Mission and the Care of Creation
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Vol. 35, No. 3 July 2011 Mission and the Care of Creation “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, . God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:1, 10). In the ancient Hebrew story to which people of the Book trace the beginning On Page of everything, the latter phrase recurs at the conclusion of each 123 Historical Trends in Missions and Earth Care successive phase of creation, reaching its climax with the creation Dana L. Robert of humankind: “God saw everything that he had made, and 130 Christian Mission and Earth-Care: An African Case Study M. L. Daneel 136 Africa International University Charter Daniel J. Nicholas 137 Christ, Creation Stewardship, and Missions: How Discipleship into a Biblical Worldview on Environmental Stewardship Can Transform People and Their Land Craig Sorley 143 Orality: The Not-So-Silent Issue in Mission Theology Randall Prior 148 A Malawian Christian Theology of Wealth and Poverty Gorden R. Doss 153 The Biblical Narrative of the Missio Dei: Analysis of the Interpretive Framework of David Bosch’s Missional Hermeneutic Girma Bekele 159 My Pilgrimage in Mission David J. Hesselgrave 160 Noteworthy 164 Joseph Kam: Moravian Heart in Reformed Clothing Susan Nivens 169 Thirty Books That Most Influenced My Acrylic on canvas, 2011, 36” x 28”; detail Understanding of Christian Mission Sawai Chinnawong, Creation Jan A. B. Jongeneel indeed, it was very good (v. 31). Humankind, mandated to “have 171 On the Front Lines with the China Inland Mission: A Review Essay dominion” (v. 26) over all of God’s good creation, is left to take Daniel W. Crofts care of a very good planet. How have we done? The record is not flattering. Under our 175 Book Reviews “dominion” many species have been ravaged and extinguished. 182 Dissertation Notices Continued next page 184 Book Notes The planet itself is now under duress. Whether deliberately or On a more personal editorial note, Dwight Baker, my unwittingly, we humans have ravaged God’s very good creation, esteemed colleague and the associate editor of this journal using the leverage of science and technology to amplify our since 2002, officiallyretired as associate director of the Overseas savagely destructive dominion over water, land, air, and life. Ministries Study Center on June 30. Readers who have come to Two of the three lead essays in this issue are written by take for granted the editorial rigor that has long distinguished the codirectors of the Center for Global Christianity and Mis- this journal will be relieved to know that he will not be relin- sion at Boston University. Dana quishing his role with the IBMR. Robert is one of this generation’s With this issue, he assumes the most capable historians and in- title of Senior Associate Editor. As terpreters of world Christianity; such, he will continue to head up her husband, “Inus” Daneel, is a our team of copyeditors, who take leading authority on the Shona In- such pains to ensure the academic dependent Churches in Zimbabwe, excellence of each contribution to where he still spends half of each the journal. year. Among his many significant With this issue we also wel- publications, none is more germane come Nelson Jennings as the to the theme of this issue than his IBMR’s newly appointed Associate groundbreaking two-volume Afri- Editor. With Dwight’s departure can Earthkeepers: Interfaith Mission from OMSC, Nelson assumes the in Earth-Care, reissued as a single role of OMSC’s Director of Program volume by Orbis Books in 2001. and Community Life. For the last The third article is written by twelve years he has been a profes- Craig Sorley, the son of medical sor of world mission at Covenant missionaries who served in three Theological Seminary, St. Louis. different East African countries. Since 2007 he has served as editor of Sorley earned degrees in environ- Dwight P. Baker J. Nelson Jennings Missiology: An International Review, mental science and in forestry and the journal of the American Society education on the way to becoming founding director of Care of of Missiology. The appointment of Nelson, author of three books Creation Kenya, an evangelical mission organization dedicated to and of numerous articles and reviews in English and in Japanese, awakening the church to faithful environmental and agricultural will help to ensure the ongoing editorial and scholarly integrity stewardship. He came to public consciousness in 2008 when of the IBMR. Time featured him as one of the “Heroes of the Environment.” —Jonathan J. Bonk Editor Jonathan J. Bonk InternatIonal BulletIn of MIssIonary research Senior Associate Editor Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin Dwight P. Baker of Missionary Research in 1977. Renamed International Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1981. Published quarterly in January, April, July, and October by the Overseas Ministries Study Center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 Associate Editor (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.internationalbulletin.org J. Nelson Jennings Contributing Editors Assistant Editors Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. John F. Gorski, M.M. Graham Kings Wilbert R. Shenk Craig A. Noll David B. Barrett Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Brian Stanley Rona Johnston Gordon Daniel H. Bays Philip Jenkins Mary Motte, F.M.M. Tite Tiénou Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Daniel Jeyaraj C. René Padilla Ruth A. Tucker Managing Editor William R. Burrows Jan A. B. Jongeneel James M. Phillips Desmond Tutu Daniel J. Nicholas Angelyn Dries, O.S.F. Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. Dana L. Robert Andrew F. Walls Senior Contributing Editors Samuel Escobar Kirsteen Kim Lamin Sanneh Anastasios Yannoulatos Gerald H. Anderson Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts Robert T. Coote unaccompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions expressed in the IBMR are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. 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(iSSn 0272-6122) 122 Intern ation al Bulletin of Mission ary Resear ch, Vol. 35, No. 3 Historical Trends in Missions and Earth Care Dana L. Robert ver the past thirty years, all major branches of Christi- ticipating in traditional agricultural and fertility festivals were Oanity have thought about what it means to extend the murdered. Destruction of sacred groves and woodland altars was saving work of Christ beyond individual human redemption.1 a central feature of Christian “power encounters” with indigenous Pope John Paul II declared the great missionary St. Francis of religion. The Anglo-Saxon missionary bishop Boniface was said Assisi the patron saint of ecology in 1979 and called for the laity to have felled the Sacred Oak of Thor in northern Hesse in 723. to draw upon the power of the resurrection “to restore to creation Drawing an analogy to Elijah and the priests of Baal, Boniface all its original value.”2 In 1989 mainline Protestants and Orthodox, challenged the pagan gods to strike him down as he cut down the through the World Council of Churches, embraced the ideas of tree. According to Boniface’s first biographer, a wind blew down “justice, peace, and the integrity of creation” as intrinsic to the the oak while he was chopping it. After Thor did not strike Boni- nature of Christian witness. In 2004 evangelical leaders met at face dead, the people began converting to Christianity. Boniface Sandy Cove, in the town of North East, Maryland, and pledged built a church with the wood of the oak—a symbolic beginning to advance God’s reign by making “creation care a permanent for the Christianization of the German people. dimension of our Christian discipleship.”3 Recent opinion polls In early Christianity, Mediterranean-based theologians of evangelical Protestants show that earth care is one of their top had considered the rich farmlands, olives, and grapes of their five priorities. Across many traditions, Christians in the twenty- own region to be proof of the superiority of Christianity over first century believe that the wholeness and reconciliation desired the desolation of the “pagan” and “barbaric” northern wilder- by God include his creation.