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Editorial

Editorial 3 Editorial On the heels of "Dances with Wolves" produced by and starring the Amer- ican actor Kevin Costner, which deals with the encounter of European and Indian culture, the cinemas are now showing another film on the same theme: "Black Robe." This film by Bruce Beresford from Australia is about a young Jesuit missionary who wants to bring the Christian message to the Hurons in the Canadian wilderness in the 17th century. The film describes the meeting of Christianity with the native Americans from the perspective of the missionary. The strong point of this production is that, unlike the work of Costner, it does not idealize the Indians. Even if it shows some shocking aspects of the life of the Indian tribes, such as cruelty and torture, it also brings out certain dimensions of Indian life which are superior to that of the Europeans, for example, the ability to share property, work as a group, and forgive wrongdoing. The film wants to demonstrate the tragic drama of the encounter of two cultures which cannot understand each other (Georgy Wolfe). In these films the decisive question of mission and missiology, the pro- clamation of the Christian message, is presented in another medium. The context of the stories directs our attention to the American continent of which we are particularly conscious this year considering the commemoration of the beginning of evangelization 500 years ago. One of the contributions of this issue and the theme of the IAMS congress refer to this. Other articles refer to the Pacific area which is the geographical location of the congress. When the encounter of cultures and the encounter of the Christian message with cultures is discussed in films and articles the expressions "inculturation" or "indigenization" are readily, sometimes too readily, used. We often forget that this is a dynamic process, God reaching out to human beings, basically "condescendence," the new self-abandonment of God, the descent of the Holy Spirit. He meets human beings in the enormous diversity of their worlds of thought and experience and penetrates these. It is the task of missionaries and. missiologists to humbly interpret what God is doing. Horst Rzepkowski http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Mission Studies Brill

Editorial

Mission Studies , Volume 9 (1): 1 – Jan 1, 1992

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0168-9789
eISSN
1573-3831
DOI
10.1163/157338392x00018
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

3 Editorial On the heels of "Dances with Wolves" produced by and starring the Amer- ican actor Kevin Costner, which deals with the encounter of European and Indian culture, the cinemas are now showing another film on the same theme: "Black Robe." This film by Bruce Beresford from Australia is about a young Jesuit missionary who wants to bring the Christian message to the Hurons in the Canadian wilderness in the 17th century. The film describes the meeting of Christianity with the native Americans from the perspective of the missionary. The strong point of this production is that, unlike the work of Costner, it does not idealize the Indians. Even if it shows some shocking aspects of the life of the Indian tribes, such as cruelty and torture, it also brings out certain dimensions of Indian life which are superior to that of the Europeans, for example, the ability to share property, work as a group, and forgive wrongdoing. The film wants to demonstrate the tragic drama of the encounter of two cultures which cannot understand each other (Georgy Wolfe). In these films the decisive question of mission and missiology, the pro- clamation of the Christian message, is presented in another medium. The context of the stories directs our attention to the American continent of which we are particularly conscious this year considering the commemoration of the beginning of evangelization 500 years ago. One of the contributions of this issue and the theme of the IAMS congress refer to this. Other articles refer to the Pacific area which is the geographical location of the congress. When the encounter of cultures and the encounter of the Christian message with cultures is discussed in films and articles the expressions "inculturation" or "indigenization" are readily, sometimes too readily, used. We often forget that this is a dynamic process, God reaching out to human beings, basically "condescendence," the new self-abandonment of God, the descent of the Holy Spirit. He meets human beings in the enormous diversity of their worlds of thought and experience and penetrates these. It is the task of missionaries and. missiologists to humbly interpret what God is doing. Horst Rzepkowski

Journal

Mission StudiesBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1992

There are no references for this article.