The future of missiology as a discipline: a view from the non-Western world

Abstract

This article reproduces material originally presented in a plenary address at the annual meeting of the America Society of Missiology (in June, 2013) organized around the theme “The Future of Missiology.” It examines the prospects and predicaments that confront the discipline of missiology in non-Western contexts. This assessment revolves around three broad reflections. First, that while non-Western theological production and missiological thinking has shown tremendous growth in recent decades, captivity to Western training and intellectual traditions remains a major challenge. Second, that one of the most pressing concerns confronting non-Western missiological education and scholarship is the need for institutional models and programmatic approaches that reflect non-Western realities. In this regard, the article argues that in order to be effective and sustained, missiological education in non-Western contexts needs to be more integrative—that is, less dependent on the isolationist-specialist model prevalent in the West—and make greater use of the methodologies and analytical tools of social-scientific disciplines like the sociology of religion. Third, that for a reconceptualization of what “missions” connotes and represents it is vital for churches in the non-Western world to address key issues of ministry and witness. It is argued that many of the models and perceptions of mission inherited from the Western experience are no longer helpful or warranted and that widely used constructs such as “reverse missions” inhibit the conceptual reorientation needed to equip the church for a new era of missionary engagement.