The Lay of the Land in Twenty-First-Century Missiology

Mission and the Church-Academy Rift [2]

Series: Mission and the Church-Academy Rift

1. Chapter Preview: “Mission between Theory and Practice”

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In “Mission between Theory and Practice,” I established that “the theory-practice rift is internal to the definition of modern missiology” by rehearsing some of its major concerns in recent years: missiology’s distinctive contributions to theological education, its place in the academy, its essential interdisciplinarity, its relationship to the Majority World church, and its existence amid the tensive interests of scholars and practitioners who collaborate in the field of missiology.¹ These concerns delimit the terrain I will explore in this series. But these are general contours. More specifically, postmodernity, globalization, the postcolonial consciousness of the ascendant Majority World church, and the sharp decline of the Western church coupled with the rapid acceleration of both missional ecclesiologies and (esp. American) DIY missions are vital pressure points in the renegotiation of missiology’s borders.

Accordingly, Dana Robert asks: “What should be the trajectory for mission studies in an age when globe-trotting amateurs outnumber career missionaries? In an age when everybody goes into ‘all the world,’ what is the role of the missiologist? Have we moved to the age described by the great mission anthropologist Paul Hiebert of the missionary as ‘transcultural mediator’? (Hiebert, 2009). In short, what is missiology in the 21st century?”² Moreover, how do we answer this question when, as African missiologist Jehu Hanciles states in his discussion of non-Western missiology, “Quite simply, many of the models and perceptions of mission inherited from Western missionary thinking and experience are no longer helpful or warranted.”³ I raise the question of the future of mission studies and training amid seemingly epochal upheaval and transition. It is in this context that I invite you to consider the divide between church and academy.