THEOLOGY OF MISSION

Lecture 2
Midterm PPT Module in
MISSOLOGY
Oct. 11-16, 2021

Personal Copy
Y.V. Magluyan
Mount Carmel College—Baler
[All Rights Reserved to the Righful Owner]
TOPICS FOR TODAY :
1. A Call for Missiological studies in Ecumenical Spirit
2. Origin of Missiology and Quest for a Definition of Terms
 Ramon Lull
 Missiology/Missionary theology a latecomer?
3. What is missiology?
4. The place of Missiology in the Framework of theological
disciplines
5. The Task of Missiology
6. Missiology and other Academic disciplines
7. What is mission?
 Our first task in approaching
Another people, another culture, another
religion,
Is to take off our shoes,
For the ground
we are approaching is holy;
Else we may find ourselves treading on
people's dreams.
More seriously still,
We may forget
That God was there
before our arrival.
(Bishop Kenneth Cragg)
 2. A Call for Missiological Studies
in an Ecumenical Spirit

 Ecumenical = relating to the whole body of Christian churches,

promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or
cooperation.
 The Second Vatican Council stresses the need for
missiological studies.

“It is very necessary for the future missionary that he

undertake missiological studies, that he know, that is, the
teaching and the laws of the Church regarding missionary
activity, that he be aware of the paths which have been
followed by the messengers of the Gospel down through the
centuries, and that he be familiar with the present state of
the missions and with the methods considered most effective
in the present time.”
[Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity no. 26 (Ad Gentes)]
 Redemptoris Missio n. 83 : points out the
need for missionary formation and
missiological studies:

Missionary formation is the task of the local Church,

assisted by missionaries and their Institutes, and by
personnel from the young Churches. This work must be
seen not as peripheral but as central to the Christian
life. Even for the “new evangelization” of Christian
countries the theme of the missions can prove very
helpful: the witness of missionaries retains its appeal
even for the non-practising and non-believers, and it
communicates Christian values. Particular Churches
should therefore make the promotion of the missions a
key element in the normal pastoral activity of parishes,
associations and groups, especially youth groups.
With this end in view, it is necessary to spread information through
missionary publications and audiovisual aids. [..-]

Such formation is entrusted to priests and their associates, to educators and

teachers, and theologians, particularly those who teach in seminaries and
centres for the laity. Theological training cannot and should not ignore the
Church’s universal mission, ecumenism, the study of the great religions and
missiology I recommend that such studies be undertaken especially in
seminaries and in houses of formation for men and women Religious,
ensuring that some priests or other students specialize in the different fields
of missiology.
 The Second Vatican Council brought a decisive
opening of Catholicism toward other Christian
churches and permitted an ecumenical
breakthrough in the realm of missions.

 Gradually it became clear that Catholic and Protestant

missions could no longer continue in isolation.
 Missionary cooperation still remains difficult.
The latter part of the cooperation proved to be
a lot easier.

 As a matter of fact Catholic missiology owes a

lot to Protestant missiologists! Just think here of
Transforming Mission, the masterpiece of David
Bosch ( 1 929-1 992).
3. Origin of Missiology and Quest for a
Definition of the Term

(1) Ramon Lull (Llull) (1235-1315): An Early

Attempt at Establishing a “Missiological
Curriculum”

 According to Stephen Neill, “Ramon Lull must rank as

one of the greatest missionaries in the history of the
Church.’
 a layman who worked with the Franciscans and
probably joined their Third Order.

 born in Majorca of a noble family at the service

of the king of Catalonia. The earlier part of his
life he spent at the service of his king.
RAMON LULL
 At first, Robert Lull was the
complete adulterer, always
using love and seduction as an
excuse for enjoyment.

 the first Christian to study

the Jewish Kabbalah, and
later devoted his life to Christ
and his mission.

 preached Christianity to
Islamic North Africa
In 1265 he underwent a conversion experience, and took the
decision to live for Christ. For him this meant:

 To work for the conversion of Muslims

and Mongols, even at the risk of being
killed;

best book possible in defense

 To write the
of Christianity;
 to
 To ask the Pope and the Christian kings
found training centres for
missionaries destined to work
among Jews and Muslims.

 In those centres the missionaries could then

study Hebrew and Arabic.
 Lull was a profound scholar, well acquainted with all the
philosophical and theological systems of the day.

 His own religion was mystical in character. In a steady

stream of books and poems in his beloved Catalan, as well as
in Latin, he strove to set forth the relations
between the Lover and the Beloved.

training centre at Miramar

 In 1274 he founded a
(Majorca) where thirteen Franciscans were
learning Arabic before setting out to
evangelize the Muslims. His ambitious dreams were
never really implemented.
 His efforts to draw the attention of the pope to
the need for training centres finally
succeeded.

 The Council of Vienna (1311) decided to

establish a department for Arabic Studies
at the universities of Rome, Bologna,
Salamanca, Paris, and Oxford.
 This decision, at least as far as the teaching of
Arabic was concerned, was not
implemented, for the Council had
wanted to favor other languages (Greek,
Hebrew, Syriac) as well.

 During his last preaching tour in Tunis (1314-

1315) he aroused the anger of the crowd by
his criticism of Muhammad. He was beaten,
expelled, and he probably died at sea or in
Majorca.
(2) Missiology/MissionaryTheology a
Latecomer?

 Missiology as a theological discipline seems to

be a latecomer.
 But..Bosch suggests with Martin Hengel “that
the history and the theology of early
Christianity are, first of all, ‘mission
history’ and ‘mission theology’
 Heinrich Kasting –

“Mission was, in the early stages, more than a

mere function; it was a fundamental
expression of the life of the church. The
beginnings of a missionary theology are
therefore also the beginnings of Christian
theology as such.’
 Martin Kähler: Mission is the mother of
theology” […]. Theology [..] began as “an
accompanying manifestation of the Christian mission”
and not as “a luxury of the world-dominating
church”

 After all, missionary theology, as a component

of missiology, is not really a latecomer, but in
fact the mother of Christian theology. The
Church has to be understood in the
light of mission.
 Jürgen Moltmann, known primarily as a theologian of hope,
has this to say:

What we have to learn […] is not that the church ‘has’ a mission, but
the very reverse: that the mission of Christ creates its own church.
Mission does not come from the church; it is from mission and in the
light of mission that the church has to be understood.

 Without a sound missiology there can be no good

theology.
(3) What Is Missiology?
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
(11th ed. 2003)
 “Missiology” as “the study of the church’s mission especially
with respect to missionary activity” and indicates that the first
use of the term was in 1924.

 Probably this is one of the first definitions of missiology to be

attempted by a general dictionary of the English language.

 This definition recognizes an important distinction between

the mission of the Church and the Church’s missionary
activity. However, it offers no clue as to the scope and
comprehensiveness of the discipline, or how to relate mission
to missionary activity.
For further reflection:

 Mission of the Church – promotion of God’s Reign in the

world;

 Church’s missionary activity- promotes God’s Reign

outside the established Christian communities.

 Missiology: the study of the missionary work of the Church

in all its aspects.
 The Dutch Reformed missiologist Johannes Verkuyl mentions
two reasons why the internationally accepted term missiology
should be kept.
1. This term makes clear to everyone that the
focus of interest is not primarily the content
of the message, but rather the missionary
action of God and the men and women he
mandates.

2. In line with ecumenism this term is accepted by

most denominations. Indeed wherever possible,
we ought to encourage uniformity in the use of language
and terminology. A uniform terminology will benefit
all churches and denominations.
 And so for the sake of clarity and a uniform
language we opt for the term missiology.

 When in 1973 the inaugural issue of Missiology:

An International Review was published, there
was still no agreement on a definition of what
missiology is, though the term was then in
current use.
4. The Place of Missiology in the Framework of
Theological Disciplines
 Historical Note

 [1] Some missiologists/theologians proposed to

incorporate missiology or parts of it in other
theological disciplines:
 Gustav Warneck – to
incorporate the history of
missions within the wider study
of church history, the biblical
foundation for missions within
the biblical disciplines, and the
study of missions proper within
the framework of practical
theology.

 He thus divided missiology into

three separate studies.
 Others argued for including all of missiology
within church history.

 Some argued for putting missiology within the study

of systematic theology, or more specifically, in the
study of the doctrines of the Trinity and
eschatology.

 But this plea for inserting missiology into systematic

theology never received support.

 Indeed, missiology is involved with all the theological

disciplines.
[2] Independence - Olav Guttorm
Myklebust – called for independence
because whenever missiology is integrated
into one or more of the other disciplines, it
does not receive its due.
[3] Integration - to abandon the teaching of
missiology as a separate subject and expect other
theological disciplines to incorporate the missionary
dimension into the entire field of theology.

It sounds like a good solution, but has several serious

defects.

For instance, the teachers of other subjects usually are

not sufficiently aware of the innate missionary
dimension of all theology; neither do they have the
knowledge to pay due attention to this dimension.
Missiology Has Special Links with Ecclesiology

 When mission was defined almost exclusively in terms of

saving souls or of Church extension, missiology could
only be the science of and for the missionary.

 It was a practical subject which treated the question “How

are we to execute our task?”

 Since the Church was not understood as being “missionary by

its very nature”, mission and, by implication,
missiology, remained an expendable extra.
 Things changed when it became generally
accepted that mission belongs to the
essence of the Church.

Mission was no longer merely an

activity of the church, but an
expression of the very being of the
Church.
 The Church is now perceived as sent
into the world and existing for the sake
of the world.
 The world could no longer be divided into
‘missionizing” and “missionary” territories.

 The whole world was a mission field.

Consequently Western theology too had to be
practiced in a missionary situation!
 The Church is seen as essentially missionary (AG 2).

 The Church exists in being sent and in building up

itself for the sake of its mission.

 Mission is not an extra activity of a strongly

established Church, a pious undertaking that can be
attended to only when everything is fine and
flourishing at home.
 Missionary activity is not so much the work of the
Church as simply the Church at work.

 This duty pertains to the whole Church.

 impossible to talk about the Church without at the

same time talking about mission.

 Church and mission belong together.

 Hence, missiology and ecclesiology have special links

with one another.
5. The Task of Missiology
 to accompany critically the
 Missiology has
missionary enterprise.

 to scrutinize its foundations, its aims, and methods.

 Missiological reflection is a vital element in Christian

mission and helps to strengthen and purify it.

 Since mission has to do with the dynamic relation

between God and humankind, missiology consciously
pursues its task from a faith perspective.
 Mission is an intersubjective reality in which
missiologists, missionaries, and the people among
whom they labor are all partners.

 And so faith and concrete-historical mission, theory

and praxis determine each other and are dependent
on each other.

 van Engelen = the challenge to missiology is “to link

the always-relevant Jesus event of twenty centuries
ago to the future of the promised reign of God for the
sake of meaningful initiatives in the present.”
 a hazardous undertaking.

 Missiology, like every branch of theology, remains

fragile and preliminary.

 There is no such thing as missiology, period.

 Missiologia semper reformanda est.

 6. Missiology Involves
Other Academic Disciplines
 Missiology stands in

between the Church and the world situation.

between the Church and religion and culture,

the Church and the imposed reality of oppression

and economic hardships.

 Missiology is facing this modern world.

 In order to address properly this situation it needs
the help of other sciences.

 needs the social sciences, anthropology, the

sciences of religion, the political and
economic sciences.

 These sciences give the church new insights and

challenge it to scout for new possibilities and
new courses of action.
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World no. 44 (Gaudium et Spes) says:
 It profits from the experience of past ages, from the progress of the sciences, and
from the riches hidden in various cultures, through which greater light is thrown
on the nature of man and new avenues to truth are opened up. The Church learned
early in its history to express the Christian message in the concepts and language of different
peoples and tried to clarify it in the light of the wisdom of their philosophers: it was an attempt
to adapt the Gospel to the understanding of all men and the requirements of the learned, insofar
as this could be done. Indeed, this kind of adaptation and preaching of the revealed Word must
ever be the law of all evangelization. In this way it is possible to create in every country the
possibility of expressing the message of Christ in suitable terms and to foster vital contact and
exchange between the Church and different cultures. Nowadays when things change so
rapidly and thought patterns differ so widely, the Church needs to step up this
exchange by calling upon the help of people who are living in the world, who are
expert in its organizations and its forms of training, and who understand its
mentality, in the case of believers and nonbelievers alike. With the help of the Holy
Spirit, it is the task of the whole people of God, particularly of its pastors and
theologians, to listen to and distinguish the many voices of our times and to
interpret them in the light of the divine Word, in order that the revealed truth may be
more deeply penetrated, better understood, and more suitably presented.
 Mission studies cannot be separated from other
academic disciplines.

 Why is the study of the phenomenology and

history of religions neglected in our
formation programs?

 Especially the study of traditional religions is not

taken up although they are the basis on which most
large movements to the Christian faith have taken
place.
 It is very much needed that sciences dealing with
language, history and culture are given sufficient
attention.

 In short, our task in the world of theology cannot be

carried out with the resources of theology alone.
7. What Is Mission?
1. Proclamation of the Reign of God as Mission
of the Church”

[1] The Ecclesiocentric Mission Paradigm -

Mission at the Service of the Church
 Pre-Vatican II, the answers to the five questions –
mission what for, to whom, by whom, with whom, and how?
– were obvious and simple.

Mission is:
 [1] the Church’s work for the salvation of souls,
 [2] carried out for the benefit of the pagans abroad,
 [3] mainly by priests, religious brothers, nuns, and specially
commissioned lay folk, mostly from Europe and America,
 [4] with the financial and spiritual support of the laity back
home, and
 [5] by planting the Church in these “mission fields.”
 Common agreement on what was meant by mission.

 It was understood as the foreign mission, or missio ad

gentes, that is, mission in Africa, Asia, Latin America,
and Oceania.

 Europe and North America were not included because

they were considered already Christianized.

 To these foreign lands missionaries were sent, and

they would spend their entire lives there.
For what is mission?
 It is to save individual souls and to establish churches
for this purpose in foreign lands, outside of Europe
and North America.

 The emphasis was on their moral and spiritual

welfare, even though their material well-being was
not neglected, especially by means of education,
health care, and social services.
(2) To whom?

 Mission is to the “pagans,” who were living outside the

sphere of God’s grace and on the way to eternal
damnation.

 The “pagans” are the objects of the missionary’s

conversionary efforts (not the subjects with whom the
missionary can enter into dialogue.)

 Their religions are superstitious.

 The “pagans” must abjure and reject them in order to

convert to the only true religion, that is, Christianity.
(3) By whom?

 Mission is conducted mostly by special agents (priests,

members of religious orders, and some elite laity).

 All these agents must be especially commissioned by

the hierarchical Church that sends and controls them,
especially through the Sacred Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith (founded in 1622 by Pope
Gregory XV).
(4) With whom?

 Certainly not with other Christians, especially

Protestants; not with the local Churches, which are
still considered immature.

 The immediate collaborators of the missionaries are

the lay folk back home who support them with
prayers and money and who try to raise other
missionary vocations.
(5) How?

 Mission means planting churches, that is, replicating

the Western church models. (This strategy was
adopted not only because Western culture was
considered superior but also to ensure “unity,” that is,
uniformity in the Church.)
 In this type of mission theology, the Church was
divided into the sending Church and the
receiving Church, with the latter as the object of
the former’s missionary activities.

 The reign of God, especially its prophetic and

eschatological dimensions, were practically forgotten.

 God’s reign was identified with the Church in its

current form.
 That was how mission was understood and practiced
up to approximatelv 1975. But now things have
changed quite a bit, and a crisis started to develop.

 The factors contributing to this crisis are many:

[1] Geographical shifts in the 1950s and 1960s,
especially the ending of European colonialism and
the gaining of political independence by many
African and Asian peoples, placed in serious
jeopardy Christian mission. Many missionaries heard
the shout: “Missionary, go home.’
[2] The resurgence of the so-called non-Christian
religions, in particular Hinduism and Islam,
contradicted the missionaries’ rosy predictions of
their early demise.

[3] There was an intense awareness of religious

pluralism which advocates several distinct
independent, and equally valid ways to reach the
Divine. Hence, this thinking considered conversion
from one religion to another, which was considered
the goal of mission, unnecessary.
[4] The rise of what has been termed postmodernity,
a label to describe diverse movements in
contemporary thought that deconstruct and reject the
claim to universal validity of any historical,
philosophical, and theological system such as
Christianity.

 Stripped of this claim Christianity (and for that

matter, any religion with universalistic tendencies)
would lose the raison d’etre for its missionary work.
[3] The Regnocentric Mission Paradigm: The
Church at the Service of God’s Reign, or the
Church Defined by Mission

 The Reign of God / the Kingdom of God

 the Church has now the role of servant, not master, of

mission. Like John the Baptist in front of Jesus, it has
to say: “The reign of God must increase, and I must
decrease.”
 Recent biblical scholarship has demonstrated the
centrality of the reign of God in Jesus’ ministry.

 It is the heart of his preaching: “The time is fulfilled,

and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and
believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15)

 Many of his parables speak of the kingdom of God,

and his miraculous deeds are signs that the kingdom of
God that he was announcing had indeed arrived.
 This kingdom is said to be of God because its arrival
signals the gracious, forgiving, and redeeming
presence of Yahweh in the world; it is not the fruit of
human efforts.

 This kingdom is open to all, and all are invited to

enter into it, but it is given especially or
“preferentially” to those who are marginalized, that is,
the poor, the afflicted, the oppressed, the captives (Lk
4:18).
 Jesus embodied in his person the reign of God he
proclaimed: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in
your hearing,” (Lk 4:21) declared Jesus, referring to
Isaiah 61:1-2, which he had just read from the scroll.

 In this sense the kingdom of God is a present reality.

God’s saving power and complete self-revelation in
the future was already assured in the preaching, and
above all, in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
 The events of Jesus’ death and resurrection are a
powerful validation by God of Jesus’ message about
God’s power over sin, corruption, injustice, and
violence. God’s rule will be characterized by universal
peace, justice, and love, and it is already here.

 To proclaim the kingdom of God is

necessarily to proclaim the Christ-event. The
two proclamations, which throw light on each other,
cannot be separated.
 However, somehow this kingdom of God is still to
come, or more precisely, its full and complete
manifestation awaits a future time. That is why Jesus
taught his disciples to pray for the coming of the
kingdom.
 In the time between the ministry-death-resurrection
of Jesus and the parousia, the Church was born, and it
is within this time that its mission is to be carried out.
 The Church has no self-identity except as rooted in
the mission that Jesus received from his Father.
 And given the centrality of the reign of God in Jesus’
mission, it would be theologically wrong to
subordinate the reign of God to the Church, as was
done in the old theology of mission.

 On the contrary, the Church must be subordinated to

and oriented toward the reign of God, which is its
goal and raison d’etre.
Redemptoris Missio, n.13 =

“the proclamation and establishment of

God’s kingdom are the purpose of his
[Jesus’] mission.”
 The five questions concerning mission receive now
different answers.

(1) For what is mission?

 Mission is for the full realization of the kingdom of God,
which is already but not yet, present and future, realized
and eschatological.

 Mission is exclusively for the reign of God, or simply

God.

 Anything else that is made into the goal of mission, even

something as noble as Church growth or salvation of
souls, smacks of idolatry.
(2) To whom?
 To the world primarily. Mission is outward looking. To
the whole world in all its dimensions and arenas,
including the cosmos, and to “pagans,” who are not
really pagan, and to “Christians,” who are not really
Christian.
(3) By whom?

 By the whole community of believers, but above all by

God, or more specifically, by the Holy Spirit, because
the Church’s mission is nothing but a continuation of
God’s mission.
 In n. 21 of one of the best chapters
of his encyclical Redemptoris
Missio, John Paul II affirms: “The
Holy Spirit is indeed the principal
agent of the whole of the Church’s
mission.”

 The heading of n.24 reads: “The

Spirit directs the Church’s
mission.”
 The heading of n. 26 reads: “The Holy Spirit makes
the whole Church missionary.”

 The heading of n. 28 reads: “The Spirit is present and

active in every time and place.”
 It is here that we find one of John Paul II’s most
revolutionary statements about the mission of the
Church:

The Spirit’s presence and activity affect not only individuals

but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions.
Indeed, the Spirit is at the origin of the noble ideals and
undertakings which benefit humanity on its journey through
history.
(4) With whom?

 With all Christians, not only with Catholics, without

denominational confrontation and competition.
Crossing denominational barriers, Catholic,
Orthodox, and Protestant missionaries must work
together in a common witness to the gospel. Divisions
within Christianity have been a scandal to non-
Christians and a serious obstacle to credible
evangelization.
 Furthermore, mission must be carried out in
collaboration with followers of other religious
traditions as well.

 Missionaries must enter into dialogue of the various

kinds described below.

 In Asia, where the Christians form only a tiny

minority of the population, the Church’s mission of
promoting liberation and integral development cannot
be carried out successfully without an effective
collaboration of those who are not Christian.
(5) How?

 By personal witness and dialogue.

 The dialogical method in mission, which includes

inculturation, liberation, and interreligious dialogue,
is an integral and intertwined process.
Peter Phan summarizes the how for us as follows:

 Because of the presence and activities of the Holy Spirit in every

time and place, the most effective method of evangelization is
dialogue.

 By dialogue is meant a fourfold activity:

1. dialogue of life, that is, sharing of joys and sorrows;
2. dialogue of action., that is, collaboration in furthering
liberation and human development;
3. dialogue of theological exchange, that is deeper
understanding of the religious heritages of others and better
appreciation of their spiritual values; and finally,
4. dialogue of religious experience, that is, sharing of
spiritual riches through common prayer and other religious
practices.
2. Is It Possible to Define Mission?
 Bosch issues a warning:

 We may, therefore, never arrogate it to ourselves to

delineate mission too sharply and too self-confidently.

 Ultimately, mission remains undefinable: it should

never be incarcerated in the narrow confines of our
own predilections.
 The most we can hope for is to formulate some
approximations of what mission is all about.