David Jacobus Bosch (13 December 1929 – 15 April 1992) was an influential missiologist and

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

best known for his book ''Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission'' (1991) — a major work on post-colonial

Christian mission A Christian mission is an organized effort to carry on evangelism, in the name of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries. Sometimes individuals are sent and a ...

. He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK), also known by its English abbreviation DRC. On Freedom Day, 27 April 2013, he posthumously received the Order of the Baobab from the

President of South Africa The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence F ...

"for his selfless struggle for equality ... and his dedication to community upliftment. By doing so, he lived the values of non-racialism against the mainstream of his own culture."

Early life

Bosch was born in Kuruman,

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

, in the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...

. He was raised in a nationalist

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...

home with little regard for his nation's black citizens and in 1948 when the

National Party (South Africa) The National Party (, NP), also known as the Nationalist Party, was a political party in South Africa from 1914 to 1997, which was responsible for the implementation of Apartheid, apartheid rule. The party was an Afrikaner nationalism, Afrika ...

came to power and began implementing its program of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

Bosch welcomed it. That same year however Bosch began studying and teaching at the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (, ) is a multi-campus public university, public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and ''de facto'' capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johan ...

, where he joined the Student Christian Association and was more exposed to black members of the community. This began a lifelong involvement in

and he was soon questioning the apartheid system.

Missionary career

Sensing a call to be a missionary, Bosch changed to the theological school and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Arts in languages (Afrikaans, Dutch, German). He then went to Switzerland to study for his doctorate in the field of New Testament at the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

, under Oscar Cullmann, who influenced Bosch to accommodate more

ecumenism Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...

. In 1957 Bosch began a decade working as a missionary with the

DRC The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

planting churches in the

Transkei Transkei ( , meaning ''the area beyond Great Kei River, he riverKei''), officially the Republic of Transkei (), was an list of historical unrecognized states and dependencies, unrecognised state in the southeastern region of South Africa f ...

Professor of missiology

In 1967 he took up a position as lecturer in church history and missiology at the

's Theological School training black church leaders in the Transkei, where he also built ties with the

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and

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

churches, and began to develop his ministry of writing on mission theory. Bosch wrote about his concerns that the Christian mission to bring good news to black Africans could be confused with colonial and nationalistic motives that entrenched racial divisions. Isolated from the majority in the

who supported

, Bosch left his college in 1971 to become Professor of Missiology at the

University of South Africa The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest university system in South Africa by enrollment. It attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 student ...

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, which at the time was South Africa's only interracial university. There he edited its journal "Theologia Evangelica" and continued to write. He was offered the Chair of Mission and Ecumenics at

Princeton Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a Private university, private seminary, school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Establish ...

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, United States but chose to remain working against

from within

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and the

. In 1979 he helped coordinate a gathering of more than 5000 African Christians from every background, SACLA, as a demonstration of the church as an alternative community embodying the

Kingdom of God The concept of the kingship of God appears in all Abrahamic religions, where in some cases the terms kingdom of God and kingdom of Heaven are also used. The notion of God's kingship goes back to the Hebrew Bible, which refers to "his kingdom" ...

. In 1982 he promoted an open letter to the

, signed by more than 100 pastors and theologians, publicly condemning apartheid and calling on the church to unite with black churches. Bosch also bridged evangelical and ecumenical divisions in the global church, participating in both the Lausanne Congress and

World Evangelical Alliance The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an interdenominational organization of evangelical Christian churches with 600 million adherents that was founded in 1846 in London, England, to unite evangelicals worldwide. WEA is the largest internati ...

events, while also serving the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodo ...

. He was an active member of the

International Association for Mission Studies The International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS) is an international, inter-confessional, and Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary professional society for the scholarly study of Mission (Christianity), the Christian mission and its impa ...

and the key leader, and inspiration of the South African Missiological Society and founding editor of its journal, Missionalia. He was fluent in Xhosa,

Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...

, Dutch, German and English, and lectured widely in Europe, Britain, and North America. He died in an automobile accident on 15 April 1992 in South Africa at the age of 62. His contribution and influence in mission studies globally was immense. Missiologist Wilbert R. Shenk, senior Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, writes the following of Bosch in the foreword to ''Believing in the Future''

Transforming mission

Bosch wrote more than 150 journal articles and six books, including his magnum opus "Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission" (1991), which was jointly published by the American Society of Missiology and the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America's Orbis Books. The book was praised as groundbreaking by Hans Küng who called it the first book on mission to implement paradigm theory. Lesslie Newbigin nominated it a new standard calling it "a kind of Summa Missiologica" in reference to

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

' foundational thirteenth-century work '' Summa Theologiae''. It was selected as one of the "Fifteen Outstanding Books of 1991" by the '' International Bulletin of Missionary Research'' and is available in at least 13 languages. The book surveys paradigms of mission both in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

(reflecting Bosch's careful use of New Testament criticism to trace how mission dynamics shaped scriptural forms and transformations) and through Church history (highlighting that mission has always been shaped for good or ill by its context). He then explores in detail what he sees as an emerging

post-modern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experi ...

ecumenical Ecumenism ( ; alternatively spelled oecumenism)also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalismis the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships ...

missionary paradigm.

Death

Bosch died in a motor accident in 1992, aged 62.

Family life

Bosch was married to Annemie Bosch. She was a significant influence on his life and work, and he often acknowledged her contributions to his writing and teaching. She supported him in his work and helped to create an environment in which he could thrive as a scholar and teacher. She also played an important role in his personal life and was a source of strength and encouragement to him. She continued to be involved in promoting his legacy and the study of missiology. He had seven children: Fritz Bosch, Dawie Bosch, Annelise Coetzee, Anton Bosch, Gregory Bosch, Pieter Bosch and Jacques Bosch.

Quotes

Works

* * * (published by his wife after his death) * *

References

Sources

* * *Livingston, John Kevin. A Missiology of the Road : The Theology of Mission and Evangelism in the Writings of David J. Bosch. 1992. * *Saayman Willem, A. Mission in Bold Humility : David Bosch's Work Considered. Maryknoll N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996.

External links

Special Issue: East Asia Theological Consultation: Asian and Alternative Responses to David Bosch’s Transforming Mission
''Mission FOCUS Annual Review'', 2003 Volume 11, Supplement.
Missionalia South African Journal of Missiology
* - 159 quotes from ''Transforming Mission'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bosch, David 1929 births 1992 deaths People from Ga-Segonyana Local Municipality Afrikaner people Members of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) South African Calvinist and Reformed theologians Missiologists Missional Christianity Dutch Reformed Church missionaries Protestant missionaries in South Africa South African Protestant missionaries University of Pretoria alumni University of South Africa alumni University of Basel alumni Road incident deaths in South Africa 20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians Recipients of the Order of the Baobab World Christianity scholars