Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 32:1 (Oct 2021)
Article: Book Review: "Majority World Perspectives On Christian Mission", Edited By Nico A. Botha And Eugene Baron
Author: Moses Vongjen

Conspectus 32:1 (October 2021) p. 218

Book Review: Majority World Perspectives On Christian Mission, Edited By Nico A. Botha And Eugene Baron

Moses Vongjen

Botha, Nico A., and Eugene Baron, eds. 2020. Majority World Perspectives on Christian Mission. George, South Africa: KREATIV SA. 241pp. ISBN 978–1- 928478–84–3. R300.

Nico Adam Botha is a professor of missions at the University of South Africa, and Eugene Baron is a senior lecturer in missiology at the University of the Free State. The book is a compendium of extracts from the Majority Christian Leaders Conversation with a “rich diversity of perspectives on mission.” The material has 241 pages and contains 13 articles by different authors (except for Hwa Yung who has two articles). It is edited by Nico A. Botha and Eugene Baron. The book opens up areas necessitating shifts as dictated by current global issues, and it calls for attention on shifts that have occurred from original patterns due to given factors.

The conversation began in 2016 with eleven mission practitioners from the Majority South (Africa, Asia, and Latin America). Although not to be understood as anti-western, it is a “decisive response from those Christian Leaders in the Majority World.” It aims at achieving a “new avenue for meaning and interpretation” (vii). Its intent is to decolonize mission and to present it as genitive to God; repudiating wrong notions that are likely to emerge about the Global South; presenting mission from the perspective of the Reign of God (vii); to recognize that mission is the essential task of the church; and to become aware of geographical shifting in that, “the center of gravity” is no longer in the North but has shifted to the Global South or Majority World (viii).

Peter Tarantal examines Global South leaders in the African perspective. First, he notes remarkable growth of the Christian populace after which he highlights the need for a fresh look at how theology, mission, and leadership are done (1). Tarantal observes that African leaders stand in between two tensional characteristics in that, while some of the leaders portray favorable characteristics, others represent the direct opposite. Tarantal is hopeful that African leaders can overcome recent failures and take the lead in global matters by being people of integrity and ability, and by being people who mean well for their fellow citizens through mentoring and discipleship.

Nico Botha notices another shift in two major areas: first, the meaning of mission migrating from an ecclesiastical center to a theological center (21). Second, church and mission are no longer viewed as the same in objective but separately, as evidenced by the existence of various and multiple mission agencies. Botha believes that the New ...