Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century by Timothy Yates (review)

620BOOK REVIEWS Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century. By Timothy Yates. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Pp. xvi, 275. »5995.) The author has provided missionaries, missiologists, and anyone else interested in the missionary work of the Church in the twentieth century with a clear, solid, and very readable presentation of the development of "mission theory" or "mission theology" in this century. It is not a description of the mission work itself; rather it is an account of the people as individuals and groups who have stimulated, reflected on, and guided this work. The author has chosen to approach this topic by addressing the major themes which seemed to dominate each decade. While there is, of course, continuity and overlap between the decades, the schema basically works. This is especially true for the 1950's (mission as presence and dialogue) and 1960's (mission as proclamation, dialogue, and liberation). An important value of the book lies in its presentation of the major ecumenical meetings held during this century both in terms of their context and their content; in its personal and intellectual portrait of the many people who played a significant role in the development of mission thought; in its description of the institutions that grew out of and then affected the missionary movement; and in its clear and penetrating analysis of the recurring themes that appear during this century. The author has an obvious command of both the primary and secondary sources, but he wisely chose to allow the official documents and significant authors to speak for themselves, using an abundance of quotations. There is also a most useful index. This is such a very good book that one is reluctant to criticize it. In attempting to portray such a grand picture one must necessarily pick and choose, and this will always be somewhat personal. This reviewer was disappointed in only two facets of the choices made. First, while the author at the beginning of each decade talks about the major events happening on the world stage, there is little description of what was happening on the "mission/church" stage. The author rightly points out in his introduction that mission theory was very much shaped by mission experience; yet this correlation is not duly developed in the text. Secondly, this reviewer was surprised that Roman Catholic contributions to mission theory, apart from a passing reference to Schmidlin in the early pages, is not acknowledged until the period of postWorld War II with the distinctive contributions of the Worker-Priests, Vatican Council II, Evangelii Nuntiandi, and Liberation Theology. The work of the missiological centers at Münster, Louvain, and Rome—the names of such people as Pierre Charles, Thomas Ohm, and Jean Daniélou—the distinctive contributions of Wilhelm Schmidt and the Anthropos Institute are not even mentioned. In fact, it seems that very few of the developments in continental mission theory are treated in any depth. While the contributions of the Ecumenical Meetings, the WCC, and the outstanding Anglo-Saxon mission theologians (e.g., Warren, Neill, Cragg, and Newbigin) cannot be overestimated, BOOK REVIEWS62 1 these ought to have been balanced with those of the continental and Roman Catholic authors who prepared the way for post-World War II developments, including Vatican Council H. Lawrence Nemer Yarra Theological Union Melbourne, Australia PopeJohn Paul II: The Biography. By Tad Szulc. (New York: Scribner. 1995. Pp. 542. »27.50.) Aptly subtitled The (not merely A) biography of Pope John Paul II, Szulc's timely book will predictably have the field to itself for the indefinite future. All of the other biographies of the Pope accessible to this reviewer, whether in the original language or in translation, pale in comparison to it or, in the vernacular, cannot hold a candle to it. Born and raised in Poland, Szulc has spent his entire adult life working, first, as a highly respected reporter for The New York Times in New York City, Rome, and several Latin American capitals and, more recently, as an unaffiliated free-lance writer with a dozen books to his credit, plus a number of nationally syndicated interviews, including one with John Paul II on Catholic-Jewish relations. It is tempting...