A great deal of uncertainty exists in the church as to what mission really is. The shifts in political power, away from the traditionally Christian West; the call for a moratorium and the other critical voices from the Third World churches; and the increasing self-assurance and missionary consciousness among adherents of non-Christian religions--all these have given rise to the question whether Christian mission work still makes sense, and if it does, what form it should take. Is mission identical to evangelism in the sense of proclaiming eternal salvation? Does it include social and political involvement, and if so, how? Where does salvation take place: only in the Church, or in the individual, or in society, or in the 'world', or in the non-Christian religions? The picture is one of change and complexity, tension and urgency. The answers we give to these questions must be consonant with the will of God and relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves.
In Mission in Bold Humility editors Willem Saayman and Klippies Kritzinger, Bosch's long-time colleagues in the missiology faculty of the University of South Africa, gather appraisals of Bosch's work from a variety of theological perspectives and mission contexts. Together the distinguished authors offer invaluable critiques of Bosch's thought and insights into Transforming Mission. At the same time Mission in Bold Humility assesses the significance of Bosch's many scholarly and humanitarian contributions: as a missiologist, as a man of the church, and as one who labored courageously on behalf of peace and justice in his native South Africa. Particularly notable is Frans J. Verstraelen's chapter on the influence of Africa in Bosch's thought, offering a penetrating analysis and criticism of an important facet of his life's work that is hardly known outside his native continent.
David Bosch's Transforming Mission, now available in over a dozen languages, is widely recognized as an historic and magisterial contribution to the study of mission. Examining the entire sweep of Christian tradition, he shows how five paradigms have historically encapsulated the Christian understanding of mission and then outlines the characteristics of an emerging postmodern paradigm dialectically linking the transcendent and imminent dimensions of salvation. In this new anniversary edition, Darrel Guder and Martin Reppenhagen explore the impact of Bosch s work and the unfolding application of his seminal vision." --
Following an analysis of the postmodern world, the legacy of the Enlightenment, and Christian faith into a postmodern age, Professor Bosch sketches the contours of a missiology of Western culture. The latter includes considerations of mission as social ethics, mission and the Third World, and God-talk in an age of reason. A concluding section summarizes the five ingredients of a missiology of Western culture, that is, that it include an ecological dimension, that it be countercultural and ecumenical and contextual, andthat it be primarily a ministry of the laity.
Following an analysis of the postmodern world, the legacy of the Enlightenment, and Christian faith into a postmodern age, Professor Bosch sketches the contours of a missiology of Western culture. The latter includes considerations of mission as social ethics, mission and the Third World, and God-talk in an age of reason. A concluding section summarizes the five ingredients of a missiology of Western culture, that is, that it include an ecological dimension, that it be countercultural and ecumenical and contextual, andthat it be primarily a ministry of the laity.
David Bosch's Transforming Mission, now available in over a dozen languages, is widely recognized as an historic and magisterial contribution to the study of mission. Examining the entire sweep of Christian tradition, he shows how five paradigms have historically encapsulated the Christian understanding of mission and then outlines the characteristics of an emerging postmodern paradigm dialectically linking the transcendent and imminent dimensions of salvation. In this new anniversary edition, Darrel Guder and Martin Reppenhagen explore the impact of Bosch s work and the unfolding application of his seminal vision." --
If one word evokes discomfort when spoken to Christ-followers and non-Christ-followers alike, it would be the word “evangelism.” For the Christ-follower, this word brings feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy. They know that, at some level, they should be participating in evangelistic activities, but they are not. My passion is to see Christ-followers intentionally engaging people in spiritual conversations. I wrote this book to educate and encourage Christ-followers in the beauty of sharing the love of Jesus with others. Speak Good News aims to change the less-than-favorable reputation associated with evangelism. This book will encourage and equip Christ-followers to confidently engage in spiritual conversations with individuals they experience life with. I do this by taking a historical look at evangelism, its purest meaning, and offering a fresh lens for the Church to view evangelism. I identify misconceptions and barriers that keep faithful Christ-followers from sharing the wonderful story of Jesus with others. It nudges believers into the shallow end of the “gospel pool” while encouraging them to engage in simple spiritual conversations about Jesus with others.
Street Signs is an engaging missiological inquiry into the cultural and theological meaning of the city. Through the lens of Seattle's Rainier Valley, one of the most ethnically and socioeonomically diverse communities in the US, this work constructs an urban, missional, and contextual theology that is shaped by the local realities of urban neighborhoods but relevant to cities everywhere. Focused on the themes of incarnation, confrontation, and imagination, Street Signs explores the contours of missional theology in urban contexts marked by physical density, social diversity, and economic disparity. In addition to examining contextualization and cultural theory, Street Signs also utilizes creative research methods like urban exegesis, cultural semiotics, and theology of the built environment. For the urban ministry practitioner or the theologian in the city, this work aims to engage thoughtful Christians with missiological and theological reflections on place, neighbor, and community.
David Ofumbi is convinced biblically that, Christian faith covers the entire realm of human existence. There is no dichotomy between private life and public life, or spiritual life and secular life, or an individual and a community. In fact, the whole of human life is the visible expression of the invisible God. Therefore, respective indigenous cultures and the gospel must engage and impact each other. On the one hand, Christians in respective indigenous cultures engage and adapt the gospel to the deep-level meaning and the surface-level forms of their cultures; on the other hand, the gospel transforms respective cultures continuously. African understanding and practices of Christian faith ("Africa Christianity") in this respect is both the outcome of the reciprocal impact between respective indigenous cultures and the gospel and the basis of authentic Christian response to human needs ("Christian Community Transformation"). In the first two chapters, he identifies and discusses briefly the challenges and hopes that characterize local communities in East Africa. He also defines and discusses the phrases "African Christianity" and "Christian Community Transformation". David particularly highlights that the impact of African understandings and practices of Christianity on "Christian Community Transformation" strive: (1) to instill self-confidence in native peoples by enabling them to recover and reassert their true human identities, to restore their true self-dignity, and to build just relationships; (2) to encourage the development and the use of local resources; (3) to bolster robust and enabling faith community structures and proactive responses compatible with the African Christian/ human ethos; and (4) to galvanize global relevance and impact. David Ofumbi is the team leader of Leadership Development Initiative Africa (Leadia), an indigenous leadership development ministry based in Kampala, Uganda. Leadia envisions a community of competent Christian leaders transforming ordinary people into effective followers of Christ courageously transforming Africa. He is currently pursuing post graduate studies focusing on the reciprocal influence between followership and leadership.
The term Ubuntu articulates an African understanding of our need to connect to one another in order to be complete. Likewise, A Common Mission offers a description of churches that connect with one another through the growing phenomenon of mission partnerships. The word "common" indicates something shared among equals. The word "common" also suggests something present in all parts of an organism, production, or narrative, such as a common thread. These two aspects of commonality provide an important orientation for contemporary mission. Since 2008, congregational partnerships emerged so quickly and spontaneously that very few researchers originally noticed this groundswell. Partnerships remain present in over 80 percent of United States mega-churches and are prominent in a large number of smaller US churches. This should not be surprising. Mission exists as an expression of the church's identity, an evangelistic expression that crosses frontiers and goes to the ends of the earth. In our globalized context, however, mission also crosses neighborhood "frontiers" to the immigrants within our own communities. Mission expresses its Christian witness as congregations love those separated from the church by ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, religion, or fear. A Common Mission provides a framework of healthy patterns for churches to live into this mission identity.
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. For victims of persecution around the world, attracting international media attention for their plight is often a matter of life and death. This study takes us back to the news revolution of seventeenth-century Europe, when people first discovered in the press a powerful new weapon to combat religiously inspired maltreatments, executions, and massacres. To affect and mobilize foreign audiences, confessional minorities and their advocates faced an acute dilemma, one that we still grapple with today: how to make people care about distant suffering? David de Boer argues that by answering this question, they laid the foundations of a humanitarian culture in Europe. As consuming news became an everyday practice for many Europeans, the Dutch Republic emerged as an international hub of printed protest against religious violence. De Boer traces how a diverse group of people, including Waldensians refugees, Huguenot ministers, Savoyard office holders, and many others, all sought access to the Dutch printing presses in their efforts to raise transnational solidarity for their cause. By generating public outrage, calling out rulers, and pressuring others to intervene, producers of printed opinion could have a profound impact on international relations. But crying out against persecution also meant navigating a fraught and dangerous political landscape, marked by confessional tension, volatile alliances, and incessant warfare. Opinion makers had to think carefully about the audiences they hoped to reach through pamphlets, periodicals, and newspapers. But they also had to reckon with the risk of reaching less sympathetic readers outside their target groups. By examining early modern publicity strategies, de Boer deepens our understanding of how people tried to shake off the spectre of religious violence that had haunted them for generations, and create more tolerant societies, governed by the rule of law, reason, and a sense of common humanity.
Witty, incisive observations on such universally meaningful topics as courage and compassion by many of the greatest minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been the hallmark of genius, but Nobel laureates tend to be more than merely brilliant-their idealism, courage, and concern for humanity have also made them sources of inspiration and wisdom. Contrary to the notion that geniuses are absentminded eccentrics who lead solitary lives, many Nobel laureates have been social activists and political leaders, and some have been polymaths whose interests and talents were diverse, such as Philip Noel-Baker, winner of the 1959 Peace prize, who ran in three Olympic Games. Most of the quotations have never been anthologized previously. There is a section of short biographical sketches of each of the roughly 250 laureates quoted in the book, a brief history of the Nobel Prize, and a complete list of every Nobel laureate through 2006. The Impossible Takes Longer is a remarkable assemblage of insightful, thought-provoking, sometimes humorous statements by some of the world's wisest men and women.
De Witt offers a detailed biography based on a thorough review of the documentary evidence. He traces Van Noordt's origins back to a prominent musical family, details his artistic development under the guidance of prominent Amsterdam painter Jacob Adriaensz Backer, and reveals his synthesis of the styles of the two dominant Netherlandish artists, Rubens and Rembrandt. Using a systematic analysis of technique, manner, and approach to form, de Witt proves that over half the paintings and drawings presently attributed to Van Noordt are not his work - virtually recasting the accomplishments of an artist whose vibrant, often daring works challenge our concept of seventeenth-century Dutch art.
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