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Vol. 29, No. 2 April 2005 Christian Mission: Lengthened Shadow of a Great Man ne of the most sought-after issues of Time magazine O featured the editors’ pick of the twentieth century’s 100 most influential persons, good and bad. Grouped into five cat- On Page egories—Leaders and Revolutionaries, Artists and Entertainers, Builders and Titans, Scientists and Thinkers, Heroes and Icons— 59 Beyond Bosch: The Early Church and the the selections included several men and women whose faith- Christendom Shift driven activism turned them into household names and exem- Alan Kreider plars: Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr. 69 Missiology After Bosch: Reverencing a Classic No missiologists—not even David J. Bosch—made the list. by Moving Beyond Yet those of us who walk in his intellectual shadow know that in Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D., and Roger P. Schroeder, the world of mission studies, he is surely one of the most S.V.D. significant figures of the twentieth century. In their essay “Missiology After Bosch,” Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder 73 New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a go so far as to make the startling assertion that “after the twenti- Post-Christendom Ecclesiology eth century, any missiology can be done only as a footnote to the Wilbert R. Shenk work of David Bosch.” Their “footnote” is a book, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today, reviewed in this issue. 76 Noteworthy David J. Bosch is only the latest in a galaxy of stars from which the rest of us have, over time, taken our missiological 80 Describing the Worldwide Christian bearings. A South African who served as a missionary to the Phenomenon Transkei for nine years following completion of his doctoral Todd M. Johnson and Sandra S. Kim studies in New Testament at Basel, he was professor of missiology at the University of South Africa (UNISA) from 1971 until his 85 My Pilgrimage in Mission fatal car accident in 1992. Soon recognized, thanks to his prolific Walter J. Hollenweger pen, as a towering intellectual presence in the field of mission studies, it was the publication of his Transforming Mission— 89 My Pilgrimage in Mission referred to by Lesslie Newbigin as a summa missiologica—that, Charles R. Taber thirteen years after his death, has secured Bosch’s position as perhaps the most significant figure in contemporary missiological 93 The Legacy of François Elbertus Daubanton discourse. His masterful elucidation of mission theory within the Jan A. B. Jongeneel matrix of six historical paradigms has provided scholars with a sense of time, place, and direction that gives coherence to 98 Book Reviews missiological discourse, profoundly influencing the way we understand and teach mission history and theory. 110 Dissertation Notices Though he has been gone for well over a decade, we are only now beginning to appreciate the depth and the breadth of this 112 Book Notes great man. But with the clarity that can come only with hindsight, we are also better able to discern the limitations of Bosch’s contribution, staggering though it is, to the field. In a perceptive International Bulletin essay marked by intellectual integrity and scholarly erudition of Missionary Research worthy of his subject, Alan Kreider probes Bosch’s contribution Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary by examining the profound impact of the advent of Christendom Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research in 1977. on the self-understanding and practice of all subsequent Chris- Renamed INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH in 1981. tian mission, including the contemporary. Reacting to what he Published quarterly in January, April,July, and October by regards as an inadequacy in Bosch’s schema, Kreider argues Overseas Ministries Study Center persuasively that a more academically sound and ultimately 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. more useful way of understanding ourselves across the 2,000-year Tel: (203) 624-6672 • Fax: (203) 865-2857 continuum of Christian missionary endeavor is to think of not six E-mail: [email protected] • Web: www.OMSC.org but three historical paradigms of mission: pre-Christendom, Christendom, and post-Christendom. He suggests that we take Editor: Associate Editor: another look at pre-Christendom mission and notice how fitting Jonathan J. Bonk Dwight P. Baker it is for the post-Christendom realities of today’s post-Euro- Assistant Editor: Managing Editor: American world church. This thesis is echoed and reinforced by Craig A. Noll Daniel J. Nicholas one of today’s leading interpreters of the global Christian move- Senior Contributing Editors: ment, IBMR contributing editor Wilbert Shenk, in his essay Gerald H. Anderson Robert T. Coote “New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology.” Contributing Editors: “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man,” Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Gary B. McGee wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Self-Reliance”—as David B. Barrett Mary Motte, F.M.M. Daniel H. Bays C. René Padilla monasticism is “of the Hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. James M. Phillips Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Samuel Escobar Dana L. Robert Clarkson . and all history resolves itself very easily into the John F. Gorski, M.M. Lamin Sanneh biography of a few stout and earnest persons.” Our sorry history Darrell L. Guder Wilbert R. Shenk bears testimony to the ease with which we allow our commis- Paul G. Hiebert Brian Stanley sioning Lord’s shadow to be eclipsed by the grotesque deformi- Daniel Jeyaraj Charles R. Taber Jan A. B. Jongeneel Tite Tiénou ties of human convention, whereby greed is overlooked, domi- Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. Ruth A. Tucker nation of all kinds is ignored, oppression is disregarded, and David A. Kerr Desmond Tutu violence is downplayed—sometimes explicitly in the name of Graham Kings Andrew F. Walls Christ. Thus even so venerable a mission society as the Society for Anne-Marie Kool Anastasios Yannoulatos the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, whose board of Circulation: Angela Scipio Advertising: Ruth E. Taylor governors included the archbishop of Canterbury, had no scruples [email protected] 11 Graffam Road about deriving part of its revenues from the labors of Africans www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html South Portland, Maine 04106 enslaved on its Codrington sugar plantation in Barbados. Branded (203) 624-6672, ext. 309 (207) 799-4387 across the chest of each of the estate’s slaves was the word Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed SOCIETY . to the editors. Manuscripts unaccompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope As important as those are who, like Bosch, have shaped our (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions expressed in the approach to the study and the practice of Christian mission, truly INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Christian mission—as this issue of the IBMR reminds us in Overseas Ministries Study Center. various ways—can never be the lengthened shadow of any mere Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in: mortal. At its redemptive best, it is always the lengthened shadow Bibliografia Missionaria IBR (International Bibliography of of the Son of Man, the Word made flesh, whose life, death, and BookReview Index Book Reviews) IBZ (International Bibliography of resurrection are at once the source, the model, and the power for Christian Periodical Index Guide to People in Periodical Periodical Literature) all who respond to his call. And his shadow does not reach to the Literature Missionalia highly politicized concerns of self-preserving Christendom. His, Guide to Social Science and Religion Religious and Theological Abstracts rather, is the shadow of the cross, lengthened and extended in Periodical Literature Religion Index One: Periodicals through the self-giving community of God’s kingdom citizens, wherever they are found. Index, abstracts, and full text of this journal are available on databases provided by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and University Microfilms. Back issues may be seen on the ATLAS Web site, www.ATLA.com. Also consult InfoTrac database at many academic and public libraries. International Bulletin of Missionary Research (ISSN 0272-6122) is published by the Overseas Ministries Study Center, 490 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511. For subscription orders and changes of address visit www.OMSC.org or write International Bulletin of Missionary Research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834- 3000. Address correspondence concerning subscriptions and missing issues to: Circulation Coordinator, [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, CT. Single Copy Price: $8.00. Subscription rate worldwide: one year (4 issues) $27.00. Foreign subscribers must pay in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank, Visa, MasterCard, or International Money Order. Airmail delivery $16 per year extra. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to International Bulletin of Missionary Research, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, New Jersey 07834-3000. Copyright ©2005 by Overseas Ministries Study Center. All rights reserved. 58 I NTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 29, No. 2 Beyond Bosch: The Early Church and the Christendom Shift Alan Kreider avid Bosch’s Transforming Mission is a great book.1 Its the liturgy should act as [the] center of attraction to those who D scope is comprehensive; it is, as Lesslie Newbigin put it, still live in the darkness of paganism” (p. 207). Bosch states what a summa missiologica. It is in three parts. Part 1, which reflects he finds to be limitations in the Orthodox traditions—uncritical Bosch’s deeply committed study of the New Testament, devel- inculturation, nationalism, and abandonment of the eschatologi- ops his first paradigm: “the apocalyptic paradigm of primitive cal urgency of primitive Christianity.
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