David Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer, MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium. B and H Academic, 2010.
Referenced in: Theology of Mission – History and Overview
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This is a highly recommended advanced overview of how the church has defined its mission throughout history. I recommend it alongside Bosch, Transforming Mission. Those who are new to the study of theology and history of mission may wish to start with the first five chapters of Introducing World Missions before moving to Bosch or Hesselgrave/Stetzer.
This volume from Hesselgrave/Stetzer differs from Bosch’s Transforming Mission in a few ways. First, it is more accessible and less dense in style, though it is a strong academic work. Second, it is a collection of essays from representatives of viewpoints along a wide spectrum. Readers can take part in their irenic exchange. Third, it comes almost twenty years after Bosch and directly addresses contemporary issues, but with balanced critique from leading scholar-practitioners.
The book is built around three major essays. Ed Stetzer describes them in the introduction, from which this summary is derived. The first essay is by Charles Van Engen, who explains how the church has understood and defined its mission historically. Van Engen writes from a Missional/Missio Dei perspective. He concludes by offering his definition of mission. Keith Eitel and Andreas Kostenberger each respond to Van Engen, both of them from somewhere along the continuum between Evaluating-Emergent or Missional/Convergent philosophies, highlighting their fears that some missional and emergent churches have deemphasized biblical authority in order to interact with postmodernity. Eitel warns against allowing missiological creativity to erode a biblical sense of mission. Kostenberger’s “12 theses” capture a Reformed spirit to elevate the importance of sound hermeneutics that honors the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Two more affirming respondents are Enoch Wan and Darrell Guder. Wan appreciates Van Engen’s missional emphasis but pushes for stronger Trinitarian theology. Guder is quite appreciative of Van Engen, and demonstrates their mutual affinity with earlier expressions of missio Dei by Karl Barth.
The second essay is by the late Paul Hiebert, who addresses the church’s mission in the present as contextualization. He discusses the history of contextualization in missions, contrasting one extreme of minimal contextualization and ignorance of cultural anthropology to the other extreme of uncritical contextualization which leads to religious syncretism. Hiebert rejects both extremes and aims at critical contextualization that is true to biblical teaching and also sensitive to culture. Michael Pocock, a student of Hiebert, agrees with Hiebert, and brings John Travis’s C1-C6 Model of contextualization to the table. He mentions the value of Hiebert’s critical contextualization as a tool to assess recent attempts to spread the gospel among Muslims. Darrell Whiteman also appreciates Hiebert. He adds the idea that “the gospel affirms most of culture, confronts some aspects of culture, and transforms all of culture.” In a manner that is slightly more progressive than Pocock, Whiteman also applies the C1-C6 Model to the Muslim issue. Norman Geisler writes from a strongly Evaluating-Emergent perspective, and as a theologian critiques Hiebert as weak on biblical inerrancy and propositional truth. He prefers the disciplines of worldview research and apologetics over contextualization.
The last article in this section by Avery Willis affirms Hiebert’s critical contextualization and applies it to the task of reaching the 60 percent of the world’s population that live in oral cultures. He does this by first looking through the lens of the history of Evangelicalism. He divides this history into First-Inheritance Evangelism which spanned both the First and Second Great Awakenings, from 1726 to the time of Dwight L. Moody (1880). During this time, Evangelicals “engaged in intellectualism and civic leadership,” and “sought both to preach the gospel and minister to the needy.” Second-Inheritance Evangelicalism, was dominated by the Bible college and Fundamentalist movements, which led to anti-intellectualism and a rejection of social ministry. Winter calls for more macro-projects on a continental scale, more “large-scale human needs ministries” as a “pre-evangelism strategy that will open doors for the gospel.” Scott Moreau in his essay likes Winter’s large-scale proposals, but doubts Evangelicalism’s financial capacity to accomplish it, emphasizing instead the role of web technology in the future of missions. Mark Terry also agrees with holism and shares his own vision of the future, especially missions to youth. Chris Little, as a theologian, offers a very thorough and less affirming critique of Winter’s call for massive human needs projects, reemphasizing evangelism as the priority. Mike Barnett, as a church historian, challenges Winter’s history as “overly broad and simplistic,” questioning whether Second-Inheritance Evangelicalism was as socially deficient as Winter describes. He agrees with Winter’s holism, but believes the balance between word and deed should be determined contextually on a case-by-case basis.
Ed Stetzer’s wrap-up of each section is the most helpful feature of the book. He is perhaps one of the most insightful missiologists for our time.
From the Publisher
Veteran missionary David Hesselgrave and rising missional expert Ed Stetzer edit this engaging set of conversational essays addressing global mission issues in the third millennium. Key contributors are Charles E. Van Engen (“Mission Described and Defined”), the late Paul Hiebert (“The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perspectives on Contextualization”), and the late Ralph Winter (“The Future of Evangelicals in Mission”). Those offering written responses to these essays include: (Van Engen) Keith Eitel, Enoch Wan, Darrell Guder, Andreas J. Köstenberger; (Hiebert) Michael Pocock, Darrell Whiteman, Norman L. Geisler, Avery Willis; (Winter) Scott Moreau, Christopher Little, Michael Barnett, and Mark Terry.
About the Authors/Editors
David Hesselgrave is professor emeritus of mission at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He also served as a missionary in Japan for twelve years with the Evangelical Free Church of America, was executive director of the Evangelical Missiological Society, and has lectured in more than forty countries. Hesselgrave and his wife have three grown children.
Ed Stetzer is director of LifeWay Research and missiologist in residence at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, Tennessee. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, holds two masters degrees and two doctorates, and has cowritten popular books including Comeback Churches and Breaking the Missional Code. Stetzer and his wife have three daughters.
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