Missions from the Perspective of Communitarian and Narrative Ethics

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This article addresses the increasing prominence of critical theories within mission studies. The rationale behind my writing is rooted in my academic journey. I pursued my postgraduate studies in mission studies at Trinity College Bristol in the early 2010s. By 2014, my focus had shifted to political theology. During the pandemic, I dedicated my efforts to exploring the intersections of politics, mission, and ethics, ultimately arguing that the Anglican Communion has developed a compromised ecclesiology leaning towards liberal pluralism. A significant factor in this trend is the widespread misunderstanding of mission contextualization. In 2024, I made the decision to return to missiology and joined the International Association for Mission Studies IAMS. While catching up with the latest trends in the field, I was dismayed to discover that missiology appears to be on a path of self-destruction. Currently, the term “mission” is vanishing from theological college curricula, supplanted by terms like “intercultural theology” and the increasingly popular “World Christianity.” As a student of liberation theology and a member of a minority group in a former British colony, I resonate deeply with the concepts of decolonization, local theology, contextualization, and inculturation. My academic journey included studying the works of Andrew Walls, Kwame Bediako, Lamin Sanneh, and various Asian theologies at Trinity. David Bosch’s Transforming Mission served as our primary text. I engaged in thoughtful discussions with Andrew Kirk in one class and with a Dalit theologian in another. Years later, Scott W. Sunquist became my Asian church history professor and provided feedback on my doctoral dissertation. I fully embrace and celebrate the shift from a Western-dominated Christianity to a more inclusive “world” Christianity. However, one issue I have observed in the contextualization process—especially within the Anglican Communion—is the rise of individuality, which encourages local theologies to diverge without mutual accountability. This form of contextualization, I argue, is incomplete as it undermines Christian communality. Frequently, church unity manifests as a façade of amicable fellowship instead of fostering the necessary reasoning and debate. A similar trend is now apparent in mission studies. Under the banner of World Christianity, local theologies and contextual missiological insights frequently override essential theological discourse about mission. This so-called interdisciplinary approach risks diluting theological rigor, reducing missiology to a mere examination of missionary practices. Consequently, this shift has opened the door to the encroachment of critical theories that frame every situation in terms of an oppressor-oppressed dichotomy. In this article, I investigate these phenomena and articulate why such an approach to mission is fundamentally flawed, unveiling the epistemological inadequacies of employing the oppressor-oppressed axis within the realm of mission studies.

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