Mennonite Weekly Review

I recently participated in “New Wine, New Wineskins,” the effort of Mennonite Central Committee to gather feedback from its constituents to define the future of its ministry.

In an assignment to tell what excited us about the work of MCC, the people at my table cited ministering “in the name of Christ,” which they believed was a non-negotiable aspect of MCC’s ministry.

Their commitment reminded me of Shakespeare’s Juliet, who asked Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by another other name would smell as sweet.”

Would MCC’s ministry, without mentioning the name, be any different?

I fully support ministering in the name of Christ. However, the name needs interpretation. Otherwise, it will be misunderstood and become meaningless.

When I pasted labels on cans of turkey for MCC’s meat canning ministry, someone commented that the turkey would taste the same with or without Christ.

The taste might be the same, but the meaning will change. When Christians worked with Hindus in an Indian village, they claimed the name of Christ, which influenced the Hindu people to accept Christ as one of their nearly infinite number of gods. In that village, the can of turkey, given in the name of Christ, would probably have been interpreted as a gift from one of the gods.

Does that interpretation matter? People are still eating. It raises the age-old debate between evangelism and social action ministries. Many people believe interpretations matter because they want to express their evangelistic beliefs and values. Others prefer development ministries because they do not want to be evangelistic. They seem to assume that development ministries — health care, agriculture, peacebuilding, education — are independent of, or do not influence, religious beliefs and values.

The statement, “in the name of Christ,” can provide a minimal degree of satisfaction for both constituencies. The people who favor evangelism can cling to it, while those who prefer not to be evangelistic can ignore it. But the central issue is discerning the intrinsic relationship between our beliefs and values and the relief and development work we do.

Serving people in the name of Christ makes a difference, but we have to interpret the difference.