Vol. 37, No. 4 October 2013 Surprises, Sagacity, and Service uddhism, Christianity, and Islam have each exhibited a eth century’s brutal world wars and the subsequent breakup of Bstriking impulse to spread cross-culturally. These three European political empires. But just as earlier apocalyptic seem- religious traditions, with their 2,500-year, 2,000-year, and 1,400- ing destructions of Christian sociopolitical establishments were year histories which began in Northeast India, Israel, and Arabia, succeeded by fresh flowerings of wider Christian growth, so have respectively, have entered multiple and ever-changing cultural we in our own times been witnessing the surprising blooms of an and sociopolitical con- unprecedented worldwide garden of Christian communities that texts. The result has exhibit colors, shapes, and fragrances unanticipated by human been a dizzying array sketchers of the mission landscape. of mutually interactive Continued next page transformations. At the institutional level, these unfolding inter- On Page national histories have 195 Doctoral Dissertations on Mission: Ten-Year offered up startling Update, 2002–2011 surprises, especially Robert J. Priest and Robert DeGeorge 203 Hendrik Kraemer’s Christian Message in when considered in a Non-Christian World: A Magnum Opus light of their paro- after Seventy-Five Years chial and monocultural Jan A. B. Jongeneel beginnings. Along the 207 Denominationalism or Protestantism? way and at the personal Mission Strategy and Church in the level, participants in Kikuyu Conference of 1913 Colin Reed the religions’ spread, 208 Noteworthy both as messengers and 214 Releasing the Trigger: The Nigerian Factor as recipients, have been in Global Christianity caught up short as well: Allan L. Effa no cross-cultural emis- 218 Majority of Immigrants to the United States sary worth her or his Are Christians salt can avoid wrestling 219 Lost in Transition: Missionary Children of the with unanticipated life Basel Mission in the Nineteenth Century patterns encountered Huibing He, Wash Each Other's Feet Dagmar Konrad in a setting recently 224 My Pilgrimage in Mission entered, and no new adherent can fully anticipate the intricacies John C. B. Webster of cultural unscrambling and personal transformation inherent 228 The Legacy of Theodor Grentrup Paul B. Steffen in embracing an imported religious faith. 232 Eighty-Seven Percent of Christians Live in 157 Missionaries and their organizational supervisors have often Christian-Majority Countries sought to follow grand historical schemes involving a prophesied 233 The Production of Knowledge in and of Africa: A nirvana, millennium, or caliphate, usually in restored fashion. Review Essay Within the modern Christian mission movement, visions of rulers Esther E. Acolatse and their subjects bowing the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and of 236 Book Reviews the worldwide establishment of a familiar-looking church fueled 246 Dissertation Notices many zealous missionary endeavors—at least until the twenti- 248 Book Notes This worldwide sprouting of Christian growth has caught encounters with a plethora of human contexts and cultures. The people off guard, due simply to our limited vision. I need to articles you will find here deal with these topics and more. quickly add, however, that one of the glories of being human is I wish to take special note here of Jan Jongeneel and his article our finitude. Try as we may to schematize the world’s history— in this issue. Jongeneel, professor emeritus of missiology, Utrecht past, present, and future—the reality is that we can never fully University, the Netherlands, has served as a contributing editor anticipate, much less comprehend or dictate, the entire historical for the IBMR since 1998 but will be retiring from that role at the outworking of anything, including religious developments. More end of this year. Jan has been a regular source of invaluable input than being merely a frustrating hindrance to the fulfillment of over his fifteen years of service. I want to thank him as well for our fondly imagined unlimited potential, our limited capacity the personal encouragement he has been to me as I have assumed to foresee what lies ahead, to say nothing of knowing all things, editorial responsibilities. Jan’s article in this issue on Hendrik carries within it the freedom and responsibility to discern a con- Kraemer’s Christian Message in a Non-Christian World—published structive way forward—and then to decide and to act accordingly. in 1938, the year Jan was born—is a timely reconsideration of Longing for omniscience and pervasive predictability detracts how Christian theologians were wrestling, during the surprising from our Creator’s good gift of sagacity bestowed on those who 1930s, with the way the Gospel speaks to the world’s peoples. As have the courage to walk ahead wisely, albeit with uncertainty. many readers will know, Kraemer wrote this book at the request Throughout the enterprise of Christian mission, wisdom and of the International Missionary Council for its 1938 World Mis- discernment have been supremely important. Modern Christian sionary Conference, held at Tambaram, India. Hendrik Kraemer’s missionaries could never have anticipated the full implications service and, more recently, Jan Jongeneel’s service exemplify the that living cross-culturally would carry for their children. Neither vital contribution that Christian scholarship provides to Christian could ecclesiastical leaders of a century ago foresee the global mission in the world. demographic shifts in Christian adherents that have marked In the end, the glory of exercising sagacity in navigating the past few generations. In particular, who could have pre- surprises that come in Christian mission is further dignified by dicted the explosive Christian growth in sub-Saharan Africa? service. Participation in mission, while including planning and With Christianity’s robust, if newfound, worldwide presence, forecasting, essentially involves humbly serving God and oth- Christian missionaries necessarily have encountered followers ers. We can now see, albeit still dimly, the surprising turns that of other religious traditions—traditions that have not simply Christian mission has taken over the past century. What especially melted away, as some had predicted would happen—who have is incumbent on each of us today is to discern our next steps and exhibited exemplary faith and practice rooted in centuries-old to exercise our God-given freedom to serve. traditions. Christian theologians have thus had to wrestle in new —J. Nelson Jennings ways with Christianity’s standing among the world’s religions. Christian researchers have also had to focus on unfamiliar are- Cover image: Huibing He, Wash Each Other's Feet, 1987, Chinese brush and nas of scholarship, since new questions have arisen out of fresh ink on rice paper, 18" x 27". INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Established 1950 by R. Pierce Beaver as Occasional Bulletin from the Missionary Research Library. Named Occasional Bulletin 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. (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.internationalbulletin.org Editor Contributing Editors J. Nelson Jennings Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Senior Associate Editor editors. Manuscripts should be submitted to the editor as e-mail attachments. Opinions expressed Daniel H. Bays Dwight P. Baker in the IBMR are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. The articles in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Bibliografia Missionaria, Book William R. Burrows Assistant Editors Review Index, Christian Periodical Index, Guide to People in Periodical Literature, Guide to Angelyn Dries, O.S.F. Craig A. Noll Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature, IBR (International Bibliography of Book Samuel Escobar Rona Johnston Gordon Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), Missionalia, Religious John F. Gorski, M.M. Managing Editor and Theological Abstracts, and Religion Index One: Periodicals. Darrell L. Guder Daniel J. Nicholas ONLINE E-JOURNAL: The IBMR is available in e-journal and print editions. To Philip Jenkins Senior Contributing Editors subscribe—at no charge—to the full text IBMR e-journal (PDF and HTML), go to www. Daniel Jeyaraj Gerald H. Anderson internationalbulletin.org/register. Index, abstracts, and full text of this journal are also available Jan A. B. Jongeneel Jonathan J. Bonk on databases provided by ATLAS, EBSCO, H. W. Wilson Company, The Gale Group, and Graham Kings Robert T. 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