Transcending Mission

The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition

Michael W. Stroope

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780830882250
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

IVP Readers' Choice AwardMission, missions, missional, and all its linguistic variations are part of the expanding vocabulary and rhetoric of the contemporary Christian missionary enterprise. Its language and assumptions are deeply ingrained in the thought and speech of the church today. Christianity is a missionary religion and faithful churches are mission-minded. What's more, in telling the story of apostles and bishops and monks as missionaries, we think we have grasped the true thread of Christian history.But what about those odd shapes, those unsettling gaps and creases in the historical record? Is the language of mission so clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Is the trajectory of mission really so explicit from the early church to the present? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past?As with every reigning paradigm, there comes a point when enough questions surface to beg for a close and critical look, even when it may seem transgressive to do so. In this study of the language of mission—its origin, development, and application—Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity. There is both surprise and hope in this tale. And perhaps the beginnings of a new conversation.

Notes

Prologue

1.

As the reader will note, I have chosen to use mission as a lexeme, a lexical unit of meaning. I have made this choice in order to be consistent throughout the discussion. Other inflectional forms and grammatical variants (missions, missio, and missional) are included when necessary, but they are little more than derivatives of the singular form of the term. The intent is not to preference mission over missions, missional, or missio but to focus attention on the linguistic phenomenon and the historical use of mission language.

2.

Michael W. Stroope, “Eschatological Mission: Its Reality and Possibility in the Theology of Karl Barth and Its Influence on Contemporary Mission Theology” (PhD diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1986).

3.

David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 227-31. Hereafter cited as TM.

4.

Ibid., 229.

5.

Ibid., 232-33.

6.

Ibid., 233. Bosch alludes to the same in his introduction (1).

Introduction: The Enigma of Mission

1.

In rare cases, one finds the verb form missioning. See Trevor J. Burke, “The Holy Spirit as the Controlling Dynamic in Paul’s Role as Missionary to the Thessalonians,” in Paul as Missionary: Identity, Activity, Theology, and Practice, ed. Trevor J. Burke and Brian S. Rosner, Library of New Testament Studies 420 (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 153; Paul Barnett, Paul: Missionary of Jesus, vol. 2 of After Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 83.

2.

“P&G Worldwide Site: The Power of Purpose,” www.pg.com/en_US/company/purpose_people/index.shtml.

3.

Seth Goldman, Barry Nalebuff, and Choi Soonyoon, Mission in a Bottle: The Story of Honest Tea (New York: Crown Business, 2013).

4.

Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989); Denis Waitley, Empires of the Mind: Lessons to Lead and Succeed in a Knowledge-Based World (London: N. Brealey, 1995).

5.

See “NASA Missions A-Z,” www.nasa.gov/missions/index.html.

6.

David J. Bosch, “Theological Education in Missionary Perspective,” Missiology 10, no. 1 (January 1982): 13.

7.

Quoted in Jan A. B. Jongeneel, Philosophy, Science, and Theology of Mission in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Studien Zur Interkulturellen Geschichte Des Christentums, 92 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995), 60.

8.

An emphasis on the scientific nature of mission is evident in the titles of J. H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions, trans. David Hugh Freeman (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1960); and Carine Dujardin and Claude Prudhomme, eds., Mission & Science, Missiology Revised, 1850-1940 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015). See also Rufus Anderson, Foreign Missions: Their Relations and Claims (New York: Charles Scribner, 1869), xi.

9.

The variety of meanings for mission within missiology is noted in Stanley H. Skreslet, Comprehending Mission: The Questions, Methods, Themes, Problems, and Prospects of Missiology, American Society of Missiology Series 49 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 17; William David Taylor, ed., Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassu Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000); Jongeneel, Philosophy, Science, and Theology of Mission, 15-41. Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai, 3rd ed. (London: SCM Press, 2001), notes, “The word ‘mission’ is used in different ways, so many different ways today, that it has almost lost its meaning.” He explains that the appropriation of mission for all kinds of work has resulted “in a complete distortion of the word, emptying it of all its meaning” (75, 77).

10.

See Stanley E. Porter, “The Content and Message of Paul’s Missionary Teaching,” in Christian Mission: Old Testament Foundations and New Testament Developments, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Cynthia Long Westfall, McMaster New Testament Studies Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), 135; Robert L. Plummer, Paul’s Understanding of the Church’s Mission: Did the Apostle Paul Expect the Early Christian Community to Evangelize?, Paternoster Biblical Monographs (Exeter, UK: Paternoster, 2006), 1-2. Zane G. Pratt, M. David Sills, and Jeff K. Walters, Introduction to Global Missions (Nashville: B&H, 2014), assert, “The heart of Christi...