The future of mission studies

Abstract

Mission studies has been developing at least since the nineteenth century and shares a scholarly space with the more recent fields of intercultural theology and world Christianity. Questions about the complicity of missions with imperialist agendas may raise questions about the future of mission studies. However, through its use of the social sciences, its global perspective and its attention to Christian responses to Jesus’ commissions, the field offers a particular and valuable contribution to the church and academy. In this article, I attempt to answer the question of the future of the academic study of mission in three different dimensions: (a) the nature of mission studies as a field; (b) its relation to other disciplines and (c) its potential development. I draw on the experience of editing The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022) and of the integration of schools of missiology and theology at Fuller Theology Seminary in 2020.