Though about 4.5 billion live in the continent of Asia, it remains today as one of the continents in which the people are hardest to reach. There are certain countries, including South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and the Philippines, in which the gospel can be freely preached and Christianity can be freely practiced, but in other nations, including Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and Turkey, sharing the gospel or being a Christian means risking one’s life. How can a minority group of Christians share the gospel in the large continent of Asia?
Dr. Bong Rin Ro, a professor of church history and missions and a dean at AGST International in Korea, shared his insight on how Asia is changing today, and how the gospel can be preached in Asia at a seminar called, “Retrospect and Prospect of Asia Missions,” hosted by East-West Center for Missions Research and Development.
Dr. Bong Rin Ro spoke at a seminar hosted by the East-West Center on what strategy missionaries and churches can take in order to spread the gospel in Asia.
Ro began explaining that thinking of a missions strategy for Asia can be found in the way that the apostle Paul did his ministry in Ephesus, and said that Asia and Ephesus have many commonalities. Similar to how Ephesus was, at the time, the city with the largest population in Asia with a population of a half a million, today, Asia is the continent with the largest population in the world. Both Ephesus and Asia were and are religious places, Ro said. In Acts 19:24, Demetrius was described as a silversmith that made shrines of Artemis, the god that Ephesians worshipped. Similarly, shrines of idols and other gods can be commonly found in Asian cities. Both Ephesus and Asia are places in which sins are rampant, as Paul described in Ephesians 4:19, and places in which severe persecution of Christians is common.
Hence, on the basis of these similarities, Ro said that one of the ways that a missions strategy to reach the continent of Asia can be formed is to learn from the way that Paul approached evangelism to the Ephesians, and Paul emphasized teaching and leadership among the spiritual gifts in his letter to the Ephesian church. The church today must also focus efforts in building up leadership within the local churches in Asia, Ro said.
“Because the growth of the church in Asia began as a grassroots movement, there’s a lack of pastors and leaders in the church,” he said.
However, the good news is that recent developments help in allowing missionaries to focus efforts in building up these leaders. One of those developments include the shift on emphasis in mission strategy from indigenization, to contextualization, to globalization, Ro said.
He briefly explained the history of these strategies, saying that before the 1970s, missionaries focused on “indigenization” when evangelizing to foreign people groups by adjusting to the indigenous lifestyle and culture in order to become like them and share the gospel in a way that can readily be accepted by them.
From 1970 to 1977, the World Council of Churches (WCC) emphasized “contextualization” as a strategy for evangelism, and encouraged missionaries to contextualize the gospel according to the political and economic context of the nations. Some examples of how the gospel was contextualized included Liberation theologies that were preached in Asia and Latin America at the time in which they were experiencing oppression from political authorities.
In the 2000s, Ro said that “globalization” started becoming the new strategy for missions. Technological advancements in communication and transportation re-formed the world into a “small village,” he said, and that many people come and go into many different countries easily. Mass media developments allow people to communicate with friends halfway across the globe. Ro encouraged churches and seminaries to utilize media to evangelize in Asia, especially in regions in which visible religious activities put churches and missionaries at risk. They can use online theological education to develop leaders, for example.
Ro suggested two more ways in which leaders in Asian nations can be built up: 1) “Christianization of the nation” by the nationals, and 2) proper redistribution of missionaries.
The country in which “Christianization of the nation” by the nationals was most successful is South Korea. The “Christianization of Korea Movement,” during which Korean churches grew at an explosive rate in the 1970s, served as an example of the fact that national Christians have the primary responsibility of evangelizing to their own people, Ro said, especially within countries in which persecution is most severe.
In order to start such movements in other Asian nations, Ro said that foreign missionaries must be “properly redistributed.”
“Theologically and spiritually qualified missionaries must be sent to the work of raising up theologians and pastors of Asian nations,” Ro said.
Ro gave Japan and Indonesia as examples. Though there are 3,500 foreign missionaries from 245 mission agencies and 33 different countries in Japan, Ro said that that is not enough to reach the 125 million people in the country—the movement must start within the Japanese, he said. In Indonesia, the government has been trying to restrict theological studies by refusing to give accreditation to seminaries unless there are at least five professors with Ph.Ds, but theologians with Ph.Ds are very limited in the country. As such, in countries such as these, missionaries must focus on evangelizing to educate and build up leaders who can then continue evangelizing to their own people.
The “Retrospect and Prospect of Asian Missions” seminar took place from 9 AM to 5 PM at Fuller Theological Seminary on November 21. Ro was one of two speakers at the all-day event, along with Dr. Scott Sunquist, the dean of the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. The East-West Center is a missions research organization to “develop strategies, train leaders, and connect resources in mission by research and development, for advancing the kingdom of God.”
