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The European Commission’s Mission to “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030” (Mission Ocean & Waters) is, at the most superficial level, an overarching policy framework with the primary aim of improving the health of European ocean, sea, and freshwater ecosystems. However, its use of the Mission framing and emphasis on fostering social, political, and economic transformations through its activities makes it a much more holistic and ambitious undertaking. This article explores challenges and opportunities that arise with the emphasis placed on increasing citizen participation in Mission Ocean & Waters, in the context of “Post-Normal Science” (Funtowicz & Ravetz Funtowicz and Ravetz, Krimsky and Golding (eds), Social Theories of Risk, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1992). We begin with a description of Mission Ocean & Waters, discussing its citizen engagement ambitions through the lens of Post-Normal Science, before describing the research methods used by the Horizon Europe project Preparing the Research and Innovation Core for Mission Oceans, Seas, & Waters (PREP4BLUE). We then present our results, highlighting four citizen engagement-based challenges that the Mission faces, and how PREP4BLUE has engaged with them. Finally, we discuss the future activities or structural changes that will be required if the Mission’s citizen engagement targets are to be achieved and for citizens to become core actors in protecting European aquatic ecosystems and developing a sustainable blue economy. These insights should prove useful to those developing and delivering Mission projects and those researching citizen participation in ocean and freshwater related challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial chemical producers and formulators are increasingly conscious of their responsibility in stewarding planetary resources and minimizing harm to the environment. In 2019, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) engaged an industry task force from across the value chain to drive technical research to classify a new class of polymer—polymers in liquid formulation (PLFs). Building on this, the task force called for step change in sustainability practices for PLFs and instigated a design and development process to identify research themes and priorities that could accelerate innovation in this area. However, a key challenge was that as a novel classification, PLFs were largely unknown outside the chemistry community and entirely absent from the mainstream research agenda. To establish the demand-pull requirements of the value chain for sustainable PLFs, the RSC used a 'mission-oriented' innovation framework to enable the taskforce to co-design an ideal-type portfolio of research and innovation projects, and to set out a realistic roadmap for transition. This perspective article presents a summary of the activities carried out by the task force in its pursuit of mission-oriented innovation for PLFs and describes the strategic design method used to enable cross-value chain consensus on action for PLF sustainability, build system-wide innovation ecosystems and explore common-good scenarios. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Green carbon for the chemical industry of the future'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian slaveholding should not be forgotten or minimized, nor should its mythologies go unchallenged or uncritiqued. This article surveys some of the leading Southern Baptist women slaveholders and mythologizers before and after the U.S. Civil War. It examines sources of SBC hagiography about the Convention foremothers and their persistent apologia for slaveholding. In particular, it discusses how female mythologizers in the antebellum and postbellum eras linked slaveholding, evangelism, and mission identity. It demonstrates how postbellum Southern Baptist women chose to view women slaveholders as moral exemplars for their current missions. It concludes that understanding the myth-making by and about women slaveholders in Southern Baptist patriarchal society is instructive for understanding this group of American Evangelical Protestants in Christian history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State sanctioned removal of Australian Aboriginal children from family, culture, and country has had harmful and traumatic effects on the Survivors of this process and their children. Known as the Stolen Generations, children were detained in government settlements and church missions and stripped of Aboriginality. This article explores ways that a virtual reality reconstruction of mission environments may be implemented to memorialise and commemorate Survivor experience that avoid narratives of victimhood and destructive post-colonial overlays on their stories of survival. Our project is to develop a virtual reality model of Carrolup-Marribank Mission in Western Australia as a living digital memorial for use by Survivors and their families to help address their displacement and loss of culture and identity. This article shows how virtual reality may be a potent didactic tool to convey difficult histories as well as a purveyor of powerful stories that contest stereotyped perceptions of Aboriginal people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous archaeological investigations at Mission La Purísima Concepción unearthed a concentration of glass and ceramic vessels under a floor within a room in adobe barracks where Chumash families resided. Early interpretations suggested a person of European ancestry lived there; however, we argue they were Indigenous to California. We propose that the individuals who lived in the room had achieved a different axis of social distinction, holding prominent positions within the mission's social hierarchy. Drawing on ethnohistoric accounts, the occupants were either the family of a Native alcalde (governor) or another influential couple who figured prominently in mission records listed as a padrino (godfather), madrina (godmother), testigo (witness), intérprete (interpreter), or enfermero (nurse). Moreover, we demonstrate that the glass and ceramic vessels represent a unique caching event during the Mexican period when Native officials lacked the means to reform the missions or have a stake in their survival. These data are crucial to understanding the enormous diversity that formed the fabric of Indigenous communities in California missions and Indigenous autonomy over successive waves of colonialism. Such re-examination of museum collections is essential in a field with a growing curation crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Commission is an important concept of missiological training and life wire of Christianity. This article is a critical review and reflection over the understanding and importance of this concept from the Old Testament background through the New Testament and its application to missiological training in the modern era. The article shows that the Great Commission is the singular theme that ran throughout the Scripture from the call of Abraham to the ascension of Jesus Christ and the mandate the Church is called to fulfil until the second coming of Christ. Missiological training, which is a mean to prepare labourers for missionary task of the Church, cannot be effective without a strong focus on the Great Commission mandate. Being the core of missionary task of the Church, the Great Commission should become the focus of all missiological training and dominant theme in the curriculum for the training of missionaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Renaissance Woman" is a colloquial expression for someone who excels above and beyond normal in a wide variety of tasks, and Rev. Dr. Muriel Spurgeon Carder (1922–2023) deserves that title, for she was an ordained Canadian Baptist missionary who worked in churches, schools, and hospitals in India and Canada, as well as served as a professor, New Testament scholar, Bible translator (into Telegu), and hospital chaplain. She also published academic articles on textual issues related to New Testament manuscripts, on a biblical theology of sin, as well as on issues surrounding physical and mental challenges. Her personal accomplishments are striking among Baptists in India but also her Canadian denomination, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec (BCOQ). Carder recently passed away at the age of 100, and this research is an introduction to her life and legacy. There is much more to be explored regarding Carder, and my hope is that this brief article provides some impetus for more detailed and comprehensive research on such an iconic figure in the BCOQ. That said, this article does more than merely provide a summary of her life and legacy. It also aims at using the experience of Carder to explore some common assumptions about Canadian women in ministry, identifying when she reinforces some and undermines others. In other words, the example of Carder complexifies what can be assumed about the experience of women in the church and warns against universal generalizations surrounding their experience. In 2008, the denomination changed its name to Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ), and for the sake of simplicity and clarity, CBOQ will be used throughout this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La orden franciscana en Nueva España publicó libros para las prácticas misioneras en los siglos XVII y XVIII que incluían mensajes moralizantes dirigidos tanto a los indígenas de habla hispana como a los católicos españoles. Incluían letras de varias canciones penitenciales, así como versos llamados saetas. Las canciones abreviaban los mensajes predicados por los frailes que iban de pueblo en pueblo cantando estas canciones y predicando sermones que llamaban a la gente a confesar sus pecados. Este artículo ofrece una primera transcripción y análisis de estas canciones, hasta ahora no estudiadas, sosteniendo que son esencial para el proceso misionero y sacramental a través de su vocalización y vocalidad.

This article has focused on presenting and analyzing the life and missionary work of William Carey. For this reason, the main events of his life were considered, such as his upbringing, childhood and youth, conversion, preparation for the missionary work and the missionary work itself, with special emphasis on the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society and the principles and strategies developed and used by William Carey to spread the gospel in India. In addition, the results and fruits achieved by Carey through his work were also presented, with emphasis on the social reforms he promoted in the areas of education and human rights. For the preparation and development of this article, books about the historical progress of Christian missions, biographical records on William Carey and the Enquiry he wrote were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mars missions and Martian meteorites revealed how complex the Martian crust is. The occurrence of both alkaline and sub-alkaline igneous rocks of Noachian age (>3.7 Ga) in Gale crater indicates diverse magmatic processes, with sub-alkaline rocks likely formed through the partial melting of hydrous mafic rocks, as commonly observed on Earth. The orbital discovery of excavated evolved igneous rocks scattered in Noachian terrains raise questions about the petrology of the ancient Martian crust, long thought to be basaltic. A possibly evolved crust beneath a mafic cover is supported by geophysical and seismic measurements from the Insight lander that indicate the bulk crust has a lower density than expected if it were homogeneously basaltic. If localized magmatic processes could form evolved terrains, the detection of abundant intermediate to felsic Noachian crustal exposures through remote sensing suggest regional- to global-scale processes that produced evolved crustal component(s) that are now buried below mafic materials. Due to the lack of centimetric to millimetric textural imaging and compositional measurements, the petrology of such crust is ambiguous. Future orbiter, rover, and aerial missions should focus on Noachian exposed regions exhibiting evolved crustal characteristics to unfold the petrology of the Martian crust and its formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This historiographical study examines the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing from 1715 to 1956, revealing its historical impact on Christianity in China and Sino–Russian cultural exchanges. The research explores how the Mission functioned not only as a religious entity but also influenced diplomatic ties and scholarly pursuits, as documented in both Chinese and Russian historiographies. This study utilizes contemporary sources, exploring Chinese narratives to re-evaluate historical perspectives, and portrays the Mission as a critical mediator in Sino–Russian relations. An examination of the historical context shows that the Mission has undergone a transformation over time. It has evolved from an influential ecclesiastical presence to a cultural and diplomatic agency unobtrusively entered into Chinese society. From the mid-18th to the early 20th century, the Mission adapted to the local environment by combining the transmission of religious doctrine with engagement in China's political and cultural contexts. The article proposes a holistic interpretation of the Mission's function, encompassing not only evangelism but also diplomatic engagements, and adding to the multifaceted discourse within Chinese cultural heritage. In summary, the article recommends exploring the enduring impact and historical complexities of the Russian Orthodox Mission as it is grounded in a broader framework of global movements. The research suggests that it may be beneficial to broaden the scope of historiographic narratives to encompass a diverse range of interdisciplinary studies that reflect the complexity of the Mission's enduring impact and its role in shaping a shared global history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article applies selected aspects of Depesh Chakrabarty's concept of "Provincializing Europe" to the discourse of world Christianity studies. It argues that colonial-era mission scholars constructed a grand narrative of a united Christian Europe to justify European missions to the rest of the world. Contemporary postcolonial efforts to de-center Europe now contrast a vitiated European Christianity with a vibrant nonwestern Christianity that is required to re-evangelize Europe. Paradoxically, the trope of a formerly Christian Europe merges with a caricature of its numerical failure to make European Christianity the permanent foil for world Christianity studies. The article urges that European Christianity be studied in its diverse contexts, that the distinction between migrant and missionary be queried, and that European Christianity be considered essential to world Christianity studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, many Asian churches continue to depend on translated Western congregational songs in their public Christian worship. This essay investigates the historical development of localized Asian Congregational Songs describing how this development in worship music-making was influenced by the reorientation in missiological thinking in the early twentieth century that bore fruit in the 1960s as churches in the Global South became autonomous. Thereafter demonstrate how this genre of congregational songs, guided by theological hermeneutical principles, can offer a viable pathway for contextually determined Asian Christian identity in the twenty-first century through the postcolonial hybrid congregational song form—a genre that holds in balance the original cultural identity of the song and the adaptability of the genre to navigate cultural boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the placement and displacement of Nahua labor in the architectural history of Mexico's early colonial monasteries. It takes as its point of departure the story of a ghost in the Tlaxcala monastery as told by a Franciscan missionary to analyze the discursive and spatial dimensions of emergent racial ideologies in Mexico's earliest Catholic missions. While the ghost's appearance signals the eruption of unresolved tensions between the missionaries and the Tlaxcalans in a cohabited religious complex, the specter also animates settler colonial domination. Cross-referencing Nahuatl and Franciscan documents reveal the ghost story as a whitewashed tale of monastic ritual life wherein the ghost effaces Indigenous labor at precisely the moments and places missionaries deemed it most threatening. In so doing, this study illuminates how racial ideologies were structured discursively and experientially at the missions and contributes to urgent debates about how the history and preservation of Catholic architecture in Mexico conceals and represses the lived experience of Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The joint European Space Agency and Chinese Academy of Sciences Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission will explore global dynamics of the magnetosphere under varying solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field conditions, and simultaneously monitor the auroral response of the Northern Hemisphere ionosphere. Combining these large-scale responses with medium and fine-scale measurements at a variety of cadences by additional ground-based and space-based instruments will enable a much greater scientific impact beyond the original goals of the SMILE mission. Here, we describe current community efforts to prepare for SMILE, and the benefits and context various experiments that have explicitly expressed support for SMILE can offer. A dedicated group of international scientists representing many different experiment types and geographical locations, the Ground-based and Additional Science Working Group, is facilitating these efforts. Preparations include constructing an online SMILE Data Fusion Facility, the discussion of particular or special modes for experiments such as coherent and incoherent scatter radar, and the consideration of particular observing strategies and spacecraft conjunctions. We anticipate growing interest and community engagement with the SMILE mission, and we welcome novel ideas and insights from the solar-terrestrial community.

From the beginning of European overseas expansion in the fifteenth century, religious missions occupied an important place in the internal organisation of colonial empires. Their contribution to the ideological structuring of imperialism and the interaction with local populations is undeniable. With the emergence of the new imperialism and the scramble for Africa (after the 1870s), the missions, often anticipating the colonial political and administrative presence, enhanced their role as advocates of Europe's "civilising mission", above all through the education of the colonised peoples. For Portuguese decision-makers, the religious missions, with a multi-century tradition, had an important role in defending territorial claims overseas and promoting the empire's nationalisation. However, the lack of national missionaries, Christianity's inter-confessional competition in the nineteenth century and the emergence of international legal rules protecting missionary activities hindered Portugal's strategies. Using sources from several archives (in Lisbon, the Vatican, and elsewhere) to emphasise the role of a transnational missionary staff and the international law of missions, this text intersects these aspects, examining their convergence in the controversial case of the exit and replacement of Jesuit missionaries in Mozambique in 1910–1911, to demonstrate the need to look at the missionary issues in the Portuguese overseas domains from perspectives that go beyond nation and empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of July 1919, members of the American, Continental, and British Provinces of the Moravian Church came together for the first time in five years to discuss the state of the church's missions after the end of World War I. The preceding years had resulted in problems in terms of finances, administration, and labor as well as put into question the future of many mission fields. Nationalistic tensions ran high between members of the church, and there was a real concern that the worldwide Moravian Unity would be dissolved. That it did not was in part due to the sustained efforts of many members of the administrative bodies of the church who discussed how to resolve these tensions in various internal, international, and ecumenical settings. Through examining the reports from various missionary conferences in the aftermath of World War I, this article postulates that the structure of the Moravian Church allowed for the reconfiguration of the mission stations to fulfill external political, economic, and social expectations. The structure, however, also limited the work of the Continental Province of the church and created artificial distance between the Provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late seventeenth century the Spanish colonial administration began to issue decrees that sought to implement the familiar colonial policies of entrada, reducción, and misión within an unconquered region of the Province of Honduras called by the Spanish Leán y Mulia. After a few short-lived settlements in the early part of the eighteenth century, a new wave of Franciscans began attempts to convert the Xicaque of Leán y Mulia in 1747–54. In 1751 the onset of a smallpox epidemic at the Franciscan misiones became the watershed event that defined subsequent interaction between the Spanish and the Xicaque and, because of this, defined Spanish policy within the region of Leán y Mulia. A fear of contracting the disease would subsequently linger in the memory of the Xicaque at the misiones and in Leán y Mulia. This dread of disease and sickness predetermined subsequent social relationships between the Xicaque and the Spanish settlers who sought their indoctrination and acculturation in subsequent decades of the eighteenth and nineteenth century with no success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partnership in Christian missions is of great importance because of its necessity for the effectiveness of all missions engagements. Partnership in missions has a biblical basis, and it is theologically correct. The concept of Missio Dei demonstrates the Triune God as the owner of Christian missions. Likewise, as a body of Christ, the church must work together to achieve God's purpose. The church can utilise each member's gifts and virtues through partnership to glorify God. Christian missions will not be tedious with practical knowledge of partnership in missions. This paper provided vital information related to partnerships in the Nigerian Baptist Convention missions. A partnership creates an avenue for effective and holistic missions. The researcher used the descriptive research method and discovered that some challenges, such as misunderstanding, selfishness, miss-appropriateness of resources and information gap, are sometimes part of the partnership. Contribution: Apart from the challenges, partnership in missions has many prospects amid technological advancement and globalisation if the appropriate partnership models, credible partnership principles and accurate theological perspectives are inculcated. This will result in more converts, planting churches, making disciples and raising more Christian leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reformed Protestants in the Netherlands looked for the hand of God at work in the lives of people and in the world around them. As Calvinist ministers in the employ of the VOC embarked on overseas missions in the seventeenth century, they gained unprecedented opportunities for discerning divine providence in action. On the mission field in the East Indies, Formosa, and later in Ceylon, South Asia, and the Cape of Good Hope, ministers reflected anew on how to read the workings of God in humanity and in nature. This study seeks to illustrate the epistemological problems that gripped Calvinists in overseas missionary settings. Careful reading of Dutch Calvinist sources reveals the ways in which ministers overseas and in the Netherlands employed the body and the landscape to construct narratives of conversion and reprobation. These narratives masked complex religious interactions that informed and intersected Calvinist expectations of non-Christian peoples and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the later seventeenth century, Protestant missions in English America were surrounded by controversy. Missionaries working with Amerindians and enslaved Africans were accused of threatening the stability of overseas dominions. Crown officials were alleged to have impeded evangelism, and colluded in a culture of colonial godlessness. In modern scholarship, these conflicts have been located within a context of long-term tension between "religion" and "empire." This article suggests that they were rooted in the transatlantic divisions within English Protestantism, and in political conditions peculiar to the 1660 Restoration. Colonial missions developed competitively and acrimoniously, when the Church of England vied against Protestant rivals in America, and when ecclesiastical policy in England remained unsettled. Battles for converts between Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists stirred disputes over the management of England's multi-confessional dominions. Simultaneously, they raised questions over how a colonizing kingdom could export the reformed religion, when its own confessional environment was severely divided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the "mission" of the journal Social Sciences and Missions as it approaches its twentieth anniversary, starting from its origins as a forum for interdisciplinary study of colonial-era Christian missions, especially in Africa. It surveys major debates that the journal has followed regarding gender, migration, and more. It reflects on its revised manifesto of 2021, committing to the study of missions as neither a "theological category" nor exclusively Christian phenomenon "but rather [as] a type of social action" and mode of "religious intervention in social space." Building on this history, this article argues, the journal should critically question the nature of religion and the "religious;" cover non-Christian topics more fully; and encompass organizations that may not be recognizably "faith based." Broader comparative focus will sharpen the journal's focus on missions as movements that have aimed to channel and promote social change, often with far-reaching and ambiguous consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article suggests a paradigm for a biblical theology of missions in Africa. The research was prompted by the observation that previous theological designs and models have laid emphasis on effectiveness and issues of identity. Then too, Africa is marked by a renaissance of African Traditional Religion, pandemics, and societal problems. The paper hypothesizes that African theologians are better positioned to articulate a biblical theology of missions that addresses the continent’s contemporary realities. The methodology combines soteriology and symbolism. The findings indicate that an African theology of missions is anchored on indigenized theology, functional Christology, and relational Christology. These results illustrate the need to engage biblical authority, theology, and anthropology for a missional theology in Africa. The present research may be situated within the current commitment of African scholars to develop contextual theologies for the Global South.

Christian slaveholding should not be forgotten or minimized, nor should its mythologies go unchallenged or uncritiqued. This article surveys some of the leading Southern Baptist women slaveholders and mythologizers before and after the U.S. Civil War. It examines sources of SBC hagiography about the Convention foremothers and their persistent apologia for slaveholding. In particular, it discusses how female mythologizers in the antebellum and postbellum eras linked slaveholding, evangelism, and mission identity. It demonstrates how postbellum Southern Baptist women chose to view women slaveholders as moral exemplars for their current missions. It concludes that understanding the myth-making by and about women slaveholders in Southern Baptist patriarchal society is instructive for understanding this group of American Evangelical Protestants in Christian history.

“Renaissance Woman” is a colloquial expression for someone who excels above and beyond normal in a wide variety of tasks, and Rev. Dr. Muriel Spurgeon Carder (1922–2023) deserves that title, for she was an ordained Canadian Baptist missionary who worked in churches, schools, and hospitals in India and Canada, as well as served as a professor, New Testament scholar, Bible translator (into Telegu), and hospital chaplain. She also published academic articles on textual issues related to New Testament manuscripts, on a biblical theology of sin, as well as on issues surrounding physical and mental challenges. Her personal accomplishments are striking among Baptists in India but also her Canadian denomination, the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec (BCOQ). Carder recently passed away at the age of 100, and this research is an introduction to her life and legacy. There is much more to be explored regarding Carder, and my hope is that this brief article provides some impetus for more detailed and comprehensive research on such an iconic figure in the BCOQ. That said, this article does more than merely provide a summary of her life and legacy. It also aims at using the experience of Carder to explore some common assumptions about Canadian women in ministry, identifying when she reinforces some and undermines others. In other words, the example of Carder complexifies what can be assumed about the experience of women in the church and warns against universal generalizations surrounding their experience. In 2008, the denomination changed its name to Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec (CBOQ), and for the sake of simplicity and clarity, CBOQ will be used throughout this article.

Partnership in Christian missions is of great importance because of its necessity for the effectiveness of all missions engagements. Partnership in missions has a biblical basis, and it is theologically correct. The concept of Missio Dei demonstrates the Triune God as the owner of Christian missions. Likewise, as a body of Christ, the church must work together to achieve God’s purpose. The church can utilise each member’s gifts and virtues through partnership to glorify God. Christian missions will not be tedious with practical knowledge of partnership in missions. This paper provided vital information related to partnerships in the Nigerian Baptist Convention missions. A partnership creates an avenue for effective and holistic missions. The researcher used the descriptive research method and discovered that some challenges, such as misunderstanding, selfishness, miss-appropriateness of resources and information gap, are sometimes part of the partnership. Contribution: Apart from the challenges, partnership in missions has many prospects amid technological advancement and globalisation if the appropriate partnership models, credible partnership principles and accurate theological perspectives are inculcated. This will result in more converts, planting churches, making disciples and raising more Christian leaders.

This research explores the intricate topic of the relationship between the sending church and the missionary, its complexities, inherent benefits, and exemplary methodologies for building a relationship that is not only healthy, but also fruitful. The main scope of this research lies in the in-depth discernment of how this partnership can be optimized, therefore increasing the effectiveness of the missionary endeavor and the achievement of the Great Commission. Numerous challenges emerge in this connection, highlighting cultural disparities, discrepancies in expectations and communication that, at times, proves to be inept. Furthermore, pecuniary issues and the missionary's maintenance can have an adverse impact on the recommended relationship. In contrast, the dividends of symbiotic coexistence are notable through collaborative synergy and mutual support. The sending church and the missionary, through this coalescence, can achieve unique effectiveness in carrying out missionary work, culminating in a more prominent impression on local communities. Exemplary practices encompass participatory governance on the part of the issuing church, enhancing the perspectives and needs of the missionary, thus fostering an environment permeated by trust and mutual respect. In this way, the present study aims to contribute to a critical analysis and improvement of missionary practice, aspiring to greater harmonization and cooperation between the issuing church and the missionary, with the aim of, at the same time, fulfilling the imperative of disseminating the saving and loving message of Christ for all nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the economic rationale for the provision of technical and vocational education (TVE) in the Colonial Ghana. It highlights some key lessons drawn from the study, particularly in term of the Ghanaian contemporary search for a more pragmatic policy formulation for TVE. Data were retrieved from primary sources in the form of archival materials and some secondary sources, as well some interview sessions with two personalities who were actively involved in the provision of TVE during the period. Chronological and thematic analysis of the data was utilised. The study revealed that the missionary bodies and the colonial administration promoted TVE largely because of economic reasons. It further argues that this level of vigour could unfortunately not keep pace with the developmental needs of the country due mainly to factors such as negative perception towards TVE, the failure of successive governments to provide the requisite infrastructure and equipment for the steady promotion of TVE, lack of entrepreneurial training for graduates of the TVE institutions and virtual non-existence of local industries to absorb these graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1958 to 1965, J. E. Lesslie Newbigin worked for the International Missionary Council and then the World Council of Churches, specifically leading the integration of the organizations. Newbigin had a profound impact on the importance and role of mission within the ecumenical movement during the early transition of decolonialism around the globe. This article will reflect upon the history, contribution, and legacy of Newbigin in the conversation of mission in the ecumenical movement, specifically the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism and the International Review of Mission. This reflection comes at the 25‐year mark since Newbigin's death and addresses part of Newbigin's legacy that recent books, The Church and Its Vocation and Becoming a Missionary Church, could only briefly discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests a paradigm for a biblical theology of missions in Africa. The research was prompted by the observation that previous theological designs and models have laid emphasis on effectiveness and issues of identity. Then too, Africa is marked by a renaissance of African Traditional Religion, pandemics, and societal problems. The paper hypothesizes that African theologians are better positioned to articulate a biblical theology of missions that addresses the continent's contemporary realities. The methodology combines soteriology and symbolism. The findings indicate that an African theology of missions is anchored on indigenized theology, functional Christology, and relational Christology. These results illustrate the need to engage biblical authority, theology, and anthropology for a missional theology in Africa. The present research may be situated within the current commitment of African scholars to develop contextual theologies for the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]