International Review of Mission最新文献

The interstitial space at the intersection of race and disability is primed for a decolonial analysis. By examining the colonial history of Indigenous people and Black chattel slaves in North America, this paper will show how the contemporary definitions of race and disability are inherited social constructs created for the colonizer's utility to control the bodies and minds of those occupying and working the land the colonizer seeks to control for the private accumulation of imperial wealth. I will give examples of how socio-cultural institutions like the church have inherited the logic of colonialism, creating ideologies of domination that must be challenged by a robust decolonial theology. Racism and ableism are the direct end product of a colonial view of the world that sees land and people as exploitable and expendable. A theology of liberation must grapple with the demands of decolonization to produce a just and equitable society.

The growth of religious disaffiliation in the United States over the past three decades is historically unprecedented. This article argues that disaffiliation is a form of moral protest against lingering coloniality in American global North Christianities and appeals for missiologists to adopt a decolonial lens to more effectively critique harmful religious systems and investigate exterior forms of Christianities otherwise in the North American context. The article explores existing sociological and empirical data on disaffiliation, deconversion, and religious harms to expose the moral protest of disaffiliation. Decoloniality is distinguished from postcolonialism to reveal its relevance for the subject matter and identify its method. Using examples of North American missiologies, the article demonstrates how latent forms of coloniality are preserved despite decolonizing efforts in the field and how a decolonial lens can bring new works of the spirit into focus. Finally, it briefly explores implications for future research.

Decolonial ecological imaginations entail a critical interrogation of mainstream environmentalism to unmask and unsettle it. These reflections expose how mainstream environmentalism legitimizes and perpetuates the colonization of the Earth and subaltern and Indigenous communities. Mainstream environmentalism is a colonial project to perpetuate the interests of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. This calls for a new search for decolonial and alternative ecological reimagination, informed by the epistemologies and eco-politics of the Indigenous and subaltern communities and other grassroots social movements. Decolonial ecological imaginations involve the task of contesting and unsettling settler colonialism, extractive/exploitative capitalism, white supremacy, and all ideologies and practices of domination and exclusion.

This article grapples with the Anglican Communion's Five Marks of Mission, raising questions such as: Does the Communion need a mission? Does mission need the Communion? And do the Five Marks of Mission speak to the mission of God or mission of and in the Communion? Central to the article is the anxiety about the potential consequences of mission based on historic experiences of people from colonized territories, hence the use of a decolonial approach in this article. The article is also cognizant of the coloniality that continues to influence intra-Communion and ecumenical relations. It asks whether the Five Marks of Mission carry in them some decoloniality impulses that could fundamentally heal the wounds of the past, celebrate the diversity in the Communion presently, and re-envision a future in which the Communion sees itself as having a role to play in the missio Dei.

This article contextualizes Stef Craps’ concept of postcolonial witnessing and Shelly Rambo's concept of the afterlife of trauma to offer a model of Bible study as a postcolonial witnessing to the afterlife. The aim is to identify the contextual and multilayered dimensions of Bible study as a witnessing practice embedded in an Indonesian local Christian community's story of post-religious communal violence and cultural trauma and its rereading of the Bible as a narrative of the afterlife. The community's story unveils an intergenerational community of survivors witnessing life within the intersection of the rupturing presence of violence, mission history, and its collective memory. I argue that a contextual Bible study from the lens of the afterlife imbued with a local Christian community's story of trauma and witnessing exemplifies an intergenerational, intertextual, and intercultural witnessing of life – thus, a postcolonial witnessing – which is relevant to mission studies in the context of trauma history and interreligious relationships.

This study relates theology to popular culture. As a platform for expressing the experiences of present-day life, popular culture is theologically challenging. Scientific discourses on popular culture have revealed the significance of popular culture in society and its characteristics as a “translocal” cultural pattern. Using the approach of public theology, this study explores meeting points of theology and popular culture in the context of the Indonesian public sphere. The findings suggest that contextual encounters between theology and popular culture should take the form of negotiations rather than adaptations or confrontations.

This article contributes to the literature on interreligious engagement in prison from the perspective of Christian religious educational and missional ministry. It uses a case study conducted in the Class IIA Women's Correctional Institution in Semarang, Indonesia. In Indonesia, educational and missional ministry in prisons plays a vital role in supporting prison services. This ministry is understood as part of the Christian mandate to serve those in prison, regardless of their religion. Though spiritual development for Christian inmates is also essential, it is important to consider a comprehensive interreligious engagement programme that includes art, creativity, and imagination, including batik-making. Using a postcolonial feminist perspective, this article proposes practices relevant to prison ministry, especially for female inmates. The practices are both educational and missional. We call the interconnection between the educational and missional a liberating third space – a space of interreligious engagement that is relevant for female inmates in Indonesia.