Transforming Mission Quotes

“16. Because of this, evangelism cannot be divorced from the preaching and practicing of justice. This is the flaw in the view according to which evangelism is given absolute priority over social involvement, or where evangelism is separated from justice, even if it is maintained that, together with social justice, it constitutes “mission.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Evidently, then, a not-so-subtle shift had occurred in the original love motive; compassion and solidarity had been replaced by pity and condescension.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Even so, little separation between the soteriological and the humanitarian motifs was in evidence during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The missionaries persisted in the pre-Enlightenment tradition of the indissoluble unity of “evangelization” and “humanization” (cf van der Linde 1973), of “service to the soul” and “service to the body” (Nergaard 1988:34–40), of proclaiming the gospel and spreading a “beneficent civilization” (Rennstich 1982a, 1982b). For Blumhardt of the Basel Mission this clearly included “reparation for injustice committed by Europeans, so that to some extent the thousand bleeding wounds could be healed which were caused by the Europeans since centuries through their most dirty greediness and most cruel deceitfulness” (quoted by Rennstich 1982a:95; cf 1982b:546). And Henry Venn, famous General Secretary of the British CMS, urged missionaries to take their stand between the oppressor and the oppressed, between the tyranny of the system and the morally and physically threatened masses of the people to whom they went (cf Rennstich 1982b:545).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“In spite of its theological importance, however, the church is always and only a preliminary community, en route to its self-surrender unto the kingdom of God. Paul never develops an ecclesiology which can be divorced from christology and eschatology (Beker 1980:303f; 1984:67). The church is a community of hope which groans and labors for the redemption of the world and for its own consummation (cf Beker 1984:69). It is only the beginning of the new age.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“The mission of the Christian community in Acts is a mission of salvation, as was the work of Jesus (cf Senior and Stuhlmueller 1983:273). Salvation involves the reversal of all the evil consequences of sin, against both God and neighbor. It does not have only a “vertical” dimension.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“…we do not have all the answers and are prepared to live within the framework of penultimate knowledge, that we regard our involvement in dialogue and mission as an adventure, are prepared to take risks, and are anticipating surprises as the Spirit guides us into fuller understanding. This is not opting for agnosticism, but for humility. It is, however, a bold humility—or a humble boldness. We know only in part, but we do know. And we believe that the faith we profess is both true and just, and should be proclaimed. We do this, however, not as judges or lawyers, but as witnesses; not as soldiers, but as envoys of peace; not as high-pressure salespersons, but as ambassadors of the Servant Lord.”
― David Jacobus Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Fifth, then, the emphasis is on doing theology. The universal claim of the hermeneutic of language has to be challenged by a hermeneutic of the deed, since doing is more important than knowing or speaking. In the Scriptures it is the doers who are blessed (cf Míguez Bonino 1975:27–41). There is, in fact, “no knowledge except in action itself, in the process of transforming the world through participation in history” (:88). Last, these priorities are”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Under the influence of the Greek spirit ideas and principles were considered to be prior to and more important than their “application.” Such an application was both a second and a secondary step and served to confirm and legitimize the idea or principle, which was understood to be both suprahistorical and supracultural. Churches arrogated to themselves the right to determine what the “objective” truth of the Bible was and to direct the application of this timeless truth to the everyday life of believers. With the advent of the Enlightenment this approach received a new lease of life. In the Kantian paradigm, for instance, “pure” or “theoretical” reason was superior to “practical reason.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“All along, however—and this is the fifth characteristic of the Enlightenment—it was contended that scientific knowledge was factual, value-free, and neutral. What makes a belief true, says Bertrand Russell (1970:75), “is a fact, and this fact does not…in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief” (:75). A belief is true when there is a corresponding fact and false when there is no such corresponding fact (:78f). Facts have a life of their own, independent of the observer. They are “objectively” true.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“If monks had only been ascetic and eccentric in their behavior, however, they would not have won the devotion and admiration of the people in the way they did. Thus, secondly, their exemplary lifestyle made a profound impact, particularly on the peasants. Their conduct was epitomized in the words of the Celtic monk Columban (543–615), “He who says he believes in Christ ought to walk as Christ walked, poor and humble and always preaching the truth” (quoted in Baker 1970:28). The monks were poor, and they worked incredibly hard; they plowed, hedged, drained morasses, cleared away forests, did carpentry, thatched, and built roads and bridges. “They found a swamp, a moor, a thicket, a rock, and they made an Eden in the wilderness” (Newman 1970:398). Even secular historians acknowledge that the agricultural restoration of the largest part of Europe has to be attributed to them (:399). Through their disciplined and tireless labor they turned the tide of barbarism in Western Europe and brought back into cultivation the lands which had been deserted and depopulated in the age of the invasions. More important, through their sanctifying work and poverty they lifted the hearts of the poor and neglected peasants and inspired them while at the same time revolutionizing the order of social values which had dominated the empire's slave-owning society (cf Dawson 1950:56f).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“The death and resurrection of Christ mark the incursion of the future new age into the present old age (cf de Boer 1989:187, note 17; Duff 1989:285-289). This event signifies the inauguration and the anticipation of the coming triumph of God, the overture to it, and its guarantee. It is a decisive sign, which determines the character of all future signs and indeed of the Christian hope itself. Paul can therefore designate Christ as the “first fruits” of the final resurrection of the dead, or the “first-born among many brethren” (1 Cor 15:20, 23; Rom 8:29). The resurrection of Christ necessarily points to the future glory of God and its completion.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“It is, however, above everything else, idolatry that Paul deems reprehensible. Idols are fabrications of the perverted human mind (cf Rom 1:23, 25), and yet, in spite of the fact that they are human creations, they take control of people, who are “led astray to dumb idols” (1 Cor 12:2) and are “in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods,” slaves of “weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal 4:9f). Their being in bondage to idols is therefore due not to ignorance (as the Stoics would argue) but to willfulness.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“If rich Christians today would only practice solidarity with poor Christians—let alone the billions of poor people who are not Christians—this in itself would be a powerful missionary testimony and a modern-day fulfillment of Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Scripture without experience was empty, and experience without Scripture blind”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“This does not preclude God's love for the non-poor. In their case, however, a different kind of conversion is called for, which would include admitting complicity in the oppression of the poor and a turning from the idols of money, race, and self-interest (cf Kritzinger 1988:274–297). This is needed, not only because they have been acting unethically, but because they have, through their “pseudoinnocence” (Boesak) actually denied themselves access to knowledge.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Gort (1980b:52, 58) affirms that, in the Reformed position, theology and ethics belong together. Ethics is the hands and feet and face of theology, and theology the vital organs, the soul of ethics. Such a position, of course, has tremendous consequences for our understanding of mission. In this model, liberation and black theologies become “a challenge to mission” (cf the title of Kritzinger 1988).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“The point is rather that the poor are the first, though not the only ones, on which God's attention focuses and that, therefore, the church has no choice but to demonstrate solidarity with the poor. The poor have an “epistemological privilege” (Hugo Assmann, quoted in Frostin 1988:6); they are the new interlocutors of theology (Frostin 1988:6f), its new hermeneutical locus. The danger in all of this, of course, is that one may again easily fall into the trap of “the church for others” instead of “the church with others,” “the church for the poor” rather than “the church of the poor.” Melbourne helped to move away from the traditional condescending attitude of the (rich) church toward the poor; it was not so much a case of the poor needing the church, but of the church needing the poor—if it wished to stay close to its poor Lord.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“As their wealth accumulated, rich Christians increasingly tended to interpret the biblical sayings on poverty metaphorically. The poor were the “poor in spirit,” the ones who recognized their utter dependence upon God. In this sense, then, the rich could also be poor—they could arrogate all biblical promises to themselves.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“For the West, development meant modernization (cf Bragg 1987:22–28). The entire project was, however, based on several flawed assumptions: it supposed that what was good for the West would be good for the Third World also (in this respect, then, it was culturally insensitive); it operated on the Enlightenment presupposition of the absolute distinction between the human subject and the material object and believed that all the Third World stood in need of was technological expertise; it assumed one-way traffic without any reciprocity—development aid and skills moved from Western “donors” to Third-World “recipients” who had often not even been consulted; and it operated on the assumption that nothing in the rich North needed to change (cf also Nürnberger 1982:233–391; Sundermeier 1986:63f; 72–80; Bragg 1987:23–25). By and large, the project miscarried disastrously.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“5. In spite of the undeniably crucial nature and role of the context, then, it is not to be taken as the sole and basic authority for theological reflection (cf also Stackhouse 1988:26).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Stackhouse has argued that we are distorting the entire contextualization debate if we interpret it only as a problem of the relationship between praxis and theory. We also need the dimension of poiesis, which he defines as the “imaginative creation or representation of evocative images” (1988:85; cf 104). People do not only need truth (theory) and justice (praxis); they also need beauty, the rich resources of symbol, piety, worship, love, awe, and mystery. Only too often, in the tug-of-war between the priority of truth and the priority of justice, this dimension gets lost.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“The problem, however, is that “facts” always remain ambiguous. It isn't the facts of history that reveal where God is at work, but the facts illuminated by the gospel. According to GS 4, the church, in reading the signs of the times, is to interpret them in the light of the gospel (cf Waldenfels 1987:227). In all major ecclesial traditions—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—people look not only at where they are at the present moment, but also at where they come from. They look for a real, reliable, and universal guide to the truth and justice of God, to apply as criterion in evaluating the context. This means that it is the gospel which is the norma normans, the “norming norm.” Our reading of the context is also a norm, but in a derived sense; it is the norma normata, the “normed norm” (Küng 1987:151). Of course, the gospel can only be read from and make sense in our present context, and yet to posit it as criterion means that it may, and often does, critique the context and our reading of it.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Today, all of these signs of the times have been discredited, to the point of being an acute embarrassment to those who hailed them so enthusiastically. Compassion and commitment, apparently, are no guarantee that one will not produce bad sociology, practice poor politics, and pursue debatable historical analysis (cf Stackhouse 1988:95).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Which are the signs in human history that reveal God's will and God's presence? How do we identify God's vestigia, God's footprints in the world? This is an enterprise fraught with danger on all sides, but one of which we cannot absolve ourselves (cf Berkhof 1966:197–205; Gómez 1989:passim).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“We need an experimental theology in which an ongoing dialogue is taking place between text and context, a theology which, in the nature of the case, remains provisional and hypothetical (Rütti 1972:244–249). This should not, however, lead to an uncritical celebration of an infinite number of contextual and often mutually exclusive theologies. This danger—the danger of relativism—is present not only in the Third World but also, for instance, in Western historical-critical biblical scholarship, where one sometimes gets the impression that each scriptural text is viewed as being so deeply shaped by its context that it actually constitutes an isolated theological world in itself. Such historicism and unbridled relativism, however, is inadmissible.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“This does not mean that God is to be identified with the historical process. Where this happens, God's will and power too easily become identified with the will and power of Christians and with the social processes they initiate.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“In the best of contextual theologies it is therefore no longer possible to juxtapose theory and praxis, orthodoxy and orthopraxis: “Orthopraxis and orthodoxy need one another, and each is adversely affected when sight is lost of the other” (Gutiérrez 1988:xxxiv). Or as Samuel Rayan puts it: “In our methodology, practice and theory, action and reflection, discussion and prayer, movement and silence, social analysis and religious hermeneutics, involvement and contemplation, constitute a single process” (quoted in Fabella and Torres 1983:xvii).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Last, these priorities are worked out in contextual theology by means of a hermeneutical circle (or, better, circulation) (cf Segundo l976:7–38). The circulation begins with experience, with praxis, which, in the case of most people in the Third World or those on the periphery of power in the First World and the Second World, is an experience of marginalization.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Fourth, in this paradigm the theologian can no longer be “a lonely bird on the rooftop” (Barth 1933:40), who surveys and evaluates this world and its agony; he or she can only theologize credibly if it is done with those who suffer.”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission

“Implicit in Torres's statement, and worked out in great detail by many contextual theologians is, third, an emphasis on commitment as “the first act of theology” (Torres and Fabella 1978:269)—more specifically, commitment to the poor and marginalized. The point of departure is therefore orthopraxis, not orthodoxy. Orthopraxis, says Lamb, aims at transforming human history, redeeming it through a knowledge born of subject-empowering, life-giving love, which heals the biases needlessly victimizing millions of our brothers and sisters. Vox victimarum vox Dei. The cries of the victims are the voice of God. To the extent that those cries are not heard above the din of our political, cultural, economic, social, and ecclesial celebrations or bickerings, we have already begun a descent into hell (1982:22f).”
― David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission