Sharing Concern for Justice: Becoming an Intercultural Church as a Postcolonial Mission Practice in the Canadian Context of Integrative Multiculturalism

Who is the Other? In a society so culturally and religiously diverse as Canada, how does the United Church of Canada (UCC) build just relations with the Other without breaching the Other’s identity? In the context of Canada’s current multicultural policy and the Church’s vision to become an intercultural church, this study develops a missiology for the Church. This thesis claims that Canada’s Integrative Multiculturalism promotes religious conflicts through the assimilation and the integration of difference into the dominant culture by discarding unwelcomed differences in the public sphere: difference, rather, is a gift for building just community. In order to develop the philosophical foundation for an intercultural theology, the thesis employs key concepts from the work of three scholars – Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Homi Bhabha. Rather than relying on common beliefs to carry out God’s mission (missio Dei), the Church’s report World Mission (1966) provides an historical and theological resource for developing a mutuality model of missiology and mission practice in which the church works justly with Others, sharing a common concern. To develop the model, several components are offered: the Aboriginal philosophy “all my relations,” the Six Nations’ Two Row Wampum belt and Nam-dong Suh’s minjung theology. This thesis proposes “all my relations” as a metaphor for the model of becoming an intercultural church and its mission practice with Others whether they are the people of religious faith or not. While sustaining their own identities, participants create a safe, welcoming in-between third space where dialogical dialogue takes place in the solidarity of Others sharing their concern for justice.Doctor of Theology (ThD