Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition

by Michael W. Stroope

Overview

IVP Readers' Choice Award

Mission, missions, missional, and all its linguistic variations are part of the expanding vocabulary and rhetoric of the contemporary Christian missionary enterprise. Its language and assumptions are deeply ingrained in the thought and speech of the church today. Christianity is a missionary religion and faithful churches are mission-minded. What's more, in telling the story of apostles and bishops and monks as missionaries, we think we have grasped the true thread of Christian history.

But what about those odd shapes, those unsettling gaps and creases in the historical record? Is the language of mission so clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Is the trajectory of mission really so explicit from the early church to the present? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past?

As with every reigning paradigm, there comes a point when enough questions surface to beg for a close and critical look, even when it may seem transgressive to do so. In this study of the language of mission—its origin, development, and application—Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity. There is both surprise and hope in this tale. And perhaps the beginnings of a new conversation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780830882250
Publisher:	IVP Academic
Publication date:	02/28/2017
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	477
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael W. Stroope (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of Christian missions and the M.C. Shook Chair of Missions at Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University. Stroope served as a missionary for twenty-one years under the International Mission Board in Sri Lanka, England, Germany and Hong Kong.

Michael W. Stroope (PhD, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of Christian missions and the M.C. Shook Chair of Missions at Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University. Stroope worked with the International Mission Board, SBC, for twenty years and has served in Sri Lanka, England, Germany, and Hong Kong. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Enigma of Mission
Part I: Justifying Mission
1. Partisans and Apologists
2. Reading Scripture as Mission
3. Presenting History as Mission
4. Rhetoric and Trope
Part II: Innovating Mission
5. Holy Conquest
6. Latin Occupation
7. Mission Vow
8. Ignatian Mission
Part III: Revising Mission
9. Protestant Reception
10. Missionary Problems
Epilogue: Toward Pilgrim Witness
Abbreviations
Works Cited

What People are Saying About This

Kirsteen Kim

"All the main churches of the UK have 'mission' high on their list of priorities at the moment—mostly in the sense of 'missional church' or 'evangelization.' So Michael W. Stroope's findings that 'mission' is a late usage—unsupported by the Bible and premodern Christian literature—will certainly provoke. Nevertheless, when so much is invested in mission, this in-depth and insightful interrogation of the discourse and rhetoric is essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike."

Stephen Bevans

"In conference after conference, in conversation after conversation, the question inevitably surfaces: Should we abandon the word mission? This is the question that Michael Stroope asks in this volume. His answer is affirmative. Perhaps the word mission has run its course, and in its place we should substitute the phrase 'pilgrim witness to the kingdom.' Not everyone will agree, and not everyone will fully accept the new language that he proposes. Nevertheless, Michael Stroope has taken the risk of a frank discussion and a fresh proposal. This work should provoke a lively and creative debate, one that will no doubt transcend the present impasse."

Editorial Reviews

"All the main churches of the UK have 'mission' high on their list of priorities at the moment—mostly in the sense of 'missional church' or 'evangelization.' So Michael W. Stroope's findings that 'mission' is a late usage—unsupported by the Bible and premodern Christian literature—will certainly provoke. Nevertheless, when so much is invested in mission, this in-depth and insightful interrogation of the discourse and rhetoric is essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike."

Kirsteen Kim

"Stroopes' work is in many ways a tour de force. . . . There is plenty to consider in how the church has understood mission. Hopefully, the 'missionary industrial complex' (if there is such a thing) will take time to digest what Stroope is advocating, thereby finding the language to share the glad tidings of salvation. Persons who have read Wright, Bevans, Schroeder, Bosch, and others need now to listen to another voice and contend."

Andrew D. Kinsey

"In conference after conference, in conversation after conversation, the question inevitably surfaces: Should we abandon the word mission? This is the question that Michael Stroope asks in this volume. His answer is affirmative. Perhaps the word mission has run its course, and in its place we should substitute the phrase 'pilgrim witness to the kingdom.' Not everyone will agree, and not everyone will fully accept the new language that he proposes. Nevertheless, Michael Stroope has taken the risk of a frank discussion and a fresh proposal. This work should provoke a lively and creative debate, one that will no doubt transcend the present impasse."

Stephen Bevans

"Transcending Mission is an extremely helpful guide to separating the Christian witness from the baggage accumulated by the modern missions movement."

Jake Raabe

"Transcending Mission is an extremely helpful guide to separating the Christian witness from the baggage accumulated by the modern missions movement."

--Jake Raabe, the Baptist Standard, March 17, 2017

"In conference after conference, in conversation after conversation, the question inevitably surfaces: Should we abandon the word mission? This is the question that Michael Stroope asks in this volume. His answer is affirmative. Perhaps the word mission has run its course, and in its place we should substitute the phrase 'pilgrim witness to the kingdom.' Not everyone will agree, and not everyone will fully accept the new language that he proposes. Nevertheless, Michael Stroope has taken the risk of a frank discussion and a fresh proposal. This work should provoke a lively and creative debate, one that will no doubt transcend the present impasse."

--Stephen Bevans, SVD, Louis J. Luzbetak, SVD Professor of Mission and Culture emeritus, Catholic Theological Union

"Stroopes' work is in many ways a tour de force. . . . There is plenty to consider in how the church has understood mission. Hopefully, the 'missionary industrial complex' (if there is such a thing) will take time to digest what Stroope is advocating, thereby finding the language to share the glad tidings of salvation. Persons who have read Wright, Bevans, Schroeder, Bosch, and others need now to listen to another voice and contend."

--Andrew D. Kinsey, Reviews in Religion and Theology, 25:3 (2018)

From the Publisher

"Stroope challenges our understandings of missions. He uncovers how the vocabulary of the modern missionary movement was an imagined and invented tradition, with categories of rhetoric and symbolism that, while implicated both in the scientific revolution and the worldwide expansion of the West, was not only profoundly Protestant but was also dominated by the English speaking world. As such, it was not only a vehicle of modernity but of modernism itself. This vocabulary found its ultimate expression in the World Missionary Conference of 1910 in Edinburgh. That event, at the pinnacle of mission influence and optimism, envisioned the entire world coming under the sway of the kingdom of God on earth."

Robert Eric Frykenberg