This essay reflects on the conception of center versus periphery particularly with regards to faith institutions and missions. But first, I want to differentiate my argument from the real and present demarcation between claims to historic faith dogma versus deviant teachings claiming to be so but which are in fact unorthodox at best if not heretical in real substantive terms. This essay pertains to missiological perspectives and approaches, not church orthodoxy. In relation to the missional ministry of Awarezen, I make no claim to its dogmatic orthodoxy or admission into mainline historic Christian faith institutions.
Awarezen is not a Christian church in the common religious sense nor does it pretend to set itself up as one. Awarezen is an alternative missiological imaginary, a grassroots initiative that reaches out to diverse peoples with the gospel of Jesus Christ in highly contextualised if not inreligionised ways. Interfaith sensibility and interspirituality are thus central to such an ouvre. In contradistinction, the dichotomy of orthodox mainline dogma versus false doctrines pretending to be historic and orthodox is one that must be vigorously maintained in theological debates. For example, a Christian megachurch claiming to be true to historic faith commitments may not truly be so given their erroneous or deceptive doctrines that can mark them as heretical. Evidence as such is easily procured by way of rigorous biblical, textual, theological, and historical analyses. That said, let us turn to my argument here.
Missiological Assumptions
What do people mean when they say that some missional ministry is not at the “center” of Christian practice? Or Buddhist or Hindu or Daoist or any other practice of faith, for that matter? Who judges? Who sets the criteria for judgment? When were these criteria set? What was their cultural milieu? What were the politics of social production embedding these criteria? Whose interests are being served? What insecurities and needs underpin such judgments? And who benefits? Many more critical questions can be asked but suffice for now.
At the end of the day, it seems to me that those who make such judgments relegating a minister or ministry to the periphery are likely ignorant of the politics of identity, exclusion, colonialism, and marginalisation rooted in self-assumed orthodoxy and possibly an excess of pridefulness. I call it the “Jesus effect” when an alternative and radically fresh imaginary causes a stirring of the practice field, upsetting or discomfiting the religious establishment. It happened 2,000 years ago in Galilee to a man named Jesus.
Colonialist Hubris
As seen from above, hidden assumptions of the “center” not only establish a form of institutional superiority which gives control, they serve to perpetuate the dominance of that institution over diverse alternates and others, and play to the vested interests of power elites of that institution. Power can be political and financial, soft and hard. What happens in the arena of international relations and global politics also happens in the field of religious proselytism. When Eurocentric or Anglophonic powers make their territory and entrench their dominance at the center, the rest of the majority world get shoved into the margins and disenfranchised. Theologically and practically, grassroots missiological initiatives that do not conform to the western Christian cookie cutter gets displaced and demeaned. Just as certain non-western nations get demonized and sanctioned by self-righteous European and Europhilic powers steeped in the sordid quagmire of financial and strategic self-interests. Massive hypocrisy and moral double-standards prevail over real substance and integrity. Rhetoric trumps reality.
Without such hypocritical machinations, proxy wars around the world would have ended yesterday. By the same token, without self-righteous dogmatism and religious control, missiological pioneers would have had the chance to live and breathe in an ambience of respect, if not flourish in surprising ways. Yesterday. And today. Pharisaical conservatism poses the danger of snuffing out the flames of new life as ignited by new moves of the Spirit. But, God. God shall prevail over human foolishness and creaturely strivings rooted in fear, prejudice, and insecurity. Christ has the final word. Spirit will have His way.
A New Hope
May the alternative missiological imaginary of Awarezen, living and breathing in the atmosphere of interspirituality and unabashedly a creative model of inreligionisation with open possibilities, rise and shine in its mission to help make all things new — in the dynamic, integral, effectual, universal, and transformative grace of God in Christ who has redeemed and atoned for all creation in His salvific incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension thus pervasively filling all in all as the Alpha and the Omega beyond our limited ideas and words. Needless to say, this narrative of redemption is contingently co-arisen and thus empty of inherency yet effectual in the dimension of experience. Contingent co-arising is itself contingently arisen. Emptiness is itself empty. Such recursive reiteration does not negate contingency qua emptiness per se but reaffirms it. Verily is this the essential nature of God beyond words and ideas in the immaculate luminosity of sheer unfabricated mystery.
Image credit: Isha Foundation.
