1. Christian Witness in the
Postmodern World
Joshva Raja
Session 7

2. Themes on Witnessing
• Sacramental Presence
• Finding New Frontiers of Witnessing
• Service rather than Power
• Taking Sides in the Postmodern Context

3. Resources
• George Carey, The Mission of the Church in a Postmodern World
http://www.postmission.com/articles/carey.html
• David Smith, Mission after Christendom. 47-103.
James K. Voiss Sacramental Presence in a Postmodern Context.
(Book Review)Theological Studies (Refereed), December 1, 2003
64 (issue 4)
• 870(3).
• Lieven Boeve Interrupting Tradition: An Essay on Christian Faith in
a Postmodern
• Context. 2004.
• Peter Drilling Premodern Faith in a Postmodern Culture: A
Contemporary Theology
• of the Trinity. 2006.
• Roger Lundin The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the
Postmodern World. 1993.

4. THE MISSION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
IN A POST-MODERN WORLD – George Carey
Three issues in POMO
• The collapse of Global Ideology
• Relativising of Values
• The Loss of Hope
Three ways of doing mission
1. The church should never be apologetic for bearing
witness to eternal truths
2. As a church we need to discover the sacramental
nature of the community
3. The church must put service before power and status

5. Christian faith in the postmodern
world – Roger Lundin
• The collapse of modern project does not
mean that the search for truth must be
abandoned; if rationality and the
imagination cannot supply certain access
to the truth, the Christian my turn – or
return to the Bible, to the church and to
tradition for the truth. (p.5)

6. Culture of Interpretation - Roger Lundin
• When all knowledge becomes application,
eventually there may be nothing left to apply.
(p239)
• To believe in Christ means in a sense to belong
to the past, to a community and tradition of faith
established and sustained by the redemptive
acts of God.
• Truth must come to contemporary persons as a
promise of redemption for a troubled world, not
as a therapeutic message of happiness denying
the pain and promise of suffering and death.

7. Interrupting Tradition – Lieven
Boeve
• Recognising the plurality – existing side by
side
• Sensitivity towards the other – God’s
Grace and Mercy alongside Justice and
dignity
• Towards a Christian Open Narrative – not
on contextual demands but on
rediscovering more meanings of the text

8. Mission after Christendom David
Smith pp-43 ff
• Mission as learning experience of the
church
• Islam and Christianity encounter – not
crusades rather dialogue as model of
witnessing – Thomas Aquinas (1277)
• Heliand (saviour) – epic poetry - Saxon
traditional worldview (716)
• Henry Martin (1806) in India
• Qom community in Argentina

9. Emerging Ecumenical Mission
Paradigm – David Bosch
• Church with others – church is a mission
in itself – she is pilgrim – ek klesia called
out of the world
• Church as sacrament – a sign and
instrument of God –ecumenical presence
• Mediating salvation – Salvation is concern
of all religions – Universal salvation
• Quest for Justice – Tension between
Justice and love

10. Postmodern Mission
• Evangelism – in new format – beyond
conservative understanding and
approaches
• Contextualisation and inculturation
• Liberation – preferential option for the poor
and margins
• Common witness and Dialogue
• Action in Hope

11. mission
• God’s and Christs
• Community building
• Life centred
• Family orientations
• Individual freedom
• Conflict resolutions
• Counselling
• Eco-recognition