a contextual missiology of the spirit - eTheses Repository ...

hasty reader.’ 49 Tippet stated that although mission movements in the New
Testament were ‘under the specific directions of the Holy Spirit,’ for him ‘the
Spirit as a recurring feature of the episodes of church expansion was a belated
realization.’ 50
It seems that pneumatology has been eclipsed by both the Christology and
Trinitarian approaches. Eugene Rogers argues that such an eclipse of
pneumatology is due to the ‘successive trinitarian revival’ in recent years, and this
slight on the Holy Spirit is evident in the writings of many scholars, including
Karl Barth whose doctrine of the Spirit ‘subsides into christology,’ as the Spirit is
denoted by impersonal terms, chiefly the ‘power’ of Jesus Christ. 51 Nevertheless,
even non-Pentecostal missiologists recognize the importance of the Spirit for
contemporary missiological reflection. According to Jongeneel, ‘pneumatology
should not only be about the right message or doctrine on the Holy Spirit; but also
be about the right experiences of the Spirit…. The right experience, on the other
hand, makes church and theology go out into the world in mission.’ 52 Shenk states
that ‘mission does not belong to the church,’ rather it is ‘the work of the Holy
Spirit, who indwells the church.’ 53
49 Roland Allen, ‘Pentecost and the World,’ in The Ministry of the Spirit, ed. David M. Paton
(London: World Dominion Press, 1960), 21.
50 Alan Tippet, Introduction to Missiology (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1987), 51.
51 Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside
the Modern West (London: SCM Press, 2006), 19-20.
52 J.A.B. Jongeneel, ‘Opening Address: Experiences of the Spirit,’ in Experiences of the Spirit:
Conference on Pentecostal and Charismatic Research in Europe at Utrecht University 1989,
Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity, 68 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 5.
53 Wilbert R. Shenk, ‘New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology,’
IBMR 29, no. 2 (2005), 78.
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