Compassionate Acts as Missional Theosis: A Call to the Evangelical Church of Southern Africa (ESCA)

The Church is God's agency to bring about well-being in the world (Harold, 2018a). This bringing out of well-being to humanity call for an understanding of justice and compassion through a missional reading of the Bible and its intersection with "actions" of the Evangelical Church in post-apartheid South Africa. The aim of this article is two-fold, the first, is to examine the praxis of the Evangelical Church and its relevance to the marginalised in South Africa critically, and the second, is to help the ECSA understand that a missional reading or a missional hermeneutic through theosis brings about a correct understanding (orthodoxy) of compassion, justice and the Missio Dei leading to the right action (orthopraxis). Using literature, this article will explore and recommend ways the ECSA can act prophetically by speaking to and on behalf of the voiceless in South Africa. The researcher then employs the notion of Theosis to show that by acting compassionately, the Church reflects the very nature of God.