A Quest for Reconstructing Historical Accounts: Promoting
the Diversity of Voices
The direction of history is not necessarily headed in a linear way, as Bosch described. It depends on one’s critical reading strategy. Historian Philip Jenkins reminds us of the fact that “Christianity was polyglot.”12 Unfortunately some Christian communities in Asia and Africa were not able to survive life-threatening anti-Christian actions hundreds to a thousand years ago. The loss of world Christianity revealed not only how we see history, but also how we label other Christians outside the circle of Europeans. The decline of Christianity in the two mentioned continents was made equivalent to a failure. Since our minds are so conditioned to success, failure in Christian mission became a taboo. As a result, we ignore the people, their existence, and that part of history. Their stories subsequently went unheard. In other words, the perception that history is linear emerges out of the condition in which we have wiped out what has been deemed unsuccessful attempts of Christian expansion. Western Christianity is once again elevated to be the prototype for churches around the world and since then, this particular form of Christianity has crystallized the nature of our memory. That memory in selection could adversely impact the way we perceive non-Christians in those continents that failed to proselytize.
In protest against power hierarchies in world Christianity, Justo Gonzalez challenged the inclination of making Western civilization the norm of Christianity. Gonzalez argued for a new cartography of Christian history. Gonzalez claims,
If history is a drama, then geography is the stage on which the action flows. . . . It was only when I began seeing them as actual people with their feet on the ground, and when I began understanding the movements of peoples and nations not only across time and chronology but also across space and geography, that history became fascinating to me.13
History is about people. It concerns the activity of every kind of people in the land. Putting it simply, the story of humanity is made up of multiple voices and there should be more than one account of the history of Christianity. When we take seriously Acts 1:8 that says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” this is a call open for all disciples of Jesus. The idea of a polycentric map lifts up the matter of diversity that further connects people’s experiences and feelings with their witnessing to the gospel. Gonzalez thus argued non-Western Christianity is not merely a part of the missionary movement, but a major constituent of church history. Integrating the history of Christian mission with the history of the church will refashion a missiological ecclesiology that further enlarges the vision of inclusivity among God’s people.14
The study of Christian mission indeed requires a radical reconstruction of historical events. Both Jenkins and Gonzalez are faithfully advocating the multiplicity of voices that further provides us with a more responsible reading strategy for the history of Christianity.
Nowadays, many have been aware that the center of gravity in global Christianity has shifted to the South. Because of its overwhelming surge of Christian population, churches in the South are given more opportunities to get involved in the discussion of their issues. In terms of numbers and vitality, it is inevitable that the voices of the South need to be heard. Their participation, insights, and wisdom will bridge the epistemological discrepancy that has long existed in the Christian missionary movement. In the meantime, Christian communities are widespread which further convinces us that anywhere across the globe can be a center of attention; for the Spirit of God blows wherever it pleases.15 The presence of the other forces us to question our identity and sense of vocation in challenging the theology in our times. Our missiology, good or bad, shapes our view of the other, which affects the way we interact with the other. How one treats another human being, under the banner of advancing the gospel is an important subject that needs constant evaluation. There is no question about it.
The Need for a New Approach
The new focus on the Christian missionary movement should take on the intersectionality of power, and the linguistic and theological conceptualization of difference. It requires an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the materialization of binary opposites. I will look at historical rhetoric in Christian mission with the aids of critical theory and linguistic reflection.16 These disciplines may represent very different approaches, but in this study they are not mutually exclusive. Rather, these divergent insights complement and build upon one another. I purposely argue that the relationship between giver and receiver of mission needs to be understood in the framework of self and other. Theories of self and other matter across disciplines, and they can effectively analyze the intersecting interests between one another and give reasons for people’s behaviors in the context of social life. The conceptualization of giver as self and receiver as other is both urgent and relevant. It is because the self-centric approach to Christian mission has confused and kept the giver from recognizing the selfhood of an-other-self, that is, the receiver. Privileging self over other in the form of mission discourses remains problematic. Language will take us back to where we began, that is, the creation and manipulation of otherness for the sake of sustaining Christian mission. It is important to examine how otherness is constructed and interpreted to fit into the paradigm of the Christian missionary movement. I will explain that in more detail.
Self and Other in Mission Discourses
The subject of the other is as old as humanity. Ample literature and resources are available concerning the issue of binarial relations. Edward Said once observed that other was not born to be other, but was made to being the Other.17 Otherness—including but not limited to ontological and epistemological traits of the other—is turned into a point of reference for people inside power circles to deal with those outside of it.18 In the discipline of philosophy, Martin Buber’s I-Thou concept is helpful for us to reflect on the very subject of inter-personal relationships. Buber declared that words are not things, but relationships. Buber says, “When a primary word is spoken the speaker enters the word and takes his stand in it.”19 The primary word, Buber considers, I-Thou later became an influential concept for the relation of things. Seeing another person as my Thou would avoid reducing a human being to an It.20 Since I and You (or other) share the most basic humanity, “we” are equally entitled to life and dignity without discrimination. On the one hand, Buber’s observation confronts head-on the objectification of people; on the other hand, Buber emphasizes the importance of mutual respect for the sake of building healthy relationships. His idea discreetly works to alter the way we deal with human beings who are different from us.
Man speaks in many tongues—tongues of language, of art, of action—but the spirit is one. . . . In truth language does not reside in man but man stands in language and speaks out of it—so it is with all words, all spirit. . . . Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You. He is able to do that when he enters into this relation with his whole being.21
There are however questions to ask. If “relation is mutual”22 in its fundamental nature as Buber argues, how does encountering other civilizations in the so-called mission fields easily result in putting people into categories? The giver-receiver relation has proved to be an antithesis of the I-Thou concept. We form unity by giving the receiver a label of “other.” We form barriers between us and them, which allow us to claim that we are good and they are bad. These barriers are human constructs. While Buber’s I-Thou concept offers rich analytical possibilities of understanding human relationships, the binary between