Discovering Missiology: Disruptions and Fissures
Missiology compels us to lean into our cultural contexts and to sharpen our gospel gaze. As I highlighted here, the great century of missions, catalyzed by hundreds of mission societies and parachurch organizations, reached its climax in the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910.
There, some twelve hundred missionaries gathered from across the globe around the watchword: “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” Then, WWI disrupted their well-laid plans and the WMC, instead, became the headwaters for two different streams of mission that focused on the growth of the global church in different ways.
The ecumenical and evangelical streams of mission, each staking a claim in the WMC, provide us with vibrant examples of real-time missiological discussions, disruptions, and fissures that took early-to-mid twentieth century.[1] Notably, these disruptions and fissures continue to influence missiology still today.
The Ecumenical Stream
For example, in 1921 the International Missionary Council (IMC), the first Protestant council to worldwide council of its kind, formed after the WMC to focus on mission work around the world. The IMC’s contribution is evident in the various conferences that tackled the growth of the church beyond the West, often in the wake of worldwide disasters like WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII.
Their innovation, evidenced by the formation of a global network of churches and mission organizations, served to support a robust theology of mission and to stimulate creative thought.[2]
Uniquely, they did not insist on a single doctrinal statement but instead promoted Christianity in the multireligious and nonreligious world by acknowledging the inherent variety and complexity of belief.[3]
By the mid-twentieth century the IMC merged with the World Council of Churches (WCC), which created a fissure between evangelicals and the WCC. Here evangelicals distanced themselves from the WCC’s emphasis on the “Social Gospel” and the perceived attempt to reconceptualize mission.[4]
As noted previously, the IMC hosted a gathering in Willingen, Germany in 1952—the fifth worldwide gathering. The Willingen Conference convened for the primary purpose of rethinking the missionary obligation of the church and developing a mission theology. Lesslie Newbigin noted that the revolutionary circumstances in the world at that time were challenging the core of the mission tradition.[5]
I zeroed in on this particular gathering because it was both unique and pivotal—unique because many who attended considered the conference a failure due to an unresolved attack against a “church-centric” view of mission.[6] The conference was also pivotal. George Vicedom’s introduction of the missio Dei proved to be pivotal. His work represented a shift from viewing missions as an activity of the church to God being the primary agent of mission through the church.
Vicedom’s work continues to contribute to missional theology in significant ways still today.
The Evangelical Stream
The evangelical stream that flowed from the WMC emerged in 1917 with the formation of the International Foreign Missions Association (IFMA), organized by fundamentalist missions organizations and fueled by a premillennial urgency, and purposed to provide an alternative to the influences of modern and social liberalism.
By the mid-twentieth century, the neo-evangelical resurgence and conservative evangelicals brought energy to the methodology of world evangelization in the mid-twentieth century in a spirit of evangelical ecumenism. This is evidenced by the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Missions Agencies (EFMA) in the mid-twentieth century.
In 1966 the Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission (CCWM) met in Wheaton, Illinois and the World Congress on Evangelism met in Berlin to reaffirm fundamental convictions related to mission theology. They affirmed the authority of Scripture, a theology of evangelism framed around the Great Commission, and adaptive approaches to evangelistic methods in light of societal changes.
In 1974, the International Congress on World Evangelism convened in Lausanne, Switzerland in the midst of monumental shifts in global Christianity including the tremendous growth of the church in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. This global context, including political, economic, and ideological realities, made a congress like Lausanne ’74 possible and essential. The resultant Lausanne Covenant spoke to the social and cultural issues of that time and continues to inform the global reality of evangelical missions.
The Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization will be held in Seoul, Korea in September 2024. The gathering coincides with a celebration of Lausanne’s 50th year.
Reflection
This brief survey of the ecumenical and evangelical streams of mission demonstrates the significance of the WMC—the headwaters of these two streams. Additionally, it touches on the emergence of different missional approaches and the consequent disruptions and fissures that follow. This look-in spans from 1910 to 1974.
What stands out to me missiologically is the rich theological insight, deepened resolve, and God-dependance that develops alongside major global and institutional disruptions. This overview, though so very brief, provides a glimpse into the intentional work that must always take place in missiology. Differences and fissures provide fertile ground for deeper, Spirit-led learning, research, and practice.
Next Time: A Call for Confluence
Footnotes
[1] Notably, the Roman Catholic Church was also indirectly influenced by the WMC, evidenced by Vatican II, convened in the early 1960s and marked a radical departure within Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Second Vatican Council, “Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen Gentium,” November 21, 1964, pages 350–426 in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1964).
[2] Van Gelder and Zscheile, Participating, 147.
[3] Ans Joachim van der Bent, “International Missionary Council,” in Historical Dictionary of Ecumenical Christianity, ed. Jon Woronoff (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994), 205–06.
[4] A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee, in Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 143, note that in the years that followed the WMC, the ecumenical movement’s mission focus was distracted by mainline, liberal theology and the Social Gospel, enthusiasm for Christian internationalism, and humanitarianism—social action that took priority over evangelism.
[5] Newbigin, “Mission to Six, 178.
[6] Dutch Missiologist, J. C. Hoekendijk launched an attack against the “Church-centric” view of missions and North America’s attempt to relate the missionary task as a sign of Christ’s sovereignty in the secular world.
