On the Marks of Mission

The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity

O LORD, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their offences; that through thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the bands of those sins, which by our frailty we have committed. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.

While the four Marks of the Church, that it is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, might be the four traditional marks used to identify the Church, and which are referenced in the Apostle’s Creed and listed in the Nicene Creed, the Marks of Mission are much more commonly referenced in Church documents in the modern Anglican Church of Canada. The Marks of Mission were articulated by the Anglican Communion in the mid-1980s as a means of describing the central mission of the Anglican Communion as a church. There are five marks, of which only the first two are distinctly Christian, namely to proclaim the Good News of Christ and to teach, baptise and nurture new believers. The remaining three Marks are characterized more as social activism, namely to respond to human need in loving service, to transform unjust power structures in society and to promote peace and reconciliation and finally to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew life on the earth.

To be clear, while there are no Christian distinctives in the majority of the Marks (unless one considers describing the earth in terms of creation as distinctly Christian), that does not mean the Marks of Mission are un-Christian. Far from it. Yet at the same time, when the final three marks are pursued far more vigorously than the first two, it does leave one to pause and question the purposes of the marks and the broader vision of the church in terms of mission.

One could argue that the goal of the Marks is to sanctify society. It envisions a society in which violence is never considered as a tool, there is some form of justice for all, creation is respected, the Gospel is proclaimed and all people are brought to Christ. And yet, centuries before the Marks of Mission were proclaimed, St Francis of Assisi noted that, “if you sanctify yourself, you will sanctify society.”

His point was that the Anglican Church of Canada seems to be doing things backwards: focusing on, as an institutional priority, sanctifying society in some way, or rather advocating for it, while assuming that the sanctification of individuals will come later. It should not be ignored that the first Mark is to proclaim the Gospel, and yet a quick search of ‘mark of mission’ on the Anglican.ca website or on anglicanjournal.ca turns up references almost exclusively to the fourth mark of mission, that of transforming unjust structures of society and opposing violence. One news article describes a church seeking to live out the marks of mission, and its description of that points exclusively to human service, social activism but with no connection to the first two marks, and indeed an emphasis on how they avoid evangelism at their events.

The view that the social justice marks must be persued as a priority places an emphasis on social activism rather than personal sanctification, and thus implies that sanctification is a result of those good works. Yet St Paul suggests in Romans 14 that works that do not proceed from faith proceed from sin (Rm 14. 23b) and this interpretation is supported by the work of the scholastics and Article XIII. This viewpoint seems stringent, but reinforces the fact that without God’s grace, we are slaves to sin. It is in Christ that we are set free from sin, and it is through the strengthening and empowering of the Holy Spirit that we do good works in faith. Just as we are saved by faith and not works, society will be sanctified by our faith, with in turn sanctifies us, and not by our attempts simply to sanctify society through works alone.

It is important to remember this distinction between the individual, the Church and society. To go back to the Marks of the Church, rather than the Marks of Mission, which Mark is it that suggests the Church is meant to be an institution of social change? What part of Holy Scripture describes the goal for a sanctified society for which the Church is working towards?

The only real argument that could be made would be for the society of the law called for in the Old Testament for the Jews, and yet Christ fulfilled the law and the New Testament proclaims freedom from the particular laws of the Jews. The Good News of the Gospel, which the first mark calls to be proclaimed, along with Christ himself, is that there is a route to personal salvation and sanctification through faith in Christ and the reception of the Holy Spirit! It is not something that occurs through the actions of the Church, rather the Church itself is established in order to transmit this Good News and the teachings of Christ to all people in all times. The Great Commission is to do so. The Church was created to fulfil that commission, yet so far as the Anglican Church of Canada is concerned that is a lower priority.

When the Church moves beyond salvation and Scripture, as the church is doing in Canada, it risks its own authority. Looking at the third Mark of Mission, for instance, in some cases it might be clear how we are to respond to human need. Feed the hungry and clothe the poor is a simple enough prospect, but what about more complex issues? By what metric do we determine what is unjust? To some, closed communion is unjust, and yet to others it is for their benefit on the basis of Holy Scripture (I Cor 11. 27-29). Secular views of justice would suggest turning anyone away is unjust, yet Scripture itself suggests that if someone receives communion without proper preparation they receive it to their condemnation and it is therefore just that the church prevent them from receiving without proper preparation.

Exploring deeper issues of poverty, discrimination, criminal justice all go well beyond Biblical teaching and open the door to questions of how the church will base its decisions on what is unjust. It also shows the dangerous precedent of using secular reasoning to inform the Marks of Mission. Scripture makes it clear that we are to care for the poor, but when the Marks demand addressing systematic issues of injustice, it requires proscriptive efforts that go beyond what Scripture teaches. Are priests now to be political scientists and sociologists, working to determine what policies a government ought to apply in order to address issues of injustice in the world? Does it in any way fulfil a Christian calling to simply seek to use institutional powers of the church to draw awareness of outsiders to these issues?

Coming back to St Francis of Assisi it is through the individual that change must occur. It is the invisible church—the gathering of all the faithful—that must make the difference. Good works are the proceeds of faith as the Epistle of James tells us (Jas 2. 26), and it is the individuals who are called to make the difference.

When the Church speaks to outsiders, it is moralizing. When it is the faithful, inspired by their faith and empowered by the Spirit, who act, it is a witness to others. As we are sanctified, we will sanctify society. The Marks of Mission may not be the best guide for the Church, but they remind us of what we as individual Christians are called to do, and in particular the order in which we are to fulfil them, first by coming to faith, being nurtured in it and when it is mature to act upon it and by our good works transform society and be a witness to others that they might come to faith in Christ themselves.