Introducing “The Complexity of Insiderness” (IJFM 2015)

An exciting new issue of IJFM was just released themed “Debating Insiderness” and with it the article “The Complexity of Insiderness.”

I want to point out a couple of features of the article:

• It is a response to Farrokh and Abu Jazz’s articles in the issue (but also to missiology in general). Both have different understandings of the nature of insiderness. While I think Abu Jazz has a more sensible/realistic/healthy approach, both are still treating the issue in way that I feel is too basic. Thus, I’m advocating to at least recognize the complexity of insiderness. Yet it is actually more complex than I have described!
• I also wrote the article as an introduction to the phenomenon of insiderness, so that someone with a basic understanding of the issues could quickly see what is happening in the world of mission today.
• One could think of the model as an I-Scale (Insiderness) à la the C-Scale, but I would prefer that not be the case.
• I also don’t intend for anyone to say, “This is as far as we contextualize…” and then to refer to one of the expressions listed in this model as a kind of limit, because that would be betray the idea I tried to explain in the conclusion: “Since every context is different, we cannot assess all insiders with broad strokes nor evaluate all insiderness with the same criteria. What we say in hermeneutics also applies in missiology: “context is king.””
• I tried to be as descriptive and neutral as possible, and then to put the “meat” in the footnotes. I think there are some good ideas in the footnotes. But still, I have been too brief and much more can be said. I’m looking forward to your feedback.

Read the whole thing: The Complexity of Insiderness (2015 IJFM 32:2)