Together we bow before you and acknowledge you as the Lord We praise you as the God of all the earth Thank you and praise you as a tender Heavenly Father who comes close Teach one of us in times of I've struggled in questioning and pain and difficulty You praise you for the Lord Jesus And how his life Death and resurrection and ongoing work culmination of Your long-standing firm commitment and promise to redeem this world to make it right to reclaim your creation that turn its back on you We recognize that he is the Lord We recognize that the Lord Jesus is coming back and we all too well recognize that this world is not yet fully redeemed and there's still much wrong and hurt and sorrow and pain in our world We continue to cry out to you as your people knowing that you alone or wise, that you alone are good that you along alone are to be trusted and we do trust you We thank you our Father for the undeniable assurance that we as your people we as those who buy your grace or followers of Jesus Christ don't belong to any particular ethnic group or modern nation state but you have us stretched all around the world as salt and light as prophetic voices as those who hurt and are sinned against those who do wrong and get confused and get those who minister for the sake of the gospel who serve we thank you for those positions that we have thank you for people that you have in places that we'll never know about and we pray for strength and courage for those who name your name who seek to serve you who seek to serve causes of peace and justice and good for people as we hear, meet this morning in this class we pray for wisdom and courage help us to be more fully equipped to serve you in your ongoing world mission we praise you for your comprehensive mission that it is your intention to redeem this world and we rest in your intention and your full commitment made sure in the resurrection of Jesus that you are the one about reclaiming this world for good help us again as your people to serve you to be clear in our thinking about the gospel about who we are in terms of our nationality our ethnicity are belonging to Jesus Christ together and we ask for all of the skydads and for your ongoing presence in Jesus name Amen last time we ended in the middle of topic number ten and we'll pick back up there looking at, quote, American culture and we were just getting to the point in our notes on the American dimension of the missionary movement and I want to point you two-year readings in Andrew Walls of his chapter with that particular title and I may have said it before but it's worth repeating I think this article not in a critical way but in a scripted way hits some particular marks in a very helpful and poignant matter as he notes in the modern missionary movement which many people characterize as basically encompassing the last 200 years especially since World War One but really since the beginning of the 19th century as well in particular since World War One and even in an accelerated way since World War Two it's been the American branch of the worldwide church specifically from the United States that has been at the forefront of the modern missionary movement and as that has taken place Professor Walls has pointed out here some particular marks of the American missionary movement he expresses at the beginning some questions that different people have represented by a famous chap and he's Christian in the Chimita Conzo about the capability of Americans in general being teachers of religion and spirituality in the view which is a multifastive view among many people in the world that Americans are not deep that they know how to make things they know how to solve problems culture and religion Americans are a sight and they're very thin and have very little depth is not an uncommon view which in the Chimita Conzo in an extreme way represents that be that as it may Professor Walls goes on to stress and develop how Rufus Center and others saw in the 19th century the rise of America and the unique place America was having in the world and in the missionary movement the roles of the frontier and the expanding America the development for the development of the voluntary association and how that really came to coalesce with how people saw church as a voluntary society the uninhibited use of money by Americans in missions efforts the article of faith he calls it of separation of church and state which is just a given for Americans and that has tended to lend itself towards what he would call a political naivete in certain areas where American missionaries have not always seen the political connections or political implications of their presence in other places the common sense type of theological senses some notes about American Christianity and I want to point out to you at the top of his page 35 the first four paragraph on his page 35 it's about seven lines down and talking about the titular marks of American Christianity and he's speaking in general in terms he recognizes that and he qualifies that in various places for example he notes towards the end of the article that he hasn't even touched on African-American contributions towards the American American aspect of the modern mystery movement he notes that paragraph none of these marks and none of their effects is nearly as important as the universal Christianity gospel of the risen Christ to its historic American Christianity witnesses but no one ever meets in a local form and that means he historically culturally conditioned form we need not fear this when God became human he became historically culturally conditioned man in a particular time and place what he became we need not fear to be there's nothing wrong with having local forms of Christianity provided that we remember that they are local and that becomes all the more acute when cross cultural communication with gospel takes place especially as is the case in the continuing sense in so far as the American contribution to the mystery movement is continuing and will continue for the foreseeable future especially in so far is that cross cultural communication in the gospel is associated with and intertwined with political, military, and economic power he does point out does Professor Walser we are now in a change world and one of the features of that change world now is a truly worldwide Christian movement these particular matters are not totally unrelated to ongoing events in the world and how to understand the world and again I would suggest you that this piece is helpful for understanding not in a negative way but in a helpful clarifying way some of the peculiar roles, particular roles in characteristics of the American contribution to the ongoing modern mission movement. Any comments or questions you have about this piece of Professor Walser? I hope you found it helpful and I hope some he has a few aha moments as you had I certainly did the first time I encountered it. Yes, do I think that when he talks about money and the great use of money that he's getting at our trust not in God but in possessions in material power I don't think he's necessarily getting at that now I think what he is describing here is what others see in that just so much money can be put into sending missionaries and missionary projects and what not and he's just leaving it at that and he thinks that's true. Now, he would be open to exploring some of the implications of that which might be what you're suggesting but no, I don't think he's kind of getting at that if you will. I really think that what he's writing here is descriptive not evaluative if you can catch the difference there. Yes. I don't know that he is saying that I think he would again be open to exploring that I think some other offers that we'll be reading soon do say that that the wealth and affluence of the United States is essential to make the modern missions moving be what it is from the United States. Some other people that we will be reading say that directly and in an evaluative way. But again, I think he would be open to explore that sort of thing. Here I think he's just noting in a descriptive way and what other people would say if I can represent him in that way. Yes. Is this view of Americans rooted in Marxist analysis in class NB? That's an interesting question. Marxist analysis has gone into a great deal of wider academic thinking and analysis in a number of different fields and how much that would feed various views of Americans in general and American missions in particular is an interesting question. I would hate to be make a generalization there and I would be hesitant to say that about the way he is describing things in this article. But undoubtedly Marxist categories and backgrounds do help support the types of class NB or views of how history will go that many people would have. Yes. And I think he's saying in general terms that a basic assumption speaking in general of Americans involved in missions, especially including cross-cultural missionaries who are Americans involved in missions especially including cross-cultural missionaries who are Americans who are Americans who are Americans is a notion that church and state are separate, that missions is a religious enterprise and that has nothing to do with politics. And that as a missionary I'm here to preach and minister the gospel and the fact that I'm an American here is just somewhat coincidental. I'm trying to represent what he's saying here. And he is suggesting and perhaps this is a bit evaluative on his part. He is saying that that sort of an understanding and approach is politically naïve. To think that you can be anywhere and it not be not have political implications that's naïve. That as a member of a citizen of any country including the United States and perhaps he would say given the role of the United States. When you are somewhere else you will be perceived as an American and the various political economic connotations that oftentimes that will hold. And to think otherwise is naïve. One example that I haven't heard him use but I've used before and I don't use this example so much as a criticism but maybe you will hear a criticism. I don't mean it that way. To me it illustrates how on one side political implications certainly would not be intended but on another side they would be perceived very deeply. And it was during the Vietnam War when Billy Graham came to Japan on a crusade and as a part of that crusade he preached to US troops stationed in Japan. In the 1970s there was still a very strong anti-war and anti-US political element within Japan. And so what they saw was Billy Graham endorsing the Vietnam War and the US's approach in Japan support of the Vietnam War and they were violently opposed to all of those things. Billy Graham I would think had no political intention at all in that. He was some people who needed to hear the gospel and here's an opportunity so I'm going to go. And I do not at all want to imply that Billy Graham is politically naive. He certainly is not. Now what he thought about that 30 years ago I really don't know. But again his intentions I would conjecture and certainly the way he was perceived is very different. Yes. During the Gulf War apparently a number of people in Kuwait and that area came to Christ and there was an American missionary who committed that because Americans had not been able to penetrate the Muslim world. God used the war to bring the gospel to various people. I comment one reaction is not even to touch that with a 10-foot pole. Another reaction is to appeal to the mysterious workings of God. Another reaction is to avoid simplistic reductionist analyses of events. And by that I mean if some people want to look at God's reason behind the Gulf War so that this could happen that's very simplistic and doesn't take into account to all the complex factors and it unfairly reduces one outcome or possible result or effect of the war to being all in all of why it happened. I could see I could punch holes in that sort of a notion. It seems to imply that it was up to American missionaries to penetrate the area or what have you. I mean you have Ethiopian Christians and others and so but God works in mysterious ways and so if I could arrest my appeal in those various ways. Thank you about the current events with that same mind and those sorts of simplistic analysis are going around. And you know how guys judgment, how guys wrath is being manifest or is mercy and grace. I mean it's again you don't want to leave God out but you don't want to be simplistic. To move a little bit further into some things that you did not read and we're not going to take the time to read all that I have in these notes. And the number of things including this book after Christendom, Strangers and Aliens or aliens and Strangers which one was it was another book among others that he has written. And this sort of writing, let me just back up, Stanley Howard Voss would not come down on the same point of a theological scale of a familiar conservative liberal evangelical scale where we would identify ourselves but I think he has some very perceptive things to say to Christians in relation to their own setting and basically what he's appealing for here is a sense of being able to gain a critical distance from your setting and to be able to hear the word of God speaking to you in your setting and not to unwittingly be swallowed up by your setting. And he has a lot to say with respect to living in a Christian faith. That's where that's his setting and he's writing to people in this setting and so that's where his point and comments are made and so he says things like the crucial divide now is not between modernity and postmodernity. It's whether or not we're able to hear a fresh what the Christian faith has to say to our settings. Modernity is one setting, postmodernity is another setting in either setting. And so how we can hear the scriptures and create the world, narrate the world, live in such a world on Christian terms, not the world's terms. And so where we are today, how do we go on living on in a multicultural, pluralistic society? He says, I don't know. He says, but that's good for us not to know. We've tended to have the answers and manage ourselves. It's a good situation to be where we just don't know. Through to wilderness. And in the current situation, in light of the terrorist attacks, and all that's happening now politically and militarily and what will happen et cetera, this is all the more pointed for us. In whatever setting we as the Lord's people find ourselves, think of the Lord's people who are in Pakistan and there are Christian people in Afghanistan, there are Christian people in all sorts of places and of course there's a strong Christian presence and a strong Christian heritage in this particular country. How to stand for right? How to stand for justice? How to be properly patriotic? And yet how not to get swallowed by nationalism? How to have a measure of self-distance? Or you can be self-critical. Do you realize that you do belong to a much wider body of Christ that our citizenship isn't heaven? And what does that mean for earthly citizenship and political arenas? I don't think that it's always clear but I think one pertinent place for this sort of a mindset anyway that is manifested is for us to be able to live as aliens and strangers while at the same time belonging to this situation and being very passionate about it and caring deeply about it and being politically involved of being in the world and not of it to use those terms. Am I seeing a hand back there? Yes. Seeing two hands back there. Okay. Might the church in its weakened state in western Europe being able to rediscover new possibilities as a church? I think so. And in that sense, given that for many churches and we have to say in a plural way what's happening in much of western Europe many churches realized their bankruptcy in places in western Europe and therefore have perhaps more of a desperation and a acute sense of their tenuous existence and in that sense perhaps some churches in western Europe and I hesitate to put it this way for a reasonable explain a minute in that sense it could be several years ahead of where the church in the United States is. Now, I hesitate to say that because I don't mean to imply at all that the church in the United States can simply look at what's happening in western Europe and say, okay, well that's where we're going in a generation or two. The church in the United States has its own story and its own life and what's going to happen here is we don't know yet and we should not say and I don't think it's helpful to analyze that, okay, what's going to happen in Europe with the church is kind of withering, that's going to happen in the United States I don't think that has to do the case at all but that's an excellent point that realizing a place of desperation if you will and being so tenuous does give more flexibility, malibility, desperation to have new forms of life and that's a helpful point in this setting as well we can hear some points as that Bill Dearness for example makes in this book from several years ago how does America hear the gospel in that book he talks about the loneliness that many American scents because of individualism here the sense of a lack of fulfillment with prosperity and affluence that many people have since that provides all sorts of new opportunities for menacing the gospel and certainly in the current setting too where there is heightened awareness of danger, of the shortness of life of pain in hearts those always present opportunities for ministering the gospel here too and so as those who are followers of Jesus Christ we are in put in situations here to minister the gospel to people who along with we ourselves are hurting are open and to speak and minister the gospel is what our calling is and not to shrink back from the setting all right we could of course get off when talking about a lot of other things about current events I think some of these things relate in some ways and want them to relate and want you to further apply them as we need to again that's this chart that I will not show you now is one that stresses the multifaceted nature of our existence in this world and in thinking about the current events and as most of you I would trust have started to explore through reading and through asking about the background of recent histories in Pakistan and in Afghanistan and that part of the world in ways that you've never known before in the dilemmas faced by various leaders there and what that means for leaders in other parts of the world including the United States the off-the-cuff goof of President Bush using the word crusade and the White House has said that was off-the-cuff it was not intended we will not use that word again or crusade and that's very much a loaded third now you know President Bush didn't mean the way it was heard but to know why that term is loaded is part of the whole complex here and so how history relates to this particular setting in which we find ourselves is so very critical all right let's proceed next to topic 11 religion and we did some readings for this section out of shank a couple of chapters that you had assigned starting on page 59 any questions you want to ask write a friend about this or you and awaited a more appropriate moment I don't want simply to walk through shank but to point out a few points for you independent churches and I'm looking at this if you have shank turn to page 59 and you should have shank Christian groups that are independent, spiritualist, indigenous, etc are very very prominent and even since this book was written I pointed out to you that David Barrett and his colleagues put together the latest edition of the world christian cyclopedia Christians throughout the world who are independent Christian groups are much larger than anticipated I forget the percentage of world christianity now but I want to say that it's close to 20% of the world's christians are affiliated with various independent Christian movements which is and the way they block down in the world christian cyclopedia world christians they clear into six major blocks of the world's christian cyclopedia independence, Protestant and other and different other groups Anglican is one independence or second only by the Roman Catholics in terms of groups so this is something that you can't ignore and it first arose really in the literature and discussions out of africa and if you haven't seen it was the original meaning other words that have been used for a variety of reasons African indigenous churches African initiated churches it's another word for the eye and I'm not coming up right now but these various indigenous movements so very important on the world christian scene today. Shink points out that these and NRM's are a fruit of the modern mission movement that's familiar as you read new religious movements or NRM's as he's abbreviating them that is commonly used in the academic literature of the day and sometimes you would find what they include in this category as acceptable or not acceptable many. I've seen list of NRM's that would include groups that we would call specifically cults I've seen a group like promised keepers amongst the list that's kind of taken on its own life and it's a new religious movement now again you might not appreciate that I just want you to understand how the term is used and he's using here in in similar to that sense I think specifically about christian independent groups from traditional or missionary movements that have come into settings. Shink points out how these movements were ignored but now they're at the forefront of much christian academic attention. He talks about two prominent examples about the Tobas in amongst the Argentine in Argentina and Paraguay and how in relation to various missions including the midnight missions different things happened and lessons that were learned about this groups embracing of the christian faith and failures leading up to that on page 64 he mentions three principles of action out of this particular experience many intercultural conflicts coming out of power institutions and programs that have altered indigenous patterns. Secondly to the advancement of the indigenous community those things which one are being sought by them. But two they have been denied because of the weak position in society and then thirdly the mission, the expatriate mission must avoid competing with indigenous leadership. So the mission shouldn't therefore be a loop but should be involved in a servant role. Secondly then he goes on to talk about the data Harris may have talked along almost the beaches of west africa just prior to the years of World War I and he sees a hundred thousand conversions and all these different independent churches spring up in his wake and many of these converts go into a mainline mission churches as well and shank points out how for these people understanding and giving expression to christian faith in their music and indigenous music is a key mark also of many indigenous groups. Finally page 68 what was crucial starting on his daughter for final 68 what was crucial for these groups is being able to respond to spiritual force to dominate their own lives, finding answers to help unhealing and listening to God speak through dreams and visions and worship that helped these communities create a new sense of order and coherence. For the study of theology then is a part of what shank explores in the next chapter. On your notes I have outlined a few categories for understanding that. It's helpful to note first that these new religious movements being discussed here are offsprings of the modern missionary movement it took cross-cultural mission initiative for these groups even to arise in the first place in ways that he outlines and then moving backwards through his chapter I have listed some of his categories but what this means for missiology as far as an ecumenical challenge I have a question mark here because different people draw lines in different places for whether or not these groups should be considered even christian many of them. Different types of analyses which is definitely one I was just reading talks about okay so we don't know the boundaries very well they're fuzzy fine let's focus on the center let's keep the center as Jesus Christ and the boundaries will let kind of fall out where they may and not be as concerned about being fuzzy is one sort of approach another approach I've listed in the notes for you is a fairly recent book by scholar Mark Mullins about these Indigenous types of groups in Japan in a book he's entitled christian made in Japan groups that for many christians would not fall within the tail of the christian church it's very different sort of understandings of history of lost tribes coming to Japan incorporating religious traditions into their celebrations of the sacraments the his own posture is why not be generous here these people do use the scriptures they do acknowledge Jesus Christ is supreme he is one who would while having evangelical sentiments himself would be much more generous in not drawing fences not building fences too quickly so there is the type of ecumenical channels these groups bring the processes of church growth that are suggested that shink out lines on page 53 how these takes place within these communal groups within the particular Indigenous structures that people already have in place it's interesting to note that as shink does that these sorts of groups have often taken off amongst primal societies and when you look at where the christian faith has grown in particular in the 20th century most often it's been in so-called primal societal settings where you have settings that are traditional relatively undisturbed by outside modernizing influences and relatively uncapitated by other historical religions when you look at what is that where Islam is come in where Buddhism has come in and had powerful influences you have not seen dramatic growth of the christian faith by and large by and large African other places has been setting to where there's the primal setting and there's something about the linkage somehow apparently there where the christian faith has taken off earlier that he outlines on page 78-80 and how you've had any number of authors and he mentions many coming out of Africa he does on page 79 where people have appealed for a reshaping of the structures, the categories, the low side, the methodologies of theology as theology takes shape afresh then the general setting of western theology is developed and brought into settings. You want to ask further now about that category? Yes. Is the tension between different emphasis on theological matters attention that we simply have to live with as missionaries if I can read phrase that or add to that as a worldwide multicultural church is this something that we just need to come the grips with and allow and if we do how do you judge whether or not certain theological formulations or orthodox within proper bounds or not? In answer to the first question I think it is attention that we need to get used to in terms of different characteristics that I would again take us back to that universal particular tension that is ever present with us as the Christian faith there is always going to be a particular character to theological emphasis and systems that are drawn up. I think even going back to the ecumenical councils and the way that they are forward to the answer there was something particular about that. Now again where some people I think have thrown the baby out with a bath water as you have seen that only as particular that was just Greek we are not Greek we don't think in dichotomous ways we think in more synthetic ways we don't need to define the Trinity. We think in both and categories not either the universal character of the trinitarian formulation of the ecumenical council is leaving this part of the tension out. At the same time do the critical distinctions between the Greek and Latin terms that were used there have to be at the forefront of all theological study programs in all settings around the world. As a matter of being familiar with the water church they need to be included on the same floor as an urgent matter like what to do about miraculous healings what to do about the presence of evil oppressive ancestors those matters are theological acuteness in various settings and to ignore those is ignoring particular Christian duty to deal with them. And so where the lines are to be drawn that's going to be attention who draws the lines? Again I think to be able to cooperate and listen and hear each other to give input to each other is very very important as I think I mentioned before and as I think you just mentioned to the prominent place that we give to scripture who are in the positive and evangelical tradition I am all for but I think there's a historical reason for that as well a particular reason why the Westminster Confession of Faith is right up top not to say that scripture is not essential importance and of universal importance but it comes right up top for us because partly at least the history of the Protestant Reformation and of the evangelical tradition in particular. So yeah I think the tension is going to be here and it's going to remain with us and where the draw the lines especially in our day of all sorts of newer voices being heard now it's a new world for us and how to be patient and tolerant and how to have conviction is always not an easy path to walk yes how do we not undermine the particularity of scripture which is a universal message at the same time I think that is the tension and we'll look a little bit later at other ways that some people deal with this for example the place of Old Covenant Israel I would want to assert firmly from the scriptures that God has always been concerned about all people's everywhere at all times and he's been at work among all people's at all times but God worked in a unique particular way in Old Covenant Israel and God worked in a unique particular way clearly in Jesus of Nazareth that particular man and through those particular historical events and so the clarity and the universality of those matters you have to keep both of them together and if you start to lose one you're going to lose the other one at the same time the question is who would be more theologically driven as opposed to methodologically driven vis-a-vis missions if you remember the one recommended book I mentioned that was authored by Harvey Khan authored in 1984 eternal word and changing worlds a trial log between theology anthropology and missiology Khan there is pointing towards it's not so much an either or question um you need all of those together in the mix Shink, I think in a portion of the book that you'll read later notes that the activist practical nature of the modern missions movement especially including the American post-war war two American branch of it has been particularly practical activist and driven by social science methodologies a loss has been the gap between the theologians and the missiologists particularly in North America particularly and that's a huge gap he wants to say those need to be brought together and theologians be to listen to the missiologist and vice versa I too would go back to that complex those flowery looking and other sorts of diagrams that point to the multifaceted nature of mission theology to where in answer direct answer to your question again I don't want to draw and I don't hear you doing this I don't want to draw wedge between being theologically driven or methodologically driven I want to note that for North American missiology in particular the role of the social sciences and methodology has been paramount and it's been coupled with a practical activist bent within the modern missions movement to recognize that to realize that that's not the only way to view missiology that's the only way to think about God's mission and to see how that whole scope of what mission thinking missiology is and how that interfaces with theology helps me to make the statement and hope that you understand it when I say that yes I think it's very important to be theologically driven but to note that theologically I'm always within this tension and part of this tension is going to relate to all the methodologies and the textual considerations that help give shape to my theological understanding and academic and but I'm trying to be fair but I'm trying to be okay is that comforting or disturbing or I don't know that's an excellent question and why looking for the big picture in life in the tunnel and thinking about William White Harris for example and think that for a question might be is he orthodox in question or on reflection is that the right question to ask. Those are very helpful questions and it strikes me that that sort of a question needs to enter the picture but I would say that depending on who is asking the question when it doesn't need to be the first question and given the fact of who we are and given the fact of where we are in our historical understanding of what God's mission is all about I don't think it should be the first question I understand why it probably will be the first question but my hope would be in looking at someone like William White Harris the first attempt would be to understand in the historical setting of what happened to go in not with a distance to where I will come simply going to just describe it and not be personally involved in dealing with what's happening here and therefore not evaluating at all but as you evaluate part of what might happen is your own categories of evaluating my shift a little bit. My own personal testimony along those lines is one of the particular Japanese Christian theologian pre-World War II Christian theologian and many circles he's considered is very biblical in orthodox and Japanese evangelical circles he's considered as neo-orthodox. When I went to him I had my own pre-understandings through some short English descriptions of him of what this name was all about. Once I got into him I was told in his language in that setting I became increasingly unnerved about what this name was all about. Unnerved in the sense of I don't know how to evaluate him because I was finding that my categories for describing him were becoming increasingly inadequate. And so for example his best known book is entitled The Keystone-Kill which in English is Evangelical Christianity but what he meant by that and what people would hear by that would match up and so it becomes a painstaking sort of a task genuinely understanding sympathetically while maintaining convictions about where you are because if you don't maintain convictions it's not going to be honest and real about where you stand before God. I think I mentioned something that I understand from a different conflict and from a different world from a different church tradition H Ord need say or end a dinner conversation I'm not sure how it came up I heard you say or have been a conversation that we in the PC want to ordain women elders this person's immediate response was THAT is sexist okay I don't know how We really don't think so. We really don't believe so. In the end, I suppose I should be open to the possibility that it might be. But by the Scriptures, we are convinced by the Scriptures that to ordain men only is what God commands us to do. And we firmly believe that and have that conviction. And we stand before the Scriptures and must be convinced by the Scriptures. Oh, that was an honest answer. And it's going to take the Scriptures to convince us. And oftentimes those sorts of shifts and changes can be deep. They take a long time and a second. But some of these matters do run very, very deep. They get really quite tricky. We have a whole nother course here on contextualization. I will tell you right now that course on contextualization has its goal simply to begin to have sensibilities about what contextualization involves. It's a very complicated sort of, but not to scare us off on it, but to note that there are deep factors that work here. All right. Speaking of contextualization, shank notes for us that these instances, by the way, the names that he mentions on page 79, names like Bellagri Dohue on page on line 5 or of 79 right in the middle John Bede, those sorts of names are theological heavyweights. Any, I'll say it in this sort of a stark way just to make the point, any cursory understanding of 20th century theologically, of theology, Christian theology must know these names. So they're not to be included is a tragedy. These guys listed on page 79 are heavyweights and something that John Bede said way back in the 70s was, the fact that you guys don't even know who we are, don't even really care to know, says something, saying that to the Western theological world. All right. Let me point out to you at the bottom of page 75. The name John Nevious is an important name, we'll come back to him later a little bit, but he was the one who really took the three self-church formula to a full extent and applied it in Korea. And so much so that seeing self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting churches emerging in Korea and works successfully in that setting in the late 19th, early 20th century, that whole approach came to be known as the Nevious method, it came to be so associated with his name. But again, he was applying what was originally formulated by, remember the two names, in the mid 19th century, Rufus Anderson, the American side, and Henry Van Fenglishman. Henry Van and Rufus Anderson formulated the three self-church formula and then John Nevious took it to his application in Korea. Yes, self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating. And now including evangelical circles, in light of the discussions about contextualization over the past 30 years, a fourth self is added by some to be self-theologizing. Now that's more unnerving for those of us who, by theological posture, are conservative and leery of what that leads to, but many people add that fourth self to the picture now. Yes. Basic descriptive terms, people like Edo and John Beatty, are arguing for what has come to be known partly by their formulations as an African theology. As Christian theology that is expressed in African languages and that deals with African realities in ways that Western theologies don't, about those two men in particular, Edo was one of the first who started to clamor for, cry out for, write about the need for Christian church life, Christian worship, Christian evangelism, Christian theology to be relevant to Africa. In a way that was extremely helpful, I think many analyses, and I would concur with this, and I will draw him in later on, get so wrapped up in the need to be African, toward his exclusive focus became studying and honoring African traditional religions. And he got off course in a way that was misleading. John Beatty has stayed much more within a traditional Christian framework while at the same time giving the study of African traditional religion realities their necessary place within a Christian theological approach. Is the general consensus of John Beatty? All right. I gave you a few readings. No. These will come later. Well, you had a few readings in Ramakandra, and the readings you had I think here were just from the preface to his one book, The Recovery of Mission, just a couple of points from him. I think on many of these sorts of issues and challenges that arise for us, those of us who are most familiar with Western styles and settings need one to realize the universal aspect of who we are in Christ, don't fall into the postmodern, playfully, correct trap that oh, it's Western and it's only Western, therefore you're well with anything else. That's not true. But to know, though, that because of the particular character of what we're used to doing and of all of our sensibilities tell us, much of what our sensibilities tell us, that we need help from outside ourselves. Ramakandra and countless other Christian theologians are very helpful voices saying, we're here. We're here. And so, for example, when he talks about in this book The Recovery of Mission and he's addressing the matter of religious plurality or religious pluralism, he's saying, it's a new problem for you guys in the West, but we've always been dealing with this problem. The Christian church in our part of the world in the South Asia has always been living with religious plurality. And so, after a couple thousand years, we've learned a few things. How about it? And those sorts of suggestions, I think, are ones that we desperately need to hear. And what he does in his book, and again, we'll get to this in the elective course that comes at the end of this term after this particular course, he goes back to the particular scandal of Jesus. Ramakandra strikes that balance between the universal nature of the Christian faith but the particular scandalous nature of this peasant and who he was and what he represented and what he did in his early followers and what they represented and who they were. And the real workings and unique workings of God, and he strikes so a wonderful balance and we'll come back to a few quotations of him that I find extremely helpful. And when you read him, it's like, well, of course, but when you realize why he's able to say the amount of his background as of Sri Lankan, I find it extremely helpful. So main point here is, there's much help from around the world as the Christian church, as we can listen to each other and pool our resources and be the full body of Christ. And some of your other readings, we encounter some historical paradigms of mission, various ones of them, out of the middle ages in Roman Catholic missions, edited by Thomas, the directive from Pope Gregory, for example, to adopt pagan temples and you know, these discussions are with us today, are they not in our circles? You know, some people want to say, oh, Christmas is a pagan holiday, shouldn't do it, et cetera, Easter is just, well, that kind of thing has been done a great deal. So how are you going to handle that? I think you can go back in terms of understanding that to some of the categories that Lamine Sonic gave us, are you going to be quarantined and somehow try to be a pure Christian faith that doesn't deal at all with where you are? Isn't that impossible? Are you going to go the other extreme to be synchrotistic? Are you going to be prophetic and be who you are in a particular setting, which the road is not always clear, but is not that the road? The importance of women in mission, the struggle that some have had about, do you compel people to come into the faith, or do you persuade them to come into faith, and you read some comments by Thomas Aquinas, of how, you know, for heretics anyway, yeah, you compel them to come in. And to understand him in his historical situation is important and to understand ourselves and our historical situation is, well, Dallas Cossus and his objections to what the Spanish are doing to the indigenous peoples in the Americas and the way he came to fight for their rights, the role that people like Francis Xavier play, the important role that he played as a missionary in India, eventually in Japan, but you read about the mass baptisms that he saw occurred. And what was it that it said about Xavier to where I'm looking on page 30 of Norman Thomas is that it's in volume to where I'm about halfway down through the page under the title Catecetics. I made them each three times, make three times a sign of the cross and putting on a surplus. I began to recite and allow voice in their own language to form the general confession. You follow the screen, the Ten Commandments, which for the Alva Maria, the Sala Regina, two years, I translate these prayers to them, or in the Bahar, or recite to them, and they were baptized. And the group baptism that we're done in that sort of a setting, was that adequate? Is that inadequate? Etc. These are just, again, models and examples of what has been done in the past. We didn't get the topic 12 this time, but we'll catch up there next time as we close out. Let me give you a reading question for it next time. And this is about, for topic 13 and 14, namely, how do the entrance or entrances of Christianity in the various parts of Asia compare with what happened in various parts of Europe? Christian faith comes into, again, various parts of Asia, and you can define Asia as not always as easy, but say, take that all the way to Syria. Christianity comes in there, comes in India, for example, it comes into China, it comes in the various places, compare those entrances with beginnings of the Christian faith with what happened in Europe. And again, Europe is not a monolithic picture in the various parts of Europe. So think about that comparison as you do your readings for next time. Any final questions or comments? All right. God bless you. See you next time.