mission & evangelism:
International Review of Mission
IRM April 2002 - Editorial by Jacques Matthey
Following several thematic issues, IRM offers now a selection of papers on a variety of topics. The various approaches to mission assembled in this issue are samples of themes and methods essential to a contemporary ecumenical missiology.
Michael Bergunder presents and analyses recent trends in Pentecostal developments in Latin America, and various interpretations of them given by sociologists, theologians and leaders of mainline churches. No Christian theology can be formulated today without taking into consideration the formidable growth of Pentecostalism in many parts of the world, and the challenges this poses to more classical churches and denominations. A more thorough dialogue with Pentecostal theologians is also of vital importance because they themselves address classical theological problems in a new way. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen describes the most recent essays in Pentecostal interpretations of religious plurality and dialogue. The profound knowledge (in the biblical sense of the word) Pentecostals have of the dynamic and creative presence of the Spirit qualifies them as indispensable partners in any effort to formulate a pneumatological theology of religions. The fact that, in such efforts, some Pentecostals have begun to dig into the richness and potential of their tradition can only be acknowledged as a welcome step, and one that is important for ecumenical missiology.
Jesudas Athyal’s paper summarizes the major steps of a study process leading to a contextualized approach to mission in India, initiated by the late M.M. Thomas, and involving over 500 people from 1995 to 1998. Athyal's article mentions the most important changes in the Asian context that motivated Indian Christians to begin the process: increasing communal tensions and religious fundamentalism, the awakening of marginalized peoples (such as the Dalits) in pluralistic societies, and the globalization of the economy1.
IRM readers will recall a debate which took place in these columns last year between two scholars, Theodor Ahrens and Ennio Mantovani, over the theological interpretation of religious phenomena in Papua New Guinea (PNG)2. IRM offered Dr Mantovani the opportunity to express his views in more detail. This issue contains the resulting paper entitled “Dialoguing with the Biocosmic Aspects of Melanesian Religions. A missiological perspective”. Mantovani raises serious methodological and epistemological questions for a missiological approach to other cultures or religions.
One of the major roles but also challenges for the ecumenical movement is to provide a space for authentic encounter and dialogue between various contextual theologies. Eric Anum describes culturally sensitive Bible readings among various social groups in Scotland, based on methods originally developed in South Africa (Contextual Bible Study). He gives specific examples of the method and its applications, and compares interpretations of specific Bible passages among marginalized church groups in Scotland with those celebrated in the liturgical setting of an African Instituted Church in South Africa. It is an illustration of the practice of intercultural hermeneutics, and in that sense is a follow-up to the last (January) IRM on Bible Study and Mission.
The Indian study process mentioned by Athyal emphasized the urgency of a critical reading of mission history in order to enable churches to grasp the peculiarities of any contemporary context. The last two papers reproduced in this issue are such historical studies. Anne-Christine Hornborg has just completed her Ph.D. thesis on the changing conceptions of place and environment among the Mi’kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. In her paper, Hornborg describes the developments of St Anne’s festival, celebrated by the Mi’kmaq each year for centuries. This is a case study of a “space” where Indian traditions and Christianity brought by Catholic missionaries meet, clash and merge. With Ben Knighton’s paper, we move to the African continent and a detailed history of the educational efforts developed over the last century by the Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society among the Karamojong in Uganda. The article shows how central missionary policies can be far from the realities on the ground, but Knighton also throws a critical light on missionary or nationalistic educational policies in Uganda (and perhaps in general?). Among the many surprises in the paper are the numerous references to some of the earliest issues of IRM. This demonstrates not only the importance attributed to education by the Review and the International Missionary Council in their first years, but also the difficulty of such efforts and their unforeseen outcomes.
This issue includes book reviews and the usual bibliography; there is no documentation this time. Jacques MATTHEY
P.S. My apologies to Teresa Okure for a transcription error of the Greek word ta panta in her paper on the Colossian hymn (IRM, Vol. XCI No. 360, Jan 2002, p 64.)