A quarterly publication of the Overseas Ministries Study Center Vol. 4, No.3 continuing the Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library July, 1980 ccsslons• Faith/Fidelity/Ferment ax Warren, in his last book before he died in 1977, refers Third World Theologians held in Sri Lanka earlier that year. M to Christian missionaries as IIdisturbers"-those who, like We are pleased to include in this issue the statement from that the leaven in our Lord's parable of the Kingdom (Matt. 13:33), group's most recent meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil. create ferment. Some of the most vigorous ferment in the 1980s, both inside and outside the church, unquestionably results from the widespread communication of a faith that liberates people's spirits from bondage to sin, ignorance, disease, and tyranny. Continuing our series on "Mission in the 198Os11 we again present two viewpoints. The ideas of Walbert Biihlmann, a Swiss Franciscan-Capuchin, have become a major leaven in missiology 98 Mission in the 1980s: Two Viewpoints since his publication in 1975 of The Coming of the Third Church. I Walbert Buhlmann And Waldron Scott of the World Evangelical Fellowship clearly II Waldron Scoff shows that missionary thinking among evangelical Protestants is by no means monolithic. 102 The Legacy of Gustav Warneck Two giants of missiology in an earlier generation, Gustav Hans Kasdorf Warneck and Joseph Schmidlin, were born more than forty years apart. Each in his own way helped to determine the course of 109 The Legacy of Joseph Schmidlin the modem missionary enterprise among Protestants and Roman Karl M"uller, S. ~D. Catholics respectively. Their legacies are here considered together, because much of Schmidlin's thought developed in reaction to 113 Base Ecclesial Communities: A Study of the writings of Warnecke Reevangelization and Growth in the Brazilian In his article on "Base Ecclesial Communities," A. William Catholic Church Cook, [r., offers a Protestant's critique of the fastest-growing A. William Cook, Jr. movement in Brazil's Roman Catholic Church. The gospel has become a leaven within natural cell groups such as neighborhood associations, and the result is a new "hermeneutic of the people" 119 The Biblical Basis for Present Trends in African Theology and a IInew understanding of mission." John Mbiti is widely recognized as one of Africa's leading John Mbiti theologians. In discussing the biblical basis for present trends in African theology, Mbiti concludes that IIas long as African 124 Toward a Process Theology of Mission theology keeps close to the Scriptures, it will remain relevant David M Stowe to the life of the church in Africa and it will have lasting links with the theology of the church universal." 127 Final Document, International Ecumenical Congress In "Toward a Process Theology of Mission," David M. Stowe of Theology, February 2o-March 2, 1980, Sao Paulo, calls for -a new theology IIfrom below," taking the predicament Brazil and experience of the poor, the oppressed, the forgotten as the starting point for theology and mission. This, he says, will also 133 Book Reviews demand a renewed theology "from above"-a theology of mission that takes the reality of God as its organizing principle. 141 Dissertation Notices from the University of The Occasional Bulletin has pledged to keep its readers abreast Edinburgh, Scotland, 1924-1979 of Christian thought in the Third World. In July 1979 we pub­ lished the statement of the Asian Theological Conference of the 144 Book Notes of issionary Research Mission in the 1980s: Two Viewpoints 1 Walbert Buhlmann ission in the 1980s will be determined by the increasing incarnation, of Pentecost in Christ's church. Here and there we M significance of the younger churches in the Third World, already see the first signs of this new springtime, bringing us by the changing role of the older churches, and by new re­ some joy and hope for the coming third millennium. sponsibilities for all the churches together. And What of the Older Churches? The Priority of the Younger Churches For a hundred years we have witnessed the efforts of the Western My thesis in The Coming of the Third Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: churches to build up new churches in accordance-with the "three­ Orbis Books, 1977) is that Christianity's center of gravity has self" principle: self-support, self-government, and self-propaga­ shifted in recent years. It has shifted from the West, where the tion. That goal has been more or less achieved. The historic task Christian majority has lived for a very long time, to the southern of the mission agencies is to a large extent accomplished. From hemisphere-Latin America, Africa, Asia-Oceania. This "Third now on missionaries no longer need to build up the churches, Church," however, is not only the church of the Third World but to collaborate with those already built up, in the manner but also of the coming third millennium. In the first millennium and for as long as they are needed. the leadership was that of the First, or Eastern, Church, with In this situation the role of' missionaries has changed from Byzantium at the center, and the first eight councils all held that of dynamic church founders to collaborators; from people in the East. The second millennium, from the Middle Ages down who take the initiatives and make the decisions to listeners, people through all the missionary initiatives since the discovery of the of dialogue and, to a certain degree, of obedience and availability. New World, has been dominated by the Second, or Western, By taking second place, the missionaries find themselves in a Church. I am convinced that in the future the Christian majority more natural situation, with an opportunity to discover more will be in the Third Church, and that the major inspiration to authentically their own evangelical identity as a people available the worldwide church will originate in the southern hemisphere. for humble service. They conduct themselves as neither superiors We in the Catholic Church had a clear indication of the nor inferiors, but as brothers and sisters. They do not impose beginning of this new era of the Third Church at the Episcopal themselves, but rather, offer themselves. They are no longer sent Synod of 1974 in Rome. Whereas Vatican Council II and the in compliance with a unilateral decision of the mother church, first. three synods were led predominantly by Western bishops but invited by particular sister churches that need their services. and theologians, that fourth synod was obviously dominated by This new situation may give rise to both a psychological those from the South. crisis in the missionary and a missionary crisis in the older The major objective of the younger churches is to discover churches. We are, in Fact, in the midst of such a crisis. There and express their own identity as local churches-not merely has been a collapse of missionary vocations both in the Protestant in the structural and geographical sense, but in terms of their churches, whose missions became "independent" longer ago, and inner reality. In theological terms, we are no longer obliged to in the Catholic Church as well. Will it be overcome? Should plant (transplant) the church, but to incarnate it in the many it be overcome? I consider this crisis to be a providential necessity. cultures. This is made theologically clear in numerous documents. If we had as many missionary vocations as we did thirty years In the Catholic Church there are, for example, the documents ago, the younger churches would throw up their hands and say, of Vatican II and the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi "Please stay away!" Even though many churches still need our of 1975. Practically speaking, however, the process is still hindered collaboration, we must make it necessary for them to develop by the central church authority, especially in the Catholic Church, their own responsibility and capabilities. Hence this missionary or by lack of imagination or courage in the younger churches. crisis is a providential way of implementing the "moratorium," We await a springlike cultural flowering in the churches of the and I should add that it is a Western phenomenon. The church southern hemisphere. Liturgy, theology, and church discipline as a whole is more missionary than ever. Whereas in the past must be contextual, and therefore pluriform. With every glance only one continent was involved in the missionary effort, that at a form of creation-orchids, butterflies, seashells, etc.-we dis­ effort is now multiplied sixfold. That is to say, the churches cover a tremendous richness of forms and colors. Why should in all six continents are now engaged in missionary activity. the church alone, composed as it is of creative people, remain As "foreign missions" gradually become self-sufficient, uniform? We need a fresh breeze of the Spirit of creation, of "home missions" become a newly discovered mission field. Half or more of the people in traditionally Christian lands are unrelated to churches. There are about 80 million such people in the United States alone (equal to roughly one-third the total population of black Africa). In Africa, however, for 80 million Africans, there are 5000 missionary priests and 10,000 sisters on the Catholic Walbert Buhlmann, a native of Switzerland, has been general secretary for side alone. How many people in the United States are seriously missionary animation at the Franciscan-Capuchin Secretariat in Rome since concerned about the 80 million unchurched people in their own 1971. He taught missiology at Fribourg University from 1954 to 1970, country? For some strange reason Western Christians will give and was a missionary in Tanzania from 1950 to 1953.