In Samuel Escobar’s The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone, he introduces a new argument in the evolution of mission theology. Painting a new depiction of global mission in the twenty-first century, he says, “Christian mission in the twenty-first century has become the responsibility of a global church,”[1] in contrast to simply North America or the West. The era of mission work where North American churches were the primary senders of missionaries to the rest of the world is now over. Just as Timothy C. Tennent mentions in his Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century, Escobar notes that in today’s landscape, missionaries are sent from all over the world to all over the world.[2] This current situation of world mission forms the underlying premise for the rest of Escobar’s work, flowing beneath topics related to several key themes: (1) the reality of an era of globalization and the end of the “Christendom experience,” including the movement from secularism to modernity and now to postmodernity, (2) the missio Dei as a Trinitarian construct, including a pattern for mission that involves a missionary Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and (3) the importance of both contextualization (but not over-contextualization) and social transformation as mission imperatives.
One of the foundational arguments Escobar makes is for current church leaders and missiologists to accept the reality of a post-Christian west and a post-western church. This means several things. In this argument he makes several good theological and practical points. From a theological perspective, Escobar notes that:
The message of Jesus Christ is ‘translatable.’ This means that the gospel dignifies every culture as a valid vehicle for God’s revelation. Conversely, this also relativizes every culture: no ‘sacred’ culture or language is the exclusive vehicle that God might use, not even the Hebrew or Aramaic that Jesus spoke, because the Gospels we possess are already a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic into the Greek that was the koinē, the lingua franca, of the first century.[3]
While this might seem to be common sense, Escobar—a Peruvian missiologist who has been involved for many years in student ministries in Latin America and Canada, and more recently as a teacher of mission in the United States and Spain—notes that the term “missionary” was once synonymous in his native Peru with blonde-haired, blue-eyed American Christians. As a practical example of the end of this “west-reaches-the-rest” mentality, Escobar references such examples as: Peruvians as church planters in Spain, Koreans doing medical work in Nigeria and planting churches in the Amazon jungle, Japanese doing theological education in Indonesia, as well as Philippine missionaries fostering economic development in Bangladesh. As Escobar notes, mission is no longer a western enterprise from the “Christian nations” to “heathen lands.” Instead, Escobar believes this “third church”/”global south”/”majority world” will lead the church of this new millennium, and set its plans and motivations.
The final chapters of The New Global Mission challenge the church to read the Bible through the lens of a global context. It is in his chapter entitled “Text and Context: The Word Through New Eyes,” where Escobar emphasizes a deep connection between scripture and context in mission. Escobar notes that the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was a launching pad for translation and distribution of the Bible, and bringing the word of God into context for the people contributed to mission and growth of the church. As Escobar says, even two-and-half centuries after Luther, his Reformation principles became the source of missionary methodology in the sense that “Scripture was a fundamental component,” a methodology in contrast to the Roman mission efforts at the time.[4] Escobar also shares a story from the Argentinian Methodist theologian José Míguez Bonino, who spoke of the power of the Bible in the growth of the evangelical church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bonino spoke of the Bible not simply as a book of doctrine or devotion, but as:
…the basic tool for evangelism, the seed of the church. Again and again a missionary traveled from place to place leaving Bibles, New Testaments and single books, and evangelical congregations sprang up in his trail and gathered around the Word of God. Lay preachers many times without theological or even secular education became powerful evangelists resting their authority solely on the Bible.[5]
Escobar’s point is that “the concern to put the Bible into people’s hands, in their own language, was related to the conviction that God speaks through His Word and by His Spirit in a way that the average Christian can understand.”[6] The missio Dei is to commune and communicate with his people, and his word is an essential piece of that mission.
However, Escobar then calls us to a holistic ministry, incorporating both word and deed in humble “transforming service done in the imitation of Christ.”[7] An example of this is when he points to Matthew 9:36-38 and described how “Jesus immersed [himself] among the people, ministering to their needs, and point[s] us clearly to the deep compassion that moved him to action…The [people we are ministering to should not be] seen as faceless entities but as ‘sheep without a shepherd.’”[8] Escobar then emphasizes that Jesus’ mission was holistic, and “through teaching, preaching and healing, the work of Jesus reached and transformed people in all aspects of their lives…His practice illustrates well the powerful statement ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (John 10:10).”[9] Our model of mission should follow Jesus’ example and strive to meet people’s needs in a holistic way.[10]
Overall, this is what I most appreciated about Escobar’s focus. He brings in cultural insight as a missionary and missiologist in the field, but he also brings in a wonderful balance of theological thought mixed with practical realities and personal stories. It is through this that he makes the case not simply for scripture or service, but in effect a missiology where they go hand in hand. It is not a light act that he wholeheartedly endorses the Latin American Congress on Evangelism:
To discuss whether we should evangelize or promote social action is worthless. They go together. They are inseparable. One without the other is evidence of a deficient Christian life. So we must not try to justify service for our neighbor by claiming that it will help us in our evangelism. God is equally interested in our service and in our evangelistic task.[11]
Ultimately, Escobar’s The New Global Mission is an important read for pastors, mission leaders, and even laypeople across the world, and we would do well to listen to his insights.
[1] Samuel Escobar, The New Global Mission: Christian Doctrine in Global Perspective (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 12.
[2] Timothy C. Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2010), 31-33.
[3] Escobar, The New Global Mission, 12.
[4] Ibid., 129.
[5] José Míguez Bonino, “Main Currents of Protestantism,” in Integration of Man and Society in Latin America, edited by Samuel Shapiro (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1967), 193.
[6] Escobar, The New Global Mission, 131.
[7] Ibid., 152.
[8] Ibid., 143.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 146, 154.
[11] Samuel Escobar, “The Social Impact of the Gospel,” in Is Revolution Change? Edited by Brian Griffiths (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1972), 98-100.
Ex Vitæ Verborum 