Doxological Aspect: Concept of Intercultural Mission in Indonesians Chinese Linus Baito Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Aletheia, Lawang, Jawa Timur - Indonesia linus.baito@sttaletheia.ac.id Abstract— Christian mission emphasizes the joyful aspect of God to men because of His presence, which brings salvation. Awareness of the grace aspect has encouraged believers to undertake mission efforts. However, recent studies seek to present the doxological aspect as a motivation for the mission. This writing attempts to raise an awareness about the doxological dimension in guanxi as a motive aspect for believers on doing the mission. To discover this thought, the writer applies a qualitative descriptive method with an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach. In cultural studies on guanxi there is a value of ‘face’ regarding to ‘honor’ or dignity on someone we respect. This cultural value has a strong implication of honor and glory (doxology) of God. How the glory of God can be understood in the perspective of guanxi, so it could be a motivational aspect for the believers in today’s mission endeavors? Relating to the Chinese Indonesian context, this work depicts a harmonizing culture and theology between the West and the East on perusing God’s glory. Research Contribution: This research illuminated by the intercultural theology that could contribute to an advance of Christian scholars and many others, both in theory and praxis regarding to mission fields of study. Guanxi and doxology are the harmonizing idea of the West and East for the sake of God's glory. Keywords—doxology; guanxi; mission; face; honor I. INTRODUCTION All believers call to take a noble responsibility from God on mission efforts. Paul states God has appointed us as His fellow- workers (1 Corinthians 3:9). He has, previously, given us an amazing grace that saves us from our sin. The primary purpose in our Christian life is to share good tidings of the saving grace for all nations. Historically, since two thousand years ago the Church obeyed this calling. The Church is associated with the disciples of Christ. As disciples of Christ, they humbled themselves and submitted their life to fulfil the great command of our Lord Jesus Christ [1]. Jesus has commanded his disciples to proclaim the gospel to all the people. The New Testament proved the marvelous devotion of the disciples in several passages of the Bible, such as in Matthew 28:1-19, Mark 16:15-16, Luke 24:47, John 20:21-22, and Acts 1:8. The great motivation for working out God’s mission is to present the saving grace for sinners, and restore them from a broken relationship with God through His begotten Son, Jesus Christ. For centuries, churches offered their excellent response with amounts of method and strategy inventions for the evangelism to carry out this honorable mission [2]. Unfortunately, currently these endeavors seem to decay. Christianity in the West, for instance, mission works were declining and needs to reach again [3]. Secularization and prosperity were suspiciously becoming the ‘enemy’ defeated missions work. In Indonesia, Christians are relatively increasing. Tortures and cruelties to the church’s communities were not avoided in the ‘Christ Body’ to proclaim the gospel [4]. Besides the indigenous Indonesian Christians, there are also Chinese Indonesian Christians in Indonesia. In social interactions, Chinese Indonesians frequently face obstacles regarding legal and political issues. One of the historical evidence was carefully researched by Cangbai Wang and Jing Huang concerning to the emancipation Indonesian Chinese women in the past decades [5]. Another research also depicts that the disparage toward Chinese Indonesian ethnic is still occurring in Indonesia [6]. According to Hoon, the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots proved the failure of the assimilation policy in the Suharto era [7]. This condition is worsened for a multi-minority status of Chinese-Indonesia Christian. Interestingly, in the marketplace and church communities, Chinese Indonesian Christians are growing significantly. In Chinese culture, they knew guanxi to make a good deal in every business strategy [8]. However, in the church strategy they seem to conduct Western model for church life and missions. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, on reviewing the book of “A History of Christianity in Indonesia” carried out a remarkable statement. The Western Christians had dominant influences in the Indonesian Churches. Since then they had attempted to free itself from post-colonial dependencies and form its own character as an innovative minority in the largest Muslim country in the world [9]. My curiosity in this research is how the guanxi values will enhance their mission concept, correlating with the doxology idea of mission? According to his explorations, it convinced the writer that guanxi has a unique value regarding the ‘face’, which means honor concept Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 669 Proceedings of the International Conference on Theology, Humanities, and Christian Education (ICONTHCE 2021) Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 29