Perceptions of Juche ideology by expats in North Korea: A qualitative study

The central research question of this qualitative study was: What are expatriate perceptions of North Korean (Juche) ideology? Other studies on Juche have examined Juche from religious, political, or missiological lenses. However, few qualitative studies have been done on this subject. While it is nearly impossible to conduct research with North Koreans living in North Korea, this study collected data from nine expatriates who had lived in North Korea around the time of the interviews. From the data, two major categories emerged: the foundational influences and function of Juche. The results indicate that the participants perceive Juche to be influenced by Korean culture, nationalism, and humanism, while the participants understand the function of Juche as a system of control, a religion, and an ideology.

Bridging or breaking: An ethic of communication for missional engagement

Global workers must work toward an appropriate ethic of communication both corporately and personally to effectively engage all recipients of the gospel. Further, an ethic of communication for missional engagement must be biblically faithful and culturally appropriate in order to create ‘bridging encounters’ with potential recipients of the gospel (Kraft and Gilliland, 2005: 53). ‘Bridging encounters’ consist of communicative pathways that build common ground for engagement regardless of the level of agreement; they demonstrate cultural consideration, engagement, and respect of participants’ ideas, which works well in a postmodern age that values conversation. Since the 1920s, missiological characterization has provided a rhetoric of the ‘unsaved’, ‘unincorporated’, and ‘unreached’1 when describing people groups. This rhetoric of ‘un-’ may unintentionally cause breaking encounters instead of bridging encounters. Designating people groups as ‘in’ or ‘out’ can create a sense of ‘othering’ between global workers and recipients of the gospel. The consequent psychological friction proves detrimental to creating personal bridging encounters where individuals communicate the gospel in a more fluid manner (Bhargava and Manoli, 2015).

Revisiting the person of peace: A response to A. Matthews

Luke 10:1–16 records Jesus sending a group of 70 (in some texts 72) disciples to proclaim the kingdom. If an open-hearted “child of peace” welcomed them, the messengers were to stay with them, blessing and evangelizing them and their household. Since the 1960s, proponents of the “person of peace strategy” have derived from this text a methodology for contemporary disciple-making. Matthews, writing in this journal, critiques the strategy as a hermeneutically weak misreading of the text, which hijacks instructions intended only for the original hearers, and uncritically applies them today. Matthews does accept that Luke 10 contains principles relevant to contemporary mission, but for reasons of space he declines to say what these principles may be. I attempt to identify these principles through a missional reading approach and ask how Luke 10 forms communities for mission then and now. I conclude that its prime purpose is to form Christians to be interdependent messengers of profound peace, who seek out interdependent children of hospitable peace. I then apply these insights to our current missiological moment. Finally, in light of this discussion I assess the specific “person of peace strategy” itself. While I offer some criticisms, I find more to appreciate about the strategy than Matthews does.

What led Asian American Buddhist background believers in Hawaii to become Christian: A grounded theory study

The question asked of this grounded theory study was what are the perceived reasons Asian American Buddhist background believers in Hawaii converted to evangelical Christianity? The following factors were perceived as reasons for participants converting to Christianity: an exposure to Christianity, a crisis, a quest or search, and a divine connection—either emotional or miraculous. Studies on transformation or conversion have found a similar pattern (Mezirow, 1991; Rambo, 1993; Tippett, 1992; Ullman, 1989). However, more recent studies have identified an emotional or even supernatural component to conversion that needs to be explored further (Hilderbrand, 2016, 2020, 2021; Iyadurai, 2015; Snook et al., 2018). The outcome of conversion was expressed as a feeling of peace, joy and happiness.

Experiencing recent missionary evacuations: Traumatic stress and loss as social networks break down

Although missionary evacuations have occurred since the beginning of missions, little research has explored modern missionary evacuations. In this qualitative study, the author analyzes the experiences of four missionaries who made unplanned departures from their Asian host country in 2018. Although each study participant had different demographic characteristics and their story was unique, common elements of the evacuation experience were shared: growing uneasiness, mounting stress, the decision to evacuate, a sudden exit, and waves of transition. The most traumatic aspect throughout the experience was the severe disruption of their relationships. Factors contributing to the breakdown of social networks included surveillance and scrutiny, searches and interrogations, contact tracing, the compromising of digital communication channels, and the final exit. The traumatic effects of the breakdown of social networks highlight the critical importance of relationships in the life and work of missionaries, particularly during crises. Understanding how evacuations are experienced enables the wider Church—which is preparing, sending out, and receiving missionaries back—to better care for its missionaries and contribute to their restoration and healing from trauma.

My father was a wandering Aramean: Toward a missiological understanding of hybridity in the Abrahamic narrative

The person of Abraham embodies the tension of living in-between. In studying the life of Abraham, the focus is often on the theological importance of the patriarch’s missional role as a vehicle of blessing to the nations as expressed in Genesis 12:1–3. In recent years, however, the missiological significance of who Abraham was has begun to emerge. Imbedded in the very identity of Abraham is this sense of hybridity; of multiple belonging; cultural identities wedded together; of the fusion that takes place when you are in-between people groups, languages, and lands. In the case of Abraham, this hybrid identity is magnified as the patriarch leaves his Mesopotamian birthplace and travels to a new land that never fully becomes his own. Throughout the rest of his life, Abraham remains a “wandering Aramean” and a foreigner until his death. As God’s missional blessing through Abraham is fulfilled in Scripture, Abraham’s hybrid identity also embodies God’s missional heart to the nations. In this article, I highlight how the hybridity embedded in Abraham’s person provides insight into contemporary mission theory and praxis.

Not whole without us: Including people with disabilities in our understanding of the church, the gospel, and the world

The Lausanne Movement famously organizes Evangelicals around the need for “the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.” Years of reflection on what this means has led the movement to make more and more explicit statements about who is included in mission, what that mission looks like, and whom that mission is directed toward. In its most recent statement, the Cape Town Commitment expressly calls for us to “think not only of mission among those with a disability but to recognize, affirm and facilitate the missional calling of believers with disabilities themselves as part of the Body of Christ.” This is the first time that people with disabilities are explicitly included in this evangelical conversation and yet, though it has been over 10 years since Cape Town, scholarship on what this means in terms of theology, ecclesiology, and missiology remains underdeveloped. This article explains why disability must be part of our understanding of whole church, whole gospel, and whole world, and will suggest that when it is, we will change the ways in which we talk about and do mission.