494 - The Church of the Future, Its Mission and Theology: A View from Africa

The Church of the Future, Its Mission and Theology: A View from Africa
By Mercy Amba Oduyoye

The church of Christ seems to have found a permanent home in Africa. Yet given the story of the church in Mediterranean Africa, it is valid to pose the question, "Does the church have a future in Africa's future?" The question is relevant because the church of Christ as experienced by Perpetua and Blandina, Cyprian and Augustine has vanished, and the churches associated with Mark and Athanasius can barely hold their own against the vigorous Islamization of Africa. Will African Instituted Churches, such as The Church of the Lord and Aladura in Nigeria, and Western churches, like The Presbyterian Church of Kenya, survive the onslaught of the "prosperity gospel" churches headed by powerful African preachers like Benson Idahosa of Nigeria or animated by such visiting evangelists as Reinhard Bonnke of Germany?1 What will the future church look like, and what could it, or rather should it, represent?

Much of the church's history, mission, and theology of the first millen­nium of Christianity is yet to be properly claimed as African. Its medieval history and theology may be retrieved from a study of Christianity in the Nile valley, now crystalized as the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. From the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth, the mission and theology of the church in the Nile valley are directly or indirectly attributable to the various Euro-Arnerican missionary endeavors. This essay will examine Christianity in Western Africa since 1960, with a view to envisioning the future of the church in that region and to

Mercy Amba Oduyoye is a theologian from Ghana and the author of Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy (1995). She was the John A. Mackay Professor of World Christianity (1994-95) at Princeton Theological Seminary.
1In New Dimensions in African Christianity (edited by Paul Gifford [Ibadan, Nigeria: Sefer Books, 1992]), seven authors review the new Christian ecclesial movements in Africa. This book is part of the Africa Challenge Series of the All Africa Conference of Churches. The series is a helpful source of studies on Christianity in contemporary Africa.

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drawing some broad lines against which one might test the developments in other parts of the continent.

The history of the encounter with Europeans and their descendants has made Africa a continent whose economy and governance are tied to the nations of the Western hemisphere. This fact has unified Africa, and it has deep implications for the ethos of African Christianity. Despite this unifying thread, however, Africa is a multireligious continent, and its boundaries are those of nations. This compounds the variety that makes up the continent and its religious ethos. Currently, Africa is a continent where people fight long, bloody wars to resist Islamization or the hege­mony of dominant ethnic groups. Christians massacre Christians, Mus­lims struggle against Muslims, and conflicts having nothing to do with religion break out within and across national boundaries. Africa, barely out of the clutches of apartheid, continues to suffer from global white racism and is riddled with poverty and death. Rather than contemplating the future of the church, therefore, people are focused on the continued slave labor Africans provide to the Euro-American economy, which has resulted in the so-called national debts and the consequent economic structural-adjustment programs imposed on many African nations.

ECONOMICS AND RELIGION

Has the church a future? Students of Christianity and lovers of the church of Christ are seeking to discover how the church is affected by, and how it is responding to, the changing world around it, and what the church must do if it is to remain a relevant factor in future human communities. Standing still when everything around you is changing is no longer considered brave or virtuous. Literature on the future church is growing.2 For Africa, this concern for the future of the church is mani­fested in the study of new religious movements and of the many dimensions of African Christianity. It is also evident in the vigorous attempts of Africans to articulate a Christian theology that responds to the African context. Crucial to this enterprise is the recognition of the economic context and the multireligious community life of Africa. Realism de­mands that, in this discussion, we approach the church as a human organization. This is not to disown the beliefs that the church of Christ belongs to God and that it will exist for as long as God has use for it.

The church in Africa is an organized religion, supported by the gifts of its adherents. Barring the force of law and compulsion, people will support an institution that supports them and from which they receive the benefits that it explicitly promises or that they expect from it. The question is: Can the people afford the structures of the institutionalized church? The church shares the fate of the state, of families, and of individuals. If the people are poor, however much they need the ministra-

2Loren Mead, The Once and Future Church: Reinventing the Congregation for a New Mission Frontier (New York: Alban Institute, 1991) exemplifies the concern for the future of the church in America. It has been reprinted in three successive years.

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tions of the church, they cannot pay for them. African religion was paid for from state taxes and the votive offerings of adherents. Western Christianity in Africa was paid for by missionary gifts and local contribu­tions. True, a very high percentage of the missionary contributions-was spent on the Western missionaries themselves, in much the same way that funds loaned to African nations by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are now spent on international experts. One of the purposes for the call by African church leaders like John Gatu, the Presbyterian from Kenya, for a moratorium on mission was to break this dependence of the African church on the West. We have learned that, as part of civil society, the church cannot be insulated from the general evolution of the ethos of the continent. The structure of relationships between churches in Africa and their Euro-American counterparts is not very different from the relation between the so-called debtor nations and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Of course, the churches in Africa did not become financially indebted to the West, but in every other way-ecclesiologically, theologically, and liturgically-they remained tied to their "benefactors."

The post-1960 Western churches have not found it easy to maintain the structures they inherited; as the flow of money from the West dried up,

“When women get together to face societal problems, nobody discriminates along the lines of religion; the spirituality derived from all the religions is tapped.”

the Western churches waned and turned inward to stave off atrophy. The question whether the church has a future, therefore, is directed specifi­cally to this type of church. Perhaps, the Roman Catholic Church in Africa, with its celibate priesthood and relative centralization, sits a little more comfortably. The new ecclesial communities also seem more able than their older Western counterparts to harvest what they need from their adherents.

Even more crucial to the church's survival is the church's status in the social developments taking place in Africa. Western Christianity, through the promotion of formal education, became an organization for "the making of a new elite."3 From its inception, it undertook to create a class of Africans at home in Western culture. Western Christianity in Africa was allied with the colonial powers. It became prestigious for Africans to label themselves "Christian," and they were rewarded accordingly. They became the evolue, the assimilado, the Westernized. Being African was

3The title of J. F. Ade Ajayi's book Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a New Elite (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965) describes vividly and accu­rately some of the new factors conversion to Christianity introduced into African culture. Most significant of all is the introduction of Western education and its implications.

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second rate; they had left all that "primitive paganism" behind them. Today, life is more complex. Post-cold war Africa knows only the survivors and manipulators of the world economic system. Religion is of little consequence and only comes into play as and when it suits politi­cians. Religion and ethnicity are simply pawns on the politico-economic chess board. What then does it matter whether one is Christian, Muslim, African religionist, or of no religious persuasion at all?

THE CHURCH T0DAY

In Africa, the proliferation of churches and other Christian communi­ties is becoming proverbial. First, it was the African Instituted Churches, growing out of the charisma of Africans, usually rooted in a prophetic call. But now, the explosion is related to the new religious movements associated with the electronic media, megachurches, and mass evangelis­tic campaigns. The Western churches that grew out of the Euro-American mission to Africa are being marginalized. The struggle for survival in Africa invites the gospel of prosperity. Africa experiences at least five faces of Christianity, represented, broadly speaking, by five types of churches.

(1) Africa has original first-century Christianity in the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Churches. (2) Africa has Western churches planted as a result of the Euro-American missionary enterprise. These are churches that have grown to resemble those who created them. Most ecumenical structures are made up of these two types. (3) Another manifestation of the Euro-Arnerican mission enterprise is the Roman Catholic Church. (4) Out of the Bible in African languages and the Western churches have grown the African Instituted Churches, whose bold move to inculturate Christianity has invigorated the church in Africa. (5) Finally, Africa is now experiencing a new wave of evangeliza­tion that is producing another type of church whose nature is yet to be fully studied.

This essay is concerned with at least three models of the church in West Africa. The first will be referred to as "Western churches" (that is, Roman Catholic and mainline Protestants). The second category will be designated "African churches" (this category consists of the churches variously labeled as Independent, Indigenous, Instituted, etc.). The third model, characteristic of the new movements, will be referred to as "prosperity churches." Churches of all three types are increasing in numbers.

Congregational life provides a haven for the lost and replaces the traditional extended family, which is fast deteriorating as a result of rapid urbanization, unprecedented mobility of persons, and the endemic pov­erty. Africa's culture is communal, and its spirituality and peace depend on interreligious coexistence. Africans of all three religions (African-Cosmic, Christianity, and Islam) are united by their extended-family obligations. When women get together to face societal problems, nobody discriminates along the lines of religion; the spirituality derived from all

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the religions is tapped. One could say that, in Africa, common interests are more important than common religious creeds and theological correct­ness. Within any church congregation, one may even discover that the societies" and "fellowships" are more important to individuals than the congregation as a whole. People may not share the same views on biblical authority or the boundaries of revelation, but if they love to sing, pray, or visit the sick together, they stay in church in order to stay in these groups.

One's congregation becomes one's community and support group. This phenomenon has given church-based associations much popularity as well as much power over their members.4 Individuals' lives are regulated by codes of dress and conduct, while they enjoy the community support and care much more than they enjoy the ministries of the regular church staff (ministers and lay leaders). In this way, laypeople are taking care to meet their needs themselves. A common perception is that if you do not belong to an association in a congregation, you may as well not be on the congregation's membership roll. The one clear function of the church in Africa is that of providing an active, supportive community for a people accustomed to living in caring communities.

As an organization, the church is very much alive in Africa. As a model of community, it serves the function of sustaining the hope that human beings can love and care for one another. What nurtures this hope varies from congregation to congregation and from one type of church to the other. On the other hand, the church can also be described as the worst example of divisiveness and intolerance of diversity and dissent.

THE FUTURE CHURCH. ITS MISSION

The vision I have of the church is quite simply this: It should be a community that demonstrates to Africa how variety and diversity may become a blessing. In other words, it should pick up the traditional African communal principles, enhance them with the good news of Jesus Christ, and enable caring communities to develop and thrive. The future church should become once more the vehicle of good news to the world. The future of the church in Africa depends on embarking afresh on its mission to be Christ in Africa. This broad agenda involves attending to several urgent matters, foremost of which, in my judgment, are the effects of the global economic system, which, in Africa, manifests itself in terms of national debt and economic structural-adjustment programs that have eroded the sovereignty of African nations and spread militarism on the continent.

Those who watch the world from TV screens can describe vividly what it means to be poor in Africa. The question Who are the poor? begins to

4Women's associations, especially the uniformed ones, and church youth groups exhibit this tendency. So also do prayer groups and, often, the music groups of churches. When there is a bereavement, the solidarity of these groups is most visible. In a recent conversa­tion, K. A. Dickson, President of Methodist Church Ghana, confirmed the increase in the hold of these associations on their members.

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sound like an insult to the thousands whose material deprivations are beyond description. Some of them have heard the Christ preached, and some are even baptized. Others are Muslims, and many hold on to God in other ways. When they are packed together in refugee camps or traveling dusty roads in scorching sun or smoldering swamps in sheets of rainfall, they are humans together. To be church is to have good news for this motley crowd of humanity that pursues fullness of life without attaining it.

The mission of the future church is to respond to all the poverties of humanity, and there is none so poor as the one who does not feet any need. Relatively affluent people living amid persons struggling with abject poverty are often embarrassed to talk about poverty. The poor, on the other hand, are too busy combatting the immediate situation and resisting further exploitation to do any theorizing about it. The church of the future should make people feel the need to talk about justice, peace, and sharing, and not only to talk or advocate but also to practice the demands of the good news of Jesus Christ. People should be challenged to account

"The church will embody the good news when, in its liturgical and other practices, it takes into account the dynamism and complexity of African culture and utilizes its empowering aspects. "

honestly for their affluence. Good news preached should be set in the context of the real lives of the people to whom it is delivered, and it should make a difference. It should empower them to reach the shalom that God wills for all humanity.

When I am confronted with televised scenes of poverty in Africa, I think of the whys and I ask how to stop the carnage. I pray for true wisdom and turn off the TV. But the images do not leave me. Good news is peace, justice, water, and a hug filled with love. But where is the church in all this? My vision of the future church is that it is a community able to be present and salvific to the least of the sisters and brothers of Jesus the Christ. Good news in terms of the availability for all of a life-sustaining environment is what all Africa expects of the future church. Even more critical is the church's solidarity with children, the young people, and the women of Africa, all who are marginalized or fall between the cracks of the planners in church and in government.

A second area of concern for the mission of the future church in Africa is the evolution of culture. The danger posed to the humanity of the African by colonialism, Christian missions, and Islamic resurgence is real. On the other hand, what Africa has to offer to global culture has not been received with honor, and, from what I see of the new Christian move­ments, the only principle from African culture that will be honored and appropriated is the sense of concentric communities that are open. Even

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this appropriation, however, is not without threat to family and commu­nity as understood in Africa. Community in Africa is being labeled tribalism and ethnocentricity and is being coopted by politicians for divisive and negative uses. The church will embody the good news when, in its liturgical and other practices, it takes into account the dynamism and complexity of African culture and uses its empowering aspects. The continued dismissal of things African is a disrespect to the humanity of Africans. Since colonial times, the church has inculcated in the mentality of Africans that salvation comes from the outside. This belief has been detrimental to the self-esteem, the creativity, and the humanity of the African. The future church will be the bearer of good news if it takes Africans and their creative impulses seriously.

When one deals with African culture, specific mention must be made of the role of women, since many women think of themselves as the custodians of culture. Women constitute the majority in many Christian congregations in Africa. African women seem at home in most of the manifestations of the church in Africa. Whether they contribute as much to its mission as they could is another matter. The church's deafening silence in the face of indescribable cruelty to the girl-child as she is prepared to please men is, for me, an indication that the whole church, men and women, has yet to wake up to its total calling. The global challenge of the church's solidarity with women is particularly acute in Africa. A recent survey of the situation in Africa convinces me that, for most African Christians, most men and some women, it is up to women to demonstrate why the status quo is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ.5 A church in solidarity with women will not only join in eliminating dehumanizing elements in cultural practices both indigenous and im­ported. It will also seek justice in the world economy and the end of the use of power-nuclear and otherwise-for death-dealing purposes. It will pursue peace and ensure the contribution of all and the honoring of diversity. It will inculcate an attitude and a behavior that ensure that the sacredness inherent in creation is not eroded. The violence that women endure will be eliminated if the future church will disown all structures and practices that deny the equality of women and men.

It is by doing these and related life-sustaining actions that the world of Africa will come to believe that God sent Jesus Christ to rescue us from the selfishness that leads us to pillage the world and exploit the world's most vulnerable. The mission of the church in Africa includes participat­ing in the struggle against patriarchy in all its deadly forms. The interrelatedness and the complexity and variety of human existence on this earth must inform both the mission and the theology of the church. In Africa,

5The meaning of the word patriarchy in women's writings goes beyond androcracy, the rule or dominance of men. It is also not patriarchy, in the literal sense of the rule or regime of fathers. It is conceived more in terms of what Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza prefers to call "kyriarchy" and what Jesus would describe as "lording over." The concern is for all structures, systems, and attitudes that put down, exploit, marginalize, abuse, or do violence in any form to the other.

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mission and dialogue with people of other faith communities must converge. Denial of any of these challenges will warp Christianity in Africa. The mission of the future church is to be relevant to the challenges that Africans face; this mission can hardly begin when the theology that it propagates is one developed in response to Euro-American Enlightenment and pietistic needs.

THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE CHURCH

Several theological ideas are apposite to the African scene, including the affirmation that the earth belongs to God and the concept of jubilee. The African church of the future will need to articulate a theology of religions for a multireligious Africa and a new Christian anthropology that honors the variety of human types, cultures, ages, and genders. Revisiting both ecclesiology and spirituality is urgent for theology in the African church, as is the development of a dynamic christology. At the beginning of the modern missionary enterprise, Africans converted to Christianity because they saw an affinity between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the African worldview of the sacredness of life and the human attachment to life, fullness of life. They were drawn to the gospel's inclusiveness and wholeness, its care for the vulnerable and its affirmation of humanity's dependence on God.

The sacredness of life, and specifically human life, was reinforced by Christianity through its humanitarian stance and its concern for the individual and for the quality of life of the whole community. Today, we need a vigorous, thoughtful theology of creation that utilizes both the African cosmology that expresses belief in the reality of God's presence in all creation and the biblical theology of creation that identifies Jesus Christ as the Wisdom and Word of creation, Jesus knows creation through and through and we do well to study and to practice how the Christ relates to the created universe. What is needed is a theology that will enable Africans to become more conscious of the fact that life is lived in the presence of God and in full view of a spirit world that is in constant communion with our dimension of life. There are many African wisdom sayings (proverbs) to help in the articulation of such a theology.

Whereas Christianity brought "the Sacred" into sharper profile, the challenge of secularism inherent in colonialism and the Western sociopo­litical and economic system is eroding confidence in a God-centered world and in a caring human community. The future of the church and of religion as a whole depends on the future of God and of the Sacred, A desacralized world that makes human beings into objects to be exploited does damage to religion as a whole but in particular to Christianity, a religion rooted in the beliefs that not a sparrow falls to the ground without God's knowledge and that God knows and cares for each and every human being and all of creation.

Is there a theology for justice in human relations? In parts of Africa, the challenge is how to bring governments to love the people they govern. The genesis of the erosion of accountability to the governed is firmly

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lodged in Africa's colonial past. The traumatic experience of being governed by aliens who despise your wisdom has left Africa a legacy of patriarchy or, at best, benevolent dictatorships of self-seeking men. The church of the future is one that recalls for those who govern and for all who are governed the African belief that all human beings are children of God; it is one that revisits the whole of Christian anthropology to empower all its membership to resist tyranny. The African church of the future seeks racial and ethnic justice and gender equality; it urges and promotes a society in which human beings are treated not just civilly but caringly and with the honor due beings made in the image of God. The call is for a theology relevant to the lives of a life-loving people confronted on all sides with death.

The future of theology in Africa does not rest solely with the official teachers and preachers of the church. Much of what people believe is transmitted through informal conversations, in Bible study groups, and in the many church-based associations that provide people with the experi­ence of community. It is, therefore, a theology of the people by the people rather than one crafted by specialists, and it is a theology that undergirds people's spirituality and their practice. The church and the academy must, therefore, take seriously this theology, nurture it, and enable the sharing. The future church is one that ensures that women's liberative theology will become an integral part of the church's offering and that it is made more visible in church and in the academy.

For all African Christians, biblical theology and the critical apparatus needed for the understanding of the Bible wherever one is located are crucial. The God of the exodus is also the God who deprived the Caananites of the land on which they lived. Liberation for the Hebrew people was achieved by the exploitation of the Caananites. Where is the word of God in this situation, and who distills this word? The church of the future must wrestle with the theology that undergirded apartheid in South Africa and subtly informs the pillage of Africa by Euro-American peoples and their descendants in other parts of the world. Does the God of the Hebrews play favorites? Is this God of the Hebrews on the side of the oppressed even in Africa? Is this God the same one whom Jesus of Nazareth called "Abba"? Do we have one God with many names or many Gods? These primeval questions will not go away. It seems to me that it is this uncertainty about the Hebrew God that is turning African theolo­gians to christology.

Contemporary African Christian theology is investing a great deal of study and reflection in christology, trying to answer the question, "Who is Jesus to Africans?" The themes of salvation, liberation, transformation, and reconstruction are all passed through the prism of the Jesus story. This activity helps to sharpen the profile of the Christ figure in Africa and, it is hoped, will make the church review its reason for being in Africa. In addition, the Christ figure provides a focus for dialogue not only among Christians but also in the arena of Muslim-Christian relations in Africa. A Christian theology relevant to Africa is one that enables African Chris-

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tians to live in peace (total well-being) in their multireligious, multiethnic, and multiracial contexts. Only then, will it be truly a theology that serves God's mission in Africa.

A PROFILE OF THE FUTURE CHURCH

For me, the factor critical to the future of the church in Africa is its relevance, but given the variety of churches described at the beginning of this essay, it is necessary to pass the church in Africa through the crucible of its manifest unity. The prayer for the unity of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth in order that the world may believe demands this review. Africa's challenge is that of evolving an authentic Christianity from which we Africans will derive spiritual nourishment and strength for the harsh realities of the continent. In this evolution, we face the question of the visible expression of the gospel in our own context. A fresh effort to articulate the faith for the future church is being made. What do we preach? How meaningful are the words we say and sing? How does one honor the many manifestations of church in Africa and assist them to live and to enable others to live the gospel? "By their fruits you shall know them." That, for me, is the plumbline for visible unity. If, as churches and as Christians, we bear the fruits of justice, compassion, and joy, then the world will know we belong to the one church of Jesus Christ. The variety will become a blessing; we can celebrate the churches and honor them, for in them, we shall experience the riches of God's abundant life demonstrated to us in the Christ event.

Persons concerned for the visible unity of the church have begun deliberations on "revisioning the unity we seek. "6 Throughout Africa, the deliberate move towards uniting churches has trickled to a stop. Worrying about the disunity or unity of the church is not a high priority. Things seem tolerable as they are and councils of churches are enough to indicate that Christians hope and pray for more visible unity and that, occasionally, they can act together. Many, especially young people, suspect that the vested interests that maintain denominations are too strong to dismantle, so they form their own parachurches and Christian groups, thus diversifying further the already diverse face of the church in Africa.

Will the church of the future be visibly one? Who is seeking visible Christian unity in Africa? In Africa, interchurch dialogue is rare. Unity in each place in Africa seems to depend on the bilateral unity conversations of the various Christian world communions and on the efforts of the All Africa Conference of Churches to formulate a theology of reconstruction that is directed ad extra. It is not a search for institutional unity but an effort to get the churches to act as one body seeking to contribute to the fullness of life in Africa. Ecumenically Oriented theology that happens in universities and in theological associations has little influence on the

6This is the theme of a 1995 consultation organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches, U.S.A.

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visible unity of the churches, although they themselves represent an openness to an ecumenical approach to Christian theology. These associations pay more attention to christology than they do to ecclesiology. They stay away from church structures, and many church leaders keep them at arm's length. Like the councils of churches, but even more so, their theological reflections have little to do with the ecumenical posture of the churches and even less to do with the visible unity of the church. I contend that the future of the church stands to gain from a positive response to these matters.

Another area of concern is liturgy. The arrogance of the Western churches insulated them from the liturgical renewal they could have derived from the growth of the African Instituted Churches. It seems, however, that Vatican II not only brought renewal to the Roman Catholic congregations in Africa but also liberated the mainline Protestant ones to open themselves to the experience of the African Instituted Churches. Although the Western ethos, language, and lifestyle of the councils of churches continue to keep the African Instituted Churches from formal membership, today these indigenous churches' music, forms of prayer, and styles of management and pastoral care are beginning to seep into the Western churches. Mutual learning is taking place. The future of the church in Africa will be enriched by-this development.

The future of the church does not depend on uniting churches; neither does it depend on ecumenical councils. One is hard put to point to any marks of unity in Africa's Christian communions. Nonetheless, people from other religious communities identify Christianity as one religion with a variety of forms. Churches are known by their holy days, forms of worship, regalia of the clergy, and the symbol of the cross. Christianity is known by its councils, which confront governments, and by its churches, which run schools, oversee health-care programs, feed the starving, and provide assistance for refugees from Africa's many disasters. What the churches do, whether separately or together, is what identifies them and, in the eyes of outsiders, unifies them. With the cessation of competition among the Western churches and the growing openness to the African Instituted Churches, it is reasonable to expect that the church of the future will concentrate its energies on responding to the real challenges to Africa's humanity.

A CONCLUDING WORD

The seeds of the future church may be present in the church today, but the future of the church is not of great concern. What is of concern is how we can participate in a process of transformation and reconstruction so that the church of the future may be a worthy instrument in the hands of God. In most parts of Africa, the church has yet to recognize the negative issues around and inside it. It has yet to look at itself in the mirror of Christ and, therefore, remains unaware of how it appears to the onlooker. When the church does get a glimpse of itself in the mirror of Christ, we who belong to the church shall find more evil to repent of. We shall see

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our divisions and turn to embrace the other against whom we had operated our "isms."

We are in a depressed situation in Africa today, not only because of economic problems and patriarchal structures and strategies, but, most radically, because we refuse to empower the other to be a partner in shaping the changing values of our community life. With the burden and blessing of a triple heritage-African, Christian, Islamic-people in power are able to justify anything. The call to the church that aspires to be a positive factor in Africa's future is to a continuous and deliberate attention to questions of empowerment, participation, and energizing partnership.

The future of the church of Jesus Christ is not in human hands, but those who would be part of the future church must intentionally seek to do the will of God in God's world. God wills us good, and Jesus of Nazareth came to proclaim good news to all humanity, The future church will be a community of good news.