Skip to main content

Summer Reading in Christian Missions

 

Readings in Missions

Bible and Mission

Bauckham, Richard.  Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World.  Carlisle: Paternoster Press and Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2003.  Pp. 126.

Goheen, Michael.  A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011.  ISBN-10: 0801031419.  Pp. 256.  (Available on Kindle.)

Grams, Rollin.  New Testament Mission Theology. In progress.  [Sections available by request.]

Payne, J. D.  Theology of Mission: A Concise Biblical Theology.  Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2022.  Pp. 192.

Mission History

Green, Michael.  Evangelism in the Early Church.  Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970, 2003.

Neill, Stephen, and Owen Chadwick.  A History of Christian Missions.  Penguin, 1991.  Pp. 466.

Smither, Edward L.  Christian Mission: A Concise, Global History.  Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019.  Pp. 202.

Terry, Mark and Robert L. Gallagher.  Encountering the History of Missions: From the Early Church to Today.  Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Academic, 2017.  Pp. 362.

Theology of Mission

Bavinck, J. H. An Introduction to the Science of Missions. P&R Publishing, 1993.  See review by Andy Johnson at Book Review: An Introduction to the Science of Missions, by John Herman Bavinck : 9Marks.

Bosch, David.  Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2011 (orig. 1991).  Pp. 658.  [Cf. chapters 6-9: Eastern Church, Medieval Roman Catholic, Protestant Reformation, Enlightenment; chapter 12: An Emerging Ecumenical Missionary Paradigm; chapter 13: Mission in Many Modes]

Bosch, David.  Witness to the World: The Christian Mission in Theological Perspective.  Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006.

Jones, E. Stanley.  Conversion.  E. Stanley Jones Foundation, 2018 (orig. Abingdon, 1959).

Stott, John M. and Christopher J. H. Wright. Christian Mission in the Modern World.  Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2015.ISBN: Read pp. 15-218 = 204 pages.

Van Engen, Charles.  Transforming Mission Theology.  William Carey Library, 2017.  ISBN 10: 0878086358.  ISBN-13: 978-0878086351.  (Available on Kindle Books.)  436 pages.

Wright, Christopher J. H. The Great Story and the Great Commission.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2023.

Mission Practice and Context

Lovelace, Richard.  Dynamics of Spiritual Life.  Expanded ed.  Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020.

Muck, Terry and Frances S. Adeney.  Encountering World Religions: The Practice of Mission in the Twenty-First Century.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.

Murray, Stuart.  Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (After-Christendom).  Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2004.  ISBN: 978-1842272619.  Pp. 208.  (Available as a Kindle book.)

Newbigin, Lesslie.  The Gospel in a Puralistic Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).  Pp. 252.

Niebauer, Michael.  Virtuous Persuasion: A Theology of Christian Mission.  Lexham Academic, 2022.

Shaw, Ryan.  Rethinking Global Mobilization: Calling the Church to Her Core Identity.  Armstrong, MO: Ignite Media, 2022.

Biographies

Donovan, Vincent J.  Christianity Rediscovered.  25th ed.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003.

Grams, Rollin G. Stewards of Grace: A Reflective, Mission Biography of Eugene and Phyllis Grams in South Africa, 1951-1962 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010). Pp. 222. (Available on Kindle.)

Long, Kathryn T. God in the Rainforest: A Tale of Martyrdom and Redemption in Amazonian Ecuador.  Oxford University Press, 2019.

Tucker, Ruth A.  From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.  Pp. 528.

The Church’s Mission and Other Religions

Bavinck, J. H. The Church between Temple and Mosque.  Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2023.

Sookhdeo, Patrick.  A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Islam.  Rev. ed.  Christian Focus, 2013.  ISBN: 978-1845505721.  Pp. 144.

Tennent, Timothy.  Christianity at the Religious Roundtable: Evangelicalism in Conversation with Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.  Pp. 245.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Alasdair MacIntyre and Tradition Enquiry

Alasdair MacIntyre's subject is philosophical ethics, and he is best known for his critique of ethics understood as the application of general, universal principles.  He has reintroduced the importance of virtue ethics, along with the role of narrative and community in defining the virtues.  His focus on these things—narrative, community, virtue—combine to form an approach to enquiry which he calls ‘tradition enquiry.’ [1] MacIntyre characterises ethical thinking in the West in our day as ethics that has lost an understanding of the virtues, even if virtues like ‘justice’ are often under discussion.  Greek philosophical ethics, and ethics through to the Enlightenment, focussed ethics on virtue and began with questions of character: 'Who should we be?', rather than questions of action, 'What shall we do?'  Contemporary ethics has focused on the latter question alone, with the magisterial traditions of deontological ('What rules govern our actions?') and tel...

Was Jesus’ Criticism of the Pharisees’ Ethic Its Legalism or Lawlessness?

The popular understanding of the Pharisees is that they were legalists.  This is not, however, Jesus’ criticism of their ethics, even though the charge of Pharisaic legalism comes from a (mis)reading of the Gospels.  The Pharisees are cast in popular imagination as the quintessential example of legalists, overly focussed on rules and promoting works in order to attain righteousness apart from God’s grace.  The latter view, that Judaism overall and the Pharisees in particular advocated works righteousness, has been loudly criticised in light of numerous texts in second temple Judaism, celebrating God’s grace in choosing the Jews, not self-righteous works. [1]   Be that as it may, the Pharisees have remained the foil to Christian ethics precisely over their purported legalism—a focus on unloving, unforgiving rules and regulations that also places norms above, purportedly, higher moral principles.  Jesus’ ethic is contrasted as an ethic of forgiveness, mercy, love...

Early Christian Views on Wealth, Possessions, and Giving

[The following post continues notes and studies on the issue of wealth, poverty, and Christian ethics.  It originally appeared in an online publication: Rollin G. Grams, 'Early Christian Views on Wealth, Possessions, and Giving,'   Explorations (Fall, 2010), an online publication of the Robert C. Cooley Center for the Study of Early Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  Online:  https://www.scribd.com/document/41882213/The-Cooley-Center-Articles-Early-Christian-Views-on-Wealth ]  For several reasons, study of early Christianity in Protestant circles is on the rise.  Ecumenical dialogue, for instance, requires a return to the common ground of Christian writers prior to the great schisms of the Church throughout history.  Also, an increasing interest in worship and spiritual disciplines has sent some Protestants on pilgrimage to more ancient and liturgical forms of the church.  Recent challenges to long-standing Christian practices...