Pensees: Changing Missiologies and What Must Not Change

Changing Missiologies and What Must Not Change

I don’t know if this is a blogging exclusive, but it might be the only place in the blogosphere where you can get this very recent paper by Dr. David Hesselgrave on the changing missiology of Donald A. MacGavran, John R.W. Stott, Carl F. H. Henry, and Ralph D. Winter. Ralph Winter is a personal friend of David Hesselgrave, but Hesselgrave takes exception to some of Ralph Winter’s recent changes. The paper was read at the Midwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, April 19, 2008 and I received permission from Dr. Hesselgrave to publish it here. This twenty page paper presented just a couple weeks ago opens this way:

I bear good news and bad news. The good news is that modern science has finally caught up with Scripture. It has shown that, as one advances in age, that part of the brain often associated with wisdom—dealing with conflict and ambiguity, setting priorities and making choices—excels. Younger brains excel when it comes to creativity and inventiveness, the accumulation of knowledge, and the execution of plans. [Healy 2007, 66]. Also good news is the fact that I am dealing with four aging and brilliant brains in this monograph. But there is bad news as well. The bad news has to do with the fact that possessors of the four aging brains considered here changed their minds as they grew older. So they are not now in agreement with what they believed at an earlier stage in their development. More importantly they are not always in agreement with each other. So all who are younger and those of us who are older but less astute still have some hard choices to make!

David Hesselgrave is one aging brain that hasn’t changed. He’s an octogenarian that is fighting for the faith, and I find this very inspiring.

The Changing of the Guards by David Hesselgrave