The 2016 Proceedings of the Association of Professors of Mission is entitled “Teaching Christian Mission in an Age of World Christianity”. Peter C. Phan wrote its plenary paper under the heading, “Teaching Missiology in and for World Christianity Content and Method”.
Peter C. Phan is a Vietnamese-born Catholic theologian. He was ordained a priest in 1972 and fled to the United States from Vietnam with all his family in 1975. He went on to acquire doctorates in philosophy and theology and to teach extensively at various institutions in the United States.
So, he is someone worth listening to when it comes to talking about mission. I am still coming to terms with his arguments and claims about the future of Christian mission. But what he is saying speaks to me as a Columban and about our own future as a missionary Society.
First of all, he asserts that the study of mission is central and essential to the study of theology. Why? Because mission keeps theology honest and grounded. He refers to the writings of Pope Francis - in particular, The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium) and The Joy of Love (Amoris Laetitia). As Phan says, “This joyful sharing of love … is what Christian mission is all about”. Therefore, “without this innate orientation to mission in love, theology is often nothing more than a system of thought” (p. 15). What the study of mission continually does is to open new vistas for theology.
Secondly, Phan directly challenges the way we perceive the history of mission. It is not simply the story that proceeds from Jerusalem to Rome or Europe, to Asia and then to the rest of the colonised world. This Eurocentric version of church history still tends to “organize its narrative and organization” along denominational lines - Protestants, Catholics, Pentecostals. There has also been the tendency to focus “on conversion/baptism and church-planting as the twofold goal of Christian mission” (p. 18). What the study and history of World Christianity emphasises is that there is no one centre. Christianity as a world religion is “diverse, multiple, transnational and polycentric in all aspects of its life” (p. 14). Hence, Peter Phan would have no difficulty including stories about the Muslims of Bangladesh who have a devotion to Jesus, about people of varied beliefs in India who believe that Jesus can free them from oppression and evil spirits, and the “marginalised Christians” in China whom traditional theologians and church historians would omit from their areas of study.
Phan concludes his paper by referring to a book by Noel Davies and Martin Conway entitled World Christianity in the 20th Century (London: SCM Press, 2008, pp. 288–293), wherein Davies and Conway claim that the future of World Christianity emphasises quality of witness over increases in numbers, transformation of the person and society within one’s own location, the need to be open to creative change, to worship in a way that is both contextual and universal, and to act for justice and peace.
Mission Intentions
September - For the cry of the Earth: Let us pray that each of us listen with our hearts to the cry of the Earth and of the victims of environmental disasters and the climate crisis, making a personal commitment to care for the world we inhabit pray that political leaders be at the service of their own people, working for integral human development and the common good, taking care of those who have lost their jobs and giving priority to the poor.
October - For a shared mission: Let us pray that the Church continue to sustain a synodal lifestyle in every way, as a sign of co-responsibility, promoting the participation, communion and mission shared by priests, religious and laity
Listen to "Mission World - Missiology in the context of World Christianity"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - September/October 2024
