Polycentric Theology,Mission,and Mission Leadership

Theology: One or Many?

In one sense, to speak of polycentric theology is to make a statement of the obvious. Theology has always been done in more than one centre. Therefore, it is necessarily polycentric. Moreover, it has long been acknowledged that the location of theology in numerous centres might introduce an element of variety to the discipline. The possibility of certain theological emphases being identified with particular centres was seen, for example, in patristic times when one could distinguish between the theology of Antioch and that of Alexandria, or in Reformation times when one could distinguish between the theology of Geneva and that of Basel. However, while these theological differences could lead to acute controversy at times, the participants were united in their understanding that there should be one theology exercising a normative role. Theological struggle and debate were around the details of what this one normative theology should be and how it should be expressed.

When the Western missionary movement got underway in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at first it gave little attention to theology. It had a high degree of confidence in the gospel which it believed it was called to proclaim and, implicitly, in the theology that had unfolded the meaning of that gospel in its own history and context. The language used to title Commission I of the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference was revealing: “Carrying the Gospel to all the Non-Christian World.” ¹ The missionary movement was confident that the “Gospel” was a known quantity. The challenge with which it was preoccupied was simply how to “carry” it to places where it was assumed to be absent. It was an activist movement and the many demands of establishing missions in totally new situations left little room for theological reflection, or at least not in the sense of the formal construction of theology. When the work of the missions resulted in churches and when those churches required trained pastors and leaders, it was widely assumed that they would require a theological formation. Institutions were established to fulfil this purpose. When it came to programme and curriculum, the prevailing assumption was that the normative theology of the European or American homeland would serve the purpose of equipping the future leaders of the emerging church in the Global South. Usually, the Western missionaries would begin to teach the theology they knew from their own formation, with all its denominational distinctives. They expected that theology was one, not many, and that the one theology that had been formed in their Western homeland would prove satisfactory in the new situation with which they were now engaged in their role as missionaries.

Many of the first theological students in the “mission fields” were at first content to accept this prevailing assumption. Often their acceptance of Christianity was wrapped up in a process of coming to terms with Western cultural assumptions and adapting themselves to a new way of life heavily influenced by the Western world. Therefore, it seemed natural enough that theological education should be largely a matter of coming to terms with the way in which theology was done in the West and, in particular, in the tradition from which their missionaries came. Only gradually did it become apparent that there was a flaw in this mode of operation. Much of the theology they were learning seemed to have little relevance to the situation of the students and, vice versa, much of their situation seemed to be left unaddressed by the theology.

Perceptive missionaries were aware of this. Timothy Tennent noted that, “I cannot escape the fact that as a teacher in India, I often find Western systematic theologies unhelpful when seeking to provide even a broad foundation in addressing a whole range of theological and ethical issues that my students regularly raise in class. The systematic textbooks I had used in my own training seemed so tidy and organized and comprehensive, but when carried overseas they stared back at me with glaring weaknesses, shocking silences and embarrassing gaps.” ² In Uganda, John Taylor observed that, “Christ has been presented as the answer to the questions a white man would ask, the solution to the needs that Western man would feel, the Saviour of the world of the European worldview, the object of adoration and prayer of historic Christendom. . . But if Christ were to appear as the answer to the questions that Africans are asking, what would he look like? If he came into the world of African cosmology to redeem Man as Africans understand him, would he be recognizable to the rest of the Church Universal? And if Africa offered him the praises and petitions of her total, uninhibited humanity, would they be acceptable?” ³ This raised the question of whether there could be a polycentric theology, not only in the sense of theology being done in a variety of places, but in the sense of theology having different concerns and content as it found expression in different places.

This question gathered force as the twentieth century advanced, particularly through the process of decolonisation at a political level and the churches’ discovery of their own selfhood at an ecclesial level. Churches that were fulfilling the missionary ideal of becoming self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating, found that they faced a fourth question: could they become self-theologising? ⁴ In asking this question they were part of a broader cultural and intellectual movement, captured by Salman Rushdie in the memorable phrase, “the empire writes back.” ⁵ Having been “told” by the imperial power how to understand things, the subjects of the empire eventually found the courage and resourcefulness to “write back.” Not only did they advance their own understanding of their situation, but they questioned the one that had been imposed upon them by the dominant centre. They were engaged in what Ngugi wa Thiong’o described as the “decolonization of the mind.” ⁶ As Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin explain:

Paradoxically . . . imperial expansion has had a radically destabilizing effect on its own preoccupations and power. In pushing the colonial world to the margins of experience the ‘centre’ pushed consciousness beyond the point at which monocentrism in all spheres of thought could be accepted without question. In other words the alienating process which initially served to relegate the post-colonial world to the ‘margin’ turned upon itself and acted to push that world through a kind of mental barrier into a position from which all experience could be viewed as uncentred, pluralistic and multifarious.” ⁷

They summarise the outcome: “The complexities occluded by unitary assumptions of monism and universality are unravelled by the constant pull of marginality and plurality. . ..” ⁸ A similar dynamic was at play at the level of faith and church – the birthpangs of polycentric theology.

Its beginnings are often attributed to the work of Shoki Coe of Taiwan, though the reason that his talk of “contextual theology” struck a chord is that he was giving expression to something that was already a polycentric reality. Coe developed his thinking during the sixteen years when he served as Principal of Tainan Theological Seminary in Taiwan from 1949 to 1965. Thereafter he was able to reach a wider audience through his work with the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. He was deeply conscious of living through tumultuous times and deeply concerned that Christian theology should be meaningfully engaged with the experiences through which the human community was passing. Such an orientation he described as “contextualization” of theology. As Ray Wheeler explains: “Coe described contextualization as a continual interplay between the transcendent text of Scripture and the ever changing context in which it must be interpreted. He recognised that effective incarnational ministry depends on a continual willingness to face Scripture’s summons to transformation in the midst of changing social, political and economic circumstances.” ⁹ Coe pointed towards a new methodology for theology, one that would draw not only on the church’s internal discussion of scripture and tradition but would be informed and shaped by what was happening in the wider society and the wider world.

He was not alone in realising that theology had to absorb and address the social, cultural and political realities of the particular situation with which it was engaged. While Coe was doing his work in Taiwan, in 1956 a group of African and Haitian Catholic priests published their seminal work Des prêtres noirs s'interrogent (Black priests question themselves) in which they called for a theology that was oriented to the realities of Africa. ¹⁰ Before long came the first stirrings of Liberation Theology in Latin America. It insisted that theology must begin with the context in which the theologian was located and proposed that authentic theology was a matter of “praxis” – knowledge being generated by a cycle of action and reflection inspired by the slogan SEE JUDGE ACT. ¹¹ A similar groundswell could be detected in a variety of contexts around the Global South as churches came of age.

Just as post-colonial literature questioned the monistic and universalistic claims of imperial centres, so contextual theology questioned the claim of the “centre” to have one theology that would be valid everywhere. As theologians in the Global South increasingly exposed the inadequacy of Western theology to address their particular contexts, not only did they turn to their own way of doing theology but they implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, questioned the claims to universality of the theology of the West. As Stephen Bevans tersely stated, “There is no such thing as ‘theology’; there is only contextual theology. . .” ¹² From this perspective the new theologies that were soon emerging across Asia, Africa and Latin America were not just exotic appendages to a normative theology that was already settled. They challenged the claims of Western theology to have that normative role, cutting it down to size as just one contextual theology among others.

The Western academy has not been particularly receptive to this message. While the demographics of Christianity have dramatically changed, with the faith experiencing a recession in the Global North at the same time as rapid growth in the Global South, ¹³ the Western world nonetheless retains a deeply entrenched sense of superiority from which the theological academy is not immune. Besides the strength of centuries-old tradition it has institutional and financial strength that enables it, to a great extent, to continue in a world of its own. Theological developments of the Global South remain at the periphery of its concerns as theologians of the North Atlantic conduct a conversation among themselves. As Timothy Tennent has observed, “. . . it is becoming increasingly clear that theological scholarship in the West has largely lost its missiological moorings and often operates in isolation from the burgeoning realities of the global church.” ¹⁴

Tennent recalls John Mbiti’s concern, raised as early as the 1970s, that even though “the centers of the Church’s universality are no longer in Geneva, Rome, Athens, Paris, London, or New York” but are now in “Kinshasa, Buenos Aires, Addis Ababa, and Manila” there has not been a corresponding shift towards “mutuality and reciprocity in the theological task facing the universal church.” ¹⁵ Time and again, Andrew Walls has advocated the need for Christian theology to completely reorient itself so as to adjust to the changing contours of world Christianity, arguing that, “theological scholarship needs a renaissance of mission studies.” ¹⁶ However, his voice has been little heeded. Though widely hailed throughout the Global South as a seminal thinker, Walls has been a “prophet without honour” in his own country as little attention has been given to his work in the mainstream theological academy of the West. It is revealing that a Christianity Today article on Walls suggested that he, “. . . may be the most important person you don’t know.” ¹⁷

The prevailing situation in the Western academy, on the analysis of Mika Vähäkangas, is that, “. . . there is theology in general, and additionally, there are specific theologies like feminist, Black, African, Asian, Mujerista, Minjung, etc. The implication, mostly not openly pronounced, is that theology without epithets is real or somewhat universal, whereas theologies with labels are second-rate endeavours that may be of interest to ‘real’ academic theology by providing it with material to develop further.” ¹⁸ It remains for history and demography to unravel this stubborn sense of its own superiority and universality that inhibits the Western theological academy from acknowledging its own contextuality and discovering its capacity to learn from theological endeavour in other contexts. A promising step was recently taken by Tim Hartman in a book that considers and compares Karl Barth and Kwame Bediako as contextual theologians. ¹⁹ But such work continues to feature as an outlier; there is much more to be done.

Meanwhile, in the Global South the conviction has spread and deepened that theology has to be done contextually. Crucial to this has been the question of language. So long as theology was constructed and expressed in an international language such as English, it privileged the centres of power from which such language originated. However, at the core of the missionary enterprise was a movement in the opposite direction as Christian faith came to be expressed in vernacular languages. Inasmuch as language is a codification of culture it meant that the faith was being expressed in terms of the worldview and way of life of the people who were receiving it. As Western missionaries and their local collaborators struggled to translate the Bible and prepare liturgies and catechisms in vernacular languages, they were laying the foundations for contextual theology. They had to learn, as Andrew Walls explained, “to live on terms set by someone else” ²⁰ Here already the seeds were being sown for polycentric theology. In each different context there was a vernacular language that offered a distinctive framework within which to build theology. Even if the theology was constructed in an international language it was informed by the vernacular language in which the life and worship of the people were expressed. ²¹ Just as creative writers in the post-colonial context used language in ways that challenged the dominance of the centre, so theologians of the Global South challenged the assumption that there was only one normative theology that they were obliged to accept.

It was the Gambian scholar Lamin Sanneh who demonstrated the decisive importance of translation for Christian theology: “I see translation as a fundamental concession to the vernacular, and an inevitable weakening of the forces of uniformity and centralisation. . . When one translates, it is like pulling the trigger of a loaded gun: the translator cannot recall the hurtling bullet.” ²² When mission proceeds as a matter of translation, it makes “the recipient culture the true and final locus of the proclamation.” ²³ It turns out that polycentric theology was built into the missionary enterprise from its first faltering attempts to translate the biblical message into the local language. As Sanneh explained, “Contrary to much of the prevailing wisdom in this field of study, mission implies not so much a judgement on the cultural heritage of the convert . . . as on that of the missionary.” ²⁴ Kwame Bediako of Ghana was another theologian who was alert to the transformative effects of translation. “In the African Christianity of the post-missionary era,” he wrote, “the extent to which a church can be said to possess a viable heritage of Christian tradition in its indigenous languages is the extent of that church’s ability to offer an adequate interpretation of reality and a satisfying intellectual framework for African life.” ²⁵ The significance of churches thinking through the meaning of the faith in their own languages and their own contexts, extends far beyond Africa. As Bediako explained: “What the plurality of centres of Christianity’s universality provides is not a linear unidirectional pattern of Christian history, but a pattern of overlapping circles of Christian life in context, with no absolute centres or peripheries. Every centre is a potential periphery and vice versa.” ²⁶ The result of the worldwide missionary movement and the emergence of vital Christian communities across the myriad diversity of the Global South is that the theology of the future will necessarily be contextual and polycentric. Whether we like it or not, this is the terrain in which theology will have to be done and the discipline must be prepared for the fresh challenges this will present.

One challenging question, yet to be fully answered, is whether there can be any unity or coherence to Christian theology as a whole when it becomes polycentric? If each expression of theology is addressed to its context and carries validity and relevance specifically in relation to that context, does any possibility remain for theological affirmation with universal scope? Angie Pears puts the question in these terms: “. . .what is the relationship between the many different theologies that exist? Does there in fact need to be a relationship between them in terms of Christian identity? In the face of the great pluralism that is Christian theologies is there a Christian ‘orthodoxy’ or a Christian ‘core’ that can be identified within these different theologies, regardless of context?” ²⁷ Can there by any normative theology that defines Christianity across the world or is the religion fragmenting to the extent that it can only be described in the plural as “Christianities?” The sharpness of this question is evident today in world Christian communions where, as a result of divergent contextual theologies of sexuality, some sectors have concluded that they can no longer belong together in the same ecclesial home. If such trends continue, will Christianity fragment into multiple, incompatible parts or is there a way to sustain the unity of the faith as it comes to expression in many very different contexts?

One important attempt to answer this question was offered by Stephen Bevans, doyen of contextual theologians, and Roger Schroeder in their 2004 book Constants in Context: Theology of Mission for Today. ²⁸ As their title suggests, they aim to demonstrate that contextual theology includes that which is constant, even as it is shaped by the particular historical realities with which it is engaged. Their premise is that, “Christian mission is both anchored in fidelity to the past and challenged to fidelity in the present. It must preserve, defend and proclaim the constants of the church’s traditions; at the same time it must respond creatively and boldly to the contexts in which it finds itself.” ²⁹ After an extensive survey of the history of the worldwide Christian movement they observe that it, “. . . is nothing if not the history of Christians struggling to be faithful to God’s Spirit as that Spirit is made manifest in new and surprising ways in new and surprising contexts.” ³⁰ Yet, they conclude that, “. . . the center of preaching, serving and witnessing to God’s reign has remained Jesus Christ.” ³¹ As theology becomes ever more polycentric, it will continue to challenge such confidence in the unity, coherence and normativity of Christian witness. The results remain to be seen. Meanwhile the theory and practice of mission is being no less radically reshaped by a polycentric vision.

Mission from the Margins

The dawning awareness that theology was becoming polycentric was accompanied by a realisation that mission too would need to become polycentric. Edinburgh 1910’s successor body, organised as the World Council of Churches Division for World Mission and Evangelism, after the integration of the WCC and the International Missionary Council in 1961, held its first meeting in its new guise in Mexico City in 1963. Half a century after Edinburgh it was clear that the time had now passed in which one could think of the “home base” and the “mission field” in distinct geographical terms. Indeed, the focus at Mexico City on the challenges posed by secularism revealed how far the West itself had become a mission field. The conference watchword was “mission on six continents.” ³² No longer would mission be understood in terms of “sending” and “receiving” countries. Now it would be a matter of mission “from everywhere to everywhere.” Samuel Escobar further subverted the geographical understanding when he gave a new twist to the catchphrase, talking of “mission from everywhere to everyone.” ³³ This had far-reaching implications, as Lalsangkima Pachuau observes: “By eliminating the old religio-geographical boundaries as the norm to define frontiers, the conference also implicitly affirmed cultural plurality and diversity. Since ‘mission in and to six continents’ involves mutuality between Christians of all continents, unity in mission – the enduring theme of ecumenical missiology – came to be understood in a new light, namely, unity in diversity.” ³⁴ No longer would mission be a matter of movement from centre to periphery, from “Christian” to “non-Christian” worlds geographically understood. It was now expected to become polycentric, with centres in many different contexts and movement in many different directions.

The business of rethinking the “centre” of mission, however, was not finished. The twenty-first century brought a more radical challenge. What if God’s way of working in mission is not from powerful centres at all? What if God works instead from the margins? This question was a major preoccupation of the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism as it prepared the comprehensive statement of the meaning of mission which was published in 2013 as Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. ³⁵ This seminal text called for a radical rethink of the relations between centre and margins in the outworking of the mission of God:

The dominant expressions of mission, in the past and today, have often been directed at people on the margins of societies. These have generally viewed those on the margins as recipients and not active agents of missionary activity. Mission expressed in this way has too often been complicit with oppressive and life-denying systems. It has generally aligned with the privileges of the centre and largely failed to challenge economic, social, cultural and political systems which have marginalized some peoples. Mission from the centre is motivated by an attitude of paternalism and a superiority complex. Historically, this stance has equated Christianity with Western culture and resulted in adverse consequences, including the denial of the full personhood of the victims of such marginalization. ³⁶

Exposure of the failings of powerful centres brought with it a realisation that mission might be a movement not from what is commonly perceived to be the centre but rather from the “margins.” As Together towards Life expressed it: “People on the margins have agency, and can often see what, from the centre, is out of view. People on the margins, living in vulnerable positions, often know what exclusionary forces are threatening their survival and can best discern the urgency of their struggles; people in positions of privilege have much to learn from the daily struggles of people living in marginal conditions.” ³⁷ This is something of a Copernican revolution in understanding how mission takes effect. In a recent WCC study paper, David Scott and Jerome Sahabandhu spell out its implications: “The church has for generations spoken of mission to the margins and mission with the margins and even mission at the margins. Now the church is speaking, though very uncomfortably at times, about mission from the margins. That means marginalised communities have a mission to the church and the world. That mission is now challenging the centers of power and empire, wealth and prosperity, social status and class, militarism and defence, politics and cultural imperialism.” ³⁸

The enthusiastic response to the publication of Together towards Life clearly revealed that the idea of “mission from the margins” had caught the imagination of many people in different contexts around the world. Though hard to define precisely, the new concept proved to have wide resonance. It was no surprise when it found a place in the “Arusha Call” – the statement of the World Council of Churches World Mission Conference held at Arusha, Tanzania, in 2018. The fourth section of the 12-part Call states: “We are called to joyfully engage in the ways of the Holy Spirit, who empowers people from the margins with agency, in the search for justice and dignity.” ³⁹ The Conference Report further elaborated the thinking that underpinned this part of the Call: “In an unjust and exclusionary world, the gospel of Christ continues to rise from the margins and challenge the mighty to lay down their power and make way for the coming of justice. The gospel of Christ breaks out from communities that are despised but that turn out to be the most important of all. To that extent, ‘Mission from the margins’ is not a mere option but an essential way of collaborating with God in today’s world.” ⁴⁰

This is not an entirely new thought in the history of mission. One of the sharpest critiques of the Western missionary movement was published by Anglican missionary Roland Allen more than 100 years ago. In Missionary Methods St Paul’s or Ours? Allen contrasted the Pauline mission which was powerless in worldly terms and therefore dependent on the Holy Spirit with what he saw as the alliance of the modern missionary movement with the power of the Western world. ⁴¹ Were Allen alive today he might be surprised to see that the identification of Christianity with the powerful is increasingly a thing of the past. More and more the agents of Christian mission come from among the weak, the broken and the vulnerable. It is a new kind of agency but is it not one that has greater affinity to Paul—and to Jesus—than the form of missionary presence which often appeared to be allied to imperial power and economic exploitation? Increasingly, we see a situation emerging that is quite opposite to the one which troubled Roland Allen.

Swept by unmerciful currents of history, Christian believers bear witness to the suffering Lord in whom they find the strength to meet adversity. A new (or recovered) pattern of missionary activity is emerging in which the poor take the gospel to the rich. Africa is the world’s poorest continent and unsurprisingly the one from which the greatest number of migrants originate. It is also the continent with the most vibrant expansion of Christian faith. Hence many migrants come from the new heartlands of Christianity and bring the flame of faith to the old centres in the north where the fire is burning low. As Tokunboh Adeyemo of Kenya, general secretary of the Association of Evangelicals in Africa, has remarked, Africa has made the transition “from mission field to missionary force.” ⁴²

It was the voice of a young woman from the Pacific that brought this new perspective on the agency of mission to the attention of the Arusha Conference in an arresting way when Adi Mariana Waqa addressed a plenary session on mission from the margins. She declared: “I am Adi Mariana Waqa, I am poor, I am bound, I am unfavoured, I am oppressed! But I am a precious child made in the Image of God. I have agency, I am worthy, I have a voice, and I am free! I am free because I live and walk in the Spirit! I am free and I joyfully bear God’s Good News and hope as Christ’s disciple from the margins transforming the world. Thanks be to God!” ⁴³ Mission from the margins means people like Adi Mariana drawing confidence from their faith and discipleship to become agents of transformation in the world, subverting the assumption that it is the powerful and the well-resourced who are best placed to have the initiative.

There is no doubt that the idea of mission from the margins has fired the imagination of people in many different contexts around the world who hear the call of God to mission yet feel very uncertain about what form it can take in a postcolonial and postmodern world. At the same time, it also poses questions that run parallel to the questions posed by the contextual, polycentric nature of theology as regards unity, coherence, universality and normativity. The concept of the margins is fluid and polyvalent, allowing for many different modalities and forms of expression. This is undoubtedly a major part of its attraction. Yet if this is the direction of mission, will there remain a coherent definition of the concept that has universal validity? Or is there a risk that any kind of core meaning is so much dissolved by the many different expressions of mission, that it ceases to be a field where it is possible to have a common discourse? Will there be enough common understanding of the missionary task and calling to allow for solidarity at a global level and for the creation of collaborative platforms and shared initiatives? The need to address such questions calls for leadership. But what kind of leadership?

Leadership in a World of Polycentric Mission

Entering a world that is polycentric, both theologically and missiologically, carries a sense of stepping into uncharted territory. Cultural analysts have identified a significant shift that took place towards the end of the twentieth century. Thomas Friedman, for example, comments, “When the world starts to move from a primarily vertical (command and control) value-creation model to an increasingly horizontal (connect and collaborate) creation model, it doesn’t just affect how business gets done. If affects everything—how communities and companies define themselves, where companies and communities stop and start, how individuals balance their different identities as consumers, employees, shareholders and citizens, and what role government has to play.” ⁴⁴ In this new context a decentralised way of working has quickly gained ground in commerce and culture.

In the imagery of Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, this is a change from the spider to the starfish. A spider is organised from the centre—there is a brain that tells the legs what to do. Not so with a starfish. It is a network of cells each with its own autonomy and it functions in a completely decentralised way. ⁴⁵ This is the direction being taken by business. Where once a corporation with a strong headquarters would put goods on the market, now E-bay allows buyers and sellers to interact in a totally decentralised way. Where once music was produced by a few large companies and put on the market for sale, now music can be exchanged on the internet through completely decentralised networks. Likewise, the organisational pattern of mission also starts to look quite different from that which prevailed in the Western missionary movement. There is no head office, no organising committee, no command structure, no centralised fund, no comprehensive strategic direction. It appears to be a disorganised movement of individuals making their own connections, developing their own perspectives and functioning within networks that they themselves have constructed. It is more a matter of starfish than spider.

The concept of mission from the margins offers a theology of this new pattern of mission activity. It is one which is profound and creative and but also destabilising and disturbing, generating excitement and bewilderment in almost equal measure. ⁴⁶ It opens up many new possibilities while at the same time posing many questions about how best to position ourselves to participate in this polycentric, or poly-marginal, movement of mission. A particularly searching question concerns the kind of leadership that will be required. Of course, mission leadership has always been challenging and those entrusted with such responsibility have always been aware of their inadequacies and their need to trust in God. Most of the time, the demands and opportunities of the work far exceeded the available resources and those giving leadership were always highly stretched. Nonetheless, in the traditional missionary model of a powerful centre reaching out to a needy periphery, the methods for mobilising resources and organising activity were fairly self-evident to those formed in a post-Enlightenment Western frame of thought. Now a model of mission is emerging that casts doubt on the validity and utility of this Western model of mission when it comes to the challenges and opportunities of today’s global context. As Stephen Bevans reflected on the Arusha Conference, he suggested that: “Discipleship today for those accustomed to privilege and power needs to be about letting go, recognizing that the real power for God’s mission is at the margins of society and the margins of the church.” ⁴⁷

In fact, mission leadership needs to start with the humble recognition that the mission in which one hopes to engage is the mission of God (missio Dei). This understanding has gained such wide currency since it emerged in the 1950s that it has almost become a truism. Yet the “mission from the margins” concept gives it a sharp and radical edge. As Scott and Sahabandhu state in their study paper, “If we believe mission is God’s mission (Missio Dei) and that this mission is ongoing, then we all are called to join in that mission and become active participants. It is God’s very self who has a mission from the margins. Here God is the author and perfecter of that mission, empowering all – both the powerful and the forgotten – for that mission. God is actively involved in the margins and from there is moving to the center and to everywhere for the sake of transforming the world and creating a new heaven and a new earth.” ⁴⁸ A first prerequisite for leadership on this understanding of mission is sensitivity to the initiative and action of God. A leader will stand or fall depending on how far they are able to identify and participate in the action of God in the life of the world.

This puts a premium on spiritual qualities. Understanding mission in terms of the action of the Holy Spirit has perhaps been the outstanding hallmark of early 21st century missiology. This became evident in the 37-volume Regnum Edinburgh 2010 Series, which might be regarded as the most comprehensive attempt to take account of global missiological thinking during this period. When I was asked to assess its contribution, I suggested that, “If there is a unifying theological momentum to a series that ranges far and wide it would be in the pneumatological turn of Missio Dei thinking. The last half century saw Missio Dei, the mission of God, become established as the key to understanding Christian mission. The distinctive deepening of this understanding brought to expression in the Edinburgh 2010 literature is to see the action of the Holy Spirit as the way the mission of God takes effect.” ⁴⁹ This orientation to the work of the Holy Spirit casts our whole understanding of mission in a new framework. As Wonsuk Ma and I concluded, in the volume on mission spirituality and authentic discipleship that we edited for the series, “Far from spirituality being an afterthought in missiology, to be considered only after the hard-core strategic and institutional issues have been settled, it emerges today as the beating heart of mission.” ⁵⁰ This emphasis was strongly reflected in Together Towards Life, the first major mission affirmation to be couched primarily in pneumatological terms. “Life in the Holy Spirit,” it declares, “is the essence of mission, the core of why we do what we do and how we live our lives. Spirituality gives the deepest meaning to our lives and motivates our actions.” ⁵¹ This points the direction and sets the tone for the kind of leadership that mission requires today.

On a polycentric understanding of theology and mission, discernment becomes a crucial issue. When the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism surveyed the “changing landscapes” of our time, the first question it asked was: “How and where do we discern God’s life-giving work that enables us to participate in God’s mission today?” ⁵² Recognising that discernment of spirits is one of the gifts of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12:10), it affirmed that the “churches are called to discern the work of the life-giving Spirit sent into the world and to join with the Holy Spirit in bringing about God’s reign of justice (Acts 1:6-8). When we have discerned the Spirit’s presence, we are called to respond, recognising that the Spirit is often subversive, leading us beyond boundaries and surprising us.” ⁵³ This response is what defines leadership in mission in a polycentric context. “The global body of Christ,” write Scott and Sahabandhu, “is called to be in the posture of discerning the movement of God among the margins and making a creative, transformative response. Affirmation of the marginalized and the ways in which they carry out the Missio Dei is at the heart of this response.” ⁵⁴ Perhaps the most crucial quality for effective leadership is the ability to exercise such spiritual discernment. Leadership must take the form of discernment.

It is also through this exercise of discernment that we may find answers to the tough question posed by polycentric theology and polycentric mission, that is, whether it is possible to discover any unity, coherence and normativity in our understanding of faith and mission across the world church. The answer to the question is found not in any neat formula but rather in being alert to God’s promise of life, to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and to the transformative action of God that often springs from the most surprising quarters. To put this in a nutshell, it is a matter of discipleship. In the opening words of the Arusha Call, it is a matter of a “Christ-connected way of life.” Here is where the exercise of leadership must begin. As Knud Jørgensen observed: “The person, who has not learned to be a disciple, cannot be a leader.” ⁵⁵

The Arusha Conference advanced a clear idea of the qualities required of leaders: “This vision of discipleship is geared to the formation of leaders who are equipped not only intellectually, but particularly at the level of spiritual discernment and personal transformation. It fosters a radical openness to the Spirit of God that finds expression in leadership marked by mutuality, reciprocity, humility and interdependence. It provokes a radical openness to others that is life-affirming and profound in its integrity.” ⁵⁶ Relational attitudes, arising from a spirituality of discipleship, lie at the heart of the making of a leader. The Arusha Conference found that: “Transforming discipleship in the spirit of Mission from the Margins creates for us a possibility to reset the ways in which we exercise power, share leadership and organize our partnerships in mission. As leaders, it is important for us to grasp that we must disciple in the context of relationship.” This takes us back to the roots of the Christian faith in the life and practice of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.

In the perspective of Christian faith, leadership is not something that we seek to invent by ourselves. Rather it is a matter of discipleship – of learning from a master, of following Jesus.

So far as disciples are concerned, Jesus’ life of service sets the pattern when it comes to leadership. Their destiny and calling is, in the words of the apostle Paul, to be “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). The way that Jesus led his life sets the tone. The leadership that he offered provides the prototype for his disciples. As the question of leadership becomes a crucial one today there is need to revisit the way that Jesus lived his life, the choices he made, the people with whom he associated, the words he spoke, the actions he took and the kind of leadership that he offered. The Lausanne Movement’s Cape Town Commitment concludes with the affirmation that: “Biblical mission demands that those who claim Christ’s name should be like him, by taking up their cross, denying themselves, and following him in the paths of humility, love, integrity, generosity, and servanthood. To fail in discipleship and disciple-making, is to fail at the most basic level of our mission.” ⁵⁷ To be a disciple is, first and foremost, a personal matter. It is about an inward encounter with Christ, the formation of Christ-like character and the embarking on a way of life that corresponds with the path that Jesus followed. Leaders whose project is to acquire power and wealth for themselves have taken the wrong direction. The Arusha Conference found that, “Humility and sacrifice are urgently needed to liberate the gospel from captivity to projects of self-aggrandizement.” ⁵⁸

It is this quality of humility and radical openness to others that will shape the leaders who are needed in a world of polycentric theology and polycentric mission. Far from contextual theology being a way of indulging ourselves and isolating ourselves from others, when properly handled it opens up new levels of listening to and learning from others. As Stephen Bevans has written, “Besides specific, focused contextual theologies, we need a theology that is done out of the dialogue among contextual theologies: a theology in global perspective. The reason for this is that besides our own particular contexts, there is another context for doing theology in the church of the twenty-first century, and that is the global context.” ⁵⁹ Deep and definitive as each particular context is, there remains the pull towards catholicity that is inherent in the faith. ⁶⁰ A polycentric Christianity is sure to include many differences and tensions. Nevertheless, the confession of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord creates a gravitational force that makes for unity across great diversity. It can, however, no longer be a unity and normativity that is imposed from a dominating centre. Rather it is a unity created by attentiveness to the many different margins from which the Spirit of God is at work in the world. It involves the kind of process that was envisaged by John Taylor when he wrote: “Every opening of one’s whole self towards another, every taking upon oneself the burden and the gift of another, contributes a little to that quiet tide which is flowing back and forth, carrying us with it into the very being of God, sweeping us back with God into the life of the world.” ⁶¹ A profound openness to others and, ultimately, the deep spiritual discernment that is sensitive to the presence and action of the Spirit of God in our world, is the essential equipment needed for leadership in mission today.