Polycentric Missiology: 21st-Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere

by Allen Yeh

The Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference was the most famous missions conference in modern church history. A century later, five conferences on five continents displayed the landscape of global mission at the dawn of the third millennium: Tokyo 2010, Edinburgh 2010, Cape Town 2010, 2010Boston, and CLADE V (San José, 2012). These five events provide a window into the state of world Christianity and contemporary missiology. Missiologist Allen Yeh, the only person to attend all five conferences, chronicles the recent history of world mission through the lenses of these landmark events. He assesses the legacy of Edinburgh 1910 and the development of world Christianity in the following century. Whereas Edinburgh 1910 symbolized Christendom's mission "from the West to the rest," the conferences of 2010-12 demonstrate the new realities of polycentric and polydirectional mission―from everyone to everywhere. Yeh's accounts of the conferences highlight the crucial missiological issues of our era: evangelism, frontier missions, ecumenism, unengaged and post-Christian populations, reconciliation, postmodernities, contextualization, postcolonialism, migration, and more. What emerges is a portrait of a contemporary global Christian mission that encompasses every continent, embodying good news for all nations.

258 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2016

Reviews

[Ruth]

Given the subject matter (an evaluation of the five conferences between 2010-2012 commemorating the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference and summary implications for the future of mission), this book skews more toward the academy than lay leaders and pedestrian readers. That being said, I'm part of the latter group and had no trouble engaging with the text. The book held my interest, did not fly over my head, and introduced some new ideas and opened avenues of thought I'd not previously pursued. As is my custom when evaluating work by a friend, I've refrained from bestowing stars.

[Robert Munson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It looks at the state of Global Christianity through the framing of the 5 Missions Conferences/Congresses that occurred during (or close to) the centennial year of the 1910 Edinburgh Conference of World Missions. Through contrast and comparisons between the five events (four in 2010 and one in 2012) and the 1910 event, Yeh shows how Christianity and Christian missions has changed over 100 years. He also looks at the some of the various trends and issues that are relevant (again) for the church and missions.

I love church and missions history, so I found the book both entertaining and enlightening. There are certainly some (many?) Christians who are turned off by missions history or church history, but I believe if they would take the time to take the issues addressed seriously, they would gain greatly from this book. That being said, the term "missiology" in the title does point out the fact that the author is targeting a smaller audience.

[Josh Newell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do Christians really need more large global conferences? Yes!

In light of the recent Lausanne (4) Congress, Christian leaders can reasonably be expected to answer if a congress/conference accomplishes anything. The point Allen Yeh made 8 years ago, is still applicable: the body of Christ is global and diverse. The implication of a globally diverse church is that everyone, everywhere is needed to proclaim and demonstrate Jesus to everyone, everywhere. No one ‘center’ proclaims dominance over another, nor is the paradigm of Global North/Global South particularly helpful as juxtapositions. In today’s world, unity in diversity is compelling to a watching world: if only Christians can hold firm to the essentials and hold loosely secondary issues.

[Tyler Pedersen · Rating 1 out of 5]

A mess of a book.