Lesslie Newbigin's Contribution to Mission Theology

Wilbert R. Shenk

L esslie Newbigin (1909-98) was one of the outstanding

Christian leaders of the twentieth century.' This brief
essay considers Newbigin's contribution to theology from the
Gospel and the religions, the meaning of contextualization,
conversion, pluralism, and Christian witness in a culture that has
rejected Christendom. Time and again Newbigin led the way in
perspective of the Christian mission. He lived a long and full life introducing an issue that would become a dominant theme in the
and continued to write and speak right up to the end. His ensuing years."
writings span six decades. In this appreciation of Newbigin's Newbigin's mode of discourse was theological, even though
oeuvre as reflected in his writings, I note the characteristics that he consistently disclaimed any pretension to being a professional
distinguish his work and assess the impact of his thought and its theologian. In the preface to one of his most widely read books,
continuing relevance. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,6 he wrote: "I can make no claim
A fitting starting point is the formative experience he records either to originality or to scholarship. I am a pastor and preacher."
in his autobiography.' He entered Cambridge University in 1928 Virtually everything Newbigin wrote was "on assignment," that
an agnostic, but during his first year at university the example of is, in response to a speaking or writing assignment. He found no
an older student challenged him to consider the Christian faith. time for leisurely and detached reflection. He spoke and wrote on
The following summer, at age nineteen, he joined a Quaker the run, both figuratively and literally, for, despite a permanent
service center in South Wales that provided recreational services limp that resulted from a serious bus accident in India in 1936, he
to unemployed miners. The coal mining industry was depressed, moved with dispatch. This habit stamped his thought with an
and the situation bleak and hopeless. One night as he lay in bed immediacy not characteristic of the academy. He seldom both­
overwhelmed with concern for these men, he saw"a vision of the ered with the usual scholarly apparatus of notes and references,
cross" touching, as it were, heaven and earth.' Its outstretched so that some academics felt compelled to charge that he was not
arms touched the whole world and the whole of life. This one of them; yet his thought has consistently commanded atten­
experience left an indelible imprint on him, furnishing the point tion because of its profundity, vigor, and challenge.
from which Newbigin would thereafter take his bearings. The Newbigin remained intensely engaged in both church and
cross as clue became a central motif for his life. Furthermore, his world and devoted himself to reflecting on the life of faith as it
relationship with God was intimate and vivid, nurtured by intersects with the world; he was impatient with "airy-fairy" or
continual communion. From this time he was one of God's detached scholarship that flaunted its objectivity. (He could be
partisans. devastating in exposing the pretensions of the latter.) His voca­
Newbigin was highly disciplined. He mastered the basics of tion was to be one of the seminal frontline thinkers of the
whatever he was studying and prepared thoroughly for each twentieth century. He was read with appreciation by a vast
assignment.' When he arrived in India in 1936, he immediately number of laypeople, while his books have regularly appeared
set out to attain proficiency in Tamil, a language nonnative on the reading lists of numerous divinity schools' syllabi. Rather
speakers find difficult to master. Next he deepened his under­ than being a systematic scholar attempting to provide a compre­
standing of the culture and religion of India by spending many hensive account, he is best characterized as a strategic thinker,
hours with the Ramakrishna Mission reading alternately the one sensitive to the priority issues facing the church.
Svetasvara Upanishad and John's gospel in the original lan­
guages. This attitude of readiness to fearlessly confront the Christ's Community as Key
intellectual and theological demands of each situation continu­
ously drew him into dialogue with a range of viewpoints, regard­ Newbigin was wholly committed to God's mission of the re­
less of whether or not he found them congenial. demption of the world. He was equally committed to the unity of
By force of personality and giftedness, Newbigin early the church. At the center of mission and unity stood Jesus Christ.
emerged as a missionary statesman and ecumenical leader of His total commitment to Christ-centered mission and Christ­
substance. His views were never parochial, and yet he remained centered ecumenism gave his witness a coherence that leaped
rooted in the local-be that the rural villages of Tamil Nadu, over the usual ecclesiastical and theological lines. Conventional
urban Madras, or inner city Winson Green in Birmingham. He theological labels were never adequate to describe him: he was
modeled what it means to contextualize Christian witness by too evangelical for some conciliar Protestants, and too open for
immersing oneself in the language and culture of a particular some evangelicals.
people. Rather than narrowing or limiting one's view, true This passage from the 1952 Kerr Lectures, frequently re­
contextualization will extend one's horizon. peated over the years, functions as something of a programmatic
Lesslie Newbigin was a frontline thinker because of an statement of Newbigin's theological vision:
uncommon ability to sense the emerging issue that must be It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord
addressed at the moment. This trait is not to be confused with the left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of
pursuit of fads. He abhorred faddishness. What captured his thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community.... He
attention were the issues that impinged on the future of the committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was
church and its obedience in mission: the nature of the church in not that a community gathered round an idea, so that the idea was
relation to unity and mission, the relevance of the Trinity, the primary and the community secondary. It was that a community
called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and
Wilbert R. Shenk,a contributing editor, is Professor of Mission History and re-created in Him, gradually sought-and is seeking-to make
Contemporary Culture,School of World Mission,Fuller Theological Seminary, explicit who He is and what He has done. The actual community
Pasadena, California. is primary; the understanding of what it is comes second?

April 2000 59
The starting point must ever be God's initiative in Jesus Christ, from that of Hocking's. For the latter, faith is "an individual
the calling of the church to be the visible and witnessing commu­ experience of timeless reality," a view that echoes
nity of the Gospel, the essential structure an unfolding narrative Radhakrishnan's. In the Bible the living God acts by gathering a
rather than an institutional system. people committed to covenant relationship-that is, God takes
The categories of theology and missiology are almost wholly the initiative in creating a new social reality. According to the
irrelevant. N ewbigin's theology is thoroughly missiological, and biblical account, "the eternal emphatically has a history, how­
his missiology theological. The wellspring of his thought and ever shocking it may be to the philosopher.?" Hocking speaks
action was his vision of the cross that perforce thrusts the church abstractly of One who is Love, but this One never engages
into missionary witness; for him, action must continually be history. This is too vague and insubstantial to command our faith
tested against the norm of the Gospel, the center of which is the response.
cross. Second, Hocking is diffident about Jesus Christ, preferring
Newbigin's only effort to present a comprehensive state­ to interpret the Christ in relation to some universal religious
ment of his theology of mission is his book TheOpenSecret, 8 based spirit. He suggests that Christian faith is of a piece with the faith
on a course of lectures he gave at Selly Oak Colleges for several by which all people live. Hocking cited the words from John's
years following his retirement from India. In the preface he notes gospel: "The real light which enlightens every man was even
that the original germ for the work was his Relevance ofTrinitarian then coming into the world" (1:9NEB). Here Newbigin points up
Doctrine forToday's Mieeion,' This is a serviceable summary of his the logical fallacy on which Hocking's argument turns. Hocking
theology of mission but does not anticipate his preoccupation bases his reasoning on personal religious experience, the classi­
with "The Gospel and Our Culture" final phase of his life. cal liberal premise, whereas the Johannine passage insists that
this light is "present wherever man is present, not wherever
Missionary Theologian religion is present." In this and numerous other passages,
Newbigin warns of the danger of putting confidence in religion.
On almost every page of Newbigin's writings, one encounters Biblical faith arises from God's initiative in history, encountering
the mind and heart of the missionary theologian at work. In the us in our world, dying at the hands of sinful humans and in the
William Belden Noble Lectures for 1958 at Harvard University, resurrection gaining victory over the power of death. Biblical
Newbigin offered a rejoinder to one of Harvard's most eminent faith depends on what Newbigin repeatedly refers to as "the total
philosophers in the twentieth century, William Ernest Hocking, fact of Christ."
who two years earlier had published TheComing World Civiliza­ The third criticism of Hocking concerns the way the philoso­
iion:" In the 1930s Hocking had presided over the Laymen's pher argues for a necessary link between history and religion but
Foreign Missions Inquiry, which produced the multivolume fails to base this on the incarnation. Christians believe, insists
report Re-Thinking Missions," Hocking himself wrote the sum­ Newbigin, "that at one point in human history the universal and
mary volume, which stirred intense debate about the future of the concrete historical completely coincided, that the Man Jesus
Christian missions. Hocking's proposed reformulation of mis­ of Nazareth was the incarnate Word of God, that in his works and
sionary principles entailing a fundamental redefinition of mis­ words the perfect will of God was done without defect or
sion contributed to polarization within the missionary move­ remainder.r " The Christian Gospel depends on this "total fact of
ment. Christ."16 Hocking fails to take this center seriously, opting
Newbigin's reply to Hocking posed a question: A Faith for instead for a universal mystical experience available to human­
This One World?12 Already at this point Newbigin was wrestling kind but without any specific point of reference. By contrast, the
with the issue that would preoccupy him continually the last two Gospel insists that God acted decisively in Jesus Christ to reveal
decades of his life: "No faith can command a man's final and the meaning of divine love and salvation.
absolute allegiance, that is to say no faith can be a man's real Ultimately, Newbigin's reply to Hocking's program is that
religion, if he knows that it is only true for certain places and the only viable basis for the civilization he advocates is to be
certain people. In a world which knows that there is only one found in the missionary proclamation of God's revelation in
physics and one mathematics, religion cannot do less than claim Jesus Christ, by which a new humanity is being called into being.
for its affirmations a like universal validity."13 The modern In the ensuing years Newbigin would develop his theology of
secular solution in which two mutually unintelligible categories mission further by placing it in a Trinitarian framework and
were established-"facts" and "values"-had to be rejected. The thinking through issues of conversion and contextualization. But
secularist claimed universal validity for scientific facts but al­ its foundation remained "the total fact of Christ."
lowed only for personal preference insofar as values were con­
cerned. In making his critique and counterproposal, Newbigin Contextual Theologian
considered three schemes for a universal religious framework
for humankind put forward by Indian philosopher S. A cursory reading of the Newbigin writings might suggest a fair
Radhakrishnan, British historian Arnold Toynbee, and Ameri­ amount of repetition. He early developed a characteristic style of
can philosopher William Ernest Hocking. It is the latter that discourse on which he continued to rely. Certain themes recur
concerns us here. over the decades, and the theological framework remains se­
In his quest for a basis for a universal civilization, Hocking curely in place. What then accounts for the vibrancy and rel­
argued that Christianity alone offered an adequate foundation. evance of his thought? I suggest that what makes Newbigin
To be viable, however, the Christian message had to strip away consistently worth listening to is his keen sense of context and his
its offensive parochialisms and doctrinal particularisms. capacity to identify with his audience. He had the ability to
Newbigin queried Hocking's proposal at three crucial points: articulate what for others remained only subliminal until he
Hocking's view of faith, his understanding of Jesus Christ, and expressed it for them.
the relationship between faith and history. Newbigin began his missionary service in India in 1936.
First, the biblical view of faith is fundamentally different Western civilization was in turmoil, with intimations of another

60 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

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Noteworthy-----------­
Announcing Personalia
Gerald H. Anderson, editor of the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF Timothy Dakin, 41, is the new General Secretary of the
MISSIONARY RESEARCH since 1977, has announced that he will Church Mission Society (CMS), London. He takes the place of
retire in June 2000. Following missionary service in the Philip­ Canon Diana Witts, General Secretary since 1995, who retires
pines, he came to the Overseas Ministries StudyCenter (OMSC), at Easter 2000 and who will be a Senior Mission Scholar in
then in Ventnor, New Jersey, in 1974as Associate Director, and residence at the Overseas Ministries Study Center, New Ha­
became Director in 1976. He will be succeeded by Jonathan J. ven, Connecticut, for the Fall term 2000. Dakin was a mission
Bonk as Director and Editor. Robert T. Coote will become partner with the Church Army and was Principal of Carlile
Associate Director and Associate Editor. College, Nairobi, Kenya, for six years. He is a graduate of
The annual meeting of the American Society of Oxford University and is ordained in the Anglican Church.
Missiology will be held June 16-18, 2000, at Techny (near Michael Kinnamon has been appointed to the new Allen
Chicago), Illinois. The theme is "Creative Partnerships for and Dottie Miller Chair for Mission and Peace at Eden Theo­
Mission in the Twenty-first Century." Anne Reissner from the logical Seminary, Saint Louis, Missouri, effective July 1, 2000.
Center for Mission Research and Study at Maryknoll, New Kinnamon began his ministry on the staff of the World Council
York, is the ASM president. The Association of Professors of of Churches as executive secretary for the Commission on
Mission will meet June 15-16 at the same place in conjunction Faith and Order. An ordained minister of the Christian Church
with the ASM. The theme of their meeting is "The Global (Disciples of Christ), he comes to Eden from Lexington Theo­
Church in the Mission Classroom." Susan Higgins of Milligan logical Seminary, where he served as Professor of Theology
College, Tennessee, is president of the APM. For further and Ecumenical Studies.
information and registration for both meetings, contact Darrell Died. Ruth Sovik, 71, American ecumenical mission
R. Guder, Columbia Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 520, administrator, January 12, 2000, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Decatur, Georgia 30031-0520 (Fax: 404-687-4656; E-mail: Following missionary service in Taiwan, she moved to Geneva
[email protected]. and, in 1965, joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) as
The International Association for Mission Studies, meet­ editorial assistant for the International Review of Mission, a
ing in South Africa in January, 2000, elected Paulo Suess as publication of the WCC's Commission on World Mission and
President. A German Catholic missionary, he is Director of Evangelism (CWME), whose deputy director she became in
Postgraduate Studies of Missiology, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. 1978. She left the WCC in 1980 to become associate general
Darrell L. Whiteman, Professor of Missionary Anthropology secretary of the World Young Women's Christian Association
at Asbury Theological Seminary E. Stanley Jones School of (YWCA) and later, in 1983, its general secretary. In 1985 she
World Mission and Evangelism, in Wilmore, Kentucky, was was appointed as one of three deputy general secretaries of the
elected Vice President. They will serve for the next four years WCC. She held this position until her retirement in 1991,when
until the next general meeting of the association. she and her husband, Arne, returned to the United States.

world war. Movements for political independence in the Asian Christendom as well as in other parts of the world where Western
and African colonies constantly reminded the European colonial missions had established churches based on this Christendom
powers that the present order would not last indefinitely. Mis­ ecclesiology, the theological understanding of the church is a
sionary leaders were aware that the so-called younger churches matter of urgent concern.
were restive under continued mission control, even if the mis­ If we compare The Household of God with The Gospel in a
sions typically seemed paralyzed as to what constructive steps Pluralist Society, written thirty-six years apart, an underlying
might be taken. coherence in theme and structure is evident. Each book models
Newbigin begins the 1952Kerr Lectures with a discussion of sensitivity to the sociohistorical context in which it is set, which
the breakdown of Christendom and its significance for characterizes a vital theology. In 1952 Newbigin is a Western
ecclesiology." Christendom stands for "the synthesis between missionary living in the non-Western world trying to address
the Gospel and the culture of the western part of the European both worlds; by 1988his outlook has undergone a radical change.
peninsula of Asia" that had developed over a long period. Retiring from service in India in 1974,he attempted to "go home"
Christianity was so accommodated to European culture that it but discovered that the Great Britain he once knew was no more.
had become the folk religion of the West. The ecclesiology Instead it had become a disconcerting, even disturbing, environ­
developed in this insular Western context was devoid of a sense ment. Now he saw his homeland with critical concern, indeed
of mission to its own culture. This ecclesiology was largely alarm. What some artists and philosophers were describing as
devoted to conflicts between various Christian groups rather the decline of the West and the end of Christendom in the pre­
than being animated by a vision of the church in relation to the World War II era, had now become reality. A palpable existential
pagan world. The breakup of this historical Christendom reality, hopelessness had settled over Western society. The bankruptcy
starting in the seventeenth century, coincided with the beginning of the Christendom ecclesiology weighed heavily on him. It is no
of the movement to send Christian missions from the West to surprise that the chapter in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society that
other continents. Naturally, these missions took with them the attracts the greatest reader response is chapter 18, "The Congre­
only understanding of the church they knew, the Christendom gation as Hermeneutic of the Gospel." The malaise widely felt
model. Thus, both in the historical Christian heartland called among Western Christians is generally attributed to forms of

62 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

 Died. Josef Amstutz, S.M.B.,72,Swiss missiologist, Octo­ sity, Heidelberg University, and Union Theological Seminary,
ber 9, 1999,at Immensee, Switzerland. Ordained to the priest­ New York (Th.D.), he was ordained in the Church of Scotland
hood in 1953, he had doctorates from the Gregorian Univer­ and sent to China in 1938with his wife, Pearl, where he taught
sity, Rome (1957) and Oxford (1959). After pastoral work in at Moukden Theological College. In 1951, in Singapore, he
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and teaching theology in became the first general secretary of the Malayan Christian
Switzerland, he was General Superior of the Bethlehem Fa­ Council, and lectured at Trinity Theological College. In 1958he
thers from 1967 to 1981. He was one of the founders of the became the representative in South East Asia of the Nanking
Institute of Missiology at the Universidad Intercontinental, Theological Seminary Board of Founders (now the Foundation
Mexico, from 1982 to 1985, and since 1986 he was a member of for Theological Education in South East Asia), and in 1961 he
the research group at Romero-Haus, Lucerne, Switzerland. was appointed executive director. He was the first editor of the
His most recent book is Missionarische Praesenz: Charles de SouthEast AsiaJournal ofTheology, the first dean of the South East
Foucald in der Sahara (Immensee, 1997). Asia Graduate School of Theology, and the first executive
Died. David M. Stowe, 80,executive vice president emeri­ director of the Association of Theological Schools in South East
tus of the United Church Board for World Ministries, the Asia. In 1968 he became Senior Lecturer in systematic theology
overseas mission agency of the United Church of Christ in the at the UniversityofSt.Andrews. In 1971he received an honorary
U.S.A., January 10,2000, in Englewood, New Jersey. A gradu­ Doctor of Divinity degree from Glasgow University.
ate of the University of California at Los Angeles in 1940, he Died. Stephen Fuchs, S.V.D., 92,India missionary scholar,
earned his B.D. degree in 1943 and his Th.D. in 1953 from January 17, 2000, at St. Gabriel near Vienna, Austria. Born in
Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, which Austria, he joined the Society of the Divine Word in 1927,
awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1966.Ordained in 1943 where he came under the influence of Wilhelm Schmidt, the
in the Congregational Church, he and his wife, Virginia, went noted S.V.D. scholar of linguistics and anthropology. Follow­
to North China in 1945 as missionaries of the American Board ing ordination in 1934, Fuchs went as a missionary to India
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, where he taught at where he worked among the so-called untouchables in Madhya
Yenching University in Peking. In 1956 he joined the national Pradesh. He received his doctorate from Vienna University in
staff of the American Board in Boston, which became the 1950, with a dissertation that was a pioneering ethnographic
United Church Board for World Ministries in 1957. In 1963 he study of a Harijan caste in India. During his sixty years in India
became executive secretary of the Division of Foreign Mis­ he taught at various universities and institutes, including the
sions in the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A., and in University of Bombay, and was a visiting professor at the
1970 he was elected to the top executive position of the United University of San Carlos, Cebu, Philippines. He also estab­
Church's World Board. He retired in 1980. lished the Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay. Among his
Died. John R. Fleming, 88, Scottish missiologist, June 27, numerous books were AnthropologyfortheMissions (Allahabad,
1999, in St. Andrews, Scotland. Educated at Glasgow Univer­ 1979) and TheAboriginal Tribes of India (New Delhi, 1992).

church life that do not support Christian discipleship and wit­ cal and missiological. From this point on Newbigin was not only
ness in modern culture. The diagnosis Newbigin offered in 1952 engaging a particular context but was continually asking the
has, if anything, become even more compelling as the decades question of strategy: how can the church respond faithfully in
have moved on. this situation?
Yet this was no exception. Throughout his life he demon­
Strategic Theologian strated an uncommon ability to discern the critical issues and
offer a strategic, constructive response. Some initiatives failed,
In 1981 the British Council of Churches asked Newbigin to draft while others succeeded." Always one began by defining the key
an aide-memoire to guide the council in responding to the crisis concern and then working out an appropriate theological re­
of the church in modern British society. The result was a small sponse.
book entitled The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches."
which sparked The Gospel and Our Culture program, a six-year The Challenges Ahead
initiative under BCC auspices that culminated in a national
consultation held at Swanwick in 1992 entitled "The Gospel as It is entirely characteristic that Lesslie Newbigin titled his auto­
Public Truth." This was a sustained effort to get Christian leaders biography Unfinished Agenda. He lived in the present for the
in the professions, public life, and church to come together to future. He had a strong sense of an eschatology that gave one
rethink what it means to witness to the Gospel in all sectors of life. nerve to face the present knowing that the victory was assuredly
This effort became his consuming passion and set the course in God's hands. What guidance with regard to the future did
for the rest of his life: so to renew the church in the West that it Newbigin offer?
would again bring the witness of Christian revelation to bear on 1. We are challenged to affirm that the cross provides the
the whole of life, but do so without reverting to "Constantinian" clue to the human predicament. The Gospel tells us the story of
forms and assumptions. Newbigin deployed insights from phi­ what God has done to redeem the whole creation from bondage
losophy, history, sociology, and science to create a compelling to sin, decay, and death. At the center of that story stands the
analysis of the present situation, but his framework was theologi­ cross, representing that moment when God in Jesus Christ inter-

April 2000 63
vened decisively "for us and our salvation." No part of human essential that we press to reclaim the church for its missionary
existence is beyond the scope of God's saving purpose, for the purpose, we cannot stop here. The next step is to work out that
divine compassion encompasses the whole of creation. fundamental missional ecclesiology in relation to modern West­
Yet Christian history is filled with examples of how the ern culture. This is admittedly a daunting undertaking. With its
Gospel of the cross has been denied or reduced to fit the prevail­ roots in Christendom, modern Western culture manifests deep
ing plausibility structure. Whenever this occurs, the power of the antagonism toward religious faith. It views itself as being post­
Gospel is diminished. An emergent modern culture in the seven­ Christendom, even postreligious. Such attitudes and habits of
teenth century introduced the distinction between "fact" (i.e., thought are deeply held. It is urgent that the church in the West
that which is empirically verifiable according to scientific laws) retrieve the integrity of its identity as a missionary presence in
and "value" (i.e., what is personal, private). Only objective society. This recovery entails learning to understand this culture,
"facts" could be regarded as universally valid and authoritative. its controlling myths and plausibility structure, from a mission­
Religion was relegated to "value" status. The Gospel of the ary perspective and discern the relevance of the fullness of the
cross-viewed merely as a value-was regarded not only as Gospel in this culture.
scandalous but as entirely out of place in the public sphere. But With full awareness of the profound changes that the Chris­
if the church is to have a witness, it must reclaim "the total fact of tian mission had to make in light of the ending of the colonial era,
Christ," not a truncated version tailored to accommodate mod­ Newbigin concluded his lectures at the Kuala Lumpur assembly
ern sensibilities. This requires that the church learn once more to of the East Asia Christian Conference in 1959by emphasizing the
indwell the biblical narrative so that its own life, witness, and urgent need for a new pattern and appropriate missionary method.
worship are shaped by that narrative rather than by secular But in order to translate such talk into action, one condition had
myth. to be met: "That condition is that there shall be distributed
2. We are called to reclaim the church for its missionary throughout the whole membership of the Church a deep, and
purpose. In The Household of God Newbigin pointed to the fatal strong, and experientially verified conviction about the suffi­
dichotomy that marks Christendom ecclesiology, that is, the ciency and finality of Christ for the whole world'"? The church
separation between church and mission. Mission is often treated will only manifest its conviction as to the"sufficiency and finality
as a stepchild or, even worse, in some cases an orphan, for of Christ" when its faith is continually being tested in the world
traditional ecclesiology often had no place for mission. Yet the by the world. Thus, Newbigin concluded, "It is the church which
church was instituted by Jesus Christ to be a sign of God's reign lives on the frontier that will be ready to advance in strength.'?'
and the means by which witness to that reign would be carried Conviction tested and tried in experience is conviction renewed.
to the ends of the earth. The church that refuses to accept its This insight posits what it means to lead a missionary existence
missionary purpose is, at most, a deformed church. in the world. It is an especially apt challenge to a church trying to
3. We are called to reclaim the church for its missionary find identity amid the ruins of Christendom and the emerging
purpose in relation to modern Western culture. While it is postmodern world.

Notes-----------------------------------------­
1. This article is a revision of one commissioned for the British Bible Newbigin's 1963work TheRelevance ofTrinitarian Doctrine forToday's
Society's periodical TheBible in TransMission (Summer 1998).A full­ Mission (London: Edinburgh House Press) was precursor to the
scale appraisal of Newbigin's thought appears in George R. recovery of Trinitarian theology in the 1970s.In conversation in 1991
Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, Mich.: he expressed puzzlement over W. A. Visser't Hooft's dismissal of
Eerdmans, 1998).Anyone wishing to consider more fully Newbigin's his attempt to promote a Trinitarian theology as a counterweight to
contribution will want to avail themselves of Hunsberger's book, the rising secular theology. Theologically, Newbigin and Visser't
including the bibliography of Newbigin's writings for the years Hooft had much in common, and they were good friends.
1933-95 (pp. 283-304). 6. Newbigin, Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 10.
2. Lesslie Newbigin, Unfinished Agenda, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: St.Andrew 7. Published as The Household of God (New York: Friendship Press,
Press, 1993). 1954), p. 20.
3. Ibid., p. 11. 8. First published in 1978 as The Open Secret: Sketches for a Theology of
4. At age seventy-eight Newbigin was invited to be the 1988Alexander Mission; the second edition appeared in 1995 as The Open Secret: An
Robertson Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He understood Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Both editions were published
that this entailed the delivery of half a dozen public lectures during by Eerdmans.
the autumn term. He arrived in Glasgow with the lectures in 9. See note 5 above.
completed manuscript form, only to be told by the dean of faculty 10. William Ernest Hocking, The Coming World Civilization (New York:
that this term the lectures would be delivered as twenty classroom Harper & Row, 1956).
lectures to first-year divinity students. Immediately he set about 11. New York: Harper & Row, 1932.
reorganizing and rewriting the lectures in the form found in his book 12. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Geneva: WCC Publications; Grand 13. Ibid., p. 30.
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989). In the event, he was greatly 14. Ibid., p. 48.
challenged by this group of students, which ranged from new 15. Ibid., p. 51.
university graduates to thirty-five-year olds who had left their 16. Ibid.
professions to prepare for pastoral ministry. They represented a 17. Note 7 above.
wide variety of religious experiences and levels of commitment. 18. Geneva: WCC Publications, 1983.
5. Two examples illustrate Newbigin's thought leadership. First, the 19. Newbigin regarded as a failure the study entitled "The Missionary
major work by A. T. van Leeuwen, Christianityin World History (New Structureof the Congregation," which was launched in 1961following
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), is anticipated in Newbigin's the New Delhi Assembly, while he was director of the Commission
lecture "The Work of the Holy Spirit," in A Decisive Hour for the on World Mission and Evangelism, World Council of Churches.
Christian Mission (London: SCM Press, 1960). Van Leeuwen 20. A Decisive Hour, p. 44.
acknowledges Newbigin's influence on him (pp. 16-17). Second, 21. Ibid., p. 45.

64 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH

 hristianity's World Mission would be less intimidating and

Life ime of
P epare for a
C more manageable if everyone spoke the same language, fol­
lowed the same customs and viewed life the same way. That
idyllic world, however, is not the world Christ calls us to engage.
The real world features at least a dozen major cultu ral families

Effective Minist ry, and more than 2,000 religions, 6,000 languages and 30,000 distinct
societies and cultures. There are also an unknown (and shifting)
number of sub-cultures, counter-cultures and peoples with their own
ANYWH ERE! distinct name, history and identity. Furthermore, secularization has
transformed Western nations into "mission fields" once again.
Several fields of knowledge prepare the effective missionary to
DEGREE PROGRAMS "exegete" the biblical text and people's cultural context. These lit­
M.A. and Th.M. in World Mission and eratures are as necessary, and as sophisticated, as the literatures
Evangelism; Doctor or Ministry, Doctor that prepare physicians to make sense of an epidemic, or
of Missiology, and Doctor of Philosophy
in Intercultural Studies.
astronomers of a galaxy. Asbury's ESJ School will prepare you to
George Hunter

Dean, Church Growth,

understand the historical, cultural and religious context of the field

communication. Leadership of mission to which Christ has called you, and to serve, communi­
cate and help grow the indigenous Church in that context.
So if you are interested in making sense of a piece of the
world, and in helping its people make sense of the Christian
gospel, call the admissions office today at 1-800-2-ASBURY or
Darrell Whiteman
Ron Crandall Robert Tuttle e-mail us at "[email protected]".
Assoc. Dean, Anthropology,
Evangelism, Small Evangelism. ( hurch Renewal.

Indigenous Christianity Churches. Church Planting Theology of Evangelism

ASBURY
THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY
Howard Snyder Eunice Irwin Matt Zahniser WI L M O R E , K Y ,~ O R l. A N D O. FL
History of Mission,
Primal Religions, WorldReligions, W WW . A SB lJ RY S F.M I NARY . E D U
Theology of Mission
Cantextual Theology Cross-Cultural Discipleship

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