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“Decolonization is unfinished business for the ecumenical movement, but for the mission movement especially,” according to editor Rev. Dr Peter Cruchley, director of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
“Racism is sin, but behind this lies the unconfessed sin of colonization,” he writes in the editorial that opens the issue. “Colonialism is not confessed even where organizations are confessing legacies of slavery and colonization.”
IRM is published twice a year by Wiley on behalf of the WCC.
The issue contains several contributions presented at a seminar organized by CWME in June 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, to develop strategies for rooting mission in decolonization, as well as including other articles that interact with various dimensions of ecumenical mission's decolonial task.
The global mission movement, Cruchley writes in the editorial, “still has not addressed authentically and compellingly the mission complicity with colonization, nor has it engaged in the deep system dismantling that is required for repair and restoration of those still living the persistent legacies of empire then and the inequalities of empire now.”
The May 2024 issue of IRM will return to the challenge of decolonization, he adds.
“The decolonization topic is vast, complex, and contested,” Cruchley continues. “But it is being offered to the ecumenical movement as a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in our life. The work needs to deepen, and further voices need to be heard.”
News Release: WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism explores ideas on reparatory justice
Table of Contents of the latest issue of International Review of Mission
Open Access articles in this issue of International Review of Mission:
Fidelis Nkomazana, Doreen Senzokuhle Setume: The Role of Women in the Church in Botswana
Jerry Pillay: The Kingdom of God and the Transformation of the World
