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Vol. 9, No.1 nternattona• January 1985 etin ~ • Mission and the Church's Self-'Understanding "Howdo they know England," intoned Rudyard Kipling, way over the intervening years. It is our hope-and intention­ "who only England know?" Indeed, how have Chris­ that the Bulletinwill continue to illumine the church's self-under­ tians known their self-identity, until they have been engaged in standing through reflection on its mission. cross-cultural mission with people of other faiths and ideologies? This issue of the International Bulletin examines various ways in which the church's self-understanding has been challenged, scru­ OnPoge tinized, and sometimes clarified through various forms of mis­ sion. 2 Tensions in the Catholic Magisterium about Mission William R. Burrows surveys the mounting difficulties that the and Other Religions Roman Catholic hierarchy has had in understanding the relation­ WilliamR. Burrows, S.V.D. ship of Christianity to other faiths, and all that this implies for the 5 The Challenge of the Gospel in Nicaragua church's self-understanding. John Starn Two prominent evangelical missiologists, John Starn and Arthur F. Glasser, discuss the effect that mission experience has 8 Personalia had on the understanding of the gospel and the church among evangelicals-in the revolutionary situation of Nicaragua and in 9 The Evolution of Evangelical Mission Theology since theological construction. World War II The dean of statistical information about Christian mission, Arthur F. Glasser David B. Barrett, presents a statistical report on global mission­ 13 The Covenant Restructured: A Shift in Afrikaner the first of an annual feature in this journal-and suggests that Ideology some current trends will probably prove surprising to traditional Charles Villa-Vicencio images of the church's self-identity. In South Africa, as Charles Villa-Vicencio points out, the 16 The Legacy of V. S. Azariah Afrikaner world-view, which was built on Calvinist doctrinal Carol Graham foundations, is now being challenged from many sides. 19 Documentary Sources in the United States for Foreign A Christian leader in India is featured in our continuing Leg­ Missions Research: A Select Bibliography and acy series as Carol Graham highlights the pioneering contribu­ Checklist tions of V. S. Azariah, the first Indian Anglican bishop. That the Robert Shuster work of Azariah in creating an Indian self-understanding of the church was so controversial in his day and so matter-of-fact in 30 Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission: 1985 ours may indicate how much change has taken place. DavidB. Barrett Robert Shuster presents a bibliography and checklist of where foreign missions archives are located in the United States. Re­ 33 Book Reviews search scholars will be greatly helped by his painstaking efforts. 41 Fifteen Outstanding Books of 1984 for Mission Studies This issue celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of our pub­ lication. The first issue of the Occasional Bulletin from the Mission­ 46 Dissertation Notices ary Research Library in New York City was a thirteen-page 48 Book Notes mimeographed report dated March 13, 1950. We have come a long of issionaryResearch Tensions in the Catholic Magisterium about Mission and Other Religions William R. Burrows, S.V.D. e begin here a discussion of official Roman Catholic difficulties in Roman Catholic missiology are accentuated because Wteaching (1) on the nature of mission and (2) on the the­ they tend to be entwined inextricably in the central theological ology of other religious ways. The effort will be to get at the core problem of our times, that of theological hermeneutics in the most of that "magisterium" without pretense of being exhaustive. First radical sense: To what extent is or is not a major reinterpretation ofthe a word about the problematics of an "official" teaching. Christian message necessary in thelightofongoing experience? Concep­ The Roman Catholic Church's notion of magisterium is tual confusion abounds because missiology seldom confronts rooted in the conviction of the hierarchy and many other Catholics squarely such far-ranging issues. Ernst Troeltsch said it best once that Jesus left in the church an office for authoritatively interpret­ when asked if he were not worried that his relativizing theology ing the meaning of his gospel and applying it infallibly in matters might destroy missionary zeal. He thought not: "Missionary en­ of both faith and morals in the ongoing history of the Christian terprise is well enough cared for through the conservative ideals movement.' That concept of magisterium is under assault from two of the great masses of Christians. And missionary enterprise is, in directions--from both theological liberals and conservatives. Its any case, quite different from that of gaining clearness among the concrete substance is under assault as well in many specific areas. perplexities of modern life."> If I am correct about the tensions in Our study prescinds from the question of the validity of the con­ Roman Catholic missiology today, exactly the lack of clarity about cept of magisterium and endeavors to clarify some problems in its these complexities is becoming a problem. substance in two areas vital to missiology. We shall see that the problems of the magisterium on the na­ Tensions in the Theology of Mission ture of mission and the theology of other religious ways are inex­ Pope Benedict XV in his 1919 encyclical Maximum Illud ("On tricably intertwined. Confusion in one necessarily creates Spreading the Catholic Faith throughout the World") shared the confusion in the other. Given the nature of the historical-theolog­ world-view of contemporary evangelical Christians (though in a ical moment in Roman Catholicism today, however, I shall argue particularly Roman Catholic way) when he saw the approximately that the conceptual confusion is not likely soon to be clarified. one billion nonbelievers as people who "dwell in the shadow of Background death," sharing a "pitiable lot" because they do not know "the di­ vine blessings of the redemption" purchased by Christ." Dogmat­ ically, Maximum Illud stresses the conversion of nonbelievers to No discussion of Roman Catholic missiology can ignore the chal­ the church so that they may be saved. Presupposed is the doctrine lenges and responses of Catholicism presented by the past 100 or that roots missionary motivation in the likelihood of damnation so years. To that we must first turn. for those who are not baptized. By the nineteenth century, when the penultimate chapter in Pope Pius XIIcomplements the accents of his predecessors on Catholic missions history begins, Roman Catholicism in Europe the need for establishing a local clergy with a call for the establish­ felt itself besieged by both political-economic and theological lib­ ment of a local church with its own hierarchy." In his encyclical, eralism. Protestant Europe and North America clearly triumphed however, there is no recognition of a possible form of Christianity in the political and economic area. The assault from theological lib­ at variance with the Roman, Latin model. For Pius XII, conversion eralism was met by various antimodernist documents and strate­ is the primary goal of mission; establishing the church is a second­ gies, basic to all of which was a form of fundamentalism that ary, though always intrinsic goal of mission. In his teaching, too, accentuated papal authority in order better to combat a hostile there is no softening of belief that only in Christ and through his world. Theological liberalism had attempted to adjust and reinter­ church do people find salvation, though he stresses the rectitude pret Christian doctrine in the light of new insights from critical, of those who aim to preserve the "natural" culture of pagans, thus post-Kantian philosophy, and both physical and historical sci­ preserving a traditional Catholic sense that much in pagan culture ences. The papacy in a series of turn-of-the-century encyclicals is good.> banished these flirtations with modernity from both seminaries Vatican II's decree on missionary activity (Ad Gentes), on the and public theological discussion, without, I think, ever success­ one hand, retains both the establishment of a local church and the fully answering the fundamental questions that spawned these conversion of all to Christ as the dual focus of mission." On the currents of thought. other hand, the decree adds a new term to the discussion of the It is my contention that the contemporary problem of defining nature of mission, and thus blurs the certitude one finds implied and carrying on mission takes its shape from exactly these ques­ in earlier magisterial theology about a probable negative fate for tions (for example: that of the absolute supernaturality of Chris­ non-Christians." The new term is "sacrament." Borrowing from tianity, the role of other religious ways and the possibility of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), the salvation in them, the extent to which either the church or Chris­ missions decree sees the mission of the church being one of mak­ tianity is historical and therefore evolutionary both in its acciden­ ing Christ present by the entire life of the concrete community as tal and in its essential dimensions). The present tensions and God's people. The accent, then, goes to the quality of a commu­ nity's witness not to the need to convert nonbelievers. The notion of William R. Burrows, S.V.D. is Lecturer in systematic theology at Catholic Theo­ sacrament springs from the patristic era when sacrament had a logical Union in Chicago and is completing a dissertation on the Roman Catholic much broader significance than the seven (or two) rites that Jesus magisterium on otherreligious ways at the Divinity School of the University of is said to have left with his followers as instruments of his grace. Chicago. He is authorof New Ministries: The Global Context.

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