Global Missiology English

Editorial: Thanks be to 하나님, Dios, याह्वे, God, 上帝, Awurade—and to Prof. Bediako

J. Nelson Jennings — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

First and foremost, in this editorial I want to thank the triune God for graciously drawing close to stubborn, wayward, yet marvelously created communities of people like yours and mine. God has always done that: in the Garden, in the Old Covenant tabernacle and temple, in the Incarnation, in his New Covenant people. Yes, God reigns in heaven with the earth as his footstool, but he also looks to those who are “humble and contrite in spirit and tremble at his word” (Isaiah 66:1-2). I also wish to express particular thanks here to Prof. Kwame Bediako for his emphasis on the transforming implications of the Christian faith being understood, believed, and lived in vernacular languages.

Revisiting Contextualization: Missiological Parallelism as an Alternative

A. K. Amberg, Michael T. Cooper — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

When Shoki Coe introduced the term “contextualization” in 1972, his intent was to take the sociocultural realities of those receiving the gospel message more seriously. For many, however, the word has lost its original focus. Years of Western missionaries eager to defend locally developed theologies against heresy have attached a colonial connotation to the term, as some theologies were deemed “contextual,” in juxtaposition to Western ideas. In contrast, missiologists such as David Bosch (2011, pp. 186) and Stephen B. Bevans (2018, pp. 1-3) have made the case that all theologies are influenced by their context. This article argues that new language is needed in order to support their conclusion. It briefly surveys the history and meaning of contextualization, before proposing polemical parallelism as an alternative. The article recasts polemical parallelism, originally coined by German theologian Adolph Deissmann in 1910, as missiological parallelism to better identify God’s work within a culture, irenically introducing Jesus Christ as the best solution for human struggle.

Toward Unity and Reconciliation: An Analysis of a Cultural Application of the Qutux Qniqan among the Atayal Tribe of Taiwan through Biblical and Anthropological Principles

Yobaw Taru — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

This article investigates how the Qutux Qniqan ceremony becomes an origin of conflict when Christian groups perceive its relational and reconciliatory activities as possible syncretism. The article is based on five years of field interviews with Rev. Tali Behuy, his family, and other Atayal people, both non-Christians and Christians. The study asserts that the Lord’s Supper provides an essential theological framework for redefining its purpose by integrating Atayal cultural significance with biblical interpretation. This integration enables Atayal Christians to affirm their cultural identity while staying faithful to biblical truth.

Jurie Kriel, Hitting the Ball You Cannot See: Accelerating Jesus-Following into the Future

J. N. Manokaran — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

The author Jurie Kriel and his colleagues have encouraged the Church to look into the future, as digitalization has redefined our lives: How we live (experiential), How the world works (structural), and How we connect (relational).

Muslim Background Believer Attrition Study

Gordon Bonham, Gene Daniels, Sara Hewitt — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

A mixed methods study of about 100 church leaders working with Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) estimates that about 7% of known MBBs later return to Islam. This estimated percentage is a significant contrast to past reports of very high rates of return to Islam. A key issue in coming to this figure is differentiating between those who actually return to Islam and those who do not continue with the existing church for various other reasons. Although many MBBs find fellowship in local churches, the study suggests that integration into MBB fellowships is both a key factor in the strong individual faith of MBBs and a primary element of support against the great pressures on them to return to their former faith.

From Mortality to Memory: Death and Ancestorhood in African Spiritual Systems

Amos B. Chewachong — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

This article explores the ontological, moral, and spiritual dimensions of death within African cosmological thought, contrasting them with dominant Western paradigms. Drawing on personal bereavement, ethnographic observation, and African-authored scholarship, the study investigates how death functions not as an end, but as a transition to ancestorhood—a morally contingent status embedded in ritual, memory, and intergenerational accountability. In African spiritual systems, the dead are not absent but remain active agents in communal life, guiding the living, enforcing ethical norms, and maintaining cosmic harmony. Through analysis of myths, burial customs, and ancestral veneration in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, the article highlights how African ontologies frame death as relational and spiritually mediated rather than biologically final. By engaging postcolonial theory and comparative theology, the study critiques epistemological reductionism and affirms the intellectual legitimacy of African metaphysical systems. How Evangelicals assess that legitimacy is not directly considered here. Instead, the article argues that ancestorhood represents a form of moral personhood sustained through ritual, memory, and social ethics, offering a holistic vision of life, death, and continuity beyond the grave.

The Witchdoctor’s Craft

Jim Harries — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

Much confusion over the roles and presence of witchdoctors in Africa is clarified through careful attention to epistemology. Witchdoctor’s provide utility, usually deceptively, through arranging for suffering or demise of others on your behalf so as to enable you to feel good. In contexts in which others’ feelings hurt you, the witchdoctor’s craft may be essential, until Jesus enters the scene. Jesus’s Way of Truth brings fulness of Life to believers. Informed etic articulation of traditional African ways of life in this article throws light onto contemporary concerns over fake news.

Call for Papers for October 2026 Special Issue: "Christian Conversion and Mission"

GME Editorial Team — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0800

Andrew Walls’s posthumous Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History offers a nuanced and incisive overview of the history of Christianity’s encounters with Judaism, Roman Hellenism, Germanic custom, the modern West, and the cultures of the global south from the first century to the twentieth century. The recurrent pattern in the gospel’s interaction with successive cultures through the ages is conversion, understood at its most fundamental level as “turning,” that is, turning to God in response to God’s saving activity. By taking Christian history as a whole and inviting the reader to see it from the perspective of conversion, Walls challenges Western theology in several striking ways. First, he decenters Western theology as the standard by which to judge authentic or orthodox Christian faith and expression. Second, he suggests theological frontiers to be explored as Christianity enters the cultures of the global south. Third, he proposes a fresh way of seeing historic Christianity that is not defined by the creeds of Roman-Hellenistic Christianity. As southern expressions of Christianity increasingly become the dominant forms of the faith, new themes and priorities that never occurred to Western Christians or to earlier Christian ages will appear. Global Missiology invites submissions for this theme issue on “Conversion.”