Abstract
Lalsangkima Pachuau is the John Wesley Beeson Professor of Christian Mission and Dean of Advanced Research Programs at Asbury Seminary. The areas of his academic expertise include world Christianity, missiology and contextual theology.
World Christianity is organised into seven chapters, followed by the detailed indexes of names and subjects. Pachuau begins his inquiry by observing that the ‘worldwide character’ of Christian religion becomes more and more self-evident. Consequently, ‘the focus of those who study world Christianity today should be on indigenous expressions’, as we can no longer simply ‘impose the older Western form on others as if it represented a universal form’. Furthermore, it is the ‘incarnate character’ of Christianity that provides the theological foundation for its contextual structure: ‘Christianity’s essential nature is to be able to incarnate itself in any context to transform such contexts for the knowledge and likeness of God in Christ.’
In the second part of Chapter 1, the author critically engages the most relevant protagonists in a contemporary debate on global Christianity. The first pair of scholars he credits with bringing the worldwide Christian phenomenon to attention are Walter Bühlmann and Andrew F. Walls. Another pair of the showcased scholars includes Lamin Sanneh and Philip Jenkins.
In Chapter 2, the author moves on to discuss the relationship between the Enlightenment and Christian faith, reminding us of the tensions and ruptures that this engagement brought to Western civilisation. He uses Ferguson’s controversial distinction between ‘West and the Rest’ as a springboard to introduce ‘a major component that changed the West and essentially distinguished it from the “rest,” i.e., the philosophical and social revolution called the Enlightenment.’ As compelling as Pachuau’s analysis appears to be, it carries one crucial weakness; namely, it reduces the saturated phenomenon of the Christian theology and culture born and raised in the West to a mere by-product of the Enlightenment. Nonetheless, his evaluation of the influence of modern philosophy and ideology on Christianity sheds some light on the changing dynamic of interactions between Christianity in the (Old) Western World and the (New) Majority World.
In the second part of Chapter 2, we are presented with a historical overview of the modern missionary movement as well as an assessment of the recent demographic shift in the missionary landscape. According to Pachuau, that crisis of the modern missionary movement prepared the ground for ‘the emerging new missiological concept under the rubric of world mission.’ The reference to Lesslie Newbigin highlights yet another facet of the impact of Enlightenment on Western Christianity: ‘To Newbigin, this [West] society that has converted to modern secularism through the Enlightenment constitutes a new unbelieving missionary field for Christians.’ Here comes the epochal reversal of the missionary endeavour: the cradle of Christendom is now in a desperate need of re-evangelisation, and the missionaries are presently coming to the West from the regions that once were missionary fields. Pachuau will pick up this persuasive analysis in the last chapter of the book where he observes that the new post-colonial era in missions is ushered in by the multitude of indigenous Christians of Africa, Asia and Latin America engaging in ‘vigorous missionary activity’.
Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to the presentation of Christian movements in the Majority World. The approach taken in this book claims to be original in that it ‘describes some of the stories of emergent forms of Christian faith that are changing the demography of Christianity’, instead of offering a detailed overview of contemporary Christian movements. In Chapter 3, we investigate Latin America and Africa, while in Chapter 4, we travel to Asia and the Pacific Islands. The survey is impressive in both its breadth and depth. The situation on every continent is depicted within a historical context of regional missionary activity, a context that shapes its specific cultural and spiritual landscape. The key strength of Pachuau’s investigation lies in the fact that it is ecumenically sensible. The tensions between Christianity and other religions are also taken into account. Likewise, the author presents, in a rather objective and unbiased manner, the complex and fluctuating socio-political circumstances in which the particular Churches are growing or declining. Pachuau admits that the main focus of his survey is on Charismatic/Pentecostal renewals that he considers to be instrumental in the exponential growth of Christian religion across the Majority World.
Chapters 5 reveals the heart of the book, namely, the contextual theology. According to the author, the phenomenon of Christianity is par excellence contextual as it is the work of contextualising that drives both the hermeneutics of the Scriptures and the history of Christian missionary expansion, not least its current growth in the Majority World. ‘The history of Christianity’s expansion shows that authentic Christian faith maintains its life throughout its history by being adopted, indigenized, and contextualized.’
The author believes that a contextualised theological exploration of Christian faith carries multiple heuristic values, as it can help us understand ‘how people make the Christian faith their own’, discovering that ‘Christian teaching bears within itself a way for all to possess the faith as distinctly their own (indigenous) and as a shared reality with others’.
The presentation of contextual theologies is dominated by liberation theology, which is a glaring flaw of this survey. One could expect more examples of contemporary contextual theologies, and the mention of ecumenical theology comes across as superficial when compared to the lengthy exposition of liberation theology. Noteworthy is Pachuau’s attempt to establish, in the dialogue with Stephen Bevans, Roger Schroeder and Andrew Walls, a set of ‘theological constants that do not change even when they are received in different contexts’, followed by a review of different contextualisation models.
Chapter 6 starts with the indication of three ‘contextual realities’ of people in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands: (1) the natural religiosity of the people; (2) prevalent poverty and inequality; and (3) tensional existence, characterised by the tension between tradition and change. According to Pachuau, these three ‘macro-contextual issues’ are shaping the ‘macro-contextual theologies’ across the Majority World.
In this chapter, the author also touches upon many challenges generated by contextual theologies, for instance, the emergence of a relativistic version of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue that ‘challenged the Christian claim that Jesus is the only Savior’.
At the end of Chapter 6, Pachuau discusses charismatic Christianity in more detail. He rightly observes that ‘At the heart of new Christianity in the majority world is a belief in the spirit of God who is active and powerful amid other spiritual forces.’ He is wrong, however, when he adds that that ‘here lies the fault line between this new charismatic Christianity and the old Western Christianity’. His opinion seems to be highly arbitrary, as for many Christians in the West today, just like ‘for most Christians in the majority world, to believe in the salvation of Jesus Christ is to experience him in life – including his healing – and to follow his teaching and guidance in the power of the Holy Spirit’. Even if, arguably, there is a fault line between Christianity in the Majority World and the Christianity of the West, surely it does not run where Pachuau locates it. Charismatic Christianity belongs to world Christianity, heralded in the title, which can be called ‘world’ inasmuch as it includes the West. In his ambition to delineate the new Christianity of the Majority World over against the older Western ‘incarnation’ of this religion, Pachuau seems to have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by applying the very principle of exclusion that he is critiquing in this book. The unwarranted reduction of the rich phenomenon of Western Christianity to ‘the Enlightenment-driven Christianity that functions almost exclusively by filtering reality through human rational faculties (often with a strong distaste for human emotions and experiential religion)’ exposes Pachuau’s biased metanarrative, which constitutes the main flaw of his otherwise compelling study.
In the last chapter, Pachuau rightly underscores the importance of introducing the concept of missio Dei, where ‘the participation in, or being drawn into, the divine communion of the Triune God’ leads to active participation in Christian mission aimed at bringing all the people into this divine communion. The central part of this final chapter is devoted to the presentation of some chosen missionary movements in the continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America, in order to ‘highlight the missional sensibility of these new indigenous Christians of the majority world’.
As declared in the book’s subtitle, Pachuau’s study is both historical and theological. On the whole, despite a few abovementioned shortcomings, World Christianity offers an original contribution to the quest for a revamped strategy for theological engagement that would do justice to the rapidly changing nature of contemporary Christianity, in both conceptual and practical/missionary dimensions.
