Chung, Mee-Hyun. "Mission Possible! Toward a New Perception of Mission." Madang, International Journal of Contextual Theology in East Asia 13 (15th June 2010):41-59.

Abstract

What is the task of Christian mission in the 21st century? Should we limit the intent of them to those theological interests currently acceptable in the west, including gender issues? Or is it sufficient to offer only material assistance? Or should we anticipate an inverse mission from the South and East to the North and West?
Mission can play a positive, integrating role in public life, helping people live together harmoniously during a period of cultural and religious pluralism. While, in the recent past, the quantitative growth of Christianity was primary, a more profound definition of mission, aware of a new role during this neo-colonialist period, can lead to a more mature Christianity. It is important to deeply grasp the relations of mutuality and interdependence. Mission must no longer mean expansion and conquest. Rather its task must be Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. It is an empowerment among people and between creatures with the aim of preserving life together.
In our century, mission can serve to free us from a power-obsessed, rapacious ideology, and release the affluent from their fear of losing hegemonic supremacy, while strengthening the benefits of integrative thought and holistic action. In the case of the Korean peninsula, reunification and peace are the necessary priorities of an urgent mission. We need to discover, or invent, a variety of postcolonial approaches; new methods of thinking which multiply, and do not reduce, encounters between diverse subjects, each with agency. This implies that all cultural, philosophic and religious ideas must be weighed and interpreted from within its own cognitive perspective. To change our value system – to create new attitudes towards each other, and to the other creatures with whom we share the earth, and to the earth itself – is demanding. In applying post-colonial insight we can – in the East as in the West, in the South as in the North – develop a new Christendom. In this sense, mission is both possible and necessary.
        

Key Words

Mission, Korea mission, Helen K. Kim, feminist movement, Confucian patriarchy, ecumenical Christian community, pluralism, reunification and peace of Korean peninsula.