Grasping Truth and Reality: Lesslie Newbigin's Theology of Mission to the Western World

When Lesslie Newbigin returned to Britain in 1974 after years of missionary service he observed that his homeland was as much a mission field as India where he had spent the majority of his missionary career. He concluded that the Western world needed a missionary confrontation. Instead of the traditional approach to missions however Newbigin realized that the Western world needed to be confronted theologically. From his earliest days at Cambridge University Newbigin developed certain theological convictions that shaped his understanding of the Christian faith. Newbigin utilizes these theological convictions as criteria for evaluating the belief system of Western culture and for providing an answer to Western cultures dilemma. It is Newbigins contention that the West is suffering from a loss of purpose because at the time of the Enlightenment it rejected a belief system that gave it purpose. This was also a belief system that made it uniquely different from the rest of the world particularly Asia. The Enlightenment reintroduced humanism and dualism into Western culture which resulted in the loss of purpose and the rise of skepticism. Modern science and the scientific method in the form of scientism added to the problem making human reason the measure of truth and limiting facts to only that which could be verified through controlled experiment. Newbigins solution is to reintroduce the Christian belief system into Western culture in order to restore purpose and truth to Westerners and to put them into contact with true reality through Jesus Christ. He desires to do this in the context of both modernism and post-modernism. This book will discuss Newbigins theological convictions and how they factored into both his critique of and his solution for Western cultures spiritual and worldview problems. This book will make a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on Lesslie Newbigin long-time missionary to India and global ecumenical leader whose importance has never been as recognized as it is today. Newbigins prophetic call for a missionary encounter with the modern West is here extended by Donald Le Roy Stults through a vigorous plea to the churches for an evangelistic engagement with contemporary culture in all its intellectual and social concreteness. -Geoffrey Wainwright is Robert Earl Cushman Professor of Christian Theology at Duke Divinity School Duke University Donald Le Roy Stults has lived and taught in undergraduate and graduate schools in South Korea the Philippines Germany England and the United States. He has also completed short-term teaching assignments in Taiwan and Albania. He is the author of Developing an Asian Evangelical Theology (1989).