Search Phrase = Missiology
Missiology
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Missiology: An International Review is the quarterly journal of the American Society of Missiology. The journal is a forum for the exchange of ideas and research between missiologists and others interested in related subjects. There are approximately 10,683 subscribers worldwide.
Missiology began publication in 1973, continuing in the tradition of its predecessor, Practical Anthropology. As one of the premier scholarly journals of mission studies, it is distinctively:
ASM Members can access Missiology online by logging into the ASM Member Center and selecting the link for “Missiology: An International Review.”
SUBSCRIPTIONS
If you would like to renew/subscribe as a non-ASM Member, please use to the following addresses to submit your subscription request:
Missiology welcomes the submission of original work that meets the requirements of the journal. For information on manuscript submission, please visit the Sage Missiology homepage.
A Missiology_Book_Review_Format.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Book Review Style Guide is also available for those who contribute book reviews. To become a book reviewer for Missiology, interested parties should send an email to [email protected]. Potential reviewers receive quarterly lists of books that are available for review and must notify the Editorial Office if they are interested in applying to contribute a particular book's review. The Associate Editor, William Green, notifies individual reviewers if they have been assigned their requested reviews.
Keywords: privacy, policy
American Society of Missiology Privacy Policy
Effective date: April 16, 2019
American Society of Missiology ("us", "we", or "our") operates the https://asmweb.org/ website (hereinafter referred to as the "Service").
This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.
We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, the terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://asmweb.org/
Service
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American Society of Missiology uses the collected data for various purposes:
If you are from the European Economic Area (EEA), American Society of Missiology legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the Personal Data we collect and the specific context in which we collect it.
American Society of Missiology may process your Personal Data because:
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American Society of Missiology will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer periods.
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Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
American Society of Missiology will take all the steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organisation or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.
Under certain circumstances, American Society of Missiology may be required to disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).
American Society of Missiology may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
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If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. American Society of Missiology aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete or limit the use of your Personal Data.
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In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights:
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Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualise and personalise the ads of its own advertising network.
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For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
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We will not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to our third-party payment processors whose use of your personal information is governed by their Privacy Policy. These payment processors adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of payment information.
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Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 18 ("Children").
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You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
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Keywords: terms, conditions
American Society of Missiology Terms and Conditions
Last updated: April 13, 2019
Please read these Terms and Conditions ("Terms", "Terms and Conditions") carefully before using the https://asmweb.org/ website (the "Service") operated by American Society of Missiology ("us", "we", or "our").
Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned upon your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who wish to access or use the Service.
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If you are a copyright owner, or authorized on behalf of one, and you believe that the copyrighted work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please submit your claim via email to Robert Danielson, [email protected], with the subject line: "Copyright Infringement" and include in your claim a detailed description of the alleged Infringement as detailed below, under "DMCA Notice and Procedure for Copyright Infringement Claims"
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You can contact our Copyright Agent via email at Robert Danielson, [email protected]
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Our Service may contain links to third party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by American Society of Missiology
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You acknowledge and agree that American Society of Missiology shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such third party web sites or services.
We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third party web sites or services that you visit.
We may terminate or suspend your account and bar access to the Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, under our sole discretion, for any reason whatsoever and without limitation, including but not limited to a breach of the Terms.
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All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless American Society of Missiology and its licensee and licensors, and their employees, contractors, agents, officers and directors, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees), resulting from or arising out of a) your use and access of the Service, by you or any person using your account and password, or b) a breach of these Terms.
In no event shall American Society of Missiology, nor its directors, employees, partners, agents, suppliers, or affiliates, be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, including without limitation, loss of profits, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from (i) your access to or use of or inability to access or use the Service; (ii) any conduct or content of any third party on the Service; (iii) any content obtained from the Service; and (iv) unauthorized access, use or alteration of your transmissions or content, whether based on warranty, contract, tort (including negligence) or any other legal theory, whether or not we have been informed of the possibility of such damage, and even if a remedy set forth herein is found to have failed of its essential purpose.
Your use of the Service is at your sole risk. The Service is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis. The Service is provided without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement or course of performance.
American Society of Missiology its subsidiaries, affiliates, and its licensors do not warrant that a) the Service will function uninterrupted, secure or available at any particular time or location; b) any errors or defects will be corrected; c) the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components; or d) the results of using the Service will meet your requirements.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so the limitations above may not apply to you.
These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of California, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
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Keywords: cookies, policy
American Society of Missiology Cookies Policy
Last updated: April 13, 2019
American Society of Missiology ("us", "we", or "our") uses cookies on the https://asmweb.org/ website (the "Service"). By using the Service, you consent to the use of cookies.
Our Cookies Policy explains what cookies are, how we use cookies, how third-parties we may partner with may use cookies on the Service, your choices regarding cookies and further information about cookies.
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Those in touch with the debates in the last century over the nature of the Christian mission know that the language of "whole" has indeed been used at various times to recover the truly comprehensive scope of mission. I have a growing sense of the need for a new kind of whole.
We find ourselves living amid massive global changes, and contrary to the notion that holistic mission was forever settled and defined by the raging debates of the last hundred years concerning the relationship between evangelism and social concern, it is a dynamic reality that needs fresh formulations according to an ever-changing world. Indeed, a church that seeks to share good news amid increasingly volatile times faces new missional challenges.
In our diversifying, globalizing, and increasingly fracturing world, I have found it vitally important to consider the ministry of reconciliation as central to a contemporary understanding and practice of mission. I join others who have been urging the church to see reconciliation as the necessary paradigm of mission in the age of unprecedented global fragmentation. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, reconciliation has received renewed attention among missiologists and missionaries. After describing the sociopolitical, economic, and cultural consequences of colonialism, as well as the ubiquitous, disorienting effects of globalization, Robert Schreiter, a leading voice in reconciliation studies, writes, "It is out of this miasma of violence and division that the theme of reconciliation began to surface as a compelling response to all that was happening in terms of mission." To show that reconciliation is emerging as a paradigm of mission for the twenty-first century, he cites the British and Irish Association of Mission Studies (2002), the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches (2005), the International Association of Mission Studies (2008), and the Lausanne Movement (2010), all of which took up the theme in their respective annual meetings.1
I applaud this development and desire to reinforce the efforts of those who have seen the crucial importance of reconciliation as a way to think and do mission in today's world. Historically, amid the infamous fundamentalist-modernist split in North American Protestantism, holistic mission has referred to efforts on the part of a group of courageous evangelicals who dared to challenge a myopic evangelism-only Missiology.2 Their efforts sought to reintegrate social justice into the evangelical missionary agenda, to make whole again the mission of the church, especially but not exclusively among evangelicals around the world.
It is to build on the evangelism and social justice affirmation by understanding the ministry of reconciliation as the new whole in (w)holistic mission. In the age of intensified conflict on virtually every level, it can no longer be just about putting word and deed back together again (though it will take ongoing effort on the part of the church to keep them together); holistic mission also needs to be about joining God in putting the world back together again. It needs to be about participating with God in the healing of the nations.
From a biblical perspective, reconciliation flows out of God's big vision to transform-that is, mend, heal, restore, renew, re-create, and make whole-the whole world and everyone in it. Colossians 1:19-20 beautifully sums up God's agenda: "For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (NRSV).
God's vision of reconciliation only makes sense in light of the biblical story of creation and fall, when in the beginning God created shalom-that is, a social order wherein perfect harmony existed between the Creator, creature, and ecosystem-but also when that shalom was shattered by sin (Gen. 1-3). Theologically, then, reconciliation means God's initiative to restore wholeness to a shattered creation. The ministry of reconciliation to which God has called the church (2 Cor. 5:18-20), therefore, participates in God's big vision to reconcile all things in Christ. Practically or missiologically, Brenda Salter McNeil defines "reconciliation" as "an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God's original intention for all creation to flourish."3
We participate in God's vision of reconciliation as ambassadors. Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice explain what that means: "An ambassador is a representative who bears someone else's message in their absence. Ambassadors live in foreign countries, which they never really call home. Living within a country other than their own, their practices, loyalties, national interests and even their accent appear strange to the citizens of those countries where they are posted. So it is with Christ's ambassadors of reconciliation inside the world's brokenness."4 Practically, as Christ's ambassadors, our ministry of reconciliation includes the hard work of overcoming distrust, misunderstanding, bitterness, and even hatred between deeply conflicted parties in the power of the gospel. Reconciliation as God's way of redeeming creation and the church's way of representing Jesus Christ, bringing a message of peace to a broken world, is clearly missiological at the core.
As we shall see, reconciliation has social, ecclesial, cultural, ethnic, and political implications, but any biblical treatment of this ministry sees the reuniting of humanity to God as the basis of all other levels of reconciliation. This vertical reconciliation between God and humanity in the death and resurrection of Christ leads (or should lead) to horizontal reconciliation between warring factions within the human family. As the Cape Town Commitment plainly states, "Reconciliation to God is inseparable from reconciliation to one another."5
I am convinced that in today's fractured and fracturing world if the church does not operationalize this understanding of reconciliation, then it cannot claim to be engaged in holistic mission. The whole church, which desires to bear witness to the whole gospel throughout the whole world, therefore needs to be gripped anew by the vision of reconciliation in Christ. It needs to discover the compelling image of being God's reconciled and reconciling people, modeling for a fractured world the power of God to mend, heal, and make whole even the most intense of enmities. For what does it mean to be the whole church engaged in God's whole mission if it does not include the goal of reconciliation between men and women, rich and poor, and black, white, and brown in a broken world?
1 Robert Schreiter, "The Emergence of Reconciliation as a Paradigm of Mission," in Mission as Ministry of Reconciliation, ed. Robert Schreiter and Knud Jorgensen (Oxford: Regnum, 2013), 11-12. See also his definition of reconciliation in "Reconciliation," in Dictionary of Mission, ed. Karl Müller, Theo Sundermeier, Stephen B. Bevans, and Richard H. Bliese (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 381.
2 For an overview of this split as background for the development of holistic mission among evangelicals, see my chapter "Precursors and Tensions in Holistic Mission: An Historical Overview," in Holistic Mission: God's Plan for God's People, ed. Brian Woolnough and Wonsuk Ma (Oxford: Regnum, 2010), 61-75.
3 Brenda Salter McNeil, Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2015), 22.
4 Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice, Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace, and Healing (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008), 51-52.
5 Lausanne Movement, "The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call to Action," January 25, 2011, https://www.lausanne.org/content/ctc/ctcommitment.
Keywords: ASM, American Society of Missiology, podcast, postcast series, Overseas Ministries Study Center, Andrew Walls, Ian Douglas, Jay Moon, Mary Mikhael, Ruth Padilla
ASM, American Society of Missiology, podcast, postcast series, Overseas Ministries Study Center, Andrew Walls, Ian Douglas, Jay Moon, Mary Mikhael, Ruth Padilla
American Society of Missiology is proud to collaborate with the Overseas Ministries Study Center of New Haven, Connecticut, in making available in our inaugural podcast series these fine lectures by leading scholars on a variety of missiological topics. Suggestions for future podcast series may be emailed to [email protected]. We are very grateful to Dr. Michael L. Sweeney for producing this podcast in collaboration with the ASM's Board of Publications. We hope it is just the first podcast series of many to come!
Click the play button below each title:
1. Andrew Walls_First African Diaspora and Its Mission to Africa
2. Andrew Walls_The Christian Chapter in the History of African Religion
3. Ian Douglas_The Church as Missionary Society
4. Jay Moon_Orality and Scripture Use
5. Mary Mikhael_Arab Spring and Christians of the Middle East
6. Ruth Padilla Deborst_Faith and Life
This blog post first appeared at dr.altizon.com
The 2019 annual meeting of the American Society of Missiology (ASM) recently concluded. Over 240 professors, executives, and practitioners of mission met to explore the theme, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Faithful," essentially asking ourselves the question, "How should the fact of the gap between the rich and the poor impact the way we live and practice mission around the world?"
I had the honor of serving ASM as its president this past year. By that honor, I had the privilege of organizing the meeting, which included choosing the theme, securing speakers, and generally bossing highly efficient people around. Huge thanks to the ASM board-especially conference coordinator Alison Fitchett-as well as my associates of the International Fellowship for Mission as Transformation (INFEMIT)-especially operations director Tori Greaves-who all made the meeting run quite smoothly.
Issues surrounding wealth and poverty have always been central in my mission thinking. The God whom we encounter in the Scriptures, yes, loves all, but the lost, vulnerable, have-nots, marginalized, and oppressed get God's special attention. How should that fact-God's special concern for the poor-define both our personal lifestyles and the church's mission around the world?
(Photo: Dr. Debra Mumford speaking on prosperity gospel)
Our speakers "brung it!" as we say on the street. Renowned theologian Ronald J. Sider started us off Friday night (June 14) by sharing his own personal journey through six editions of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. On Saturday morning (June 15), Father Benigno Beltran, a Catholic priest-scholar who served the people of Smokey Mountain in Manila for 30 years, brilliantly made the connection between serving the poor and serving the earth. That evening, I confronted classism and proposed ways to overcome it personally and corporately. And then on Sunday morning (June 16), Debra Mumford, a homiletics professor at Louisville Theological Seminary who has done extensive research on the prosperity gospel, gave an informative lecture-sermon on the logic, but ultimately the dangers of prosperity thinking.
I also invited storytellers, that is, people who reminded us that ministry among the poor needs concrete expressions. Maria Surat Schommer described the local ministry of the Catholic Worker. Viv Grigg shared about an innovative master's program in urban Missiology for, with, and among the poor. And Ruth Padilla DeBorst described the vision and life of Casa Adobe, an intentional Christian community in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Sandra Maria Van Opstal, author of The Next Worship, and Hallel, a duo made up of Aracely Hernandez Bock and Adri Arango from the Jesus People USA community in Chicago, led us in song. This LatinX, all-girl band had us swaying and clapping to songs in several languages, reminding us that worship entails our whole bodies as we serve the God of all nations.
We gave out several awards. Colin Yuckman received the Graduate Student Paper Award; Brian Stanley earned the Book of the Year award; and J. Samuel Escobar received the Lifetime Achievement Award. I was especially gratified that Dr. Escobar, past president of ASM, received this award during my presidency. He has been a mentor and friend to me and to countless others throughout his remarkable career, which spans over five decades.
(Photo: Dr. J. Samuel Escobar receives the Lifetime Achievement Award with Ruth Padilla DeBorst and Al Tizon)
This summary barely communicates my extreme gratitude for allowing me the privilege of contributing to the life of the American Society of Missiology. My ultimate hope, of course, is that the issues with which we wrestled at the conference will translate into lifestyle changes, paradigm shifts, and powerful mission partnerships between the rich and the poor as God's people strive in the Spirit do on earth as it is in heaven.
"Christ is my ‘ishta'[God], he has never left me, I will never leave him, but I would not have joined the Christian community.
I would have lived with my people and my community and been a witness to them."
Yisu Das Tiwari (1911-1997), a follower of Christ from a Brahmin family of North India, made the preceding striking statement to his son, Ravi Tiwari. I find senior Tiwari's admission effortlessly intersecting with the narrative of thousands of Hindu devotees of Christ in India today. Why did Tiwari regret joining the Christian community? What could be the causes behind such rumination?
These are the questions that prompted me to investigate the pertinent issue of religious believing in Jesus Christ vis-à-vis social belonging of the believers. The relationship of believing in Christ and belonging to the institutional church or Christian community is as old as the Christian faith in India and the issue reemerges today in the form of a missiological dilemma: Many caste-Hindus claim to believe in Christ but remain outside the institutional church and some decide to remain unbaptized.
In my ethnographic case study in India, Believing Without Belonging? Religious Beliefs and Social Belonging of Hindu Devotees of Christ (2020), I argue that this response to the gospel needs to be viewed from the theoretical perspective of World Christianity in general and Christianity's enduring encounter with Hinduism and Indian culture in particular.
I am thrilled this study is finally seeing the light of day published under the ASM Monograph Series (48). Dr. Darrel Whiteman, in his endorsement of the book, writes, "In this carefully researched and well documented study, John brilliantly tackles the issues of baptism, identity, and ecclesiology and boldly concludes that these Hindu devotees of Christ are neither anonymous Christians nor secret Christians, but rather represent an authentic expression of World Christianities."
Christian mission not only transforms the cultures it reaches, but the new inculturation of Christianity also is transformed and particularized in that process. People do not merely become adherents of Christ, but that faith becomes localized in its theology, ecclesiology, and Missiology. History is replete with such models of the gospel's transformative nature through contextual hermeneutics of the Bible. My book recognizes and promotes what Lamin Sanneh terms the "translatability"1 of faith, which represents the intrinsic characteristic of the gospel it preaches because the gospel will "invigorate and transform"2 the cultures and the peoples that accept it. Through the inclusion of people's history, culture, oral traditions, and their devotional piety in each context as valid sources of contextual hermeneutics, World Christianity as a theoretical perspective has widened the scope of sources for doing theology and practice of missions. These sources have not only been accepted as valid as the written scriptural texts for doing theology today, but they have also molded the nature of our faith and its mission, especially in the Majority World.
This process of the transformation of faith is no different in India where the gospel's interaction with various cultures and caste groups has produced distinct types of Christianities. For instance, the Syrian Orthodox Christianity of Kerala (South India) and the formation of a distinct community, because of Christians' migration from Syria and subsequent mingling with the local converts, are unequalled anywhere else in India. In northern India, during the colonial period, the ensuing Christianity was typically a replica of prevalent European Christianity. But then, the acceptance of the gospel by various aboriginal and Dalit cultures shaped distinctly indigenous forms of Christianity, with some Western structures intact. Furthermore, the dynamic interaction of the gospel with the Hindu tradition also culminated in the emergence of alternate forms of Christianity, quite dissimilar from its existing expressions in North India. One type of this emergent expression of indigenous Christianity among caste Hindus appears to exhibit the trait of believing in Jesus Christ but belonging differently to the church.
In this distinct form, some caste Hindus shift their religious allegiance to Jesus Christ but do not become formal members of an institutional church. Instead, they continue living in their communities of birth. Such a response to the gospel aptly fits as a case in point in World Christianity that "seeks to foster the study and practice of both local and trans-local ways of knowing and doing."3
The study highlights the emergent Hindu response to the gospel as a contemporary case in the transformation of Christian faith by the recipients in a multifaith context. The legitimacy, authenticity, and missiological significance of the movement of Hindu devotees of Christ are attested as an indigenous expression of World Christianity. They are negotiating a distinctive way of belonging to Christ and the church. Their beliefs and living out of their faith illustrate what it signifies to be a Hindu and yet profess the lordship of Jesus Christ today. This atypical belonging to Christ and the church challenges the notion that insists on identifying oneself as a "Christian" and joining the existing Christian community as the normative ways of being a follower of Christ.
1 Sanneh, Lamin, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, 2nd rev. ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2009), 11, 211-37.
2 Sanneh, Lamin, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 56.
3 Dale Irvin, "World Christianity: An Introduction," Journal of World Christianity (Online) 1 (2008), 1-26.
"Retirement...counting the days!" How often have you heard those words from people who are looking forward to leaving their work place and enjoying more leisure to travel and play and spend more time with family and friends? But what if your vocation has been so fulfilling and rewarding over many years that the thought of retiring brings more anxiety than anticipation, more dread than delight?
I've had a long and varied vocation as a missiological anthropologist, stretching over nearly five decades. With laser-like focus my passion has been attempting to understand, and perhaps share with others, the relationship between the gospel and culture. "Connecting God's Eternal Word with a Changing World" has been one of the dominant themes of my life. My "career" has not always been smooth sailing, but God has sustained me through the low points and difficult times.
As early as my days in high school, I sensed God inviting me to join God's mission in the world and so I began to pursue becoming a medical missionary. I took all the courses in college I needed to enter medical school, but near the end of my collegiate life I "stumbled" into anthropology. I had never heard of this academic field of study but when I discovered it I realized that here was a discipline that fit me as a person, like hand-in-glove, and I took as many courses as I could.
It was during two years right out of college as a young missionary volunteer in Central Africa that I asked God to guide me in making a vocational decision. Should I become a medical doctor or an anthropologist? Both would take about 10 more years of study and preparation. My missionary colleagues were not happy when I announced to them one day that I was going to return to the United States and enter graduate school to study anthropology instead of going to medical school. They told me I would probably lose my faith if I studied anthropology, and that even if my faith survived the secular onslaught there was nothing in the field of anthropology that would be of value to mission work. So with that kind of "encouragement" off I went, and indeed it was challenging to my Christian faith and very lonely at times because I had little encouragement from anyone, but I felt certain that this was God's call on my life.
With nine years of cross-cultural ministry, mostly in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, as professor of anthropology and later dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary for 21 years, and then as resident missiologist and vice-president for training at The Mission Society (now TMS-Global) for nine years, I have now entered "retirement." From 1985 to the present I've been an active and enthusiastic member of the American Society of Missiology, serving for many years as editor of Missiology, president in 2006-2007, and now publisher. I lovingly refer to the ASM as "my tribe," for over the years I have built some deep and endearing friendships.
Sociologists tell us that the crisis of retirement is not so much a financial crisis as much as it is an identity crisis. I have found this to be true in my situation. I've observed that when Americans meet other Americans anywhere in the world they immediately ask two questions of each other: "What do you do?" and "Where are you from?" Why would those two questions surface immediately? In many other cultures the first question would be "To whom are you related?" not "What do you do?"
The answer to "What do you do?" places one in a social location with a defined status and accompanying role, which we then quickly rank as being more or less important than ourselves. Anthropological studies of social organization and structure focus on the two major building blocks of status (a position in society) and rôle (the accompanying behavior). Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man [sic]in his time plays many parts." The part the person plays, to follow Shakespeare's analogy, is the status. And of course we all occupy several different statuses in a society. A given status, a position in the society, is what provides a person with a social identity, a place in social interaction. But what happens when our personal identity becomes too closely aligned with our social identity? We're in for an emotional roller coaster with highs and lows in our career. We measure our self-worth on what we do, on what we accomplish, more than on who we be. "Doing" takes precedent over "Being."
And this is where I have found myself as I have entered retirement, and it hasn't been easy. In fact, there are days when it is really difficult and challenging and I wonder, "What am I going to do with my life?" But then when I reflect on who I am in Christ, I'm reminded that my true, lasting, and eternal identity is that I am a child of the kingdom of God, created in the image of God, loved and treasured for who I am, not for what I do or for what I have done. This shifting of my personal identity away from my social identity takes intentionality. It requires that I become more centered and grounded in Christ, to slow down, be more reflective and not just active. It means working more on a "To Be" list, instead of trying to manage a busy "To Do" list. I resonate with the words of Dag Hammarskjold from his diary Markings (1964:93) "If only I may grow: firmer, simpler-quieter, warmer."
Ironically, I am writing this blog from somewhere in Asia where for security reasons my location must not be disclosed for I have been training a large group of national pastors and missionaries on how insights from missiological anthropology can help them in their cross-cultural ministry to better connect the gospel to the deepest parts of their worldview and culture. As I share from many years of experience and perhaps some wisdom, I plan to keep going, teaching and training around the world for as long as God gives me abundant passion, good health, and a sound mind. But I can now rest assured that my identity in this phase of semi-retirement is in who I am in Christ, not in what I do as a missiological anthropologist.
The global pandemic has shaken our standardized methods and practices of transmitting the faith of our Christian traditions, leading us to revalue the essence of the gospel. Christian mission today is searching for new directions to approach the postmodern, postcolonial, and ecumenical paradigms. My new book, Towards a New Praxis-Oriented Missiology (Pickwick, 2020), argues that mission is not just a transmission of knowledge that keeps an established structure and culture alive (often justified and glorified by a specific ecclesiological model). Rather, mission seeks to embody the content and praxis of the gospel. Mission can be understood as an invitation to initiate a transformative process of faith, which leads to personal and social transformation.
This work brings into dialogue Stephan Bevans's notion of mission as prophetic dialogue and Paulo Freire's concept of conscientização. The aim is not to use Freire's conscientização as a method to do mission but to rescue the process that leads to a transformation in both concepts, allowing one to encounter the other where they are, while respecting the uniqueness of every person, culture, church, and society. Prophetic dialogue enriched by Freire's thought, and vice versa, can open new perspectives within Missiology and provide a new approach to mission praxis. The concept of conscientização is shown to support the conscious dedication, preparation, dialogue, and commitment to incarnate the gospel in every culture. It sets up the interior attitude to read and interpret, as well as to intervene in specific realities. Besides revealing the riches that prophetic dialogue offers to mission praxis, my book explores questions and challenges in missiological discourse today, such as how to promote the gospel in a more experiential way.
My mission praxis is then analyzed through the experiential and transformative elements of the Verbum Dei charism applied to my ministry with the Latino immigrant population in California. Bevans's and Freire's work is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of prophetic dialogue and conscientização in the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity mission praxis.
"Towards a New Praxis-Oriented Missiology" will awaken in Missiology scholars, ministers, and in people dedicating their lives to serve others, the desire to rescue and transmit the humble power and beauty of the Gospel taught by Jesus. It will provide tools to initiate a transformative process of faith, leading to a personal and social transformation; tools to help people relate the content of faith to the concrete reality (personal, familiar, social); and tools to make the content of faith relevant to the reality of the present era.
Like many Americans, I enjoyed and appreciated the musical Hamilton and was excited when it became available to watch on Disney+, the cost of tickets to a live show being exorbitant. Although Alexander Hamilton, played by the musical's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, is the title character of the popular musical, while watching the performance, I came to appreciate that Miranda actually puts the focus on many other characters in the story. The musical is about Hamilton, but we learn about that founding father primarily through his relationships with other people.
Occasionally, Hamilton sings about himself, but more often, we see Hamilton through the eyes of others. Aaron Burr narrates the musical and describes their parallel careers. Sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler sings of the Hamilton she knew and loved. Thomas Jefferson sings of the Hamilton he worked with and hated. Hamilton's Revolutionary friends brag that future generations will remember the story of their relationship. Notably, Hamilton's wife, Eliza, after she learns of an affair, declares she is "erasing herself from the narrative" so the story of their relationship will not be told. In the context of the musical, some of Hamilton's actions and deeds are related, some of his ideas are mentioned, and the Revolutionary context is presented, but the story told is one of relationships.
Hamilton is a work of historical fiction, but it offers an illustration of a tantalizing area of development in historiography of Christian missions. What might the history of Christian missions look like through the lens of actual, lived human relationships? Everyone familiar with mission history is familiar with the different forms it has taken over the years. There have been those (too often hagiographic) biographies that have told a story of deeds and actions undertaken by missionaries. Other histories focus on the Missiology and theological ideas held and conveyed by missionaries and how those ideas have been received. Still other works focus on the larger cultural, political, and religious context in which Christian mission has occurred. Except for the hagiographic narratives, each of those historiographical approaches has its place, and the best examples of the genre address more than one area.
Intentionally putting actual human relationships in the foreground of mission history would offer a different view on history. To do so would require several things such as embracing a social historical approach recognizing that no two relationships are alike and that relationships change over time. It would also require an awareness that relationships often embody and sometimes subvert ideologies and power dynamics derived from the cultural and social context.
Perhaps the biggest challenge to using relationships as a way of exploring mission history is that history as a discipline must be grounded in solid source material. Unlike Miranda, historians don't have the freedom to tell historical fiction. Here, I suspect that in some instances, it is not that sources don't exist to explore different relationships, it's just that no one has looked for them. Researching my recent book on Methodist missionary William Taylor (William Taylor and the Mapping of the Methodist Missionary Tradition: The World His Parish, Lexington Books, 2019), I was able to uncover many new sources about Taylor life and work by intentionally exploring his interpersonal relationships. If Taylor mentioned a name in his writing, I searched to see if that person had left behind any published memoirs or archival material. Those that I found, I looked for and often found references to Taylor. I also researched the contexts around the world in which he worked to find other source material that might illuminate his story from a different angle, such as newspaper articles and writings of others who happened to be in those same settings at the same time. By taking seriously relationships Taylor mentioned, I was able to discover some important sources that offered insight into how those relationships shaped Taylor's ministry. For example, I discovered how the assassination of a friend in San Francisco prompted Taylor to write his first book.
Without source material, however, some gaps in the narrative cannot be overcome. Such lacunae have to stand, as is. All perceptive readers of my book will wonder what Taylor's wife, Isabelle Anne (Kimberlin) Taylor, thought of her husband's exploits around the world while he effectively abandoned her and their children to become a global evangelist and missionary. All I can say is, I wonder too. I was able to find precious few sources to document her actions, thoughts, and experience. Likewise, indigenous voices on the impact of Taylor's ministry were also hard to find and mediated through western sources. However, such gaps and problems in source material will not surprise anyone who has worked with primary sources on mission history.
My own experience leads me to suspect that relationships between different missionaries may be the most likely area to find source material. Different individuals serving in the same region with the same or different sending bodies have likely been preserved in some settings. Likewise, sources may be available on the relationships between missionaries and colonial administrators, as both church and governmental bureaucracies often generated documentation. Internal mission documents could illuminate relationships between specific missionaries and their translators, cultural intermediaries, or other people employed by missions. Again, my own experience makes me think familial relationships will be the most opaque, because the mundane and intimate nature of daily family life rarely generates durable records. Day to day interactions of missionaries and indigenous persons would also be unlikely to generate records.
One of the benefits of this potential approach to the history of Christian mission would be that it follows the lead of other missiological reflection. The importance of relationships in Missiology is nothing new. Donald McGavran famously called them "bridges of God." As the title of Dana Robert's recent book, Faithful Friendships, suggests, cross-cultural friendships offer a particular form of relationship as a way of thinking about Christian mission.
The closing song of Hamilton! is titled "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story." In it, Eliza Hamilton declares she will, "[P]ut myself back in the narrative" by interviewing her late husband's comrades, exploring his writing, and seeking to continue his legacy. In a sense, she puts their relationship back at center of her own story. In the end, historians have the chance to do something similar and have the privilege of offering an answer to at least the third of those questions. We get to choose the stories we will tell about the history of Christian mission and how we will tell those stories. Perhaps within the rich tapestry of human relationships we can find new dimensions of historical knowledge to explore.
Many of us who have devoted our lives to boundary-crossing ministries know well the gnawing feeling that, despite our good intensions, our work may actually be doing more harm than good-or, at least, doing more harm than we realize. Confessing this out loud can be scary; we risk damaging relationships, losing funding, and even being exiled from our home church communities when we earnestly seek to identify and repent of ugly truths about ourselves. And yet, it is through the continual process of soul searching and repentance that we draw closer to God and one another, becoming more fruitful disciples of Christ.
In recent years, an increasing number of folks with decades of ministry and anti-poverty work experience have boldly spoken their constructive criticisms and been heard. Books such as When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity have made it onto mainstream bestseller lists and are joined by a chorus of similarly themed publications. And yet, these introductory texts barely scratch the surface of the deeper more painful issues that must be addressed-issues that sit at the intersection of vanity, racism, power imbalances, trauma, exploitation, hero-complexes, and alienation. If we are truly serious about a life of discipleship, of accompanying the vulnerable among us, bandaging the wounded, and announcing Good News to the poor and oppressed, we must be vigilant in our efforts to know ourselves better, be honest about our wounds and complicity in the world's problems, and seek out and shatter every golden calf we were taught to adore-even if it means parting ways with beloved church mission practices and traditions.
It was with this resolve that I entered into my doctoral research. As a second-generation missiologist pastor committed to standing in solidarity with The United Methodist Church (UMC) in the DR Congo, I wanted to analyze and learn from the mistakes I had made over the years, understand the myriad of invisible dynamics at play that had caused these stumbles, find out what work I needed to do on myself, and share my findings with others. This quest took me on a long and emotionally grueling journey, and my findings eventually took the form of a book that was selected in 2019 for inclusion in the American Society of Missiology's Monograph Series: Decolonizing Mission Partnerships: Evolving Collaboration between United Methodists in North Katanga and the United States of America.
While examining the history and recent shifts of relational dynamics between American and Congolese United Methodists in the North Katanga Conference (DR Congo), Decolonizing Mission Partnerships explores how colonial partnerships can be transformed into healthy boundary-crossing ministry partnerships. While much of the book's content is specific to the context of The UMC in North Katanga and its relationship with (primarily White) Americans, it sets up a conceptual framework through which one can analyze other missional collaborations in postcolonial contexts. Every postcolonial or cross-racial missional collaboration must wrestle with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and unhealed trauma. If they don't, those legacies will undermine their efforts, carrying that pain, shame, and harm into the next generation.
My prayer is that my book will serve as a useful tool for those seeking to create Christ-filled legacies of healing and atonement. If after reading it you would like to continue the conversation together, I would love to hear from you. I can be reached at Missiology.org" target="_blank">taylor@friendlyplanetMissiology.org or on WhatsApp at +1-317-408-5036.
Praise for Decolonizing Mission Partnerships:
"Taylor Denyer's research on the dimensions of one colonized partnership-and what it would take to decolonize it-presents an informative case study and a compelling challenge. Her skillful integration of several academic conversations into a single missiological framework provides a helpful model for further reflection on transforming mission partnerships. This hope-giving study embodies an ethos of deep listening and vulnerable self-criticism coupled with a determined personal commitment to work for change." - Johannes (Klippies) Kritzinger, Professor Emeritus of Missiology, University of South Africa
"Taylor Walters Denyer takes an important topic-the missional relationships between large groups of United Methodists from the North Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and from the United States-and analyzes it through a refreshingly wide variety of critical lenses. In so doing, she lifts up important Congolese voices, and adds her own unique voice, developed through close personal connections to the Katanga region about which she so knowledgeably and passionately writes." - Dr. David W. Scott, Consultant, Office of the General Secretary, General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church
"Decolonizing Mission Partnerships is a book that should lead us into redefining what it means to be a church engaged in God's mission. Structures and systems that support mission are called to reevaluate themselves through the lenses of the perspective and experiences that Rev. Denyer presents to us. I appeal local churches to reflect on the book." - The Rev. Dr. Mande Muyombo, United Methodist Bishop over the North Katanga Episcopal Area
In this day of frequent jeremiads blasted out in tweets of 140 characters or less, sincere conversation is endangered. Yet, deep, intentional conversation in our reflections on the mission of God and the participation of Christians in it is crucial for missions' continued relevance in the 21st century. When such conversation occurs, it is a gift; it is often a surprise.
Such is the conversation I have enjoyed with Carolyn C. Wason for the last three years. In October 2014, the Evangelical Missiological Society issued a call for papers concerning contemporary problems in mission. In my view, a critical problem is the wide disaffection of millennials toward Christianity and even of many Christian millennials toward Western missions. They ask how Western missions, burdened by past abuses, can possibly be a viable vehicle of God's message of grace today, and even if missions is positively transformed, what assurance is there that its practitioners might not be as equally blind to their errors as were previous generations of missionaries?
In 2014, Carolyn happened to be a student - an exceptional one, now pursuing graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Oxford - in her final year of the Missiology and Anthropology program at Eastern University. As a Christian millennial skeptical of Christian missions, Carolyn bravely accepted my invitation to have an extended conversation concerning this generation problem facing mission. Our paper was in the form of a dialogue between a millennial Christian and a member of the baby boomer generation, the latter convinced of the value of Christian missions. Our consequent dialogue, which occurred in writing, was not easy. It was often hard to really hear what the other was saying, and to respond concisely and meaningfully. We couldn't see at that time; however, our real work lay ahead.
The outcome of our six-month conversation was a paper entitled, "A Cross-Generational Conversation Concerning the Future of Western Missions." First presented in the northeast regional conference of the EMS, it was subsequently chosen to be presented at the EMS national conference in Dallas, Texas in September 2015. At the conference we were assigned the unfortunate hour of eight o'clock in the morning on Sunday - the last day of the conference. I advised Carolyn who Skyped in from Maine not to be discouraged if only five or ten people attended. To our surprise the room was packed with more in the hallway! The paper generated robust discussion - even debate! Millennials expressed that ours was the only presentation in the conference they really wanted to hear! Afterward, as Carolyn and I reflected on the unusually strong reception in two missiological conferences, we concluded the topic was vital and our conversation should be continued.
And so, Millennials and the Mission of God: A Prophetic Dialogue was born. What began as a project of a few months became a two-year dialogue. As Carolyn writes in the preface:
As it turns out, writing a thoughtful critique of another author's work is considerably more difficult when that author critiques you right back. But that was the point of our paper, and it's the point of this book. This is a conversation. Not the kind of conversation that any of us normally have-the kind where I'm only silent because I'm waiting for my turn to reply and not because I'm actually listening; where I talk over you and you talk over me, and we all end up further affirming our own beliefs and denouncing that of the other. I can say with certainty that my views on Western missions (and my views on Baby-Boomers) have changed since we began this, and I suspect Andrew could say the same. I hope, Reader, that whatever your own views are, you will enter this conversation willing to stand up for what you believe as well as being willing to change your mind.
Our conversation's focus was the validity of Christian missions. In exploring this we discussed important related topics: can millennials find their place in the church? Is there a stream in Christian spirituality, which millennials might authentically embrace, that subsequently might facilitate the renewal of Christian missions? What place does social justice and sabbath rest have in Christian missions? How can evangelism separate itself from the political agenda of many conservative evangelicals?
Carolyn and I do not pretend to offer definitive answers to these questions. We are starting a conversation, and we hope readers will lend their voices to this ongoing dialogue. The future of Christian missions is at stake!
Andrew F. Bush, DMin., is the chair of the Global Studies and Mission Department at Eastern University. He speaks widely in churches, conferences and colleges. He has served internationally for thirty years and remains active in mission service in the Philippines and Palestine.
Andrew F. Bush and Carolyn C. Wason, Millennials and the Mission of God: A Prophetic Dialogue (Wipf & Stock: Eugene, Ore., 2017) p xv.