mbjones

While in Vegas, I did find the time to start and/or finish three different books. The best of those three is actually the third book in the Church and Postmodern Culture series called GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn. It is the best short book on missiology I’ve read since Transforming Mission by David Bosch.

Within its pages, it looks at what the great commission means in light of the postmodern, globalized world that we live in (including the challenges to it and how it can shine, if the great commission is going to mean anything in the next age). It starts with an exploration of postmodernity and globalization and what it means to religion in general and how Christianity specifically should adapt. What intrigued me about this exploration was its use of Derrida’s idea that globalization marked a return of religion but instead of that return being in the form of Christianity, it has instead taken the shape of radical Islam challenging global imperial powers (as once the early church did with Rome). His summation of how a global, postmodern Christianity should look follows from this: decentralized, deinstitutionalized and indigenous (where universal concepts are understood in the light of specific circumstance — the cultures we all find ourselves in).

The book moves on from there to discuss postmodern ways of doing mission, the importance of incarnation, and specifically what a global, postmodern Christianity looks like (beyond the brief definition in the beginning pages of the book). On top of that, one of the most interesting chapters of the book looks at the challenge Islam poses to the Great Commission (and globalization/westernization/etc). I had not really considered Islam heavily as a major contender to globalization (or necessarily as the religion that the world was looking to, although I knew this to be more and more the case). He claims nothing short of a radical reinvention of itself will allow Christianity to triumph over radical Islam.

Anyways — when everything is tired together, this is a fascinating and thought provoking read. If you are looking for a good book to read on missiology/evangelism (in a broad sense), this is definitely one worth picking up. It will probably stay as a high recommendation of mine for quite some time (and I hope to be able to explore it more in this space as well). 5 of 5 stars, easily.