The Baptist Union of South Africa’s mission orientation in need of transformation: A scrutiny by an insider’. HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies, Vol. 75(4) (Special collection: Change Agents)
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Authors
Mangayi, Lukwikilu Credo
Issue Date
2019-12-12
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Baptist Union of South Africa , Mission orientation , Change , Mission praxis , Transformation
Alternative Title
Abstract
This article aims to trigger a process of critical reflexive analysis relative to how colonial
perspectives are played out in the contemporary mission orientation of the Baptist Union of
South Africa (BUSA). It highlights the fact that the BUSA’ s mission orientation, predominantly
evangelism and church planting, is still embedded in the colonial perspectives influenced
by the thoughts of the 19th-century missiologists Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson. Hence,
the key argument of this article is that the BUSA’s mission orientation should be released
from these colonial perspectives in order to give way to the emergence of an authentic and
contextual Baptist missional agency in South Africa. A scrutiny of the BUSA reveals that it faces
threefold challenges, namely, historical, philosophical and methodological challenges. Failure
to address these challenges has (1) robbed the BUSA of imagination to measure up to
contemporary contextual issues, (2) made it predominantly otherworldly in worldview and
mainly membership-centred in focus and (3) made it embrace and practice on the ground
‘missionary activist’ and ‘conversionist’ reductionist shortcuts. To move forward, the BUSA
is called to go through continuous conversions and reflexive process as a prerequisite for a deep
transformation experience. This article concludes by contributing three solutions, namely,
generating new mission insights befitting the South African context should involve the collective,
avoid missionary reductionist shortcuts by opting for an integrated and holistic mission praxis
and embrace participatory action research as a way forward for BUSA’s mission agenda.
Description
Citation
Mangayi, L.C., 2019, ‘The Baptist Union of South Africa’s mission orientation needs transformation: A scrutiny by an insider’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 75(4), a5551. https://doi.org/ 10.4102/hts.v75i4.5551
Publisher
AOSIS
License
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
2072-8050