On first reading, the focus text seems to affirm the tradition of going into the world to convert others to Christianity. Upon further examination, however, the key words of the text appear to be directed at the Christian’s own attitude and relationship to “the other.”

Who is it that is “in Christ,” for example? It is the one already made new through God’s reconciling work in Christ – the Christian audience for Paul’s letters. This person is no longer to view others in the old way, as alien, foreign, apart from God, but to see the world as God sees it: graciously accepted by God through unremitting, overpowering love and forgiveness.

“The other” now has most favored nation status! And we are to be God’s ambassadors, representatives of God’s realm, values, and intents. The Christian’s charge, now that s/he is a jet-set diplomat, is to look out for the interests of God’s kingdom and to maintain the friendship with God of those among whom the diplomatic mission has been established.

It would be a pretty poor ambassador who went to “East Pitooey” and said, “You Pitooies are loathsome creatures, and Her Majesty’s government looks with disgust on you!” Rather, the envoy views the nation and its people as allies and friends, seeks to know its customs, and even learns their language and engages in their culture.

Robert Barclay, the 17th century Quaker theologian, wrote of how Christ continues to reconcile the world to God through that Real Presence which serves as a Light in all (John 1:9). He went so far as to say that this Light, if not resisted, would lead to salvation, even if one had never heard the name of Jesus (Apology, p. 73). For it is the power the name signifies, the continual working of the inward Christ, and not the name itself, which saves.

William Penn, when given a tract of land in the New World which he chose to use as a holy experiment of religious freedom and application of Quaker testimony, invited the Native Americans to meet with him and his agents. Certainly not Christians, and not confronted with the need to be converted, the Indians were invited into relationship with the Quakers in order to agree on how they might live together. Penn trusted “that of God” in the Indians, while others – even Christians – branded them savages and instituted laws to exterminate them.

If we are to see the world as God sees it, filled with those whom God has chosen to redeem and call friends, our job as God’s representatives is to understand the “for” in “ambassadors for Christ” as a directive not to convert others to but be advocates for the friendship already established.

By Max Carter, Director of Friends’ Center, Campus Ministry Coordinator, Guilford College, Greensboro