Commentary on An Upside-Down World Distinguishing between home and mission field no longer makes sense. Christopher J. H. Wright

An Upside-Down World
Distinguishing between home and mission field no longer makes sense.
Christopher J. H. Wright

In Christopher Wright’s article, An Upside-Down World, he successfully argued the need for the American Church to rethink what it should define as missions due to the dissolving line between what has historically been called local outreach and the mission field. Wright suggests the old paradigm of missions work has disintegrated because of the changing geographical and demographical landscape of the church throughout the world--The map of global Christianity that our grandparents knew has been turned upside down, said Wright. Today, Wright asserts, at the start of the 21st century, at least 70 percent of the world's Christians live in the non-Western world. Wright then poses a most provocative question, “Can the West be re-evangelized” implicitly accosting the approach of the Western church.

Wright argues the West will not regain its footing in effective global evangelism again unless it releases its arrogant ethnocentric attitude toward Christianity and embraces a trans-ethnic view that more closely resembles early Christianity. He infers that the Gospel should transcend culture instead of molding to the form of existing cultures. The author thinks the first step in the reorientation of the West is to relearn the original nature of biblical Christianity. What is implied by his assertion is the West has drifted away from biblical Christianity because of Western ethnocentric traditions and philosophies. Wright states “Western Christianity is infected by cultural idolatry.” In his opinion it is those culturally idolatrous social structures that are leading to a developing chasm between the western and non-western believers.

Wright suggests many Christians in the West arrogantly assume the need to bring their style of Christianity to the ends of the earth but they are finding out the type of Christianity they have will not suffice in a cross-cultural context. Wright consistently alludes to returning to an ancient form of Christianity as a goal for the future of the Western church. Ironically, he thinks the Western church is moving toward that goal unintentionally as a result of our crumbling values rather than in a deliberate manner. He cites mission historian Andrew Walls as saying, “the emergence of genuine world Christianity and the ending of Western assumptions of heartland hegemony simply mark a return to normal Christianity, which looks much more like the New Testament than Christendom ever did.”

(Hickman, 2010) states, “There is an increasing global consciousness in all sectors and societies of the world.” As a result, Hickman believes there is a growing trend for new leadership models and new methods of organizing our churches. Despite these trends, Wright neglected to address a very important one, which is directly affecting the practicality of oversees mission efforts—the “Increasing speed and dissemination of information technology.” (Hickman, 246) Internet accessibility alone should be reason enough to rethink how the church proceeds in its missionary efforts going forward. It is not altogether necessary for missionaries to pay thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours of travel to “take” the gospel to unbelievers on the other side of the planet. The internet provides access to unbelievers at unprecedented levels to more people than any other time in the history of the church. The world is changing in all areas, and it is Wright’s plea that the church focus on the only real mission boundary there is, which is not between "Christian countries" and "the mission field," but between faith and unbelief, a boundary that runs through every land and, indeed, through every local street.

Wright noted at the start of the 20th century that ninety percent of the world’s Christians lived in North America and Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand. However, he said at the beginning of the 21st century only thirty percent of the world’s Christians live on those same continents. Wright argued the world is changing and that if the Church in the West wanted to stay effective in spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth it must make adjustments in order to do so. Because our traditional Western values have been forsaken, what now remains is a Christianity that is closer to what authentic Christianity originally was. Wright felt it was essential we rethink what we call “missions” and how we go about fulfilling Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all nations”. Ultimately, Wright suggested we refocus our teaching to the cross and how it encompasses all of life.

Hickman, G.R. (2010). Leading Organizations: Perspectives for a new era (2nd). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications