Why 'Transforming Mission'?

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

Insight readers who've been following our "Digital Resources Library" series may wonder why I made Transforming Mission by David Bosch the foundational book for my project. My immediate response to this may not reassure you: I just happened to run across it. I don’t remember where or how.

Let me reassure readers that Bosch's book has made such an impact on contemporary theology that there is a virtual library of books about his theological thought. One book that shows us the importance of Bosch is Kevin Livingston's Missiology of the Road: Early Perspectives and David Bosch’s Theology of Mission and Evangelism.

In his introduction, Livingston tells us that his book is a rewrite of his doctoral thesis. He also gives us a list in the introduction of the books that are available about Bosch and his mission theology. Here are books that develop Bosch’s theology.

1. Kritzinger and Saayman, Mission in Creative Tension.

2. Kritzinger and Saayman, David J. Bosch: Prophetic Integrity, Cruciform Praxis.

3. Saayman and Kritzinger, Mission in Bold Humility: David Bosch’s Work Considered.

In Mission in Bold Humility, an international group of scholars explore and assess Bosch's life and work (remember, Bosch was killed in a traffic wreck in 1992 not long after the publication of Transforming Mission). The book was immediately acclaimed as one of the most significant texts on missiology in the past century. In Mission in Bold Humility, editors Willem Saayman and Klippies Kritzinger, Bosch's longtime colleagues in the missiology faculty of the University of South Africa, gather appraisals of Bosch's work from a variety of theological perspectives and mission contexts. Together the distinguished authors offer invaluable critiques of Bosch's thought and insights into Transforming Mission.

4. Tilna Ahonen, Transformation Through Compassionate Mission: David Bosch’s Theology of Contextualization.

Bosch, a renowned contributor to international ecumenical missiology, was deeply concerned about the issue of contextualization. Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of contextual theologies, which pay special attention to local conditions, cultural surroundings, and social circumstances. Ahonen's study examines the contextuality of Bosch's own articulation of the Christian faith, his motives for contextualization and his responses to contextual theologies. It also provides examples that illustrate his particular method of contextualization.

4. Stanley Nussbaum, A Readers Guide to Transforming Mission. 

Meticulously faithful to Bosch's great work, Stan Nussbaum offers readers a companion to bring into relief the major themes of this great classic in missionary history and theology. The book is a chapter-by-chapter introduction, complete with page references to Transforming Mission for every theme developed. It contains 25 figures and diagrams to help the reader see patterns and is written to make it easier to penetrate and grapple with the questions that define Christian mission in our age.

From these major works, I think readers can get a sense of the creativity and importance of Bosch. I won’t go through comments for each of the following books except for number 12, which was a short book written by Bosch. These blurbs about the books were taken from the publishers’ statements in Amazon.

5. Paulus Y. Pham, Towards an Ecumenical Paradigm for Christian Mission: David Bosch’s Missionary Vision. 

6. Girme Bekele, The In-Between People: A Reading of David Bosch through the Lens of Mission History and Contemporary Challenges in Ethiopia. 

7. Livingston, “Legacy,” 26–32. 

8. Walls, “Missiologist of the Road,” 273–78. 

9. Timothy Yates, “David Bosch: South African Context, Universal Missiology,” 72–78. 

10. Saayman, “Personal Reflections,” 214–28. 

11. Bosch, “The Continuing Transformation of Mission,” in Transforming Mission (2011), 533–55.  (20th Anniversary issue with this added chapter by colleagues)

12. Bosch, Believing in the Future: Toward a Missiology of Western Culture

Following an analysis of the postmodern world, the legacy of the Enlightenment, and Christian faith in a postmodern age, Professor Bosch sketches the contours of a missiology of Western culture. The latter includes considerations of mission as social ethics, mission and the Third World, and God-talk in an age of reason.

A concluding section summarizes the five ingredients of a missiology of Western culture, that is, that it includes an ecological dimension, that it be countercultural, ecumenical and contextual, and that it be primarily a ministry of the laity.

The Rev. H. A. “Bud” Tillinghast is a retired clergy member of the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.

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