Anne Dyer

Power and Partnership

An edited book with 14 papers from a conference in Oslo (November 2013) by a variety of authors, largely Scandinavian but with a few Asian African or Latino names, this book comes with the purpose of discussing howmissionary partnerships reflect the way power is used. Authors come frommore than Christian bases— one from Islam (Azza Karam), one from Buddhism (Xue Yu), and another from Hinduism (Michael Amaladoss). Some papers are deliberately in response to another. This provides a helpful critique of ideas— especially for students’ essays! — but it is also useful for global partnership agencies wishing to make an assessment. Conflict has permeated most of the world in some form or another for the past century, localized and globalized. Religion has had a part in this for blame but also for healing. The project stimulating the writer of the forward was to instigate development work bearing a divine perspective in mind. Even the most pluralist of writers S. M. Heim had suggested that what can bring us together within individual world religions when else nothing can is what confronts us all in the world: the lack of justice. Dark sides of power loom up menacingly when considering finance and politics, but answers are forthcoming in examples of partnerships that have worked in the past. Issues obstructing them are also discussed. Who sets the agenda? That is perhaps the power source. Norway, the provenance of this volume, is of course a Lutheran nation where charity is dispersed through the state church with tax money collected by the government. Therefore politics of all kinds are involved. Fear of the future is a universal phenomenon paralyzing political or church leaders. How can trust replace it? The latter two topics are raised in two recorded interviews (102–116). For me the contrast comes in the Christian authors from the Global South. Hwa Yung asks how the south can contribute to the north; his church (Methodist) has potential to offer spiritual help because its own confidence in Christ has been formed in the context of a minority community in the overwhelmingly Muslim state of Malaysia. Partnerships have been debated at large in missiological writings ever since the term was advocated in the Willingen 1952 conference of the International Missionary Council. The Council sought to overcome the patronizing forms of Christianity colonialism had provided for the ‘missionised nations’. The ‘West to the Rest’ paradigm however, is still in process of being changed. Inequalities between partners are addressed by the South African contributors (Narend Baijnath and Genevieve James, 29). Yet in Africa the religious leaders have to lead the way in development projects to authorize them. Even so, who benefits? Is it the religious leaders or the infected people or the employees of Aid Agencies? If Christian faith-based development programmes can be worked out fairly with the receptor nations (including the West as a potential receptor), that is a start. But what is fair and just and who holds the purse strings? Religion, even more than secularists guessed, is higher on the world’s agenda than before but both money

Global Poverty: a Theological Guide

exploring historical and cultural hermeneutics. The fourth and final section is on “Constructive Hermeneutics in the Social and Physical Sciences” (chapters 15-18). Mark Cartledge articulates a balanced vision for a Pentecostal “empirical theology” informed by both social sciences and Pentecostal theology (chapter 15). William Kay continues the empirical theme by assessing how the psychology and developmental theory of Jean Piaget might be able to provide a methodology for testing hermeneutical practices among Pentecostals (chapter 16). Chapter 17 is a joint article by Michael Tenneson, David Bundrick, and Donald Johns focusing on theology and the natural sciences, in which they encourage theologians and scientists “to endorse the integrative patterns of Complementarism and Concordism” between the two disciplines (p. 291). An example of what this integration might look like in practice is offered by Bev Mitchell when she explores creation and death in the light of biology and theology (chapter 18). In sum, Constructive Pneumatological Hermeneutics in Pentecostal Christianity is an informative work. It does not only summarise many of the hermeneutical debates and discussions to date (see particularly Oliverio’s “Introduction” and Archer’s “Afterword”), but also genuinely seems to broaden the conversation on Pentecostal hermeneutics by allowing the plurality of voices to be heard from various disciplinary perspectives and points of view. This broadening of the discussion would have been further enriched by having a greater representation from African, Asian and South American Pentecostal scholars, but I appreciate that a single volume cannot broaden things indefinitely. All in all, those engaging in Pentecostal hermeneutics cannot afford not to interact with this work (despite the price of the book!).

Report on the Manila International Missions Conference 17–20 August 2011

I was privileged to be invited to attend and speak at this conference. The purpose of this time was to mobilise mission from Asian churches to the unreached people groups of the world, especially since 60% of the least reached people groups are in Asia. It was sponsored by both the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches, headed by Bishop Efraim Tendero and a Korean mission church in Philippines, the Grain of Wheat Ministries led by Dr Elijah Kim and his wife. Here then is the report that was devised while there by Dr. Alex Philips1 of Bihar, India. There is also included here the Declaration we made which is very inclusive of all types of mission and its purpose. It will prove to be very strategic in terms of mobilizing mission for the next few decades when Europe and even the USA no longer have the edge in missionary personnel. Anne E. Dyer

Apostolic Networks in the UK: the dynamics of growth

Abstract Apostolic or New Churches came into existence in the UK as a result of a complicated set of historical and theological factors in the 1960s. By the mid- 1970s these new churches, with their restorationist doctrines, were beginning to set trends within the wider evangelical scene and by the 1980s they had formed apostolic networks which functioned in some respects like conventional Pentecostal denominations and, in other respects, quite differently from them. In respect of the dynamics of church growth, as this empirical study shows, they appear to be similar.

Missionary Candidates to the British Assemblies of God Overseas Missions 1945-54

Introduction The purpose of this paper is to investigate the trends within applications for missionary work within British Assemblies of God in the ten year period immediately after 1945. One reason for investigating this is to find out whether or not there are more candidates after major world events like the Second World War. It is also of interest to discover what sort of people were applying for missions with what reasons, why they were accepted and why they were rejected.