Vol. 34, No.

4 October 2010

Missions and the Liberation of Theology

here is no indication that those credited with penning the Jewish and then the Christian Holy Writpolitical leaders, priests, chroniclers, poets, prophets, sages, amateur historians, and apostlesimagined that they were contributing to a body of writing that would one day be incorporated into a single volume universally known as The Bible. Nor could they have known that religious and political leaders of a later era of whom Constantine may serve as a convenient representative would engage in a prolonged, factious, and at times ethically unseemly effort to determine which writings should be allowed between the covers of this sacred book, and which ones should be excluded. As unsavory to modPhotograph Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons ern sensibilities as was Emperor Constantine the Great the process itselfto say nothing of the carnal motives and methods of its principalsthe result was the book that we Christians now honor in word, if less frequently in deed: The Holy Bible. Typical of Christian reverence for their sacred scriptures is the declaration found in the Catechism of the Episcopal Church: Q. Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God? A. We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible

(Book of Common Prayer [1979], p. 853). While there is no consensus across the Christian world on what is meant by inspired, a majority of believers would probably assent to the Christian Reformed Churchs affirmation that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God. It contains all that people in any age need to know for their salvation. We call the Bible Gods Word, believing that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God speaks to us through this book (www.crcna.org/pages/beliefs.cfm). If Constantine can be credited for his substantial role in giving Continued next page

On Page
195 198 205 208 215 221 229 233 243 244 248 Mission Is Ministry in the Dimension of Difference: A Definition for the Twenty-first Century Titus Presler Noteworthy The Missiology of Old Testament Covenant Stuart J. Foster Beyond Contextualization: Toward a Twenty- first-Century Model for Enabling Mission R. Daniel Shaw Asking the Big Questions: A Statistical Analysis of Three Missiological Journals Gregory J. Liston The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay James R. Rohrer The Legacy of Carl Thurman Smith Wong Man Kong Book Reviews Dissertation Notices Index Book Notes

us our Bible, equally notable is his role in providing a remarkably broad setting for the use of this Bible. From the ecclesiastical scraps of exasperatingly fragmented Christian sects, he in effect forged a single church body that could function in the vast expanse of territory bordered by Britain and Spain in the west, Armenia and Mesopotamia in the east, Hungary and Romania in the north, and northern Africa and Egypt in the south. Depending upon ones perspective, this was contextualization at either its best or its worstperhaps both. As Paul Stephenson observes, It is because of Constantines actions that we have begun to speak of the Church, still rather incongruously (Constantine: Unconquered Roman Emperor, Christian Victor [2010], p. 277). The resulting unified church became the willing instrument of a violent slave state. The gestations of both the Holy Scriptures and the imperially sanctioned Christian church were arduous and pitifully human processes. Ever since then, the challenge of deducing from the Bibles disparate parts a cohesive, sensible, and replicable guide to thought and practice has been the task of utterly human theologians. Mediating this teaching (i.e., the Gospel) to peoples whose linguistic and cultural worlds are bewilderingly distinct from the worlds of either those who originated the Bibles parts or those who since then have interpreted its contents has been the principal calling of Christian missionaries. As Titus Presler comments in his article in this issue, The Christian missionary enterprise is the worlds most extensive and longest sustained engagement with human difference. Even though the Bible in its original languages and cultural settings is difficult enough to comprehend and correctly apply, conveying its message across the spectra of time, cultures, and languages is as necessary as it is daunting. Just as God through Christ could be seen, known, and understood by Jesus contem-

poraries, whether or not they believed in him, so the Good News through the translated words of the Bible and the observed lives of missionaries takes on flesh and dwells among peoples in real time, space, and language. But missionaries, such as the two featured in our Legacies, are not merely passive channels of inherited theologies. Since the days of St. Paul they have lived, sometimes uncomfortably, on the theological frontiers, searching the Scriptures for insight into questions and issues unanticipated by either themselves or their inherited theologies. Stuart Foster, who has been a part of the Mozambique Bible Societys Lomwe whole-Bible translation project for twenty-four years, argues that Old Testament covenant missiology, in its bold use of pagan customs to communicate about God, is integral to the long, complex process of conversion. Fraught with risk, yes; but the risk is necessary and, in any case, as unavoidable for missionaries as it was for Jesus himselfif outcomes that Daniel Shaw here calls beyond contextualization are to be realized. Over the centuries individuals and communities have turned to the Bible for both ultimate meaning and everyday direction. This process is both easier and more difficult than can be imagined. Theologythe hard work of making contextually relevant sense of what the Bible teaches about Gods interest in how we human beings live out our lives in his world, and why this mattersis central to the missionary task. But only through mission can theology be liberated from its otherwise inevitable cultural bondage. Jonathan J. Bonk
Cover image: Colossal Head of Emperor Constantinus I Magnus. Marble, Roman artwork, 4th century CE. Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican City. Unknown sculptor, photograph Marie-Lan Nguyen, 2006.

Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research in 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the Editor overseas MInIstrIes study center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. Jonathan J. Bonk (203) 624-6672 Fax (203) 865-2857 IBMR@OMSC.org www.internationalbulletin.org Associate Editor Dwight P. Baker Contributing Editors Graham Kings Wilbert R. Shenk John F. Gorski, M.M. Catalino G. Arvalo, S.J. Assistant Editors Anne-Marie Kool Brian Stanley David B. Barrett Darrell L. Guder Craig A. Noll Mary Motte, F.M.M. Tite Tinou Philip Jenkins Daniel H. Bays Rona Johnston Gordon C. Ren Padilla Ruth A. Tucker Daniel Jeyaraj Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Managing Editor James M. Phillips Desmond Tutu William R. Burrows Jan A. B. Jongeneel Daniel J. Nicholas Dana L. Robert Andrew F. Walls Angelyn Dries, O.S.F. Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. Senior Contributing Editors Lamin Sanneh Anastasios Yannoulatos Samuel Escobar Kirsteen Kim Gerald H. Anderson Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts Robert T. Coote unaccompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions Circulation expressed in the IBMR are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. Aiyana Ehrman The articles in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Bibliografia Missionaria, Book Review Index, Christian IBMR@OMSC.org Periodical Index, Guide to People in Periodical Literature, Guide to Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature, (203) 285-1559 IBR (International Bibliography of Book Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), Missionalia, Religious and Theological Abstracts, and Religion Index One: Periodicals. Advertising OnlinE E-JOURnAl: The IBMR is available in e-journal and print editions. To subscribeat no chargeto the full Charles A. Roth, Jr. text IBMR e-journal (PDF and HTML), go to www.internationalbulletin.org/register. Index, abstracts, and full text of this CA Roth Jr Inc. journal are also available on databases provided by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and University 86 Underwood Rd. Microfilms. Back issues may be purchased or read online. Consult InfoTrac database at academic and public libraries. Falmouth, Maine 04105-1418 PRinT SUbSCRiPTiOnS: Subscribe, renew, or change an address at www.internationalbulletin.org or write Mobile: (516) 729-3509 InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834-3000. Address correspondence Fax: (914) 470-0483 concerning print subscriptions and missing issues to: Circulation Coordinator, IBMR@OMSC.org. Single copy price: $8. carothjrinc@maine.rr.com Subscription rate worldwide: one year (4 issues) $32. Foreign subscribers must pay with U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank, Copyright 2010 Visa, MasterCard, or International Money Order. Airmail delivery $16 per year extra. Overseas Ministries Study Center POSTMASTER: Send address changes to InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, All rights reserved New Jersey 07834-3000. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, CT. (iSSn 0272-6122)
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InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research

Mission Is Ministry in the Dimension of Difference: A Definition for the Twenty-first Century
Titus Presler
ission is ministry in the dimension of difference. This definition of mission assists reflection in a number of ways. It makes explicit the distinctive character of mission that is implicit but unacknowledged in many discussions of mission that focus on particular theological or practical emphases. By articulating an empirical categorydifferencerather than theological content, the definition provides a relatively neutral criterion of analysis and comparison in the practice of churches and in mission thought. Yet the criterion of difference has substantial biblical warrant and theological import. Furthermore, the definition provides a measure for assessing and comparing mission emphases across a range of religions. The proposed definition distinguishes mission as a particular kind of ministry and thereby clarifies a common confusion of these two concepts. It is a simple formulation, rather than complex and esoteric. Members of Christian churches readily understand it, for it focuses a commonplace impression about mission, namely, that it concerns engagement with the other. It provides a marker for types of ministry in local and global settings alike, for it applies equally to work around the corner and to work across the world. It applies equally to churches based on all continents in distinguishing their mission work, whether in Caracas or Cameroun, Cambodia or California. In highlighting difference as the marker, it connects missiology with postmodern discourse in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Difference Implicit in Mission Thought

The term difference in this essay has ordinary meanings: a state of unlikeness, a point of dissimilarity, or a distinguishing characteristic.1 This commonsense understanding has empirical referents, yet difference is itself relative in two senses: it subsists in the relation between phenomena, and it depends on observers perception and assessment of distinctions in that relation. This relativity alerts us to the inherent subjectivity of judgments about difference, for ability to perceive distinctions, especially social differences in the world addressed by mission, is shaped, limited, and extended profoundly by personal experience and social formation. Moreover, understandings of identity may depend on prior perceptions of difference: we may not know ourselves until we know the other as well. This epistemological dynamic resonates with the postmodern philosophical intuition that difference may also be ontologically prior to identity. Historically, it is ironic at this juncture to suggest difference as a clarifying criterion of Christian mission, for much mission thought and practice in the Global North from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries was premised on the view that
Titus Presler is an Episcopal priest and missiologist with experience in India and Zimbabwe. He chaired the Episcopal Churchs Standing Commission on World Mission and was a researcher for the Global Anglicanism Project. Former president of the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, he is the author of Horizons of Mission (Cowley Publications, 2001). www.tituspresler.com
October 2010

mission, itself a new concept as applied to the churchs work rather than simply to the life of the Trinity, had everything and only to do with those in cultural groups different from ones own. From the North Atlantic standpoint, mission designated ministry with people groups in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, where the principal tasks were thought to be Gospel proclamation, church planting, infrastructure development, and, most ambitiously, the formation of religious cultures envisioned by the churches emissaries to be Christian rather than pagan or heathen. The emissaries were designated as missionaries, a term understood to apply to persons who ventured beyond their home societies to initiate, continue, or extend the churchs work in societies other than their own. Missionaries were people who engaged difference in the name of Christ. Many mission societies were premised on the understanding that mission concerned Christian work in other places in the world. Domestic and home appeared in the names of some mission societies and boards for work within a churchs national borders, but this still referred to outreach among groups beyond a churchs historic constituency, such as, in the case of the United States, frontier settlers, African slaves, and Native Americans. Whether at home or abroad, mission addressed the not-us, the different, the other. The common plural term missions designated both such missionary-sending groups and the multiple institutions they established on frontiers at home or in other parts of the world. Thus the dimension of difference was constitutive in the understanding of what mission was. After the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, a high-water mark in missionary confidence, a number of factors broadened missional understanding in the twentieth century, the century of self-criticism in the mission of Global North churches. The barbarity of World War I and the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II prompted European and U.S. Christians to realize that their own cultures were sources of evil as well as good and that there might be good to be discovered in other cultures that had different roots. Long-standing distinctions between the civilized and the uncivilized were undermined as gifts were both received and conferred across frontiers of societal difference. Links between Christian mission and the colonial expansion of Europe and the United States undercut the positive connotation of missions reaching over boundaries of cultural, ethnic, and geographic difference. Increased world exposure accelerated a theological trend toward considering that differing religions were valid disclosures of the divine, which undermined positive assessments of Christian missions concern with conversion. Transformation of the missions in the Two-Thirds World into indigenous churchesself-governing, self-supporting, selfpropagating, and self-theologizingbrought those Christian communities into peer relationships with Global North churches. Here liturgical, musical, theological, and even ethical differences were phenomena to be explored and celebrated, rather than obstacles to be overcome and suppressed. The new environment for mission thought prompted significant shifts in the understanding of difference. Missiologys grounding became theocentric rather than ecclesiocentric. The churches mixed record helped to push mission reflection back
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to God as the source and author of mission. Gods mission in the world became determinative theologically, with the churchs mission regarded as derivative. God was on mission in the world, and the churchs role was to discern that mission movement and participate in it. Correlatively, mission thought became more comprehensive, reflecting on the whole of Gods intention and action through the church and in the world. From midcentury onward, missiology incorporated such foci as J. C. Hoekendijks triad of proclamation, community, and service (kerygma, koinonia, diakonia); the conciliar movements summary of these in witness (martyria); economic and infrastructure development as integral to societal wholeness; Christian presence as articulated by Max Warren and others; holistic evangelization as recovered by Vatican II, the World Council of Churches, and the Lausanne Movement;

The vast missiological literature on inculturation is premised on encounters with difference.

Gustavo Gutirrezs theology of liberation and its elaboration by many in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; reconciliation and its implications for ethnic and political conflict; and the Millennium Development Goals as a practical urgency in the twenty-first century. All these emphases have been articulated as grounded in the nature and action of God and therefore framing the churchs work in the world. The churchs missionwhat it is sent by God to be and do in the worldis seen as comprehended by such emphases and therefore encompassing the churchs work both at home and abroad, both within itself and beyond itself. The phenomena of human difference tend to be backgrounded in such comprehensive characterizations of mission. For Euro-American mission activists, this has served to assuage widespread unease and guilt about the ignorance, insensitivity, and arrogance with which the Euro-American mission movement sometimes responded to the cultural and religious differences it encountered in other parts of the world. For mission activists in the Two-Thirds World, comprehensive themes mark a theological coming of age that transcends wounds that could otherwise be fixating. A subtext implicit in comprehensive reinterpretations of mission has been: We need to get beyond us-them thinking. And we certainly need to get beyond mission as concerned with the exotic. Gods mission is to all of us, to all human groups equally, and to the planet. All of us need Gods mission. Some particular comprehensive emphasissuch as development, evangelization, interfaith dialogue, or liberationis often seen as the mission priority for all human groups equally, and particular human differences are considered a minor theme in such a mandate. Moreover, human difference is relativized in a polycentric world, for in itself every human group is equally different from every other. Tying mission to the experience of human difference can seem a vestige of the rightly discredited worldview in which Euro-American peoples saw themselves as the standard human beings and others as the different ones who needed to see how they should conform to the standard. The advance of secularism in the West has prompted a similar leveling of historic assignments of difference in the area of evangelization, especially as Christian profession receded radically in Europe. The missionally important difference between
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Christian and non-Christian remains, but historic associations have been scrambled when Christian commitment in many African countries far exceeds that of many European countries, signaling that the geography of mission as understood historically in the Euro-American tradition has been relativized. We in the West shouldnt be evangelizing the rest of the world, goes an emerging European and North American refrain, Instead, we need them to send missionaries to us! Indeed, not only are traditionally missionary-receiving parts of the world recognized as potentially missionary-sending, but some have actually become so, with Korea, India, and Nigeria leading the way. Shifts toward mutuality in mission have evoked nuanced approaches to human difference, as the progression of Anglican mission slogans illustrates: mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ (1963), partnership in mission (1971), and companionship in mission (1999), this last similar to the accompaniment promoted by Lutherans and Roman Catholics. In all these conceptualizations of mission, however, the fact of human differencereligious, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social, and so onis an irreducible premise, even if particular formulations do not highlight it. Missio Dei theology, for instance, is premised on the self-projection of God into the temporal and material, a dimension of difference, that culminates in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Witness is premised on Gospel testimony in word and deed to a world that is different in needing such proclamation. Mission as Christian presence proposes a way of encountering and living with difference that may diverge from other modes of mission, but it is no less premised on the fact of difference. Evangelization assumes differences in religious profession. Liberation addresses differences in the distribution of power, and reconciliation responds to differences that have provoked alienation and enmity. Current emphases on mutuality in partnership and companionship propose that difference be explored and embraced in community rather than accentuated by competition and effaced by domination. Difference is a premise in the thought of recent and current mission theologians, among whom a few instances must suffice. Stephen Neills history of Christian expansion is framed as the story of how a local faith became a universal religion through crossing cultural and national boundaries of difference. David Boschs distillation that mission is the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus is based on biblical analysis of Jesus mission as one of crossing boundaries, a model premised on difference. Anthony Gittinss postulation of the missionary as a stranger is based on difference as the missionarys fundamental environment. The kingdom-centered missiology of the Missional Church Project for North America is centered on evangelism and church nurture in a cultural context understood as essentially different from the reign of God. Andrew Kirk defines mission more loosely in terms of Gods purposes in the world, a view premised on the difference between church and world. Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi defines mission generically as the participation of the people of God in Gods action in the world but clarifies that Gods missionary activity is beyond the churchs institutional limits, outward to areas different from its own. In its focus on the frontiers of secularization, pluralization, and globalization, David Smiths Mission After Christendom is premised on phenomena of difference. Francis Oborji understands mission straightforwardly as evangelization and church-planting where the Gospel has not been heard or accepted and thus assumes a quite traditional understanding of difference.2 The now vast missiological literature on inculturation, which includes historical, theological, and anthropological approaches,
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

is premised on encounters with difference: peoples interactions with Gospel proclamation and the many differences encountered between missionaries and receiving peoples. Numerous models for those encounters have been proposed, such as adaptation, indigenization, and contextualization; local theology, as developed by Robert Schreiter; translatability, as developed by Andrew Walls, Kwame Bediako, and Lamin Sanneh; and appropriation and transformation, as developed by the present author. 3 All these assume an encounter with difference. Appropriately, formation programs for missionaries preparing to serve cross-culturally tend to focus chiefly on how missionaries should perceive, understand, adjust, and respond to linguistic, economic, political, racial, and cultural differences in their places of service. In sum, difference is an explicit condition in many mission concepts, theologies, and programs, and in others it is an implicit and integral premise. Difference is foundational.

Implications of the Difference Definition

In light of the comprehensive definition of Christian mission, the short definitionmission is ministry in the dimension of differenceachieves its full effect, for it asserts a single distinctive rather than multiple criteria, and it does so in simple nontheological language that sharpens the point. It is a functional definition that specifies missions nature as a type of religious activity. It invites theological definitions of mission to be articulated, suggesting simply that they be consistent with the criterion of difference. The phrase dimension of difference invites reflection on difference as a category of human experience. It prompts the hearer to reflect not only on specific differences but also on difference as an existential and social experience and on questions of perspective and identity that it raises. How do I experience and define my social location and the group or groups of which I understand myself to be a member? What assumptions about identity operate in our experience? What particular privileges and disabilities do we experience in our group, relative to other groups? How do our concepts of difference relate to our concepts of commonality with other human groups? What anxieties and fears do my social group and I experience as we engage the prospect of encounters with people who are different from us in major ways? What joys and discoveries do we anticipate as we engage such difference? The concept of the dimension of difference invites historical, sociological, and philosophical reflection on difference within ones society and on the world stage. The definition affirms the common impression that mission concerns initiatives and activities of religious communities beyond their own boundaries, defined by membership and particular characteristics the membership may have. For example, one Christian asking another about his or her congregation may be told how fulfilling the worship is, that the Sunday school has

Grounding in Comprehensive Definitions

The concept of mission as ministry in the dimension of difference is grounded in more comprehensive definitions of religious mission and Christian mission. The concept of religious mission is important for comparative interreligious missiology, and it may be defined as the spiritual vision and the practical means through which communities project their religious faith and work, and through which they invite the participation and adherence of others. Sociological rather than theological, this formulation describes human social behavior directed toward presenting religious faith to communities wider than the originating religious community and thereby to the other and the different. An environment and criterion of difference is implicit in the verb project and explicit in the concluding phrase of others, that is, those not part of the missional community. This definition may apply equally to the Hindu Ramakrishna Mission, the Woking Muslim Mission in England, the Guru Ram Das Sikh Mission of America, the Brampton Buddhist Mission Centre in Ontario, and any particular Christian outreach. Building on the pan-religious definition, Christian mission may be defined as the activity of sending and being sent, by God and by communities, across significant boundaries of human social experience to bear witness in word and deed to Gods action in Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The claim embedded in the phrase across significant boundaries of human social experience is that mission involves crossing boundaries that are significant by virtue of being sociologically identifiable. The boundaries are religious, cultural, linguistic, racial, ethnic, sexual, economic, political, national, educational, professional, and geographicany one of these, any combination of these, and others as well, so long as they are major and socially identifiable. The inherent relativity and subjectivity of assessments of difference and identity mean that they are always fluid and that they should not be reified in rigid and static categories. Yet their provisional and powerful validity at any particular point of time is verified by the fact that the great oppressions within the human community are grounded precisely in such differences, readily evident in racial discrimination, gender violence, sexual slavery, tribal warfare, ethnic cleansing, interreligious conflict, and, as ever, war between nations. The definition asserts that Christians and our communities are engaged distinctively in mission when we are reaching out beyond who and where we are to encounter and form community with people and communities who are different from ourselves. Ministry to and with the other who is differentthat is the hallmark of Christian mission.
October 2010

Ministry to and with the other who is differentthat is the hallmark of Christian mission.
good teachers but a mediocre curriculum, and that adult formation forums are excellent but poorly attended. If the inquirer then asks, And does the church have a mission program? or Is your church mission-minded? the listener is likely to understand immediately what is being asked: Does your congregation reach out beyond itself to others? Is the church involved in the life of the wider community in the town or city? Does the parish have connections in other countries and cultures? The term mission, in sum, is widely understood by church members to refer to the churchs engagement with the other who is different from whatever characterizes the social group of the church itself. Thus outreach is the most commonly used synonym for mission, and reaching out is the verbal phrase most commonly used to signify mission activity. There is also a common negative association of mission with difference that the proposed definition engages straightforwardly. The most prevalent critiques of Christian mission concern ways that missionaries responded to the religious and cultural differences they encountered in other societies. It is commonly thought that missionaries condemned wholesale the different religions
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they encountered in the Two-Thirds World and in North America, and that they insisted that the peoples they found become Christian and adopt the missionaries own particular Christian brands. It is likewise commonly thought that missionaries condemned wholesale the different cultures they encountered and insisted that the peoples they found adopt the missionaries languages and ethics, styles of dressing, eating, housekeeping, and the like. The charges are often inaccurately universalized to include all missionaries in all times and places, but their substantial truth in many instances has prompted the missionary movement to critique itself thoroughly along these lines, especially since 1900. The point here is that differences among human groups and how to approach them are the issues at stake. Rather than shifting missions definition to another criterion in order to evade critique, the proposed definition accepts the encounter with difference as the pivotal criterion of mission, with an agenda to discuss how the different is encountered and what the response to it should be. Several current uses of the term mission cause confusion

about the common linkage of mission with difference. Missionof-God theology has associated mission with the full breadth of Gods action in the world, which is useful in summing up Gods intent in interacting with humanity. More problematically, the full breadth of action to which God calls the church and the human community is said to derive from the mission of God. Gods action is summarized under one themereconciliation, for instanceand then everything to which God calls the church is subsumed under that theme, all worship, education, nurture, and proclamation. But is there truly no missional difference between a mens prayer breakfast and prayers the evangelism team offers in door-to-door visitation? Between Sunday worship in the sanctuary and a liturgy offered at the local psychiatric hospital? Between the youth groups weekly meetings and its summer trip to paint houses of the elderly in Appalachia? Between Sunday school in the church and a parishioner spending three years teaching former combatants in a postwar setting in Africa? It is the criterion of difference that marks the cutting edge of

Noteworthy
Announcing
The American Society of MissiologyEastern Fellowship (ASMEF) will hold its annual meeting November 47, 2010, in conjunction with 2010boston, an international mission conference sponsored by the Boston Theological Institute, with the theme The Changing Contours of World Mission and Christianity (details online at www.2010boston.org). Daniel Jeyaraj, professor of world Christianity and director of the Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity, Liverpool Hope University, will address the topic Theological Education and Missions at the ASMEF luncheon, November 5, at Boston Universitys Marsh Chapel. Participants attending 2010boston will interact with mission leaders, including keynote speakers Brian Stanley, professor of world Christianity and director of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh; Dana L. Robert, professor of world Christianity and history of mission and codirector of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University School of Theology; and Jeyaraj; these three speakers are IBMR contributing editors. The Evangelical Theological Society (ETS, www.etsjets .org) annual conference, November 1719, 2010, in Atlanta, Georgia, will include a world Christianity consultation. Presenters will be Timothy Tennent, Asbury Theological Seminary, on India; Raymond Tallman, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, on the Arab-Muslim world; Edward Smither, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, on Brazil; and Robert Yarbrough, Covenant Theological Seminary, on Africa. Allen Yeh, assistant professor of history and theology, Biola University, chairs the consultations steering committee. The Centre for Mission Studies at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India, will hold a mission consultation January 1214, 2011. Under the theme Witnessing to Christ in Diverse Contexts, the conference will examine the varying understandings evident in historic and modern uses of the concept of witness and related terms such as evangelism and mission. Contact conference organizer Frampton Fox at frfox@eroam.net for details. The fifth International Munich-Freising Conference on the History of Christianity in the Non-Western World, to be held February 1820, 2011, will consider the theme Phases of Globalization in the History of Christianity. Presenters will evaluate the transcontinental networks of the East SyrianNestorian Church of the East (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), the Jesuits (seventeenth century), the German Pietists (eighteenth century), and the Protestant missionary movement and the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, with special attention to the beginnings of networking between indigenous Christian elites in Asia and Africa, according to a conference announcement. Papers will be read in German and English. For further information, go to www.kg1.evtheol.uni-muenchen.de/veranstaltungen/ symposien. The 2011 annual meeting of the American Society of Missiology will be held June 1719 at Techny Towers, Techny, Illinois, with the theme Mission Spirituality in Global Perspective, announced ASM president Robert Gallagher, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. Society members are invited to propose papers for presentation during multitrack parallel sessions. Topics of volunteered papers are not restricted to the overall conference theme. Proposals for papers are due before February 1 to the ASM first vice-president Roger Schroeder, S.V.D., rschroeder@ctu.edu. For details, visit www.asmweb .org/news.htm. The Association of Professors of Mission (www.asmweb.org/apm) will hold its annual meeting in conjunction with ASM at the same location. The International Fellowship of Mission as Transformation (INFEMIT) held a Consultation on the topic Mission as Transformation, March 58, 2010, at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS). Twenty-eight delegates from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the United States reflected on INFEMITs thirty-five-year history and addressed current challenges facing holistic mission. Those present focused especially on links with regional bodies, including the Latin American Theological Fellowship, Partnership in MissionAsia, the European Fellowship of Mission Theologians, and the African Theological Fellowship. A networking team chaired by Ruth Padilla DeBorst, general secretary of the Latin American Theological Fellowship, San Jos, Costa Rica, was formed with representatives from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, the

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mission and sustains the challenge always implicit in mission. Christians are well aware that their community life is fulfilling for members as networks of relationship develop among those who pray, worship, eat, and study together in a congregation. Christians are equally aware that their community life is intended to strengthen them to reach beyond their community in mission to others. A self-critique in many congregations is that their prayer, worship, education, and fellowship are flourishing but that, because the community is not reaching beyond itself to encounter others, it is becoming complacent and self-absorbed. Here the congregation is identifying a failure to cross the boundaries of difference that are peculiar to mission and intuiting that vitality arises from ministering outside their comfort zone. A less common self-critique is that a congregation is so engaged in outreach, in difference-engaging mission, that it is neglecting its mutually supportive community life, with the result that members are fatigued and jaded. In fact, community and mission are symbiotic: community without mission dies out, and mission without

community burns out. The distinction between community and mission is clear, and it is grounded in the criterion of difference. A related dynamic is the aspiration that many North American church institutions express that they become more diverse, a term used to connote racial diversity especially, but also cultural, national, linguistic, and economic diversity. This aspiration expresses an intuition that fulfilling the mission of the congregation, denomination, school, or seminary involves engaging difference and drawing in people different from the existing majority group. If the congregation or school is monochromewhether white, black, Asian, or Hispanicthere is a nagging sense of a neglected mission frontier. Conviction that the whole people of God should include all available local ethnicities prompts conversation about outreach to the groups not represented. Conversely, a congregation that includes an ethnic, international, and linguistic rainbow often exults in the fulfillment of its mission because it has succeeded in crossing boundaries of difference and drawing in a diverse range of people. Again, people realize intuitively that

Caribbean, the Middle East, and the South Pacific, as well as from OCMS. Al Tizon, associate professor of evangelism and holistic ministry, Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, represents the United States as dialogue partner. Redcliffe College Centre for Mission Training, Gloucester, U.K., announced two new master of arts degree programs: an M.A. in Bible and Mission, and an M.A. in European Mission and Intercultural Christianity. Both programs are validated by the University of Gloucestershire and were slated to commence in September 2010. Redcliffe also offers M.A. degree programs in Global Issues in Contemporary Mission, Asian Studies in Intercultural Contexts, and Global Leadership in Intercultural Contexts. For more information, go online to www.redcliffe .org/mabibleandmission and www.redcliffe.org/maeurope.

Personalia

Appointed. Stephen J. Fichter, S.J., interim executive director of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA, cara.georgetown.edu), Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. After twelve years with CARA, including seven as executive director, Mary E. Bendyna, R.S.M., stepped down in June 2010. During her time at CARA Bendyna was the principal investigator for dozens of studies on ministry, education, faith formation, priesthood, and religious life, including major studies for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Catholic Educational Association, and the Religious Brothers Conference. She is coauthor of Best Practices in Catholic Pastoral and Finance Councils (2010). A sociologist and CARAs research associate, Fichter will serve in the interim post while a search for an executive director is conducted. Died. John A. Bollier, 82, divinity librarian and association director, June 27, 2010. Bolliers career, which combined ministry with scholarship, began at California State University, Northridge, where he was a reference librarian and bibliographer. In 1973 he was employed by Yale Divinity Library, New Haven, Connecticut, where he was assistant divinity librarian and also served two terms as acting divinity librarian and a year as acting head of the bibliography department of Yales Sterling Library. Bolliers bibliographic instruction at Yale pro-

duced a book, The Literature of Theology: A Guide for Students and Pastors (1979). As a board member of the American Theological Library Association, he played a key role in the reorganization discussions that led to a merger in 1992 of all ATLA-related boards into a single board of directors. After retirement from Yale in 1991, Bollier became director of development for ATLA. Also active as a pastor, he served congregations of the United Church of Christ during much of his career. Died. Frank L. Cooley, 89, Presbyterian missionary scholar, author, March 3, 2010, in Clayton, Georgia. As an ordained Methodist minister, Cooley served the YMCA in China (194651) and was a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission coworker in Indonesia for thirty-three years (195285). Fluent in Mandarin and Indonesian, he was considered to be the foremost Protestant historian of Christianity in Indonesia. His 1962 Ph.D. dissertation at Yale University, Altar and Throne in Central Moluccan Societies, was translated and published in Indonesia, where it is still used as a primary textbook. His other books in English included Indonesia: Church and Society (1968) and The Growing Seed: The Christian Church in Indonesia (1982). The October 1977 issue of this journal (then known as the Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research), devoted to the theme Focus on Indonesia, featured exclusively Cooleys thirty-two-page article, with statistical charts, maps, and artwork. Died. Moishe Rosen, 78, Jewish-born Baptist minister, missiologist, author, and founder of Jews for Jesus, May 19, 2010, in San Francisco, of prostate cancer. After graduating from Bible college and deciding to be a missionary to the Jews, Rosen was ordained as a Conservative Baptist minister in 1957 and founded what became known as Jews for Jesus (www .jewsforjesus.org) in 1969. In 1973 he left the employment of the American Board of Missions to the Jews (now called Chosen People Ministries) to incorporate the separate mission. He stepped down as executive director in 1996 and continued as a staff missionary and board member until his death. He is coauthor with his wife of Christ in the Passover: Why Is This Night Different? (1977, 2006). Among the books recounting the Jews for Jesus story is Not Ashamed: The Story of Jews for Jesus (1999), by Ruth Tucker, an IBMR contributing editor.

October 2010

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difference is the cutting edge of mission and that it is integral to the communitys health and fullness. The distinction between community and mission relates to the distinction between ministry and mission. One result of refracting Gods comprehensive mission into the existing spectrum of the churchs activities is that the phrase the churchs mission and ministry appears often in church leaders sermons and publications, with no differentiating explanation of the two terms. Everything is comprehended in mission, but ministry still

Community without mission dies out, and mission without community burns out.
seems relevant, so the two are thrown together as a convenient catch-all, lest anything be left out. Often latent in such usage is the notion that mission is the full range of Gods vision, whereas ministry is the operationalization of Gods mission through the churchs work: worship, education, proclamation, justice, and so on. What God is up to is mission, and what we do in participating in Gods mission is ministry. This terminology, however, short-changes ministry, for it disregards deep traditions of biblical, historical, and theological reflection on ministry, as well as the churches contemporary discourse about ministry. It also tends not to be implemented in practice. Churches continue to highlight as mission outreach such initiatives as baskets for the needy at Christmas or a collection for famine victims, and they continue to designate as missionaries their members who minister in other cultures. It is more useful to encompass within ministry the full range of service to which God calls the church. Ministry thus includes both the work that builds up the community within itself and the work that extends the communitys initiative beyond itself. It is this latter kind of ministry, ministry in the dimension of difference, that is the communitys mission work. Likewise, particular kinds of ministry are found in both the work of the community within itself and in the difference-engaging work that is mission, whether these be prayer, worship, proclamation, education, health care, elder care, or administration. A church is on mission when it is ministering in any of these ways beyond itself, with people and communities that are different from its own. Visiting parishioners in homes and hospitals is inreach, whereas visiting inmates of the local prison is outreach. A church members work as a physician at the local hospital is her ministry, but when she joins a parish group in offering a two-week clinic in Haiti, she is on a mission. And a few ministriesevangelization, churchplanting, and justice workare intrinsically and always missional in their import and impact. Yet another confusing contemporary use of the term mission is found in the mission-statement exercise that corporations, service organizations, and government agencies undertake and that has now become common in congregations and church judicatories as they seek to focus on what God is calling them to be and do in their contexts. Microsoft Corporation, for instance, says its mission is to create seamless experiences that combine the magic of software with the power of Internet across a world of devices.4 The perhaps over-caffeinated mission statement of Starbucks Coffee is to inspire and nurture
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the human spiritone person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.5 The word mission as used about such statements is synonymous with the word purpose, and the formulations could just as well be termed purpose statements. This blurring of purpose and mission characterizes some churches adoption of the mission-statement exercise. For instance, St. Marys Episcopal Church in Laguna Beach, California, articulates its mission statement as follows: to be open to Gods love and guidance, to embrace all in the name of Jesus Christ, to be free to use Gods gifts for the daily expression of our faith, to work in the power of the Holy Spirit.6 With such fusing of the concepts of purpose, mission, and sometimes vision as well, it is natural for the term mission to become vague and diffuse as well as comprehensive. Some church mission statements, by contrast, are clear in distinguishing purpose, ministry, and mission. Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, says: Its purpose is to lead people to Jesus and membership in his family, teach them to worship the Lord and magnify his name, develop them to Christlike maturity, and equip them for ministry in the church and a mission in the world.7 Here one of the largest congregations in the United States states not its mission but its purpose, not surprising for a church led by Rick Warren, author of two popular purpose-driven books.8 Within its purpose statement, once the missional activity of making disciples is articulated, the congregations community life is elaborated as the environment that prepares them for ministry, which is termed as set in the church, and for mission, which is set in the world. Such conceptualization accords well with defining mission as ministry in the dimension of difference. The definition, in turn, grounds the particular use of mission in this purpose statement, for in the world is an environment different from the church community itself. In contrast to comprehensive uses of the term mission in mission statements, its practical uses in secular discourse are premised clearly on encounters with difference. Space mission came into common usage because astronauts were being sent to explore the radically different environment of outer space. A diplomatic mission involves sending a nations representative to negotiate with a different nation, or it denotes the permanent quarters used by such representatives in a foreign country. Trade missions involve sending representatives to other countries to discuss international trade. A military mission involves sending armed forces into combat against those of a different nation or nonstate entity. In all these uses, encounter with difference is what prompts use of the term mission, a premise consistent with the understanding of religious and Christian mission suggested here. The difference definition affirms the now-commonplace relativizing of the geography of Christian mission. A frequent critique of preoccupation with overseas mission or foreign mission is the observation, Well, mission is not only over there but here in our backyard too. This is true, so long as the criterion of difference is fulfilled. A congregation may be very missional while never venturing beyond the county line, because it is reaching out to, say, the unevangelized and unchurched, or an immigrant group, or victims of an apartment building fire, or a particular addiction group. In practice, however, missional congregations tend to reach out both locally and globally, because they find that mission in one context stimulates mission elsewhere, and multiple and diverse mission experiences inform and enhance each other. The difference criterion applies to both the local and the global, and it privileges neither.
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Similarly, the difference definition applies to the work of churches based in all contexts, among all cultures and ethnic groups, in all parts of the world. It is the criterion of reaching across boundaries into difference that marks the specifically missional work of churches. Thus the definition does not smuggle in assumptions from any particular part of the world, nor from any particular geographic directionalityexcept outward. The ecumenical Friends Missionary Prayer Band, for instance, calls its work mission because it sends missionaries, currently more than 1,000, from its base in Tamil Nadu in South India to evangelize and plant churches in North India, where its personnel must learn languages very different from their own and make cultural adjustments similar to those encountered across national borders in western Europe. The Church Mission Society of Nigeria sends missionaries to evangelize in northern Nigeria and in countries such as Mauritania, contexts that are different in both religion and culture. Korean church groups now have almost 13,000 missionaries on all continents, the vanguard of the growing Majority World mission movement.9 Many U.S. congregations that sent teams to minister in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 called them mission teams because they were being sent to minister to and with people very different from themselves and in circumstances very different from their own. The criterion of difference supports the World Council of Churches 1963 slogan Mission in Six Continents, as well as Michael Nazir-Alis phrase From Everywhere to Everywhere.10 It is not that any and every ministry in any place is mission. It is rather that, when people from one setting are sent to minister in a different setting among people who are different in some major waythat is mission. Defining mission as ministry in the dimension of difference responds to the needs of the conflicted world as we know it. The world is dying of difference, for millions of people die on account of socially constructed differences to which life-and-death valuations have been attached. The successive genocides of Jews, Cambodians, Bosnians, Rwandans, and Darfuris since 1940 are instances, as are the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine. Discrimination and violence based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, and religion are responses to perceptions of difference. Discrimination and violence are equally though more subtly active in the worlds continued toleration of abject poverty and its many attendant ills. As Christian mission seeks to participate in Gods healing of the world, understanding itself in terms of engaging difference is a crucial starting place.

minimal, but the Old Testament testifies often to a confidence that ultimately the nations will acknowledge the sovereignty of the God of Israel.11 The contrast between ministry among ones own and ministry among the peoples is sharp in the Second Servant Song of Isaiah: It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth (Isa. 49:6). Sending persons into the pagan world is not in view, but the witness of the faithful servant is conceptualized as lifted up so that it radiates out to the nations, those who are other and different. Jonah was sent into an environment of difference, Nineveh, a major Assyrian city where Jonah expected that Yahwehs call to repentance would be greeted with the contempt worthy of a local deity with no sway beyond local borders and certainly not in the Assyrian temple cults. The fear that encounter with difference evokes in the prospective emissary is spelled out in one of Scriptures more vivid narratives, the marvel of which is that a people so different are said to have repented immediately (Jonah, esp. chap. 3). Jesus proclamation of Gods reign was shared with all equally, but a disproportionate number of the stories of specific encounters with individuals are devoted to those he had to cross a boundary to reach: the Gerasene demoniac, the Roman centurions servant, the anointing sinful woman, the Samaritan woman, the woman caught in adultery, Zaccheus the tax collector, numerous lepers, and others.12 The Synoptic Gospels record that this boundary-crossing ministry was so intrinsic to Jesus ministry that he developed a reputation for consorting with tax collectors and prostitutes, people whose Jewishness was compromised by the moral failings of enemy collaboration and sexual promiscuity.13 From Jesus standpoint, his differenceengaging ministry was extending and redefining Gods covenant community, but the religious authorities believed his boundary violations compromised community purity and faithfulness to God. In defending his outreach in parablesthe good Samaritan,

Missional congregations tend to reach out both locally and globally.

the Pharisee and the tax collector, the lost sheepJesus portrayed God as reaching people over differences, so that salvation was accessible in faithfulness to that outreach, not in inherited identities and purity codes.14 In his account of the Canaanite womans faith in the district of Tyre and Sidon, Matthew records Jesus confining his sentness to IsraelI was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel but this understanding of a purely local calling is challenged immediately and successfully by the foreign womans importunity. Matthew characterizes her identity as different not only ethnically and nationally but also by the term Canaanite,15 which in Israelite history evoked religious abhorrence and national enmity (Matt. 15:2128). The woman expanded Jesus understanding of his calling to include a sending to the Gentiles. Looking to the future, Jesus saw Gods reign culminating in a judgment over all the nations (Matt. 25:3146) and consummated in an embrace of human differences at the messianic banquet: Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:29).
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Biblical Warrant in Sending

Sending and being sent are constitutive of Christian mission, and encounters with difference prove to be foundational in signal biblical instances of sending and being sent. The call of Abram articulates Gods promise to and blessing on Abram in the context of a sending in which leaving the familiar and going to the new and different are intrinsic: Go from your country and your kindred and your fathers house to the land that I will show you. The world of difference becomes explicit in the promises conclusion, where God assures Abram that he will make a difference in a world defined by difference: And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen. 12:13). Israel is defined throughout the Old Testament as Gods chosen and holy people, in contrast to the surrounding peoples, whose different religious loyalties and moral practices are to be avoided (e.g., Deut. 7). Missional outreach to the peoples is
October 2010

Sending is explicit in Lukes account of Jesus dispersing the twelve disciples: He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal (Luke 9:2). No geographic extent or limitation is mentioned, but it is understood that they will be arriving as strangers, albeit as Jewish strangers, in presumably Jewish villages. In Matthews account the disciples become apostles in the act of being sent. Their initial trajectory, like Jesus own, is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 10:6), but the elaborated instructions envisage proclamation to nations beyond Israel, for the disciples will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles (Matt. 10:18). By gospels end, Jesus says to the disciples, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). Luke reiterates this sending to all nations in closing his gospel (Luke 24:47), and his second account of the ascension extends it to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a harbinger of the church as a Mediterranean entity beyond Palestine by virtue of people of different languages and nationalities being present to hear about Gods deeds of power (Acts 2:11). This

Scripture related to the extension of Gods work in the world are closely associated with depictions of God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit sending individuals to undertake particular initiatives. The more major of these sending initiatives concern encounters with persons and groups who are different from those who are sent, different in ways that are sociologically identifiable. Indeed, environments of difference seem to evoke narratives of sending and being sent. It is around this dimension of difference that historically the term mission has gathered, so that it has long been customary to speak of Jesus mission, the disciples mission, the early churchs mission, Pauls mission, the Gentile mission, and so on. Such terminology not only is appropriate, but it is also quite precise in designating specifically as mission those ministries that engage the dimension of difference. In this way, the difference-based definition of mission clarifies a longstanding practice in biblical exegesis and theology. Conversely, the definition has solid biblical warrant in Scriptures association of sending with encounters with human difference.

Difference in Contemporary Thought

Defining Christian mission as ministry in the dimension of difference connects missiology with the philosophy of difference in contemporary thought. In his seminal 1968 work Difference and Repetition, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze asserted the ontological priority of difference over identity. Conceiving the same on the basis of the different makes identity secondary to and derivative from difference.17 Michel Foucault elaborates how difference must be liberated from abstraction, concept, representation, and dialectic, and celebrates the fruit of such liberation:
The freeing of difference requires thought without contradiction, without dialectics, without negation; thought that accepts divergence; affirmative thought whose instrument is disjunction; thought of the multipleof the nomadic and dispersed multiplicity that is not limited or confined by the constraints of similarity; thought that does not conform to a pedagogical model . . . but that attacks insoluble problemsthat is, a thought that addresses a multiplicity of exceptional points, which are displaced as we distinguish their conditions and which insist and subsist in the play of repetitions.18

Sending is intrinsic to the concept of mission of any kind.

vision was fulfilled initially not so much through explicit sending as through the geographic dispersion of the Jesus movement in the persecution that began with the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:14). Yet the initiatives of Peter and John in Samaria and Philip with an Ethiopian official, each incident on a frontier of difference, resulted from explicit sendings by the community or by the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14, 26, 29). The boundary-crossing initiative of the early Christian community that was both its greatest challenge and its lifeline to survival was the incorporation of Gentile believers into the body of the faithful without the intermediate step of entering Judaism. Peters venture with the Roman centurion Cornelius at Caesarea emerged from sendings by the Holy Spirit as Cornelius sent servants to Joppa and as Peter accompanied them home (Acts 10:58, 1722). The commission Paul received through Ananias at his conversion explicitly affirmed proclamation to Gentiles: He is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel (Acts 9:15). In defending to the Galatians his work among Gentiles, Paul characterized both Peters errand to Jews and his own to the nations as prompted by Gods sending: He who worked through Peter for an apostolate for the circumcised worked through me also [for an apostolate] for the Gentiles (Gal. 2:8, authors translation). Apostolate here represents the Greek apostoln, a sending, or mission (so RSV).16 Clearly Paul saw himself as sent to the Gentiles, an understanding that grounds the historic association of the word mission with Pauls outreach and supports the association of mission with engaging difference. When toward the end of his ministry Paul summarized his mission, it is clear that crossing geographic boundaries and their associated ethnic and cultural boundaries was central: from Jerusalem and as far around as Ilyricum, as was the crossing of religious boundaries: not where Christ has already been named (Rom. 15:19, 20). Sending is intrinsic to the concept of mission of any kind. The biblical data indicate that major developments within
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So central has difference become that the Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines postmodernism itself in terms of difference: Postmodern thought means the appeal to differencesdifferences in theories, differences in formulations, differences in identities. Postmodern thought rejects hierarchies and genealogies, continuities and progress, resolutions and overcomings.19 Writing with urgency to mitigate the clash of civilizations evident in the attacks of September 11, 2001, Jonathan Sacks calls for a shift away from a Platonic view that true knowledge is to be found in universals that generalize from particulars. Instead, knowledge and wisdom are accessible from the particulars of human communities. Historically universalist cultures, including contemporary global capitalism, he argues, have viewed particularities as imperfections, the source of error, parochialism and prejudice and have therefore marginalized and diminished difference in favor of universal categories and goals. Sacks declares: We need . . . not only a theology of commonality of the universals of mankindbut also a theology of difference: why no one civilization has the right to impose itself on others by force: why God asks us to respect the freedom and dignity of those not like us.20
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

The PhD in Intercultural Studies program trains students to be both theologically astute and anthropologically sensitive, so that they can better apply the Word of God critically in any human or cultural context. The faculty are all experts in their own right, and they contribute to the richness of the program not only by their theological insights but also by their years of significant intercultural experience. The diversity of the students, both in terms of their cultural background and their cross-cultural ministry experience, creates a unique community where theological and missiological thinking is forged in a highly stimulating context. Doctoral student How-Chuang Chua came to Trinity after four years of church planting work as a missionary in Japan.

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Sacks thus puts a different twist on classic philosophical debates about the relative reality of universals and particulars, debates that have involved George Berkeley, David Hume, Bertrand Russell, A. J. Ayer, and others. Where past stress on the reality of the particular, as opposed to the universal, has entailed religious skepticism, Sacks argues instead for the integrity of the particular and the different in Gods revelation and work. Certainly a theology of difference would stem from the diversity intrinsic in Gods creativity and would analyze the ways in which humanity has distorted Gods abundance of difference to create a virtual taxonomy of sin, of which the urge to suppress difference is one expression. The Christian mission enterprise is the worlds most extensive and longest sustained engagement with human difference, and it has reflected thoroughly on that engagement. Recent philosophical insistence on the integrity and autonomy of difference calls on Christian missiology to articulate yet more precisely its stance toward difference, given that missions errand in a world of difference is founded on a revelation that celebrates both universality and particularity. It may appear incongruous to suggest that missiology can be enhanced by postmodern and deconstructionist perspectives that dismiss the possibility of universally valid revelations and therefore oppose all universalizing projects, including religious ones. Yet postmodernisms exploration of the possible priority of difference over identity may help explain the perennial Christian conviction that engaging the other who is different is intrinsic to Christian faithfulness. The other who is different presents a frontier over which the

journey of understanding is both outward and inward, both exploratory and reflexive. Knowing the other authentically requires mature self-knowledge, yet such maturity is not accessible to the isolated self, or to the isolated society or the isolated cultureor the isolated church. We do not and cannot know ourselves truly without knowing the other as well. Similarly, the Gospel understanding that Christians of any particular setting have (and the setting may be a region, culture, or church) is intrinsically and inevitably partial and incomplete. Every Christian community, wherever it is located, needs the perspective and insight about the Gospel that other communities can offer from experiences and worldviews that are differently shaped. The truth of what God has done in Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit is ultimate, universal, and final, but our apprehension of it is limited, contextual, and provisional. This provisionality draws us into a pilgrimage into difference, through which we hope to see less darkly, toward that place where we will see face to face. Mission is ministry in the dimension of difference. This understanding identifies the distinctively missional element in the history of the Christian movement, and it clarifies missiologys theological reflection on it. It is grounded in Scriptures witness to the sending activity of God, which typically catalyzes Gods people to engage difference. The definition connects missiology with contemporary philosophical and theological discourse about difference. Finally, it provides a criterion of analysis and comparison in the missional lives of the churches, in mission scholarship, and in interreligious discussions of mission in a world of difference.
8. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message and Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995); The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002). 9. Christianity Today, March 2006; www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/ march/16.28.html?start=2. 10. Michael Nazir-Ali, From Everywhere to Everywhere: A World View of Christian Mission (London: SCM, 1990). 11. E.g., Pss. 67, 97; Isa. 62; Jer. 4651; Joel 3:1821; Amos 9:1112. 12. Mark 5:120; Matt. 8:513; Luke 7:3550; John 4:142, 8:311; Luke 19:110; Mark 1:4045; and Luke 17:1119. 13. Luke 15:12. 14. Luke 10:2537, 18:914, 15:37. 15. Mark identifies her as a Gentile, of Syro-Phoenician origin (Mark 7:26). 16. The NRSV represents the sense, though not the syntactic form, of the Greek: He who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles. 17. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (London: Continuum, 2005), pp. 5051. 18. Michel Foucault, Theatrum Philosophicum, in Language, Countermemory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault, trans. and ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977), p. 185. 19. Hugh J. Silverman, Modernism and Postmodernism, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed. Donald M. Borchert (Farmington, Mich.: Macmillan/Thomson Gale, 2006), 6:318. See also David Ingram, Postmodernism, ibid., 7:730. 20. Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, rev. ed. (London: Continuum, 2003), pp. 19, 21.

Notes

1. Random House Websters Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 2001), s.v. 2. Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1986), pp. 1315; David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), pp. 519, 28; Anthony J. Gittins, Gifts and Strangers: Meeting the Challenge of Inculturation (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 11136; Darrell L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 247, 18; J. Andrew Kirk, What Is Mission? Theological Explorations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), p. 21; Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Mission: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), pp. 4548; David Smith, Mission After Christendom (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2003); Francis Anekwe Oborji, Concepts of Mission: The Evolution of Contemporary Missiology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2006), pp. 314, 210. 3. Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1986); Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996); Kwame Bediako, Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis; Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1995); Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989); Titus Presler, Transfigured Night: Mission and Culture in Zimbabwes Vigil Movement (Pretoria: Univ. of South Africa Press, 1999), pp. 21548. 4. http://counternotions.com/2008/09/22/mission. 5. www.starbucks.com/mission/default.asp. 6. www.stmaryslagunabeach.org. 7. www.saddleback.com/aboutsaddleback/index.html. Many congregations define their mission outwardly, among them First Methodist Church in Seattle, which declares, Were out to change the world, and then clearly distinguishes ministry from mission; see www.firstchurchseattle.org/who-we-are.html.

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The Missiology of Old Testament Covenant

Stuart J. Foster
generation ago, Old Testament scholar G. Ernest Wright commented in the predecessor to this journal: The church which lacks the Old Testament again becomes easy prey to paganism. He explained: It is the Old Testament which initially broke radically with pagan religion and which thus forms the basis on which the New rests.1 Since that time, thinking missiologically about the Old Testament has probably not had the attention it deserves.2 The present article, inspired by Wright, sketches out a more precise formulation of his statement: it is the worldview communicated by covenant concepts, understood in the historical and religious context of the ancient Near East,3 that makes for a radical break with the worldview of paganism.4 Old Testament covenant provides both a model and a standard for communicating the Gospel across cultures.5 Covenant concepts, used for the relationship between God and his people, form a large part of the Bibles skeletal structure. They may not integrate everything, but without them there is no integration at all.6 This article reviews briefly what a covenant was in the ancient world. It then asks the missionary question, What was accomplished by using covenant ideas (which every pagan knew) for something radically differentthe relationship between the creator God and his people? What was the impact, what did it communicate, when this God made covenant with a people (as no pagan god ever did)? This article proposes that the missiological purpose of covenant concepts in the Old Testament can be put in the following terms: The covenant structure highlighted relationship with Yahweh and, within that relationship, elevated exclusivity, security, accountability, and purpose. Much recent Old Testament scholarship has emphasized continuities between Israelite beliefs and those of their neighbors. The radical break with paganism Wright mentioned is rejected or sharply qualified. Robert Gnuse defends continuity vigorously: Above all, it is important that future discussion reflect the sensitive awareness of Israels great continuity with the ancient Near Eastern world. Similarly, Walter Houston writes: It is not possible any longer to speak of Canaanite culture as something foreign to Israel. Ziony Zevit wrote a book entitled The Religions [plural!] of Ancient Israel.7 But a careful reading of the Old Testament itself suggests that its writers were well aware that continuity with the surrounding religions was the normal thing; that is why they had to argue so vigorously against it. The writers were an embattled minority, resisting the assumptions and practices dominant in society. The radical break was not easy.8 It would be much simpler if polemic was the only canonical mode of religious interaction with paganism. Many pagan religious customs were indeed adopted and adapted in normative Israelite religion, let alone popular practice. Winged creatures called cherubs supported the thrones of pagan gods, just as, figuratively speaking, they did Yahwehs (Ps. 99:1).9 The highly
Stuart J. Foster and his wife, Sindia, have worked with Serving in Mission (SIM) in Mozambique since 1986, where they are part of the Mozambique Bible Societys Lomwe whole-Bible translation project. He is the author of An Experiment in Bible Translation as Transcultural Communication (SUN Press, 2008). thefostersemail@yahoo.com

detailed sacrificial system and regulations described in Leviticus have many parallels in documents of the second half of the second millennium b.c.10 The very language of a Ugaritic hymn to Baal could be taken over and turned into a hymn to Yahweh (Ps. 29).11 If so much from pagan religious practice was usable, perhaps when redefined, what were the criteria for determining what was rejected?

Covenant in the Ancient Near East

This brings us back to one of the most widespread pagan customs of all. Throughout the entire ancient Near East, for almost three millennia, people made covenants. As Donald Wiseman comments, The covenant idea and its terminology has been shown to form the warp and woof of the fabric of ancient society.12 Covenants were a way of creating family-like relationships beyond the natural family (what Frank M. Cross calls kinshipin-law).13 In scale, they stretched from the intimacy of marriage relationships14 all the way to international and imperial relations. An ancient Near Eastern covenant may be defined in its prototypical form as (1) a chosen (2) relationship of (3) mutual obligation, (4) guaranteed by oath sanctions.15 In any given context only one of these aspects might be in focus. The relationship was chosen, perhaps by one party much more than the other; it was not something people were born into. It was a personal relationship analogous to family, so that in suzerain-vassal treaties one party is father and the other is soneven where one party has just been wreaking havoc on the other. There were mutual obligations, sometimes assumed, sometimes explicit in massive detail. The obligations were not necessarily equal by any means, but both parties in a covenant bound themselves to do something for the other, to treat one another in certain ways. Key relational terms in the ancient world all have covenantal associations: love, peace, and loyalty (also quarrelrelationships break down). Finally, the commitments made were guaranteed by oath. The parties invoked the gods to punish any failure to keep the commitment. This invocation could be in words or in ritualfor example, the sacrificial dismembering of an animal stood for what should happen to the person who broke covenant.16

Old Testament Innovation

Pagan gods were an integral part of covenant-making and covenant-keeping, but only as witnesses and enforcers (like referees). They were not themselves parties to covenants (they did not play in the game). This brings us to the radical innovation in the Old Testament. There the creator God, Yahweh himself, took on what had always been a human role and made covenant with people (while not abandoning the role of enforcer). Traditional pagan practice was both adopted and transformed. Beyond particular practices and customs lies a system, an overall synthesis.17 Ancient paganism was focused on human needs, on maintaining and enhancing fragile human existence in the face of hostile forces. Gregorio Lete writes of Canaanite religion that the various mythologies addressed the origin, function and cessation of human life and of the real world as it unfolds. These myths provided a framework of meaning. In contrast, the cult (or formal worship practices) dealt with the more immediate
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demands of the life of the faithful. For everyday human life in its natural course, as a technique, the cult tries to co-ordinate and control . . . by means of well-defined rituals that put the faithful in contact with the appropriate god for every case.18 The world was saturated with spiritual powers. These were open to human manipulation, but were ultimately arbitrary.19 Yet the promise of power through technique was very attractive. The Old Testament proposed a radical innovation, a new system tightly organized around relationship with Yahweh.20 As creator God, he had power. But he also committed himself to relationship with his people. The covenant refrain You will be my people, and I will be your God echoes throughout Scripture (literally from Genesis to Revelation: Gen. 17:7; Exod. 6:7; 29:45; Lev. 26:12; Num. 15:41; Deut. 7:6; 14:2; 29:1213; 2 Sam. 7:24; 1 Chron. 17:22; Jer. 7:23; 2 Cor. 6:16; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 21:3).21 The use of covenant concepts communicated that this relationship was to be exclusive, secure, accountable, and purposeful. Exclusive. A personal relationship with deity was not in itself unique in the ancient world. Indeed, the great variety of deities made it quite easy to have personal favorites and specialists for every need. The pagan religious pantheon put competing powers at the center of its conception of life. However, the political

component central to his understanding of covenant: The very idea of a covenant, on which the history of Israel and the church depends, is grounded in Gods faithfulnessthat is to say, Gods principled decision to act in certain ways, and not others, which he has disclosed to us.23 Once again, it mattered that the creator God was making these commitments. If his purposes could be stymied by other powers, they were not worth very much. If they could not be, they were worth a great deal. Accountable. Within the mutual commitment of covenant, security was never divorced from accountability. One of the great temptations of Israelite history was to forget this, to cry The temple of Yahweh! The temple of Yahweh! (Jer. 7:4) and to presume that its mere presence, or earlier, that of the ark (1 Sam. 4:3), guaranteed immunity from disaster. Within the pagan system the fundamental danger was of inadequate manipulation of the gods (though there could also be grim consequences for misbehavior). But the Old Testament record relentlessly makes the point that covenant unfaithfulness had the most severe consequences. Oaths with sanctions and curses (as well as blessings) were built into the covenant structure. Yahweh could not be manipulated. He would not abandon the relationship; neither would he let his people abandon the relationship. Walter Brueggemann comments that law and grace, conditional and unconditional, are misguided polarities, and that covenant relation is a deeper category: Our most serious relationships, including our relationship to the God of the gospel, are at the same time, profoundly unconditional and massively conditional.24 This tension between security and accountability did not exclude the presence of genuine bafflement from the life of faith, experiences of frightening insecurity, or hardship that defied neat analysis, where covenant transgression and punishment did not line up. Yet this was the framework within which those very problems were brought to Yahweh (Pss. 44; 89). This was why covenant people had a right to complain to their covenant God, How long? (Ps. 13). This framework was bigger than the experience of blessing, which was the goal of paganism. The primacy of the relationship could even lead to the paradox of a God who inflicted hardship, to humble, to test, to grow covenant children in their trust of their covenant father and lord (Deut. 8:25). Purposeful. Covenant concepts also provided purpose in history, an overall narrative framework of life and meaning. Purpose came in two ways: from the structure of covenant itself and from the nature of the God to whom covenant bound his people. Covenant structure set up a relationship in time and through time. The commitment was made at a specific point between specific parties. It was explicitly not a natural part of the cycle of life.25 It began. It was renewed across generations. Obligations were made for the future. Consequences, both for good and for ill, could be expected. There were curses as well as blessings to be looked for in the realm of historical events. This outlook was not part of the fundamental framework of paganism, which sought to sustain cosmic order as life was threatened by chaos. The covenant tie to the creator God also linked Gods people to Gods purpose. Because he declared himself to be acting to renew and restore his creation by dealing with the people he placed in charge of it, his people shared in his purpose. The covenant relationship was designed to lead to the peace of shalom, a comprehensive, wholesome well-being extending throughout a now-marred creation. In the Old Testament, that intimate relationship was never achieved. Though begun, its full consummation lay in the future with the renewal of creation.
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Covenant concepts provided purpose in history, an overall narrative framework of life and meaning.
concepts of overlord and vassal in covenant treaties did not allow for competing loyalties. Naturally they existed in practice, but the purpose of an overlord in creating a covenant relationship was to insist on excluding others from that role in the vassals life. Like no pagan religious concept, this was a model for communicating monotheism, not in an abstract ontological sense, but as a demand for commitment. Covenant defined and shaped monotheism. This accounts theologically for the prominence of the treaty form of covenant in the Old Testament. Logically, exclusiveness of covenant relationship with Yahweh depended on his role in creation. Nature was not an arena of competing powers, but the realm of one ruler. This gave him both the right to insist on being treated as overlord and the ability to fulfill his obligations. His good intentions were not going to be stymied by any opponent. Secure. The specific, kinship-type, mutual obligations of covenant communicated a relationship of both security and accountability. Yahwehs covenant obligations were expressed as promises, backed up by oath commitments. Such specific commitments provided a radical security. Noah and his family knew that no other worldwide flood was coming, that the natural cycle would not fail until the end. They could set out confidently to fill and reshape the world (Gen. 9:1720). Pagan deities had implicit obligations to defend and provide for their worshipers and temples, primarily out of self-interest. But Yahweh made explicit commitments. Old Testament theologian Walther Eichrodt highlights the covenantal atmosphere of trust and security in contrast to that of pagan religion.22 Alister McGrath makes this
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This eschatological framework of final purpose links the Old Testament story of Gods covenant people with the overarching story of the whole Bible. Thus Christopher Wright argues that the grand narrative which embodied Israels coherent worldview can be summarized by the sequence of covenants that were made and remade through the Old Testament and into the New.26 As N. T. Wright puts it, discussing the problem of evil in creation: The question is no longer a static one, as though the world simply existed in a settled state; it is dynamic and relational. If there is an answer to the problem of evil, it will include divine action within history.27 Covenant connected people to this God. His divine action would be in and through them. In the overall structure of the Scriptures, the unfinished narrative of the Old Testament sets up a climax of covenant fulfillment focused on Jesus in the New Testament. The Assyrians, as one example, were happy to argue that their god Asshur willed the expansion of the Assyrian empirethey had a purpose in history!28 The point is not that ancient Near Eastern religions did not have examples of purpose, of accountability, of security, and even of exclusivity. What was distinctive was the overall synthesis made by Old Testament covenant-shaped theology, which sought to integrate life tightly around relationship with Yahweh, using a common cultural form in a startling way.

Conclusion
Many societies in the twenty-first century no longer have an understanding of ancient covenant customs. For most contemporary English speakers the term covenant itself is archaic to the point of obscurity. Some peoples may have no clear traditional custom for making those who are unrelated by birth into family. (Lomwe speakers in northern Mozambique are one example.)

There is a huge need to find relevant and creative ways of communicating covenant concepts. Otherwise, the Old Testaments own coherence and impact will be lost to many. It will merely be assorted stories used to illustrate whatever points the interpreter brings to the text. Nonetheless, Old Testament covenant missiology provides both a model and a challenge. Christians who seek to think missiologically about Gods world and act for him in it need to be sure they are shaped by covenant. The model is the bold use of pagan customs to communicate about God, appropriating language, rituals, and a whole package of concepts. Some Christians adopt the techniques of sales and marketing or the therapeutic language of pop psychology or the environmentalist ideology of planet-saving. Others seek to reinterpret Islam (literally submission to God). Others expect direct interaction with vigorous, active spirit powers. Others structure their leadership in the traditional patterns of their culture. These appropriations are not automatically wrong by any means; they follow the model. The challenge is to see that any such use leads people to G. Ernest Wrights radical breaka transformation of underlying system and worldview. What is communicated needs to be a relationship with Yahweh (through Jesus) that is exclusive in its loyalty, that is secure yet accountable, and that is purposeful, aligning people with the grand narrative of what God is doing in history. The Old Testament itself makes it clear that this is no simple, one-step process. But it cannot be skipped or ignored by those who take the Scriptures seriously. Otherwise the people of God may discover that the pagan customs they use are taking control. G. Ernest Wright lamented that too many Christians paid too little attention to the Old Testament. His implied plea for redressing missiological neglect of the Old Testament still stands.
God, p. 325). While I agree, I would also argue that the integrating theme of the creator God who makes covenant ranges across the full sweep of the Old Testament and into the New as nothing else does. Yet another Wright, New Testament scholar N. T. (Tom) Wright, sums up the controlling themes of first-century, Scripture-shaped Judaism (and Christianity) as creation and covenant (Paul: In Fresh Perspective [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005], pp. 2124). 7. Robert Gnuse, Heilsgeschichte as a Model for Biblical Theology: The Debate Concerning the Uniqueness and Significance of Israels Worldview (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989), p.117; Walter Houston, Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law (Sheffield, Eng.: Academic Press, 1993), pp. 12021; Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001). 8. It should be noted that even Gnuse eventually acknowledges the complete emergence of a new worldview in Israel (Heilsgeschichte as a Model, p.145). He sees this as the culmination of a lengthy process and dates it rather close to the New Testament era. 9. Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms, trans. T. J. Hallett (New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 169. 10. Allan Millard, The History of Israel Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern Religious History, in From the Ancient Sites of Israel: Essays on Archaeology, History, and Theology, in Memory of Aapeli Saarisalo (18961986), ed. T. Eskola and E. Junkkaala (Helsinki: Theological Institute of Finland, 1998), pp. 10610. 11. Jeffrey J. Niehaus, God at Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 16371. 12. Donald J. Wiseman, Is It Peace?Covenant and Diplomacy, Vetus Testamentum 32, no. 3 (1982): 311. 13. Frank Moore Cross, Kinship and Covenant in Ancient Israel, in
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Notes

1. G. Ernest Wright, The Old Testament: A Bulwark of the Church Against Paganism, Occasional Bulletin from the Missions Research Library 14, no. 4 (1963): 8, 9. 2. A major exception is the work of another Wright: Christopher J. H. Wright. His book The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bibles Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006) models an integration of missiology and Old Testament study evident in his commentary on Deuteronomy (New International Biblical Commentary: Deuteronomy [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996]) and, indeed, in almost all his other publications. By contrast, David Boschs Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), while conceding that the Old Testament is fundamental to the understanding of mission in the New (p. 17), gives it only five pages of attention out of 519 pages of text overall. 3. The development of covenant theology in Reformed theology is outside the focus here. 4. I am aware that for many the terms pagan and paganism are pejorative. They are not intended here in that sense but are used to highlight common elements in many ancient religions, in which worshipers related to a multiplicity of often competing spiritual powers. It should be noted that G. Ernest Wrights article addresses (among other things) a highly intellectual and sophisticated paganism that he saw as very attractive to mid-twentieth-century North America. 5. An earlier version of these ideas is found in Stuart Foster, An Experiment in Bible Translation as Transcultural Communication (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2008), pp. 7482, along with a more detailed defense of the positions taken here. 6. Christopher Wright is quick to concede that there is no such thing as a single center for all Old Testament theology (The Mission of
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From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998), pp. 67. 14. For a thorough defense of ancient marriage customs as indeed covenantal, see Gordon Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant: Biblical Law and Ethics as Developed from Malachi (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998). 15. See Stuart Foster, A Prototypical Definition of bryt, Covenant, in Biblical Hebrew, Old Testament Essays 19, no. 1 (2006): 3546; see also Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant, pp. 167215. 16. Hayim Tadmor, Treaty and Oath in the Ancient Near East: A Historians Approach, in Humanizing Americas Iconic Book: Society of Biblical Literature Centennial Addresses, ed. G. M. Tucker and D. A. Knight (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982), p. 135. 17. Robert Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel (Sheffield, Eng.: Academic Press, 1997), p. 229. 18. Gregorio del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion: According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1999), p. 44. 19. Ziony Zevit summarizes religious rituals this way, referring to what he considers the majority practice of ancient Israelites: They were technical ways of guaranteeing much of what communities desired: physical safety, natural and human fertility, placating (untimely) death, longevity and access to information about the future. By achieving these through popular rituals, which presupposed a somewhat mechanical, almost automatic and conventionally recognized tit-for-tat arrangement with the divine powers that be,

officiants and participants in these rituals had a sense of control over their own destinies (The Religions of Ancient Israel, p. 585). 20. Note Daniel I. Blocks contention that the Israelite perspective . . . appears to have broken new trails in ancient Semitic thought (The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology [Jackson, Miss.: Evangelical Theological Society, 1988], p. 22, also p. 166). 21. The following other texts contain probable allusions to the formula: Deut. 14:21; 27:9; 1 Chron. 17:21; 2 Chron. 20:7; Neh. 9:32; Ps. 33:12; 47:9; 50:7; 95:7; 100:3; Isa. 40:1; Hos. 2:23; Zech. 13:9. 22. Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, vol. 1, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), p. 38. 23. Alister E. McGrath, Contributors: An Appreciation and Response, in Alister E. McGrath and Evangelical Theology: A Dynamic Engagement, ed. S. W. Chung (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 348. 24. Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant, ed. P. D. Muller (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), pp. 37, 36. 25. Note the essential role of the historical prologue in the treaty form of many ancient covenants; see Kenneth Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 28790. 26. Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God, p. 325. 27. N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 1, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 252. 28. H. W. F. Saggs, The Encounter with the Divine in Mesopotamia and Israel (London: Athlone Press, 1978), p. 84.

Beyond Contextualization: Toward a Twenty-first-Century Model for Enabling Mission

R. Daniel Shaw
n one course I taught recently, I had forty-two students from thirteen nations, with a combined 313 years of mission experience in forty-six countries. Such prior knowledge of the world generates an expectation of rich classroom participation and dialogue. Managing the interaction is both rewarding and challenging for professors who seek to ensure that all voices are heard. Such a teaching experience is symptomatic of our contemporary world and reflects the shifts taking place in the nature of mission. How can we build maximally on these changes to reflect the glory of God throughout the earth? These shifts signal the need for a new approach in the way we teach missiology, as well as in how we approach the challenging task we call world mission. In the circumstances of our post9/11 and increasingly postChristian world, what resources does missiology as a discipline have for responding to current challenges? A decade ago Doreen Massey, in an article reflecting on the state of affairs throughout the social sciences, emphasized the need for crossing disciplinary boundaries.1 Missiology, itself a very young discipline, is
R. Daniel Shaw, Professor of Anthropology and Translation, School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, served with the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Papua New Guinea (196981). He is the author of ten books on culture and translation, folk religion, and hermeneutics, including two ethnographies of the Samo. danshaw@fuller.edu
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intrinsically cross-disciplinary, drawing from a multiplicity of sources, including theology, the social sciences, and religious studies.2 Having moved beyond the dated boundaries of colonial paradigms, missiology seeks to integrate perspectives and data from social, political, economic, and religious spheres long held separate. With more missionaries coming from the non-Western world, Ajith Fernandos call for changing the missionary job description must be taken seriously. He argued that local people must be allowed to do what they best know how to do, while outsiders should assist in ways that reflect their strengths.3 Fernandos and Masseys observations underscore an increasing need for missiologists also to incorporate the contributions of recent psychological, linguistic, and anthropological explorations into mind-brain processing. The implications of this growing cognitive discipline place new emphasis on the processes involved in mission and raise questions about appropriate ways to equip future message bearers.4 Global understanding of what mission is has shifted; heightened awareness of contemporary world conditions is called for.5 At the same time, the heart of mission hears the call to discern Gods intent for human beings and to consider how we who go in Christs name can enable people everywhere to understand what that intent might mean for their spiritual well-being.6 These twothe conditions of our world as disclosed by the human sciences and Gods Good News that Christ is the source of our realityform twin points of reference as I seek to apply recent cognitive models of cultural understanding to mission practice.7
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Twentieth-Century Colonial Models

From William Carey through most of the twentieth century, the Protestant approach to missions can be viewed in large measure as one of cargo. It was perceived as a matter of conveying the Gospel, however defined, as a product from Christendom to poor benighted heathen. Though largely altruistic and well-meaning, this approach to mission coincided with expansive Western colonization as well as with burgeoning Western business enterprise around the globe.8 As a result, a Western understanding of God became hegemonic, one that had been developed over centuries by wedding Hellenistic logic to the scholastic method. As Westerners, missionaries assumed a realist perspective, that held The Need for a New Model truth (Gods truth) to be timeless and culture-free. Any contextualization attempted was culturally conditioned to fit Western A revolution in the social sciences began in the mid-twentieth categories and was relevant to the colonial powers rather than century. Following the philosophical developments of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky in psychology, Noam Chomsky in 1959 spoke being connected to local cultures. In the mid-twentieth century the work of Eugene Nida took out strongly against the behaviorist approach to understanding Protestant mission theory a step beyond this product-oriented human experience (language, culture, and emotion).15 Chomskys model. Nida adapted communication theory to develop a Source- workwhich sought to isolate the underlying triggers of meaning Message-Receptor (S-M-R) model of mission.9 The S-M-R model that can be expressed in a myriad of ways, linguistically as well focused on codes presented by a communicator that receptors in as culturallyexcited anthropologists and psychologists. Ward turn had to process in order for them to make sense. To the extent that the forms used by receptors matched the meanings presented by the source, the message Message Source Encode Decode Receptor was deemed communicative. The communicator, however, retained control of the content, and Western assumptions were almost always operative. The S-M-R model yielded a picture, in effect, Feedback Loop of theologically trained missionaries taking the message of the Gospel to people of differing cultures and circumstances and Each link is dependent on the one before it. Focus is on product or result. telling them to follow the missionarys way to God. This largely prescriptive Figure 1. Serial Processing of Codes approach to communicating the Gospel placed the emphasis on what the Gospel is (especially what it is Goodenough redefined culture, not as the sum total of human for the communicator) and the results it brings rather than on experience but as what people need to know in order to behave correctly.16 Prototype theory in linguistics, advanced by Eleanor the nature of the relationship between people and God. Taking its cue from Nida, the communication model for Rosch, focused on categories that reflect psychological reality. mission that prevailed during the second half of the twentieth She began with color but the concept was quickly applied to century focused on clearly presenting the codes and ensuring that kinship and all manner of linguistic and cultural categories that the message as decoded was the closest natural equivalent.10 impact how human beings process information. These studies Conceptually, this encoding/decoding model focuses on the sequential linkages between elements in a serial processing structure, with each link dependent on the one before it (see figure 1).11 The model was extremely helpful in enabling missiologists to develop the concept of contextualization, as well as making a vital contribution to Bible translation.12 Despite having dynamic equivalence in its name, however, the model was relatively static and product oriented: the goal was to present the Gospel properly, as understood in the West, in a new context and thereby enable people to have Gods Word in their environment so that they could be enriched by knowledge that those contributed to George Lakoffs work on metaphor.17 Anna in the West had already acquired. Mission became a matter of Wierzbickas work on semantic primes and the early work of knowledge transfer, and it remained embedded in an essentially the cognitive linguists helped in developing a new understandcolonial approach to communicating Gods truth.13 By default, ing of mental processes as connectionist networks by which the meaning of what God has to say was viewed as bound to the the mind processes information.18 In 1995 Roy DAndrade laid text, in the possession of the communicator, rather than being out the development of this revolution, particularly focusing on relevant to the context where the receptor lived. the concept of schemas.19 A transition began in the late twentieth century, exemplified Connectionist network theory reflects an entirely different by David Bosch: people must be allowed to find their own way model of how the human brain works. As ideas enter awareness,

to God. Using their own understanding, they can connect with the message that clearly impacts them and do so in ways that outsiders, in large measure, cannot fathom.14 More attention began to be paid to the fact that Scripture emphasizes incarnation instead of communication. God demonstrated the concept in the Garden of Eden, and the theme extends all the way through the canon to Revelation. Christs sojourn on earth was the ultimate expression of God with us (John 1:14, 1 John 1:2), but the entire canon is about Gods desire to interact with human beings, who are viewed as the crown of creation (Ps. 8:5), among whom God seeks to dwell (Exod. 6:7).

Despite having dynamic equivalence in its name, the model was relatively static and product oriented.

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individuals process information based on their experience with should mission theorists engage those findings in developing the schema the information elicits. Incoming information is new mission approaches? Not just cognitive studies, but all fields assessed by comparing it with what the mind-brain already of endeavor in our rapidly changing post-Christian world are knows. While processing new information, individuals uncon- undergoing development. How should mission teachers respond sciously seek to expend the least amount of effort for the greatest so as to equip their students for effective service as Gospel mesgain. Their perception of value or benefit is directly correlated sage bearers in reaching the world for Christ? These questions with what is considered pertinent within a particular context. dominate the remainder of my discussion. But what is considered pertinent is culturally conditioned, which means that all kinds of informationpsychological, linguistic, Seeking Cognitive Balance and culturalare forced to interact simultaneously. The implications of this approach are vast. The S-M-R, or According to relevance theory, communication is always designed code, model is linear and focused on the result, that is, the deliv- to change the mutual cognitive environment by precipitating ery, in as intact a fashion as possible, of a prepackaged product. transformation that results in a new balance.23 The mentalConnectionist network theory, by contrast, directs attention to neurological network is always seeking balance, which, when the processes by which recipients construct meaning in their achieved, is not the same as it was before the new information contexts. The diagram in figure 2 attempts to represent a con- came in. The scope of relevance theory goes far beyond the nectionist network. The complex process shown in the diagram impact of speech and includes all the senses, which are conis actually slower than the serial processing of earlier linear stantly enhancing human experience and triggering adjustments models, but it more clearly represents how human beings process relevant to understanding.24 Cognitive study encompasses all information.20 This process-oriented model can be related directly aspects of human understanding: cognitive, evaluative, and affecto Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilsons inferential model, or relevance theory of communication.21 The starting point Cognitive Environment for relevance theory is the intent of the communicator. For Sperber and Wilson, effective or relevant communication takes place when an audience infers the intent of the presenter and both the intent and the inferences more or less match. As Feedback anyone who has traveled knows, there is Schema much room for mismatch and therefore individual miscommunication. How much energy and Inference collective people are willing to expend on processing information is largely a product of Connectionist/ the perceived benefit. Changes come Network about from a desire to build relationship Ideas Approach through the communication process. The greater the shared experience, the greater the likelihood of effective exchanges that Least effort for maximum understanding. Focus is on processing of ideas. will create mutual understanding and relationship. Communication needs to capture the conceptual awareness that Figure 2. Parallel Distributive Processing of Ideas begins with a communicators intent, but it is simultaneously dependent on the knowledge-base of tive. The intent of the source of the communication and the inferthe people in the new audience and on their experience with the ences an audience makes regarding that intent jointly seek a path of least resistance to achieve maximum understanding for new ideas being introduced. It is important to take note of the feedback loop present in mutual benefit. Through interaction both the source and the both the S-M-R model and the inferential model. Feedback is audience expand their mutual but different understandings. crucial to communication, and how people respond is critical Both the message bearer and the receptor are changed; neither to ongoing communication in either model. The difference is cognitive environment is left unaltered. Each arrives at a new the focus of the two models, either on the surface forms and balance that provides insight regarding the entire experience.25 When this understanding of the communicative process is meanings (words, grammar, and all the trappings of communication and culture) or on the deeper, cognitive understanding applied to communicating the Gospel, the stakes grow larger. If of intended meanings. Kraft had it right when he emphasized the intent of Gospel communication is to enable people to become receptor-oriented communication.22 In mission theory we must more like God intended them to be, that is, to display Gods immove to a new model that emphasizes the process rather than age, then transformation in those who bring the Gospel and in the product. The code model asks, How is an understanding of those who hear and receive it will move both toward that goal. God translated or transmitted from one set of cultural forms and This understanding has important theological implications for meanings to another? The inferential model asks, How does long-established missiological themes surrounding Gods will, Gods intent become cognitively relevant to and understood by the incarnation, the role of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the meshuman beings? sage, how the message works itself out in a new environment, The findings of cognitive studies have significant implications and how new disciples will themselves be missional. By implicafor our understanding of effective cross-cultural mission. How tion, theological development is respective to the environment in
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which people think about God, that is, in which they theologize. economic changes represented by globalization, tribalization, Mission practitioners must strive to foster development of a bibli- and cultural upheaval engulf our world, we find ourselves in a cal theology in the new context that is perceived by the receptors Kuhnian period of adjustment.29 Because cognitivist network theory posits incremental readto be relevant and that brings change.26 The precipitated change should impact those who receive the Word without leaving the justment (people are being constantly bombarded from every message bearers who initiated the process untouched. angle with new input and are in quest for a new steady state), the I found this to be the case in my experience as a Bible trans- model would seem to be at odds with the Kuhnian picture of revolator among the Samo in the jungles of Papua New Guineas lutionary rather than evolutionary paradigm shift. But gradual Western Province.27 I entered their environment with my theologi- accumulation of small-scale changes is what Kuhn characterizes cal boxes set, all systematized and ready to be communicated. as an era of normal science. The period since the Enlightenment The problem was can be viewed that the Samo did as one such era. Descriptive Cognitive not have boxes Then comes an Delivery Mission Discover Meaning similar to mine. event or set of cir(Doing) (Being) It was only as cumstances that they enabled me raises challenges Great Commission Relationship and to see the world to the status quo Mission (McGavran) Shift from Transformation (Lingenfelter) t h ro u g h t h e i r so significant Increasingly Group Oriented Largely Individual Product eyes that I was that suddenly the Static and Largely Orientation (teamwork) able to translate normalcy of the External (telling) to Dynamic and Largely Internal Gods Word and old paradigm be Contextualization Process (enabling) introduce it into comes problemOrientation Beyond Contextualization (make Christianity their context. My atic. Whatever the (knowledge transforms like culture) cognitive envifate of arguments Local Theology (from Doing focus on knowing God) ronment changed that we are now Biblical Theology in Context Church Growth to Being) as I gained new in the throes of a Interactive Hermeneutical (numbers) perceptions of wholesale paraCommunity (discipleship things I thought digm shift, clearmissional/emerging church) I knew about God ly considerable but that, in reality, transformation the Samo underis taking place.30 Figure 3. Contrasting Models of Mission The world envistood better than I did. I learned to think from within their categories, or boxes, ronment is now markedly different from what it was even a few and am so much more aware of God because of it. The reality of years ago, posing probing questions both for the world at large the spirit world around them is a case in point. My view cast a and for missiology as a multidisciplinary field.31 For mission theory the question becomes one of how to move disparaging eye on the presence of the hogai (bush spirits), but their perspective enforced the need for protection at every turn, from a sending or transmittal approach to transformational mission leading to camouflage, amulets, and rituals to keep spirits at bay. with a focus on relationships.32 Furthermore, how can those who They would not let me walk a forest trail without an escortin are being transformed be encouraged to go beyond themselves case hogai appear. These were committed Christians who knew and to become missional, that is, sent by God to others who also and understood Scripture and applied their cultural awareness to need transformation? Here we find a need for the old paradigm, interpreting what the Scriptures say about spiritual beings. I have as well as a new model. It is a case of both-and, not of either/or. found that these spiritual forces are very real and that they impact To insist on a rigid choice between the old and the new would itself be to cling to the old model. The code model and the inferour lives whether we realize it or not. I have learned so much! ential model are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Our desire should be to complement the old by adding the strengths of the Implications of Developing a New Model new, thereby reducing the weaknesses of both. What effect does incarnationor the theological concept of God New approaches for communicating the Gospel need to with us, which permeates the whole of Scripturehave on the take into account equipping and encouraging members of the human condition? How can missiologists incorporate insights local community to be missional among their own people, for from contemporary academic research into their thinking so as to they best understand their own cognitive environment and make adjustments in present-day approaches to mission? Figure intuitively possess an awareness of how inferences made within 3 presents an oversimplified attempt to contrast the assump- it will effect a response to Gods intent. The dynamism of such tions of the code, or S-M-R, model with those of the inferential an approach is superior to having message bearers tell people model, or relevance theory, and to adumbrate a new approach what outsiders think insiders need to know. A transition is for contemporary mission. For such an effort the concept of para- needed from preaching the Gospel to living the Gospel within digms as used in the social sciences is helpful. Manifestations the context where people live. will vary with every context, but, following Thomas Kuhn, we This point demands that we reexamine our understanding of can understand paradigms as reflecting assumptions, values, contextualization. Instead of outsiders reconfiguring local cultural symbols, and representations of ideas that drive human inter- forms to fit the shape of Christianity with which they are familiar, est. Kuhn maintained that paradigms do not evolve slowly over we needfollowing the theological implications of the incarnatime; instead they change rapidly within a discipline because of tionto allow local people to contemplate the implications of the buildup of unforeseen pressures.28 As social, political, and God-in-their-midst. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator addresses this
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concern in Theology Brewed in an African Pot, where he highlights the important role of community in theological reflection. When situated in the experience of the community, theology enables people to bring biblical understanding to the process of living.33 The matter cannot be given the extended discussion it deserves here, but new approaches require the humility to recognize that where Gospel message bearers now dare to go, God has always been.

Toward a New Missional Perspective

How might a contemporary mission approach be defined? David Bosch and Paul Hiebert help to point the way for us. Bosch discussed paradigm shifts with their accompanying shifts in epistemological approach as being critical to theologizing. He cautioned against a monolithic approach to theology, represented by the old paradigm, and advocated a critical hermeneutic that recognizes the biblical text, by its very nature, as contextual. God has interacted with human beings through time and space and in multiple contexts so as to communicate Gods intent and Gods desire to be in relationship with human beings, wherever they are found.34 In discussing contextualization, Paul Hiebert also used the term critical, pointing out the dangers of uncritically contextualizing from a strictly local perspective.35 Sadly, he was not understood, and contextualization became a catchword for localization. For Hiebert, critical implied a standard, so the Bible, not another cultural context, must be the standard for judging relevance. Contextualization forces interactive reflection, and it is from the interplay between peoples understanding of Gods intention for all human beings as well as for their particular environment that transformation takes place, that is, transformation that is both true to Gods intent and also relevant within the context. A contextualized biblical theology reflects Gods intention for the people of a particular time and place and enables those involved (both insiders and outsiders) to be transformed more fully into the image of God. At this point, cognitive studies become highly significant for contemporary mission: we must value the receptional apparatus God has created. Human beings everywhere were created by God with a mind-brain for processing, through language and psychosocial awareness, all manner of human experience, including new transculturated conceptualizations.36 It is necessary to move beyond contextualization, as previously conceived, to recognition of Gods presence in the midst of people everywhere and to recognition of the ways that presence enables people to know God.37 This new missional model reflects Gods intention for people from every race, tribe, nation, and language (Rev. 7:9 CEV). As a statement of purpose, that wording may not seem new, but the emphasis the model places on the relevance of every context is quite different from twentieth-century approaches to mission. As Gods Word enlightens people of every cognitive environment, it transforms peoples experience in each specific context.38 We must constantly juxtapose the general and the specific. As Charles Van Engen notes, we must recognize both the Church (Gods people) and churches (Gods representatives in a particular place), Theology (Gods intent for human beings) and theologies (Gods revelation as processed by particular communities of believers), contextualization (God with us) and what Van Engen calls re-contextualization (people knowing God in their midst).39 As noted earlier, the new model for mission accents a bothand approach rather than an either/or perspective. It seeks to
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be interactive, modeled on Gods communication with human beings. It is relational, with a focus on being rather than doing. It is primarily enabling and encouraging rather than static and knowledge-focused. It envisions a biblical theology in context rather than a contextual theology. What does a missional approach for the twenty-first century look like? From the discussion so far, it must be dynamic and interactive, intentional, relevant, global, and transformational. I now present each of these in turn. Dynamic and interactive. Meaningful relationships with human beings emanate from a vibrant relationship with God. Who will cross our path today, and how can we be used by God to touch them? Intentional. Understanding Gods intention to communicate, we follow Gods example as we intentionally communicate in ways that recognize the need to be relevant and appropriate in specific contexts. Relevant. In order to be relevant, missional message bearers must be appropriate from the perspective of those with whom they interact. Being relevant demands considerable anthropological research to bring to light things that people in other cognitive environments simply assume. Their perspective is reality for them, and the only way the message can make sense to them is by connecting with their assumptions. Global. Because the world is dynamic and integrated connected via 24/7 media coverage, real time Webstreaming, and reality TVthere is little isolation.40 But globalization is much more than media coverage; almost any activity affects others half a world away. Local wars become international incidents, the world is awash with migrants, disease in one place impacts every place, and personal issues become the business of multitudes. We are each others neighbor, regardless of where on the planet we find ourselves. Transformational. Relevance theory demonstrates that transformation is directly intertwined with cultural, linguistic, and psychological factors. When processed in light of new information, the familiar is reframed, and new understandings arise within the community so that transformation makes sense. In this dynamic interaction all parties are transformed. Relationship is always a twoway street; local people come to see things from a different perspective as do message bearers; everyone comes away changed. Transformation is not a case of one-size-fits-all for everyone in a context. If anthropology has established anything, it is the fact of variation within any community, even though at one level successful interaction depends on having people in a society agree on what they hold to be true. Transformation takes place only when the community reaches a decision that what they have held to be true needs adjustment based on some standard to which they collectively agree. As Oswald Chambers so clearly states, Reality is Redemption, not my experience of Redemption; but Redemption has no meaning for me until it speaks the language of my conscious life.41 In sum, being missional encompasses the essential nature and vocation of the church as Gods called and sent people, which, in turn, enables Gods people to represent Gods intention in the world.42 The more complex our world becomes, the greater the number of options for being missional. What is critical is that
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

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Telling Gods Stories with Power Storytelling in Oral Cultures
Paul F. Koehler
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mission emerges from an attitude of heart that God uses to do Gods work in the world at large. God is about the business of drawing human beings to Gods self, and they, in turn, desire to draw others to God.

Missiological Implications
The systems of the world at largesociocultural structures, political relationships, interdependent financial arrangements, and even manifestations of increasing religious fundamentalism all indicate that radical changes are afoot. Old ways of interacting with and becoming knowledgeable about these world systems no longer work. Similarly, we have begun the transition to a new missiological model that radically reshapes how we go about connecting human beings with the Gospel. Relevance theory is more than a theory of communication. It is a philosophy of how we are to relate to each person we meet. Relevance theory offers a fresh understanding of the Gospel, with its potential to transform both those who bear the message and those who hear it. As we reach out missionally, we, like Paul, are blessed (1 Cor. 9:23). But our attitude as we connect with the world at large is critical. God gives us relationships with believers (for training and equipping for further ministry), as well as with nonbelievers (for being Jesus in the midst of needy people). We must follow the example our Lord set in sending his disciples to the ends of the earth. He encouraged them, as well as us, to connect with people wherever they might be found, to build them up in the faith, and to encourage them in turn to do the same for others (Matt. 28:1820).

The implications of transformational development are multitudinous and must always be weighed within a context. The exact manifestations of transformation in various contexts, academic and otherwise, are relative to the time and place and to the needs of the people with whom we interact. Working out those details is part of the ongoing task placed before the wider missiological community. As a professor, my desire is for students to go from my classes prepared to reenter the environments from which they came, challenged and encouraged to develop new and contextually relevant applications of missiological perspectives. My prayer is for them to bring change to the church in those places and, in the process, send others forth to be a witness in other places. As an anthropologist, I realize there is much that I can learn from every sociolinguistic group. Others know so much about spiritual power, about relationships, about what it means to be human.43 If as message bearers we are to communicate with people everywhere, we first must truly hear their voices and allow them to move us beyond what we already know. Reconceptualizing the praxis of mission on the basis of relevance theory and an inferential understanding of cognition calls for a major overhaul of traditional missiological models. Jesus came to connect with real people who expressed human need. To do so, he entered their world, took up their language with its implicit categories, learning the shapes and contents of their mental and conceptual boxes. We who call ourselves by his name must, as he did, go beyond our context, learn from those with whom we interact, and become Gods intention to themthe Word in their midst.

1. Doreen Massey, quoting Immanuel Wallerstein, states that defining a discipline defines what lies beyond it . . . [seeing] identity as constituting itself, through counterposition; through a process of differentiating itself from what it is not (Negotiating Disciplinary Boundaries, Current Sociology 47, no. 4 [1999]: 6). 2. A half century ago Donald McGavran noted the fact of missiologys cross-disciplinary character. See Donald A. McGavran, ed., Church Growth and Christian Mission (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 239. 3. Ajith Fernando, Missionaries Still Needed: But of a Special Kind, Evangelical Missions Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1988): 1825. 4. Ryan S. Shaw uses the term message bearer in place of the word missionary. See his Waking the Giant: The Resurging Student Mission Movement (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 2006), p. 8. 5. Jehu J. Hanciles, Migration and Mission: Some Implications for the Twenty-first-Century Church, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 27 no. 4 (2003): 14653. 6. R. Daniel Shaw and Charles E. Van Engen, Communicating Gods Word in a Complex World: Gods Truth or Hocus Pocus? (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 1121. 7. For the language of Christ as the source of our reality, see Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1935), entry for December 21. 8. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), pp. 30213. 9. In his Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), Eugene A. Nida adapted Claude E. Shannon, Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1949), to develop a theory of missional communication. 10. Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1981; orig. pub., 1969), p. 12. 11. A schematic model of telecommunications (e.g., the sending and receiving of TV signals) would present a similar serial processing structure.

Notes

12. Charles R. Taber, Is There More Than One Way to Do Theology? Gospel in Context 1 (1978): 410; Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979). 13. See Paul G. Hiebert, The Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts: Affirming Truth in a Modern/Postmodern World (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999). 14. Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 3078, 362. 15. Jean Piaget, The Psychology of Intelligence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951); Lev Vygotsky, Thought and Language (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972); Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (The Hague: Mouton, 1957) and review of Verbal Behavior, by B. F. Skinner, Language 35, no. 1 (1959): 2658. 16. Ward Goodenough, Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning, Language 32 (1956): 195216. 17. Eleanor Rosch, Natural Categories, Cognitive Psychology 4 (1973): 32850; George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980). 18. Anna Wierzbicka, Semantic Primitives (Frankfurt: Athenaum, 1972); Ronald W. Langacker, The Form and Meaning of the English Auxiliary, Language 54 (1978): 85382, and Space Grammar, Analysability, and the English Passive, Language 58 (1982): 2280. 19. Roy DAndrade, The Development of Cognitive Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). 20. James L. McClelland and David D. Rumelhart, eds., Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986). 21. Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995; orig. pub., 1986). 22. Charles H. Kraft, Communication Theory for Christian Witness (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983), p. 25; also Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979), p. 394. 23. Sperber and Wilson, Relevance, p. 38.

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24. Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language (New York: Doubleday, 1959). 25. On the relevance of communication style, see Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th anniv. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2008). 26. The point cannot be elaborated here, but it should be noted that fostering the development of a biblical theology in the new context differs significantly from developing theologies in a locality as suggested by Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1985). 27. R. Daniel Shaw, Kandila: Samo Ceremonialism and Interpersonal Relationships (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1990); From Longhouse to Village: Samo Social Change (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1996). 28. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1996; orig. pub., 1962). 29. Discussion of tribalization is beyond the scope of this article, but it should be noted that globalization and tribalization are not mutually exclusive phenomena. 30. Mike Featherstone, ed., Postmodernism (London: Sage, 1992; reprint of Theory, Culture, and Society, 1988); Barry Smart, Modern Conditions, Postmodern Controversies (London: Routledge, 1992). 31. On globalization and the development of a post-American world, see Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: Norton, 2009; orig. pub., 2008). 32. Sherwood Lingenfelters work on transformation utilizes Mary Douglass grid and group model for understanding people in society. As Lingenfelter shows, this model from anthropology offers much of value for missional concerns. See his Agents of Transformation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996) and Transforming Culture: A Challenge for Christian Mission, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998; orig. pub., 1992).

33. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Theology Brewed in an African Pot (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2008), pp. 56. 34. Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 42125. 35. Paul G. Hiebert, Critical Contextualization, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 11, no. 3 (1987): 10910. 36. R. Daniel Shaw, Transculturation: The Cultural Factor in Translation and Other Communication Tasks (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1988), p. 5. 37. Shaw and Van Engen, Communicating Gods Word, p. 214. 38. By extension, the new missional model also applies within our society (not just cross-culturally) to bring renewed spiritual regard for those who suffer cognitive difficulties. In this theoretical configuration the biologically and cognitively handicapped become an entirely new mission field. See Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (New York: Doubleday, 1972). What would the implications be if the model were applied to the homeless as well? 39. Charles E. Van Engen, Critical Theologizing: Knowing God in Multiple Global/Local Contexts, in Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, ed. James R. Krabill, Walter Sawatsky, and Charles E. Van Engen (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2006), pp. 8897. 40. In the age of cyberspace, boundaries focus more on ideological and psychological boundaries than on geography. 41. Chambers, My Utmost, entry for December 21. 42. Charles E. Van Engen, Mission Described and Defined, in MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium, ed. David J. Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer (Nashville: B&H Academic, in press). 43. To be truly alive in the fullest sense of the word is a gift of the Spirit. See Jerome Murphy-OConnor, Becoming Human Together: The Pastoral Anthropology of St. Paul (New York: Hyperion Books, 1983).

Asking the Big Questions: A Statistical Analysis of Three Missiological Journals

Gregory J. Liston
pinions and discussions about how we should be researching missiology are extremely common: voices from the South need to be given more prominence;1 the Bible should be the primary basis for missiological reflection;2 a missiological encounter with Western culture is essential.3 The question that naturally arises from such discussion is how we actually are researching missiology. The objective of this article is to answer this question through examination of several leading missiological journals. The aim is to obtain a broad understanding of the what, where, why, who, which, and how of recent missiological research. The methodology utilized was to select three prominent academic missiological journals and to analyze their major articles for the period 20037, broadly categorizing these articles in terms of subject matter (what), regional focus (where), autho-

Gregory J. Liston is currently pursuing postgraduate study in theology at Laidlaw-Carey Graduate School, Auckland, New Zealand. His previous roles include being the senior pastor of a Baptist Church in Auckland, working as a strategic management consultant, and earning a Ph.D. in quantum physics. greg.liston@orcon.net.nz

rial demographics (who), theological perspective (which), and methodological approach (how).4 The three journals selected were Missiology, the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (IBMR), and Missionalia. The first two journals have an international focus. Missiologys subtitle is An International Review, and it describes itself as multidisciplinary, interconfessional, and practical.5 The IBMR is described as the very best in missionary research and sound biblical reflection on the Christian world mission.6 These two publications are among the leading international journals in current missiology. Missionalia originates in and focuses on Southern Africa.7 It was chosen as a point of contrast to the two U.S.-based international journals, for it provides a perspective on academic missiology in the global South. Given that we stand at the threshold of a new age of Christianity, one in which its main base will be in the Southern continents, and where its dominant expression will be filtered through the culture of those continents,8 this contrasting perspective is of particular interest.

Subject Matter Focusthe What Question

What subjects are currently interesting missiological scholars? Where are they placing their research efforts? Samuel Escobars analysis of contemporary missiological subject matter in The Iguassu Dialogue provides an excellent starting point.9 From his
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initial framework, two categories were grouped together because of subject matter overlap and eight others were added, giving us the final set of eighteen categories.10 (See table 1.)

Table 1. Subject Matter Analysis

Subject Contextualization Missions organization Old religions Biblical patterns Global church Poverty and inequality A new balance Theological education Pentecostalism Postmodern culture Ecumenical collaboration Statistics Politics and mission Theology of mission Women and mission Short-term mission Church practice A new religiosity Total No. Total Missi- Missio% IBMR ology nalia 19 15 10 2 8 4 6 2 5 6 4 9 4 4 2 0 0 1 101 24 9 14 9 12 8 5 5 4 5 7 1 0 3 4 9 2 0 121 10 9 9 10 0 7 5 7 4 0 0 1 7 3 4 0 3 1 80

53 18 33 11 33 11 21 7 20 7 19 6 16 5 14 5 13 4 11 4 11 4 11 4 11 4 10 3 10 3 9 3 5 2 2 1 302

Of course, many articles (43 percent) focused on more than one subject.11 In these cases, primary and secondary subject matters were recorded. This dual categorization enables us to do an additional weighted analysis that takes into account articles that deal with more than one subject.12 (See figure 1.)

Figure 1. Primary and Weighted Subject Matter Analysis

20% 18% 16% 14% 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% Ecumenical Collaboration Global Church Pove erty and Inequality ological Education Theo Postmodern Culture Contextualization Missio ons Organization Wo omen and Mission Biblical Patterns Politics and Mission Church Practice A New Balance 0% Old Religions The eology of Mission Short-Term Mission A New Religiosity Pentecostalism Statistics

Primary Analysis Weighted Analysis Standard Error (~2.3%)

age. Third, somewhat common subjects, but occurring variably. Most of the variance across journals can be explained by the editorial focus. For example, articles about biblical patterns for mission and theological education were virtually absent from the IBMR. And Missionalia had no global church articles (perhaps because migration to Southern Africa is not that common), but Southern Africas history of anti-apartheid advocacy led to politics and mission (particularly prophecy) being a common topic. Finally, very uncommon subjects occurring sporadically or not at all. Almost all the statistical articles in this survey appeared in the IBMRs regular January global statistical update. Short-term mission was addressed only in one themed issue of Missiology.13 And subjects such as women and mission, church practice, and a new religiosity got very little coverage. Generally these results could be expected. It is no surprise that contextualization and old religions (particularly Islams challenge) were common subjects. Or that church practice (more akin to ecclesiology) was not. However, two surprising areas emerged. The first is the limited analysis of the West as a missionary challenge. Out of Escobars original framework, the least-treated subjects were postmodern culture and new religiosityprimarily Western subjects.14 Given that Western culture is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time15 and that the number of Christians in the West is free-falling,16 the relative lack of scholarly missiological attention to these subjects is a matter of concern. The second surprise is the prevalence of articles on missions organizationarticles that examine the specifics of how missionary organizations are structured and function. This subject, which was not in Escobars original framework, accounted for approximately 1 in every 9 articles, 1 in every 7 in the IBMR! While acknowledging the subjects importance, we question this emphasis. A common mistake is to leap at organizational solutions to solve core problems. They can be implemented easily and often without deep analysis, but experience suggests they are rarely successful. Perhaps missiological research is jumping too quickly to organizational solutions, without first developing deep cultural and theological insight into the reasons why such change is deemed necessary.

Regional Focusthe Where Question

Where are missiologists focusing their attention? Which global areas are the most commonly researched? Certainly a diverse range of locations is being studied, with more than fifty separate regional foci. These locations were grouped into six major regions. Articles with an intentional global focus or no geographic focus were also recorded. (See table 2.)

Table 2. Regional Analysis

Region Global Africa Middle East Asia / Oceania Europe Latin America North America No regional focus Total IBMR No. % 29 29 4 4 6 6 24 24 10 10 10 10 5 5 13 13 101 Missiology No. % 29 24 9 7 2 2 16 13 6 5 12 10 13 11 34 28 121 Missionalia No. % 3 54 0 2 0 1 4 16 80 4 68 0 3 0 1 5 20

Compared with the margin of error (2.3 percent), the differences between the primary and weighted subject matter analyses are negligible. Secondary subject matter essentially mirrors the primary in terms of prevalence, confirming that within these limits we have an accurate understanding of subject matter prevalence for the analyzed sample. We can divide the subject areas into four groups. First, commonly encountered subjects across the three journals. These include contextualization, missions organization, and old religions. Second, subjects that are somewhat common across the three journals. Poverty and inequality, the new balance of Christian presence, Pentecostalism, and the theology of mission get reasonable cover216

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Not surprisingly, Missionalia focused primarily on Africa. More than 5 in every 6 Missionalia articles with a regional focus (84 percent) dealt specifically with the African continent. The remaining articles focused on the global situation or came from one issue about archaeological investigation of American Indian mission stations.17 The international journals focused primarily on the global situation. Apart from this result, the variability across the two journals makes it difficult to draw any confident conclusions about missiologists predominant geographic foci. Certainly a broad spread of areas are being researched. Interestingly Africa (Christianitys new heartland) is addressed relatively infrequently, particularly in the IBMR. But Asia / Oceania (also the Global South) accounts for over a quarter of this journals geographically focused articles.

the United States. Including other Western countries raises the proportion to 81 percent. In contrast, only 10 percent of geographically targeted articles focused on North America, and 19 percent on the West. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Comparison of Geographic Focus with Contributors Background for Articles in IBMR / Missiology
Africa Latin America Europe North America Asia Pacific United States Middle East Latin Other United America Other Kingdom Africa Europe Other N. America Asia Global Oceania

Authorial Demographicsthe Who Question

Who are the people conducting missiological research? Where do they come from? What gender are they, and what mindset do they bring to their research?18 (See table 3.)

Geographic Focus

Contributors Background

Table 3. Analysis of Contributors Background

Region IBMR No. % Missiology No. % 8 7 3 2 6 5 1 1 85 70 5 4 4 3 0 0 7 6 2 2 121 Missionalia No. % 6 6 1 0 12 0 1 46 8 0 80 8 8 1 0 15 0 1 58 10 0

A complementary analysis of gender across the three journals reveals that nearly 5 out of every 6 authors are male (83 percent). In fact, over half of the international authors (121, or 55 percent) are males from one country, the United States.

United Kingdom 11 11 6 6 Other Europe Asia 9 9 3 3 Oceania United States 60 59 Other North America 1 1 3 3 Latin America South Africa 0 0 3 3 Other Africa Unknown 5 5 Total 101

Table 4. Contributors Gender

Gender Male Female n/a a Total
a

IBMR No. % 85 84 15 15 1 1 101

Missiology No. % 99 82 22 18 0 0 121

Missionalia No. % 66 14 0 80 83 18 0

As expected, the clear majority of Missionalias contributors (68 percent) come from Africa, corresponding with the large proportion of Missionalia articles (86 percent) that focus on that region to research. (See figure 2.)

Helsinki 2003: Jesus and His People, IBMR 28 (Jan. 2004): 23, a conference statement; no authors listed.

Figure 2. Comparison of Geographic Focus with Contributors Background for Missionalia Articles
North Latin America Global America Asia Pacific United Kingdom Other Europe Asia United States Latin America Africa South Africa

Other Africa

Geographic Focus

Contributors Background

Such a correspondence between author and subject is certainly not the case for the IBMR and Missiology. These journals may be international in terms of geographic focus, but they are decidedly not international in terms of the contributors background. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of articles were contributed from
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There are a variety of reasons for the disproportionate role of U.S. and Western scholars in these journals, many of which are not under the editors direct control. Possible reasons include the following: (1) there are vastly more missiologists in the West than in the Majority World, and so much more research is done by them; (2) the research being done by those in the Majority World is not as rigorous and/or accessible (particularly for journals based in the United States); (3) Majority World missiologists may choose localized journals for publishing their research; and (4) U.S. universities may entice the best missiologists from the Majority World to base themselves in the United States. Whatever the reasons, the implication is clear. Todays average Christian may be a poor, black, Nigerian woman, but todays average Christian missiologist appears to be a rich, white, American man! If IBMR editor Jonathan Bonk is correct in saying that to be spoken for implies a degree of powerlessness on the part of those who are represented by the voice of another,19 then these international journals appear to be accepting, or perhaps even perpetuating, both the voicelessness and a degree of powerlessness in the Majority Christian World. The prevalence of male authors from the United States in international journals appears to be largely independent of subject matter, geographic focus, and methodology, although it is interesting to note that almost all of the articles on postmod217

ern culture (91 percent) and theological education (71 percent) were written from this (perhaps narrow) cultural perspective. It is also relevant to note that this monocultural weighting was not declining between 2003 and 2007, the years of our research. Even acknowledging the sizable margin of error (10 percent) in these data points, the trend appears to be quite the opposite. (See figure 4.)

one cannot help being struck by the irony. Leading international journals have contributors from the (numerically declining) Western church telling the (numerically exploding) Majority World church how it should be doing its missiological job. Perhaps the reverse would be more justified!

Theological Perspectivethe Which Question

From which theological perspective do missiologists approach their research? And what is their theological focus? It is easy to misinterpret theological perspective and/or focus.22 Accordingly, if an author did not explicitly state (or clearly imply) his or her theological perspective/focus, it was labeled as generic. Generic implies that the contributor in an article either has no clear theological perspective/focus or that it is not essential to the article. (See table 5.)

Figure 4. Percentage of Articles Written by Males from the United States

80% 70%
62% 67%

IBMR Missiology
58%

71%

60%
52%

50%
43%

48%

50%

52%

Table 5. Analysis of Theological Perspective

Theological Perspective Anglican Roman Catholic Evangelical Hindu Islamic Liberal Lutheran Methodist Orthodox Pentecostal Presbyterian Generic N/A Total No. Total Missi- Missio% IBMR ology nalia 0 5 11 0 0 2 0 1 1 7 0 72 2 101 0 6 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 5 1 104 0 121 1 7 0 0 1 0 2 2 0 6 2 58 1 80

40% 30%

36%

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Perhaps the most insightful way of analyzing authorial perspective is to use another Escobar framework from the Iguassu Dialogue, namely, missiological approach.20 According to Escobar, missiological research is postimperial (which follows in the trajectory of the Western missiological movement, but recognizes that new patterns of relationship and forms of Christian mission are emerging), managerial (which approaches missiology from a scientific, statistical, or business-management perspective), or from the periphery (which stands apart from the major historic thrust of Western Christian mission, questioning not just the degree but the kind of missionary action that is required). We categorized each of the analyzed articles into one these three missiological approaches.21 (See figure 5.)

1 0 18 6 14 5 1 0 2 1 2 1 2 1 3 1 1 0 18 6 3 1 234 77 3 1 302

Figure 5. Comparison of Missiological Approach for IBMR / Missiology and Missionalia

Postimperial (13%) Postimperial (64%) ( )

From the Periphery (21%) Managerial (15%) From the Periphery (74%)

Roman Catholic and Pentecostal research (both 6 percent) were significantly more prevalent than other theological perspectives, the former probably because of the Roman Catholic Churchs size, the latter because of the Pentecostal churchs growth. But most interestingly, the vast majority (77 percent) of missiological research had a generic or no clear theological focus and perspective. It appears as if most missiological research does not depend on the detailed theological perspective of the author, nor does it focus on a particular denominational stream of the church. There is a common theological perspective implied in almost all missiological researchthat reaching out with the love of Jesus (however that is understood) is an important and valid activity for the church of God. The analysis for this article suggests that this commonality is most often enough to get on with, and our theological differences (in the main) do not have significant missiological implications.

Methodological Approachthe How Question

IBMR / Missiology Missionalia
The proportion of managerial articles is roughly consistent across all three journals (approx. 14 percent). Missionalia has a high proportion of articles from the periphery (74 percent), while the international journals are mostly postimperial (64 percent)a significant difference. While recognizing that the root causes of the disparities revealed in our analysis of authorial demographics are historically grounded, complex, and difficult to overcome,
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How do missiologists come to their conclusions? What methodological approach do they take? (See table 6.) As with our analysis of subject matter, so we can divide these methodological approaches into distinct categories. Five are commonly used across the three journals: historical, cultural, missiological, church, and biblical overviews. Sometimes the overview stands alone, and no implications for the current missiological situation are drawn. This is common with historical overviews (44 of 75 articles59 percent). But most often the analysis concludes
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

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with a series of implications for current missiological practice. Interestingly, the Southern-based journal has a higher proportion of biblical overviews. Three more approaches are sometimes used across the three journals: methodological analysis, personal overview, and theological overview. The remaining approaches are rarely used or are particular to one journal. Statistical summaries are an advertised and attractive feature of the IBMR, but they do not feature significantly elsewhere. Case studies predominantly occurred in Missiology, particularly one issue that focused on short-term mission. Publication and conference overviews were not common in any of the journals.

rial and from the periphery missiological approaches appear to utilize similar methodologies.

Summarythe Why Question

Having examined the what, where, who, which, and how of current missiological research, we come to the last of Kiplings honest serving-men: why.23 Why should missiologists continue their work, and why should all Christians care? This analysis reveals both the dimensions of current missiological research, as exemplified in the pages of three flagship journals, and the broad directions it might profitably pursue. First, missiological research reveals the breadth of current mission endeavor. God is at work in all corners of the globe. Our vision is often myopic, and consequently our emotions oscillate wildly based on localized successes or failures. Missiological research gives perspective and balance. Second, we should find the means to give the South a voice. It is hardly a new insight to suggest that the missiological endeavor needs to listen hard to those who speak from the periphery. Most agree with this in theory. This analysis suggests, however, that we have some way to go to achieve it in practice. Third, the West matters. This analysis suggests that it is not just Western churchgoers who make the mistake of seeing the missionary task as out there rather than right here. Western missiologists make the same mistake. Most researchers are from the West, but proportionally little of the research is about the West. The need for people of courage and insightand particularly those with a Southern voiceto tackle this most difficult missionary frontier could not be clearer. It is not cowardly or second-rate to give your life to winning the West. Finally, we should aim for significant cooperation in our missiological endeavor. Often interdenominational or even crosscultural dialogues are approached with a good deal of skepticism. There are just too many differences. But this analysis suggests that meaningful collaboration has a viable future, for our methodological approaches have a lot in common. With mission as a central hermeneutic and motivator, we can see that much more unites than divides us.

Table 6. Analysis of Methodological Approach

Methodological Approach Historical Cultural Missiological Church Biblical Methodological Personal Theological Statistical Summary Case Study Publication Conference Total No. Total Missi- Missio% IBMR ology nalia 30 18 11 10 4 4 8 1 8 0 4 3 101 22 35 15 8 9 7 4 12 0 7 0 2 121 23 14 8 10 10 5 4 3 1 0 2 0 80

75 25 67 22 34 11 28 9 23 8 16 5 16 5 16 5 9 3 7 2 6 2 5 2 302

Again, these results are generally expected. It is no surprise that historical and cultural overviews are common. It could be argued that theological or biblical reflection should be given a higher priority, particularly in the internationally focused journals, but this is a matter of degree. Similarly, having nearly 60 percent of historical overviews drawing no current missiological implications is notable and perhaps questionable. Nevertheless, the most interesting insight is that there appears to be no significant difference between the international journals and the Southern journal in terms of methodological approach. Both postimpe-

Notes

1. E.g., Wilbert R. Shenk, Recasting Theology of Mission: Impulses from the Non-Western World, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 25 (July 2001): 98107. 2. E.g., John Stott, Twenty Years After Lausanne: Some Personal Reflections, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 19 (April 1995): 5055. 3. E.g., Lesslie Newbigin, Can the West Be Converted? International Bulletin of Missionary Research 11 (January 1987): 27. 4. Only articles with an analytic focus were included in the sample. For the IBMR, autobiographical articles (My Pilgrimage in Mission) and biographical articles (The Legacy of . . .) were excluded. Also the analysis did not include editorials and book reviews from any of the journals. All other articles were included. Other indicators could have been chosen, e.g., books published, conference proceedings, and articles cited, but it can be argued that these journals offer a good snapshot of current international missiological interests. 5. See www.asmweb.org/missiology.htm. 6. E.g., see www.magsdirect.com/internationalbulletinofmissionary research.html. 7. At the time this research was performed, the publication of Missionalia was not up-to-datethe latest issue analyzed was April 2006. However, the larger number of articles per year in this journal
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means we still have a statistically significant base from which to work. The Web site for the Southern African Missiological Society and Missionalia is http://missiological.org.za. 8. Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996), p. 22. 9. Samuel Escobar, The Global Scenario at the Turn of the Century, in Global Missiology for the Twenty-first Century: The Iguassu Dialogue, ed. William D. Taylor (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), pp. 2546. 10. Articles that focused on a translatable gospel almost always simultaneously dealt with globalization and contextualization (and vice versa). Similarly, articles that dealt with the end of Christendom almost always simultaneously dealt with postmodern culture (and vice versa). As such, these categories have been grouped together. Categories that needed to be added were missions organization, theological education, statistics, politics and mission, theology of mission, short-term mission, women and mission, and church practice. 11. For example, Paul Gundanis article The Land Question and Its Missiological Implications for the Church in Zimbabwe (Missionalia 31 [November 2003]: 467502) primarily addresses the subject politics and mission, but also secondarily, poverty and inequality.
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

12. The mechanism of the weighted analysis is as follows. If only one subject is recorded, then 100 percent of the article deals with that subject. If two subjects are recorded, then I assume that 60 percent of the article focuses on the primary subject, and 40 percent on the secondary subject. In the IBMR, for example, eleven articles in the sample years have contextualization as their sole focus, eight articles have this as their primary focus, and six others have it as their secondary focus. So the weighted subject matter score for contextualization is (11 1.00) + (8 0.60) + (6 0.40) = 18.2. This gives us a more accurate understanding of the treatment of the various subjects than we would have by looking only at the primary subject matter. For explanations of the statistics used, see http://stattrek .com/lesson4/proportion.aspx?tutorial=ap. 13. See Missiology 35 (January 2007). 14. Note that postmodern culture includes the topic the end of Christendom, as referenced in Escobars article The Global Scenario. 15. Newbigin, Can the West Be Converted? p. 7. 16. See David E. Bjork The Future of Christianity in Western Europe, Missiology 34 (July 2006): 30924. 17. See Missionalia 32 (November 2004). 18. For the purposes of this analysis, we have used the authors location at the time of publication as an indicator of background culture.

19. Jonathan J. Bonk, Finding Our Own Voice: The Quest for Authentic Conversion, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29 (July 2005): 113. 20. Samuel Escobar, Evangelical Missiology: Peering into the Future at the Turn of the Century, in Global Missiology for the Twenty-first Century, ed. Taylor, pp. 10122. 21. Some articles (16 percent) had no clear missiological approach, especially statistical and historical articles that simply stated facts or summarized events but provided no perspective or insight on those events. These articles have been excluded from this analysis. 22. Note that in this analysis we have combined theological perspective (i.e., the theological background or stream from which the authors are doing their missiological research) and theological focus (i.e., the theological stream or denominational group that the author is focusing on). In almost all cases, the theological perspective and theological focus match. So, for example, if a Roman Catholic area of focus is being researched, it is almost always a Catholic author doing the research. 23. I have six honest serving-men / (They taught me all I knew); / Their names are What and Which and Why, / And How and Where and Who (slightly altered from Rudyard Kiplings story, The Elephants Child).

The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay

James R. Rohrer
eorge Leslie Mackay (18441901) was among the most remarkable missionaries of the late Victorian era. During his three decades in Taiwan (18711901), he received little substantive assistance from other Canadian missionaries yet, at the time of his death, left a community of more than 2,400 baptized communicants and a much larger body of regular hearers who attended more than sixty churches led by full-time native preachers.1 Mackay (pronounced muh-KIGH) established a hospital, a school for girls, and Oxford College, his training center for native church leaders. Just as important, as one of only three known missionaries in nineteenth-century China to have married an indigenous spouse, he left behind descendents who continued to play leading roles in Taiwans Presbyterian Church after his death. Mackays achievements have been largely overlooked by modern historians of mission. During his lifetime, however, Canadian publications hailed him as one of the greatest evangelists since the apostolic age.2 In Taiwan, where Christians constitute roughly 5 to 6 percent of the populace, George Leslie Mackay remains a widely known folk hero. Every day thousands of people pass by wall-size photographs of Mackay and his students at Taipeis Mackay Memorial Hospital, one of the most respected medical facilities in the island. In 2001 the government in Taiwan issued a commemorative postage stamp to mark the centenary
James R. Rohrer is Associate Professor of History at the University of NebraskaKearney. He teaches American religious history and the history of Christianity. From 1993 to 1998 he taught history in Taiwan under the auspices of the United Church Board for World Ministries. rohrerjr@unk.edu

of his death. Presbyterian youth groups can be spotted wearing T-shirts bearing Mackays likeness, along with his motto, It is better to burn up than rust out. Christian parents can read children to sleep with tales of Mackay printed in cartoon storybooks, while a seemingly endless stream of newspaper articles, art prints, postcards, posters, wall calendars, mugs, and medallions recalls his life. Preachers in Taiwan frequently draw upon his book, From Far Formosa (1895), for sermon illustrations, and politicians have appealed to his memory to promote various agendas. Indeed, the legendary Mackay at times threatens to eclipse the historical missionary. As the Canadian who became the son-in-law of Taiwan, Mackay has served as a useful icon for Taiwanese nationalism, a symbol of the warm ties binding the island to the Western democracies.3 Christians in Taiwan often invoke him, with little historical justification, as the one who brought democratic ideals to Taiwan, a champion of the rights of Taiwans tribal indigenes, and an early proponent of Taiwanese independence. The actual complex history of his career deserves to be better known, not only by scholars of mission, but also by Taiwanese Christians in search of a usable past.

Childhood and Education

George Leslie Mackay was born March 21, 1844, in Zorra Township, Upper Canada, the youngest of six children of George and Helen Sutherland Mackay. His parents had emigrated to Canada in 1830 from Dornoch in Sutherlandshire, Scotland, an area reeling from the harsh Highland Clearances. Sutherland was a hotbed of evangelical dissent from the Church of Scotland. The common folk flocked to revivals sparked by Na Daoine (the Men), itinerant Gaelic lay preachers who called upon the people to be born again and who prophetically attacked landlords and ecclesiastical moderates for their injustice against the poor. Com221

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mon people listened also to controversial evangelical ministers of the established Kirk, such as the fiery John MacDonald, the so-called Apostle of the North, who often visited Dornoch on his missionary journeys.4 Most Zorra settlers were displaced Highlanders with strong evangelical leanings. The Mackays and their neighbors clung tightly to their religious traditions. For many years they continued to use Gaelic at home and in worship, and the family altar was a central part of their routine. Mackay later recollected the importance of daily prayer and worship with his parents, and especially the influence of his mother, who taught him the Westminster Shorter Catechism by heart while he was still a small child. In 1834 a zealous evangelical named Donald McKenzie received ordination from the Presbytery of Glasgow as a missionary to Canada. The Gaelic-speaking McKenzie settled in Zorra in 1835, where until 1872 he shepherded one of Canadas largest Presbyterian congregations while continuing to perform missionary duties in nearby counties. Under his leadership Knox Church in Embro became something of a school for prophets. During

By the age of ten the young George Leslie Mackay had decided that he, too, would become a missionary.
the course of his long pastorate, McKenzie watched nearly fifty young men from his congregation enter the ministry as pastors or missionaries, among them George Leslie Mackay, whose father served the congregation as a ruling elder for twenty-five years.5 Mackay was only a few months old when his family followed McKenzie into the Free Church of Canada. Although the ecclesiastical disputes that divided the church in Scotland did not exist in Upper Canada, the evangelical leanings of the settlers led them to sympathize strongly with the Scottish dissenters. Missionaries from the Free Church of Scotland, such as Robert Burns of Paisley and his nephew, the revivalist William C. Burns, soon visited Zorra, where the people generously contributed funds to support the Free Church back home. Burns became Mackays childhood hero, and the Mackay family closely followed his career after he went to China as a missionary of the English Presbyterian Church.6 By the age of ten the young George Leslie Mackay had decided that he, too, would become a missionary. Mackay attended Knox College in Toronto from 1864 to 1867. Knox professors conceived of the school as a missionary institution for training evangelists. Mixing evangelical piety and Scottish Common Sense philosophy, the Knox curriculum stressed Scripture, biblical theology, and natural science as the essential elements of Christian higher education. Knox students learned that sound scientific methods inevitably support the authority of the Bible, and that knowledge of natural science is vital to effective evangelism. Classmates later remembered Mackay as a serious scholar. He especially relished geography, geology, and natural science and participated in the Knox Literary and Scientific Society, which met monthly to present essays and debate controversial topics.7 As a missionary, Mackay drew heavily upon his Knox experience as he built his own training school for native preachers, modeling his lessons upon the Knox curriculum and incorporating the lyceum format of the Literary and Scientific Society into his own teaching methods.
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From 1867 to 1870 Mackay attended Princeton Seminary, at the time a favorite choice for North American Presbyterians planning careers as foreign missionaries. At Princeton he became devoted to Charles Hodge and participated in the Committee of Inquiry, a student organization that investigated mission theories and sponsored visiting missionaries from around the world. Mackay later recalled how he ransacked the librarys collection of mission books and heard missions debated a thousand different ways during these years.8 Upon graduation he offered his service to the Canada Presbyterian Church as a foreign missionary and then sailed for Scotland to meet another boyhood hero, Alexander Duff. During the winter of 187071 Mackay sat through Duffs historic lectures on evangelistic theology and often visited Duffs home. He also studied Hindustani and considered offering himself to the Scottish or American Presbyterians as a missionary to India.9 In April 1871, however, he received instructions from the Committee on Missions in Canada to return home to receive ordination. On June 14, 1871, the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church, meeting in Quebec, appointed him their first overseas missionary, with instructions to choose a field in China in consultation with the English Presbyterian missionaries in Amoy. Weeks later, a seasick Mackay was bound for the Orient on the steamer America. Except for two furloughs, in 188081 and 189394, he would spend the remainder of his life in Taiwan, dedicated to the task of building an indigenous church led by native preachers. Mackay later honored William C. Burns, Charles Hodge, and Alexander Duff by naming chapels in Taiwan in their memory. Assessing their precise influence upon his missionary work, however, is difficult, for Mackay never committed his own missiological principles to writing in any systematic fashion. In 1877 and 1890 he characteristically skipped the important Shanghai missionary conferences held by Protestant missionaries in China, and throughout his life he showed a marked aversion to correspondence with other missionaries. Even in his private journals he rarely engaged in theological reflection, leaving us in many cases to read between the lines and to conjecture about his ideas. Still, a few significant influences clearly stand out. First, the blend of evangelical piety and Baconian science that suffused his early years stayed with him.10 Mackay was a lifelong amateur naturalist who invested a great deal of energy teaching his students the rudiments of geology, zoology, anatomy, and botany as an essential component of their evangelistic work. Mackay always insisted that the argument from design was the most effective way to convince Chinese people of a sovereign God, and that evangelistic preaching ought to begin with the doctrine of creation. Second, while never formally disavowing Presbyterianism, Mackay always exhibited the characteristics of a religious dissenter who placed his own sense of Gods will ahead of denominational loyalty. Throughout his career he exhibited a fierce independence from the mission committee in Canada, and he consistently opposed establishing formal Presbyterian government in Taiwan as an unnatural accretion that should not be forced upon converts by foreign ecclesiastical authorities. His personal scrapbook suggests that he identified with such diverse evangelists as William Booth, De Witt Talmage, and Dwight L. Moody, men more renowned for achieving spectacular results as preachers and organizers than as theologians.11 Third, Mackay, like Duff, regarded the training of native clergy as his single most important task, and he repeatedly declared that only Chinese Christians could build a church in China. But unlike Duff, who targeted upper-caste Indian youth
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

and emphasized the importance of rigorous Western education, first with a native tutor loaned by the English Presbyterians in Mackay identified more with the common people of Taiwan and Amoy, he began his ministry by studying Chinese characters and sought to adapt the Gospel as much as possible to local patterns the spoken language for as many as sixteen hours a day. Blessed of thinking. Mackay preached and taught only in the islands with a prodigious memory, he learned to write one hundred new dominant Hokkien language, and he selectively adapted West- characters daily and spent the balance of his time practicing his ern education to suit the immediate practical needs of his native reading and speaking with anybody who would listen to him. preachers. For him, all missionary work, including medical and After only a few weeks his first tutor ran away, but Mackay had educational ministry, was ancillary to evangelism. already met a young literati, Giam Chheng Hoa, who agreed to Perhaps Mackay owed most to the evangelical tradition of move in with him and become his new teacher in exchange for the Scottish Highlands, to Donald McKenzie, and to his boyhood religious lessons. Giam and Mackay forged a deep symbiotic hero, William C. Burns, who had gained notoriety among China relationship grounded upon unfeigned mutual respect and admissionaries for his itinerating ministry through the countryside miration. The course Mackay pursued would have been imposof Fujien Province. Mackay, too, became famous for itineration sible without this foundation. His first convert, and later the first and for his desire to live ordained native pastor, Giam among the common folk knew the island intimately. of Taiwan. Throughout his In a very real sense he became career he stirred controversy Mackays teacher and was by criticizing other foreign the catalyst for the convermissionaries and insisting sion of the other first four upon indigenous leadership recruits. Throughout the first in every facet of ministry. It several years of Mackays is tempting to see his cadre ministry, this group marched of Taiwanese preachers as barefoot together througha parallel to Scotlands Na out northern Taiwan, disDaoine, a zealous group of pensing Western medicine, lay itinerants whom Mackay pulling teeth, preaching, and regarded as superior to any establishing chapels.14 The growth of Mackays seminary-trained Presbytemovement was phenomenal, rians from the West. suggesting that social conMackays identification ditions in North Formosa with the common people of were unusually favorable Taiwan led him in 1878 to Mackay Family, ca. 1890 for conversion. But Mackays marry Tiu Chhang Mia, the seventeen-year-old adopted granddaughter of his first female con- personality and tactics also played a crucial role in his success. vert, Thah-so. Chhang-a would play a vital role in his ministry Having launched his itinerating campaign, he often passed weeks throughout the remainder of his life. Believing passionately that at a time without contact with other Westerners. If he suffered the people of Taiwan were equal to Westerners, he married his culture shock, his journals do not reveal it. Instead, he seems to own daughters, Mary and Bella, to native preachers and spent have relished his growing intimacy with the band of men who his life attempting to preserve the independence of his movement traveled with him day and night. As they walked, and whenever from Canadian control. Although Mackay was not completely free they rested, Mackay taught his recruits Bible, theology, natural from the ethnocentric biases that typified Victorian Christians, science, and materia medica; they in turn taught him the details of his deep love for Taiwan was authentic. It would be difficult to their culture and how to speak like a Chinese person. Never find any other missionary of his era who more clearly exempli- staying in one place for more than a few days at a time, they spent less than six months in the port of Tamsui, Mackays ostensible fied the principles of missionary identification.12 headquarters, during his entire first seven years on the island. Mackay believed that his wandering lifestyle imitated Jesus. Early Ministry in Taiwan He certainly was familiar with the example of William C. Burns. Mackays career falls neatly into two major phases. The first But unlike Burns, who had almost no converts to show for his extends from his arrival in Taiwan in December 1871 until his years of itineration, Mackay had already established seven chapels first furlough in 1880, by which time he had already become a and had more than seventy baptized followers by the end of his celebrity in Canada. The second extends from his return to Taiwan third year in Taiwan. By the time he returned to Canada for his in 1881 until his death twenty years later. During the first phase, first furlough, his so-called peripatetic school had trained some Mackay launched an amazing itinerating ministry that quickly two dozen preachers who weekly proclaimed the Gospel to more reaped impressive results. The consummate pioneer missionary, than a thousand regular hearers. Many foreign observers noted he chose as his field the previously unoccupied north end of the the remarkable devotion that existed between the missionary island because he longed for freedom to follow his own meth- and his followers. To them Mackay was not so much the agent ods and to learn by trial and error. Remarkably, by the end of of a foreign religion as a prophet and spiritual father.15 But where did other Canadian missionaries fit within such his first summer in Taiwan he already had a cadre of dedicated converts who remained faithful leaders throughout their life- a movement? Mackay regarded his visible success as incontesttimes, and these became the nucleus of a rapidly growing move- able proof of both divine blessing and the wisdom of his methment that more closely resembled an indigenous Chinese sect ods. Throughout his life he stubbornly resisted any pressure from Canada to change his ways, repeatedly leading him into than a Presbyterian mission.13 Mackay had extraordinary linguistic abilities. Working at conflict with church leaders at home. The mission committee
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wanted Mackay to accept additional missionaries and to build a more traditional mission compound in Tamsui. Beginning with James and Jennie Fraser in 1874, it sent out a series of missionary couples to assist Mackay. These newcomers soon found themselves marginalized from the actual life of the community, Mackay leaving them alone in Tamsui to learn for themselves the language and to establish their own roles.16 Except for the last couple, William and Margaret Gauld, none of the assistants stayed long in the island. Mackay considered the Frasers, who had small children, a major nuisance. The mission committee in Toronto instructed him to build a Western-style home for the couple, to give up his ill-conceived efforts to go native, and to lodge with the Frasers until a charming Canadian lady could be sent out to share his work. Although Mackay grudgingly built the house, he categorically rejected the rest of the committees wishes.17 Instead,

Nothing resembling the typical Victorian mission compound existed during Mackays lifetime.
at the suggestion of his students, in May 1878 he married Tiu Chhang Mia, a little sister who was well known to all the native preachers. It was a brilliant move on Mackays part, sealing with holy matrimony his unusual mode of living. Never again would Canadian leaders urge him to settle down with other missionaries. Instead, Chhang-a at first itinerated with Mackay and his students and became the revered spiritual mother of the growing movement.

Furlough and Settling Down

Marriage and the arrival of his first daughter, Mary, in 1879 required lifestyle adjustments. His first furlough in 188081 marks the start of the second, or domestic, phase of his ministry. Leaving their infant daughter in Taiwan with Chhang-as grandmother, Mackay and his young wife sailed to Canada on a world tour, visiting Malaysia, India, the Holy Land, Rome, Paris, London, and Scotland before arriving in Zorra six months later. For Tiu Chhang Mia, not yet twenty, this first trip away from home and first encounter with the world church must have triggered a mix of emotions. At each stop they explored historical sites, mosques, temples, and cathedrals. Everywhere they visited the missions of different Christian denominations. The trip convinced Mackay that his own methods were the best for Taiwan, giving him ammunition that he would later use when answering critics of his mission. Although Mackays marriage was controversial, his family and the local people of Zorra embraced Chhang-a warmly. Unable to speak any English, she initially feared Mackays departure for his obligatory missionary tour of the Canadian churches. By the time he returned from his first round of visits, however, her shyness had vanished. She informed him that she felt comfortable with his family and that he could travel for as long as he needed. Dubbed Minnie by the locals and the Canadian newspapers, she became a favorite at gatherings of Zorra church women.18 During his furlough Mackay received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Queens University and addressed packed
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assemblies at churches and public meetings throughout Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic Provinces. Contributions for his work poured into the Presbyterian mission fund, money that he used upon his return to Taiwan to construct a home for his family, build larger churches, open a boarding school for girls, and construct Oxford College as a training center for native preachers. For the rest of his life Mackay would itinerate only twice a year, the remainder of his time spent teaching and directing affairs at headquarters in Tamsui. But celebrity and increased wealth proved a mixed blessing, for with it came mounting pressure from home to expand the Canadian presence and establish a more normal Presbyterian mission. He received especially strong pressure from the Womens Foreign Missionary Committee, which wanted to send single women teachers to assist him.19 Throughout his career Mackay engaged in a constant battle to keep funding from Canada without strings attached. He demanded freedom to set mission policy without intervention, threatening to resign and take all of the converts with him if not granted autonomy. The mission committee in Toronto knew that the irascible missionary was not bluffing. For twenty years he successfully blackmailed them into giving him free rein to pursue whatever policies he pleased. As a result, nothing resembling the typical Victorian mission compound existed during Mackays lifetime. His goal was to see his community develop into a fully self-governing and self-propagating native church upon his own death. To this end, he would allow only one missionary couple at a time to come out from Canada to assist him, and he made it clear that these newcomers would be required to serve under the supervision of native Christians. These assistants were allowed to study language, plant gardens, help maintain the buildings in Tamsui, write letters home, and perform small tasks assigned by Mackay. But they did not engage in direct evangelism or teaching native church leaders, responsibilities that Mackay kept tightly in his own hands and shared with chosen native Christians.20 The real heart of the Christian community in North Taiwan was the expanding network of chapels in the interior of the island. These were the exclusive preserve of the native preachers, whom Mackay himself trained and appointed. Critics charged that Mackay was unfaithful to Presbyterianism and acted as a bishop over the native church. Mackay angrily rejected the notion that Western institutions could be simply transplanted to Taiwan by fiat. To be lasting, church polity would have to evolve gradually out of the inner workings of the Chinese mind. In the meantime, he insisted, Christians in North Formosa already enjoyed authentic self-government without the creation of formal Presbyterian structures. Every one of the churches elected elders, and he was in constant contact with these leaders, with whom he deliberated in all matters confronting the community. He likewise consulted the preachers constantly, and in 1885 he and a group of elders together laid hands on Giam Chheng-Hoa and another early preacher named Tan He, ordaining them as the first two native pastors in Taiwan. Henceforth these two men sat with Mackay and any ordained Canadian assistant in regular mission councils, discussing policy together. For Mackay, the reality of shared governance mattered more than strict conformity to Presbyterian polity.21 Mackay himself handled virtually all of the instruction at Oxford College, lecturing daily on topics ranging from biblical studies to geography to natural science and medicine. His advanced students assisted him with teaching younger students how to read and write Romanized Chinese. In fact, the school more closely resembled a lyceum than a Western college. Each
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

student was regularly assigned composition and debate topics, which they would deliver as formal speeches that were critiqued by peers as well as by Mackay. Twice a year, before and after each term at school, he took his most advanced students on lengthy itinerating trips into the interior of the island, to give them experience preaching in public and facing opposition. The training at Oxford College was not designed to instill a liberal arts education, but rather to equip self-confident preachers, teachers, and healers who would soon hold responsibility for chapels of their own. The boarding school for girls, designed to equip Bible women and Christian wives, was likewise under native leadership. Tiu Chhang Mia herself, assisted by some of the older Bible women, served as headmistress and surrogate mother for the girls, who came from churches throughout the mission field. In a controversial pamphlet addressed to the Presbyterian women of Canada, Annie Jamieson, wife of Mackays third assistant John Jamieson,

Oxford College at Tamsui

defended Mackays refusal to accept Canadian women teachers. Tiu Chhang Mia, Jamieson observed, toiled away day after day, while ladies in Canada know nothing . . . of what she is accomplishing. Chhang-a knew just how to deal with her own people. She works away training girls, helping women, attending to the wants of students, caring for and thinking of everyone but herself. She is known and loved by converts throughout the whole field. Jamieson confessed that she had initially resented Chhang-a but in time came to understand the wisdom of Mackays position: While the Doctor is busy arranging matters or preparing messages in front of the house, people will be out back pouring stories into her sympathetic ear. I would gladly relieve her, for I am sure she is often tired, but then who of them all would dream of coming to me? I did not grow up among the people. I have not been to their homes; I do not know their children and aunts and uncles and neighbors, and all about their family troubles. How could they be expected to come to me?22

withdrawn. This time landing in Vancouver, the missionary was dumbfounded when his wife and Koa Kau were not permitted to disembark until a head tax had been paid. Although the matter was soon cleared up, Mackay spent the rest of his time in Canada speaking out against racism and demanding an end to discrimination against Chinese immigrants. As moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1894, he had a very visible platform from which to thunder his opposition to anti-Chinese prejudice in Canada, as well as his faith in the complete equality of Chinese Christians.23 During his furlough, the Sino-Japanese War dramatically transformed the situation of the Christians in Taiwan. Claimed as a colonial prize by the victorious Japanese, Formosa was to become a showcase of Japans ability to administer an empire as efficiently as the Western powers. Although Mackay stated his optimistic belief that the change in government would ultimately prove a blessing, the transition brought a host of new problems. Perhaps most obvious was the Japanese insistence that all educational and medical facilities on the island conform to modern Western standards. To survive under Japanese rule, Mackay clearly would need to adjust his missionary methods to satisfy colonial administrators. We will never know how successfully Mackay would have adapted to the new reality. Late in the winter of 1901 he discovered a small lump in his throat that turned out to be an aggressive cancer. British physicians at Tamsui and the mainland were helpless to arrest the progression of the disease. On the afternoon of June 2, 1901, George Leslie Mackay breathed his last. As word of his death spread from church to church, a stream of mourners descended upon Tamsui, where Mackays body rested in a glass-faced coffin in Oxford College. Young and old crowded around the coffin, reaching out to touch his face. His daughter Bella described the scene in her diary, noting that young men wept like a child as well as old men, women and children. Some would remain weeping over the coffin for a whole hour, then they would go out of the room, then they would re-enter again and weep more bitterly than before.24 Giam Chheng Hoa presided over the burial of his dearest friend. Eighteen of the oldest preachers and elders carried the coffin to the grave that Mackay himself had selected years before. The cemetery was too small to hold all of the mourners that gathered from around the mission field, including more than three hundred non-Christian dignitaries who came to honor the fallen missionary. Many converts from distant stations could not arrive in time for the burial. For days they streamed into Tamsui, to sit beside Mackays grave and weep, as Bella recorded, like one having lost a father.25

Legacy
For all his unusual characteristics, George Leslie Mackay was very much a man of the Victorian age. He shared his eras tendency to rank races and cultures along an evolutionary scale, sometimes asserting the inferiority of the islands indigenous tribal peoples to the dominant Chinese populace. His journals occasionally engaged in the sort of Orientalist representations of Asian civilizations that modern students of culture seek to avoid. He was no champion of interreligious goodwill, confidently predicting the future annihilation of Buddhism, Taoism, and other forms of heathenism with triumphalistic certainty. His acerbic attacks
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Second Furlough and Death

In 1893 Mackay and Chhang-a returned to Canada on a second furlough, this time bringing with them their three children and a young student named Koa Kau, a future son-in-law whom Mackay wanted to introduce to the Canadian church. He left behind the Gaulds, only recently arrived in Taiwan, who were still unable to speak the language. The furlough, he informed the mission board in Toronto, would prove that the native preachers were fully able to sustain their church alone if all foreigners were
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upon Roman Catholic papistry were only slightly less virulent. Despite his flaws, to a degree that has been rare in any period of history, George Leslie Mackay allowed himself to truly encounter and to be transformed by the people he sought to serve. During his first weeks in Taiwan, as he drove himself relentlessly to learn the language, he recorded in his journal that he wanted no barriers between himself and the people. This desire to become one with the people, to identify with them as wholly as he possibly could, deeply touched many of those whom he encountered. Thousands responded by accepting his Lord as their own and

reorienting their lives around the new community that he had called into existence. Possessing an authoritarian temperament, as his critics correctly charged, he exercised his power to carve out for the native Christians a degree of autonomy and freedom perhaps unparalleled among China missions of his day. That he is still lionized in Taiwan by Christians and non-Christians alike, long after most other Victorian missionaries have been forgotten or deconstructed, testifies to the enduring bonds that mutual affection and respect can forge between people of sharply different cultures.

Selected Bibliography
Mackays mission correspondence is located in the United Church of Canada Archives in Toronto, along with valuable correspondence of his Canadian assistants. The Jennie Fraser Papers are especially helpful. His personal journals are preserved at Aletheia University in Tamsui, Taiwan. Copies are also held at the Taiwan Theological Seminary Archives in Taipei. McDonald, Graeme. George Leslie Mackay: Missionary Success in Nineteenth-Century Taiwan. In Papers on China, vol. 21. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ., East Asian Research Center, 1968. Rohrer, James. Charisma in a Mission Context: The Case of George Leslie Mackay in Taiwan, 18711901. Missiology: An International Review 36 (2008): 22736. . George Leslie Mackay in Formosa, 18711901: An Interpretation of His Career. Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 47 (2005): 358. . Mackay and the Aboriginals: Reflections upon the Ambiguities of Taiwanese Aboriginal Christian History. In Christianity and Native Cultures: Perspectives from Different Regions of the World, ed. Cyriac K. Pullapilly, pp. 26375. Notre Dame, Ind.: Cross-Cultural Publications, 2004.

Works by George Leslie Mackay

1895

From Far Formosa: The Island, Its People and Missions. New York: Fleming H. Revell.

Ion, A. Hamish. The Cross and the Rising Sun: The Canadian Protestant Missionary Movement in the Japanese Empire, 18721931. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier Univ. Press, 1990. Keith, Marian. The Black Bearded Barbarian: The Life of George Leslie Mackay of Formosa. Toronto: Board of Foreign Missions, 1912. Mackay, R. P. Life of George Leslie Mackay, D.D., 18441901. Toronto: Board of Foreign Missions, 1913.

Works About George Leslie Mackay

Notes

1. Much of this article is based upon the authors examination of Mackays journal, held at Aletheia University in Tamsui, Taiwan, and the Correspondence Relating to the Formosa Mission in the Presbyterian Church of Canada Board of Foreign Mission Papers, held at the United Church of Canada Archives in Toronto, Canada (hereafter UCC Archives). The photograph of the Mackay family on p. 223 of this article is from R. P. Mackay, Life of George Leslie Mackay, D.D., 18441901 (Toronto: Board of Foreign Missions, 1913), p. 35. The picture of Oxford College on p. 225 is from George Leslie Mackay, From Far Formosa: The Island, Its People and Missions (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1895), facing p. 291. 2. Agnes M. Machar, An Apostolic Missionary in China, Catholic Presbyterian 29 (May 1881): 33241. 3. When the directorate general of posts of the Republic of China issued a Mackay commemorative stamp in 2001, the cachet cited his unselfish devotion to Taiwan and the directorates desire to strengthen the bonds of friendship between Taiwan and Canada. 4. On MacDonald, see John Kennedy, The Apostle of the North: The Life and Labours of the Rev. John Macdonald, D.D. (Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1978). The Sutherland clearances are well described in John Prebble, The Highland Clearances (London: Secker & Warburg, 1963), pp. 57124. On the evangelical movement in the Highlands, see Allan I. MacInnes, Evangelical Religion in the NineteenthCentury Highlands, in Sermons and Battle Hymns: Protestant Popular Culture in Modern Scotland, ed. Graham Walker and Tom Gallagher (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 4368; Terence P. McCaughey, Protestantism and Scottish Highland Culture, in An Introduction to Celtic Christianity, ed. James P. Mackey (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989), pp. 175205; and several essays by Donald E. Meek: Evangelical Missionaries in the Early Nineteenth-Century Highlands, Scottish Studies 28 (1987): 134; Evangelicalism and Emigration: Aspects of the Role of Dissenting Evangelicalism in Highland Emigration to Canada, in Proceedings of the First North American Congress on Celtic Studies, ed. G. MacLennann (Ottawa: Univ. of Ottawa Press, 1988), pp. 1536; and Protestant Missions
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and the Evangelization of the Scottish Highlands, 17001850, International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21 (April 1997): 6772. On the Na Daoine, see especially George Robb, Popular Religion and the Christianization of the Scottish Highlands in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Journal of Religious History 16 (June 1990): 1834. 5. Obituary of George Mackay, dated March 21, 1884, preserved in George Leslie Mackays scrapbook. I wish to thank Mackays granddaughters, Anna, Isabel, and Margaret Mackay, of Toronto, for graciously sharing this with me. On McKenzie, see the material in the Donald McKenzie vertical file at the UCC Archives. On the Scottish community of Zorra, see Graham Leslie Brown, The Scottish Settlement in West Zorra Township, Oxford County (M.A. thesis, Univ. of Western Ontario, 1970); William M. Campbell, Zorra (Boston: Sherman, French, 1915); Marjory Harper, Emigration from North-East Scotland, vol. 1, Willing Exiles (Aberdeen: Aberdeen Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 191239; W. A. Mackay, Pioneer Life in Zorra (Toronto: Briggs, 1899), and, by the same author, Zorra Boys at Home and Abroad (Toronto: Briggs, 1900); W. D. McIntosh, One Hundred Years in the Zorra Church (Knox United, Embro) (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1930); and W. A. Ross, History of Zorra and Embro: Pioneer Sketches of Sixty Years Ago (Embro, Ont.: Embro Courier Office, 1909). The Woodstock Public Library, Woodstock, Ontario, also has a very useful local history file. 6. On Burns, see Islay Burns, Memoir of Rev. Wm. C. Burns, D.D. (New York: Robert Carter, 1870), and Edward Band, Working His Purpose Out: The History of the English Presbyterian Mission, 18471947 (London: Presbyterian Church of England, 1948), pp. 472. On the Free Church in Canada, see Barbara C. Murison, The Disruption and the Colonies of Scottish Settlement, in Scotland in the Age of the Disruption, ed. Stewart J. Brown and Michael Fry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 13550, and Richard W. Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, 18441861 (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1989). 7. Knox College Literary Society Records, Archives of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Toronto. In addition to Vaudry, on Knox College,
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

Q.

Who has been winning souls and planting churches in Russia and the former USSR since Communism collapsed?

A.

Native missionary evangelists like Slavik Radchuk have won millions to Christ and planted thousands of new churches in Ukraine, Russia and other former Soviet states.

Q.

Who provides financial support for native missionary evangelists in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet empire?

A.

Since 1991 Christian Aid has expended millions of dollars to support Slavik Radchuk and other native missionaries who conduct huge evangelistic campaigns and reach millions through radio and TV broadcasts in the Russian language which is understood in 15 countries of the former USSR.
For more than 50 years Christian Aid Mission has been sending financial help to indigenous evangelistic ministries based in unevangelized countries. Currently more than 700 such ministries are being assisted in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. They deploy more than 75,000 native missionaries who are spreading the gospel of Christ among unreached people within more than 3000 different tribes and nations.

Q. How is Christian Aid financed? A. Christian Aid is supported entirely by freewill gifts and offerings from Biblebelieving, missionary-minded Christians, churches and organizations. Q. Are other indigenous missions in need of financial help for their missionaries? A. Christian Aid is in communication with more than 4000 indigenous missions, some based in almost every unevangelized country on earth. They have over 200,000 missionaries in need of support. All Christians who believe in Christs Great Commission are invited to join hands with Christian Aid in finding help for thousands of native missionaries who are now out on the fields of the world with no promise of regular financial support.

Christian Aid
. . . because we love the brethren.

Christian Aid Mission P. O. Box 9037 Charlottesville, VA 22906 434-977-5650 www.christianaid.org

When you contact Christian Aid, ask for a free copy of Dr. Bob Finleys book, THE FUTURE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.

see Brian J. Fraser, Church, College, and Clergy: A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 18441994 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 1995); Michael Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century: College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 1991); and D. C. Masters, The Scottish Tradition in Higher Education, in The Scottish Tradition in Canada, ed. W. Stanford Reid (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976), pp. 24867. 8. Mackay to Thomas Wardrope, April 23, 1891, Foreign Mission Correspondence, UCC Archives (hereafter FMC). On Princeton and missions, see Daniel B. Calhoun, The Last Command: Princeton Theological Seminary and Missions (18121862) (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1983), esp. pp. 183234. 9. Mackay, From Far Formosa, pp. 2021. On Duff, see Michael A. Laird, Alexander Duff, 18061878: Western Education as Preparation for the Gospel, in Mission Legacies: Biographical Studies of Leaders of the Modern Missionary Movement, ed. Gerald H. Anderson et al. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), pp. 27176; William Paton, Alexander Duff (London: George H. Doran, 1923); and George Smith, The Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D. (New York: American Tract Society, 1878). 10. On the impact of Baconianism on evangelical religion in the early nineteenth century, see Theodore Dwight Bozeman, Protestants in an Age of Science: The Baconian Ideal and Antebellum American Religious Thought (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1977). 11. Mackays scrapbook. 12. On this theme, see Jonathan J. Bonk, The Theory and Practice of Missionary Identification, 18601920 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989). 13. I develop this point more fully in George Leslie Mackay in Formosa, 18711901: An Interpretation of His Career, Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 47 (2005): 358. 14. The crucial role played by Giam Chheng Hoa is clearly described in Mackays manuscript diaries, which bring the organizational dynamics of the movement into sharp focus. 15. Henry Noel Shore, a British naval officer who had observed many China missions, spent a month traveling with Mackay in 1880. Shore was astonished by the adoration Mackays converts showed

him. He had never before witnessed such intimacy and devotion between a missionary and native Christians. See Shore, The Flight of the Lapwing: A Naval Officers Jottings in China, Formosa, and Japan (London: Longmans, Green, 1881), pp. 2045. See Rohrer, George Leslie Mackay, for additional contemporary testimonials of this nature. 16. Jennie Fraser deeply resented Mackays attitude, thinking him unkind . . . to leave us in a strange land as he does. He wont do a thing but train the helpers. Jennie Fraser to Maggie Wells, July 8, 1875, Jennie Fraser Papers, UCC Archives. 17. George L. Mackay to William McLaren, undated 1875, FMC. 18. In addition to Mackays journals and scrapbook, this paragraph draws upon a Mothers Day Radio Talk, dated ca. 1932, written about Tiu Chhang Mia by her daughter-in-law Jean Ross Mackay. A copy of this document was graciously given to the author by Mackays granddaughters. 19. Mackay to William McLaren, August 4, 1883, FMC. 20. In a characteristic letter to William McLaren, chairman of the mission committee, Mackay rejected instructions that he assign James Fraser a larger role in training native students: I intend to have . . . young men traveling as usual with me over whom the other brethren in the field will have no control. You know men dont think alike, and as I have such clear evidence of Gods blessing attending my mode of procedure, I will yield to no man (emphasis Mackays). Mackay to McLaren, June 10, 1876, FMC. 21. Mackay to Foreign Mission Committee, December 10, 1888, FMC. 22. Annie Straith Jamieson, Some Things That Should Be Known to the Ladies of the Womens Foreign Missionary Society in Canada (Hong Kong, 1888), p. 9. 23. Michael Stainton, Mackay and the Poll Tax (paper presented at the Canadian Asian Studies East Asian Conference, LaMalbaie, Quebec, November 2007). 24. The diary is quoted by Bella Mackay in a letter to My dear Uncle, Aunt, Cousins, July 12, 1901, in the possession of Mackays granddaughters. A slightly different version of Bellas letter was published in the Presbyterian Record and is preserved in the Mackay vertical file, UCC Archives. 25. Ibid.

Announcing: Searchable Index to the IBMR Now Online

To find any article or book review published in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, from 1977 to the present, go the IBMRs newly released online index. The index has been developed to meet the research needs of mission scholars, students, and readers, and is located at www .internationalbulletin.org/search. The online database includes over 3,450 entriesmore than 1,250 feature articles and nearly 2,200 book reviews. Once you have found the article you want, log in to read it online. All articles and reviews are available in PDF format. Recent articles and reviews are available in HTML as well. If you are not yet a subscriber, register for a free subscription at www .internationalbulletin.org/register. Registration (and logging in) gives access to all IBMR articles and reviews. It is not necessary to be logged in to use the online index. To read and print, for example, The Legacy of R. Pierce Beaver, former editor of this journal, enter Beaver and Legacy into the Title search box and select All Words at the right. You will be directed to the January 1990 feature article. Searching may be refined by year or range of years, by title, by document type, or by author. Search results may be printed for future reference. The IBMRs online index is still being enhanced. Send e-mail comments for improvements to ibmr@omsc.org.

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International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

The Legacy of Carl Thurman Smith

Wong Man Kong
arl Thurman Smith was a pastor, missionary educator, and historian.1 He was born and educated in the United States, where he served as a pastor until he reached age forty. He originally had no idea that he would spend the second half of his life on the other side of the globein Hong Kong, where he at first taught theology in a seminary. While teaching theology, he developed a keen interest in the history of Hong Kong, which he found included many fascinating stories about Chinese Christians. After he ended his connection with his missionary agency, he stayed in Hong Kong, where he lived a simple life as an independent scholar while pursuing his historical projects, which proved to be of lasting value. He published one solid, well-researched article after another on South China, Hong Kong, and Macau. On April 7, 2008, he passed away in Macau at the age of ninety. Three lengthy obituaries, in Chinese and English, appeared in Hong Kong newspapers,2 which was a most unusual tribute for the passing of a scholar in Hong Kong. It suggests that Carl T. Smith was dearly missed and that his legacy is significant in the history of Hong Kong.

Family Background and Education

Carl Thurman Smith was born on March 10, 1918, in Dayton, Ohio. He was brought up in a middle-class family; his father was a purchasing agent, and his mother was a teacher. His parents were pious, and they raised their children according to Christian belief, with the family joining the Hale Evangelical and Reformed Church in Dayton. Carl was confirmed at the age of fourteen and became a member of the church. He taught Sunday school and conducted junior church. He wrote, During my early adolescent years, I independently arrived at a decision to enter some form of Christian service. My home background was religious but no external pressure was placed upon me in making this choice. The natural development of my interests led me to this choice.3 Carl performed well in high school and university. He attended Steele High School in Dayton, graduating in 1936. Those writing commendations for him mentioned that he was remarkably level-headed and had interest in genealogical studies. He majored in philosophy and minored in Greek at DePauw University, in Greencastle, Indiana, from which he earned a B.A. in 1940. According to his Greek professor, Rufus T. Stephenson, Smith was a likeable young man of the more conservative type, of splendid Christian character and an excellent student who enjoys going to the bottom of things. He is an easy and forceful speaker and a leader among young men here. He has excellent health, is a finely balanced personality, and gives unusual promise of usefulness.4 As he had decided to enter church ministry, he joined and was elected president of the Oxford Fellowship, a group for preministerial students.
Timothy Man-kong Wong is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Associate Director of the Modern History Research Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China. mkwong@hkbu.edu.hk

Following graduation Smith pursued the bachelor of divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary, in New York City, graduating in May 1943. He considered himself a rational religious thinker as he had begun questioning the soundness and validity of some biblical accounts at the age of twelve. Such intellectual concerns did not lead him out of the church; rather, he committed his life to pastoral work when he was in university. His questions remained unresolved until he took a course taught by Paul Tillich (18861965), then on the Union faculty. Smith acknowledged the power of Tillichs inspiration but did not become a disciple of Tillich. He said, Tillichs philosophy is too metaphysical. So, I rather chose Karl Barth (18861968), from whom I can have a biblical base. Perhaps he would have become a theologian had he not met Reinhold Niebuhr (18921971), who emphasized combining religious commitment with devotion to social and political affairs. These contributed to the making, for Smith, of a keen social consciousness that became the basis for transforming his passion for theological knowledge into his quest of history.5 His thesis at Union combined history and theology as he studied the life and thought of John Casper Stoever (170779), a prominent Lutheran pastor.6

Pastorate in the United States

After graduation, Smith served as a pastor for seventeen years. He joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which ordained him in June 1943. He was dispatched to take charge of the ministry at the Dewey Avenue Reformed Church in Rochester, New York. In 1945 the Evangelical and Reformed Church planned to start a new church in northeast Philadelphia, and in 1947 Smith was appointed to start up the congregation from scratch without the nucleus of even a few members to act as a foundation for the new venture in faith.7 He canvassed the neighborhood, seeking those interested in the church. After a year, in April 1948, the congregation had grown from zero to forty, large enough to be officially chartered; it was then known as the St. Stephens Evangelical and Reformed Church in Philadelphia (now St. Stephens United Church of Christ). By the time Smith decided to leave, the membership had grown to 202. Such growth suggests that Smith was a committed pastor who took good care of the congregation. Even after he left for Hong Kong as a missionary educator, he kept his ties with the congregation through correspondence and other contacts. In 1998, at the advanced age of eighty, he flew all the way from Hong Kong to Philadelphia to take part in the celebration of the golden anniversary of St. Stephens.8 While building the church, Smith paid attention to selfdevelopment. He enrolled in a number of courses at the Temple School of Theology,9 from which he earned twenty credit units. Of the courses that he took there, he particularly remarked on the inspiration he received from Lefferts Loetscher (190481), a wellknown scholar of church history, and Edwin Lewis (18811959), a theologian who had gone through a drastic shift of position from liberal to neoorthodox.10 Not surprisingly, Smith found Lewis particularly thought-provoking. While serving as a pastor, Smith responded to the missionary call from his church and offered himself for overseas mission. He became a missionary under the auspices of the United Board
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for World Ministries, a missionary agency of his church, which, after merger, had become the United Church of Christ (UCC). The board assigned him to affiliate with the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China, which was looking for a missionary educator to teach theology at its seminary, the Hong Kong Theological Institute. In order to prepare for his future work in Hong Kong, Smith took courses in Cantonese at the Yale Institute of Far Eastern Languages in New Haven, Connecticut.

the seminary underwent great changes, including merger with Tsung Tsin Lok Yuk Seminary and its eventual incorporation with Chung Chi College, in which it became the Theology Division and was housed in the colleges Theology Building. These changes altered the ways that the seminary operated and posed a threat to Smiths position in the college as a missionary educator.

A Simple Life in Hong Kong from the 1970s

After another five years of service in Hong Kong (196670), Smith took a furlough in California. In late 1970, when he had nearly In January 1961 Smith arrived in Hong Kong and immediately finished his furlough, the United Board of World Ministries joined the Hong Kong Theological Institute, where he taught suddenly informed him that the Theology Division of Chung systematic theology, Old Testament, and church history. The Chi College had raised enough money to support itself and to institute needed scholars to provide leadership in adapting to hire an Asian theologian to replace him and teach his subjects. all necessary changes, as it had already been As a missionary-sending agency, the United resolved that it was going to be a part of the Board of World Ministries was pleased to see Chung Chi Theological Seminary, which was that an indigenous church or institution in a to be opened in 1963. Smith performed well in mission field had come of age and could now his teaching and was a key contributor to the support itself. The board decided that Smith seminary. At one time he was its only full-time should be dispatched to another mission field faculty member.11 In particular, he made good where his services would be needed. Smith, efforts in offering new courses, such as the histhough, did not want to start a new career in tory of Christianity and church in Hong Kong, in another mission field, because it would mean which he paid special attention to the overlooked cutting himself off from more than a decade of stories of Chinese Christians. Research literature hard work in research, scholarship, teaching, and books for the general public then available and ministry in Hong Kong. He decided to act provided views exclusively from the missionary against the instructions of the United Board of side. Smith determined that he would write the World Ministries, which then made it clear that history of Chinese Christians from their point his expenses in Hong Kong would no longer of view. be covered. The Theology Division, however, He was keenly aware of the scholarly needs welcomed him back to Hong Kong, although in the future development of the theology divihe might be assigned only part-time teaching. Carl Thurman Smith sion and engaged in studies accordingly. Between Smith was given the right to reside in staff quar1965 and 1966 he enrolled in the master of sacred theology program ters of Chung Chi College until his extended retirement age of at Union Theological Seminary, his alma mater. For his thesis he sixty-five in 1983. Therefore, from 1972 at age fifty-four until his proposed to research the development of Chinese congregations retirement, he served in various capacities as a part-time lecturer in Hong Kong from 1841 to 1870, which was intended to shed and honorary lecturer of the college. light on the impact of Christianity in nineteenth-century Hong In Hong Kong Smith was used to living a simple life. Now Kong.12 In 1966 Smith submitted a thesis entitled Schools and he had to live even more simply. But he had a strong will, as well Scholars: English Language Education in the China Mission in as great determination to keep up his research. Since the pension the First Half of the Nineteenth Century and Its Results, which he received from his church and the missionary agency did not was a very rich narrative grounded on substantial archival ma- cover his expenses in Hong Kong, he took some part-time jobs. terials and public records, reflecting his research in missionary For example, he worked at the Department of History, University archives in Switzerland, Germany, and England. His readers, of Hong Kong, where he helped establish the History Workshop however, did not find his thesis satisfactory and demanded revi- between 1975 and 1978. The workshop turned out to be a true sions, which were due April 1967. The existing file on Smith at blessing for many scholars in Hong Kong studies.14 He was also Union Theological Seminary does not contain reports by either grateful to many colleagues and friends who helped him in the the supervisors or the examiners. All we have is a reply from midst of financial difficulties. In particular, he was hired as a his supervisor that Smith did not submit the revised thesis. Ac- consultant for historical projects of the Hong Kong Anglican cording to Smith, he was asked to make some adjustment and Church (the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui).15 What Smith aprearrangement in both the main body and the appendixes of the preciated most was the spirit of care behind such appointments. Smith was a sedentary scholar who transformed long hours thesis. He was not convinced of the merit of such requests from of hard work in libraries and archives into journeys of adventure his supervisors and chose not to continue with his program.13 Despite this frustration at Union, Smith returned to Hong in uncharted lands of the past. He was also keenly aware of the Kong and remained active in teaching and research at the Chung need to take part in Hong Kong society. He was a member of the Chi Theological Seminary. His favorite course to teach was the Council of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, history of Christianity in Hong Kong. He kept doing research, which he served as vice-president for almost two decades bebegan to write up his findings, and had articles published in ginning in 1976. After his long years of service, he was elected academic journals and scholarly books. He gradually established honorary vice-president.16 Between 1977 and 1979 he wrote short himself as one of the leading scholars in local history, covering a essays on Hong Kong history for South China Morning Post in a wide range of topics such as education, social leaders, missionar- series called A Sense of History. On another frontier, from 1987 ies and Chinese Christians, and communities. From 1966 to 1969 to 1990 he served as a member of the Antiquities Advisory Board
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In Hong Kong and at Union During the 1960s

of the Antiquities and Monuments Office of the Hong Kong government. In 1996 Hong Kong Baptist University established the Archives on the History of Christianity in China, to which Smith donated his own precious collection of 300 church historyrelated rare documents in the next year.17 At the invitation in 1996 and 1997 of the head of the Chung Chi Theology Division of Chung Chi College, he offered courses on the history of Christianity in Hong Kong. His active involvement in numerous capacities indicated his dedication to promoting study of the history of Christianity in Hong Kong and the history of Hong Kong itself. When he was over the age of eighty, Smith was pleasantly surprised to have a number of academic recognitions bestowed upon him. The Cultural Affairs Bureau in Macau appointed him a full-time researcher and provided stipends that enabled him to stay in Macau and to continue his work in archives and libraries. In 2003 the Centre of Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong honored him as one of its distinguished fellows. On October 30, 2005, the Inter-University Institute of Macau awarded him the degree doctor of letters, honoris causa.18

Hong Kong Research and Writing

Smiths impressive results in scholarship demonstrated the wisdom of his decision to remain in Hong Kong. From the mid-1960s onward, he produced an impressive number of publications. Originally he had been more interested in theology, which had given him a framework for his biblical interpretation and had facilitated a sense of social consciousness. After a few years of teaching in Hong Kong, he was able to grasp certain features of Chinese culture, out of which came two theological essays in 1967. Yet, for most of his writings throughout his career in Hong Kong, Smith took a more historical approach. While teaching theology in Hong Kong, Smith began to reflect upon history from a left-wing, even a contrarian, viewpoint. His academic training and the inspiration from such leading scholars as Reinhold Niebuhr, Edwin Lewis, and J. C. Hoekendijk in particular enabled him to see things from a sensibly different perspective. In particular, he paid more attention to the marginal groups whose voices were suppressed and who thus became invisible in history.19 Early in his academic career in Hong Kong, Smith chose to pursue the history of Christian missions in China. At that time, it was customary to write from a strongly mission-centric perspective, giving primacy to missionary voices. This approach, however, was at odds with Smiths own academic views. So he embarked on a long journey of discovering the history of ordinary Chinese Christians. He wrote, I was immediately struck by the paucity of detailed information about the Chinese converts. From what social and economic group had they come? How did becoming a Christian affect their relationship with non-Chinese? Did they become less Chinese and more Westernized? Did their social and economic position change? To what extent were they alienated from their cultural tradition?20 These questions led him to examine missionary archives, public records, and other primary source materials, which resulted in some remarkable works that shed light on the inner thoughts and feelings of many individuals who were otherwise invisible in the prevailing historical depictions. As a sober researcher combing through newspapers, wills, land records, and many other sources, Smith uncovered much substantive information that enabled him to pursue his investigations. Instead of viewing things through the eyes of governors or major officials, he was able to write a history from below. He focused not on missionaries but on their Chinese students.
October 2010

He paid less attention to the socially and commercially powerful Europeans and more to the Chinese mistresses they kept. He explored the history, not of major Taipans (the leading European or American businessmen), but of the Jewish, Armenian, and Parsee merchants in Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau. He examined, not the affluent and powerful Chinese social leaders in Hong Kong, but groups of young maidservants that they kept, known as mui tsai (lit. little sister). As Smith was fascinated by the rapidly changing urban landscape, he studied not the central business district, where money and power interacted subtly, but peripheral localities, which revealed a truer taste of what Hong Kong was like. Some of his articles are collected in A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (1995). Finally, Smiths writings reveal his style, his methods, and the fruitfulness of his research. In a new introduction for a reprint edition of Chinese Christians (2005), Christopher Munn highlighted the salient features of Smiths scholarship: The richness of detail and anecdotes that make the book a pleasure to read often lead us away from the main point of each chapter: sometimes, indeed, the point is in the detailin conveying an impression of complexity and the muddle of so much of Hong Kongs history. This is not a fault but a product of Smiths unusual methodology and of his reluctance to generalize.21 Smiths legacy is not merely at the level of scholarship presented in research literature but at the operational level, which has greatly facilitated research into Hong Kong and Macau history. He developed a unique file-index system to handle his research materials. The size of his system is enormous, comprising 140,000 note cards that contain all the precious information

Smiths impressive results in scholarship demonstrated the wisdom of his decision to remain in Hong Kong and deeply affected his legacy.
that he extracted from the various sources that he consulted. A considerable number of scholars have made use of his cards. These cards were microfilmed in the early 1990s by the University of Tokyo, and later by the Genealogical Society of Utah. In 1997 Smith permitted the Public Records Office, Hong Kong, to digitize all his cards. And in 2006 Smith donated the cards to the library of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The cards are now housed at the Hong Kong Central Library.

Conclusion
Smiths critical decision in 1972 to return to Hong Kong deeply affected the legacy for which he is now remembered and cherished. His extensive writings and thorough use of many different sources earned him lasting respect from scholars in the field of Hong Kong and Macau history. And his generous sharing of his file-index system has become an extended blessing to those interested in a wide range of topics covering the history of Christianity in modern China and many interesting individuals in Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau. No two Anglo-American missionaries in Hong Kong were completely alike, although they may have come from similar backgrounds in following the same religious call. Neither were
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their stories identical. Smith once commented on the contributions of missionaries in Hong Kong, The missionary story in Hong Kong has not been without its moments of failure, lack of vision, pettiness and rivalry, pretensions and pride, but it has also had its better moments which have left their imprint on Hong Kong.22 Smith himself struggled with moments of hard-

ship in the midst of financial difficulties, cherished moments of satisfaction in discovery and in the contribution he made in scholarship, and treasured moments of pleasure in meeting and making friends who shared the same passion for history. Smiths books and articles will continue to inspire those who seek to grasp the rich history of Hong Kong.

Selected Bibliography

For a bibliography listing Smiths sixty book chapters and articles published in academic journals, see http://cscadocs.blogspot .com/2008/04/carl-t-smith-bibliography.html.

1980 1983 1985 1995

Works by Carl Thurman Smith

1956 1974

(comp., with Hannah Benner Roach) Reference Guides for Course in Genealogical Methods. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. A Brief History of the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macao. In The Diocese of Hong Kong and Macao, 18491974, pp. 310. Hong Kong: Diocesan Office.

(with H. G. Hollman) Hong Kong Going and Gone. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The Body of Christ in Kowloon Tong. Hong Kong: Christ Church Jubilee Committee. Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press. 2nd ed. by Hong Kong Univ. Press, 2005. A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing. Chinese edition by Hong Kong Educational Publishing, 1999.

1. I am grateful to a number of scholars who assisted me in preparing this article. They are Lee Ka-kui (chief editor, Hong Kong Educational Publishing Company), Ying Fuk Tsang (associate professor of Chung Chi Divinity School), Leah Rousmaniere (associate director of development for stewardship, Union Theological Seminary), William Stone (pastor, St. Stephens United Church of Christ), and Irene Wong (archivist at the University Library of Hong Kong Baptist University). This article is a substantially revised version of an earlier article that I coauthored with Lee Ka-kui, The Reverend Carl T. Smith: A Missionary-Turned-Historian, Modern Chinese History Society of Hong Kong Bulletin 6 (July 1993): 9197. 2. Ko Tim Keung A Serious Historian Does Not Earn the Reputation That He Deserves (in Chinese), Hong Kong Economic Journal, April 12, 2008; Historian Focused on Lives of Ordinary Chinese, South China Morning Post, April 13, 2008; and Lee Pui Tak, Carl T. Smith Remembered: A Hong Kong Historian of Quiet Competence (in Chinese), Ming Pao, April 17, 2008. The last piece was reprinted along with Smiths bibliography in the Journal of the History of Christianity in Modern China 8 (2008/2009): 6570. 3. Carl T. Smith student file synopsis, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, 2008. 4. Ibid. 5. Interview with Carl T. Smith, by Wong Man Kong and Lee Ka-kui, March 21, 1992. 6. The History of German Lutheranism in Pennsylvania Before Muhlenberg, with Special Emphasis on John Casper Stoever, Junior (B.D. thesis, Union Theological Seminary, 1943). 7. William Stone, pastor of St. Stephens United Church of Christ, e-mail to author, October 1, 2008. 8. Stone, letter to author, September 30, 2008. 9. In 1960 the school became Conwell School of Theology, chartered separately but still on the campus of Temple University until 1969, when it combined with Gordon Divinity School, now GordonConwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass. 10. During the 1950s Lefferts Loetscher focused on the Presbyterian tradition, and he published, among others, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869 (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1954). In the 1920s Edwin Lewis was an advocate of liberal theology, but he later shifted to neo-orthodoxy. His book A Manual of Christian Beliefs (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1927) expresses his earlier position, while The Faith We Declare (Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1939) arises from his new position.

Notes

11. Chan Wai Keung, The Forty Years of the Theology Division of Chung Chi College (in Chinese), in Forty Years of Theology Education in Chung Chi College, 19632003, ed. Joseph Tai-wai (Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, Chung Chi College, Theology Division, 2003), p. 52. 12. Carl T. Smith student file synopsis. 13. Ying Fuk Tsang, In Memory of Carl T. Smith (19182008), Newsletter of the Divinity School of Chung Chi College, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, May 16, 2008, p. 3. 14. In 2009 the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong decided to close the history workshop. The research materials have been relocated to various libraries. 15. Smith wrote quite extensively about the history of the Hong Kong Anglican Church. Deborah Ann Brown helped organize and type his manuscript into eighteen files. She also quoted it extensively in her book; see The History of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong, in Turmoil in Hong Kong on the Eve of Communist Rule: The Fate of the Territory and Its Anglican Church (San Francisco: Mellen Research Univ. Press, 1993), pp. 59110. 16. Smith played an active role in making possible the success of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. In December 2005 it organized a special event at the Hong Kong City Hall, Carl T. Smith: A Celebration of His Works on Hong Kong and Macau, paying tribute to his contributions both to the organization and to scholarship. See Newsletter of the Hong Kong Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, January 2006, p. 4. 17. Newsletter of Hong Kong Baptist University, February 24, 1997, p. 1. 18. Newsletter of Macau Inter-University Institute 1, no. 2 (November 2005): 1. 19. May Holdsworth, Foreign Devils: Expatriates in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), p. 148. 20. Carl Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985), p. xiii. 21. Christopher Munn, Introduction to the Paperback Edition, in Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong, by Carl Smith, 2nd ed. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 2005), p. xi. 22. Carl Smith, The Contribution of Missionaries to the Development of Hong Kong, in A Sense of History: Studies in the Social and Urban History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Educational Publishing, 1995), p. 304.

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Book Reviews
Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity.
By Miriam Adeney. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009. Pp. 294. Paperback $18.

Global Awakening: How Twentieth-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution.

By Mark Shaw. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Pp. 221. Paperback $20. Like two waves merging from different angles to crest together, these two publications break upon the scene of current studies in global Christianity and contribute significantly to its rising tide. For over thirty years now, scholars have pointed out the recent, seismic shift in the center of Christianity from Europe and North America to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Yet as Miriam Adeney and Mark Shaw attest, we still grapple to understand and respond appropriately to this revolutionary change in our religious scene. Thus Adeney is compelled to narrate the untold story of global Christianity (p. 11), and Shaw to question its causes and implications. Adeney introduces her book as a continuation of Hebrews 11, that great list of people down the ages who lived and died by faith (p. 8). Drawing upon personal encounters and published accounts, she employs her notable gift of storytelling to narrate the ordinary but extraordinary lives of Christians around the world. Far from abstract, academic discourse, her work creatively weaves together real-life experiences with reflections on the major missiological issues they illustrate: for example, suffering and martyrdom, Internet use in evangelism and discipleship, interfaith relations, and environmental stewardship. Overall, she affirms that God is doing something new in our time. . . . This book is not primarily about us [Christians in the West] or what we should do. It is a humble celebration of the kingdom that glows [sic] from generation to generation and will never be destroyed (p. 40)a kingdom without borders. Shaw notes the remarkable resurgence of Christianity worldwide, contrary to widespread twentieth-century assumptions that secularization would supersede religion, especially Christianity. While acknowledging multiple factors contributing to the rise of twentieth-century Christianity, Shaw proposes another major driving force not yet adequately recognized: namely, revivals. He analyzes the nature and dynamics of revivals through a series of case studies spanning the globe, from the Korean revival of 1907, to subsequent revivals in West and East Africa, India, America, Brazil, and China. The main thesis of his compelling argument is that global revivals are charismatic people movements that seek to change their world by translating Christian faith and transferring power (p. 198). Penetratingly, he demonstrates the interplay of spiritual, cultural, historical, global, and group dynamics through which these revivals have propelled the growth, vitality, and diversity of global Christianity today. While Shaw offers more in-depth historical, theological, sociological, and missiological analysis, Adeney offers a more artistic montage of Gods kingdom in our midst today. Together, these complementary texts exemplify, methodologically, the complex, interdisciplinary nature of studies in world Christianity. Significantly, both Adeney and Shaw clearly account for the rise in global Christianity primarily in terms of grassroots, indigenous movements worldwideas opposed to those who persist in interpreting it as right-wing American imperialism or oneway globalization from the West to the rest. Certainly both books are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand and participate in Gods kingdom in the world today. Diane Stinton
Diane Stinton is Associate Professor of Theology in the World Christianity program at Africa International University (AIU)/Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST), Nairobi, Kenya. She has written Jesus of Africa: Voices of Contemporary African Christology (Orbis, 2004) and edited African Theology on the Way: Current Conversations (SPCK, 2010).

Mission After Christendom: Emergent Themes in Contemporary Mission.

Edited by Ogbu U. Kalu, Peter Vethanayagamony, and Edmund Kee-Fook Chia. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. Pp. xxv, 177. Paperback $24.95. In this multiauthored and multiedited collection of essays, missiologists from across the globe reflect on pressing issues in contemporary Christian mission. These essays, written by authors from various Christian traditions (including
October 2010

Lutheran, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and Anabaptist), were all originally presented at events organized by the Chicago Center for Global Ministries. They celebrate the centenary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, as well as

anticipate topics explored at the 2010 Edinburgh conference. The essays investigate an impressive range of issues, including globalization, the relationship between mission and migration, race, gender, ecology, dialogue, and short-term missions. As usual in a collection of essays by several authors, some contributions are stronger and more engaging than others. Some of the essays seem to do little more than summarize material already available elsewhere. Others offer fresh perspectives on perennial and emerging concerns. All the essays recognize and celebrate
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the changing direction and dynamics of global missionno longer from the West to the rest but from everywhere to everywhere. Participants at Edinburgh 2010 were drawn from the world church in a way that was inconceivable in 1910. Several essays reflect helpfully on the implications of this multidirectional expression of mission, with its very different power dynamics and ways of operating. The first essay in the collection, From Edinburgh to Edinburgh, by Stephen Bevans (the 2008 Scherer Lecture),

provides a succinct summary of the key missiological changes in the past century in relation to its context, content, means, and attitude. Stuart Murray Williams
Stuart Murray Williams works under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network as a trainer and consultant, with particular interest in urban mission, church planting, and emerging forms of church. He is the founder of Urban Expression, a pioneering urban church planting agency with teams in several cities in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic.

By Michael F. Steltenkamp. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2009. Pp. xxi, 270. $24.95. Nicholas Black Elk makes a significant contribution to the broadly cast genre of Black Elk studies. Through the use of published and unpublished material, as well as drawing on his childrens personal experience of Black Elk and his context, author Michael Steltenkamp, professor of religious studies at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, West Virginia, attempts to redress a gap in the existing literature. In doing so he provides an interpretive biography that opens a new window on Black Elk as a historical figure. Beyond the reach of antecedent biographies, which have focused largely on the protagonists earlier life and documented disaffections, this work portrays Black Elk as a complex figure. Steltenkamp argues for an interpretation of Black Elk as a religious leader who, in the end, lived an integrated spirituality woven from his traditional Lakota heritage as it encountered Christian faith and practice through the broad span of the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. To construct this analysis, the author relies rather heavily on Black Elks daughter, Lucy, as a companion witness to the story he is attempting to tell. Setting the trajectory of Black Elks becoming against the marker of his progeny is not necessarily an inappropriate hermeneutical tactic. It allows the character to live for the reader in a way that biographies written with less direct access to Black Elks story cannot do. The author is to be commended for the broad reach of his story and his willingness to engage the complex conversation that unfolds between traditional spirituality and Christian theology. Wendy L. Fletcher
Wendy Fletcher is Principal and Dean, and Professor of the History of Christianity, at Vancouver School of Theology, Vancouver, British Columbia. She works extensively in the area of cross-cultural research and education.

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Alaskan Missionary Spirituality.

Edited by Michael J. Oleska. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2010. Pp. 406. Paperback $24. Alaskan Missionary Spirituality is a collection of primary-source material on an epoch of Christian mission rarely dealt with by historians: the Russian Orthodox mission to Alaska during the

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International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The organization, translation, and introductory notes by editor Michael Oleska allow this material to be read like one continuous story, a story of courageous and highly effective evangelization of the native Alaskan population. The editors introduction provides necessary background, highlights the accomplishments of individual missionaries, and guides the reader into the collection by describing several significant characteristics of this movement. The organized effort began with a group of missionaries from the Valaam Monastery in Finland. Right from the time of their arrival in the fall of 1794, these monks were determined to establish an American Church, respecting and employing the languages and artistic culture of Alaska within the community of Orthodox churches (p. 7). As was the case in Siberia, the Alaskan culture was dominated by shamanism. Interestingly, these Russian missionaries preached the Gospel without directly attacking the traditional shamanistic world view of the natives (p. 13). In fact, they sought to present Christianity as the fulfillment of what the Alaskans already knew (p. 13). The result was tremendous success, with thousands being baptized and gathered into churches that employed their own art and music to contextualize the eternal message of Christ. Unfortunately, the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 led to a widespread attempt to assimilate the population by imposing English and enrolling children (sometimes removed from their homes by force) in boarding schools, thus destroying much of the native culture and social fabric. Such insensitivity notwithstanding, this valuable book recounts and documents what must be one of the most effective missionary efforts in the history of the church. Edward Rommen
Edward Rommen served as a missionary in Europe. He is a priest in the Orthodox Church in America and an adjunct professor at Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina.

and Islam, not only using the sacred texts of the two faiths, but also describing the economic, social, and political milieus that his theology seeks to address. Indeed, in keeping with the authors belief that any theology needs be constructed with reference to its larger setting, this work is much more wide-ranging than a onedimensional discussion of some interesting points of contact between the two religions. Johnston, though, allows that between the two there are important differences that cannot be glossed over, and that such

differences will affect the manner in which theological dialogue can take place. Johnstons background is transcultural, rooted not only in the American context but also in those of Europe and West Asia, which affords him a unique vantage point from which he sees an urgency for Christians and Muslims to cooperate in programs of social justice: little short of our temporal salvation is at stake. He does not shy away from showing how intractable problems such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The American Society of Missiology Series

Miracles, Missions, & American Pentecostalism
GARY B. McGEE

Historical scholarship at its best....will serve profitably in undergraduate courses in religion, in seminary courses in church history and missions, and in doctoral courses in historiography and historical method.
Grant Wacker, Duke University Divinity School
978-1-57075-854-6 paper $30.00

The Gospel Among the Nations

A Documentary History of Inculturation
ROBERT A. HUNT

An invaluable collection of primary and secondary documents. . . . An extremely useful resource for anyone attempting to engage in mission authentically and contextually. Dr. Catherine Rae Ross
International Association for Mission Studies 978-1-57075-874-4 paper $35.00

The Gospel Among Religions

Christian Ministry, Theology, and Spirituality in a Multicultural World
DAVID R. BROCKMAN and RUBEN L.F. HABITO, Editors

Explores writings from the New Testament through today to show how Christians historically relate to and engage religious Others in a constructive way when carrying out the tasks of mission and ministry.
Coming in October 2010 978-1-57075-899-7 paper $34.00

Faith Meets Faith Series

A Christian View of Islam
Essays on Dialogue by Thomas F. Michel, S.J.
IRFAN A. OMAR, Editor Foreword by JOHN L. ESPOSITO

Earth, Empire, and Sacred Text: Muslims and Christians as Trustees of Creation.
By David L. Johnston. London: Equinox, 2010. Pp. xiii, 632. 65 / $95. David Johnston, visiting scholar in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, casts a common theology of humanity and creation for Christianity
October 2010

This book sheds positive light on the demanding path of mutual understanding and in-depth dialogue.
Tariq Ramadan, Oxford University
978-1-57075-860-7 paper $34.00
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235

can benefit from such cooperation and dialogue. Similarly, he unflinchingly addresses larger difficulties of ecojustice and planetary sustainability. Johnston helpfully shares with the reader how he, as a committed Christian, can read the Quran in a manner that does justice to the Quran as a text while not imposing on it Protestant thought patterns. Over the centuries, Protestants have stumbled by reading Christian inferences in the text that may not be there, or missing points of contact between the two religions because of dissimilarities in language. Johnstons facility with Arabic and his familiarity with the tradition of

quranic commentary serve him well in this undertaking. An evangelical Congregationalist, Johnston quotes from beyond the usual cast of characters that one might expect for example, the controversial theologian John Hick. Johnstons political and socioeconomic analyses draw on sources as disparate as Paul Krugman, with the New York Times, and the late Edward Said. Similarly, Johnston uses thinkers such as Patricia Crone, whom Islamicists will recognize as less than mainstream. His indictment of George Bushs policies in Iraq cannot be dismissed as merely due to some political agenda lurking

in the background, seeking to clothe itself respectably in theology. Similarly, his objections to globalization or his view of postmodernism are not rooted ideologically. While not the easiest read, this book is well worth the effort, especially if it provokes readers to ask new questions and entertain fresh answers. Steven P. Blackburn
Steven P. Blackburn, ordained in the Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC), is Faculty Associate in Semitic Scriptures at the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut.

Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in Colonial Northern Nigeria.

By Andrew E. Barnes. Rochester, N.Y.: Univ. of Rochester Press, 2009. Pp. vii, 330. $95. This book, which is about the competing meaning of Western civilization among northern Nigerias vast communal groupings, documents the perspectives of colonial administrators and Christian missionaries, as well as the reactions of various peoples and local rulers, especially emirs, chiefs, and Islamic clerics under British colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century. What did it mean to make headway in the context of the introduction of Western civilization to colonial northern Nigeria? In an interesting presentation of the various policies, strategies, and ideologies of the bearers of Western civilization to Northern Nigeria, Barnes shows us what making headway meant in the local contexts. As he ably demonstrates, for the missionaries, making headway was a fight against the sacred North run as a land apart, suspended in time and space (p. 91). For the colonial administration, it was about how governance related to the institution and sustaining of so-called indirect ruleinvolving, for example, the appointment and deposition of rulers, negotiation with these rulers on how to govern and accomplish government objectives, taxation, public works, and education. This education involved (1) a leadership that followed colonial directives; (2) clerical and artisanal training; (3) reconciliation of Muslim and British values; (4) denationalization/ detribalization; (5) resistance to the harmonization of the educational systems of the southern and northern protectorates; (6) cultural transfer; (7) creating and extending northern Muslim autocratic rule over outsiders (southerners); and (8) making sure that African Christians,

particularly the southerners among them, and their way of life never gained a toehold in the North. This initiative failed, causing colonial officials to concentrate on schools as the conduit for cultural transfer. This delightful book makes a strong case that, instead of a coherent mission imposing Western civilization on northern Nigeria during the colonial era, there were competing agendas. Rather than Western civilization having the clear upper hand in the interchange, the peoples of northern Nigeria had considerable agency in determining which variants of Western culture they chose to embrace. Overall, this volume makes a valuable contribution to interdisciplinary inquiry in education, African studies, and religious studies. Mojbol Olfnk Okome
Mojbol Olfnk Okome is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. She is the author of A Sapped Democracy: The Political Economy of the Structural Adjustment Program and the Political Transition in Nigeria, 19831993 (Univ. Press of America, 1998) and is coeditor of the online journal rnkrind: A Journal of African Migration.

Quest for Peace: An Ecumenical History of the Church in Lesotho.

By Craig W. Hinks. Morija, Lesotho: The Heads of Churches in Lesotho and the Christian Council of Lesotho, 2009. Pp. xx, 1,084. $55. This is an extraordinary book by any measure. Comprising nearly eleven hundred double-column pages, to my knowledge nothing quite like it has ever been published in Africa about Christianity in a particular countryin this case, Lesotho. It is one tangible result
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of a farseeing project conceived in the mid-1980s, when both the country and its churches were convulsed by bitter ethnic, political, and ecclesiastical confusion, suspicion, misrepresentation, and outright conflict. The idea was to engage a neutral but informed outsider to write a short

popular history of peacemaking efforts by church leaders between 1970 and 1985. This, it was hoped, would serve as a counternarrative to the more sensational stories that so easily capture the news, co-opt our Christian memories, and spawn mistrust and confusion. The result was an impressively comprehensive volume that references 175 years of Lesotho denominational and nondenominational history. Researched and published with the full cooperation and encouragement of church leaders, this volume will do more

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

to foster a sense of shared identity and common cause among Lesothos Christians (75 percent of the total population) than anything else conceivable. Replete with pictures, maps, and tables, each of the books seventeen chapters includes both a study guide and an action guide tailored for use by individuals, small groups, and entire congregations. Plans are under way to translate the book into Sesotho. Of special interest is Appendix B, providing a partial directory of 277 denominations in Lesotho (pp. 94449). The author estimates that there are probably three times as many African Initiated Churches in the country as appear in his registry, which is nevertheless an impressive indication of both the profusion and the vivacity of indigenous Christianities in a country whose total population hovers around two million. The book is divided into four major sections: Context: Tradition and Change (to 1833); Foundations: Invitation and Response (18331899); Expansion: Conflict and Community (18991933); and Independence: Problems and Promise (19602008). Five helpful appendixes, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index enhance the value of an outstanding resource that should inspire similar efforts elsewhere in Africa and around the world. The easiest way to procure a copy is to order it directly from the author at cwhincks@gmail.com. A copy of the book shipped by surface mail from Lesotho will cost $55; shipped from Toronto, the book will cost $69. Jonathan J. Bonk
Jonathan J. Bonk, Executive Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut, is Editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research and Project Director for the Dictionary of African Christian Biography.

than not organize prayer campaigns to fight crime rather than organize their communities against the same threat (pp. xvi, 201). ONeills rapport with these neo-Pentecostals helps him to convey the weight of their perceived burden, even as he analyzes how it tends to downplay historical, political, social, and economic factors. Guatemala is the most Protestant country of Latin America: a nation chosen by God (pp. 78). Neo-Pentecostals think it can change only though conversion, individual repentance, Bible study, and

hard work, which open the believer to the values of progress: punctuality, responsibility, and cleanliness (p. 160). From February 2006 to May 2007 ONeill lived in Guatemala City, where 5,338 people were killed in 2005, or 15 a day (p. 20). His fieldwork focused on Christian citizenship in neo-Pentecostal megachurches, but all ethnographic data come from only one church: El Shaddai. (ONeill mentions in note 10 on p. 216 that he also visited four other megachurches, but these get only one reference each in the

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City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala.

By Kevin Lewis ONeill. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2010. Pp. xxix, 278. $55 / 37.95; paperback $21.95 / 14.95. City of God is an ethnographic study of neo-Pentecostal formations of Christian citizenship in postwar Guatemala and the kind of responsibilities that such an identity prompts Guatemalans to shoulder (p. xxii). It concludes that the active members of the megachurch El Shaddai are more likely to pray for Guatemala than pay their taxes; they tend to speak in tongues for the soul of the nation rather than vote in general elections; and they more often
October 2010

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index.) El Shaddai is likely the most active church in promoting the unique brand of neo-Pentecostal citizenship, thanks to its founder, Harold Caballeros. Caballeros was excluded from participation in the 2007 elections by a technicality (or by refusing to engage in corrupt practices, according to embittered members; p. 203). The sense of disappointment this created is vividly described in the book, which does an excellent job of analyzing the central role church cells, spiritual warfare,

fatherhood, charity projects toward rural Indians, and international networks play in El Shaddai. ONeill is well-read and has an engaging and original writing style. His theoretical preferences range from Foucault and Heidegger to Geertz and Harding, although earlier key literature on Pentecostals, progressive Presbyterians, and politics is missing. City of God is an absolute joy to read. It rightly criticizes limited Western understandings of

democracy and develops a new field of studies: the religious dimensions of citizenship. It is another worthy contribution to the University of Californias Anthropology of Christianity series. Henri Gooren
Henri Gooren, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, is the author of two books and various articles on conversion and on religions in Latin America.

Converging Ways? Conversion and Belonging in Buddhism and Christianity.

Edited by John DArcy May. Sankt Ottilien, Ger.: EOS Klosterverlag, 2007. Pp. 207. 15.80. A book like this lays to rest any doubt that Buddhism has become a European religion. So far is this true that a certain Eurocentricity, innocuous but ironic, here becomes proof of Buddhisms transculturation. Nary a non-European voice represents or interprets Buddhism for Europe; and so, as in North America, Buddhism proves itself remarkably adaptable and adoptable, by the cognitively inclined especially. As several authors included in the volume are themselves advocates of and for Buddhisms transculturation and already consider themselves Christians, a unifying theme is that of multiple interreligious affinity and identity, a phenomenon once thought of as un-European. Delivered at a conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies, the ten papers of this collection run the gamut from the anecdotal and autobiographical to the historical and social scientific, and finally to the controversial. A third of the book is a triangulated debatelively, though civil between Paul Williams, a former Buddhist; Perry Schmidt-Leukel, a pluralist Christian; and Jos Ignacio Cabazn, a pluralist Buddhist. Being contested is Williamss reconversion to Catholicism, an act Schmidt-Leukel scorns and Cabazn mourns. The volleys are stratospherically cerebral, and in the end it is the Christians who see each other as the Other.

Thankfully, other essays rectify the impression that Buddhism is always excruciatingly cognitive and unconcerned with practice. On Catholic Zen, excellent essays have been included; theologically, though, they seem conventionally inclusivistic, despite a delightfully playful, koan-like testimonial on achieving deep insight into the emptiness of self by Reuben Habito, who experienced kensho as a Jesuit. From all this, much can be learned, though less about Buddhism than about its European appropriation. And for all the stress on interreligiosity, one regrets the absence of sustained discussion of how individuals assimilate religious influences without their being integrated into a singular system, cognitive or affective. Richard Fox Young
Richard Fox Young is Associate Professor of the History of Religions, Princeton Theological Seminary. Earlier, he served with the Presbyterian Church (USA) in South and East Asia.

Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years.
By Philip Jenkins. New York: HarperOne, 2010. Pp. xix, 328. $26.99. In Jesus Wars Philip Jenkins turns his attention to the doctrinal struggles of the fourth to sixth centuries. These issues can be tedious and abstruse, but in Jenkinss writing they pulsate with drama. Jenkins recounts the story of the churchs attempt to clarify issues that the Council of Nicaea had left vague, especially the nature/ natures of Christ. He elucidates the theological issues clearly and fairly; but he also roots them in the rivalry between historic patriarchates, in which emperors, empresses, and churchmen all played their parts. Jenkinss description of the
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churchmens methods is unsqueamish: buffaloing and bludgeoning, headbreaking, murder. The Council of Chalcedon was a cliff-hanger, and it settled the Christological questions in ways that have largely satisfied Western Christians. But Chalcedon also led to the secession of Monophysite churches, the weakening of Christian unity in the East (which enabled the triumph of Islam), and the transfer of Christianitys heartlands to the global West. Jesus Wars is an excellent read, and Jenkins as always provokes thought.

Two things, I think, would have been worth exploring further. First, Jenkins might have pursued the relation between theology and ethics. He quotes Dorothy Sayers, who observed that different Christologies lead to different approaches to Christian behavior. As Jenkins makes clear, the Nestorian, Monophysite, and Chalcedonian churchmen differed in Christologybut not in their readiness to use violence to compel truth. Why? The second-century Epistle to Diognetus had said, Compulsion is not Gods way of working. Jenkins does not explore the theological deviation that enabled the fifth-century power-brokers to repudiate this early Christian commonplace. Second, Jenkins might have explored the relation between doctrine and mission. The bishops, he observes, were faced with dioceses only half Christian. As they concentrated on Christology, were

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they also thinking about this missionary challenge? Did the bishops think that dogmatic precision was necessary to convert the minds and lifestyles of pagans and syncretists? Alan Kreider
Alan Kreider, for many years a Mennonite missionary in England, is Professor of Church History and Mission (retired) at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. With his wife, Eleanor, he published Worship and Mission After Christendom (Paternoster, 2010).

Death in a Church of Life: Moral Passion During Botswanas Time of AIDS.

By Frederick Klaits. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2010. Pp. xvi, 352. $60 / 41.95; paperback $24.95 / 16.95. The eighth in the University of California Press series The Anthropology of Christianity, this volume is a microstudy of one small Apostolic congregation in a township in Gabarone, Botswana. The author, Frederick Klaits, is a cultural anthropologist who teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Between 1993 and 2006 he spent extended

The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age.
By Douglas A. Hall, with Judy Hall and Steve Daman. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2010. Pp. xix, 365. Paperback $43. For over forty years Douglas Hall has been a leader of the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Boston. The Cat and the Toaster is the story of Halls journey with his wife, Judy, and what they learned about the theory and practice of urban ministry. During his years in Boston, Hall has seen Christianity grow, not decline. This important book helps answer how this has happened. With Boston as case study, ministry is most productive, Hall argues, when operating within the whole story of God and the organic nature of the city. A relational, or living-system, approach, with sensitivity to complexity, is key. Consequently, when programs and initiatives are imposed on the urban fabric, the result can be counterproductive to the overall work of the church in the city. By showing how ministry is related to the city and how the city relates to ministry, Hall has made a unique and vital contribution. While Hall looks for revival in the city, we can wonder whether it is not already occurring. Mark R. Gornik
Mark R. Gornik is Director of City Seminary of New York (www.cityseminaryny.org).

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October 2010

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periods living in the township, learned Setswana, and became a member of the congregation that is the focus of his inquiry. He writes with affection and respect for its leadership and members, and he is open about how his own life was influenced by his participation in its life and worship. The period of Klaitss residence and research in Botswana was the time when the AIDS pandemic became evident. His study concerns the efforts made by members of the Apostolic congregation to sustain love in the context of the

illness and death brought about by the pandemic. Using his knowledge of the vernacular language and drawing on close involvement in the congregational life, he explores ways in which the worship and rituals of the church propound an ethic of love. The caring relationships that obtain within the church community are shown to be in tune with Batswana values and of high value in coping with the effects of HIV and AIDS. Low in jargon, high in human sympathy, carrying its erudition lightly, and largely written in a narrative

style, this analysis will be a rich resource for all with an interest in faith, ethics, and community life in Africa today. The book has a link to online audio files of the peoples preaching and singing. Kenneth R. Ross
Kenneth R. Ross has served as Professor of Theology at the University of Malawi (198898) and as General Secretary of the Church of Scotland Board of World Mission (19982009). He is the author of Following Jesus and Fighting HIV/AIDS (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 2002).

A History of Chinese Christian Hymnody: From Its Missionary Origins to Contemporary Indigenous Productions.
By Fang-Lan Hsieh. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. Pp. xv, 269. $109.95 / 69.95. This cross-disciplinary study addresses cultural history, Chinese poetics, musicological assessments, hymnologists biographies, and religious influences of Protestant hymnology during the last two centuries. Including over fifty illustrations in its six chapters, Hsieh presents a historical cornucopia of Chinese

hymnology, garnished by biographies of key foreign and Chinese hymnists and musicians. Hsieh, a musicologist and librarian at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, has done extensive research in key North American archives related to Chinese Protestantism but also has obviously obtained other materials and information from a wide range of circles within cultural China. Believing that studies in hymnology can offer an aesthetic gauge for levels of

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MISSION STUDIES

Migration, Human Dislocation, and the Good News: Margins as the Center in Christian Mission
The IAMS 2012 Toronto Assembly will explore the profound missiological dimensions of human migration and dislocation, past, present, and future. We will attend especially to the many repercussions of widespread contemporary human movement for the theory and practice of Christian mission. The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, reflecting the lives of Gods people who were uprooted, exiled, and scattered, features epic experiences of human mobility such as the call to a new land, exodus and resettlement, and the scattering of the early Christians. The last half-millennium has seen the Gospel span the globe, often accompanied by the disenfranchisement and sometimes obliteration of other peoples. Dislocation, compelled and voluntary, continues to characterize our contemporary human story as people cross state boundaries or move within their own countries in search of safety and well-being. Christian mission, often a feature of large-scale movements of peoples, must continue to attend responsibly to these historic global realities. We welcome papers on mission and diverse aspects of human mobility from across the disciplines. These can touch upon a range of themes including ethnicity, race, gender, HIV-AIDS, human rights, violence, poverty, nationalism, other religions, and ecclesiastical tradition. In addition, we urge IAMS Study Group members to prepare papers and share research, especially as these relate to the Assemblys migration theme. Timeline: (1) Proposed topic, with 150200-word abstract, is due by July 1, 2011. (2) Draft paper is due by January 1, 2012. Papers are not to exceed 4,000 words, including notes. Writers will be expected to strictly adhere to the style guide for Mission Studies. All proposals with abstracts will be carefully reviewed by the IAMS Executive Committee. Writers will be notified of the committees decision before April 2012. Address all correspondence to: THE SECRETARIAT INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR MISSION STUDIES c/o Church Mission Society Watlington Road, Oxford OX4 6BZ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 1865 787400 Fax: +44 1865 776375 E-mail: secretary@missionstudies.org Toronto Assembly IAMS August 15-20, 2012 (Wednesday Sunday) For more information, go to: www.missionstudies.org

A Call for Papers for the 13th Assembly of the August 1520, 2012 Toronto, Canada

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indigenization and spiritual maturity, she assesses these matters within hymnals produced not only in Mainland China but also in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other places in Asia where overseas Chinese live and worship. Going beyond her concern for indigenization, she provides details about contemporary and global music that now appears in recently published hymnals. Hsiehs strength is clearly in musicology, with specialization in the history of Chinese Protestant hymnology produced by foreign missionaries and indigenous Chinese pastors, intellectuals, and hymnists. Her scope includes hymns and hymnals produced over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not only in now-standardized forms of Mandarin Chinese but also in eight Chinese dialects or languages used by Han ethnic groups. One would welcome information about Christian minorities in China and their hymnology as well (the author offers some hints of this in Taiwan). Problems of different systems for transliterating names and terms are solved primarily by using Chinese characters, but for those who do not read Chinese, this is not adequate. More significant is the authors apparent unfamiliarity with the Songs of

Canaan series, produced by leaders in unauthorized churches in Mainland China, even though they are quite famous and available publicly in Christian bookstores and in CDs. Nevertheless, one sincerely delights in seeing the relatively lengthy treatments given to Tzu-chen Chao (18881979) and John E. Su (19162007), two major figures whose hymns continue to be sung in Chinese Protestant worship. Also, the history of the multiform influences of Bliss M. Wiant (18951975), musicologist at Yenching University in the years before 1950, is helpful for understanding shifts in liturgy and hymnology during the period when nationalism and indigenization were major concerns. This award-winning and richly detailed volume will be much appreciated by those interested in the development and flourishing of Chinese Protestant hymnology. It fills a major void within Protestant and secular scholarship in the history of Chinese Christianity. Lauren Pfister
Lauren Pfister teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University and does research in the areas of comparative philosophy and comparative religious studies, with an emphasis in Chinese traditions.

The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts.

Edited by Veli-Matti Krkkinen. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. Pp. xxiv, 248. Paperback $20. This collection of twelve essays is written mostly by those who live and work in the United States, but the authors have considerable experience in various global Pentecostal contexts, which they bring to bear on the reflections of this book. Although the book concentrates on only a portion of global Pentecostalismthe so-called classical Pentecostal churches with roots in the 19069 Azusa Street revival in Los Angelesyet these churches have influenced global Pentecostalism in ways that belie their numbers. The book is divided thematically into three sections of four essays each. The first section is introductory and theological. Frank Macchia suggests that Pentecostalism has a theologically distinctive message in its focus on the baptism in the Spirit. Margaret Poloma, who writes from a sociological perspective, discusses the relationship between the central Pentecostal doctrines of

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divine healing and revivalism and their interaction with scientific modernity. Korean Pentecostal mission theologian Wonsuk Ma discusses Pentecostalism as a religion of the poor and the significance of its central message of empowerment for witness. Doug Petersen focuses on Pentecostalism and social concern, the subject he knows best from his vast practical experience in Latin America. The second part of the book is missiological, dealing with Pentecostalism and cultural diversity. Paulson Pulikottil uses postcolonial theory to look at the dominant influence of the Indian (Syrian church) context on the emergence of Pentecostalism in Kerala. Koo Dong Yun considers the multicultural origins of Pentecostalism and the role of Asians, in particular the revivals among the

Korean minjung and their implications for Pentecostalism to be seen as a religion of the oppressed and poor. African-American anthropologist Deidre Crumbley illustrates gender and power issues by fieldwork among Nigerian Aladura churches and her own inner-city church in Philadelphia. In the essay by esteemed Nigerian historian Ogbu Kalu, one of the last before his untimely death in December 2008, the author describes how Pentecostals have responded in innovative ways to the African worldview. The final part deals with ways that Pentecostalism deals with religious diversity, with contributions by editor Veli-Matti Krkkinen on the role of Pentecostal pneumatology, Opoku Onyinah on Pentecostal responses to African witchcraft, Amos Yong on responses to Bud-

dhism, and Tony Richie on a Pentecostal theology of religions. As Jrgen Moltmann observes in his preface, Pentecostalism was born in revival movements in several parts of the globe; it was not a monolithic movement but was founded on experiences of Spirit baptism and healing, a religion of the poor (p. ix). But in light of some of the more crass expressions of Pentecostalism promoting an extravagant lifestyle and prosperity by faith, one wonders whether an idealistic depiction of Pentecostalism as an option for the poor has passed its sell-by date. Allan Anderson
Allan Anderson is Head of the School of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion and Professor of Global Pentecostal Studies at the University of Birmingham, England.

An Introduction to Theology in Global Perspective.

By Stephen B. Bevans. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2009. Pp. xvi, 384. Paperback $30. In our increasingly globalized world, it is imperative that the global church be informed and equipped regarding theology in a global perspective. Stephen Bevans, a Divine Word missionary and professor of theology and culture at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, has given us a masterful introduction to just such theology. It well reflects Bevanss extensive teaching and pastoral work. Bevans describes the act of theologizing as faith seeking understanding (p. 1) and establishes a strong connection between ones faith and ones theology. He shows how theology is a communal exercise and not necessarily an individualistic one, contrary to its traditional Western perception and practice. In thirteen wellresearched chapters he presents a wealth of information about the content, source, method, and history of global theology. While written from a Catholic perspective, this volume provides a discussion of global theological dimensions that includes both Catholic and non-Catholic thinkers from around the world. According to Bevans, as he noted in an earlier publication,To be a Catholic means to be radically open to all truth and value. Nothing that is truly good and really valuable can be excluded, for everything that is genuine can be a

manifestation of the divine, and the divine reaches out to embrace all that is genuine (p. 192). Readers may be surprised, however, at Bevanss largely uncritical approach to his own Catholic position, though he does say that he has tried to listen to all the voices while doing theology from his own particular yet limited perspective (p. 5). And in some cases his treatment of non-Western theologians can appear superficial. Despite these concerns, serious students of theology will greatly benefit from this book. It will be a useful tool, resource, and reference for theologians, theological teachers, and students of theology. Atul Y. Aghamkar
Atul Y. Aghamkar is Professor and Head of the Department of Missiology at South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, Bangalore, India.

Missionaries in Hawaii: The Lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick, 17971883.

By Clifford Putney. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2010. Pp. xi, 218. $34.95. Peter and Fanny Gulick led undistinguished careers as missionaries in Hawaii. Peters stern Calvinism and Fannys anxious timidity suggest that they were temperamentally ill-suited to the work, and they were bounced from one station to another by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Clifford Putney accepts that ill health prevented them from doing
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more missionary work, though it did not prevent Peter from ranching, Fanny from raising the largest family in the mission, and both of them from living to a ripe old age. Although Putney concludes that they were influential, fortunately he does not push that claim very far, for the real interest of his book lies in the depth of his portrait of missionaries whose type was surely far more common than the literature

would lead one to believe. He draws on a rich trove of personal papers to skillfully weave a highly readable family history. Putney strives to present a balanced accountand he mostly succeeds. Hawaiian nationalists might regard the Gulicks as typical of missionaries who came to do good and stayed to do well, but Putney makes a convincing case that they do not really fit that stereotype. The Gulicks story thus offers a unique vantage on the missions longest-standing controversy, as well as other issues. Peters secular interests are also indicative of the subtle ways in which missionaries can get drawn into the promotion of civilization, and his fervent antislavery views

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

offer an interesting slant on the difficulty of putting ideals into practice. Hawaii was a stronghold of abolitionism among ABCFM missions, and several missionaries saw a parallel between slavery and the forced labor exacted from commoners by the chiefs. Awkwardly, however, the missionaries were dependent on the chiefs influence for the strength of Protestantism on the islands. The Gulicks main accomplishment

ultimately was their success in inspiring their children to pursue missionary callings. The children appear in many ways to have been more interesting characters than their parents, and it is to be hoped that Putney will continue the saga of this missionary dynasty. Paul Harris
Paul Harris is Professor of History at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

When indigenous believers are equipped with the tools and skills to serve their communities, that is mPOWER .

Introduction to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century.

By Timothy C. Tennent. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2010. Pp. 558. $38.99. Timothy Tennents Introduction to World Missions joins a growing list of important evangelical and Pentecostal introductions to the biblical portrayal of mission and to the theology and practice of mission. Taken together, they are a body of postliberal, postfundamentalist literature on Father, Creator, and source of the providence in which mission participates in Gods bringing about a new creation. Part 3 is on God the Son, the revealer and embodiment of the redemption of the new creation. Part 4 develops the doctrine of God the Spirit as the one who empowers the church mission. The entire book is predicated on the reality that only an authentic disciple of this redeeming God can be a genuine ambassador of Gods reconciling mission. William R. Burrows
William R. Burrows is Managing Editor Emeritus of Orbis Books and Research Professor of Missiology at New York Theological Seminary.

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OMSCs free online database, compiled in cooperation with Yale Divinity School Library, lists over 6,175 doctoral dissertations in English on mission and world Christianity. Search by author, title, subject, keyword, and institution at www.internationalbulletin.org/resources.

mission that is aware of critical studies and grounded in both anthropological and history-of-religions studies. Were I teaching introduction to mission today, every chapter of my Catholic approach to mission would list the corresponding page numbers in Tennent that I would require my students to read. Tennent, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, where he imbibed the spirit of Andrew Walls and the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, is president of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky. His book breathes awareness that the frontiers of mission are no longer geographic but intercultural and interreligious. His approach is up-to-the-minute in timeliness and sensitivity to ecumenism and dialogue with world religions, while presenting affirmativelyin the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15the reasons that propel Christians to proclaim the triune God as the worlds Redeemer. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 introduces the reader to historical and social megatrends that are the context of mission. Part 2 centers on God as
October 2010

Dissertation Notices
Thong, Tezenlo. A Clash of Worldviews: The Impact of the Modern Western Notion of Progress on Indigenous Naga Culture. Ph.D. Denver: Univ. of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Joint Doctoral Program, 2009. Wamutitu, Joseph Warui. Economic Empowerment for Missions: Empowering the Church in Kenya for Holistic and Cross-Cultural Ministry. Ph.D. Pasadena, Calif.: Fuller Theological Seminary, 2009.

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International Bulletin of Missionary Research

IndexVolume 34
(pp. 164 are in the January issue; pp. 65128 in April; pp. 12992 in July; pp. 193248 in October)

January through October 2010

Articles
Adeyemo, Tokunboh [obituary], 34:167 Asking the Big Questions: A Statistical Analysis of Three Missiological Journals, by Gregory J. Liston, 34:21521 Beyond Contextualization: Toward a Twenty-first-Century Model for Enabling Mission, by R. Daniel Shaw, 34:20815 Bollier, John A. [obituary], 34:199 Catholics, Careys Means, and Twenty-first-Century Mission, by William R. Burrows, 34:13138 Celebrating Edinburgh 1910s Centenary, 34:28 Christianity 2010: A View from the New Atlas of Global Christianity, by Todd M. Johnson, David B. Barrett, and Peter F. Crossing, 34:2936 Christians in the Age of Islamic Enlightenment: A Review Essay, by Lamin Sanneh, 34:17478 Cooley, Frank L. [obituary], 34:199 Evangelization, Visual Technologies, and Indigenous Responses: The South American Missionary Society in the Paraguayan Chaco, by Alejandro Martnez, 34:8386 From the Editors of the World Religion Database, by Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, 34:144 From the poor heathen to the glory and honour of all nations: Vocabularies of Race and Custom in Protestant Missions, 1844 1928, by Brian Stanley, 34:310 Fullers School of Intercultural Studies Takes a New Approach to Doctor of Missiology, by R. Daniel Shaw, 34:178 Glasser, Arthur F. [obituary], 34:107 Gruchy, Steven de [obituary], 34:167 Guatemalan Catholics and Mayas: The Future of Dialogue, by Michael K. Duffey, 34:8792 IBMR E-journala Helpful Resource for Print Subscribers, by Daniel J. Nicholas, 34:154 In the Absence of Missionaries: Lay Preachers Who Preserved Catholicism, by Edward L. Cleary, 34:6770 Jones, Tracey K., Jr. [obituary], 34:107 Kurtz, Harold E. [obituary], 34:107 The Latin American Doctoral Program in Theology, by Charles E. Van Engen, 34:104 The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay, by James R. Rohrer, 34:22128 The Legacy of Carl Thurman Smith, by Wong Man Kong, 34:22932 The Legacy of Thaddeus Yang, by David J. Endres, 34:2328 Lesslie Newbigins Missionary Encounter with the Enlightenment, 197598, by Timothy Yates, 34:4245 The Making of the Atlas of Global Christianity, by Todd M. Johnson and Kenneth R. Ross, 34:1216 The Missiology of Old Testament Covenant, by Stuart J. Foster, 34:2058 Mission as Invasion? [editorial], by Jonathan J. Bonk, 34:6566 Mission Is Ministry in the Dimension of Difference: A Definition for the Twenty-first Century, by Titus Presler, 34:195204 Missions and the Liberation of Theology [editorial], by Jonathan J. Bonk, 34:19394 A Monumental Breakthrough in the Missiology of Vatican II and Its Reception by Ongoing Leadership in the Church, by William Frazier, 34:13944 Mother-Tongue Translations and Contextualization in Latin America, by William E. Bivin, 34:7276 My Pilgrimage in Mission, by Edward L. Cleary, 34:4649 My Pilgrimage in Mission, by W. Harold Fuller, 34:3740 My Pilgrimage in Mission, by Anthony J. Gittins, 34:16570 My Pilgrimage in Mission, by David Harley, 34:10811 Noteworthy, 34:67, 1067, 16667, 19899 Not Yet There: Seminaries and the Challenge of Partnership, by Leon P. Spencer, 34:15054 Religious Conversion in the Americas: Meanings, Measures, and Methods, by Timothy J. Steigenga, 34:7782 Rosen, Moishe [obituary], 34:199 Sixty Years of International Mission Research: Unchanged Commitment, Updated Delivery, by Daniel J. Nicholas, 34:92 The State of Mission Studies in India: An Overview and Assessment of Publications and Publishing, by Siga Arles, 34:15664 Taking Wolves Among Lambs: Some Thoughts on Training for ShortTerm Mission Facilitation, by Karla Ann Koll, 34:9396 The Theology of Partnership, by Cathy Ross, 34:14548 Thirty Books That Most Influenced My Understanding of Christian Mission, by Samuel Escobar, 34:11213 U.S. Megachurches and New Patterns of Global Mission, by Robert J. Priest, Douglas Wilson, and Adelle Johnson, 34:97104 What About Partnership? [editorial], by Jonathan J. Bonk, 34:12930 Who Cares About Mission History? or, The Elder Who Refused to Let the Word Heathen Pass His Lips, by Paul Jenkins, 34:17174 Witek, John W. [obituary], 34:167 World Christian Information: Public Freeway or Private Toll Road? [editorial], by Jonathan J. Bonk, 34:12 The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910: Challenges for Church and Theology in the Twenty-first Century, by Peter C. Phan, 34:1058 World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief! by Peter Brierley, 34:1819 World Religion Database: Impressivebut Improvable, by Robert D. Woodberry, 34:2122 World Religion Database: Realities and Concerns, by Siga Arles, 34:2021

Contributors of Articles
Arles, Siga, The State of Mission Studies in India: An Overview and Assessment of Publications and Publishing, 34:15664 , World Religion Database: Realities and Concerns, 34:2021 Barrett, David B. See Johnson, Todd M., David B. Barrett, and Peter F. Crossing Bivin, William E., Mother-Tongue Translations and Contextualization in Latin America, 34:7276 Bonk, Jonathan J., Mission as Invasion? [editorial], 34:6566 , Missions and the Liberation of Theology [editorial], 34:19394 , What About Partnership? [editorial], 34:12930
244

, World Christian Information: Public Freeway or Private Toll Road? [editorial], 34:12 Brierley, Peter, World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief! 34:1819 Burrows, William R., Catholics, Careys Means, and Twenty-firstCentury Mission, 34:13138 Cleary, Edward L., In the Absence of Missionaries: Lay Preachers Who Preserved Catholicism, 34:6770 , My Pilgrimage in Mission, 34:4649 Crossing, Peter F. See Johnson, Todd M., David B. Barrett, and Peter F. Crossing
International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

Duffey, Michael K., Guatemalan Catholics and Mayas: The Future of Dialogue, 34:8792 Endres, David J., The Legacy of Thaddeus Yang, 34:2328 Escobar, Samuel, Thirty Books That Most Influenced My Understanding of Christian Mission, 34:11213 Foster, Stuart J., The Missiology of Old Testament Covenant, 34:2058 Frazier, William, A Monumental Breakthrough in the Missiology of Vatican II and Its Reception by Ongoing Leadership in the Church, 34:13944 Fuller, W. Harold, My Pilgrimage in Mission, 34:3740 Gittins, Anthony J., My Pilgrimage in Mission, 34:16570 Grim, Brian J. See Johnson, Todd M., and Brian J. Grim Harley, David, My Pilgrimage in Mission, 34:10811 Jenkins, Paul, Who Cares About Mission History? or, The Elder Who Refused to Let the Word Heathen Pass His Lips, 34:17174 Johnson, Adelle. See Priest, Robert J. Johnson, Todd M., David B. Barrett, and Peter F. Crossing, Christianity 2010: A View from the New Atlas of Global Christianity, 34:2936 , and Brian J. Grim, From the Editors of the World Religion Database, 34:144 , and Kenneth R. Ross, The Making of the Atlas of Global Christianity, 34:1216 Koll, Karla Ann, Taking Wolves Among Lambs: Some Thoughts on Training for Short-Term Mission Facilitation, 34:9396 Kong, Wong Man, The Legacy of Carl Thurman Smith, 34:22932 Liston, Gregory J., Asking the Big Questions: A Statistical Analysis of Three Missiological Journals, 34:21521 Martnez, Alejandro, Evangelization, Visual Technologies, and Indigenous Responses: The South American Missionary Society in the Paraguayan Chaco, 34:8386 Nicholas, Daniel J., IBMR E-journala Helpful Resource for Print Subscribers, 34:154

, Sixty Years of International Mission Research: Unchanged Commitment, Updated Delivery, 34:92 Phan, Peter C., The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910: Challenges for Church and Theology in the Twenty-first Century, 34:1058 Presler, Titus, Mission Is Ministry in the Dimension of Difference: A Definition for the Twenty-first Century, 34:195204 Priest, Robert J., Douglas Wilson, and Adelle Johnson, U.S. Megachurches and New Patterns of Global Mission, 34:97104 Rohrer, James R., The Legacy of George Leslie Mackay, 34:22128 Ross, Cathy, The Theology of Partnership, 34:14548 Ross, Kenneth R. See Johnson, Todd M., and Kenneth R. Ross Sanneh, Lamin, Christians in the Age of Islamic Enlightenment: A Review Essay, 34:17478 Shaw, R. Daniel, Beyond Contextualization: Toward a Twenty-firstCentury Model for Enabling Mission, 34:20815 , Fullers School of Intercultural Studies Takes a New Approach to Doctor of Missiology, 34:178 Spencer, Leon P., Not Yet There: Seminaries and the Challenge of Partnership, 34:15054 Stanley, Brian, From the poor heathen to the glory and honour of all nations: Vocabularies of Race and Custom in Protestant Missions, 18441928, 34:310 Steigenga, Timothy J., Religious Conversion in the Americas: Meanings, Measures, and Methods, 34:7782 Van Engen, Charles E., The Latin American Doctoral Program in Theology, 34:104 Wilson, Douglas. See Priest, Robert J. Woodberry, Robert D., World Religion Database: Impressivebut Improvable, 34:2122 Yates, Timothy, Lesslie Newbigins Missionary Encounter with the Enlightenment, 197598, 34:4245

Books Reviewed
Adeney, Miriam, Kingdom Without Borders: The Untold Story of Global Christianity, 34:233 Ahn, Katherine H. Lee, Awakening the Hermit Kingdom: Pioneer American Women Missionaries in Korea, 34:11819 Anderson, Gerald H. See Whiteman, Darrell L. Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena, ed., Christianity, Mission, and Ecumenism in Ghana: Essays in Honour of Robert K. Aboagye-Mensah, 34:12526 Balisky, E. Paul, Wolaitta Evangelists: A Study of Religious Innovation in Southern Ethiopia, 19371975, 34:11516 Barnes, Andrew E., Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in Colonial Northern Nigeria, 34:236 Becker, Felicitas, Becoming Muslim in Mainland Tanzania, 18902000, 34:5354 Berka, Lauren M. See Nyenhuis, Jacob E. Bevans, Stephen B., An Introduction to Theology in Global Perspective, 34:242 , and Jeffrey Gros, Evangelization and Religious Freedom: Ad gentes, Dignitatis humanae, 34:188-89 Bjrkgren-Thylin, Marika, From Pioneer Mission to Autonomous Church: Lutheran Mission Cooperation and Church Building in Thailand, 1976 1994, 34:181 Chia, Edmund Kee-Fook. See Kalu, Ogbu U. Cleary, Edward L., How Latin America Saved the Soul of the Catholic Church, 34:190 Cochrane, Glynn, Festival Elephants and the Myth of Global Poverty, 34:5051 Congdon, Jim, ed., Jews and the Gospel at the End of History: A Tribute to Moishe Rosen, 34:18283 Coote, Robert T. See Jongeneel, Jan A. B., with the assistance of Robert T. Coote Cox, Harvey, The Future of Faith, 34:5253 Daman, Steve. See Hall, Douglas A. Ebelebe, Charles A., Africa and the New Face of Mission: A Critical Assessment of the Legacy of the Irish Spiritans Among the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, 34:59 Eshete, Tibebe, The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia: Resistance and Resilience, 34:189 Gaitskell, Deborah, and Wendy Urban-Mead, eds., Transnational Biblewomen: Asian and African Women in Christian Mission, 34:188 Gros, Jeffrey. See Bevans, Stephen B., and Jeffrey Gros
October 2010

Haar, Gerrie ter, How God Became African: African Spirituality and Western Secular Thought, 34:5152 Hall, Douglas A., with Judy Hall and Steve Daman, The Cat and the Toaster: Living System Ministry in a Technological Age, 34:239 Hall, Judy. See Hall, Douglas A. Hanciles, Jehu J., Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West, 34:5455 Harvey, Richard, Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology: A Constructive Approach, 34:18283 Hinks, Craig W., Quest for Peace: An Ecumenical History of the Church in Lesotho, 34:23637 Hoff, Marvin D., ed., Chinese Theological Education, 19792006, 34:5960 Howe, Renate, A Century of Influence: The Australian Student Christian Movement, 18961996, 34:5758 Hsieh, Fang-Lan, A History of Chinese Christian Hymnody: From Its Missionary Origins to Contemporary Indigenous Productions, 34:24041 Ion, Hamish, American Missionaries, Christian Oyatoi, and Japan, 185973, 34:11920 Ipgrave, Michael, ed., Building a Better Bridge: Muslims, Christians, and the Common Good, 34:126 Jenkins, Philip, Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years, 34:23839 Johnson, Todd M., and Kenneth R. Ross, eds., Atlas of Global Christianity, 34:50 Johnston, David L, Earth, Empire, and Sacred Text: Muslims and Christians as Trustees of Creation, 34:23536 Jongeneel, Jan A. B., with the assistance of Robert T. Coote, Jesus Christ in World History: His Presence and Representation in Cyclical and Linear Settings, 34:120 , Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe, eds., Christian Mission and Education in Modern China, Japan, and Korea: Historical Studies, 34:54 Kalu, Ogbu U., Peter Vethanayagamony, and Edmund Kee-Fook Chia, eds., Mission After Christendom: Emergent Themes in Contemporary Mission, 34:23334 Krkkinen, Veli-Matti, The Spirit in the World: Emerging Pentecostal Theologies in Global Contexts, 34:24142
245

Kendall, Calvin B., Oliver Nicholson, William D. Phillips, Jr., and Marguerite Ragnow, eds., Conversion to Christianity from Late Antiquity to the Modern Age: Considering the Process in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, 34:5657 Kerr, David A., and Kenneth R. Ross, eds., Edinburgh 2010: Mission Then and Now, 34:122 Kessler, Christl, and Jrgen Rland, Give Jesus a Hand! Charismatic Christians: Populist Religion and Politics in the Philippines, 34:52 Kidd, Thomas S., American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism, 34:5859 King, Roberta R., Pathways in Christian Music Communication: The Case of the Senufo of Cte dIvoire, 34:11415 Klaiber, Jeffrey L., The Jesuits in Latin America, 15492000: 450 Years of Inculturation, Defense of Human Rights, and Prophetic Witness, 34:185 Klaits, Frederick, Death in a Church of Life: Moral Passion During Botswanas Time of AIDS, 34:23940 Knitter, Paul F., Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, 34:118 Kraemer, Hendrik, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, 34:6061 Lado, Ludovic, Catholic Pentecostalism and the Paradoxes of Africanization: Processes of Localization in a Catholic Charismatic Movement in Cameroon, 34:60 Langer, Erick D., Expecting Pears from an Elm Tree: Franciscan Missions on the Chiriguano Frontier in the Heart of South America, 18301949, 34:11718 Larson, Pier M., Ocean of Letters: Language and Creolization in an Indian Ocean Diaspora, 34:187 Lee, Timothy S., Born Again: Evangelicalism in Korea, 34:18182 Lian Xi, Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China, 34:18687 Longman, Timothy, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, 34:12223 May, John DArcy, Converging Ways? Conversion and Belonging in Buddhism and Christianity, 34:238 Metzger, John Mackay, The Hand and the Road: The Life and Times of John A. Mackay, 34:114 Middleton, Darren J. N., ed., Mother Tongue Theologies: Poets, Novelists, Non-Western Christianity, 34:186 Mobley, Kendal P., Helen Barrett Montgomery: The Global Mission of Domestic Feminism, 34:182 Mudge, Lewis S., The Gift of Responsibility: The Promise of Dialogue Among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, 34:126 Nicholson, Oliver. See Kendall, Calvin B. Ng, Peter Tze Ming. See Jongeneel, Jan A. B., Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe Noss, Philip A., ed., A History of Bible Translation, 34:18081 Nyenhuis, Jacob E., Robert P. Swierenga, and Lauren M. Berka, eds., Aunt Tena, Called to Serve: Journals and Letters of Tena A. Huizenga, Missionary Nurse to Nigeria, 34:190 Oleska, Michael J., ed., Alaskan Missionary Spirituality, 34:23435

ONeill, Kevin Lewis, City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala, 34:23738 Paek, Chong Ku. See Jongeneel, Jan A. B., Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe Phillips, William D., Jr. See Kendall, Calvin B. Putney, Clifford, Missionaries in Hawaii: The Lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick, 17971883, 34:24243 Ragnow, Marguerite. See Kendall, Calvin B. Roberts, R. S., ed., translated by Vronique Wakerley, Journeys Beyond Gubuluwayo to the Gaza, Tonga, and Lozi: Letters of the Jesuits Zambesi Mission, 18801883, 34:5556 Roggema, Barbara, The Legend of Sergius Bahr: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam, 34:17478 Ross, Kenneth R. See Johnson, Todd M.; Kerr, David A. Rland, Jrgen. See Kessler, Christl Shaw, Mark, Global Awakening: How Twentieth-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution, 34:233 Steltenkamp, Michael F., Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Missionary, Mystic, 34:234 Sunquist, Scott W. See Jongeneel, Jan A. B., Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe Swierenga, Robert P. See Nyenhuis, Jacob E. Tennent, Timothy C., Introduction to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century, 34:243 Thomas, David, Christian Doctrines in Islamic Theology, 34:17478 Tiedemann, R. G., Reference Guide to Christian Missionary Societies in China: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, 34:12425 , ed., Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 2, 1800Present, 34:17980 Urban-Mead, Wendy. See Gaitskell, Deborah Vethanayagamony, Peter. See Kalu, Ogbu U. Wang, Aiming, Church in China: Faith, Ethics, Structure; The Heritage of the Reformation for the Future of the Church in China, 34:121 Watanabe, Yuko. See Jongeneel, Jan A. B., Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chong Ku Paek, Scott W. Sunquist, and Yuko Watanabe Whiteman, Darrell L., and Gerald H. Anderson, eds., World Mission in the Wesleyan Spirit, 34:116 Wu, Xiaoxin, ed., foreword by Daniel Bays, Christianity in China: A Scholars Guide to Resources in the Libraries and Archives of the United States, 2d ed., 34:11617 Wuthnow, Robert, Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches, 34:61 Young, Richard Fox, ed., India and the Indianness of Christianity: Essays on UnderstandingHistorical, Theological, and Bibliographicalin Honor of Robert Eric Frykenberg, 34:18485 Zocca, Franco, ed., Sanguma in Paradise: Sorcery, Witchcraft, and Christianity in Papua New Guinea, 34:12324

Reviewers of Books
Adeney, Frances S., 34:182 Aghamkar, Atul Y., 34:18485, 242 Ahn, Katherine H. Lee, 34:188 Akinade, Akintunde E., 34:59, 126 Anderson, Allan, 34:24142 Anderson, Gerald H., 34:6061, 18283 Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena, 34:60 Baker, Don, 34:18182 Barnes, Andrew E., 34:190 Bays, Daniel H., 34:18687 Bekele, Girma, 34:11516 Blackburn, Steven P., 34:23536 Bonk, Jonathan J., 34:23637 Boyd, Robin, 34:5758 Brett, Edward T., 34:11718 Burrows, William R., 34:243 Carbonneau, Robert E., 34:5960 Daniel, W. Harrison, 34:116 Fletcher, Wendy, 34:234 Goldman, Gerard M., 34:18889 Gooren, Henri, 34:23738 Gornik, Mark R., 34:239 Guenther, Alan M., 34:5859
246

Hanciles, Jehu J., 34:187 Harris, Paul, 34:24243 Hartch, Todd, 34:185 Hoff, Marvin D., 34:54 Howell, Allison M., 34:12526 Iheanacho, Maureen, 34:186 Krabill, James R., 34:11415 Kreider, Alan, 34:5657, 23839 Matheny, Paul D., 34:52 McNeill, John W., 5051 Mekonnen, Alemayehu, 34:189 Myers, Bryant L., 34:61 Nolan, Francis, 34:5354 Okome, Mojbol Olfnk, 34:236 Oladipo, Caleb O., 34:5152 Pang, Samuel Y., 34:11819 Pfister, Lauren, 34:24041 Putney, Clifford, 34:11920 Rommen, Edward, 34:23435 Ross, Kenneth R., 34:5455, 23940 Rynkiewich, Michael A., 34:12324 Sanneh, Lamin, 34:17478 Shaw, R. Daniel, 34:18081

Shorter, Aylward, 34:5556 Sinclair, John H., 34:114 Skreslet, Stanley H., 34:5253, 122 Starr, Chlo, 34:17980 Stinton, Diane, 34:233 Tao, Feiya, 34:11617 Van der Watt, Jan G., 34:120 Ward, Kevin, 34:12223 Wickeri, Philip L., 34:121 Williams, Stuart Murray, 34:23334 Woodberry, Robert D., 34:50 Wright, Jonathan, 34:190 Yihua, Xu, 34:12425 Yoder, William J., 34:181 Young, Richard Fox, 34:118, 238

Other
Book Notes, 34:64, 128, 192, 248 Dissertation Notices, 34:62, 190, 243 Fifteen Outstanding Books of 2009 for Mission Studies, 34:115

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 4

From All Nations, To All Peoples

Seminars for International Church Leaders, Missionaries, Mission Executives, Pastors, Educators, Students, and Lay Leaders
January Student Seminars on World Mission January 37, 2011 Missionaries in the Movies. Dr. Dwight P. Baker, OMSCs associate director, draws upon both video clips and full-length feature films to lead seminar participants in an examination of the way missionaries have been represented on film over the past century. Cosponsored by Evangelical Covenant Church (Lafayette, Indiana). January 1014 Kingdom Without Borders: Christianity as a World Religion. Dr. Miriam Adeney, Seattle Pacific University, helps participants to gain both a larger understanding of what God is doing today and a more intimate picture of Gods people around the world. Cosponsored by Christar and The Mission Society. January 1721 Culture, Values, and Worldview: Anthropology for Mission Practice. Dr. Darrell L. Whiteman, The Mission Society, shows how ones worldview and theology of culture affect crosscultural mission. Cosponsored by United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. January 2428 The City in Mission. Dr. Dale T. Irvin, New York Theological Seminary, considers the city in the mission of God. Cosponsored by United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. February 710 Deuteronomy: A Challenge to Mission. Dr. Christopher J. H. Wright, Langham Partnership International, London, unfolds the relevance of Deuteronomy for contemporary Christian mission and ethics. Four days. Cosponsored by Bay Area Community Church (Annapolis, Maryland). March 711 Christianity in America. Dr. Edith L. Blumhofer, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, introduces participants to the formative role Christianity has played throughout U.S. history. Cosponsored by Black Rock Congregational Church (Fairfield, Connecticut) and First Presbyterian Church (New Haven). All seminars cost $175. Students from cosponsoring schools pay only $90 per seminar if registering for any of the four seminars during the month of January. March 1418 Christian Mission, the Environment, and Culture. Dr. Allison M. Howell, Akrofi-Christaller Institute for Theology, Mission, and Culture, Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana, considers Christian responses to climate changesomething that is not new in human historyand the catastrophes that often accompany climate change, so as to provide a framework for Christian mission in facing new crises. April 48 Christian-Muslim Relations: A Nigerian Case Study with Global Implications. Dr. Jan H. Boer, Vancouver, British Columbia, through intensive examination of Nigeria draws guidance for parameters within which Christians and Muslims can relate to each other and both flourish. Cosponsored by Christian Reformed World Missions and Mennonite Central Committee. April 1115 Cross-cultural Partnership for the Sake of Discipling the Nations. Dr. Paul R. (Bobby) Gupta, president of Hindustan Bible Institute, Chennai, India, and a senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC, offers lessons from India for formation of partnerships to disciple whole nations through church-planting movements. Cosponsored by Wycliffe International. April 2529 Transformational Leadership: An Entrepreneurial Approach. Rev. George Kovoor, Trinity College, Bristol, United Kingdom, brings wide ecclesiastical and international experience to evaluation of differing models of leadership for mission. Cosponsored by Moravian Church Board of World Mission and Wycliffe International. May 26 Christianity in Asia: Traditions and Challenges. Dr. Daniel Jeyaraj, Liverpool Hope University, United Kingdom, traces the distinctive forms Christianity has taken in Asia and identifies challenges raised by Asian contexts, drawing out implications for missionary practice today. May 913 Spiritual Renewal in the Missionary Community. Rev. Stanley W. Green, Mennonite Mission Network, and Dr. Christine Sine, Mustard Seed Associates, blend classroom instruction and one-on-one sessions to offer counsel and spiritual direction for Christian workers. Cosponsored by Mennonite Mission Network.

Register online at www.omsc.org/seminars.html.

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Book Notes
Baggio, Fabio, and Agnes M. Brazal, eds. Faith on the Move: Toward a Theology of Migration in Asia. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Univ. Press, 2008. Pp. xx, 261. Paperback $42. Carlton, R. Bruce. Strategy Coordinator: Changing the Course of Southern Baptist Missions. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2010. Pp. xii, 273. Paperback 24.99 / $33.95. DOrsa, James, and Therese DOrsa. Explorers, Guides, and Meaning Makers: Mission Theology for Catholic Educators. Mulgrave, Austral.: John Garratt Publishing, 2010. Pp. 207. Paperback AU$52.50. Edwards, Don. Is Hearing Enough? Literacy and the Great Commandments. Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 2010. Pp. x, 144. Paperback $13.99. Essamuah, Casely B. Genuinely Ghanaian: A History of the Methodist Church Ghana, 19612000. Trenton, N.J., and Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press and Red Sea Press, 2010. Pp. xliv, 292. Paperback $29.95. Flett, John G. The Witness of God: The Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth, and the Nature of Christian Community. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Pp. xv, 328. Paperback $36. Fox, Frampton F., ed. Edinburgh 1910 Revisited: Give Us Friends! An Indian Perspective on 100 Years of Mission. Papers from the 16th Annual Centre for Mission Studies Consultation, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune. Bangalore: Centre for Mission Studies / Asian Trading Corporation, 2010. Pp. x, 348. Paperback $7. Frahm-Arp, Maria. Professional Women in South African Pentecostal Charismatic Churches. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. xvii, 302. 104 / $154. Heurtz, Christopher L., and Christine D. Pohl. Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Pp. 159. Paperback $15. Karsen, Wendell Paul. The Church Under the Cross: Mission in Asia in Times of Turmoil; A Missionary Memoir. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Pp. xx, 434. Paperback $36. Lederleitner, Mary T. Cross-Cultural Partnerships: Navigating the Complexities of Money and Mission. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Pp. 231. Paperback $17. Lewis, Bernard. Faith and Power: Religion and Politics in the Middle East. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010. Pp. xxi, 208. $24.95. Ott, Craig, and Stephen J. Strauss, with Timothy C. Tennent. Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Pp. xxx, 383. Paperback $29.99. Paterson, Robert. Kowhai and Orchid: Life on Two Islands. Dunedin, N.Z.: [self-published], 2009. Pp. 232. Paperback NZ$54. Rohrer, S. Scott. Wandering Souls: Protestant Migrations in America, 16301865. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. x, 312. $39.95.

In Coming Issues
Christian Mission and Earth Care: An African Case Study Inus Daneel Can Christianity Authentically Take Root in China? Some Lessons from Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Missions Andrew F. Walls Reconfiguring Home: Telugu Bible Women, Protestant Missionaries, and Christian Marriage James Elisha Taneti Orality: The Not-So-Silent Issue in Mission Theology Randall Prior A New Breed of Missionaries: Assessing Attitudes Toward Western Missions at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology F. Lionel Young III The Vaticans Shift of Its Missionary Policy in the Twentieth Century: The Mission of the Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption in Manchuria Pedro Iacobelli Ferment at the Margins: Philippine Ecclesiology Under Stress Paul D. Matheny In our Series on the Legacy of Outstanding Missionary Figures of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, articles about Thomas Barclay George Bowen Hlne de Chappotin Cheng Ching-Yi Lydia Mary Fay Carl Fredrik Hallencreutz J. Philip Hogan Arthur Walter Hughes Thomas Patrick Hughes Hannah Kilham Lesslie Newbigin Constance Padwick Peter Parker James Howell Pyke Pandita Ramabai George Augustus Selwyn Bakht Singh James Stephen James M. Thoburn M. M. Thomas Harold W. Turner Johannes Verkuyl