Thinking Missiologically About the History of Mission Stanley H

Thinking Missiologically About the History of Mission Stanley H. Skreslet s there a missiological approach to the history of mission?1 of texts at our disposal. the documents so avidly produced by I Prompting this question is the fact that the history of mis- missionaries and their sending agencies in the past can assume sion is no longer the special preserve of those who support and an inordinate degree of authority for us today simply because participate in missionary activities. now a growing legion of they often are the only written sources for this history we now scholars is being drawn to the study of mission history, among possess.3 this imbalance in the record is a serious methodologi- whom we find specialists in politics and economics, marxists, cal problem to be negotiated and overcome, which explains why feminists, historical anthropologists and other kinds of social investigators of every kind (including missiologists) are eager historians, and americanists as well as researchers focused on to recover lost voices and to retrieve the contributions of lesser- non-Western societies, not to mention religious historians of known actors in the history of mission. material evidence of every stripe who make it their business to study the world’s indigenous missionary activity, oral history, and other forms of burgeoning collection of faith communities and traditions. all nonliterary self-representation are among the means available to these and more have found in the history of christian mission scholars to recover more of what may otherwise be missing from a virtually inexhaustible supply of data with which to fuel their what we know of the history of mission. filling in the gaps is not various research projects.2 the whole story, however. equally important is the fact that such missiologists who study the history of mission share many techniques can enable the living legacies of earlier missionary overlapping concerns with these other scholars, not the least of efforts, the new communities of faith that came into being as a which is the requirement to practice good historical technique. result of christian mission, to participate more directly in the some common aims likewise drive much historical work on writing of what is their history too. missions today, and missiologists may find themselves working anotherareawheretherequirementsofcompetenthistorical alongside other scholars who are also seeking to understand the practice arebound toapplyequallytomissiologistsand their dynamics of cultural and religious change, the emergence and counterpartsinrelated fields concerns the wayin which the diffusion of modern ideas, the art of apologetics, and the conduct environmentof mission is studied. moreand more, missiolo- of interfaith dialogue, plus the nature of the church and its place gistsare striving toassemble “thick” descriptions of interfaith in the world. mutual interests are thus a part of what needs to be encounter and christian witness, rather than simplytranscrib- discussed in connection with the question posed above. But this ing stories of heroic missionaryaction. as Karl marxfamously essay also goes on to address the more difficult issue of particu- put it,individuals maymake theirownhistory,but theymust larity: do missiological investigations add anything distinctive do so in circumstances notof their ownchoosing.4 this point to these other scholarly efforts? means taking intoaccountlarge-scale social patterns of which the missionaries themselves mayhavebeen onlyvaguelyaware. common concerns itmeans asking about the waysinwhich factors like geography, economics, organizational theory,and politics notonlyinflu- With respect to methods, missiologists have no special set of enced missionarychoices but also perhaps shaped evangelistic procedures to apply to the problems of history. they must fol- outcomes. itmeans seeking tounderstand howmissionaries low the same rules of evidence that pertain to everyone else could havebeen unwitting agentsoffar-reaching but sometimes who studies the history of mission or indeed any other kind of subtle changes in culturesnottheir ownbyreason of birth. history. if widely recognized scholarly standards of verification missiologistsasagroupcontinuetoresistthe urgetoexplain in history are ignored, then accuracy suffers, and what purports mission exclusivelyin secular terms (moreonthis below), but to be description or analysis slides instead into the category of theyaremorelikelythan ever beforetopayheed towhatthe mere speculation about the past. therefore missiologists, like eminentegyptologistJan assmann has called the hidden face other historians, must be concerned about what (if anything) of history:“historyhas twofaces, one turned towardus, the constitutes an objective fact, about how material evidence can other averted. the face turned towardusisthe sumtotal of event be used to buttress or disprove the claims of texts, about the and remembrance. itis historyrecalled bythose involved in it, problems of agency and causation in history, plus the need to as shapers or witnesses, doers or sufferers. the hidden face of differentiate between perceptions of an event and the historical historyis notwhatwehaveforgotten, but whatwehavenever event itself. remembered, those productsofimperceptible change, extended no scholar has all the evidence that he or she would like for duration, and infinitesimal progression thatgo unnoticed byliv- solving the conundrums of mission history. the data are always ing contemporaries and onlyreveal themselves tothe analytic fragmentary. the memories we have are faulty and sometimes gazeofthe historian.”5 contradictory. the archives are not only incomplete but skewed. on the matter of archives, missiologists working today who spe- Distance and Perspective cialize in the history of mission are challenged as scholars by the fact that foreign missionaries dominate the accumulated reserve at first glance, missiologists do seem to face at least one special problem of interpretation when functioning as historians of mis- Stanley H. Skreslet is F. S. Royster Professor of Christian Missions at Union sion. many more of them, i suspect, will have previous or current Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Rich- missionary service in their résumés than is true for the rest of the mond, Virginia. Previously a faculty member at the Evangelical Theological history profession. is this a disability, a reason to discount the Seminary in Cairo, Egypt, he is the author of Picturing christian Witness: scholarly output offered by missiologists who study the history new testament images of disciples in mission (Eerdmans, 2006). of mission? i would argue that we have here a slightly different april 2007 59 permutation of a persistent scholarly dilemma. historians have What Thinking Missiologically Does Not Mean long argued over whether participants or more detached observ- ers are better placed to write accounts of the past. Participants Beforeconsideringwhatmightconstituteamissiologicalperspec- have the advantage of direct personal experience, which could tive on the history of mission, it could be helpful to clarify briefly be a means to access otherwise poorly documented aspects of what i believe is not implied in this way of looking at things. as the events in question or to gain a “feel” for the time and situa- suggested above, the goal of mission history is not to celebrate tion one is attempting to describe. But detachment can serve a missionary heroes. i say this knowing full well that the record is purpose too, especially if it enables researchers to avoid telling replete with examples of extraordinary dedication and cultural their stories in ways that inflate their own importance. sensitivity, faithfulness, and creativity on the part of christian the larger question at issue here concerns the different ways missionaries in a variety of very difficult circumstances through scholars more generally relate to their subjects. missiologists are theages.mypointisthatmissionhistoryasapartofthediscipline by no means the only ones obliged to examine their motives for of missiology cannot be fully realized as a form of devotional writing history. Biases and partisan concerns threaten to intrude literature focused on the figure of the missionary. nor should it every time historical questions are posed and answered, since be reduced to a kind of cheerleading for “our side” in the global no researcher can begin to work without them. in this respect, competition of religions. sound practice in missiology closely resembles the habits of the reasons for caution here are essentially two. the first, good history. confessional commitments must be scrutinized, already noted, is that individual missionaries always operate in to be sure, but so must all other forms of personal, institutional, specific social contexts, and so the circumstances within which they act must be considered in order to appreciate the totality of theireffectsonothersandtheirsurroundings.atoo-narrowfocus To be avoided is the on the person of the missionary may obscure the importance of crucialsituationalfactors.second,honestmissiologistswillread- misconception that mission ily admit that the historical record is full not only of courageous history is an unvarying story triumphsandself-sacrificebutalsooffaults,miscalculations,and transgressions—by more than one kind of ethnocentrism and of missionary initiative by every manner of unfaithful self-interest. if mission history is followed by indigenous

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