Monday 1 March 2021

Mission Frontiers 43, 2 (March-April 2021)


The March-April 2021 issue of Mission Frontiers, published by the U.S. Center for World Mission, contains a number of articles on the topic of ‘Insider Movements’.


Here are the opening paragraphs of Rick Wood’s Editorial, which set the scene:


‘What is it about Insider Movements that is so controversial and makes so many people in the church and mission world uncomfortable? Is it simply the fear of syncretism or is something else going on?


I think some of the problem comes down to the fact that as human beings we like clear categories and definitive boxes with bold labels to put things and people into. We do not like being forced to deal with the gray areas where people don’t fit easily into neat categories or boxes.


‘The reality is that regardless of the label we put on the box, we are always going to have variations of what is in the box. Most people would assume that people in the box labeled “Christian” are followers of Jesus vs. something else like Muslim or Buddhist and they would generally be correct. But within every Christian box there will be an amalgam of faithful followers of Jesus and merely cultural adherents. It is a mixed box.’


The issue is available here, from where individual articles can be downloaded.

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