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Book Review: An African Theology of Mission

Rios Montt in Guatemala, the conflict between Liberation Theology and conservative Protestantism in Sandinista Nicaragua, and World Vision operations in Ecuador. The book contains some interesting comments gleaned from interviews, observations, and selected background reading. As for generalizations, they are numerous in the book, but given without careful substantiation. For example, Stoll claims that Protestants affiliated with the World Council of Churches are those whose disinterest in saving souls places them outside the evangelical camp, strictly defined. He believes that there is a passing of ecumenism and that Catholic authorities are particularly disappointed about it. Elsewhere facts are distorted. The four women killed in El Salvador were not all nuns, as he states. To use the phrase “basic ecclesiastical communities,” in place of “ecclesial,” gives quite a different connotation. Is there here the breadth of analysis and understanding necessary to answer the question: “Is Latin America turning Protestant?” Does Stoll grasp the theological and political complexity of the situation in any one country? I think not. Missions are the insights of social anthropology on how religious movements flow out of popular experiences and the response of the poor in these movements. Stoll intended to explain the evangelical awakening in Latin America to nonbelievers and to warn evangelicals lest their missions be attached to immoral policies emanating from Washington. The intention may be sound, but the case has not been presented carefully enough to make this a seminal work