Abstract
Employing Mark Noll’s “Turning Points” method, Alice Ott (Affiliate Professor of the History of Mission and World Christianity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) centers her work on illustrative, climactic, and transitional moments in mission history. Ott’s selected turning points – from Syrian missions in the 7th century to Majority World missions in the 20th – expose readers to diverse expressions of Christianity’s apostolic impulse that often transcend Western paradigms of mission history. Ott does not ignore, however, the complexities of missionary and colonial entanglement, devoting an entire chapter to the high colonial era and the scramble for Africa. The work remains sensitive throughout to the challenges Christendom and colonialism pose to mission, without making colonialism king. Attuned to practitioners, each chapter highlights relevant themes like shifts in approaches to Gospel and culture, mission and non-Christian religions, mission theology, mission structures, and relationships between missionaries and the state. The book is ideal for seminary-level history of mission courses but also serves as a helpful counterpoint to typically Western-centric Church history overview texts. Strategic inclusion of primary sources throughout (from Western and non-Western voices) and consistent, clear chapter summaries enhance the book’s effectiveness for the classroom. Ott’s clear writing style and engaging narratives also make the work accessible to the thoughtful lay reader who wants to expand their understanding of Christian history beyond the Western canon.
The work targets a mainstream evangelical audience. Other traditions, including mainline Protestants and Pentecostals, are treated less and with less precision. Selection for a survey text of such chronological, geographic, and cultural scope is a challenging and necessary task, but Ott’s acknowledged minimal exploration of Pentecostalism is most surprising. Pentecostal movements birthed from Azusa Street or Valparaiso are perhaps the central mission story of the 20th century and predate Lausanne. Women and Latin Americans will also find their stories and voices on the periphery of Ott’s narrative.
The book’s title – replacing “mission history” with “the expansion of Christianity” – surfaces the challenge of naming mission (and mission texts) in the postcolonial era. Yet language of “expansion” – recalling Latourette’s monumental series – can sound as, if not more, colonial than “mission.” Furthermore, Christian expansion can include transmission, reception, and appropriation of the faith, whereas Ott’s text is fundamentally about missionaries and their efforts to transmit the Gospel across cultural boundaries. The challenge remains.
Those observations aside, Ott’s Turning Points is a tour de force in diversifying the story of mission in such a concise work. It should be evangelicals’ go-to mission history text for years to come.