Читать книгу Interrogating the Language of “Self” and “Other” in the History of Modern Christian Mission - Man-Hei Yip - Страница 10

Colonialists often discursively constructed contrastive paradigms such as Christian/savage, civilized/barbaric and orderly/disorderly in order to define themselves, and also to explain the dominance and acceleration of colonial rule. Such contrastive pairings helped to condemn the other as inferior and also helped to determine the nature of their hold over the people they subjugated. The early missionary hermeneutics which abetted in this enterprise extrapolated this binary view to inject its own biblical values into the private and public lives of the colonized.1

What causes easy dichotomization of us and them upon missionary encounter? Is conflict between civilizations unavoidable?2 Problematizing otherness upon missionary encounter is a common tactic to deal with the other. The problem of othering is closely linked with language use. Prevailing mission discourses and theological conceptions largely operate within the Anglo-European cultural and linguistic frameworks. Whether they effectively use words to influence people or negatively construe and describe people, language becomes a matter of practical concern. The resulting behavior is seemingly external. Language and the Christian missionary movement intersect in complicated ways to objectify the other in cross-cultural situations. The history of Christian mission has long been predicated on the construction of otherness. Simply banning the use of certain words and replacing them by more inclusive language does not address the issue.

There is, however, not much discussion regarding language use in the Christian missionary movement. It always baffles me when the ecumenical circles embrace the principles of mutuality; the respect paid to the other unfortunately functions to fix the problem of the other. It is my desire to contest a certain account of missiological argument, rationality, and deliberation that have been approved to implement divisive practices. Questioning the decision-making process involves an interrogation of epistemology deployed in the study of the other. It means to disrupt the norm of crafting mission discourses in established structures and linguistic traditions. My contention is that rethinking otherness is necessary for every missionary endeavor. Otherness cannot be treated as an end that justifies the means. Otherness is a manifestation of God’s grace and faithfulness to the world. The discourse of otherness as gift becomes a point of departure that subverts the foundational predisposition to see self as better than other.

The task of unearthing otherness opens up a larger question concerning the agency of the other. The issue of full personhood is a serious business. It goes beyond empowering the unfortunate, to recognizing the value of the other. Who are these people? What does it mean to recognize their value? To what extent will the ecumenical body tolerate otherness and allow that to instigate institutional change? I am asking these questions, not because I can give a better answer than anyone else. I am inviting all of us to reflect on this significant topic concerning the intersubjective reality of Christian missionary engagement. Renewing our approach to language can build positive relationships, which will in turn shed light on the discipline of missiology.

A Methodological Problem

In this chapter, I will first examine the problems that arise from overemphasizing achievements of mission agencies and societies. Then I will proceed to the need of a new methodology that attempts to address linguistic issues in relation to the construction of otherness in Christian missionary movement.

Bias in Historical Interpretation: Privatization of Knowledge

and Religion

The study of Christian mission has given prominence to a framework that focuses almost exclusively on the major player whose agenda and decision are shaping mission strategy and missionary work. Traditionally, mission agencies and societies have assumed a role of the agent of God bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the world. They also could effectively amass the most needed resources including monetary means and technological know-how. They are the doer or deliverer of missionary work. When the doer of historical events possesses and presents a better access to knowledge than anybody else, that knowledge embedded in missionary work is perceived as a given. That knowledge provides the underlying basis for why we do what we do in the missionary movement. A methodology that is situated at the agencies’ vantage point easily speaks a language in their best interests. Given the self-centric approach, there is a consequential preservation of bias toward self versus the other.

Receivers of mission are given little space to negotiate their identities in the daily operation of salvation-related programs. They are largely reduced to a homogeneous group, waiting to be empowered. Interestingly, these people came to be known as people of the Third World. The term “Third World” is a modern term popularized in the early 1950s to refer to the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.3 Images of the Third World were mostly deplorable, as soon as the term came into usage. According to Ernest W. Lefever,

Most Third World states have pluralistic societies made up of several, and sometimes many, racial, ethnic, and religious groups, frequently in rivalry or conflict with one another. Their governments tend to be weak and fragile and are often dominated by a privileged class or ethnic group. Most such regimes are authoritarian, and their leaders, seeking to maintain themselves in power and to modernize simultaneously, guarantee few of the political and civil rights taken for granted in the democratic West.4

What Lefever illustrated is a negative construct of the people who are relative to the West and possibly at odds with the West.5 Problems occur when people interpret history through a single lens, and make universal claims on the basis of their interpretation of the world and the other. That certainty and absoluteness deposited in the belief system also carries a presumption that to be good, someone else must be bad.

One ensuing question that faces us in this inquiry is the authenticity of the story. Whose story is much invested in the his-story of Christian mission? Major texts on the history of Christianity excessively focus on Europe as the epicenter of Christianity. In this narrative, the spread of Christianity began unilaterally from the West to the East or from North to South. Christianity is viewed as a Western religion. That impression seriously hampers the development of Christianity in other parts of the world. It can trigger memories and raise a red flag for new waves of colonial expansion. General knowledge about God, people, and the world is largely authenticated by Western patriarchal values and systems. The authentication of a Western worldview further reinforces genealogical ways of knowledge used for studying people and their cultures.

Knowledge is inevitably attended by power. But when the power fails to lift up insurgent agency or respect valuable critique, that power of knowledge is larger than knowledge per se. This form of power cannot be liberating, but domineering. The episteme that highlights the scientific knowledge constitutes a kind of social control subjugating those outside of the power circles. Thus Edward Said contended that knowledge represents thoroughly a kind of power that dominates the discourse of life at all levels.6 Power over other is more than an opinion, but actively at work in politics, international relations, and economic matters. Even in our everyday life, power takes the form of cultural dominance. Art, music, literature, food, and even language, contain implicit sets of moral values that characterize what civilization is. But those standards can sanction deviance and difference.

In Transforming Mission, David Bosch unhesitatingly questioned the conflation of Christian mission with the naïve epistemological triumphalism ingrained in Enlightenment rationality.7 Bosch realizes that “Our theologies are partial, and they are culturally and socially biased. They may never claim to be absolutes.”8 For Bosch, Western privatization of the missionary movement in Christian history is questionable. While his challenge against Western domineering desires and rejection of Western worldview and philosophy upon missionary encounter are widely known, Bosch’s proposal is limited in various respects. He relied heavily on European and American scholarship. In a sense, his talk of epistemology does not represent a complete break with Western value and tradition. His analysis of the six missionary paradigms only slightly involved the insights and inputs of theologians and missiologists in the South.9 The paradigm shift may take place among Western missiologists and thinkers alike, but the practice of self-examination intrinsic to the change does not revolutionize the shape and makeup of leadership in the field. Mission agendas are frequently set by Western leadership that decides where the money goes. Far from representing a game-changer in Christian missionary movement, Bosch’s proposal of the paradigm shift tends to portray a linear historical development of Christian mission. I do not think Bosch would want to follow the footsteps of the Enlightenment thinkers. He was urgently seeking solutions for the future of Christian mission; however, the core assumptions about the other in missiological exploration remain intact. Marion Grau comments that Bosch’s account “proceeds in a familiar missiological frame, exclusively focusing on the missionaries, the societies and theological movements they were embedded in. . . . It is also far from clear that he has addressed the heritage of colonial missions and the inherent thought patterns substantially.”10 Joerg Rieger maintains, “Without having to worry about colonialism and the associated (mis)use of power and authority any more, mission and missionary enterprises now seem to be free to reinvent themselves.”11

A Quest for Reconstructing Historical Accounts: Promoting

the Diversity of Voices

The direction of history is not necessarily headed in a linear way, as Bosch described. It depends on one’s critical reading strategy. Historian Philip Jenkins reminds us of the fact that “Christianity was polyglot.”12 Unfortunately some Christian communities in Asia and Africa were not able to survive life-threatening anti-Christian actions hundreds to a thousand years ago. The loss of world Christianity revealed not only how we see history, but also how we label other Christians outside the circle of Europeans. The decline of Christianity in the two mentioned continents was made equivalent to a failure. Since our minds are so conditioned to success, failure in Christian mission became a taboo. As a result, we ignore the people, their existence, and that part of history. Their stories subsequently went unheard. In other words, the perception that history is linear emerges out of the condition in which we have wiped out what has been deemed unsuccessful attempts of Christian expansion. Western Christianity is once again elevated to be the prototype for churches around the world and since then, this particular form of Christianity has crystallized the nature of our memory. That memory in selection could adversely impact the way we perceive non-Christians in those continents that failed to proselytize.

In protest against power hierarchies in world Christianity, Justo Gonzalez challenged the inclination of making Western civilization the norm of Christianity. Gonzalez argued for a new cartography of Christian history. Gonzalez claims,

If history is a drama, then geography is the stage on which the action flows. . . . It was only when I began seeing them as actual people with their feet on the ground, and when I began understanding the movements of peoples and nations not only across time and chronology but also across space and geography, that history became fascinating to me.13

History is about people. It concerns the activity of every kind of people in the land. Putting it simply, the story of humanity is made up of multiple voices and there should be more than one account of the history of Christianity. When we take seriously Acts 1:8 that says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” this is a call open for all disciples of Jesus. The idea of a polycentric map lifts up the matter of diversity that further connects people’s experiences and feelings with their witnessing to the gospel. Gonzalez thus argued non-Western Christianity is not merely a part of the missionary movement, but a major constituent of church history. Integrating the history of Christian mission with the history of the church will refashion a missiological ecclesiology that further enlarges the vision of inclusivity among God’s people.14

The study of Christian mission indeed requires a radical reconstruction of historical events. Both Jenkins and Gonzalez are faithfully advocating the multiplicity of voices that further provides us with a more responsible reading strategy for the history of Christianity.

Nowadays, many have been aware that the center of gravity in global Christianity has shifted to the South. Because of its overwhelming surge of Christian population, churches in the South are given more opportunities to get involved in the discussion of their issues. In terms of numbers and vitality, it is inevitable that the voices of the South need to be heard. Their participation, insights, and wisdom will bridge the epistemological discrepancy that has long existed in the Christian missionary movement. In the meantime, Christian communities are widespread which further convinces us that anywhere across the globe can be a center of attention; for the Spirit of God blows wherever it pleases.15 The presence of the other forces us to question our identity and sense of vocation in challenging the theology in our times. Our missiology, good or bad, shapes our view of the other, which affects the way we interact with the other. How one treats another human being, under the banner of advancing the gospel is an important subject that needs constant evaluation. There is no question about it.

The Need for a New Approach

The new focus on the Christian missionary movement should take on the intersectionality of power, and the linguistic and theological conceptualization of difference. It requires an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the materialization of binary opposites. I will look at historical rhetoric in Christian mission with the aids of critical theory and linguistic reflection.16 These disciplines may represent very different approaches, but in this study they are not mutually exclusive. Rather, these divergent insights complement and build upon one another. I purposely argue that the relationship between giver and receiver of mission needs to be understood in the framework of self and other. Theories of self and other matter across disciplines, and they can effectively analyze the intersecting interests between one another and give reasons for people’s behaviors in the context of social life. The conceptualization of giver as self and receiver as other is both urgent and relevant. It is because the self-centric approach to Christian mission has confused and kept the giver from recognizing the selfhood of an-other-self, that is, the receiver. Privileging self over other in the form of mission discourses remains problematic. Language will take us back to where we began, that is, the creation and manipulation of otherness for the sake of sustaining Christian mission. It is important to examine how otherness is constructed and interpreted to fit into the paradigm of the Christian missionary movement. I will explain that in more detail.

Self and Other in Mission Discourses

The subject of the other is as old as humanity. Ample literature and resources are available concerning the issue of binarial relations. Edward Said once observed that other was not born to be other, but was made to being the Other.17 Otherness—including but not limited to ontological and epistemological traits of the other—is turned into a point of reference for people inside power circles to deal with those outside of it.18 In the discipline of philosophy, Martin Buber’s I-Thou concept is helpful for us to reflect on the very subject of inter-personal relationships. Buber declared that words are not things, but relationships. Buber says, “When a primary word is spoken the speaker enters the word and takes his stand in it.”19 The primary word, Buber considers, I-Thou later became an influential concept for the relation of things. Seeing another person as my Thou would avoid reducing a human being to an It.20 Since I and You (or other) share the most basic humanity, “we” are equally entitled to life and dignity without discrimination. On the one hand, Buber’s observation confronts head-on the objectification of people; on the other hand, Buber emphasizes the importance of mutual respect for the sake of building healthy relationships. His idea discreetly works to alter the way we deal with human beings who are different from us.

Man speaks in many tongues—tongues of language, of art, of action—but the spirit is one. . . . In truth language does not reside in man but man stands in language and speaks out of it—so it is with all words, all spirit. . . . Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You. He is able to do that when he enters into this relation with his whole being.21

There are however questions to ask. If “relation is mutual”22 in its fundamental nature as Buber argues, how does encountering other civilizations in the so-called mission fields easily result in putting people into categories? The giver-receiver relation has proved to be an antithesis of the I-Thou concept. We form unity by giving the receiver a label of “other.” We form barriers between us and them, which allow us to claim that we are good and they are bad. These barriers are human constructs. While Buber’s I-Thou concept offers rich analytical possibilities of understanding human relationships, the binary between giver and receiver in the context of Christian mission persists. Why is the ideal form of relationships, as I-Thou, not realized to its fullest? What obstructs the disposition of I-Thou relation from happening thoroughly? I do not completely rule out Buber’s observation, for precisely Buber points out that self is where I am speaking from; a self-centric vantage point easily subjugates another I as an object. Buber’s argument in human relations is valuable, but it does not always guarantee mutuality in direct relationship with others. It does not specifically explain to us how we communicate with the other through our daily social interactions. The operations of Christian mission are far more complex than that. The problem of relational disorder in Christian mission exposes deeper issues in epistemological principles, theological orientation and praxis. We need more than metaphysical knowledge to address the ontological problem present in the civilizing mission.

It is time to stop avoiding the elephant in the room; it is time to address the recurring problem of power differential in the Christian missionary movement. That power, embodied in the form of discourses, easily distorted and falsified the value of other cultures and religions. The examination of how mission discourses function is the order of the day, in particular, how that accelerates the prioritization of the negative in binary opposites used for evangelistic purposes. The number of publications with the term “mission discourses” included in their titles is getting more accessible; however, the work that analyses—implicitly and explicitly—relations between mission discourses and the construction of otherness is scattered. In reviewing literature that focuses on the link between language and missionary work, Esme Cleall’s analysis of the discourse of difference is particularly useful. In Missionary Discourses of Difference, Cleall asserts that “difference” is an essential component in any mission discourse. The concept of difference, as Cleall explains, is “the practice of making ‘like’ from ‘unlike,’ a way of positioning things, people and concepts relationality.”23 Putting it in another way, the sustainability of the mission enterprise depends very much on how difference is articulated.

After examining missionary writings of the London Missionary Society (LMS), Cleall argues that “difference” was utilized to construct binary oppositions. For instance, the British Empire was associated with light whereas the rest of the world dark.24 The portrayal of opposing images not only necessitates the Empire’s civilizing mission, but also consolidates the creation of self-identity.25 Cleall also provided convincing evidence of the connection between the concept of difference and mission discourses by contesting the legitimization of colonial thinking in missionary activities peculiarly in the areas of home-making, sickness and racialization within the “heathen” land. Her work seriously challenges conventional mission studies that have shown an inclination to self-glorify past achievements.

Similar to Cleall’s research focus, Webb Keane questions the epistemological privilege of the church over human value. Keane’s critique of missionary activity as a form of cultural aggression has taken a new twist on the subject of Christian mission. The entire Christian missionary movement is contingent on “certain semiotic forms and ideologies.” In traversing the perimeter of missionary encounters, Keane observes that

The globalization of Protestant Christianity was facilitated by the development of certain semiotic forms and ideologies. Some of these have become inseparable from even the purportedly secular narratives of modernity. . . . The particular forms taken by colonialism’s long-term influence in many parts of the postcolonial world are surely marked, in some way, by missionaries’ moral impetus to improve the world.26

Language is not innocent. The way that specific language is used, a statement made and a story told is all calculated and manipulated. The categories of modern/backward, cultured/barbaric, and so forth are implicated and constructed for the production of cultural representations that further condones binary oppositions against the other.

Unlike Cleall, Keane pointed out the narrative of modernity has influenced the life of both converts and nonconverts. As soon as the converts inherit the legacy of the missionary culture, they will pass on the imported cultural practice to his or her own people.27 Keane insisted that new problems in the local church probably resulted from “the same fundamental problems.”28 More significantly, Keane’s observation has affirmed that identity is fluid. Because of its fluidity, identity is not singular. Under the canopy of hybridized identities, local converts could turn out to assume the role of the former missionary. Indeed over the last hundred years, Christianity has experienced variations and reversals in its demographics. Everyone is overjoyed with the profound shift of the gravity of Christianity to the South. But no one would want to see churches in the South “repeat” the missionary practice of the West in the “heathen land.” The word “repeat” suggests a continuation of unchecked mission discourses used for problematizing otherness, recruiting missionaries, securing funds and other related missionary activities. The same old strategy of condemning people other than Christian is unfortunately prevalent and it actually undergirds the mission agenda of many churches in East Asia. The weight of misrepresentation of the other takes place upon missionary encounter. Christians set up boundaries against non-Christians. The us versus them is not just a truism, but an ideology that excludes.

The Christian Missionary Movement as a Constructed Discourse

Discourses on the mission of God have been constantly misused to do harm to the other time and again. From the crusaders’ intolerance “in the name of God” to heathen conversion “for the kingdom of God,” the longstanding hostility to the other or simply xenophobia has not been removed from public discourses on the other. There is every reason to believe that the entire Christian missionary movement is something other than a sheer venture of holiness. The kind of violence done to non-Christians and people of different religious traditions not only exposes a problematic reading of the mission of God, but also creates a “reality” justifying the continual subjugation of the other. The reality of Christian mission is evidently operating within the framework of social construction.

The idea of a socially constructed reality is not new. Since the 1960s, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann have broadened the scope of sociology of religion by connecting knowledge with reality. In their propositions, human knowledge comes into existence from the interactions with social conditions. The knowledge inherited from that will construct what has been known as our “reality.” Berger and Luckmann claim, “Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality.”29 The social reality is internalized into ourselves through human activity, and the externalized human activity becomes objective that makes the reality independent from us yet allows us to share that with other individuals.30 The idea of the socially constructed reality can help us understand the operation of religion. Says Berger,

Religion is the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established. . . . It can be said that religion has played a strategic part in the human enterprise of world-building. Religion implies the farthest reach of man’s self-externalization, of his infusion of reality with his own meanings. Religion implies that human order is projected into the totality of being. Put differently religion is the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as being humanly significant.31

The procedures of social control are deposited into the character of reality, including the religious one. While maintaining the order of things, the process of identity-formation takes place in these socially constructed worlds.

With regard to how meaning is derived in and communicated in the socially constructed reality, I will turn to John R. Searle’s idea of social reality. In his important work titled The Construction of Social Reality, Searle claimed that social behaviors have always been understood in collective terms. The act of collective behaviors reflects the kind of collective intentionality that “is essential to understanding social facts.”32 Social facts are also known as institutional facts that represent “a structure of power relations, including negative and positive, conditional and categorical, collective and individual powers.”33 These powers can create meaning for members of the community in their daily living, regulate relations between members of the community through an imposition of rights and obligations, and help members to achieve higher social status.34 However when collective intentionality is driven by biased vision and selfish purposes, collective social behaviors can be destructive, which further approves a lopsided reality to maintain the consensus of the mass.

Growing out of Searle’s concept of a socially constructed reality, otherness is created through the daily operation of Christian mission in order to serve the interests of relevant mission agencies and societies. The construction of otherness functions as a projection of thought by self. What one thinks about the other will immediately be translated to the public. Is that perception of others trustworthy? For Michael A. Rynkiewich, missionary account indicates a tendency to speak incorrectly of the other. After exploring the boundaries between self, mind and society, Rynkiewich concludes that Christians tend to “make sense of a reality that comes to us in fragments.”35

Language is not neutral. Our biased opinions about the other can be vicious. When a socially constructed self mistakenly receives and re-formulates prejudicial perspectives about the other, related missionary practice that demonizes other cultures and religions will continually be a norm. Therefore, understanding the construction of social reality is inseparable from analyzing the power of discourses. According to Michel Foucault, the objectivity of truth depends on the discourse of truth.36 Foucault questions the mechanism that governs a statement and the validation of it.37 More than being attentive to the syntax and semantics of a statement, Foucault challenges the way knowledge is formed. Foucault warns us to be careful of the relations between discourses and truth. Truth expresses itself in the form of knowledge that we agreed on. Knowledge immediately shapes social behaviors and relations operated in politics, international relations, and even the expansion of Christianity. Furthermore, the close connection between discourses and self/other binary are not one-way. They work both ways. While mission discourses intensify the self/other binary, the latter authorizes the value of the former. The happening of self versus other testifies to the fact that a power differential has evolved out of the existing relations between two parties. The interaction of the two parties expresses itself in the form of a binary. The vicious cycle of a power differential entrapped in the mission discourses can intensify mistrust and unequal treatment of the other even in the context of mission partnership.

Discourses can shape human subjectivity. The subjectivity of each individual is to be recognized, and the fact that each individual is a subject by nature should compel Christians across traditions to take seriously the larger question about agency in missionary encounters. Attaining full personhood of the other is undoubtedly an indispensable part of Christian mission. If missionary activities are creative expressions of God’s grace upon all forms of life, acknowledging the diversity of voices will eventually be beneficial for a new praxis of mission to emerge.

Organization of This Book

Chapter 2 provides some basic linguistic theories to help us understand what language is and how it functions. Language is not simply about conveying people’s thoughts. According to John R. Searle, language has the capacity to create a reality that obliges people to act and speak in a certain way. The aspect that language can shape our perception of the world becomes essential for the evaluation of the close connection between language and otherness in the history of Christianity. This new role of language leads us to re-evaluate George Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic model, which has been influential in shaping theological, biblical, and missiological discussion. Lindbeck might have successfully created a reality that is mediated through language, but the reality of Christianity becomes totally dependent on the overarching theme of salvation. When the reality is dominated by this metanarrative, Christians rely on this reality to give them meaning. But unfortunately, it is also that reality that differentiates Christians from non-Christians. The rigidity of the Christian identity can cause a wide range of problems for missionary endeavors. The metanarrative itself does not pose a problem, but it is the group of people that uses the exclusive speech to problematize the other community. Power differentials between the narrator and the narrated create a self/other binary that could drastically affect the well-being of the other.

Chapter 3 identifies the discourses used for missionary endeavors in relation to categorization and misrepresentation of the other. The analysis is based largely on mission literature and publications, including William Carey’s Enquiry, reports on the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh (1910), The WCC’s Guidelines on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies, The Vatican’s Ad Gentes and Nostra Aetate, and other modern mission documents. To revisit past mission discourses is not to reinforce past achievements. Rather, it is a sincere reflection on the past that shall prompt one to admit the mistakes and harm done to others in the name of Christian mission. Notice that mission discourses do change over time. The changing patterns of mission discourses are natural responses to the materiality of life. The process of decolonization particularly in the second half of the twentieth century resulted in an increase of self-awareness among the formerly colonized subjects. Churches in the South also started to question the power and knowledge deposited in the civilizing mission. Contesting an imposed order means to say no to coercive evangelism and to say yes to establishing self-identities in the currents of linguistic violence.

Chapter 4 rethinks the notion of self understood in the Christian missionary movement. A self-centric approach to mission primarily resulted from a culture that breeds individualism. The individualistic understanding of self is unfortunately devoid of a communal sense. Self neither carries a connotation of a “we” nor functions as a community of selves. Self refers to an “I” that forms a boundary and separates “I” from my neighbor. When missionary work marginalizes the voice of others, good works become a camouflage for promoting narcissistic values. To confront self-centric intentions, Jesus’ self-emptying acts in Philippians 2:1–11 is particularly relevant. The use of biblical resource highlights the importance of humility while engaging missionary work. Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of alterity, juxtaposed with the Confucian concept of ren (humanity) meanwhile reiterates the inseparability of self and other. The encounter of the other per se instinctively connects and carries ethical obligations. The interrelatedness of self and other should lead to a whole new level of human solidarity by enlightening us to take responsibility for the well-being of the other. The renewed sense of self compels one to work with the other face-to-face that helps shatter the binary of us and them. Fostering intercultural relationships will usher in a new direction for missiological exploration.

The new vision for missionary movement is immediately followed by a recovery of self-identities of others. Chapter 5 attempts to reevaluate the whole idea of otherness. It first deconstructs established discourses on the other. Humanization in missionary work tends to focus on livelihood improvement. Full personhood of the other is not seriously engaged. The issue of agency comes to be decisive for missiological exploration if the mission enterprise must deliver value to all stakeholders in its undertakings. A more direct and effective way of upholding the dignity of other is to see otherness as gift. This affirmation does not aim to essentialize the other, but represents an incredible game-changer in the entire enterprise. Examples of encountering the poor and the Hindu will demonstrate the intelligibility of other forms of religious language and practice. The discourse of otherness as gift means that these people do not passively receive information from their senses; rather they actively construct ideas and generate meaning from what they hear and interpret inputs on the basis of existing ideas and previous experience. The voice of others means more than a symbolic token, but a living wisdom that turns the table of missiological agenda, discussion, and practice. The discourse of otherness as gift can further subvert the narrative world of missioner, and consequently, the imbalance of power in the Christian missionary movement. This subversive discourse unmasks the ideology of hegemony that aims to dominate decision-making process and eventually erase otherness.

The concluding chapter calls for a new language that can guard against aggressive use of language to objectify and subjugate others in the name of Christian mission. If language is related to the construction of otherness, language should be able to help us cross the boundaries that shut people out. Any shift in language should be motivated, undergirded, and sustained by God’s reconciling work. Missiological language can thus facilitate mutuality and build up an ongoing dialogue with the other. Finally, the new language will enable us to expand our language of God through diverse and divergent expressions of witnesses. Knowledge is not a closed system. When we envision God exclusively through analogies and imaginaries within a specific culture or group of people, we end up limiting God to certain imageries. Learning to relate to different groups of people and be empathetic to their struggles and aspirations further guide us to God’s wondrous work done among people across cultures and languages.

This book extends an invitation for churches and Christians to make space for the other. Together we can develop a new language that aims to build trust and foster relationship in missionary encounter. In radicalizing otherness, this book hopes to open new avenues to witnessing to God’s unfailing love to all people, regardless of difference. Because of that love, we can love others as ourselves.

1. R. S. Sugirtharajah argues that early missionaries might not be involved in colonial administration, but they helped promote and reinforce “perceptions of colonialism” through biblical interpretation and teaching. Sugirtharajah, Bible and the Third World, 62.

2. Huntington, “Clash of Civilizations?,” 22.

3. Lefever, Amsterdam to Nairobi, 7. The term “Third World” in its original French usage, tiers monde, refers to an alternative world that distinguishes itself from the capitalist world (first world) and the socialist world (second world). It is not necessarily associated with a hierarchical order in which first is the most superior and third is the least significant. Scott and Cavanaugh, Blackwell Companion to Political Theology, 257.

4. Lefever, Amsterdam to Nairobi, 8.

5. Lefever, Amsterdam to Nairobi, 8.

6. Said, Orientalism, 2–3.

7. Bosch believed Christians of the twentieth century found themselves in the midst of the most important moments in the history of Christian mission. It was a time when Christians expanded their consciousness to the impacts of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment’s overemphasis on reason and rationality distorted the basis and nature of Christian mission. Therefore Bosch asserted that the foundation of mission is not built on human thoughts, but the self-definition of Jesus whose teaching consistently challenges the attitudes of his disciples and their acts of building walls and drawing boundaries between one another. See Bosch, Transforming Mission.

8. Bosch, Transforming Mission, 190.

9. I am not saying Bosch completely ignored churches in the South with which he actually was much concerned. Bosch might even advocate the diversity of voices in the field of mission studies; however, ideas and theologies of Christian leaders and theologians in the South were not meaningfully engaged in his reconstructed missionary paradigms.

10. Grau, Rethinking Mission in the Postcolony, 34.

11. Rieger quoted in Grau, Rethinking Mission in the Postcolony, 34.

12. Jenkins, Lost History of Christianity, 77.

13. Gonzalez, Changing Shape of Church History, 7–8.

14. See Cardoza-Orlandi and Gonzalez, To All Nations from All Nations.

15. Cf. John 3:8. One of the recent trends of mission studies is to examine missionary work in a pneumatological framework. As the work of the Holy Spirit sustains life of every form, it becomes a critical point in the history of God’s creation and redemption. There is no longer a division between old churches and young churches, Christians and non-Christians; people including those of other faiths are all recipients of God’s grace. The mission of the Spirit puts into question the practice of subjugating unchurched and adherents of other religions, marking a significant change in dealing with religious pluralism. See Yong and Clarke, Global Renewal, Religious Pluralism.

16. Engaging Christian mission can indeed be done through a variety of views; and as varied perspectives intertwine, it is not unorthodox to utilize an idea which is secular. It will instead turn out an unfinished business if omitting an idea which happens to be secular.

17. Said, Orientalism, 5–6.

18. Said, Orientalism, 2.

19. Buber, I and Thou, 19–20.

20. Buber, I and Thou, 23–24.

21. Buber, I and Thou, 88–89.

22. Buber, I and Thou, 23.

23. Cleall, Missionary Discourses of Difference, 3.

24. Cleall, Missionary Discourses of Difference, 2.

25. Cleall, Missionary Discourses of Difference, 2.

26. With his experience in postcolonial Indonesia, Webb Keane examined the issue of agency in missionary encounter. He is concerned with the way people receive words and things that have been spoken and presented to them. Keane, Christian Moderns, 42–43.

27. Keane, Christian Moderns, 9.

28. Keane, Christian Moderns, 9.

29. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 61.

30. Berger and Luckmann, Social Construction of Reality, 59–61.

31. Berger, Sacred Canopy, 25–28.

32. Searle, Construction of Social Reality, 23–24.

33. Searle, Construction of Social Reality, 94.

34. Searle, Construction of Social Reality, 94–102.

35. Rynkiewich, Soul, Self, and Society, 14.

36. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 119.

37. The major concern for Foucault is not about scientific validity or a scientific approach to knowledge but the way a statement of truth is made. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 112–13.