TRANSCENDING MISSION:
The eclipse of a modern tradition
By Michael W Stroope
IVP Apollos. 454 pages. £24.99
ISBN 978 1 783 595 525
Is the word ‘mission’ no longer understandable or useable today? That is the question that Michael Stroope seeks to explore in this book. Essentially this is about the language of mission and how we use it today. It is Michael’s view that we are at best careless in using the word mission and at worst unbiblical.
Everything, according to the author, has become mission. So you can be involved in the work of mission (noun) or you can have mission(al) activities (adjective). He feels that in this we have lost something of what the Bible teaches on the subject of mission. As someone involved in mission first in student life, then local church and now more focused in helping churches in world mission I have a vested interest to think through this important and most certainly the book has helped to sharpen my thinking on it.
Five sections
This is an extensively researched book with over 50 pages of referred works from which the author uses hundreds of quotations to support his argument. The book can be divided into five sections. In section one he describes the problem and seeks to highlight some of the confusion in his perception of the overuse of the word ‘mission’. He makes some helpful points suggesting that we have been careless in our terminology and so have devalued biblical mission. The middle three sections contain the argument in supporting this proposition and focus on Scripture, church history and current mission thinking. In these sections the author argues eloquently and thought-provokingly. In essence Michael contends that mission is a modern word and is not used in the Bible or in church history. Much evidence is brought forward to support this view.
The final section is a suggested way forward where the word mission is avoided and the focus is on the bringing of the kingdom of God into the world.
Baby goes out with bathwater
Even though I am sure we do tend to overuse the word mission and there is a tendency to call too many activities missional I do not share the author’s view. I fear he is in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and exchanging a minor problem for a much larger one. I wasn’t persuaded by his reasoning. It seems unwise to use aspects of church history that we’d be uncomfortable with to support such arguments. For example, I’m not sure if Pope Urban II’s speech in 1095 can be used to argue against today’s usage of the word mission! And yes, we are aware (as Michael states) that the history of the missionary movement at times became unhelpfully entwined with colonialism and other ills. But so much good was/is done. To quote the African speaker Femi Adeleye: ‘Missionaries have their faults, as do we all, but it is ingratitude to lump all their efforts together with the negative aspects of Western colonialism.’
Unfortunately Transcending Mission also reads a bit like an academic thesis and the many references and quotes were most wearying. At times you were reading those more than the author’s writings.
Where’s the cross?
But there were two things that left me feeling most uncomfortable. First, there was the lack of reference to the cross which must be the key in the whole work of mission, without the cross there is no mission. And second, the conclusion that the way forward is through ‘pilgrimage which seeks to inaugurate the kingdom of God’ seems to miss the biblical way of mission. It is surely the preaching, sharing, telling, showing, living the good news of the cross of Christ across the world that will bring the kingdom of God (the author’s desire) as people are saved and brought into gospel/kingdom communities.
If we take on board what is suggested in this book I fear we will (even if the author didn’t intend this) become focussed on a social work that ignores Jesus who died on the cross for sinners and so we will lose mission.
