ASM Report: Doing Contextual Mission in Africa & Latin America
This year’s American Society of Missiology Conference on the theme of “Contextualization in the Contemporary World” took place at the University of Northwestern—St. Paul in St. Paul, Minnesota. The thirteen possible tracks, which reflected the anthropological interests of ASM President Dr. Robert Priest, included a symposium on Third Wave Mission, a panel on witch accusations, “Worship and the Arts” (ethnodoxology), a panel on contributions from the Global South, “New Faces of Mission in the 21st Century, and a sponsored track on African leadership. Representing BU were Lisa White as well as Christopher James, Ruth Padilla-DeBorst, and Michèle Miller Sigg who all three presented papers. Ruth Padilla-DeBorst presented a paper entitled “Doing Theology for Life: Radical Evangelical Theological Formation for Integral Mission in Latin America.” Michèle Miller Sigg’s paper entitled “Until Lions Start Writing their Own History: The Challenge of Contextualizing the Research, Writing, and Teaching of African Christian History” was part of the Emerging Ideas and Practices track, facilitated by Padilla-DeBorst.
In the absence of Dr. Dana Robert, student associate Michèle Miller Sigg was invited to attend the African Leadership Study consultation that took place immediately following the ASM. The ALS is a study project led by Bob Priest that started in August 2012 and is funded by Tyndale House Foundation. Between 2012 and 2013, faculty members and graduate students in Africa collected data from over 8,000 Christians from Kenya, Angola, and Central African Republic in an effort to identify influential African leaders and organizations. Some of the outstanding leaders were then interviewed in a follow up phase. The papers presented at the ALS consultation used data from this study to examine various aspects of the influence of these African leaders. The papers will eventually be published in an edited volume.
By Michèle Sigg