The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Christian Mission: A Concise Global History
Edward L. Smither
Lexham (2019). 200 pp.
The globalized nature of the world means that the contexts in which pastor theologians minister are constantly changing. The landscape of the United States will no longer be majority White, and the locus of Christianity is no longer the United States. Pastor theologians must not only remain attentive to these demographic changes, but also be cognizant of how these changes have come about. Ed Smither’s latest work equips pastors and leaders with a succinct understanding of how the gospel has moved throughout the world and underscores the global nature of Christianity.
Smither’s retelling of the history of global mission is divided into six chapters, each of which explore not only different eras, but what was taking place in different parts of the globe. The narrative that Smither seeks to tell does not follow “traditional” accounts, which tend to emphasize how the gospel came to Europe and North America and then the rest of the world. “Unfortunately, the trend among Western students of church and mission history is to focus so much on early Christianity in the Roman Empire that they overlook what was going on in the rest of the world” (p. 29). Smither will describe how the gospel came to Rome, Germania, Gaul, and Ireland in his chapter on the early church, but then also describe movements in Edessa, Mesopotamia, India and China. You read about the Dominicans of Western Europe in the early medieval period, but also read about Timothy of Baghdad, who reasoned with Muslims and endured challenging questions from caliphs, such as “How could God have sex with a woman and father a son?” (p. 62). In the chapter on early modern missions, you will read about Catholic missions to the Americas, but also the efforts of Pietists to contextualize Lutheran Christianity in India. This rhythm of treading familiar historical ground and then exploring how Christianity moved East characterizes much of Smither’s book. In his words, for much of the church’s history, “the gospel traveled further east than it did west” (p. 29).
The final chapter of Smither’s book explores what mission looks like from the majority world. Smither writes, “The profile of the missionary is no longer William Carey or David Livingstone but global workers from Korea, Brazil, Nigeria, India, and the Philippines” (p. 179). While much of Smither’s work subverts more “traditional” narratives around the history of mission, his final chapter is his capstone. The realities of globalization and the growth of immigrant churches have shifted the locus of Christianity to the global south, and missionaries are coming to minister to the Americans and Europeans. Historical realities have allowed Brazilian and Korean workers into Iran, and Chinese Christians into North Korea (p. 193). “Since Argentina has never sent troops to the Middle East, they do not share a bitter history in the region as North Americans do” (p. 193). The nature of Christian mission is now more fluid and less Western in nature, bringing opportunities for gospel witness than was previously thought possible.
Smither does not gloss over the many missional failures and atrocities the church has committed in the past. In discussing the crusades, Smither writes, “the so-called Christian kings of Europe united with the pope in a single-minded obsession to take control of the Holy Land” (p. 63). In the same section, he writes, “at the height of Christendom, the church allowed the political aims of the state to overtake its Christian vision, and they embraced their own form of Christian jihad” (p. 63). In his chapter on early modern missions (1500–1800), Smither points out that Christianity had become “inextricably linked with imperial motivations,” and that this ideological partnership branded Christianity as a “western religion” (p. 96). In describing the encomienda (a Spanish labor system), Smither points out that while some colonists believed the system to have evangelistic possibilities, it was actually a form of slavery (p. 87). Furthermore, Smither plainly suggests that “Columbus’s mission of discovery and conquest paired with Isabella’s reforms in Spain to reveal that religious devotion, political power, and even violent compulsion were not viewed as incompatible values” (p. 77). Honesty regarding the connection between mission and colonization is punctuated throughout this work, which undercuts some of the celebratory narratives we often tell about mission here in the West. I commend Smither’s honesty and careful scholarship in this regard, as it helps us gain a more realistic perspective on the history of mission.
Admittedly, until recently, I had very few books on missiology on my shelf. But I saw a deep need to understand the history of Christian movements in order to locate myself and my theological tradition within the Great Conversation. Smither’s work helped me garner a more complex understanding of global missions and renew a sense of missional responsibility in my ministry. I recommend this book to pastor theologians who want a deeper, more honest take on the history of global mission, one that challenges us to see where God is moving and become more responsible partners in this work.
Benjamin Espinoza is the Associate Vice President for Online Education and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Roberts Wesleyan College. He holds a PhD from Michigan State University. He is a member of the St. Peter Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
