The Journal of the International Society for Frontier Missiology

Int’l Journal of Frontier Missiology The Sifting of Modern Mission

161 From the Editor’s Desk Brad Gill ISFM 2019 and the “Reimagining of Frontier Mission”

163 Articles

163 Reimagining Witness beyond Our Modern Mission Paradigm Michael W. Stroope Disrupting the unassailable language of “mission”

169 A Response to Michael Stroope Martin Accad 173 Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide Martin Accad Disentangling our witness from a civilizing mission

179 A Response to Martin Accad Harley Talman 181 Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm Boone Aldridge Border crossings can demand new models of mission

189 Moving Beyond: Frontier Missions in Our Postcolonial World Bradford Greer Piety and innovation are seldom paired in missiology

202 Books and Missiology 202 A Theology of Interreligious Relations 206 Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to the Kingdom

209 In Others’ Words 209 Armenian Genocide Recognized Germans and Kurds Ask Forgiveness for Genocide Role Martin Accad’s Syria Brief on the Kurds Why Are People Protesting All over the World? India: A New Dark Age? 210 Riots Roil India over Anti-Muslim Bill Is “Panta Ta Ethne” Ethnolinguistic? Hong Kong Election Landslide Leaked Xinjiang Papers Spark Outrage Artificial Intelligence and Chinese Gulags Over 1000 Uighur Camps Located c3April–JuneOctober–December6: 2019 20194

ISFM 2019 and the “Reimagining of Frontier Mission” October–December 2019 Volume 36:4

ission is being sifted these days. Not only are global conditions requiring Editor an institutional make-over, but the weight of history is calling “mission” Brad Gill to new account. The apparent complicity of our missionary enterprise Consulting Editors Rick Brown, Darrell Dorr, Gavriel Gefen, Mwith the power and abuses of Western civilization is casting a dark shadow over all Herbert Hoefer, R. W. Lewis, H. L. Richard its advances. The very totality of this narrative makes it suspect, and we’re wary of a Copy Editing and Layout cultural agenda that too easily indicts anything evangelical. But in a day of such global Elizabeth Gill, Marjorie Clark Subscriptions transformations, the mission enterprise must not balk at sifting and rethinking its own Lois Carey, Laurie Rosema premises. It’s the necessary first step in reimagining God’s mission today. Publisher Frontier Mission Fellowship ISFM 2019 opened its sessions with this “sifting of mission,” and three articles 2019 ISFM Executive Committee and two responses under the theme, “Reimagining Frontier Mission,” are included Len Barlotti, Larry Caldwell, Dave Datema, in this issue (others are forthcoming). We invited Mike Stroope to present the Darrell Dorr, Brad Gill, Steve Hawthorne, David Lewis, R. W. Lewis, Greg Parsons thesis of his recent book, Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition (p. 163). When I first read Mike’s book in preparation, I could feel my inner brake Web Site lights go on. I was reluctant to accept his verdict on the modern mission para- www.ijfm.org digm. The historiography was selective, his narrative seemed too grand. I resisted. Editorial Correspondence But gradually I stopped picking at his historical hermeneutic and began to see 1605 E Elizabeth Street how it goaded me to reexamine my own mission narrative. You can also read Pasadena, CA 91104 (734) 765-0368, [email protected] Martin Accad’s response from his context in the Middle East (p. 169). It’s quite apparent that Mike has struck a nerve and allowed a global critique to be heard. Subscriptions (Pay by check or online) USA & Canada (first class) Both Stroope and Accad call for a brutal pruning of modern mission. Their 1 year (4 issues) $25 radical assessment reminds me of the roadside trees I used to see on the route 2 years (8 issues) $48 3 years (12 issues) $69 between Casablanca and Marrakech in Morocco. Occasionally the branches of All other countries (airmail) these trees would be cut back to their trunks. Total decapitation. It was brutal, 1 year: $50; 2 years: $96; 3 years: $138 ugly, a row of posts sticking into the sky, seemingly unnecessary. One wondered Single copies: US & Canada $7, All others $14 Payment must be included with orders. if they could ever recover. A few months later when I would make the same trip, Please supply us with current address and I’d be surprised to see those same trees with their leaves and branches flourish- change of address if necessary. ing. One thinks of the Divine Vinedresser whose pruning can cut us back in Send all subscription correspondence to: similar ways, a “cleaning” (John 15:3) that can bring fruit ever so quickly. IJFM 1605 E Elizabeth St #1032 A re-interpretation of mission history can threaten to do the same brutal prun- Pasadena, CA 91104 Tel: (626) 398-2249 ing. One feels a tension. We’re aware of another positive narrative, one that assures Fax: (626) 398-2263 us that mission witness and mission institutions have had astounding impact for Email: [email protected] Subscribe online: ijfm.org/subscribe.htm good in the modern age.1 Yet, our imaginations must hold these different assess- ments simultaneously, for in a rapidly shrinking world we often live and work next IJFM (ISSN #2161-3354) was established Editorial continued on p. 162 in 1984 by the International Student Leaders Coalition for Frontier Missions, an outgrowth of the student-level meeting of The views expressed in IJFM are those of the various authors and not necessarily those Edinburgh ‘80. of the journal’s editors, the International Society for Frontier Missiology, or the society’s COPYRIGHT ©2019 International Student executive committee. Leaders Coalition for Frontier Missions. PRINTED in the USA 162 From the Editor’s Desk, Who We Are to those who believe an anti-Christian rather than from a thoughtful biblical those who initially respond to the narrative. We must reimagine witness theology. In his ISFM plenary, Martin gospel.3 At the tail end of our sessions, with that perspective in mind. Accad condensed insights from his Kevin Higgins and Steven Spicer began to address how innovation in mission So, ISFM 2019 indicated some early new book, Sacred Misinterpretation: will require a process of listening to directions in our reimagining frontier Reaching Across the Christian-Muslim indigenous voices (articles forthcoming). mission. Divide, and called for the development of a biblical theology of Islam (p. 173). One of our ISFM colleagues, Bradford Language and terminology must be exam- Greer, addressed this same incarnational Darren Duerksen also presented a short ined. Both Stroope and Accad agree sensitivity to innovation in his presenta- case study from South Asia, one he that any “transcending” of an outdated tion to a prominent evangelical semi- lifted from chapter 4 of his recent book, mission paradigm should taper us back nary this past fall (p. 189). to biblical metaphor—to pictures, not Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to Reimagining frontier mission begins propositions. As I indicated in my ISFM the Kingdom co-authored with William with sifting, and brutal pruning is presentation,2 our language can lock Dyrness, reviewed on (p. 206). By explor- sometimes necessary for fruitfulness. us into models that desperately need ing the tool of “emergence theory,” these two authors offer greater discernment on review. Accad suggests that a return to In Him, biblical images might help us reimagine how the church arises in frontier contexts. an approach more appropriate to the Expect a reformation of the mission interreligious sensibilities of the Middle agency. Boone Aldridge helped our Brad Gill East (p. 173). Paul Pennington’s ISFM ISFM imagine the organizational ten- Senior Editor, IJFM 2019 presentation on our indiscriminate sions in the strategic transformation of Endnotes use of New Testament language will be mission agencies. He offered insights 1 Robert D. Woodberry, “The Mission- published in a future issue. from his recent history of Cameron ary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” American Townsend and the radical reframing Political Science Review vol. 106, no. 2 (May New missiological theory will be 2012): 244–274, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ introduced. The review of Henning of the faith mission paradigm for Bible 5622/1233367af2dc7ab8186817553c6ae03 translation in unreached tribes (p. 181). a3fe9.pdf. Wrogemann’s comprehensive theory 2 Brad Gill, “Reimagining Frontier of interreligious relations is a fore- Innovation will become more collabora- Mission,” IJFM 36:3 (Fall 2019): 111, ijfm. taste of new perspectives (p. 202). Too tive. In my opening address I encour- org/PDFs_IJFM/36_3_PDFs/IJFM_36_3- Gill.pdf. often our mission strategies have been aged a reimagining that would spotlight 3 Gill, “Reimagining Frontier Mission,” derived from intuitive pragmatism the terms and metaphors selected by 112–114.

The IJFM is published in the name of the International Student Leaders Coalition for Frontier Missions, a fellowship of younger leaders committed to the purposes of the twin consultations of Edinburgh 1980: The World Consultation on Frontier Missions and the International Student Consultation on Frontier Missions. As an expression of the ongoing concerns of Edinburgh 1980, the IJFM seeks to:

promote intergenerational dialogue between senior and junior mission leaders;  cultivate an international fraternity of thought in the development of frontier missiology;  highlight the need to maintain, renew, and create mission agencies as vehicles for frontier missions;  encourage multidimensional and interdisciplinary studies;  foster spiritual devotion as well as intellectual growth; and  advocate “A Church for Every People.”  Mission frontiers, like other frontiers, represent boundaries or barriers beyond which we must go, yet beyond which we may not be able to see clearly and boundaries which may even be disputed or denied. Their study involves the discovery and evaluation of the unknown or even the reevaluation of the known. But unlike other frontiers, mission frontiers is a subject specifically concerned to explore and exposit areas and ideas and insights related to the glorification of God in all the nations (peoples) of the world, “to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.” (Acts 26:18)

Subscribers and other readers of the IJFM (due to ongoing promotion) come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Mission professors, field mission- aries, young adult mission mobilizers, college librarians, mission executives, and mission researchers all look to the IJFM for the latest thinking in frontier missiology.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Reimagining Frontier Mission Reimagining Witness beyond Our Modern Mission Paradigm by Michael W. Stroope

recall, even after more than forty years, an awkward incident during our first months of language study in Sri Lanka. We had gone to a friend’s house for dinner. A young girl was serving dinner. In an attempt to prac- Itice my new language, I thought, “I will tell her the food was good.” I formed the sentence in my head and then spoke three words. She gasped, screamed, covered her mouth, and ran out of the room. I immediately jumped from the table and followed her into the kitchen, and desperately tried to find out what it was that I had said. She would not even look at me but kept waving me off. I learned later that I had said something extremely crude and thus terribly offensive. I had the right words and pronounced them decently, but my offense was in the way I had said what I said, and the tone in which I had spoken.

For those of us who have acquired another language, we know that it is a grave, deep undertaking. Language is more than the correct pronuncia- tion of words. Language is a world of symbols, meanings, and assumptions that reside deep within the mind and forms a distinct way of viewing life. Successful language acquisition means breaking free of the bonds of one’s own language world—one’s epistemic reality—and entering another. The ulti- mate solution to my language mishap was not better vocabulary or getting my tongue to behave. It was no less than a conversion of my particular English linguistic categories and logic to a distinctively different world.

The focus of this essay is the use of terms and concepts. And yet, I am con-

Michael Stroope (PhD, Southwestern vinced this focus has more to do with the mental conception of reality, than Baptist Theological Seminary) holds with what words we actually use. So, I wish to explore the language of “mis- the M. C. Shook Chair of Missions at the Truett Theological Seminary, sion,” not just “mission” as a word, but “mission” as a mental frame that defines Baylor University. He worked with reality and thus orders our responses. First, I will discuss the origins of mission the International Mission Board, language, how the word has been used historically, and the ways it governs our SBC, for twenty years in Sri Lanka, England, Germany, and Hong Kong. understanding of and practice within the church-world encounter. This first He is the author of Transcending section is a summation of a much longer argument found in my 2017 book, Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition (IVP Academic, 2017). Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition.1 Second, I will speak

International Journal of Frontier Missiology 36:4 Winter 2019•163 164 Reimagining Witness beyond Our Modern Mission Paradigm to how mission, as a logic or frame- of a representative or envoy. The noun and funding. If we are not careful, we work, produces a restricted view of form, apostolos, specifies one who is can make Paul and Silas into mod- reality that actually hinders rather than sent as a messenger. Translators of ern American missionaries or equate helps in our response to the world. Greek to Latin and English rarely ren- their preaching and imprisonment Then third, I will advocate for a shift dered these “sending” verbs and noun at Philippi with a youth mission trip in language, one that is meant to liber- as “mission” or “missionary.” In fact, to Haiti. This is called eisegesis—not ate us to imagine and to act in new the Greek apostolus has usually been exegesis. And while every interpreter and fresh ways. made into a loan word—especially for brings his or her cultural and linguistic ecclesiastical references. In the case assumptions to the text, we must hold My beginning premise is that while of Greek to modern English transla- to the principle of sola scriptura and do there are problems within the mis- tions, translators have seldom rendered our best to let Scripture form, shape, sion enterprise with such matters as apostolos as “missionary.”3 When they and critique the modern career mis- structure, strategy, and support, these have done so, it has usually been as a sionary and the youth trip to Haiti and are not the chief problem. Structure, paraphrase, and not as actual transla- not the other way around. When mis- strategy, and support certainly require tion, and thus as a dynamic or func- sion is exalted to the status of biblical careful and thoughtful attention, tional equivalent rather than a literal language, it becomes sacred language but there is a foundational, and thus or formal translation of the Greek. So, and thus beyond critique. more urgent, problem that must be while one might argue for equivalence addressed. It is not just that mission Concern Number Two: The witness of in meaning, one cannot assert a direct has problems, but mission itself is the the people of God in Scripture and the problem. The conceptual and linguistic early church was not a singular ex- basis, upon which these other mat- pression, such as we commonly think ters rest, is the problem. Put bluntly, of mission, but it was a multifaceted mission, as a linguistic and conceptual phenomenon. framework, hampers our ability to It is not just that We read of activities such as pro- address wider concerns. Thus, it is es- claiming, teaching, confessing, telling, sential that we address the foundation mission has problems, pleading, and testifying. Those involved that is mission. In my book, I explore in these activities were disciples, elders, a number of issues related to the but mission itself bishops, saints, pastors, teachers, evan- problem of mission. I will mention five is the problem. gelists, apostles, bondservants, fisher- that are for me the most troublesome. men, tanners, sojourners, pilgrims, and To be clear, my aim in this first section martyrs. No one activity dominates or is to unseat or disrupt mission’s status excludes others, and no one vocation or as sacred, unassailable language. Only role negates other roles and vocations. then will we be free to critique its Scripture reports that the advance power as a framing reality and be able or literal trail from one to the other. of the gospel was wide-ranging and to consider a shift to a new linguistic Mission might be inferred from Scrip- diverse. The same can be said of the and conceptual paradigm. ture but not literally established. Thus, church of the post-New Testament pe- Concern Number One: “Mission,” as we must acknowledge that “mission” is riod. Activities and roles in the spread we use it today, is not, in the literal less than biblical or sacred language. of the gospel expanded rather than consolidated or contracted. My study sense, biblical language. So, why is this a concern? The direction of primary sources of the early church An explicit lexical trail from the in which we read and interpret Scrip- and its growth reveals that “mission” biblical languages to the English ture should be of great concern to all of was not the dominating terminology or term “mission” cannot be established.2 us. If mission is not biblical language, frame. In fact, mission language is non- In the New Testament, we find two then it should not be declared as the existent in the writings and accounts of verbs that denote the act of send- authoritative or decisive lens through Patrick, Columba, Gregory the Great, ing— pempo and apostellein. Both are which we read Scripture nor the gov- Boniface, and the Nestorians, as well used throughout the New Testament erning hermeneutic by which Scripture as the earliest historians of Christian- to convey ordinary and commonplace is to be interpreted. The primacy of ity, such as Eusebius, Rufinus, and the kinds of sending—demons being sent the Word of God demands we begin 4 Venerable Bede. into swine, workers being sent into with the revelation of God rather than the vineyard, Herod sending soldiers extra-biblical language freighted with We may feel the need to portray to kill male children, and the sending modern ideas of organization, strategy, the activities of the early church as

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Michael W. Stroope 165

“mission” and name its “missionar- ies,” but to what end? Plainly stated, arly Christian writers used the Latin missio it is anachronistic to present church to explain the inner workings of the Trinity history or the expansion of Christian- ity as “mission history.” Rather than E and never for the church or human agency. compressing the multitude of realities encounter with the wider world. The Protestants did not immediately and variety of actors into a single, ag- papal bull that establishes the Jesuits adopt the language of mission, mainly gregating reality called “mission,” why initiates the modern ecclesial use of because of its implications. It was a not call activities and people by what “mission.” Likewise, Ignatius cre- Catholic word that implied the expan- they were? The historical record shows ates “a special vow” that obligates the sion of Iberian Catholic powers. This that methods, actions, and initia- Jesuits to go wherever the Roman made the term especially difficult for tives were socially located and situ- pontiff might send them. This unique Protestants, since they had often been ationally driven, and thus they were Ignatian innovation becomes known the target of Catholic “mission” effort reported via a wide array of terms, as the “mission vow.”6 In a relatively to reconvert Europe. Also, the term processes, and agents. Compression of short period of time, Ignatius’ notion was tied to exploration and coloniz- these into “mission” does not help our of obedience and mobility evolves ing efforts, and as Protestants had no understanding and can in fact lead to into the sending of ecclesial agents to colonies, it made no sense to appro- erroneous conclusions. For example, places near and far. One of the first of priate the word. For example, even reducing everything to “mission” leaves these agents was Frances Xavier who though Matthew 28:19–20 was the the impression that the expansion traveled to India as legate of the Por- centerpiece of Anabaptist theology of Christianity was a professional tugal crown, as well as a representative and practice, mission language was not endeavor that excluded, or excused, the of the Roman Church. This Ignatian part of their early confessions or the majority of those in the church. From linguistic appropriation of mission for language of leaders, such as Balthasar this, we might conclude that the Great 8 the church is widely acknowledged by Hubmaier and Menno Simons. The Commission can be delegated or is the both Catholic and Protestant scholars, Great Commission was binding on all assignment of only a few. such as Paul Kollman, John O’Malley, its members, and yet, Anabaptists self- Concern Number Three: The historical and David Bosch.7 Again, the concern identified as pilgrims and martyrs, not fact is that the rhetoric of mission, as is that the lineage of mission is mod- missionaries. For them, mission carried used by the church today, is not ancient ern and not ancient, and its current territorial implications. And since but modern. meaning and use is quite recent. everyone, everywhere needed salvation, especially Catholics, the Great Com- Mission became the way to describe Concern Number Four: Mission mission was without territorial bounds. the activity of the church only in the rhetoric is historically linked to Span- sixteenth century. Prior to this time, ish and Portuguese exploration and The historical record shows that mission was chiefly a term to describe the establishment of colonies in India, Protestants adopted the language of the diplomatic and military activities the far East, Latin America, and the mission at the same time Protestant of Spain and Portugal, as well as in- American Southwest. nations, such as the Netherlands, Den- dividuals who were political agents of mark, Germany, and England, acquired these empires. The exception was early These efforts were justified and fueled their own colonies. The Danish-Halle Christian writers who used the Latin in large measure by ongoing Crusades Mission was one of the first Protestant missio to explain the inner workings of against Muslims, as well the recent societies with mission in its title. The the Trinity. We find missio employed Reconquest of Spain and Portugal from back story is that the Danish Crown in this way by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Moorish control. Various attempts have had established a presence in Tranque- and Augustine, and then later and been made to minimize this connection bar, India, nearly a century prior (1616) more extensively by Thomas Aquinas. or to isolate them as exceptions, and yet, in the form of a trading company In their use, missio is restricted to it is clear the rise of mission language and a colony of Danish citizens. The the divine, inter-workings of the Son coincides linguistically and politically Danish Crown supported the found- and Holy Spirit, and never refers to with reconquest, conquistadors, ing of the Mission in order to bring the church or to human agency.5 But expeditions, and colonialization. The all the ruler’s subjects, both Danes and this changes in 1539, when Ignatius Vasco de Gama era was at the same Indians, under the ruler’s religion. The of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, time the era of the Latin Rite, as king’s action was also a move to sup- introduces mission as a way to speak mission agents of the Roman Catholic plant Portuguese Jesuits who were also about vocation and human agency, Church personified the advance of present in Tranquebar.9 Therefore, the as well as the Catholic Church’s imperial Spain and Portugal. founding of Danish-Halle Mission in

36:4 Winter 2019 166 Reimagining Witness beyond Our Modern Mission Paradigm

1704 followed the pattern and prac- This unbridled optimism came undone might remark that because nothing is tices already established by Portuguese immediately following the Edinburgh mission, something must take its place. and Spanish Catholics. Conference, as the world erupted into So, my five concerns in summary war, with Christian nations slaughter- Just as Ignatius innovated mission are—mission is not sacred, revealed ing each other. The great depression language for the Roman Catholic language. Its origins lie in the power followed. Then one after another Church, the Danish-Halle Mission dynamics of 16th century Western ex- colonial populations initiated their initiated mission as ecclesial language pansion. Its original historical context campaigns for independence. Simul- for Protestants. In the course of the is imbued with notions of conquest, taneously, the revival of world reli- next century, mission moved from manifest destiny, and colonialization. gions and nationalism surged among questionable language on the margins Rather than unencumbered or benign, Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus. All of the Protestant Church to a firmly mission is a weighted and burdensome of this signaled a gathering storm for established tradition. term. And though the modern mission the mission enterprise. The hope of paradigm may have operated with a The concern is that claiming mission evangelizing the world in the cur- type of force in the Age of Discovery, as a distinctively Protestant or Evan- rent generation seemed unlikely. The and while it may have advanced the gelical endeavor is simply inaccurate. colonial legacy of mission created gospel by way of devout people and Its roots are located in sixteenth cen- a spirited backlash among newly strategic means well into the twentieth tury Iberian, Catholic expansion. liberated, former colonies. Access for century, that paradigm is now outdated missionaries retracted rather than Concern Number Five: In modern and offers only a restricting frame- times, Protestant mission converges work. Mission is a modern linguistic with the optimism of Western Christi- innovation, and thus we should not anity to create a spirit of triumph and feel duty-bound or obligated to main- a sense of manifest destiny. tain and uphold its use or its logic. The height of this optimism can be seen Christendom’s You may be thinking, “So what! Does in the language of the Edinburgh Con- spatial assumption any of this matter? It’s only a matter of ference, 1910. From beginning to end, semantics. It’s just words.” Well, words mission language saturated the confer- of “here and there” matter, because they tell us who we ence addresses and reports. “Mission” no longer fits. are and they contain the content that and “missionary” modified ideas and forms our actions. “Mission” is like an concepts, qualified activities and actors, old, comfortable house. In its rooms, and quantified aims and objectives. The hallways, and attic are the accumulated answer to the “modern missionary situ- bits that represent the distinct ways of ation” was mission or missionary work, a former time. undergirded by a wide and varied list of actors, entities, actions, and arenas, expanded, and mission opportunities The studs and drywall of this house all qualified by the missionary adjec- were no longer “unprecedented” but are full of assumptions, built into its tive—missionary standards, mission- chaste and limited. structure through the generations. And ary intelligence, missionary buildings, while once useful and workable, they are missionary money, missionary spirit, In the past half-century, a reevaluation now unsound and even dangerous. For and on and on. It was announced that of mission language in all its forms has example, Christendom’s spatial assump- mission was a modern enterprise whose commenced. The loss of confidence tion of “here and there” no longer fits. time had come.10 Mission progress and optimism resulted in a rethink- Christianity cannot, and should not, be and triumphs were lauded in military ing, revisioning, and rehabilitating of defined in terms of territory or distance. and crusade-like language of conquest, mission that has been ongoing since Because Christianity exists around turning heathendom into Christendom, the middle of the twentieth century. the globe, witness no longer traffics in as well as the demeaning language of The result is that mission has become one direction but from anywhere to barbarian, uncivilized, and heathen. a conflated and often confusing term, everywhere. For sure, this means that Along with optimism, modern notions taking on a wide array of competing the mindset of exploration and colo- of progress, consumption, and efficiency meanings and uses. In a very real sense, nization from which mission emerged became defining ideals and goals in Stephen Neill’s quip, “If everything is does not address current realities. Such mission practice and planning. Mis- mission, nothing is mission” sounds stark religious territorial differentiations sion epitomized the spirit of Western truer today than when first spoken in have died. We live in neighborhoods advance and modernization. 1959.11 If Neill were alive today, he in which racial, linguistic, and religious

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Michael W. Stroope 167 mixing is taking place at a breakneck pace. At a workplace in Houston, it ather than conveying that we are objectifying or is likely that a Hindu is seated in the conquering, people need to hear us address them cubicle, next to a Christian. Cross- as neighbors, fellow human beings, and friends. cultural witness is a daily possibility for R every Christian. Coupled with this is witnesses, we must live open lives in devotees of Jesus, disciples, or pilgrims the rapid decline of the church in the which people know us intimately, and in the Jesus Way. Rather than language West. Nigerians, Koreans, and Chinese the most precious parts of our lives are that may convey that we are objectify- are making their way to our shores in not hidden but on full display. ing, conquering, or winning, people of hopes of converting us. “Mission” seems this world need to hear us address them Above all, at the foundation of this to be worn and tired language incapable as neighbors, fellow human beings, and modern abode is a pursuit that is less of responding to global changes. It is a friends. The realities of the current age than ultimate. A passage often quoted mental model for a time and world that require language that invigorates our to justify mission is John 20:21—“As no longer exist. The challenges of today engagement with those who do not the Father has sent me, so send I you.” require a different structural frame- know Christ, words that include all The argument is that in “sent” we find work. The ethos and spirit of modernity, believers, and language that allows us to the biblical idea of “mission.” And with its unexamined values of progress, reimagine witness beyond the boundar- yet, Jesus’ emphasis in these words is individualism, cause and effect, and ies of the modern mission paradigm. commodification, are hardwired into on something other than the opera- mission and limit our ability to imagine tion of sending, something more than So, you might be asking, “How exactly what could be. the pursuit of mission. In the previ- might we reimagine witness beyond the ous verse, Jesus focuses the disciples’ modern mission paradigm?” Well, as I Echoing through the rooms, hallways, attention on his hands and side, on see it, we have three options . . . and corners of this old house is identi- his wounds. He then says, “Peace be Option 1: Ban Mission Language ty. Identity is the way we see ourselves, with you; as the Father has sent Me, This, of course, is highly unlikely and present ourselves, and how others view I also send you.” Jesus is saying, as, or really unreasonable. Mission, mission- us. Identity is central to our operat- for the same purpose, the Father has ary, and missional are deeply embedded ing logic, as we move through life and sent me, I am sending you. Sacrificial in the language of the church, litera- encounter others. More than ever, how suffering is the point. Sending is only a ture, and history, and thus, these words we identify ourselves is a primary con- modest means to the goals of love and are not going away anytime soon. And cern. As the world becomes more and sacrifice. When conveyance to these they should not. They are part of the more polarized, it matters who we say ends becomes the emphasis rather historical discourse as we talk about a we are. If our goal is to live faithfully than ends themselves, the implications particular past and a historical tradition and speak with clarity about Christ in of Jesus’ suffering and death become in the expansion of Christianity. these confusing days, we will want to less than ultimate. Mission, at best, identify ourselves clearly and publicly is a vehicle; it is a means to an end. Option 2: Do Nothing About Mis- as fellow human beings who are devot- We know that getting on a plane and sion Language ed to Jesus Christ, who follow Christ’s flying over salt water does not change It is equally untenable to continue teachings and his distinct way of life. our character or turn us into witnesses. justifying and promoting mission If we are to suffer rejection, persecu- Sending and going are not enough. language as if it is sacred language and tion, or even death, it should be for the Our foundational call is to Christ—to a viable framework from which to right reason, the highest calling—that a cruciform life—and not to mission. operate. We must scrutinize the way is, identification with Christ. Mission we talk among ourselves about the and missionary are not sacred brands So, what am I proposing? I suggest we church-world encounter, as well as to that must be emblazoned across our speak in the sacred language of Scrip- the people outside the church. chest and defended to the death. Even ture and that we embody the logic more concerning is the internal ten- found in these holy words. Such words Option 3: Invite Others To Move Out sion many of us have to navigate when as love, covenant, reconciliation, witness, of the Mission House, through Con- we are forced to identify ourselves one sojourner, and kingdom of God, should structive Linguistic Variation way at home among constituents and define our identity and determine our In my classes, in conversation with family and then another way in the internal logic. Rather than a historically friends and colleagues, and in my work places where we live and work. We overworked and over-burdened word, with churches, I make a concerted know that in order to be undivided such as missionary, it is far better to effort to speak with words that devi- and authentic in our person and as identify ourselves as followers of Christ, ate from the mission norm. This may

36:4 Winter 2019 168 Reimagining Witness beyond Our Modern Mission Paradigm mean I speak in longer, more detailed weeks, working alongside Christian and witness anew from the perspec- brothers and sisters in the ministry sentences or with more situational or tive of a pilgrim who travels along the of their local church in order to show socially located speech. As I deviate, love and give a witness to youth in the uncharted terrain of the boundless and my hope is that people will question, surrounding neighborhood through a coming reign of God. either consciously or unconsciously, sports camp. We pray that our high A few of you are thinking—“He is their own word choice, and change schoolers will see that Christ is at work asking us to abandon the Great Com- their speech. My rewording is an in the Dominican Republic and that mission.” No, it is quite the opposite. invitation—not a command. I do not our high schoolers will receive a wit- Faithfulness to Christ’s commis- correct someone when they use the ness from Christians who live there. sion means we clarify our words and M-word (that would be rude), but includes a responsibility to lead others I am continually rewording witness This descriptive rewording commu- to adjust their mental framework to fit aloud in the hearing of others. Then, I nicates that this activity is more than current realities. Hear my plea—it is pray for an awakening of sorts. I pray about travel, it is reciprocal, the point only as we reimagine witness beyond that people discover ways of deviating is love and witness, and local Chris- the modern mission paradigm that we from what has been their norm, not tians are the prime actors. Or rather will be able to rise to the challenge of just linguistically but in terms of their than talking about the “mission field,” this cultural moment. For sure, reima- mental model. My hope is they will we should do all we can to move away gining is more than saying appropri- discover a fresh framework for witness. from objectifying language by call- ing people by who they are and how ate words in the right way. It is the I am finding that my own linguistic deep, revolutionary work of deviating, variations are forcing me to be a more rewording, and reimagining. Reimag- intentional Christ follower and a bet- ining moves us to a different place, one ter communicator. And my prayers for from which we are free to reorder our others have awakened me to my own participation in the gospel and to posi- issues of power and my need to be A few of you are tion ourselves for fresh and revolution- humble and clear in my intentions. ary witness. I invite you to join me in IJFM My words of choice have become thinking— this pioneering venture. “pilgrim witness” for how I self- “He is asking us to identify and “pilgrim imagination” for Endnotes the framework or logic from which I abandon the Great 1 Michael W. Stroope, Transcending 12 am to operate. Pilgrim or sojourner Commission.” Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition is a rich biblical image that describes a (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017). host of Bible characters and highlights 2 For the full discussion, see Stroope, a number of important biblical ideals, 58–66. 3 such as: we are people on the way. We See Stroope, 64–65. 4 are to live alongside others in humility they describe themselves—Malays, For the full discussion of these pri- Lebanese, or Sri Lankans. Or rather mary sources, see Stroope, 107–42. and service. We are weak and power- 5 than speaking in the code of “mis- See Stroope, 245–46. less. We, like Israel, are wandering 6 exiles. We, like Jesus, are to sacrifice sional church,” or “missional living,” The occasion and reasons for Ignatius’ we should give careful thought to what appropriation of “mission” are explored in and suffer. And, of course, witness is Stroope, 238–48. we are trying to communicate and 7 rich, biblical language, as well. See footnote 18 in Stroope, 243 then speak in clear, precise language. 8 So, how might this kind of reword- See Stroope, 300–302. Rather than saying, “everyone is to 9 ing or deviating actually happen? See Stroope, 309–10. be a missionary,” why not lead people 10 Well, rather than merely stating that See Stroope, 329–38. to move to more descriptive and 11 Stephen Neill, Christian Missions our church is taking the youth on a richer language that affirms all work “mission trip,” a more constructive and (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1964), 81. is God-given, every vocation is sacred, 12 imaginative course would be to think For a fuller description of a “pilgrim and witness to Christ is essential witness,” see Stroope, 355–85. through where we are going, why we for all Christians. Or rather than are going, what we will actually do, operating from “mission,” a modern and what we hope to accomplish. So, I paradigm, wedded to outdated ideas would reword “mission trip” in this way: of distance and erroneous notions of A group of our high schoolers will be power, we might choose to undertake in the Dominican Republic for two the pioneering task of imagining life

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Martin Accad 169

Has the modern mission paradigm really “operated with Article effect and force” for the proclamation of the kingdom of God and its values and alternative vision of the world, or Response has it operated for the advance of western adventurism and economics? Has it really “certainly advanced the gospel,” or rather advanced western cultures and values? Could it be that the progress and harvest of the gospel has happened— A Response to Michael Stroope albeit weakly in the Muslim world—despite, rather than thanks to, the mission enterprise? Certainly, some good has by Martin Accad happened because there were true disciples of Jesus who were drawn into the enterprise. But so much more happens if the patronizing colonial mission “enterprise” leaves faith- eading Mike Stroope’s thought-provoking thesis, it ful disciples of Jesus alone rather than dragging them into would be easy at first to think that he was making its political agenda of domination. a big deal about a marginal semantic issue. But Ras one progresses through his thinking, one eventually I remember, a few years ago, when I visited a so-called “slave realizes that he was serious when he says in his paper, “It is castle” on the southern coast of Ghana. Right at the center not just that mission has problems, but mission itself is the of the castle was a little chapel. I could see in my mind’s problem.” (p. 164) eye the slave masters gathering here regularly, morning and evening, to pledge once more their allegiance to their Over the past few weeks since I read Mike’s book, I drop- monstrous god after abusing another few hundred dehu- ped the bomb a few times in conversations or seminars manized fellow-human-beings. I was physically sick for (always giving due credit to Mike of course), that “mission” half a day. I threw up multiple times. I wept uncontrollably and “missionary” are not biblical terms, and puzzlement for about four hours nearly non-stop. I was shivering like a was always the reaction. It puzzled me too at first. Often leaf. Mercifully, a dear Ghanaian pastor graciously took me being taken by surprise is the beginning of a new learning with him in his car, and away from the bus and the rest of moment. Mike does well at building on this by pointing out the group. He prayed and grieved with me on the horrors of that the Bible uses other concepts, such as “witness,” that the colonial missionary enterprise. After a few days, when I this witness was carried out through a vast array of activities was able to process what had happened to me, I wrote a blog and types of proclamation, and that this was done by people entitled: “My Inner Journey to Hell and Back.”1 with a multitude of various gifts and callings. In this way, Mike “de-specializes” and thus “demystifies” the function Close to the end of Mike’s important paper, he makes and role of mission work and of the missionary. a statement which—it seems to me—might reveal the subconscious motivation that is getting western centers of Most important, perhaps, is Mike’s demonstration of how missionary power to revisit the concept of mission: closely the whole concept and language of mission has Nigerians, Koreans, and Chinese are making their way to our flirted with the history of conquest, human power, and shores in hopes of converting us. “Mission” seems to be worn, colonization; in a word, with “Christendom.” To realize, tired language that cannot respond to these and other chang- for instance, that Protestants had no use of the language of es. It is a mental model for a time and world that no longer mission (because they viewed it as a Catholic aberration) exists. The challenges of today require a different structural until Protestant nations emerged—such as the Netherlands, framework. (p. 167) Denmark, Germany, and England—and after they acquired their own colonies, is rather incriminating and paradigm Could it be that the repentance of the missionary enterprise shifting. derives from the discomfort that the western “Christian” world is experiencing as a result of having become the object At this point, it seems that Mike feels he has gone too far, so of mission? Is it so hard to be the object of a missionary he tries to rescue his destabilized reader a little bit with these enterprise?! Is it disturbing that people from the ends of the comforting words: earth want to change and transform you before trying to And though the modern mission paradigm may have operated understand you? If this is how the western church now feels, with a type of force in the Age of Discovery, and while it may have then perhaps it is finally able to understand how Orthodox advanced the gospel by way of devout people and strategic means and Maronite Christians in eastern parts of the world feel well into the twentieth century, that paradigm is now outdated and have felt for nearly two centuries about Protestant mis- and offers only a restricting framework. (p. 166) sionaries, and about Latin Catholic missionaries before that. But now that he has won me over to his thesis, I want to Mike Stroope’s revisiting of the whole concept and lan- respond to these last words of caution. guage of mission is very welcome indeed! But let us also ask

36:4 Winter 2019 170 Article Response

s an Arab Christian, as one from a “numerical minority” community, I find great inspiration in four metaphors of the kingdom from the Gospel A according to Matthew: “salt,” “light,” “mustard seed,” and “leaven.” ourselves critically: Are we changing the rules of the game It is because of this language of Christendom that we have now that we have become the object of the game? developed xenophobia instead of philoxenia. What will we do with the xenos—the foreigner? Will we show them Personally, Mike’s book and paper make me feel like aban- xenophobia—fear of foreigner? Or will we express to them doning the language of mission altogether and to exchange philoxenia—love of foreigner? I believe that if we want to it for more biblical language. I like his concept of “linguistic know if our church is calibrated properly with the bibli- deviation.” Just one example is the recent shift in mis- cal call to witness, we need to reflect on how our church sion quarters from the word MBB to describe a “Muslim responds and interacts with the xenos at its door: with Background Believer,” to BMB, a “Believer from a Muslim phobia, or with philos? IJFM Background.” What semantic game are we playing? We are called to be “disciples” of Jesus, and all of us have a back- ground. Sometimes it is helpful to refer to this background, Martin Accad is the third generation of a family deeply involved but using the acronym jargon is more often than not ter- in building genuine loving relationships with Muslims, sharing ribly objectifying. I am “a disciple of Jesus from a Christian the life and call of Jesus with them. In 2001, he obtained a PhD background.” Some of my brothers and sisters in the body in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations from Oxford Universi- are “disciples of Jesus from a Muslim background.” Others ty. Accad is Chief Academic Officer at the Arab Baptist Theological are “disciples from secularist backgrounds.” Seminary (ABTS) in Lebanon and holds faculty appointments in Islamic Studies at both ABTS and Fuller Theological Seminary in My favorite language is the language of the kingdom of Pasadena, CA. He also directs the Institute of Middle East Stud- God. And as an Arab Christian, as one belonging to what I ies at ABTS, an annual conference on the Middle East and Islam, have often referred to as a “numerical minority” community, and the Institute’s new Master of Religion in Middle Eastern rather than simply to a “minority,” I find great inspiration in and North African Studies. four metaphors of the kingdom from the Gospel according to Matthew: “salt,” “light,” “mustard seed,” and “leaven.” The Endnotes first two have to do with the nature of who we are called to 1 Martin Accad, “My Inner Journey to Hell and Back,” IMES be in our context: less is more and too much is unpleasant. blog, April 24, 2014 (last accessed Dec 2, 2019: https://abtslebanon. The last two have to do with the effect and impact of being org/2014/04/24/my-inner-journey-to-hell-and-back/). children of the kingdom: the community of the kingdom is a shelter, a blessing, a home for a great variety of birds, a warm loaf of bread that can be shared joyfully with all those around us. I hope that in a few years we will look back and be able to say that Mike’s study has delivered the final blow to the concept of mission that has used the language of oppres- sion and domination and conquest, and that it was the beginning of the rebirth of biblical metaphors of the entire body of children of the kingdom being a blessing to all those around. It is because we have lost this language that, I believe, we are unable to welcome the stranger and the migrant anymore. We happily get on a plane or a boat to go and “save” the Syrian, the Iraqi, the Afghan, or the Somali. But when they show up at our door, that is a different matter. The spirit of self-protective Christendom takes over from the spirit of conquering Christendom.

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Go to missionbooks.org for 25% OFF. Use code: IJFM25 at checkout. Reimagining Frontier Mission Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide by Martin Accad

The trauma of physical and sexual abuse, broken relationships, devastating wars, racial injustice, economic woes, and personal loss has destroyed for many the illu- sion of sanctuary and wholeness in the here and now. Christendom assumptions regarding place and privilege that exist throughout the Western world, and its refrains of God and country, triumphant Christianity, and naive optimism, ring hollow in the face of such severe personal and societal afflictions. When no longer culturally privileged or politically courted, Western Christians will have to choose whether or not they will sojourn as aliens and pilgrims in the wasteland of what was once Christendom. To think otherwise is a delusion.1

hese are the words of Michael Stroope’s powerful critique of the post-Christendom church in the Western world. But these could Editor’s Note: This paper was originally just as well have been the words of Michael the Syrian (the Great), presented at the EMS/ISFM 2019 the famous Chronicler of the twelfth century who, after the sacking of Edessa annual conference under the theme T “Mission in Global Crisis.” The author’s by the Turks in the 1140s, exclaimed that assessment of the history of Christian the city of Abgar, the friend of Christ, was trampled underfoot because of our mission to Islam as a journey through iniquity . . . Some aged priests . . . recited the words of the prophet, “I will endure the “sacred misinterpretation” is treated Lord’s wrath, because I have sinned against Him and angered Him.” And they did more comprehensively in his recent book, not take flight, nor did they cease praying until the sword rendered them mute.2 Sacred Misinterpretation: Reaching Across the Christian-Muslim Divide Granted that the language of Stroope does not sound as apocalyptic as that (Eerdmans, 2018). of Michael the Syrian. But it is not unusual for church historians to observe Martin Accad is the third generation the unravelling of an era by bemoaning the misconduct of the church, fallen of a family deeply involved in build- victim to its own complacency. Philip Jenkins, too, in his pessimistic survey of ing genuine loving relationships with Muslims, sharing the life and call of the decline of Eastern Christianity, The Lost History of Christianity,describes Jesus with them. In 2001, he obtained a the ever-repeating cycle of the church in history, from rise to political trium- PhD in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations from Oxford University. phalism, to collapse under the burden of its own political maneuverings, as it Accad is Chief Academic Officer at the falls prey to its thirst for worldly power. Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS) in Lebanon and holds faculty Christendom Is Dead! appointments in Islamic Studies at both ABTS and Fuller Theological Seminary Praise the Lord! And with it, one can hope, triumphalist Christianity and its in Pasadena, CA. He also directs the In- hollow mission . . . stitute of Middle East Studies at ABTS, an annual conference on the Middle The first ascent of the church from a persecuted community of martyrs and East and Islam, and the Institute’s new saints to that of political masters and oppressors built gradually upon the Master of Religion in Middle Eastern and North African Studies. achievement of the Edict of Milan in 313. This edict proclaimed the end of

International Journal of Frontier Missiology 36:4 Winter 2019•173 174 Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide the persecution of Christians in the the desert saint, the pilgrim towards seeds of hope and faith, the “leaven” Roman Empire and the return of con- whom populations flocked for comfort whose effect on the dough becomes fiscated properties to the church. But and counsel as a form of resistance to irresistible. At this heyday of global with the granting of temporal power, a rising and increasingly oppressive conflict, when the church has much the Edict of Milan had also inaugu- Christendom.3 At the height of the to repent for its involvement in mis- rated the rise of Christendom, which Fifth Crusade, in 1219, when main- sion often complicit with colonialism may rightly be viewed as the end of stream Christianity was represented by in a post-colonial world, Christians the church of the New Testament and armored knights and military con- may well have to decide whether we of the early apostles. 1700 years later, quest, Saint Francis of Assisi, who had are willing to embrace once again the Christendom is still dying hard. Over embraced the vow of poverty, crossed humble metaphors of the kingdom as the past century of war and devasta- the battle line with a companion to a way of life, or simply delude our- tion, and of massive people migra- preach the gospel of peace to the selves in the conviction of infallibility tion, our world has witnessed the rise Egyptian Sultan al-Kamil in the hope and perpetuity. and fall of secularist reactionism to of converting him. One thinks as well Christendom’s hegemony over human of the 15th century Anabaptists who, Dialogue and Peacebuilding as societies. But in parallel as well, we at the height of the Western church’s Core Components of Kingdom have been witnessing the ascent of power, condemned any involvement of Witness Today new forms of religious fundamental- the church in war, violence, or po- ism and militantism. Not much has litical participation. We think of Karl My call to the missionary community changed. History is cyclical. Michael is for a recalibration of our witness Stroope’s warning that to meet the challenges of living in Western Christians will have to choose multifaith societies. Given the deep- whether or not they will sojourn as ening chasm of understanding that aliens and pilgrims in the wasteland dominates relations between various of what was once Christendom To read history religious groups, and given the gravity of global conflicts in which religions is a quandary that Eastern Christians in this way are central actors, I believe that there have had to face previously at several is to fall prey to the cannot be true kingdom witness historical points. The history of the today that does not involve dialogue Eastern church’s decline is a testimony trap of dominant and peacebuilding. The problem with to its repeated failure to make the these two words is that they are often right choices. historiography. understood as being akin to “com- But to read history in this way is also to promise” within Evangelical circles. fall prey to the trap of dominant histo- Let us reflect briefly, therefore, on riography. Do church historians tend to how we can avoid the sort of dialogue hear too loudly the voice of royal his- Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who that leads to syncretistic apathy, while tory? Indeed, even 1700 years later, we resisted Nazi Germany at a time when also avoiding any sort of polemical are still also able to trace a continuous mainline German Protestantism had militancy. I have developed what I call line of witness-martyrs here and there, been co-opted by the regime. Many the SEKAP Spectrum for Christian- of silent pilgrims within the church, to more examples of pilgrims can be Muslim interaction, which identifies use Stroope’s own language. Pilgrim found, who challenged peacefully the five positions on a continuum between witnesses continue steadily throughout church’s collusion with political power, these two extremes. These positions history mostly silent, and mostly undoc- conquest, and oppression. are reflected in the SEKAP acro- umented by the historians of the “royal When the metaphors of human power nym, which stands for “Syncretistic,” court.” It is often those about whom we come crashing down in the public “Existential,” “Kerygmatic,” “Apolo- hear the least, those who never “write imagination, the biblical metaphors of getic,” and “Polemical.” I have sought home,” who carry out most faithfully the kingdom can find their way back to argue that “Kerygmatic” interaction the work of the kingdom. into life. Children of the kingdom is the sort of kingdom witness most In the early church of the 5th and are pilgrims in society as the “salt” faithful to biblical teaching. As I have 6th centuries, so richly documented and “light” of witness. Though we are written elsewhere: by social historian Peter Brown, the invited to embrace the humble status The kerygmatic approach to Christian- image of the venerated martyr of the of a small “mustard seed” or of a small Muslim interaction is thus devoid of early church morphed into that of quantity of “leaven,” these are the polemical aggressiveness, apologetic

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Martin Accad 175

defensiveness, existential adaptive- ness, or syncretistic elusiveness . . . It erygmatic witness is Christ-centered rather needs essentially no militant enforc- ers, no fanatic defenders, no smart than Christianity-centered—we disengage adapters, and no crafty revisers.4 K from the cosmic battle between religions. As we reflect on the balancing role is inviting rather than offensive. Like While there is not space here to of dialogue and peacebuilding in our Christ-centeredness, supra-religious- discuss this in great depth, suffice it kerygmatic witness to the world we ness is disarming as well. As we put to say that a kerygmatic approach to live in, metaphors of the kingdom may away from ourselves the false sense of Muhammad and the Qur’an opts for a offer insight into this reflection. First, duty that we ought to be defenders of quest for the “historical Muhammad” kerygmatic witness is Christ-centered Christianity and its doctrines, we are as an alternative to the usual “Muham- rather than Christianity-centered. able to journey along humbly with our mad of faith and tradition.” Based on When we engage in kerygmatic wit- Muslim neighbors as fellow-travelers the latest scientific findings in the re- ness, we disengage from the cosmic on a quest for God’s light and love. visionist school for the study of Islam, battle between religions. There is a In Matthew 5:14–16, Jesus tells us the traditional portrait of Muhammad disarming aspect to our engagement that if we are his disciples we are the preserved in the official prophetic in conversation with Muslims as “light of the world.” As he clarifies the biography (Sirat Rasul Allah), as well witnesses to Christ rather than as rep- metaphor, he speaks of a town that as the traditional method for the study resentatives of Christianity. When we cannot be hidden because it is built on of the Qur’an based on hadith and witness to what we have experienced a hill (v. 14). He speaks of a lamp that asbab an-nuzul—“occasions of the with Christ, we are inviting others to gives its light to everyone in the house revelation”—are no longer viable. A respond, like us, to God’s invitation because it is set on its stand rather than kerygmatic witness is appreciative of into relationship with himself. We put under a bowl (v. 15). The imagery Muhammad and the Qur’an because are responding to Jesus’ invitation in conveys the scene of a light that softly the historical event of their appear- Matthew 5:13 for us to be the “salt of illuminates the way on a journey, or ance on the world stage is intimately the earth.” Though we are small, we are connected with the Judeo-Christian gently provides the light needed to effective. We refuse to find confidence tradition in Arabia in the sixth century. discover truth in the dark. One does in the “pack mentality,” where the salt A Christ-centered witness, however, not get the sense of a strong headlight is in excess and ruins the taste of the turns down respectfully the notion of that bedazzles a passerby. The light food. Yet we are also aware that if we Muhammad’s prophethood and of the that Jesus speaks of, and that must “lose our saltiness” by failing to live out Qur’an as a continuation or fulfilment “shine before others” is, according to according to the distinctives of God’s of the biblical revelation, not because verse 16, our “good deeds” that lead our kingdom, then we might as well be of any disdain for Muhammad and his companions on the journey to “glorify “thrown out and trampled underfoot.” book, but because of a firm belief in [y]our Father in heaven.” Jesus tells us the finality of Christ as God’s self- Second, kerygmatic witness is supra- that when we are “peacemakers” we will revelation and the achievement of our religious witness that moves us away be called “children of God” (Matthew salvation at the cross. from the mindset of triumphalistic 5:9). What better way to give glory to Christendom. The traditional mis- our Father in heaven than by being The kingdom metaphor here may sion mindset tends to count gains and recognized as his children? be that of the yeast. It is a tricky losses, like one side engaged in conflict metaphor in the New Testament. In with another. How are we doing with Third, kerygmatic witness is pro- Matthew 16:6 and in 1 Corinthians achieving our strategy? What clusters phetic and scientifically honest. Talk 5:6, the yeast symbolizes false teach- of “unreached peoples” have yet to of dialogue and peacebuilding can ing. In Luke 12:1, it symbolizes the be conquered? By what year will we communicate the impression that we hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Yet in have achieved the “great commission?” are advancing “sweet talking” as an Matthew 13:31–33, both the yeast 2020? 2025? 2050? But isn’t this entire alternative to gospel witness. Dialogue and the mustard seed represent a way of thinking absurd and futile, can—and has indeed—often become small quantity of good substance that given the constant shifts in demo- an exchange of niceties with little transforms irresistibly and overwhelm- graphic and cultural realities resulting implications for the gospel or even ingly an entire environment for the from mass migration, globalization, interest for people of faith. Kerygmatic greater benefit of all those around. As social media, and other such variables? dialogue, on the other hand, seeks to we seek intellectually to engage with Christ-centered supra-religious witness engage theologically and to do so on Muslims kerygmatically in search for is meek rather than triumphalistic. It scientifically honest grounds. the truth, we must be aware of the

36:4 Winter 2019 176 Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide dangers of false teaching and hypoc- us to himself through Christ and the realities of the time, for Islam to risy that we could fall into. But if we made us into new creations in Christ have emerged as a pacifist religious are steadfast, these humble seeds of (also v. 17). The kingdom call for the expression would have required a sheer truth could grow into a large tree in children of God to be peacemakers miracle. It was at the intersection of whose shade birds of many kinds can and reconcilers has to come to terms religion and politics that the theologi- find rest and fellowship. The yeast and with a long history of conflict between cal metadialogue between Christianity the mustard seed are kingdom meta- Christianity and Islam. If we are going and Islam was born, and the persisting phors that speak of the great impact to engage kerygmatically with hearts, formulation of our theological rela- of small ingredients. They invite us to hands, and minds, we need to under- tionship is an enduring witness to this work steadfastly for the common good stand how political conflict has affect- politicized encounter. of our societies. ed the history of theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The Eastward Crusades of the elev- “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they enth century and the Westward will be called children of God.” Disentangling Our Witness Reconquista, that grew in vigor around (Matthew 5:9) Kerygmatic witness is the same period and extended up intentional in its proclamation of the from a Civilizing Mission to the end of the fifteenth century, “gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). Theologically, we must ponder nearly triggered a shift and turning point Michael Stroope expresses it well: 1400 years of Christian-Muslim meta- in the Christian-Muslim theological Witness is not a synonym for persua- dialogue, strewn with turning points discourse that reoriented the conver- sion, argument, or coercion. Witness sation from text-based exegesis to runs in two directions, each com- eisegetical proof-texting. The chief pounding the other. Witness is both example of this shift occurred in beholding and telling. To behold is the argument of tahrif, the Muslim to witness something that changes accusation that Jews and Christians one’s existence. Beholding is more Kingdom metaphors had corrupted their scriptures beyond than seeing with physical eyes; it is to be captured by a vision of that which invite us to work repair. The Qur’an itself speaks of is revealed (apocalyptic), and thus tahrif in the sense of taking words 6 hopeful and transformative. To tell is steadfastly for the out of their intended context. Early to do more than recount events with Muslim interpreters accused Jews and a line of argument or in a dispassion- common good Christians of committing tahrif al- ate manner; rather, telling is to con- of our societies. ma‘na—“corruption of meaning”—in vey with one’s words and life what other words, of misinterpreting their has been seen and experienced.5 scriptures. It is in this way that they explained the emergence of doctrines Building peace is more than a set of incompatible with reason—according techniques and more than a meth- of political and military conflicts that to their own patterns of reasoning, odology. It is part of the beatitudes, have perpetually led to persecution. As from otherwise divinely inspired texts. placing it at the heart of the life of children of the twenty-first century, But by the time of the great conflicts the kingdom. Peacebuilding is first a heirs of the intractable Israeli-Pales- of the eleventh century, Muslim way of living with others in commu- tinian conflict, of the rise of al-Qaeda exegetes had taken to distinguishing nity. The writer of the Epistle to the and September 11, of the wars in Iraq between tahrif al-ma‘na and tahrif Hebrews intreats his readers (Hebrews and Afghanistan, of the birth pangs of al-lafz—“corruption of meaning” and 12:14), “Make every effort to live in the “Arab Spring,” of the murderous “corruption of text.” In this matrix, the peace with everyone and to be holy; havoc wreaked by ISIS, it is easy for us accusation of the falsification of the without holiness no one will see the to accuse Islam of being a religion of biblical text was born. Lord.” Paul does the same in Romans violence and death. But we forget that 12:18, encouraging the Romans, “If it it was Christian Byzantium that was As this argument reached a deadlock at is possible, as far as it depends on you, the blueprint of Islam’s emergence, the the heart of conflict, so the witness of live at peace with everyone.” In Pauline model for its expansionist nature and the church today needs to begin with thinking, practicing peaceful living appetite for conquest. Political Christi- the task of disentangling the Bible from also seems to be connected with what anity was a towering religious expres- our militant missions. Using what I call he refers to as the “ministry of recon- sion that all but blocked any alternative “legitimate hermeneutics,” in my book ciliation” in 2 Corinthians 5:18, which pattern for the nascent Islamic move- Sacred Misinterpretation,7 we need to was given to us after God reconciled ment of the seventh century. Amid enter the world of Muslim Qur’anic

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Martin Accad 177 exegesis to find precedent within the Muslim tradition for alternative ways istorically, Muslims did not start out by that Muslims have considered and used discrediting the Christian scriptures. It was the Judeo-Christian scriptures. I have political conflict that brought us to this deadlock. demonstrated how, long before the H argument came to a deadlock in the experienced under the Europeans, yet Will this sort of witness to “God with eleventh century, Muslim historians they struggled with a sense of having us” not be more powerful? Should and theologians, such as al-Ya‘qubi and been robbed of their own culture and not our propositional apologetics and th Ibn Qutayba (both 9 century), used religion by the hegemonic expression dialectics give way to an incarnational the Bible simply as a reliable source of of Christianity that had accompanied life? What if our primary mode of historical information about biblical the colonial endeavor. The conflict living were love of friend and foe, to events and about Jesus. Ibn Qutayba, a between cultures and civilizations de- the point of being willing to lay down well-respected theologian and hadith veloped into a conflict between oppos- our life for them? Will this not be a collector and critic of the ninth century, ing religions and their god. The rise of more effective testimony to the cross stood out in his use of gospel verses Zionism that led to the establishment as the expression of God’s eternal act to determine the veracity of Muslim of the State of Israel by the middle of of self-giving? What if this Christlike hadith traditions. Others, such as Imam the twentieth century did nothing to al-Qasim ar-Rassi, the ninth-century life became the foundation of our re- alleviate this sense that a cosmic battle lationships and conversations, replac- founder of the Yemeni branch of the was raging in the realm of the divine. Zaydiyya movement, cited extensively ing the smart and often dispassionate from the Bible in his dialectical work Our engagement with Islam today on theological arguments, and what if this against Christians, but never with the questions of God’s nature and attri- became the principal window into the purpose of discrediting the text. He butes, and on the Trinity and the incar- nature of the Divine? Our multi-faith Islamized certain words, such as Father nation, necessitates that we disentangle and multi-layered communities today and Son, and sometimes altered an- God from our “civilizing” mission. It is beckon us to approach dialogue from thropomorphical language, but he did hard to affirm a Triune God who dwells the angle of invested lives that lead to so to make the text more palatable to a in eternal loving communion, whose understanding, rather than from the Muslim reader as a means of salvaging desire to enter our world expressed starting point of propositional truths the text rather than to discredit it. The itself supremely through the incarna- that seek rhetorical triumph.8 same phenomenon can be observed in tion of the eternal Son in Jesus Christ, al-Ya‘qubi as well. Historically, Muslims and whose self-giving love manifested As Christians and Muslims, we are did not start out their engagement itself extravagantly at the cross, when heirs of a history of war and religious with Christians by discrediting their our history of missions has been so violence. When we ponder the violent scriptures. It was political conflict that complicit with the subjugation of other expressions of Islam which have brought us to this deadlock. human beings and the demonstration manifested over the past decades, we of such flagrant abuse of power. It will would do well to realize quite fright- The European colonization of the ma- take more than a continued affirma- fully that we are looking at ourselves jority of the Muslim world, beginning tion of propositional truths to convince and our own history in the mirror. We in the fifteenth century, was charac- Muslims that we serve a loving God are conceited if we pat ourselves on the terized by the exploitation of land, who desires to embrace them and invite back in the belief that the Christian- resources, and people. The fact that them into his heavenly kingdom. ity we have proclaimed and identified this colonial enterprise was undertaken with throughout much of our history by countries that purported to be Just as the role of the church today Christian, and that it was coupled with must consist in disentangling God can offer any hope for a violent and an enthusiastic missionary movement, from our “civilizing” mission, we must desperate world. The only hope for led to a great disillusionment with perhaps as well disentangle Christ a redemptive witness to Christ will Christianity among the colonized. In from our apologetic mission. Our begin with a disentangling of Mu- the post-colonial era of the early twen- primary approach to dialogue has hammad and the Qur’an from our tieth century, Muslim intellectuals and traditionally been the affirmation of essentializing mission. When we lump reformers from previously-colonized propositional truths, about the Trinity Islam altogether under the aegis of nations struggled between the desire and Christ’s divinity, the incarna- violence and as an anti-Christ mani- to modernize and industrialize, and tion and the cross. But what if we festation, we further deepen the chasm the desire to hold on to tradition. They focused instead on the significance of in our increasingly interconnected were drawn to the model that they had “presence” and solidarity in suffering? multifaith societies.

36:4 Winter 2019 178 Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide

A Mature Witness Will maximum extraction. And you will not Endnotes Derive from a Mature Biblical want to touch interfaith dialogue with 1 Michael W. Stroope, Transcending Theology of Islam a six-foot pole. But if for a moment Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition you consider that Muhammad may (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, Kindle Our understanding of Islam has have belonged to a Judeo-Christian Edition, 2017), 374. 2 Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of tended to derive from intuitive notions sect, who desired to reproduce the acquired through personal experiences, Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age Judeo-Christian scriptures in a “clear of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, through the populist discourse that Arabic tongue” as a sort of Qur’anic and Asia—and How It Died (London-New dominates our media and many of our Midrashist,9 then you might consider York: HarperCollins e-books, 2008), 250, church pulpits, and through popular it natural to integrate Qur’anic terms quoting from Andrew G. Bostom, ed., The Legacy of Jihad (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, writings with an essentializing agenda. and concepts into your Bible transla- It suits us to perpetuate a one-sided 2005), 611 (emphasis by Jenkins). tion. You may view the purpose of 3 and often simplistic understanding See especially one of Peter Brown’s evangelism as conversion to Christ earlier pieces on the subject, “The Rise of Islam. Just as the demonization rather than to Christianity; disciple- and Function of the Holy Man in Late of a certain ethnic group is a use- ship as a process of journeying with a Antiquity,” The Journal of Roman Studies 61 ful tool of propaganda in the hands (1971): 80–101. Muslim as they begin to reinterpret of a government, that precedes the 4 Martin Accad, “Christian Attitudes conquest and subjugation of a popula- their tradition in light of the resur- toward Islam and Muslims: A Kerygmatic tion through war, so is the wholesale rected Christ. And you may realize Approach,” in Toward Respectful Under- demonization of Islam and Muslims standing and Witness among Muslims: Essays in Honor of J. Dudley Woodberry, ed. Evelyne too often used as a polemical tool in A. Reisacher (Pasadena: William Carey pre-evangelism. The word “polemics” Library, 2012), 38. comes from Greek polemos, mean- 5 Stroope, Transcending Mission, 371. ing “war” and “combat.” Some of our It suits us 6 Four verses in the Qur’an contain the evangelistic methods flirt too closely to perpetuate a verb harrafa: al-Baqara 2:75, an-Nisa’ 4:46, with the methods of war. Our mis- and al-Ma’ida 5:13 and 41. 7 sion to Muslims, when it falls into the one-sided and simplistic Martin Accad, Sacred Misinterpreta- trap of essentialism, is often impulsive tion: Reaching Across the Christian-Muslim understanding Divide (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, rather than thoughtful. And it results 2019), Chapter 2. in methods that are often driven by of Islam. 8 These last lines are a paraphrase of a pragmatism rather than theology. blog piece I wrote on May 5, 2016, “Jesus, Muslims and the Qur’an: in search for The outcome is readily observed in KERYGMATIC peacebuilding,” IMES three of the greatest controversies blog (republished August 29, 2019). about mission methodologies currently that dialogue and witness ought to be 9 The Midrashim (plural of Midrash) raging in missionary circles: high- the two sides of an indivisible coin: were expanded commentaries on the context Bible translation, the Insider kerygma and dialogue manifested Torah, written by Jewish religious scholars, integrating extensive oral traditions with the Movement as an approach to church through kerygmatic dialogue and text of scriptures. planting, and the legitimacy of dia- dialogical kerygma. logue as a vehicle for witness. Essen- The witness of the church today, I am tialists who demonize Islam wholesale tend to oppose vehemently all three convinced, needs to be rooted in the approaches. If you view Muhammad development of a thoughtful biblical as an anti-Christ figure who wrote a theology of Islam, of the Qur’an, of book with the intent of bringing down Muhammad, and of Muslims. Outside Judaism and Christianity, then you a sophisticated, scientifically critical, will naturally oppose the introduction intellectually honest, prophetically of Qur’anic terminology into Bible incisive, relationally hopeful, and bibli- translations. You will consider that the cally faithful treatment of Islam, our only path to true conversion is for a witness to Muslims will remain devoid Muslim to renounce Islam as a Satanic of the meek and liberating power of trap, and will disciple them through Christ. IJFM

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Harley Talman 179

I concur that we should respect the “historical Muhammad” Article and the Qur’an due to their close connection to Judeo- Christian tradition in Arabia, and that we must respectfully Response disagree with Muslims that Muhammad and the Qur’an are a direct continuation or a fulfillment of biblical revela- tion. However, could we not take our stand upon what A Response to Martin Accad the Qur’an itself claims—that it should be interpreted as a confirmation of biblical revelation in an Arabic language (46:12)? Though this stands in stark contrast to the atti- by Harley Talman tude that prevails among Muslims today, your outstanding monograph, Sacred Misinterpretation,2 provides clear evi- hank you, Martin for these enlightening and chal- dence that for four centuries Muslim scholars overwhelm- lenging thoughts for reaching across the Muslim- ingly approached the Bible as a reliable, uncorrupted text. Christian divide. In my brief response I will You demonstrate how political conflict led to theological Thighlight key points that I appreciate, pose a few questions enmity. Thank you for bringing to light that the politi- and offer a small contribution of my own. cal Christianity of the Byzantine Empire provided the You have daringly contrasted Christendom with template that shaped Muhammad’s monotheistic move- Christianity and Christianity with the kingdom of God, ment into a competing political empire under an imperial calling us to rejoice at the death of Christendom (which religious system. united Christianity with political and military power). I I also heartedly agree that dialogical focus on propositional suspect you shocked some with your assertion that mission truths about contested doctrines must shift to demonstra- must even dispense with Christianity itself—at least when tion of incarnational, self-giving love. I suggest that we go its mission is still complicit in colonialism, and when we even further by inviting Muslims to participate with us in make it a system of propositional doctrines which many expressing such love through joint service projects. Christians have substituted for the Kingdom of God. And while I unreservedly agree with the need for nonverbal The kingdom involves the way of life taught by Jesus, a life demonstration of love, words are still needed. However, I submitted to the authority of the Messiah. Many Christians would advocate that our propositional discussions focus are living the life of the kingdom, but many are not. On the on Jesus’ emphasis in the great commission, recorded in other hand, others are living their lives with Christ as king, Matthew, to “teach them to obey all that I commanded beyond the borders of Christianity. you.” Instead of dialogue dominated by doctrinal discus- Counter to mainstream evangelical mission, you boldly call for sions of the reliability of the Bible, the Trinity, or the deity contemporary kergymatic witness to put dialogue and peace- of Christ, let us direct our attention to examining the making back on the stage of inter-faith relations. Christianity teachings of Jesus, asking our Muslim friends: can no longer be the king that we as Christian soldiers defend in the battle of religions. Instead, meek missionaries must • What did Jesus teach? How should it impact our own offer supra-religious witness to Muslim pilgrims on their jour- faith communities? ney to the light of the world. But our humble witness must • Which of his commands do our two communities need also be prophetic and academically honest. to obey in our relations with each other? As it relates to Muhammad and the Qur’an, I completely It is through obeying Jesus’ commands that Muslims can agree that the findings of current scholarship require us to come to know who he really is. In John 14:21 Jesus prom- reject the Muhammad of Islamic tradition that was based on ised, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it unreliable Muslim biographies. But I have some questions: is who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my 1. Knowing how strongly Bible-believing Christians Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him.” reacted to liberal scholars’ rejection of the Jesus of the Finally, I support your call for the development of a biblical gospels in their quest for the “historical Jesus,” might theology of Islam, escaping the trap of essentialist views we expect Muslims to react even more negatively to 1 of Islam (as violent, demonic or of the anti-Christ), and our search for the “historical Muhammad”? instead considering the evidence for Muhammad belonging 2. How can kerygmatic witness proclaim such a radical and to a Jewish-Christian sect, or for his founding an ecumeni- offensive (to Muslims) truth in peace-making dialogue? cal movement of monotheists that was later exploited by 3. Have you been successful in doing this? If so, then political rulers to unite the Arab empire under an imperial what guidance can you offer us? religion (just like Byzantine Christianity).

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iblical theologies that sanction Muslim conversion to Christ (as opposed to Christianity) can foster correction of the Islamic tradition to conform it to the Brevelatory light of Christ and the Bible rather than demanding its destruction. Biblical theologies such as you call for may sanction Endnotes Muslim conversion to Christ (as opposed to Christianity). 1 Martin later responded privately to my questions regarding They could foster correction of the Islamic tradition to discussing the “historical Muhammad” with Muslims. He indicated conform it to the revelatory light of Christ and the Bible, that it would not be well received, but that we must humbly speak rather than demanding its destruction. Such theologies will the truth in love. 2 Martin Accad, Sacred Misinterpretation: Reaching Across the find Muslim friends, such as Abdullah Galadari, whose Christian-Muslim Divide (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019). Qur’anic Hermeneutics accepts the Christology of the 3 3 Abdullah Galadari, Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Between Science, gospel of John. History, and the Bible (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018) I say “Amen!” to Martin’s calling us to develop a biblical theology of the Qur’an, Muhammad and Muslims. But let us first count the cost. As Martin well knows, such attempts will be strongly criticized or attacked by others—if not by some from the Muslim community, then by others in the body of Christ. Martin reminds us: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” But it is the peacemaking sons of God who also experience the final beatitude: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” May we be so blessed. IJFM

Harley Talman has worked with Muslims for over 35 years, in- cluding two decades in the Arab world and Africa, during which he was involved in church planting, theological education, and humanitarian aid. Talman holds a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD from Fuller Theologcial Seminary. He pres- ently teaches Islamic studies at a graduate school.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Reimagining Frontier Mission Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm by Boone Aldridge

he global realities of our post-colonial 21st century are demanding changes in Christian mission structure and identity. The institutional tensions, ambiguities, and contradictions can appear obscure, but sud- denlyT become vivid when grounded in the personality and entrepreneurial genius of a mission founder. The drama becomes relevant and can stimulate creativity with our mission institutions today. Such is the case with the 20th century mis- sion pioneer, William Cameron Townsend, the co-founder of the dual mis- sionary organization comprised of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Wycliffe Bible Translators (SIL-WBT).1 He looked to break down barriers in reaching the linguistically isolated indigenous peoples of the world. The radical institutional change he introduced broke with some aspects of a modern faith mission paradigm while carrying other features to their logical conclusion.

Editor’s Note: This paper was pre- An Emerging Vision sented at the International Society for Frontier Missiology in September Townsend began his missionary career with the Central American Mission 2019 under the theme, “Reimagin- in Guatemala, but his initial tenure with the mission from 1918 to 1933 was ing Frontier Mission.” His careful historiography is developed more fully an uneasy one. Contrary to the mission’s policy of evangelizing in Spanish, in his recent book, For the Gospel’s Townsend insisted that Guatemala’s indigenous peoples should be reached Sake: The Rise of the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute with the gospel in their own languages. In part, his argument rested on the of Linguistics (Wm. B. Eerdmans firm belief that Guatemala’s indigenous inhabitants would never achieve Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2018). religious, social, and economic equality with the dominant Spanish-speaking Boone Aldridge Joined Wycliffe Bible Ladinos until they were instilled with some measure of respect for their own Translators and SIL International in 2 1996, and after linguistic studies was languages and cultures. Toward this end, and with little official mission assigned to the Togo-Benin Branch of support, Townsend initiated indigenous education projects and translated the SIL in 1999 as a language surveyor (dialect studies). In 2002 he was as- New Testament into Kaqchikel. When he completed the translation in 1932, signed to SIL Africa Area as a mission the leadership of the mission pressed him to settle down and consolidate the researcher, and from 2008 to 2012 pursued doctoral studies under David work he had begun among the Kaqchikels. With visions of Bible transla- Bebbington at the University of Stir- tion dancing in his head, Townsend instead resigned from Central American ling, Scotland. In 2013, he was assigned the position of SIL corporate historian. Mission in 1933.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology 36:4 Winter 2019•181 182 Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm

Following his resignation, Townsend solution that worked around the prob- “red cohort” of leftist intellectuals in embarked on a two-fold mission. First, lem, and in doing so fundamentally re- Mexico.6 The two men struck up a he made an exploratory survey into worked the modern mission paradigm. friendship, and Tannenbaum provided Mexico, where he hoped to undertake his new acquaintance with a note of Bible translation and social uplift Into Revolutionary Mexico introduction to Mexico’s director of projects among that nation’s indig- When Cameron Townsend set his sights rural education, Rafael Ramírez, thus enous peoples. Second, in 1934, he on Mexico in 1933, the nation barred en- paving the way for Townsend to tour established Camp Wycliffe, a summer try to new missionaries. This posed little the country inspecting its educational course to train missionary-translators 7 obstacle to the enterprising and imagi- system for several months. in the relatively new science of struc- native Townsend; he simply dropped tural linguistics. In pursuing these Townsend eventually convinced key his missionary identity. In a letter of overlapping aims, Townsend rewrote Mexican authorities, such as Ramírez, introduction to Mexican authorities he the book on what it meant to be a that his overall intentions aligned with introduced L. L. Legters—a colleague faith missionary. at least some of their revolutionary and SIL’s co-founder—as a “lecturer, goals: undermining Roman Catholi- And what did it mean to be a modern explorer and humanitarian,” and himself cism, developing indigenous languages, era missionary anyway? The language as an “ethnologist and educator.” He did educating the nation’s indigenous of mission: missionary, missions, not deny his religious aims, and proposed peoples, and integrating these people missional, are terms that entered into what he referred to as the “Mexican into mainstream society. Eschewing common usage during the European Society of Indigenous Translations.” This the classical elements of the mis- expansion of Christianity, and are thus, sionary vocation, such as preaching, in our post-colonial age, freighted with baptizing converts, and founding legacies of the past: crusades, colonial- churches, Townsend set himself up in ism, occupation, and center-periphery, the village of Tetelcingo as a linguist to name but a few. Missiologist Townsend and community developer. He also be- Michael Stroope has recently offered gan learning the language in anticipa- a thorough analysis and critique of the presented his work in tion of translating the New Testament language of mission and its historical into a dialect of Aztec. baggage. He has argued that the time terms that aligned with has come to transcend the language of Cárdenas’ When Mexico’s President Lázaro mission altogether. Stroope contends Cárdenas paid Townsend an unex- that the language of “mission” has been revolutionary aims. pected visit in 1936, he was immedi- read into both the biblical and histori- ately impressed with the American’s cal contexts “in order to accommodate work, which reflected his own practical a variety of agendas and to support a concern for Mexico’s rural population. 3 particular version of church history.” society would establish a program, he With much in common, the two men We are, as it were, enveloped within a wrote, to “conserve for science a grammar became friends. Townsend convinced conceptual paradigm that fails to do and dictionary of each indigenous lan- his new benefactor that putting the justice to the globalized realities of guage” while also undertaking to “trans- Bible into the peasants’ hands and the twenty-first century. However, the late the New Testament in each language 5 teaching them to read it would tend language of mission retains a powerful and publish it in bilingual edition.” to eliminate vice and superstition, grip on the imagination. “For many By way of some fast talking and the while at the same time undercut- Christians,” Stroope points out, presentation of an old letter from ting Catholicism’s influence. To wit, mission language is emotionally Mexican educator and diplomat Townsend presented his work in terms charged and thus gives definition to Moisés Sáenz, Townsend and Legters that aligned with Cárdenas’ revolu- how they feel about their place in the tionary aims. Following their meeting, world . . . To critique the term raises were allowed into the country, but only uncomfortable questions about per- after promising not to preach. Legters, Townsend wrote the president that sonal identity and life purpose.4 an inveterate pulpiteer, chafed at the before having the pleasure of know- restriction and soon returned to the ing you, I loved and admired the Cameron Townsend, as we will see, ran US. Townsend stayed on and fell into revolutionary work of Mexico, now, headlong into this very problem. The the company of sociologist and social upon knowing its highest representa- language and conceptual notions of activist Frank Tannenbaum, who was tive personally I feel more intimately mission were impediments to his new suspected by the Federal Bureau of identified with her and more resolved 8 venture. He therefore crafted a partial Investigation of associating with a and determined in service.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 183

Townsend proved his sentiment by stumping for Cárdenas in America ollowing Townsend’s precedent, his young Camp after the president nationalized the Wycliffe graduates did not preach, baptize assets of US oil companies operat- converts, or found churches under SIL’s control. ing in Mexico. A lasting friendship F was forged between these two men, and Eugene Nida, earned doctorates. religious belief or political persuasion. evidenced by Cárdenas serving as Both men would go on to make their Thus, for example, Roman Catholic Townsend’s best man at his second marks in linguistics and translation priests and nuns and liberal Protes- marriage in 1946, after the death of respectively. They also saw to it that tants were admitted to the Institute’s first wife. SIL became a world-class institute linguistic courses at the University Townsend’s relationship with Cárde- of structural linguistics. While North of Oklahoma from the late 1940s. In nas opened the way for him to channel American evangelicals viewed the 1958, Townsend said he hoped that his young Camp Wycliffe graduates organization primarily as a Bible SIL would one day have the oppor- into Mexico, where they engaged in translation mission, government tunity to serve Muslims, Buddhists, administrators and linguistic scholars Atheists, Jews and, as he put it, “every- linguistic research, carried out lan- 9 guage and community development around the world knew and under- one.” All of Townsend’s efforts in the projects, and produced vernacular New stood that SIL was much more, that it arena of universal service were, in one Testament translations. And, follow- was also a leading player in the science way or another, aimed specifically at ing Townsend’s precedent, they did of structural linguistics. gaining access to indigenous peoples not preach, baptize converts, or found in order to bring them vernacular churches under SIL’s control. Thus, Of Service to All translations of the New Testament, while at the same time improving their rather than entering Mexico as a clas- As Townsend expanded SIL’s opera- social standing within the nations in sical faith mission, Townsend instead tions into South America and beyond, which they resided. conformed his mission to Mexico’s the operating procedures established in socio-political context in order to gain Mexico became the guiding principles Clearly Townsend’s mission was not a access to the indigenous population. for the organization’s field develop- typical faith mission, and was thus at ment. SIL henceforth entered other odds with its home base, where SIL The Linguistic Approach countries under government con- relied upon the financial support of Back in North America, rural Arkan- tracts as a scientific organization that North American fundamentalists and sas to be exact, Townsend’s upstart engaged in language development and other conservative evangelicals. This summer linguistic school proved community service. Bible translation is where the Wycliffe Bible Transla- a roaring success. By 1942, Camp was of course on the menu, but it was tors side of the dual organization Wycliffe had achieved sufficient couched in minimalist terms. For ex- came into play. Formed in 1942, its academic standing to garner an invita- ample, SIL’s contract with Peru called purpose was to relate to the organiza- tion to partner with the University of for it to translate books of “high moral tion’s North American constituency in Oklahoma at Norman, where it oper- value,” which was a moniker for Bible ways familiar to churchgoers. In other ated until 1988 as an adjunct depart- translation. Peru’s government offi- words, Wycliffe looked and sounded ment on a full credit basis. With the cials, as well as other Latin American like a typical faith mission. Its public- move to Norman, the Camp Wycliffe government officials, were not unaware ity focused heavily on Bible translation name was dropped and the school was of SIL’s religious ambitions; however, and the more religious aspects of SIL’s absorbed into the Summer Institute it suited their purposes to have SIL’s work. Likewise it produced films that of Linguistics. But, as we shall see, the contracts on a scientific basis, rather highlighted the spiritual transforma- Wycliffe name reappeared that same than on religious grounds, since this tion of indigenous peoples after the year as the name for an entirely new would ostensibly deflect criticism that New Testament began to circulate in parallel organization to SIL. they were sponsoring a Protestant their communities. organization at the expense of Roman To bolster the scientific credibility The organization’s personnel also took Catholicism. of SIL, Townsend encouraged his advantage of the dual structure. When most outstanding students to expand If the SIL strategy aimed to lessen the in North America they presented their linguistic knowledge by purs- influence of Catholicism, Townsend themselves to the Christian public ing advanced degrees at places such nonetheless stipulated that SIL was as Wycliffe missionaries; and when as the University of Michigan, where non-sectarian and would therefore abroad, as linguists or members of two of his early recruits, Kenneth Pike serve everyone regardless of their the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

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The dual SIL-Wycliffe setup allowed practiced what historian Todd Hartch In the third place, SIL’s wide-ranging members to accent differing aspects of referred to as “submission theology,” linguistic, cultural and humanitarian the total program depending on whom a strategy “that emphasized submis- program widened its understanding they were addressing. sion to rulers as God’s agents.”12 SIL of the task beyond evangelization. Kenneth Pike summed this up when But, the duality could also be a source not only took the modern nation-state he wrote that the “whole man, we feel, of deep mental distress for some as an artifact of historical develop- must be affected by the Gospel—his missionaries, especially those driven ment, but deeply involved itself in the spirit, intellect, and culture.”14 to telling the truth at all costs. One development of the states in which it of these turned out to be none other found itself, and this regardless of the Put simply, then, the deeper SIL than Eugene Nida, one of SIL’s top political persuasion of the nation’s gov- moved into the “service of all” man- linguists and charter board member. ernment. Left or Right, SIL was there date, the greater the dichotomy Nida gave as his primary reason for to serve. Indeed, service could at times between the SIL work in foreign parts resigning from SIL and Wycliffe in be carried so far that it led to SIL and the recruiting and publicity efforts 1953 that he could no longer condone fusing with the state. For example, in of Wycliffe in North America. the “degree of misrepresentation” that Peru, SIL’s aviation program became was entailed in “the explanation of so deeply integrated into the state Repercussions the SIL-WBT program.” In the main, apparatus that it functioned as an arm In the mid-1950s, some evangelical he concluded that the organization of the Peruvian military, even to the seemed to operate “on the principle missionaries began to note that SIL that the ‘ends justify the means.’ ”10 workers were a rather different lot. Others, such as Kenneth Pike, ap- It was observed that they attended peared unbothered by the duality, and diplomatic functions where liquor he simply argued that Wycliffe and The organization was served. Then there were all those SIL were “for accountability to two monks, nuns, and priests riding around different audiences.”11 seemed to operate in SIL aircraft. Others remarked that SIL members sometimes seemed to In any case, the dual-organizational “on the principle downplay their true identity, referring structure provided Townsend just what that the ‘ends justify to themselves as linguists rather than he needed to pursue his radical vision explicitly as missionaries. In 1956, a of Bible translation as a scientific the means.’ ” student reported that Harold Cook, a endeavor under the rubric of non-sec- Moody professor of missions and au- tarian service. SIL in Latin America —Nida thor of the widely used textbook Mis- and beyond could legitimately func- sionary Life and Work, was criticizing tion as a scientific institute—albeit one the dual organization’s “chameleon-like 15 that engaged in both Bible translation point of conducting military transport misrepresentation” in the classroom. and language development. At home flights. SIL also had offices at the De- Africa Inland Mission’s Ralph T. Davis in North America, Wycliffe could partment of Education in Lima. The complained to Townsend in 1958 that publicize the work, raise funds, and line between SIL and the Peruvian I have never been able to be con- recruit candidates among fundamen- government all but vanished.13 vinced in my own heart that the pri- talists and evangelicals with the usual mary purpose of you and Wycliffe, faith missionary vocabulary familiar to Second, SIL also had to live up to the as such, was the spiritual purpose of churchgoers. In a word, all the trap- research and language development your work rather than the scientific. pings of a faith mission were main- expectations of the various states it tained for the most part at home, but “Are you fish or fowl?” Davis wanted served. Expansion of university con- 16 radically altered in practice on the field nections beyond Norman, Oklahoma, to know. By 1960, the hue and cry as needed. also propelled SIL in a scholarly within the conservative faith mission direction. Without these relation- complex became so loud that Wycliffe Effects of the Strategy ships, it would have been all too easy pulled out of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association rather Having described the general outline to lapse into ignoring research and 17 than risk ejection. of SIL’s and Wycliffe’s early develop- scholarship and instead concentrat- ment, allow me to make some obser- ing only on Bible translation. But SIL The late 1960s brought new attacks vations. First, by collaborating with was contractually obligated to produce on SIL as anthropologists took up the governments, Townsend and SIL credible scholarship. cause of indigenous peoples. In 1973,

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 185 the American anthropologist Laurie Hart castigated SIL in an article hen a delegation of twenty-five indigenous entitled “Story of the Wycliffe Trans- leaders came to the Peruvian president with a lators: Pacifying the Last Frontiers.”18 Among a litany of other charges, T petition of 1500 signatories pleading SIL’s case. goes where the Peruvian Air Force Hart accused SIL of abetting internal Moreover, the Wycliffe brand carried doesn’t go, and has won a better colonialism. She argued that it was the weight. Wycliffe corporate publicity, reputation for safety.22 organization’s strategy to place indig- always on the cutting edge of innova- enous peoples into a “decultured” state tion, was very effective in presenting Across an entire range of services from so that they could be reconstituted the fieldwork of SIL (aspects of which aviation to language development to as citizens of the dominant culture. could go unmentioned when neces- education, SIL was providing badly The first book-length condemnation sary) to the evangelical public. needed and widely appreciated goods of SIL-WBT arrived on the scene in and services to the nations in which 1981 under the title Is God an Ameri- And there is the very real fact that the it worked. can? This was a collection of essays evangelical public was probably more by North American and European entertained by films and stories of Ama- Likewise, the indigenous communities anthropologists accusing SIL of every- zonian “savages” and “cannibals” than in which SIL worked often valued the thing from ethnocide to being a front they were concerned by interagency organization’s efforts to help them. In for the CIA. In 1982, David Stoll, politics and infighting. Indeed, Wycliffe the mid-1970s, leftists in Peru seemed who made something of a career out went so far as to bring a former head- to have finally effected the ejection of criticizing SIL, published a book- hunting chief from Peru, Chief Tariri of SIL from the country. But SIL length analysis of SIL-WBT entitled Nochomata, to tour America in the ear- had many powerful friends. Dozens Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? ly 1960s. Nochomata was made famous of leading figures: politicians, law- Stoll was particularly exercised over by the Wycliffe pavilion at the New yers, businessmen, generals, admirals, the dual strategy, referring to it as “a York World’s Fair, where a giant mural academics, and writers—including the 19 versatile fiction.” violently and graphically portrayed his renowned Peruvian novelist Mario transition from “savage to citizen” under Vargas Llhosa—published a defense Weathering the Storm the organization’s tutelage.20 The mural of SIL in Lima’s two leading papers. was so gruesome that fair officials at Then came a delegation of twenty- Despite all the criticisms of Christian 21 fundamentalists, the unrelenting de- first questioned putting it on display. five indigenous leaders knocking on the Peruvian president’s door with a nunciations of secular anthropologists To sum up then: Wycliffe’s publicity petition in hand, one with no fewer and linguists—not to mention threats was probably far more interesting to than 1500 signatories pleading SIL’s of expulsion from various countries— churchgoers than any reported SIL case. With such resounding approval these controversies did little perma- irregularities trumpeted about by par- for the organization from both ends nent damage to SIL and Wycliffe in tisan fundamentalists. the long run. Why was this the case? of the social strata, SIL’s contract was 23 I suggest that it was, at least in part, What about SIL? How did it survive the renewed. A few years later these a function of the dual-organizational sustained criticisms of leftists at home events were reprised in Ecuador, only structure, and its practical outworking and abroad? In the first place, through its this time between 5000 and 6000 in varied contexts. strategy of “service to all,” SIL had made indigenous people made their way to itself all but essential in many underdevel- the Ecuadorian Congress in sup- First, a look at Wycliffe in North 24 oped nations. This had been Townsend’s port of SIL. America. As already noted, SIL mem- aim all along, and it worked. He told the bers were also Wycliffe missionaries. The SIL-Wycliffe dual-organization SIL board in 1953, speaking of Peru, that Thus, in North America, they faced was replete with paradoxes. What with he wanted to make SIL “seem indispens- their evangelical supporters as mis- Wycliffe and its classical missionary able . . . to the Government.” “I knew,” he sionaries and Bible translators. Their publicity—including talk of cannibals wrote, “that if people got to look upon us sponsoring churches and supporters and savages transformed by the gospel as indispensable it would be practically knew and trusted them as individuals on one side, and the deep appreciation impossible for anybody who opposed us and as Wycliffe missionaries. Therefore, and affirmation of indigenous cultures to cause us trouble.” And he then went on whatever reverberations there were signified by SIL’s language develop- about SIL’s field work could usually be to report that ment and social concern on the other, allayed by individual missionaries com- it is just a little embarrassing to Peru- it is no wonder that the organization municating with their constituencies. vians for us to have an air service that came under fire. But the fact that SIL

36:4 Winter 2019 186 Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm was meeting real needs around the tarnished its own reputation with its Whatever the merits or flaws of the world made it difficult to dislodge or semantic prevarications. “Unfortu- dual-organizational structure, it was demolish. And it was producing trans- nately,” Stoll noted, the brainchild of Cameron Townsend. lated scriptures, thus making good on the SIL itself had contributed to the And, it was a key in the success of the main goal emphasized by Wycliffe confusion over its work. As a matter of his mission. It must not be thought, in its publicity. Depending on the pub- policy, the group had long obfuscated however, that it came about through lic, the message shifted, and there was the fact that aside from being a linguis- studied reflection on first principles. certainly some semantic ingenuity go- tic research organization it was also an Townsend was utterly pragmatic. He 26 ing on at times. However, on the whole, evangelical Protestant mission. saw a crying need to reach indigenous the goods promised were delivered. peoples with the gospel in their own Although Stoll was given to overstat- language, and he insisted that they For some evidence of this we can ing the degree to which the organiza- should have the same dignity and ben- turn to David Stoll, perhaps SIL- tion muddied the waters, there was efits enjoyed by their fellow citizens. It Wycliffe’s most vocal yet astute critic. at least some measure of truth to his was the Mexican context—and even Stoll eventually softened his criticism assertion. the ideals of the Revolution—that of the 1970s and 1980s after observ- also did much to shape his approach ing indigenous responses to SIL in Conclusion to mission. He simply cast aside what Latin America. By the mid-1990s, The central problem was that the lan- did not work and adapted, where and he had concluded that SIL’s strate- guage of mission and its connotations, when necessary to obtain his goals. gies—and even its practice of the so And SIL-WBT was simply following called “submission theology”—were Townsend’s path-breaking effort to probably appropriate given the context overcome the obstacles of established within which it worked. “To protect its tradition. “I yearn,” he once wrote, government contracts,” Stoll wrote, for other organizations to begin to the SIL adopted the policy of never Events could have break loose from the time-honored criticizing host governments, no taken an even worse shackles of churchianity and become matter how they were treating the all things to all men for the Gos- population under their control. Still, turn without the pel’s sake.27 it must be acknowledged that the docile attitude of SIL missionaries was missionary linguists. I suggest that the SIL-Wycliffe experi- not necessarily a bad thing. By keep- ment provides an excellent case study ing their mouths shut, they could —Stoll for examining the problem of modern sometimes give hard-pressed native missions and the language of mission people medicine and schools they that Mike Stroope has brought to would otherwise not have had, not to mention the Bible translations that light for us. Perhaps the SIL-Wycliffe some have appreciated. as understood by North American experiment also prefigures the many evangelicals, did not fit the SIL para- challenges that transcending mission He also noted that SIL’s deep involve- digm created by Cameron Townsend might entail. ment in indigenous communities could in Latin America. But it also suggests that the mod- save lives. “In other cases,” he wrote, ern era mission—at least in some The demands of Bible translation; events could have taken an even respects—can coexist with pilgrim worse turn without the missionary the demands of the scientific and witness. In many places where SIL linguists. Consider the Huaorani in government relations strategies; and members served on the ground, they Ecuador, whom the SIL pacified just the demands of service to all; taken were not really functioning as mission- ahead of advancing oil teams–and together, all this was simply too far aries in the typical sense. who otherwise could easily have been removed from American evangeli- 25 bombed by the national air force. cal experience for easy explanation. Translators spent many years simply Rather than undertake the probably learning the language and the culture The more mature David Stoll of the impossible task of educating American of the people, functioning mostly as 1990s was clearly seeing SIL from a churchgoers in all the ways of SIL, it faithful witnesses and giving testimony different angle of vision than he had in was far easier and more convenient to to the reality of Christ Jesus through the overheated 1970s. create Wycliffe and maintain all the love and service. Translating was also On the other hand, he lamented the vocabulary and machinery of the clas- done in community, not usually as fact that the organization seemingly sical faith mission. an outside imposition. There were no

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Boone Aldridge 187 pulpits or sermons, no crusades, and no extension of western ecclesiastical ne can argue the ethics of this transformation— structures. When Wycliffe missionar- when Wycliffe missionaries dropped their ies dropped their missionary identity missionary identity at the border. at the border to became SIL members O or translators, it was in large degree Endnotes 12 Todd Hartch, Missionaries of the 1 State: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, appropriate. One can argue the ethics The hyphenated “SIL-WBT” acro- State Formation, and Indigenous Mexico, of this transformation—and it was nym refers to the dual organization in a 1935–1985 (Tuscaloosa: University of historical sense. The two organizations are debated inside and outside the orga- Alabama Press, 2006), 47. nization for decades—but the shift today legally and structurally separate enti- 13 ties with their own respective leadership. Boone Aldridge, For the Gospel’s of language was more than semantic. Sake: The Rise of the Wycliffe Bible Transla- 2 The termLadino is derived from There were real fundamental shifts in tors and the Summer Institute of Linguistics ‘latino’ and usually refers to the mestizo (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans perspective and approach. or hispanicized population. The demonym Pub. Co., 2018), 121–125, 129–142. Nevertheless, in Michael Stroope’s Ladino came into use during the colonial 14 era and referred to the Spanish speaking Kenneth L. Pike, “IFMA Issue,” sense, the SIL-Wycliffe experiment population that did not belong to the colo- Work Paper VI.1, September 1959, SIL certainly had “mission” written all over Mexico Branch Archive, Catalina, Arizona. nial elite of Peninsulares or Criollos, nor to 15 it. Indeed, in some ways it represented the indigenous peoples. George Cowan to Cameron Townsend, the ultimate expression of “modern era 3 Michael W. Stroope, Transcending 14 December 1957, p. 2, TA 12660; quotation from John W. Newman to Robert William mission,” or what Andrew Walls called Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition (Downersgrove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 27. Wyatt, 10 December 1957, TA 13681. “Missions Incorporated.” Of course, 16 4 Stroope, Transcending Mission, 23. Ralph T. Davis to Cameron Townsend, the degree to which the specialized 3 November 1958, pp. 1–2, TA 15024. 5 Cameron Townsend to Al. C. Lic. craft of Bible translation calls for this 17 The organization’s membership in José M. Soto, official mayor, Secretaría the IFMA was formally with Wycliffe, the kind of programmatic structure can Gobernación, 6 October 1933, Townsend be debated, but the highly-specialized specifically religious side of the organization. Archives (TA), Waxhaw, North Carolina, 18 task of scriptural translation would TA 2077, translation by William Law- Laurie Hart, “Story of the Wycliffe rence Svelmoe, A New Vision for Missions: Translators: Pacifying the Last Frontiers,” be very difficult without the mission Latin America and Empire Report 7, no. 10 superstructure to support it. William Cameron Townsend, the Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Culture of Early (December 1973): 16–31. 19 To sum up, then, the very fact that Evangelical Faith Missions, 1896–1945 David Stoll, Fishers of Men or Founders of Empire? The Wycliffe Bible SIL-Wycliffe transcended mission (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008), 241–42. Translators in Latin America (Cambridge, in some areas, functioned as a clas- 6 Cameron Townsend to Elvira MA: Cultural Survival, 1982), 12. 20 sical modern mission in others, and Townsend, 10 December 1933, TA 1718; “From Savage to Citizen,” brochure sometimes went entirely outside any 13 December 1933, p. 2, TA 1716; 20 of Wycliffe Bible Translators Pavilion known paradigm, is what makes for December 1933, p. 3, TA 1717; quotation of 2000 Tribes, New York World’s Fair, from Charles A. Hale, “Frank Tannenbaum 1964–1965, copy in author’s possession. a fascinating case study. The SIL- 21 Wycliffe experiment to reach the least and the Mexican Revolution,” Hispanic C. W. Bendigo, “Headhunting Today American Historical Review 75, no. 2 (May Depicted at NY Fair,” news release, c. 1964, of these with the gospel—and to give 1995): 238. p. 2, copy in author’s possession. 22 them both dignity and a leg up in this 7 Cameron Townsend to Elvira Cameron Townsend to Wycliffe and world—is a compelling story. Townsend, 20 December 1933, p. 2, TA 1716. SIL board of directors, 20 March 1953, p. 1, 8 Cameron Townsend to President TA 9027. And, no matter what one might con- 23 Lázaro Cárdenas, 29 January 1936, Archivo Aldridge, For the Gospel’s Sake, 215–217. clude about the overall program, this General de la Nación, Mexico City, Fondo 24 Kathryn T. Long, God in the Rain- unique approach did pave the way for Lázaro Cárdenas, quoted in Svelmoe, A forest: A Tale of Martyrdom & Redemption pilgrim witness in otherwise inacces- New Vision for Missions, 270. in Amazonian Ecuador (New York: Oxford sible communities, where indigenous 9 Cameron Townsend to R. J. Rein- University Press, 2019), 264–265. 25 peoples were brought into deep and millar, Vice President, Gospel Missionary David Stoll, “Missionaries as Foreign direct engagement with the scriptures Union, 6 July 1958, TA 14681. Agents,” American Anthropologist 98, no. 3 10 (September 1996): 637. in their own languages, after which Eugene Nida to Wycliffe Bible Translators board of directors, 9 September 26 Stoll, “Missionaires as Foreign they often came to know their cre- 1953, pp. 1–2, TA 9256. Agents,” 636. ator, and were transformed by Jesus 11 Kenneth L. Pike, explanation of the 27 Cameron Townsend to Philip E. Christ through the power of the Holy dual organization to an unidentified inquiry, Howard, Jr., et. al., “Discussion of the Wycliffe Spirit. IJFM n.d., TA 42517, emphasis in the original. Policy of Service,” March 1956, p. 1, TA 12104.

36:4 Winter 2019

Reimagining Frontier Mission Moving Beyond: Frontier Missions in Our Postcolonial World by Bradford Greer

Editorial note: This article was first presented to the faculty and student body of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY.

ietism mixed with the freedom to innovate has been the strength of the evangelical experiment both here in the US and in the global mis- sions movement. For 129 years the Asbury alumni have featured these Ptwo characteristics in their own worldwide influence. It is indeed an honor and a privilege to address you today, and to try to supplement this institution’s formative influence on both Christian piety and mission innovation. Thank you, Dr. Okersson, Dr. Kima and Dr. Sam for this opportunity to address your student body.

I know that “pietism” and “innovation” are words that can raise eyebrows. There have been plenty of bad innovations in missions over the years, drawn largely from methods and strategies that reflect corporate cultures more than they do the kingdom of God. In contrast, the innovations I am addressing today are simply those of being open and responsive to the Spirit’s working in new, unanticipated ways.

By pietism, I mean experiencing, knowing, and meaningfully walking with the Lord; in other words, being filled with and led by the Spirit in align- ment with God’s Word. Our faith is not merely a set of beliefs that we need to articulate accurately (although it is important to know what we believe); it is fundamentally living in the presence of God and allowing him to work in and through us, blessing us, and making us a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.

Pietism shapes Asbury and is an integral part of your history. In fact, Asbury was the center of two significant moves of God during my own lifetime, one in 1970 and another in the mid-1990s. But Asbury has experienced quite a number of powerful moves of God over its history.

Innovation is also an integral part of your history. One of your alumni, J. Waskom Pickett, was a heavyweight in missions from 1920 to 1960. His Bradford Greer (PhD, Fuller Theolog- ical Seminary) has been working in friend, colleague, and fellow Asbury alumnus, E. Stanley Jones, is more well- Islamic contexts for over twenty years. known, but Waskom Pickett was also highly innovative and very influential.

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His innovation was seen in his openness Pietism Is the Foundation of about 24 hours. For US passport hold- and responsiveness to what God was All Mission ers, there is almost no place we cannot doing among the Dalits in his area of go and the opportunities to serve are Let’s be honest, without pietism there India. One of your seminary graduates, innumerable. can be no missions. In order for mis- Arthur McPhee, who has served on sions to happen we have to personally Yet, these opportunities for frontier your faculty, did his PhD dissertation on encounter the Lord and out of that missions are being overshadowed Pickett and that dissertation morphed encounter move on to love him and by the challenges. Most of the areas into his book, The Road to Delhi.1 please him in all we do. In that move- where the peoples of the world reli- Not only did Pickett respond to what ment, the Lord directs his people to gions are found are difficult to enter God was doing among the Dalits, he learn what he is up to in the world. As and work in. Governments restrict ac- took the time to research their mass we learn, we are to respond by offer- cess; and community resistance to the turning to Christ in the late 1800s and ing ourselves up to serve his purposes. gospel is tangible. In addition, many of early 1900s. He published the findings As we respond to the Lord and since these areas are mired in conflict. Here of this research in the book Christian he is the overseer of his mission, he are some examples of the difficul- Mass Movements in India.2 Up until dispenses gifts as he wills, directing us ties working in these areas. Last year, that time there had been a significant to where he wants us to serve. Christian workers were expelled from amount of resistance in the Church to China, India, Pakistan, and Egypt. So, I think the calling to serve outside these people movements, but Pickett’s In one country from 2007 to 2017, of one’s first culture is the result of research provided the validation that twenty-seven individuals connected to they needed. the Christian community were mur- dered by extremists. Four kidnappings One of the men involved in Pickett’s occurred during that period as well. research team was Donald McGavran, the father of the Church Growth It is so much easier to go to the Movement. The missiological prin- Let’s be honest, parts of the world that are somewhat ciples unearthed in Pickett’s research Christianized. provided the foundational thinking without pietism Yet, what is the dire need in global behind the Church Growth Move- there can be missions? Approximately 87 to 90% ment. Out of the Church Growth of all Christian workers work either Movement came the Unreached no missions. among Christians or in areas where Peoples Movement and out of that Christians exist in significant numbers. came Frontier Missions. Due to this, Approximately five to seven percent Pickett helped shape the missiologi- of Christian workers work with tribal cal thinking of the church from the groups. That leaves only about five second half of the 1900s till now. And percent of all Christian workers to I haven’t even mentioned the global an interactive process, the result of focus on the peoples of the world influence of E. Stanley Jones. God’s moving upon us along with our responsiveness to his moving. This re- religions who comprise almost 30% Third, Asbury’s impact continues sponsiveness is crucial for all missions, of the world’s population. According through your faculty. You have a fac- but it is particularly crucial for frontier to the Center for the Study of Global ulty who are devoted to the Lord and missions. By frontier missions I mean Christianity at Gordon-Conwell demonstrate academic excellence. They the particular focus within global Seminary, 86% of all Muslims, Bud- serve here so that pietism and innova- missions on the peoples of the world’s dhists, and Hindus do not personally tion may continue to shape missions religions, that is, Muslim, Buddhist, know a Christian, that is, any kind of 3 across the globe. Hindu, Sikh, and Shinto peoples. Christian, nominal or devoted. With this statistic in mind, how are the vast And if we are going to see the king- Why is this responsiveness particularly majority of these peoples ever going to dom of God take root and spread crucial for frontier missions? meet someone who can embody and among the peoples of the world explain the gospel to them? They won’t. religions, pietism and innovation are This is a time of innumerable op- essential. We need to keep our roots portunities in all of missions, not just The only way we are going to see firm in Jesus Christ as we attempt to frontier missions. We live at a time this unbelievable imbalance in the move beyond where we have been. So, when we can travel the world. We global mission effort change is if the let me unpack what I mean by this. can get to Thailand from Kentucky in Lord’s people take Paul’s prayer in

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Bradford Greer 191

Ephesians 3:14–21 seriously and make it their own: nnovation is needed today to move from where . . . 18 I pray that you may have the we are to spaces that will facilitate the growth of power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length the kingdom among peoples of the world religions. 19 I and height and depth, and to know of God does not cross social, cultural, Moving beyond Systematics to the love of Christ that surpasses and religious boundaries easily. The Text-sensitive Readings knowledge, so that you may be filled apostles were charged to take the with all the fullness of God (NRSV). The western church has a deep historic gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts and cultural attachment to systematic Paul prayed that the Ephesians would 1:8). Yet, they were slow to respond. It theology. As a result, our systematic come to know the breadth, length, appears that their Jerusalem-centered theologies shape teaching and training height and depth of God’s love—the perspective impeded their grasp of the in churches, Bible schools, and seminar- love that embraces them and all the charge. It was Phillip, a Hellenistic ies. Two of the movements in the USA 4 peoples of the world. Paul could not Jew, who was used by God to open church today, the New Calvinist move- have been referring to a cognitive know- the door to Samaritans and to those ment and the Acts 29 movement, are ing because he says it surpasses knowl- excluded due to physical disability (the 6 both centered around systematic theolo- edge. He was referring to an experiential Ethiopian Eunuch). Subsequently, gies. And this is not to mention the way knowing that happens through the God used Peter to open the door they shape our denominationalism. working of the Spirit within us, a work- to the Gentiles; yet, Peter’s actions ing of the Spirit that shapes who we are, at Cornelius’ house received strong Systematic theologies are beneficial how we see ourselves, and how we live objections (Acts 11:2). Even when because they provide internally coher- out our lives in the world. mentally acquiescing to uncircumcised ent systems, making the faith easier Gentiles being included, it appears to understand. They remove a vast When Paul’s prayer becomes our that Jewish communities were slow to amount of ambiguity and provide a prayer and when it begins to be real- safe structure for those who operate ized in our hearts, the love of Christ understand its full implications. Luke tells us that even after the Cornelius within them. They are easy to teach will compel us to offer ourselves to go and learn and they make people feel to the peoples of the frontier regions event, the diaspora Jews only took the word to other Jews (Acts 11:19).7 It competent and confident in their faith. so that they may know Christ and the In addition, these are valuable cultural power of his resurrection. was believers from Cyprus and Cyrene in Antioch who moved the gospel artifacts arising from particular times Pietism is one of the foundation and places that express the story of the forward among Gentiles as Gentiles 8 blocks for all missions. Without the (Acts 11:20). church throughout the ages. Finally, dynamic interplay of God moving “these are part of the chorus of the upon us and our responding to what Yet, even after what God had done saints who have gone before us.”9 he is doing, frontier mission simply in Antioch and through the apostolic Yet, with regard to mission, these will not happen. ministry of Paul and Barnabas, God’s inclusion of the Gentiles as Gentiles systems have three fundamental received significant opposition. weaknesses. The first weakness is that Innovation Is Essential In they are situated; each one arose in a Frontier Missions As we see in Acts, in Galatians, and particular time and place. Thus, they 10 And yet, pietism is not enough. Those throughout mission history, in our are culturally bounded, addressing who go need to be properly prepared eagerness to be faithful to God, some questions and resolving issues that so they can be open to what God is of us can end up resisting and oppos- a particular group of people within doing as the Word of God moves into ing what God is doing. Innovation a particular culture was asking and new areas and among new peoples.5 in mission is essential; yet, it can be facing. These questions and issues are Innovation has always been an essential problematic when it happens. not ones that other groups are ask- ing or facing, or at least, not in the component of frontier missions. Even I would like to point out four areas though God has chosen to use us, his same ways.11 where innovation is needed today— people, to advance his kingdom, our where the contexts of frontier missions The second weakness is that each own inclinations can hinder us from call us to move from where we are to of these systems become the prism properly responding to what he is doing. spaces that will facilitate the growth through which the Scripture is read. The book of Acts and Paul’s letter to of the kingdom in and among the From a missional perspective, this is the Galatians shows us that the Word peoples of the world religions. problematic.

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Whether we like it or not, the Bible 3. irrelevance leads to marginal subject of contextualization. Hessel- was written with an intentional level of responsiveness; grave and Rommen recognized that ambiguity. Ancient Jewish rabbis were 4. irrelevance leads to a high degree the gospel needed to be relevant, so fully aware of this ambiguity and this is of syncretism among those who they advocated for the contextualiza- why different schools ofhalakhah arose convert; tion of the gospel, which they put for- 12 to address it. For example, all Jewish 5. and since adherence to a particu- ward as a model of critical contextual- 14 people knew that circumcision was a lar set of doctrines and an eccle- ization. Paul Hiebert capitalized on requirement to be carried out on the siology is vital, sectarian divisions this model and moved it a bit further 15 eighth day. But, the particulars about and denominationalism are the with his proposal of a metatheology, how to carry out the circumcision were natural result. which would inherently be transcul- not included. Questions arose as to tural.16 These missiologists were mov- If we are going to see the gospel enter “the instrument to use; whether it is to ing in the right direction, yet I perceive and transform communities of the be a private rite or performed in com- their models had two basic problems. world religions, the missions force munity; the type of excision; and the needs to move beyond our allegiance Beyond Metatheology liturgy.” For all these questions halakhot to and the exporting of our theologi- had to be created. We have this same The first problem was this: the no- cal systems. Overseas workers need tion of a transcultural metatheology ambiguity surrounding baptism and to learn how to read the Scripture in the Lord’s Supper. is comforting because it makes the text-sensitive ways, paying attention to entire process of contextualizing the From a missional perspective, this ambi- the historical and literary contexts of gospel appear safe. The metatheology guity is beneficial. It enables the gospel would provide a recognizable standard to be actualized in a variety of ways as it by which to measure the contextual- enters vastly different cultures. Since one ized outcome.17 Yet, they did not ask of the functions of a systematic theology A transcultural who had the authority to determine is to reduce ambiguity, each system is the content of what constituted the a bit reductionistic. When the systems metatheology metatheology. reach the popular level, the systems are makes the entire process expressed through a series of schemata, How do we determine what content 18 which are even more reductionistic. of contextualizing constitutes the metatheology? First, I think we will all agree that the books The third weakness is how we use the gospel of the Bible were intended to move systematic theologies. The systems appear safe. across cultures. Yet, even though we typically end up being exclusive. The confidently assert that these books adopted system is “right” which by were written for us, we know that default renders the other systems they were not written to us. We were “wrong” even though they are held by each of the books. When this happens, not the intended recipients of those many in the body of Christ. frontier workers will not be trying to documents by their human authors.19 teach systems; rather, they will be try- Many, if not most, of today’s mission Therefore, even the biblical texts are ing to get their friends and colleagues force have downloaded these systems historically and culturally framed and to read the Scripture with their own and exported them. This exporting must go through a translation process. eyes from their own vantage points, has characterized the global missions This is not a process of just translating seeking to discover how the text an- movement since the 1700s. This ex- words, but it is a complex process of swers the questions that they are ask- porting leads to a number of problems, translating ideas and concepts. ing, and receiving guidance for their five of which I can quickly suggest: real-life situations. Asbury’s faculty is Second, we will all agree that the con- 1. the systems set the nature of well equipped to enable people for this. tent of all theology should arise from theological discourse, a discourse the biblical texts and that our commit- that does not necessarily connect Moving beyond ment to being Bible-centered, Christ- intellectually or emotionally with centered, cross-centered, conversionist, the intended communities;13 Contextualization to Releasing and missional, should precede and Local Theologizing shape any theologizing. 2. the gospel as presented is cul- turally bounded and is thus This recognition of different vantage Beyond that, when we begin to suggest perceived by the intended com- points in textual reading of the Scrip- content for the metatheology, prob- munities as irrelevant; tures leads us to turn to the crucial lems arise. For example, I am sure we

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Bradford Greer 193 would all agree that the Christ-event is transcultural. Yet, even the ways o empower local theologizing we need to give different faith communities exegete up control and imitate Paul, who had full the meaning of the Christ-event varies 20 confidence in the working of the Holy Spirit. according to culture. As a result, the T notion of a metatheology is flawed. to move beyond critical contextualiza- Gentile worlds thought and con- 25 Beyond Coloniality tion as a model to a more intentional structed their world, the ways that releasing and empowering of local they shaped and organized themselves, This leads us to the second problem theologizing. including their assumptions, values, with the model of critical contextu- narratives, and folklore.26 It included However, when we release and alization. For all practical purposes, the religious, social, and political empower local theologizing, we lose outsiders assume the position as the dimensions of their world because in control over the outcomes. If our goal final arbiter of “truth” and exercise their minds these would have been is seeing the peoples of the world re- 27 a degree of control and authority seamlessly intertwined. Thus, Paul ligions turn to Christ, we need to give over the contextualization process was saying that the fundamental 21 up control and imitate Paul, who had and outcomes. This means that the assumptions and values, as well as re- full confidence in the working of the outsider’s perspective and theological ligious practices, of these circumcision Holy Spirit. positions are privileged. Yet, we also groups, even though they were shaped know that all “knowledge claims” are by their allegiance to God and under- limited in perspective; and no knowl- Moving beyond the Stoicheia 22 standing of the Torah, were as dis- edge claim is 100 percent objective. (στοιχεῖα) of Our Worlds to advantageous for following Christ as So, to place the final authority in the Faith and Freedom the fundamental assumptions, values, hands of outsiders seems like a vestige and practices of the pagan Galatians. This problem of outsiders exercising of colonialism. Paul had discovered this from his authority and control is not new. Paul own experience. Having been zealous Now, colonialism is a political term faced it with the circumcision groups. for the law, he ended up completely that described historical events from These groups asserted that the Gen- misguided, seriously persecuting the the 1500s to the 1960s. Colonialism tiles needed to meet certain criteria (be church as a result.28 is strictly speaking a thing of the past. circumcised and follow the injunctions So, it appears inappropriate to use this of the Torah as they interpreted them) Since Paul was casting off the circum- term in our current mission contexts; in order to solidify and continue on cision groups’ understanding of the however, certain characteristics of in their covenant relationship with Torah—which provided guidelines colonialism remain. Due to this, the God (Acts 15:1–2). To add complex- for how to live before God, protected preferred term currently used to refer ity to the matter, their criteria was the Jewish people, and ensured their to this privileging of one’s cultural per- drawn from Scripture. With regard to ongoing acceptance with God (Gal. 23 spective is coloniality. It identifies the circumcision, it was Yahweh who said: 3:24a)—what then was the guarantee tendency towards a culturally bounded “So shall my covenant be in your flesh for Paul that the Galatians would theology and the subsequent exercise an everlasting covenant” (Gen. 17:13b remain acceptable to God? Paul knew of authority in the critical contextual- NRSV). Notwithstanding, Paul knew that Torah-sanctioned rules, regula- ization process. the understanding of the circumcision tions, and customs would in the end groups was flawed. This was one reason lead the Galatians away from Christ. The problem of coloniality surfaced why he was so pointed in his rebuke of Paul realized that the Torah could no with the Son of God translation fiasco them in Galatians 1:6–9. longer be “the authoritative cultural some years back. The very fact that the frame of the good news.”29 Its severe WEA formed an independent panel of Paul went so far as to label the cir- limitation had been expressed when outsiders to assess this issue and that cumcision groups’ understanding of Peter and the others pulled away from panel subsequently appointed a team the Torah as the stoicheia of the world table fellowship with the Antiochian of outsiders to exercise final authority (Gal. 4:3), which he placed on the Gentiles. Paul knew that over locally run translation projects same footing as the Galatians’ pagan Jews and non-Jews are “called” by demonstrated this problem of coloni- stoicheia of the world (Gal. 4:3, 9).24 an incongruous grace into common ality inherent in the critical contextu- So, the question is: What did Paul belonging to Christ. Their previous alization model. mean by the stoicheia of the world? It evaluations of one another and of Coloniality is simply not appropriate appears that the stoicheia referred to their traditions based on the cul- in our postcolonial world. So, we need the ways that people in the Jewish and tural norms of ethnic distinction, are

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subverted by an event that has paid the Galatians’ world was different. move into a place of faith and trust in no regard to pre-constituted criteria Nevertheless, the Galatians and the Christ, his Spirit, and the Word. This of value. They are therefore drawn into an association of mutual recog- Jewish believers were one “family”; and leads to an immense amount of free- nition that is blind to ethnic evalu- the family resemblance would be seen dom for our friends who have turned ations, as to other differentials of through their shared ultimate loyalty to Christ and for us. Their response to worth. To reinstate a Jewish rule of (to Christ and the Word) and their the gospel resulted in Christ living in sociality would be to condition this character (the fruit of the Spirit). them. They should be encouraged in association by a differentiating norm their earnest desire to learn how to live that is not derivable from the “truth Times change but people don’t. We as by and follow the Spirit as they study of the good news.” In fact, the good humans are limited in our understand- the Word of God made intelligible in news is good precisely in its disregard ing and we are predisposed to privilege their language. of former criteria of worth, both Jew- our own understandings and applica- ish and Gentile: the gospel stands or tions of Scripture. That which caused Moving beyond Separatism falls with the incongruity of grace.30 the concerns and fears of the circumci- sion groups and the tensions they cre- to Remaining within One’s Now that Christ had come, these ated for Gentile churches persist into Community Torah standards of the circumcision our own day, especially in the frontier groups could only be classified as weak One of the ways our stoicheia of the mission areas. So, this letter, even and worthless stoicheia of the world; world manifests itself is in our ap- Paul’s stinging rebuke, was written for and the threat was that the Galatians proach to the communities of the would follow these rather than Christ. world religions. Our evangelical roots seem to be shaped by Anabaptist sen- The advantage the Galatians had over timents and the fundamentalist move- the understanding of circumcision ment of the late 1800s and the early groups was that their faith in Christ 1900s. Rich as Anabaptist theology had enabled them to be born of the We are predisposed is and the fundamentalist movement Spirit (Gal. 4:29) and have Christ liv- to privilege our was, they both lead us toward taking ing in them (Gal. 2:20). The indwell- a separatist approach to communities ing Christ and Spirit, therefore, could own understandings and culture.34 be depended upon to properly guide 31 and applications and shape them. Jesus had set the A conversation with a colleague ex- Galatians free from the present evil of Scripture. emplifies this. We were talking about age (Gal. 1:4). Being alive in Christ how a Muslim should respond to his they were empowered to turn from community when coming to faith in the obvious works of the flesh (Gal. Jesus. His definitive answer was: “The 5:19–20) and follow the Spirit who Scripture says: ‘Come out from among gave them life (Gal. 5:16, 18, 25). us. If we do not take proper care in them and be separate.’” reflecting on just what the gospel is, The clear guidance they already had This pervading but unrecognized we will attach our culturally bounded was that they were to seek to live separatist drive influences us to view understandings and applications of out Christ’s sacrificial love in their other cultures as non-, pre-, or post- Scripture to the gospel. These in Paul’s relationships (Gal. 5:6, 13–14), and by Christian. If a culture falls into one terms can be viewed as our law and doing so they would fulfill the Law of of these categories our tendency is 32 stoicheia. When we do this, we end up Christ (Gal. 6:2). Love for Paul was to view many if not all of the aspects preaching a gospel contrary to the one not a generic nebulous feeling, but it of those cultures as deficient or evil Paul preached and we open ourselves was to be defined and characterized by and in need of transformation. When to Paul’s sore rebuke. Christ’s self-sacrificial death (Gal. 1:4, doing so, what we do not realize is 2:20, 3:13, 5:13).33 To advance the gospel in frontier that we are subconsciously elevating The concerns and fears of the circum- areas, we need to take Paul’s admoni- our “Christian” cultures as superior. cision groups revolved around the fact tion and teaching seriously. We need Bosch recognized this back in 1991 that the lifestyles and standards of the to move beyond exporting our cul- and wrote: Galatians were different—and offen- turally bounded applications of the Surveying the great variety of ways sive. Paul understood that the Gala- gospel. We are to move beyond feeling in which Western cultural norms tians would never look or act like their the need to guarantee what being were, implicitly or explicitly, imposed Jewish sisters and brothers because a follower of Christ looks like and upon converts in other parts of the

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world, it is of some significance to note that both liberals and conser- hen we view God as active in each people vatives shared the assumption that Christianity was the only basis for a group, it opens the door for viewing fallen, healthy civilization; this was a form human cultures in a more nuanced manner. of consensus so fundamental that it W operated mainly on an unconscious, cultural and even religious forms. It boundaries for followers of Christ and presuppositional level.35 was Paul who said: how moral purity would be attained From one ancestor he made all na- and maintained. The circumcision Thirty years ago, Bosch framed this tions to inhabit the whole earth, groups regarded as a western problem. However, in and he allotted the times of their circumcision and observance of the the contemporary missions environ- existence and the boundaries of the whole Torah as essential for Gentile ment, this problem surfaces wherever places where they would live, so that sinners to become righteous, since it Christians reside, whether they be they would search for God and per- is these that separate people from the Christians from the West, or from haps grope for him and find him– contamination of the pervasive idolatry East Asia, South Asia, North Africa, though indeed he is not far from and immorality of non-Jewish society.36 or the Middle East. each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being;” as Our desire for separatism creates This separatism has other consequenc- even some of your own poets have a serious impediment. When your es. It influences some to demonize the said, “For we too are his offspring.” own alumnus Wascom Pickett was world religions, or at minimum to de- (Acts 17:26—28 NRSV) researching the mass movements to monize their practices. One colleague Christ in his day he discovered that asserted that every Muslim coming When we understand that God has been group movements to Christ prevented to faith needed deliverance from the at work among a people, we are released social dislocation. From his research spirit of Islam. A few years back I was to acknowledge a bright side exists. In Pickett discovered that the separation in Pune, India, attending a church and this light we are free to intentionally of converts from their communities Diwali (their festival of lights) was look for the bright spots, the bridges to was more harmful than helpful. He to begin the following day. A leader God that he has mysteriously provided observed something vital about the in the church exhorted everyone in within each culture—including religious individual convert, that the church to stand and pledge they ideas and forms—that can be used to would not text congratulations to their draw people to him. single conversion unfortunately leads Hindu friends when Diwali began usually to a complete break of the because Diwali was demonic. They as I left Pune on the first day of Diwali convert with his group. This involves Christians needed to maintain a visible and flew to Delhi. There I stayed with him in economic loss and mental an- guish and deprives him of valuable separation from that evil. a family, the husband of which was Hindu in background. He had small, restraints upon wrong-doing and sup- 37 When we view God as actively in- flickering oil lamps inside and outside ports to right living. volved historically and currently in and his house. He was celebrating Diwali The Church has seen a serious level among each people group, this opens because Diwali was an integral part of of recidivism among converts across the door for viewing fallen, human his culture. His reasoning was Diwali the Muslim world. People are encour- cultures and their practices, even reli- was a festival of lights. Since Jesus is aged to take a bold stand for Jesus and gious ones, in a more nuanced man- the light of the world and we are called declare that they have become Chris- ner (Greer 2016, pp. 96–97). We can to be his lights in the world, it was tians. This typically leads to immedi- view these cultures like we perceive totally appropriate to use the forms of the moon. The moon has a bright and ate persecution and eventual social Diwali to celebrate what he believed. 38 dark side. Since all cultures exist in a dislocation. Many are not able to fallen state (“For all have sinned and The assumptions that drive our nega- withstand their continued alienation fallen short of the glory of God.” Rom. tive perceptions of culture create the and isolation from their communities. 3:23), we can confidently assert that need to put up strict boundaries in It takes exceptionally strong people each and every culture has a dark side. order to maintain a clear separation to stand apart from their communi- Yet, this is only half the story. If we from evil. These are simply an exten- ties throughout life; and they are the perceive God as actively working in sion of our own stoicheia of the world, few. Though the recidivism may not and among any given culture, ensuring and these sentiments mirror those be as high among Hindu background that things exist within these cultures of the circumcision groups in Paul’s believers as Muslims, I am aware that so that people will seek for him, it can day. Richard Bauckham indicates that the isolation created by this separation change the way we view many of their those groups sought to identify the is just as heart-breaking.

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Pickett’s research shows us that people wrong to those outside those contexts. cannot avoid this tension. God knows are more likely to remain in the faith We give up our secure systematics and we cannot avoid it on the frontiers, but if they remain in their communi- seek to read the Bible in text-sensitive he calls us to join him and live in that ties and are then able to see family ways along with its apparent ambiguity. tension with the love of Christ. IJFM members or larger units turn to Christ We realize that this ambiguity creates a in their communities. Thus, it is best in flexibility that enables the gospel to be Endnotes frontier missions that we move beyond 1 meaningfully expressed in ways that af- Arthur McPhee, The Road to Delhi: J. separatism to releasing and empower- firm and challenge the cultures of those Waskom Pickett and Missions in the Twilight ing followers of Jesus to learn from who receive the gospel. We, thus, re- of the Raj and Dawn of Nationhood, (Lex- the Spirit how they can remain within lease and enable our friends to read the ington, KY: Emeth Press), 2012. their communities so others will en- text with their eyes so they can discover 2 J. Waskom Pickett, Christian Mass counter and follow the Lord. We may through the Spirit what the Scripture Movements in India, (New York, Cincin- be uncomfortable with how that looks is saying to them. They can discover nati: Abingdon Press), 1933. 3 at the outset, but we need to remem- how they can apply the biblical truth “Global Evangelism: Christianity ber that everyone is on a journey—and in their world so that Christ may be in Context 2015,” Center for the Study 40 of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell the Spirit is guiding that journey. How formed in them. We also refrain Theological Seminary, accessed August things look today may not be how they from imposing our standards and ways 30, 2019, https://gordonconwell.edu/wp- look in the future. upon them because Christ has called content/uploads/sites/13/2019/04/1Evangel them to freedom from the stoicheia of ismInfographic.pdf. Conclusion 4 Though some might point out that Paul does not mention “all the peoples of the Pietism is one of the foundation world” in this prayer, in the antecedent pas- blocks for all missions. Without pi- sage to this prayer (2:11 to 3:13) Paul speaks etism there is no mission. The natural of the inclusion of the Gentiles, which corollary to pietism is innovation, encapsulates all the peoples of the world. which is an openness to God’s work- We can stay within 5 David W. Pao, Acts and the Isaianic ing in new and unexpected ways. We New Exodus, (Grand Rapids: Baker Aca- need this openness and responsiveness our comfort zones, demic, 2000), 150–159. For the significance of the journey of the Word, especially in if we are going to see the kingdom or choose to live how this can inform our big picture view of of God take root and spread among global mission. incarnationally. 6 frontier peoples. We have enough Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical evidence that the exportation of our Commentary. Volume 2: 3:1–14:28 (Grand culturally bounded, well-honed theo- Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 1727– logical systems, church infrastructures, 1730. God had moved slowly to prepare and “Christianized” behaviors has been the Jewish believers for the inclusion of the seriously problematic. Gentiles as Gentiles. The first step was at our foreign world as well as from their Pentecost where peoples heard the praises Yet, innovation is unsettling. When familiar world. Finally, we allow them of God in foreign languages. The second is the Lord calls us to journey out into to discover how they can remain in and the identifying of one of the seven deacons, new areas, we find ourselves facing honor their communities so that their Nicolaus, as a proselyte, indicating he was a Gentile in background (Acts 6:5). The third communities may encounter and be uncharted territory. We discover that is the word coming to the Samaritans, and many of our conceptions of the gospel, transformed by our Lord. then to the Ethiopian Eunuch. The Ethiopian church, worship, prayer, and ethics are Mission must move beyond in this Eunuch was a devout, God-fearing Gentile culturally bounded and not applicable who was deeply committed to the Jewish faith postcolonial world. Yet, any innova- in those contexts. This takes us out of according to Keener in Acts: An Exegeti- tion on the frontiers, in those contexts our comfort zones. cal Commentary, Vol 2, 1566–1567. Being a beyond the familiar modality of a home eunuch, he could not have been a proselyte. We have two choices when faced church, where our established forms of The fourth is God appointing Peter to go to with this discomfort: stay within our pietism appear insufficient, will create a Cornelius, who was a devout, God-fearing comfort zones, or choose to live in- tension for cross-cultural agents of the Gentile. The final step is Jewish believers from carnationally,39 growing in our under- gospel. People outside these contexts, Cyprus and Cyrene going to the Gentiles as Gentiles in Antioch. This gradual progression standing of the world of our hosts, and our friends, family and even our col- from Diaspora Jews in Acts 2 to uncircum- flowing with the Spirit. As we learn leagues, typically cannot understand all cised Gentiles in Acts 11 was God’s gracious 41 how their world functions, we will that God is doing within them. But step-by-step process to help smooth the way end up welcoming things that appear the biblical record makes it clear that we for the full inclusion of Gentiles as Gentile.

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7 F. Spencer points out that we are was also a process for Paul. When did 8 For how the church has looked cul- not informed of any “further work among Paul come to a full understanding of the turally diverse across the ages, see Andrew the Gentiles of Caesarea. The gospel road implications of the inclusion of Gentiles as Walls, The Missionary Movement in Chris- ha[d] been paved to the Gentiles, but the Gentiles? Was it immediate? During his tian History: Studies in the Transmission of traffic remain[ed] sparse.” F. Scott Spencer, time in Arabia? Both are possible. However, the Christian Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Journeying through Acts: A Literary-Cul- if God was moving his church gradually to Books. 1996), 3–15. tural Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker accept the inclusion of Gentiles as Gentiles 9 Christopher M. Currie, Personal Academic, 2004), 129. In contrast, Keener in the church, it seems unlikely. In addi- Communication in 2019. tion, when Paul returns to Damascus, he 10 points out in Acts: An Exegetical Commen- With regard to how systematic is recorded as reaching out to Jews not tary, Vol. 2, 1830 that “some scholars even theologies are culturally bounded, see Grant Gentiles (Acts 9:22). That being said, Paul suggest that the process of reaching Gen- Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Com- knew from his interaction with Jesus on the tiles probably began as soon as Hellenists prehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpreta- Damascus Road that his ministry was to be left Jerusalem, and not just in Antioch.” tion, revised and expanded edition (Down- among the Gentiles; yet, he may not have We are sorely limited in our historical data ers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 32. started that kind of ministry until his return on this innovative process; so, our reconstruc- 11 to Tarsus. Whether he started in Arabia or For examples of this see: Hwa Yung, tions are limited. With this caution in mind, not, his ministry among the Gentiles at that Mangoes or Bananas?: The Quest for an Au- I proceed. I suggest it wise to factor into our point was likely not very effective. It simply thentic Asian Theology, second ed. (Oxford, reconstructions how difficult this paradigm is not mentioned. Nonetheless, even with a UK: Regnum Books International, 2013), shift would have been for Jewish believers: to ministry to Gentiles in Tarsus, it is entirely accessed on Kindle; Jackson Wu, Saving include unreservedly uncircumcised, non-Torah possible that Paul did not grasp the full God’s Face: A Chinese Contextualization of following Gentiles as Gentiles into the fold. implications of the inclusion of the Gentiles Salvation through Honor and Shame, EMS The narrative of Peter in Acts 10 gives us a as Gentiles until he saw what God was do- Dissertation Series, (Pasadena, CA: William picture into these Jewish sentiments. Peter ing among them in Antioch. Though Lamin Carey International University Press, 2013); had three visions in succession to enable him Sanneh is likely overstating here, he sees and Mark Baker and Joel Green, Recover- to begin to make this shift and go to Corne- Paul’s experience in Antioch as necessary ing the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in lius’ house. Upon entering the house, Peter for Paul to come to a full understanding of New Testament and Contemporary Contexts informed everyone that Jews and Gentiles what God was doing: “The experience of the (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011). 12 do not mix. It can be that God’s acceptance Gentile church brought Paul to the radical Phillip Sigal, The Halakhah of Jesus of of Cornelius was a sensitive, gradual step, edge of his own tradition. His religious sen- Nazareth according to the Gospel of Mat- not a radical one, in moving His people for- timents were progressively adjusted by the thew (Atlanta, GA: The Society of Biblical ward toward accepting Gentiles as Gentiles exposure to the Gentile movement; mission Literature, 2007), 15–17. In an earlier book, into the one body of Christ. This is because does not spare its own founders.” Lamin Phillip Sigal defines halakhah in this way: Cornelius is portrayed as a “God-fearing Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Mis- “I use the term both to describe a general Gentile,” which is a category that already sionary Impact on Culture. Second Edition process and an individual norm of conduct. had existed in the Jewish mindset. Accept- (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 33. To be halakhic, therefore, means to affirm the ing those like Cornelius and his household Having come to terms with the full ramifi- idea that right conduct is significant in the without compelling circumcision would have cations of Gentile inclusion may explain why religious life. Furthermore, the term applies been easier for Jewish messianic communi- Paul made a trip to Jerusalem with Barn- both to conduct pertaining to the human’s re- ties to accept than for a Gentile who didn’t abas and Titus toward the end of his time lationship with God, (ritual) and the human’s fall within that category. Keener, Acts: An in Antioch and before his first missionary relationship with other humans, ethics. And 1754–1755. Exegetical Commentary, Vol. 2, journey. David A. deSilva, The Letter to the finally, one may express oneself in moralistic That being said, even with that personal ex- Galatians. The New International Commen- tones without invoking the more precise perience, we see that Peter separated himself tary on the New Testament, ed. Joel Green language of halakhah, what to do now and from table fellowship with the Antiochene (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans how to do it, and yet be engaged in halakhic Gentile believers. Barnabas and the other Publishing Company, 2018), 49–58. In method by virtue of the implications of one’s Jewish believers separated themselves as contrast, looking at this Jerusalem trip as the moralistic sermon on one’s wisdom discourse. well (Gal. 2:11–13). The text indicates Acts 15 meeting, see Craig S. Keener, Ga- The Book of Wisdom and Proverbs are not that coming to understand and adapt to latians: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: generally regarded as halakhic works. But what God was doing with the Gentiles as Baker Academic, 2019), 6–13. This radical they are every bit as significantly halakhically Gentiles was a process for them all, not an paradigm shift—even with the revelation he as long exhortative passages of Deuteronomy.” instantaneous event. It also appears that the had received—may explain why Paul wanted Phillip Sigal, “The Halakhah of James,” in decree in Acts 15:19–21 was a compromise, to consult with the leaders of Jerusalem in Intergerini Parietis Septvm (Eph. 2:14): Essays another step for the Jewish community, private, to ensure that he was on the right Presented to Markus Barth on his Sixty-Fifth charting their gradual movement toward full path. He writes: “I laid before them . . . the Birthday, Pittsburgh Theological Monograph inclusion of Gentiles as Gentiles. See Craig gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, Series #33, ed. Dikran Y. Hadidian (Eugene, S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary: in order to make sure that I was not running, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 1981), 338. Volume 3: 15:1–23:35 (Grand Rapids, MI: or had not run, in vain” (Gal. 2:2 NRSV). 13 Sigal, Halakhah of Jesus, Matthew, 16. Baker Academic, 2014), 2258–2268. Why is this important? Making paradigm Postcolonial theological discourses help us Though this is a subject of debate, it seems shifts are difficult for us as well. These shifts reflect on how we have privileged the ways plausible that making this paradigm shift typically happen gradually. we think and talk theologically. Steve Hu

36:4 Winter 2019 198 Moving Beyond: Frontier Missions in Our Post-Colonial World sensitizes us to the significance and impact Gospel of the Kingdom into verbal form Approaching the Frontier Missiological of these discourses: “I’ve discovered that meaningful to the peoples in the separate Task,” International Journal of Frontier Mis- postcolonial discourse grants me voice and cultures and within their particular existential siology 33, no. 3 (2016): 94–95. allows me to speak so that I can be heard by situation.’ The trouble with this definition 23 Robert Heaney defines coloniality as those sitting at the theological roundtable, is that it assumes that the task of contextu- “a state or process of subjugating culture and/ a table that long has been the domain of alization is, at bottom, merely adaptation; it or agency by incursive cultural and theologi- Westerners and privy only to those who consists mostly of finding ‘dynamic equiva- cal discourses.” R. S. Heaney, “Prospects and can speak its predetermined discourse. This lencies’ for propositional truths systematized Problems for Evangelical Postcolonialisms,” table has been so embedded in Western by theologies developed in the West and in Evangelical Postcolonial Conversations, ed. forms and categories that when I attempt to deemed universal . . . this is an unsafe as- Smith, Lalitha and Hawk, 392–393, Kindle. converse, my words, as Tite Tiénou notes, sumption. It is true that there is an unchang- 24 Keener, Galatians, 358. Explaining ‘are perceived as threats to orthodoxy.’” ing ‘deposit of the faith,’ but this comprises Paul’s overall position on the Torah is very Steve Hu, “The Importance of Postcolonial more than propositions. And while it may difficult to do. Suffice it to say, Paul knew Evangelical Conversations,” in Evangelical be said to be ‘supracultural,’ our knowledge that the time for the Torah as “law” for Jews Postcolonial Conversations: Global Awaken- and access to it is always culture-bound, and and Gentiles had come to an end. He also ings in Theology and Praxis,ed. Kay Higuera the theologies that arise out of the historic knew that the Torah’s function as “instruc- Smith, Jayachitra Lalitha and L. Daniel contingencies of a given context are always tion” would remain because the Torah was Hawk (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity local.” Melba Padilla Maggay, “The Task of still Scripture (see footnote 22). Contextualization: Issue in Reading, Ap- 25 Press, 2014), 196–203, Kindle. Paul uses the word stoicheia here 14 propriating, and Transmitting the Faith” in David J. Hesselgrave and Edward in Galatians 4:3, 9, and adds the verb The Gospel in Culture, ed. Melba P. Maggay Rommen, Contextualization: Meanings, stoichōmen in 5:25 and then stoichēsousin in (Manila, Philippines: OMF Literature and Methods, and Models (Grand Rapids, MI: 6:16. The usage of these may indicate that Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Baker Book House, 1989). Paul’s focus when using stoicheia was the 15 Culture, 2013), 6–7. Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological 19 ways of their world that they followed. John H. Walton, Old Testament The- 26 Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand David deSilva described these ology for Christians: From Ancient Context Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 98–1 stoicheia—these elementary principles—as to Enduring Belief (Downers Grove, IL: 16 those which “divide the world and all that Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological InterVarsity Press, 2017), 5. Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids, MI: 20 constitutes it, creating the categories, hierar- Simon Chan, Hwa Yung, and Baker Book House, 1985), 217–219. chies, and evaluations that guide, limit, and Jackson Wu point this out in their books: 17 What also feeds into this idea of a constrain human beings in their thoughts, Simon Chan, Grassroots Asian Theol- behaviors, and interactions, keeping them in metatheolgy is what some assume to be a ogy: Thinking the Faith from the Ground single biblical worldview—that a biblical a form of ideological and systemic bondage.” Up (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, DeSilva, The Letter to the Galatians, 353. culture exists. The Scripture does not appear 2014); Yung, Mangoes or Bananas?; and 27 Brent Nongbri, Before Religion: A to speak of a single redeemed culture. It Wu, Saving God’s Face. For more on how History of a Modern Concept (New Haven, speaks of a single body of Christ that will culture impacts meaningful presentations CT: Yale University Press, 2013). In the ultimately be comprised of every people, of the gospel, see Jason Georges and Mark first century perception, there was no divide tongue, and nation (Rev. 5:9–10). Revelation D. Baker, Ministering in Honor-Shame between culture and religion. It was all inte- 21:22–26 appears to indicate that cultural Cultures: Biblical Foundations and Practi- grated. Thus, the discussions about discern- diversity will continue in the new heaven cal Essentials (Downers Grove, IL: IVP ing whether Paul is speaking of elementary and earth. The Scripture seems to create an Academic, 2016); Werner Mischke, The principles or elementary spirits appears a bit image of the singular body of Christ being a Global Gospel: Achieving Missional Impact off the mark. Conceptually separating reli- commonwealth of nations, where the nations in Our Multicultural World (Scottsdale, AZ: (ethnicities, people groups) maintain their gion from culture is a modern convention. Mission ONE, 2015); and Bradford Greer, 28 cultural distinctives while coming together “Toward More Meaningful Interaction: Re- Ben Witherington III, The Paul under the Lordship of Christ. Paul’s use of thinking How We Articulate the Gospel,” Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of the word politeuma in Phil. 3:20 also points International Journal of Frontier Missiology Tarsus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity us in this direction (see C. H. Dodd, The 26, no. 1 (2009): 37–43. Press, 1998), 66–67. 29 Meaning of Paul for Today [London, UK: 21 Even though I highly value Bauer’s John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift Fontana Books, 1958], 48–50.) It seems exceptional description of the problem of (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans more appropriate to speak of biblically syncretism, this issue of outsiders as final Publishing Company, 2015), 374. 30 informed cultures or biblically informed arbiters and authority remains. For an Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 369–370. worldviews rather than a biblical culture example of how this looks, see Bruce L. 31 N. T. Wright writes: “The divine or biblical worldview. It should also be Baeur, “Avoiding Comfortable Syncretism life itself is transforming believers, shaping understood that being biblically informed is by Doing Critical Contextualization,” them from the inside out according to the a constant journey, never a destination. Journal of Adventist Mission Studies, Vol. 1, pattern of the Messiah.” Nicholas Thomas 18 Melba Maggay writes: “A longtime no. 2 (2005):18–33, https://digitalcommons. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God: missionary in India, for instance, has asserted andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article= Book II: Parts 3 and 4 (Minneapolis, MN: that one can only proceed from a ‘dogmatic 1166&context=jams. Fortress Press, 2013), 781. contextualization,’ which he defined as ‘the 22 For a fuller development of this, 32 Paul knew that the study of Torah translation of the unchanging content of the see Bradford Greer,“Starting Points: would continue as it was God’s revelation

International Journal of Frontier Missiology Bradford Greer 199

(2 Tim. 3:16–17). Nonetheless, he also already been translated, where members of Incarnational Model.” In Mission- knew that the approach to Torah had their communities have been discipled and ary Methods: Research, Reflections, changed with Jesus. In this light he uses are in ongoing relationships with believers and Realities, edited by Craig this phrase: “the law of Christ.” Describ- from outside their communities. Ott and J. D. Payne. Evangelical 41 Missiological Society (Book 21). ing this change, Keener writes: “the law as In studying the history of mission interpreted in light of Jesus, especially the Pasadena, CA: William Carey movements, Ralph Winter identified that a Library. love command in [Gal.] 5:14, and now lived consistent pattern of tension existed between Currie, Christopher M. out through the Spirit of Christ living in established churches which he referred to as 2019 Personal Communication. believers (5:18, 23), in a way that includes modalities, and new churches that were be- deSilva, David A. bearing one another’s burdens.” Keener, ing formed in new cultural contexts, which 2018 The Letter to the Galatians. The Galatians, 540. Barclay describes this as he referred to as sodalities. This tension New International Commentary “the law as redefined and fulfilled in Christ.” existed because the new churches did not on the New Testament, edited by John M. G. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: function in the same way as the established Joel Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Vancouver, Brit- churches. Such change (innovation) was William B. Eerdmans Publishing ish Columbia:Regent College Publishing, consistently resisted by the modalities. See Company. 1988), 134. Ralph D. Winter, “The Two Structures of Dodd, C. H. 33 Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of God’s Redemptive Mission,” in Perspectives 1958 The Meaning of Paul for Today. the New Testament: A Contemporary Intro- on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, London, UK: Fontana Books. duction to New Testament Ethics (New York, Third Edition, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Ste- Fitch, David NY: Harper One, 1996), 46. ven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, CA: William 2017 “Finding Things to Love About 34 For one person’s reflections about Carey Library, 1999), 220–230. Reformed People: An Anabaptist separatism, see: David Fitch, “Finding Dialogues with a Reformed.” Things to Love About Reformed People: References MissioAlliance, https://www. An Anabaptist Dialogues with a Reformed,” Baeur, Bruce L. missioalliance.org/finding-things- love-reformed-people-anabaptist- MissioAlliance, February 6, 2017, https:// 2005 “Avoiding Comfortable Syncre- dialogues-reformed/?fbclid=IwA www.missioalliance.org/finding-things- tism by Doing Critical Con- R3aw2nVXaxqfUoLApTI5z1U- textualization.” In Journal of love-reformed-people-anabaptist-dialogues- VPa1PO65wDM-_W0RbwH- Adventist Mission Studies, Vol. reformed/?fbclid=IwAR3aw2nVXaxq mQCmcGV7MxX7u-u8. 1, no. 2. https://digitalcommons. fUoLApTI5z1UVPa1PO65wDM-_ Georges, Jason and Mark D. Baker W0RbwHmQCmcGV7MxX7u-u8. andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent. 35 cgi?article=1166&context=jams. 2016 Ministering in Honor-Shame David J. Bosch, Transforming Mis- Cultures: Biblical Foundations Baker, Mark and Joel Green sion: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, and Practical Essentials. Downers (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991), 296. 2011 Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Grove, IL: IVP Academic. 36 Atonement in New Testament and Richard Bauckham, “James, Peter, Contemporary Contexts. Downers Greer, Bradford and the Gentiles,” in The Missions of James, Grove, IL: IVP Academic. 2016 “Starting Points: Approaching the Frontier Missiological Task.” In Peter, and Paul: Tensions in Early Christi- Barclay, John M. G. anity, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans International Journal of Frontier 2015 Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids, Missiology 33, no. 3. (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005), 118. MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub- 37 2009 “Toward More Meaningful Arthur McPhee, The Road to Delhi: J. lishing Company. Interaction: Rethinking How Waskom Pickett and Missions in the Twilight 1988 Obeying the Truth: Paul’s Ethics in We Articulate the Gospel.” In of the Raj and Dawn of Nationhood (Lex- Galatians. Vancouver, British Co- International Journal of Frontier ington, KY: Emeth Press, 2012), 230. lumbia: Regent College Publishing. Missiology 26, no. 1. 38 In some rare cases it can lead to Bauckham, Richard Hays, Richard B. death. Persecution and isolation are typically 2005 “James, Peter, and the Gentiles.” 1996 The Moral Vision of the New the result in our era. In The Missions of James, Peter, Testament: A Contemporary Intro- 39 and Paul: Tensions in Early Chris- Some have objected to the use of duction to New Testament Ethics. tianity, edited by Bruce Chilton the term “incarnational” in this manner. New York, NY: Harper One. and Craig Evans. Leiden, The Heaney, R. S. John Cheong has provided a solid rebuttal Netherlands: Brill. to their objections. John Cheong, “Reas- 2014 “Prospects and Problems for Bosch, David J. sessing John Stott’s, David Hesselgrave’s, Evangelical Postcolonialisms.” In 1991 Transforming Mission: Paradigm Evangelical Postcolonial Conversa- and Andreas Kostenberger’s Views of the Shifts in Theology of Mission. Incarnational Model,” in Missionary Meth- tions: Global Awakenings in Theol- Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ogy and Praxis, edited by Kay ods: Research, Reflections, and Realities, ed. Chan, Simon Higuera Smith, Jayachitra Lalitha Craig Ott and J. D. Payne, Evangelical Mis- 2014 Grassroots Asian Theology: Think- and L. Daniel Hawk. Downers siological Society, Book 21 (Pasadena, CA: ing the Faith from the Ground Up. Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. William Carey Library, 2013), 39–60. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. Kindle Edition. 40 In saying this, it needs to be recog- Cheong, John Hesselgrave, David J. and Edward Rommen nized that these groups are not operating in 2013 “Reassessing John Stott’s, David 1989 Contextualization: Meanings, a vacuum. They will be operating in a global- Hesselgrave’s, and Andreas Methods, and Models. Grand ized context and where the Scriptures have Kostenberger’s Views of the Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

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Hiebert, Paul G. Sigal, Phillip 1994 Anthropological Reflections on 2007 The Halakhah of Jesus of Nazareth Missiological Issues. Grand Rapids, according to the Gospel of Mat- MI: Baker Books. thew. Atlanta, GA: The Society of 1985 Anthropological Insights for Mis- Biblical Literature. sionaries. Grand Rapids, MI: 1981 “The Halakhah of James.” In Baker Book House. Intergerini Parietis Septvm (Eph. Hu, Steve 2:14): Essays presented to Markus 2014 “The Importance of Postcolonial Barth on his sixty-fifth birthday. Evangelical Conversations.” In Pittsburg Theological Monograph Evangelical Postcolonial Conversa- Series #33, edited by Dikran tions: Global Awakenings in Theol- Y. Hadidian. Eugene, Oregon: ogy and Praxis, edited by Kay Pickwick Publications (an imprint Higuera Smith, Jayachitra Lalitha of Wipf and Stock Publishers). and L. Daniel Hawk. Downers Spencer, F. Scott Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 2004 Journeying through Acts: A Kindle Edition. Literary-Cultural Reading. Grand Keener, Craig S. Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2019 Galatians: A Commentary. Grand Walls, Andrew Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 1996 The Missionary Movement in 2014 Acts: An Exegetical Commentary: Christian History: Studies in the Volume 3: 15:1–23:35. Grand Transmission of the Christian Faith. Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 2013 Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. Walton, John H. Volume 2: 3:1–14:28. Grand 2017 Old Testament Theology for Chris- Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. tians: From Ancient Context to Maggay, Melba Padilla Enduring Belief. Downers Grove, 2013 “The Task of Contextualization: IL: InterVarsity Press. Issue in Reading, Appropriat- Winter, Ralph D. ing, and Transmitting the Faith.” 1999 “The Two Structures of God’s Re- In The Gospel in Culture, edited demptive Mission.” In Perspectives by Melba P. Maggay. Manila, on the World Christian Movement: Philippines: OMF Literature A Reader, Third Edition, edited by and Institute for Studies in Asian Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Church and Culture. Hawthorne. Pasadena, CA: Wil- McPhee, Arthur liam Carey Library. 2012 The Road to Delhi: J. Waskom Pick- Witherington III, Ben ett and Missions in the Twilight of 1998 The Paul Quest: The Renewed the Raj and Dawn of Nationhood. Search for the Jew of Tarsus. Down- Lexington, KY: Emeth Press. ers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Mischke, Werner Wright, Nicholas Thomas 2015 The Global Gospel: Achieving Mis- 2013 Paul and the Faithfulness of God: sional Impact in Our Multicultural Book II: Parts 3 and 4. Minneapo- World. Scottsdale, AZ: Mission lis, MN: Fortress Press. ONE. Wu, Jackson Nongbri, Brent 2013 Saving God’s Face: A Chinese 2013 Before Religion: A History of a Contextualization of Salvation Modern Concept. New Haven, through Honor and Shame. EMS CT: Yale University Press. Dissertation Series. Pasadena, Osborne, Grant CA: William Carey International 2006 The Hermeneutical Spiral: A University Press. Comprehensive Introduction to Yung, Hwa Biblical Interpretation. Revised 2014 Mangoes or Bananas?: The Quest and Expanded Edition. Downers for an Authentic Asian Theology. Grove, IL: IVP Academic. Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Pao, David W. Regnum Books International. 2000 Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus. Kindle Edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Sanneh, Lamin 2009 Translating the Message: The Mis- sionary Impact on Culture. Second Edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

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International Journal of Frontier Missiology ad, Megachurch Christianity, #15064.indd 1 6/17/19 7:55 AM 202 Books and Missiology

By the end of the book Wrogemann is explicit about the over- Books all aim of his larger three-volume project, of which this is the and final volume. His focus is a new paradigm for mission studies: Missiology . . . being a new term and an elaboration on the older subject heading mission studies, intercultural theology examines the processes in which in the course of the expansion of the Chris- A Theology of Interreligious Relations (Intercultural tian religious configuration, cultures, and contexts change Theology, Volume Three), by Henning Wrogemann, tr. due to Christian presences and practices. (454; italics original) Karl E. Bӧhmer (from German, 2015), (Downers Grove: In other words, intercultural theology refers to a new form of IVP Academic, 2019), xxi + 502 pp. mission studies. (462; italics original) Before weaving these different objectives, Wrogemann is —Reviewed by H. L. Richard very clear about a fundamental presupposition of his work: . . . this volume holds to the thesis that New Testament claims enning Wrogemann makes an to ultimate validity are precisely what forms the Christian basis impressive big picture attempt for lasting, sustainable, and constructive relations with the fol- to change paradigms and lowers of other religious traditions. (xvii) terminologies in his introduction to a H This reviewer is not certain that Wrogemann has demon- theology of interreligious relations, with strated this thesis in his massive study, but would also opine many sparkling insights along the way. that it is not a vital point to be made. It is always refresh- He acknowledges that this is a tenta- ing to read a strong affirmation of the “ultimate validity” of tive beginning (“even though they [the the New Testament amidst inter-religious relations (espe- reflections contained in this volume] are somewhat frag- cially in light of later comments to be noted below on the mentary in nature . . . ,” xx), and this review will accord- interpretation of the Bible), but that this New Testament ingly critique aspects of his presentation. But Wrogemann’s affirmation actually supports (as compared to undermines) comprehensive analysis is a welcome challenge to religious relations with followers of other faiths is not easily demon- paradigms that need to be discarded, and the book will be strated, and is arguably contradicted by history. a great success if it stimulates various institutions and orga- From the outset Wrogemann understands that “constructive nizations to rewrite their curricula with new approaches. relations with followers of other religious traditions” must face (The focus of the book is the curricula in Wrogemann’s new historical conditions of globalization and pluralization. own context of German higher education.) In his first chapter, “A Theology of Religions or a Theology of Due to the author’s very broad approach to this subject, this Interreligious Relations?,” he offers a brilliant summary of an reviewer was never quite certain exactly what Wrogemann older Western discourse of religion that is now problematic: These [Western] perceptual patterns include the notion that was aiming at. Indeed, he clearly states that “this book pro- cultures and religions are uniform and very distinct entities; poses both a theory of interreligious relations and a related the notion that at the heart of these cultures and religions is but methodologically independent theology of interreligious an essential core that guarantees their uniformity over long relations” (xx, italics original). But this suggested focus still periods of time; the notion that a religion’s real nature is re- leaves scope for the many related topics that Wrogemann flected not so much in its praxis but in its religious scriptures; addresses in his voluminous analysis. In the introduction to the notion that religions with written scriptures are funda- this new English translation he also indicates that: mentally superior to those without them; and the notion that a people group is properly governed when it is governed ac- It is the contention of this present volume that many contem- cording to its own laws. This prompted colonial administra- porary theology-of-religion publications are simply incapable tions to embark on a quest to identify the appropriate indig- of answering the pressing questions of today. (xvii) enous legal traditions. And Wrogemann does pretty well in exposing that incapa- In the framework of colonial discourse, typifications of other bility, yet I’m not satisfied that he ever gets to the roots of religions provided handy references for proving their back- the problems in theology of religion. wardness as compared to the Christian civilizations of the West,

H. L. Richard is an independent researcher focused on the Hindu-Christian encounter. He has published numerous books and articles including studies of key figures like Narayan Vaman Tilak(Following Jesus in the Hindu Context, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1998), Kalagara Subba Rao (Exploring the Depths of the Mystery of Christ, Bangalore: Centre for Contemporary Christianity, 2005), and R. C. Das (R. C. Das: Evangelical Prophet for Contextual Christianity, Delhi: ISPCK, 1995).

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rogeman lays a foundation for an all-out attack on our current constructs of religion, yet he appears to accept that Islam and Buddhism are W religions and never offers an explicit critique of this dominant paradigm. thereby serving to justify the colonial occupation. For instance, will thus remain inappropriate. This will be the subject of our we frequently come across statements about Islam’s inherent deliberations in the following chapters. (136) incapacity for reform as a result of its eternal and immutable law, the shari’a, and as a result of the fatalism of the Muslim Through six chapters in part 2, Wrogemann looks at “How people. Similarly, we find references to the passivity of Asian Islam and Buddhism View Other Religions.” This title cultures and religions. The political exploitability of such reli- seems to uncritically accept that Islam and Buddhism are gious comparisons is rather self-evident. (8—9, italics original) “religions;” the data within the chapter does not fit this assumption, but the root of this problem, as stated earlier, This lays a foundation for an all-out attack on our cur- is never addressed. The focus on Islam and Buddhism puts rent constructs of “religion,” yet throughout the book this reviewer in an uncomfortable place, for his personal Wrogemann continues to use this disputed term and never experience is overwhelmingly related to Hindu tradi- offers an explicit critique of the dominant paradigm that tions. Maybe the fact that Hindu traditions so shatter the there are only a dozen or so “world religions” (an implicit critique will be noted below). The very title of the book “world religions” paradigm makes it hard for Wrogemann assumes that the term “interreligious” carries a clear mean- to include them in his discussions? (In part 1 he very ing, when in fact it does not. inadequately critiqued the Hindu-focused comparative theology of Francis Clooney, but that seemed too fine a Later, in this first chapter, Wrogemann has the bold sub- detail to address in this review.) Wrogemann’s procedure heading, “Exclusivism, Inclusivism, Pluralism: An Obituary of highlighting a few intellectuals (acknowledged to be of a Model” (14). The obituary of this very typical three-fold fringe people in the case of Islam) and their perspective on construct is probably premature, but the critique is valid. interreligious encounter almost seems to vitiate against his (There could also be obituaries for theology of religion and rejection of intellectualism in favor of holism. But at least mission studies as I have previously pointed out; these also there is a serious effort to listen to some voices from beyond would no doubt be premature obituaries.) Christendom. Evaluating Theory-of-Religion Models Building Blocks of a New Theory In part 1, Wrogemann uses seven chapters to lay out his Part 3 presents in seven chapters “Building Blocks for a critique of current theologies of religion (e.g., revisionist, Theory of Interreligious Relations.” This is the core of interpretive, interactionist, comparative, etc.). His objec- Wrogemann’s call for new paradigms that broaden points of tions to pluralism are especially impressive, as he shows contact beyond scriptures and theology, and in the process that pluralist assumptions against specific truth claims (like challenge traditional views of scriptures and theology. In his those we affirm in the New Testament) are fundamentally introductory statement he indicates that he non-pluralist. Wrogemann states that pluralists insist on a will approach the subject from the angles of cultural studies, “self-relativization” (86) by those who believe in the truth religious studies, social philosophy, and the philosophy of the of their scriptures. So while the pluralist call for a new social sciences to accentuate those factors that are of particu- foundation for interreligious interaction sounds impressive, lar importance for interreligious relations but that generally it in fact fails to accept plural perspectives, particularly non- receive little attention. (211) relativistic perspectives. Thus the pluralist approach actually undermines (or destroys) true encounters among sincere The first chapter of this part (chapter 16) backs up to again believers. attack our current theologies of religion. Six fallacies are Wrogemann is also opposed to the intellectualizing of listed, and this is some of the most helpful material in the interreligious encounters. Part 1 closes with these words on book. First, the rationalist fallacy is “the presupposition that the necessary “grounding” of interreligious relations: people are guided primarily by their thought processes and that When people simply assume that everybody has the freedom they act according to what they hold to be true” (213; italics (more or less) to decide for or against some variant in the the- original). That might seem too obvious to require stating, ology of religion, then they misjudge the social conditionality but it brings helpful clarity regarding the inadequacy of our of identity in many cultures. It follows that as long as people intellectual constructs. Wrogemann insists that “people are formulate theology of religion models in a vacuum, their ex- not consistently guided by any means by basic premises in planations will not sufficiently take into account the reality the theology of religion; instead their actions are determined of interreligious relations on the ground, and their response by multiple reference points” (214, italics original).

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e emphasizes that his theory is about relations, not encounters, as the latter are fleeting and for most of the world it is long-term relations H across the boundaries of religions that are important. Second is the individualist fallacy, that individuals make The third thesis is again about dynamism. decisions in rational ways whereas in fact relationships The point is to continually break up rigid perceptual patterns . . . . often determine individual decisions more than ideas do. A As we proceed with our theorizing, it will be important to show third fallacy Wrogemann calls the monolinear fallacy, and is that in the field of interreligious relations, there are frequently particularly seen in the reductionism in pluralist appeals to very different factors in play to what observers generally as- recognize and accept others and their religious traditions. sume. (223) Wrogemann points out that “there is always and at the same The fourth thesis is that this dynamic and multidisciplinary time an entire spectrum of different positions between the poles of recognition and rejection within the complex contexts of approach to interreligious relations must also impact the interreligious constellations” (215, italics original). way we read the Bible. Biblical accounts are full of the very same complexities that are under discussion, so “those ways Fourth is the elitist fallacy which of reading these sources that promote standardization and consists in turning a blind eye to those factors that are key for systematization must be rejected out of hand” (224). The interreligious interaction–things such as liturgical and ritual final thesis is again about breadth of recognition; “talking performances, symbolizations, and media–which have a far about religiosity or religion is never just a harmless exercise, greater effect on religious configurations than theological but that it always has to do with aspirations and claims to paradigms do. (215) social power” (236). Fifth is the fallacy of forgetting the body (i.e., human cor- The six following chapters in part 3 then lay out the poreality) and how physicality and physical spaces impact complexities from multi-disciplinary fields that must be religion and religious practices. Finally, there is a religionist wrestled with in order to genuinely confront what we call fallacy which assumes the centrality of religious motives in interreligious interactions. The first is identity in a chap- all interreligious relations; “many other dimensions (histori- ter on “What Does Identity Mean: Interaction in Social cal, social, relational, societal, regional, economic, political, Networks.” His basic perspective is to “steer clear of essen- medial, etc.) are not considered” (216). Wrogemann’s iden- tialization” (244), which is greatly appreciated but seems to tification of these fallacies alerts us to Western tendencies be undermined by the “world religions” framework that still in the perception of religion. underlies his book. Then “inclusions and exclusions” are dis- In this same sixteenth chapter, Wrogemann goes on to spell cussed; how are group identities sustained or fragmented? out five theses about his theory of interreligious relations. He A chapter then considers what it means to recognize and does not give a neat statement to his first thesis; but, this is acknowledge the other. The public sphere is then discussed where he comes closest to defining religion (inadequately, as in another chapter that brings a perspective beyond the I’ve already too often stated). The main point has to do with usual theology of religion outline. Pluralism and multi- group identity, and how religion contributes to various group culturalism come under the microscope next, and again identities for many peoples. one of Wrogemann’s strengths is his insightful exposure of A theory of interreligious relations takes these developments pluralistic utopias. Pluralists suggest that “good interreli- seriously, but it focuses in particular on collective we’s hold- ing certain religiocultural worldviews and competing with one gious relations are by definition characterized by peace and another. (219, italics original) harmony. These relations are not supposed to be disturbed by people changing their religious views” (292, italics origi- Here, as throughout the book, Wrogemann has helpful exam- nal). Wrogemann suggests instead that ples from different cultures across the world. He emphasizes society is about maintaining a culture of public struggle be- that his theory is about relations, not encounters, as the latter tween identities, including collective identities, in which dissent are fleeting and for most of the world it is long-term relations and disagreement are not seen as negatives needing to be across the boundaries of religions that are important. eliminated but as resources for constructive coexistence. (295). His second thesis is about holism and dynamism: The closing chapter of part 3 involves an appeal for “a . . . there is no such thing as religions having a fundamental wide variety of methodological approaches” (297). Media nature . . . . the phenomenon of interreligious relations is all studies, performance theory, “complex strategies of initiat- about dynamic configurations and reconfigurations that can- ing, adjusting and perpetuating boundary-defining actions” not be immobilized by theology-of-religion theories. (222) (301), the actual actors, “individuals, groups, movements

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eople position themselves in different ways at the same time, so that it is possible to speak of multiple positionings, multiple locations, and various P degrees of loyalty. —Wrogemann or organizations” (302). One cannot read Wrogemann and In three chapters that spell out his theological position then sit content with a neat theory about life or religion! Wrogemann is blatantly trinitarian—“The Power and Love Complexity marks everything and so must be central in all of the One God,” “The Interreligious Communication theorizing and planning. of Jesus Christ,” and “The Fellowship of the Spirit as a Dialogue and Theological Formulation Contrast Model.” Wrogemann is to be commended for his head-on approach to difficult topics throughout part 5. In Part 4 is four chapters looking at dialogue. This is again out- discussing the one God, he addresses the jealousy of God standing material but this review is also too long so no detailed as well as the accusation that monotheism leads to narrow- analysis will be presented. Current attitudes and practices mindedness and even violence. Discussing Jesus, he accepts in dialogue are critiqued in line with points above related to that “disputations, scolding, and protest are part of the commu- reductionism, intellectualism, etc. The author’s helpful analysis nicative repertoire of the Son of God” (378, italics original). of the historical error of making “religion” an “entity” in rela- But he goes on to show that Jesus was unique, that we tion to “Buddhism” (326–7) again shows the problem of the cannot follow him in all his ways, and that his teaching larger framework of the world religions construct. Wrogemann points to the overcoming of aggression in human relations. thus lays out all the data for why “interreligious” is too loaded (This is a very inadequate summary of such rich material— a term to use for his theory/theology, yet it seems he cannot something that can be said about this entire review.) find an alternative. Religion is such a central concept to global modernity that it appears inescapable, yet it seems impossible An interesting pedagogical shift enters the text with chapter to be genuinely post-Enlightenment, post-Eurocentric, or 30, his chapter on the Holy Spirit. This chapter is mostly post-colonial without finding a way to be post-religion. interacting with First Peter, and the chapter that follows is interaction with the book of Revelation. Peter’s epistle shows Over six chapters in part 5 Wrogemann develops his theol- the reality of suffering for followers of Christ, yet also the ogy of interreligious relations. He begins with a chapter centrality of praise to God in response to his grace amidst contrasting his position with that of theology of religion that suffering. This attractive lifestyle of disciples of Jesus is approaches. His six points are important enough to outline an essential part of interreligious relations. The incompre- here. First, theology of religion approaches are too abstract: hensibility of God’s grace to us leads to “a refusal to make those who do not reflect on the pretensions to prestige, definitive assertions about the state of salvation of other constellations of power, and symbolic rivalries in play in this people” (397). The tension between genuine appreciation for [interreligious] context open themselves up to accusations of people outside of Christ amidst ongoing “rivalry between completely failing to recognize what really happens in inter- religious relations. (351) different worldviews and religious validity claims” mitigates against tidy theories of theologies of religion (400). Second, Wrogemann objects to the focus on peace in inter- Perhaps it seems odd that a chapter following one on the religious engagement, and appeals to Jesus and the realities Holy Spirit would focus on the book of Revelation, but of religious rivalries over the centuries to show that conflict Wrogemann rightly says that can be life promoting. it makes sense to concentrate especially on those passages A third contrast is the selectivity of theology of religion among the New Testament writings that seem to contradict theories, whereas Wrogemann is looking for holistic engage- most patently the concern of an appreciative hermeneutics of ment. Fourth is an acceptance of the reality of “diversity the religious Other. (412) within religious configurations” (355) in opposition to the The clear binary in Revelation between the followers of static essentialisms of a theology of religion. Fifth, abstract Christ and the enemies of Christ is analyzed in terms of texts are central to theology of religion whereas Wrogemann the language of the powerful contrasted with the language wants to also look carefully at how texts (and sections of of the oppressed. This chapter is worthy of careful study, text to neglect of other sections) are engaged and used in concluding that “a contemporary theology of interreligious real life by real people. Finally, Wrogemann is again against relations will therefore not be able to proceed by adopting monolinear approaches that want to define what is central; such pejorative motives” (420). “. . . people position themselves in different ways at the same time, so that it is possible to speak of multiple positionings, Approaching the concluding chapter of part 5, his section multiple locations, and various degrees of loyalty” (356). on the theology of interreligious relations, one has come to

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rogemann asks: “How should beauty, what is awe inspiring, and what is fascinating in other religions be understood?” His answer goes back W to basic Christian theology, that God’s ways are higher than ours. expect that Wrogemann will not provide a neat definition. Seeking Church: Emerging Witnesses to the Kingdom, by Indeed, “the task of theological theory is not to offer clear-cut Darren T. Duerksen and William A. Dyrness, (Downers explanations but to help interpret ongoing ambivalences” Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), x + 212 pp. (424, italics original). What is God doing in the world of multiple religions? A very helpful point in this exposition —Reviewed by Brad Gill is that “positive things can also bring on a trial of faith: How should beauty, what is awe inspiring, and what is fascinating his month we welcomed the in other religions be understood?” (424–5, italics original). announcement of the third Wrogemann’s answer here goes back to basic Christian edition of the World Christian 1 theology, that God’s ways are higher than ours and we are Encyclopedia.T Its overwhelming data to live in humble praise towards him. and quantitative analysis cause us to Then the reality of other religious traditions no longer has to expect rich diversity, surprising growth be made to fit into a coherent systematic interpretation of the and recession, and huge gravitational world; instead, we can once again entrust the both fascinating shifts. And we can anticipate a wide and unsettling experience of difference to God himself. (426) variety of scholars to continue to assess the data. The authors Darren Duerksen and William Up until then [the end of time], the confession of Christ, the Dryness may find more evidence for what they see as a “crisis search for unifying truths, and the (salutary) admission of igno- rance continue to be subject to the reverential recognition that of church.” In their new book, Seeking Church: Emerging God’s counsels remain hidden to us in many respects. (427) Witnesses to the Kingdom, they identify a certain confusion about the church across such a diverse Christian movement. Shifting Mission Studies They believe we require greater discernment as the church emerges in our day. They press us beyond traditional ecclesi- Part 6 concludes the book (and a three-volume study) with ology, beyond present missiological analysis, beyond any one three chapters that summarize intercultural theology, mis- method or strategy, and offer a new approach to interpreting sion studies and religious studies. One theme appearing here the church as it arises on the frontier. again which this review has thus far not highlighted is that Christianity is now a global phenomenon and has many The combination of these two authors, both professors and varying expressions that need to be accounted for. The lived both experienced inter-cultural practitioners, provides the experiences of these local traditions should be central to this reader with insights from their years of theological, religious discussion rather than a focus on Western ratiocinations. and anthropological scholarship. They are uniquely qualified to infuse different disciplines into their missiological purpose. It is almost impossible for this reviewer to say too many The focus of this book is theological reflection on the socio-cul- positive things about this stimulating study. A trifling tural formation and growth of communities that follow Christ, objection is the constant use of italics, as illustrated in many or in some particular ways are drawn to Christ . . . [W]e want to of the quotes above. This felt like the writer did not suf- approach this in terms of emergence theory, which stipulates ficiently trust the reader to understand his points. Once that social communities arise over time in ways that reflect their again in the closing chapter the nagging problem of religion interaction with specific historical and cultural dynamics. (25) raises its head, as Wrogemann expresses concern that “the Emergence theory, drawn from the pool of recent anthro- definition of religion is also in danger of being eroded” pological studies, is their answer to what they see as a very (458). Well, the data in this book has not only eroded but wide confusion concerning the church. First, they lay out even exploded much popular thought about world reli- the actual problem it addresses. In their first chapter they gions. A better way ahead needs to be found regarding display their command of theological and historical ten- this particular paradigm and terminology. Yet this blemish sions surrounding “Church and Kingdom” and “Church takes nothing away from the liberating perspective that and Mission.” But it’s the missiological lens they apply Wrogemann introduces into the worlds of mission stud- to more recent developments in global mission (Church ies and theology of religion. May we live worthily in the and Religions, Church and Culture) that helps the reader holistic ambivalence of discipleship to Jesus in the twenty- begin to see the problem and the need for a new theoretical first century. vantage point.

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uch of our missiological perception over six decades was built on the general framework of communication theory. In the dynamic equivalence M theory of translation, the crux of the problem lay unnoticed. The authors identify two flawed assumptions they believe reasonably be called a church.” (83) These cases show that warrant this new analysis of the church. First, the increas- context matters: ing globalization of religious worlds challenges the way This review carries forward the assumption we are making that we understand religion: “From a social science perspective the possibilities for the emergence of the church in any place the category (religion) itself is an elastic concept and is not are dependent in large part on reigning assumptions of what as self-evident as is often assumed” (18). Secondly, and I human community looks like–its limits and its possibilities. (83) believe more crucial to the overall crisis of church, is “the assumption that the church somehow exists above and But in the second half of the book, the authors assure us apart from culture” (60). They contend that even with all that this emergent process is nourished by similar bibli- the efforts of contextualizing the church over the past half a cal sources and expresses some general characteristics. A century that “cultural analysis was not used to consider the subtheme of the book is to provide “a process of discerning nature of the church in particular cultures” (20). That’s quite where the church exists” (25), so the authors devote chapters a charge. Why was that the case? to common “Biblical Metaphors for Church” (chapter 5), the The church was considered an abstract theological reality rath- origins of “Theological Practices of Church” (chapter 6), and er than an actual community of people necessarily existing as a the “Markers of Transformative Church” (chapter 7). They subculture within a larger social group. (20, italics mine) also claim that an eschatological vision will play into the emergence of church (chapter 8). This predicament, the assumption that the church is above culture, really propels the entire thesis of this book. With all Throughout the book, they view this emergence perspective due respect to the contributions of Andrew Walls, Eugene from complimentary disciplines—an integration which is the Nida and Charles Kraft, the authors believe we need to very warp and woof of missiology. This weaving together of reframe the questions for mission anthropology. They claim theology, history, anthropology and actual ministry contexts that much of our missiological perception over six decades catalyzes insights for the reader, especially those minister- was built on the general framework of communication ing in frontier situations where an initial turning to Christ is theory. In the dynamic equivalence theory of translation, taking place. Insights seem to almost pop out at the reader. I the crux of the problem lay unnoticed. will highlight just two examples: But, important as this advance was, it carried limitations; the First, their theological command is apparent in chapter 6 church does not exist like a text waiting to be communicated. where they address the origins of theological practices (bap- It is rather a dynamic, culturally situated emergent reality that tism, eucharist, etc.) in any new context. In dealing with the is formed under multiple influences. (20, italics mine) biblical metaphor “body of Christ” in chapter 5, they make a They have culled through that theoretical jungle of recent quick reference to Miroslav Volf who “argues that the ‘body of anthropological studies and in chapter 3 they offer a new Christ’ should be interpreted from the perspective of the man tool in emergence theory (“Emergent Ecclesial Identity and woman becoming one body” (117). Rather than the typi- and Mission”). They don’t swallow this theory uncritically, cal emphasis on the organic unity of the different parts of the but they use it to explain how the church is a “process of body, the body metaphor speaks of the emergence of a new interaction between a context and persons and what results entity as in a marriage becoming one body, a new entity, a new out of that interaction” (65). unity, a new communion of persons. “For Paul, being ‘united in the same mind and for the same purpose’ (1 Cor. 1:10) is They offer four case studies of how the church has cultur- not about being a part of the same ecclesial body but about ally manifested across the globe (chapter 4) which make it being in communion with Christ and each other” (117). crystal clear why this is a key textbook for frontier missiol- ogy. They combine their research and experience in Japan, They believe Volf ’s emphasis resonates with emergent Indonesia, South Asia and Philippines to “discover and theory. The reader senses the compelling theological rele- interrogate ways in which those settings have encouraged vance for any frontier situation: initial believers in unreached or obstructed the emergence of a stable entity that can contexts emerge first of all as a new communion of persons.

Brad Gill is Senior Editor of the International Journal of Frontier Missiology. After assisting in the founding years of the US Center for World Mission in Pasadena, now Frontier Ventures, he served in North Africa for 13 years. He is currently President of the Inter- national Society for Frontier Missiology

36:4 Winter 2019 208 Books and Missiology

ne hears a rationale for the way new movements today emphasize obedience to the Scriptures. Who would have thought unpacking the Reformation with a Oreverse hermeneutic would transform our understanding of these movements? Their communion in the Spirit is what constitutes a new one in which the message was packaged according to entity (church), not a certain type of organic unity. “For Volf, the presenter’s understanding. Receivers then had to be each local church is a church and is connected to the entire educated to understand it. In the mid-twentieth century communion of those ‘in Christ’ as an anticipation of ‘the Eugene Nida introduced his dynamic-equivalence eschatological gathering of the entire people of God’” (117). theory and this began to shift the paradigm to a recep- tor-oriented communication. A second example is the way historical perspective but- tresses their cultural analysis. They map out “The Church as • Anthropological: We understand we’re not just deliver- an Emergent Phenomenon in History” (chapter 2) by rein- ing a package, but we’re engaged in a process. E. Daniel terpreting familiar eras of church history (the first century, Shaw claims we must go beyond contextualization and the Reformation) with their tool of emergence theory. They focus on the “cognitive apparatus” that hears and pro- apply a “critical realism” that appreciates both the influ- cesses the Word-event. ence of human agency (the Apostles, Calvin) and of unique • Biblical: We see this process displayed in Acts and in social conditions (Greco-Roman associations, Church and Paul and the concern with what the receivers do with State). It’s in this kind of dialectic that they introduce what the Word. Abraham is the paradigmatic example of this they call a “reverse hermeneutic.” “positive reception,” and his faithful obedience is the Hermeneutics has traditionally described the process of drawing primary sign of his identity with God and His covenant. out meaning from Scripture. What if we were to reverse this her- • Hermeneutical: Again, by using a reverse hermeneutic, Da- meneutical direction and use the values and insights of culture to vid Bosch notes that over the last 150 years Western evan- illuminate aspects of Scripture? Alternatively, how might these gelicals have desired to counter relativistic theologies by serve to obscure or distort those readings? . . . We make use of the preaching salvation. Consequently, the emphasis on “going” idea of reversing the hermeneutical flow in order to illustrate the and preaching to the nations in the Great Commission of way historical forms of church have necessarily reflected, for better or worse, prevailing cultural forms and practices. (28, italics mine) Matt. 28: 19–20 eclipsed the second part of that command (“teaching them to obey everything I have commanded”). Admittedly, for some this reverse hermeneutic is simply a A reverse hermeneutic makes clear how the prevailing cul- new label for the cultural influences they’ve recognized all tural conditions of a Reformation period helped shape an along in church history. However, these authors demon- emphasis on hearing the Word (word-event), and how there strate how a reverse hermeneutic can help explain a World was a gradual clouding of our ability to discern obedience as Christianity that extends in such diversity today. a genuine marker of a transformative church. In their short section, “Hearing and Obeying Christ” Duerksen and Dyrness have contributed a very effective tool (154–157), one can’t help but hear a rationale for the way for sharpening our missiological discernment. Their cultural new movements today emphasize obedience to the Scriptures. analysis is a fresh way to perceive the past, study the present, One thinks of the global phenomena of Disciple-Making and aim into the future. It comes at an appropriate moment, Movements (DMM) and the obedience-based discipleship so when we still face a huge proportion of unreached peoples fundamental to their growth. But who would have thought and populations. Emergence theory should be deployed in unpacking the Reformation with a reverse hermeneutic (39– our approach, and not wait till our methods and strategies are 51) would have any relevance to our understanding of these unfruitful—when the open and voluntary church meets closed movements? These authors begin and end their argument communities; when churches fail to fully incorporate back-row over four centuries of church history, and they interlace believers; when the relational flow of a disciple-making move- biblical and anthropological perspectives in re-establishing ment is inhibited by an urban jungle. It certainly answers any “hearing and obeying Christ” as a true marker of the church. confusion about the church on today’s frontiers. IJFM I would summarize their argument as follows: Endnotes • Historical: The socio-religious conditions of the Reforma- 1 tion led the reformers to emphasize the church as a “Word- Todd M. Johnson and Gina Zurlo, eds., World Chris- event,” as a “creature of the word,” and established preaching tian Encyclopedia, 3rd. ed. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer- sity Press, 2020), This item is not yet published. It is available and proclamation as one of the markers of a true church. for pre-orders and will ship on 01 February 2020. https:// • Linguistic: A “cargo” mentality of communication global.oup.com/academic/product/world-christian-encyclopedia- became the prevailing paradigm in evangelical mission, 9781474403238?cc=us&lang=en&#.

International Journal of Frontier Missiology In Others’ Words 209

in Beirut. As an Arab Christian, he wonders how a people In Others’ Words known for their historic genocides against Armenians and other Christians have somehow become the darling of US politicians. A good question. A second IMES blog by another Editor’s Note: In this department, we highlight resources outside of faculty member, Mike Kuhn, at the Arab Theological Semi- the IJFM: other journals, print resources, DVDs, websites, blogs, nary in Beirut, addresses the history of the nation-state and videos, etc. Standard disclaimers on content apply. Due to the length of many web addresses, we sometimes give just the title of how that has contributed to current geopolitical problems. the resource, the main web address, or a suggested search phrase. For a political understanding of the historical relationship between the Kurds and the governments of Iran, Iraq, Israel, Armenian Genocide Recognized and the US see the excellent article in Foreign Policy entitled “The Secret Origins of the U.S.-Syrian Relationship Explain Was this an act of retaliation against Turkey for sending Today’s Disaster.” Also, don’t miss the extended article in The in troops in October against the SDF (the Syrian Kurd- New Yorker, October 24, 2019, entitled “Turkey, Syria, the ish army), US allies against ISIS? After dilly-dallying for Kurds, and Trump’s Abandonment of Foreign Policy.” Last, decades, the US Congress finally passed a bill December for a lovely story about a Syrian Christian graduate student 12, 2019, officially declaring the Armenian massacres of the in the US who was invited to speak at Harvard University’s late 1890s and 1915–1923, a genocide. (See Christianity commencement, see this Christianity Today article, also an Today’s article “Senate’s Genocide Vote Not the Only Good IMES blog, “The Road From Damascus: How a Syrian News for Armenian Christians,” December 13, 2019.) For Christian Spoke at Harvard’s Commencement.” a stark summary of the genocide facts, take a look at this Why Are People Protesting All over the World? archived New York Times article: “Armenian Genocide of 1915: An Overview.” Massive civilian protests have erupted in Iran (“Iran Convulsed Germans and Kurds Ask Forgiveness for Genocide Role by Worst Unrest in 40 Years”), Iraq (“Our Patience is Over: Why Iraqis are Protesting,”) and Lebanon (see BBC News’ Both Germany and the Kurds are beginning to acknowl- November 7, 2019, article, “Lebanon Protests: How Whats- edge their own roles in the genocide. See the article in DW App Tax Anger Revealed a Much Deeper Crisis”). Some of (Deutsche Welle) entitled “New Report Details Germany’s the causes? Corrupt governments, exorbitant fuel and food Involvement in Armenian Genocide” (May 2018) and a prices, a ten-day internet blackout (Iran), no working utilities, 2015 Public Radio International (PRI) article written at and (in the case of Iraq and Lebanon), the presence of Iranian the time of the 100th anniversary of the genocide April Revolutionary Guard troops. Don’t miss the Guardian’s De- 24, 2015 entitled, “Kurds in Turkey Atone for their Role in cember 5, 2019, article: “How Street Protests Across Middle the Armenian Genocide.” Abdallah Demirbas, a Kurdish East Threaten Iran’s Power.” And for how Iraqi Christians have politician and former mayor of the once Armenian city of been affected by these huge protests, see theExpress article, Diyarbakur in Eastern Turkey, was quoted as saying that December 25, 2019: “Iraq Protests: Christians Heartened they have an obligation to grant others the right as well to live by Muslims’ Solidarity in midst of Bloody Crackdown.” By their identities fully. This includes Armenians and other groups contrast, Sudan’s mass protests last year led to a peaceful transi- like Assyrians, Arabs, and religious minorities like Alevis and Yezi- tion of power. Just this week, the new government revoked an dis. Part of this vision is apologizing for our part in the genocide. incendiary law that had restricted and targeted women. (See the BBC News article “Sudan Crisis: Women Praise End of During his tenure as mayor, in 2012 his city erected the Strict Public Order Law,” November 29, 2019.) only monument commemorating the genocide in Turkey. India: A New Dark Age? Not surprisingly, a few months later Demirbas was arrested. For a thought-provoking interview with Demirbas in 2016, “India Is Entering a New Dark Age,” published November 19, 2019 in The Week, contends that see this Open Democracy article: opendemocracy.net/ Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is going back- en/sur-against-state-violence-in-turkey-interview-with- wards on every front: Its economy is in a free-fall (with growth former-mayor-ab/. at a six-year low and unemployment at a 45-year high); its Martin Accad’s Syria Brief on the Kurds polity is becoming authoritarian; and its dominant religion, Hinduism, is growing intolerant. But what’s even more de- Martin Accad, recent plenary speaker at the September an- pressing is that the country seems to have lost its will to fight nual meetings of the Evangelical Society of Missiology, makes this descent into darkness. some perceptive comments about Kurds, Arabs, and Iran in an Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) December 4th blog Don’t miss The New Yorker’s December 2019 cover article called “Syria Brief: December 2019.” He is Associate Profes- about India, “Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi’s India.” sor of Islamic Studies for the Arab Theological Seminary Written by Pulitzer-Prize winning veteran war correspondent Z 36:4 Winter 2019 210 In Others’ Words

Dexter Filkins (who accompanied Indian journalist Rana Ayoub by an anonymous high level Chinese political official and into Kashmir), it gives an excellent historical background to the published in its entirety in English and Chinese, November 16, treatment of Muslims in India since the partition. 2019. See “Absolutely No Mercy: Leaked Files Expose How Riots Roil India over Anti-Muslim Bill China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims.” One of the Xinjiang Papers instructs officials how to question and reassure To add insult to injury, Muslims (immigrants and refu- elite Uighur university students who, upon returning for the gees) are no longer allowed to apply for citizenship. A new summer from their universities in other parts of China, discov- citizenship bill just passed the upper house of parliament ered their families, relatives, and neighbors completely missing. December 11, 2019, and became law, but will almost cer- tainly be appealed to the country’s Supreme Court: “Con- A second set of five more documents was leaked anonymously stitutional lawyers believe that inserting a faith criterion to the ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Jour- for citizenship contradicts as many as three articles of the nalists. Dubbed the China Cables, and published online in country’s eloquently secular constitution.” (See “India’s New an article entitled, “Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals for Citizenship Law Outrages Muslims,” Dec 12, 2019, The Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm,” November 24, Economist.) A December 13, 2019 article in the Guardian 2019, these documents detail the actual prison-like protocols entitled “Violent Clashes Continue in Delhi over New Cit- for preventing escapes. izenship Bill,” gives more details about the nationwide riots Artificial Intelligence and Chinese Gulags and protests. For more on how this citizenship bill might affect the state-less Rohingya refugees already in India, see Quoting the above article, the China Cables expose the role the December 11, 2019 article in Human Rights Watch: of mass data collection and computer algorithms: The classified intelligence briefings reveal the scope and ambi- “India: Citizenship Bill Discriminates Against Muslims.” tion of the government’s artificial-intelligence-powered polic- Is “Panta Ta Ethne” Ethnolinguistic? ing platform, which purports to predict crimes based on these You should continue to track with the developing analysis computer-generated findings alone. Experts say the platform, of “unreached people groups” as a strategic way of portray- which is used in both policing and military contexts, demon- ing today’s mission. The recent contribution by Matthew strates the power of technology to help drive industrial-scale human rights abuses. Newkirk in a December 9, 2019 article answers the critiques in The Gospel Coalition by pointing out the Old Testa- The China Cables reveal how the system is able to amass vast ment context of the original Abrahamic covenant (“to be a amounts of intimate personal data through warrantless man- blessing to all the families of the earth”). Genesis 10 and 11 ual searches, facial recognition cameras, and other means to (the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel) provide “the identify candidates for detention, flagging for investigation strong ethnolinguistic undercurrent that surges throughout hundreds of thousands merely for using certain popular mo- the early Abrahamic narrative.” (See “Should Missionaries bile phone apps. The documents detail explicit directives to arrest Uighurs with foreign citizenship and to track Xinjiang Focus on the Unreached People Groups? Yes.”) Uighurs living abroad, some of whom have been deported Hong Kong Election Landslide back to China by authoritarian governments. Among those Hong Kong protests have been ongoing for more than implicated as taking part in the global dragnet: China’s em- seven months now. But in the November 24th election, pro- bassies and consulates. (“Exposed: China’s Operating Manuals democracy candidates won an astonishing seventeen out for Mass Internment and Arrest by Algorithm,” ICIJ, Novem- ber 24, 2019) of eighteen councils. “The turnout, of over 70%, was higher than any recorded in any kind of election in Hong Kong Over 1000 Uighur Camps Located in which the public has a say.” (See “Hong Kong Elections Meanwhile, Uighur activists (using Google Earth) have docu- Were a Rebuke to its Government,” The Economist, Novem- mented the precise location and coordinates of 500 new camps ber 30, 2019.) And more than 800,000 people came out and internment centers. Anders Corr, an analyst who formerly to demonstrate their support the following weekend. For a worked in US intelligence and who advised the group, said Hong Kong Christian’s analysis of how the continuing mas- that around forty percent of the sites had not been previously sive Hong Kong protests are impacting believers, check out reported. Rights advocates have generally estimated that China China Source’s December 11, 2019 article entitled, “Recog- is detaining more than one million Uighurs and members of nizing Spiritual Warfare behind Social Unrest,” by Ji Yajie. other predominantly Muslim Turkic ethnicities. But Randall Leaked Xinjiang Papers Spark Outrage Schriver, the top Pentagon official for Asia, said in May that Two separate explosive leaks of highly classified Chinese gov- the figure was “likely closer to three million citizens”—an ernment documents have ignited an uproar around the world. extraordinary number in a region of some 20 million people The first set, (twenty-four documents or 490 pages now being (quoted in the Asia Times November 13, 2019 article “Re- called the Xinjiang Papers,) was leaked to the New York Times searchers Shed Light on China’s Uighur Camps”). IJFM International Journal of FrontierZ Missiology IJFM & Perspectives 211

Related Perspectives Lesson and Section Whether you’re a Perspectives& instructor, student, or coordinator, you can continue to explore issues raised in the course reader and study guide in greater depth in IJFM. For ease of reference, each IJFM article in the table below is tied thematically to one or more of the 15 Perspectives lessons, divided into four sections: Biblical (B), Historical (H), Cultural (C) and Strategic (S). Disclaimer: The table below shows where the content of a given article might fit; it does not imply endorsement of a particular article by the editors of the Perspectives materials. For sake of space, the table only includes lessons related to the articles in a given IJFM issue. To learn more about the Perspectives course, visit www.perspectives.org.

Articles in IJFM 36:4 Lesson 6: The Expansion of the World Christian Movement (H) Lesson 7: Eras of Mission History (H) Lesson 8: Pioneers of the World Christian Movement (H) Lesson 10: How Shall They Hear? (C) Lesson 11: Building Bridges of Love (C) Lesson 14. Pioneer Church Planting (S)

Reimagining Witness beyond our Modern Mission Paradigm XX XX Michael W. Stroope (pp. 163–68)

Sacred Misinterpretation across the Christian-Muslim Divide XX X X Martin Accad (pp. 173–78)

Cameron Townsend and the Radicalization of the Faith Mission Paradigm XX X Boone Aldridge (pp. 181–87)

Moving Beyond: Frontier Missions in Our Postcolonial World XXX Bradford Greer (pp. 189–200)

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36:4 Winter 2019

Pray great things. Hope great things.

Seeking God’s face and seeking Christ’s kingdom for your city.

Seek God for the City 2020 Forty days to Palm Sunday February 26 - April 5, 2020

Fresh, relevant prayers that

spring directly from scripture. Sixty-four pages, 8-1/2 by 5-1/2 inches 5-1/2 by 8-1/2 pages, Sixty-four

Also available in Spanish! Contains the same prayers and scriptures. The same prices and discounts apply.

See a sample page at www.waymakers.org. Get the Pastors and prayer leaders – call now for a complimentary review copy. companion app (800) 264-5214 or (512) 419-7729 for smartphones and tablets. Buy and distribute multiple copies of the app at low prices. Find out more at Only $3 each. waymakers.org. Ask about special church pricing to help you equip your city or church family. iOS Android Order online at www.waymakers.org. Preparing God’s Way by Prayer