The missiology of trouble: Liberal discontent and metamodern hope

Abstract

Missioners and missiologists called home from the wider world, literally or figuratively, to do mission in the United States return to confront a historically liberal society in disarray. To what troubles shall we address our public witness in word and deed? How shall we make our witness intelligible to a traditionally liberal society in the midst of its unraveling? Liberalism’s legitimacy crisis and the decline of the force of its social imaginary since the 1960s define the specific public conditions for a contemporary, contextually sensitive Christian mission in America. Liberalism is taken here not as a political orientation, but as a central theme in the public sensibilities shared by most Americans on the left and right. Liberalism’s often overlooked conceptual foundations and its many manifestations along a spectrum of ideologies and practices are presented as a background to this discussion. As well, the discussion features the pervasive and also overlooked Christian influences that emerged in the 18th century—the American Reformation—and elaborated into the middle of the 20th century to shape a distinctively (mostly) Protestant liberal society. A well-contextualized Christian public witness—and a public missiology—will draw from its own historical resources born in the American Reformation as well as address both post-political despair and metamodern hope if it is to make sense to a liberal society in trouble.