The Making of a Mission Field: Paradigms of Evangelistic Mission in Europe (original) (raw)
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'The Making of a Mission Field: Paradigms of Evangelistic Mission in Europe' - published in Exchange
Since the Second World War Europe has increasingly been considered as a 'mission fijield'. Sometimes it is suggested that this belief could only emerge after the collapse of the colonial empires, efffectively abolishing the diffference between the 'Christian' and the 'pagan' world. However, this is only partially true. There has always been a strong undercurrent within European churches, especially among missionary practitioners, that Europe was not all that 'Christian', even when its institutions and laws were influenced by Christianity. In this article I argue that this consciousness even increased in the post-Reformation centuries. In fact, 'home missions' were in every bit a part of the great Protestant missionary movement, just as 'foreign missions'. Before the 20th century the awareness of Europe as a mission fijield was embodied in two missionary paradigms that I have termed 'confessional' and 'revivalist'. In the 20th century a new paradigm emerged that I have called 'ideological'.
Evangelism and the Paradox of Europe and Christianity
Mission theologians and practitioners who reflect on evangelism in Europe, or in a particular European country, usually analyse the socio-religious context from one of the following angles: secularisation, postmodernism, or post-Christendom; or a combination of those. The author briefly analyses how each angle leads to identifying a particular barrier for the communication of the Gospel, and a particular response to find bridges for the message. He then proposes a fourth approach, not to replace these angles but to place them in a wider perspective, namely the paradox of Europe and Christianity. He then revisits the other angles to show how contradictory phenomena are intertwined. Zusammenfassung Résumé 1. Introduction According to Swiss theologian Christine Lienemann, mission is 'the theory and the practice of the Church meeting strangers', that is, people who are strangers to the Church and the Christian faith. 1 This simple and modest definition is very appropriate for the mission of the Church in Europe because it makes us aware that a large part of the population in our countries has indeed become alienated from the Christian world view and religious practice. So much so that one could turn this definition around and say that communities of practising Christians have become minorities, and even strangers, in the modern world. We can simply observe this situation all around us, but the perplexing element of the matter is that this happens in Europe of all places, the most Christianised of all continents where the message of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed for many centuries, in many forms. This makes Europe such a specific context for evangelism. Our subject is evangelism in Europe as a whole – that is, including the countries outside the European Union. When we look at such a vast field, our approach can only be a generalist one. This is a deliberate choice, for I am persuaded that when we try and see the overall picture of Christianity and religion in Europe, we will gain a better understanding of what happens in each particular country on this continent. Together they constitute a specific context for the communication of the Gospel. This is a vast and fascinating field of study. Those who reflect on evangelism in Europe have different angles from which they try to understand the characteristics of this context. In this article we shall shortly discuss the three most frequently used ones. We will then propose another approach, one that does not replace the three preceding angles but rather places them in a particular perspective and should be useful to understand our European context.
Europe and the Gospel: Past Influences, Current Developments, Mission Challenges
De Gruyter, 2013
Combining human interest stories with thought provoking analyses, dr Evert Van de Poll paints the socio-cultural and religious picture of this exceptional continent: its population and cultural variety; past and present idea of ‘we Europeans’; immigration, multiculturalism and the issue of (Muslim) integration; the construction of the EU and the concerns it raises; and the quest for the ‘soul’ of Europe. Special attention is paid to Christian and other roots of Europe; the mixed historical record of Christianity; vestiges of its past dominance; its place and influence in today’s societies that are rapidly de-Christianising; and secularization as a European phenomenon. In this book, published originally in 2013 but now available in the public domain, the author indicates specific challenges for Church development, mission and social service. In so doing, he outlines the contours of a contextualised communication of the Gospel.
Trace the main motives and methodologies involved in the history of Christian mission over the past 50 years, in order to describe and evaluate the churches' current missionary task.