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A quarterly publication of the Overseas Ministries Study Center Vol. 3, No.4 continuing the Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library October, 1979 ccaslona• etln• Amid Cultural Diversity orth American and European Christians too easily identify that Roman Catholic missionary order disciplined and able to ad­ N "Christendom" with the dominant cultures in their own just to new situations in a dynamic new Africa. They have learned regions. To do so is theologically wrongheaded, and it is a major that"external difficulties for the church often lead to new internal barrier to communicating the gospel among minority peoples in life and spiritual regeneration." the same areas. Where Christians live as minorities, however-and "Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and in some countries they are tiny minorities indeed-the temptation Ideologies" is a document adopted by the Central Committee of is to withdraw into self-protective isolation, thus frustrating their the World Council of Churches at its meeting in Kingston, Ja­ witness in the wider environment. The articles in this issue of the maica, in January 1979. It is the latest step in WCC efforts to de­ Occasional Bulletin discuss cultural pluralism in worldwide dimen­ fine the authentic nature of dialogue, a process that began at the sions. Whether we find ourselves in a majority situation or not, Central Committee's Addis Ababa meeting in 1971. vast numbers around us have entirely different lifestyles, con­ cerns, and ways of articulating their faith..Effectiveness in Chris­ tian mission is directly related to a sensitive understanding of those differences. Mortimer Arias continues our series on "Mission in the 1980s." The perspective of this Latin American theologian/mis­ 134 Mission in the 19808in Latin America siologist demonstrates that some of the most creative missionary Mortimer Arias scholarship now comes from the areas we once casually labeled "mission fields." 138 Cultural Problems in Mission Cat~chesis among In "Cultural Problems in Mission Catechesis among Native Native Americans Americans," Carl F. Starkloff maintains that real communication Carl F. Star/c/off, S.j. has been all but nonexistent in most of our efforts to bring the 142 Mission Interaction and Ethnic Minorities in the gospel to primal cultures, and that "if church workers today find it United States frustrating to draw Indian people into full partnership in ministry, Roy1 Sano an explanation is not far to find." Roy I. Sano here considers the issues in mission interaction 146 The Legacy of Alexander Duff with other minority groups in the United States. He insists that the Michael A. Laird now popular internationalization of mission concept still largely 151 Is Christianity at Home in Iran? bypasses the "objects of mission" within our own country and in­ Norman A. Horner side our churches. The year 1979 marks the 150th anniversary of Alexander 157 Looking at a Catholic Mission in Africa Duff's departure for Calcutta in missionary service under the Per Hassing Church of Scotland. In Michael A. Laird's article on that towering 160 Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths missionary statesman, Duff is seen both as a heroic figure who re­ and Ideologies vitalized education in India and as one "whose very success be­ World Council of Churches queathed a somewhat ambiguous legacy to India and its church." Norman A. Homer describes the situation of the Christian 164 Book Reviews churches in Iran just before the revolution early this year. In dis­ 177 Noteworthy cussing ways the new Islamic republic may affect the Christian minorities, he sees fresh opportunities for more creative interaction ·178 Dissertation Notices with the vast Muslim majority in that country. 180 Book Notes In his brief tribute to the White Fathers, Per Hassing finds ofMissionaryResearch Mission in the 1980s in Latin America Mortimer Arias " That is the Christian mission in Latin America likely to be in Facts, Figures, People, and Mission " ;he next decade? I venture to say that it will either be joined with the lot of the poor in our southern continent, or else! In the last thirty years Latin America has experienced an increase The major event of the Christian church in Latin America in the in productivity higher than in other developing areas of the last decade has been no less than the discovery of the poor---and, world-an average of 5.5 percent annually, in some years up to 7.5 consequently, the rediscovery of the gospel.' percent, and in some countries up to an 11 percent annual increase. With the increase in gross national product (GNP), however, the The Church, a Decisive Factor for the Future gap between rich and poor has become wider and wider. This "de­ pendent" capitalistic development at the periphery of the world Probably Latin America is the region in all the world where the capitalistic system has been creating the poverty of the masses church still is a decisive factor in the life and destiny of peoples. while producing increased riches and improved lifestyle for the i~ South America the only Third World continent with a Christian few. While diversifying the export of their products, our countries majority, and it has the greatest Catholic concentration in the have been going deeper and deeper into external debt, and in fan­ western hemisphere. Brazil, for instance, is the largest Catholic tastic proportions. To understand the mystery of this "develop­ country on earth. In the year 2000 Latin America will have half the ment of underdevelopment," one would have to enter into the dy­ Catholic population of the entire world. No wonder two popes namics of the global capitalistic system, the huge power and came to Latin America in the last ten years. strategy of the transnational corporations with their tricky When Pope John Paul II arrived in Mexico in February 1979 to intracorporation transactions, and the peculiar rules of the game in inaugurate the Third Episcopal Conference of the region, 3000 re­ the private banking systems of the world.I Such matters might be porters came from all over the world and millions of people of concern only to economists and financial experts, and not to thronged the streets. Where else in the world could a regional epis­ churches and preachers, were it not for the fact that behind these copal conference attract such worldwide attention or such an audi­ abstract figures are human lives and faces, God's creatures op­ ence? Not only were the churches and individual Christians of the pressed and crucified by demonic powers and impersonal systems. entire region waiting on tiptoe for the final outcome of the Puebla Quite literally, in Latin America "our struggle is not against flesh Conference of Bishops-so also were governments, students, and blood but against dark powers of this world" (Ephesians 6:12). workers, and peasants. At least a partial explanation of their It is for this reason that these socioeconomic statistics are relevant expectation lay precisely in the role the church has played, since to the proclamation of Good News and the future of mission. the Medellin Conference in 1968, in relation to the poor. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, meeting in Bolivia in April 1979, pointed out that we have 110 mil­ Protestant Growth and Impoverished Masses lion people in Latin America who live in extreme poverty, 54 per­ The Protestant Churches cannot match the record or compare at all cent of them in total destitution. What is the meaning of that fact with the pervasive influence of the Roman Catholic Church, in /Iour Father's world"? Thirty percent of the labor force is under­ which has a foundational character in the life of the Latin Ameri­ employed, requiring 100 million jobs at the present time and 220 can peoples. Yet Protestantism has grown steadily during recent million jobs by the end of this century. What will the Good News decades, at a rate of 10 percent annually (compared with less than be for these unhired masses of the eleventh hour (see Mt. 20:1-16)? 3 percent annual growth rate in the population as a whole), dou­ Has the Christian mission anything to do with these realities and bling its membership every ten years. prospects? One decade ago Read, Monterroso, and Johnson published their study Latin American Church Grmoth.? predicting that if the What the Churches Owe to Latin America church growth rate of the 1960s continued, Protestant churches For a very long time the churches have been living with their backs would have more than 16 million communicant members and a to­ toward the poor, or giving them stones rather than bread. The Ro­ 3 tal community of over 27 million by 1980. I have no way of man Catholic Church has been for centuries the power behind the knowing whether this is happening, but probably we are not far powers, the instrument of the dominating classes. The Protestant from those figures. In the 198Os, however, the question will be not mission churches have made a beachhead among the middle merely whether we continue growing at the same pace, but what classes, appealing to the middle-class mentality with its individ­ kind of growth we are going to experience. What will be the rela­ ualistic values and self-promoting drives. but, with the bourgeois tionship between the emerging evangelical church of Latin Ameri­ character of their lifestyle and churches, excluding the poor. The can and the teeming, impoverished masses of our continent? Pentecostal churches were the first Protestants to emerge from the poor and marginalized of our citizens, but they preached an escap­ ist gospel with a dualistic view of life, creating ghettos within Latin American societies, discouraging participation of Christians in the necessary social changes, living in a sort of "social strike" Mortimer Arias, born in Uruguay, strrJed as bishop of fhe EfHlngelical Methodist and providing a "haven of the masses."s Church in Bolivia, andis now Executive Secretary oftheCouncil ofEvangelical Method­ This is now changing.

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