Source: (2004) Missiology: An International Review. 32 (1): 71-91
Issues of race, restorative justice, and reconciliation have shaped civil politics and church polity through the years of growing globalization, from the fifteenth century to the present. There is no other time in history than in the days since 9/11 that the world has more needed a consciousness of common humanity. Jessica Montell, Israeli human rights activist, calls the name of the organization that she helped to found Î’ ‘Tselem Elohim, Hebrew for “in the image of God.” This stresses that Jew and Arab, Hutu and Tutsi, Afrikaner and Bantu—all are made “in the image” (Genesis 1:27). Miroslav Volf, writing out of his experience in southeast Europe, finds the concept of “otherness” to be the defining theological issue for our times. What does it mean, he asks, to welcome equally cetnik and ustashel Or, from our perspective in North America, to so welcome Native peoples, Euro-American, Asian, African, or the multitude of others who now populate this continent (Volf 1996:9)? Thoughts like these must shape a contemporary mission mentality, not only for Christians but for all religious groups.
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