International Review of Mission最新文献

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.

In this article I analyze the concept and contextuality of ecumenical missiology and its contemporary paradigms. Furthermore, I argue that the mission from the margins paradigm may construct a new method for undoing constantly increasing marginalization when understood from both its theological and philosophical points of view. This article celebrates togetherness in missio Dei as life-giving mission of God and argues that transformation is the only hope for humankind and the churches. It was written to honour Finnish missiologist Dr Risto Ahonen on his 80th birthday.

This article explores the concept and practice of discipleship in contemporary missions. Discipleship in mission reflection has emerged in recent years within the scope of the World Council of Churches and the Asian Christian Conference. The practice of intentional discipleship is carried out not only by churches or parachurches but also by communities of Jesus followers who adhere to non-Christian religions. They remained in their religion but professed to believe in and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. They study individually or together in a community to grow in the proper knowledge of Christ and know what God wants them to do in their daily lives. This article presents several case examples, mainly from Indonesia, resulting from the author's research.

Contextualization has featured prominently in missiological research for decades, often alongside concepts such as syncretism and hybridity. Being typically conceived as attempts to transpose and communicate the gospel in words and ways that make sense to people in their local cultural settings, contextualization has been theorized extensively in missiological scholarship. Notwithstanding this longstanding scholarly interest, a dearth of research recognizes in-service training as a valid expression of contextualization praxis. This article addresses this knowledge gap. Set in the contemporary church context in Thailand, the article explores questions, issues, and trends of current theological training practice, considering future opportunities for indigenous leadership formation. The analysis converges around the central proposition that in-service training is an under-recognized strategy for leadership development in Thailand and beyond. Conceptualizing opportunities for future research, the review charts pertinent perspectives and prospects for in-service training. This article embodies a timely research agenda aimed at sidestepping undue reliance on Western-dominated hermeneutics while at the same time advocating for indigenous theological training approaches in countries of the majority world.

The term syncretism has had a metamorphic history in terms of its meaning, starting as positive with Plutarch, to being positive and negative during the Reformation, and then becoming neutral and negative after the Reformation to becoming decidedly negative from the 1920s onward. Despite advances in interpreting syncretism in more neutral or positive ways, the word's meaning and function remain imprecise. Central to the fog surrounding the word is its implicit meaning of some type of mixture, whether negative, neutral, or positive. The question then becomes, “Is mixture a valid central meaning of the word?” More importantly, can the suspicious lens of decolonialism offer insight into redefining it and also give direction as to how it could function? This article studies the development of the term, examines current scholarship within the World Council of Churches, and situates syncretism within the larger context of the decolonial discussion in trying to redefine it in light of its original meaning.