This volume deals with the contexts of violence. In an age of increasing concern for this type of missionary work, the missions community needs to hear from those that have reflected on the multifaceted elements involved in understanding the phenomenon of martyrdom-persecution violence as it relates to telling the age-old Gospel story. The place to begin is with Biblical and theological analysis followed by the grounding provided by constructing consequent lifestyles, strategies and practices in physically risky settings. Finally, insights from the live settings of violence are warranted.
Mission is contrived from and performed over lived contexts, but the visions that guide and drive mission are oftentimes blinded by power, position, protection, and plenitude. This collection visits those matters with queering attention to the shadows that empires cast over the contexts of mission, and to the collusion and complicity of Christians and churches with empires past (as in the case of Rome) and present (as in the case of the United States of America). In the interests of those in mission fields who survived, but continue to agonize under the burdens of empires, the contributors to this work dare to re-vision the course and cause of mission. Writing from minoritized settings in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania, the authors interweave the principles and practices of mission with the opportunities in decolonial theology and hermeneutics, minoritized and migrant Christologies, repatriation and the courage to get up and get out, indigenous insights and wisdom, mission archives, stories of resistance and endurance in zones of contact and violence, restless souls and returning spirits, and life-centered spiritual (en)countering. In Mission and Context as with previous volumes in this series—empires do not have the final word, nor are they the final world.
Stimulated by Andrew Kirk's mission theology, this book brings fresh theological reflection to a wide range of mission issues. A formidable group of international missiologists are drawn together to explore current reflections on a wide range of issues including: poverty and injustice, environmentalism, secularism, the place of scripture in a pluralist culture, science and faith, liberation theology, oppression and reconciliation, and much more. Kirk's influence and reputation is international, and extends to South America, USA, Eastern Europe, Africa and SE Asia. Latin American mission has been especially enriched by Kirk's innovative thinking on revolutionary politics, contextualisation and holistic mission. This is an indispensable resource of up-to-date missiological reflections for all involved in mission at every level.
The church in the Democratic Republic of Congo is no stranger to conflict, yet little research has been done on the impact of war in shaping the local church’s understanding of itself and its mission. In this in-depth study, Dr. Eraston Kambale Kighoma traces the survival and theological development of the Baptist Church in Central Africa over a twenty-year period of conflict. Utilizing a combination of descriptive, contextual and integrative approaches, he examines the effect of war on the church’s theology in action, especially its understanding and practice of mission. This study sheds new light on existing theories of missions, while offering specific insight into the church’s missionary task in contexts of conflict. It offers an excellent addition to missiological studies for scholars and practitioners alike.
Pacifying Missions interrogates the variegated and contested ways that missionaries imagined, articulated, and enacted peace, considering its complex entanglements with violence in the British Empire. The volume brings together world leading historical scholarship on issues of increasing contemporary valence.
A Biblical Approach to Mission in Context is an erudite collection of twenty essays with forewords and epilogue produced to honor Professor Teresa Okure’s contribution to the study of biblical theology in context. It also stands in its own right as a vade mecum of current trends in biblical scholarship, gender, and contextual hermeneutics. Written by an international array of respected scholars—Okure’s colleagues, former students, siblings, and fellow commentators—this volume includes detailed exegetical studies, discussion on theological methods and contextual approaches from a variety of standpoints, and an effort to relate biblical exegesis, theology, and inculturation—faith—hermeneutics to the current interest in social-contextual interpretation that reflects values beyond the African context. In sum, the breadth of interests and enthusiasm found in this volume is a testimony to the intellectual and pastoral vitalities and passion that Teresa Okure herself brought to the discipline of biblical studies. The brief narrative of personal encounter written by Bernadette Okure, SHCJ, forewords by John Cardinal Onaiyekan and Bishop Camillus Raymond Umoh, as well as an insightful epilogue by Fr. Aniedi Okure, OP, provide additional insight into the historical and socio-cultural contexts within which Okure’s formation and contributions unfolded.
In 1956, a group of Waorani men killed five North American missionaries in Ecuador. The event cemented the Waorani's reputation as ""wild Amazonian Indians"" in the eyes of the outside world. It also added to the myth of the violent Amazon created by colonial writers and still found in academia and the state development agendas across the region. Victims and Warriors examines contemporary violence in the context of political and economic processes that transcend local events. Casey High explores how popular imagery of Amazonian violence has become part of Waorani social memory in oral histories, folklore performances, and indigenous political activism. As Amazonian forms of social memory merge with constructions of masculinity and other intercultural processes, the Waorani absorb missionaries, oil development, and logging depredations into their legacy of revenge killings and narratives of victimhood. High shows that these memories of past violence form sites of negotiation and cultural innovation, and thus violence comes to constitute a central part of Amazonian sociality, identity, and memory.
The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies represents more than a century of scholarship related to the theology, history, and methodology of the propagation of Christian faith and the engagement of Christians with cultures, religions, and societies worldwide. It contains more than 40 articles by experts from different disciplinary and ecclesial perspectives, who are from all continents. It not only offers a broad overview of key approaches and issues in mission studies but it also highlights current trends and suggests future developments. The Handbook builds on renewed interest in mission studies this century generated by recent key statements on mission from ecumenical, evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox sources, and by a spate of academic works on the topic. Western church leaders now apply insights from foreign missions (such as, inculturation, liberation, interfaith work, and power encounter) to today's multicultural societies. Meanwhile, there are new initiatives in mission from the Majority World, where most Christians live, so that sending is not only 'from the west to the rest' but 'from everywhere to everywhere'. Therefore, this volume aims to reflect the voices of the receivers of mission as well as its protagonists and to raise awareness of new movements. In a time of growing recognition of 'religions' more generally, this work examines and theorizes the missional dimensions of the world's largest religion: its agendas, growth, outreach, role in public life, effect on cultures, relevance for development, and its approaches to other communities.
Christian mission has often been a project allied with colonial powers and conquests. Contemporary theologies of Christian mission, however, call for a new approach. In Eyes from the Outside, Kim Lamberty suggests using the metaphor of "accompaniment" to describe one such approach to Christian mission. She explores international protective accompaniment--eyes from the outside--as a constructive way to do Christian mission in conflict zones. Christian missionaries today frequently find themselves in isolated and poverty-stricken parts of the globe, places where violence is common. Based on a case study in Colombia, Eyes from the Outside argues that international protective accompaniment empowers communities, reduces the risk of violence, and corresponds with contemporary theologies of mission.
