Scottish Fulfilment Theory and Friendship: Lived Religion at Edinburgh 1910

Employing the perspective of ‘lived religion’, this article examines how Scottish missionary practices influenced the 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference. Scottish intellectual and worship traditions intersected with commitment to cross-cultural relationships in the missional practices of J. N. Farquhar, Nicol Macnicol, and Annie Small. The juxtaposition of ‘fulfilment theory’ and ‘friendship’ reflected missionary openness to personal engagement with Indian religious and cultural traditions. Instead of being merely an intellectual preparation for ‘comparative religion’, Scottish fulfilment theory signalled an embodied missionary spirituality that emerged as implicit criticism of colonial hierarchies in India.

Missional postures and practices for South African Baptist churches

This article enumerates the importance of a missional posture in our Baptist cultural moment and details various issues related to the author’s definition of the concept missio Dei. Moving to contextual practices among South African Baptists, the author deals with missional practices deployed in the Baptist context from a participant observer basis. Important principles for the effective implementation of those missional practices across the evangelical denominational divide can be drawn.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article seeks to challenge the modern conception of church as attractional and presents an alternative model that aligns with the recent missional conversations by highlighting five missional practices for congregations to implement for the common good. The fields of theology, missiology and ecclesiology are impacted by this study as it uses the author’s contextual findings as participant observer.