Missiological Challenges Research Articles

Recasting Theology of Mission: Impulses from the Non-Western World

D avid J. Bosch completed writing his magisterial Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission in 1990.1 Although Bosch intimated in articles in 1983and 1984that new, non-Western patterns and paradigms wereemerg­ ing,2in Transforming Mission he worked out his analysis within the framework of the missionary movement from the Western Christian tradition. The last third of Transforming Mission is a study of the way the logic of in the wake of the Enlightenment has been played out as an essentially Western initiative. The past decade has proved to be pivotal in geopolitical terms. Along with the end of the cold war and the globalization of the world economy, a sea change in the locus of Christian initiative has taken place. Churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are now sending thousands of missionaries to other regions and countries, while the decline and disorientation of the churches in the West is a matter of mounting concern. Today the West presents a particularly demanding missiological challenge. Recent surveys of mission theology reveal the continued domination of Western voices, with no discernible shift during the 1990s.3 Western theology of mission has continued on an essentially unchanged trajectory. Even recent initiatives to de­ velop a theology that engages contemporary Western culture as

A CHRISTOCENTRIC TRINITARIAN UNDERSTANDING OF MISSION

EMILIO CASTRO [*] I was awakened this issue by a sudden call from the former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the late Dr W.A. Visser 't Hooft, immediately after I assumed that position in Geneva. I was invited his home in January 1985. There was the old man, the patriarch of the ecumenical movement, a monument an ecumenical vocation. He put me the question: Now that you begin as general secretary of the World Council of Churches, I would like know where you stand in relation the central christological affirmation of the ecumenical I would like know how you evaluate the present affirmation that a trinitarian theology is necessary in order escape from an undue or exaggerated Christomonism in the ecumenical movement. I was surprised by this question, but I could appreciate immediately his fears that the ecumenical movement, by entering into a trinitarian ideological frame of reference, could somehow be escaping from its sources in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and entering into a general atmosphere of all-inclusive relativism. Knowing the way in which Dr Visser 't Hooft had written about and spoken of the inclusion of the reference the Trinity in the basis of the World Council of Churches, I could not suspect that he was having problems with the doctrine of the Trinity per se. In The Ecumenical Review of April 1985, he told the story of the adding of the trinitarian character the basis: The demand for an explicit reference the Trinity came especially from the Eastern churches. At first it was not clear in which way the trinitarian dimension was be incorporated. But, at a memorable breakfast in Leningrad during the visit of the World Council delegation the USSR in 1959, the Russian and Greek Orthodox participants made it clear that they did not expect that the Basis should contain a description of the Trinity, but that it should set the Christocentric affirmation in a trinitarian setting. So I took the breakfast menu and wrote on it the doxological formula: to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This proved be acceptable all who were present. [1] As far as I know, there was never an occasion on which Dr Visser 't Hooft expressed any difficulty with the doctrine of the Trinity. His concern at the time he spoke with me was rather with the particular theological solutions which were being offered new and old problems confronting the missionary encounter of the church. New missiological challenges I could not share the fear of Dr Visser 't Hooft. In the corridors of the World Council and in the international theological discussions of contemporary issues I found people who were trying, out of their Christian conviction, reach out others and interpret the overall situation of humanity and nature from the perspective of faith, people who were rediscovering within the doctrine of the Trinity values that could help us embrace the totality of God's purpose for the world without any betrayal of the particular mission of Jesus Christ. It was then the question of the theological significance of universal history outside of relations with the church history and with the history of revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The old study of the World Council on the finality of Jesus Christ in an age of universal history was very much present. The second main challenge facing the oikoumene arose from the encounter with people of other faiths and ideological convictions. What theological meaning did their existence have? When the assembly of the World Council in Vancouver in 1983 addressed this question, it became entangled in a serious polemic about the theological values of God's presence in the religious life of other people. Vancouver tried say that we recognize God's creative hands in the religious experience of other people. But that was not accepted by the assembly and finally, through the Central Committee, a compromise formulation was agreed upon: one which recognized God's creative hand in the religious aspirations of other people. …

The Future of Christianity in Latin America: Missiological Perspectives and Challenges

The Future of Christianity in Latin America: Missiological Perspectives and Challenges

Christs in the Night: The Missiological Challenge of Andean Catholicism

This article analyzes the social and religious life of a small town in the south of Peru. Focusing on the celebration of Holy Week, it studies how particular socioeconomic and cultural groups employ Catholic ritual to articulate their self-understanding, both socio-politically and religiously. The essay uses concepts drawn from the social sciences to help elucidate the theological and missiological challenges one faces in a conflictive social environment.

The St. Thomas Christians of India: Ecumenical and Missiological Challenges

The St. Thomas Christians of India: Ecumenical and Missiological Challenges

Healing as a Missiological Challenge

AbstractThe formal approbation of the study project "The Church as a Healing Community" by I.A.M.S. Executive Committee (see: Mission Studies No. 5, Vol. III-1, 1986, p. 77) sets the scene for missiologists to embark upon the whole issue of healing on a large scale. It is hoped that by tapping the resources of the international, ecumenical and cross-cultural membership of the association the long felt need can be met to adequately respond to the challenge healing puts before us not only by the new religious movements all over the world and by the traditional societies, but also by the African Independent Churches and the charismatic movement within the established churches. There do exist monographs on several aspects of healing from nearly all over the world of course. But mostly they are concerned with a particular technique or with the health system and healing methods of a certain ethnic group. When it comes to missiology the phenomenon of healing outside the Christian fold often is looked at as something demoniac which as such has to be refused for the sake of the gospel. The only more recent missiological thesis I came across so far addressing the issue in a broader sense is Harold E. Dollar's "A Cross-Cultural Theology of Healing" (1980, Fuller) which actually tries to develop a cross-cultural liturgy or model of healing instead of a theology. This article tries to identify some of the most relevant issues any qualified study of the matter in question has to pay attention to.