Review of the Series: In Humility and Hope

Dreams are essential to mission. They are, like visions, one of the preferred means of communication by the triune God to highlight opportunities or challenges for Christian witness. Edinburgh 2010 resulted from many dreams, two of which I want to emphasise today, five years after this milestone on the way to mission in unity. The first was to launch a project in which Christians from many sectors of the ‘wider oikoumene’ would be involved. The second was to give priority to a study process prior to and following the 2010 event.

Today we can rejoice and thank God as well as many of you present here for what has become an incarnated dream. I consider the Oxford Edinburgh book series as the best and widest missiological material available to scholars and missionaries. I do not know of any other collection which addresses key missiological issues from so many and varied geographical, denominational and spiritual sectors of Christianity. This is true for the series as a whole, but also in a number of cases, although not all, for individual books. Considering the series as a whole, it is an achievement for which the editors have to be congratulated.

You will bear with me first that much of what I am saying here has been or will be said by others, second that it is not possible to provide a really overarching view over the whole in terms of content, agreements, differences. Accept my apology for a limited assessment. In summary, the books and papers develop and interpret the content and meaning of the Edinburgh 2010 statement and show its significance for contemporary and future theory and practice of mission. They also prove that the Edinburgh event and statement reflect a reality as fruit of processes of dialogue and common search for authentic Christian witness among the various sectors of contemporary Christianity. The series testifies to the provisional station we have reached on the pilgrimage towards the final breaking in of God’s kingdom. After serious clashes in the last century, many of us have been drawn by God’s Spirit to reconsider the Christian ‘other’ as brother and sister rather than as enemy in mission. Several papers refer to that dynamic. The common intersection points have been well summarised by Darrell Jackson as quoted by Mark Oxbrow:

a. The centring of mission in the love of God and love of neighbour

b. The return to a robust Trinitarian missiology

c. The acknowledgement of the priority of the missio Dei

d. The strengthened understanding of the role of the church in mission

e. And our joint concern for creation care, the mission to the whole cosmos ¹

One could formulate it differently, but this is a fair assessment of our present stage on the way.

Let me mention some points of ongoing debate within such a common understanding and vision.

The term ‘holistic’ is widely used, but does not mean the same for everybody. Within an integral or full gospel, where does our heart really beat? Reading the papers from frontier mission militants or defenders of subaltern perspectives, there still are differences in prioritisation. It seems also natural that as we are all searching for an authentic holistic witness, we do not want to lose what at some point of our histories we have considered essential and have prioritised in a somewhat absolute way because others disregarded it.

There is agreement to root our mission within the mission of the Triune God. There is need for further dialogue on the specificity and interaction of the work of the persons of the Trinity. In the papers, this concerns in particular the interpretation of the significance of Christocentric affirmations around Edinburgh 2010. How far should a pneumatological emphasis so well formulated in Pentecostal or Orthodox contributions confirm or widen a Christocentric perspective? And why is there less concern to reflect on the consequences of the unity of Son, Spirit and Father in creation? Behind the priorities in Trinitarian approaches one can of course sense different convictions regarding soteriology.

All refer to the Bible and to traditions, such as the history and documents of their own denomination or mission family. And there is really excellent and highly interesting historical material in the series. How to interpret the Bible and how to handle hermeneutical issues in contemporary cultures remain contentious issues on which much more dialogue is needed, in due recognition of the polycentric nature of Christianity.

The list is not complete. Thanks to the Regnum books, we can move on, hopefully in more common involvement and study in mission, for a better visibility and credibility of our witness to Christ, to the Spirit and to the Creator.

What do I feel is missing at this stage? Although there is ample material on proclamation, including case studies on frontier mission and welcome reflections on the need to reconsider the positive aspect of apologetics, a book with a specific focus on evangelism – with contributions from various sectors and different contexts of Christianity – is still missing. The same can be said about healing, addressing divine healing, exorcism, medical mission and the various cultural and scientific approaches to health and health care in mission. Some of you know how much I have learnt from Pentecostal contributions to these issues. What I wish for is a dialogical approach involving several theological traditions. I also find that the issue of creation and the challenge it poses not only to Christian mission, but to theology and spirituality in general, could have come earlier in the publication chronology, due to its urgency. I also expect with much interest the book on power.

Let me mention another point on which we have to make progress. Books and papers are from a wide horizon of Christian thought and experience. However, there is not enough cross-reference in bibliography, not enough dialogue between the different approaches. I mean by ‘cross-reference’ serious reference and study, critique and debate, but also acknowledgement of what one has learnt or could learn from others. Some books do include responses to papers or critical papers to their tradition. But on the way to Edinburgh 2110, we could do better.

I wish finally to refer to additional issues which in several books and papers of the series are considered key for contemporary and future mission and which point to the need for further shared study and debate.

The widely recognised importance of migration requires careful missiological attention, because of the consequences for spirituality, ecclesiology and intercultural or multicultural interaction and the interpretation of its role within missio Dei.

Linked to that is the issue of hybrid identities in terms of culture, but also religion. How should one consider persons who confess Jesus Christ and continue to participate in their original community without concretely joining an existing church? Where does cultural or religious overlapping end in unacceptable syncretism; where does it express a form of syncretism which necessarily flows from incarnation?

The search for an interpretation of the significance of major world religions within missio Dei is one of the most difficult and conflictual tasks with immense theological and practical implications.

My two concluding points refer to wisdom I discovered in the excellent book on Theology, Mission and Child. D. J. Konz reminds us that the child in Matthew 18 points to the illegitimacy of values of power, position and pre-eminence in witness and thus confronts models of mission all of us have referred to or still practise.

The same paper suggests that we may assume too much when we presume to understand God and God’s kingdom. We must allow our theology to retain dialectic, paradox, loose ends and mystery. ² For me this resonates with the conclusion of the book on Foundations for Mission. Emma Wild-Wood and Peniel Rajkumar suggest to leave aside the metaphor of ‘foundations’ and move to a language of ‘tools for travel or sails to catch the wind of the Spirit’. ³ For me, this points to a mission in humility in reference to Christ, mission in hope, empowered by the Holy Spirit, mission to all of creation in obedience to God the Creator of all that exists and which works for all to be united with God in Christ.