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Forty years of the American Society of Missiology: retrospect and prospect

This essay was delivered as a plenary address at the ASM meeting in Chicago, June 21, 2013. It demonstrates how over the past 40 years, the Association has established the academic legitimacy of missiology across Catholic, mainline Protestant, and evangelical divides. It suggests a tripartite periodization of ASM history. The founding era was marked by crisis over the identity of missions and mission studies. In the second era, beginning around 1989–91, mission studies moved beyond its captivity to a colonialist paradigm and influenced other academic disciplines, including theology, ecclesiology, and church history. The 21st century brought a new era of world Christianity, in which awareness of Christianity as a global religion reframed mission studies. The article raises several challenges for the ASM moving forward in a global era, such as asking what is uniquely North American about the American Society of Missiology.