Ubuntu as a Corrective in Mission

Abstract

The modern mission movement had a heavy emphasis on the ‘lostness’ of the unreached. However, this emphasis goes astray when it produces pride, as if the missionary comes with the gospel and has nothing to learn from the people they live among.  One way to correct this error is to integrate insights from Desmond Tutu’s ubuntu theology, which emphasizes that the individual grows in humanity through relationships. In biblical terms, each person is made in God’s image, and only together does each person or community become who God intends them to be.  Thus, this article proposes that mission needs to consider ubuntu alongside the emphasis on ‘lostness’.  Such an approach requires humility and vulnerability on the missionary’s part.