If our interest is that economic activity or business should help to overcome poverty at the same time that mission is fostered, then we must prioritize aspects which are related to witnessing for the Lord: I would say that attitudes and actions in “evangelization” should have this order: (1) testimony; (2) service; (3) proclamation and discipleship. As Darrel Guder has mentioned, we should gain the right “to tell the story” with our behavior first embodying the gospel.[1]
2.1 Starting with testimony, we should concentrate in grace, integrity, justice and holiness. Thinking in this line that promote the welfare for the people, especially the needy ,the first thing to do is not so much to promote new businesses. What we need is to reform those we have, if they are entangled in the present anti-Kingdom system. I think that we could contribute more and testify to integrity, if we make profound efforts to reform the present juridical, economic and political systems that – according to the many studies – are not promoting welfare for the poor but concentrating more and more wealth for the rich and the businessmen[2]. This systemic change can release and achieve enormous welfare for the poor perhaps more than trying to promote our solitary enterprises within a wild system that washes out the tiny earnings of the businesses we are establishing and promoting amongst the poor. .
The second issue in this line of testimony and reforming of our businesses is centering in what is essential and basic for life. “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise”(Luke 3: 11) “…but if we have food and clothing we will be content with that” (I Tim. 6: 8 NIV underlining is mine). Business on essentials, on basic needs: against consumerism, against enterprises which oppose life by destroying the environment, against war in all forms and connections with it even distant ones. Of course, we accept that this matter of “basic needs” goes with every epoch and culture, but having said that, life and social dynamics cannot be distant from the eternal gospel. This attitude means that we need to be coherent with a kind of lifestyle as well as with a global model of development for society built on a rational use of resources
2.2 Secondly, after that essential first step of testimony, comes service. Of course, also with integrity and under a philosophy of the Kingdom, of sacrificial love, just to clear all subaltern interests such as the gains per se, hidden covetousness, or building our kingdoms with a paint brush of philanthropy. For example, do we want more productivity in the economy of the country? Then, our enquiry should be: Is this productivity only based in the stimulus to the investor and entrepreneur to liberate all of his creativity to the maximum(cutting taxes, receiving special subsidies, lowering cost, shattering down all kinds of state control, cheap labor to the point of slavery)[3], or is included in this concept of stimulating productivity to improve salaries for the workers so as “productivity and creativity can be liberated and risen in solidarity”.
We should develop a kind of work and production – intellectual or physical – whose aim is not “to become rich”, but to serve human life. Any profession and business orientated not mainly by the lucrative aim, but by the service aim. Perhaps one of the areas where we can see the drainage and contradiction with this constructive purpose, within the present market economy guided by the lucrative aim is what is happening in the field of health and medicine. Illness and health are businesses to enrich medical doctors, clinics and hospitals, and above all the transnational companies which produce drugs and medical equipment.
Is knowledge a wealth for society and for people, or is it a “commodity to be negotiated in the stock market” ?[4]. According to the present situation, undoubtedly, knowledge is a commodity. It is no wonder that in this world, in spite of so much knowledge there are no solutions to our mass world problems, even the most basic ones like famine, diseases, or shelter. Even worse, it seems that knowledge plays a machiavellian role to destroy humanity, tremendously evident in the case of exploitation, speculation, and war.
2.3 Third, proclamation and discipleship. It seems that one of the main targets of this “business as mission” is the famous 10/40 window which represents one of the areas of the world with mass poverty and almost no Christian believers. We need to acknowledge the good intentions to help another poor region of the world. However, it would be good to be conscious how the “underdeveloped” world see the kind of intervention in that area. This is not only the 10/40 windows for doing special mission, “the hardest”; but this is also the area where all the “enemies” of the nation that represent the climax of the world economic system as it is, USA, are (for whatever reason might be?). The interventions are seen under the political interests of that powerful country. Lately, under the Middle East crisis, war and business are seen as combined or one sole enterprise, world owners of oil corporations and their interests, Halliburton and many others were seen behind a war that was not clear for many non Christians and Christians in the world. For Christians, regrettably, there is a “bad smell” where the appreciation is a kind of Crusade. Then, it would be better not to be mixed in such a mess and confusion of values and actions. Not to mention those who stimulate weapon businesses and the “so profitable return” that could be gained if you purchase some shares in their companies, sustaining the logic of the good performance of an economy of war.
But thinking more in depth about the reason for mission in that region, what needs to be changed? How should we evangelize , how should we carry out holistic mission in a new world context which invites to a respectful dialogue and treatment of all peoples and cultures? Would it be necessary to re-focus Christian mission in a way of having a more universal Christ and less tied to the exclusive context of one culture(the Jewish)? Would it be necessary to emphasize more the cosmic Christ at the same time as re-focusing the historical Christ in such a way that the doctrine of incarnation and grace, rather than be chained to an exclusive culture, be assumed as a principle in favor of all human species with their diverse civilizations(which includes different religious experiences, especially , of the great world and historic religions who also claim to be “people of God the Creator”) ? Could it be, that the doctrine of the grace of such a God made human (in Christ), redeems us of a past tied up to the Jewish culture( which are only one more people and chosen at some moment of history by pure grace and not any merit) and this opens us once and for all to all human races with their particular histories or cultural past? Does God works apart from the “Christian church” system?
How can we evangelize and carry out holistic mission which can cultivate peace, the affirmation of cultures and real welfare of human genre? Could we help those church hierarchies to discern the irrationality of certain kind of proselytism, worse if this includes the support of the liturgical game of war? Why is it that a people of a country and culture are so hated that they need to use others for doing mission (usually sponsoring Latin Americans ) ? Thinking about the reasons for not advancing in these places ‘a centimeter in a thousand years’, more than putting the guilt on them for being ‘enemies of God´´ or people with ‘antithetic religions’ to Christianity, causes should be searched within the Church itself. Christian church and missions show the same impediment and failure of the Israel of the OT for reaching the nations. Even worse, Christian nations execute continual cultural crusades of extermination and destruction. Surely, the grace of God works apart from such kind of “synagogue”. Therefore, after two thousand years of the birth of the Church, a new qualitative jump is necessary ( similar to that given from the Israel of the flesh towards the universal Church, the people of the Spirit), where the platform and assumptions for the so called “evangelization” and “conversion” must change substantially, overcoming the present bonds of the new people of the flesh(the “Christianity-chosen spiritual race” mixed with the idea of “chosen religion-manifest destiny subculture”) towards a new conception of the people of God and Christ. This should discover what Christ, Head of the universe is already doing to establish a people of a broader frontier, true testimony of His presence amongst human society: justice, peace, harmony and service incarnated within the vast horizon of human civilization
[1] D.Guder (2000) Ser Testigos de Jesucristo. La Misión de la Iglesia, Su Mensaje, Sus Mensajeros. Buenos Aires: Kairós
[2] See for example: Stiglitz,J. Globalization and its Discontents, Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2002, ; alsoHirst, P. and G, Thompson,Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance. Cambridge:Polity Press,1996
[3] The classical arguments of utilitarian liberal economics and business’ associations
[4] See, Gógora, Alvin, “Revelación y verdad: el conocimiento como riqueza de los pueblos”, en Mondragón, C. Los Retos del Conocimiento.La Educación Cristiana en un mundo globalizado. Buenos Aires: Kairós, pp.33-51