38 | Robin Lim

To prepare the saints in the marketplace, it is vital to provide them with counter-cultural rhythms that reorient away from the housing market liturgies which give it life. As we have studied, these rhythms have liturgical power, and if not countered they can sterilize the saints who are exposed to it with no alternative. Thus, the church should develop alternative liturgies to catechize the saints who are positioned in these public realms and reorienting the institutions through them. Furthermore, the liturgies should specifcally defend against the doctrinal beliefs inherent in cultural maxims. For example, earlier we analyzed the slogan “bigger is better,” and identifed that it promotes the sin of covetousness against others. Thus, the liturgies should be shaped to repeatedly expose this deceit. Additionally, it should be ofensive to the hedonistic culture by amplifying the “restorative work of culture-making needs . . . primed by those liturgical traditions that orient our imagination to kingdom come.”39 The liturgies provide a blueprint of kingdom fourishing that is manifest via the sanctifcation of one’s heart via its formative power. Finally, to maximize the power of these liturgies, they need to be practiced communally among the gathered believers, reinforced via the edifcation and accountability of others.

The church must embody a posture that both models and enacts holiness in the public realm of the housing market. Brueggemann states, “The theological problem in the church is that our gospel is a story believed, shaped, and transmitted by the dispossessed; and we are now a church of possessions.”40

39 James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love, 181.

40 Walter Brueggemann, The Land. 2nd ed., 206.

I am not advocating for those with houses to immediately sell their assets; such a plan is overly simplistic. However, it does call for an embodiment of Solomon’s request, for understanding and an obedient heart to discern between good and evil. It is a call to solidarity with the dispossessed, through the curtailing of our own needs and the advocating of theirs. It is a call to selfdenial rather than self-indulgence. It is a call to seek favor with God rather than to seek the complements of others. It is a call for human fourishing rather than self-fourishing. It is a call to be the house of God, rather than seek gods in houses.

The world’s obsession with housing has transformed it into an all-consuming deity that has deceptively swayed industry participants to be part of its religious system. Its alluring ideology, disguised as cultural maxims have indoctrinated society into its beliefs. Through the resources of public theology, I have exposed these spiritual realities. Yet governments and institutions continue to persist with secular, mechanistic, and economically driven solutions. More lamentably, the church has been widely silent, complicit in its activity. Therefore, it is paramount for the church to reengage this public issue, reclaiming its identity as God’s redemptive people in all spheres of society pursuing human fourishing. Further, it is a demonstration once more of how theology is necessary beyond the private confnes of academic hallways and church pulpits, because it carries a Spirit-flled potency to inform, correct, and reorient the complex public issues of today.

Bank of America. “Listening to what matters most.” Television advertisement. Hill Holliday, 2018.

Bluett, Ros. “Australia’s home ownership obsession: A brief history of how it came to be” in ABC News, August 23, 2017.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-23/whyaustralians-are-obsessed-with-owning-property/8830976 https://www.economist.com/china/2019/02/16/ why-so-glum-china

Bollhagen, James. Ecclesiastes. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2011.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Land. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002.

Chaguan, “Why so glum, China?” in The Economist, February 16, 2019.

Crawford, Alan. “The Global Housing Market Is Broken, and It’s Dividing Entire Countries.” in Bloomberg News, September 19, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/ news/features/2021-09-19/global-housing-markets-arehurting-and-it-s-getting-political

Cullen, Jim. The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Damian, Johnson. “America’s 10 biggest banks”, MPA Magazine, August 9, 2021. https://www.mpamag.com/us/mortgageindustry/guides/americas-10-biggest-banks/301707 https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-sella-house-these-days-the-buyer-might-be-a-pensionfund-11617544801

Dezember, Ryan. “If You Sell a House These Days, the Buyer Might Be a Pension Fund” in The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2021.

Federal Bank of NY, Household debt report, Q2 2021. https://www. newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc

Felker Jones, Beth. Practicing Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2014.

Forbes India “Thoughts on Real Estate” in Forbes, March 29, 2018. https://www.forbesindia.com/article/thoughts/ thoughts-on-real-estate/49823/1 https://www.aeaweb.org/content/fle?id=13538 https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshhelmin/2010/09/29/ urgent-advice-from-billionaire-john-paulson-buya-house-and-gold-plus-rupert-murdochs-paycut/?sh=4504cc66f183

Grifen, John. “Ten Years of Evidence: Was Fraud a Force in the Financial Crisis?” in American Economic Association, July 29, 2020.

Helmin, Josh. “Urgent Advice From Billionaire John Paulson: ‘Buy A House and Gold’” in Forbes, September 29, 2010.

House Committee on the Budget, “The Build Back Better Act: Transformative Investments in America’s Families & Economy” in House Committee on the Budget, November 5, 2021. https://budget.house.gov/publications/report/ build-back-better-act-transformative-investmentsamerica-s-families-economy

42 | Robin Lim

IMF, “Global House Price Index Data, 2020 Q4.” in IMF. November 2021. https://www.imf.org/external/research/ housing/data/GlobalHousePriceIndex.csv

Manetsch, Scott M. ed. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. New Testament IXa – 1 Corinthians. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Oden, Thomas. Classic Christianity. New York: Harper One, 1992.

OECD, “OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2021 Issue 2: Preliminary version.” in OECD, December 1, 2021. https:// doi.org/10.1787/66c5ac2c-en

Okesson, Gregg. A Public Missiology. Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2020.

Peters, Frederick. “The American Dream of Homeownership Is Still Very Much Alive.” in Forbes, April 8, 2019. https:// www.forbes.com/sites/fredpeters/2019/04/08/theamerican-dream-of-homeownership-is-still-very-muchalive/?sh=2f80e8103e80

Peterson, Michael, Williams Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach and David Basinger eds. Philosophy of Religion 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Rohe, William M., Harry L. Watson, Chasing the American Dream: New Perspectives on Afordable Homeownership. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007.

Rogers, Taylor. “For the frst time ever, there are more ultrawealthy people in China than the US” in Business Insider, October 22, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/morerich-people-in-china-than-america-wealth-gap-2019-10

Sito, Peggy and Pearl Liu, “China property: how the world’s biggest housing market emerged” in South China Morning Post, November 26, 2018. https://www.scmp.com/business/ article/2174886/american-dream-home-ownershipquickly-swept-through-china-was-it-too-much

Smart, Douglas. Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scriptures. Nashville: Holman Reference, 2006.

Smith, James K. You Are What You Love. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016.

Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

Tostevin, Paul. “The Total Value of Global Real Estate” in Savills Market Trends, September 2021. https://www.savills.com/ impacts/market-trends/the-total-value-of-global-realestate.html

US Congress. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. HR 1424, 110th Cong, Public Law 110-343. https://www. congress.gov/110/plaws/publ343/PLAW-110publ343.htm

Volf, Miroslav. A Public Faith. Grand Rapids: BrazosPress, 2011.

Walker, Tony. “‘To get rich is glorious’: how Deng Xiaoping set China on a path to rule the world” in The Conversation,

July 9, 2021. https://theconversation.com/to-get-rich-isglorious-how-deng-xiaoping-set-china-on-a-path-torule-the-world-156836

Waswo, Ann. Housing in Postwar Japan – A Social History. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Wesley, John. “Sermon LXX. The Case of Reason Impartially Considered” in The Works of John Wesley 3rd ed. Vol. VI. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1984.

Wink, Walter. The Powers That Be – Theology for a New Millennium. New York: Doubleday, 1998.

WSJ Opinion, “The False Fed Savior” in Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2010. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142 4052748704388504575419231591024478

Myra Watkins Abstract

In the Czech Republic, considered one of the most secular nations in the world, many churches today struggle with how to witness to an increasingly post-Christian society. As the Christian population continues to rapidly decline, Czechs increasingly show interest in supernatural phenomena and spirituality. I explore how Czech national identity formed in opposition to Christianity, public perceptions of the evangelical church, and the mission of Czech evangelical churches.1 In dialogue with former dissident and Czech President Vaclav Havel’s concept of living within the truth, I argue for a Czech public missiology wherein local congregations are a sign and agent of God’s mission existing in and for the fourishing of Czech society. Finally, I present public witness through a Czech congregation, Mozaika.

Myra Watkins has served for decades as a church planter, teacher, and regional representative with Every Nation in Central and Eastern Europe, most recently in Prague, Czech Republic. Soon after the Soviet Union ended, she moved to L’viv, Ukraine with her husband, Michael, to plant a church. Living among Ukrainians through a tumultuous period of tremendous spiritual openness and acute social needs shaped her perspective on life and missions. She is a Ph.D. student in Intercultural Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. Her articles and research interests include public missiology in the European context and the interchange between theology, the church, and society.

1 I am deeply grateful for and indebted to the research of European missiologists and theologians Pavol Bargár, Pavel Černý, Pavel Hošek, Ann-Marie Kool, Peter Kuzmic, and Ivana Noble.

The Czech Republic is considered one of the most atheist, and secular nations in the world.2 Yet if you walked through the center of any city in the country, from Brno to Prague to Liberec, you would see vestiges of a once-living Christian faith. In Prague, tourists meander through towering, ornate cathedrals juxtaposed by Tao tea rooms, shops ofering yoga and astrology, and the occasional neo-pagan festival in squares once flled with people giving homage to monuments of heroes of the Christian faith.

Roughly two-thirds of Czechs say they do not believe in God.3 Since the Czech Republic stands out as an anomaly, an island of irreligion in an archipelago of mostly religious nations, this has captured the attention of Czech sociologists and the emerging feld of Czech missiology. As Pavel Hošek points out, Czechs are not particularly orthodox in their atheism. While Nietzsche foretold God’s death in society, “God is back” or “the gods are back” aptly describes the current situation.4 Czech theologian Ivana Noble says her culture longs to understand the deep sources from which it renews its life yet is hesitant to name them.5

2 In 2017, around seventy-two percent of Czechs described their religion as atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular.” The Christian population continues to be in decline. “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, May 10, 2017.

3 “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, May 10, 2017.

4 Pavel Černý, “Mission in the Czech Republic: A Search for a Relevant Mission

Theology in a Post-Secular Environment,” eds. Corneliu Constantineanu, Marcel V. Măcelaru, Anne-Marie Kool, and Mihai Himcinschi, Mission in Central and Eastern Europe: Realities, Perspectives, Trends (Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series, Volume 4, 2016), 604.

5 Ivana Noble, Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context: Central and East European Search for Roots (Surry, England, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010), 1.

In his poem “Underground Sources,” Czech poet and musician Jaromir Nohavica expresses this longing:6

I walk, I ramble like a silent river

Among all the people. Looking to the ground, trying to understand What awaits me when I lie in the earth.

Underground sources, Unknown streams.

Words are signs Whose meaning we don’t know. We search for roots, Knowing nothing of them. We ramble upon the earth Under the earth we ramble, Hopelessly, yet still we do.

Which one of my loves Managed to break me

And who will hold me now?

Who will again ofer me an arm?

I look into a shop window, Seeing my own outline, Glassy and dull.

I am neither good nor bad, I am both good and bad.

Like Nohavica, many Czechs search for meaning yet are averse to fnding it in religious traditions long associated with foreign domination and abusive power.7 According to James Payton, religion negatively shaped Czech self-understanding. Derek Sayer calls Bohemia (a region of the Czech Republic) “barren territory for grand narratives.”8 As the nation was caught between opposing political and cultural wars, whether Catholic and Protestant, capitalist and Communist, or democratic and totalitarian, the nation “slipped into a narrative no-man’sland.” People have increasingly spurned institutional religion, fnding it distasteful, and sought other sources for meaning and spirituality. At the same time, Czechs tend to be illiterate concerning the actual Christian ideas they reject.9 Pavel Černý describes the current missional situation as closer to the frst century than four or fve decades ago, as “polytheism, a myriad of mystery cults and various forms of old and new religions” are on the rise.10

6 Nohavica, Jaromir, “Strange Century: Underground Sources,” Monitor, 1996.

Although Czech national identity is seemingly secular in the sense that religion is mostly absent from public life, contested national values are sometimes rich in theological meaning.11 Noble says we need to allow the symbolic religious traditions and the search expressed in contemporary culture to be nourished in diferent ways by our common roots.12 Zdenek Nešpor says Czechs occasionally identify these common roots with “structures of the fragmentary Christian memory tucked in (their) social consciousness.”13

7 Ines Angeli Murzaku, ed., Quo vadis eastern Europe? Religion, state and society after communism (Ravenna, 2009), 57.

8 Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 15.

9 “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” May 10, 2017, 83.

10 Cerny, “Mission in the Czech Republic,” 608.

11 Secularization, derived from saeculum in Latin, means “human age” or “century,” but it also refers to the temporal world. The Reformation and the Enlightenment contributed to secularization along with modern science and the religious wars in Europe during the seventeenth century. In the former Communist bloc, secularization was forced by Marxist-Leninist ideology and the totalitarian regime.

12 Noble, “Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context,” 7.

Dissident-turned-president Vaclav Havel’s notion of “living within the truth,” prominent in Czech national discourse, expresses concepts that can be nourished by Christian theology and thus inform the mission of the Church in society.14 Czech Pastor Jakub Limr said the phrase “truth lovers,” referring to Havel’s slogan “truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred,” has become a derogatory term.15 Since the slogan has been used to promote seemingly opposite and often idealistic values, it has lost the meaning Havel intended.

In theological dialogue with Havel’s concept of living within the truth, I argue for a Czech public missiology wherein local congregations are a sign and agent of God’s mission existing in and for the fourishing of Czech society. First, I will explore Czech national identity in relation to Christianity and public perceptions of the evangelical church. Second, I will engage Havel’s concept of living within the truth with Gregg Okesson’s public missiology. Finally, I will present public missiology as a way for Czech evangelical churches to engage in public witness through the example of a Czech congregation, Mozaika.

Before examining the public witness of the Church, it’s important to understand how Czech national identity formed in relation to Christianity, how the public perceives the Church, particularly the evangelical church, and how Czech evangelicals understand public witness.

13 Cerny, “Mission in the Czech Republic,” 608.

14 Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless (Vintage Classics, 2018), 62.

15 Jakub Limr in Hradec Králové, Czech Republic interviewed by author, November 6, 2021.

Established in 1993, the Czech Republic, along with Slovakia, is a successor nation of Czechoslovakia. After four decades living under the shadow of an atheist, Communist regime, Slovakia is strongly Catholic, but the Czech Republic is more irreligious than any country in Europe, with the exception of Eastern Germany. Andrew Greeley points out that although the two nations have a common language, similar history, and equal historical reasons to dislike the Hapsburgs, the Czech Republic alone defnes itself apart from its Christian past.16 The diference between Slovakia and the Czech Republic, according to Paul Froese, is that Czech nationalism developed in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church.17

Benedict Anderson explains that the notion of nationalism appeared in Europe around the end of the eighteenth century when, for various reasons, religious certainties began to erode.18 He proposes that nationalism has to be understood in reference to both the religious community and the dynastic realm out of which and, certainly in the case of Czech nationalism, against which it came into being.19 During the seventeenth century, when Bohemian nobles were forced to choose between their Protestant faith or their homeland, they chose their faith.

16 Andrew M. Greeley, Religion in Europe at the End of the Second Millenium: A Sociological Profle (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004), 130.

17 Paul Froese, “Secular Czechs and Devout Slovaks: Explaining Religious Diferences,” Review of Religious Research, Vol. 46, no. 3, 2005, 280–81.

18 Anderson defnes nation as an imagined political community. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Refections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised edition (London: Verso, 2016), 5.

19 Anderson, 12.

The ensuing war and forced re-Catholicization crippled the economy and decimated the Protestant churches. Eventually, according to Sayer, Viennese hegemony “produced something little short of cultural genocide.”20 Sayer points out,

All those resplendent baroque palaces, churches, and burgher mansions that do so much to defne Prague as “the magical metropolis of old Europe” are testaments to the destruction of the Hussite and Protestant Bohemia on whose ruins they were erected; and a goodly proportion of them were designed by foreigners rather than Czechs.21

Although apathy towards the Christian religion is common today, the recurring pain caused by oppressive foreign powers linked with Christianity lies deep in the memory of Czech society. During the twentieth century, Karl Marx’s way of reinvesting the secular realm with a sense of the sacred was forced on the Czech people. Marx empathized with the plight of those who were oppressed by religion and redefned the sacred as “a radical commitment to liberation without reference to a divine Redeemer.”22 Marxist ideology did not take root in Czech society, but the sense that one can be liberated without a divine Redeemer has taken hold.

After the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” that caused the implosion of the Communist regime in the Czech Republic, churches enjoyed a temporary infux of people due to newfound freedoms and a more positive view of the Church since many pastors and priests sufered for their opposition to the Communist regime. Many pastors and churches were involved in the dissident community with Havel that stood

20 Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 50.

21 Ibid., 50.

22 Ovidiu Dorin Druhora, “Secularization, Ecumenism and Christian Witness in Europe,” Mission in Central and Eastern Europe, 100.

Myra Watkins up for freedom and human rights in the face of persecution. However, long-term political disputes over the restitution of property to the Catholic Church hurt the credibility of Czech churches. Today, the public generally perceives the Catholic Church as a greedy institution.23

According to Černý, Czechs deeply distrust institutions, especially the churches. Elaborating on this, Černý says people expect the church to be humble and ready to serve, modest and self-sacrifcing, but Czech society’s broader suspicion that institutions only pursue self-interests in the form of power and wealth impacts public perceptions of the church as well. Today, most Czechs have negative attitudes towards the church and say they don’t believe in God but are inclined toward various forms of religiosity and spirituality.24 According to the 2011 Czech census, 750,000 people said they consider themselves believers but refuse to associate with any church, making them the second-largest religious group in the country.25

Nespor discovered that belief in supernatural phenomena is not uncommon, even among atheists. Around a ffth of atheists say they believe in fortune tellers, faith healers with “God-given healing powers,” and horoscopes.26 In today’s secular societies, especially in Europe, Charles Taylor says people are not content with institutional religion or exclusive humanism, so they feel cross-pressured. The search for a third way between the two has “set in train a dynamic, something like a nova efect, spawning an ever-widening variety of moral/ spiritual options, across the span of the thinkable and perhaps even beyond.”27 In this search for a third way, Taylor points out that conversions to transcendence and Christianity can occur. Taylor’s nova efect that spawns a widening array of moral and spiritual options seems to accurately describe Czech society, but conversions to Christianity are unlikely to occur within the doors of churches. With high mistrust of the Church, people are simply not going there.

23 Nate Anderson and Leah Seppanen Anderson, “Under Construction: How Eastern Europe’s Evangelicals Are Restoring the Church’s Vitality,” Christianity Today 49, no. 10, Oct. 2005, 72–77.

24 Černý, “Mission in the Czech Republic,” 605.

25 Ibid., 608.

26 Olga Nesporova and Zdenek R. Nespor. “Religion: An Unsolved Problem for the Modern Czech Nation.” Sociologický Časopis /Czech Sociological Review 45, no. 6 (2009), 1223–1234.

While mainstream churches in the Czech Republic are rapidly declining, evangelical denominations, including Pentecostals, are growing.28 Černý points out that Pietistic, Charismatic, Pentecostal, and some Catholic churches seem to succeed in satisfying the hunger in contemporary Czech society for religious experience.29 While this may be a reason for their growth, the question remains regarding how spiritual seekers end up inside these churches.30 Therefore, I will explore public perceptions of the evangelical church and evangelical perspectives on public witness to spark engagement over the mission of the church and vibrant public witness.31

In the Czech Republic, the secular public is the audience and the potential consumer of what churches and

27 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 299.

28 The Czech Ecumenical Council of Churches includes Roman-Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestants, and Evangelicals.

29 Černý, “Mission in Mission in the Czech Republic,” 609.

30 Roman Catholic, Czech Brethren Protestant, and the Hussite Church have lost seventy-fve percent of their adherents over the last twenty years.

31 Pavel Hošek, “Perceptions of the Evangelical Movement in the Post-Communist Czech Republic,” Evangelical Review of Theology, Vol. 38, no. 1, Jan. 2014, 28.

54 | Myra Watkins denominations ofer, so their perceptions of the church matter. Hošek provides insight into public perceptions of the evangelical movement since the Velvet Revolution, noting that public opinion was predominantly negative at frst but has improved during the years leading up to 2014. Even though evangelical churches have enjoyed equal freedoms with other churches since 1989, secular media and infuential fgures from mainstream denominations have painted them in a negative light as “fundamentalist, primitive, and aggressive.”32 The Czech evangelical movement does not represent a signifcant cultural or political force as it does in some parts of the world, so the prejudice and amount of criticism leveled against its “pathologies” have been disproportionate in Hošek’s view.33 At the same time, the accusations have not been entirely unwarranted.

Hošek presents several reasons for suspicion of the Czech evangelical movement. First, many evangelical churches and denominations were formed in protest against the spiritual condition in established churches, which caused hurt and resentment among the established mainstream churches. Second, evangelical approaches to sharing the gospel have often been direct, simplistic, and “sometimes betrayed a serious lack of experience.”34 Third, divisions and problems within the movement became public. Fourth, numerous cases of foreign evangelistic crusades organized by evangelical missionaries with little understanding of the complexities of Czech postCommunist culture contributed to negative public opinion.35

32 Ibid., 26–37

33 Ibid., 26–37

34 Ibid., 24.

35 Ibid., 26.

Noble points out that some of the Pentecostal preachers and healers from America and Germany proclaimed a type of conversion where one aspect of life was taken out of context with the others, and where loving one’s neighbor was conditioned by the neighbor’s faith. They contributed to the negative image of the churches and of Christianity in Central and East Europe. When people failed to fnd a new wholeness and meaning in their lives that outlasted the ecstatic experiences of the mass evangelizations, they felt that their openness to religion was a mistake. When they realized that healing or conversion did not come in the ways they were promised, their conclusions served to strengthen the old cultural prejudice that all Christianity is at best a naïve superstition.36

In her perception, the missionaries made false promises and failed to disciple people concerning a holistic perspective of life that would outlast ecstatic experiences. Finally, Czech evangelicals were negatively afected by foreign stereotypes and caricatures of evangelicals, such as the Christian Right in America.

Tomaš Halik says the church’s future depends on its ability to communicate with seekers.37 While the trend toward irreligion may not rapidly turn around, the number of “seekers” or “those who are attracted by various kinds of new spiritual options such as westernized versions of Eastern religions or esoteric spirituality” is increasing in the Czech Republic.

36 Noble, Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context, 166.

37 Pavol Bargár, “Learning about Spirituality Together with ‘Seekers’: Reading Together towards Life in the Czech Postsecular Context,” International Review of Mission, Vol.108, no. 2, Nov. 2019, 326–36.

56 | Myra Watkins

Given this environment, the Czech Republic is a signifcant mission feld calling for new ways of thinking about mission and fresh ways for missionaries and indigenous churches to reach out to spiritual seekers and the broader secular public. In recent years, new ways of thinking have started to enter the scene as Czech sociologists have been researching the unsolved problem of religion in their nation, and missiology emerged as a new feld of study in 2004.

Hošek says the tide of public opinion towards evangelicals appears to be changing as Czech evangelicals have started to “think theologically about their ‘secular’ jobs . . . and emphasize broader responsibilities of the church for social, cultural and political conditions of the post-Communist Czech society.”38 Moving forward, he sees the need for Czech evangelicals to develop a theological understanding of Czech culture along with a missiology designed for the contemporary secular context.

Jiri Unger, head of the Czech Evangelical Alliance, says in the aftermath of decades of Communist oppression, the church had turned inward and was incapable of receiving an infux of new Christians:

We were a ghetto that had to preserve Christianity, but we lost a vision for society, how to equip Christians outside the congregation or its meetings. A major goal is to enlarge the vision of the church, because the church is still suspicious of everything public.39

Some evangelical churches are taking more of a public turn seeking to embrace a missiology designed for the contemporary

38 Hošek, 31–32.

39 Anderson and Anderson, “Under Construction,” 75.

Czech context.40 Although the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the oldest evangelical church in the Czech Republic, aspires to engage culture missionally, they tend not to do so. Research regarding the mission of Pentecostal (Apostolic) and Charismatic branches of the evangelical movement seems to be lacking.41

However, Černý points out that the Pentecostal focus on religious experience is relevant in contemporary culture and complements traditional Protestant emphases on rational aspects of Christianity.42 Since Hošek proposes a missiology designed for the contemporary Czech secular context, I will bring a particular view of missiology, Okesson’s public missiology, in dialogue with Havel’s concept of living within the truth.

I argue for a public missiology in dialogue with Havel’s concept of living within the truth wherein local congregations are a sign and agent of God’s mission existing in and for the fourishing of society. Havel’s slogan, “truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred,” that inspired the Czech national motto, “truth prevails,” is anchored in his concept of “living within the truth” with responsibility “to and for the world.” Havel expounded on these values during the Communist

40 In 2015, a Synodal Council for the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren acknowledged the importance of mission not only by proclaiming the gospel in a way that is intelligible to contemporary society (with an emphasis on contextualization and inculturation), but also by way of civic and political involvement and dialogue with as many segments of society as possible.

41 Pavol Bargár, “Mission in the Czech Republic: An Ecumenical Perspective,” Mission in Central and Eastern Europe, 277.

42 Černý, 609.

58 | Myra Watkins regime, but his slogan has been used to promote seemingly opposite values, both as a powerful motto for civil action and as a derogatory slogan for those who oppose immigration, the EU, and a multicultural society and promote nationalism. Based on Anderson’s view that nationality as well as nationalism are cultural artefacts with meanings that “command profound emotional legitimacy,” Havel’s slogan is worthy of theological engagement.43

Living within the truth, according to Havel, means to serve the real aims of life, which for the dissidents posed a threat to the Communist system.44 The real aims, as Havel says, sometimes appear as the basic material or social interests of a group or an individual; at other times, they may appear as certain intellectual and spiritual interests; at still other times, they may be the most fundamental of existential demands, such as the simple longing of people to live their own lives in dignity.45

Once again, precious freedoms of individuals and groups are under threat in Europe. As we see in Russia today, President Vladimir Putin has severely restricted freedom of speech and evangelical worship in pursuit of his nationalistic, imperialist aims. Values of freedom and dignity are rightly protected and deeply engrained in the Czech national ethos. Of all the nations in Central and Eastern Europe, Czech respondents emphatically agreed (87%) that it’s unnecessary to believe in God to have good values.46 This overwhelming response may partly refect Havel’s moral philosophy, since his commitment to human rights and “the real aims of life” were unconstrained by religious dogma.47 Ultimately, any utopian ideal fails because it does not factor in what John Wesley called “complicated wickedness” and the need for a new creation through Christ’s redemption.

43 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4.

44 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 60.

45 Ibid., 28.

46 “Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe,” 120.

While Havel’s moral philosophy fostered Czech secular ideals, public theologians Charles Mathewes and Duncan Forrester rightly point out his signifcant socio-political contribution. Forrester notes that Havel’s testament “reminds us that theological truth is something to be lived, to be exemplifed, rather than just thought and discussed; it is to be lived together in the life of the church and in society.”48 The dissident community Havel describes, although it included churches, did not gather around any sacred practices or liturgies. However, the dissidents bonded through their allegiance to clearly articulated aims of life and shared persecution for their resistance to “living within a lie,” which meant living under the demands of the Communist system.49 They did not intend to become a “parallel structure” in society. Rather, by serving the truth and defending human rights, they were denied participation in the existing structure of society, so life had to become ordered in some way.50

Okesson describes the totalizing infuence of politics or religion when they “overstep their proper boundaries and cease to function appropriately for the good of society as a whole to the degree that they are made a surrogate for other essential spheres of social life.”51 The Communist regime was such a totalizing structure, but the parallel structure that formed when people chose to live within the truth had its own power to infuence from below and from within society.

47 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 62.

48 George R. Hunsberger, “The Missional Voice and Posture of Public Theologizing,” Missiology, 34, no.1 (January 2006), 23.

49 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 60–62.

50 Ibid., 60.

The early church that emerged during the Roman Empire under Caesar’s authoritarian rule bears some similarities to the parallel structure. When the disciples declared “Jesus is Lord” over every sphere and began to reorient their lives around his lordship, they were, inadvertently, subversive to the Roman empire. Although they were persecuted, they were witnesses to the gospel from below and from within society, in every place where they worshiped and engaged in life.

Ann-Marie Kool observes a recent shift in missions in Central and Eastern Europe towards the local church as an agent of mission, so Okesson’s public missiology is signifcant in relation to this trend.52 He defnes public missiology as “congregational witness that moves back and forth across all ‘spaces’ of public life in order to weave a thickness of the persons of the Trinity for the fourishing of all of life.”53 He emphasizes a robust soteriology that is lived out in the church and the complex public realm.

Okesson articulates how local congregations can witness within this complexity, starting with the foundation of the Trinity, which he describes as a “thick oneness,” as God reveals himself through movement that leads to an inviting community wherein the love of God is manifest. Using the analogy of multiple threads creating a thick weave, Okesson describes the back and forth movement of the congregation that repeatedly gathers around sacred practices and scatters as witnesses.

51 Gregg A. Okesson, A Public Missiology: How Local Churches Witness to a Complex World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 59.

52 Ann-Marie Kool, “Revolutions in European Mission: What has been achieved in 25 years of East European mission? Mission in Central and Eastern Europe, 46.

53 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 95–96.

Publics, as he explains, are common spaces, whether physical or virtual, where people come together to participate in life and have room to bring in their diferences. In these spaces, people form opinions through various texts, whether written, spoken, or symbolic, that feed a larger, thicker narrative.54 When publics overlap and interpenetrate, like in a pluralist, secular society, there is room for an embodied community of believers to weave in the narrative of salvation through participation in life and dialogue.55

Moving forward, I will highlight two theological themes: First, God’s mission is public truth. Second, the church is a diferent kind of public in and for the world. In Czech society, where the “gods are back,” mistrust in institutional Christianity is high, and grand narratives are scarce, such a holistic and embodied approach to public witness could be fruitful. For each theme, I will interpret Havel’s “Power of the Powerless” through Okesson’s public missiology. Finally, I will present practical examples of why a thick soteriology is needed to witness within the complex public realm.

Havel rightly describes Christianity as a locus of responsibility to and for the world:

Historical experience teaches us that any genuinely meaningful point of departure in an individual’s life

54 Ibid., 41–42.

55 Ibid., 59.

| Myra Watkins usually has an element of universality about it. In other words, it is not something partial, accessible only to a restricted community . . . On the contrary, it must be potentially accessible to everyone; it must foreshadow a general solution and, thus, it is not just the expression of an introverted, selfcontained responsibility that individuals have to and for themselves alone, but responsibility to and for the world. . . Christianity is an example . . . it is a point of departure for me here and now—but only because anyone, anywhere, at any time, may avail themselves of it.56

The missio Dei is the “meaningful point of departure,” the impetus for the mission of the Church. God is the author of the entire story, so we must start here for in his very being the triune God is a missionary.57 According to Scripture, God the Father sends the Son (John 3:17, 1 John 4:9), the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit (John 15:26, Acts 2:33), and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit send the Church into the world (Mat. 28:19-20, Acts 1:8).

Okesson begins here and argues that God’s mission “ofers a thick, public narrative by which to witness to the complexity of the public world.”58 Evangelicals sometimes talk about the Gospel as public truth yet reduce it to a propositional exchange, but God’s mission as public truth implies movement. Okesson explains,

Movement of the divine persons leads to a thickness of community, and in that thickness, others are invited to participate through love. Everything else builds on such a foundation. A trinitarian God calls the world into existence.

56 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 62.

57 Within this, it’s important to stress proclaiming the Gospel, repentance, and new birth through Jesus Christ.

58 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 66.

The world is public because God chose to allow the “interiority” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be made known publicly in the world. Hence, the starting point for talking about the public realm must begin with God.59

The Trinity moves outward in love, ever inviting and welcoming others to participate and fourish in diverse community, so movement characterizes the Church. God’s great salvation is not just for the individual with indiference towards the welfare of the whole of society. It has universal intent, meaning that, as Havel said, it foreshadows a general solution that is potentially accessible to everyone. In the fullness of time, God’s plan of redemption is to unite all things in Jesus Christ, things in heaven and on earth (Eph. 1:10). As Okesson says, Jesus Christ is a “new starting point” in human history, which means he reorients all the things arising out of creation, including the use of power, social relationships, economics, and even structures within society.60

Conversely, Havel argues that any point of departure that is not a model solution applicable to others cannot be meaningful for an individual either.61 If Christians live in an introverted, isolated community, concerned only with their personal salvation and well-being, then has the church embraced the full meaning of God’s salvation? Since God is a missionary God, God’s mission is public truth. Within the public realm, Okesson says the diverse community of the church announces through its actions as well as its words “the redemptive presence of the inner life of the Trinity.”62 In this

59 Ibid., 72.

60 Ibid., 68.

61 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 62.

62 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 107.

64 | Myra Watkins way, the church is an agent of God’s mission, but it is also a sign which I will explore in the following theme.

According to Lesslie Newbigin, the Gospel is credible when it is lived out in Christian community, so he calls the local congregation the basic unit of a new society and “the only hermeneutic of the gospel.”63 While both Havel and Okesson express the perils of being an exclusionary “parallel structure” (Havel) or congregation (Okesson) that lives in a privatized ghetto, the church cannot place a greater emphasis on scattering into the public realm or, as Okesson says, it risks losing its Christ-centeredness.64

Okesson says we are tempted in both directions, to retreat into the church where we try to flter out which aspects of the public realm we allow in or go radically public and ignore the sacraments and liturgy that form us in community around the persons of the Trinity. Instead, he says we need to hold together gathering and scattering through back-and-forth movement that “unsettles the pretensions of exclusivist forms of gathering, while cultivating thicker forms of gathering within and for the redemption of the entire world.”65 Considering Unger’s perspective that post-Communist Czech evangelical churches had turned inward and are suspicious of everything public, perhaps some churches may be more inclined to focus on gathering as a congregation.

63 Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 227.

64 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 90.

65 Ibid., 143.

If we move away from Christ as our center, then inevitably we will attach ourselves to some other functional savior, which may be the national myths or social imaginaries that hold sway in society.66 In the early church, Okesson says, Christians were “people of diference” who were “difused witnesses inserted into all aspects of their public worlds.”67

Havel expressed a similar idea, saying, even the most mature form of the parallel polis (dissident community) can only exist—at least in post-totalitarian circumstances—when the individual is at the same time lodged in the “frst,” ofcial structure by a thousand diferent relationships, even though it may only be the fact that one buys what one needs in their stores, uses their money, and obeys their laws.68

Both express the idea of being in but not of the world, of moving in the same cadence with society and participating in the same mundane activities, yet “living within the truth” while doing so (John 17:14–23). By living as people of diference in the “frst” ofcial structure, it is possible to renew “concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness” that, under the Communist regime, Havel says “lost their depths and dimension, and for many of us . . . came to represent only psychological peculiarities, or resemble long-lost greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships.”69

66 CharlesTaylor defnes a social imaginary as “the ways in which (people) imagine their social existence, how they ft together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.” Taylor, A Secular Age, 171.

67 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 124.

68 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 62.

69 Vaclav Havel, “New Year’s Address to the Nation,” 1990, 4.

Perhaps the long-lost greetings from ancient times Havel refers to are what Noble calls the deep life-renewing sources her culture longs to understand but is hesitant to name. Perhaps they are the fragments of Christian memory tucked in Czech social consciousness. When the church gathers in community, it cultivates love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness, for none of these “concepts” exist apart from community. It renders the Gospel credible, winsome, and embodied. It serves as a sign of God’s mission existing in and for the fourishing of society, woven richly through the church’s worship and public witness.

Czech secular society, with its plurality and everexpanding forms of spirituality, is unlike the Communist regime that sought to impose a homogeneous atheist society, but the unseen powers are no less real. Deeper social imaginaries and forces underlie national slogans, myths, and institutions, and sometimes they are soul-crushing rather than life-renewing. For Havel, living within the truth stood out in contrast to the behemoth Communist regime, but “living within a lie” in today’s Czech society is more subtle and tantalizing. Still, it can lead to a profound crisis of human identity.70

Witnessing within secular complexity seems more like embodying a new kind of presence rather than attempting to chart a new course in a dense fog. Okesson points out that we need a “thick faith” that is “woven into the fabric of public life.” A thick faith embraces the fulness of God’s salvation for the fourishing of all aspects of life and God’s creation.71

70 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 25.

71 Okesson, A Public Missiology, 33–34.

Havel expresses a similar vision through independent initiatives that “address the hidden sphere; they demonstrate that living within the truth is a human and social alternative and they struggle to expand the space available for that life . . . they shatter the world of appearances and unmask the real nature of power.”72 Living within the truth, pursuing and advocating for the real aims of life in multiple ways through multiple people is similar to Okesson’s “woven fabric.” For Havel and the other dissidents, it proved to be far more impactful than one individual pursuing a singular pathway to change.

Public missiology can help the church witness in the public realm as local congregations demonstrate that living within the truth is a human and social alternative to the myriad of self-help and spiritual options marketed in Czech society and expand the space available for that life. God’s mission is public truth, and the church is a diferent kind of public in and for the world, but local congregations need to work through what it means to be a sign and agent of God’s mission in and for the fourishing of their locality. Okesson proposes that the fullness of God’s salvation can be seen through biblical images such as hospitality, reconciliation, blessing, and adoption when churches gather (through liturgy, worship, preaching, etc.) and when they scatter. I will present what this looks like in Mozaika Church in Hradec Králové.

Mozaika Church, planted in Hradec Králové in 2001, is part of the Evangelical Charismatic Christian Fellowship network.73 Between seventy and a hundred people attend their

72 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 65.

73 The network has around 2,000 adult members in the Czech Republic. For reference, the Pentecostal Apostolic network (Assemblies of God) has from

68