Beyond Strategy: Developing a Critical Method in Missiology and Intercultural Theology
In this lecture, John Flett highlights the failure of missiology to formulate its subject matter and the methods supporting that subject’s examination and offers some remedial directions for the field
While missiology, at its inception in the 19th century, engaged in ‘secondary reflection’ on the act of mission, that discourse focused on strategies, on the doing of mission, and the best practices to achieve its envisioned end. As the post-colonial critiques of mission became apparent, it became necessary to distance mission from the evils of colonisation. Enter David Bosch and the framework of “mission as…” This approach affirmed that mission cannot be reduced to a single form and cannot simply be identified with colonisation, but it included the further effect of denying missiology any centre, something that might define it as a field of discourse. In other words, while it is no longer a field occupied with strategy, missiology has failed to formulate its subject matter and the methods supporting that subject’s examination. Or, missiology has employed “mission as/and…” as an uncritical structuring methodology, leading to the demise of the field itself. This lecture will examine the consequences of this methodological failure for missiology and propose some remedial directions for the field.
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