When we consider the missionary task, one potential danger (which happened so often during the colonial days and still happens in some areas today) is that the recipients of the gospel elevate the missionary, the missionary’s culture, or even the missionary’s theology to an exalted status. Because the missionary is often sent from a place where the church has existed for a longer time, the church in that location will have had longer to train pastors, develop seminaries, and write theologically oriented books. The easiest path for the missionary to train pastors in these situations is to say, ‘Here is what we have decided is correct theology.’
Is not teaching in this way okay, though? In some sense, yes. From a positive perspective, missionary theological educators who do so are simply passing on what the historical church has affirmed to be orthodox theology. This helps church leaders in this new context to understand and relate to the legacy entrusted to them by a ‘previous’ generation. At the same time, though, a danger exists where teachers set the standard for this new generation of church leaders that this is the only appropriate way to think. This danger exists for both informal programs that may be content heavy and formal programs that are more academic and primarily build upon Western material.
The danger may be especially real in places where missionaries are providing theological education at formal institutions. A greater power distance exists in such locations where students accord respect to teachers in such a manner that they are rarely questions. Similarly, in an honor-shame culture, students will likewise not ask questions since doing so would cause the teacher to lose face. It is as if the student is saying, ‘I need to ask this question since you didn’t explain the content claerly enough.’
-Will Brooks, “Allowing a Theology of Mission to Shape Theological Education,” in Equipping for Global Mission: Theological and Missiolocal Proposals and Case Studies. Eds. Linda P Saunders, Gregory Mathias, Edward L. Smithers. (William Carey Publishing, 2024), 76.
