What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Five Marks of Mission (Useful or not?)

    Following on from my diatribe about the word Missional the other week, here’s another thing.

    Are the Five Marks of Mission which are so very often discussed in Anglican circles as useful as people presume?

    Here I would have to say that I believe in them all. I think they are all lovely, vital, necessary and holy and all the rest.

    However, the question that I find myself coming back to again and again is to ask whether the Five Marks of Mission somehow end up functioning as a buffer between good church people and any discussion of effective evangelism.

    It seems to me that there might be other marks of mission. Like conversion, for example, of oneself and others. Or growth, maybe, of some kind or another.

    Just wondering.

    In case you don’t know, the Five Marks of Mission are held to be these:

    To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
    To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
    To respond to human need by loving service
    To seek to transform unjust structures of society
    To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

    My hunch is that a tiny handful of the people in my home congregation would have heard about the five marks and maybe one or two would be able to name them.

    Once again, can I state that I’m not disagreeing with any of them. It is just that, notwithstanding the usefulness of the Marks as some kind of checklist, I fear greatly the idea that people might think they are a descriptor of mission.

    It would be good to hear testimony of souls being added to the kingdom by the naming of the five marks?

    Anyone?

    Anyone want to admit to sharing my questions?

    ,

4 responses to “Book Review”

  1. Peter O Avatar
    Peter O

    I think you miss the point of the book Kelvin. It’s meant to be a guide to listening to *all* sides of the debate, not just those you agree with. That’s what makes the last section so good, because it forces us to deal realistically not just with the genuine evidence on the causality of homosexuality, but also the fact that some people *do* see remarkable change in their sexual orientation (and that others don’t).

    I wrote my own review here.

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    We were not called by the last Lambeth Conference to listen to all sides in the debate.

    Reply
  3. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    Ruth Gledhill has posted a PDF of the whole thing, for those interested:
    http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/files/Final.pdf

    Reply
  4. Rosemary Avatar
    Rosemary

    I’ve now read the ‘scientific’ section – thanks for the link ryan – and I thought it was mixed. I thought Glynn Harrison made a serious attempt at dispassion. I think it is a fair point that any person must decide their own priorities, and the final argument must be between theologies, not sciences. I was not so impressed by David de Pomerai – though one could hardly quarrel with his conclusion that we simply do not know exactly what makes one person homosexual and the next heterosexual. However his whole argument was bedevilled by assumptions that, e.g. homosexual men will be more effeminate than straight ones. Anecdotal evidence instantly produces examples where it is the straight male siblings who are drama queens and run from spiders, while gay ones take it all in their stride.

    It must be accepted that both gay and straight people live with voluntary or enforced celibacy with no ill effects – and that some people can change their sexual orientation and live happily with the change. What I found truly heart rending were the desperate attempts and the high cost to those who actually did succeed in changing orientation – however much Harrison denies the skin colour analogy, it reminded me painfully of those endless jars of skin lightener which encrust Sri Lankan chemists, where beauty is measured in skin tone. Because whether or not genetic, orientation is not a simple free choice. But I suppose the answer would be: ‘And what is?’

    The final point, though, is always the same. Is Christianity a religion of an authoritative book, or an authoritative Person?

    Reply

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