SALT

J. Jayakiran Sebastian

… not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past: Edinburgh 1910, postcolonial missiology, and our mission to God

Although the missio Dei ideology has functioned as a dominant paradigm in missiological thinking for very many decades, it is worth questioning some of the assumptions that underlie this concept and ask what would happen if we talk about a mission to God, rather than the mission of God. Using some of the insights culled from Bonaventure’s image of the itinerant journey to God combined with the understandable “dis”-ease of missiological thinkers from the so-called ‘third world’ context, a context where we have had to deal with the fall-out of what is perceived as an aggressive missionary enterprise, especially in India with the emergence of a strong Hindutva movement and anti-conversion measures, how can alternate ways of understanding mission “non-violently” be of help in furthering, rather than hindering, dialogue? Using Edinburgh 1910 as a point of departure, and taking into consideration the reality of the missionary enterprise in the 20th century, framed as it was by the brutality of world conflagrations and growing nationalism resulting in the emergence of independent nations, as well as the institutional materialization of the ecumenical movement as embodied in the work of the World Council of Churches, this paper will investigate contemporary Christian realities in post-independent India, and continue the process of exploring the theological ramifications of the understanding of mission “to” God within a postcolonial framework.

A Presbyter of the Church of South India, and currently H. George Anderson Professor of Mission and Culture and Director of the Multicultural Mission Resource Center at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. J. Jayakiran Sebastian has been Professor in the Department of Theology and Ethics at the United Theological College, Bangalore, India, where he has served as Chairperson of the Department and also and Dean of Doctoral Studies at the College. His publications include Enlivening the Past: An Asian Theologian’s Engagement with the Early Teachers of Faith (Gorgias Press, 2009)

Jørgen Skov Sørensen

From the authority of Edinburgh 1910 to the authenticity of the individual 2010

This paper falls in three parts: firstly it analyses the epistemological move from 1910 to 2010, from the authority of modernity to the authenticity of post-modernity. Since Edinburgh 1910, changes have taken place in the way we perceive the world around us, i.e. first and foremost we have experienced a move from a modern world view to a post-colonial and post-modern one that takes into account the fact that the authority of the western world as the self-proclaimed world leader is being seriously questioned after two world wars and the revelations of a multi-religious and multicultural world following globalisation. The “natural authority” of the western world that made up the foundation of the missiological elaborations of Edinburgh 1910 has evaporated. The world asks for “natural authenticity” rather than authority. The main question for contemporary theologians is this: What is authentic Christian, and post-colonial, theology “after modernity?”

Second part of the paper is an investigative one as it attempts to work constructively with this very question on a new approach for Christian theology that relies on the post-modern quest for authenticity rather than the modern prerequisite of (Western) authority such as this was expressed at the Edinburgh 1910 event. The investigation takes its point of departure from Lutheran tradition, in particular from the Lutheran concept of “the priesthood of all people” which is taken as a potential key for understanding the atomization of theology that the world has witnessed since 1910 – to a large extent as a result of the mission attempts and activities that came out of the Edinburgh conference. Does this Lutheran approach (which by the way – sadly – is little recognised in Lutheran traditions) open doors for a better understanding of world Christianities today? Would it – for Lutherans at least – offer a theologically legitimate model for comprehending the plurality of Christian interpretations that make up Christian world presence today?

Thirdly and finally, this paper recognises the need for theological guidelines in order for Christian theologians to navigate the plurality of interpretations that is offered by the concept of “the priesthood of all people”. This concept opened historically for the equal theological access of all believers to communicate with and understand the Devine. However, how do we – in a post-colonial and post-modern manner – offer constructive criticism in order to discern good from evil in this theological plethora of opinion, approaches and attitudes. This paper attempts as its final and constructive goal to initiate an investigation into the potential of what is termed “theological authenticity” as a move into understanding contemporary global theologies.

Since 2006 the General Secretary of the Council on International Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, Jørgen Skov Sørensen previously taught ecumenism, missiology and interreligious relations at the United College of the Ascension, Selly Oak, Birmingham (UK) and constructive theology at the Centre for Multireligious Studies at University of Aarhus (Denmark). Jørgen Skov Sørensen obtained his PhD in missiology from University of Birmingham (UK) in 2005.

Rowan Strong

Mission and empire: The origins and continuities of Anglican missionary understanding.

This paper will examine the original Anglican constructions of foreign mission and ask to what extent were those original Anglican understandings perpetuated in the public writings of 1910 Edinburgh conference? The origins of Anglican missionary theology and ecclesiology, the paper argues, are to be found in the writings of Thomas Bray (1656-1730) the founder of the first two explicit missionary societies in the Church of England, Thomas Bray. In 1698 Bray founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for the promotion of a formal understanding of Anglican Christianity both at home and abroad. In 1701 he initiated the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, explicitly for the evangelization of various communities in England’s overseas colonies. As the primary agent for the institutional propagation of a missionary Christianity within Anglicanism, Bray therefore established the basic understandings for Anglican mission. The various themes in Bray’s missionary discourse will be identified through a study of his various public writings published between 1698 and 1728. As both of Bray’s societies have continued in existence from their foundation to the present, and were among the principal Anglican missionary organizations represented at the 1910 Edinburgh Conference, there is a primae facie case for the perpetuation of some of Bray’s original missionary understandings even two centuries after his formulation of them. Bray’s understanding of mission for the Church of England was formulated in the context of English and then British imperialism. To what degree then was Anglican mission in 1910 still tied to, or shaped by, that imperial context?

Professor at Murdoch University (Australia), Rowan Strong is Chair of the Executive Committee of the Council of Christians and Jews Western Australia, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His research interests include Religion and society in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, British imperialism and colonial Christianity, The Church of England since the Reformation, and the History of Christian missions in the modern period. He is author of Anglicanism and the British Empire 1700-c.1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Reluctant Insiders: Anglican and Lutheran participation at Edinburgh 1910

This paper will present an overview of the great missionary conference and ‘ecumenical’ springboard in 1910 by looking particularly at Anglican and Lutheran participation. I will assess the reasons for the modest Lutheran [mostly Continental - American Lutheran involvement was secondhand] participation at the event. Self imposed cultural and linguistic differences certainly played a role, but planners also sidelined ‘continental’ voices likely due to perceived missiological and theological reasons that would have impeded smooth deliberation. Anglican reluctance to participate was finally overcome, but diffidence remained, making their full engagement with the framework and agenda of the conference difficult. Did the more marginal involvement of Anglicans and Lutherans primarily affect the conference itself or should we assess the meaning of this event more broadly: did their diffidence serve to create the possibility for a deeper relationship to develop between these church traditions?

The Rev. Dr. Maria E. Erling is the Professor of Modern Church History and Global Mission at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, with a special focus on American Lutheranism and the various ways that mission has been understood in the history of the church. Dr. Erling has served parishes in New England: Trinity Lutheran Church, Worcester, MA and Christ the King, Nashua, NH, and served as a specialist for urban congregations in the New England Synod, LCA. She currently serves as an ELCA representative on the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ, and as delegate to the 2010 assembly of the Lutheran World Federation in Stuttgart. Parish ministry continues to be a focus for her as she directs the seminary’s Teaching Parish program. She co-authored The Augustana Story: Shaping North American Lutheranism (Augsburg Fortress, 2008).