Is the Missio Dei framework on its way out?
Conversations with Global South leaders is making me think so
Missiologists have been holding up the “Missio Dei” view of the Great Commission for quite some time now. The development of Missio Dei can be traced back to the 1950s. Bosch is probably most cited as a basal author on this topic, but Christopher Wright’s treatment of it in the Mission of God and his talks at Lausanne’s 2010 gathering cemented this as a dominant view within missiology over the past two decades.
Let me quickly describe the Missio Dei framework. Forgive me up front - there are mixed opinions on what “Missio Dei” refers to and this is a hugely simplified summary. Missio Dei refers to a view of missions with the following broad attributes::
It holds that God is on mission and we join with him. The important inference here is that the church (or missionaries, or even Christians) is not on mission, God is. The church merely joins with him. Human activity (agency) is a byproduct of God’s moving in the world to do his will. We have not been given a mission.
The scope of mission is inclusive of the redemption of all creation. Thus, the traditional view of mission which focuses on evangelism, discipleship, and the planting of churches is not to be elevated above creation care, social justice/progress, human flourishing, and so on. How God acts and works generally cannot be separated from a more specific command to disciple the nations.
Grace, particularly expressed by God’s love, is the driving factor behind all God does. Thus, God’s mission is inextricably linked to his character. This is essentially a reaffirmation of my first bullet because it ties mission so closely to God. This tends to ignore the fullness of his character which is holy and that holiness itself (which is loving, by the way) demands judgment.
Missio Dei theologians often emphasize the effects of the fall (“all of creation fell, thus all of creation needs redemption”) whereas traditional missions tend to focus on human sin and the need for personal redemption.
Feel free to critique or add elements to this definition in the comments.
The fallout from Missio Dei missiology has been profound. I know this is rather unpopular with some, but I think it is fair to say that Missio Dei has resulted in the deconstruction of mission at many levels. If you do not believe me, ask the mainline Protestant denominations where they get their missiology. I do not think the original authors saw Missio Dei as a force for deconstruction, but when wed to contemporary social changes, it most certainly has become that. A missiology in which everything is missions empties missions of any meaning. Missio Dei has been a significant contributor to this form of deconstruction.
My international travel this year has included a handful of very enlightening conversations with Global South leaders. I have purposefully sought to tease out how non-Westerners are understanding missiological frameworks. The critique of Missio Dei missiology is rather stark. These observations might be hard for a Westerner like me to make, since I “live in the fishtank” in which Missio Dei arose. Here is a smattering of snippets I wrote down during and after conversations:
Our mission is about the souls of people. When (you) Westerners begin talking about missions, you make it so abstract. I am more concerned with the person sitting across from me, living in sin. They need freedom from that sin regardless of their financial or physical situation (this happened after touring a ministry to disabled people in Egypt).
People like to say, “Find out where God is at work and join him.” Our ministry is different. We are trying to find places where there is no evidence of God working. These are the unreached places Paul talked about (this conversation happened with an African leader after a presentation about the Joshua Project website at Lausanne).
Our mission is different than the mission of the church. The church is great at being there for people. It is like a family. We are the special forces. We like to go where nobody else wants to go (Latin American missions leader, reacting to my question, “Why start new missions structures?”).
I have more examples, but these three comments I found to be very concrete.
The one area of missiology where I observe a continued commitment to Missio Dei is from Latin American missiologists who see social justice as mission. This came out loud and clear at the recent Lausanne gathering in Korea. There was a public disagreement about the role of “integral mission.” I think it is fair to say that integral mission is a byproduct of Missio Dei missiology. Perhaps the disagreement points to its declining relevance.
The Missio Dei framework rose in prominence to oppose the failure of modernism. Modernism suggested that constant progress was perfecting humanity and making us better, including morally better. After World War II’s horrors, modernism survived on its fumes for just a few more decades. Missio Dei was a reaction to an overemphasis on human agency found in modernism.
The problem with this, of course, is that it goes too far. We are commanded to do something; however imperfect our actions might be. Jesus commands us to take action. This action is not simply to be Christian, but to take that message to those who are not. Missio Dei provides little distinction between the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.
In my conversations with Global South leaders, I find that their missiology is much more focused on what we see the early church doing in obedience to Jesus’ command to disciple the nations. These tend to be evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Perhaps the Missio Dei framework is a Western invention and thus does not fit the Global South movements. Perhaps we are in a new age where modernist reactions are less relevant. Perhaps I suffer from selection bias. Those could all be true at the same time, but I sense a shift is at work.
My observation is that Global South leaders more often express a more action-oriented, less abstract view of their work than Missio Dei presents. For me, that is a healthy, hopeful sign.
So many good comments. Yes, I agree that there is a more Evangelical version of Missio Dei... but I would contend that a better way to say it is that it is "less universalizing, but still universalizing." The "People of God" book outlines that mission in terms of evangelism, social justice, and care for creation. I am trying to draw a distinction between a specific mission, given by Jesus, to the apostles to disciple the nations. What Missio Dei does is universalize mission into all that Jesus commanded, and I think Wright does this in the same way that older versions of Missio Dei have done.
One outcome, and I do think you see this with Global South missiologists (not so much with Global South field workers) is in the critique of Western missions structures. There is plenty to critique, and I welcome that critique, but I don't think the repudiation of specific structures to accomplish mission (which are different from the local church) is a proper response to these critiques. There was a missionary band in the New Testament, It was not the local church crisscrossing the Roman world. Missio Dei missiology drips with church-centric language. To be fair, the word "church" does not help us here - we use it interchangeably between local and universal and we should not. The "People of God" are all Christians in Wright's book. Everybody is on mission. This is part of what I mean by "universalizing missions." This is very much in line with the missional movement.
Another outcome is the emphasis on social justice as mission. This was on display at the recent Lausanne event. Is it heresy to say that our modern understanding of social justice is a far cry from the justice of the Old and New Testament? I do not see Global South missionaries carrying out the program of social justice that is common in American Evangelicalism (and it does not matter if that social justice is left wing or right wing).
Interesting. In theology, John Flett used Karl Barth's work to reflect on the Missio Dei. I thought Flett overdid it and talk about that in my dissertation. https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/13622
And Flett was reflecting on missiology after Lesslie Newbigin and Darrell Guder and the missional church movement.
I guess I'm wary of any slogan including the Missio Dei to summarize the biblical description of mission.
I feel like what you're talking about here in this post is tension that Lesslie Newbigin experienced in the 1960's where people began to be aware of colonialism and abuses and said there should be a moratorium on missions. The idea was God was alive in the Civil Rights Movement and in the nationalist movements to throw off colonialism and in the feminist movement and in the anti-war movement. Christian Mission was doing more harm than good was the idea. Newbigin saw all these things but also saw the need for Christian Mission. Geoffrey Wainwright has a biography of Newbigin and Newbigin also has a autobiography. I also just reread Dana Robert's Christian Mission about the history of missions. And I have students read Samuel Escobar's book The New Global Mission. I guess all I'm saying is that for students of mission, there is always an awareness that Christian mission can become colonial, patriarchal, abusive, patronizing, violent, deceptive, manipulative. There is also a sense that the choice to strictly depend on God, pray, be passive, not plan is a rejection of the clear outward moving of the church from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Don't be a neighbor? Don't help? Surely that is not the Christian answer. It is right to imagine God at work before us as we act but dismissing human agency is a dismissal of every verse in the Bible that encourages positive human agency and action. I guess I think history and Bible are more useful sources than whether we do Missio Dei or not.