orabsolutive fixation. (C.R., 1986) (P.64)
Note that Boff argues that we must make our liberating cause of Christ. Today more than ever where the human being is a slave to his passions, the only liberating message capable of getting him out of all slavery is the truth of who Christ is. Every day in my professional work, I can see the need of the mourning people of having an accurate course in their pilgrimage for life. Most pathologies are linked to existential gaps or ailments where the spiritual is set aside. But to carry out this task it is necessary that the Church does not move away from the central message and is able to announce that suffering is part of eternal progress. However, in Latin America, a religiosity grows where suffering is denied and a light gospel is transmitted and without commitment.
The Church must resume the message of the cross, and not deny suffering, or the sacrifice in the life of the Christian, Reyes (2009) maintains:
The theology of the Cross and the mission teaches us that both the discipleship and the mission will be marked by a delivery sacrificed to others and by the same suffering that was part and plot of the messiazgo of Jesus of Nazareth, the lord of the church. Thus, and since, as seen, suffering, shortage and death even came to those who fought to be faithful to the Lord and his mission, the contemporary agent should not expect something different different. Therefore, it should not be surprised that in her missionary career she has to walk through the desert and under the clear, cold and lonely of her shadows. (Pixley, 1991)
The Church should not be alien to the times, it has to open its eyes to the rough effects of addictions, high rates of violence, poverty growth and the reach of globalization. The Church must be there where the human being suffers and transform his life. It is true that the changes are seen in this regard with the presence of the Church in the social context through different services (addiction centers, picnings, schools, labor programs, Christian candidates in the political sphere), but it is urgent thatmore efforts are made so that social action does not separate from the word.
Since the message of Christ has always been committed to the fragile, vulnerable, excluded, and exploited, the Church must also be involved at the social level and give its voice on those issues that affect human being, consumerism, internet and social networks, abortion, poverty, gender violence, unemployment, health, child exploitation, adolescent prostitution, euthanasia, and all faces of modern slavery, environment, etc. We cannot talk about a gospel of peace, justice and love if we continue oblivious to participate in the commitment to fight against every system that oppresses and dehumanize man. The only way that the non -believer sees God’s face in the Church is through actions that aim to dignify it, for this, each Christian must make social justice a daily motto, an attempt to narrate the history of the Gospel in its context.
On the other hand I think it is vital and urgent that theology be present in the Church not as heritage of a few, but that all the people of God can access to form and have a faith and a foundation. More and more the influence of society is vitiating local churches and the churches grow where the senses and emotions are appealed and an empty spirituality of biblical and foundation content is proclaimed.
The Church must remember as Robra (2006) says
Christian theology is a faithful reflection on the presence and action of God in the world and on the praxis of the Church and the individual. More specifically, the theology of the mission reflects on the mission of God and on the response of the Church to the call of Christ to follow him. (Reyes, 2009)
The mission must always be saving and crossed by the dimension of the love of Christ, an active love, present in the struggle for others and capable of giving tools so that once you are saved, human beings are also more worthy and more free. The Church must generate the conditions for people to achieve their empowerment and free themselves from their internal and external slavery.
The Church must also reflect on these "fashions" that are increasingeuphoric or a number of people saved and evangelized?
René Padilla (1986) already said:
How can Christians join on the mission when many of them (especially in the West) adopt an ostentatious lifestyle while the vast majority of them (especially in underdeveloped countries) are incapacitated to meet basic basic needs? Third World poverty places an interrogation sign on people’s lifestyle (and especially Christians) in the western world. And the appropriate response to it is, to begin with, a simple lifestyle and a radical restructuring of economic relations between Christians everywhere, based on the Christian concept of stewardship. (B., 2006)
Every day the macro churches grow alongside commercial hypercentros, somehow this influence of the macro has entered the minds of leaders who equate “attending a media show” with believers committed in the daily life. Thus we see churches dedicated to being in the media under a logic of meaning of a "consumption theology". In this way we can see local leaders twitting all day or giving "like" on Facebook to the comments of their faithful. Today the growth or success of a church is not measured by the number of transformed lives, but by the number of attendees to the megos shows, with immense screens where the Sunday service is projected and the same is instantly uploaded in the networks in the networkssocial.
conclusion
God, in his sovereign will, has wanted the Church to be in charge of expressing his kingdom here and now and this is the time to achieve it. That kingdom of God must be announced, but also lived, for this the Church must be able to communicate it both in word and in action, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. For now the Church still has a long way to walk, the important thing is that we are underway.
Bibliography
- B., R. (2006). The contexts of the mission, mission in context. Transformation, reconciliation, empowerment. A contribution from FLM to the understanding and practice of mission, 9-20.
- Boff, l. (1981). Jesus Christ and the liberation of man. Madrid: Christianity.
- C.R., P. (1986). Comprehensive mission essays on the kingdom and church. Buenos Aires: New Creation.
- Pixley, j. (1991). A call to extend the networks the new Protestantism and popular reading of the Bible. Latin American Biblical Interpretation Magazine, 100-107.
- Kings, g. (2009). Narrative Missionological and its applications for Mission in Latin America . Kairos, 44-79-104.
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