Faith, Hope & Love

In The Cross in our Context (2003), Douglas John Hall asks what a contemporary understanding of Christian mission looks like when it takes the crucified, risen Christ seriously, and avoids triumphalism. He suggests that such a mission is found in Paul’s 3 great theological virtues—faith, hope and love.

Faith is about trust. We do not possess truth. We “bear witness to the living therefore unpossessible Truth”. We proclaim Christ, “the one toward whom [our] faith is oriented” and whom we “experience as being utterly transcendent of [our] faith as such”. “A theology that bases itself on faith alone (sola fide) cannot in its worldly witness legitimately behave as though it were infallible.” Such faith will embrace dialogue, humility, openness, a sense of mystery, questions and doubt in the fundamental disposition of trust, i.e. faith (pp. 193-194).

Hope is not about “finality or consummation”. A mission based in hope will recognise the “expansiveness of divine grace that far exceeds its own grasp and representation of this mission”. Our hope is in God, not in our “own always-limited appropriation of God’s redemptive work”. “Christian mission is a particular, ongoing attempt faithfully to comprehend and participate in the missio Dei… Christians are those who have glimpsed in faith something of the reality and depth of this divine labour and who strive to involve themselves in it.” But it is not our work. We are not a “finished” community. (p. 195). We are a pilgrim people “always on the way to the promised goal” (Basis of Union Para. 3).

The “love that is the pattern and inspiration of the Christian mission is a ‘spontaneous and unmotivated’ love, agape, that is wholly turned toward the other in disregard of self—to the point of suffering and death, the death of the cross.” Mission that is not motivated by love is motivated by power. It is motivated by the will to control or to appear successful or to make everyone think like us. Mission motivated by love will recognise our own failings. It will be ready to beg forgiveness and eager to receive and share God’s word of forgiveness. “Love is the canon by which all or our actions as Christians, including mission and evangelism as well as all social outreach and neighbourliness, are measured” (Hall pp. 197-198).