The WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) place further work on decolonization in the context of recent ecumenical statements about mission. International Review of Mission editor and CWME director Rev. Dr. Peter Cruchley writes in the editorial that opens the issue. These statements include the 2012 document Together towards Life and the Call to Discipleship issued by the WCC’s Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2018. ”Together towards Life highlighted the vision of mission from the margins, and Arusha focused it into the call to transforming discipleship,” writes Cruchley.
”Mission from the margins has been contested, as the question of who is at the margins and who is at the centre has been problematized,” he states. ”But the mission from the margins perspective continues to shape CWME’s thinking, not in addressing who is at the margins but in resisting marginalizing forces, of which there are many inside and outside the ecclesial and mission space.” The articles in the issue are organized around three main areas. The first set relates to the perspective of mission from the margins. The articles in the second set focus on the praxis of transforming discipleship.
The final set of articles relates to key elements of the framing of missiology today, deepening and challenging some key missiology concepts and pointing to the further work needed on mission and reparations. Table of Contents of the latest issue of International Review of Mission. Open Access articles in this issue of International Review of Mission: Mari-Anna Auvinen: Ecumenical Missiology: God’s Mission and the Battle against Oppressive Power Relations and Poverty. Ross Winchester, Kevin Hovey, Johannes M. Luetz: A Future Agenda for Research on In-Service Theological Training in Thailand and Beyond. Subscription Information.
