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?

    ,

5 responses to “St Strumpet?”

  1. Mary Brown Avatar
    Mary Brown

    How about the wife of Jesus, airbrushed out of the story by later misogynist Christians? See Starbird, M “The Woman with the Alabaster Jar” and other books by her. She is an ex-Catholic who set out to refute the Holy Blood, Holy Grail story and ended by being convinced that Jesus and Mary were a married pair (and an archetype of the male/female balance principle). There’s a wonderful window in Kilmore Church, Mull. Check it out – whoever created it intended it to represent J and M as husband and wife, and M is clearly pregnant. Of course, there is no unchallengeable evidence that Jesus was married, but what I would like to ask the sceptics is why, given that He was the word made flesh and dwelt among us, is it unacceptable for Him to have been a sexual being? Why have later Christians considered sexuality, even in a loving relationship, to be something disgusting? Because they have, we are now stuck with the nasty views of the NotW brigade that sex is either an acceptable leisure activity or something gross. As Margaret Starbird points out, if we restored Mary as Jesus’ beloved consort we would be creating a much more wholesome myth!

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      It is a little like the arguments that might be made of the relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple though, isn’t it? All very attractive and neat if you come from a particular point of view but not really backed up with enough evidence apart from modern presumption, presupposition and desire.

      Reply
  2. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    I think the arguments on Jesus being married are very far from being liberationary. Rather, they’re the natural end-point of the Evangelical mindset that homophobically (and unbiblically) divides the world into Normal Heterosexual Married types and the demonised Other. “It is better to marry than burn” might have some mysognistic readings conducive to the fundamentalist world-view, but it hardly most naturally supports the idolatarisation of particular heterosexual relationships.

    If I had a pound for every time a nominal Sola Scriptura type had told me that St.Paul had to have been married (presumably because Our Lord’s asceticism and disinterest in heterosexual marriage is bad enough) then I would be a very rich man indeed 😉

    Interesting post Kelvin! Had no idea that St.Mary M even had red hair Perhaps she could be reclaimed as the Patron Saint of Gingers and Other Persecuted Minorities? 🙂

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Oh, her hair was red, Ryan. Flaming Red I believe.

      Reply
  3. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    How reginal! 😉

    Reply

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