Labour And Christianity In The Mission

Important and broadening study of the way Africans engaged with missions, not as beneficiaries of humanitarian philanthropy, but as workers.

Study conducted at Meerut Division of Uttar Pradesh and Dehra Dun District of Uttaranchal.

Johannes Knoetze, Associate Professor in Practical Theology and Missional Studies at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Pretoria, served as the editor of this extremely important and relevant publication Mission the “labour room” of theology. The book comprises of 21 chapters by various esteemed scholars in Missiology or Missional Studies. The contributors engage critically with mission history and mission understandings from different contexts in Southern Africa. The book is divided in three sections. The first gives a historical, denominational, and current overview of mission in Africa. A second section focuses on current theological understandings of the origin of mission, the changing contexts of mission as well as importance of mission studies in the theological curriculum in Africa, especially in the 21st century Africa. A third section looks at the “how” of mission, different modes or figure of mission under the title: “Mission as... or mission in the context of...” It is an attractive publication with a wealth of information and a wide collection of reflections on the transmittance and reception of faith in (Southern) African contexts. The chapters are written in a clear, concise and understandable style. This book will appeal to a wide audience, ranging from undergraduate students, ministers, mission practitioners, lecturers teaching practical theology/missiology/missional studies and scholars engaging in academic research.

The education of many Third World leaders by Christian missionaries is a decisive factor in world politics today. Christian missionaries from a diversity of backgrounds - Africans as well as Americans and Europeans - contributed to the construction, destruction and reconstruction of state structures in Africa and the Caribbean, through educational activity, and attempts at healing and trade, as well as by preaching, prayer and other sacramental endeavours. This is a study of Christian missionaries and the state in the Third World.