현대 사회 선교의 대상 - 명목상 기독교인에 대한 연구

Abstract

To be a nominal Christian is to be a Christian in name only.The term refers to those people who insist on calling themselves Christian but who do not identify with any local congregation or denomination except at the time of infant baptism, marriage and funeral. In the bible, nominality may be found in the figures such as Lot,Esau, Saul, Judas and Simon Magus. Outside the bible, nominality may also be found in historical figures such as Constantine, Stalin and Il-Sung Kim. Nominality has a deep and long history. The Protestant Church has actively participated in overseas missions since the time of William Carey(1761-1843). As a result,Christianity was able to become a world-wide religion and experience a large population growth. Inwardly, however,Christianity failed to be sensitive to the spiritual, cultural and social changes and to respond appropriately. As a result the number of nominal Christians continue to grow, seriously challenging and threatening missions. In fact this nominality may become the most dreadful and potent attack on the missions in the 21st century, if it is not treated seriously and properly adressed. As a historical example, the case of Russia may be considered. The former Soviet Union became a communist country,aggressive threatening the free democratic world for over seventy years, in part because it didn't consider the nominality of the Orthodox Church which was the dominant over 80% of population of the time. This seems to be rather strange rationale; doesn’t really make sense. Therefore, an important task to be considered in relation to contemporary mission and evangelism is nominalism. Church leaders must concern themselves with evangelism strategy aimed atnon-believers, but also for at nominal Christians. One must analyze the specific reasons why such a nominal Christians become nominal and prepare a strategy to solve the problems. This task is urgent formission and evangelism in contemporary society. The western churches which held the world missionary conference of Edinburgh in 1910 were full of the optimism and confidence that the evangelization of the known world in their generation would be possible. These churches thought that the object of evangelism lay beyond the western world and thus concentrated their efforts on developing a strategy to evangelize non-western people. Contrary to such expectations, however, just after the second world war, the western churches began to weaken because of the rapid growth of the nominal Christians, As a result,such weakened world of the west became a mission field. This is an important lesson in history for the Korean church, which must prepare itself with regard to evangelism considerations and strategy for the future. One must remember that there exist two objects of evangelism: the unreached people those, consisting of those who do not know Jesus Christ and also the unreached generation,meaning those who show no allegiance to Jesus Christ.