Teaching Missiology in and for World Christianity: Content and Method

Abstract

The article begins with a brief definition of “World Christianity” and elaborates three theses for conceiving the relationship between missiology and theology, the understanding and practice of Christian missions, and the teaching of missiology. I argue that outside missiology there is no theology. I also reject the separation between church history and missiology, the division between the historic churches of the West and the “mission lands” of the rest, and a narrow focus of the goal of Christian missions on conversion and church-planting. Finally, I recommend a shift from “church history” to “history of Christianity.”