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• Vol. 19, No.3 nternatlona July 1995 etln• Missionary Photography: Untapped Source for the Study of Christian Missions his issue presents the first in a series of occasional articles memorial article about her missionary father, Murray T. Titus. T featuring missionary photographs. We are indebted to We also offer a biographical sketch of the contemporary Greek our colleague in Basel, Switzerland, Paul Jenkins, for suggesting Orthodox archbishop and missiologist Anastasios Yannoulatos. the topic and providing the introductory article, "The Enigmatic It is gratifying to be able to offer such variety in stimulating Patriarch of the Kingdom of Bamum." mission reading as wewelcome almost a thousand new subscrib In correspondence with the editors, Jenkins has shared his ers to these pages, readers who have joined us in the second criteria for the photographs that mission historians and quarter of 1995. missiologists will value. He states, "We are looking for images that offer decisive support and especially extension of existing written sources. For instance, much of the history of women in mission is available onlyin pictorial form. Equally germaneis the On Page history of indigenous churches, both ex-mission churches 'and original local churches. These, too, are rarely or very incom 98 The Empty Basket of Presbyterian Mission: Limits and Possibilities of Partnership pletely documented in writtenform. Theycanbe rendered much Stanley H. Skreslet more 'visible' through carefully collected and sensitively ana lyzed photographs." 104 Response to Stanley Skreslet An intriguing, sometimes problematical aspect of mission Clifton Kirkpatrick ary photographs is their promotional and educational use in the 105 Reply to Clifton Kirkpatrick sending countries. The photo featured in Jenkins's article pro Stanley H. Skreslet vides a case in point. In correspondence with us, Jenkins encour 107 The Enigmatic Patriarch of the Kingdom of ages us to "look for instances where a typical Western observer Bamum might misread the photograph. In such cases, it falls to the PaulJenkins mission archivist to put the image in its proper cultural or 110 My Pilgrimage in Mission archival context and thereby reveal its authentic meaning." W. Dayton Roberts Other articles for this series are in the works. If readers 114 The Charismatic Movement in Nigeria Today involved with archival collections are able to identify significant Matthews A. Ojo photos for the series, or if any of our readers possess in-depth 116 Noteworthy information about important, high quality missionary photo graphs, the editors of the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN willbe happy to 118 Murray T. Titus: Missionary and Islamic receive suggestions for future articles. Scholar Stanley Skreslet's lead article in this issue-"The Empty Carol Pickering Basket of Presbyterian Mission: Limits and Possibilities of Part 122 Anastasios Yannoulatos: Modern-Day Apostle nership"-with an accompanying response and author's reply, LukeA. Veronis promises to stir debate. Other features include Matthews Ojo's 128 Book Reviews first-hand account of the Nigerian charismatic movement, Day 142 Dissertation Notices ton Robert's "My Pilgrimage in Mission," and Carol Pickering's 144 Book Notes of issionaryResearch The Empty Basket of Presbyterian Mission: Limits and Possibilities of Partnership Stanley H. Skreslet OW will coming generations characterize Christian mis The aim of this essay is to analyze in three steps the approach H sion in the last decade of the twentieth century? Among to mission proposed by Kirkpatrick, Gannaway, and others. conciliarists, a particular thesis seems to be gaining ground and First, I will attempt to describe the PC(USA) mission as it was may soon become an unchallenged perception, if not a received formulated for the period 1983-1992, in order to understand the truth. Briefly put, it runs as follows: In the 1990s we stand at the point of view that this new strategy replaces. Second, I will brink of a new age, the beginnings of which are already evident. examine some of the assumptions and consequences of the new In the last twenty-five years conciliar Christians have struggled model for Presbyterian mission suggested by these documents. to an awareness that old, colonialist patterns of mission are no Finally, I willfocus on the concept of partnership and consider its longer acceptable. The church's greatburdenhasbeento come to potential strengths and weaknesses as a foundation for Presby terms with its past: to give thanks for the good that might have terian and/or conciliar mission in the 1990s and beyond. beenaccomplished, and to confess, repudiate, andatonefor wha t can no longer be affirmed. It has been a time of loss, of grieving Presbyterian Mission Between 1983 and 1992 for some, and of much uncertainty. Looking ahead, there is an expectation that mission in the twenty-first century will look In 1983 a long-sought reunion of the two largest Presbyterian quite different from what it has been in the last two hundred bodies in America was finally effected. In the following decade years. Thus, the 1990s will be seen eventually as the era in which a distinctive, and distinguishable, approach to mission was put the last vestiges of a discredited methodology were eradicated. into structural form by the leadership of the new church. At its More positively, this decade will also one daybe remembered as heart was a document from the World Council of Churches, the time during which more legitimate approaches to mission Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation (1982). As a were attempted, around which a renewed conciliar consensus document that encouraged and challenged ecumenicals and began to form. evangelicals to respect each other's concerns and convictions, The foregoing is, I believe, an appropriate framework in MissionandEvangelism (ME) was especially well suited to anchor which to interpret a pair of strategy documents developed re a broadenedconciliarvisionfor mission. This approachwas then cently for the Presbyterian Church (USA). They represent at refined at Stuttgart(1987)and San Antonio (1989).The end result tempts to describe and promote a more fitting conciliar approach was an understanding of "Mission in Christ's Way" that at to mission. The first is a policy paper, Mission in the1990s,drafted tempted to hold"spiritualand materialneeds, prayerand action, by Clifton Kirkpatrick, who heads the PC (USA)'s Division of evangelismandsocial responsibility, dialogueandwitness,power and vulnerability, the local and universal" in "creative tension.'? ME's role for the coming decade was sanctioned officiallyby the 1983General Assembly of the United PresbyterianChurchin The partnership thesis is the U.S.A. (Minutes I [1983]:436). The spirit of ME subsequently gaining ground and may permeated PC(USA) discussions about both mission and evan soon be an unchallenged gelism, and language from the statement found its way into many of the new denomination's publications. Especially note perception. worthy is the obvious influence of ME on the 1991 PC(USA) statement on evangelization: "Turn to the Living God: A Call to Evangelism in Jesus Christ's Way." Institutionally, the full influ Worldwide Ministries; he previously directed this division's ence of ME was felt only after the transitional phase of reunion predecessor agency, the Global Mission Ministry Unit (hereafter (1983-1988) had passed. By 1990 the church's General Assembly GMU). Mission in the 1990s was adopted by the 1993 General Council had developed a list of goals for the denomination and Assembly of the PC(USA) as a statement of principles that selected from them two paramount objectives that were then administrators are now using to develop, implement, and evalu commended to the newly formed ministry units. These "ad ate a revised agenda for Presbyterian mission. The second docu vanced priorities," in effect, summarized the PC(USA)'s ap ment, Mission: Commitment to God's Hopeful Vision, was written proach to mission; all other activities (including the GMU's by Bruce Gannaway, an associate director of the GMU who commitments to education, health services, and ecumenism) headed the unit's Partnership in Mission Office until 1993.These were to be evaluated through them. The fact that these priorities two documents have since been published together in the were none other than "doing justice" and "doing evangelism" denomination's periodical, Churchand Societu.' The same issue, makes evident the extent to which ME's point of view had been guest-edited by Gannaway, contains complementary articles embraced. thatexplore aspects of partnership by Bishop Erme Camba of the From the standpoint of many congregations concerned for United Church of Christ in the Philippines and Dr. Claude Presbyterian-initiated mission, two problems in particular con EmmanuelLabrunieof the UnitedPresbyterianChurchin Brazil. fronted the PC(USA) following reunion in 1983. One was a continuing, steady decline in the number of long-term mission aries supported by the denomination. That this was a concern is StanleyH. Skreslet isamissionary ofthePresbyterian Church (USA), teaching evident from the fact that three successive General Assemblies theology at Evangelical Theological Seminary, Abbasiya, Cairo, Egypt. adopted measures intended to reverse this trend (Minutes I 98 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH [1986]:44,88; [1987]: 196; [1988]: 194). A second, related problem International Bulletin was the fact that increasing

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