Can "White" People Be Saved?: Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission (Missiological Engagements Book 12)

by Willie James Jennings

The essence of the moratorium debate lay in missiological partnerships and cooperation between the West and Africa. It was not based on a total repudiation of mission; rather, it was an utter rejection of the patrimony that characterized missionary work in Africa in the nineteenth century. The moratorium debate was not a brazen attempt to repeal and replace mission but a concrete effort to add mutuality and reciprocity into the lexicon of missiological ventures. Mission remains the raison d’être of the church. The challenge is how to develop the capacity to create an elastic space for its modalities and actualization. Rather than treating the debate as the angst of a toothless bulldog, it is more pragmatic to think of it as a response to an ingrained sense of hubris and lopsidedness in mission. It was a call for Africans to engage in mission on their own terms and to design theological templates that were suitable to the African context. An African proverb states that “as long as you sleep on a mat that belongs to someone else, you will never sleep easy.” It was imperative to develop missiological and theological categories that emanated from the African worldview.