Taber, Charles R.

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LeavenVolume 7Issue 1 Missions and the Church Article 141-1-1999Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide toResources on World MissionsCharles R. TaberFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leavenPart of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought,Theology and Philosophy of Religion CommonsThis Resource Guide is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion inLeaven by an authorized administrator of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Kevin.Miller3@pepperdine.edu.Recommended CitationTaber, Charles R. (1999) "Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide to Resources on World Missions," Leaven: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 14.Available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/14Missions and the Church 35Make Disciples of AllA Guide to Resources on World MissionNote: Several books 1 will mentionare being reviewed as such in thisissue. 1 will therefore just mentionthem and mark the titles with anasterisk (*).Missiology is the rigorous andsystematic study of mission, which inturn (see editorial in this issue)designates all the efforts the churchand its members make to participatein the plan of God to restore theuniverse to his rule. The literature ofmissiology can be defined narrowly,as a self-conscious effort to studymission; or broadly, to include allkinds of writings that incidentally totheir main purposes impinge onmission. In this guide I will use thenarrower definition but alert thereader to the fact that there is a fairlyvast body of literature in theology,philosophy, history, the socialsciences, and biblical studies (and infiction, for that matter) that contrib-Charles R. Taberutes to missiological understandingin a tangential but not negligible way.This is especially true of that part ofmissiology which examines themission of the church to the Westernworld, which missiology narrowlydefined has until recently largelyneglected because of erroneousassumptions about "Christendom."Fortunately, this oversight isbeing increasingly addressed bygroups such as The Gospel and OurCulture Network on both sides of theAtlantic and by the recently con-cluded project A Missiology ofWestern Culture. But the literaturefrom these two sources remainssmall. In the meantime, manywriters, from Langdon Gilkey (Howthe Church Can Minister to theWorld Without Losing Itself, Harper& Row, 1964) to Stanley Hauerwasand William H. Willimon (ResidentAliens, Abingdon, 1989) and LesslieNewbigin (numerous titles, includingTruth to Tell, Eerdmans, 1991), haveprovided us with the makings of alively discussion on the subject. Anearly title from The Gospel and OurCulture Network is *The ChurchBetween Gospel and Culture: TheEmerging Mission in North America,edited by George R. Hunsberger andCraig Van Gelder (Eerdmans, 1996).A second title from this source,published too recently to be reviewedin this issue, isMissional Church: AVision for the Sending of the Churchin North America, edited by DarrellL. Guder (Eerdmans, 1998). Guderand co-authors Lois Barrett, InagraceT. Dietterich, George R. Hunsberger,Alan]. Roxburgh, and Craig VanGelder, with the help of several studygroups around the continent (includ-ing one at Emmanuel School ofReligion), have written a highlystimulating series of chapters:"Missional Church: From Sending toBeing Sent"; "Missional Context:1Taber: Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide to Resources on World MissPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 199936 Leaven, Winter, 1999Understanding North AmericanCulture"; "Missional Challenge:Understanding the Church in NorthAmerica"; "Missional Vocation:Called and Sent to Represent theReign of God"; "Missional Witness:The Church as Apostle to the World";"Missional Community: CultivatingCommunities of the Holy Spirit";"Missional Leadership: EquippingGod's People for Mission";"Missional Structures: The ParticularCommunity"; "Missional Connected-ness: The Community of Communi-ties in Mission." Though the lastchapter is the weakest, the book as awhole makes great progress beyondprior efforts.The attentive reader will noticethat I cite authors from many Chris-tian traditions, from the Anabaptist tothe Roman Catholic. That is becauseit is my observation that, especiallyin missiology, confessional andinterdenominational controversies areat a minimum and there is a maxi-mum of convergence on the ultimategoal: to make Jesus Christ knownand to extend the rule of God to allpeoples and to all the world. Thereare indeed vigorous differences ofopinion among missiologists, butsurprisingly few merely reflecthistoric battles between denomina-tions, and there is constant cross-fertilization between missiologists ofall stripes. In my personal experi-ence, bodies such as the AmericanSociety of Missiology and theInternational Association for MissionStudies are among the most trulyecumenical (in the best sense-Ialmost said the Campbellian sense!)organizations in the world.Two major works covermissiology most fundamentally:David J. Bosch's monumentalTransforming Mission (Orbis, 1991)and Donald Senior and CarrollStuhlmueller, The Biblical Founda-tions for Mission (Orbis, 1984).Biblical Foundations covers withadmirable breadth, depth, andbalance the foundations for missionin the Old Testament (part 1) and theNew Testament (part 2). Here areexcellent treatments of Jesus and theearly church, Paul, Mark, Matthew,Luke-Acts, John, and the rest. Part 3offers a synthesis.Bosch's masterpiece gives themost comprehensive treatmentavailable to the field of missiology. Itbegins with several chapters of solidbiblical investigation (though Mark,John, and the general Epistles are notcovered). In part 2, Bosch surveysthe history of missiological thought,making use of the concept of para-digms (borrowed from ThomasKuhn's The Structure of ScientificRevolutions via the work of HansKung). He describes successively themissionary paradigms of the Easternchurch, the medieval Roman CatholicChurch, the Protestant Reformation,and the period of the Enlightenment(which is, of course, the period of themodern Protestant missionarymovement). Finally, part 3 suggeststhat in the present time of confusionand questioning, at least thirteenparadigms are being proposed by oneor another Christian group.Closely connected with theBosch book is Classic Texts inMission and World Christianity,edited by Norman E. Thomas (Orbis,1995), which is in fact subtitled AReader's Companion to DavidBosch's Transforming Mission. Hereare found larger excerpts fromwritings quoted or mentioned byBosch, together with additionalrelevant texts of great significance.Two useful reference works areWorld Christian Encyclopedia, editedby David B. Barrett (Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1982), now dated but stillunparalleled, and Dictionary ofMission: Theology, History, Perspec-tives, edited by Stephen B. Bevansand Richard H. Bliese (Orbis, 1997).The first is heavily oriented towardthe geographic dimension ofmissional reality; the second, whichis a translation and revision of aslightly earlier work published inGerman under the editorship of KarlMuller and Theo Sundermeir, istopically organized, from "TheAbsoluteness of Christianity" to"Youth Mission." A few of thearticles, especially those unrevised inthe translation, are mediocre, butmany are invaluable.At this point I would like tomention one of the earliestmissiological efforts to come fromoutside the West: Upon the Earth(McGraw-Hill, 1962) by D. T. Niles,the outstanding Sri Lankan evangelistand ecumenical leader who coinedthis definition of evangelism: "It'sone beggar telling another beggarwhere he found bread." In his bookNiles explores a number ofmissiological themes with an excep-tional degree of insight, fire, andbalance.History of missions is at presentvery unevenly served. Global histo-ries are represented only by the sixvolumes of Kenneth ScottLatourette's classic, A History of theExpansion of Christianity (1933--44;reprint, Zondervan, 1970), and theonly one-volume work, A History ofChristian Missions by Stephen Neill(Pelican, 1964; rev. ed., 1986). Bothof these are badly dated and offerlittle by way of in-depth critique. Butthey remain valuable as accounts of"just the facts." A history of a verydifferent kind, done from a power-fully insightful perspective, isAndrew F. Walls, *The MissionaryMovement in Christian History(Orbis, 1996).Mission in Asia is excellentlydescribed in Samuel Moffett's AHistory of Christianity in Asia, ofwhich unfortunately only the first2Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 14http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/14volume has appeared(HarperSanFrancisco, 1992); thesecond is in preparation. Mission inLatin America is best covered,though with a marked bias towardliberation theology, inA History ofthe Church in Latin America byEnrique Dussel, translated andrevised by Alan Neely (Eerdmans,1981). As for Africa, the best book,for dates specified, is by AdrianHastings: The Church in Africa1450-1950 (Oxford University Press,1994). Books by Elizabeth Isichei (AHistory of Christianity in Africa,Eerdmans, 1995) and Mark Shaw(The Kingdom of God inAfrica,Baker, 1996) are useful but marredby numerous errors of detail. There isa good history of missions in thePacific islands by Charles Forman:The Island Churches of the SouthPacific (Orbis, 1982).Theology of mission is reason-ably well represented, in addition tothe magisterial Bosch book, by thenow dated work Mission Theology byRoger Bassham (William CareyLibrary, 1979). Bassham covers thehistory of mission theology inRoman Catholic, ecumenical, andevangelical circles, focusing on hisunderstanding of a growing conver-gence between these strands. The lateOrlando E. Costas, in several booksbut especially in Christ Outside theGate (Orbis, 1982), offers a profoundand stimulating perspective by aradically evangelical Puerto Rican.Kosuke Koyama, also a prolificauthor, offers his best work in MountFuji and Mount Sinai (Orbis, 1984).This work, subtitled A Critique ofIdols, examines the history ofKoyama's native Japan but along theway makes profound observationsabout what he observes in the West(he has taught in New Zealand andthe U.S., as well as in Thailand).Finally, The Transfiguration ofMission, edited by Wilbert R. Shenk(Herald, 1993), offers a thoughtfullook at mission through the pens of anumber of Mennonite scholars.Church growth theory had itsbirth in the work of the late DonaldA. McGavran in India. Out of hismany writings, two best represent histhinking: The Bridges of God(Friendship, 1955) and Understand-ing Church Growth (Eerdmans, 1970,1980, 1990 [this last revision editedby C. Peter WagnerD.McGavran andhis colleagues Alan Tippett, C. PeterWagner, Charles H. Kraft, and othershave been most prolific, but the twobooks mentioned contain the sub-stance of church growth thought: theprimacy of numerical increase as thegoal and criterion of mission, thecontroversial distinction between"discipling" and "perfecting," theconcept of people group/homoge-neous unit, the fierce pragmatism, theheavy reliance on a certain under-standing of the social sciences, therather superficial handling of Scrip-ture, and the scorning of theology. Itis interesting to observe that sinceMcGavran's death, the other originalpioneers, even Wagner, have movedon to other foci of interest, such as"signs and wonders." Meanwhile,church growth thought has beentaken up largely by denominationalleaders in the United States who arein a panic about declining member-ship. In their hands, this emphasishas led to "church marketing,"trenchantly critiqued by Philip D.Kenneson and James L. Street inSelling Out the Church (Abingdon,1997). A strong but discriminatingcritique of church growth theorywhen it was at its height is found inWilbert R. Shenk, ed., ExploringChurch Growth (Eerdmans, 1983).The literature regarding culture,cultural encounter, and inculturationis substantial. I will cite only a fewvolumes that I consider especiallysignificant. Jacob A. Loewen'sMissions and the Church 37Culture and Human Values (WilliamCarey Library, 1975) reprises the bestof his many articles originallypublished in the journal PracticalAnthropology. Readings in Mission-aryAnthropology, edited by WilliamA. Smalley (William Carey Library,1974), contains other excellentarticles from the same journal (whichexisted from 1953 to 1972). CharlesH. Kraft's Christianity in Culture(Orbis, ] 979) and *Anthropology forChristian Witness (Orbis, 1996) arequite exhaustive in covering thecultural waterfront. Louis].Luzbetak's The Church and Cultures(Orbis, 1988) is a magisterial workby a Roman Catholic with extensivemissionary experience and scholarlyexpertise. Luzbetak moves helpfullyin the ground where anthropology,theology, and missiology converge.An extraordinary field-based book isChristianity Rediscovered by VincentJ. Donovan (Orbis, ] 982). Donovan,a Holy Ghost missionary priest inTanzania, was led by his experienceamong the Maasai to reconsidermany of his preconceptions. My ownbook The World Is Too Much with Us(Mercer University Press, 1991) is anattempt to ar.alyze how missionariesof the modern Protestant missionarymovement (about the last twocenturies) understood and dealt withthe cultures they encountered.The specific questions ofinculturation/contextualization, whilecovered in the titles listed above, aredealt with most specifically in thefollowing works: Lamin Sanneh,Translating the Message (Orbis,1989); Aylward Shorter, Toward aTheology of Inculturation (Orbis,1988); Robert]. Schreiter, Construct-ing Local Theologies (Orbis, 1985);and Stephen B. Bevans, Models ofContextual Theology (Orbis, ] 992).From the voluminous corpus ofwritings that treat the relationship ofthe gospel with "the other religions,"3Taber: Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide to Resources on World MissPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 199938 Leaven, Winter, 1999I have chosen a representative few,ranging across the spectrum from theexclusive position to the mostradically inclusive. At the radical leftare the writings of Paul J. Knitter, ofwhich No Other Name? (Orbis,1985) is representative. Knitter takesthe stance that all religions are equalpurveyors of salvation for theirdevotees. Presenting a strong critiqueof this position, arguing that thedifferent religions are each seekingafter a different goal so that whatChristians call salvation is not evenrelevant to them, are two books:Joseph DiNoia, The Diversity ofReligions (Catholic University ofAmerica, 1992) and Mark S. Heim,Salvations (Orbis, 1995). Amongevangelicals, Clark Pinnock takes amodified exclusive position inAWideness in God's Mercy(Zondervan, 1992). Finally, a worldauthority on the religions, especiallyIslam, who takes a strong Christianand missiological stance is KennethCragg. Among his many writings Icite only The Christ and the Faiths(SPCK,1986).Two books merit special atten-tion because they deal so well withtopics generally ignored. First isDana L. Robert's *American Womenin Mission (Mercer University Press,1996); I will say only that this bookmakes earlier works by Pierce Beaverand Ruth Tucker more or less obso-lete. A forthcoming book by AngelynDries will correct the same oversightin Roman Catholic circles. Thesecond book I want to highlight isJonathan J. Bonk's Missions andMoney (Orbis, 1991), one of thoseworks that make one acutely uncom-fortable and offer no real "solution"to the problem they describe but arenevertheless indispensable. For,whether we affluent Americans like itor not, our money is indeed a majorproblem for our relations with third-world people and for the clearcommunication of the gospel, andthere is no magic solution: we canserve in the third world only by thegrace of God, since it seems to be asdifficult for a rich person to be amissionary to poor people as it is forthat same rich person to enter thekingdom of God.A topic often but mistakenlyoverlooked in missiology is spiritual-ity: the inner spiritual vitality andfocus that make missionary life andwork possible and efficacious. Herethe best book I know of is Anthony J.Gittins, Bread for the Journey (Orbis,1993). Gittins is a Roman Catholicpriest with anthropological andtheological training and rich mission-ary experience. He does an excellentjob of bringing together theological,cultural, missiological, and sacra-mental themes into a powerfulsynthesis.I now want to mention two seriesof books in missiology that merit thereader's attention. The first, pub-lished by Orbis for the AmericanSociety of Missiology, is the ASMSeries. Since 1975, twenty-five titleshave been published on diversethemes ranging from mission historyin Korea to "Missiological Educationfor the 21st Century." Among thebooks listed above, the ones byForman, Knitter, Luzbetak, Sanneh,Bonk, Bosch, Gittins, Thomas, andBevans and Bliese are in this series.Loosely tied in with the AMissiology of Western Cultureproject is a series of essays beingpublished by Trinity Press Interna-tional under the editorial supervisionof Alan Neeley, H. Wayne Pipkin,and Wilbert R. Shenk: ChristianMission and Modern Culture. In thisseries, titles have appeared from thefollowing authors: David J. Bosch,Wilbert R. Shenk, J. Andrew Kirk,Lesslie Newbigin, Douglas JohnHall, Lamin Sanneh, Judith Gundry-Volf and Miroslasv Volf, *Alan J.Roxburgh, Kenneth Cragg, and BertHoedemaker; books by Philip D.Kenneson and Charles R. Taber,among others, are forthcoming.There are three areas ofmissiology I have made no attempt tocover: missionary biography, becauseI am not knowledgeable about it;monographs regarding work in aspecific field, because the field is toovast; and "how-to" books, because itis my conviction that methods andtechniques are both highly specific tocontexts and of short duration.I want to close this all too brieflook at the missiologicalliterature bymentioning five journals in the field,noting the strengths of each one.Evangelical Missions Quarterly(EMIS, publishers). Much practicalmaterial for missionariesInternational Bulletin of Mis-sionary Research (Overseas Minis-tries Study Center). Substantivearticles in all branches of missiology,book reviews, listings of disserta-tions, annual statistical summary ofChristianity in the worldInternational Review of Mission(Conference on World Mission andEvangelism of the WCC). Articlesfrom around the world, book reviews,exhaustive bibliographic listingsMissiology (American Society ofMissiology). Articles, book reviews,selected bibliographies, recom-mended books for limited budgetsMissionalia (South AfricanMissiological Society). Articles,book reviews, extensive abstractingof global missiological periodicalsMission Studies (InternationalAssociation for Mission Studies).Articles from all over the world,reports of ongoing researchCHARLESR. TABERis professoremeritus of world mission andevangelism at Emmanuel School ofReligion in Johnson City, Tennessee.4Leaven, Vol. 7 [1999], Iss. 1, Art. 14http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol7/iss1/14

Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide to Resources on World Missions

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Make Disciples of All Nations: A Guide to Resources on World Missions

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