Mission Theology Revisited: Keeping up with the Crises

Maryknoll, the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, holds its General Chapter, or assembly, every six years. This is a gathering of leaders and delegates, representing Maryknoll Missioners from around the world, to reflect on the affairs and concerns of the society. The General Chapter provides a prime occasion for reflecting on missional principles and reassessing priorities. In preparation for the most recent chapter, held in late 1984, Father William B. Frazier, M.M., Professor of Systematic Theology at Maryknoll School of Theology, Maryknoll, New York, prepared a painstaking and comprehensive study entitled “Mission Theology Revisited.” Although this was prepared as an “in-house” document to help fellow Maryknollers clarify their thinking about fundamental issues Maryknoll has been confronting in recent years, the society and Father Frazier have kindly agreed to share the study with the readers of the International Bulletin. Two decades ago Frazier captured the attention of missiologists when, in the aftermath of Vatican Council II, he published “Guidelines for a New Theology of Mission” (Worldmission 18, No. 4, Winter 1967–68; reprinted in Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, eds., Mission Trends No. 1 [1974]). In the current study, he analyzes the tension—and the implications far mission theory and practice—between those missioners who retain a more or less traditional focus on the evangelization of persons and those who wish to emphasize the “evangelization” of societal institutions and systemic structures. Although lengthy and at times occupied with developments particular to Maryknoll, Frazier's study, we believe, makes a major contribution toward explicating the current missiological debate and ferment. Few, if any, of today's mission agencies—Protestant or Catholic—can hope to remain aloof from the dynamics of the issues he discusses. Testimony to the seriousness of the situation and the debate is found in the reflections of three mission leaders invited by the editors to respond to Father Frazier's study. Their responses appear following Frazier's article below.