Reconcilers sit between two stools
My esteemed doctoral advisor David J. Bosch (1929-1992) was in every sense the most important mission theologian of the 20th century. His opus magnum, “Transforming Mission”, has been translated into many of the world’s languages and, more than almost any other book, has influenced mission thinking in the global church. Whether evangelicals, ecumenicists, Catholics or Orthodox – they all refer to Bosch and know how to skillfully appropriate him as one of their own.
He himself refused to be appropriated. I remember asking him one day where he would prefer to place himself, with the ecumenicists or the evangelicals. Smiling, my teacher answered: “With none of them. I prefer to sit between the chairs. That’s the only way I can reconcile them. But be careful, no one wants to sit between the…
