Yesterday, I wrote in Freedom and Mission: Interconnections and Implications, that I will start the hard work in writing my research paper today. Among the eleven books on my list of references, I would like to start with the first and that would be David J. Bosch's Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission.

As usual, the first thing I did is to browse the table of contents and check if there is any section related to my research and I found a few such as The Wider Crisis, Voluntarism, Toward Comprehensive Salvation, and Mission as Liberation.

I also checked if there is any available electronic copy of the book on the web. After several attempts, I gave up and decided to do it the old-school way with a twist. The old way of writing a paper is to type my summary and reflection, not copy and paste. And the twist is that I am doing it on Hive.

So the idea is to blog what I write and later collect all these articles and synthesize them to come up with a final paper. I am not sure how long will it take for me to accomplish this. I still have 27 days until the deadline.

The Wider Crisis

David J. Bosch in his Introduction, mentioned a "wider crisis" and enumerated six factors. Among them, I find two that are relevant to my research. These are items 1 and 5, in which he speaks about the advance in science and technology and the seemingly irreversible fact of the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

At the outset, reading science and technology as one factor in this wider crisis, my mind is driven to what's going on in cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and financial technology, and that includes cryptocurrency and decentralized finance.

Concerning the fifth factor, I immediately suspect a Marxist inclination about this issue. Anyhow, as I proceed in digesting the relevant sections, I will be more judicious in my interpretation. It is still too early to give my final judgment at the moment.

See how Bosch describes the advance of science and technology as part of the wider crisis:

The advance of science and technology and, with them, the worldwide process of secularization seem to have made faith in God redundant; why turn to religion if we ourselves have ways and means of dealing with the exigencies of modern life (p. 3)?

Reading this section, I sense a spirit of skepticism about the development that is going on in science and technology. Instead of celebration due to the display of God's common grace and by virtue of general revelation, the writer appears to see a tension between such an advance in science and technology and faith in God. If this is the contemporary view of religion that views no connection between the ongoing development and spirituality, I won't blame the postmodern culture if they will dismiss such a religion. In my school, I don't see such a tension. This world remains the world of the Creator whether people accept it or not.

Turning to the fifth factor, this is how Bosch explains the role of such a broadening gap between the rich and the poor as part of this wider crisis:

More than ever before we are today aware of the fact that the world is divided - apparently irreversible - between the rich and the poor and that, by and large, the rich are those who consider themselves (or are considered by the poor) to be Christians. In addition, and according to most indicators, the rich are still getting richer and the poor are poorer. This circumstance creates, on the one hand, anger and frustration among the poor and, on the other, a reluctance among affluent Christians to share their faith (pp. 3-4).

Considering the book was published in 2000, it is understandable for the author to come up with such an interpretation. However, twenty-three years after, maintaining such an interpretation in the light of the most recent developments would not only be considered disconnected from the world but could also be deemed as academically irresponsible. An alternative analysis is the appropriate response.

I think that's it for now. In the next article, if possible, I will try to cover the remaining three topics.