Beyond people group thinking: A critical reevaluation of unreached people groups

Abstract

Since its inception at the 1974 Lausanne Congress, the concept of “unreached people groups” (UPG) has revolutionized global mission. Today, “people group thinking” represents perhaps the predominant paradigm in global mission. Yet for all its influence, few have carefully examined UPG’s questionable underlying assumptions. This article critically reevaluates two central tenets of UPG. First, using biblical and sociocultural analysis, we assess the conceptual foundation of UPG—the idea of the people group. Second, we engage theologically with mission strategies that arise from UPG. We conclude that UPG relies upon flawed biblical, theological, and sociocultural assumptions, and propose that missiology move beyond UPG in theory and practice.

Keywords

unreached people groups homogenous unit principle unity in diversity evangelical mission

Introduction

Unreached People Groups (UPG) is a concept that has profoundly shaped global mission during the late twentieth century (Datema, 2016: 45).¹ Since its inception by Ralph Winter at the 1974 Lausanne Congress, UPG has revolutionized global mission by reorienting the focus of mission strategies from geographical nation-states to sociological groupings of “people groups.” Fully appreciating the significance of this missiological reorientation requires some historical context. Lausanne 1974 occurred during an era in which mainline Protestant churches in the West, under mounting pressure from secularization and postcolonial reactions, increasingly questioned the validity of international missions and shifted their focus away from evangelism and toward social development (see Bosch, 1991: 339–341; Pierson, 2009: 317–318; Robert, 2009: 67–69).

Evangelical missions faced different challenges. Since the beginnings of the modern Protestant missionary movement, missions had been conceptualized primarily in geographic terms (Pierson, 2009: 318). By the early 1970s, some believed that the Great Commission—understood as evangelizing people in every geopolitical nation-state—was nearing its completion, as Winter (1975: 213) observed at Lausanne.

It was in this context that Winter (1975: 221) argued that “the ‘nations’ to which Jesus often referred were mainly ethnic groups within the single political structure of the Roman government.” He called for cross-cultural evangelism among “hidden people,” emphasizing that “at least four-fifths of the non-Christians in the world … will never have any straightforward opportunity to become Christians” (Winter, 1975: 225).² By reconceptualizing missions as reaching people groups instead of nation-states, Winter presented evangelicals with a new missionary motivation—the Great Commission was nowhere near completion; far more work remained than had previously been imagined. This created new momentum that mobilized a large following among evangelicals worldwide.

Proponents credit UPG for catalyzing renewed missionary zeal in the global church.³ For decades considered “the ‘holy grail’ of evangelical missions” (Tennent, 2007: 188), UPG and its “people group thinking” show little sign of declining in popularity among missionaries.⁴ But have UPG’s contributions to mission only been positive? Given UPG’s vast and lasting influence, it is surprising that during its 40 years of existence, few have carefully examined UPG’s questionable underlying assumptions.⁵

This article critically reevaluates UPG by examining its two central tenets: the idea of the people group, and mission strategies that arise from this concept. We argue that the idea of “people groups” arises from questionable biblical and sociocultural foundations—flawed interpretations of the New Testament phrase panta ta ethne that deviate from contemporary New Testament scholarship, and essentialized conceptualizations of sociocultural groups that neglect the reality of the fluid and porous nature of social boundaries as well as the reality of globalization and hybridization of contexts. We also argue that UPG’s mission strategy of targeting each “unreached people group” separately and distinctly represents a normative application of the homogeneous unit principle (HUP) to cross-cultural mission, which results in a failure to take seriously biblical mandates for Christian reconciliation and unity in diversity. We conclude that UPG’s flawed biblical, theological, and sociocultural assumptions render its dominance in contemporary mission discourse and practice problematic, and propose that missiology move beyond UPG in both theory and practice.

Reexamining the idea of people groups

Foundational to UPG is the idea of the “people group,” “a (significantly large) sociological grouping of individuals who perceive themselves to have a common affinity for one another because of their shared language, religion, ethnicity, residence, occupation, class or caste, situation, etc.” (Johnstone, 1990: 36). For UPG, a people group represents the largest sociological unit in which there are no social, cultural, or language barriers that hinder Christian expansion.⁶ An “unreached people group” is a “people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize the rest of its members without outside (cross-cultural) assistance” (Johnstone, 1990: 37).

Biblical basis—interpreting panta ta ethne

The key biblical idea behind UPG is the New Testament term ethne, typically translated as “nations.” Particularly important is Matthew 28:19, with Jesus’ command to “make disciples of panta ta ethne.”⁷ Rather than understanding ethne as nation-states, UPG interprets ethne as ethnolinguistic groupings of the world’s peoples (Datema, 2016; Hawthorne, 2016; Johnson, 2001b; Piper, 1996; Winter, 1975). As Winter and Koch (2002: 16) argue, “by the phrase ‘all the nations,’ Jesus was not referring at all to countries or nation-states. The wording he chose (the Greek word ethne), instead, points to the ethnicities, the languages and the extended families which constitute the peoples of the earth.” The phrase panta ta ethne is then understood as a command to make disciples of “all people groups.”

Yet UPG’s interpretation of ethne deviates from many New Testament scholars’ understanding of ethne as a “technical term for the Gentiles as distinct from the Jews or Christians” (Kittel, 1964: 370). In Matthew’s Gospel, which describes ongoing tensions between Jews and Gentiles, insiders and outsiders, the plural ethne is frequently and purposefully used to distinguish Israelites from others (Duling, 2005: 130). Piper (1996: 22), a vocal UPG proponent, argues, “one would have to go entirely against the flow of the evidence to interpret the phrase panta ta ethne as ‘all Gentile individuals’… Rather the focus of the command is the discipling of all the people groups of the world.” Yet New Testament commentators generally interpret, panta ta ethne as indicating “the full inclusion of the Gentiles … in the history of salvation” (Hagner, 1995: 887). While some scholars disagree on the finer details, there is consensus regarding its central message: salvation is not limited to Jews, but is also offered to Gentiles, and even the entire world (France, 2007: 1114–1115; Hagner, 1995: 887–888; Morris, 1992: 746–747; Nolland, 2005: 1265–1269). This interpretation concurs with the overall thrust of Matthew’s Gospel, which shows an inclusive disposition toward the ethne. From its beginning, Matthew lists Gentile women in Jesus’ genealogy, indicating that God’s kingdom has already moved beyond Israel, transcending cultural and ethnic barriers (Hays, 2003: 159–160). Moreover, Matthew’s Gospel contains numerous examples of ethne described positively and even modeling genuine faith, demonstrating the inclusion of Gentiles in God’s plans (Duling, 2005: 130).

Thus ethne in Matthew is better understood as a reference to Gentiles in distinction from Jews, highlighting their inclusion into God’s kingdom. This emphasis culminates in Matthew 28, where Jesus’ command to disciple panta ta ethne reveals that Gentiles can enter the community of God’s people. Even if we extrapolate the meaning of panta ta ethne to accommodate more traditional views of the Great Commission—that the gospel must be preached to the entire world—interpreting ethne as sociocultural ethnic groups in a modern sense is a stretch.⁸

While UPG argues that interpreting ethne as nation-states is anachronistic, they commit the same error in interpreting ethne as “people groups.” UPG’s notion of “people groups,” built upon modern conceptualizations of ethnic and cultural identity, would have been foreign to the Matthean author; dividing the world’s peoples into distinct groups by phenotypes or cultural-linguistic markers is a relatively modern phenomenon (see American Anthropologist, 1998; Bulmer and Solomos, 1998; Delgado and Stefancic, 2012; Gilroy, 2000; Hannaford, 1996).

In sum, UPG’s biblical basis consists of dubious interpretations of an isolated scriptural text—not even a verse, but a short phrase at that.⁹ UPG interpretations of ethne deviate from much of contemporary New Testament scholarship; thus using panta ta ethne to promote missions to “unreached people groups” perpetuates flawed understandings of Scripture. In reducing ethne to distinct “people groups,” UPG obscures the theological significance of the Great Commission—that salvation is not only for Jews in the religious center but also for Gentiles in the fringes, and that the boundaries among humanity which for eons have caused divisions are to be broken; for in Christ, all are welcomed into God’s kingdom.

Sociocultural basis—conceptualizing boundaries

Though lacking biblical basis, might the “people group” concept still be helpful in understanding sociocultural dynamics for Christian mission? UPG differentiates “people groups” by viewing ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and sociological characteristics as social boundaries that bind together members of one group in opposition to others outside its group boundaries (see Johnstone, 1990; PeopleGroups.org, n.d.; What is a people group? | Joshua Project, n.d.). This way of formulating “people groups” raises anthropological and sociological questions about UPG’s conceptualizations of cultural and social boundaries.

UPG tends to envision people groups as discrete, separate, and self-contained cultural entities, reflecting a popular missiological understanding of cultures that Rynkiewich (2002: 303–304) calls the “standard anthropological model.” This model, built upon anthropological theories from over 60 years ago, espouses essentialized views of culture as organic and indivisible wholes that are unchanging and clearly distinguished from others. With this outdated culture concept comes flawed conceptualizations of social boundaries. UPG sees societies as comprised of distinct groups with fixed, clear, impermeable, and non-overlapping boundaries. This view of societies results in an understanding of the world which is, according to Rynkiewich’s (2011b: 216) characterization, “composed of villages where people are related to each other, where everyone speaks the same language, everyone makes their living in the same way, and everyone shares the same culture.”

Scholars like Abu-Lughod (1991: 146–147) have long challenged essentialized culture concepts which emphasize coherence, timelessness, discreteness, and homogeneity. Appadurai (1988: 37) also notes that the culture concept has contributed to an “incarceration” of non-Western peoples, in which “natives” are prisoners of and confined to their parochial time and place and to their “mode of thought.” Archer (1996: 1) observes that the culture concept has displayed “the weakest analytical development of any key concept in sociology and [has] played the most wildly vacillating role within sociological theory.” Given these problems, some propose abandoning the culture concept altogether (Ortner, 2006: 12).

Similarly, many scholars have observed that social boundaries are in fact flexible and changing. As early as the 1960s, field researchers around the world noted the porous and constructive nature of sociocultural boundaries, as observed in Fredrik Barth’s (1969: 9–38) edited volume, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference.¹⁰ Thus it is questionable whether essentialized views of social boundaries have ever been true to reality, for “regional and global flows of ideas, goods, people, and beliefs have always breached the ‘boundaries’ of seemingly self-contained cultures” (Rynkiewich, 2002: 301).

This porous and fluid nature of social boundaries becomes amplified amidst the changes brought by globalization, modernization, and urbanization. In today’s world, virtually all “people groups” must navigate the liminal space of intercultural contacts. Local idiosyncrasies, while not rendered meaningless by globalization, are nevertheless transformed by the dual globalizing forces of homogenization and heterogenization.¹¹ Faced with these tensions, certain characteristics of distinct “people groups” may come to be shared by others, while other characteristics may be retained and even strengthened (Howell, 2006: 312). As numerous scholars (Bhabha, 2004; García Canclini, 2005; Nederveen Pieterse, 2015) observe, these processes result in hybridizing local realities that are complex and multilayered.

Can UPG’s people group concept, with its simplistic understanding of cultures and social boundaries, account for such complex phenomena? In a world where a plurality of identities is becoming inevitable, will the boundaries that were thought to separate “people groups” continue to hold? In recent years, Christian thinkers have recognized that cultural traditions, “whether expressed as beliefs, values or customs, operate at varying levels of generality, are internally multistranded and are sites of ongoing contestation” (Ramachandra, 2008: 315). Missiologists have also begun scrutinizing the tendency to see the world as discrete social groups (see Christofferson, 2012; Hiebert, 2016; Howell, 2009; Priest, 2009; Rynkiewich, 2016; Tiénou, 2016). It is therefore unfortunate that UPG, with its vast influence, continues to promote a people group concept built upon defective models of cultures and societies.¹²

UPG proponents have of late become increasingly aware of some of these issues (Datema, 2016; Gill, 2010, 2013; Hawthorne, 2016; Parsons, 2015). There have been calls for UPG to “continue developing and deepening essential frontier missiology” (Hawthorne, 2016: 23) or “to refine their missiological toolkit in light of globalization” (Gill, 2010). Such efforts, while welcome, are inadequate—what is needed is not a refinement of existing UPG paradigms, but a fundamental reevaluation of its flawed sociocultural assumptions. Without such reevaluation, it is possible that UPG’s substantial influence will prove ineffective, or even detrimental, to global mission in the twenty-first century; for the world as envisioned by UPG might not actually exist.

Reexamining UPG mission strategy

The people group concept, which neither arises from Scripture nor adequately describes the world’s sociocultural realities, produces similarly questionable mission strategies and practices. Others have already critiqued UPG for its “managerial missiology”— “the effort to reduce Christian mission to a manageable enterprise” (Escobar, 2000: 109–112).¹³ This article highlights perhaps the greatest weakness of UPG mission practice—a reliance upon the homogeneous unit principle and a corresponding failure to promote Christian reconciliation and unity in diversity.

UPG and the homogeneous unit principle

From the beginning, UPG’s goal has been fulfilling the Great Commission, understood as completing the task of world evangelization by maximizing opportunities to present the gospel to the greatest number of people (Winter, 1975: 241). Toward this end, UPG identifies people groups that are “unreached”—typically defined as less than 2% evangelical Christian. Because UPG interprets ethne as “people groups,” making disciples of panta ta ethne requires reaching every “unreached people group” with the gospel. Thus UPG strategy emphasizes establishing church-planting movements in each “unreached people group” of the world (Datema, 2016; Johnson, 2001a).

This strategy arises from the belief that “the easiest, most obvious surge forward in evangelism … will come if Christian believers … win their cultural near neighbors to Christ” (Winter, 1975: 219). In the UPG scheme, the goal of fulfilling the Great Commission through rapid world evangelization is hindered by the existence of social boundaries. Winter and Koch (2002: 16) observe,

The gospel often expands within a community but does not normally “jump” across boundaries between peoples, especially boundaries that are created by hate or prejudice. People can influence their “near neighbors” whose language and culture they understand, but where there is a prejudice boundary, religious faith, which is almost always bound up with many cultural features of the first group, simply does not easily “jump” to the next group.

UPG’s solution to this challenge is to eliminate the need to cross preexisting “prejudice boundaries” by reaching each people group independently, increasing missionary efficacy by allowing people to “become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers” (Schreck and Barrett, 1987: 25–26).

This strategy shares ideological foundations with the Church Growth Movement of the late twentieth century. Central to the Church Growth Movement was Donald McGavran’s homogeneous unit principle (HUP), which defines a homogeneous unit as “a section of society in which all the members have some characteristic in common” (McGavran, 1990: 69). The foundational insight of HUP was that people “like to” become Christians without crossing sociocultural and ethno-linguistic boundaries (Tennent, 2007: 188). Thus HUP proposed a missiological model of planting homogeneous unit churches, a “cluster of congregations of one denomination which is growing in a given homogeneous unit” (McGavran, 1990: 71).

HUP profoundly shapes UPG, whose foundational strategy—starting distinct church-planting movements in every people group—represents an application of the HUP to cross-cultural mission. UPG advocates planting homogeneous unit churches to facilitate evangelism within each unreached people group. While acknowledging that homogenous unit churches are not the ideal, their emphasis on rapid Christian expansion through the “most effective” (i.e. planting homogenous unit churches) means possible remains. UPG thus approaches mission as a clearly defined task, and channels resources and personnel to achieve quantifiable results.

There is little question that people, Christians included, prefer to gather with those similar to themselves. However, HUP was originally “never intended to be a prescriptive reality of what the church should look like but merely a descriptive reality for what most naturally happens” (Tennent, 2010: 364). Thus it is concerning that UPG utilizes HUP as a normative principle for mission. UPG sees people’s preference for staying within their own prejudice boundaries not as something to be challenged or rebuked, but rather something to be accommodated and even encouraged to achieve rapid church growth.

Christian unity in diversity

UPG’s reliance upon HUP as a normative strategy carries serious implications. Christian growth strategies influenced by HUP too often neglect biblical teachings regarding reconciliation and unity in diversity. UPG strategy arises from the idea that Christians can selectively choose with whom to be in community. As such, “comfort” plays not an insignificant role in the UPG framework—Winter notes, “there are many … people of differing cultural backgrounds who, even if they were to become fervent Christians, would not feel comfortable in existing churches” (Winter, 1975: 222; emphasis added). Yet Padilla (1982: 24) reminds us, “membership in the body of Christ is not a question of likes or dislikes … the same act that reconciles one to God simultaneously introduces the person into a community where people find their identity in Jesus Christ rather than in their race, culture, social class, or sex, and are consequently reconciled to one another.”

Inherent in UPG strategy is the danger of propagating a less-than-biblical Christianity. Some UPG proponents like Schreck and Barrett (1987: 26) simply dismiss critiques of UPG and HUP as being “based upon questionable social science and unconvincing reading of Scripture.” However, biblical examples of the expansion of the early church provide little justification for HUP methods.¹⁴ The apostle Paul’s practice in church planting was to bring different people together, not to separate them into different groups within the church. Banks (1980: 114) argues, “Paul’s thinking does not begin with the distinctions that divide people from one another, but from that which is common to them all—their distance from God and degree of response to him.” Bosch (1991: 466) similarly observes, “Paul sought to build communities in which, right from the start, Jew and Greek, slave and free, poor and rich, would worship together, learn to love one another, and learn to deal with difficulties arising out of their diverse social, cultural, religious, and economic backgrounds.” Thus LaGrand (1995: 45) finds that HUP proponents rationalize homogeneous unit churches using biblical texts that do not warrant their conclusions, while Padilla (1982: 29) suggests that HUP advocates begin with a sociological observation, and then try to find a biblical basis to justify their beliefs.

UPG strategies also carry the danger of proclaiming an incomplete gospel. Within HUP thinking, reconciliation is seen merely as a result or implication of the gospel. Yet Bosch (1982: 27) rightly contends, “the breaking down of barriers that separate people is an intrinsic part of the gospel … it is not merely a result of the gospel.” While UPG proponents do acknowledge the importance of Christian unity in diversity, the diversity they envision applies not at the level of individual congregations, but to the church universal—the goal is not intra-congregational, but inter-congregational diversity, as seen in Winter’s original 1974 address:

[W]hile no one should be excluded from any church under any circumstances, it is a fact that where people can choose their church associations voluntarily, they tend to sort themselves out according to their own way of life pretty consistently … Granting that we have this rich diversity, let us foster unity and fellowship between congregations just as we now do between families. (Winter, 1975: 241)

Winter’s logic is that, for the sake of rapid evangelization, we should capitulate to people’s preference for gathering with those similar to themselves. Diversity between congregations can be fostered after homogenous unit churches are planted—as families can be internally homogenous yet still foster external relationships across social boundaries, Winter argues, internally homogenous congregations can still pursue inter-congregational diversity.¹⁵

Related to this idea is the belief that since the gospel transforms people, once homogeneous unit churches are planted and grow in maturity, they will naturally pursue biblical principles of unity, justice, and reconciliation in breaking down barriers of separation with other believers. These assumptions are implicitly and sometimes explicitly expressed in the writings of Winter, McGavran, Wagner, and others who represent HUP, the Church Growth Movement, and UPG.¹⁶ For example, Schreck and Barrett (1987: 28) claim, “if it is the whole gospel which is being communicated, an unjust or racist status quo will be challenged by it.”

But there are two problems with the assumption that homogenous unit churches, if given enough time, will naturally move toward greater diversity. First, this assumption fails to account for issues of systemic prejudice and ethnocentrism that exist in many societies around the world, and reflects what Emerson and Smith (2000: 76) describe as flawed assumptions common among white American evangelicals—individualism with a focus on personal accountability and free will, and antistructuralism that fails to recognize systemic prejudice in societies.

Second, this assumption is challenged by observations that reveal the opposite reality—a strong pull toward its own group culture prevents those already within homogenous units from later choosing heterogeneous groups. Early on, Bosch (1982: 27) made clear that “in separate, homogeneous churches … the homogeneous group simply entrenches itself more and more in its sectional church.” Similarly, McConnell’s (1997: 399) field research shows that “homogenous units are self-perpetuating” and often unable to resolve “the prejudices toward outsiders that are inherent in their traditional culture and are unchallenged in the formation of religious subcultures.” Emerson and Smith (2000: 142) find that the sociological features which produce church growth “internally homogenize and externally divide people,” while those that promote inclusivity and diversity weaken churches’ social cohesion and organization—this reality hinders homogenous churches from pursuing diversity.

Thus expecting unity to naturally arise from homogenous unit churches is naïve. How can a church which begins exclusive later become inclusive? Where will its members learn to listen, understand, forgive, reconcile, and love believers different from themselves, without the chance to practice within their own local fellowships? Churches planted around such sociological patterns instead of biblical principles will only perpetuate walls that separate one from another.

The HUP as a normative strategy for Christian expansion lacks scriptural and empirical grounds. Thus it is puzzling that, while the Church Growth Movement and HUP have been heavily critiqued, UPG (which shares similar ideological foundations) has garnered such broad and lasting support. UPG strategy, designed for rapid growth, yields homogenous churches that ignore or even accommodate sinful human tendencies towards exclusion and prejudice. This tendency to neglect reconciliation until an “unreached people group” is first “reached” via homogeneous unit churches must be challenged. The New Testament testifies that reconciliation and unity are central tenets of the gospel that must be inculcated in churches from the very beginning. A gospel that neglects Christian unity is incomplete; it will produce churches that limit the spiritual growth of its members. Bosch (1991: 467) rightly contends, “the loss of ecclesial unity is not just a vexation but a sin. Unity is not an optional extra. It is, in Christ, already a fact, a given.”

Conclusion

Several years ago, one of the authors of this article met a member of a Rwandan immigrant church in Belgium. When asked whether his church was primarily “Tutsi” or “Hutu,” this man kindly replied, “We are a Rwandan church. We don’t divide between Hutus and Tutsis. We are all one family in Jesus.” Despite their history of enmity, these Rwandan believers in Belgium considered reconciliation within the local church a biblical command to obey, forming a fellowship that moved beyond “boundaries that are created by hate or prejudice.” On another occasion, this same author encountered a North African church leader who led a house church of both Arab and Berber Muslim background believers. These and many others around the world who are intentionally building diverse and inclusive Christian communities can testify to how the gospel of reconciliation confronts all human boundaries.

Today, UPG remains an influential and perhaps the predominant enterprise in global mission. Yet this enterprise rests upon questionable foundations. Making disciples of panta ta ethne is not a mandate to plant churches among every “unreached people group,” but rather a command to move beyond our prejudice boundaries to disciple people into faith communities that reflect the full scope and breadth of God’s kingdom. This command is all the more important in today’s multicultural, globalizing, and hybridizing world, in which discipling “all nations” requires Christians to be characterized by a willingness and ability to love others who increasingly hail from vastly different backgrounds.

Despite these weaknesses, UPG’s popularity shows little sign of waning. After four decades, new applications of this problematic mission paradigm continue to appear in various forms.¹⁷ Through them, the influence of UPG and its flawed theological, sociocultural, and missiological assumptions continue to spread. UPG relies upon a people group concept with defective biblical and sociocultural foundations, and utilizes missionary strategies lacking a theological view of reconciliation. It is time for missiology, both in theory and practice, to move beyond the UPG concept and framework.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Peter T. Lee works with Operation Mobilization (OM) and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He worked in North Africa for ten years during which he led a multicultural ministry team and trained foreign business and development workers. He is currently working toward a PhD in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

James Sung-Hwan Park (PhD in intercultural studies, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) works in East Asia, focusing on theological education and cross-cultural training of Christian leaders.

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