Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Leaven Leaven
Volume 7 Issue 1 Missions and the Church Article 19
1-1-1999
The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the
Transmission of the Faith, Andrew F. Walls Transmission of the Faith, Andrew F. Walls
Frederick W. Norris
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven
Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology
and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Norris, Frederick W. (1999) "The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of the Faith, Andrew F. Walls," Leaven: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 19. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/19
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Leaven by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
Missions and the Church 39
Book ReviewsMarkus McDowell,Eleanor Daniel, Editors
Dana L. Robert, American Womenin Mission: A Social History ofTheir Thought and Practice(Macon, Ga.: Mercer UniversityPress, 1996), 444 pages. Re-viewed by Eleanor Daniel.
Robert begins her comprehensivework by observing,
The stereotype of the womanmissionary has ranged from thelong-suffering wife, character-ized by the epitaph, "Died, givenover to hospitality," to thespinster in her unstylish dressand wire-rimmed glasses, alonesomewhere for thirty yearsteaching "heathen" children.Like all caricatures, those of theexhausted wife and frustrated oldmaid carry some truth: theunderlying message of thestereotypes is that missionarywomen have been perceived asmarginal to the central tasks ofmission. (p. xvii)
She adds, "Rather than being remem-bered for 'preaching the gospel,' thequintessential 'male' task, missionarywomen have been noted for meetinghuman needs and helping others,sacrificing themselves without planor reason, all for the sake of bringingthe world to Jesus Christ" (p. xvii).
Robert's book then proceeds todemonstrate that women missionarieswere and are thinkers as well asdoers. For example, the first Ameri-can women to serve as foreignmissionaries in 1812 were among thebest-educated women of their time.She demonstrates that women haveparticipated in the creation of distinc-tive mission theories and that thosetheories have affected the shape ofAmerican missions.
The book has an introductionfollowed by three parts, with a totalof eight chapters, and a conclusion.The bibliography provides ampleresources for further research.
Part 1 is entitled "The Founda-tional Decades: Protestant Womenfrom 1812 to 1860." The first chapter
examines the function of the mission-ary wife, which was the role of theearliest American women sent to themission field. Robert argues thateffecting social transformation waspart of the mandate of these women.She demonstrates this through theexamples of many early missionarywives, detailing especially the life ofAnn Judson in Burma (1813).
Chapter 2 continues tracing thefunction of the missionary wife, butnotes that the first single womanappointed as a foreign missionarywent out under the auspices of theBaptist mission board in 1815. Whensingle women began to be sent to themission field, they often weremissionary teachers, still very much amandate for social transformation.
Part 2 is entitled "The ProtestantWoman's Missionary Movement:1860 to the Second World War."Chapter 4, "'Women's Work forWomen' and the Methodist EpiscopalChurch," traces the development of awomen's missiology. The proponentsof this theory assumed that non-
1
Norris: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Tran
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1999
40 Leaven, Winter, 1999
Christian religions degraded women,while Christianity provided socialliberation. They believed that "evan-gelization" led to "civilization," thatthe Christian gospel was synonymouswith Western-style social progress;As a result, many women went to themission field. (By 1890, 60 percentof the American cross-culturalmission force was female.)
Robert continues to trace thedevelopment of the "Women's Workfor Women" theory as it was demon-strated in independent evangelicalmissions, tracing particularly faithmissions, notably the Africa InlandMission, holiness missions, andPentecostal missiology. The develop-ment of faith missions was both astep of liberation and a step back-ward. As founders, evangelists, andsometimes ordained leaders, womenovercame gender-linked limitationsoften imposed by the mission boards.But without a missiological rationalesuch as "Women's Work forWomen," they had no clear niche inmission, resulting in second-classstatus.
Chapter 6 traces the ecumenicalwomen's missionary movement. Theshift in missiological theory wasfrom social transformation to worldfriendship, precipitated in large partby the advent of World War 1. Somedownplayed conversion as a goal.The women's missionary movementhad virtually ceased to exist by thebeginning of World War II. Thefactors were many, not the least ofwhich was the rise of fundamental-ism, which pitted the Bible againstthe ministry of women. Protestantismbecame polarized over doctrinalissues. And the logic of world
friendship finished the underminingof the women's missionary move-ment among the mainline Protestantchurches.
Part 3, comprising two chapters,is entitled "Roman Catholic Womenin Mission." In many ways, thesechapters were the most illuminatingfor me, primarily because of littleprevious engagement with Catholicmissions. The early Catholicwomen's mission thrust was to be anauxiliary to the male missionaries,with the women's ministry addressedto women in order to reinforce theideal of the Christian home. Theultimate goal was to build the RomanCatholic Church. The dispensing ofcharity was seen by most Catholicsas the major contribution of Catholicwomen missionaries.
Robert concludes by stating,"Without consideration of women'smissiological contribution in thehistory of American missions, thehistorical record has been distortedand partial" (p. 417). I would have toagree that she did indeed accomplishthe task she set for herself.
Robert has made a valuablecontribution to missiological litera-ture. I've long had an interest inmissionary biographies. As I read, Iwished Ihad sometime come acrossthe biographies of many of thewomen she that features. This bookshould be on the reading list ofanyone interested in missiologicaldevelopments or in women's contri-bution to the ministry of the church.
ELEANOR DANIEL is academic deanand professor of Christian educationat Emmanuel School of Religion inJohnson City, Tennessee.
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropologyfor Christian Witness (Maryknoll,N.Y.: Orbis, 1996),493 pages.Reviewed by Susan G. Higgins.
In early 1997, the editors-of theInternational Bulletin of MissionaryResearch selected Charles Kraft'sAnthropology for Christian Witnessas one of the fifteen outstandingbooks for mission studies that hadbeen published in English in 1996(21[1]: 33). Kraft, a professor atFuller Theological Seminary inPasadena, California, for well overtwo decades, states in his introduc-tion that this text represents theintegration of his Christian faith withhis "commitment to the importanceof anthropological insight to effectivecross-cultural Christian witness" (p.xiii). He adds that his intendedaudience is that group of "practitio-ners," that is, missionaries and otherchurch workers, who have formerlyhad little or no contact with the fieldof anthropology but who need "verymuch to incorporate some of themost basic of our [i.e., anthropolo-gists'] perspectives into its ministry"(p. xv).
Does Kraft succeed in thedevelopment of an anthropology forChristian witness? I think the answeris a qualified "yes" if the readerevaluates the product within theparameters Kraft has established forhimself, that is, for the native NorthAmerican reader who is unac-quainted with anthropology and whoendeavors to serve Christ in effectiveministry. Many sections are devotedto the main topics in anthropology,offering an overview of the topictogether with one or more appropri-ate examples. Kraft is not hesitant to
2
Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 19
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/19
offer his own interpretations ofbiblical passages. Indeed, eachchapter opens with what he calls an"integrational thought," usually threeor four paragraphs devoted to thediscussion of a specific peri cope andhow the chapter's contents can enrichthe reader's understanding of thepassage. Furthermore, most chaptersconclude with discussions of specificmissiologicaI insights or an overviewof the significance of the chapter forcross-cultural workers. For example,Kraft structures the section ofintegrational thought that prefacesthe chapter entitled "Life Cycle"around the account in Luke 2:41-52,the Passover visit of the young Jesusto the temple. He concludes thechapter with six implications forcross-cultural witness, with biblicalreferences drawn from Matthew 26,Ephesians 1, Psalm 139, and Mat-thew 5, among others.
Following the introduction, thebook is divided into six majorsections, listed here with a briefsketch of their contents:
Perspective - anthropology asa discipline; the nature of reality;definitions and views of cultureand worldview; cross-culturalaspects of perspective; God,culture, and human beings; andhuman beings and race
Culture - cultural models; thesignificance of forms and mean-ings; and a discussion of theindividual and culture
Relating to the NonhumanUniverse - the relationship oftechnology to material culture,economic culture, and religiousbelief; and the life cycle
Relating to the HumanUniverse - language; art and themedia; education; family; status
and role; groups; and socialcontrol
Cultural and WorldviewChange - stability and change;barriers to and facilitators ofchange; advocates and ethics ofchange; dynamics of worldviewchange; and theological implica-tions of this approach
Research and Study - theneed for thorough study andpreparation; careful observation;research methodologies; avail-able resources; and difficulties
The text includes both a generalindex and an index of Scripturepassages as well as a solid bibliogra-phy, which, although somewhat outof date (there are few bibliographicentries from the 1990s), does includemost of the standard references inanthropology from the 1950s throughthe 1980s.
I have used this book in upperdivision undergraduate courses andin graduate settings with fairly goodresults (though always as only one ofat least three required texts). Thestudents appreciate the clarity of thepresentations, enjoy the examplesand illustrations, and are challengedby the references to Scripture to thinkfor themselves about whether or notthey agree with the interpretiveclaims Kraft makes. In addition,Kraft's insights into the biases of theWestern worldview and the waythose biases teach those of us whoare products of Western culture tothink and to act are concepts withwhich most upper division under-graduates are familiar and comfort-able.
However, it is precisely becauseKraft does have his own interpretiveagenda, because he does on occasion
Missions and the Church 41
make some rather controversialclaims (his discussion of powerencounters is a good example), andbecause he makes no attempt topresent a careful study of the varioustheoretical models of the discipline,their presuppositions, and the result-ant consequences for the manners inwhich the data is interpreted that Iwould not choose this text as astandard textbook for an undergradu-ate introductory course. Rather, insuch a setting the book would bemore useful for students who seek tosupplement their required reading orwho desire a glimpse into the wayssome missionaries and churchworkers have applied anthropologicalconcepts to actual field situations.
I commend Orbis for havingpublished a noted Protestant evan-gelical. Leaven readers in search of asecond evaluation will no doubtprofit from Anthony Gittins' (CSSp)recent review in Missiology (25[4]:489-90).
SUSANG. HIGGINSis professor ofsociology and missions at MilliganCollege in Milligan College, Tennes-see.
George R. Hunsberger and CraigVan Gelder, eds., The ChurchBetween Gospel and Culture: TheEmerging Mission in NorthAmerica (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1996), 369 pages.Reviewed by Evertt W. Huffard.
The social function and statusthat churches once enjoyed inAmerican life is gone. Churches (andreligion in general) have been pushed
3
Norris: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Tran
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1999
42 Leaven, Winter, 1999
to the margins of society throughsuch forces as urbanization andpostmodernity. This collection oftwenty essays challenges churches tobe mission outposts and to accept theperpetual tension between the gospeland culture. The theoretical frame-work of contextualization of thegospel is not new for missiologists,but this volume is on the cutting edgeof applied missiology in NorthAmerica. Since it is a dialoguebetween professors, the practitionermight find it difficult reading withoutprior familiarity with the works ofBellah, Berger, Bosch, Costas,Hauerwas, Newbigin, Niebuhr,Sanneh, and Wuthnow. Nevertheless,it would be well worth the effort toclimb the tower and see the forest,the context for contemporary minis-try.
The book is divided into fourparts, which define mission, culture,gospel, and church in the NorthAmerican context. Part 1 callschurches from a business-as-usualposture to become mission outposts.The "Newbigin Gauntlet," as it iscalled, became the natural impetusfor the dialogue behind this volume.In Foolishness to the Greeks(Eerdmans, 1986) and The Gospel ina Pluralist Society (Eerdmans, 1989),Lesslie Newbigin drew on his richmissiological insights from a lifetimeof ministry in India to raise thequestion whether the West could evenbe converted by the churches in itsown neighborhoods. The lack oftheological depth and character ofAmerican churches along with theglaring absence of a missionarynature produces congregationalmodels that are anything but missionoutposts. If a church takes thismissiological challenge seriously, the
eighteen issues raised by Van Gelderwill be an excellent starting point(pp. 29-48). These issues represent aresponse to three basic questions:What kind of world do we live in?How do we make sense of the goodnews in this world? How do we liveas God's people in this kind of world(p.41)?
Part 2 describes the Americanculture with its secular, individualis-tic, postmodern worldview from amissiological perspective. It isneither all good nor all bad. As onany mission field, new rules inministry will be needed to respond tocross-cultural realities. For example,Van Gelder notes that church leaderswill need to retool to preserve unitybecause a shared vision replacesdenominationalloyaIty as the "glue."Increasing diversity within an urbancongregation requires a "unifieddiversity" as the "cultural unifor-mity" of a rural context is displaced(p. 67). Kaiser's essay on the historyof the shift from a "biblical secular-ity" to a "modern secularism" willopen the eyes of any reader to seenew tensions with his or her owncultural assumptions (pp. 85-86). Forexample, he explains how the sub-stance of our lives can becomedivorced from creation (and theCreator) so that the significance ofland is redefined strictly in terms ofmarket value, or matter becomes acommodity with a brand name (p.103).
Decades ago, doing theology incontext required that missionariesunderstand the culture and the churchin order to focus on the gospel. Thisvolume seeks to go through the sameprocess at home. Taking the chal-lenge to become a mission outpost astep further, part 3 favors taking the
gospel, rather than the church orculture, as the starting point ofmission. When this is done, there willbe more theological reflection (p.182) as well as an intolerance ofethnocentrism, since "anyabsolutizing force of human culture[is] an offense to the gospel" (p.277). Significant applications of thisprinciple are made to understandingthe nature of "speaking the truth inlove" in a postmodern society, thehermeneutical problems created bythe gospel, and the "translatability"of the gospel in North America.
Part 4 defines a mission churchas something more than a denomina-tional substation or a seeker-sensitivecommunity. It also challenges thepreviously popular bipolar view ofchurch and culture as inadequate,because that view leaves some toconclude that if they are faithfullyinvolved in the church they are not inculture. A broader paradigm proposesthe recognition of three interactingpoles-the gospel, our culture, andthe community of believers. Theresulting paradigm shift moves thechurch from recruitment (seeking andkeeping satisfied customers) tomission (where we learn to give thegospel away). For the missionchurch, worship, more than culturalor traditional ties, becomes the oneactivity that really binds the churchtogether (p. 363).
Any collection of essays tends tolose the continuity found in a singlyauthored volume; this work, however,makes up for the expected uneven-ness by the shared influence ofNewbigin on each author. Maintain-ing the balanced perspective of theseasoned missionary, this volumewould be appreciated by Newbiginfor the challenge it gives to both
4
Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 19
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/19
practitioners and theologians. For theformer, especially those in the fieldof church growth and strategy, itstresses the value of theologicalreflection. For the latter, it callstheological reflection back to therelevance and necessity of the gospel.
EVER'IT W. HUFFARD is professor ofmissiology and director of the Doctorof Ministry program at HardingUniversity Graduate School ofReligion in Memphis, Tennessee.
Charles L. Bartow, God's HumanSpeech: A Practical Theology ofProclamation (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1997), 189 pagesincluding bibliography and in-dexes. Reviewed by MarkusMcDowell.
Charles Bartow has written aworthwhile book about the practicaltheology of the spoken word of God.He deals with the reading of Scrip-ture and preaching. Other booksdiscuss the "how" and the "why";Bartow discusses the "what." Whathappens (or should happen) when theword of God is spoken? "In my view,practical theology, as distinguishedfrom biblical exegesis and dogmatics,is always and of necessity local andperformative, inductive and interdis-ciplinary" (p. 1). Bartow is followingin the steps of many of the greatscholar-preachers of this century: P.T. Forsyth,' H. H. Farrner.? DonaldMiller,3 and Paul Scherer" (authorswho should be represented in everypreacher's library). Bartow maintainsthat in this "postmodern" age, it isnot the texts that need to be rescuedfrom ambiguity and lack of mean-
ing-it is the modem interpreters.According to Bartow, we must askourselves some important questions:Can we actually speak for God? Howdo we distinguish between what wewant God to be and what he actuallyis? Bartow maintains that God canindeed speak through us, providedwe understand that "in Christ Jesus,God takes us as we are and pressesus into the service of what Godwould have us be" (an oft-repeatedphrase in this book). In order tospeak God's word meaningfully tothe contemporary world, we mustbegin with God, not ourselves. "Godspeaks first. ... Before, beyond, andduring anything we have to say aboutwho God is, God speaks and shapesus" (p. xiii).
Chapter 1, "Hear the Word ofGod!" explores the significance ofthe statement "Let us hear the wordof God!" Bartow insists that therhetorical tropes of oxymoron,metaphor, and metonymy givehumans a way to speak about ourencounter with God without sacrific-ing the immanence of God or thehuman experience. The word of Godis heard in silence (lSam 3:1; Amos8:11-12), in oxymorons (Exod 3:2b;lKgs 19:12b; Matt 20:26-28), inmetaphors (the parables of Jesus).Although a "God comprehended isno God, and the theology thatpretends to know everything is asham" (p. 21), these rhetorical formsare necessary in our attempts to hearGod-a struggle that will never befully realized, but that must becontinued.
Chapter 2, "A Gospel for Inter-esting Times," continues the discus-sion by explicating the view thatpreaching is an act of "divine self-
Missions and the Church 43
performance." The "kerygmaticoccasion" demands "a view ofScripture reading and proclamationof the gospel that understands thepreacher's work as an act of interpre-tive speech" (p. 4). Bartow criticizesthe modem concept that the Biblecannot be for us because of its social,political, and cultural milieux. Thatconcept alienates us in this modemworld, leading to what Leander Keckcalls the "hermeneutics of alien-ations": Scripture is silenced so thatwe can look for God's self-disclosuresomewhere else. Bartow eloquentlyargues that the word of God comes tous as human speech, and regardlessof how it might offend or terrify us,we do not have license to ignore it."In it we encounter divine reality onthe turf of human and natural history,and so we encounter ourselves as weare, as we would be, and as Godwould have us be" (p. 43). It is"God's human speech with us, aboutus, against us, and thereby for us" (p.43). Thus Bartow rescues Scripturefrom conservatism and liberalism,progressivism and traditionalism, andall other "-isms" that our environ-ment and experience might cause usto impose on it. He stresses that thisdoes not negate our experience, butrather speaks to it and through it.
Chapter 3, "Turning Ink intoBlood," explores how the publicreading of Scripture is a work ofinterpretative speech as it proclaimsthe gospel. Bartow describes Scrip-ture as "arrested performances." Thewritten text is not an end in itself,just as a page of printed music is notthe actual work, but holds only thecues that a musician needs to realizethat work. Using a number of ex-amples from Scripture and literature,
5
Norris: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Tran
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1999
44 Leaven, Winter, 1999
Bartow demonstrates how thereading of Scripture should "per-form" the text and bring it alive againto a new audience and a new age. Toread it properly, one must have anextensive understanding of the initial"performance" of the text.
Similarly, chapter 4, "A Confla-gration of Love," describes the sameconcept in preaching. Since the textitself is the work from which themeaning will flow, the meaning cannever be anything more or less thanwhat the text originally intended. Itmeans what it meant. But "scripturaltexts, particularly in their canonicalform, accrue meanings that, thoughnot inconsistent with meaningsinherent in their original contexts,nevertheless go beyond them" (p.96). Original settings, authorialintent, and redactional changes setthe course but do not limit it. ForBartow, preaching is first of all"narrative discourse." But it is alsoexpository. He quotes P. T. Forsyth:"[Preachers] are not invited into apulpit just to say how things strike[them] at [their] angle, any more than[they are] expected to lay bare to thepublic the private recesses of [theirsouls]" (p. 106).5 Yet preaching isalso dialogical: between God andcongregation, and among the mem-bers of the congregation themselves.Bartow closes the chapter by statingthat "the performance of the sermonis a risky business. The work can getmangled, subverted, turned into anexcuse for performance of somethingother than itself' (pp. ] 2] -22).Preachers can confine the messageand subvert it through their ownexpectations. That risk urges a self-examination of the process, perfor-mance, and reception of the sermon.
In chapter 5, "What to Make ofSunday's Sermon," Bartow offerssome critical stances for assessingthe actual reading and preaching ofScripture. He describes preaching ashaving five characteristics: it has apresent-tense tone; it emphasizes thedivine initiative; it offers a Christianinterpretation of life; it is in theindicative mood; and it features a"dexterous use of a variety of sermonstrategies, and its diction (wordchoice) aims at cause, not at effect"(pp. 128-29). Preaching must alwaysbe evaluated for context, content, andfaithfulness to God's Word.
Chapter 6 contains three ser-rnonic examples. Bartow notes thatbecause these sermons are writtendown, they (like Scripture) are"arrested performances." But heoffers them to give the reader apractical idea of the concepts he hasenumerated.
Bartow's book presents a wel-come voice in the midst of a churchidentity crisis that often becomesself-focused. The book urges us tofocus on God first. To the oft-heardphrase "The world sets the agendafor the church!" Bartow responds,"No doubt the world would have itthat way if it could get it that way.But the truth ... is that God sets theagenda for the world and for thechurch. Both exist for the glory ofGod or they exist for no reason at all"(p.136).
Bartow makes liberal use offootnotes and includes a helpfulbibliography, an index of subjectsand names, and an index of Scriptureand allusions. He tends to be a bitwordy at times, and the first chapterin particular repeats the same con-cepts a number of times. In addition,
readers who are not versed in theterminology of speech communica-tion may be confused by many of theterms and concepts that he uses."Despite those minor weaknesses,Bartow's book should prove thought-provoking and helpful to anyone whois involved in worship planning,Scripture reading, or preaching.
MARKusMcDOWELLis a Ph.D.student in New Testament at FullerTheological Seminary and teaches inthe Religion Division at PepperdineUniversity in Malibu, California.Notes
1 See P. T. Forsyth, PositivePreaching and the Modern Mind(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1907, 1980);The Church, the Gospel, and Society(London: Independent, 1962). Seealso M. McDowell, "PreachingBiblical and Modern: A ReviewEssay of P. T. Forsyth's 'PositivePreaching and the Modern Mind,'"Leaven 3, no. 4 (1995): 30-34.
2 See H. H. Farmer, The Servantof the Word (Philadelphia: Fortress,1964); Revelation and Religion (NewYork: Harper, 1954).
3 See Donald G. Miller, Fire inThy Mouth (Nashville: Abingdon,1954); The Way to Biblical Preaching(New York: Abingdon, ] 957).
4 See Paul E. Scherer, The WordGod Sent (New York: Harper & Row,1965); For We Have This Treasure(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976).
5 Forsyth, Positive Preachingand the Modern Mind, 103.
6 Bartow is the Carl and HelenEgner Professor of Speech Commu-nication in Ministry and chair of theDepartment of Practical Theology atPrinceton Theological Seminary.
6
Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 19
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/19
Andrew F. Walls, The MissionaryMovement in Christian History:Studies in the Transmission of theFaith (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,1996). Reviewed by Frederick W.Norris.
This collection of essays repre-sents the best insights into the historyof Christian mission presentlyavailable. Andrew Walls, Curator ofthe Archives at Edinburgh's Centerfor the Study of Christianity in thenon-Western World and visitingprofessor of ecumenics and missionsat Princeton for a semester, offers aselection of nineteen pieces writtenbetween 1971 and 1994. They reflecthis university education in churchhistory and his mission experience,particularly in Africa. Because somuch of his work is scattered invarious mission journals publishedon a number of continents, thisvolume is a prized possession.
The first six essays are the mostuniversally applicable and are thussubtitled "The Transmission ofChristian Faith." In them lie thesubtlety and clarity needed to under-stand how we can prepare tocontextualize the gospel. The firstessay notes that a traveler in a timemachine would be most struck byhow varied Christianity has become,not only because it is imprisoned incertain ways by each culture, but alsobecause it liberates each culture tobecome something deeply its own.The second essay suggests six stagesfor mission history: Jewish, Hellenis-tic Roman, Barbarian, WesternEuropean, Expanding European anda European Christian Recession, and,lastly, Cross-Cultural Transmission.Christianity south of the equator isnow predominant. The third essay
insists that the translation of thegospel depends upon the full incarna-tion of Christ and thus upon a richappreciation of the new language intowhich the good news comes. Suchtranslations actually enlarge thegospel itself; specific truths areilluminated in the new culture thatwere not in that of the missionaries.Fourth, every nation has its owndistinctives. When missionariesfollow the great commission, theymust acknowledge the diversity inChristian faith. Not everythingimportant to them will be importantto the nation they seek to evangelize.Fifth, Romans 1 makes it inescapablyclear that a basic monotheism waspresent in many if not all cultures.True fragments should be expectedno matter where one goes, as well asfragments that are false in themissionaries' views. Sixth, theconversion of northern Europe didnot find as a resource a strongshadow of faith in a single creator.But in nations south of the equator,stories about and names of that highgod are often still in place. Missionshould be adjusted accordingly.
Four articles push the readerdeep into Africa, which Walls knowswell both from his presence there andfrom his studies. Evangelical mis-sions brought Scripture and preach-ing, now strong components ofAfrican churches, but the shape ofthose churches is quite African anddifferent from the missionaries' homecongregations. Sierra Leone is acomplex example. Across Africa.independent churches may be a typeof Anabaptist phenomena. newoutbreaks of old forms but with theirown striking features. Primal reli-gions-if that is the proper term-arestrong and have been a ripe field for
Missions and the Church 45
Christian mission in all its history. Inthe last two centuries, global Westernculture has put pressure on them, butthey seldom if ever fully collapse,nor should all their aspects beattacked.
The rest of the chapters deal withmission themes particularly from thenineteenth and twentieth centuries:problems in approaching missionhistory, Western discovery of non-Western art, the interrelationship ofscholarship and humane learningwith mission studies, Americancontributions to world mission, theplace of medical work, the subversiveforce of missionary societies onhome churches, and the agingmissionary movement itself.
Each piece is written so well thatit pulls the reader on and providesenough insight to make him or herstop and think. No one serious aboutmission should be without this book.
FREDERICKW. NORRISis Dean E.Walker Professor of Church Historyand professor of world mission andevangelism at Emmanuel School ofReligion in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Alan]. Roxburgh, The Mission-ary Congregation, Leadership, &Liminality (Harrisburg, Pa.:Trinity Press International, 1997),66 pages plus notes and refer-ences. Reviewed by C. PhilipSlate.
A book's size is often no gaugeof its weight or value. This smallvolume in the Christian Mission andModern Culture series is heavy inthought and implications. The authorwrites precisely, wastes few words.
7
Norris: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Tran
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1999
46 Leaven, Winter, 1999
He is a Baptist pastor in WestVancouver and an adjunct facultymember of Regent College inVancouver.
The "missionary congregation"in "liminality" to which he refers islocated in North America andgrapples with its own missionsituation. The author's central thesishas two prongs: (1) the Christianchurch, once at the center of Westernculture, has been marginalized,privatized, and pushed to the edges ofthe culture of which it was once therespected guardian; and (2) theculture within which the churchexists is itself without a dominatingcenter. Thus both church and cultureare in transition to something else,still unknown.
While this work is quite valuableas an analysis of both culture andchurch and their relationship to eachother, Roxburgh's best contribution isfound in using the concept of"liminality" as a model for engage-ment and reconstruction by thechurch. He draws on the work ofVictor Turner (The Ritual Processand "Variations on a Theme ofLiminality," in More and Meyerhoff,eds., Secular Ritual) concerning thefunction of liminality. Characteristi-cally, and especially innontechnological societies, people gothrough three stages in a rite ofpassage: separation, transition, andincorporation (per Van Gennup).Turner calls them separation, liminal,and reaggregation phases. Thetransition phase finds one in neitherthe old group/situation nor the newgroup/position; it is a period ofuncertainty and confusion. Inliminality one longs for release, for aclear path to a new position.Roxburgh argues convincingly that
both Western culture and churchesare in liminality, lacking a coherentcenter. Both are nervous and uncer-tain. "No fixed points of referenceremain normative" (p. 39).
The author banks on analyses ofwriters like Lesslie Newbigin (Brit-ish), John Douglas Hall (Canadian),and Americans Hauerwas,Hunsberger, and Wells. But he seeksto make sense of various churchresponses to the liminal condition.For example, ministry personnel-preachers, pastors, and such-hardlyknow their roles in liminality. Theold roles are gone. "'Reverend' iscast overboard as a hangover from aprevious age with a different perspec-tive on role status." He must now be"Doctor" (p. 44). Often the roles areunconsciously borrowed fromWestern culture, which itself is inliminality. Thus the preacher/pastoris clinician (therapeutic metaphor),chaplain (institutional metaphor),coach (sports metaphor), entrepre-neur, marketer, and strategist (busi-ness metaphors) (p. 44).
Value comes in recognizingliminality for what it is and using itto move constructively into the newaggregation, the new position.Roxburgh is forthright in claimingthat the biblical tradition containsseveral images that are more appro-priate than anything borrowed fromthe culture, and that those imagesneed to be rediscovered.Ecclesiology is one example.
Roxburgh calls for a return tocommunitas, not larger organizations.The local church is a social unit, andit can speak to and help transform itsculture "through its own sociality asan alternative community" (p. 49).The discovery of "social bondsrooted in the gospel is again pos-
sible" (p. 53). The tendency of manychurches is to spiritualize theirexistence and place it outside thisworld. But that won't do. To be avisible communitas at the local levelin the midst of a fragmented anduncertain culture is much moreviable. "This is the way Christianityentered history. It was a new socialreality formed out of a liminalexperience that created thecommunitas of a new peoplehood"(p. 54). In short, the local church inWestern culture must now have amissionary encounter with modernculture rather than seek its approval.
Chapter 3 offers suggestionsabout a Missionary Ecclesiology."By the waters of Babylon there is noway back to the old Jerusalem" (p.57). Churches cannot go back tosome golden decade in the nineteenthor twentieth century. Preachers mustbecome more (1) poets (interpretersof experience and "rememberers oftradition") than caregivers (p. 58).They must assist the people in theirreflection on their position, since aparadigmatic change comes onlyafter such reflection. Preachers mustalso become (2) prophets who bringthe Word of God to bear on specificsituations. "Without this other Word,the community turns its pain into theghetto experience of marginalizationrather than the recognition that itexists for the life of the world" (p.60). Finally, preachers must be (3)apostles in the sense that they mustlead "in lands where the old maps nolonger work" (p. 61). In the future"the gown of the scholar must bereplaced with the shoes of theapostle"; preachers/leaders mustdemonstrate engagement with theculture, not merely teach about it,and become equippers and disci pIers
8
Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 19
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/19
(per Eph 4:11-12).The author denigrates the
traditional pyramid model with thequalified pastor/preacher at the top,as he does the inverted pyramidmodel with the pastor/preacher at thebottom as a servant leader. In bothcases leaders are separated from thepeople. Rather, Roxburgh argues, oneneeds to conceive of an elongatedpyramid on its side with a "rnissionalpastor" providing leadership alongwith others. "Rather than the omni-competent professional running the
{rNOW cunrdfrom "'From(jaRfee to die'Barrio")
3 Virgilio Elizondo, The Future Is Mes-tizo (New York: Meyer Stone, 1988), 21.
4 Ibid., 77.5 All scripture quotations are from the
New International Version (NIV).6 Jorge Chapa and Richard R. Valencia,
"Hispanic Population Growth, Demo-graphic Characteristics, and EducationalAttainment: An Examination of RecentTrends," Hispanic Journal of BehavioralSciences 15(2): 165-87.
congregation's inner life, there is ateam, or multiple leadership, at theheart of the congregation .... Pasto-ral care, worship, proclamation, andadministration are part of the wholework of the whole people of God, notthe designated territory of someonewith a seminary degree and anordination certificate" (p. 65). Hmm,I seem to have read elsewheresomething like that.
In this short work much territoryis covered in few pages, but it shouldnot be the only book one reads on
7 Irene 1. Blea, Toward a ChicanoSocial Science (New York: Praeger,1988J,17.
See Joseph P. Sanchez, TheSpanish Black Legend: Origin of Anti-Hispanic Stereotypes (Albuquerque,N.M.: National Park Service, SpanishColonial Research Center).
9 Orlando E. Costas, LiberatingNews: A Theology of Contextual Evange-lization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1989),49.
Missions and the Church 47
Western culture-church analysis. Thiscondensed treatment will be appreci-ated most by those who have alreadyprocessed several works on culturalanalysis. But Roxburgh's work ishelpfully important for supplying ahandle on the nature and hopes ofliminality in North Americanchurches and culture.
C. PInuP SlATE is chair of theDepartment of Missions, College ofBiblical Studies at Abilene ChristianUniversity in Abilene, Texas.
]0 Ibid., 61.]] Ibid., 70.]2 Arturo J. BaOuelas, ed., Mestizo
Christianity: Theology from the HispanicPerspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,1995),3.
9
Norris: The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Tran
Published by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1999
