Church History and the World Christian Movement

This blog highlights books from Ralph Winter’s Library and compares excerpts to Winter’s own writings on one or more of the themes from his list of twelve “Frontiers of Perspective.” (See the full list at the end of this blog.)

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(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

Ralph Winter taught mission history at Fuller Theological Seminary and built his historical perspectives into the curriculum of the World Christian Foundations study program. <www.worldchristianfoundations.org>

Irvin Dale T. and Scott W. Sunquist. 2006. History of the world Christian movement, Volume I: Earliest Christianity to 1453. Maryknoll: Orbis.

Co-author Scott Sunquist is the newly appointed Dean of Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies, where Paul Pierson was also Dean when it was called the School of World Mission. Pierson wrote a book that the World Christian Foundations curriculum continues to use, that followed the basic outline of Ralph Winter’s approach to history. Winter helped Pierson edit Pierson’s book, published by WCIU Press and available through William Carey Library: http://missionbooks.org/williamcareylibrary/product.php?productid=628&cat=72&page=1

Sunquist and Irvin include chapters in each early historical era on the development of the Church in the East, Africa, and India. Because they are writing a multi-volume coverage of Christian history, they are able to spend more time than Winter and Pierson devoted to non-Western streams of the faith. I’d like to have someone compare these various books and make a recommendation for the World Christian Foundations curriculum future revisions.

Ralph Winter’s 12 “Frontiers of Perspective” represent major shifts in his thinking that “profoundly modified and molded his perception of the mission task”:

(1) Unreached Peoples

(2) The Great Commission and Abraham

(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task

(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”

(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition

(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom

(7) Beyond Christianity

(8) A Different Type of Recruitment

(9) A Trojan Horse

(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training

(11) The Religion of Science

(12) The Challenge of the Evil One