Abstract
The presentation of the document ‘Christian witness in a multi-religious world: Recommendations for conduct’ (ChW) in 2011 in Geneva was an ecumenical historical moment. The signing bodies, e.g. the World Council of Churches, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Evangelical Alliance, represent the largest number of Christians in the world who ever have been called by an ecumenical declaration: to reflect on their current practices and to use the recommendations in this document to prepare, where appropriate, their own guidelines for their witness and mission among those of different religions and among those who do not profess any particular religion. (ChW)
The Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany (Evangelisches Missionswerk, EMW) and the Internationale Katholische Missionswerk missio (Aachen) who had already been co-operating were commissioned to organize an ecumenical reception process for the document among churches and mission bodies in Germany. On that basis we have been invited as guest editors for this issue of Transformation dedicated to the discussion of this document. Our aim was not to offer a wide ecumenical and theological evaluation of the document and its content. We invited authors from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America who had been journeying with us in that process to reflect on how this important document has been received and the effects it had in their contexts.
We start with a survey of the global reception process and offer observations on what happened and identify some tracks for reflection. One such track is that the reception process for the document differs from other such processes which may follow well established paths within a global church fellowship. To receive the ‘Christian witness’ was firstly the challenge to discuss it in fora which transgress the usual borderlines between the different theological worlds, e.g. Catholics, mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals. Secondly it was the challenge to adopt and contextualize the principles and recommendations in one’s own practice of mission and evangelism instead of sending theological comments on the text for revision.
We were interested in how the document’s understanding of mission as witnessing, the principles it formulates and especially the recommendations it spells out for the practice of mission and evangelism, were received and whether they were adapted to the contexts. It is no surprise that the authors who responded to our call did so in diverse ways, according to their context and the activities the document triggered off. The collected contributions come therefore from the practioners’ perspectives and we hope that the reports on the efforts undertaken to put the recommendations into practice and on some of the difficulties that these endeavours met will inform the missiological discussion.
For us, the conversation we present here is a journey in faith and in practising theology with our partners in mission by reflecting theologically on mission in respect, a key term of the document. Today, religions and more especially mission are often considered to fuel conflicts instead of contributing to peace and conflict transformation. In such times we are convinced that the recommendations help to reconsider and reframe mission and evangelism as witness when dialogical practice is an urgent need in many contexts where people of different faiths share daily life.
We hope that the readers, if they have not done so far, will be encouraged to study the document and, what is more, they will get involved in the process of adopting and applying the recommendations in their own practice.