Book Review: Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement

This volume is a slightly revised version of Jørgen Sørensen’s Ph.D. dissertation, completedattheUniversityofBirmingham underthesupervisionofProfessorWerner Ustorf. Today the author of the book is general secretary of the Council on International Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. The study has five chapters, the first three of which are introductory in nature. The first chapter discusses the crucial question of whether the modern mission movement is “the (illegitimate) child of modernity” (pp. 10–16) and proposes to move from missiology as an established andinstrumentalhelp-disciplineofmission to “a disestablished critical discipline, which focuses on critical deconstruction and creative reconstruction of mission theory” (p. 27). The second chapter deals with methodology, especially with postcolonial theory as a deconstructive tool to be applied in missions and mission studies. The third chapter not only revisits and contrasts modernism and postmodernism but also deals with their indicative parameters. Although these three chapters repeatedly link their reasoning tomissions andmission theory, they are still very abstract. The fourth and longest chapter deconstructs the mission theories of three widely recognized scholars: Paul G. Hiebert, J. Andrew Kirk, and David J. Bosch. The terminology, implications, and perspectives of three of their books— respectively Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (1994), What Is Mission? (2000), and TransformingMission (1991)—are critically analyzed. Sørensen concludes that these traditional authors “work theologically with a modern epistemologicalparadigm”(p.203),buthe viewsBoschas“probably theauthorwho, for the majority of traditional missionconcerned theologians and individuals, represents the most challenging mission theoretical position and theological approach” (p. 181). In thefifthchapterSørensendevelops his own reconstruction of mission theory. It is a postmodern theory, using a new vocabulary. Key terms and issues of this theory are partly available in the writings of scholars such as the IndianbornmissiologistThomasThangaraj,who speaks of responsibility, solidarity, and mutuality. Sørensenaddsafewother items to this list, such as vulnerability, relativity, transformation, and process. He uses all these categories to move from traditional modern mission theories (as discussed in chapter 4) into constructive and relational theology, which reconciles the radical religious diversity of the contemporary world. Although traditional missiologists may not be convinced that the focus of theirstudyneedstomovefrommodernity to postmodernity in order to be relevant, theystillwillhavetoadmit thatSørensen’s interdisciplinary study is outstanding both in its thorough reflection on the contemporarymissiological situationand in its attempt to go beyond the traditional mission theories of Hiebert, Kirk, and Bosch.Othermissiologists, however,may viewthisconstructive theologicalstudyas “a key source of inspiration” (p. 248). At least thepostmoderntopicofvulnerability (pp. 221–27) will be able to unite both groups of scholars. —Jan A. B. Jongeneel