Poured Out on All Flesh – To the Ends of the Earth: Towards a Pneumato-Missiological Praxis

of creation is destined to be reconciled to the Creator: not only human beings but also the entire cosmic order. This is so that all things may be reconciled to God in Christ (Col. 1:15-20) and that ‘God may be all in all’ (1 Cor. 15:28b): ‘For from him and through him and to him are all things’ (Rom. 11:36, italics added). The dynamic engine driving this eschatological reconciliation, however, is the Spirit. In other words, the Spirit of creation and redemption is also the coming Spirit, the one who enables the renewal and restoration of all things to the image of God in Christ. So if in Act 2 the redemptive work of the Spirit enables her inhabitation of human flesh – first the flesh of Jesus and then that of all flesh – then in Act 3, the eschatological work of the Spirit transforms and transfigures all creation as the dwelling place of the divine Spirit.

Poured Out on All Flesh – To the Ends of the Earth: Towards a Pneumato-Missiological Praxis

I conclude by suggesting three lines of mission praxis. First, if the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of creation as well as the Spirit of mission, then Christian mission ought to be intentional about engaging with the environment. The Spirit is said to groan through human creatures for the redemption and renewal of all creation. If so, then while not all mission work will be environmentally or ecologically directed, such ought not to be wholly ignored. The Spirit poured out at Pentecost on all flesh (Acts 2:17) means that some Christ-followers340 (not only Pentecostals) will be called towards Creation care even to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), and those who are called ought to respond positively to such a vocational undertaking.341

Second, it is not only that Spirit-empowered Christian mission is environmentally sensitive and focused, but theological thinking about mission (missiology) ought also to be cognisant of the environmental or ecological horizon within which Christian mission unfolds. This means that every aspect of Christian mission is or ought to be carried out within such an environmental and ecological frame of reference. Missiologies of development, for instance, should be explicated in the light of such constraints, probing not only the challenges but also the opportunities to

340. See also Christopher Wright. 341. Such an environmental missiology is further developed in the final chapter of my book, The Cosmic Breath: Spirit and Nature in the Christianity-Buddhism-Science Trialogue (Philosophical Studies in Science & Religion 4: Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2012).

161

work missionally in environmentally sustainable ways.342 The point is that the Spirit of creation is presumed to call and empower Christian mission only through methods and approaches that will not be destructive of their given habitation.

Last but not least, the theological academy ought to be more intentional about developing ministerial and missional curriculum that links pneumatology to theology of creation and missiology. Here I am talking not only about including pneumatological theologies of the environment in missiological courses and seminars, but also about including pneumatological missiologies in theologies of creation courses, and including environmental missiologies in pneumatology and theology courses. In other words, triangulating around these themes ought to generate multi-directional approaches so that each element both informs and receives from the other two, towards an interactive and holistic pneumatology, theology of creation, and missiology. Such a task is necessarily a dynamic one since we see through a glass dimly even as we are committed to working missionally in anticipation of the coming reign of God.343

342. E.g. Bryant L. Myers, Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (revised and expanded edition: Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 183. 343. Much, although not all, of the material for this chapter has been reworked from two previously published articles of mine: ‘The Spirit and Creation: Possibilities and Challenges for a Dialogue between Pentecostal Theology and the Sciences,’ in Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 25 (2005), 82-110; and ‘Primed for the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Missio Spiritus,’ in International Review of Mission 100:2 (November 2011), 355-66; thanks to John Kaoma for revising and editing into a coherent whole, and for inviting my contribution to this volume, and to Ryan Seow, my graduate assistant, for proofreading the penultimate draft – all obscurities and incoherence remain my responsibility. Notice that my argument for creation care is theological rather than scientific. It is not that I wish to neglect arguments about global warming, for instance, but that there is currently no consensus about the science of this matter. I would invite Christians who are skeptical about the scientific data, however, to consider a Pascalian wager: if we heed the yea-sayers but they turn out to be wrong, one could argue there is no harm done; but if we listen to the nay-sayers and they turn out to be wrong, we have jeopardised our children’s future. Conservative Christians are quick to adopt this Pascalian approach for the existence of God and vis-à-vis the stakes related to eternal life, but I am not sure they have considered contested issues in environmental science in these terms.

162