The Predicament of Place: Lesslie Newbigin and a Missionary Theology of Place

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of place in the theology and practice of Christian mission with special reference to the life and thought of missionary bishop Lesslie Newbigin. The study addresses the conspicuous absence of a missionary perspective within the burgeoning literature on religion and place and its corresponding neglect in mission studies. What difference does a commitment to place make for the church’s witness in late modernity? Placing theology in conversation with geography, I argue that a missionary commitment to place strengthens the church’s witness by resisting modern distortions of Christian mission and forming a critical element in the church’s response to late Western culture. The argument develops in three broad steps: description, construction, and demonstration. The first step describes how traditional bonds between people and place in early Christianity grew weaker over time as impersonal global forces grew stronger. A survey of the ambiguous history of place within Christian mission further confirms the collapse of such commitments, which Newbigin interpreted as an urgent missiological challenge. Next, the second step responds to this collapse by constructing a missionary theology of place that enables the church to recover a commitment to place that is constitutive of her mission rather than in opposition to it. This involves a classical reconstruction of the missio Dei, which provides the framework for a trinitarian account of place as sacred creation, sacred journey, and sacred construction. Finally, the third step demonstrates the potential of a missionary commitment to place to strengthen the church’s witness in the context of Newbigin’s own life and thought. Informed by his distinguished missionary career in South India, Newbigin established an international research program on the relationship between the gospel and Western culture, which featured a congregational commitment to place.