Abstract
T he proper definition of mission studies could occupy us a long time, but probably everyone could agree that cer tain topics belong to it. I am not concerned here with the relative importance of these topics within mission studies, nor with their degree of centrality to it, but with the fact that they illustrate the critical significance of mission studies as a discipline. Let us begin with old-fashioned missions. Studies of the activities of Western missionaries-and of the movement that produced them-nowadays often need an explanation or apology. Yet on any reading of history the missionary movement must have at least something to do with the most striking change in the religious map of the world for several centuries. One part of the globe has seen the most substantial accession to the Christian faith since the conversion of the northern barbarians; another, the most considerable recession from it since the rise of Islam.
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