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A quarterly publication of the Overseas Ministries Study Center Vol. 2, No.4 continuing the Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library October, 1978 OccasionalBulletin Mission in the Oikou01ene ikoumene, a term used in the New Testament and the origin Wilmore observes that recent statements and activities of Black O of our word "ecumenical," means the inhabited world. It theologians "seem to point in the direction of a less exclusive, has special significance for Christian mission because the gospel introspective obsession with the American race problem than was is to be preached in the whole oikoumene (Matt. 24:14), and be characteristic of the earliest development of Black Theology. " cause it is the oikoumene itself that the earliest missionaries were Index Coming accused of turning upside down (Acts 17:6). The inhabited world Enclosed with the January 1979 issue of the Occasional Bulletin will is now much larger and vastly more complex than in apostolic be an index to volume I (1977) and volume II (1978), to facilitate times. Yet the mandate to proclaim the gospel in every part of it reference and research by scholars using this journal. We are remains unchanged, and authentic mission is still a disruptive gratified that more than 6,000 new subscribers-including 1,000 force wherever oppression and evil exist. outside North America-have been added to our circulation in The oikoumene transcends ecclesiastical boundaries. "The Le , the past year. gacy of Pierre Charles, S.r; ' fourth in the Occasional Bulletin's series of tributes to great missiologists of this century, is written by his fellow Jesuit and former student Joseph Masson, but it speaks to us all. Charles was an initiator of new and original ideas in Roman Catholic missionary thought. Although he died On Page twenty-five years ago, his prophetic inSights are reflected in the most progressive documents of Vatican Council II. 118 The Legacy of Pierre Charles, S.J. A rich variety of social groupings compose the oikoumene. In Joseph Masson, S.J. this issue we resume an examination of the homogeneous unit 121 An Anthropological Apologetic for the Homogeneous principle in church growth (see also the article by C. Peter Unit Principle in Missiology Wagner, published in this journal in January 1978). Charles H. Charles H. Kraft Kraft, a cultural anthropologist, focuses on those aspects of the controversial subject in which anthropological insights can be 128 Liberation and Evangelization-A Feminist especially useful. Perspective From biblical, ecumenical, and feminist perspectives, Letty Letty M. Russell M. Russell here develops the thesis that liberation and evangeliza 132 Christian Medical Service and Japan's Relation to the tion are closely related. Women comprise a little over half the Asian Situation oikoumene-and considerably more than half of the missionaries Noboru !wamura, M.D. who have taken the gospel to its farthest comers. The article by Noboru Iwamura, a Japanese medical mission 134 Tur Abdin: A Christian Minority Struggles to ary to Nepal, witnesses to the fact that Christians of the Third Preserve Its Identity World are not only involved in mission but are among the most Norman A. Horner creative voices in missiology today. 140 The New Context of Black Theology in the United Norman A. Horner reports on his memorable visit to a remote States section of eastern Turkey. Syriac, a language closely akin to the Gayraud S. Wilmore one spoken by Jesus himself, is still the daily medium of commu nication in that historic center of Syrian Orthodoxy. For Chris 143 Book Reviews tians living there, the immediate objective of mission is to survive 153 Dissertation Notices from Fuller Theological the forces that threaten their way of life and steadily erode their Seminary School of World Mission, 1971-1978 numbers. While still concerned with racist oppression, Gayraud S. 156 Book Notes of Missionary Research The LeJlacy of Pierre Charles, S.J. Joseph Masson, 5.J. ierre Charles was born in Brussels on July 3, 1883. He tellectual and spiritual life . One of his fundamental characteristics P became a Jesuit on September 23, 1899, and was ordained was a strong attachment to the essentials, mixed with freedom of to the priesthood on August 24, 1910. He died at Louvain, the thought. "Safe" people, he would say, are those who do not have principal and final scene of his activities, on February 11, 1954. ideas of their own. As for him, he was teeming with ideas; he Father Charles was of medium height, but solidly built and verified and enriched them in Paris where he came into contact with broad shoulders. Throughout his entire life, and especially with widely contrasting viewpoints such as those found in the during the years of his priestly life, he resolutely arose before thought of Kant and Bergson. Later on, in America, Africa, India, dawn and retired late at night, devoting all his time to study, and Ceylon, his hunger for human associations and experiences prayer, and human associations. His understanding of the needs continued unabated. Thus his exceedingly open and well of both church and world grew within the context of wide schol informed mind was firmly established. He was, moreover, arship, served by a prodigious memory and supported by a quick remarkably multilingual, mastering English, German, and subtle intelligence. He was a man who looked intently at Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian in addition to French, Latin, and people and things from under large, bushy eyebrows and through Greek. thick eyeglasses. That, however, was his only myopia. Pierre Charles remained a faithful priest, and his concept of One who attempts to sketch the main characteristics of Pierre the priestly and apostolic life was heightened and broadened Charles's personality should begin by noting the expansiveness of amid all these influences. Those who want to have an account of it, his outlook and of his intellectual and religious horizons. He was without spending the time necessary to examine his course notes wondrously interested in the world. Chesterton would have called in detail, will do well to read some of his hundred meditations him a "man alive," and indeed he shared some of Chesterton's given in LaPriere de Toutes leeHeures, of which more than 100,000 own humorous and paradoxical nature. Born in a small country, copies were printed, and others from LaPriere de Toutes lesChases. he relished every opportunity throughout his life to travel beyond Those titles are significant in themselves, introducing us to a its borders. second characteristic of Father Charles's personality. For want of a better term, we may call it a mentality of incarnation. To so vital a man, religion, that is to say Christian faith and life, cannot be reduced to a simple compartment of "0ne of his fundamental characteristics was existence, limited in time, space, and purposes. In each and every a strong attachment to the essentials, mixed person, Christian and non-Christian alike, and in the entire cos with freedom of thought." mos, it is something experienced and wrought by grace. He wrote, "The earth is the only road by which we are led to heaven." For him all land is Holy Land, all history Sacred History-if not already in fact, at least in hope and potential. All humanity waits The excitement of Pierre Charles about the missionary activ to become the people of God; the church is designed to take the ities of his Belgian Jesuit mentors on the Zambezi dates to his high world upon itself in its ascent. school days. From the beginning of his religious training he went Teilhardism before Teilhard? Yes and no. Around 1920, beyond a perfunctory devotional life, combining the force of Pierre Charles had indeed expressed his opinion precisely on the "catholic" doctrine and an interest in "worldly" realities into one manuscript of Le Milieu Divin. He evaluated it favorably, but and the same vigorous piety. His superiors contributed in added some comments of his own. In effect, despite his optimism, telligently to that broad development by sending him to study the reality of sin in a humanity that is incapable of redeeming philosophy with the German Jesuits who were then residing in itself, and the need for a Redeemer who (as Ad Gentes puts it) Holland, and later to study theology with French Jesuits who were "cleanses, assumes and uplifts" the whole of creation, both at that time refugees at Hastings in England (1907-1910). human and subhuman,"had always been clear to him. An indica The period of his religious formation was a time troubled by tion of that conviction can be seen in the first proposition of a the problems of modernism, the synthesis of reason and revela theological treatise on "The Incarnation of the Word," which he tion, science and faith, the Christ of faith and the historical Jesus, completed only fifteen days before his death and which is one of God and humankind, and so forth. Father Charles, a man of his most brilliant contributions. He says in it: "The object of the vigorous mind as well as a faithful Christian, found the discus first divine decree was Christ as the head of the universe; the sions about such matters an opportunity to deepen his own in- ,.All Catholic historical uiorks on missiological theory, up to the present, cite Joseph Masson,S.'., a former student of Pierre Charles, received his doctoral PierreCharles, either to approve or to challenge.Some bits of information prior degree in Philosophy and Oriental History from the Catholic University of to 1955 are found in Bibliografia Missionaria, published annually in Rome. Louvain. He has spent many years in Asia and Africa, and is the author of We learn, for example, that La Priere Missionnaire was again translatedinto numerous books and articles.

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