Introduction to Missiology (RET 6057) WS [25/26]
Osnova sekce
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In the sections below you will find information about the course, reading lists, Powerpoints, articles, etc.
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This is the course overview, with information about what we are doing each week. Please do look at it.
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Bibliography Soubor DOCX
Here is a list of books available in the library that are relevant to this course.
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The final assignment for this course is due in by the end of the examination period of the first semester. Please send it to me at either tim@etf.cuni.cz or timnoble@tiscali.cz at the very latest by Feb 1 2026. If you have problems meeting the deadline, let me know in advance and we will see what we can do to help.
For the assignment, please write approximately 1500 words (roughly three pages) on one of the following theme:
1. What are the possibilities for and challenges to Christian mission (as you understand it) in a context with which you are familiar?
2. Choose an episode from the history of mission and discuss in what ways it impacted positively or negatively on a particular place or people.
3. You may also write on something you are interested in, but please consult me first.
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What is Mission?
This class will offer an overview of the course. We will concentrate on particular stories, seeing what they can tell us about how to understand mission. But first we begin by offering definitions of mission – what kind of images, thoughts, expectations, fears, hopes, etc., does the word evoke? In order to progress further in the class, what will we need to consider, what do we need to know, what do we need to confront?
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Here is a historical overview of how the Anglican Church's Five Marks of Mission came into being. The article details are:
Jesse Zink, “Five Marks of Mission: History, Theology, Critique,” Journal of Anglican Studies 15:2 144–66.
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Cathy Ross, “Exploring the Five Marks of Global Mission: A British Perspective,” in Mission in Secularised Contexts of Europe. Contemporary Narratives and Experiences, edited by Marina Ngursangzeli Behera, Michael Biehl, Knud Jørgensen. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2018), 111–22.
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Jonathan Draper, “Evangelism and the Five Marks of Mission,” Modern Believing 60:3 (2019) 261–68.
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Powerpoint Soubor PPTX
This is the powerpoint covering the first and part of the second class
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In September 2024 the Lausanne Conference met in Seoul for its fourth global meeting. The Lausanne Conference began in 1974, as a meeting place for evangelicals who were not entirely happy with the World Council of Churches. It has focused very much on mission. The link is to a critical analysis of the meeting in Seoul by a Filipino theologian Rei Lemuel Crizaldo. It will give you some idea as to the issues about mission that still occupy and to some extent divide many evangelicals. We will talk about integral mission later in the course.
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Studying Mission
Like all disciplines, missiology has a history. So we will look at some of the people who have marked that history, what they have been trying to do, what they contributed, what they neglected? What are the current trends and practices, where and why is mission studied?
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Hans Kansdorf, “The Legacy of Gustav Warneck,” Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research 4:3 (1980): 102–7
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Karl Müller, S.V.D., "The Legacy of Joseph Schmidlin," Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research 4:3 (1980): 109–13
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Joseph Masson SJ, “The Legacy of Pierre Charles SJ”, Occasional Research in Mission Bulletin 2:4 (1978), 118–20
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Albert Wu, “In the shadow of empire: Josef Schmidlin and Protestant–Catholic ecumenism before the Second World War,” Journal of Global History 13 (2018) 165–87.
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Jeremy Best, “Godly, International, and Independent: German Protestant Missionary Loyalties before World War I,” Central European History 47:3 (2014) 585–611
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Stefan Paas, “The Discipline of Missiology in 2016: Concerning the Place and Meaning of Missiology in the Theological Curriculum,” Calvin Theological Journal 51 (2016) 37–54
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Pieter Verster, “Missiology: Rise, demise and future at the university,” Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 55:3–4 (2014) 879–93
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Tom Steffen, “Missiology's Journey for Acceptance in the Educational World,” Missiology 31:2 (2003) 131–53
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Paul Kollmann, "Defining Mission Studies in the Third Millennium." In: The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, eds. Kirsteen Kim (ed.), Alison Fitchett-Climenhaga (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2022), 37-55.
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No class today - you'll just have to read something instead!
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No class today - you'll just have to read something instead!
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Missional Hermeneutics
In this course, we are looking at mission as an encounter of stories. For Christians, the defining story is always the story of God’s self-revelation to and interaction with the world, culminating in the coming of Jesus. This story is told in the Bible. So how do we encounter the Bible as a story about mission, about the Father sending the Son and the Holy Spirit, about God sending Israel, about Jesus sending out his disciples. But before we look in more detail at the particular stories, we consider a way of reading the bible from the perspective of mission, that is, a missional hermeneutics.
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Michael Goheen, “A History and Introduction to a Missional Reading of the Bible,” in Michael Goheen (ed.), Reading the Bible Missionally (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016) online version, no page numbers.
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Richard Bauckham, “2. Mission as Hermeneutic for Scriptural Interpretation,” in Michael Goheen (ed.), Reading the Bible Missionally (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016) online version, no page numbers.
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George Hunsberger, “3. Mapping the Missional Hermeneutics Conversation,” in Michael Goheen (ed.), Reading the Bible Missionally (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016) online version, no page numbers.
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Craig Bartholomew, “4. Theological Interpretation and a Missional Hermeneutic,” in Michael Goheen (ed.), Reading the Bible Missionally (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016) online version, no page numbers.
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Michael Barram, “The Bible, Mission, and Social Location: Toward a Missional Hermeneutic,” Interpretation 61:1 (2007), 42–58.
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Greg McKinzie, “Missional Hermeneutics as Theological Interpretation,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 11:2 (2017) 157–79
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Tim Carricker, “The Bible as Text for Mission,” in Bible in Mission (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2013) edited by Pauline Hoggarth, Fergus Macdonald, Bill Mitchell, Knud Jørgensen, Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series 18, 29–39.
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Powerpoint 3 Soubor PPTX
Here is a powerpoint on missional hermeneutics. It will only make much sense with some additional reading.
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Mission in the Old Testament
This week’s class will look at reading the Old Testament missionally. We will start with looking at the key text of Genesis 12:1-4, as the beginning of the story of God's mission of blessing. Then we take the story of Jeremiah, not normally regarded as being primarily about mission. We will read this story, using the missional hermeneutics we examined previously, to see what the story might have to tell us about the nature of mission, of being sent by God. We consider the person of the missionary, the techniques, word and deed, the necessary involvement in politics, the tasks of the missionary to proclaim truth against lies, and consider how Jeremiah might be a blessing to Israel and the nations.
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Christopher Wright, The Mission of God : Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 192–221.
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Chris William Erdman, “Entering the Wreckage: Grief and Hope in Jeremiah and the Rescripting of the Pastoral Vocation in a Time of Geopolitical Crisis,” International Review of Mission 92:365 (2003) 169–77
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Francesco Arena, “False Prophets in the Book of Jeremiah: Did They All Prophesy and Speak Falsehood?,” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 34:2 (2020) 187-200
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Georg Fischer SJ, “Is there Shalom, or Not? Jeremiah, a Prophet for South Africa,” Old Testament Essays 28:2 (2015) 351–70
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Esther Roshwalb, “Jeremiah 1.4-10: ‘Lost and Found’ in Translation and a New Interpretation,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 34:3 (2010) 351–76
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Wilhelm Wessels, “Prophet versus Prophet in the Book of Jeremiah: In Search of the True Prophets,” Old Testament Essays 22:3 (2009) 733-51
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Louis Stulman, “Jeremiah as a Messenger of Hope in Crisis,” Interpretation 62:1 (2008) 5–20.
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The New Testament
The focus this week will be the mission discourses in Luke, and Matthew, and what they suggest about the task of mission. We will also consider Jesus’ own encounters with the other, especially the non-Israelite other, and what that tells us about how we go about encountering people on the journey.
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Andreas Köstenberger and Peter Thomas O’Brien, “Matthew”, in Salvation to Ends of the Earth: a Biblical Theology of Mission (Leicester: Apollos – Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 87–109.
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“The Disciples Discourse (9:36—11:1)” in Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 59–128.
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“The Disciples Discourse (9:36—11:1)” in Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8–20. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 59–128.
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Andries van Aarde, “Jesus’ Mission to all of Israel Emplotted in Matthew’s Story,” Neotestamentica 41:2 (2007), 416–36.
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TC Rabali, “Kinship Ties in Matthew’s Missionary Discourse: A Window on how the Christian Faith Has and Will Always Affect National and Family Ties,” Scriptura 91 (2006) 83–95
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Andreas Köstenberger and Peter Thomas O’Brien, “Luke–Acts”, in Salvation to Ends of the Earth: a Biblical Theology of Mission (Leicester: Apollos – Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 111–59.
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“Sharing the Gospel (10:1-20)”, in François Bovon, Luke 2 A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51-19:27 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013), 19–36.
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Mission Histories
We look at some histories of missionaries, looking at how they encountered the other. This week we will look at some missionaries from different traditions to see what they can teach us.
I will use material from my book Mission from the Perspective of the Other, so for more detail, read chapters 4-6 of that book (it's very good).
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Tim Noble, “‘The Pathway into the Kingdom of Heaven’: The Indigenization of Russian Orthodox Tradition in Alaska”, Mission Studies 32:1 (2015), 32–46.
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Mission Histories
We continue, this time taking the story of women missionaries, and considering to what extent there are differences in the way men and women engage in mission and what each can learn from the other.
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“First Converts: Acts 16 and the Legitimating Function of High-Standing Women in Missionary Propaganda”, in Shelly Matthews, First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission In Early Judaism and Christianity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 72–95
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"Notes", in Shelly Matthews, First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission In Early Judaism and Christianity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001).
The notes for Chapter 4 are on pages 131-141.
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Gari Ledyard, “Kollumba Kang Wansuk, an Early Catholic Activist and Martyr”, in Christianity in Korea, edited by Robert Buswell Jr. and Timothy Lee (Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi, 2006), 38–71.
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Kevin Crawley, “Dangerous Women in the Early Catholic Church in Korea” in Religious Transformation in Modern Asia. A Transnational Movement, edited by David W. Kim (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 76–97, on Kang Wansuk, especially 84–87.
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“Mary Mitchell Slessor: Serving God and Country”, in William Knox, The Lives of Scottish Women. Women and Scottish Society 1800-1980 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 117–39.
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Oluwakemi A. Adesina and Elijah Obinna, “Invoking Gender. The Thoughts, Mission and Theology of Mary Slessor in Southern Nigeria”, in Africa in Scotland, Scotland in Africa : Historical Legacies and Contemporary Hybridities, edited by Afe Adogame and Andrew Lawrence (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 204–27.
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The Churches and Mission
In this week's class we are going to look at some documents from a number of different churches or wider ecclesial groupings that deal with mission. We will look at some Roman Catholic documents on mission, starting with the Second Vatican Council's decree on mission activity. Then we will look at the last World Council of Churches' document on mission (Together towards Life), the Cape Town Commitment of the Lausanne Movement (a grouping of evangelicals), and finally we will examine the decree on mission issued by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.
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The official English translation on the Vatican website. Unfortunately, however inclusive the decree may want to be, the English isn't, and reflects the 1960s more than today.
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This is the document from the World Council of Churches, issued in 2013.
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Here is the full text of the Cape Town Commitment, from the Lausanne Movement for World Evangelisation
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Here is a link to the official website of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, held in Crete in 2016, with the text of the decree on the mission of the Orthodox Church in today's world.
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Where Do We Meet? Places and People
One of the most fundamental claims of modern mission studies is the importance of paying attention to local cultures and contexts. In this class we will examine this aspect, discussing what the role of culture and context is, how both to affirm and challenge it, and what we need to learn from the other in order to communicate with them. We will examine some models of contextual theology, considering which might be most appropriate for our own home contexts.
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Stephen B. Bevans, S.V.D., “Unraveling a “Complex Reality”: Six Elements of Mission,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 27:2 (2003), 50–53.
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A leading figure in the development of contextual theology looks at what contextual theology means. Robert Schreiter, “Contexts and Theological Methods,” in Christian Mission, Contextual Theology, Prophetic Dialogue. Essays in Honor of Stephen B. Bevans, SVD, edited by Dale Irvin and Peter Phan (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2018), 65–72.
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O. S. Olagunju, Ogbomoso Journal of Theology 17:2 (2012) 37-57
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John Roxborogh, “Missiology after “Mission”?,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 38:3 (2014), 120–24.
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Craig Ott, “Globalization and contextualization: Reframing the task of contextualization in the twenty-first century,” Missiology 43:1 (2015) 43–58
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Charles Fensham, “The methodology of missiology in the context of Turtle Island,” Missiology 47:3 (2019), 300–314.
Turtle Island is used, somewhat a-contextually, to refer to North America, since some Native American peoples use this term to describe their land.
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Why Do We Meet? Aims of Mission
In this week's class we will look at the aims of mission. To do this, we return to a topic mentioned already a number of times, that of missio Dei, examining it more critically to see both its strengths and weaknesses. We also look at the practice of evangelism, as a means of conversion. Is this the most effective or only way to proclaim the Christian message?
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Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year
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What Do We Bring?
To do anything requires certain skills and the ability to make use of the talents we have for the purpose in mind. This is true for mission. So what are the skills required to do mission and how can they be developed? What are the different talents that can be used? How do we encounter the giftedness of the other, so that the other can also be a co-traveller on the journey to God? These questions force us also to consider who the missionary is, and what it means to suggest that all Christians are called to mission.
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What Do We Do?
This week we will reflect on what it means to engage in mission, reflecting concretely on what is involved, the different ways of engaging in mission. We will also sum up the course, reflecting on what we think mission is now after studying it for a semester.