The latest issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research is available, the first edition published with SAGE Publications, with main articles and their abstracts as follows:
W. Jay Moon
Fad or Renaissance? Misconceptions of the Orality Movement
Seventy percent of the world’s population cannot or chooses not to read! This astounding observation prompted the rise of the orality movement to help missionaries understand and reach oral learners. This article summarizes the recent orality movement by addressing questions that have arisen related to orality, such as: How far-reaching is this movement? Isn’t the orality discussion simply about storytelling and auditory learning? How do print and oral learning interact? Are there implications for Western cultures influenced by digital media? To address these questions, this article identifies six common misconceptions about the orality movement and concludes with missiological implications.
Todd M. Johnson, Gina A. Zurlo, Albert W. Hickman and Peter F. Crossing
Christianity 2016: Latin America and Projecting Religions to 2050
In 2014, Latin America passed Europe as the continent with the most Christians. In 1900, Europe had six times as many Christians as Latin America. Looking ahead to 2025, however, Latin America is likely to be surpassed by Africa with 628 million in the former and more than 700 million in the latter. We also project that by 2050, Asia will surpass Europe in the number of Christians. Each of the three continents in the Global South could outnumber Europe, together representing nearly 80% of all Christians (from just over 20% in 1900).
Sherron George
Constructing Latin American Missiology
Latin American missiologists have moved beyond the deconstruction of oppressive imperialistic models to the construction of creative contextual missiologies. Important building blocks are liberation, context, dialogue, integral mission, and a kingdom perspective. This article presents the contributions of five missiologists in this process. René Padilla and Samuel Escobar articulate holistic mission. Leonardo Boff develops a liberation model of planetary care based on the Trinity. Roberto Zwetsch brings new nuances to compassion in an intercultural paradigm. David Oliveira focuses on transformative diaconia. It invites all to learn from Latin American missiologies, which can facilitate interdependence and partnerships in the global church.
Daniel Jeyaraj
Embodying Memories: Early Bible Translations in Tranquebar and Serampore
Textual translations embody particular socio-cultural memories of their languages and also of their host languages. Communities of readers, leading meaning makers, and interpreters determine the continuing and discontinuing memories embodied in the translated texts. Early eighteenth-century translation of the Bible into Tamil by the German Lutheran Pietists in Tranquebar and into Bengali and Sanskrit by the British Baptists in Serampore illustrate these principles. Building on what the Roman Catholic missionaries had translated earlier, the Lutherans and the Baptists helped their Indian readers to hear biblical characters speaking their languages and even creatively engaging with their socio-cultural and religious memories.
Robert Eric Frykenberg
The Legacy of Pandita Ramabai: Mahatma of Mukti
Pandita Ramabai Dongre (1858–1922), renowned for prodigious learning, became world famous as a social reformer, educator, speaker and advocate for the causes of women. Her Brahman father had been banished for daring to impart Sanskrit literacy to her child-mother. Her life-long spiritual quest for liberty (mukti) led her to an ever deepening relationship to Christ. After sojourns in Britain and America, she established the Mukti Mission in Kedgaon, India. Her last days were devoted completing a common “mother-tongue” Marathi translation of the Bible.
Julie C. Ma
Touching Lives of People Through the Holistic Mission Work of the Buntains in Calcutta, India
The works of the Buntains in Calcutta, India from the 1950s among the poor, marginalized, sick, hungry, and abandoned represents the Pentecostal holistic approach to Christian mission. With the establishment of hospitals and schools, in addition to the relief programs, their ministries exemplify an important area of Pentecostal mission, along with evangelism and church planting through the emphasis on supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, e.g., healing and miracles. A Pentecostal characteristic of this ministry was prayer and faith as the spiritual foundation of the work, often when faced with financial pressures. In the process, many were converted to Christianity. This type of Pentecostal mission has been widely practiced but with little theological reflection.
Individual articles are available to download from here.
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