A post-conference reflection by African public theologian Israel Olofinjana urges Majority World Christian leaders to reclaim company in world mission, proposing a missiology rooted in native contexts, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the lived actuality of struggling quite than Western managerial fashions and imported theologies.
Olofinjana, director of the Evangelical Alliance’s One Folks Fee in the UK, wrote after the Majority World Christian Leaders Dialog (MWCLC) gathering, which caused 115 theologians, missiologists, pastors and practitioners from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Center East/North Africa. He mentioned the Dubai assembly sought to “rethink Christian religion and mission” by giving house to Majority World voices to outline priorities with out Western dominance in theology, strategies, finance and infrastructure.
Whereas he famous robust variety, Olofinjana additionally acknowledged gaps in illustration, together with the absence of Francophone Africans and Oceania, and fewer members from the Caribbean. Even so, he mentioned the dialog crystallized 4 interlocking themes shaping a Majority World agenda: identification, the Holy Spirit, mission and discipleship.
Interrogating colonially formed identification
A central thread, Olofinjana mentioned, was the enduring imprint of colonization on Christian identification, discipleship and mission. Drawing on Latin American decolonial thinkers, the reflection summarized “coloniality of energy” (race-economy hierarchies), “coloniality of information” (the privileging of European epistemologies), “coloniality of being” (the suppression of language, tradition and dignity) and “coloniality of perception” (the imposition of European Christianity as the only real orthodox interpretation).
He argued that decolonizing mission requires recognizing regional variations—resembling (re)settler dynamics in Palestine, the legacies of enslavement and occupation in Africa, conquistador histories in Latin America, and imperial partition and management throughout Asia—and resisting each homogenization and “divide and rule” patterns that also fracture cooperation.
Fragmentation persists, he mentioned, via linguistic, tribal, doctrinal and socioeconomic divides that foster duplication and competitors. Conversely, Western establishments usually homogenize Majority World identities, choosing a single diaspora chief to “stand in” for huge, numerous communities. Olofinjana urged Majority World Christians to problem stereotyping and to construct collaborative constructions that replicate actual group illustration.
Holy Spirit and the form of missiology
The reflection pressed for a pneumatologically grounded missiology, warning that administration can eclipse non secular discernment. Olofinjana contrasted “managerial missiology” with “pneumatic missiology,” whereas cautioning towards caricatures: some Western missions are Spirit-responsive and a few Majority World organizations are extremely bureaucratic. The query, he wrote, is which impulse “defines our methodology to the extent that it cripples the opposite.”
He additionally weighed the relative affect of Western Reformed traditions and indigenous Pentecostal streams. Given the historic flourishing of Pentecostal renewal in Majority World contexts—from African Indigenous Church buildings to the Jamaican Revival, India’s Mukti Mission and Korea’s early-Twentieth-century actions—he requested why Pentecostal insights usually stay “secondary” in accepted mission theologies. Majority World theology, he argued, also needs to draw from historical Christian traditions (e.g., Coptic and Indian Orthodox) and never be confined to European Reformation frameworks.
Discipleship past metrics
Calling struggling “normative within the missionary activity,” Olofinjana questioned discipleship fashions pushed by numerical progress, donor-friendly reporting and step-by-step formulation. He warned that individuals may be decreased to statistics serving institutional objectives quite than flourishing as disciples. Efficient fashions, he mentioned, ought to combine each competent administration and Spirit-led preparation for expensive contexts, forming believers who embrace a theology of struggling and are geared up for it.
Contextual mission and contested language
On mission follow, Olofinjana highlighted unresolved questions: Who leads contextualization—the messenger getting into a context or the receivers inside it? How ought to Asia have interaction interfaith realities, Africa confront a renaissance of African religions and the rise of dangerous cults, and Latin America apply liberative hermeneutics to indigenous, Catholic and socio-political realities?
He additional requested whether or not Majority World church buildings ought to rethink the very vocabulary of “mission(s), missionary and missional,” given the colonial baggage the phrases can carry, and as an alternative develop indigenous metaphors and symbols for holistic witness.
Distinctives of a Majority World missiology
From his analysis and the convention dialogue, Olofinjana recognized two core distinctives of a Majority World missiology. The primary is struggling. With all 50 nations on the most recent persecution watch lists situated within the Majority World, he argued {that a} credible missiology should reckon with a “martyrology missiology”—a theology formed in contexts the place religion usually comes at a value. He additionally cautioned towards Western triumphalism that publicly highlights the struggling of others with out grappling with its deeper implications for justice.
The second is liberation. Given lengthy histories of imperialism, colonization, conquest and enslavement, Majority World theologies have developed liberative views—mirrored in Latin American liberation theology, South African Black theology, Palestinian liberation theology and U.S. Black theology—that search freedom from imposed constraints.
Olofinjana urged Majority World church buildings to deliver these liberative insights into world mission, talking into points that Western Christianity has usually ignored or disputed. He particularly named Palestinian struggling and Gaza as a “missiological disaster” for the worldwide church and known as for a prophetic solidarity in response.
He additionally named local weather and environmental justice as a shared precedence, noting that whereas the disaster is world, its impacts disproportionately fall on Majority World communities. Contextual, holistic worldviews in Africa, Asia, MENA, the Americas, Northern Europe and Oceania, he argued, require missiology that integrates creation care with biblical constancy.
From dependence to interdependence
Olofinjana mentioned a sturdy path ahead includes constructing Majority World company in identification, witness, theology and management—transferring from dependence on Western funding and frameworks towards real interdependence “on equal phrases.” He proposed a sensible “colonial framework” of inquiries to assess partnerships: Does this initiative create dependency or interdependence? Who in the end advantages, and at whose expense? The place is energy concentrated?
He urged continued funding in youthful leaders and in theological formation that resists “epistemic colonization,” noting that many Majority World students had been educated in Western paradigms. The long-term intention, he mentioned, is an indigenous, contextual, prophetic missiology that serves world Christianity—together with Western expressions—by partaking struggling, liberation and creation care with integrity.
“The Majority World is numerically rising,” he mentioned, “but energy, sources and theological frameworks stay largely managed by Western Christianity.”
Olofinjana argued that “if Majority World Christians are to first grow to be impartial earlier than getting into an interdependent relationship with Western Christianity, we should develop our personal company and self-determination,” resist colonial frameworks, “re-imagine our existence freed from such constraints,” and proceed constructing indigenous theologies that tackle world points usually missed—or opposed—by Western church buildings.
These steps, he concluded, will kind “a particular Majority World missiology” that in the end advantages the worldwide Church, together with the West.
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