Missiological Engagements

interculturalIntercultural TheologyIntercultural Theology

The gospel is for every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 7:9), but there is no single biblical or theological model for the relationship between the gospel and these diverse cultures.missio Dei

The State of Missiology Today • J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu • John Azumah • Pascal Bazzell • Stephen Bevans • Jayakumar Christian • Pablo A. Deiros • Sarita D. Gallagher • Anne-Marie Kool • Moonjang Lee • Wonsuk Ma • Gary L. McIntosh • Mary Motte, FMM • Terry Muck • Shawn B. Redford • Scott W. Sunquist

Yes, White people can be saved. In God's redemptive plan, that goes without saying. But what about the reality of white normativity? This idea and way of being in the world has been parasitically joined to Christianity, and this is the ground of many of our problems today. It is time to redouble the efforts of the church and its institutions to muster well-informed, gospel-based initiatives to fight racialized injustice and overcome the heresy of whiteness. Written by a world-class roster of scholars, Can "White" People Be Saved? develops language to describe the current realities of race and racism. It challenges evangelical Christianity in particular to think more critically and constructively about race, ethnicity, migration, and mission in relation to white supremacy. Historical and contemporary perspectives from Africa and the African diaspora prompt fresh theological and missiological questions about place and identity. Native American and Latinx experiences of colonialism, migration, and hybridity inspire theologies and practices of shalom. And Asian and Asian American experiences of ethnicity and class generate transnational resources for responding to the challenge of systemic injustice. With their call for practical resistance to the Western whiteness project, the perspectives in this volume can revitalize a vision of racial justice and peace in the body of Christ.

Christianity is not only a global but also an intercultural phenomenon. In this second volume of his three-volume Intercultural Theology, Henning Wrogemann turns to theologies of mission. Mission theologies, he argues, are found in a wide range of implicit as well as explicit forms, from the practice of Christian presence by a Pakistani Christian among a marginalized people to the published deliberations of mission scholars in the West. The task of intercultural theology is to investigate and promote awareness of the variety of culture- and context-specific theologies of mission. From Warneck to Bosch, from Edinburgh to Lausanne to Busan, Wrogemann provides an overview of the theological underpinnings, rationalizations, and visions for mission and its practice. Tracing developments across a range of Christian traditions, movements, themes, and regions of the globe, from Europe and North America to sub-Saharan Africa, Wrogemann presents us with an array of mission theologies across the scope of the modern missionary movement. This rich conspectus is rounded out with the doxological dimension of mission and the varied facets of oikoumenism. Masterful in its scope and detail, this volume will richly inform the study of missiology and global Christianity. And it is essential reading for doing theology in a multicultural key. In a day when the church in the West struggles to understand and appreciate its missionary legacy and calling, Wrogemann's work sparkles with its deeply informed insights and inspiring vision.

Gospel in a Pluralist Society. William Burrows, John Flett, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Esther Meek, Wilbert Shenk.

Explorations in Asian ChristianityEcumenism in AsiaThe cruciform nature of ChristianityA missiology of placeThe Christian view of timeGlobal migrationExplorations in Asian Christianity

What constitutes the unity of the church over time and across cultures? Can our account of the church's apostolic faith embrace the cultural diversity of world Christianity? The ecumenical movement that began in the twentieth century posed the problem of the church's apostolicity in profound new ways. In the attempt to find unity in the midst of the Protestant-Catholic schism, participants in this movement defined the church as a distinct culture-complete with its own structures, rituals, architecture and music. Apostolicity became a matter of cultivating the church's own (Western) culture. At the same time it became disconnected from mission, and more importantly, from the diverse reality of world Christianity. In this pioneering study, John Flett assesses the state of the conversation about the apostolic nature of the church. He contends that the pursuit of ecumenical unity has come at the expense of dealing responsibly with cross-cultural difference. By looking out to the church beyond the West and back to the New Testament, Flett presents a bold account of an apostolicity that embraces plurality.

In search of holistic Christian witness, missionaries have increasingly sought to take into account all the dimensions of people's cultural and religious lives-including their songs, dances, dramatic performances, storytelling, and visual arts. Missiologists, educators, and practitioners are cultivating new approaches for integrating the arts into mission praxis and celebrating creativity within local communities. And in an increasingly globalized and divided world, peacemaking must incorporate the use of artistic expressions to create understanding among peoples of diverse faiths. As Christians in all nations encounter members of other religions, how do they witness among these neighbors while respecting their distinct traditions? Building on sessions at the 2018 Missiology Lectures at Fuller Seminary, this book explores the crucial role of the arts in helping people from different cultures and faiths get caught up in the gospel story. Scholars and practitioners from throughout the world present historical and contemporary case studies and analyses. Their subjects include the use of Christian songs during the Liberian civil war and Ebola crisis, social critiques in contemporary Chinese art, interreligious dialogue through choir music in Germany, aesthetic practices of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, and how hip-hop music empowers urban young people in globalizing Mozambique. These essays foster a conversation about the work that missiologists, art critics, ethnodoxologists, and theologians can do together to help guide church leaders in promoting interfaith and intercultural relationships. While honestly identifying weaknesses in the church's practice, the contributors call all Christians to understand the power of art for expressing cultural and religious identity, opening spaces for transformative encounters, bridging divides, and resisting injustice.

New expressions of church that are proliferating among Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other non-Christian religious communities, including so-called insider movements, have raised intense discussion in missiological circles. In Seeking Church, Darren Duerksen and William Dyrness address these issues by exploring how all Christian movements have been and are engaged in a "reverse hermeneutic," where the gospel is read and interpreted through existing cultural and religious norms. Duerksen and Dyrness draw on the growing social-scientific work on emergent theory-the concept that social communities arise over time in ways that reflect specific historical and cultural dynamics. This is a missiological process, they argue, in which God has always worked through people and their culture to shape his witness in the world. They illustrate emergent theory through historical and contemporary case studies and consider the church's contextualized nature by exploring biblical models of the church, worship practices as emergent, and ecclesial markers that identify emerging churches and their distinctive witness. For missiologists, theologians, practitioners, and all who ponder the challenge and opportunities of mission among other religious communities, Seeking Church offers a multidisciplinary conceptual framework with which to understand the global diversity of the body of Christ. The Spirit is constantly drawing people toward God's community, causing new expressions of church to emerge and thus displaying new facets of his work and character.

How would it look if we "disabled" Christian theology, discipleship, and theological education? Benjamin Conner initiates a new conversation between disability studies and Christian theology and missiology, imagining a church that fully incorporates persons with disabilities into its mission. In this vision, people with disabilities are part of the church's pluriform witness, and the congregation embodies a robust hermeneutic of the gospel.

Building from a behind-the-scenes case study of Kenya's Nairobi Chapel and its "daughter" Mavuno Church, Wanjiru M. Gitau expands their story into a narrative that offers analysis of the rise, growth, and place of megachurches worldwide in the new millennium. In contexts experienced as deeply volatile, and on a continent reeling from the structural incoherence imposed in colonial times, megachurches provide a map of reality to navigate by, with the gospel as their primary compass. Gitau shows that recognizing the psychological, spiritual, and social destabilization of modernizing societies is the first step to valuing the place of megachurches in contemporary Christianity. Through analysis of social demography, theology, philosophy of ministry, leadership development, and strategy, Megachurch Christianity Reconsidered makes integral sense of the historical and social forces that give megachurches their growth opportunity, and reclaims them as a subject of serious theological conversation. This engaging account centers on the role of millennials in responding to the need for "a home for new generations" amid the dislocating transitions of globalization and postmodernity in postcolonial Africa and around the world. Gitau gleans practical wisdom for postdenominational churches everywhere (mega- and otherwise) from the lessons learned in Kenya's remarkable urban, evangelical renewal movement.

Throughout the history of the Christian church, two narratives have constantly clashed: the imperial logic of Babel that builds towers and borders to seize control, versus the logic of Pentecost that empowers "glocal" missionaries of the kingdom life. To what extent are Westernized Christians today ready for the church of the Pentecost narrative? Are they equipped to do ministry in different cultural modes and to handle disruption and perplexity? What are Christians to make of the Holy Spirit's occasional encounters with cultures and religions of the Americas before the European conquest? Oscar García-Johnson explores a new grammar for the study of theology and mission in global Christianity, especially in Latin America and the Latinx "third spaces" in North America. With an interdisciplinary, "transoccidental," and narrative approach, Spirit Outside the Gate offers a constructive theology of mission for the church in global contexts. Building on the familiar missiological metaphor of "outside the gate" established by Orlando Costas, García-Johnson moves to recover important elements in ancestral traditions of the Americas, with an eye to discerning pneumatological continuity between the pre-Columbian and post-Columbian communities. He calls for a "rerouting of theology"-a realization that theology cannot make its home in Christendom but is a global creation that must come home to a church without borders. In this volume García-Johnson: considers pneumatological insights into de/postcolonial studies traces independent epistemic contributions of the American Global South shows how American indigenous, Afro-Latinx, and immigrant communities provide resources for a decolonial pneumatology describes four transformations the American church must undergo to break free from colonial, modernist, and monocultural structures Spirit Outside the Gate opens a path for a pneumatological missiology that can help the church act as a witness to the gospel message in a postmodern, postcolonial, and post-Christendom world.