Customer Reviews

Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion)

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Christian Mission by Dana L. Robert was an insightful book and one that was enjoyable and interesting to read. She places a special emphasis in her study upon how the gospel incarnated itself in different ways as it passed from one culture to another. She begins by using a modern illustration of how youth in the Cold War era Soviet Union got a hold of a Jesus Christ Superstar sound tract and how that sound tract opened them up to the gospel. She then goes back to the first century church and traces how the gospel became the world religion.

She begins be describing how Christianity is really the only universal world religion with it existing in every nation. She then explains why she believes this is: the adaptability of the faith. She traces how the message has been able to be faithfully presented but still "incarnated" in different cultures. This is the lens she uses to study the history of mission.

As a youth minister, I appreciated the time she took out to study the connection between youth discipleship movements and the student missionary movement of the late 19th century. I also found interesting her comparison of St. Patrick here in Ireland (where I live) and the African apostle Bernard Mizeki. She also highlights the unique contributions women have made in the cause of world mission. In fact, she devotes a whole chapter to the subject and introduced me to Annalena Tonelli, an apparently well known and important woman missionary in Africa that I was previously unaware of.

It was a good book. I learned a good deal and recommend it.

Christianity is the religion of the colonizers bent on destroying cultures and dominating people. Or so we learn from popular depictions of the history of Christianity. By analyzing the impact of such crucial forces as globalization, history, gender, conversion, and Bible translation on the worldwide expansion of Christianity, Dana Robert has provided a superb rejoinder to this stereotype. Robert's book should be compulsory reading for all who are interested in understanding the expansion of the world's largest religion.

a good mission overview for laity and clergy alike. I am a pastor and have passed the book on to my new Mission committee chairperson. Well written and weel done