150 Roy Stults, Dale F. Walker, Makito Yoshimoto

that it is not a Western institution but is truly a global movement. The book provides excellent exercises at the end of each chapter to help the reader, whether in the church or in the classroom, to fully engage the material presented in each chapter. These exercises are well-thought-out and probe the subject in a manner that aids in the instruction and continued discussion of the material.

The book is obviously the result of many years of serious and intense missiological thinking and teaching, accompanied by significant experience in doing hands-on missionary work. That is the perfect combination for writing a book on missions.

Missiological Models in Ministry to Muslims By Sam Schlorff Upper Darby, PA: Middle East Resources 2006, 202 pp., paper. $19.95 Reviewed by Dale F. Walker

Sam Schlorff writes from long experience of ministry with Muslims and a long association with Arab World Ministries (and predecessor organizations). He is no stranger to readers of Missiology; three of his previous articles have been in these pages (1983; 1993; 2000). The third of these is adapted in several parts of the present book and should be compared with Dean Gilliland's response in the same issue.

Part I of Schlorff's book is a short historical overview of six models of ministry to Muslims. These range from polemics in the 19th Century, which developed into the Direct Approach model, typified by Christy Wilson, Sr., to the Fulfillment Model, represented by Bevan Jones, the Dialectal model (Hendrik Kraemer), the Dialogical Model (Kenneth Cragg and the WCC), and the Dynamic Equivalence/Translational Model, illustrated by various attempts at "contextualization." This historical review is very compressed, but valuable; it would be even more valuable if Roman Catholic models had been included in the survey.

Part II deals mainly with questions concerning the use of Qur'anic expressions in Bible translation and in teaching. There is extensive discussion about the use of 'Isa/Jesus, but none on the use of Allah/God. Some would

use Qur'anic expressions only negatively, in debate; others would use them positively, trying to fill them with Christian meanings. This leads into more discussion of an "islamicized church." Schlorff is very doubtful about ministry at the C4-C5 parts of the familiar scale.

In Part , Schlorff sets out aspects of his own model of ministry. He focuses die objective of mission to Muslims in terms of the Kingdom of God; the Bible is the only theological starting point, rejecting any positive use of Islamic teaching. Contextualization applies to non-religious language and customs. The church is planted with what Schlorff calls the "Betrothal Model," based on 2 Cor. 11:2-3.

An extensive appendix illustrates Schlorff's model with the ministry and teaching of Church Without Walls, founded by Amees Zaka, and based around Philadelphia, though evidently there are branches in other places. This ministry is important in itself, though to compare like with like, a better illustration contrasting the "Bethothal" and the "Dynamic Equivalence" models would be from a movement in the Muslim world.

The bibliography is very extensive, largely from the historical materials of Parts I and II. It is not annotated as stated; only a handful of entries have any annotation. (A real annotated bibliography would be a wonderful project.)

In summary, this book is an extensive exposition of one model of ministry, along with critique of other models. Whether one agrees with this stance or not, it is an important statement. Our thanks to Schlorff for making it available.

Theology in Japan: Takakura Tokutaro (1885-1934) By J. Nelson Jennings American Society of Missiology Dissertation Series, University Press of America, Lanham; Boulder; New York; Toronto; Oxford 2004, xxx + 488 pp., paper. $64.00 Reviewed by Makito Yoshimoto

This Ph.D. dissertation (1995) was written by J. Nelson Jennings, who was a former missionary in Japan, first as a church-planting missionary in Nagoya (1986-1991), secondly as an assistant professor at Tokyo Christian

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Book Reviews 151

University in Chiba (1996-1999). He tried to analyze and assess the theology of Takakura Tokutaro from the Western point of view.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Japan was forced to abolish her two-and-half century-long isolation policy by the Western powers and opened up and began to achieve modernization. This era of Japanese history is designated in the Japanese calendar according to the reigns of the emperors, respectively as Meiji 1-46 (1868-1912), Taisho 1-15 (1912-1926), and Showa 1-64 (1926-1989). The present designation is Heisei according to the reign of Heisei Emperor (1989-).

The introduction of Christianity into Japan was first done by the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier in the middle of the 16th century. It was accepted by several feudal lords and developed rapidly to the significant size by the time of the total destruction of the church by the ban in 1638. The Protestant mission began after the Meiji Reformation (1868) and in Meiji 5 (1872), before abolishment of the prohibition of Christianity the next year by the Meiji government, the first Protestant church was established in Yokohama by 11 Japanese Christians and the American Dutch Reformed missionary James H. Ballagh. Takakura Tokutaro, the main figure of the thesis, belonged to the second generation of the Japanese Protestant church and was the representative theologian and leader in the late 1920s and the early 1930s.

The author analyzed and evaluated extensively Takakura's life and theology according to the scheme of: Part I: The Life Context that Shaped Takakura's Thought: Takakura the Human Being; Part II: Chapter 1: The Christian Faith Conveyed to Takakura through the Church in Meiji Japan; Part III: Chapter 2: The Christian Faith Conveyed to Takakura through the Western Church; Part IV: Takakura's Articulation of the Christian Faith Within His contemporary Situation: (especially on his major work, Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo ("Evangelical Christianity"); Part V: Analysis of Takakura's Thought. I will cite here briefly the author's observation.

In the first half of the Meiji Era (until about 1890), Japan had introduced actively Western science and technologies and had been eager to

catch up with the Western nations by promoting the policy of industrialization and militarization. Generally, people were also receptive towards Christianity and especially representative leaders of the first generation of the newly developed Japanese churches were from the Samurai (soldier) class, which had been demoted from their prestigious ruling status by the Meiji Reformation. Most of them accepted Christianity in order to realize their personal and national ideals in the new Japan by dint of Christian values. In contrast, Takakura's father was originated from a rising merchant family in a rural village near Kyoto. He came into contact with Christians when he began to learn silk industry near the Tokyo area and eventually was baptized. He could afford to have his eldest son, Tokutaro, take the highest education. While Tokutaro was in Tokyo to attend the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University, he came to know intimately Uemura Masahisa, a leading churchman of the Protestant church, and was baptized by him in 1906. The next year he quit studying at Tokyo University and entered the newly founded seminary of Uemura.

In the latter half of the Meiji Era and Taisho Era (1890s 1920s), Japan succeeded in achieving industrial revolution and now began to struggle with overcoming obedient imitation of the West and creating her identity as a member of modernized nations. Especially in the Taisho era, the trend of democracy and individualism, the so-called Taisho-Democracy, was widely spread among the middle class urban people. In this age, Takakura was led to the Christianity of the second generation Japanese church. Whereas his mentor Uemura's Christianity was characterized with Confucian morality of the ruling military class, Takakura of the merchant family sought for Christianity as a way of solving the "problem of ego." The author pointed out that the underlying Japanese spiritual heritage of Takakura's theology was a Japanized sect of Mahayana Buddhism, the Jodo Shinshu, as well as its faith in the Buddhist Savior, Amida, and also the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), one of Takakura's teachers at his higher school. The latter is a representative philosopher of the Modern Japan, who got acquainted with the Western philosophy thoroughly and created

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152 Makito Yoshimoto, Charles C. West, A. H. Mathlas Zahniser

successfully his original philosophical system on the basis of the Oriental worldview by applying the Western philosophical concepts and logics. The author believes that this approach of Nishida was reflected in theologizing of Takakura. Takakura learned Evangelical Christianity from his mentor, Uemura, and studied vastly Western theologies both through theological books in original languages in Japan and study in Scotland and England. But he accepted Western theologies only critically and tried to identify the original form and meanings of Christianity and articulate it as a truly Japanized theological system. After the death of Uemura in 1925, he publicized his main work, "Fukuinteki Kirisutokyo (Evangelical Christianity)," in 1927. It was rather a small thesis but a very sharply and deeply thought-out theological work. He assumed the role of Uemura and was expected greatly as the leading figure of the second generation Japanese church in the new era. But he fell by a serious disease and died shortly before his forty-ninth birthday in 1934. Shockingly enough, later it was reported by his family that his death was actually suicide. Concerning his death, the author is sympathetic that his death was not the result of crisis of faith but rather purely the result of illness. Raised in the age of the search for independence and identity of Japan and being successful to find the solution of the problem of ego in Christianity and to create an indige-nized theological system, he himself could not accomplish his faith unto the end of his full length of life under the burden of studying the Christian theology and pasturing the church. It was a tragedy and regret.

As a conclusion, the author values Takakura highly as a creative thinker and theologian who tried to accept the Western theologies critically and to create an original theology of the primitive and authentic Christianity in the Japanese cultural milieu. Further, he recognizes the significance that he could gain the new standpoint to appreciate his own Western Christian heritage through the heterogeneous non-Western theology. He insists that we, Christians from various cultures and nations, should learn and share with each other in order to enrich and complement one another for the full manifestation of the Body of Jesus Christ. Lastly, it

should be emphasized as his credit to have introduced a highly recommended example of theologizing by a Japanese theologian to the wide Christian world in spite of the language barrier, because otherwise, such an ethnic production could rarely be appreciated by outside people because of linguistic and cultural limitation.

The Witness of the Student Christian Movement: The Church Ahead of the Church By Robin Boyd London: SPCK 2007, xii + 212pp., paper. 14.99 Reviewed by Charles C. West

This is a book for everyone concerned with the church in mission in the last hundred years. It pursues a central strand of this mission the Student Christian Movement (SCM) its evangelical formation, its ecumenical spirit and its worldwide influence, down to the present day. The author tells the story from a British perspective (he is Northern Irish) but includes much of the history of the World Student Christian Federation and of the Movement in India and Australia where he has worked.

It is an inspiring story of "the church ahead of the church," to use the author's phrase. "The evangelization of the world in this generation" was a Student Christian Movement goal that challenged the churches as the 20th century began. It led to the Edinburgh Conference on World Mission in 1910 where the Ecumenical Movement was born. The SCM in its student groups educated the leaders of that movement who later led churches through most of the century: in Biblical and theological renewal; in mission as it became a world-wide task of the whole church in every land; in search for the unity given us in Christ beyond church divisions; in prophetic witness to God's work of justice and mercy in the world; and in community of worship and prayer to undergird it all.

All of this Boyd describes event by event. SCM meetings were places where Christian faith was defined politically in intense encounter over against Communism, Nazism, imperialism and other ideologies of the day. They were also where Christian witness in the

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