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International Bulletin of 
Missionary Research

JANUARY 2008 [32:1]

[On Page]

[001] Mission and the Peaceable Kingdom
Jonathan J. Bonk

What went wrong? Why would intelligent, well educated young men in their prime willingly obliterate themselves by crashing passenger jets into New York 's famous Twin Towers-arch symbols of this nation's commercial virility? How could they have been convinced that the incineration of ordinary Americans both compelled and justified their carefully executed mass murder by suicide? What religious or ideological wellsprings animated them and thousands like them? A plausible and much repeated response to these perplexing questions was soon offered by Bernard Lewis. . .

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[003] The Gospel of Reconciliation Within the Wrath of Nations
David W. Shenk

The Hizbullah command center in Solo, Central Java, hosted an international group of about thirty Christians in February 2007.1 Armed militia dressed in military uniforms welcomed us. We sat on the floor in a circle, the Hizbullah members on one side and the Christians on the other. Our hosts opened the meeting by saying, "We are Hizbullah, and our mission is to kill our enemies and fight to defend Islam!" A few months earlier I had heard a similar exhortation from a leading North American evangelical leader, who exclaimed on a Christian radio talk show, "The only way to deal with the Muslim terrorists is to kill them!"

[010] Writing a Social History of Christianity in India
John C. B. Webster

Back in February 1974 the editorial board selected by the Church History Association of India to oversee and publish a multivolume history of Christianity in India prepared a statement on the "New Perspective," from which this proposed history was to be written. This statement began by saying that "the history of Christianity in India has hitherto often been treated as an eastward extension of western ecclesiastical history." The editorial board proposed instead to set its history "in the context of Indian history," a perspective which would both "require a fresh evaluation of existing material" and bring new information to light.

[014]  Āvarna and Adivāsi Christians and Missions: A Paradigm for Understanding Christian Movements in India
Robert Eric Frykenberg

Christian faith, as Lamin Sanneh has commented, transcends "ethnic, national, and cultural barriers" and moves beyond "patterns developed in Europe." Christian faith is not bound by or restricted to any one culture. It is bound by
no single sacred language-in-text, as is Islam within Arabic; nor by any one sacred blood or earth, or language-in-genome, as is Aryan and Brahmanical or Sanskriti and Vedic lore as embodied in ideologies of Hindutva. No one culture is sacred. Yet all cultures can become sacred, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much their essentials are transformed so as to reflect everlasting verities that are truly sacred.

[020] The Mission to North Korea
Ben Torrey

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea-North Korea-presents us with a great missiological challenge. It is perhaps the country most closed to missions today, yet, ironically, it shares a relatively small landmass with the nation that, on a per-capita basis, sends out the most missionaries in the world-the Republic of Korea, or South Korea. North Korea controls all access to the country quite stringently and allows very few foreign nationals to live within its borders. Those who do are under constant surveillance, making it extremely difficult to share even casually about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[022] Reflections on North Korea: The Psychological Foundation of the North Korean Regime and Its Governing Philosophy
Hyun-Sik Kim; translated by George Kap-Hun Kim and edited
by Ben Torrey

Korea is located in East Asia. It is about the same size as Montana and has a total population of some 70 million people: 47 million in South Korea, and 23 million in North Korea. China and Russia border Korea to the north, and the remaining three sides of the Korean Peninsula are surrounded by ocean. One hundred miles across the Korea Strait lies Japan.

[026] Asian Society of Missiology: Bangkok 2007 Declaration

Preamble: Asian and select non-Asian missiologists gathered at the Grand Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand, from October 30 to November 2, 2007, to hold the first international Conference of the Asian Society of Missiology.1 The theme of the conference was "Asian Mission: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow." The purpose was to consider the challenges of contemporary mission as it emerges out of the past, intersects with the present, and takes us into the future, from the perspectives of history, theology, leadership development, and strategy. At the conclusion of the conference, which included presentations, responses, open forums, and small group discussions, the Asian Society of Missiology adopted the following affirmations.

[027] Missiometrics 2008: Reality Checks for Christian World Communions

This 4-page report is the 24th in an annual series beginning in 1985. These data continue the enumeration of 16 major global goals in world mission with 79 numerical indicators, set out by means of 3 Tables A, B and C, covering the years AD 1800-2025. It should be noted here that reports on the world's global religions too often portray them as somewhat static, boring, unchanging and uninteresting. By contrast, this report avoids that approach and instead portrays religions as enormously complex, even exciting, and constantly changing even in turmoil and upheaval. Statistics play an important role in any such attempt to clarify the situation.

[031] Our Pilgrimage in Mission
Paul A. Rader and Kay F. Rader

A passion for mission is in the spiritual DNA of our families. Paul carries the name of a great uncle who succeeded A. B. Simpson as president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. After a time as pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, the older Paul Rader founded the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, which helped birth a plethora of parachurch mission organizations in the days before the postwar boom of independent mission structures. [Paul A. Rader and Kay F. Rader are the former international leaders of the Salvation Army. They live in retirement in Lexington, Kentucky.]

[035] The Statistical State of the North American Protestant Missions Movement, from the Mission Handbook, 20th Edition
Michael Jaffarian

The time has again arrived when we can get a fresh understanding of important aspects of the North American missions movement. The Mission Handbook, updated every two to four years, is a directory of mission organizations in the United States and Canada, with statistics. The 20th edition, Mission Handbook, 2007-2009: U.S. and Canadian Protestant Ministries Overseas, is now with us, reporting on 822 mission organizations-giving names, contact information, e-mail and Web addresses, descriptions of affiliations and ministries, purpose statements, and statistics on income, personnel, and countries of service.

[039] The Legacy of Marcello Zago, O.M.I.
Willi Henkel, O.M.I.

Marcello Zago combined in an ideal way missionary experience in a Buddhist milieu with the study of Buddhism and missiology, which had been updated by the Second Vatican Council.

[040] Noteworthy

[043] IFMA and EFMA Announce
Name Changes

Two North American mission associations have changed their names, seeking to sharpen their identities to reflect their current perspectives. IFMA, the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Associationof North America, is now known as CrossGlobal Link. The Evangelical Foreign Mission Association changed its name to The Mission Exchange.

[044] Book Reviews

[054] Dissertation Notices

[056] Book Notes