on fri 14 november in greenford harvey kwiyani has a book launch for decolonising mission. amazingly it’s just down the road for me. i will be there! come along… failing that there is an online book launch on 30 october. harvey’s book came out at the end of august. i love how happy he looks in this photo at greenbelt when he arrived with it in hand. you can order it here

what does it mean to decolonise mission? in a sense it is simply unbundling mission from the expansion of empire. it is close to home for harvey because as he spells out in the opening chapter david livigstone arrived in malawi with the christian faith in one hand and setting up an estate with the other. it’s close to home for cms because cms sent missionaries in the era of the expansion of the british empire (though harvey doesn’t especially address cms history). we like to tell good stories of our founders but is is clear from a quotation harvey has unearthed that william wilberforce, for example, bought into empire alongside the good he did to abolish slavery.

harvey has some pretty strong words to say about western mission today particularly from american evangelicals who behave in an equally dominating way with a new sort of empire. i have always been aware of and avoided that imperialistic approach to mission. i was always drawn to imaginative engagement between faith and culture – the best of inculturation. but reading harvey’s book makes me realise i have not paid enough attention to its darker side.

the big question it raises is what mission might look like now. the last chapter begins with some broad brush strokes but that seems to me to be the next conversation.