World Christianity and Polycentric Mission
Actually, is mission polycentric yet?
Welcome to my newsletter, “This Is Mission, Decolonised.”
I dream here about mission in a postcolonial world. Every week, I share one thought that has spoken to me, two resources I trust will be helpful to you, and three quotes about mission.
I pray one of these will energise you this week.
1. Thought I Can’t Shake Off
It is now a generally accepted fact that the statistical centre of gravity of Christianity has shifted to the global south. Together, Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia are now home to almost 70 per cent of Christians in the world. By 2050, Africa alone will be home to more than 40 per cent of Christians in the world. The implications of this emergence of world Christianity on mission are massive. Will Christian mission’s centre of gravity also shift to the south? To Brazil? Nigeria? South Korea? If it does, what will it look like? What theological resources will it need? Of course, the language of “mission from six continents to six continents,” or that of “mission from anywhere to anywhere else”, has been around for decades since the 1950s.
Unfortunately, many of the dominant models of mission today, shaped by Westerners for other Westerners as they are, are not easily applicable to non-Western missionary work. First, they are too tied closely to geography — mission happens in certain parts of the world, and not in others. With this comes the need to go from the West to the rest of the world. This kind of mission is something that Westerners do elsewhere. Second, many current models of mission are also predicated on the supposedly superior Western worldview and the dissemination of its culture to the nations. Converts, generally speaking, have to believe and behave like Westerners. Otherwise, they need some more missionaries sent. Finally, they excessively depend on money. It seems that only rich nations can effectively participate in God’s mission in the world. Indeed, how can the financially under-resourced churches of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, afford to send missionaries overseas when they actually need financial support to survive? Did God also call poor nations to mission? Contemporary mission is still, to a great extent, a western adventure. Its power and authority are located in Western cities and its theology is deeply shaped by Western thought. When shall missiologies from the Majority World emerge to show us how to participate in God’s mission differently?
2. Resources I am Enjoying
I spent last week in Chiang Mai at the WEA Mission Commission conference, and as always, in addition to many great connections and conversations, I enjoyed looking at the many great books that were on sale. Because of the other reading I am currently doing, I was drawn to Allen Yeh’s 2016 book, Polycentric Missiology. I have since managed to read it, and here is my quick review and recommendation.
In Polycentric Missiology, Yeh surveys the five World Mission Conferences that took place on five continents between 2010 (Tokyo 2010, Edinburgh 2010, Cape Town 2010, and 2010 Boston) and 2012 (CLADE V Conference) to commemorate the legendary 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference. Yeh happens to be the only missiologist to attend all five conferences and is, therefore, the best person to reflect on them all together as he has done in this book. The book has 7 chapters, and each of them finishes with critical questions for discussion on key themes and issues in World Christianity. As he surveys the state of World Christianity and global mission studies, it is his subtitle, “mission from everyone to everywhere,” that reveals his primary concerns. He is essentially declaring a significant shift from the predominant travel of mission in the past 500 years, which has been from the West to the rest of the world. His accessible style and approach help readers understand how the conferences came about and what key themes were discussed.
“Christianity is the only religion in the world that does not have a geographic center or an ethnic majority.”
Yeh’s account of the five conferences concludes with an appreciative highlight of the diversity and polycentric nature of 21st-century Christianity. Polycentric Missiology is a great resource, especially for future generations of mission practitioners and scholars who will need to understand the significance of the shift currently happening in mission. Being the only book available exploring the five conferences, it speaks to everyone engaged in mission and missiological discourses. A big takeaway from the book for me is the disconnect between the title, Polycentric Missiology and the current realities in the western-centred world mission. Of course, parts of the book present a totally Western perspective on missiology. Yeh’s choice of key players in the story reflects this bias. As such, I wonder what a truly polycentric mission and missiology would actually look like and what issues they would prioritise. (And, of course, relocating your office from Europe to Chiang Mai, Nairobi, or Rio does not mean a thing if you are just moving Western leadership to a new office overseas).
You can watch Allen talk about polycentric missiology here.
Podcast: Missio Africanus: Dr Sheila Akomiah-Conteh on Church Planting in Scotland
This is a conversation I had with Sheila about her doctoral research. She researched the church planting landscape in Glasgow and discovered some very interesting facts. First among those is that migrant Christians are planting many churches in the city, (the same can be said of Scotland). Africans are, by far, the most active in planting churches in Glasgow. In the conversation, she explains how this new reality came about, discusses some of its implications, and the challenges she wrestled with during the research process. You will learn a thing or two from my conversation with her.
You can listen to the conversation here.
3. Quotes I am Pondering
The new converts would be removed from their communities and villages. They were not only expected to forsake their religion but also required to shun their culture, starting with their clothes and attire in general. Converts were allowed to acquire missionary education, Western civilisation and culture and in turn, they were required to do manual work, often without wages. This included erecting church buildings and parsonages as well as ploughing fields belonging to missionaries. — Ramathate Dolamo
In retrospect [the] period of Roman Catholic missionary expansion represents a mixed picture. Christianity did spread far beyond the borders of Europe and the Mediterranean basin as a result, but at the cost of being inextricably associated with Western colonialism in the minds of the subject peoples. This same problem of disentangling the essentials of Christian faith from its Western political and cultural trappings was also to face Protestant missionaries in succeeding centuries. ― John Jefferson Davis
Native intuition, confirmed by my African Studies, has convinced me that there is an inadequate understanding of the forces and principles, mainly religious, but often dismissed as superstition by early missionaries, anthropologists and the Church, that lie behind African ideas about Man (sic), Society and Divinity. African Traditional Society as I see it, (and I draw mainly from my people, the Southern Bantu, in particular, the Sotho-Tswana) had a deeper and more adequate sensitivity and perception of the divine at work in human relationship, society and nature at large. — Gabriel Setiloane
Thank you, I pray you have a missionally fruitful week.