Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition

by Michael W. Stroope

IVP Readers' Choice Award Mission, missions, missional, and all its linguistic variations are part of the expanding vocabulary and rhetoric of the contemporary Christian missionary enterprise. Its language and assumptions are deeply ingrained in the thought and speech of the church today. Christianity is a missionary religion and faithful churches are mission-minded. What's more, in telling the story of apostles and bishops and monks as missionaries, we think we have grasped the true thread of Christian history. But what about those odd shapes, those unsettling gaps and creases in the historical record? Is the language of mission so clearly evident across the broad reaches of time? Is the trajectory of mission really so explicit from the early church to the present? Or has the modern missionary enterprise distorted our view of the past? As with every reigning paradigm, there comes a point when enough questions surface to beg for a close and critical look, even when it may seem transgressive to do so. In this study of the language of mission―its origin, development, and application―Michael Stroope investigates how the modern church has come to understand, speak of, and engage in the global expansion of Christianity. There is both surprise and hope in this tale. And perhaps the beginnings of a new conversation.

Genres: Theology

457 pages, Paperback

Published February 24, 2017

Reviews

[Wes F · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been looking forward to reading this book for awhile--finally got it as a birthday present (thanks, Mom!). It wasn't exactly what I was thinking it would be, though it was a great & insightful trip down through history and the various usages/corruptions of the word/concept of "mission." It gets quite technical in places; quite academic. I wish there had been more on various modern interpretations of mission--and new concepts & methodologies, from a big picture perspective, that have thankfully evolved in recent years, but there wasn't. Couldn't agree more that we need to be wholly focused on the Kingdom of God and all that this means, following the revolutionary words of the Messiah & King of Kings who came saying: "The Kingdom of God is (now) in your midst." Read on my iPad.

[Rory Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review will be on wordsaboutgod.net on Friday March 24

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this well researched 450-page tome is that words matter. Specifically the word "mission" matters because it is "inadequate language for the church in the current age." The author provides an in depth analysis of the history of the word "mission", and its various contemporary usages. He shows the connection of past "mission" activities to colonialism. He concludes by advocating that we drop the word entirely and instead use biblical terms, specifically "kingdom of God" for those activities that have come to be associated with "mission." I totally agree with his preference for and defense of "kingdom of God" but something is being lost in the process that Stroope presents. Is God himself not on a mission? Or if you prefer, does God not have an agenda that he wants to see accomplished, that includes presenting the Good News of the Kingdom to those who have been neglected and ignorant for centuries? Stroope gives an example of the young mother in Kolkata who encounters this Good News from a humble messenger, one of those "pilgrims of the kingdom" that Stroope highlights. How fortunate for her. But the author makes no mention of 400 million Indians who have yet to hear the name of Jesus for the first time. "Pilgrims of the kingdom" seems an inadequate strategy to reach them, or the hundreds of millions like them scattered through the Global South.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kinda agree with the premise, but not as strongly as the author. He seems to me to overstate things. The case could have been made with fewer words as well, and much if the history was not really that necessary.

[Ben Haworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who claim Christian faith, this book is a must-read. The implications of Stroope's work are profound for the way we understand and orient our lives as Christians. Though sure to be controversial, Stroope's work is both refreshing and challenging as it seeks to reorient Christian perspectives on 'mission,' its role in our churches, and its role in our lives. He does this by evaluation of Christian tradition, 'mission'-language, and Scriptural evidence.

Though some will surely see this as the undoing of a Christian tenant, it seems to this reader to be a reorientation towards the work of God into which Christians are called and empowered by the Spirit to participate in day-in and day-out.

[Rick Dugan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcending Mission is essential reading for anyone interested in fulfilling the Great Commission in a post mission era. For at least a decade, mission leaders have been saying that new generations of western Christians aren't engaged in global mission to the same degree as previous generations. However, I believe that the current generation is committed to mission. It's our forms of mission that they're not engaging with. Stroope suggests that the term mission carries with it the baggage of Christendom, Crusades, Colonialism, and Capitalism, and in order to discover the way forward in a post mission age, we may have to find other vocabular for discussing the global witness of Christ's Body.

In 2019 Stroope published an article in the International Journal of Frontier Missiology in which he summarizes the concerns he raises in his book. I'll list the concerns as stated in the article here.

1. "Mission," as we use it today, is not, in the literal sense, biblical language.

2. The witness of the people of God in Scripture and the early church was not a singular expression, such as we commonly think of mission, but it was a multifaceted phenomenon.

3. The historical fact is that the rhetoric of mission, as used by the church today, is not ancient but modern.

4. Mission rhetoric is historically linked to Spanish and Portuguese exploration and the establishment of colonies in India, the far East, Latin America and the American Southwest.

5. In modern times, Protestant mission converges with the optimism of Western Christianity to create a spirit of triumph and a sense of manifest destiny.

Though Stroope identifies the problems and provides ample warning for us to recognize that we're coming to the end of an era of global mission (in terms of the forms we've used to fulfill the Great Commission), he leaves the task of charting a new course to others. His primary suggestion is that we expand the language of mission. He prefers the term pilgrim witness.

I would add to this a simplification of our forms, decluttering (or pruning) our current church and mission structures to focus on simply encountering and following Christ together. Institutions don't need to be large and complex in order to be strong. Perhaps it's the size and complexity of our institutions that are cannibalizing our human and spiritual resources for mission.

Regardless, Stroope helps us see how our ways of thinking about mission have been influenced by western history, culture, and worldviews far more than we may have realized.