A new model for ecumenical mission has emerged in the 1990s based on the metaphor of networking, the concept of civil society, and the institutional form of the non-governmental organization (NGO). The constituent elements of this approach to mission and a few contexts (local and global) in which it is already in evidence are described. The model is then evaluated and suggestions are made for how this conceptual tool might best be applied.
As the academic field of missiology has matured over the past century, nearly everything about the discipline became more complex. Clearly, the field has expanded beyond the boundaries of applied theology. Among its practitioners today are both secular observers and scholars who are themselves actively involved in world missionary efforts. In no other part of the typical seminary curriculum, perhaps, do the concerns of so many different academic fields naturally intersect, including history, linguistics, anthropology, sociology of religion, communications, education, leadership, studies of organizational behavior and, of course, all of the theological sciences. With such a broad range of potential themes to pursue and so many scholarly conversation partners to engage, missiologists may be tempted to envision their field of study as an inchoate collection of all human knowledge. This article argues otherwise by proposing a detailed framework in outline form for the discipline, by which the main divisions and most central topics of the field can be indicated. To prepare the way for this new proposal, several existing classified bibliographies related to missiology are analyzed. Avec la maturation du champ de la missiologie scientique au cours du siècle passé, presque tous les éléments de cette discipline sont devenus plus complexes. Le champ s'est clairement étendu au-delà des frontières de la théologie appliquée. Aujourd'hui on trouve parmi ses praticiens aussi bien des observateurs laïques que des érudits eux-mêmes activement engagés dans le travail missionnaire mondial. Probablement nulle part ailleurs, dans le programme type des séminaires, ne se croisent naturellement autant de champs scientifiques différents tels que l'histoire, la linguistique, l'anthropologie, la sociologie des religions, les communications, l'éducation, la formation des responsables, les études institutionnelles, et bien sûr toutes les sciences théologiques. Avec un tel éventail de thèmes à travailler et tant de partenaires possibles d'échange académique, les missiologues pourraient être tentés de considérer leur champ d'étude comme un ensemble embryonnaire de tout le savoir humain. Cet article propose au contraire un cadre schématique détaillé pour cette discipline, indiquant les principales divisions et les sujets les plus centraux de son champ. En vue de cette nouvelle proposition, il analyse plusieurs bibliographies organisées déjà existantes en lien avec la missiologie. Im Maße, in dem das akademische Feld der Missiologie in Laufe des vergangenen Jahrhunderts reifte, ist fast alles in dieser Disziplin komplexer geworden. Offensichtlich hat sich das Feld über die Grenzen der angewandten Theologie hinausentwickelt. Unter ihren Betreibern finden sich heute sowohl weltliche Beobachter wie auch Gelehrte, die selbst aktiv an den Anstrengungen der Weltmission teilnehmen. Wahrscheinlich in keinem anderen Teil eines Standard-curriculums eines Seminars kreuzen sich zwanglos so viele Fragestellungen von verschiedenen akademischen Gebieten, einschließlich Geschichte, Linguistik, Anthropologie, Religionssoziologie, Kommunikationswissenschaft, Erziehung, Leitungsfunktion, Studien von Organisationsverhalten und selbstverständlich alle theologischen Wissenschaften. Mit einer solchen Bandbreite von möglichen Themen, die angesprochen und mit wissenschaftlichen Gesprächspartnern verfolgt werden können, sind die Missiologen versucht, ihr Arbeitsgebiet als eine anfängliche Sammlung allen menschlichen Wissens zu betrachten. Dieser Artikel argumentiert für eine andere Sichtweise und schlägt in Grundrissen einen detaillierten Rahmen für diese Disziplin vor, der die hauptsächlichen Trennlinien und wichtigsten Zentralfragen in diesem Gebiet auflistet. In der Vorbereitung zu diesem neuen Vorschlag werden verschiedene vorhandene klassifizierte Biblio-graphien zur Missiologie untersucht. Como el campo académico de misiología ha madurado a través del siglo pasado, casi todo sobre la disciplina llegó a ser más complejo. Claramente, el campo ha extendido más allá de los límites de teología aplicada. Entre su practicantes hoy son observadores seculares y eruditos que están metidos activamente en el mundo de los esfuerzos misioneros. Quizás en ninguna otra parte del plan de estudios típicos del seminario cortan naturalmente los intereses de tantos campos académicos, incluso historia, lingüística, antropología, sociología de religión, comunicaciones, educación, dirigencia, estudios de la conducta organizativa y, por supuesto, todo de las ciencias teológicas. Con tantos temas potenciales para perseguir y tantos compañeros de conversación eruditos, los eruditos de misiología se tientan a prever su campo de estudio como una colección incoherente de todo conocimiento humano. Este artículo argumenta lo contrario proponiendo un marco detallado en líneas generales para la disciplina, en el que se pueden indicar las divisiones principales y tópicos más centrales del campo. Preparar el camino para esta propuesta nueva, se analizan varias bibliografías clasificadas actuales que están relacionadas con misiología.
T he relationship between mission structures and theol That is, they should be able to express institutionally genuine ogy is complex. Mission structures are a kind of "theol insights that theology has discovered in the abstract. Long expe ogy on four wheels," enfleshed demonstrations of a theoretical rience of the church in mission warns us, however, that validity orientation to the world. As such, they are contingent and sec in a purely theological sense is never the only issue. To be truly ondary, depending upon theology to suggest their proximate suitable, mission structures must also be culturally appropriate uses and ultimate purposes. They are also vulnerable to critique and right for their age. in a way that theology is not, because they are concrete. Mission Thanks to David Bosch, it is now commonplace in missiology structures necessarily entail the application of human institu to speak of this generation as the beginning in earnest of a new tional forms. Structures devised for mission will thus always be age in the history of humankind. Intellectually, this is a time of susceptible to the same faults and distortions that beset their transition, in which the West seems to be passing from the secular counterparts.certainties of Enlightenment thinking into an extended period of Though limited in these ways, mission structures are never cultural crisis. Geopolitically, the customary ways by which the theless crucial. They are windows that allow one to peer closely world's nation-states have related to one another have been at the underpinnings of a given theology of mission. They make knocked hard by a realignment of the superpowers. Economi manifest the actual direction one's missiological thinking is cally, new patterns of global capitalism have emerged with the likely to run in practice. In fact, mission structures can lay bare power to affect for good or ill (or both) the life of virtually every assumptions about human nature and one's understanding of person on the planet. God's purposes with such clarity that words may no longer be Perhaps the most fundamental shift to have occurred in the able to cover them up. Mission structures are critical tools, late twentieth century revolves around the issue of cultural therefore, not least because without them no theory of mission identity. Conventional boundaries of language and distance are has a chance of everbecoming more than unincarnated mutterings, rapidly collapsing, throwing traditional notions of social reality words without effect in a world that expects action.into disarray. It is not only that a globalized economy is reaching Andrew Walls has shrewdly observed that the structural into and tying together the fates of far-flung communities. Nor is mainstay of modern Protestant missions, the voluntary associa it just a matter of one particular language, English, positioning tion or mission society, got its start just as missiology entered into itself to become the next millennium's lingua franca. There is also an entirely new theological phase. From ...
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