Paul G. Hiebert

The Flaw of the Excluded Middle

Western world view has a blind spot that makes it difficult for many Western missionaries to understand, let alone answer, problems related to spirits, ancestors and astrology. Dr. Hiebert here brings us a reevaluation of these problems from a Biblical perspective which challenges some of the assumptions of Western theology and opens the door for a more holistic, relational and relevant theology of mission.

Missions and Anthropology: A Love/Hate Relationship

This insightful article traces the history of anthropology through its earlier stages, and describes the ambivalent attitudes many missionaries developed toward this brash, emerging discipline. It then turns to the current scene and shows how the fundamental revolution in western thought — which Professor Hiebert describes as a paradigm shift in epistomology — drastically affected the social sciences. Christians in general, and missiologists in particular, should welcome this shift, despite the tensions it generates, for we are thereby brought “closer to the biblical perspective of the limits of human knowledge and of the importance of faith.”

Critical Issues in the Social Sciences and Their Implications for Mission Studies

Missionaries and anthropologists have been at the forefront of the Wests encounter with other peoples since the Age of Exploration. In this encounter their views of these people have changed as they learned to know and understand these Others better. The shift from Other as Savage and Pagan to Other as Primitive and Ancestor, and then to Other as Native and Unreached has shaped the way Western scholars and missionaries have theorized about and related to people from other parts of the world. As missiologists, we must move beyond the current views of others that dominate current anthropological and missiological thinking, and recognize that the Scriptures affirm that we are one humanity, that at the deepest level others are not other but us. Only such a change in attitudes will help us lay the foundations for the global mission of the global church.

Beyond Anti-Colonialism to Globalism

Missions has always had to deal with cultural and religious pluralism. In the past its response has often been colonial. In recent years there has been a strong reaction that has sought to eradicate the ethnocentrism and arrogance of the previous era. This reaction is an important corrective, but in itself leads us into pragmatism, relativism, and a superficial acceptance of the other. We need to go beyond anti-colonialism to find a solid base for affirming the truth of the gospel, and for guiding us in missions, and in our relationship to people of other religions.1

Traffic Patterns in Seattle and Hyderabad: Immediate and Mediate Transactions

The central question of this paper is how societies create social order. To answer this question, a narrow arena of social behavior, namely traffic patterns in the United States and India, was analyzed and contrasted. The principles underlying the ordering of traffic are found to be useful in analyzing the order in other social behavior in these two countries.

Missiological Issues in the Encounter with Emerging Hinduism

Neo-Hinduism emerged as a revitalization movement in Indias encounter with the West. In recent years it has become increasingly aggressive. One branch has stressed Hindu spirituality and has sent missionaries to evangelize the world. The other has become political, seeking to establish Hindutva, a Hindu nation, and to persecute Christians as followers of a foreign religion. Around the world Indian immigrants have established Hindu communities and spread their faith. This resurgence of Hinduism as an active formal religion challenges Christians to rethink their mission to Hindus and the Hindu world.

Selected Annotated Bibliography on Missiology Missions: Ecumenical Aspects

Bent, Ans J. van der. Vital Ecumenism Concerns: Sixteen Documentary Surveys. Geneva, Switzerland: World Council of Churches, 1986. vi, 333 pp., paper. 2825408735. A selection of official statements of the WCC (its assemblies, Central Committee, conferxad ences, and consultations) and of regional ecuxad menical bodies arranged under 16 themes, including mission and evangelism, Christianity and culture, and dialogue with people of living faiths.

Gospel and Culture: The WCC Project

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has launched a major study project on the gospel and cultures resulting in the formation of study groups around the world and the publication of 15 study pamphlets that discuss how the gospel relates to different cultures. This article reviews the contents of these pamphlets around the themes of the gospel and cultural pluralism and the church and social pluralism. In evaluating these materials, it is noted that the tension between gospel and culture, revelation and hearing, divine and human is central to the Christian Faith. The WCC debate on the relationship of the gospel to cultures and the church to the world is an attempt to move ahead and chart a mission course for the twenty-first century.

Selected Annotated Bibliography on Missiology: 7. Missions-Social Aspects

Consultation on World Evangelization (1980: Pattaya, Thailand). How Shall They Hear’? Consultation on World Evangelization. Official Reference Volume. Thailand Reports. Wheaton, IL, and London, UK: Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1980. 492 pp., paper. No ISBN. A compilation of the Pattaya Consultation reports on Christian witness to major religious groups, ethnic communities, urban poor, refugees, and nominal Christians (also published as the Lausanne Occasional Papers, Nos. 5I9 & 22-23).

Barrett and Beyond

It is impossible to predict the full impact of David Barretts massive encyclopedia on the field of missiology in the coming decades. Some things are obvious. It will become a standard reference work in academic circles and will provide scholars with the most comprehensive survey of the status and growth of the church around the world now available. The extensive country by country reviews will stimulate further studies and, in some cases, deeper commitments on the part of some to the mission of the church. The encyclopedia will be widely quoted in sermons to make one point or another, and there will be arguments over the accuracy over details. Of greater consequence is the fact that it presents a comprehensive picture that will mold the strategies of mission and church agencies alike. My concern here is a narrow one. What will the impact of the encyclopedia be on future research in missiology, particularly my own. Certainly it will stimulate research and suggest new lines of investigation, but its importance lies even deeper.