Published in British Journal of Theological Education 11.1 (August 2000)

Kirsteen Kim*

The ACATE High Leigh Conference of 1984 recommended that "every curriculum ought to find some place for the study of the theology of mission".[1] A natural sequel to this was the establishment in 1989 of the British and Irish Association for Mission Studies (BIAMS) to promote the study of mission as a recognised discipline within theological education. This article is an introduction to BIAMS and also to mission studies which, like the internet, challenges established boundaries and connects varied disciplines in a web whose reach is world-wide.

British and Irish Association for Mission Studies
At the instigation of the Governing Body of the then (Anglican) Partnership for World Mission, a consortium of mission agencies, and the General Synod Board for Mission and Unity (BMU), Dr Martin Conway convened an initial meeting at Selly Oak, Birmingham in 1989 at which a committee was set up to guide BIAMS in process of formation. This included Rev. Andrew Kirk, soon to be Dean of Mission at Selly Oak, Professor Andrew Walls of the University of Edinburgh, Dr (later Prof.) Haddon Wilmer of the University of Leeds, Bishop Patrick Kalilombe, Canon James Anderson of the BMU, and Dr Aylward Shorter, President of the Missionary Institute, London. The model for BIAMS was to be the International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS), founded in 1968. BIAMS was formally constituted at a conference in Edinburgh the following year, the eightieth anniversary of the great missionary conference of Edinburgh 1910.[2] In the succeeding decade BIAMS has made further links with universities, colleges and training institutions and has strengthened its church connections through a close relationship with the Churches' Commission on Mission (CCOM). Since 1998, BIAMS has had its institutional base at the Henry Martyn Centre in Cambridge.

BIAMS has a total current membership of about 200. Though this includes corporate members, BIAMS' driving force has been committed individuals and its foundation is its personal membership. This has enabled it to draw together both practitioners and theorists of mission from a wide range of churches, mission organisations, training centres, and academic institutions. These have met together at biennial conferences interspersed with day conferences which have brought about mutual enrichment, challenge and collaboration in mission.[3] In addition to its conferences, BIAMS stimulates interest in mission studies by circulating a twice-yearly Newsletter, maintaining web-pages, and encouraging interest groups which pursue particular topics in more depth.[4] The most recent conference in 1999 was an example of "what BIAMS does best" in its "combination of theory and practice, the bringing together of missionary thinkers and practitioners, one to illuminate the other in inter-confessional gatherings, which aim at the discernment of what mission means in the contemporary world in thought, word and deed".[5]

Mission Studies in Britain and Ireland
Fifteen years after the ACATE High Leigh recommendation, mission studies (or missiology) is now represented in some shape or form in most theological colleges and in many university departments in Britain and Ireland.

The main university centres in the UK for the study of mission are Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Cambridge. The University of Birmingham Department of Theology claims to be the first in the country to focus on the study of mission and world Christianity with the only chair of mission in Britain or Ireland, which was set up jointly by the Department and the School of Mission at Selly Oak Colleges.[6] In 1999 the School of Mission and the School of Islamic Studies at Selly Oak were incorporated into the University Department of Theology, which already had strengths in the study of religion and culture and the history of Christianity. The study of Third World theologies has also been recognised in a professorship in the subject. Mission is the most popular theological discipline for post-graduate studies.[7]

New College, University of Edinburgh claims a double distinction in the history of mission studies. It was the venue for the great World Missionary Conference of 1910, which "in some ways instituted the missiological education of the Western Church". Edinburgh also had what has been called "the first chair of mission studies anywhere in the Protestant world". This was occupied by Alexander Duff (its architect) in 1867 but disappeared before the end of the century.[8] Today Edinburgh is home to the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, part of the Faculty of Divinity within which it "seeks to promote interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to the study of Christianity and Christian theology".[9]

The Centre for Advanced Theological and Religious Studies (CARTS), Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge includes Currents in World Christianity.[10] This incorporates the previous North Atlantic Missiology Project (NAMP) making a six-year project examining twentieth-century global Christianity "in a way which integrates study of the various missionary traditions and their appropriation by indigenous Christians". CARTS also includes the Christianity in Asia project which "contributes to the crossing of boundaries between countries, cultures, and theological traditions by exploring the nature of contemporary Christian mission".[11] The Henry Martyn Centre,[12] an associate institute of the Cambridge Theological Federation, is a foundational resource for both these projects and for courses on mission and world Christianity taught in the University and Federation. It fulfils the vision of the founders of the Henry Martyn Library in 1898 that "Cambridge may be equipped with a Missionary Library worthy of her Missionary fame".

The Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds has a number of distinguished mission scholars and offers courses in mission, African Christianity and theology, religion and development as part of its MA course.[13] The University of Cardiff, Department of Religion and Theology offers an MTh course in theology of mission.[14] The Oxford Centre for Mission Studies[15] has 85 post-graduate students, almost all from overseas, reading for degrees at various universities. Mention should also be made of the School of Oriental and African Studies, which holds important archives and library resources for mission studies. There is increasing scholarly recognition of the substantial archives of mission societies in Britain, these are concentrated principally at the Universities of London (SOAS), Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford.[16]

There are several other centres for the study of mission, three of which are represented on the current BIAMS executive: The Missionary Institute London (affiliated to the Universities of Middlesex and Leuven) addresses "issues of peace and justice, culture and community, and the integrity of creation"; Cliff College, Derbyshire (a designated college of the University of Sheffield) offers degrees at all levels with a particular focus on mission, evangelism and apologetics;[17] Kimmage Mission Institute, Dublin offers courses up to MA level (NCEA accredited) in the study of theology and cultures. All Nations Christian College, Ware was founded as a training college for overseas mission but now also relates mission to the post-modern West. It offers higher degrees in missiology through the Open University, with particular emphasis on biblical and cross-cultural studies. Degrees are offered by the Centre for Ecumenical Studies in association with Trinity College, Dublin in Christian unity and common witness (ecumenics) and in peace studies.

There are a number of current initiatives in missiological education in Britain. The Mission Theological Advisory Group (MTAG) is part of the Board of Mission of the Anglican Church and CCOM. The Evangelical Missionary Alliance has an Evangelical Missiologists' Forum. There is also a Mission in Theological Education group run jointly by the Board of Mission and CCOM, and a Theological Education and Training Committee of the Church of England.

Mission Studies as a Theological and Academic Discipline
At first seen as peripheral to the traditional theological agenda for those with interest or experience in "Tahiti, Teheran, or Timbuktu",[18] mission studies is now an established theological discipline. Though little more than a century old, as we have seen above, it is also a recognised academic subject.[19] There are a number of international journals of mission studies in English.[20] In Britain, Studies in World Christianity is part of the Edinburgh Review of Theology and Religion, and Transformation, "an international evangelical dialogue on mission and ethics" is based at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. Anvil looks at theology and mission from an Anglican Evangelical perspective. Missiology's coming of age as an academic subject is also evidenced by the recent appearance of substantial dictionaries of the subject: Dictionary of Mission: Theology, History, Perspectives; Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions; and Philosophy, Science, and Theology of Mission in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A Missiological Encyclopedia.[21]

The question is no longer missiology's legitimacy but its nature. What constitutes mission studies? And where should it fit in the theological curriculum? This clearly depends on the answer to the prior question: What is mission?[22] The progress of mission studies from periphery to centre has followed the change in perception of mission from being an arm of church activity to a concept at the heart of Christian faith.[23] The expansion, initiated in the work of Karl Barth, of the doctrine of missio Dei to include the sending of the church into the world put mission in the context of the Trinity. Mission has become accepted by Christians of virtually all persuasions as a participation in the movement of God's love toward people shown in Christ and the church is understood as existing for the sake of the world, that is as "essentially missionary".[24] "Mission added extra" has become "theology ad extra"[25]. Theology of mission is therefore concerned with the relationship of truth and proclamation, gospel and society, salvation and history, Christian witness and other faiths, scripture and culture, church and kingdom, Word and world, revelation and theologies. Hans-Werner Gensichen has summed up the qualifications for mission studies to be a theological discipline: (a) it remains true to both the missionary dimension of faith and the missionary intention of God; (b) it follows through the implications of missio Dei throughout the whole domain of theology; (c) it recognises its dependence on other theological disciplines; (d) it keeps a critical eye on missionary activity in dialogue with other academic disciplines.[26]

No one has done more to establish mission studies as a theological and academic discipline than South African missiologist David Bosch, on whose work the 1993 BIAMS conference focused. Nearly a decade after its publication, Bosch's Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission looks set to remain the indispensable summa missiologica well into this new century. Bosch's magnum opus deals with New Testament models of mission (Matthew, Luke-Acts, and Paul), looks at four subsequent historical paradigms of mission, and describes the contemporary understanding of mission from thirteen different perspectives in a multi-dimensional "emerging paradigm". Whilst mindful of Stephen Neill's dictum that "if everything is mission then nothing is mission", Bosch nevertheless advocates a broad view, a view which encompasses the complete scope of the saving work of Christ.[27] Bosch, "the most complete missiologist of our generation", was "Biblical, and systematic, and historical, and practical"[28] and he was also prepared to recognise that the important missiological questions may arise outside the missiology department in disciplines such as history and religion.[29]

Mission Studies and Other Disciplines
It is clear that the study of mission interfaces with a wide range of disciplines, both theological and secular. Many of the varied dimensions of mission have been the focus of BIAMS conferences over the years. Mission studies is impoverished if reduced to one of its constituent parts or squeezed into a narrow section of the theological curriculum. Conversely, a missiological perspective enhances other theological disciplines. The following survey of the main partners of mission studies is intended to illustrate its scope, serve as an introduction to the subject, and show its importance to the theological curriculum.

a) Mission and evangelism: the interface with behavioural sciences
Missiology is often paired with evangelism, with the emphasis on the proclamation and translation of the message which accompanies mission. Taught as church growth theory or, more recently, the "signs and wonders" theology associated with John Wimber, it may major on the social, psychological and spiritual mechanisms which bring people to Christ with studies of communications and marketing as the interlocuters. However, a missiological education is more than pragmatism and wider than the "motivational and promotional" aspects,[30] it involves a grasp of "the subtle interplay between gospel and culture" and an understanding of the world today.[31]

b) Mission and society: the interface with social studies
Missiology is a partner of development studies and it relates to social justice, peace studies and ecology. Sociology is used in the service of mission not only as a tool to increase effectiveness or as a method of social analysis to enhance the prophetic voice of mission, fieldwork methods and social analysis have also been used to critique the missionary phenomenon as part of the "re-thinking" of missions since the late colonial period. The 1995 BIAMS conference "Mission on Trial" asked whether the church was guilty of collusion in an unjust global economy and discussed how kerygma, koinonia, and diakonia can be held in creative inter-relationship in mission.[32] The origins of missiology in the missionary movement as study of the churches' missions mean that mission studies is often limited to a subsection of practical theology. However theology of mission, as reflection on both the missionary intention of God and the practice of mission, brings word and deed together.

c) Mission and missions: the interface with history
The historical study of missionary activity has the advantage of being readily accepted as an academic discipline and interest in mission history is increasing amongst secular historians. It also allows a neat categorization of mission studies under church history in the theological curriculum. The presence of so many such archives in the UK contribute to making the historical study of mission, particularly in the nineteenth century, a strength of British missiology.[33] But there is interest too in the earlier history of the evangelization of Europe and Asia and the continuing practice of mission by the church wherever it is found.[34] Mission history studied without theological awareness may suffer from "sociological reductionism"[35] and is best studied by holding theology and history in tension.[36] The change foreseen by Stephen Neill[37] from the study of missions to the study of mission is not only a necessary consequence of the post-colonial period, it has profound implications and brings the subject into contact with a wider range of disciplines.

d) Mission and religions: the interface with religious studies and theology of religions
Much recent impetus for study of mission in Britain has been the rising awareness of the presence of significant numbers of people of other faiths. Such an approach tends to treat missiology as faith-awareness and dialogue and leads to its classification under pastoral theology.[38] The encounter with other faiths has long been familiar to missionaries and has also contributed to theologies of Christian presence and an interface with mysticism.[39] Religion may be taught without addressing the theological questions which it raises for Christian faith but mission studies brings to the theology of religions an awareness of the fruits of mission work that is world Christianity and thus helps to overcome the divorce between theology (understood as Western) and world religion.[40] The study of world Christianity becomes imperative when it is recognised how the centre of gravity of the Christian faith has shifted from the West to the non-Western world.[41] This means that mission is "from everywhere to everywhere"[42] and the experience of Christians in countries where they have long been a minority is of relevance here in Britain.

e) Mission and culture: the interface with anthropology and cultural studies
Missionaries have often been caricatured as destroyers of culture yet many have been acute observers of it and their work is the foundation of much contemporary secular study.[43] The ambiguous relation of mission and cultures was recognised in the 1991 BIAMS conference which looked at "Christ, Culture, and Columbus" and highlighted the necessity for a positive appreciation of cultural difference and the validity of other ways of life if mission is to be practised in a Christ-like manner. Anthropology has been foundational to mission studies as misionaries have adapted themselves to other cultures and attempted to express the gospel in indigenous terms.[44] The rising cultural self-awareness of the West has led to increasing interest in the engagement of Christian faith with Western culture, and this was the focus of the 1999 BIAMS conference.[45] The challenge of Lesslie Newbigin to "a genuinely missionary encounter" with modernity[46] has stimulated projects and courses on modernity and post-modernity.[47] There is a tension in mission studies between attention to cultural and to social context, between anthropology and sociology, but whether contextualization follows an inculturation or a liberation model,[48] mission studies brings a heightened awareness of the contextual nature of all theology.

f) Mission and the church: the interface with ecumenics and ecclesiology
Missiology is often twinned with ecumenics, reflecting the fact that the ecumenical movement grew out of the meeting of the missionary movement at Edinburgh 1910. The centrifugal and centripetal movements of going out and bringing in are appropriately studied together. Similarly, mission and worship have been seen as closely related in, for example, the work of David Watson[49] and in many of the newer church movements. Indeed in Orthodox missiology they may be identified, mission is "the liturgy after the liturgy".[50] The growing understanding of mission as missio Dei has led to a missionary ecclesiology which represents a shift from a church-centred mission to a mission-centred church, a church for (or with) others, no longer the sender but the sent.[51] On the other hand, ecumenics and ecclesiology can neglect the missionary movement, which has often flourished independently of ecclesiastical structures. Without attention to missiology, the mission for unity may overwhelm the motive of unity for mission.[52]

g) Mission and the Bible: the interface with biblical studies
Recognition of missio Dei has opened the way to studies of mission motifs in Scripture which establish biblical foundations for mission that do not depend merely on the Great Commission passages but on the thrust of Scripture as a whole.[53] Few biblical scholars in the post-war period have looked specifically at the theme of mission,[54] however topics such as the kingdom and the relationship of Jew and Gentile are closely related to it. The importance of the missionary motive in biblical studies is recognised in the work of such contemporary British biblical scholars as Richard Bauckham, Christopher Rowland, and Christopher J.H. Wright.[55] The translation of the gospel into different contexts, which is mission, stimulates exegetical and hermeneutical questions, not to mention theological issues and awareness of the contextual nature of Scripture itself. Mission studies is also conscious of the re-reading of the Bible from non-Western contexts as developed in post-colonial interpretations or cross-cultural hermeneutics.[56]

h) Mission and theology: the interface with systematics
The 1999 BIAMS conference invited Jürgen Moltmann, a theologian with a missionary perspective, to what proved to be a very lively debate with Theo Sundermeier, a missiologist. As we have seen the concept of missio Dei brings mission studies to the heart of theology. It has brought about a shift from a theology of mission to a missionary theology.[57] This is recognised in 1999-2001 in a series of lectures in the University of Cambridge by eminent theologians on "mission in theology" sponsored by the CWC project. The theology of mission has broadened from a focus on the sending activity of the Father. Under the impact particularly of liberation theologies, it has stressed awareness by the historical Jesus of his "sent-ness" to preach the good news to the poor and the mission of Christ's disciples to do likewise.[58] The impact of Orthodox pneumatology, the Pentecostal and charismatic movements, and eco-feminism has focused attention on the mission of the Spirit, the Spirit of life.[59]

Bosch, trained in classical theology, argues that in the next millennium systematics can no longer afford to dialogue exclusively with philosophy and ignore the social sciences, anti-Christian ideologies, and the beliefs of people of other faiths. Nor can Western systematic theology "continue to act as if it is universally valid and dismiss the indispensable contribution to theological thinking coming out of Third World situations".[60] The study of Third World theologies (or Non-Western theologies) is a growing field, which emerges naturally out of study of mission and also contains a critique of Western models of mission.[61] In contexts where Christianity has been more recently established there is much greater awareness of the missionary context of Christian faith and this brings missiology and theology together.[62] Systematic theologian Martin Kähler argued that mission was "the mother of theology" in that the theologising of the early church was necessitated by its missionary encounters with the world. Therefore theology is properly "an accompanying manifestation of the Christian mission" not "a luxury of the world-dominating church".[63] It may well be that the issues for Western theology in this millennium are pioneered in the non-Western world.

Mention could be made of other disciplines with which mission studies interfaces such as apologetics,[64] healing,[65], and feminism.[66] Spirituality and mission is a current area of interest in BIAMS. The 1997 BIAMS conference broached the subject when it considered the mission of Columba more appropriate for the third millennium than the model of Augustine.[67] The next BIAMS day conference in September 2000 will consider "The Spirituality of the Un-Churched", leading to consideration of "Mission and Spirituality: Alternative Ways of Being Church" at the residential BIAMS conference in 2001.

Mission Studies and Theological Education
As a recognised theological discipline, mission studies should be a subject in the theological curriculum in its own right. However, "the dimensional aspect" of missiology, that is its task of highlighting theology's reference to the world, means that a missionary perspective should also permeate all theological disciplines.[68] The questions raised by mission studies about the contextual nature of theology mean that missiology is party to the post-modern critique of theology, as Bosch tries to demonstrate.[69] In this sense missiology may represent the future of theology.

At High Leigh in 1984 Cracknell and Lamb drew attention to what they saw as parochialism in British theology, "its enclosure within an exclusively European, not to say Anglo-Saxon, cultural framework" and the "timeless and uncontextualized" nature of much theology teaching.[70] As they suggested, mission studies, by the boundary-breaking nature of mission itself, is an important factor in overcoming these limitations. In the words of Orlando Costas:

Missiology contends against all theological provincialism, advocating an intercultural perspective in theology. Missiology questions all theological discourse that does not seriously consider the missionary streams of the Christian faith; all biblical interpretation that ignores the missionary motives that shape biblical faith; all history of Christianity that omits the expansion of Christianity across cultural, social, and religious frontiers; and all pastoral theology that does not take seriously the mandate to communicate the Gospel fully and to the heart of the concrete situations of daily life.... By fulfilling such a critical task, missiology also enriches theology because it puts theology in contact with the worldwide Church with all its cultural and theological diversity.[71]

The study of mission is an introduction to a world-wide web. It is a subject which crosses theological and academic boundaries in its reflection on the mission of God to the world expressed in the living Word and the life-giving Spirit.

Notes

To join BIAMS or for further information, contact the Secretary, BIAMS, Henry Martyn Centre, Westminster College, Cambridge CB3 0AA, tel: 01223 741088, fax: 01223 741052, -email-; or see the BIAMS web-pages.