Displaced Faith: Rethinking Evangelism in a Post-Christendom World – Insights from Unsettling Truths

Mission in Practice: Empowerment Across Contexts

What does “reconciling the world back to God” look like in practice? For me, it’s dual: in Africa through Voice1 Africa and the Nkosuo Initiative Foundation, where we empower communities scarred by colonial legacies. Take, for example, our leadership development program via our active internship initiative: A young woman, once marginalized by economic barriers rooted in postcolonial inequality, joined our workshops on self-determination and Gospel-centered dignity. Despite initial resistance from entrenched poverty cycles and skepticism about faith-based programs, she embraced training in entrepreneurship and community organizing. She launched a local intervention that now empowers about 20 youth, transforming them from dependents to leaders in their communities. We didn’t impose solutions; we walked alongside, fostering self-leadership that honors cultural identity while pointing to Christ as the ultimate liberator. These initiatives address education, economic empowerment, and spiritual formation, all as expressions of integral mission—where faith integrates with justice.

Here in the UK, it’s quieter but no less profound. My work in social care—supporting adults with learning disabilities, mental health challenges, and autism—puts me face-to-face with society’s “least of these” (Matthew 25:40). One client, a man with autism struggling with isolation after losing his family support, found stability through our daily routines. Changing his bedding after an accident, supporting him to keep a tidy and dignified living space, listening to his repetitive stories of societal rejection and past assaults—these acts aren’t side gigs to “real” ministry. They are the ministry, embodying the Gospel’s preferential option for the vulnerable. His past assaults highlighted how ableism intersects with broader systemic inequities, mirroring the marginalization Unsettling Truths exposes. In one instance, a simple conversation about hope amid his despair opened a door to sharing Christ’s redemptive love, not through preaching but through presence. In a culture that values efficiency over empathy, this disrupts the narrative of self-sufficiency.

Inculturation—the process of adapting faith expressions to local cultures without diluting the Gospel’s core—is key here. There’s no monolithic “Christian way.” Faith must take root in each context, expressing itself uniquely. In African settings, it might roar with charismatic fire; in the West, it might whisper through intellectual dialogue, humble service, or prophetic advocacy. Authentic mission renounces domination, celebrates diversity, and incarnates liberation. “Mission as justice” means naming systemic evils—whether colonial hangovers in Africa or racial inequities in the West—while offering the Gospel’s alternative: a kingdom where the last are first.

Navigating the Tensions: Humility in a Skeptical Age

This isn’t easy. The West often doesn’t want or think it needs Christ. Secularism promises fulfillment through autonomy; consumerism through stuff. Yet cracks appear—rising mental health issues, loneliness epidemics, distrust of institutions. In these spaces, a humble, culturally attuned witness can shine. Not by shouting louder, but by living deeper: vulnerability that admits our own brokenness, service that costs us something, justice that challenges power without seeking to seize it.

My journey through these unsettling truths has solidified one conviction: true faith demands action. Compassion without justice is sentimentality; justice without compassion is bitterness. The Gospel fuses both, calling us to empower the underprivileged wherever we’re planted. Whether advocating for inclusive urban planning, pushing climate justice, or holding someone’s hand in a care home, it’s all part of building people and reshaping systems for human flourishing.

This holistic mission isn’t optional. It’s the natural outflow of encountering a God who entered our mess, sided with the oppressed, and rose to make all things new. In a world of displaced faith, we point to the true source of hope—not by conquest, but by crucifixion-shaped love.

As I write this for my Publisher Review Series, I invite reflection: What does holistic mission look like in your sphere? How are you translating these insights into tangible empowerment—personal care, community development, systemic advocacy? Share your stories or submissions with Guiding Light Press; let’s build a global sanctuary for these conversations. The work is vast, but the call is clear. Let’s join it, not as conquerors, but as servants in the ongoing story of reconciliation.

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As I sit in my lounge in London, reflecting on the long arc of my faith journey—from the vibrant, Spirit-filled worship of African churches to the quiet, often skeptical streets of the UK where I now serve in social care—this moment feels like a reckoning. The truths I’ve encountered, especially through books like Unsettling Truths by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah, have not just unsettled me; they’ve shattered comfortable assumptions and forced me to rebuild my understanding of evangelism from the ground up. This isn’t abstract theology. It’s personal, raw, and urgent. In a post-Christendom West that’s increasingly secular, individualistic, and wary of anything smelling like spiritual conquest, how do we—African and Asian Christians leading this “reverse mission”—share the Gospel without repeating the sins of our colonial past?

The question haunts me daily. I’ve spent years deconstructing the legacy of Manifest Destiny, the Doctrine of Discovery, and the intertwined threads of white supremacy and Christianity. Unsettling Truths lays it bare: how 15th-century papal bulls like Inter Caetera granted European Christians divine permission to “discover,” claim, and subdue non-Christian lands and peoples, treating them as subhuman. This wasn’t fringe theology; it became the legal and moral foundation for the transatlantic slave trade, the dispossession of Indigenous lands in the Americas, and centuries of dehumanization. The book traces how this doctrine seeped into American exceptionalism, Supreme Court decisions like Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823), and even modern policies that continue to marginalize Native peoples. Charles (a Navajo man) and Rah (a Korean American theologian) don’t just recount history—they expose how the church has internalized a triumphalist narrative that equates God’s kingdom with empire-building.

Reading it felt like a gut punch. Growing up in contexts shaped by colonialism’s aftermath, I’ve always known the pain of imposed faith. But seeing how Western Christianity weaponized the Gospel to justify conquest made me confront my own complicity. Have I, even unintentionally, carried echoes of that supremacy into my witness? This realization extends to contemporary mission efforts, including those in the UK, where the Church of England’s 2022–2023 apologies for its historical links to slavery highlight ongoing reckonings with colonial legacies. Such acknowledgments remind us that the Doctrine of Discovery’s influence lingers in subtle ways, from paternalistic aid models to church planting strategies that prioritize expansion over equity.

The Challenges of Reverse Mission in a Secular West

In African Pentecostal expressions—loud praise, demonstrative healings, bold proclamations—the energy is authentic and life-giving in our cultural soil. It reflects a holistic faith where the Spirit moves tangibly, addressing poverty, oppression, and spiritual warfare head-on. But transplant that style wholesale to a secular West that prizes intellectual subtlety, personal autonomy, and quiet authenticity? It risks coming across as aggressive, imperialistic, or culturally tone-deaf. The West doesn’t need another conquest; it needs encounter.

This is where “reverse mission”—the flow of missionaries from the Global South to re-evangelize the West—demands nuance. While it brings vital vibrancy, as seen in thriving African-led churches like the Redeemed Christian Church of God in the UK, it also faces criticisms. Some observers note that it can inadvertently import elements of prosperity gospel teaching, emphasizing material blessings in ways that clash with Western skepticism toward wealth-focused faith. Cultural insensitivity, such as overlooking local histories of church abuse or secular pluralism, can alienate rather than attract. As Harvey Kwiyani’s work on decolonizing missions highlights, reverse mission must include self-reflection to avoid replicating hierarchical patterns from colonial eras. Without this, we risk echoing the very empire-building Unsettling Truths critiques.

Reframing the Mandate: From Conquest to Liberation

This realization has shifted my evangelism paradigm profoundly. I no longer default to Matthew 28’s Great Commission as the primary mandate. As Bishop Dr. D. Zac Niringiye has powerfully argued in his critiques of mission language, traditional interpretations of “go and make disciples of all nations” have often been tainted by supremacist undertones—framing mission as a civilizing project from a superior culture. Niringiye’s perspective resonates deeply: the command, when read through colonial lenses, can justify domination rather than liberation.

Instead, I find myself drawn to Luke 4:18-19, where Jesus announces His mission in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This isn’t about territorial expansion or numerical conquest. It’s holistic liberation—good news embodied in acts of justice, healing, and solidarity with the marginalized. It’s “mission as presence,” where the Gospel is demonstrated before it’s declared.

To address potential pushback, this doesn’t replace Matthew 28 but complements it in a decolonial reading. The Great Commission calls for disciple-making, but Luke 4 grounds it in justice, ensuring mission empowers rather than extracts. This aligns with Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Evangelism becomes less about aggressive persuasion and more about visible, sacrificial love that points to a different kingdom—one not built on power but on service.

Displaced Faith: The Cracks in Western Systems

In a West grappling with systemic failures—economic inequality, racial injustice, mental health crises, climate collapse—people aren’t hungry for doctrinal arguments. They’re starving for hope that systems don’t have to be ultimate, that brokenness can be redeemed. Western societies have displaced faith from God to human constructs: politics, economy, technology, individualism. When these idols fail—as they inevitably do, leaving anxiety, isolation, and despair—there’s an opening. But only if we offer something real: a Gospel that confronts systemic sin (the structural injustices embedded in society, like racism or exploitation) while offering personal and communal wholeness.

Yet, secularism isn’t all failure; it has fostered positives like emphasis on human rights, pluralism, and freedom from religious coercion—elements that can enrich mission by encouraging dialogue and mutual respect. My upcoming book, Finding God in a Systemic World, builds on these insights, exploring how faith can reclaim its place amid these tensions without dominating them. Reconciliation with God isn’t abstract; it’s reconciliation from the alienation bred by empire, racism, and exploitation.