Mission Studies 39 (2022) 219–246

brill.com/mist

Missio Dei: Is There Any Common Ground?

Rolf Kjøde | ORCID: 0000-0001-6829-5624
Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Religion and Philosophy,
NLA University College, Bergen, Norway
[email protected]

Abstract

Missio Dei has become a common and valued expression in most wings of the church.
To what extent do we mean the same thing when we use this term? This article explores
the understanding of the concept missio Dei in contemporary conciliar and evan-
gelical contexts, with special emphasis on The Cape Town Commitment and Together
towards Life. Although missio Dei has had a turbulent life with diverse definitions and
connected interests in the relatively short time span of the term, there seems to be a
growing convergence in its usage. This common ground is primarily connected to the
change from an ecclesiocentric to a Trinitarian paradigm of mission and to under-
standing the kingdom of God as the goal of mission. There are, however, differences in
the documents, and these are evident in the relative emphases they give to the central-
ity of Christ and the role of the Spirit.

Keywords

missio Dei – Cape Town Commitment – Together towards Life – Trinitarian – Kingdom/
Reign of God – cosmocentric – pneumatocentric – Christocentric

1 Introduction

Missio Dei, a formula found already in St. Augustine’s discussion of the doc-
trine of the Trinity (Engelsviken 2003:482), has achieved a high status in missi-
ology. In many ways, its meaning is self-evident, at least when it is understood
as a subjective genitive. If there is a missionary calling to the church, it has
to have its source in God. Like the church, mission is in his possession. The

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church might have acted differently, in practice making the church the centre
of the Christian missionary calling, but has any church body throughout his-
tory ever suggested that, from the theological point of view, God is not the
primary sender in Christian mission?
Missio Dei is not a self-defining missiological term. After some decades
of turbulent discussion, the term now seems to be accepted in all camps of
the worldwide church. To what extent is this a sign of convergence between
the different camps and traditions? Or is the term merely used to cover over
remaining differences? These are some of the central questions of this study.
There is, moreover, a linguistic question raised by Hans Rosin when he says in
his concluding remarks, “Depending on the linguistic framework, the term has
however had a different function from the start, quite apart from the strong
modifications of content which it has undergone during the short time of its
existence” (Rosin 1972:3–5).
Jacques Matthey, who served as programme executive for mission studies
in the World Council of Churches (WCC) for a number of years, suggests that
the dominant theology of missio Dei during the 1960s and 1970s, “contributed
to sharpen the conflicts between ecumenical and evangelical circles” (Matthey
2001:429). This important observation echoes John Stott’s critique of Church
for Others in Uppsala (WCC 1968:26). The core question of my article is how the
two movements, which I prefer to refer to as “conciliar” and “evangelical,” have
come to terms with this tension in their latest official documents on mission.
This article will analyse comprehensive mission documents from the
Lausanne Movement (LM) and the World Council of Churches (WCC): The
Cape Town Commitment (CTC) of 2011, one of three representative mission doc-
uments of LM, and Together towards Life (TTL) of 2012, the latter of only two
comprehensive mission documents adopted officially by WCC. In both docu-
ments, there are numerous mentions of missio Dei in English versions of the
term, “the mission of God” or “God’s mission.” In fact, the Latin term missio Dei
does not appear in CTC. In TTL, we find the Latin formula twice, both times in
brackets. It seems to stand as a technical term, pointing to where their English
translation derives its content (TTL 2012: §§ 11; 43).

2 The Origins of Contemporary Understandings of Missio Dei

Karl Barth derived the term missio “from the doctrine of the Trinity” in 1932
(Richebächer 2003:590, note 13). A couple of decades later, at the meeting of
the International Missionary Council (IMC) in Willingen in 1952, the Trinitarian
emphasis in the understanding of mission came to prominence. The formula

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missio Dei, though, only appeared in the report from Karl Hartenstein after this
meeting. Hartenstein, who coined the formula missio Dei in 1934 as distinct
from missio ecclesiae, represented a Barthian tradition with an emphasis on
“the purpose of the establishment of Christ’s dominion over all the redeemed
creation” (Hartenstein 1952:54). However, according to John Flett “missio Dei
lacks theological development.” Especially it needs “a more robust grounding
in the doctrine of the Trinity” (Flett 2014:70). Instead of using the term to per-
mit “unqualified drawing of missionary ideas into ecclesiology” (Flett 2014:69),
Flett suggests a return to Barth’s emphasis on “[t]he divine intervention […]
as a mediation which is most proper to Him, which takes first place in himself”
(Flett 2014:71; italics used by Flett).
With George F. Vicedom comes the first comprehensive development of
the concept, using the term missio Dei. He takes as his starting point the use
that we know from Hartenstein, that missio Dei is the continuing sending
of the church, following the sending of the Son and the Spirit. On the other
hand, Vicedom also proposes the idea that this sending is a missio Dei specialis
(Vicedom 1960:43; see also 15), which is marked by the sending of Jesus Christ
and the gift of the Holy Spirit as God’s redeeming act. However, Vicedom’s use
of this term lacks clarity. Is there consequently a sort of missio Dei generalis (a
term construed by Berentsen 1983:2–4) which is different from the missio Dei
specialis? While introducing for the first time the formula die spezielle Missio
Dei, Vicedom in the same paragraph talks about missio Dei in a more generic
meaning of the formula: “This missio Dei, which embraces all of God’s action,
can therefore also be described as the reign of God” (Vicedom 1960:15–16).
Hans R. Rosin points out this ambiguity in Vicedom. He further shows that
after Willingen there was tension over what the Trinitarian turn in the under-
standing of mission should mean, and he argues that missio Dei became a Trojan
horse of ecumenical theology of mission (Rosin 1972:25–26). Hartenstein’s
understanding of missio Dei was entirely in terms of the Heilsgeschichte, of the
salvation history as he emphasised “the Trinitarian foundation and the univer-
sal redemptive purpose of mission” (Engelsviken 2003:482). However, Rosin’s
reference to the Trojan horse points to what he calls “the (unassimilated)
‘American’ vision” of voices pleading for the wider political implications of the
Trinitarian perspective on mission (Rosin 1972:17).
From the early 1960s, the concept of missio Dei “developed mainly in the
Western European context of uncritical appraisal of secularization” (Matthey
2010:22). James A. Scherer quotes the meeting of the Commission on World
Mission and Evangelism (CWME) in Mexico 1963 saying, “Mission has to take
place from within this world” (Scherer 1987:109). The unresolved issue in
Mexico, as Rosin points out, led to a move in the direction of understanding

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mission as “everything God is doing in the world, apparently independently of

the Christian community” (Rosin 1972:26).
During the 1960s, Dutch theologian Johannes C. Hoekendijk, the former
Secretary for Evangelism in WCC, was a leading voice. He stated, “Church-centric
missionary thinking is bound to go astray, because it revolves around an ille-
gitimate center” (Hoekendijk 1967:38). Hoekendijk himself does not use the
formula missio Dei extensively. However, his ideas linked up to and spurred on
the secular turn in the understanding of mission. He goes on to say that “the
church has no fixed place at all in this context,” that “the church may be of
only little relevance” (Hoekendijk 1967:40). His horizon seems to be predomi-
nantly immanent and leads to a universalist understanding of salvation when
he states, “That Christ is our hope means that we may declare to everyone that
for Christ’s sake things are all right with the world.” Therefore, he continues, we
can “free ourselves from all sorts of traditional fuss”, as “in the apostolate we are
dealing with the Kingdom-for-the-world” (Hoekendijk 1967:59).
Two relatively recent studies suggest a more nuanced understanding of
Hoekendijk’s position. Although these are largely beyond the scope of our
study, they do have implications for understanding the historical develop-
ment of the concept of missio Dei. A key issue for Dale Irvin is to emphasize
that Hoekendijk’s harsh critique of the church never intended to sideline the
genuine church, the church “from below.” Hoekendijk, Irvin suggests, primar-
ily stands up against the ecclesiocentrism represented by established Western
church institutions (Irvin 2019:7). Following John Flett (2016), Irvin shows how
Hoekendijk’s specific term “apostolate” relates to the church to the extent that
she discovers her purpose. I am less convinced by Irvin’s attempt to lessen
the differences between Hoekendijk and Lesslie Newbigin (Irvin 2019:4–5).
Even though they seemed insignificant at the beginning, the differences over
the years developed into a wide chasm. In the end, we cannot avoid viewing
Hoekendijk as a main contributor to the radical and secular development that
culminated in 1968.
Missio Dei was a key concept leading up to the WCC General Assembly in
Uppsala 1968, when it was agreed that God’s mission should aim at estab-
lishing shalom (WCC 1967:14–16). Hoekendijk claimed that “[t]his concept
in all its comprehensive richness should be our leitmotiv in Christian work”
(Hoekendijk 1967:19–20). In Uppsala, the overwhelming understanding of this
was social and political, aiming at what an American group of theologians at
the assembly called “humanization”. Hartenstein’s Trinitarian and redemptive
sending of Christ received no emphasis. We hardly find Vicedom’s ambiguity
between (general) creation and (special) redemption in missio Dei. The domi-
nant emphasis is on a “secular interpretation of the missio Dei” (Bevans and

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Schroeder 2004:291). While saying that this development was “contrary to the
intentions of Barth and also of Hartenstein,” David Bosch comments, “By intro-
ducing the phrase, Hartenstein had hoped to protect mission against secular-
ization and horizontalization and reserve it exclusively for God. That did not
happen” (Bosch 1991:392).
It would appear that the formula missio Dei more or less faded out during
the 1970s. Up to that point, it had become an expression owned by a politically
radical wing of the conciliar movement. For many others it had become a ter-
minus non gratis, an unwelcome term.

3 The Content of the Formula Missio Dei

We have observed how the formula missio Dei was understood in a variety
of different ways in its early years. Before looking at further developments
since then, let us take one step back. According to Bosch, Dutch theologian
L. Hoedemaker said that the concept can be “used by people who subscribe
to mutually exclusive theological positions” (Bosch 1991:392). Is it still pos-
sible to find some sort of common conviction behind the idea? In the midst
of differing emphases, what stands out as distinctive with this formula? As in
many ways it has set a new missiological agenda, is there any common ground
between the different understandings of the term?
After the two world wars, Western European culture and politics faced a
radical crisis of global dimensions. This also implied a changed situation for
the Western churches, a situation which altered the relations within the global
church. Old patterns of dominance had to be changed, with huge implica-
tions over time for the understanding of the mission of the church. It was
above all the mainline churches which in 1948 formed WCC, a body which was
fused with the IMC in 1961, with the intention of strengthening global unity.
Did this lead to improved agendas for the non-Western churches? It certainly
did later, but in the 1960s the WCC agenda seems to have been dominated by
the response to Western secular ideas in discussions dominated by Western
male clergy and academics.
However, the conciliar movement started to see and discuss the need to
rethink Christian mission. The most frequently used word to characterise
this rethinking is “Trinitarian”. We can find different words used to describe
the former way of thinking. Some will call the old paradigm ecclesiocentric,
others Christocentric, or even anthropocentric. One problem with labels like
this is the tendency to use them with stigmatising intentions and thus cre-
ate caricatures, or to reserve positive connotations for one group and not for

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another. As we will see, Christocentrism still characterises some streams of

Trinitarian thinking, so it is hard to say that missio Dei is a turning away per se
from Christocentrism. Calling the older position anthropocentric tends to be
a caricature, as who has ever taken God out of the equation? In this article, we
will consider the shift primarily as turning from ecclesiocentric understanding
and practise of mission, to a Trinitarian and regnocentric understanding.1
If we are to pursue our study of the term, we need to find sustainable cat-
egories that enable us to make distinctions without stigmatising. There are no
clear, established models to discern the different sorts of understanding of
missio Dei. No clearly defined categories have come into common use or been
embraced as common categories in order to distinguish between different
interpretations. Michael Goheen, however, has presented two labels which are
helpful. He distinguishes between what he calls a “Christocentric-Trinitarian”
model and a “Cosmocentric-Trinitarian” model (Goheen 2000:117–118). He
makes this distinction in his analysis of early developments. Both streams in
the early years intended to be Trinitarian, while at the same time taking differ-
ent directions. Goheen confirms his understanding that the statements from
Willingen in 1952 “concealed profound differences about the nature of the
Trinitarian basis” (Goheen 2000:117). The original Barthian emphasis clearly
had Christ as the centre of gravity, while the Hoekendijk turn defined the
world as the locus of mission. Jacques Matthey makes the same distinction
between the two streams since Willingen, but he only labels the first one “clas-
sical” while not labelling the other (Matthey 2001:429).
Goheen uses the labels to point to a discrepancy from Willingen onwards.
His focus is primarily to clarify what he sees as the developing Christocentric-
Trinitarian position of Lesslie Newbigin. It is not his intention to give any com-
prehensive definition of the labels or categories. Therefore, we need to clarify
our understanding of them, and we will do so by contrasting issues that are
often not clear-cut. The following, then, is an attempt to clarify categories by
which we later can compare the contents of CTC and TTL. The differences
might be crystallised under the following four points.
Firstly, what does ‘Trinitarian’ mean? Is it a replacement of the Christocentric
tradition or is it an enlargement of it? Hartenstein and those who pursued his
line of thought will tend to say the latter. Christ himself is the one revealing
the Father in the Holy Spirit. The radical wing after Willingen tends to go for a

1 ‘Regnocentric’ refers to the Latin word regnum, meaning kingdom, realm or reign, and
describes here the consummation of God’s kingdom rather than the growth of the church as
the goal of God’s mission.

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broader replacement approach, widening it to an understanding of a preced-

ing revelation by the Father and the Spirit in creation and culture.
Secondly, and as a consequence of the first point, a Christocentric-Trinitarian
approach will, while retaining a broad understanding of the activity of the
triune God, use the term missio Dei to refer to Christ’s redeeming work for
the fallen world by a loving God. Mission is salvific by nature, “caught up in
God’s redeeming action” (Goheen 2000:117), and, as such, is part of God’s
Heilsgeschichte. On the other hand, although it will also entail a divine
redemptive work, a cosmocentric-Trinitarian approach will understand mis-
sion as broader and more independent of the narrower perspective of fall and
salvation. Missio Dei comes already to expression in creation itself. Therefore,
it is an expression of God’s work in broader and general history and tends to
downplay the role of salvation history. Berentsen calls it “a generic term for
God’s total activity” (Berentsen 1983:6).
Thirdly, the different approaches to the distinction between creation and
redemption might lead to different theologies of salvific universalism. Will all
be saved in the end, or is salvation uniquely and solely found through faith in
the person of Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection?
Fourthly, who is sent? The entire concept of missio Dei is that God is both
the one who sends and the one who is sent, but following this sending nature
of God, who follows God in his mission? The classical understanding, to use
Matthey’s label, points to the church as being sent in God’s mission with
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The leading theological trend about missio Dei
before and in Uppsala focused, according to Matthey, on “people of good will”
who work for justice “in the secular political and social events of the world”
(Matthey 2001:429).
In our explorations, we will use Goheen’s labels as categories of distinction
in accordance with the above clarifications, but we will also add at least two
perspectives to the discussion. First of all, as we will see and discuss while
exploring missio Dei in TTL, we might consider adding a “pneumatocentric-
Trinitarian” perspective. From the Trinitarian starting point, the concept
divides, then, into a Christocentric-Trinitarian, a cosmocentric-Trinitarian and
maybe even a pneumatocentric-Trinitarian direction, depending on different
emphases for what Trinitarian implies.
Secondly, building upon a Trinitarian foundation, the renewed kingdom-
perspective, or regnocentrism in mission also stands out as distinctively
connected with the concept of missio Dei. The kingdom-perspective is sub-
ordinate to the Trinitarian turn in shaping the missio Dei concept. However,
the kingdom perspective occurred very early, and we might see it as a natural
consequence of an enlarged missiology where missio Dei is greater than missio

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ecclesiae. The entire missio Dei concept implied a heavy criticism of mission
as a movement from the mainline churches within colonial power structures,
and with an Enlightenment heritage. This older and optimistic project might
be considered anthropocentric, even though it is more appropriate to criticise
it for acting as if the church was the goal of her own mission. Says Bosch, “It is
inconceivable that we could again revert to a narrow, ecclesiocentric view of
mission” (Bosch 1991:393).
Thus, we find it useful to add a regnocentric turn to the renewed Trinitarian
basis of Christian mission. Understandings of what the term regnocentric
means differ in the same way as understandings of missio Dei differ. The king-
dom, or reign, as many prefer to refer to it, might be understood as God’s rule
over creation in a way that primarily leads to social and political transforma-
tion. Alternatively, the kingdom or reign refers to and flows primarily from the
redemptive work of Christ, even though this is not without social implications.
The South-African missiologist David Bosch was an important figure
on the broader ecclesial scene for the further development of missiology.
Writing extensively about missio Dei in 1980 he observes, “Roman Catholics
and Protestants alike subscribe to this view’ of moving ‘from an ecclesiologi-
cal to a Trinitarian missiology.” He continues to point to the danger of dwell-
ing on abstractions of vocabulary and underscores the need “to elaborate in
more detail what we mean by a Trinitarian foundation in mission” (Bosch
1980:240). In his book about paradigm shifts in missiology, he counts mis-
sio Dei among the decisive elements of a post-enlightenment missiology for
our time. Following the views of Moltmann and Aagaard, he concludes that,
“there is church because there is mission, not vice versa” (Bosch 1991:390).
He confirms and strengthens this message in his last and posthumous book,
“Because God is a missionary God, God’s people are missionary people” (Bosch
1995:32). Bosch’s views seem close to what we have labelled a Christological-
Trinitarian approach.
Our understanding is that the missio Dei shift in missiology leads from a
predominantly ecclesiocentric concept of mission to a Trinitarian and regno-
centric concept. The question is what such central theological concepts as the
Trinity and the Kingdom of God mean and imply in the respective traditions.
In the years following the two documents in our study, discourse about how
to understand the term missio Dei has developed further in relation to the issue
of the Trinity. Korean theologian Chung-Hyun Baik is critical of how the con-
cept of missio Dei relates to an outdated discussion. “At Willingen and beyond
it has not been fully Trinitarian” as “[w]e approach it primarily in relation to
missio ecclesiae” (Baik 2021:339). His key to further perspectives on missio Dei is
processio Dei, “the procession of the triune God”.

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In a recent book, Indian theologian Sarosh Koshy discusses the issue of

going “beyond Missio Dei”. He makes a post-colonial critique of mission, using
the deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida as his guide. He points to
public speech as witnessing, rather than preaching or proclaiming, and is radi-
cally critical of what he calls “the system of dual conversions.” He argues “that
both becoming human and becoming Christian need to be understood as a
singular or non-dual act” (Koshy 2021:20).
These two contributions are rather critical of the lack of radical ecumeni-
cal rethinking. Baik brings to the fore again Hoekendijk and the shalom and
“humanization” of 1968 (Baik 2021:338), while Koshy gives an open critique of
TTL as an “impossible balancing act that makes no one comfortable” as long as
they stay with an understanding of mission as “sending” (Koshy 2021:7).
Australian theologian Darren Cronshaw replaces missio Dei with missio
Trinitas as his key term. He uses this in a discussion with key representatives
of the missional church movement, out of a concern that they are remaining
within the conceptual framework that they criticise. On the basis of Orthodox
theologian John Zizioulas’ social Trinitarian theology, he “invites the people of
God into an abiding relation that nourishes mission” (Cronshaw 2020:131). As
Cronshaw’s perspective is in danger of becoming a bit lofty in its mysticism,
New Zealander Lynne Taylor asks to what extent missio Dei might be an object
of research, if the methodology of critical realism and grounded theory are
used (Taylor 2020:53). None of these articles from Oceania shed light directly
on our subject. However, they represent a further exploration of ideas that
would be recognised on the evangelical side.

4 Missio Dei in the Broader Conciliar Context prior to Together

towards Life

Looking at the formula missio Dei after Uppsala 1968, “it is striking how mark-
edly it has moved in the background” in WCC, observes Berentsen (1983:7). The
General Assembly of WCC in Nairobi 1975, after intense discussions, brought
back a much sharper focus on evangelism as a “call to confess and proclaim.”
This is the calling of the church, as it “is the proper and primary instrument
of God’s mission” (Scherer 1987:130). This is in many ways a different message
from that of Hoekendijk and Uppsala. From 1975 until the late 1990s, discus-
sion of missio Dei directly in creation and in the cultural mandate seems rare in
official WCC documents. This does not imply that these voices had totally dis-
appeared. According to Berentsen, missiologist Johannes Verkuyl, in the docu-
ments leading up to the CWME conference in Melbourne 1980, distinguished

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between missio politica oecumenica and missiones ecclesiarum in a way that

repeated the understanding of missio Dei from the 1960s, “as an integrated
designation of God’s work in general – in creation as well as in redemption”
(Berentsen 1983:9). This was an important issue concerning what it means that
the kingdom of God is the goal of mission.2
Matthey observes that since the mid-1980s, conciliar documents refer to
missio Dei with “more ‘classical’ formulations” (Matthey 2001:430). In 1982,
WCC through CWME worked out and released its first official and comprehen-
sive mission document Mission and Evangelism – An Ecumenical Affirmation
(EA). We observe that this very central document never mentions the term
missio Dei. It is hard not to believe that this is a deliberate choice. The English
‘mission of God’ occurs once, addressing “the church itself as a function of
the mission of God.” This does not mean that the characteristics of missio Dei
are missing. On the contrary, Matthey seems correct in saying, “EA is built on
a Trinitarian basis with a Christological concentration” (EA 2005:2). Already
in its first paragraph, EA confirms mission as fulfilling the Trinitarian calling
of the church. At the same time, the document is clearly Christocentric in its
approach, calling it “this mission of mediation in Christ” (EA 2005: §6). Thus,
“our proclamation is Christ and Christ crucified” (EA 2005: §7). It states already
in the Preface that “the church is sent,” (EA 2005: Preface) and calls the church
“the missionary people of God” (EA 2005: §39). EA thus carries clear signs of
what we have defined as the Christocentric-Trinitarian category.
Mission and Evangelism in Unity Today (MEUT), published by CWME 2000
for the next world mission conference in Athens 2005, elaborates further the
term missio Dei within the framework of WCC. Seeing the mission of God as
limitless, it says that missio Dei “has been at work within the entire human race
and the whole of creation throughout history.” Furthermore, it states that the
Trinitarian approach to the term “promotes a more inclusive understanding
of God’s presence at work in the whole world” (MEUT 2005: §§11–12). These
expressions seem to point to “openness to others” with regard to the theology
of religions. As MEUT honestly exposes the unresolved tension within WCC on

2 Lesslie Newbigin was a central figure in both IMC and CWME. For decades he was an influ-
ential leader and writer, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. He was profoundly concerned that
the Trinitarian missiology in WCC should not lose its Christocentrism (Newbigin 1994:2). In
a strong critique of the WWC General Secretary Konrad Raiser, accusing him of speaking
‘often of the incarnation but not about the atonement’, the elderly Newbigin underscored
‘the centrality of Jesus and his atoning work on the cross’ (Newbigin 1994:3–4). He attacked
‘the ideology of the 1960s’ and ended up pointing to what he considered Raiser’s ‘total amne-
sia in respect of the missionary and evangelistic work of the churches’ (Newbigin 1994:5).
Newbigin was probably one of the most influential missiologists as the most radical waves
from around 1970 settled and WCC started its process of reaching a common understanding
of mission and evangelism.

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Missio Dei: Is There Any Common Ground? 229

these questions, the understanding of missio Dei leads to a clear “discernment

of the signs of the Spirit’s presence among people of other faiths and no faith”
(MEUT 2005: §§58–61). However, as Peniel Rajkumar has clarified, MEUT seeks
to avoid any separation between “the presence of God or the Spirit, from the
Son,” making MEUT more careful on the theology of religions than the Baar
statement Theological Perspectives on Plurality ten years earlier (Rajkumar
2016:225–226). By anchoring missio Dei in “the whole of creation,” MEUT also
puts heavy emphasis on the holistic nature of mission.
Mission and Ministry of Reconciliation (MMR), published by CWME in 2005,
connects with MEUT in its understanding of missio Dei (MMR 2005: §22). MMR,
though, is clearly Christocentric in its scope (MMR 2005: §§15–21). “The human
predicament that creates the need for reconciliation with God’ is addressed as
‘sin’, which creates ‘alienation from God’ and ‘enmity between God and human
beings” (MMR 2005: §17). The same paragraph points to the atoning sacrifice
of Christ on the cross as his substitutionary death for us. This develops the
tradition of EA and connects well with what we find in evangelical documents.
At the same time, MMR emphasises the work of the Holy Spirit more than the
previous WCC documents. The Spirit ‘transforms the church and empowers it
to be missional’ (MMR 2005: §61). It is hard to tell how wide the implications of
this are for discerning the signs of the Spirit in a variety of faiths and commit-
ments (MMR 2005: §25). In MMR, elements of Orthodox pneumatology also
shed light on the understanding of God’s mission (MMR 2005: §27). The word
shalom returns as the final goal of God’s mission which is understood in holis-
tic categories (MMR 2005: §62).3

5 Missio Dei in Together towards Life

TTL has four main parts, as well as an introduction and a conclusion. All of the
main sections: mission, liberation, community and Pentecost, take the Spirit as

3 Anne Marie Aagaard observes that missio Dei is a ‘terminus technicus for a certain under-
standing of mission with a Protestant origin’, also calling it ‘a Protestant recoinage of the the-
ology of mission’ (Aagaard 1974:421). Her question is whether Catholic missiology can adopt
the concept. This important question will not be elaborated in our study, but the Second
Vatican Council (1962–65) brings sharp focus on the sending Trinity and on the missionary
nature of the church. These are important elements of the missio Dei discussion. Since the
1980s, the Catholics have been members of CWME and have contributed extensively to the
broader missiological discussions.
The Orthodox churches have been part of the WCC discussions since the 1960s. Bevans and
Schroeder claim ‘Much of the renewal in trinitarian theology in the West owes its inspiration
to Orthodox theology’, e.g. on the understanding of trinitarian theology about the ‘radical
communal nature of God’ (Bevans and Schroeder 2004:288, 294).

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their starting point, while the entire text centres on an understanding of “life”.
“Affirming life” and “life-affirming” are terms occurring repeatedly. This theme
of life is constantly related to “the Holy Spirit, the Life-giver, who sustains and
empowers life and renews the whole creation” (TTL 2012: §1). From the very
first paragraphs, TTL places great emphasis on the need to recognise “God’s
mission in a cosmic sense and to affirm all life, the whole oikoumene, as being
interconnected in God’s web of life” (TTL 2012: §4). The words used to relate
this theme to mission are frequently justice, peace, healing and reconciliation
which are needed in order to move forward towards life in its fullness. TTL con-
cludes that “the purpose of God’s mission is fullness of life” (TTL 2012: §102).
The key biblical reference is John 10:10b, the promise by the good shepherd to
give life abundantly to his flock. There is no reflection on the context of this
verse, as it occurs in John’s Gospel where the words “life” and even “eternal life”
are terms with particular connotations.
The first section is about how the breath of life is the Spirit of mission.
The emphasis on pneumatology is placed within a strong Trinitarian context.
God is a “missionary God.” As TTL states, “Mission begins in the heart of the
Triune God, and the love which binds together the Holy Trinity overflows to
all humanity and creation” (TTL 2012: §2). There is much emphasis on the
creation-Spirit axis. After calling mission “the overflow of the infinite love of
the Triune God,” it continues, “God’s mission begins with the act of creation”
(TTL 2012: §19; 103). Mission even “has creation at its heart” (TTL 2012: §105).
There is a “universality of the Spirit’s economy in creation” as well as “the par-
ticularity of the Spirit’s work in redemption” (TTL 2012: §15). Mission needs to
be woven together with our being creatures dwelling in creation in such a way
that “humans can participate in communion with all of creation in celebrat-
ing the work of the Creator. In many ways creation is in mission to humanity”
(TTL 2012: §§21–22). While there is also a focus on the Spirit in the sense of
revival through his gifts, his charismata, this traditional charismatic and pen-
tecostal profile is not very significant compared with the connection between
Spirit and creation. There is far more on the Spirit hovering over the waters in
Genesis 1 than about the Spirit filling the disciples in Acts 2. Because the Spirit
precedes the revelation of the gospel in Christ, we should consider him present
not only in creation, but also in different cultures and faiths.
We have reason to believe that TTL aims at a balanced Trinitarian empha-
sis. While holding to “a pneumatological focus on Christian mission”, TTL still
“recognises that mission is essentially Christologically-based and related to the
work of the Spirit to salvation through Jesus Christ” (TTL 2012:§16). However,
Stephen Bevans refers to what he calls “one of the consistent critiques of TTL,”
namely “its rather weak – or perhaps better, implicit – Christology” (Bevans

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2015:132). This comment corresponds with my reading of the document as its

centre of gravity lies in the Spirit of creation in such a way that traditional
Christology and ecclesial pneumatology become subordinate issues.
During the discussion in section two about the importance of confirming
mission from the margins, God’s mission takes on a relatively secular agenda.
Missio Dei means that God is “the One who acts in history and in creation, in
concrete realities of time and contexts, who seeks the fullness of life for the
whole earth through justice, peace and reconciliation.” This leads to “decon-
structing patriarchal ideologies, upholding the right to self-determination for
Indigenous peoples, and challenging the social embeddedness of racism and
casteism” (TTL 2012: §43). TTL gives much space to “mission from the margins,”
but there is no discussion of the phrase’s lack of clarity, nor questions such as:
Who has the right to define others as being at the margins? If the centre of
gravity of the church has moved south, who then is marginal? This ecclesial
discussion on centre and margins, however, does not seem to be a major focus
of TTL. The marginal seem to be the powerless, poor, vulnerable, exploited,
and oppressed of the world (TTL 2012: §37–38).
This might help to explain the rather dominant secular agenda in TTL which
nevertheless presents God’s mission as mission from the margins. Allen Yeh
comments that while TTL anchors mission from the margins in the paschal
mystery, Ҥ32 delineates the cross as panacea for earthly rather than spiritual
ailments” (Yeh 2016:459). In my opinion, this is a fair observation.
God’s mission in TTL clearly finds its foundation to a great extent in the
creation mandate and in the preceding work of the Spirit in all cultures. Thus,
TTL sees missio Dei largely in terms of general history. However, section three
is about the church in mission and section four about the calling of the church
to evangelise. The entire aim of the church is “to fulfil God’s missionary pur-
pose” as she “came into being for the sake of mission” (TTL 2012: §57). Echoing
the fathers of the term, “it is not the church that has a mission but rather the
mission that has a church.” In this perspective, and for the sake of “embody-
ing God’s salvation in the world,” we need an ecclesiology “from below” (TTL
2012: §58). In his comparison of TTL and The Church: Towards a Common Vision,
a document on the church also released by WCC in 2013, Bevans challenges the
lack of structural consciousness in TTL, “making its treatment of mission less
ecclesiological” (Bevans 2015:133).
To accomplish what she is here for, TTL challenges the church to promote
unity. This implies unity between what we have held separate, such as church
and mission, and between the churches themselves. However, this call to unity
goes further, as it challenges us “to open up our reflections on church and unity
to an even wider understanding of unity; the unity of humanity and even the

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cosmic unity of the whole of God’s creation” (TTL 2012: §61). It is not imme-
diately clear what this implies, but it seems to confirm what we have already
seen in the first two sections of TTL, that God’s mission is much wider than the
mission of the church, including all of humanity and creation.
In the title of section three “Spirit of Community: Church on the Move,” TTL
summarises the dual character of the church. As the church is on the move,
she is seemingly nothing in herself. Most of the emphasis of TTL is on what it
means for the church to be on the move, rather than on the church as the com-
munity of salvation, called together by God to be the sign and anticipation of
the coming kingdom or realm of God. However, TTL is also influenced by the
Orthodox view of mission, that mission and diakonia flow from the commu-
nity (TTL 2012: §§74; 78), and therefore the mission of the church is perceived
as the “liturgy after the Liturgy” (TTL 2012: §17). The overall impression, how-
ever, is that TTL has a somewhat instrumental understanding of the church as
a tool for God’s mission.
TTL refers to mission as “essentially Christologically-based” and “empha-
sizes the Holy Spirit as fully dependent on Christ” as one side of the biblical
witness (TTL 2012: §16). God’s mission must also follow “the way of the Servant
Lord” (TTL 2012: §78) and do “mission in Christ’s way” (TTL 2012: §88). This is
central to the fourth section which is about evangelism. However, TTL does
not have a very Christocentric understanding of God’s mission. While linking
evangelism to “the centrality of the incarnation, suffering, and resurrection of
Jesus Christ,” the text adds “without setting limits to the saving grace of God”
(TTL 2012: §80). This seems like hesitation to admit an exclusive understand-
ing of salvation in Jesus Christ, whereas “the Holy Spirit works in mysterious
ways, and we do not fully understand the workings of the Spirit in other faith
traditions.” It follows that dialogue, rather than preaching and proclamation,
comes to the centre of the evangelistic task in God’s mission. TTL goes further,
though, saying that the church should not only be dialogical as there is “inher-
ent value and wisdom in diverse life-giving spiritualities … authentic mission
makes the ‘other’ a partner in, not an ‘object’ of mission” (TTL 2012: §§93–94).
TTL does not focus specifically on the kingdom or reign of God. However,
all of mission aims at the kingdom of God. We do “discern signs of God’s reign
on earth” while seeking justice, inclusivity and healing (TTL 2012: §§46; 51).
The church itself “can be a sign of hope and an expression of the kingdom of
God here on earth” (TTL 2012:§54), as this kingdom is the goal of evangelism
(TTL 2012:§109).
As God’s mission is to a great extent related to the created order and the
cultural mandate, it is less connected with a specific focus on salvation his-
tory and more understood in terms of general history and God’s activ-
ity in its totality. There are similarities between this and what, according to

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Johannes Aagaard, characterised the goal of missio Dei in the 1960s. “This goal
embraces God’s action in creation and redemption, so that no division is pos-
sible” (Aagaard 1973:14; italics mine). This missing distinction in TTL between
creation and redemption means that the question of the scope of salvation
remains ambiguous. We cannot point to any unambiguous expression of sal-
vific universalism in any paragraph of TTL. On the other hand, the aims of
God’s mission are dominantly immanent, and the very inclusive language
towards people of other faiths and of no faith makes the issue of universalism
at least an open question.
As we have seen, TTL includes “all of creation” in missio Dei, so that even
“creation is in mission to humanity.” What does this mean for our understand-
ing of the more specific mission of the church in evangelism? TTL holds on to
an evangelistic task pointing to Jesus and the kingdom of God but, as we have
seen, even here TTL broadens the perspective to make the ‘other’ a partner
in mission.
Unlike the most radical understandings of missio Dei in the late 1960s, TTL
gives the church a significant role in God’s mission. Thus, TTL is different from
certain secular models in the times of Hoekendijk. It goes far, however, in
including the “other” as partner in the gospel mandate of the church. Even
though it also aims at including Christology, TTL’s Trinitarian model is still not
Christocentric. TTL puts the Spirit at the centre of mission, but the emphasis
on the Spirit in creation and in the cultures indicates an understanding of mis-
sio Dei primarily in the direction of cosmocentric-Trinitarian categories, even
though there are also obvious pneumatocentric elements.

6 Missio Dei in the Broader Evangelical Context Prior to

The Cape Town Commitment

Does the evangelical wing of the church have an understanding of or response

to missio Dei? While presenting different constants of theology in a variety of
historical contexts, Bevans and Schroeder also analyse the concept of missio
Dei. They ascribe varying missiological characteristics to the different wings
of the church, such as Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, and Conciliar
Protestant. In their analysis of the concept of missio Dei, however, they leave
out the evangelicals from the comparison (Bevans and Schroeder 2004:296).
Does this imply that Evangelicals are without an understanding of, or a
response to missio Dei?
The evangelical use of the concept was established relatively late. The con-
gresses on world mission in Berlin and at Wheaton in 1966 made no use of
the term, nor did they discuss Trinitarian theology. The Wheaton Declaration

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comments on the idea of universalism of salvation in the following words,

“The universalist merely proclaims a universal Lordship of Christ and sum-
mons men to acknowledge it in their lives” (Wheaton 1966:12).
The Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974 reacted against
the conciliar development and more specifically against the demand from
the Bangkok Assembly of CWME in 1973 about a “moratorium” on Western
mission. Even though the Lausanne Covenant (LC) never mentions the term
“God’s mission” in either Latin or English, it points to the Trinitarian faith
(LC 1974: §§ 5; 14), but without spelling out the implications. However, John
Stott, the major author of LC, emphasised in his keynote address to the con-
gress that “the mission of the church arises from the mission of God and is to
be modelled on it” (Stott 1975:66). Two of the reports from the congress contain
important elements showing how the LM related to the ongoing debates. Klaas
Runia explores the Trinitarian nature of God, but without saying too much
about mission, while J. Andrew Kirk unfolds the relation between God’s king-
dom and the church, with implications for mission.
In the Manila Manifesto (MM) from the Lausanne Second World Congress
in 1989, there is still no emphasis on God’s mission as a term. The kingdom-
perspective is sharper, with implications for “the lordship of Jesus Christ over
all of life” (MM 1989: section 4). As a sign of God’s kingdom, the church should
be “an indication of what human community looks like when it comes under
his rule of righteousness and peace” (MM 1975: section 8).
In the evangelical missiological community, the Trinitarian influence came
clearly to expression in the Iguasso Dialogue, held by the Missions Commission
of the World Evangelical Alliance in 1999. The keynote Bible studies reflected
on biblical Trinitarianism and mission, but the term missio Dei is largely absent
from the papers. The Iguasso Affirmation declares, “All three Persons of the
Godhead are active in God’s redeeming mission” (Iguasso 2000:17), and further,
“We commit ourselves to a renewed emphasis on God-centered missiology”
(Iguasso 2000:19). The emphasis is on God’s redeeming action for his fallen
creation and is careful and classical in its focus. Alan Roxburgh goes further,
while addressing the contemporary implications. “A Trinitarian missiology
is foundational to engaging the cultures of a pluralized, post-modern world”
(Roxburgh 2000:183).
Roxburgh has been a key contributor to The Gospel and Our Culture
Network, which largely had an evangelical background, even though not
restricted to that. The literature from the network is clearly indebted to Lesslie
Newbigin’s missional ecclesiology, but their critique of the old Christendom
paradigm is more radical than Newbigin’s (Goheen 2000:436). Since the late
1990s, they have played an active role in coining the term “missional” to refer

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to the church. “Thus our challenge today is to move from church with mission
to missional church” (Guder 1998:6). Mission is primarily something that the
church is by its very nature, not something it simply engages in. Its doing gen-
erates from its being. This ecclesiology has parallels with some central aspects
of missio Dei, a concept that Darrell Guder considers is the key for unlocking
our understanding of what mission is. All mission and evangelism are “rooted
in the missio Dei” (Guder 2000:25). Guder constitutes a clear understanding of
missio Dei as leading to God’s “salvific actions in human history,” stating that
“such a theology is obviously Christocentric” (Guder 2000:47–48).
Evangelicals will usually be reluctant to accept the tendency of universalism
which we can find in some aspects of the missio Dei tradition. Malaysian evan-
gelical missiologist, Methodist Bishop Hwa Yung, points to the consequences
of taking a universalistic stance towards salvation. Discussing Hoekendijk’s
position, he states, “if all (…) are to be saved (…), then what is important is
not evangelization but socio-political action and humanization. Since the lat-
ter is identified with missio Dei, and the church is where God is supposedly at
work, then the locus of the church’s identity is where socio-political action for
humanity’s welfare or humanization occurs!” (Yung 2014:34). A similar warn-
ing against the danger of not distinguishing between creation and redemption
in missio Dei has also come from evangelical Lutheran missiologists (Berentsen
1983:11–14; Engelsviken 2003:489–490).
Leading evangelical theologian and Old Testament exegete Christopher
Wright has written comprehensively on both God’s mission and the mission of
God’s people. He pays little attention to the Latin phrase, but while acknowl-
edging that the Latin verb mitto means primarily “to send,” he also adds that he
will talk about “mission in its more general sense” (Wright 2006:23). This sheds
light on the double meaning of the word “mission” in the English language,
which is not common in many other languages and thus is potentially con-
fusing when “missio Dei” and “God’s mission” are used interchangeably. While
“mission” in English means not only sending, but also “task” or “purpose” as in
ordinary action and business plans, the Latin word seems to be restricted to
the sending perspective.
Wright criticises the conciliar tendency to use the term missio Dei to refer
“simply to God’s involvement with the whole historical process, not to any spe-
cific work of the church” (Wright 2006:63). He admits that in a broader sense
of the word “mission,” the whole of humanity has a mission related to the cre-
ation mandate (Wright 2006:65), but his entire emphasis is on the mandate
of the church and on redemption. However, this redemption also involves the
redemption of God’s creation (Wright 2006:23). This might be the most chal-
lenging message from Wright to his evangelical friends: How comprehensive is

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salvation? Wright points to the cosmic reign of God in Christ and places great
emphasis on the missional calling to care for creation (Wright 2010:31, 48–62).

7 Missio Dei in The Cape Town Commitment

CTC consists of two large parts, each with several paragraphs. Part I was a text
written before the congress in 2010, primarily by Chris Wright, while a group
of theologians under Wright’s leadership worked out Part II during and imme-
diately after the congress on the basis of the topics and issues covered day by
day in a variety of sessions at the congress. Part I has a confessional or even
worshipping style. The basic idea is that the mission of the church is a response
to the great gift of love from God, an expression of our love for Him.
CTC is confessionally and classically Trinitarian, and it expresses our love to
the living God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “In the unity of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, God alone is the Creator, Ruler, Judge, and Saviour of the world”
(CTC 2011: Part I, 2). However, there is no exploration of what the communal
nature of God implies. The text goes directly to expressions like “God’s mis-
sion” and “the mission of God” as if the terms carry an established common
understanding. CTC uses these expressions almost interchangeably with “the
Church’s mission,” “Christian mission” and ‘Biblical mission’. Stating, “the
Church’s mission goes on,” it continues by saying, “the mission of God con-
tinues,” as if the two phrases are identical (CTC 2011: Preamble). At the end
of the paragraph, the text reads “the Church’s participation in God’s mission
continues.” Even though God’s mission, as with God himself, is semper major
and cannot be restricted by the church, the church is consequently the one
sharing his mission.
Part I begins with a fundamental statement, “The mission of God flows from
the love of God. The mission of God’s people flows from our love for God, for all
that God loves” (CTC 2011: Part I, 1). God’s love is constitutive of his mission, the
source from which all things spring up. God is at the centre of mission, and not
only his love. “The greatest motivation for our mission is the same that drives
the mission of God himself – that the one true living God should be known and
glorified throughout his whole creation” (CTC 2011: Part I, 2b). This emphasis
on love probably shares kinship with the fervour of the Moravians who were at
the origins of evangelical missions in the 18th century. This can be illustrated by
the story of the crucified Jesus calling Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf
to mission, “This I have suffered for you. What have you truly done for me?”
(von Mehring 2013:154). The order of divine and human action is important,
as “we love because God first loved us,” but in CTC there is still a rather strong

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emphasis on “our love for the whole gospel, … for the whole church, … for the
whole world” and on “our overflowing love for him” (CTC 2011: Preamble and
Part 1, 10). This emphasis on the believer’s loving heart is to some degree in ten-
sion with a traditional theocentric understanding of missio Dei.
When CTC discusses the first article of the Creed, God the Father does not
stand out primarily as creator but as relational. This is very similar to early
expressions by David Bosch who wrote of missio Dei that, “Mission has its ori-
gin in the fatherly heart of God” (Bosch 1980:240). As with Bosch, in CTC this
leads to an emphasis on the Son and on the story of what Jesus has done for us.
His loving, salvific work implies that he calls us to discipleship and obedience,
leading to proclamation of Christ alone (CTC 2011: Part I, 4).
The Holy Spirit is central to the understanding of mission in the text, as he
is called “the missionary Spirit sent by the missionary Father and the mission-
ary Son, breathing life and power into God’s missionary Church” (CTC 2011:
Part I, 5). This might be the single most saturated formulation in CTC concern-
ing God as a missionary God, and it occurs in the paragraph about the Spirit.
The empowering Spirit is central as without the Spirit “mission is mere human
effort.” As the text points to the Spirit in creation, and to his purpose of wit-
nessing to Christ, it is interesting that it has nothing to say about the presence
of the Spirit in what TTL calls “life-giving spiritualities” in all cultures and faith
traditions. In CTC, the Spirit is primarily connected with “the true and whole
gospel” and the “authentic biblical mission” (CTC 2011: Part I, 5). While refer-
ring to “this story of God’s mission,” it does so within the framework of “the
story that the Bible tells (CTC 2011: Part I, 6b). The ministry of the Spirit in mis-
sion consequently connects with the gospel of Jesus Christ told in the Bible.
CTC goes further than any previous document from LM concerning the
integral approach of mission. The redeeming work of God aims at eschatologi-
cal consummation. This consummation is the transformation of “the creation
broken by sin and evil into the new creation” (CTC 2011: Part I, 10). Under the
umbrella of “integral mission,” CTC draws a very comprehensive map for mis-
sion, addressing individual persons, society and creation. “All three are broken
and suffering because of sin; all three are included in the redeeming love and
mission of God; all three must be part of the comprehensive mission of God’s
people” (CTC 2011: Part I, 7a).
God’s mission agent for his great purposes is the church, primarily addressed
as “the people of God.” CTC envisages no other divine mission partner. An illus-
tration of this occurs in the final paragraph under Part I, which has the subtitle
“We love the mission of God.” In this paragraph, the sayings “mission of God”
and “God’s (or his) mission” occur six times while “our mission” occurs five
times. The overlap is nearly complete. God has a mission in which “we share”

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and “to which God calls his Church” (CTC 2011: Part I, 10). The centrality of
the church in God’s mission corresponds well with Goheen’s emphasis on the
missional church, stating that “the church is the locus of God’s renewing work”
(Goheen 2011:92; italics mine).
The second part of CTC is a demonstration of the comprehensiveness of
the mission mandate as presented in Part I, and issues a call to action. The six
paragraphs reflect each day of the Cape Town Congress in 2010. As such, they
have a restricted frame of understanding. This is how the leaders and speakers
saw the strategic needs in 2010. Most of the challenges remain, but the text is
devoted more to practice than to principles. For our purpose, it is important to
recognise how CTC views the extent of involvement.
The first of six areas of action concerns truth in Christ in the pluralistic
encounter. Declaring “spoken proclamation of the truth of the gospel … is par-
amount in our mission” (CTC 2011: Part II, A1a), the action plan confirms the
love of the gospel which demands obedience and stands in contrast to human
and religious reality (CTC 2011: Part I, 8).
The word ‘missional’, which occurs a number of times, probably gives a
direction to how we should understand some of this. The commitments do not
go directly back to concrete church strategies which we can call “missions,” in
the plural. Many of the areas are and will be the subject of mission strategies
in the churches. Others are about leading the lives of disciples. Thus, it has a
specific address to the workplace, focusing on “the mobilization of all God’s
people in the mission of God” (CTC 2011: Part II, A3).
How can the church provide the motivation to “serve God in different
callings?” From this point of view, there are no areas of life which a Christian
can remove from the Lordship of Christ. The mission of God is not primarily
something to be lived out in ecclesial strategies but in the greatly empowered
lives of those who follow Jesus “with missional effectiveness” (CTC 2011: Part II,
A3). “Make disciples” is the subtitle of one of two concluding remarks at the
end of the Commitment. This is at the heart of where CTC wants to lead (CTC
2011: Part II, Conclusion). Thus, the document very strongly connects theologi-
cal education and mission. Intending “to equip all God’s people for the mis-
sional task,” we must “acknowledge that theological education is intrinsically
missional. We need ‘to ensure that it is intentionally missional” (CTC 2011:
Part II, 4).
CTC does not elaborate much on the understanding of the kingdom of God.
Early on, it refers to the coming day ‘when the kingdoms of the world will
become the kingdom of our God’ (CTC 2011: Preamble). This saying returns
almost identical in the final paragraph of Part I, but with “kingdom of the
world” in the singular (CTC 2011: Part I, 10). This peculiar difference gets no

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explanation. It is unclear exactly what the formula ‘will become’ implies, but it
probably indicates an understanding of strong continuity between God’s cre-
ation and his final recreation.
As for the characteristics of the different understandings of missio Dei,
the Trinitarian emphasis in CTC is not a replacement of ordinary evangeli-
cal Christocentrism. The centrality and uniqueness of salvation in Christ is
paramount in CTC, but Trinitarian consciousness enlarges and broadens the
understanding of God’s salvific work. Even though God’s mission, especially in
English vocabulary, also might be ascribed to God’s work in creation, CTC’s use
of the term is entirely focused on God’s redemption with reference to salvation
history. However, this salvation history and redemptive work concerns indi-
vidual persons, society, and creation. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that
CTC follows Chris Wright in opening up a broader understanding of salvation.
However, CTC is by no means universalistic in its understanding of salvation.
The lostness of humanity is an unchanged and lasting reality for those without
faith in Jesus Christ. Thus, mission is necessary to people of other faiths, and to
unreached and unengaged peoples. Consequently, CTC knows only one partner
for God’s mission, the church. This becomes clear while observing the almost
completely interchangeable use of terms such as “the mission of God” and “the
mission of God’s people.” This does not mean that the work of men and women
of good will is excluded from being service of the will of God. However, this
issue is not raised in CTC’s discussion of God’s mission, and within the docu-
ment’s overall concept. To summarize briefly, it would appear we are justified
in asserting that CTC represents a clearly Christocentric-Trinitarian view of
missio Dei.

8 Concluding Reflections

The central question in this study concerns the concept of missio Dei. As it is
now in common use, at least in equivalents like ‘God’s mission’ or ‘the mis-
sion of God’, are we on common ground in our use and understanding of
these words? Do conciliar and evangelical missiologies fill them with the same
content? A short answer to these questions would be that there is an ambigu-
ous picture.
Commenting on the centenary of the World Missionary Conference,
Edinburgh 1910, Kirsteen Kim reminds us that missio Dei “is not only a practi-
cal task but also a theological matter” (Kim 2011:352). This is very true, even
though it is almost an understatement. In many ways, missio Dei might be con-
sidered primarily a theological matter, as Kim’s further assessment also proves.

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Missio Dei derives from the Trinity. It carries the marks and signs of the com-
munal nature of God and thus aims at unity with God and his creation. There
are strategic implications in this, but these are secondary. As Kim points out,
“Missio Dei stresses unity not only for pragmatic reasons but as an integral part
of witness to God” (Kim 2011:353). Starting from this assertion, Kim unfolds the
ecclesial consequences of missio Dei.
Knud Jørgensen, who worked closely with Kim and others on realising the
impressive Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series, writes, “The missio Dei para-
digm makes impossible the separation of mission and church. If the church is
defined by mission, then the unity of the church and mission are deeply inter-
related” (Jørgensen 2014:45; italics his). This seemed to be the driving force
behind the centenary celebration at Edinburgh in 2010 when all wings of the
world Christian church were present, thus making it more representative than
WCC or LM. This also seems to be the driving force behind the renewal of the
concept which has taken place since the 1990s. Following the politically radi-
cal occupation of missio Dei in the 1960s, there has been a redefinition going
on, a pursuit of common ground. As a result, all ecclesial camps now seem
to acknowledge the concept as central to understanding Christian mission.
Jørgensen was convinced that “highlighting the missio Dei perspective and the
pneumatological dimension will … strengthen our mission focus.”. Unity is “for
the sake of mission.” He joined Lesslie Newbigin in a longing “to hear more
about the concern to share the Good News about what God has done for the
world” (Jørgensen 2014:293).
There is common ground between TTL and CTC in the establishment of a
Trinitarian basis, thus leaving behind a (Western) ecclesiocentric paradigm of
mission. There is a common interest in establishing the kingdom of God as the
goal of mission. The church has a role in the mission of God. Therefore, it must
understand its nature and further find its calling as missional. God’s mission
has a church, not vice versa. There is, moreover, a common conviction that
the indivisible Trinity necessarily leads us to see the different sides of mission
together as a whole. As the Divine One is Three in Unity, God’s mission needs
to aim at an integrated holism. Both TTL and CTC have a rather comprehensive
understanding of integral mission in terms of social involvement. God’s mis-
sion aims at a reordering of creation. The mission of the church must reflect
this, whether it is as a realised reign of God in the created and political order
or as a sign of the kingdom that is breaking in and will be consummated at the
return of Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, there are some obvious differences between the docu-
ments. CTC stands in clear continuity with previous evangelical documents in

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Missio Dei: Is There Any Common Ground? 241

its Christocentrism, while TTL emphasises this only to a limited extent. The
Christocentrism of CTC is exclusive in salvific terms, whereas TTL has no clar-
ity on the question of salvation and universalism. TTL, on the other hand, puts
almost all its emphasis on the Spirit, but in creational categories, rather than
glorifying Christ or reviving God’s people.
Kirsteen Kim, who contributed to both TTL and CTC, confirms that “the
Spirit’s ministry of reconciliation is most often connected with creation” in
TTL (Kim 2016:385). This goes not only for reconciliation, but for the entire
understanding of missio Dei. The nature of God’s mission reflects the commu-
nal nature of the Trinity and flourishes from creation. Even though CTC estab-
lishes a wider and more integral understanding of salvation than in previous
Lausanne documents and confirms the role of the Spirit in creation, there is
no doubt that biblical mission is understood as God’s redemptive work for his
fallen creation. It flows directly from reconciliation as God’s vertical action in
Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross.
Norwegian missiologist Tormod Engelsviken, who worked on the team that
processed CTC, also has a recent contribution about reconciliation and mis-
sio Dei. With impulses from Catholic missiologist Robert Schreiter, he claims
that “there is a profound theological connection” between the ministry of
reconciliation and missio Dei, thus anchoring missio Dei in the centrality of
Christ (Engelsviken 2020:165). The principal differences between TTL and
CTC are obvious in this basic understanding of missio Dei. Jan Jongeneel finds
a significant difference here, not only between TTL and evangelical missiol-
ogy, but also within the conciliar tradition between TTL and EA (Jongeneel
2014:282–283).
Consequently, the two documents have a very different approach to iden-
tifying those who are God’s co-workers in mission. CTC includes the church
as the people of God in a way that makes it God’s own co-worker for his great
mission of salvation. While TTL includes the religious “other” in unfolding the
mission mandate, it reveals a different theology of religions compared with
that of CTC (Kjøde 2017:110–12). This goes back to the understanding of truth
and revelation. While TTL emphasises the work of the Spirit in all cultures and
faiths starting from the creation, CTC emphasises the necessity of truth that
demands obedience and excludes all other faiths. CTC is aware of good values
in all cultures, but never in terms of salvation. Therefore, the calling of the
church, and the church only, is to follow Jesus to those who have never heard
the gospel. The largest gap between the two documents might be visualised
at this point, not primarily in terms of who is sent, but in their understanding
of the exclusivity of the truth of the gospel to a lost humanity.

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242 Kjøde

List of Abbreviations

CTC The Cape Town Commitment

CWME The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism
EA Mission and Evangelism – An Ecumenical Affirmation
IMC The International Mission Council
LC The Lausanne Covenant
LM The Lausanne Movement
MEUT Mission and Evangelism in Unity Today
MM The Manila Manifesto
MMR Mission and Ministry of Reconciliation
TTL Together towards Life
WCC The World Council of Churches

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Resumen

La missio Dei se ha convertido en una expresión común y valorada en la mayoría de

las ramas de la iglesia. ¿Hasta qué punto se le adjudica el mismo significado al utilizar
este término? Este artículo examina la comprensión del concepto missio Dei en los
contextos conciliares y evangélicos contemporáneos, poniendo una atención especial
a El compromiso de Ciudad del Cabo y a Juntos por la vida. Aunque la missio Dei ha
tenido una vidabastante agitada con diversas definiciones e intereses vinculados, en
el tiempo relativamente corto de la terminología, parece haber una creciente conver-
gencia en su uso.
Estos puntos de coincidencia están relacionados principalmente con el cambio de
un paradigma eclesiocéntrico de la misión a uno trinitario y con la comprensión del
reino de Dios comoobjetivo de la misión.

摘要

Missio Dei 已成为教会大多数分支中常见且受重视的表达方式。 当我们使用这个

词时，我们在多大程度上是指同一件事吗？ 本文探讨在当代公会和福音派背景下
对 missio Dei 概念的理解，特别强调《开普敦的承诺》和《共同迈向生活》这些文
件。 尽管在相对较短的时间跨度内，missio Dei 经历了动荡的生活，定义多样，兴趣
多种，但其用法似乎越来越趋同。 这个共同点主要与从以教会为中心到三位一体的
使命范式的转变，以及将上帝的国度理解为使命的目标有关。 然而，这些文件存在
差异，这些差异在它们对基督的中心地位和圣灵的角色的相对强调中显而易见的。

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