Vol. 30, No. 3 July 2006 Mission and the Go-Between God nglicans are not the only Christian communion suffer- come as no surprise that Christian missionaries to China who Aing from what former CMS general secretary Max War- went to convert its people found themselves transformed by the ren once described as a peculiar “ecclesiastical squint which gets Continued next page virtually every important issue out of focus.” This wry, self- deprecating observation, cited by Timothy Yates in his masterful article on John V. Taylor, is a reminder that even—perhaps even especially—the most theologically astute among us perceive God On Page only “through a glass darkly.” Such humble self-awareness is prerequisite to an ability to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to 115 Changed by the East: Notes on Missionary the churches, regardless of the religious condition or cultural Communication and Transformation Notto R. Thelle 121 How to Speak of the Spirit Among Religions: Trinitarian “Rules” for a Pneumatological Theology of Religions Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen 127 “Me and God, We’d Be Mates”: Toward an Aussie Contextualized Gospel Robert L. Gallagher 133 Timothy I of Baghdad, Catholicos of the East Syrian Church, 780–823: Still a Valuable Model Frederick W. Norris 137 Foreign Money for India: Antidependency and Anticonversion Perspectives Frampton F. Fox 142 Catholic Church Growing Everywhere—Except in Europe Roger Schroeder, S.V.D. 144 My Pilgrimage in Mission Roger S. Greenway 148 The Legacy of Elizabeth Fairburn Colenso Catherine R. Ross setting. Aware that they understand only the dim contours of 150 Noteworthy God’s self-revelation, thoughtful Christians readily attest that when it comes to being transformed into the glory of our Lord, 153 Reading John V. Taylor the Spirit still has plenty of work to do, even in the most saintly Timothy Yates among us. 157 Book Reviews The Holy Spirit, prominent at Pentecost, was active also in Old Testament times. In fact, the Spirit has been, is now, and 166 Dissertation Notices will always be present in all places and at all times. It thus should 168 Book Notes experience. They were, after all, confronted not only with pecu- the story of whose encounter with Caliph al-Mahdi is retold by liar customs and exotic religions but also by the Holy Spirit, who Frederick Norris in this issue. guides into all truth. Kärkkäinen reminds us that it is this “go-between God” who Notto Thelle illustrates this point in his thoughtful article by spans the seemingly unbridgeable religious chasm between “blind telling the story of pilgrim-missionary Karl Ludvig Reichelt (1877– exclusivism” and an all-encompassing pluralism. As he puts it, 1952), a Norwegian Lutheran who lived in China and Hong Kong “The Christian, coming from a particular perspective, is both from 1903 until his death in 1952. By no means the only Christian encouraged and entitled to witness to the triune God of the Bible missionary to shift from a pattern of “wholesale condemnation of and his saving will, yet is at the same time prepared to learn from the other” to an appreciative acknowledgment of the deep evi- the Other.” Ecclesiastical failure to learn from and adapt to the dence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the pieties and practices of other is identified in Robert Gallagher’s portrayal of the plight of other religions, Reichelt was representative of a broad trend that the church in Australia, alienated from the nation’s “average included many theological notables. The experiences of Reichelt blokes” by its imported and deeply irrelevant Anglocentric and others support D’Costa’s contention—cited by Veli-Matti religious forms and rituals. Kärkkäinen—that “the other may teach Christians to know and The black-and-white pencil sketch accompanying this edito- worship their own Trinitarian God more truthfully and richly” rial is appropriately enigmatic. Entitling his work Holy Spirit, and that such teaching may save the church from “unwittingly Sawai Chinnawong of Thailand explains that “God’s all-seeing practicing cultural and religious idolatry.” eye takes in the whole creation, here represented by slivers of his Reichelt’s pilgrimage is reminiscent of John V. Taylor’s cosmos. A great mother bird feeds us, her spiritual young.” He deeply illuminating Edward Cadbury Lectures in Theology, captures something of the mystery of the Spirit at work within delivered at the University of Birmingham in 1967 and published and throughout his creation, complementing the essays in this as The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Mission issue of the IBMR, gently reminding us that our culturally veiled (SCM Press, 1972). Timothy Yates concludes that it was Taylor’s religious minds can make us resistant to the full weight of God’s openness to the ongoing, “all of creation” conversion work of the glory. In the familiar words of St. Paul, “Now the Lord is the Holy Spirit that made him “one of the most sensitive interpreters Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And of things African to fellow Europeans of the twentieth century,” all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as giving him the eyes and the ears to recognize in the songs, though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same proverbs, and riddles of African traditional religions the “desire image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from for the Ultimate God.” In these troubling times, this awareness of the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17–18). the go-between God will allow us to acknowledge that Islam is “neither primarily a Christian heresy nor totally a devilish Front cover: Sawai Chinnawong, Holy Spirit, ink. A former artist in abomination,” a perspective characterizing Timothy I of Baghdad, residence at OMSC, Chinnawong is from Chiang Mai, Thailand. 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, Connecticut 06511, U.S.A. (203) 624-6672 • Fax (203) 865-2857 • [email protected] • www.OMSC.org/ibmr.html Editor Jonathan J. Bonk Contributing Editors Catalino G. Arévalo, S.J. Paul G. Hiebert Gary B. McGee Brian Stanley Associate Editor David B. Barrett Daniel Jeyaraj Mary Motte, F.M.M. Charles R. Taber Dwight P. Baker Daniel H. Bays Jan A. B. Jongeneel C. René Padilla Tite Tiénou Assistant Editor Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D. Sebastian Karotemprel, S.D.B. James M. Phillips Ruth A. Tucker Craig A. Noll Samuel Escobar David A. Kerr Dana L. Robert Desmond Tutu John F. Gorski, M.M. Graham Kings Andrew F. Walls Managing Editor Lamin Sanneh Darrell L. Guder Anne-Marie Kool Anastasios Yannoulatos Daniel J. Nicholas Wilbert R. Shenk Senior Contributing Editors Books for review and correspondence regarding editorial matters should be addressed to the editors. Manuscripts unaccompanied Gerald H. Anderson by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or international postal coupons) will not be returned. Opinions expressed in the IBMR Robert T. Coote are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. The articles in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Bibliografia Missionaria, Book Review Index, Christian Periodical Circulation Index, Guide to People in Periodical Literature, Guide to Social Science and Religion in Periodical Literature, IBR (International Angela Scipio Bibliography of Book Reviews), IBZ (International Bibliography of Periodical Literature), Missionalia, Religious and [email protected] Theological Abstracts, and Religion Index One: Periodicals. 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Back issues may be Copyright © 2006 purchased from OMSC or read on ATLAS, www.ATLA.com. Consult InfoTrac database at academic and public libraries. Overseas Ministries Study Center POSTMASTER: Send address changes to INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, All rights reserved New Jersey 07834-3000. Periodicals postage paid at New Haven, CT. (ISSN 0272-6122) 114 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 3 Changed by the East: Notes on Missionary Communication and Transformation Notto R. Thelle any of the missionaries who journeyed to China to in a broader international context. Reichelt came to China in 1903 Mconvert its people were themselves transformed by as an ordinary missionary evangelist in the newly opened field the encounter and became mediators between the East and the of Hunan. Within a few years he became professor of New West. This article describes a characteristic change in the mis- Testament at the Lutheran Union Theological Seminary in She- sionary community in China in the early twentieth century, kow in Hubei Province. Then in 1922 he began a unique mission- focusing particularly on one Norwegian missionary, Karl Ludvig ary work among Chinese Buddhists, at first in Nanjing, and then Reichelt (1877–1952).