Claudio Pose: The Pastoral Ministry in the Dynamics of Mission

Today's post is by Rev. Claudio Pose. Rev. Pose is a pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

The Bible provides us with abundant material on the image of the shepherd. The context of a rural culture of antiquity, in which shepherding flocks was a common and well-known task, make this figure a pedagogical resource to explain, for example, God's love and care for God’s people. Since the Old Testament, God appears as a shepherd (Ez 34:31). In the New Testament, Jesus declares himself a shepherd (Jn 10:14). Shepherding implies caring for and guiding the flock (as in Ps 23). One can also note that references to the flock may include groups and persons not contained in the immediate group (see Jn 10:16).

The church took the figure of a shepherd from the Scriptures to refer to ministry in church communities, although the New Testament testifies to the use of other figures taken from the culture: elders, teachers, etc. Although some versions translate the word pastor on several occasions, only in Ephesians 4: 11 do we find an explicit mention of the figure of the pastor as a ministry in the congregational task.

The theological controversies of the first centuries within the Church strengthened the figure of the pastor as a doctrinal authority responsible for the administration of the sacraments, to guarantee that those people recognized by the community determined what was correct, amidst the disputes and interpretations that abounded.

The Middle Ages concentrated the regulation of “sacred matters” in the ordained ministry, producing a priesthood of mediation between the people and God. The Protestant Reformation confronted this idea by upholding the universal priesthood of all believers.

Methodism, as a movement that emerged within Anglicanism, maintained the criterion of the ordained ministry and the universal priesthood of believers. However, the plasticity with which Wesley responded to each new challenge led him to maintain the tension between respect and recognition for the ordained ministry of the Church of England and the need to provide answers to the enormous number of people who joined the ranks of Methodism.

In the colonies of America, the process was different, and the arrival of independence posed new challenges that included the ordination of ministers. Although the functions of the elder continued in accordance with Anglican precepts, new ministerial figures emerged for preaching, teaching, and spiritual guidance of communities.

From this background of the rich heritage of the universal church, Latin American Methodism was nurtured, particularly, from the model brought by the missionaries from the United States. Along with their theological training and Methodist identity, but the missionaries also brought their lifestyles and their cultural baggage, which were not always easy to differentiate from the contents of the gospel. I remember in my early adolescence during a congregational assembly, listening to a brother defend the idea that it was necessary to bring missionaries from the United States because together with the wisdom of their faith and their formation, they brought us a lifestyle that we needed. Theology, culture, and even ideological values seemed to be a single package.

The appearance of local seminaries in Latin America produced groups of pastors formed in the light of theological traditions, coming from the northern hemisphere, but now with an eye on the vernacular challenges. Starting in the sixties of the last century, this search for a dialogue between the problems of our continent and our communities became more evident. The nascent processes of autonomy simultaneously accompanied and enriched the process.

New times for mission and ministry

As has been stated in previous articles, the mission of the church in these times requires a review and rethinking. Pastoral ministry is an expression of the mission of the church. This is the order. In its Constitution, the Argentine Evangelical Methodist Church defines ordained ministry as follows:

“The Argentine Methodist Evangelical Church recognizes the universal priesthood of believers, as well as the need for an ordained representative ministry, called by God and authorized by the Church for specific functions of the same.” (Art. 7, sub. 3)

The ordained ministry is an expression of the universal priesthood and is representative of it, as well as of the connection of the church. It immediately clarifies that it is for specific functions, so that there is no way to confuse representation with substitution, a phenomenon that we will address below.

In the present, one may detect some tensions produced by the expectations that exist about ordained ministry in the framework of churches with difficulties in rethinking its mission and functioning. In addition, the ordained ministry has traditionally been formally trained in theological institutions and supported, partially or totally, to guarantee greater time dedicated to such tasks. All this appears up for debate in the present. The possibility of revising traditions and purposes is always something beneficial. The question to take into account is where we carry out the debate from.

Next, we present four descriptions of mission and pastoral ministry.

The pastoral ministry as a substitute figure. As stated above, there is an idea rooted in the communities that the pastor concentrates the responsibility for the mission of the church, transferring the universal priesthood from all the believers to one person. The enthronement of the pastor as a kind of “ideal believer” is an underhanded demand that no person, minister or layman, can bear. In some cases, this phenomenon has reached the pastoral family, causing an unbearable burden on spouses and children.

The characteristic of the pastoral task. The General Regulations of the Argentine Methodist Church define the pastoral task as follows: “The elder is an ordained minister for the proclamation of the Word, the direction of worship, and the administration of the sacraments, and to train, guide, and serve the Church in the fulfillment of its mission in the world, through teaching, pastoral counseling, and leadership.” (Article 701)

Ordination encompasses the task of proclamation, direction of worship, and administration of the sacraments. It then indicates that it enables, guides, and serves the church in the fulfillment of its mission in the world. It is important to highlight these last two elements: it is the whole church that must fulfill the mission, and it has the world as its objective.

Pastoring in a continent torn by inequality. In the situation of Latin America, where millions of people are condemned to possess the image and likeness of God disfigured by the conditions in which they are forced to live, it is necessary to ask: What is the shepherd’s flock? What are the limits of pastoral action? Do we limit the pastoral task to the administration of sacred matters, when human life, the most sacred thing, is at risk? These questions touch not only on the scope of the pastoral role, but the entire mission of the church.

The need for a trained pastoral ministry. To the extent that we can understand that the diversity of gifts and services in the church also allows us to discover the diversity of ministries, this will not blur the function of the ordained ministry. David Bosch investigates the relevance of the ordained ministry in the mission of the church and states about the pastoral role, “the guardian who helps the community remain faithful to the teachings and practices of apostolic Christianity. … The priesthood of the ordained ministry exists to facilitate, not to remove, the priesthood of the entire church.”

These times require spiritual, social, political, and cultural discernment. That is why there is a need for an ordered ministry prepared with the tools that make adequate accompaniment of communities possible. Jesus demanded that trained religious leaders be able to discern the times because the church's agenda is in the world and not inside church buildings.

“The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.’” (Mt 16:1-3)

Questions for reflection

• If the mission of your congregation has already been discussed, you could now discuss what pastoral ministry would be appropriate for that mission.
• What other ministries does the community have? Discuss how to train and support them. Why is pastoral work important in these ministries?
• What challenges does the neighborhood or city in which the community is located pose?

Frank de Nully Brown: The Methodist Church: Institution for Mission or Mission for Institution?

Today's post is by retired Bishop Frank de Nully Brown. Bishop de Nully Brown is a retired bishop of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

The Methodist Church began as a movement based on an incipient network of local societies with the mission of proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ for all, with a spiritual and social commitment that challenged the personal transformation and the social reality of its time.

From its origins, the interpersonal connection and the connection with the social environment was something fundamental in the entire Methodist movement. That connection involved mutual support and growth in ministry. This connection was, through time, the foundation that constituted one of the largest and most well-organized denominations in its wide and diverse connections. This organization and structure were understood as a support that allowed the mission to expand throughout the world.

The Methodist churches in our Latin American continent are heirs to the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which later became part of the current United Methodist Church.

The autonomy processes did not mean disconnection from the Methodist family, but a greater commitment at the local level. It occurred at the end of the '60s and beginning of the '70s and affirmed this missionary change in Latin American Methodism. For this reason, it generated the organization CIEMAL (Council of Evangelical Methodist Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean) as a space for connection and meaning for our evangelical mission.

Autonomy wanted to affirm our commitment to live and proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God in a different cultural and social context, in which we were challenged to give a Christian witness.

Autonomy confronted us with a reality where self-support was presented as a difficult path to follow, taking into account the very ambivalent socioeconomic trajectory in our Latin American countries.

We inherited an organizational structure with its virtues and defects. The organizational aspect always had an important weight for our churches because it had to do with our new way of being a connectional church.

The institutional presence was made concrete in the construction of churches and other buildings in the big cities and in places that were considered strategic, and many times autonomy showed that they could not be sustained or that mission with the people passed through other spaces that were not church buildings but were a symbol of a recognized and established church.

I share the goals of the organization of CIEMAL, written in its regulations, that reflect the dreams of being autonomous churches.

1. Participate in the Mission of God, giving a testimony of solidarity in preaching, education, and service through the member churches to the Latin American and Caribbean peoples, giving priority to the poor and excluded.
2. Stimulate the process of maintaining and perfecting the unity of the Church.
3. Maintain and proclaim Methodist connectionality among its members, cultivating brotherhood and mutual support.
4. Develop cooperative relationships with world Methodism and the ecumenical movement.
5. Stimulate and promote awareness and practice of biblical theology in the Latin American and Caribbean context.
6. Ensure a permanent analysis and evaluation of the political, economic, and religious reality of each country and of each member church at a continental level.
7. Develop different programs through studies, consultations, seminars, offices, and other means that favor the fulfillment of mission.

Autonomy had its costs for each national church because it meant taking charge of a structure that showed difficulties in being sustained not only financially but also in leadership for the ministry.

So, the churches went along doing what they could, sometimes with great successes and mistakes too. On more than one occasion, autonomy was not seen as an achievement, especially when resources and gifts were limited. Sometimes, even on many occasions, the organization weighed down a congregation when it was associated with a building with a determined structure.

All this led to the dilemma of thinking about the mission of the extended parish, which is always an invitation to look at the surrounding community, our neighborhood, or to support an organization in a pre-determined way: it was difficult to recover the sense of a spiritual and social movement.

Today, there are debates about possible fractures in United Methodism, from which we recognize our origins, fractures that not only affect the church in the United States but throughout the world through the mode of our relations. These fractures are related to differing visions of our pastoral action based on certain biblical and theological interpretations.

Being an autonomous church allows us an exercise in being different and creative, making our own missional decision, building new and old networks of support and growth. We need to reconvert ourselves based on our mission and not just to make our institutional life last a while longer.

I believe that autonomy, throughout our Methodist history in our continent, has a positive balance that we have to refresh in these times of searching for paths of unity, not only with the Methodist family but with the body of Christ as a broader and more ecumenical concept.

It is a constant challenge to recover a concept of community and connectional evangelism in the society in which we have to bear witness. A community evangelism that generates congregations of faith in solidarity that seek the Kingdom of God and its justice, remembering that what is connectional is not to isolate ourselves but to connect ourselves. From there comes an ecumenical attitude in the search for justice and peace for all. We must not recognize ecumenism only as something celebratory and eventually linked to institutional hierarchy, but to adapt the essence of ecumenism, which is to weave networks for transformative mission in the world.

We need to remember that the church is only one instrument for God's mission. It can never be a burden but a tool that facilitates and speeds up the mission of God in the world.

I share some lines to rethink the life of our local congregations, recalling two concepts that appear in the previous writings about the need to rethink the mission from the margins of society and a gospel embodied in reality as Jesus did.

• Be loving, supportive, inclusive and healing congregations.
• Be congregations that make new disciples.
• Be congregations open to the changes and movements that occur in the extended parish where we are inserted.
• Be prophetic congregations, which join with other social spaces in the search for a more just and egalitarian society.

Pablo Bordenave: Evangelization in Context: The Great Commission or the Great Omission?

Today's post is by Lic. Pablo Bordenave. Lic. Bordenave is Chaplain at Colegio Ward in Buenos Aires. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” These words from the Gospel of Matthew that carry the title of “the Great Commission” point to one of the most discussed tasks within the Christian churches throughout the centuries. This topic is discussed so much that some have called those words “the great omission,” implying that it is the task that the church has forgotten.

David Bosch, author of the book Transforming Mission, says about this text of Matthew:

“It is inadmissible to lift these words out of Matthew’s Gospel, as it were, allow them a life of their own, and understand them without reference to the context in which they first appeared. Where this happens, the ‘Great Commission’ is easily degraded to a mere slogan, or used as a pretext for what we have in advance decided, perhaps unconsciously, it should mean. … One thing contemporary scholars are agreed upon, is that Matthew 28:18–20 has to be interpreted against the backdrop of Matthew’s Gospel as a whole and unless we keep this in mind we shall fail to understand it. No exegesis of the ‘Great Commission’ divorced from its moorings in this gospel can be valid.” (p. 57)

How good it would be if our ideas of evangelism/mission of the church had as a backdrop, that is, as a general context, the message of the gospel that became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth!

Juan Stam, a Latin American theologian, began an article on theology of evangelism entitled “God as a starting point for a theology of evangelism.” He said, “Where should evangelism start from? From heaven to arrive at the earth? That is what the title would seem to indicate. From the church to go out into the world? That would be another approach. Or from the world to then bring it to the gospel?”

Stam was looking to point out these perspectives, problematizing a little and showing the complexity of the theme of evangelization. These questions are enough to show at least that there is not a single “correct” way to evangelize, that this task can be assumed from different places or perspectives and that each of these different places have their own risks of distorting that message we are looking to transmit.

As you can see, the theme is fundamental.

If Jesus is our example both in works and in his humanity, the first thing we would have to say is that much of our failure to communicate the gospel in our Latin American contexts is largely due to our lack of dialogue with the culture, to our ignorance of it or worse still to the rejection of many historical and cultural traditions.

Jesus not only dialogued with the culture of his time, but he incarnated himself in full humanity to be able to establish that dialogue and that it may be fruitful. Not knowing our Latin American culture and intending to have a discourse more typical of other latitudes or past centuries is not having the person of Jesus as a backdrop.

Imitation of North American models

Stam says in his article, “It is necessary to highlight, in the nineteenth century, due to its projection in Latin America, the gigantic movement of ‘religious revivals’ with its emphasis on repentance and conversion and which was also characterized by its emotionalism and the mobilization of masses around a great evangelist. This is how names like James McGready, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and today Billy Graham are remembered. It is not surprising that Latin American evangelicalism, born largely in the heat and thanks to the pioneering effort of the North American Church, has always fallen to the temptation of copying the same patterns, reducing ‘evangelism’ to a function that can be called mimetic: of imitation.”

Without a doubt, if those preachers did their job well in those times, it was surely because they understood their cultures and knew how to enter into dialogue with them. We do them little favor when we only seek to imitate them in form and content.

The good news that we have to communicate must be incarnated in the culture of our time and our land in order to bear the fruit of justice. For this reason, as Latin Americans we are called to our own path of incarnation with our cultures. Evangelism is proclamation, but it is also incarnation. For this, our participation in the life of our cultures is indispensable.

On the contrary, the fundamentalist theology that has spread throughout Latin America has managed to live and practice the evangelistic task in fundamental terms of separation between faith and culture.

In Wesley we find a deep link between good news and culture. His concept of good news, deep and radical, led him to fight against the “execrable villainy of slavery,” and also to venture into the economy, health, and medicine, and to criticize those who transformed these tools given by God for the well-being of God’s children into personal gain. For Wesley, just as the Roman Terence mentioned, “nothing human was alien to him,” and we can add, neither was the non-human: for Wesley, animals and the entire creation enter in dialogue with the Good News of salvation. For Wesley, evangelism (although he never used that term) was to open the space for an enriching and salvific dialogue between God and all of his creation. He never thought of the good news as something to be imposed, on the contrary, “Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.” (Sermon 37, “The Nature of Enthusiasm).

The Uruguayan pastor Emilio Castro said, “The biggest obstacle to evangelism is the Church worried about its own existence. It would be amusing, if it were not pathetic, to see entire denominations preoccupied with completely secondary questions of form or doctrine…while revolutionary ferment rages in the streets and fields of Latin America.”

The good news of Jesus always seeks the horizons, not confinements. It is an encounter, not a hunt for candidates to be “converted.” And if the church remains self-absorbed and silent on this, “the stones will cry out.” It is time to find new questions to answer. That would be a promising start for a new church in Latin America.

Questions for reflection

1. If to evangelize you have to enter into dialogue with culture as Jesus did, what keys do you think the text of Phil 2: 5-11 gives us to understand Jesus' relationship with human culture?
2. How do you organize an evangelistic journey in light of these words of Wesley: “Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men's lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love” (Sermon 37)?
3. If the context of the Great Commission should be the rest of the gospel of Matthew, look for characteristics to carry this good news today in the following three passages:
   Matt. 5: 1-12
   Matt 12: 1-8
   Matt 15: 21-28

Pablo Oviedo: The Challenge of a Mission that Troubles

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Pablo G. Oviedo. Rev. Oviedo is a pastor of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina and Professor of Theology at Universidad del Centro Educativo Latinoamericano (UCEL). It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) as part of a series organized by the Centro Metodista de Estudios Wesleyanos (CMEW). It appears here in translation with the author's permission and with the assistance of CMEW.

In this series of essays on the challenges facing Latin American Methodism, a key dimension is the theological vision of mission. We are led to review it even more when one of the most dangerous concepts that has managed to implant neoliberalism in our societies is that of “common sense,” that is, the uncritical acceptance of what is given or of what is “politically correct” since it is accepted as truth by many or by the majority.

Common sense in mission?

As has been said, “common sense is the most common of the senses” and leads us to accept the established or the obvious without accepting other alternatives or encouraging us to question. There are many social researchers who call us to question common sense, even when today many of the digital and communication media take care of increasing it.

In this direction, the apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans chapter 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Mission is a divine action, not of the church. Mission is Missio Dei. The church participates in the same work of God in the world, work that seeks to save and liberate humanity and creation from all oppressions. The task of the church, as sent, is to see, hear, call, guide, point, help, incarnate, and show solidarity as part of the testimony of God's work. Mission points towards the horizon of the kingdom of God. Mission demands leaving the church building. It is letting ourselves be challenged by what is happening beyond our congregations and involving the church with those who today suffer the effects of the globalization of the financial system of Mammon and its injustices: racial, gender, socio-economic, etc.

We start from the reality of this Latin American continent, which nominally mostly considers itself “Christian,” but which is the most unequal region in the world.

Let's look at just a few dimensions on which Wesley enlightens us. He does not give us recipes but only tools to reflect together. What is the mission that God entrusts to us today? How do we testify to Jesus today? These are questions that we must answer personally and as a community.

Wesley and mission

As a general framework, we must say that for John Wesley the mission of the church was the reason for the existence of the church, both in its institutional life and in its movement dynamics.

In this framework, his statement “The world is my parish” is understood, one that expressed the purpose of the work that God was doing in his time, not to form a new sect, but to reform the nation, in particular the church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.

A first example where Wesley did not accommodate the common sense of his time, was in open-air preaching. This event forever changed the movement that was beginning. Some believe that the key day of Methodism was April 2, 1739, in Bristol and not just May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street. According to Wesley, that day he decided to be “more vile,” to preach in the open air and to incarnate himself in the struggles of his people.

He reports in his diary: “At four in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this… ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.’”

Using the text of Luke 4 was inspired, since this event not only started the movement from the four walls of the temples, but also interwove it and embodied it in the struggles of the workers in general and of the miners, who would be protagonists of the Methodist movement. In this sense, Methodism became the religion of the incipient industrial societies and adopted a critical attitude towards the instrumental reason of industrial society. Methodist Christians were among others, founders of trade unions and political parties, social activists and fighters against slavery. If Wesley had relied on “common sense,” he would never have gone to Bristol to preach in the open air.

If Latin American Methodism, which was at the forefront in the fight for secular laws and individual liberties at the end of the 19th century, a pioneer in the ecumenical movement in the mid-20th century, and in the fight against dictatorships and for the defense of human rights in the 70s and 80s, would have followed common sense, it would not have generated these experiences and testimonies of mission. How do our preaching, liturgies, and spirituality express the struggles, the needs of our peoples, and the liberating will of our God?

A second example in which Wesley did not follow the criteria of his time was in relation to economics. Although Wesley was loyal to the King, he strongly criticized the foundations that supported the empire. In relation to this, he wrote his article “Thoughts on the Present Scarcity of Provisions” of 1773. This article arises from the terrible socio-economic reality that England was experiencing towards the end of the 18th century: large rises in prices of essential foods, shortages of basic products, increasing poverty, and social degradation, contrasted with the accumulation of wealth by the new rich, the aristocracy, and the British nobility.

In the same address, Wesley poses the questions that arise from that reality: “Why are thousands of people starving, perishing for want, in every part of the nation? … But why have they no work?... But why is food so dear?” He answers that the State must play a primary role in the economy, because it is the one that must regulate and control to prevent prices from skyrocketing and monopolies from winning, while the popular masses do not participate in that distribution of wealth.

In another writing, sermon No. 61, “The Mystery of Iniquity,” Wesley gives a word to the church. It is a preaching that constitutes a brief treatise on history and theology on the dangers that lurk for the Body of Christ. He goes through all the Scriptures, then continues through the history of the church up to the present. He argues that the love of money, power, and honor are the main reasons that lead the church at different times in its history to its ruin.

He states: “As long as the Christians in any place were poor, they were devoted to God. While they had little of the world, they did not love the world; but the more they had of it, the more they loved it. … But still remember, riches have, in all ages, been the bane of genuine Christianity!”

This issue is key in our time, since we live under the power of a globalized world financial system that generates poverty and destroys creation in all the planet. And as Christians and Methodists, we must face that idolatrous reality. It calls us not only to prophetically denounce the “economic priests” and political governments that are complicit in it, but also to review our priorities in mission, so that our mission objectives and programs are not governed by the love of money, success, or power that is the undoing of the church, as Wesley reminds us.

Another example contrary to “common sense” Wesley marks through the phrase, “Religion must not go from the greatest to the least, or the power would appear to be of men.” (See his diary on May 21, 1764; in 1783, he says it again in his diary.)

For Wesley, “from the greatest to the least” would correspond to the wisdom of the world that is foolishness to God, so that the glory is not for men but for God. It is a radical principle, which is drawn from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians 1:28. “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.”

It is urgent to take into account this vision of decolonization and assertion of the dignity of those who have been excluded or subdued in the mission of the church, “the least.”

This helps us clear up the false dichotomy between evangelism and prophetic social action, or between “compassionate conservatism” and structural assistance programs.

Seeing the works of mercy as means of grace and not works of paternalistic charity changes everything.

The grace that emerges from new ways of relating to God and other people leads us to a new perspective. In such an individualistic context as the one in which we live, the mere fact of seeking an encounter with the other experiences a new creation.

Being able to live the mission not “from top to bottom” but from the “mutuality” that the Spirit creates, in diversity and equality, is in itself transformative.

“Unless we begin to live our lives mutually and without wanting to control each other in our relationships with God and with each other, the new creation will be just another pious illusion, and we are back where we started.” (Joerg Rieger, Grace Under Pressure: Negotiating the Heart of the Methodist Traditions (Buenos Aires, Aurora, 2015 p. 29) [Quotation translated from the Spanish version].

In other words, a priority of the mission of God today means returning to the works of mercy in a renewed way. Especially service together with others in need renews us in our works of piety, in our relationship with God, and prophetically makes injustice visible.

The mission of the Christian faith today in Latin America is to do it from the margins. God's design for the world is not to create another world but to recreate what God has already created in love and wisdom. Jesus began his ministry by stating that to be filled with the Spirit is to set the oppressed free, to restore sight to the blind, and to announce the coming of the kingdom of God (Luke 4:16-18, the same text that Wesley chose in Bristol).

He undertook the fulfillment of his mission by opting for those who are on the margins of society, and not from a paternalistic charity, but with the aim of challenging and transforming everything that denies life, including the cultures and systems that generate and sustain widespread poverty, discrimination and dehumanization, and exploit and destroy people and the land. Mission from the margins is a call to understand the complexities of global power dynamics, systems, and structures and local contextual realities. So, mission from the margins invites Christian churches to rethink and sense mission as a vocation inspired by the Spirit of God, working for a world in which fullness of life is possible for every person.

Assuming this hermeneutic-theological key of mission from the margins pushes us to encounters of grace and mercy with those who also evangelize us, since they are the face of the crucified and risen Jesus who comes to meet us, to transform us. And in that meeting, claim all the faces and excluded or subordinate groups such as indigenous peoples, women in their fight for gender equality and against gender-based violence, creation as a mistreated common home, and so much more.

In these times of dispute over the Latin American Methodist identity, we dream of a Methodism guided by the Spirit of Jesus the Christ, which troubles us in our “common sense” and allows us to build communities of mission, alternatives to the dominant spirit of our time. So be it.

Questions for reflection

1. What is “common sense” in the mission of God? How do we look for it and interpret it?
2. What does it mean to start with mission from the margins? Why should we do so? What is the biblical theological key?
3. How do we connect the affirmation, “Being able to live the mission not ‘from top to bottom’ but from the ‘mutuality’ that the Spirit creates, in diversity and equality, is in itself transformative,” with our ecclesial practices?

Daniel Bruno: Methodism in Latin America in Times of Neoliberalism: Some Themes

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Daniel A. Bruno. Rev. Bruno is a pastor of the Argentina Methodist Church and Professor of Church History. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) and appears here in translation with the author's permission. It is the second of a two-part translation of the original piece.

In an earlier post, I described the context of neoliberalism in Latin America and its effect on the churches there, including Methodism. In this post, I will point out briefly some aspects that deserve to be debated to glimpse a new horizon and a possible future for our Methodist churches.

The challenge of community evangelization in context

For decades we have been concerned, and continue to be, with the question of the numerical growth of our churches. And that's okay; it is a genuine concern. The problem has been linking the concern for numerical growth with the concept of “evangelization,” which is much broader and more challenging. Today commercial marketing uses the word "evangelize" as a method to sell a product and generate customer loyalty. Without a doubt, we have done something wrong if it has learned this from the churches that speak of “evangelizing.”

The model of evangelization that came to us through the missions was effectively a client model. They had to grow in number in order to not close the mission post. Thus, the terms began to melt together: growth and evangelization. Added to this is the subjectivist and individualistic character that was imprinted on the evangelistic action.

Wesley's practice was very different. His phrase "spread the good news of salvation and reform the nation" demonstrates his broad concept of the task that the witnesses of the good news have in the society in which they live. Wesley created what we might today call a community network of evangelism. The space in charge of spreading the good news was given, not to an individual, but to community spaces, such as the societies, classes and bands that, as a connective network, nourished the believers in all their needs and also gave them a horizon of testimony. Wesley was never concerned with "growing", but rather with giving witness to the love of God in the lives of people. The enormous growth of the Methodist movement was a consequence of working in networks and witnessing in society.

Growth arises as a consequence of a committed mission, not as an end in itself. This is reflected in the book of Acts 2: 46-47, when the first Christians lived the gospel and as a consequence of that testimony: "The Lord added every day to those who were going to be saved." The testimony comes first; growth accompanies a good testimony. When we ask ourselves why we are not growing, we should ask ourselves what witness we are bearing to the Good News.

The challenge of a mission that troubles

This leads us to revise our mission. One of the most dangerous concepts that neoliberalism has managed to implant in our societies is that of "common sense," that is, the uncritical acceptance of what is given or of what is "politically correct" since it is accepted as true by many. It is the way of accepting what is established, without accepting other transgressive alternatives.

The concept has penetrated our churches and without a doubt, applying it to mission is a contradiction. If Wesley would have based himself on "common sense," he would never have gone to Bristol to preach in the open air. If Jesus would have based his ministry on "common sense," he would not have left Joseph's carpenter's shop. The gospel demands a mission that troubles.

The challenge of a “two-way” mission

During the 19th century, Protestantism used the term "mission" disconnected from the task of the witness of churches in their places of origin. It continued to use it as an expression of a special action of missionary expansion (accompanied many times, it must be said, by colonialist military expeditions) to reach regions where the gospel was not known, establishing a "mission" there.

Today it is necessary to strip the concept of mission of the idea of "going and bringing," and change it to that of "meeting and dialoguing." Latin American Methodism must necessarily seek its mission outside of common sense or sometimes against it. Mission in Latin America, a land shaped by so many and varied cultures, must know how to open spaces for dialogue, letting the Spirit act and in many cases allowing oneself to be evangelized by “others,” as Jesus did with the Syrophoenician woman. And in that encounter, claim all the faces and excluded or subaltern groups such as: indigenous peoples, women in their fight for gender equality and against violence against women, creation as a mistreated common home, etc.

The challenge of returning to being a movement

If Wesley had something very clear, it is that he never wanted to be a church institution. That was what the Anglican Church was for. He always perceived Methodism as a movement. Does this mean the absence of organization? Certainly not; Wesley was quite strict with habits and discipline. But he was very clear that the entire organization and structure had to be at the service of and be functional for mission.

The missions that organized Methodism in Latin America had a different vision. For them, mission consisted of marking territory, through the construction of large and beautiful churches, by endowing the mission with an institutional structure copied from the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, by the way, the autonomy processes tried to modify, but without a doubt it was not enough.

This heritage, which by the way we must value and which at some point was necessary for external visibility and internal organization, today in many cases has become a burden. In many cases the institutional structure stifles the mission. The roles were reversed.

And that must necessarily be revised. The Latin American Methodism of the not-so-distant future will have to be wise to reorganize itself in its context. It must transform itself with an embodied spirituality and a renewed liturgy, which maintains all its historical richness but appeals to the new generations. May it build communities of abundant life in times of institutional disbelief and exacerbated individualism.

The challenge of a broad ecumenism

Large historical Methodist churches of our continent are retreating from a pioneering path of ecumenical leadership to close themselves in an atmosphere of self-pleasure intolerant of difference. Undoubtedly, this is part of the "climate of the times" in which we live, a conservative, intolerant wave that affects all areas of life – social, cultural, economic and, of course, religious – in our region.

The strange thing for Methodism is that, having a rich history that since its origins points to a path of openness of view and mind, today it tries to twist the obvious with conservative and orthodox positions with which Wesley would never have agreed. In a large number of sermons and tracts, Wesley refers to "thinking and letting think" as applied to various aspects of the Christian life. Sermon 39, “The Catholic Spirit,” which could well be translated as “The Ecumenical Spirit,” also reveals his fight against intolerance.

This invites us to think about the forms and attitudes that, as people and as a church, we adopt in the face of differences. We must recognize that, at the beginning of the 20th century, almost all Latin American Methodisms did not have this sermon in mind at all when they made the controversy against Catholicism a battle for ideas, for membership, and for territory.

Neither do certain Methodisms have it in mind today when they abandon ecumenism and deny both thinking, as a free and critical action of reason, and letting think, as an action of tolerance in the face of difference. Without a doubt, Wesley's tremendous phrase " God has given no right to any of the children of men thus to lord it over the conscience of his brethren," should be a guide that helps to revise our affirmations, our judgments, and our prejudices.

The challenge of speaking clearly and loudly

The prophetic task of the church has been a characteristic of Methodism. What we know today as public theology, for Wesley was part of the works of mercy. His concept of good news, deep and radical, led him to fight against the "execrable villainy of slavery," to dabble in economics, in health, in medicine, and to criticize those who transformed these tools given by God for the well-being of God’s children into matters of personal profit. Latin American Methodism also knew how to speak clearly and loudly at different hard times in the history of its peoples.

In this current context, the prophetic attitude is dissipating. Why? Why, right at a time with so much injustice, inequality, violence, and hunger, does it seems that we are returning to "winter quarters"? Why do we close ourselves in the churches and transform public theology into private theology? Perhaps it is because of what we said before, have we put the institutional structure before the mission? Have we given in to the temptation to elaborate a mission from “common sense”?

These are some of the challenges we face as Latin American Methodists. it is time to start working on them. We invite you to follow our posts for the month of August on the Evangelical Methodist Church Argentina’s website, where these aspects will be deepened by additional authors.

Daniel Bruno: The Challenges for Methodism in Latin America in Times of Neoliberalism

Today's post is by Rev. Lic. Daniel A. Bruno. Rev. Bruno is a pastor of the Argentina Methodist Church and Professor of Church History. It originally appeared (in Spanish) on the website of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina (IEMA) and appears here in translation with the author's permission.

The context
About fifty years ago, it was decided by the centers of world economic power that Latin America should not continue down the path of economic growth and development, of expanding the middle class and industrialization. It was necessary to implement a plan to redirect the wealth. Instead of benefiting the majority and achieving equitable development, the "think tanks" of the new economic model called neoliberalism began to outline plans so that this wealth would drain away and accumulate in a few hands. The first tests of this plan were through the coups d'état that added up in Latin America starting in 1971.

All these violent democratic interruptions had a single purpose: to implement economic models that would allow a redirection of resources and money from the majority to the Latin American elites and their international partners and to repress popular resistance. That model of coups d'état exhausted itself in the mid-1980s. They generated a lot of resistance and, in the long run, were rejected by the population.

The plan was adjusted and now the model is much more subtle.

Economic power acquired the principal mass media of the continent; great economic emporiums now model the subjectivity of the population; and in this way, coups d'état are no longer necessary to discipline the population by force of arms. Media manipulation of subjectivities achieves this effect without generating resistance.

In this way today, in all the countries of the continent, the real power, which goes beyond the shifting governments, is mechanized through three specialized spheres: the economic-financial power, the concentrated mass media, and the judicial powers. This three-pronged pincer is the one that for approximately twenty years has been executing synchronously on the continent a model of exclusion, poverty, deindustrialization, and accumulation of wealth in a few hands that increasingly deteriorates the quality of life of the population. Judicial powers, meanwhile, imprison opponents, and population is deceived by the media, generating false disputes and dividing the peoples to achieve their objectives.

This situation is increasingly cruel, neoliberalism or neocolonialism, is destroying the expectations of life, of the future, and of the development of millions of Latin Americans. And the possibilities of resistance are becoming ever more difficult to implement and more stigmatized by the media.

This oppression and manipulation of subjectivities operates on consciences, managing to dilute the capacity of resistance of the masses. This is one of the most dangerous facets of neoliberalism since it affects the self-awareness of human beings, deceives about their options, and permeates deeper into false beliefs, preventing the possibility of visualizing the real causes that cause their postponement.

A recurring phrase of the Argentine economist Bernardo Kliksberg helps us to understand the consequences of this model. He says: "Latin America is not the poorest continent, but it is the most inequitable." A continent rich in natural resources, it has almost forty percent of its population below the poverty line. How is it possible? This is the result of a model of accumulation for the elites and the active contributing role of the hegemonic media and the judiciary that favor this situation. Now, to this phrase by Kliksberg, we can add… but Latin America is the most Christian continent. How can we understand this?

And the church?
At this point we must recognize that religion has also been co-opted to join this model of new post-modern oppression. Certain evangelical groups have been the most receptive and functional. Due to Latin America’s Christian layers, neoliberalism needed Christian language and symbology to penetrate the population. Indeed, this neocolonial siren song has formatted the theological profile of various evangelical expressions. How? Perhaps one of the best-known examples is that of the prosperity gospel, a theological version of neoliberal capitalism, where the one who “invests” more with money, receives more blessings from “God.”

However, this theological neoliberal culture has managed to impact not only these extravagant phenomena, but also historical Protestant expressions with a wide presence of testimony on the continent.

Anti-ecumenism, for example, has penetrated Protestant traditions that until quite recently had a fruitful dialogue with other traditions. This attitude of reactionary withdrawal is explained by the penetration of conservative fundamentalist currents that have been eroding the more liberal and progressive positions of the historical churches. Already in 1973, the well-known Rockefeller report advised and suggested to the government of Richard Nixon that, in order to curb the most protesting and progressive expressions of the Latin American churches, both Catholic and Protestant, money and programs should be invested to foment the penetration of individualistic theologies, of personal salvation, with contempt for the historical-social views and that fed conservative positions. Undoubtedly, these programs have been successful and the result is in sight.

Today, the vast majority of the Protestant camp has been transformed into a conservative force both theologically and politically, offering its votes to right-wing parties and coalitions in exchange for perks and favors, also acting as a shock force against any attempt at progressive change in Latin American societies.

Methodism in Latin America is not exempt from these temptations
Methodism, as part of the Protestant field in Latin America, has been and is seduced by this model. There are currently many attempts by conservative sectors of North American Methodism to finance projects of this type. A great temptation for churches with meager budgets such as the Latin American Methodists! The imminent breakup of the United Methodist Church in the United States frees some economically powerful groups that seek to finance and co-opt Latin American Methodist churches, in order to turn them into conservative forces in their countries.

This would be a sad end to a Methodism that was at the forefront of the struggle for secular laws and individual liberties at the end of the 19th century; a pioneer in the ecumenical movement in the mid-20th century; creators, along with other denominations, of movements such as FALJE (Federación Argentina de Ligas Juveniles Evangélicas – Argentine Federation of Evangelical Youth), and its later version of ULAJE (Unión Latinoamericana de Juventudes Ecuménicas – Latin American Union of Ecumenical Youth), mobilizing Protestant youth to a deep commitment to unite the good news of the gospel with the historical demands of the Latin American peoples; participation in ISAL (Iglesia y Sociedad en América Latina – Church and Society in Latin America); the fight against dictatorships and the defense of human rights in the 70s, 80s; etc.

We trust that this will not be the case and that Methodism in Latin America will know how to preserve these values. We trust that we are not going to sell our birthright, that is, our fidelity to the gospel embodied in the history of our peoples, for a plate of lentils poisoned with coins from Caesar. For this, it is essential to revisit the origins of our movement with Latin American eyes. To look critically at the cultural clothing with which that tradition came to us in the 19th century, after passing through the religious-cultural atmosphere present in the United States.

We appreciate those missions that made our presence here possible, but today more than ever, it is necessary that the autonomies declared in the 1930s and 60s finish taking root to free the evangelical power of a movement that changed a nation and now, in our context, must change ours.

During August, the Evangelical Methodist Church Argentina through its Methodist Center of Wesleyan Studies is going deeper into these issues through a series of posts. For my part, I will point out briefly in a next post some aspects that deserve to be debated to glimpse a new horizon and a possible future for our Methodist churches.