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Vol. 34, No. 3 July 2010 What About Partnership? artnership. This deceptively simple term masks a complex Preality. It commonly refers to some kind of formal or informal contractual arrangement between two or more persons On Page or organizations carrying on a joint venture with a view to benefit 131 Catholics, Carey’s “Means,” and Twenty-first of some kind, each incurring liability for failure and the right to Century Mission share in the fruits of success. Partners may be persons, groups, William R. Burrows 139 A Monumental Breakthrough in the Missiology of Vatican II and Its Reception by Ongoing Leadership in the Church William Frazier 144 From the Editors of the World Religion Database Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim 145 The Theology of Partnership Cathy Ross 150 Not Yet There: Seminaries and the Challenge of Partnership Leon P. Spencer 156 The State of Mission Studies in India: An Overview and Assessment of Publications and Publishing Siga Arles 165 My Pilgrimage in Mission Anthony J. Gittins 166 Noteworthy Acrylic on canvas, 2007; from Reflections on God’s Redeeming Love 171 Who Cares About Mission History? or, The (OMSC Publications, 2009), p. 91 Elder Who Refused to Let the Word “Heathen” Hanna Cheriyan Varghese, Join Hands for Peace Pass His Lips Paul Jenkins organizations, or nations. Partnerships might be codified by civil 174 Christians in the Age of Islamic Enlightenment: or common law, or they may simply be informal, time-delimited A Review Essay arrangements for accomplishing a common cause. Lamin Sanneh Two of the essays in this issue focus directly on partnership. 178 Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies Takes In her article Cathy Ross looks at a theology of partnership, ex- a New Approach to Doctor of Missiology ploring the implications for mission of something integral to all R. Daniel Shaw identities and agendas, divine and human. Leon Spencer, writ- 179 Book Reviews ing from his years of close association with Anglican theological education around the world, observes how haphazardly—and 190 Dissertation Notices Continued next page 192 Book Notes exasperatingly—“partnership” has been understood and prac- tellingly thought of the church in organic terms, repeatedly and ticed since its first appearance in missiological parlance in a docu- emphatically insisting that it is the body of Christ (Rom. 12:1–8; ment entitled “Partners in Obedience” presented at the Whitby 1 Cor. 12:1–31; Eph. 4:1–16). Indeed, his cheerful acceptance of (Canada) International Missionary Council of 1947. the personal inconvenience and suffering that characterized his Since Max Warren’s famous Partnership: The Study of an Idea entire ministry derived from his absolute confidence that he was (SCM, 1956), which begins with the surprising comment that “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of “partnership is an idea whose time has not yet fully come” (p. 11), his body, that is, the church” (Col. 1:24). the subject has been a mainstay of missiological discourse. Of The deficiencies of the discourse of ecclesiastical partnership course we know what is meant. Economic inequity in close social become apparent when applied to the organs of our own bodies. proximity has always engendered severe, even intractable, chal- It would be bizarre to suggest that each of the thousands of parts lenges for both churches and missions. At the deepest level of the that compose a healthy human being is in some kind of volun- Western psyche is the surety that he who pays the fiddler calls tary partnership with all of the others. Much more is at stake in the tune. And so Westerners, who have traditionally provided the interconnections, interpenetrations, and interdependencies the lion’s share of mammon in many partnerships, have exercised within us than the word “partnership” can be made to imply. A the lion’s prerogative in dictating the terms of their partnerships. detached body part is dead. In the most profound and ultimate Compounding the material and cultural asymmetries that sense, as with the myriad parts of any living body, so all Chris- make partnership so difficult is the increasing awareness that, as tians are interconnected, utterly interdependent members of one William Burrows notes, formerly missionary-exporting lands are body. As such, we dare not confine our practical thinking about today in greater need of evangelization than formerly missionary- how to fulfill the church’s mission to the restricted range of pos- receiving lands. This reality raises questions not only about many sibilities suggested or permitted by a contractual term, even one of the deepest assumptions underlying the organizing, financing, so potentially rich and intimate as “partnership.” recruiting, and training of missionaries in the West, but also about While mutual benefit is the ideal outcome of all partnerships, the nature and purposes of missions-related, task-orientated and though more is required of us—and promised to us—than partnerships, which until recently have been largely defined and can be encompassed by that ideal alone, just seeking to live in dominated by Western ecclesiastical entities, Catholic, Protestant, terms of this dimension of our faith is in itself of great value. and Independent alike. Hanna Cheriyan Varghese (1938–2009), who was an artist in But quite beyond the inevitable and pervasive shortcomings residence at OMSC, portrays her gentle vision of partnership in suffusing our selves, our organizations, and our cultures, might her painting Join Hands for Peace, above. The image is instructively it be possible that the term “partner” permits or even fosters symbolic. The fragile human chain—representing what St. Paul an ecclesiastical distortion that is so fundamentally false that refers to as “the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15)—is only as strong it perverts our grasp of the deepest verities? Although St. Paul as its weakest link, yet it is the divinely decreed framework for was warmly appreciative of the church in Philippi for its “part- partnering in God’s work in God’s world. nership in the Gospel” (Phil. 1:5 ESV), he most frequently and —Jonathan J. Bonk InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research in 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the Editor overseas MInIstrIes study center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. Jonathan J. Bonk (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.internationalbulletin.org Associate Editor Dwight P. Baker Contributing Editors Assistant Editors Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Brian Stanley Craig A. Noll David B. Barrett Philip Jenkins Mary Motte, F.M.M. Tite Tiénou Rona Johnston Gordon Daniel H. Bays Daniel Jeyaraj C. René Padilla Ruth A. Tucker Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Jan A. B. Jongeneel James M. Phillips Desmond Tutu Managing Editor William R. Burrows Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. Dana L. Robert Andrew F. Walls Daniel J. 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(iSSn 0272-6122) 130 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 34, No. 3 Catholics, Carey’s “Means,” and Twenty-first-Century Mission William R. Burrows t is common to observe that geography is no longer an transformation, in effect, is the prerequisite “strategic knowledge” Iimportant aspect of world mission, yet a remark made by necessary to be a missionary of Christ—and such knowledge is Marshall McLuhan (1911–80)—“We look at the present through much more than instrumental or conceptual.