| Summary: | In current thinking about the mission of the church no topic is more prominent than “development.” Its urgency springs from awakened Christian conscience concerning the vast disabilities suffered by a large part of the world's population in comparison with relatively affluent “Christian” nations of the West. Many missionary leaders have come to the conviction that traditional Christian activities in aid of the poor have treated symptoms rather than causes. “Development,” then, seeks to get at fundamental issues of poverty, hunger, ignorance, hopelessness and to help people find their own way to a more abundant, more “human” life.What is distinctively Christian about these concerns, or about the actions undertaken to deal with them? What have the churches in mission to offer that secular agencies, or even anti-Christian movements, cannot match or excel? A striking perspective from which to view some of these questions is provided by the ideology of Communist China, widely believed to be the most successful society to undertake self-development in our time. Without attempting to make specific comparisons, this essay outlines the developmental thought of Mao Tse-tung in a way which facilitates self-analysis and evaluation by Christians.
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