COLONIALISM, NEO-COLONIALISM AND FORGOTTEN MISSIOLOGICAL LESSONS

Abstract

The missiological lessons from our not too distant past have gone seemingly unnoticed. While colonialism, when understood as western political expansion, has to a certain degree been eradicated, colonialism as expressed in American Christian cultural hegemony has only increased. Missionaries need to answer the question “Are we contextualizing or are we neo­colonializing?” Roland Allen expressed this concern nearly a century ago yet the issue persists. There are at least four avenues that present day missions can pursue in order to adequately answer the growing cry against American Christian cultural superiority: cultural, theological, ecclesiastical and historical.