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Front cover (above):

Sky Pilot: Fighting Missionary of the Far North, a short-lived comic series (1950–51) featuring the heroics of fictional missionary John Hawks.

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International Bulletin of
Missionary Research

JULY 2008 [32:3]

Missionaries as Heroes
and Villains

On Page 113 / Jonathan J. Bonk

When I asked Jamie Scott, author of two articles in this issue, to suggest a visual illustration for this editorial, he sent two cover images of Sky Pilot: Fighting Missionary of the Far North, a short-lived comic series (1950–51) featuring the heroics of fictional missionary John Hawks. . . . Public perceptions of missionaries have typically oscillated between eulogy and vilification. Both extremes contain elements of truth, but neither can tell the whole truth. Conspicuously religious do-gooders have always been an easy and natural target for those of us whose own standards of piety are more relaxed.

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On Page

115 / Missions and Film
Jamie S. Scott

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of the “Jesus” film, but various kinds of movies—some adapted from literature or life, some original in conception—have portrayed a variety of Christian missions and missionaries. If “Jesus” films give us different readings of the kerygmatic paradox of divine incarnation, pictures about missions and missionaries explore the entirely human question: Who is or is not the model Christian? Silent movies featured various forms of evangelism, usually Protestant. The trope of evangelism continued in big-screen and later made-for-television “talkies,” including musicals. Biographical pictures and documentaries have depicted evangelists in feature films and television productions, and recent years have seen the burgeoning of Christian cinema as a distinct genre. In a related development, various denominations make use of film in proselytizing, and missions and missionaries also figure in educational videos.

121 / Missions in Fiction
Jamie S. Scott

Biblical portraits of the apostles are as much the products of fictional imagination as of historical fact, as are such early Christian texts as the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (ca. 203) and Athanasius’s Life of Anthony (ca. 357). Later writers have reworked these ancient portrayals throughout the centuries, from hagiographies like Jacob de Voragine’s Golden Legend (ca. 1260) to contemporary novels like Walter Wangerin Jr.’s historical drama Paul (2000) and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (2003), which depicts the apostle Peter as ambitious and misogynistic. More important, though, the lives of apostles, martyrs, and saints epitomize two interlacing themes: the inner turmoil of the soul resisting apostasy and the public struggles of believers committed to spreading the Christian Gospel among nonbelievers. Though classic Christian proselytizing narratives from St. Augustine’s Confessions (398) to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1321) play variations on such themes, the rise of the novel in eighteenth-century western Europe offered the most suitable vehicle for dramatizing missionary tales of discovery and self-discovery.

126 / David A. Kerr, 1945–2008

David A. Kerr, 63, a distinguished professor in World Christianity and ecumenics, with a specialty in Christian-Muslim relations, held professorships in England, the United States, Scotland, and Sweden. In the autumn of 2005 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease), to which he succumbed on April 14, 2008.

130 Oral Theology in Lomwe Songs
Stuart J. Foster

This article reflects on the theology that has taken root among Christians in one part of Africa. It also models one method of listening to people who have a lot to say but who tend not to write down much.
Across northern Mozambique, in thatch-roofed and tin-roofed buildings, under mango trees and along the roads, Lomwe Christians sing. Usually without instruments and in groups of a half dozen to thirty or so, people gather, practice, then sing their songs. For the leaders, words are scribbled in notebooks, hand copied from one group to another, adapted freely, original author unknown. Repetition is important because most people do not have the notebooks. But repetition with variation keeps people’s attention. A song may challenge the men, then the women, the young people, the preachers, a different group in each verse, with the same theme. The music is not written down; it is memorized. Rhythms and volume are important. No one is paid; everyone is a volunteer. This is a living, local tradition.

134 History of Missiology Web Site
Dana L. Robert and Jack W. Ammerman

The History of Missiology Web site (http://digilib.bu.edu/mission) is a collaborative project of the Boston University Theology Library and the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at the Boston University School of Theology. The site provides access to classic writings in the history of Protestant mission thought, including works on mission theology, theory, and strategy. Written by cross-cultural missionaries, mission administrators, and mission promoters, these writings provide unique insight into the beginnings of Christianity in the non-Western world, the founding of indigenous churches, and early theories of comparative religion.

136 My Pilgrimage in Mission
John B. Carman

My first task as a missionary was to help Indian Christians better understand their Hindu and Muslim neighbors. This somewhat novel assignment was warmly supported by the church council that ordained me and by the mission society that sent my wife and me to India. While some Christians may find it difficult to consider that task appropriate for a missionary, I received both understanding and support from my fellow missionaries and from many other Christian friends in India and elsewhere. I believe that seeking to understand the deepest feelings and convictions of those belonging to other religious communities is implicit in Christian love of neighbor. It is also essential for those preparing to share the Gospel with “every nation and tongue.” Although a commissioned missionary for only six years, I sought to continue my special vocation during my thirty-seven years at Harvard Divinity School.

141 The Legacy of Jacob A. Loewen
Harvey G. Neufeldt

Jacob A. Loewen was a missionary, anthropologist, translator, and writer. As a young boy in a Mennonite village in the USSR, Jacob Loewen could not in his wildest dreams have imagined becoming a missionary in Colombia, a college professor in Kansas, and a translation consultant in South America and Africa. Loewen’s life was fascinatingly mercurial, considering, for example, his family’s escape from the USSR, his earning a Ph.D. degree, the remarkable education he received from native tribes in non-Western societies, and, in his later years, his confrontationally prophetic stance and consequent virtual exclusion from Mennonite Brethren (MB) churches in British Columbia. There were, however, abiding constants in Loewen’s remarkable life, mainly his deep love for the Bible and his firm conviction that the Bible needed to be accessibly translated into as many languages as possible.

144 Noteworthy

150 The Literary Legacy of Stephen Neill
Dyron B. Daughrity

Stephen Charles Neill (1900–1984) was one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers on Christian missions. His long, distinguished career can be measured by his sixty-five books and his lectures, given on every continent. He served the church in many capacities, leaving his mark nearly everywhere he went. After a stellar student career at Trinity College, Cambridge, Neill became a missionary to South India. He spent two decades there (1924–44), rising to the bishopric of the Tinnevelly diocese in 1939. In the late 1940s he served as assistant bishop to the archbishop of Canterbury, which led to a position in Geneva with the World Council of Churches (WCC) as associate general secretary. In 1952, with the support of the International Missionary Council (IMC), he embarked on a book-publishing venture, World Christian Books. In the 1960s he served as chair of ecumenics and missions at the University of Hamburg. In the early 1970s he chaired the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi. He spent his final decade at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.

156 Book Reviews

168 Book Notes