COVER

Thomas Baldwin opens a new six-part series exploring the history and vision of the Five Marks of Mission now at the heart of the work of the Church of Scotland.

OVER the past five years or so, the Marks of Mission have entered the conversation about the future direction of the Church of Scotland.

They were referenced by the Rev Dr Doug Gay in his 2017 book Reforming the Kirk, and mentioned in the Ecumenical Relations Committee’s report to the 2018 General Assembly.

Then, in May 2020 the Church of Scotland Assembly Trustees, faced with the need for major cost savings from the central administration, announced their intention that the future programmes of the new central agencies – the Faith Nurture Forum and Faith Action Forum – would be appraised against the first three Marks of Mission.

But what are they?

The Marks of Mission are an attempt to define the elements of mission for the Church of the 21st century. Incorporating evangelism, practical service and engagement in issues of social justice, peace-building and the environment, they are now used as the basis for action plans in various Church of England dioceses and in other denominations.

However, they are not new, having arisen out of conversations within the Anglican Communion in the early 1980s and been adopted by the General Synod of the Church of England a quarter of a century ago, in 1996.

Nor are they immutable. The first four marks were originally defined in 1984 and the fifth was added in 1990, adding an obligation of care for creation. And the fourth mark was expanded in 2012 to bring in an emphasis on anti-violence, peace and reconciliation work.

With those amendments, the Marks are currently defined as:

• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

• To teach, baptise and nurture new believers

• To respond to human need by loving service

• To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation

• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth Some churches express them as five words: TELL – TEACH – TEND – TRANSFORM – TREASURE.

The Marks are not without their critics, even (or perhaps especially) within the Anglican Communion. The Rev Dr Jesse Zink, principal of Montreal Diocesan Theological College, wrote in 2017 that ‘The way in which the Five Marks of Mission are used now – as a check-list approach to mission and as a source of mission strategies – diverges from their original intention, which was as a definition of holistic mission’. He also warned that as ‘Anglican mission slogans have historically lasted about a decade… we should not expect the Five Marks of Mission to last much longer’.

However, such reservations have not prevented the Marks from becoming widely accepted in the Anglican Communion, and increasingly influential ecumenically.

Dr Gay wrote in Reforming the Kirk that ‘This is the kind of full-spectrum lens which I believe we need to refocus the life and work of the Church of Scotland.

It calls evangelicals beyond individualism to social and ecological ethics. It reminds liberals of the importance of evangelism and discipleship’.

In 2018, the Church of Scotland Ecumenical Relations Committee wrote ’the opening emphasis on the proclamation of the Kingdom coheres well with the vision of the mission of God focused on the nurturing and discipling of Christian believers within the context of the exercise of a pastoral and prophetic understanding of the Church’s vocation’.

The Church of Scotland’s Theological Forum, asked to reflect on the Marks of Mission after the Assembly Trustees’ announcement, wrote that: “In order to assess the current discussion over the use of the Five Marks in the Church, we need to recognise an ambiguity over their purpose. They have lacked a consistent frame: is this God’s mission? Christ’s? The church’s? And when they are used as some form of yardstick for assessing priorities in a particular context, how does the church’s mission relate to that of God or Christ?

“This lack of a consistent frame may contribute to a certain ambiguity as to their status and use in particular contexts. Are the Marks broadly to be understood as a theological understanding of God’s mission in the world in which the church participates, or as a practical checklist for churches’ missional work in specific contexts, or some balanced combination of these and other interpretations?

“The Five Marks function helpfully as a theological vision statement for Christian mission. They include essential aspects of the missional work of the church: evangelism, discipleship, pastoral care, social justice, reconciliation and care for creation. This combination echoes the teaching of Jesus, the practice of the early church, the message of the biblical prophets, insights from the experiences of poor and oppressed people, and openness to science and ecological awareness.

Their language and emphases are agreeable to our Reformed understanding.”

However, the Forum also acknowledged that other aspects of mission could have been included, and that ‘there could be quite different ways of conceptualising mission’.

There is also the question of whether there is any kind of hierarchy within the five marks.

The report of the Assembly Trustees said that the work of the central Church would be prioritised around the first three of the marks, adding ‘The fourth and fifth marks are of great importance but, especially in a time of crisis, only in conjunction with the first three’ and that ‘when measuring the value and the outcomes of the work for which the (Faith Nurture and Faith Action) Forums are responsible, there ought to be a fusion of proclamation and practice, such as leads to the spiritual or numerical growth of the Church’.

But the Theological Forum warned that the Five Marks ‘are akin to a definition of mission’ and that ‘any attempt to prioritise some marks over others may give the impression that our Christian mission is being redefined’. The report added:

“It is our view that the Five Marks are not separable into parts with some having more theological importance than others.

“The Marks of Mission are an attempt to define the elements of mission for the Church of the 21st century.”

And so while the Five Marks may helpfully point to areas of work which are broadly missional, they are not particularly suitable for informing specific decisions about resource-allocation for work which falls within the Marks.”

Be that as it may, it is surely uncontroversial to say that a church which was delivering strongly on all Five Marks of Mission would be a healthy church.

Over the next five months, we will be looking at each of the marks in turn, explaining what they are and how churches can engage with them.