Theology Today - Vol 42, No. 4 - January 1986 - BOOK REVIEW - Freedom in Mission: The Perspective of the Kingdom of God & Sent Free: Mission and Unity in the Perspective of the Kingdom

548 - Freedom in Mission: The Perspective of the Kingdom of God & Sent Free: Mission and Unity in the Perspective of the Kingdom

Freedom in Mission:
The Perspective of the Kingdom of God
By Emilio Castro
Geneva, World Council of Churches Publications, 1985. 340 pp. $12.95.

Sent Free: Mission and Unity
in the Perspective of the Kingdom
By Emilio Castro
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1985. 102 pp. $5.95.

These two paperbacks will enable readers to become acquainted with the new general secretary of the World Council of Churches. Before his present position, he directed for eleven years the WCC's Commission on World Mission and Evangelism and edited the International Review of Mission. Preparation for his Geneva years was gained in his home country of Uruguay where he was a pastor and leader in the Methodist Church and later general secretary of UNELAM, the Latin American Movement for Protestant Unity. Freedom in Mission is Castro's docto

550 - Freedom in Mission: The Perspective of the Kingdom of God & Sent Free: Mission and Unity in the Perspective of the Kingdom

ral dissertation, defended in 1984 at the University of Lausanne. With the subtitle it reads, Freedom in Mission: The Perspective of the Kingdom of God-An Ecumenical Inquiry. The title points to the thesis, which Castro supports in Part 1. The church's mission, "understood in the perspective of the kingdom of God, allows--even demands-total freedom to serve that kingdom, to participate in its announcement and in its manifestation." The kingdom-of-God point of view saves us from frustrating debates over mission as evangelism (and church growth) versus social action, or personal and spiritual liberation versus public and social liberation. In chapter one, the author surveys the major geographical regions of the world and finds the churches in each area vigorous but usually experiencing internal dissension over contextualization and missiological directions. As he puts the question, "how can each one of our particular concerns or gifts become an entry point into the total dynamic of the kingdom and not become departmentally isolated and stratified?" In chapter two, Castro traces the two foci, evangelism and the struggle for justice, through the major mission consultations within (1) evangelical circles, (2) the conciliar churches, Protestant and Orthodox, and (3) the Catholic Church. It is obvious that these three streams have learned from each other, and Castro notes the remarkable convergence in their official- statements.

Chapters three and four are a review of the kingdom of God theme in the Bible and theology. On the basis of these studies, the author describes in chapter five the way the church must have full freedom to begin and bear its witness in whatever form seems appropriate to the occasion in the light of the whole rule of God. He writes:

We must say no to any attempts to permanently prioritize the ways and means of obedience in the service of the kingdom. The only priority is the kingdom, the King, and his invasion of love, and the word spoken and a glass of cold water given in Jesus' name are both, depending on the circumstances, correct entry points into the total dynamic of the kingdom. There can be no gospel of individual salvation without reference to the justice of the kingdom, There is no love of God unrelated to my neighbour. The encounter between church members and persons outside the Christian community is, de facto, a total encounter where words receive meaning from the entire behaviour of the Christian community. We cannot decide whether our neighbour is saved; that needs to wait for the final surprise of the last judgment (Matt. 7:21-23; 25:31-46). We proclaim salvation in Christ. That means salvation in his body, salvation in his kingdom, salvation in his plan to transform all reality.

Castro writes irenically and constructively. He takes very seriously the Scriptures and theology. The little paperback, Sent Free (1985) is a copy of this Part I with a few abbreviations and omitting the thirty-seven pages of scholarly endnotes. Pastors, church school teachers, or others who may need a thoughtful and accessible guide for, teaching or writing about theology of mission will find Sent Free a splendid help.

In Part II of Freedom in Mission, Castro has collected twenty-four of his articles and lectures from the 1970s and early 1980s, some of which have been previously published in various journals. These are arranged

551 - Freedom in Mission: The Perspective of the Kingdom of God & Sent Free: Mission and Unity in the Perspective of the Kingdom

in four categories: Mission in the Perspective of the Kingdom, Latin American Kairos, The Church and Its Agenda… , and Mission Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow. The articles reveal a person who thinks theologically and writes carefully. He has clear convictions about faith and ecclesiology, as well as economic and political realities, yet states them in a way that respects others and seems ready to converse with them. This is the second World Council of Church's general secretary to be chosen out of the missionary stream of the Council's history. This dissertation leaves one grateful for his vision and for the selection of him to serve in that influential post.

H. McKennie Goodpasture
Union Theological Seminary
Richmond, Virginia