Missions and Unity: Lessons from History, 1792-2010.
Marty, Martin E.
Missions and Unity: Lessons from History, 1792-2010.
By Norman E. Thomas. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2010. Pp. xxv,
321. Paperback $39.
Missions and Unity deals compactly, briskly, and accurately with
two of the major--some would say dominant-trends in world Christianity
during the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Scholars reading
it may regard it as an unalphabetical but well-indexed minidictionary or
encyclopedia of modern missions and unitive efforts. Organization of
topics is Thomas's strong suit. The first 84 pages are
straightforwardly historical, offering no surprises to those who have
any degree of familiarity with missionary activity from William Carey in
1792 to "Multiple Unity Streams" in 2010, but this account can
serve as a digest.
The meat of the book and its most imaginative section is
Thomas's treatment in "Ten Models of Unity." Again,
historians are likely to have knowledge of each of these, but they may
well be unsorted in their minds. The author makes a good case for
treating the movements as the models he discerns. Should energies go
into realizing a "Global Church" or be poured into developing
councils such as the World Council of Churches? Is there value in
valuing the various "Christian World Communions" that got
together in this period?
If not Councils or Communions, would more loose Associations serve
the cause? Is there profit in surveying regional and national voluntary
organizations or councils? What about frankly setting forth plans for
straight-out "church union"? Does the famous formula accenting
localism, the "all-in-each-place" model, have life and
promise?
The answer to the ten questions about models is: yes! Thomas is no
ideologue, and he treats the experiments, including faithful failures,
with respect. As for the present and the future, necessarily treated
after Thomas has shown how some models have become lifeless if not
obsolete, there are added agenda items that go beyond the bounds of
"Missions and Unity." The first is the ecumenical outreach to
"the secular vision," which implies an alteration in
perceptions of Christian resources, and then to "other
faiths," a hot, troubling, and in its own way promising direction.
The mere cataloging and citing of the movements and individuals
from which Thomas draws his models in compressed space is dazzling--and
useful. The author knows his limits, or the limits of his scope, and
shows it by inserting brief sections on "Pentecostalism" and
"Independency," which have been ecclesiological upstarts
through the period. Will the two upset the century-old models or enhance
them? Thomas offers a modest landmark in this period of fresh reckoning.
Martin E. Marty is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Professor
Emeritus, University of Chicago.
