Listening to the marginalised voices: a postmodern reading of texts on the World Mission Conferences of the International Missionary Council (IMC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC)

Abstract

Most readings of the mission conferences under discussion in the study show the tendency to interpret the conferences in terms of an “imperial hermeneutic”. In the article the postmodern interpretive strategy of foregrounding marginal voices, is pressed into service in reading texts on the mission conferences. A survey of such marginal voices is offered on the basis of the following underlying assumption: that the voices an sich are important in opening up new avenues for reading and interpreting texts on the mission conferences. The multiplicity of voices suggests that any attempt at reducing the conferences to an essential core, will of necessity come down to an impoverishment.