Mission

Editorial Note
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1. Biblical-Theological References

The term mission is found in neither the Hebrew Bible nor the New Testament. As ultimately a terminus technicus within systematic theology, it emerged later in Christian theology as a summary of various other terms within the biblical texts that describe the act of mission itself. These texts recount missionary processes, commissions for service, and corresponding persons, such as apostles. They form the biblical reference points for a Christian concept of mission.

Various places within the Hebrew Bible refer to the role of Israel as a people chosen for the sake of the other nations – for example, through the mediation of blessing or in the idea of the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion. From the 18^th century onwards, the so-called “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:16–20 and Jesus’ words of mission in John 20:21 became particularly important in the history of reception. Large portions of the Acts of the Apostles also describe the missionary practice of the early Church as well as the theological questions that emerged from it. Furthermore, many of the New Testament Epistles – especially in the Corpus Paulinum – have their origins in the context of Christian mission.

2. Setting in Church History

Throughout its history, Christian mission has been subject to constant change, interacting with historical (time) and cultural (space) conditions. When periodizing the history of Christian mission, a distinction is usually made between three phases:¹Cf. Feldtkeller, Andreas, Art. Mission II. Christentum 2. Kirchengeschichtlich, in: RGG 5 (⁴2002), 1275–1283. antiquity, the Middle Ages and modernity, with developments in the 19^th and 20^th centuries often analysed separately as part of modernity.²Cf. Sievernich, Michael, Art. Mission, christliche, in: WiReLex (https://doi.org/10.23768/wirelex.Mission_christliche.200303), accessed on 07.04.2026. This enables us, on the one hand, to give due attention to Christian mission’s entanglement with colonialism (especially in the long 19^th century) and, on the other hand, to do justice to the polycentric structure of Christianity³Cf. Koschorke, Klaus, Grundzüge der Außereuropäischen Christentumsgeschichte. Asien, Afrika und Lateinamerika 1450–2000, Tübingen 2022, XV–XVI. (especially from the middle of the 20^th century onward). When it comes to a global history of Christianity, the problems connected to a Eurocentric historiography and periodization of mission have been pointed out. In response, scholars have elaborated on the entangled history⁴See in particular the anthology edited by Ratschiller, Linda/Wetjen, Karolin (Eds.), Verflochtene Mission. Perspektiven auf eine neue Missionsgeschichte, Köln 2018. of Christian missions as well as the significance of migration for the spread and development of Christianity.⁵For a comprehensive approach to a global history of Christian mission under the aspect of migration, see Hanciles, Jehu H., Migration and the Making of Global Christianity, Grand Rapids 2021.

1. In addition to the professionalized forms of mission carried out by early Christian missionaries such as Paul , there were a large number of Jews and Gentiles converts to Christianity who contributed to the spread of the Gospel through their everyday way of life. The various forms of voluntary and forced migration were key factors here and are aptly described as the “capillary spread”⁶Sievernich, Michael, Die christliche Mission. Geschichte und Gegenwart, Darmstadt 2009, 28, translation by Dylan S. Belton. of Christianity.

The biblical texts recount the mission of Christianity within the Roman Empire. In antiquity, there were also Christian missions to the Arab and African regions, as well as eastwards to Armenia, India, and even as far as China. The first Christian states emerged in the 3^rd century in Armenia, the Roman Empire, Georgia, and Aksum.⁷Cf. Feldtkeller, Mission, 1276. As a result, some concluded that the missionary mandate to the Apostles (Matthew 28:16–20) had come to an end.

2. Due to various cultural, theological and political power factors, different forms of Christianity developed during the European Middle Ages. During this period, we can discern different understandings and forms of mission as well as different challenges that mission faced within the Latin Western Church, the Orthodox churches of the East, and Oriental Christianity. Questions that are still relevant today regarding the relationship between mission and culture, power, and interreligious encounters thereby become clear. The Church itself primarily carried out missionary work after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and in the centuries that followed. Along with the capillary mission within the respective local church structures, those in religious orders in particular played an important role. In the period of transition between the early and the high Middle Ages, military conquest began to be used as a means to spread Christianity. Mission in the form of the expansion of Christian territorial dominion (Latin: corpus christianum) thereby became a topos that, in a modified form in colonialism, remained a dimension of Christian mission until the beginning of the 20^th century. It was not until the end of European colonial rule in the middle of the 20^th century that this mode of mission was replaced.⁸On the changes in the neo-colonial era in the second half of the 20^th century and the differences between colonialism and imperialism in their relationship to mission see Ahn, Kyo Seong, Christian Mission and Colonialism, in: Kim, Kirsteen et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, Oxford 2022, 330–347, 331.

3. In the early modern period, the mission of the Western Church globalized. A central cause of this was the permission granted by the Pope for the conquering and exploitation of explored lands on the condition that the latter were Christianized. Mission in Latin America and Africa therefore often occurred by means of coercion. In Asia, there was a greater attempt at adaptation (accommodation) to the local cultures, partly because these cultures were not consistently devalued in racial terms.⁹For the image of China created by Christian missionaries, cf. Maier, Bernhard, Die Bekehrung der Welt. Eine Geschichte der christlichen Mission in der Neuzeit, München 2021, 167–170. Protestants became actors in globalized mission only with the emergence of continental European pietism and British Puritanism, long after the Reformation itself.

The 19^th century has repeatedly been described as the century of Protestant world mission. It is characterized by the now dominant global character of mission. This period united the comprehensive imperialism of Western superpowers, the opening up of large parts of the world through technology and trade, and new models of professionalized mission through non-governmental missionary societies. Circles of supporters sustained the latter via prayers, donations, and vocations. In large parts of Protestant missionary work, this model continues to this day. A re-reading of what was then known as the Great Commission in Matthew 28 also motivated the new impetus for mission within this period.

After the two world wars and in light of the ending of colonialism, this close connection within the colonial era between Western imperialism and its pursuit of hegemony and Christian missionary activity ushered in a mission crisis in the middle of the 20^th century. Christian mission entered into an ecumenical age that had to deal with an identity crisis from the beginning. This theological struggle led, on the one hand, to the integration of Christian mission into the World Council of Churches and, on the other hand, to the emergence of a new paradigm for the theological justification of mission.

The systematic-theological concept of God’s mission into the world (Latin: missio dei) began to establish itself from the middle of the 20^th century onwards as the central narrative used to justify Christian mission in all denominations. While the perception of a mission crisis dominated Christianity during large periods of the 20^th century, empirical evidence showed that, against all expectations, Christianity in fact grew in the 20^th century. Accordingly, the missionary historian Scott W. Sunquist  speaks of an “unexpected Christian century.”¹⁰Sunquist, Scott W., The Unexpected Christian Century. The Reversal and Transformation of Global Christianity, 1900–2000, Grand Rapids 2015. The explanations for this expansion ultimately lie in the missionary effectiveness of contextual¹¹Cf. Vellguth, Klaus, Art. Kontextuelle Theologien, in: Handbuch Interkulturelle Theologie, 25.07.2024 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66324-0_45-1), accessed on 07.04.2026. Christianities¹²Cf. Gruber, Judith, Christentum und Christentümer, in: Handbuch Interkulturelle Theologie, 27.07.2024 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66324-0_9-1), accessed on 07.04.2026. in the global South, the rise of global Pentecostalism, and the missionary impulses of evangelicalism.¹³Cf. Ehmann, Matthias, Art. Evangelikalismus, in: Handbuch Interkulturelle Theologie, 26.09.2024 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66324-0_36-1), accessed on 07.04.2026. In the first half of the 21^st century, Christianity has continued to globalize, establishing itself in large numbers on all continents. In the process, it has multiplied into a wide variety of denominational and contextual forms. The number of missionaries sent abroad reached an all-time high of 450,000 in 2025.¹⁴The data is taken from the statistics on global Christianity that have been published annually since 1985 and that are now also available on the World Christian Database. See Zurlo, Gina A./Johnson, Todd (Eds.), Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900–2050, Leiden/Boston (PDF-Dokument, https://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/01/Status-of-Global-Christianity-2025.pdf), accessed on 07.04.2026, 1–2, 1.

3. Theological Profile

By the end of the 20th century, the notion of the missio dei¹⁵For a brief classification of the concept of missio dei as the basis of contemporary understandings of mission in global Christianity, see in particular Bevans, Stephen, Theologies of Mission, in: Kim, Kirsteen et al. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, Oxford 2022, 111–128, 112. functioned as the foundational theological framework for Christian mission. Borrowing from Trinitarian theology, this framework characterizes God’s mission to the world – whereby God goes beyond himself – as the basis and content of Christian mission. Individual and ecclesial missionary activity is, accordingly, understood as both subordinated and responsive to God’s missio. Mission thereby retains its central importance for the theology and practice of the Christian faith and can be understood, as Eberhard Jüngel  puts it, as the “rhythm of the heart of the church” (Rhythmus des Herzens der Kirche).¹⁶Jüngel, Eberhard, Mission und Evangelisation, in: Jüngel, Eberhard (Ed.), Ganz werden. Theologische Erörterungen V, Tübingen 2003, 115–136, 115. In the assurance of faith and the practice of Christian discipleship, mission combines the promise and claim of the Gospel. “And in this ‘intermediate link’ between the sovereign indicative of the Gospel on the one hand and the imperatives that challenge our activities on the other, what rightly deserves to be called mission and evangelization finds its theological place in life.”¹⁷Jüngel, Mission, 122, translation by Dylan S. Belton.

In contrast to the central role that Jüngel gives to mission for theology and Christian practice, more recent projects in systematic theology usually do not make explicit their implicit assumptions and conclusions regarding a theology of mission.¹⁸Even the decidedly conservative dogmatics of Wayne Grudem  from within Anglo-Saxon evangelicalism only develops mission on a brief page in the ecclesiology under the tasks of the churches. Cf. Grudem, Wayne, Systematic Theology. An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Nottingham ⁷2000, 867–868. A rare exception is Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen  whose Christology places the topos of reconciliation at the centre of the Church’s mission in the world¹⁹Cf. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, Christ and Reconciliation. A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World 1, Grand Rapids 2013, 364–380. and relates it directly to a theological analysis of reconciliation in religion in general.²⁰Cf. Kärkkäinen, Christ, 381–403. He also develops his doctrine of revelation²¹Cf. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, Trinity and Revelation. A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World 2, Grand Rapids 2014, 123–178. and the Trinity²²Cf. Kärkkäinen, Trinity, 363–417. within the horizon of a theology of religion. By doing so, he addresses questions about the exclusivity of Jewish-Christian revelation and the universality of its understanding of God that are central within mission theology. In his pneumatology and account of redemption, Kärkkäinen articulates a holistic understanding of redemption that enters into dialogue with contemporary approaches developed by more holistic theologies of mission.²³Cf. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, Spirit and Salvation. A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World 4, Grand Rapids 2016. This dialogue is clearest in his ecclesiology where he conceptualizes the Church from the perspective of its missional existence in the world.²⁴Cf. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti, Hope and Community. A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World 5, Grand Rapids 2017.

As for its content, Christian mission can be defined in terms of the interplay between Christian witness,²⁵Cf. Bevans, Theologies, 114. holistic service, and prophetic dialogue in discipleship.²⁶Cf. Bevans, Theologies, 115–121. Christian witness includes all intentional forms of communication of the Gospel, whether verbal or non-verbal – for example, preaching, catechesis, liturgy, and symbolic actions. Holistic service encompasses spontaneous and organized forms of care for fellow creatures and focuses on material, social, physical, and psychological needs on both an individual and societal level. Accompanying witness and concrete service, prophetic dialogue participates in social debates and intercedes on behalf of the marginalized. It does so on the basis of a Christian stance (Haltung) and with reference to Christian ethics in the sense of public theology.

Most churches and movements of piety have developed and articulated their own mission profiles:

With its documents on mission (Ad Gentes) and religion (Nostra Aetate), the Second Vatican Council²⁷Cf. Schelhas, Johannes, Art. Zweites Vatikanisches Konzil, kirchengeschichtsdidaktisch, in: WiReLex (https://bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/201102/), accessed on 07.04.2026. represents a significantly new approach within the Roman Catholic Church. Currently, the central document on mission is the encyclical Evangelii Gaudium.²⁸Cf. Papst Franziskus, Evangelii Gaudium. Apostolisches Schreiben über die Verkündigung des Evangeliums in der Welt von heute, 24.11.2013 (https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/de/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html), accessed on 07.04.2026. Roman Catholic mission is strongly characterized by its self-image as a world church and by missionary orders.

The contemporary mission document of the World Council of Churches is the 2013 declaration Together Towards Life.²⁹Cf. World Council of Churches, Together towards Life. Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, 2013 (PDF, https://www.oikoumene.org/sites/default/files/Document/Together_towards_Life.pdf), accessed on 07.04.2026. Global ecumenical negotiations, questions about what weight should be given to witness, service and advocacy, and a thematically broad understanding of mission are characteristic of this discursive formation of Christianity.

With its resulting Lausanne Covenant document,³⁰Cf. Lausanne Movement (Ed.), Die Lausanner Verpflichtung, 1974 (https://lausanne.org/de/statement/lausanner-verpflichtung), accessed on 07.04.2026. the Lausanne Congress of 1974 and the subsequent congresses and declarations (Manila 1989, Cape Town 2010, Seoul 2024) are points of reference for global evangelicalism. The relationship within missionary work between evangelization and social action has here become an especially central issue.³¹Cf. Kung, Lap Yan, Christian Mission and Social Action, in: Kim, Kirsteen et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, Oxford 2022, 274–292, 280–282. In the 1980s, the South African theologian David Bosch  developed the concept of transformation as a conceptual mediator.³²The term is first reflected prominently in a document of Christian missionary movements in Lausanne Movement (Ed.), Transformation. The Church in Response to Human Need, 12.06.1983 (https://lausanne.org/content/statement/transformation-the-church-in-response-to-human-need), accessed on 07.04.2026. The term became influential for missionary theology at the end of the 20^th century, particularly through the monograph by Bosch, David J., published in 1992, Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Maryknoll ¹⁰1996. A specific feature of many evangelical and Pentecostal mission theologies is an emphasis on personal faith and the pneumatic dimension.

The proclamation of the Gospel, baptism and discipleship, service to others, commitment to a just society, and the integrity of creation constitute the Anglican Community’s Five Marks of Mission.³³Cf. https://www.anglicancommunion.org/mission/marks-of-mission.aspx, accessed on 07.04.2026. They indicate a broader understanding of mission in contemporary Christianity.

The various Christian churches are united by the fact that the nature of mission arises from its object. Drafted by the Roman Catholic Church, the World Council of Churches, and the World Evangelical Alliance, the 2011 document The Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World³⁴Cf. World Council of Churches/Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue/World Evangelical Alliance (Eds.), Das christliche Zeugnis in einer multireligiösen Welt. Empfehlungen für einen Verhaltenskodex, 2011 (https://www.oikoumene.org/sites/default/files/Document/ChristianWitness_G.pdf), accessed on 07.04.2026. serves as a central point of convergence among the churches for an ethic of mission.

4. Setting in the Lifeworld and Contemporary Themes

Within globalized, post-migrant, and multi-religious contexts, the practices and media of mission found in different religions intermingle in areas of society such as education, politics, law, migration, and media. Because of this, reflection on Christian mission finds points of contact with various fields of discourse in cultural studies and theology. Among some of the currently central themes are mission and interreligious encounters and dialogue³⁵Cf. Dahling-Sander, Christoph, Art. Dialog der Religionen, evangelische Sicht, in: WiReLex (https://bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/100181/), accessed on 07.04.2026. combined with a hermeneutics of the foreign³⁶Cf. Gärtner, Claudia, Art. Hermeneutik des Fremden, in: WiReLex (https://bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/100078/), accessed on 07.04.2026. and questions about proselytism³⁷For an introductory definition of the term “proselytism” from the perspective of religious studies and intercultural theology, see Robert, Marie-Hélène, Proselytism in Christian Churches. Insights from the European Scene, in: Kim, Kirsteen et al. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, Oxford 2022, 219–237, 220–221. as well as mission and colonialism³⁸Cf. Ruether, Kirsten, Art. Mission und Kolonialismus, in: Handbuch Interkulturelle Theologie, 15.09.2024 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66324-0_52-1), accessed on 07.04.2026. combined with the phenomena of post- and neocolonialism.³⁹Cf. Konz, Britta, Art. Postkolonialismus, kirchengeschichtsdidaktisch, in: WiReLex (https://bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/201101/), accessed on 07.04.2026. Theologically speaking, the question concerning freedom of religion and belief as well as the protection of other human rights is closely linked to mission.⁴⁰Cf. Suhner, Jasmine, Art. Menschenrechte, kirchengeschichtsdidaktisch, in: WiReLex (https://bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/201100/), accessed on 07.04.2026. Especially since the 1970s, discourses have emerged within mission theology that focus on the relationship between evangelization and social action and, since the 1980s, on the relationship between mission and the environment,⁴¹Cf. Bergmann, Sigurd, Art. Anthropozän und Klimawandel, in: Handbuch Interkulturelle Theologie, 10.09.2024 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66324-0_70-1), accessed on 07.04.2026. with the latter being linked to questions pertaining to the cosmological dimension of salvation. From these life-world settings and contemporary topics emerge various points of contact with classical and contemporary discourses on Christian ethics. These are worked on in the respective theological and ecclesial traditions as well as in ecumenical dialogue where the independent profiles of the various theologies of mission are also deployed.