Christian Mission and Christ's Prevenience

Abstract

THESIS: Within the past few years, notably at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi in 1961, leading missionary thinkers have put forward the view that Christians meet their fellowmen on the road of life. In such meeting they also confront Jesus Christ. In the neighbor, even the non-Christian neighbor who lives in spiritual darkness, Christ addresses the Christian, and so the Christian must learn from the neighbor. Furthermore, Christ has already preceded the preacher; he is already there, and we must try to catch up with him. The crisis of the present situation in the witness of the church to other faiths, and to men of no faith, demands, however, the assertion, with love and humility, that preachers are sent and that it is God who has chosen to speak through them.