Book Review: Advanced Missiology: How to Study Missions in Credible and Useful Ways by Kenneth Nehrbass

Abstract

Credible people give their endorsement to this work. For example, Scott Moreau of Wheaton College Graduate School states that it is ‘a perfect book for those who want an overarching view of contemporary missiology from an evangelical vantage.’ Enoch Wan from Western Seminary notes how the gap within ‘the scarcity of textbooks in missiological research methodology’ is filled by this book. Nehrbass’s use of ‘advanced’ in the book’s title draws from a cross-section of primarily evangelical theologians and missiologists and assumes the text will guide the discipline of mission studies into a steadier and relevant future. Nehrbass’s biography mentions his experience of teaching missiology in two US evangelical institutions, and this lends credibility to his work. From the outset, the author acknowledges the crowded and complex field of missiology because of its integration with many academic fields (p. 2). Therefore, the book’s purpose is to help the reader ‘integrate multiple academic fields to increase [one’s] understanding of how Christianity spreads across cultures’ (p. 1). The author’s definition of missiology is ‘the utilization of multiple academic disciplines to develop strategies for making disciples across cultures’, and therefore the missiologist is ‘someone whose primary work is to study the way Christianity spreads across cultural boundaries’ (p. 14). In other words, missiology is viewed as the study of cross-cultural disciple-making. This perspective is apparent in mapping a missional hermeneutic of the crosscultural nature of mission with the ‘heart goal’ of ‘commit[ting] to joining in God’s desire to make Himself known throughout the world’ (p. 36). This is further developed in chapter 8, where cross-cultural discipleship is defined as ‘the process of teaching people to obey all that Jesus commanded’ and needs to include both teaching and action (p. 199). Essential to the structure of the book is the distinction drawn between theories and models; the former being ‘descriptive explanations, grounded in data, of the way the world works’ (p. 6) and the latter are ‘prescriptive ways of doing things [or] “best practices” that emerge from empirical research’ (p. 8). Mission theories and models are passed down through generations of researchers and practitioners. Some stand the test of time, and others go into dormancy. These are signs of how missiology as an academic discipline has matured through the rigorous pursuits of past and current participants in the field. Nehbrass is clear about the interdisciplinary nature of missiology by stating how it draws from other academic disciplines in its pursuit of creating new theories and models. Examples within the scholar’s work of drawing from other fields include globalisation studies, anthropology, theology and biblical studies. The author’s missiological framework departs from the conventional three-legged stool metaphor for ‘theory, history, and anthropology (more broadly, the social sciences)’ (p. 16). Instead, missiology, while being interdisciplinary, is like ‘a river with countless tributaries (theoretical disciplines) that converge at the common goal of making disciples in cross-cultural contexts. As the river moves downstream, it serves multiple Book Review