Christian missionaries, usually regarded as relics of an outgrownand mostly discredited colonialism, are still playing an active role inmany parts of the world. Their number is, in fact, increasing. In thisbook, Kenelm Burridge examines their work from a new perspective,combining anthropology with insights from history, sociology,missiology, and theology. He exposes and explicates the contradictionsand ambiguities involved in missionary endeavours and establishes atheory about theapparently inevitable processes that arise out of thenature of Christianity and the building of a Christian community.
Burridge presents the missionaries as a class of men and womendedicated to a cause which involves them and others at personal andcollective levels when faced with the particular problems ofinculturating a transcultural faith without unnecessarily affecting thelocal culture. He also acknowledges the achievements in practicalaffairs and social developments which have characterized the work ofmissionaries, in spite of their often being at odds with localgovernments and secular agents.
Discussing the difficulties of manifesting Christian love, Burridgecomments on the ambivalences that characterize the Christian systemic.He shows how missionaries, caught in the processes of Christianity,find themselves moving between God and the world, torn betweenconviction and scepticism, and between their faith and social work. Theauthor points out that this is a continuous and cyclical process whichmissionaries sometimes fail to resolve, while at other times it leadsto renewal of faith.
In the Way not only contributes to a better understandingof missionaries and the significance of their work, it also shows howcentral the missionary impulse is to Christianity, and how frequentlyit has been lost and rediscovered throughout history.
This is a work which enables one to see an important issue in a rather new light.
A seminal study in an emerging field of studies that asks the basic question of our time: is reconciliation (between Christianity and other religions, secularism and spirituality, differences of any kind) possible? And on whose terms?
The value of (Burridge's) book lies in its clear delineation of who missionaries are and what they do, and thus it is a major contribution to inculturation studies.
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Christian Contrariness
3. Aspirations and Community
4. Complexities in Community
5. Occasions and Transformations
6. Millenarisms, Secularization, and Adaptations
7. Missiology and Anthropology
8. Conclusion Abbreviations
Appendix: Brief Lives
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Figures 1. The Christian Systemic: A Schematic
2. The Missionary Process (i)
3. The Missionary Process (ii)
