The questions for post-apartheid South African missiology in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Eugene Baron

doi:10.4102/hts.v76i2.6122

Abstract

South African missiology has seen a shift in its praxis since the late 20th century. David J. Bosch made a crucial contribution in this regard. The shift includes mission as a contextualised praxis and agency. In mission studies, agency has become necessary in postcolonial mission, primarily because of the loss of identity of the oppressed in colonised countries. Through contextual theologies of liberation, African theology, Black Theology of Liberation and postcolonial studies, theologians were able to reflect on the human dignity of the colonised. However, there are still significant efforts needed in this quest, and therefore, the praxis cycle used in missiology is useful to also assess effects on the oppressed and marginalised through the emerging context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). In the task of doing mission in the world differently, the questions that missiologists ask are important. The emergence of the 4IR aims to merge the biological with the technological and will bring more challenges to mission work in Africa. This will bring upon us the responsibility to reflect on the notion of human agency, the theologies espoused in such a time and missiologists’ contextual lenses and strategies employed. These should have to be carefully considered especially in a post-apartheid context. The researcher will, therefore, use the commonly used praxis cycle in missiological research to explore through a Socratic (questioning) approach what the implications will be for missiologists and mission agents in the quest of transforming church and the post-apartheid society.Contribution: Though there has emerged a few theological contributions from missiology, there has not been a missiological contribution on the 4IR. The author therefore uses one of the theological methods in the discipline to put on the table the imperative questions that those doing missiological research should pose in the context of the 4IR.

Highlights

The missio Dei has in the last decade been used as a notion to re-imagine mission within different contexts and has been employed to discuss the cutting-edge challenges in societies.1 Nico Smith (2002:18) reminds us that just as mission is about God’s work in the world, it is about God’s love for human beings
Since the work of Klaus Schwab and his book Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), missiology has not adequately responded to the challenges that such a context would pose to the South African society in terms of missiological research
It would enable missiologists to pose the appropriate questions on human agency, on how to interpret the context and theology and on how to conceptualise the appropriate missiological strategies to usher the ‘shalom’ of God into the spaces of the marginalised, oppressed and poor in a post-apartheid context

Summary

Introduction

The missio Dei has in the last decade been used as a notion to re-imagine mission within different contexts and has been employed to discuss the cutting-edge challenges in societies.1 Nico Smith (2002:18) reminds us that just as mission is about God’s work in the world, it is about God’s love for human beings (missio hominum). It will proceed with four critical and imperative questions that a missiologist in post-apartheid South Africa should pose in a 4IR context.

Results

Conclusion